wash 'n go

Rivers and open spaces are heaven to a dog.



(Mum here: never realised I had such a weird voice when talking to Mojo. Ho hum)

Strange walk, this one. On the way out, we saw virtually no-one. Oh, apart from one big black labrador who came out of nowhere, wrestled me to the ground, peed up a tussock of grass then ran off again into the distance. Kind of like an alien visitation.




On the way back, though, it was like someone had flicked a switch and all the humans had come to life. I guess they had all finished their Sunday roast and thought they had better walk the dogs before it got dark. It became a pooch party. So many dogs! Big, small, hairy, smooth, young, old. We'd form temporary packs then move off in different directions, then form a new pack somewhere else. My favourite was a young retriever girl called Truffle. Even her name nearly rhymes with wrestle!

So anyway, my advice is this: if you want a great run around with loads of other dogs, go to Uffculme on a winter Sunday for about 3.30pm.

6 legs 2 wheels

Last week a whole new adventure was revealed to me: bicycles.

I've seen loads, of course, as I live right on the canal and the towpath doubles up as a cycleroute as well. This time things got more fun for me. Mum dusted off her Brompton, a folding bike. It took me about five seconds to realise that life was going to be fun.

She looks pretty silly perched on this thing with little wheels, but boy is it a laugh. We now get much further up the towpath than we ever did by walking. I run for miles! A lot of the time she goes real slow to make me just trot along, but I get impatient and overtake. Once I'm in front I'm a nightmare, though, as I stop really suddenly and she nearly parks the wheel in my furry butt. My butt is not a cycle rack.

I'm getting the hang of heeling to the bike, sort of. I get level or stay just behind, put my ears back and go steadily with a happy look on my face. I think it brings out my instinct for running with the pack.

At times she puts me on the extendable lead to stop me running amok as we pass through the village. Then I try and pull her off the bike without warning. And I did once swap bikers and head off into the distance with a strange man.

Anyway, here's a vid. It's a silent movie to spare you the shrieks from Mum of "don't bite the lenscap","look out" and "hurry up" . She couldn't operate the brakes with one hand on the camera.

How fine is my butt?

finally...

Finally we have video. Mum installed a firewire card in her computer this morning so at last we can get video off the camera. She didn't blow the house up so she must have done it right.

Both these videos were shot in the gloom so they are not exactly high quality, but they make us laugh.

The first one is me larking around like a silly idiot with a piece of rawhide chew.



I nearly poleaxed Mum with this chew a few minutes later - I flung it hard and it smacked her right in the forehead. Now THAT would have been a good video! Since then, I've been told to cool it in case I break the tv or a light or something.

The second one is... er, how shall I put this nicely... of a windy day. The idea was to show how I can bark on command, but I started to bark at the other end too. I am not entirely thrilled to be embarrassed in this way on the internet.



I got the last laugh, though, because as Mum was editing this I sneaked into her office and dropped another one. She thought she was hallucinating with her nose. Smell-o-vision.