I'm sorry I've not posted for a while, I've been working (even on Christmas Day) and so it's been a very busy, in fact busier than normal for busy at this time of year.
So here is Christmas, Henry's second with us, also Molly's second Christmas with us and Badgers first ever Christmas with anyone. At the begining of the week it hit me that I had an enormous amount of stuff to do before the big day. I always put myself under an immense amount of stress, trying to get the house impeccably clean, perfect and decorated as well as trying to get the garden nice and enough supplies and food in to last at least until March.
And it always goes wrong.
Or if not wrong then I usually have to give up on trying to get something done. This year for instance I wanted to finish plastering the front hall. It's still not finished and looks dreadfull as half of it is plastered and the other half is bad homemade artex with pink plaster adhesive all over it, looking like a very bad 90's paint effect. I;m sure no-one has noticed, although the guests we have coming this week for New Year may well notice it as I started it in November just before they last visited us.
Due to having so much to do I decided to double up on some tasks, walking the dogs is always a big chunk out of the day so I decided on Monday to out them in the boot of the car and walk them on the way to the the supermarket where I was going to do my food shopping. The supermarket is a 72 mile round trip away so the long journey would also help to tire them out and it worked a treat. We walked round the grounds of local castle where I decided that they should have a couple of herds of deer like in Knole in Kent, anyway the dogs really loved it, pulling me this way and that and lots of general excitement. They then snoozed in the car to Tescos and again on the way back.
As this plan worked well I decided to do the same on Tuesday as I needed to go out to buy coal and logs and also to replace a couple of Christmas presents that had been chewed by Badger. How he managed to get them was a mystery until I caught him climbing up on top of the dog food bin, from there on to the rubbish bin, from there onto the window sill and then on to the kitchen worktop. He is 13 weeks old and already learning Leaphound tricks!
Off we went round the castle again, then on to the saw mill which was closed Oh no!! Luckily they sell bags of logs in the Spar (can you beleive that!) so Christmas with a log fire was saved in the nick of time. I also managed to get the presents locally and then we went off to get the coal which had to go in the middle of my car as the dogs were in the boot. The only problem with that was that it left the small gaps in the dog guard exposed when I folded the seat down and that meant that Badger shot out through it and straight into the arms of the coal man who really loved him. We put him back in the boot only for him to crawl through five minutes later and sit on top of the sack of coal for the rest of the journey.
Then suddenly Christmas was here. It always creeps up on me like that after weeks of planning (and doing very little about the plans) and days of running around like a nutter. You'd think after all these years of having Christmas we'd be experts at it and be able to organise it without a second thought (or any thoughts at all) after all August Bank Holiday is a breeze, and even family holidays away are easy compared to this.
Saturday, 27 December 2008
Wednesday, 17 December 2008
Canine Chaos
Well the tree chaos has not stopped. Or should I say canine chaos. I got in from work quite late last night and let the dogs out last thing for a wee. Two hours later they wanted to go out again. Then two hours after that they wanted to go out yet again. This sometimes happens when there is a fox or deer lurking around so I decided to ignore them and go back to sleep.
Bad move.
In fact very bad move as when Other Half got up he found three piles of diorreah and two wees downstairs.
It was Henry. We decided to try him on Bakers food. He'd had it a few months ago and he got quite bad trots but we thought it could be because he had been starved and his system wasn't used to it so we put him on Eukanuba and that suited him fine, but not our bank balance as it's nearly £40 a sack. So we tried Bakers again which is far cheaper and more readily available but what a price to pay!
So I had to go out today and buy more of the expensive stuff for Henry, while Molly is still on the Bakers which she loves and Badger is on puppy food, doggie diets in this house are getting more complicated by the day.
When I got back it looked like the dogs had been having a party in the living room. Badger had managed to sneak a plant pot full of peat into the house and had thrown the peat all over the carpet. He'd also been chewing on a bauble from the tree which left a red stain on the carpet and also pink stains up his front legs so now he is a tri-colour collie of the red, white and black variety.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Badger had also been in at the coal bucket, adding grey to his white bits. Very strangely he eats coal, Henry does the same from time to time so I can only imagine that there must be something in it like a mineral or something that is good for dogs? Who knows? What I do know is that it leaves very black and difficult to remove marks on the carpet.
