Our weekend away

Well, I was right.  The suitcases were a sign that Mum and Dad were going somewhere.  They went to somewhere called The Wedding and it  had something to do with the other humans in our family, Mark and Eliza.
Anyway, Mum took us to stay with Miss Angela at Kennel.  We tried to look scared and shivery but it didn't work.  She took us anyway......and we had a great time. 
It was a hot weekend and Miss Angela knows how dogs think.  She put the swimming pools out and we were allowed to play in the water and roll around in it as much as we liked.  There were two other dogs there, boy dogs, and I usually have issues with boy dogs but, since water was involved, I made allowances.  We had a ball.  We raced around berserkly, according to Miss Angela, chasing each other, jumping in and out of the water and created the best mud puddle ever.
After that Miss Angela put us all into the big washing area and let us play under the sprinkler to rinse the mud off.  It was wonderful and there was no soap involved. 
Then we had to wait for dinner because Miss Angela says you can't have dinner when you are 'overstimulated'.  This I do not agree with.  It was almost 5.30 which is when dinner is supposed to be served (well known fact).  Heidi said we should bark so I did.  Then the boy dogs started to bark and then Miss Angela spoke in a loud voice and told us we were being naughty.  Stupid boy dogs!!
We didn't have dinner until 6 o'clock!!!  Almost starved to death!
We only stayed for 2 nights and then Mum came to pick us up.  Now everything is back to normal.  Dinner is served at the right time but we don't have any swimming pools at home.  Must discuss this with Mum.  Hmmm.

Something's going on.

Something is going on in our house.  There are suitcases in the hallway.  This usually means that Mum and Dad are going somewhere.  These suitcases are only little ones though so they are not going to HIgh Seas this time.  The last time Mum pulled suitcases out of the closet they were the big, big ones and they were gone for a long time because they went to the High Seas (wherever that is???). 

If our Mum is going away somewhere, what is going to happen to us?
Sometimes we stay at home and someone comes to dog sit us.  Usually it is one of the other humans in our family....the ones that don't live with us all the time.  That is okay.  We soon have them under control and doing things the way we like them done.

Sometimes we go away too.....to stay with Miss Angela at a place called Kennels.  This is okay, I suppose.  There are usually other dogs staying there too so I can do lots of barking and playing.  Heidi and I have a 'family unit' at Kennels so that we can be together because Heidi is a sooky-nana. 
Heidi is a creature of habit, according to Mum, and when things are different she sulks.

Little suitcases probably mean whatever is going to happen won't be for long.  Hmmmm.  I wonder if I could hide the suitcases???

This time it wasn't me.

Somebody broke the screen door!!   I know you are thinking it must have been me but it wasn't.  In fact I was way over on the other side of the house at the time.  I heard the big crash and I came running in to see what had happened.  Heidi was hiding (of course) behind a chair in the lounge and the screen door was lying down on the patio.  Mum went out to have a look at it and then she came back in and said, 'Ho Ho, what did you do?'  in her stern voice.  Heidi didn't hang around to give an answer. She shot off to hide in her nest behind the palm trees.
She is still out there hiding but I think she will probably come in for dinner time.  Maybe then she will tell me how she did it.....break the door, that is.  

Mum can't fix it so she is not very happy.  Maybe Dad will know what to do.  But the most important thing is.....IT WASN'T ME.   I am the good dog this time. 

Too hot

It is too hot for a woolly dog.  I have tried lying on the tiles.  I have tried lying on the grass.  I have tried lying on my back with my belly open to the breeze should one pass by but I am still hot. 
On Wednesday we are going to visit Miss Anna who takes care of all our beauty needs.  She will wash us and clip us and, even though I will look like a Skinny Minny for a while, I will feel a lot better and the heat will not bother me as much. 
We have a lovely time at Miss Anna's.  There is a waiting couch for the dog who is not been groomed to lie on in comfort and sometimes there is another dog there to talk to.  Heidi enjoys going to Miss Anna too but not the ear plucking.  Heidi has very hairy ears and the wool grows right down inside.  Miss Anna has to pull it out or Heidi will get super wax build up and that is not good.
The only bad thing about Miss Anna's place is the pussycat who sits on the other side of the glass door and pokes his tongue out at us.  How rude!  Cats!  Who needs 'em?

Big Wags

Big tail wags to our friend, Bonnie, aka The Dog on Wheels, who had a good report from her doctor today.

Keep up the good work, Bonnie.  I bet that put a smile on your Mum's face.

Wags
Troods and HoHo

Mice are not toys.

