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.

little nippers

How does that song go again? "Never smile at a crocodile.."

These are some of my baby teeth. The premolar (left) and incisor (right) were never the real problem. It was those lovely canines of mine that caused the most woe. They may not look sharp when the camera gets close-up, but they punctured plenty of skin in their day.

My classic move, which started at about 8 weeks and went on until... well... last week was to suddenly launch myself at my parents' face and grab them by the nose. This move had two essential components - surprise, and hooking a canine into their nostril. The idea was to have them clutching their nose wondering if they now had an extra-large nostril.

I got put off this game by a young collie-cross at my puppy class who grabbed me by the nose REAL HARD. I think I learned a little perspective after that. My parents joke they should have just bitten me sooner.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a real sweetie most of the time. Honestly!

pupgirl faces

This is my bored face


This is my sleeping face


This is my 'sorrow for sausages' face, so called because I pull the miserable pup routine if I think it'll get me sausage treats.


And this is my cutie pupgirl face.

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!