First, more news about Boola. After my last post, Boola has been enjoying his new certificate (now framed and up on his brag wall in the downstairs loo) and his smart rosette. Over the weekend, I got an email from the tutor inviting us to come along and do the Silver award before Christmas with a small class of other dogs. It was a lovely suprise and apart from the fact I'll miss one week while we are away, is really something to look forward to doing. I'll write more about this as it unfolds. One of the nice things the tutor said is that Boola is a wonderful ambassador for greyhounds and the tutor particularly wanted him to be seen/met by a number of people so they can get used to retired greyhounds doing these types of activities.

Andrew reached 40 just after my last post. On the Saturday night we went out to a lovely Cardiff restaurant, called Bully's (where we went for my birthday, too). As before we had a wonderful time, superb wine, delicious food, excellent service - I really can't recommend it enough. Click here to visit their website. Not surprisingly, it is currently the highest scored Cardiff restaurant on Toptable (which we usually use for booking).

For the weekend just gone, we invited Andrew's parents over to stay, and his sister, her husband and three boys came over on the Sunday for a great squirrel themed feast (in honour of the shared birthday for Andrew and Booty). We had a very nice time with Andrew's parents, and Andrew cooked a delicious game pie - I was brave and did some goats cheese souffles which were delicious (followed a reliable Delia recipe). On the Sunday, there were 9 of us round the table (the most we've sat in one go) and we had a very nice meal. Home made sweet potato and chestnut soup with home made bread rolls to start. For mains, a big tray of roasted chicken portions, along with plenty of coleslaw and roasted cherry tomatoes. As well, a big dish of chickpea and spinach crumble. To finish, everyone (including woofs) had a piece of birthday cake (luridly iced by Andrew and with a squirrel topper) - some pics attached of cake eating! Also the home made place cards and a nice shot of Boola relaxing with his "grandparents". In the background in this picture, you can see the latest quilt I made, over the back of the sofa. Booty wore a special pink rosette in honour of the day and thoroughly enjoyed herself.

A lovely evening last night. It was the final session in the classes Boola and I have been attending for our Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen Award. I've written before about our lovely tutor who is so kind and patient with us all, and the wonderful variety of dogs, all shapes and sizes. Last night was our exam. I spent yesterday going over my notes (yes, I am a compulsive over-achiever) and making sure I had brought everything needed. I even had some special treats for Boola - some roast chicken which he is guaranteed to eat. As a typical greyhound, Boola comes to class every week with his own sheepskin rug, so that rather than lying on a cold, hard floor he can recline in comfort and watch the other dogs get excited. It's actually been quite handy, as it means Boola has a natural "anchor" for doing a stay, and once settled is very likely to remain stretched out and relaxed for a long time.

For the test, we had to answer questions about basic dog welfare and health, show our dog was wearing collar and tag, and that we knew how to take these off/put them on. We had to demonstrate grooming our dog, and show that we could examine our dog all over including their eyes, teeth and ears. Our dogs had to show that they could walk nicely on the lead, without pulling at other dogs and could wait while we went through a door or a gate. We needed to show that we understood our responsibilities for cleaning up after our dog, and that we were carrying poo bags. Our dogs had to come when called, when doing a simple recall exercise and they also had to do a "Stay" for one minute while we were away from them. With Boola settled on his snuggly rug, the Stay was great, and he thought the recall exercise was a fabulous game since he got to run around the hall between me and the tutor, wagging his tail. He was obviously saying in doggy terms "Hey, this is much more interesting and fun than all that boring stuff we were doing earlier on the lead. We should be doing more of this!"

Finally, we got the news that we had all passed. We all received a certificate and Boola got a beautiful green and white rosette. The scheme uses the wonderful Wallace and Gromit as symbols so they are in the centre of the rosette, and on the certificate as well as the literature for the scheme. Having got these home, he is now accumulating a respectable little collection of rosettes, what with this and his recent adventures at the dog show. We took some pics (one shown above) at the end, and I gave our tutor a thank you card that I had made for her, as I wanted to express my gratitude.

I've particularly enjoyed doing the classes for a number of reasons. It's been lovely to meet other dog owners, and Boola has been a wonderful ambassador for greyhounds as pets - there is still quite a bit of ignorance about what wonderful pets they can make once they have retired from racing. Having three dogs at home, means that one on one time with them can be quite limited. Doing the classes has been a lovely way to strengthen the bond between him and me and increase my confidence with him. The tutor, Caroline, has been brilliant and given us lots of good ideas and information about training and handling our dogs that is and will be useful in the future, not just with Boola but with our other two, Andy and Booty.

