Four

Another blog post to bring my Juneathon effort up to date.

Yesterday, some of the girls at work agreed to do one of these 30 day challenges that seem so prevalent on Facebook at the moment. One of them was me, and I went home clutching a print out of the instructions for the 30 day ab and squat challenge.

Which in all the kerfuffle surrounding dog bathing etc, I completely forgot about until I got into the office this morning to hear two of my friends talking about how they got on.  Oops.

So this evening I did double bubble, and did day one AND day two of the challenge, which involves sit ups, crunches and squats.  The whole affair was made much more fun by Murdoch leaping on me several times as I attempted to do the sit ups and crunches, forcing me to fart at him during the squats in an effort to make him go away.  Didn't work.

But that, as well as the usual dog walking, was my effort for Wednesday 4th June.

Life on the edge

I've been living life on the edge recently, let me tell you.  For a start, I've been playing fast and loose with my marathon training plan.  Five runs a week? Bah.  I'll give you one run in two weeks and you'll like it.  

Why, just this morning I went for a torch-lit walk through the deep dark woods with one lady and a pack of animals for company.  And later today I displayed a flagrant disregard for the onset of a potentially fatal cold and headed up to London of all places, if you can even believe that!  My goodness, where on earth will it all end.  I've come to no harm though, which is more than I can say for my poor sister, who yesterday had the temerity to pick up a vase, ended up in A&E for three hours and came away with her hand stitched together. Terrible business.

In other exciting news, we had a family photo session at the beginning of January and we got to see the results online today.  There are some brilliant pictures in there.  One picture of just me and Murdoch is fabulous and then there's one of me and my sister, which I think is just beautiful.  We haven't decided which ones we're going to buy yet, but I think that those two are definitely winners! I won't post the picture of my sister as she may not want her face splashed all over this nonsense, but here is the one of me and my boy.

Woof!

Such Glorious Weather!

I'm sure we're all feeling very patriotic with the Jubilee weekend now in sight, and what could be more British than a good old fashioned chat about the weather?  Hasn't it been wonderful?  It makes such a difference to walk Murdoch in the sunshine rather than trudging through the drizzle.  The fields are changing yet again as we start to see neat little rows of corn starting to sprout up.  It's funny to think that before we know it, those plants will be as high as an elephant's eye!

Sunny Sunday morning

Murdoch knows how to keep cool - hippo style!

It is important to keep an eye on your dog in this kind of weather though - I only walk Murdoch first thing in the morning and then later in the evening to avoid him from overheating and blowing a gasket! Also to remind everyone that leaving your dog in the car isn't very clever, check out why here (thanks to @Puppy_Views for that information).  I have to say that I was shocked at how quickly the temperature rose.

My beautiful Katty McMurray print

I didn't appreciate the weather quite so much in Brighton on Saturday (I'm so ungrateful!).  I had found a print that I wanted to buy and the artist had given me the option of her sending it to me, or me coming to collect it from the gallery in Brighton.  Given that the postage for a framed print was comparable to cost of a rail ticket, I thought I'd treat myself to a day out on the coast and so arranged to collect from the gallery.  In the meantime, the sun came out and as a result, the world and their wife were in Brighton on Saturday.  I don't blame them in the slightest, Brighton is beautiful in the sunshine and I could have happily spent all day wandering about if it weren't for the huge crowds.  But I tend to get a little claustrophobic in the heat, so I didn't spend the entire day there, instead opting to head home early afternoon.  But I now have my lovely print - just need to pop a nail in the wall to hang it on.

I hope you've all been out and about enjoying the weather as much as we have.

This One's Mostly Filler

I haven't blogged since September.  I've been really struggling with knowing what to write.  I'm going to put some considerable effort into this and in the meantime, please see below one from the Facebook archives from 2007......

Confession time. I have, for the past 2.5 years allowed the hound to sleep in my bed. And I do mean IN the bed, he snuggles under the covers and makes himself comfortable whilst I endeavour to pull off some contortionist moves in order to gain some bed space. I'm not sure how this happens - I do have a king size bed, but he somehow throws himself across the very centre of the bed and makes it his own.

Last night I decided it was time to reclaim my territory - who pays the bloody bills? That would be me then, and surely earns me the right to make myself comfortable in my own bed.

10.30pm - bed time. I move M's bed (soft and squooshy) into my room and make him lie on it. Turn out the lights. 

10.30pm + 5 seconds - first attempt from hound to gain access to my bed. A bold frontal attack jumping on my stomach. Oof. Dog is returned to his bed.

10.31pm - as above

10.32pm as above 

10.35pm - dog attempts first stealth attack - quietly and casually strolling to the end of the bed and gently pulling himself up onto the bed and hiding at the end. It actually took me a moment to realise that he was there. Heart swelled with pride at him being so clever before I realised that he was making me look stupid. Dog is removed from my bed into his.

11pm - M starts to cry gently in his bed. Manipulative little beggar. My heart melts, but then I steel myself for the job in hand. Dog stomps out of bedroom in a huff and I drift off to sleep.

1am - Wake up as am a little bit too warm. Why? Because the sneaky little chap waited till I was asleep, crawled under the duvet and made himself comfy. Dog is roused and thrown off onto his own bed.

3am - ditto 

5am ditto - persistent little fella ain't he? As a sidebar, he really is very stealthy. If the Americans had had him in 'nam then things may have worked very differently.

More of the same tonight I'm sure - am very tired today from all the waking up in the night - but need to stick with it - just need to prove that I am more stubborn than the hound. I fear that he may be made of stronger stuff than me though - I'll probably be sleeping in his bed by the end of the week.

The Curious Incident of the Dog under the Duvet

From the archives.  I used to write Facebook notes about some of the mutt's more comedic exploits.  This one is from June 2007........