Mice are tiny little things that run around outside and try to steal the seeds from Birdie's bowl.  They can walk up the walls and jump across from the wall to Birdie's cage.  Birdie doesn't like sharing her seeds with them and whenever one comes into her cage she squeaks really loudly for Heidi and me to come. 
It is not easy to get a mouse out of Birdie's cage but Heidi and I have devised a system that usually works a treat.
I jump as high as I can (which is really, really high!!!!) and bump the cage with my head.  This makes it swing about madly and the mouse gets a fright and will usually jump out and onto the wall.  Then I keep jumping and make a lot of noise.  This makes the mouse jump down and run across the patio. Heidi can then catch it.
Well, usually, she catches it.  I caught one once with my paw but that was an accident.
Sometimes the mouse is too clever and runs along the top of the wall and won't come down.  We call this cheating.  It totally ruins the game. 
When Heidi catches the mouse, she walks around with it in her mouth.  She doesn't bite it, just carries it.....with the tail hanging out of her mouth because, if you carry it the other way around, the tail tickles your throat and makes you cough. 
One time Heidi brought the mouse inside to show Mummy. When she put it down on the carpet, the mouse ran around the lounge room and we had to catch it all over again. So usually, Heidi just carries it around for a while and then, eventually, just spits it out and it runs away.
Sometimes Mummy comes out and says, 'Put that down!  Mice are not toys!' 
Humans!  They think they know everything but, really, they have no idea.  Mice are great fun.

Bro-Mill-EE-Adds

Bro-mill-ee-adds are things Mummy has outside on the patio in big tubs.  She is strangely fond of them and spends time giving them water to drink and pulling out little weeds that pop up in the tubs.  Some of these bro-mill-ee-adds grow big red or yellow spikes and some of them just have teeny little flowers. 
What makes them interesting to me is that they just sort of sit in the tubs and are not buried in the soil like the others things in the garden.  This makes them easy to pick up and carry around....although they are a bit scratchy on the tongue.  Heidi and I play chasing games with them and toss them around the yard.  It's great fun!!
When we are finished, we just leave the  bro-mill-e-adds on the grass for Mum to find and put back in the tubs.  She doesn't seem to like doing this but, every time we play our game, she goes out and puts them back anyway.

Last year she tried hanging the bro-mill-ee-add tubs up on the fence but I figured out that if I stood up very tall and jumped, I could reach them. So she took them all down again and put the tubs back on the patio.
It has, however, become evident to Heidi and me that our time on that side of the garden is rarely unsupervised.  This has severely impacted on our fun and games with the bro-mill-ee-adds.
As I have previously stated, humans do not understand how to have fun like dogs do.

Complete with built-in clock

My sister, Heidi, can tell the time.  She knows when it is time to wake Mum up in the morning so she can give us our rawhide chews.....ten past eight.  She knows when it is time for dinner.....half past five....and she knows when it is time for treats before bed.....nine o'clock.  I don't know how she does it but she is always right.
One minute she will be asleep on the bean bag and the next she will be sitting in front of Mum, paws flawlessly arranged, cute look in place, requesting that food be served forthwith.  Mum tries to ignore that cute look, especially in the morning when she doesn't want to get out of bed.  Sometimes Heidi has to combine the cute look with a few well- timed gentle punches. 

Mum says Heidi has a built-in clock.  She does have a scar on her tummy....maybe that is where they put the clock in. 

Snow in November

Today Mum did something really strange.  She was feeding papers to a little machine that chewed them up into long strips.  Then she put all the strips of paper into a big black plastic and tied the top up.  While Mum was putting her little machine away in the study, Heidi and I inspected the big, black bag.  Heidi said that it would look like a beanbag if it was lying down on its side.  So I pushed it over.
Then Heidi said that it really did look like a beanbag and she started to climb onto it but it made funny scrunching noises.  Heidi doesn't like funny noises because she is a scaredy cat so I decided to sort that black bag out once and for all.  Scrunchy noises don't worry me. 
The plan was to take a run up and jump on top of the big, black bag and make a comfortable nest out of it.
Well, the plan worked even better than I had expected.  I took a bit of a run up and jumped and landed on the big black bag and.......it exploded!!!  There was a lovely shower of long paper strips which then settled into a huge pile in the middle of the lounge-room.  Heidi and I could hardly believe it.  It was wonderful!!!  Heidi ate some of the strips (a fact not discovered until sometime later) and we had a bit of a wrestle in all the paper.  I was just enjoying a roll in the pile when Mum came back.  Heidi must have heard Mum coming because she had run off outside (This happens quite a lot, I have noticed.) leaving me to explain to Mum how the lounge-room came to be under a snow storm of paper strips.
And guess what?  Mum just laughed at me and told me I was a galoot...whatever that it.