Also, on a broader level, I've been putting information about stray dogs and their management up on my other website over at Houndmistress (see link in sidebar). This of course deals with the fallout when dog ownership goes wrong - the strays, the dumping etc and sadly the numbers of dogs who are killed each year. As a part of the website, I also want to show the flipside - to encourage, promote and demonstrate the pleasures of responsible dog ownership. A course like this cannot guarantee that, but it certainly does demonstrate the care and commitment of a willing owner to do something very positive to ensure their dog is treated well and that the owner understands their wider responsibilities to society. Having done the course myself, I now feel able to talk about it, write about it and promote it wholeheartedly as part of the overall drive to improve standards of responsible dog ownership in Wales.

I'm not yet sure if I will want to do the silver award with Boola, but we've got plenty of time to have a think about it.

Monday morning, and unusually Andrew had to go up to London yesterday, Sunday afternoon. His client has scheduled a series of three meetings between now and Christmas that will involve doing this. Normally I don't mind him travelling him during the week but weekends are sacred - no working or travelling. In this case though the meeting start time was simply too early for a reasonable journey from here. So, very reluctantly, after a lot of discussion and weighing the pros and cons, he set off yesterday afternoon from the station. One bonus was taking advantage of the very cheap Weekend First prices so was able to have a lovely, comfy seat and have cups of tea brought to him on the journey up, which was probably just as well since it was delayed en route by nearly 40 minutes. Then travelling across to his hotel, so although I parted with him around 4, he didn't get into his hotel room until nearly 8.

As he was leaving from the station we decided to walk the dogs at Hamadryad Park before dropping him off, with the extra bonus that it is a nice short walk anyway and therefore good for Andy's convalescence. It was a beautiful, golden afternoon, like it belonged in a storybook, with hazy sunshine and a gentle breeze - bliss. Today has been lovely as well, although the wind has picked up quite strongly. The invalid is definately improving, although the short walks are driving us all nuts including the patient (never was the word less appropriate!) who has resorted to frustrated hole digging and zoomies in the house. Not sure this is what the vet had in mind but it's proving difficult to enforce.

On Saturday we went over to Penarth to one of our favourite butchers - normally we go to coincide with the farmers market that is held there, but we wanted to have a look at their game selection as Andrew liked the idea of making a game pie when his parents come to visit the weekend after next. Most of the game birds are in season and I am always surprised at how reasonable the prices are, especially for pheasant. As well as the whole birds, the butcher stocks packs of pheasant breast and ready prepared mixes for game pie, with birds and venison. We ended up with a mixer pack, some pheasant breasts and some pigeon breasts - we'll keep the pheasant back for a casserole on a separate occasion. While we were there we also ordered our Christmas turkey - the butcher has been dealing with the same poultry supplier for 25 years, has visited the farm regularly and is very pleased with the quality of the birds. It will be a Kelly bronze, free range, organic - it's important to us that we support farmers and meat producers who have high welfare standards, and generally this accompanies higher quality meat, with good flavour. Still not sure how many we will be for Christmas Day, but we generally get a medium sized bird, since both of us love leftovers, and we always make gallons of stock with the carcase.

This particular butcher, in a sign of the times I guess, also has a fresh fish counter. We tried out a fish I hadn't cooked before, which is a gurnard. The fish was prepped by taking off the head and skin, and then Andrew steamed it, rather as you would do monkfish - he then made a lovely sage and garlic butter sauce to go with it - it was delicious and for two fish, one each, only about £6 - very good value. Also picked up a fresh crab and Andrew made a crab pate as a starter - delicious.