All the dogs had been running about and jumping on the sofas making the whole place look completely dishevelled, I'd only been gone a couple of hours and it would take me the rest of the day to sort it out! So I spent the afternoon vaxing the carpet and cleaning away peat and coal and then after all that I went to work for a rest!
Bad move.
In fact very bad move as when Other Half got up he found three piles of diorreah and two wees downstairs.
It was Henry. We decided to try him on Bakers food. He'd had it a few months ago and he got quite bad trots but we thought it could be because he had been starved and his system wasn't used to it so we put him on Eukanuba and that suited him fine, but not our bank balance as it's nearly £40 a sack. So we tried Bakers again which is far cheaper and more readily available but what a price to pay!
So I had to go out today and buy more of the expensive stuff for Henry, while Molly is still on the Bakers which she loves and Badger is on puppy food, doggie diets in this house are getting more complicated by the day.
When I got back it looked like the dogs had been having a party in the living room. Badger had managed to sneak a plant pot full of peat into the house and had thrown the peat all over the carpet. He'd also been chewing on a bauble from the tree which left a red stain on the carpet and also pink stains up his front legs so now he is a tri-colour collie of the red, white and black variety.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Badger had also been in at the coal bucket, adding grey to his white bits. Very strangely he eats coal, Henry does the same from time to time so I can only imagine that there must be something in it like a mineral or something that is good for dogs? Who knows? What I do know is that it leaves very black and difficult to remove marks on the carpet.
All the dogs had been running about and jumping on the sofas making the whole place look completely dishevelled, I'd only been gone a couple of hours and it would take me the rest of the day to sort it out! So I spent the afternoon vaxing the carpet and cleaning away peat and coal and then after all that I went to work for a rest!
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
Christmas Tree
Oh dear. We finallt have the tree up for Christmas after hours of moving furniture about and trying to work out how best to fit eveything in the living room without it looking like an exlposion in a junk shop.
Other Half came up with a very good idea which was to leave the tree undecorated for a day or so, so that Badger would hopefully not be too tempted to try and climb up it or worse, knock it over. So we duly did this and decorated it on Sunday, along with a few other things about the room. All dogs ignored the tree, brilliant we thought. We went to bed and still all dogs ignored the tree (well actually Badger sleeps in the kitchen to minimise any mischeif he can get himself into during the night). Monday morning came and again, all dogs ingnored the tree.
Until today.
I have had to rescue five baubles from the tree out of dogs mouths. Some are beyond repair, others have begun to make a different display along the mantlepiece where I can arrange them so that the chewed bits are to the wall and can't be seen.
It's like a treat tree now, the dogs just seem to wander past it, pluck a bauble they fancy off the tree and chew it. Where will it all end?
Luckily Other Half is working and probably wont notice the additions to the mantlepiece decorations but what's particularly annoying is they have chewed the decoration I made in England with my Mum while my Dad was in hospital getting a new knee. I spent ages pinning sequins into a model egg and tying it with ribbon which made a gorgeous sparkly bauble only for me to find it five minutes ago on the hearth rug, with most of the sequins expertly removed and layed all around it.
No dog will own up to having done the deed, all look as guilty and innocent as each other - but all know that I am mighty p***d off with them for this.
I will spend the rest of the afternoon in the living room writing cards and guarding the Christmas tree until I go to work. Hmmmppphhhh!
Other Half came up with a very good idea which was to leave the tree undecorated for a day or so, so that Badger would hopefully not be too tempted to try and climb up it or worse, knock it over. So we duly did this and decorated it on Sunday, along with a few other things about the room. All dogs ignored the tree, brilliant we thought. We went to bed and still all dogs ignored the tree (well actually Badger sleeps in the kitchen to minimise any mischeif he can get himself into during the night). Monday morning came and again, all dogs ingnored the tree.
Until today.
I have had to rescue five baubles from the tree out of dogs mouths. Some are beyond repair, others have begun to make a different display along the mantlepiece where I can arrange them so that the chewed bits are to the wall and can't be seen.
