Souvla

 A day of dogs - So Stitch is once again star pupil, in his own head that is, but his hard work and my perseverance has paid off we took our class and strolled through it like old pros.  The class was a bit disjointed with the late comers but once everyone was in, excluding the Schnauzer who has fallen off the planet everything went along swimmingly. Each hound got to shine doing the down and stay routines they had been practising since the last class, Maisie had a moment when sit was just not going to happen but eventually even she couldn't hold out and did as was expected, the baby of the class Cara behaved beautifully and had us all cooing at her skills. Mo has spent the last nine days being boarded out as his mumma was away and even he has managed to get his skills up to speed, not easy when you have to leave a dog for a while in company that doesn't keep your own routine, much like leaving children with Grandparents, when they come back they are like devilish duplicates of the children you left.

Blake

Mo

Cara

Maisie having a moment

Maisie's moment finished

Stitch

I must remember this dogs name

you can just make out loopy Luna at the rear

Luna is still loony and pulling at her lead, wanting to play constantly and it just reiterated my feelings of "Im so glad I have a small dog". 

All the puppies have grown so much in the last two weeks, Blake appears to have added inches to his already long legs, but his training is coming on really well, I still rather like him, he is deliciously coal coloured with white paws.

Today we were doing poison training as there are so many things in Cyprus that are dangerous to dogs, including people who lay down poisons across their front gates which makes this training all the more important, today's poison was two slices of bread thrown to the floor in front of the dogs, we had to walk past the bread and teach the dogs to 'leave it', this was very hard for the spaniel who apparently loves bread, but each dog took its turn to walk by the bread and leave it, Stitch tried to sniff the first piece but the leave it command meant that he completely ignored the second slice. Then it was time for good manners we had to walk our dogs to Lindsay ask them to sit and she would then give them each a piece of bread, now this was in fact the same bread she had used for the poison training but explained that we need to teach our dogs that it is not ok to take anything off the ground, but if it is given from the hand then that is ok.

Class finished and we all went our separate ways, myself and my beloved headed home and were collected shortly afterwards by Evangalia for lunch of Souvla made by Michael, we spent a lovely afternoon in the company of Michael and his family eating his delicious Souvla and sharing wine and beer.

Souvla

Consists of large pieces of meat cooked on a long skewer over a charcoal barbecue.

It differs from the popular Greek dish souvlaki, in that meat cuts are much larger and slow cooked for a much longer period at a greater distance from the hot charcoal. Traditional souvla is made from the neck and shoulder of lamb or pork. The meat is cut on the bone into chunks about the size of a medium onion.

The meat must be put on so that its weight is evenly distributed, so that it will rotate evenly on the spit.

The meat is put as far as possible from the charcoal at first. After it is sizzling, it is lowered down to charcoal so that the skin on the meat goes brown. The process takes between 90 minutes and 3 hours depending on the type of meat, size and heat of fire. Salt, aromatics (such as oregano), oil, and wine are sprinkled or brushed on the meat once the cooking process is well under way. That way the meat stays juicy and does not brown too quickly.