Summer Dog Haircuts
5 May 2008Apologies firstly for not being here for a while, but after my last post Dogs and Health, I got a bit sidetracked with that four letter word: WORK!!! Yes, I do have to earn my crust and as I write online I have to take the freelance jobs when they arrive, they take precedence over anything else.
So what’s been happening with our two little Yorkies since I last wrote in here? Well, for one thing as summer is upon us once again, they have had their summer dog haircuts and here’s a picture of them out and about to prove it:
They all of a sudden don’t look too much like Yorkies any more, do they? In fact, Ronnie looks more like a miniature doberman than what he’s supposed to be!
Daisy just turns her head away every time I point a camera at her, as she’s probably rather embarassed at her new hairdo! Still, it keeps them cool for the hot summer months that we experience here in southern Spain, although what often happens is that by August, they’ve grown a fair proportion of that coat back again and have to suffer the last few weeks of the Spanish heat with overcoats on!
I’ve managed to snap a few more pics of the two of them and will post them in later posts as its always nice to see them in the flesh so to speak!
Dogs and Health
6 April 2008My last few posts have been photo oriented, like the last one Funny Dogs, where it’s pretty plain to see that Ronnie has had enough of being photographed just lately, so I’ve left him alone for a while. On this post, dogs and health, its not quite what you’re thinking.
In fact, I’ve been contemplating the fact that I spend far too much time sitting in front of this thing typing away and not taking enough care of my own health with regards to getting exercise. Well, recently I changed that to making a point of taking the dogs out twice a day for good long walks.
The dogs, of course love it!
This all began a couple of months ago when I got really busy and wasn’t finding enough time to get out more than for just a quick walk around the block in the mornings before I started work. That led to very long days with not much movement in between and I saw myself put on two kilos in weight.
Something had to be done.
So I made a conscoius decision to get up and walk away from this thing in the early evening and give the dogs a second treat of the day (as well as myself). Where I live its very hilly with some nice steep hills to walk up and down, which exercise-wise is apparently much better for you than simply walking along flat roads. Great. Also, we have the choice to go further up where the views of the coastline are pretty cool, or go down to the beach and walk along the promenade, then back up the hill to home. Either way, the walks are about an hour long, which is much better than sitting here typing and drinking coffee to keep awake.
So the dogs and health are an important combination that every writer should have.
Funny Dogs
19 March 2008In my last short post For Dogs Who DO Have to Work!, I managed to capture Ronnie with my phone camera as he sat on my lap whilst I was at the computer and post the funny dog picture here onto this blog.
Well, there’s not a whole lot to put into this post except maybe another photo of that funny dog (or strange dog) Ronnie in another of his odd poses.
It’s like he’s giving me the look as if to say “I’ve had just about enough of you sticking that camera in my face, now push off mate!”
Poor bloke, I do point it at him a lot and he usually manages to turn away at the crucial moment. But not this time. Caught him fair and square!
It’s warming up here in southern Spain now, so it’ll soon be time for Ronnie and Daisy to go for their Spring haircuts, so the next batch of photos should be of much tidier and well groomed funny dogs!
For Dogs Who DO Have to Work!
9 March 2008Wot are you looking at, pal?
Even a strange dog like Ronnie likes to get in on the action every now and again. After my last post For Dogs Who Don’t Have To Work!, I thought this sudden about turn would bring a smile to your faces… and here he is, on my lap pretending to be writing his own blog post!
Maybe he was getting bored laying on the sofa with Daisy watching me toil away and decided to do his bit! Either way, I couldn’t resist the chance to snap him on my phone, which was handy by the side of me.
Ronnie the Strange Dog obliged with this fantastic pose which really says it all!
For Dogs Who Don’t Have To Work!
26 February 2008Following on from my last post Strange Dog, where I looked at some of the quaint and often downright strange behaviour of one small Yorkie called Ronnie, here is a nice picture of those two lovable Yorkies taking things easy on the sofa while I busily beaver away slaving over a hot computer!
And why should they care, its a dog’s life after all, or so we’re told! They certainly believe it, as I’m sure they’re pulling funny faces and making rude gestures with their paws behind me while I’m not looking.
Dogs are funny most of the time, and these two are no different as during my working day, they generally don’t settle down together, but opt for different “beds” away from each other. Daisy will normally get comfortable in her little doggy house under my desk, as she prefers to be close to me.
Ronnie, of the other hand will never settle in one place for too long, sometimes going for the sofa in the main sitting room, or sometimes on the one behind me, or when he thinks no one is around, he’ll sneak to the bedrooms and sleep where he knows he’s not supposed to - on one of the beds!
Dogs are funny things, that’s a fact!
Strange Dog
3 February 2008I mentioned in the last post Dog in the Lap of Luxury!, that Ronnie is a strange dog. A very strange dog, if the truth be known.
This afternoon he “found” one of his old toys buried under the sofa which was one of those soft plastic chicken legs that squeak. Previously untouched with the squeaker still operational (very unusual for a toy of Ronnie’s). Well, not for long!
He did a sort of lap of honour around the room with his prize in his mouth (a deliberate taunt directed at Daisy who pretended to ignore him) and then leaped halfway across the room onto the sofa (why walk when you can fly?) where he proceeded to dismantle the thing bite by bite.
