Emperors new clothes

I have been away for a week visiting the extended family. I had lots of fun, we went for a hike on Sunday morning which was fantastic, lots of running around off the lead, and I got to go swimming too. My uncle took some pictures of me swimming, but I havent seen them yet, hopefully I wll post them when I get them.

Today mum started on designing me a jacket, she gets things into her head sometimes, and there is no negotiating. I don't like clothes at the best of times never mind standing still to be measured and have pins put in. (repeatedly ...sigh )
The jacket was made from an old pair of walking trousers, and the finished result is really smart, it kinda looks like you could have bought it, if you half close your eyes and dim the lights a bit.

So below are some pictures of the finished jacket and me wearing it - (bribed with biscuit.)

Grozny's Secret Garden

As promised I have shot a short video tour of my secret Garden, I have also included some activities that I get up to in there too. Enjoy!

Good times and My own Adventure Playground

So a bit of finer weather appeared weekend before last . Mum and friend went to Roslin for our usual walk. I was charging up and down, trying to expend some pent up energy when they took a detour and headed towards the pub, we haven’t been to the pub since September. This was unexpected but enjoyable, I got a small piece of Ham sandwich for being a good boy. On the way back we walked up the closed road, the road is closed because the workmen are working to fix it. I stepped in an open pot hole and got my front paw covered in cement. I didn’t mind, it didn’t bother me, I still ran around like a lunatic. When we got home mum wouldn’t let me in the living room until I had been in the shower, so I trotted wearily in and waited for mum to fetch a towel ready for when I came out of the shower. By the time she returned I had settled down in the bottom of the shower and fallen asleep. That extra bit of walk had really worn me out.

The most exciting news this week is that mum has a friend she knows that owns a bit of woodland at the back of their house. Mum has asked, and got permission to use it whenever we want. More than this mum is going to build me my very own adventure playground, with jumps and tunnels to play on, just like agility but all made out of the natural environment. We went there to check it out on Monday and it was fabulous, it even has a river for swimming, I’m so lucky. Mum rocks!  She says she is going on Thursday to get started on clearing some paths; I’m going to go too, just to run around and get under her feet. I will keep you posted on how that goes.

Last weekend we went away on holiday again, mum wasn’t sure if I would remember the holiday house, and I didn’t at first, but then I couldn’t believe my eyes, in the front garden, just where I left it, was my piece of round wood. If you see any of my holiday videos from last year you will see that I was chasing and retrieving a small piece of round wood, and there it was, wow, mum couldn’t believe how excited I was to see it, it was as if the floor was electric I was jumping up and down so much and running round in circles chasing my tail.

Slightly disappointing this year, because the sheep weren’t in the field so no ‘baa baa tv’ this time.  However there were two partridges which provided much amusement for quite a long time.

I spent the holiday doing lots of walking, sleeping and swimming. The river was amazing, so clear and just the right depth. Mum took some video of me swimming after my ball, normally they just throw it in straight across the river, but this time they were waitng for me to swim out across the river and then throwing the ball far away from me, down stream, man did I have to work hard.

The major new experience of the holiday was encountering the sea for the first time, this was strange, and the salty taste did not go down well. Mum didn’t take my ball so there was nothing to chase. They threw in stones to get me to swim out, as you will see from my video I tried to retrieve the stones by sticking my head under the water and trying the see them, I came out with something strange that tasted yucky, mum said it was sea weed, it must be a weed alright with a taste like that. A good time was had by all. I have added lots of pics.

 

 

 

This weekend mum has been working in the woodland and i'v been helping, mum says I’m not much help, but I think I am. Mum cuts down sticks and twigs to create paths and open areas and as she tries to drag them away to the spoil heap she keeps turning round thinking they have got caught on other shrubbery, but they’re not, it’s me tugging the other end and trying to play with them, he he. Today we went there and built a wall of branches along the steepest part of the river bank to stop me from falling in, it’s quite impressive, but she had help, of course.

Sunshine and Lilly

A frosty start this morning but by lunch time the sun was out and shining bright. Due to the good weather I had a surprise visit from Lilly ( the mini sheep). The parents took us to the park for a mega run around all afternoon. The kids had a football and I chased it until I could barely run another step. It was great fun. I had my tennis ball in my mouth and I was trying to pick up the football at the same time. It took me a thousand tries but to every ones surprise I managed it, and boy did they work hard to catch me, once I got it.


Yesterday was also a nice day, and a little bit eventful. I went to agility class as usual but there was a fire in the field behind ours, just as I arrived, so we got to watch the firemen put out the fire. I growled at them mostly, but mum enjoyed the view. Once the smoke had cleared, we got down to business. Things have stepped up a few gears since I last posted about agility, I now do courses, which means I do lots of obstacles together in a row. I'm really good, top of my class, which is not hard since there is only three of us left.

