Today was the first day of it being cold enough for the dogs to wear their coats.
I'd like to say that my dogs have such a large selection of coats because I have had four dogs so far, but the truth is that Fergus and Bonnie the first two dogs were terribly spoilt by me, resulting in an entire canine wardrobe of coats, collars and leads. Not to mention dog toys and various other accessories.
At the last count we had seven coats, ten leads and 6 collars. All the collars came from Harrods because I used to think it was rather nice to have my dogs in posh collars with gold embossed Harrods logos inside. Now I'm too far away from Harrods to indulge. Probably a good thing for the bank balance nowdays.
When Henry came he had his own collar and coat which was really lovely of the rescue people to give him. They tried to give us a lead to but we showed them just a couple of our collection in the boot of the car and agreed we didn't need one.
So today was cold and windy and I was wearing a coat so the dogs would too and I chose their big red fleece lined coats with the lift up hoods that roll down as cosy collars. They are the only dogs in a 20 mile radius (maybe more) that wear coats round here and the farmers must think I am mad but my dogs must be warm, and someone in these parts must provide the entertainment!
After our walk (where Molly caught a mouse and ate it) we came back and I spent some time in the garden with the dogs doing the duties with the shovel.
Today whilst weilding my shovel I found a large part of the mop in one of the poos. It can only be Henry who ate it, but why?? This has to go down with the poop scooping after Henry ate the candles, that was like poop scooping poo shaped candles, no poo just wax!
Probably the best of the lot belongs to Fergus who stole approximately 30 mini chocolate bars one Christmas and scoffed them down as quickly as he could before he got caught out. After blaming other people for being greedy and eating most of the chocolates I realised who the culprit was the next morning and for a few days after as Ferg hadn't bothered to chew or take the chocolate out of the wrapper so we had lots of intact albeit melted and squishy chocolate bars still in their wrappers all over the garden!
Monday, 27 October 2008
The wind gets up their tails
The weather over the last few days here has been awful. More rain than you need to fill a bucket and seriously strong winds that blow you over.
The rivers around us all filled up and overflowed and the tiles on the roof of the house rattled constantly for three days, it wasn't very nice.
Also what wasn't very nice was having to send the dogs outside to go to the loo. There was a very good chance that Henry would see this as an opportunity to revert to pre-toilet trained days but amazingly he didn't and on Saturday joined Molly in refusing to go outside until lunch time. Both dogs curled up on the sofa and refused to move. I knew how they felt, I decided to join them and went completely deaf at Other Halfs suggestion that we go out somewhere instead of staying indoors all day.
The worst thing about the wind (apart from it completely ruining your hair) is that when it really blows Henry gets scared of it and runs indoors whether he's finished or not. He originally came from slightly warmer climes in England so the weather here was a bit of a shock to him to say the least.
The farm dogs on the other hand seem impervious to all the wind and rain and come to visit every day and have now started to bark at Henry and Molly through the front window while Henry and Molly bark back from inside. I'm not sure what's being said, it could be 'hahaha we can run around anywhere we want cos we are outside' or it could equally be ' hahaha we are inside in the warm with central heating and sofas for beds'.
The only activity on Saturday was a rather fierce game between Other Half and Henry which involved lots of barking, jumping, bouncing (all on Henry's side) and outwitting on Other Half's side. The trouble when Henry plays is that he gets so carried away that he sometimes bites your arm or hand instead of the toy that he's trying to get so I think Other Half came off worse, but Henry had a good time.
In the evening just for entertainment value I remembered the two dog balls from my last two dogs that you put treats into and the dogs are meant to roll them around to get the treats out. It makes one Schamko last about 20 minutes which is incredibly good value so I decided to try them out on Hen and Molls.
Amazingly Molly remembered what to do, even though I had only shown her once about a year ago. So she was off and away rolling her ball around the living room like a premier footballer.
Henry on the other hand had seen nothing of the sort before and took a little more instruction but it was far to hard to get him to concentrate on learning rather than trying to beat the ball up to get it to yeild the treats.
This was quite funny to watch and got even funnier when Other Half remembered that Henry's ball had a movment sensor in it where you could record a message and every now and then it would play it when the dog moved the ball.
Other Half being slightly mean decided to record his best telling off noise, the one he uses to instantly get the dogs out of the kitchen, then then set the ball and gave it back to Henry.
As soon as Henry moved the ball it made the noise. Henry stopped dead and stared at the ball. Then he prodded it with his paw and it did it again. Then he jumped at it and it shot accross the living room followed quickly by Henry who had started barking at the ball.
A dog/ball scuffle broke out and suddenly Henry was running off with something in his mouth that was telling him to get out very loudly.
Henry had somehow expertly managed to remove the noise part of the ball and was determined to chew it up to shut it up - brilliant dog, how brainy is that?
We fell about laughing and just managed to stop the noise thing from disappearing down Henry's throat.
I think we'll only get the treat balls out now and then, I don't think my nerves could stand it every day!
The rivers around us all filled up and overflowed and the tiles on the roof of the house rattled constantly for three days, it wasn't very nice.
Also what wasn't very nice was having to send the dogs outside to go to the loo. There was a very good chance that Henry would see this as an opportunity to revert to pre-toilet trained days but amazingly he didn't and on Saturday joined Molly in refusing to go outside until lunch time. Both dogs curled up on the sofa and refused to move. I knew how they felt, I decided to join them and went completely deaf at Other Halfs suggestion that we go out somewhere instead of staying indoors all day.
The worst thing about the wind (apart from it completely ruining your hair) is that when it really blows Henry gets scared of it and runs indoors whether he's finished or not. He originally came from slightly warmer climes in England so the weather here was a bit of a shock to him to say the least.
The farm dogs on the other hand seem impervious to all the wind and rain and come to visit every day and have now started to bark at Henry and Molly through the front window while Henry and Molly bark back from inside. I'm not sure what's being said, it could be 'hahaha we can run around anywhere we want cos we are outside' or it could equally be ' hahaha we are inside in the warm with central heating and sofas for beds'.
The only activity on Saturday was a rather fierce game between Other Half and Henry which involved lots of barking, jumping, bouncing (all on Henry's side) and outwitting on Other Half's side. The trouble when Henry plays is that he gets so carried away that he sometimes bites your arm or hand instead of the toy that he's trying to get so I think Other Half came off worse, but Henry had a good time.
In the evening just for entertainment value I remembered the two dog balls from my last two dogs that you put treats into and the dogs are meant to roll them around to get the treats out. It makes one Schamko last about 20 minutes which is incredibly good value so I decided to try them out on Hen and Molls.
Amazingly Molly remembered what to do, even though I had only shown her once about a year ago. So she was off and away rolling her ball around the living room like a premier footballer.
Henry on the other hand had seen nothing of the sort before and took a little more instruction but it was far to hard to get him to concentrate on learning rather than trying to beat the ball up to get it to yeild the treats.
This was quite funny to watch and got even funnier when Other Half remembered that Henry's ball had a movment sensor in it where you could record a message and every now and then it would play it when the dog moved the ball.
Other Half being slightly mean decided to record his best telling off noise, the one he uses to instantly get the dogs out of the kitchen, then then set the ball and gave it back to Henry.
As soon as Henry moved the ball it made the noise. Henry stopped dead and stared at the ball. Then he prodded it with his paw and it did it again. Then he jumped at it and it shot accross the living room followed quickly by Henry who had started barking at the ball.
A dog/ball scuffle broke out and suddenly Henry was running off with something in his mouth that was telling him to get out very loudly.
Henry had somehow expertly managed to remove the noise part of the ball and was determined to chew it up to shut it up - brilliant dog, how brainy is that?
We fell about laughing and just managed to stop the noise thing from disappearing down Henry's throat.
I think we'll only get the treat balls out now and then, I don't think my nerves could stand it every day!
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
More relaxing
At the weekend I went to the Sea Life Center in Edinburgh and learned that sharks have no bones but cartilage instead to make them more bendy.
I'm wondering if Henry could be related to the shark family?
I also learned that sharks have five gills, I'll take a look underthe furry stripes later...
Friday, 17 October 2008
Relaxing
Henry takes relaxing very seriously. Here is a picture of him lazing on the sofa while I write this. I'm not sure that dogs should actually be able to bend like this but he is still alive so I guess it's ok.
Yorkshire Puddings
There is a sense of humour difference in our house today.