Now this is all great entertainment for Ronnie, who sat there for the best part of an hour systematically ripping this plastic chicken leg into little pieces to get at the prize in the middle - the squeaker! We don’t know if the sound of the squeaker in these squeaky toys drives him insane (they drive me insane) so he has to “kill” them, or he just has a sadistic streak and likes to tear things into little pieces, distribute them all round the room and then chew the squeaker into a molten lump of congealed plastic.
Whichever it is, Ronnie takes great pleasure in “killing” squeaky toys of all descriptions! I have to admit, I enjoy the end bit the best when he finally silences that annoying noise.
Not such a strange dog, after all?
Dog in the Lap of Luxury!
26 January 2008Ronnie is a strange dog, there’s no getting away from it. Although he’s like plenty of other dogs in his love of all things soft and comfortable. He’s not allowed on the beds, although we’ve already seen that he’ll disobey that one when he thinks there’s no one around to catch him.
But he is allowed on the sofa and he takes full advantage when some of the cushions are nicely laid up together. Here he’s managed to make a nice comfy nest for himself and you can just see the happiness on his face as he nestles in to that nice warm bed.
He has a strange ritual that he goes through before he perches himself atop cushions and it’s fascinating to watch because it is so cat-like. He does the usual doggy-like walk-around-in-circles for a while, then he moves all four legs up and down just like a cat would, moving the cushions into the perfect position (at least he thinks so) for ages before circling a few more times and then finally settling down.
Sometimes he’ll be doing that little ritual for ages and then plonk himself down only to jump up a few seconds later as he decides he doesn’t want to sleep there after all and then goes and stretches out on the floor like a proper little dog!
Strange bloke!
Dogs Do Some Funny Things
16 January 2008Dogs do make me laugh when they do the craziest things and I have one of the craziest dogs around in that little bundle of lunacy, Ronnie.
It’s still dark in the mornings when I take him for his first walk of the day (I like the quietness at 6.30 am) and right now the sky is an interesting place with Venus in Scorpio sitting lower towards the eastern horizon and - hey this is the wrong blog for my Astronomy lesson! Anyhow, walking the streets at that time with Ronnie is a real peaceful and calming exercise - or it would be if he wasn’t such a nut case!
Being small and energetic, he wants to go scrabbling off into all kinds of dark nooks and crannies at the end of his leash with four legs churning away and not really going anywhere thanks to his restraint! But he doesn’t seem to care and I can’t believe the amount of times he manages to wrap that damn leash around lamp posts - it seems like every one we pass he has to run around it as many times as his leash will allow - then sit there panting away at me with the biggest grin on his face as if to say, “Now untangle that mess!”
I wonder who end up looking sillier - a idiotically grinning Ronnie or a frantic me trying to free him from his latest lamp post!
Wouldn’t life be boring without a dog!
A Doggy Happy Christmas!
24 December 2007Hi everyone - it’s been a couple of weeks since my last post in here, but with so much going on with my other sites and blogs I had to leave this one to its own devices for a while. Hopefully, if you didn’t find something new to read, then you went back into the archives and found something that you didn’t read before!
That happens with a lot of blogs that have been around for a while - new visitors only read the latest few posts and never get to read all the really good ones at the beginning!
Anyhow, this post is to wish everybody a happy Christmas and a prosperous and happy New Year…
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
and don’t forget to treat your dogs too (as if you would!)
Small Dogs and Food
4 December 2007Small dogs can be some of the fussiest eaters on the planet and it can be so frustrating at times when whatever you put down for them they just look up at you as if to say “…and this is?”
It doesn’t matter if yesterday it was the tastiest gourmet meal they ever experienced, today it’s pigswill “and you expect me to eat that?” Then they go off to see what unspeakably gross morsel they can find in the garden…
Of course, they’ll eat whatever you’re eating in preference to their own food.
It amazes me that they’ll bite you hand off to get a piece of carrot peel or fight each other to the death for a fallen piece of onion on the kitchen floor rather than eat their own food.
Today was just one of those fun days. Ronnie had eaten all his food this morning but Daisy is infinitely fussier. Well she looked down at her bowl, then up at me as if I was serving her up a pile of rocks! Needless to say, she gave me the finger and sauntered off to sunbathe on the balcony.
I don’t give in to that behaviour either, so the bowl with it’s food went into the refrigerator. This evening she decided she was hungry so I got her untouched breakfast out and put it down for her. Of course, as they both share what comes out of the tin and I wasn’t opening another one just for Ronnie, he got a bowl of dry food with a little of my leftover tomato soup on top.
Well that did it.
Daisy deliberately knocked her bowl over and scattered its contents over the floor then tried to push Ronnie away from his bowl so she could eat his. As he’s a wimp and will simply let her do what she wants for a quiet life I had to intervene.
I picked her up and took her into the other room and closed the door on her, where she simply stamped her foot and barked her little head off!
Ronnie gobbled his food up while the coast was clear then went out to the balcony to keep away from his angry step-sister!
I ended up scraping up all the food off the kitchen floor and put it back in Daisy’s bowl. I let her out of the room where she just trotted merrily into the kitchen, flicked her hair at me as if to say “bite me” and proceeded to eat her meal!
Don’t you lust love ‘em
