Talents reach new heights

Hi all, I thought I would share with you my new skill.
In my house, it's a long way to the back door and lazy folk hate having to walk all that way a 100 times a day and worse stand in the freezing cold and wait for me to take my sweet time about coming back in. As any dog knows even though I have been in the garden a billion times and know every inch of it intimately, there are still things I can spend over half an hour just sniffing and investigating. So in the cold weather no one wants to leave the door open so that I can go out for a wee when I want.

The solution chosen, after considering a cat flap (too small) my mum came up with an ingenious idea. She taught me to pull the door open using a tie around the door handle, but I was only strong enough to open the door if the door was left partially open. (no good in the cold weather)

So moving the pulling point to the very bottom corner of the door gives me enough leverage to open it even if it is shut tight. She then fashioned a ring to make it easier to pull. Thanks mum, I can now let my self out whenever I want, except when it's actually locked.
Below is a little demonstration video:

Happy 1st Birthday

Hello friends, today was my 1st birthday, that's 7 years old in dog years, so I have still got some growing to do until dogult hood. Another 6 months or so of puppy hood left, then it's bye bye to cheeky behaviour, steeling socks, chewing up tissue, and general naughtiness.

So how was my birthday, well my owner went to the supermarket and forgot to buy dog food, so by coincidence I ended up with a birthday tea. Pure Mackerel fish..mmmm. Added to this my owner wasn't feeling too well, so she left most of her southern fried chicken dinner, which also found its way into my dinner bowl, so all in all a good day.

Weather was good and I had two long walks. Tomorrow I am being treated to a day out, jogging at Roslin.

Why Facebook

Hi friends, I forgot to mention in my last post (silly me) that my facebook name is Grozny Pupski, so if you want to be my friend just search for me.

I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about why I have a facebook page, after all my blog has been a great success, and much more so than I humbly expected. However, I feel there is so much more that just can't be expressed in my blog. Blogs tend to be for the big things, the funny stories, the events in life, which my blog will continue to be used for. But, sometimes there are pictures, opinions, likes , dislikes and cool stuff I rate, that I feel an entire blog entry doesn't warrant.

I sit down to put in some new pictures, but feel I have nothing to say about them that would fill a blog post, or I want to share something, like a quote or comment of the day, that would be wasted in a blog. So facebook essentially is for all the small things, that makes life and the day go a little quicker, the funny things, the thought provoking things, that are all missed by a once every so often blog.

Going Hi-Tech

Hello friends, as you can probably tell, as a dog with a blog, I'm reasonably up to date with the latest online technology, but today I broke new ground and became a member of facebook :)

So as you do, when you create a new facebook account, you create your own email address and fill in your details. I was initially rejected for facebook because I am only 1year old , so I had to lie about my age :(. Once inside I eagerly filled in all my details, where I live, what I'm looking for, and my profile picture. My vain nature made it difficult to choose a profile picture, I have so many nice ones.

So then I goes to my home page ' you have NO friends!' :( , well I says it's early days no-one knows I'm here yet. Grozny has burst onto the facebook scene without so much as a puff of smoke. So I have invited a few folks I know from my blog , if I could find you, but if you find me, please add me as a friend, cos I love you all.

The Secret Life of Socks

You know I’m a multi-talented dog, I have so many talents in fact I’m not even sure I know what they all are. Anyway, I would like to take this opportunity to say that babysitting, is not one of my talents, especially wee dogs and especially wee nippy dogs named Lilly. Don’t get me wrong she’s ok in small doses, but when she eats my dinner and steals my sock, then that’s when enough is enough. I mean a man’s socks are his calling card; the intensity of odour is directly proportional to a dogs’ alpha status. So you can empathise with me when she tries to strip me of my well earned sock.

Let me tell you about socks, they don’t just drop out of the sky (well sometimes they do) or grow on trees, you have to hunt them like small rodents. They hide in peculiar places, they’re shy creatures and if you approach them too quickly, they screw up into small balls of sock, this happens predominantly to male socks. Also, male socks are definitely pack animals, they stick together, and they even sometimes get into the washing machine that way if you are not vigilant about checking each one.

Female socks however, are solitary creatures, choosing to wander the world alone.They are much more elusive, and my goodness it’s tough to catch a female sock, they hide in baskets and draws and are never seen out in the open.