Yesterday we visited Other Half's Mum and Dad for dinner, we took the dogs with us and when we arrived Other Half went out to chat with his Dad while he finished cleaning his car and I had a cup of tea with his Mum and the dogs in the living room.
Other Half's son was there too so there were people spread out all over the house and driveway. Henry and Molly aren't the best at coming back if they get off the lead and because everyone was all over the place the dogs were continually pacing about trying to round everyone up which was causing me quite a bit of stress as those outside kept coming in and out and leaving doors ajar which could mean an escape attempt.
After about half an hour I decided to give Henry and Molly their dinner in an attempt to get them settled and stop driving me mad with the pacing. I fed them in the kitchen and had to supervise as there were various stages of a roast dinner about the worktops and of course that is much tastier than dog food.
For some reason Molly decided to raid Henry's bowl of food, Henry then moved round and I tried to get Molly back to her bowl, somewhere in the middle of this incedent Henry managed to produce a yorkshire pudding. It honestly just appeared in his mouth - ok there were a whole load of them sitting on the worktop just out of the oven but I really didn't see him jump up and take one.
I had a momentary panic, and decided to confess my dogs sins straight away as otherwise Other Half's Mum would think I was the yorkshire pudding rustler. I called her in and hoped I wouldn't get too told off for badly training my dogs and she immediately started to laugh saying that not just one yorkshire pud had gone but six! It was really funny because at no time had Henry been out of our sight, so how on earth he had managed to steal six yorkshire puddings and still continue to pace around the house we will never know but I am impressed with his tactics as I'd have thought that faced with a tray of warm yorkshire puddings straight out of the oven and for the taking he would have scoffed the lot at once but he must have been pacing about the living room, going past the kitching door and thinking 'I'll just slip in there and grab another one of those puds and they'll never notice'.
Stealth and skill, what a dog!
Other Half didn't see the funny side, but then again he is fairly new to life with a young Saluki Greyhound and there will be much more to come. Lucky he dosen't know that....
Yesterday we visited Other Half's Mum and Dad for dinner, we took the dogs with us and when we arrived Other Half went out to chat with his Dad while he finished cleaning his car and I had a cup of tea with his Mum and the dogs in the living room.
Other Half's son was there too so there were people spread out all over the house and driveway. Henry and Molly aren't the best at coming back if they get off the lead and because everyone was all over the place the dogs were continually pacing about trying to round everyone up which was causing me quite a bit of stress as those outside kept coming in and out and leaving doors ajar which could mean an escape attempt.
After about half an hour I decided to give Henry and Molly their dinner in an attempt to get them settled and stop driving me mad with the pacing. I fed them in the kitchen and had to supervise as there were various stages of a roast dinner about the worktops and of course that is much tastier than dog food.
For some reason Molly decided to raid Henry's bowl of food, Henry then moved round and I tried to get Molly back to her bowl, somewhere in the middle of this incedent Henry managed to produce a yorkshire pudding. It honestly just appeared in his mouth - ok there were a whole load of them sitting on the worktop just out of the oven but I really didn't see him jump up and take one.
I had a momentary panic, and decided to confess my dogs sins straight away as otherwise Other Half's Mum would think I was the yorkshire pudding rustler. I called her in and hoped I wouldn't get too told off for badly training my dogs and she immediately started to laugh saying that not just one yorkshire pud had gone but six! It was really funny because at no time had Henry been out of our sight, so how on earth he had managed to steal six yorkshire puddings and still continue to pace around the house we will never know but I am impressed with his tactics as I'd have thought that faced with a tray of warm yorkshire puddings straight out of the oven and for the taking he would have scoffed the lot at once but he must have been pacing about the living room, going past the kitching door and thinking 'I'll just slip in there and grab another one of those puds and they'll never notice'.
Stealth and skill, what a dog!
Other Half didn't see the funny side, but then again he is fairly new to life with a young Saluki Greyhound and there will be much more to come. Lucky he dosen't know that....
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
Satelite Stress
Back in April (in the middle of house-training-hell) I came downstairs to find no accidents whatsoever. But Henry was acting very guilty, looking all too cute and wagging his tail in that special way which means he has done something he shoudn't.
As I couldn't find anything I let him out and carried on with breakfast as usual and it was only when I was tidying up for the day that I saw it. A puddle on the shelf under the tv. I really didn't beleive my eyes, how can a puddle appear on a shelf? Unless it had been but there by someone with stripey fur.
On further investigation I realised that it was exactly what I thought it was, wee. Wee on the shelf, dripped off the shelf and most of all all over the satelite box. Oh dear. I didn't really know where to start apart from disconnecting the power to make it all safe.
After thinking about it for a short time I decided to go for it, clearing up wee isn't the nicest of jobs but when it's cold and on your tv shelf it's even worse so armed with a bucket of hot soapy water and a cloth I disconnected the wires going into the back of the box and carefully lifted it, trying not to disturb the puddle. For some reason it must have had some electricity still in it as the box made my fingers tingle when I touched it.
Then I carefully wiped the box down, followed by the cables and shelf and also checking for drips onto the carpet, it was like a scene from CSI.
I decided to take a look at the inside of the box, if it was just a resistor it should be fixable but once I opened it up I discovered that several parts had really corroded - never underestimate the power of wee, it's very corrosive especially on the inside of a satelite box.
The box was unfixable (I wouldn't have had the cheek to give it to a repair man) and this was a big problem as we live in the middle of the hills in the middle of nowhere and we don't get a tv signal at all so satelite it the only way we can watch tv. I decided that tv wasn't a high priority in the entertainment stakes, after all I know of several (probably slightly mad) people who claim not to watch tv and I'm sure if they could live without it then so could I. Other Half was away with his work at the time and I had a mental list of things to do in the evenings instead of watching tv.
On the first evening without tv I go on rather well. I had my little multi frequency radio which manages to pick up Radio 4 despite the hills and I got on with painting the kitchen. The evening flew by and it was great to have go on with some well over due diy. On the second evening I did some work and some clearing out of junk. Great again, getting those jobs done that had needed doing for months. Evening three was good too, I went into the garden and did some weeding, and a bit of cleaning inside.
By evening four I was exhausted.
Either people who choose not to watch tv have high energy levels or are happy to sit and read a book without moving very much. I have neither, I can't sit still for long without a job popping up in my head and I feel guilty reading a book when there is stuff to do.
I then had a brainwave. iPlayer on the BBC. Great, brilliant, lifesaver and energy re-booster. It seemed like the answer to everything, I could watch tv and even better only watch the programmes I like. Heaven.
Except that just like the tv signal being blocked by the hills, the same hills prevent us from having a super fast broadband connection. So watching a 30 minute programme took nearly two hours with lots of stops and pauses and often dying in the middle. It was somewhat frustrating but better than exhaustion.
I endured it for nearly two months until Other Half decided he could no longer stand weekends without tv and I gave in and bought a new satelite box.
The new box was proudly installed on the shelf under the tv. Henry didn't even seem to notice. For about four weeks.
Then one morning the puddle was back. Nooooo! The box was once again dead.
I decided that if I could live before with just iPlayer for entertainment then I could do it again. This decision was mostly influenced by lack of money and having none spare to buy yet another satelite box so in reality I had no choice.
I managed another three weeks of iPlayer before spotting a fabulous portable satelite system on Ebay. It was cheap. Very cheap. But worth a shot so I bid and won and waited for it to arrive.
Once it came I opened the box and realised that I knew absolutely nothing about satelite communications and this needed some knowledge albeit basic. I waited for Other Half to come home and we had a Saturday of dishes on poles, attached to fences, wind blowing the poles down, finding a signal but only getting Brazilian tv then loosing all signals while trying to find Sky. After several hours I remembered that Henry had only peed on the receiver box, not the dish and why didn't we connect the portable receiver to the original dish? I took cover and Other Half plugged the box in.
We had tv! Yey! 700+ channels of absolute tosh. More rubbish than we could cope with and to find the more intelligent channels was like finding the old needle in a haystack. We ended up with London local news, Yorkshire ITV, Wales BBC2 and a handful of other strange chanels but at least we had tv.
Throughout all this Henry acted no different. He was oblivious to the trouble he had caused and just seemed to watch the comings and goings of various satelite boxes with total disinterest.
After we could endure the news from Hull, Kendal, Looe and Maidstone no longer we eventually bought a third Sky box. This time I dug out and old chest that was hiding away in the workshop, rubbed it down, cleaned it up and put the tv on top. The satelite box is now way out of reach of a dogs back leg high up on a shelf above the tv. It actually looks better than it did before but we won't tell Henry that in case he tries to continue with his interior decoration career.
