My Crazy Mutts

This is Molly, 'Melancholy Molly'. She is a 10 year old Working Sheepdog, I got her from a working farm in Wales. She had to be hand reared from the age of 10 days after her mother was killed by a neighbouring farmer for scavenging in his bin.

Molly was a nightmare to train for agility, because she is totally insane and had to everything at 200 miles per hour, also she has a very strong herding instinct. I very nearly gave up on many occasions, but we got there in the end. she made it to senior and gained quite a few places in senior and intermediate jumping (contacts were never her strong point) she was very fast but lacked steering.

Then when Molly was 4 she suffered a stroke which left her completely deaf, there were no other ill effects so the vet said it was safe to carry on competing with her, so I then had to try and re-train her to hand signals, not easy with a dog that had started off being trained to vocal commands and often worked 4 obstacles in front of me, again we got there in the end, then 2 years after the stroke we found that she had a hole in her heart and a blocked valve, she also had slight arthrtis in her back, so she was put on medication for both problems. The vet said that she was ok to carry on doing what she loved most, as long as we didn't over do it, I decided that it would be best for her if she only did All-sorts classes, she is still doing them 3 years on and loves every second of it.

Molly will probably be best remembered for her antics outside the ring, as opposed to her triumphs in it. Despite all her problems Molly is a happy-go-lucky little dog, who loves life, she has a wonderful temperament and loves everyone she meets, I just wish fate could have been kinder to her, she is and always will be my very special girl.