It's like a treat tree now, the dogs just seem to wander past it, pluck a bauble they fancy off the tree and chew it. Where will it all end?
Luckily Other Half is working and probably wont notice the additions to the mantlepiece decorations but what's particularly annoying is they have chewed the decoration I made in England with my Mum while my Dad was in hospital getting a new knee. I spent ages pinning sequins into a model egg and tying it with ribbon which made a gorgeous sparkly bauble only for me to find it five minutes ago on the hearth rug, with most of the sequins expertly removed and layed all around it.
No dog will own up to having done the deed, all look as guilty and innocent as each other - but all know that I am mighty p***d off with them for this.
I will spend the rest of the afternoon in the living room writing cards and guarding the Christmas tree until I go to work. Hmmmppphhhh!
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Good Boy Henry
Being a Saluki cross, Henry is not to be expected to be super well behaved. Fergus (also a Saluki cross) was typical of the breed, very aloof and only ever did what he wanted, even if he layed down when you told him to, he was actually going to lay down at that moment anyway.. Ferg would also spend allot of time upstairs on his own, even when visitors came he would say hello and give them a sniff, check out any luggage they might have (you never know if they had food) and then shoot up the stairs to lounge about one of the bedrooms.
Henry is much more sociable. He's never gone to lay in another room away from me, apart from at night when he sleeps in the living room and that took serious tenacity to acheive. He's also really affectionate, liking to cuddle up on the sofa with you, managing to get all four legs across your lap and his head buried in your stomach. He's very different from Fergus who the closest he really came to that was to lay down the side of the armchair.
The biggest problem with Ferg was recall. He just refused to come back. Sometimes it was like he was just having a laugh with you. In the early days I tried. I took a bar of chocolate on walks with me .I know, I know, you shouldn't feed dogs chocolate but it was the one thing that Ferg would do just about anything for, except come back. He did come back for the first bit of chocolate, then for the second he snatched it so fast I didn't even see it go and by the third he was two fields away and ignoring me. After a year of panics, thinking he would never be seen again I gave up and bought a long extending lead and got 13 years of stress about people leaving doors and gates open.
Consequently I have become paranoid about Henry. All in all he is much more responsive than Ferg. He comes back in the garden every time (Fergus would just look or simply move an ear and ignore me). He even came back the couple of times he escaped, but I just haven't got the bottle to let him off the lead.
So imagine my suprise when the day after we had the log burner installed I realised that the garden gate had been left open and for one night and a day Henry had been at liberty to run abuot on the track and yet he didn't run away, never to be seen again!
I still can't pluck up the courage to actually let him off yet but I do feel much more positive about it. Well done Henry my boy!
Henry is much more sociable. He's never gone to lay in another room away from me, apart from at night when he sleeps in the living room and that took serious tenacity to acheive. He's also really affectionate, liking to cuddle up on the sofa with you, managing to get all four legs across your lap and his head buried in your stomach. He's very different from Fergus who the closest he really came to that was to lay down the side of the armchair.
The biggest problem with Ferg was recall. He just refused to come back. Sometimes it was like he was just having a laugh with you. In the early days I tried. I took a bar of chocolate on walks with me .I know, I know, you shouldn't feed dogs chocolate but it was the one thing that Ferg would do just about anything for, except come back. He did come back for the first bit of chocolate, then for the second he snatched it so fast I didn't even see it go and by the third he was two fields away and ignoring me. After a year of panics, thinking he would never be seen again I gave up and bought a long extending lead and got 13 years of stress about people leaving doors and gates open.
Consequently I have become paranoid about Henry. All in all he is much more responsive than Ferg. He comes back in the garden every time (Fergus would just look or simply move an ear and ignore me). He even came back the couple of times he escaped, but I just haven't got the bottle to let him off the lead.
So imagine my suprise when the day after we had the log burner installed I realised that the garden gate had been left open and for one night and a day Henry had been at liberty to run abuot on the track and yet he didn't run away, never to be seen again!
I still can't pluck up the courage to actually let him off yet but I do feel much more positive about it. Well done Henry my boy!