As I couldn't find anything I let him out and carried on with breakfast as usual and it was only when I was tidying up for the day that I saw it. A puddle on the shelf under the tv. I really didn't beleive my eyes, how can a puddle appear on a shelf? Unless it had been but there by someone with stripey fur.
On further investigation I realised that it was exactly what I thought it was, wee. Wee on the shelf, dripped off the shelf and most of all all over the satelite box. Oh dear. I didn't really know where to start apart from disconnecting the power to make it all safe.
After thinking about it for a short time I decided to go for it, clearing up wee isn't the nicest of jobs but when it's cold and on your tv shelf it's even worse so armed with a bucket of hot soapy water and a cloth I disconnected the wires going into the back of the box and carefully lifted it, trying not to disturb the puddle. For some reason it must have had some electricity still in it as the box made my fingers tingle when I touched it.
Then I carefully wiped the box down, followed by the cables and shelf and also checking for drips onto the carpet, it was like a scene from CSI.
I decided to take a look at the inside of the box, if it was just a resistor it should be fixable but once I opened it up I discovered that several parts had really corroded - never underestimate the power of wee, it's very corrosive especially on the inside of a satelite box.
The box was unfixable (I wouldn't have had the cheek to give it to a repair man) and this was a big problem as we live in the middle of the hills in the middle of nowhere and we don't get a tv signal at all so satelite it the only way we can watch tv. I decided that tv wasn't a high priority in the entertainment stakes, after all I know of several (probably slightly mad) people who claim not to watch tv and I'm sure if they could live without it then so could I. Other Half was away with his work at the time and I had a mental list of things to do in the evenings instead of watching tv.
On the first evening without tv I go on rather well. I had my little multi frequency radio which manages to pick up Radio 4 despite the hills and I got on with painting the kitchen. The evening flew by and it was great to have go on with some well over due diy. On the second evening I did some work and some clearing out of junk. Great again, getting those jobs done that had needed doing for months. Evening three was good too, I went into the garden and did some weeding, and a bit of cleaning inside.
By evening four I was exhausted.
Either people who choose not to watch tv have high energy levels or are happy to sit and read a book without moving very much. I have neither, I can't sit still for long without a job popping up in my head and I feel guilty reading a book when there is stuff to do.
I then had a brainwave. iPlayer on the BBC. Great, brilliant, lifesaver and energy re-booster. It seemed like the answer to everything, I could watch tv and even better only watch the programmes I like. Heaven.
Except that just like the tv signal being blocked by the hills, the same hills prevent us from having a super fast broadband connection. So watching a 30 minute programme took nearly two hours with lots of stops and pauses and often dying in the middle. It was somewhat frustrating but better than exhaustion.
I endured it for nearly two months until Other Half decided he could no longer stand weekends without tv and I gave in and bought a new satelite box.
The new box was proudly installed on the shelf under the tv. Henry didn't even seem to notice. For about four weeks.
Then one morning the puddle was back. Nooooo! The box was once again dead.
I decided that if I could live before with just iPlayer for entertainment then I could do it again. This decision was mostly influenced by lack of money and having none spare to buy yet another satelite box so in reality I had no choice.
I managed another three weeks of iPlayer before spotting a fabulous portable satelite system on Ebay. It was cheap. Very cheap. But worth a shot so I bid and won and waited for it to arrive.
Once it came I opened the box and realised that I knew absolutely nothing about satelite communications and this needed some knowledge albeit basic. I waited for Other Half to come home and we had a Saturday of dishes on poles, attached to fences, wind blowing the poles down, finding a signal but only getting Brazilian tv then loosing all signals while trying to find Sky. After several hours I remembered that Henry had only peed on the receiver box, not the dish and why didn't we connect the portable receiver to the original dish? I took cover and Other Half plugged the box in.
We had tv! Yey! 700+ channels of absolute tosh. More rubbish than we could cope with and to find the more intelligent channels was like finding the old needle in a haystack. We ended up with London local news, Yorkshire ITV, Wales BBC2 and a handful of other strange chanels but at least we had tv.
Throughout all this Henry acted no different. He was oblivious to the trouble he had caused and just seemed to watch the comings and goings of various satelite boxes with total disinterest.
After we could endure the news from Hull, Kendal, Looe and Maidstone no longer we eventually bought a third Sky box. This time I dug out and old chest that was hiding away in the workshop, rubbed it down, cleaned it up and put the tv on top. The satelite box is now way out of reach of a dogs back leg high up on a shelf above the tv. It actually looks better than it did before but we won't tell Henry that in case he tries to continue with his interior decoration career.
Monday, 13 October 2008
Serious Barking and Sleeping
Over the last couple of days Henry has done some serious barking.
It started on Saturday which was very rainy. For some reason he just took to barking at absolutely everything, me, Other Half, Molly (especailly Molly), the cats on the farm, the hares in the field and the dogs on the farm.
The dogs on the farm decided to come up to the front of the house and stand on the track and bark back which was quite funny to start with but then Molly joined in and we had two dogs standing on their back legs at the window barking at two more dogs through the window who were barking back. This could only go on for so long before one of the occupants of the house had a nervous breakdown.
Then the rain wouldn't stop so we were all stuck in the house together, especially as the river burst it's banks and ran over the end of the track so unless we were up for a quick (and it would have been very quick as the water was rushing by) swim there was nowhere to go anyway. Of course the dogs didn't realise this and were trying every trick in the book to get out which for Henry involved even more barking.
Eventually as the day went on the rain slowed and I decided to take the dogs to dog training club as they had the hall for Saturday evening instead of Thursday due to a mix up.
I did mean to go to the first class of the evening but due to everyone barking and jumping up and confusing everything I ended up being half an hour late so I decided to creep into the hall and watch the first hour and then join the second class. As I opened the door a perfect class was going on, no barking (bliss) and every dog was behaving perfectly, and of course because it was so quiet everyone looked as I went in.
Having been noticed I was given the job of going up to each dog to say hello and give them a treat, now I'm a real dog person and I felt all puffed up at being asked to do such an important job so off I went around the hall being all important.
Being a real dog person I didn't worry at all about the dogs, after all they were in dog training club and everyone knows everyone and all the dogs are getting socialised so I wasn't expecting to be snapped at by the first very cute fluffy white dog who was also incedentally rather small so I immediately over-reacted and jumped back half a hall length! This attempt over I moved on to the next dog, a very very lovely lurcher who I'd never seen before, she looked at me with adoring eyes, refused my treat and growled! This really wasn't good so I quickly moved round the rest of the dogs before being told to bring Molly and Henry in to join the class.
As I said, the class was lovely and controlled and quiet, until the three of us crashed through the door. Henry started barking straight away and Molly was very insistant at going up to the lovely lady who runs the classes as she knew she had a pocket full of treats. The peace was shattered for the rest of the evening.
After the first class ended the dogs for the second class started arriving. We normally go to the second class so all the dogs know each other and for 20 minutes or so the hall was full of dogs all going around saying hello to each other and bounding to the door to greet the latest arrival. As one owner said, we could remember when we had a full social lives of our own and Saturday night was the night to get dressed up and go out partying but now it's our dogs who have all the fun! Henry of course was the noisiest, barking and howling at everyone, running around the other dogs and sidling up to the owners as he knows they all have treats in their pockets.
Once everyone had settled down we had a great lesson, both Henry and Molly walked perfectly to heel, sat, stayed, stayed while I walked accross the room, did a recall and then a silent recall and looked completely well trained. Why is it that this happens in the hall with all the other dogs and then on walks at home they are like a couple of hooligans? I'm yet to get Henry to walk to heel on a walk.
Then we all went home after extracting Other Half from the pub and for once in the weekend both dogs laid on their beds and snored away, there is nothing better in life than to look upon dogs who are fast asleep and worn out, it's a sort of blissful thing that should be bottled.
It started on Saturday which was very rainy. For some reason he just took to barking at absolutely everything, me, Other Half, Molly (especailly Molly), the cats on the farm, the hares in the field and the dogs on the farm.
The dogs on the farm decided to come up to the front of the house and stand on the track and bark back which was quite funny to start with but then Molly joined in and we had two dogs standing on their back legs at the window barking at two more dogs through the window who were barking back. This could only go on for so long before one of the occupants of the house had a nervous breakdown.