More dog related happenings this week.

On Wednesday the idiotic creature hurled himself forward so hard on his rope (whilst tied to a tree in the garden) that he has lost his voice. As I write this his bark is starting to come back a bit but it's been a quiet couple of days.

Then yesterday, he was rolling around under the duvet (this pastime seems to be the height of fun for him, giving rise to all manor of happy growly noises). I lent over to lift the duvet off him, but unfortunately he chose that moment to rear up from under the duvet and nutted me. Seriously it hurt so much that I cried a little bit.

I now have a small egg shaped lump on my forehead and look like a Klingon warrior. Nice.

A dog's understanding of trousers

Murdoch understands trousers. Now I don't mean to suggest that he is some kind of fashion guru or anything silly like that. He's not lying in his bed weighing up the relative merits of bootleg jeans (good) against harem pants (bad) and wondering whether a pair of high waisted slacks really is the best option for a long, slim silhouette (like a little furry Gok Wan). I just mean that Murdoch understands trousers insofar as they relate to his own life.  Specifically, he knows that if I put on a pair of trousers it means that I am leaving the flat at some point in the near future.  

As a result he has learned to recognise the sound of me putting some on.  So when I get up at stupid o'clock in the morning to walk Murdoch, he remains curled up in his bed, all comfy and snug until the exact moment that I pull my walking trousers up over my knees.  At which point he comes hurtling into my bedroom to see what's going on. From then on my morning becomes dedicated to the avoidance of an excited dog dancing around my ankles, looking up at me with a hopeful expression on his face.  "Are you going out?  Are you going walking? Can I come? CAN I COME?!?!".  

I'm sure you understand why I leave it till the very last minute to put them on before going for a walk.  Otherwise he'd combust with the excitement of it all before we even got to the front door.

Isn't he a clever boy?  I wonder if other pets have similar abilities......

Going to the dogs

Murdoch has been engaging in some pyschological warfare recently.  He has various weapons in his armoury, including 2am vomiting (he sleeps in the other room - how does he manage to wake me up with it??!?!?), a dry cough that culminates in a noise that sounds like a cat coughing up a giant furball and waking me up at 5am (at the weekend!!!!) by standing beside my bed and staring at me.  As you can see, a couple of his ploys involve interrupting my sleep.  I think he knows that I'm shit if I don't get enough shut-eye and he thinks he can use this to his advantage.  Good luck with that my little furry nemesis.

However this week his weapon of choice has changed.  As if it's not stressful enough having a dog named Murdoch at the moment ("Did you name him after Rupert?" "No I effing didn't - who would do that?!") this week he has decided to worry me half to death by deliberately running through vegetation that he is allergic to until his entire head puffs up in hives. I've had to buy jumbo packs of Piriton to keep him from combusting.  I'm serious, his right eye swelled up so much last night he could hardly see out of it and he gets all sad and floppy with it too, wanting to come and sit next to me and lean against my leg.  Poor little guy.  See, my heart is melting - damn dog is playing me for a fool!

Well not tonight he's not - he's got a sleepover at the Dog House while I glam up and go to our corporate summer party this evening.  I had an accidental dress buying incident yesterday lunchtime which I have since managed to justify in my head (it was in the sale etc etc,) and I'm ready for some fun times tonight, although I do need to be a little bit sensible and get on the last train home.  If anyone sees me staggering drunk at Waterloo later tonight, can they gently pop me onto a train and hang a sign saying Farncombe around my neck?

Tough Choices

Yesterday I got off the train at Farncombe, jumped straight in the car and headed off to pick up Murdoch as usual. Unfortunately I was unable to collect him, as the A3 was shut due to an earlier accident (which I think may have been fatal - gutted for everyone involved in that) so Murdoch stayed overnight at the Dog House.

I headed there this morning as usual for the 6.20am walk (don't want the boy to forget who I am!) and chatted to my dog guy (G) as we walked the usual route.

We discussed the fact that Murdoch is very very different when I'm not around.  We've had this conversation before, so this was not breaking news, but the conversation turned to the option of me changing how I am around Murdoch so that his behaviour doesn't deteriorate while I'm around.

Now I don't think that my treatment of Murdoch is anything out of the ordinary.  I'm not extraordinarily affectionate towards him - he gets stroked, he gets tummy rubs and he gets the occasional cuddle, but he's not allowed to jump up, he's not allowed on the bed or the sofa anymore, so I'm not sure what changes I could make that might make a difference.  G pointed out that if I took another dog home instead of Murdoch, I'd probably notice things that I don't do with that dog, but I do with Murdoch. 

Of course the flipside of this is the fact that I may spend the next ten years of my life with Murdoch (he's six) so do I want to (for example) never give him a cuddle on the off chance that it might improve his behaviour? How much would it need to improve his behaviour by in order to make it worth the sacrifice?

There is a big part of me that is so happy for what we've been able to achieve for Murdoch over the past few months, he is now (for the most part) merrily running around offlead with other dogs (still with a muzzle on, as he has his moments - usually when I'm around!) which was inconceivable to me even a few short weeks ago.

Then there is a small part of me that would like more for him - to be able to have him offlead, wherever I am and to feel confident that he will not try anything stupid.  In an unfamiliar environment, who knows how other, unknown dogs would react to my idiotic, boisterous dog?  It could all too easily end in tears and with Murdoch muzzled and unable to defend himself, he'd be the one that would come of worst.  In order to achieve a situation where unlimited offlead walks were possible, I'd need to look at modifying my behaviour.  Or I can continue to enjoy my dog's company as usual and know that while he can be offlead all the time that he is at the Dog House, whenever he is out and about elsewhere with me, he'll be on his lead.

Really tough choices and no answers from me as yet.......