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Christmas Time
This time last year Henry had only just arrived and I was somewhat worried about putting up the Christmas tree as I had a feeling he was just the sort of dog to try and climb up it with the obvious disasterous results.
Amazingly Henry took to having a tree in the living room really well, unlike Fergus he didn't pee up it (a trick Ferg learned to do without ever getting caught in the act in 14 years), nor did he steal any of the decorations from it.
The tree did fall over, but that was because it was too heavy on one side and Henry was no-where near it at the time, even though he looked incredibly guilty about it!
So now it's that time of year again and just when I thought we were out of the woods (scuse the pun) as far as dog worries were concerned, we are back to square one as we now have Badger. Badger is currently into everything. When I say everything I mean that nothing is unturned by his curiosity.
It's sometimes very maddening.
This week Henry taught Badger how to jump accross from the arm of the sofa onto the living room window sill. This is a skill that Henry taught himself and which we tried very hard to stop but to no avail. And now we have two dogs doing it. Badger has also learned not only to go up the stairs but also back down. This means that he can go up there, chew my shoes (the ones I need for work are his favourites of course), drag the clean laundry about the floor, chew anything paper and generally cause havoc and of course it was Henry who taught him to go up the stairs.
Anyway I digress, today we had a suprise delivery. It was from the people who own the forest along the track and they very kindly gave us a Christmas tree. When I found out I couldn't stop smiling, I love Christmas trees and now we have one. I'll just have to get a stand for it, preferably a Badger proof stand, that won't fall over.
I just hope that being a real tree, Henry won't feel the need to pee on it...
Amazingly Henry took to having a tree in the living room really well, unlike Fergus he didn't pee up it (a trick Ferg learned to do without ever getting caught in the act in 14 years), nor did he steal any of the decorations from it.
The tree did fall over, but that was because it was too heavy on one side and Henry was no-where near it at the time, even though he looked incredibly guilty about it!
So now it's that time of year again and just when I thought we were out of the woods (scuse the pun) as far as dog worries were concerned, we are back to square one as we now have Badger. Badger is currently into everything. When I say everything I mean that nothing is unturned by his curiosity.
It's sometimes very maddening.
This week Henry taught Badger how to jump accross from the arm of the sofa onto the living room window sill. This is a skill that Henry taught himself and which we tried very hard to stop but to no avail. And now we have two dogs doing it. Badger has also learned not only to go up the stairs but also back down. This means that he can go up there, chew my shoes (the ones I need for work are his favourites of course), drag the clean laundry about the floor, chew anything paper and generally cause havoc and of course it was Henry who taught him to go up the stairs.
Anyway I digress, today we had a suprise delivery. It was from the people who own the forest along the track and they very kindly gave us a Christmas tree. When I found out I couldn't stop smiling, I love Christmas trees and now we have one. I'll just have to get a stand for it, preferably a Badger proof stand, that won't fall over.
I just hope that being a real tree, Henry won't feel the need to pee on it...
Friday, 5 December 2008
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
I forgot to say that we had a log burning stove installed! It's fab, really really great and has made our house a home. It's so good to see smoke coming out of the chimney and the sound of the crackling fire is just so nice.
We took bets on which dog would discover this source of heat first. Bearing in mind he was rather bald this time last year and an expert in seeking out warm radiators, Henry worked it out before the other two. He has taken to lazing in front of the fire, stretching out in pure luxury, turning over when it gets too hot to even out the warming of his lovely new fur coat.
It's also lovely when he gets up and climbs up onto the sofa with me all warm like a big leggy skinny furry hot water bottle.
Molly hasn't bothered with the fire at all and Badger seems to dislike the heat, if he spends too much time snoozing in the living room he starts to pant and goes off to lay in the kitchen on the floor - he's from outside dogs and his coat is really think and warm so he really dosen't seem to like the heat.
So the log burner is a hit with just about everyone in the house but there are one or two wee problems, caused of cause by the dogs, the have decided that it's great to have an ever changing supply of logs to chew, this is ok except they leave lots of little bits of wood about the place. They have also decided that they like to eat coal! Very odd indeed and certainly not good for the living room carpet!