Then the rain wouldn't stop so we were all stuck in the house together, especially as the river burst it's banks and ran over the end of the track so unless we were up for a quick (and it would have been very quick as the water was rushing by) swim there was nowhere to go anyway. Of course the dogs didn't realise this and were trying every trick in the book to get out which for Henry involved even more barking.
Eventually as the day went on the rain slowed and I decided to take the dogs to dog training club as they had the hall for Saturday evening instead of Thursday due to a mix up.
I did mean to go to the first class of the evening but due to everyone barking and jumping up and confusing everything I ended up being half an hour late so I decided to creep into the hall and watch the first hour and then join the second class. As I opened the door a perfect class was going on, no barking (bliss) and every dog was behaving perfectly, and of course because it was so quiet everyone looked as I went in.
Having been noticed I was given the job of going up to each dog to say hello and give them a treat, now I'm a real dog person and I felt all puffed up at being asked to do such an important job so off I went around the hall being all important.
Being a real dog person I didn't worry at all about the dogs, after all they were in dog training club and everyone knows everyone and all the dogs are getting socialised so I wasn't expecting to be snapped at by the first very cute fluffy white dog who was also incedentally rather small so I immediately over-reacted and jumped back half a hall length! This attempt over I moved on to the next dog, a very very lovely lurcher who I'd never seen before, she looked at me with adoring eyes, refused my treat and growled! This really wasn't good so I quickly moved round the rest of the dogs before being told to bring Molly and Henry in to join the class.
As I said, the class was lovely and controlled and quiet, until the three of us crashed through the door. Henry started barking straight away and Molly was very insistant at going up to the lovely lady who runs the classes as she knew she had a pocket full of treats. The peace was shattered for the rest of the evening.
After the first class ended the dogs for the second class started arriving. We normally go to the second class so all the dogs know each other and for 20 minutes or so the hall was full of dogs all going around saying hello to each other and bounding to the door to greet the latest arrival. As one owner said, we could remember when we had a full social lives of our own and Saturday night was the night to get dressed up and go out partying but now it's our dogs who have all the fun! Henry of course was the noisiest, barking and howling at everyone, running around the other dogs and sidling up to the owners as he knows they all have treats in their pockets.
Once everyone had settled down we had a great lesson, both Henry and Molly walked perfectly to heel, sat, stayed, stayed while I walked accross the room, did a recall and then a silent recall and looked completely well trained. Why is it that this happens in the hall with all the other dogs and then on walks at home they are like a couple of hooligans? I'm yet to get Henry to walk to heel on a walk.
Then we all went home after extracting Other Half from the pub and for once in the weekend both dogs laid on their beds and snored away, there is nothing better in life than to look upon dogs who are fast asleep and worn out, it's a sort of blissful thing that should be bottled.
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Up to Date
I think at long last this blog is now just about up to date. My intentions for it were to catalogue the antics of Henry and his co-conspiritor Molly about once a week or whenever I felt like it and having spent the last few months recalling the best part of the last year I think it's safe to say that we can now start from now.
It's October 9th and the biggest part of news I can give you is that Henry seems to be completely housetrained. It's been over four weeks since he had an kind of accident in the house and he has at long last worked out that if he comes up to the bedroom in the morning I will instantly get up and let him outside for a wee - I'm not sure how he worked this out but I'm very pleased he did.
We think the biggest part in this momentous turn of events was to cut out the dogs breaksfast. Because Henry was such a skinny thing when he arrived we had to give him several meals a day. Food is Henry's biggest hobby in life and we think it was actually his stomach waking him in the morning and not his bladder (or bowels) and that once awake his system would begin to do it's stuff.
By cutting out the breakfast his stomach didn't bother waking and withing three days Henry was sleeping in until 8.00am - amazing considering he'd never managed to stay asleep much past 6.00am for the last ten months.
It wasn't easy. I began by spending a week at my parents, house training being so much easier there as the dogs slept in the room with us. I absolutely refused to feed the dogs before 8.30am. Anyone who owns a dog knows that they will always try to bring their feeding times forward by an hour and then if you give in they start trying to bring it forward by another hour and so on and so on... but it was a good start, although hard not to give in to the two of them standing at the kitchen door looking sad and hungry and trying to grind me down.
We came home from Mum and Dad's and spent a week at home before going away again in our caravan, somewhere again where the dogs sleep in close proximity to us. It was during this week that I decided to just leave out breakfast altogether. It was hard as the dogs tried every trick in the book to get some but I gave them the equivalent amount off breakfast on top of their dinner so they got the same amount of food and bingo, three days later Henry has completely forgotten about getting up at the crack of dawn and weeing everywhere. Deep joy and alleyulah!
The final test for this came this week on Monday when we had to go out at 2pm and got very delayed in coming back which meant the dogs were left in the house for 7 hours - they are never usually left at all except for a couple of hours here and there so we really expected and would have excused any accidents. But on our return we were amazed to find that neither dog had done anything. Brilliant.
As for antics and mad behaviour, Henry did try to throw himself through a stock fence yesterday after a mad hare hid quite successfully and then decided to dart out at the last minute. Other Half said that Henry would actually mince himself through the wire in the efforts to run after the hare before realising that it hurt and I think he was right. It's a bit of a nightmare round here at the moment because every few meters or so there is a hare or a couple of pheasants hiding in the hedgerows, all ready to leap out at Henry and run away. Still, it all makes for an exciting walk and also improves the muscles in my arms brilliantly.
It's October 9th and the biggest part of news I can give you is that Henry seems to be completely housetrained. It's been over four weeks since he had an kind of accident in the house and he has at long last worked out that if he comes up to the bedroom in the morning I will instantly get up and let him outside for a wee - I'm not sure how he worked this out but I'm very pleased he did.
We think the biggest part in this momentous turn of events was to cut out the dogs breaksfast. Because Henry was such a skinny thing when he arrived we had to give him several meals a day. Food is Henry's biggest hobby in life and we think it was actually his stomach waking him in the morning and not his bladder (or bowels) and that once awake his system would begin to do it's stuff.
By cutting out the breakfast his stomach didn't bother waking and withing three days Henry was sleeping in until 8.00am - amazing considering he'd never managed to stay asleep much past 6.00am for the last ten months.
It wasn't easy. I began by spending a week at my parents, house training being so much easier there as the dogs slept in the room with us. I absolutely refused to feed the dogs before 8.30am. Anyone who owns a dog knows that they will always try to bring their feeding times forward by an hour and then if you give in they start trying to bring it forward by another hour and so on and so on... but it was a good start, although hard not to give in to the two of them standing at the kitchen door looking sad and hungry and trying to grind me down.
We came home from Mum and Dad's and spent a week at home before going away again in our caravan, somewhere again where the dogs sleep in close proximity to us. It was during this week that I decided to just leave out breakfast altogether. It was hard as the dogs tried every trick in the book to get some but I gave them the equivalent amount off breakfast on top of their dinner so they got the same amount of food and bingo, three days later Henry has completely forgotten about getting up at the crack of dawn and weeing everywhere. Deep joy and alleyulah!
The final test for this came this week on Monday when we had to go out at 2pm and got very delayed in coming back which meant the dogs were left in the house for 7 hours - they are never usually left at all except for a couple of hours here and there so we really expected and would have excused any accidents. But on our return we were amazed to find that neither dog had done anything. Brilliant.
As for antics and mad behaviour, Henry did try to throw himself through a stock fence yesterday after a mad hare hid quite successfully and then decided to dart out at the last minute. Other Half said that Henry would actually mince himself through the wire in the efforts to run after the hare before realising that it hurt and I think he was right. It's a bit of a nightmare round here at the moment because every few meters or so there is a hare or a couple of pheasants hiding in the hedgerows, all ready to leap out at Henry and run away. Still, it all makes for an exciting walk and also improves the muscles in my arms brilliantly.
Sunday, 5 October 2008
Summertime
Through the summer Henry's progress back to normal weight, health and energy was coming along brilliantly.
His coat was almost completely grown back in, there were no bald spots at all but the feathering (or what was left of it after his starvation) had all fallen out and wasn't showing signs of coming back. Certainly the fur on the back of his front legs and back legs was slightly longer than ther rest of his coat but when he arrived there were patches that were a good 3 inches but hey ho, I didn't care all I cared about was Henry being happy and healthy.
