Just been out for dinner (I stuck to the water!) and came back to a very smily Willow. I love how she smiles at us when we come in. She's started doing it in the morning, too. I really must get some photos or videos of it! It's just too funny!
Been looking through my old photos this evening. Doug's smiling on most of them. Also rorys tail as a puppy was crazy . It was longer than his body.
California really stinks for off-leash places as well, especially beaches. One of the beaches I've taken my dogs to for 20 years got "sold" to the state (it used to be city) and became leash-only. I was very heartened to see gobs of people there with their dogs off leash anyway, totally flaunting the law. The truly dumb thing is that when it was off-leash, it was for certain hours of the day only and people totally respected that. But I'm glad for this little bit of anarchy. One of the great things about where I live in Germany is that the leash law is that there IS no leash law in 90% of town. No dogs in children's playgrounds and two parks are leash-only, but the entire medieval old town (where my flat is) and all the beaches along the Danube are totally leash free. The beaches where I am when I'm in Spain are also 100% dog friendly the majority of the year (summer is a no-no for dogs off or on leash) and all the nude beaches (of which there are many, you just have to drive/walk a bit further) are dog-friendly the whole year. Naked people are also dog lovers, apparently. Well, and my favourite one has free-roving cows that hang with the sunbathers, so really...what's a dog in comparison? The worst place I lived with Brogan for no dog-friendly places to walk your dog (on or off leash) was France. And not co-incidentally, I also saw the most on-leash dog-aggressive dogs (and humans for that matter). Paris is filled with poor psycho dogs who spend all day in tiny apartments and then go outside to pee on a sad piece of concrete. Used to be my favourite city, but Brogan convinced me we needed to make Germany and Spain home instead. And Venice since he liked riding on the boats. Smart dog.
Oh no, poor Santa!!! Be strong Axel, be strong! Totally related random dog thought: dogs love Santa (and not just for dinner).
We went past a few shops on our evening walk today. As we came around the corner we nearly bumped into someone coming the other way. I had to stop suddenly to prevent running straight into a lady with my pram. I quickly looked to my side to see Ella sitting and waiting for her treat! The lady then said (in a squeaky, exciting voice) "ooh, pretty puppy, hello!" while I silently curse. I look at Ella, tail and bum both wagging frantically but not moving from the ground!! Lady walks past and Ella promptly gets a huge handful of treats! Yay! Mini victories are what it's all about
Nobody. People do pretty well with picking up the dog poo, but you can't do squat about the enormous cow patties. They're not that big of a deal as the beach is miles long and, well...nature. It's a cool little village - has it's own Roman ruins, two bars, a wind surf school and a couple little mom and pop "hotels" (term used lightly). The cows and local dogs just kind of walk through the one street on a regular basis and horses show up occasionally too. And on a clear day you can see the windmills on the coast of Africa. I love it. I was too lazy to hunt down my own photos of the cows and naked people, but got this from a Google search on "Bolonia beach cows". This is typical for a weekend in late spring/early summer. Earlier than that and it's practically deserted (and sometimes so windy that exiting your car can mean a free microdermabrasion wrinkle treatment). Couldn't resist - here's Brogan on a windy day at Bolonia (notice that "ear sail" action)
Arghh, Ella does this too! She'll suddenly stand and look towards the back window. I just beg her to tell me if it's a possum or axe wielding murderer!
Good manners so rare these days so when I encountered some this morning I was pleasantly surprised! Very early this morning, whilst playing hunt the breakfast sea burger ( fish twists they get after brekkie ) I noticed a huge articulated lorry parked by the handbag factory. The handbag factory is a converted cow barn. The driver starts to walk over to our gate, so I walk over to meet him. He is big and wearing one of those yellow hi vis jackets. As he approaches, all three dogs spot him and race over barking like mad. We are very isolated, off a private road so we don't get any traffic, so a stranger approaching our gate is VERY exciting! He stops a few feet from the gate, takes off his hat, glances at Casper and says "Sir, I am so sorry to trouble you, I can see though, you are doing a great job!" he turns to me, complimenting me on three very healthy looking dogs, apologising profusely for disturbing me, ( he called me "mam" ) We have a few minutes chatting, then he went back to wait in his cab for someone to arrive. Just nice..
"Mum, I'm really sorry for breaking my down-stay at training and I'm sorry for turning it into a massive bum-tucking zoomies session around all of the other humans and dogs and I'm extra sorry for doing five full laps of everyone before coming back to you" It's going to take a while for me to recover from that one