It came to my turn to do the dog walk, that's the long thin plank you have to walk, when I say thin, I mean thin, like less than 12 inches across, when I get to the end of the ramp I am meant to stop and wait until I am told to move on...but I'm just so excited to do the next bit I keep forgetting. The other dogs get lifted back on if they don't stop, but I'm too heavy, so they just send me back over it. To every ones surprise half way back the other way I managed (somehow) to do a ballerina pirouette on the thin board , 360 degrees and go back the way I came. Astonishing! for a dog who has one paw wider than the board, let alone 4. All I can say is I obviously have superior natural balance, that's what my tail is for.

You may remember towards the beginning of the winter mum taught me to open doors, well I can now close doors too (video coming soon , I'm sure) I'm so good I can even close cupboard doors..pfft piece of cake. I would do it for a piece of cake actually, if anyone is listening :)

Long time no squeek

Did you miss me? I’m not surprised I haven’t blogged since before Christmas. Quite a lot has happened since then. I got some great presents for Christmas not least a 4ft raw hide bone which was given to me by my grandparents.  Whist I was visiting them I met my Great Aunties and Great Nana. That was an experience. Let me tell you about great nana’s eye. Great nana, the legend has it, is said to possess a special look that she gives naughty children, that turns them to stone in an instant. I was like, yea right, she was a softie when I met her, but I was good as gold just in case, I didn’t want to chance it, no more walkies for a stone dog.

After Christmas I hit the January sales and bought myself a new backpack ready for camping and hiking in the better weather, I would have a picture of me sporting it, but the weather has been miserable so I haven’t really been out in it.

Due to the adverse weather conditions mum decided in her wisdom that it would be a great idea if I learned to use the treadmill (running machine) so I have been on that a couple of times, nothing very strenuous as yet, I have found that if I kid mum on that I need to be introduced to things slowly due to my delicate constitution that I have to work less during each training session. For example, during the first training session I was rewarded for just touching the treadmill with my nose, then in the second session I was rewarded for just being in the same room whilst the treadmill was running (I might be afraid of the noise you see...yea right.... free hot dog slices and cheese more like...mum's such a mug).

My newest talent is fetching mum’s slippers, for months now I have been able to fetch one slipper, but then she would say ‘where is it’ I would be like, ‘it’s on your foot you silly woman’ then yesterday the penny dropped, she wants the other one that looks just like that one, so I fetched it, but she had to chase me around for it, whilst wearing only one slipper – such a YouTube moment, where was my camera.

So in essence that’s it really, I had great holidays and now the rain is making me miserable, still nothing can be worse than the day I came back from a run-around in the park at nanas and I was so muddy I was refused entry into the house, so they hosed me down outside using the freezing cold garden hose! The indignity! I have a warm shower when I get in like any civilised person, I don’t get hosed down! To make up for it they chucked a bucket of warm water over me at the end. Charming!

Anyway I was soon in the house and dried with a towel and all was forgiven, for a bit of biscuit.

Who is this Santa guy?

I woke this morning to find a video message in my inbox from Santa. Who is Santa? He seems like a nice guy, but wow he knows a lot of stuff about me - it's kind of scary. What is exciting though is that he seems to know what I want for christamas and becuase I am a good boy , he says he will deliver it to my house, and for free - now thats what I call service. Me and this santa guy I think are going to become great friends.

http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/guest/xWVDwfNdvD7UvNcUseCXvg

No Snow- No show

So, the snow has finally cleared, all except the big spoil heaps dotted along the pavements and driveways, where folks have relentlessly dug their way to freedom over the past two weeks. So mum and I set off to agility classes as usual only to find to our disappointment when we arrived it was closed. We had no notification, well according to mum there was no email, I don’t get involved in such things – email is much too complex for me. 

It is quite a long way to get to agility, it’s about 45 minutes in the car, so we didn’t want to just turn around and come home. Mum let me out of the car in the car park just to stretch my legs. However I knew where I was and where I wha meant to be going  and so I trotted merrily up to the gate and made an attempt to dig under the gate to gain entry to the field. I could see that most of the equipment was still set up from the last time we were there three weeks ago. Whilst I was attempting to dig a hole under the gate, mum noticed that is was only tied shut with a rope, so we looked at each other for a moment and looked away into the field, then back at one another and thought ‘ what’s the harm?’ there’s no one here, the equipment is set up, we’re not going to damage anything – so we went in , and what a time we were having, just the two of us running around and playing on the equipment, we were in our element. Then uh oh two cars pulled up, we sooo thought we were busted, but can you believe it, it was two more canine friends to join the free for all party. It was like a lock in for dogs , for those that may not know, a lock in is when you get locked in a pub/bar after closing time, usually when you get let out again you are more merry that when you were locked in ) .

So overall a disappointment that we were so badly informed, but a great time was had by all who turned up, I must say mum did well as a trainer for the day – nice one mum you and I make a great breaking and entering team.