The house training was still a big issue though. He was fine if I was around but that was probably because I could let him out as and when he wanted and as it was warmer the back door was open most of the time so the dogs could wander in and out at will. He did have a habit of getting up early, (earlier than me at 6.00am) peeing and sometimes pooing in the living room and going back to bed. I was so stuck as to a solution that I honestly didn't know what to do. I'd count the non accident days as great days and would be full of hope that we'd turned a corner, only for us to go back ten steps a week or so later.
On a postitive note, Henry was behaving much better on the lead when he was out for walks, I'd still not let him off and when we first used to go walking he would be a complete nutter at the sight of a hare, rabbit, sheep, lamb or cow. He would jump up onto his hind legs and bounce along making a horrendous screaming, howling barking noise certain to bring himself to the attention of anyone within two miles. But as we saw all these animals every single day the novelty eventually wore off. We were still doing really long walks with our neighbour and I think Henry was running out of energy to take quite so much notice!
Most of the summer Henry and Molly spent their days lazing around in the garden in the sun, getting too hot and then coming to lay on the floor of my workshop until they cooled and then going back out into the sun again, a perfect summer for dogs really.
We were making a huge amount of progress with Henry and by virtue of the fact that the pace was slowing down meant that he was doing really well - if it wasn't for the house training problem I think he would be well and truly settled.
We would get there...
His coat was almost completely grown back in, there were no bald spots at all but the feathering (or what was left of it after his starvation) had all fallen out and wasn't showing signs of coming back. Certainly the fur on the back of his front legs and back legs was slightly longer than ther rest of his coat but when he arrived there were patches that were a good 3 inches but hey ho, I didn't care all I cared about was Henry being happy and healthy.
The house training was still a big issue though. He was fine if I was around but that was probably because I could let him out as and when he wanted and as it was warmer the back door was open most of the time so the dogs could wander in and out at will. He did have a habit of getting up early, (earlier than me at 6.00am) peeing and sometimes pooing in the living room and going back to bed. I was so stuck as to a solution that I honestly didn't know what to do. I'd count the non accident days as great days and would be full of hope that we'd turned a corner, only for us to go back ten steps a week or so later.
On a postitive note, Henry was behaving much better on the lead when he was out for walks, I'd still not let him off and when we first used to go walking he would be a complete nutter at the sight of a hare, rabbit, sheep, lamb or cow. He would jump up onto his hind legs and bounce along making a horrendous screaming, howling barking noise certain to bring himself to the attention of anyone within two miles. But as we saw all these animals every single day the novelty eventually wore off. We were still doing really long walks with our neighbour and I think Henry was running out of energy to take quite so much notice!
Most of the summer Henry and Molly spent their days lazing around in the garden in the sun, getting too hot and then coming to lay on the floor of my workshop until they cooled and then going back out into the sun again, a perfect summer for dogs really.
We were making a huge amount of progress with Henry and by virtue of the fact that the pace was slowing down meant that he was doing really well - if it wasn't for the house training problem I think he would be well and truly settled.
We would get there...
Thursday, 2 October 2008
Don't eat all your food at once
One day in May I was busy around the house. I'd been on the phone and doing all the usual house work type things that seem never to end.
The dogs were being well behaved, Molly lazying around and Henry was very quiet. In fact he was too quiet. This was usually not good news as it meant he was up to no good.
On further investigation I saw him in the yard sniffing about. He didn't seem to be doing anything wrong so I continued with what I was doing.
As I was washing up I looked out of the kitched window and realised he was still sniffing in the same area just outside the store where we keep the washing machine and dogs food etc. This was odd as it was unlike Henry to concentrate on the same thing for very long. Then I realised he seemed to be eating something, now this could mean anything so I decided to go out and investigate.
It took two steps across the yard for me to realised what Henry had been up to. He'd somehow broken into the store and got the sack of dog food down from above the washing machine. What I didn't realise straight away was that he had eaten about a weeks worth of food in one go. I had to measure what was left in the bag to work that one out and that was after I'd wrestled the bag from his jaws.
Well, I decided that no harm had been done and that Henry would just be rather full. Then after the vets had closed for the evening (I'm sure dogs do this on purpose) he started to swell up. Henry is a very skinny dog and now he looked like a skinny dog who had eaten a small football. He was obviously in a bit of discomfort so I decided I should consult the internet for advice.
The internet is never the best place for medical advice, you are either about the die in the next two days or there is absolutely nothing wrong with you and it appears the same for dogs too as the advice I found was that A)there was no need to worry or B) Henry would explode like a balloon full of half digested dog food.
Having had various contents of Henry's stomach all over the living room carpet on several occasions I rather wanted to avoid the second diagnosis so I looked further into what I should actually do. Thankfully there was one piece of very good advice and that was that if the dog has overeaten dry food then remove all access to water as it will make the food swell up inside the dog with the explosion more likely to happen.
Poor Henry was desperate for a drink and followed me around while I watered the plants in the garden, thinking back I realise this was a rather mean thing to do in the circumstances, he was that desperate for a drink that he took to trying to lick the peat in the tubs. Then I remembered that the toilet lid was up, for some bizzarre reason all my dogs have chosen to drink from the toilet and as I made my way to the bathroom Henry seemed to pre-empt me and rushed ahead shoving his head down the pan desperately drinking the water. It was really hard to try and drag him away from it as being a bendy dog he managed to wriggle free and go back to drinking the toilet water.
After the fight for the toilet which I won I then had a rather uncomfortable night of Henry trying to lay down but being so rotund from the amount of food inside him he couldn't actually lay on his side as he wobbled around like a weeble, (remember them?) so he would pace about trying to find a more comfortable position.
After an hour or so he made a bit of progress, he was sick, this was good as it got some of the food out of him so I was rather pleased with him, but then the daft dog decided to eat the sick before I could clear it up - why do dogs do that? The evening was then a routine of Henry being sick and me rushing to clear it awway before he could eat it, sometimes it was a physical struggle to get to the sick first. Something else which was mad and only a dog would do was Henry complained bitterly when he didn't get any dinner! Dogs!
By the morning though all was good, Henry looked much more sleek and less like a dog shaped football and it was clear that he had recovered from his overeating session which saved us from another visit to the vets.
He did demand his breakfast though.....
The dogs were being well behaved, Molly lazying around and Henry was very quiet. In fact he was too quiet. This was usually not good news as it meant he was up to no good.
On further investigation I saw him in the yard sniffing about. He didn't seem to be doing anything wrong so I continued with what I was doing.
As I was washing up I looked out of the kitched window and realised he was still sniffing in the same area just outside the store where we keep the washing machine and dogs food etc. This was odd as it was unlike Henry to concentrate on the same thing for very long. Then I realised he seemed to be eating something, now this could mean anything so I decided to go out and investigate.
It took two steps across the yard for me to realised what Henry had been up to. He'd somehow broken into the store and got the sack of dog food down from above the washing machine. What I didn't realise straight away was that he had eaten about a weeks worth of food in one go. I had to measure what was left in the bag to work that one out and that was after I'd wrestled the bag from his jaws.
Well, I decided that no harm had been done and that Henry would just be rather full. Then after the vets had closed for the evening (I'm sure dogs do this on purpose) he started to swell up. Henry is a very skinny dog and now he looked like a skinny dog who had eaten a small football. He was obviously in a bit of discomfort so I decided I should consult the internet for advice.
The internet is never the best place for medical advice, you are either about the die in the next two days or there is absolutely nothing wrong with you and it appears the same for dogs too as the advice I found was that A)there was no need to worry or B) Henry would explode like a balloon full of half digested dog food.
Having had various contents of Henry's stomach all over the living room carpet on several occasions I rather wanted to avoid the second diagnosis so I looked further into what I should actually do. Thankfully there was one piece of very good advice and that was that if the dog has overeaten dry food then remove all access to water as it will make the food swell up inside the dog with the explosion more likely to happen.
Poor Henry was desperate for a drink and followed me around while I watered the plants in the garden, thinking back I realise this was a rather mean thing to do in the circumstances, he was that desperate for a drink that he took to trying to lick the peat in the tubs. Then I remembered that the toilet lid was up, for some bizzarre reason all my dogs have chosen to drink from the toilet and as I made my way to the bathroom Henry seemed to pre-empt me and rushed ahead shoving his head down the pan desperately drinking the water. It was really hard to try and drag him away from it as being a bendy dog he managed to wriggle free and go back to drinking the toilet water.
After the fight for the toilet which I won I then had a rather uncomfortable night of Henry trying to lay down but being so rotund from the amount of food inside him he couldn't actually lay on his side as he wobbled around like a weeble, (remember them?) so he would pace about trying to find a more comfortable position.