We took bets on which dog would discover this source of heat first. Bearing in mind he was rather bald this time last year and an expert in seeking out warm radiators, Henry worked it out before the other two. He has taken to lazing in front of the fire, stretching out in pure luxury, turning over when it gets too hot to even out the warming of his lovely new fur coat.
It's also lovely when he gets up and climbs up onto the sofa with me all warm like a big leggy skinny furry hot water bottle.
Molly hasn't bothered with the fire at all and Badger seems to dislike the heat, if he spends too much time snoozing in the living room he starts to pant and goes off to lay in the kitchen on the floor - he's from outside dogs and his coat is really think and warm so he really dosen't seem to like the heat.
So the log burner is a hit with just about everyone in the house but there are one or two wee problems, caused of cause by the dogs, the have decided that it's great to have an ever changing supply of logs to chew, this is ok except they leave lots of little bits of wood about the place. They have also decided that they like to eat coal! Very odd indeed and certainly not good for the living room carpet!
Puppy Power
Goodness it's been a while since I posted. I'll blame Other Half for bringing a puppy into our previously relaxed household.
Since I last posted the snow has come with avengance, it's brilliant and the dogs love it too. All of them keep going outside and eating it as well as running around in it and rolling about. Molly for some strange reason keeps sitting in it which must be odd as she has rather thin fur on her back legs.
Henry won't stop barking whenever he goes out, this then gets the dogs in the farm yard to bark which in turn echoes around the hills and the dogs in the next farm along also start barking.There is a cottage in the other direction about half a mile away and the dogs there have started to bark to. I wonder how far this chain of barking goes? Maybe down to Cornwall and up to Durness? I'm sure Henry knows this and does it on purpose.
Indoors, it's been the usual chaos, caused mostly by the presence of Badger. He can't be left alone for two minutes without chewing something or generally getting himself into trouble. His favourite item to chew is any electric cable. This is not good and it doesen't matter how many times I tell him off he goes back to it as soon as he thinks you've forgotted about it. He;'s also chewed almost every pair of shoes and boots belonging to Other Half, removing the insoles and biting up the laces, my wellies which is completely banned, a corner of the sofa, the kitchen table leg and horror of horrors he chewed a small hole in the living room carpet, systematically removing the fibres one by one while I was sitting next to him. When I realised I couldn't beleive it, I honestly thought he was chewing a toy or something.
Molly and Henry have also calmed down their play fighting with him. It used to be constant, all day every day, getting rougher and rougher and noisier and noisier. I think maybe my yelling at them at regular intervals may have had something to do with the better behaviour.....
So life is settling down a bit, not much but it's getting better, but three dogs is still very hard work.....
Since I last posted the snow has come with avengance, it's brilliant and the dogs love it too. All of them keep going outside and eating it as well as running around in it and rolling about. Molly for some strange reason keeps sitting in it which must be odd as she has rather thin fur on her back legs.
Henry won't stop barking whenever he goes out, this then gets the dogs in the farm yard to bark which in turn echoes around the hills and the dogs in the next farm along also start barking.There is a cottage in the other direction about half a mile away and the dogs there have started to bark to. I wonder how far this chain of barking goes? Maybe down to Cornwall and up to Durness? I'm sure Henry knows this and does it on purpose.
Indoors, it's been the usual chaos, caused mostly by the presence of Badger. He can't be left alone for two minutes without chewing something or generally getting himself into trouble. His favourite item to chew is any electric cable. This is not good and it doesen't matter how many times I tell him off he goes back to it as soon as he thinks you've forgotted about it. He;'s also chewed almost every pair of shoes and boots belonging to Other Half, removing the insoles and biting up the laces, my wellies which is completely banned, a corner of the sofa, the kitchen table leg and horror of horrors he chewed a small hole in the living room carpet, systematically removing the fibres one by one while I was sitting next to him. When I realised I couldn't beleive it, I honestly thought he was chewing a toy or something.
Molly and Henry have also calmed down their play fighting with him. It used to be constant, all day every day, getting rougher and rougher and noisier and noisier. I think maybe my yelling at them at regular intervals may have had something to do with the better behaviour.....
So life is settling down a bit, not much but it's getting better, but three dogs is still very hard work.....
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