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?

To the birthday boy

Happy first birthday to my handsome friend, Mitch. Wish I could be there to properly snuffle your ear and chase you round the garden.

Mum here: She's got such a crush on him. I had the camera in my hand, said Mitch's name and this was the expression she pulled. And yes, the rose was added later - if I gave her a real one it would be an ex-rose very quickly.

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.

Hairy monsters

Some bright spark said that Airedales don't shed. After yesterday I need to set the record straight.

You see, Dad had a potential client come to see him, and most unusually they decided to drop in on him at home. This meant that Mum had a lot of tidying up to do. As the day wore on, it became more and more apparent that I have haired this house good and proper.

Maybe I don't shed that much, but I need grooming, and that means fur escaping. Mum has been hand-stripping my coat so hair has got into her clothes, which have gone in the washing machine, which has distributed them evenly over all the rest of the clothes.

As you probably know, Airedales have a double coat - a wiry top layer and a soft fine undercoat. Well, the undercoat hairs lie flat on clothing and cling as effectively as cat hairs. Mum swears they are magnetic. The wire hairs have gone a step further, and poked themselves into the fabric where they are anchored firmly and won't let go. Hair shirt anyone? Do you know how itchy a hair bra is? All this time I thought Mum had fleas, but it's just me sabotaging her underwear.

She was cleaning the bathroom and realised everything was completely furred up. It seems that every time they shower me I have a good shake afterwards - hey presto - the bathroom is 100% hairy.

Let's just pass over the fact that the living room carpet has all these marks on it from when I have rawhide chews and smear soggy goob on the floor. Special soggy goob - this stuff dries as hard as the original hide chew. We'll ignore the bitey damage to the wooden frame of the futon sofa. And turn a blind eye to the frayed corners of the living room carpet - I don't mean to rip it up all the time, it's just that I have a strong instinct to dig a bed.

The client meeting was held over a tablecloth of beautifully-ironed, pale-green linen patterned with black wire fur. Dad wore a nice dark shirt patterned with undercoat fluff. I was taken out for a five mile walk, but came back just in time to interrupt the meeting. It has to be said that I was soaked - it was raining buckets out there yesterday - so I got the sympathy vote before being hustled out to the conservatory.

I don't think it fair that I was not allowed near the client. I only wanted to ensure he was hairy too by the time he left!

Hairy angels

Some angels are hairy.


I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.


The last few days have been great. First up, Ferndoggle of Jackman Avenue nominated me for Post of the Month at Dogs With Blogs! It's a pretty amazing feeling when someone else finds the stuff you write fun. I mean, I enjoy myself hugely, but I don't expect others to! Aroooo! Big Aire-kisses to Ferndoggle! Actually, its great seeing who else is nominated - there's some hilarious takes on existence which you really ought to check out. I've voted for Stanley's post about Stella, because the pic of her in full-on hyper intense mode followed by the pic of Stan looking pained is the funniest thing I have seen in a long time.

Then, the lovely Molly and Taffy have honoured me with this award:


which is just so fantastic! They describe it as:

This award is presented to a successful blogger, one who can "be the blog" - making it their own, staying with it, interacting with the readers, and just plain having fun.

I've only been blogging for a few months, and sometimes I post too much and then I post too little, then I get behind with everyone else's blogs. But I love being part of this community and I'm so happy that Molly and Taffy enjoy my barkfests. So many thanks and hairy hugs to M & T!

I'm going to pass this award on to two others, because I love 'em both. First up are Noah and his sissies all the way over there in Australia. I feel like dropping in and hanging out with them every time I read their posts because they are such a cool bunch. Pity they live 10,000 miles away. Plus, there's that uncanny ability to photograph all four Dales sitting at the same time. I mean, getting one to sit is tough - but four? I keep going back to this post for another peek because it makes me laugh so much.

And the other dog I'd like to award is Sophie. Great photos, succinct writing style and bloomin' hilarious! She gets me snorting with laughter on a regular basis whilst veering from the sacred to the profane. That's Sophie!

Want to know what the best part of the last few days has been?

It was this morning, when I woke up and was let out of my crate to discover a huge dead mouse in the middle of the living room floor. I think one of the cats secretly loves me. Arf!

Autumn in Ashclyst Forest

I'm loving autumn.

Especially this kind of fun:

But I got a bit spooked when I met this tree:

EarthShots

Mum here...



I love the images that come up on this site. They have a widget that supplies a thumbnail of their Photo of the Day which I have added to Mojo's sidebar. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Dales, but these photos are so beautiful they brighten my day. And I thought you might like to share them too.

Check out the sidebar for a peek. Of course, those of you using an RSS feed won't see them unless you come directly to Mojo's blog.

cheerio

Mojo's mum.