After an hour or so he made a bit of progress, he was sick, this was good as it got some of the food out of him so I was rather pleased with him, but then the daft dog decided to eat the sick before I could clear it up - why do dogs do that? The evening was then a routine of Henry being sick and me rushing to clear it awway before he could eat it, sometimes it was a physical struggle to get to the sick first. Something else which was mad and only a dog would do was Henry complained bitterly when he didn't get any dinner! Dogs!
By the morning though all was good, Henry looked much more sleek and less like a dog shaped football and it was clear that he had recovered from his overeating session which saved us from another visit to the vets.
He did demand his breakfast though.....
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Living in hope of house training
After we returned from Mum and Dads I was full of hope with the house training problems we'd been having with Henry.
Other Half clearly didn't beleive that there had been no accidents having caught me out on several occasions when I'd tried to pretend that Henry had been doing better than he had.
On our return though Henry got back into his usual routine. Waking before us, wandering around and weeing somewhere downstairs. So I got back into my own routine of waking before Henry, getting him up and putting him outside so early that he probably did it all in his sleep, I know I was barely awake. For a few days it seemed that no matter what time I got up Henry had woken before me and left a message for my descent downstairs. It was truly doing my head in, I'd now started to wake at 4.30 am to pre-empt Henry's bladder and it was taking it's toll on my sanity.
In desperation I spoke to the loveley ladies at Greyhounds Galore. Just talking to someone made me feel better, Other Half was getting less and less patient with Henry and I could see his point but on one or two occasions it was mentioned that the dog had to go if he didn't make a significant improvement. This caused rather a large argument every time which probably didn't help the situation as a whole.
The lovely lady at Greyhounds Galore gave me some good hints and tips and was just generally so nice that I felt re-charged and ready to resume the battle of the bladder once again.
So it was back to the big routine. I'd not stopped the routine but I confess I had slipped. I think it was really more down to being worn out and exhausted. I was waking at 4.30am, sometimes going back to bed and sometimes doing some work. I was then waking to let Henry out at 6.00 am and again at 7.30 and again at 8.30am and despite all that Henry was still weeing in the house. I also couldnt go to bed until at the earliest 10.30 pm as if I went too early Henry would pee within an hour of my sleeping. I was truly exhausted, grumpy and at the end of my tether, over the last four years I'd cared for two ageing dogs one after the other who had me up during the night and really stressed me just by being old and frail and after thinking it was all over I was finding it to be even harder with this new dog. I dont think being tired was helping.
Somehow after my talk I felt a bit energised and decdided to take a harder line. I would get up at 6.00am and no earlier, and stick to the routine that I'd earlier devised. I realised that Henry had manipulated me into doing what he wanted and it had to stop before I lost the plot.
I also invested a huge amount of money on anti pee spray and mega impressive anti pee smell spray. Both worked, for two days.
However, I started taking the dogs on longer and longer walks with our neighbour. Both of us had managed to slow down and put on weight and generally get unfit so we stepped up our daily walk to 8 miles a day. Henry and Molly of course took it in their strides but they also became much calmer around the house. I noticed an almost immediate change in Henry and he became allot better with the house training, maybe we had turned a corner.....
A few months after this I am writing this having spent the last three and a half weeks with absolutely no accidents whatsoever. Hopefully we are finally there and Henry has finally got the idea that weeing in the house is not good. Other Half seems to have come around to him after a long period of dislike due to the peeing and life seems to be going fine - long may it continue, especially as the Vax machine is broken, probably due to overuse.
Other Half clearly didn't beleive that there had been no accidents having caught me out on several occasions when I'd tried to pretend that Henry had been doing better than he had.
On our return though Henry got back into his usual routine. Waking before us, wandering around and weeing somewhere downstairs. So I got back into my own routine of waking before Henry, getting him up and putting him outside so early that he probably did it all in his sleep, I know I was barely awake. For a few days it seemed that no matter what time I got up Henry had woken before me and left a message for my descent downstairs. It was truly doing my head in, I'd now started to wake at 4.30 am to pre-empt Henry's bladder and it was taking it's toll on my sanity.
In desperation I spoke to the loveley ladies at Greyhounds Galore. Just talking to someone made me feel better, Other Half was getting less and less patient with Henry and I could see his point but on one or two occasions it was mentioned that the dog had to go if he didn't make a significant improvement. This caused rather a large argument every time which probably didn't help the situation as a whole.
The lovely lady at Greyhounds Galore gave me some good hints and tips and was just generally so nice that I felt re-charged and ready to resume the battle of the bladder once again.
So it was back to the big routine. I'd not stopped the routine but I confess I had slipped. I think it was really more down to being worn out and exhausted. I was waking at 4.30am, sometimes going back to bed and sometimes doing some work. I was then waking to let Henry out at 6.00 am and again at 7.30 and again at 8.30am and despite all that Henry was still weeing in the house. I also couldnt go to bed until at the earliest 10.30 pm as if I went too early Henry would pee within an hour of my sleeping. I was truly exhausted, grumpy and at the end of my tether, over the last four years I'd cared for two ageing dogs one after the other who had me up during the night and really stressed me just by being old and frail and after thinking it was all over I was finding it to be even harder with this new dog. I dont think being tired was helping.
Somehow after my talk I felt a bit energised and decdided to take a harder line. I would get up at 6.00am and no earlier, and stick to the routine that I'd earlier devised. I realised that Henry had manipulated me into doing what he wanted and it had to stop before I lost the plot.
I also invested a huge amount of money on anti pee spray and mega impressive anti pee smell spray. Both worked, for two days.
However, I started taking the dogs on longer and longer walks with our neighbour. Both of us had managed to slow down and put on weight and generally get unfit so we stepped up our daily walk to 8 miles a day. Henry and Molly of course took it in their strides but they also became much calmer around the house. I noticed an almost immediate change in Henry and he became allot better with the house training, maybe we had turned a corner.....
A few months after this I am writing this having spent the last three and a half weeks with absolutely no accidents whatsoever. Hopefully we are finally there and Henry has finally got the idea that weeing in the house is not good. Other Half seems to have come around to him after a long period of dislike due to the peeing and life seems to be going fine - long may it continue, especially as the Vax machine is broken, probably due to overuse.
False Teeth and Tomatoes
During our stay at Mum and Dads both dogs had a great time. They had the run of the house and garden and my Mum is a real softy, giving them lots of treats and titbits which both dogs soon cottoned on to.
Henry's house training, or rather lack of it was a big worry though. I really didn't want him weeing in my parents house so I decided that the dogs would sleep in my bedroom with me. On the first night, every available floorspace in our room that wasn't covered by either furniture or dog beds was covered with big thick decorating dust sheets, just in case.
On the first night Henry got me up at 4.30am to go out for a wee. Amazing. Although it was 4.30am that was of small importance to the fact that he had actually woken me up to go out and by the end of the visit we had managed to get this wakening time to 7.30 am oh yee haa!
Also during the visit Henry didn't have one single accident, not one. Amazing. So what was so good about my parents house that wasn't in our house, I wracked my brains and came up with a big zero.
Of course food came into the picture again, this time we found out how much Henry likes salad. Whilst preparing a salad he would jump up and steal things from the work surface every time my Mum turned her back. He took a tomato here, a radish there, a couple of boiled eggs and then a whole cucumber disappeared. Mum luckily saw the funny side but ended up having to prepare food high up on top of the grill to the cooker - luckily Mum is very tall.
Then one night not long after we had gone to bed I realised I'd left the bedroom door adjar and that Henry had slunk out of the room. This was instantly followed by the realisation that there was some sort of kerrfuffle going on around the house.
I could hear Henry and also my Mum moving about and I got up to discover that Henry was running about the house with my Mum's false teeth in his mouth! Every time my Mum got near him he would spring away with the teeth parts of the false teeth on the outside of his mouth making the whole thing even more comical. It took the two of us to catch him which made it all the funnier.
The next day Henry came proudly boucing into the kitchen from the garden with a half eaten cucumber that had obviously been buried and dug up, thank goodness he didn't manage to get outside with the teeth otherwise we'd have been digging up the garden in the middle of the night to try and find them...
Henry's house training, or rather lack of it was a big worry though. I really didn't want him weeing in my parents house so I decided that the dogs would sleep in my bedroom with me. On the first night, every available floorspace in our room that wasn't covered by either furniture or dog beds was covered with big thick decorating dust sheets, just in case.
