Future developments...

So, over 12 months have passed since I started looking for a venue to expand the agility side of the business into, and a year later I've had one venue fall through, viewed at least a dozen unsuitable or unaffordable ones, and have made enquiries to every single place I can think of in the area! Now I'm not giving up on it completely as agility is still my first love, but I've started to get to the point lately where I'm physically exhausted from working on top of running the obedience classes and training Finn, and something has to give! The hope had been to find an agility venue and develop that so that I could give up work, but as that hasn't happened yet I think it's time to start to look into other possibilities. So that's what I started doing yesterday!!

And so the Four Paws One Direction Dog Training Centre idea was born (or some other similar name - suggestions welcome!!)! We're now searching for an industrial unit or something similar to rent and set up as a permanent full time centre. Anything large enough to do full scale agility inside is above our rental capacity at the moment, so instead what we're looking for is a smaller unit to run primarily puppy classes, puppy activity classes, informal obedience, calming classes along the lines of the 'Control Unleashed' exercises, a bit of rally-o, games & activity classes, puppy play date sessions etc! And if we can find something big enough to put up a few jump grids or do a bit of one-jump work, we'll put down a suitable flooring (either rubber matting or astro turf - need to work out which provides the most grip for the dogs!), and will be able to do a limited amount of agility stuff indoors - perhaps enough to see us through the winter! We might then be able to use our own field on Saturdays for 6 months during the summer to offer a bit more agility than we're currently doing, with the other 6 cold-and-wet months being spent indoors focussing on handling or jumping skills. I have to say I'm pretty excited about it all at the moment! I've started to make some enquiries about industrial units, and we're looking at somewhere around the Radstock to Bath area. If this is all do-able and we can find a suitable site then this could actually be set up quite quickly! So fingers crossed!! Although waiting for Estate Agents to get back to me is already driving me mad!!! Do they want to shift these units or not?! And the hope is that once we have lots of new lovely dog people coming through our classes, eventually someone might know someone who knows of a suitable agility venue, and we can look at expanding that again!

So we have a possible way forward again, and I have lots of things to research and plan, which is what I love, so I'm all happy again!! Just need to start looking at organising the Fun Dog Show again for this year as last year was such a great day!! Onwards... :-)

Oh, and here are a few of my favourite Finn and Willow pics from our last few walks. Enjoy!...

The Bog Monster (TM)!

Where's the blooming Bog Monster gone now?!