It's great to be thinking about and ticking off some of these longer term preparations for Christmas. I love the run up to the season - and spreading things out seems to make it less hassle and more fun. Thinking also of the longer term, we've gone ahead and booked a holiday for next spring, down in Pembrokeshire at a place called Little Dumpledale - isn't that the most marvellous name? To me it sounds like something from Enid Blyton. The farm has a range of self catering apartments, converted barns and so on, but what makes it very special is that it is renowned among the sighthound community for being not just dog friendly but geared for large, agile sighthounds. Unlike our abortive attempt at a cottage holiday three years ago, where the supposedly dog proof fence was no barrier to the tempting field of sheep next door, Dumpledale has great big six foot high wooden stockades round the properties with lovely big gardens, ideal for greyhound zoomies. The place doesn't need to advertise since it is booked solid by happy sighthound owners, many of whom go more than once a year and often are repeat visitors. Also unlike the huge list of restrictions in self catering places when you have a dog, this place will gladly welcome as many as you can bring - apparently the record currently stands at 19!! The farm is also situated near some of the outstandingly lovely beaches of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park - we are looking forward to happy days spent in long coastal and beach walks, and visiting the local hostelries for food and relaxation in the evenings. There is even a doggy creche so if we want to go out and leave the dogs, they can be looked after while we are doing human stuff - what a great idea. Fortunately we were lucky to be flexible about dates since when we reserved our week, much of the available accommodation was already booked solid. Clearly, this farm has found a wonderful niche in the market and is happy to fill it. Am looking forward to trying it down there immensely. The other nice thing is that if it is a complete disaster, we are not a million miles from home so can always bail if need be.

Much to write about. Last weekend, Hilary (fave auntie) came up for our annual sashay around a craft show. This year, the annual event at the CIA had been cancelled due to the Ryder Cup golf tournament, but we had found an alternative event over in Bristol. Hil came up on the Thursday afternoon train and I met her from the station, with woofs as I took them for a walk down at Hamadryad Park before collecting her. Then on the Friday it was over to Bristol in the most appalling weather - driving rain that fell heavily all day. The craft show was held at the University of the West of England campus, in one of their exhibition halls and was a good venue, being easy to reach, with plenty of parking. The show was good - not as extensive as the Cardiff one, but we were able to buy some lovely things, including some beautiful rubber stamps which I am looking forward to playing with. We came home, as usual, absolutely exhausted, but very happy, and then spread out our stash to re-examine and stroke it and plan our campaigns. We also do what we've done on previous years, if one of us buys a paper pack the other likes - we each take half the pack and split it then swap, giving more variety and fun in our papercrafting.

On Saturday we made a lengthy trip to Ikea as Hil wanted to test/look at/sit on a variety of items for her new kitchen and conservatory. This was great - I love any excuse to wander round there and they had lots of new room sets and had recently changed the layout of a number of departments so we had a great time. They had their Christmas shop open near the tills so I stocked up on paper and tags - I'm hoping to get a head start soon on Christmas gift wrapping as the rest of this month is going to fly by.

On Sunday we made a leisurely jaunt over to Hobbycraft near the new Cardiff Stadium. It's a very pleasant retail park and I really like the look of the new stadium, shared between the Bluebirds and Cardiff Blues rugby team. Back home for home made soup then off to the station so Hil could catch her train home - all in all, a busy and very successful weekend.

After Hil had gone, Andrew took Andy out for one of their usual runs together (which they both really love) and we think that it was during this that Andy pulled his shoulder. Anyway by Monday morning he was limping quite severely. I examined his paws and legs for any heat, blood, swelling or tenderness but nothing so we waited. If I took the dogs to the vet every time they had a little strain our vet would be a millionaire and we would be broke, so we just decided to give him a day off with plenty of rest and TLC. On Tuesday night Boola and I went to our Kennel Club class which was great. I really feel I am learning so much, and in particular am gaining confidence in my relationship with Boola, which is lovely. I find it particularly fascinating to see the huge variance in the other dogs in the class and their owners, and the particular variety in learning styles. Some are motivated by food, some by toys, some by affection seeking or play and our tutor is sufficiently flexible to encourage us to find the learning style that works for us.

By Wednesday the invalid had not improved and I was quite concerned about him, although he had taken pleasure in digging a hole in the garden when he and Boola had gone out there together on Boola's return from class, late on Tuesday evening. So it was off to the vet, his least favourite place. As usual, he tried to hide behind my leg and the vet diagnosed a poorly shoulder, probably likely to recover well in a few days. Some anti-inflammatories were prescribed and the wounded warrior was sent home with a strict limit on exercise and definately no running for a while. Unfortunately this has not been easy to enforce as although he has been walking on the lead, whenever he sees a squirrel he often does his vertical take off and attempts to climb a tree if he can see a squirrel in it. He is also doing his favourite zoomies in the house, when he rushes at very high speed between all the beds upstairs, bouncing on each one before leaping off and then skidding sideways on to the next one - one of his trademark pursuits.

Anyway, he is now recovering slowly and I'm hopeful that in another week or so he should be improved completely, fingers crossed.