On the first night Henry got me up at 4.30am to go out for a wee. Amazing. Although it was 4.30am that was of small importance to the fact that he had actually woken me up to go out and by the end of the visit we had managed to get this wakening time to 7.30 am oh yee haa!
Also during the visit Henry didn't have one single accident, not one. Amazing. So what was so good about my parents house that wasn't in our house, I wracked my brains and came up with a big zero.
Of course food came into the picture again, this time we found out how much Henry likes salad. Whilst preparing a salad he would jump up and steal things from the work surface every time my Mum turned her back. He took a tomato here, a radish there, a couple of boiled eggs and then a whole cucumber disappeared. Mum luckily saw the funny side but ended up having to prepare food high up on top of the grill to the cooker - luckily Mum is very tall.
Then one night not long after we had gone to bed I realised I'd left the bedroom door adjar and that Henry had slunk out of the room. This was instantly followed by the realisation that there was some sort of kerrfuffle going on around the house.
I could hear Henry and also my Mum moving about and I got up to discover that Henry was running about the house with my Mum's false teeth in his mouth! Every time my Mum got near him he would spring away with the teeth parts of the false teeth on the outside of his mouth making the whole thing even more comical. It took the two of us to catch him which made it all the funnier.
The next day Henry came proudly boucing into the kitchen from the garden with a half eaten cucumber that had obviously been buried and dug up, thank goodness he didn't manage to get outside with the teeth otherwise we'd have been digging up the garden in the middle of the night to try and find them...
Holidays
During March we had to go to a wedding in Surrey. This meant finding a kennel to look after Henry and Molly so after much asking around we finally found a lovely lady called Heather who runs a kennels, cattery and also rescues animals that need a home.
It was the first time Henry and Molly had been in the kennels and I was rather worried that they would be ok but Heather assured me that everything would be ok and after I finished all the paperwork we went out to the car to fetch the dogs. Once back in the kennel compound Heather took both the dogs leads and off they went without so much as a glance back at me.
So much for my worrying, both dogs were fine and actually I think they rather liked it in the kennels as they both seemed more interested in Heather than in me when I went to pick them up. So that was one big thing off the doggie owning list, a good reliable kennel where the dogs were happy.
A few weeks later I decided to go and visit my parents in Kent. I almost always drive down as I'm often quite bad at eaking out another couple of extra days in the sunshine down there. Our neighbours sister lives in London so she came along for the ride which was good company and also a great help with the dogs on the way down.
During the afternoon before while I was packing both dogs and especially Henry were looking rather unsettled, I suppose they knew something was afoot. In order to take my attention away from packing and then going away the dogs started bouncing about the house so I let them into the garden where they embarked on some mad running. It was quite funny as they were bombing about the garden like mad things barking and springing about. But then Henry took it a bit too far and ran right into Molly while barking loudly. Molly immediately took offence and snapped back at him which resulted in a loud yelp from Henry.
Henry came straight over to me like a small child about to tell you that the bog boy did it and I noticed that he had a cut on his side. On further investigation I found that it was quite a big tear and that the skin had been pulled away from his ribs, ouch!
What was more of an ouch was that I was going to Kent in 12 hours and now I had a dog with a hole in his side. My first thought were to try a bit of first aid myself. I'd been back and forth to the vets with Henry on a regular basis and I was getting a bit embaressed by it. I had a think about how I'd fix it if it was me and then realised that I'd need some of those butterfly plaster things. My brother used to work for a ship and aircraft company and he specialised in servicing the first aid and rescue equipment so we are more than prepared for a major disaster but not if it needed butterfly plasters.
After searching through two marine and one rather cool Japanese aircraft first aid pod, getting a vast amount of iodine all over my hands and becoming rather afraid of the sissors and tweezers for more serious events I gave up on the first aid kits. I did briefly consider sticking Henry together with super-glue but having tried to do this once on myself I decided against it as the risk of getting bitten was quite high on that one.
So it was off to the vets once again. The vet was as usual really nice, and Henry seemed as pleased as ever to be in there, he must be the only dog in the world to actually wag his tail and pull on the lead to get into the vets.
In his excitement Henry refused to keep still while the vet clippered the area of the tear in his side, resulting in a much bigger and quite wonky area of shaved fur, which in turn made the whole thing look much worse. The vet then got out the dreaded staple gun. This is something to make your eyes water but it is a very efficient way of fixing cuts and tears but it is rather painfull and after the third staple Henry did a big slump and gave up, it was really sad to see him just give in to the pain but two staples later and it was all over.
The vet told me to keep Henry from bouncing. Hmmmmm, not much chance of that! We also had to put one of those big white lampshades on him which we already had at home so off we went with a stapled dog to resume packing.
Once home I tried the lamp shade on Henry but it just wouldn't stay on his head. He seemed completely adept at removing it the moment I turned away so I gave up. He didn't seem too interested in the staples so hopefully they would remain unchewed.
Wrong. The phone rang, and after about five minutes I noticed Henry licking himself out of the corner of my eye and didn't think any more about it until I finished my conversation and found that he had expertly removed one of the five staples. Problem.
The problem was solved, this time by a large winter dog coat, probably two dog sizes too big for him but it fitted right over the stapled area in his side and prevented Henry from getting at the wound. Genious.
The next morning we set off with our neighbour to Kent. The dogs were really pleased at coming with us, I think they thought they were being left behind or something. The only thing I couldn't do was get Henry to wee before we set off,I'm not sure if it was wearing the big red dog coat or not but I really didn't want him weeing in the car....
After a couple of hours Molly started to fidget so we stopped for some lunch and to let the dogs out, again Henry refused to wee, this was not good, normally on a drive to Kent I'd only stop once if at all so I knew if Henry didn't wee now I'd have to stop again and the more stops the more chance we'd get of getting caught up on the M25 during rush hour.
A couple of hours further south we stopped once more and still no wees from Henry, I was begining to get some rather funny looks from people as it was quite a warm day and Henry was still wearing his huge red coat. Molly was an angel, performing almost on command and being really well behaved in the car.
We'd arranged to drop our neighbour at Stanstead so she could get the shuttle from there into London and once more I attempted to get Henry to wee. And once more he refused. This is the dog that won't go a day without having an accident in the house yet he was travelling almost the length of Britain without a single drop leaving his bladder.
We finally arrived at Mum and Dads at 5.30pm and he finally wee'ed in their garden after being there for nearly half an hour, amazing!
Molly had been to visit Mum and Dad before and it wasn't long before she had settled right into everything but Henry had never been anywhere with me to visit before so after ten minutes he started to bounce, he bounced around the house, bounced around the garden and bounced on the walk we went on before dinner to try and tire him out. Luckily Mum and Dad are great dog people so they are very tolerant of mad dogs like Henry but somehow I don't think they expected quite so much bounce!
It was the first time Henry and Molly had been in the kennels and I was rather worried that they would be ok but Heather assured me that everything would be ok and after I finished all the paperwork we went out to the car to fetch the dogs. Once back in the kennel compound Heather took both the dogs leads and off they went without so much as a glance back at me.
So much for my worrying, both dogs were fine and actually I think they rather liked it in the kennels as they both seemed more interested in Heather than in me when I went to pick them up. So that was one big thing off the doggie owning list, a good reliable kennel where the dogs were happy.
A few weeks later I decided to go and visit my parents in Kent. I almost always drive down as I'm often quite bad at eaking out another couple of extra days in the sunshine down there. Our neighbours sister lives in London so she came along for the ride which was good company and also a great help with the dogs on the way down.
During the afternoon before while I was packing both dogs and especially Henry were looking rather unsettled, I suppose they knew something was afoot. In order to take my attention away from packing and then going away the dogs started bouncing about the house so I let them into the garden where they embarked on some mad running. It was quite funny as they were bombing about the garden like mad things barking and springing about. But then Henry took it a bit too far and ran right into Molly while barking loudly. Molly immediately took offence and snapped back at him which resulted in a loud yelp from Henry.
Henry came straight over to me like a small child about to tell you that the bog boy did it and I noticed that he had a cut on his side. On further investigation I found that it was quite a big tear and that the skin had been pulled away from his ribs, ouch!