There is the ultimate of all socks though, the Guru, that is teenage male sock. Wow, if you get one of them, you are THE dog! You would be led to believe they are easy to catch due to their intense body odour. In some respects you would be right, when you spot one they are easy to catch. They are confident creatures and are not afraid to spend time out in the open .They often graze in groups, and having one as a lookout. Their odour is easily detectable even at distance. These socks however are territorial and they ‘ruck’ for dominance. They frequently show scars of battle and have huge chunks of their flesh missing especially around the toes and heels. What makes them elusive is that they often stay in captivity with a human for much longer periods of time, sometimes up to a week or more before being released to the laundry room.

Living in the dog house

Yesturday for some reason I was feeling hungry for my dinner a little earlier than usual. My owner had prepared a home made pizza with fresh tuna as a topping. In order to cook the pizza the oven apparently needs to pre heat, so he popped away for a short time to wait for that light on the oven to go out. Well I could just smell it, you know, it was right there on the table, just smelling of tuna. mmmm I paced and paced around the kitchen floor, my nose bobbing in the air, and the more I thought about it , the more I wanted it. You know like when the button says 'do not press' you just can't stop thinking about what it might do, and you'r just so tempted to press it. Well this was just like that, don't touch the pizza!
I just jumped up for a look initially, you know, just to see it, then when I was up there I thought one tiny piece won't matter they wont even notice. I mean chances are I would be getting a bit when it's cooked anyway, why not just have my bit now, it's not unreasonable, so I took a tiny piece, but then the unthinkable happed, the pizza slid off the table!! Oh my god! nooooo, quick get rid of the evidence, i'v never eaten so fast in my life. My jaws aching from quickly trying to chew the uncooked dough. my owner returned and started shouting, I sat there saying, I never saw any pizza, are you sure you made one? maybe it's still in the fridge. Oh yes I remember now there was a bird flew in through the window , I saw him take it, honestly. Unfortunatley what I didnt realise was the large amount of white flour clinging to my whiskers and chin.
So I got a big row and no dinner ( not that I needed it) and my owner had to order in a take away , which I also didnt get any of. So today i'm in the dog house.

Camping is not a hotel

So camping is not a hotel, no room service, no en suite and no laundry service, but overall it was enjoyable.

Upon arrival the humans quickly erected a make shift refugee camp. It consisted of some water proof tarpaulin stretched across poles to form a crude shelter. I stayed in the car during this process (very wise). They arranged the shelters in a square formation creating a clear square area of living space in the middle of the dwellings. This I took to be ‘our patch’ and I was extremely vigilant about protecting this area from friend and foe alike.

All was fine until night fell and the realisation set in that we were actually going to sleep here.Well I wasn’t up for that, after protesting strenuously my owner and I ended up spending half of the first night in the car. Once the camping site had gone quiet for the night we snuck back into the tent but it was a restless night with many unusual noises and bumps and I spent the night growling and barking.

The next day was pleasant indeed, although I had barely slept I was only too happy to go for a long canal side walk, and to add to it the humans had small boats on the canal so I was ducking a diving in and out of the water alongside the boats. At one point I alerted a mother duck and got a peck on the nose for it. After a long walk we stopped for a pub lunch and it was made all the better by a substantial helping of Garlic Bread and prime streak.

After a long walk back and my lack of sleep you would think I would have slept like a log, but not the case, this time I opted to sleep in the porch of the tent that way I could survey my patch all night and make sure no one stepped foot in our designated area, and that was all great. I was quiet all night as well as staying dry.

It did rain once whist we were at the camp, and my goodness did it rain, it was a down pour , and I was not prepared to get trapped in the tent again so I weathered the storm outside alone.

Overall I enjoyed camping besides my lack of sleep, I had a good canal walk and swim and had a fun time talking to Eva. I think we understood each other, I talked dog and she seemed to respond, it’s strange that the smaller the humans are the easier it is to communicate in dog.

The only slight misunderstanding came when she tried to eat my dinner, I tried to explain that it was mine but I think we had cross wires.

Other than camping I spent the week at the grandparent’s house and had a very nice time, lots of long walks, even one that was cut short by a field of un-friendly bulls.Lots of swimming in the river and I even went for a ride on the bus.