Angels on our way

Sometimes when the going gets tough you need angels on your way to help you through the bad patch.

My angels are my friends and my family, I can't do without them.

Today is a rough day, I have more pain then I had before, my anxiety levels are high and for the first time I needed some anxiety medication to stop the racing thoughts in my head.

I am still waiting for my MRI scan to reveal if the cancer is gone or still there or is spreading somewhere else and on some days I can't handle this very well any more.

I know craft blogs are mostly uplifting and no one wants to read the hard stuff, but it is for now the real stuff in my life.

My angel doll

Every fortnight a small group of creative friends meet together and we have a craft morning, last time I started making this angel doll with Elizabeth.
The doll patterns are designed by her and her friend over many years. I finished the angel doll just before our craft morning today and took it along to show the other women.
I was not in the mood for crafting much and I left a bit earlier.
I came home crying, life seems to hard now.
But my amazing husband was home to comfort me.

The grapevine angel

But I realize that the kindness of my friends this morning are the angels on my path today.

They recycled cans for me to use for my herb plants, made me a coffee, gave me a new pattern to make for another angel doll and gave me a hug and prayed for me.

Thank you God for the angels in my life, I need them so much.

Ollie our Borador dog becoming a therapy dog

Last Friday Ollie was assessed for therapy work with the Canine Friends Pet Therapy, a New Zealand organisation working with pet dogs in rest homes, hospices and in schools and libraries to help children with reading.

Ollie is now 14 months old and an active high energy cross Border Collie/Labrador dog, friendly and interested in people.

He loves to learn and to please, but also has a mind of his own and sometimes to clever for his own good. At the moment Ollie is a teenager and really pushes the boundaries so now and then, like jumping on the cupboard were I keep his closed food box and  pushing the box of the cupboard to try and steal some of his food.

Jennifer, his trainer for the coming 6 weeks thinks Ollie has the right personality to become a therapy dog, but together we have to train and work on his obedience and interaction with people.

This coming Saturday we will start and meet more dogs and owners and see how Ollie reacts.

I have been working on the heel command and also on the recall command for the last few days and Ollie is good with the recall, but the heel work is a different matter.

He likes to pull, especially in the beginning of the walk, so I am following Jennifer's instructions and practice every day with him. Ollie needs to learn to walk well on the lead when we start visiting a resthome, he can't pull me along between the residents, not a good look for a therapy dog!

Ollie and Rachel

I would love to hear from other dog owners who are working with their dog as a therapy dog and exchange ideas and stories. So if you read this post please leave a comment on my blog about your dog. I would love that and reply.

I love the beach, mum!