What was more of an ouch was that I was going to Kent in 12 hours and now I had a dog with a hole in his side. My first thought were to try a bit of first aid myself. I'd been back and forth to the vets with Henry on a regular basis and I was getting a bit embaressed by it. I had a think about how I'd fix it if it was me and then realised that I'd need some of those butterfly plaster things. My brother used to work for a ship and aircraft company and he specialised in servicing the first aid and rescue equipment so we are more than prepared for a major disaster but not if it needed butterfly plasters.
After searching through two marine and one rather cool Japanese aircraft first aid pod, getting a vast amount of iodine all over my hands and becoming rather afraid of the sissors and tweezers for more serious events I gave up on the first aid kits. I did briefly consider sticking Henry together with super-glue but having tried to do this once on myself I decided against it as the risk of getting bitten was quite high on that one.
So it was off to the vets once again. The vet was as usual really nice, and Henry seemed as pleased as ever to be in there, he must be the only dog in the world to actually wag his tail and pull on the lead to get into the vets.
In his excitement Henry refused to keep still while the vet clippered the area of the tear in his side, resulting in a much bigger and quite wonky area of shaved fur, which in turn made the whole thing look much worse. The vet then got out the dreaded staple gun. This is something to make your eyes water but it is a very efficient way of fixing cuts and tears but it is rather painfull and after the third staple Henry did a big slump and gave up, it was really sad to see him just give in to the pain but two staples later and it was all over.
The vet told me to keep Henry from bouncing. Hmmmmm, not much chance of that! We also had to put one of those big white lampshades on him which we already had at home so off we went with a stapled dog to resume packing.
Once home I tried the lamp shade on Henry but it just wouldn't stay on his head. He seemed completely adept at removing it the moment I turned away so I gave up. He didn't seem too interested in the staples so hopefully they would remain unchewed.
Wrong. The phone rang, and after about five minutes I noticed Henry licking himself out of the corner of my eye and didn't think any more about it until I finished my conversation and found that he had expertly removed one of the five staples. Problem.
The problem was solved, this time by a large winter dog coat, probably two dog sizes too big for him but it fitted right over the stapled area in his side and prevented Henry from getting at the wound. Genious.
The next morning we set off with our neighbour to Kent. The dogs were really pleased at coming with us, I think they thought they were being left behind or something. The only thing I couldn't do was get Henry to wee before we set off,I'm not sure if it was wearing the big red dog coat or not but I really didn't want him weeing in the car....
After a couple of hours Molly started to fidget so we stopped for some lunch and to let the dogs out, again Henry refused to wee, this was not good, normally on a drive to Kent I'd only stop once if at all so I knew if Henry didn't wee now I'd have to stop again and the more stops the more chance we'd get of getting caught up on the M25 during rush hour.
A couple of hours further south we stopped once more and still no wees from Henry, I was begining to get some rather funny looks from people as it was quite a warm day and Henry was still wearing his huge red coat. Molly was an angel, performing almost on command and being really well behaved in the car.
We'd arranged to drop our neighbour at Stanstead so she could get the shuttle from there into London and once more I attempted to get Henry to wee. And once more he refused. This is the dog that won't go a day without having an accident in the house yet he was travelling almost the length of Britain without a single drop leaving his bladder.
We finally arrived at Mum and Dads at 5.30pm and he finally wee'ed in their garden after being there for nearly half an hour, amazing!
Molly had been to visit Mum and Dad before and it wasn't long before she had settled right into everything but Henry had never been anywhere with me to visit before so after ten minutes he started to bounce, he bounced around the house, bounced around the garden and bounced on the walk we went on before dinner to try and tire him out. Luckily Mum and Dad are great dog people so they are very tolerant of mad dogs like Henry but somehow I don't think they expected quite so much bounce!
Pot-pourri is not food
Around late January early February Henry was settling in well. We still had major issues with the house training but apart from that he was improving every day. He was doing incredibly well at dog training and amazingly for me I was keeping it up at home too so he was turning into the best behaved dog I'd ever owned. He was also sleeping through the night but I was still having to get up at the crack of dawn to beat his bladder to the back door every morning.
The one thing Henry was still mad about was food. He was still slightly underweight and his main interest in life was finding anything that was vaguely edible, this included any type of vegetable (cooked or uncooked), anything run over and long dead on the road, raiding the compost heap and also the kitchen bin.
One thing we weren't banking on was that Henry would go on a night time scavange hunt into areas of the house that even we had forgotten about. This resulted in him managing to squeeze into the six inch wide gap that ran along the back of the sofa to retreive some long lost, non smelly (to us) pot-pourri that I'd temporarily placed there when we moved in after failing to find a home for it and promptly forgotten about.
Apparently to Henry this was a great find, it was various colours of orange and brown with some sprayed gold bits and made up of very exotic dried fruits and seed pods. It was really quite nice to look at and very decorative and most definately not edible.
So Henry ate it. Not quite all of it but about three quarters of a dinner plate full.
I was awoken by him wimpering at the bottom of the stairs followed by the unmistakeable sound of retching. I wasn't too worried, dogs are sick all the time and it seems mostly for no reason so I was instantly shocked to seem several orange patches of sick all over the living room carpet and even a couple up the cream coloured sofas. This was projectile sick in doggie form and it wasn't good.
I let Henry out into the garden and started to clean up the sick. It wasn't cleaning up very well, the sick was coming up (excuse the pun) but the orange dye wasn't. I had orange blobs all over the living room and to make matters worse Henry came in from the garden and was promptly sick once again on the carpet.
I decided the best thing was to not feed Henry for a day and let the pot-pourri work it's way through his system so I dug out one of the big dust sheets to protect what was left of the carpet and kept an eye on him.
He was fine for the rest of the day, rather listless but still interested in food which I saw as a good sign but as the evening wore on he seemed to get more and more ill. It was by now too late to call the vet so I decided to sleep on the sofa downstairs with him until it was time for the vet to open.
By the next morning poor Henry looked very sorry for himself, he was looking very skinny and downtrodden and the vet decided to take him in and keep him at the surgery. He ended up staying for three days. This was a very good lesson in getting your dog insured and I felt releived that that was one of the first things I did when I got Henry.
On the fourth day Henry came home. It looked as though all the weight he'd put on since I'd got him had been lost and we once again had a skinny ribby dog who despite everything he'd managed to put himself through was still bouncing! And eating.....
The one thing Henry was still mad about was food. He was still slightly underweight and his main interest in life was finding anything that was vaguely edible, this included any type of vegetable (cooked or uncooked), anything run over and long dead on the road, raiding the compost heap and also the kitchen bin.
One thing we weren't banking on was that Henry would go on a night time scavange hunt into areas of the house that even we had forgotten about. This resulted in him managing to squeeze into the six inch wide gap that ran along the back of the sofa to retreive some long lost, non smelly (to us) pot-pourri that I'd temporarily placed there when we moved in after failing to find a home for it and promptly forgotten about.
Apparently to Henry this was a great find, it was various colours of orange and brown with some sprayed gold bits and made up of very exotic dried fruits and seed pods. It was really quite nice to look at and very decorative and most definately not edible.
So Henry ate it. Not quite all of it but about three quarters of a dinner plate full.
I was awoken by him wimpering at the bottom of the stairs followed by the unmistakeable sound of retching. I wasn't too worried, dogs are sick all the time and it seems mostly for no reason so I was instantly shocked to seem several orange patches of sick all over the living room carpet and even a couple up the cream coloured sofas. This was projectile sick in doggie form and it wasn't good.
I let Henry out into the garden and started to clean up the sick. It wasn't cleaning up very well, the sick was coming up (excuse the pun) but the orange dye wasn't. I had orange blobs all over the living room and to make matters worse Henry came in from the garden and was promptly sick once again on the carpet.
I decided the best thing was to not feed Henry for a day and let the pot-pourri work it's way through his system so I dug out one of the big dust sheets to protect what was left of the carpet and kept an eye on him.
He was fine for the rest of the day, rather listless but still interested in food which I saw as a good sign but as the evening wore on he seemed to get more and more ill. It was by now too late to call the vet so I decided to sleep on the sofa downstairs with him until it was time for the vet to open.
By the next morning poor Henry looked very sorry for himself, he was looking very skinny and downtrodden and the vet decided to take him in and keep him at the surgery. He ended up staying for three days. This was a very good lesson in getting your dog insured and I felt releived that that was one of the first things I did when I got Henry.
On the fourth day Henry came home. It looked as though all the weight he'd put on since I'd got him had been lost and we once again had a skinny ribby dog who despite everything he'd managed to put himself through was still bouncing! And eating.....
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