Does Lava look like me?

The other day our neighbour who has lots of cats called down to master.

She threw him a Reader's Digest. When she was reading it she came across this story about a US marine who took a little puppy out of Iraq.

It was taken from his book "From Baghdad, with love: a marine, the war and a dog named Lava" by Jay Kopelman and Melinda Roth. I guess lots of my dogpals in America will probably know about this story.

Nice cat woman had saved the magazine and bookmarked the story for us because she thought the dog looked like me.



I think he has the same colouring, but his face is slightly different.

When he was a puppy he was very dark. I wonder if I was dark?


I think we will have a poll. Does Lava look like me?

Mistress wants to add the marine does not look like master. So we don't need a poll on that one.

My darling girlfriends

Some time ago, Randi asked me to write about my girlfriends. But mistress was only on line at the weekends. And then when she got connected during the week I had to play lots of tag games.

So now I will write about them. There have been a few changes and I think an update is a good idea.

Here is the first post I wrote about my girlfriends. And here is an update when I added a few more girlfriends to the list.

But if you can't be bothered to read through all those, I will do you a mini-summary. Tall elegant hyperactive Ethel, who chases tennis balls. I think she was my very first girlfriend, although she has a lot of admirers.

Then I fell in love with Sophie La Flirtador. And I thought she was going to swim across the seas to come and visit me (she is a very good swimmer), then I realised she was a tease. But a beautiful one. So I still love her.

Apparently Cleo, another lovely lab, likes nice gentle dogs like me. I've never asked her because I thought she was too serious for boyfriends. She is very nice though. And not like La Flirtador.

I wanted a German Shepherd girlfriend too. But Freda loves Charlie the Big Dog and she is going steady with him. And Flossy doesn't get to blog much these days.

But then I met Guinness and she offered to be my girlfriend, so I got myself a beautiful GSD girlfriend after all. And at the time, fostered Misty was living with her. Now Misty's (hopefully) found her furever home but I miss her soooo much.

Guinness was going to get a new foster friend called Kashka but she might already have found a home. I was just getting excited about another new girlfriend too. I don't think I am going to have any more foster girlfriends because I get too upset when they leave.

And I've got my Belgian shepherd friends too - Tasha and Eva - they wrote a really nice post about being my girlfriends.

The oldest and most blue-blooded dog I know - Megan - kindly said I could go and rub furs together. But I think she really adores Finnegan. Not me.

I was a bit surprised when Penny agreed to be a girlfriend, but very pleased. Although I was a bit worried when her and Ethel decided to be BFFF as I thought they might spend some time gossiping about me. Perhaps they do. Anyway I think she is gorgeous, even though I think I come well behind Peanut in the favourite stakes. And even naughty little (?) Lola once said she loved me. I think I am a bit old and sleepy for Lola who is young and very capricious. Hey, but who would say no if she likes sleepy older dogs?




And back on the husky track - and the naughty younger dog track - there is MayaMarie (the husky in the window), who always entertains me with her naughty antics. I think her and Lola together would be a bit of a handful. Perhaps instead, I should be aiming for Missy, who lives with MayaMarie.

Another beautiful furry husky (Queen) Kelsey (Ann) asked if I was interested in another girlfriend. Well, of course. She is lovely. Although I think she likes to be in charge. But do I care? No. What girlfriend isn't in charge?

So I need to finish by talking about Randi - who asked me to write this post. A black lab/newf mix. I love her because she is black and she has una alma tan bonita. I told her she was black and reminded me of Ethel, but I love her in her own right and not because she looks like Ethel - she doesn't really (unlike MaxDex, who looks very much like Ethel, but obviously I don't love him). And her brother Dublin died not long ago, and I know how she feels because I still miss Princey. So I hope we are pals as well.



No, I haven't finished yet because I haven't mentioned Bella, Lorenza, and Roxie. I can't possibly miss them out. First I mentioned them as three wonderful mates that I met very early on DWB, but I thought they all had lots of boyfriends (even more than Sophie). Then they got sulky and wanted to know why I hadn't said they were my girlfriends. So I said that would be fine too. Then I don't hear any more. Girlfriends - what are they like? Temperamental or what? Except then Bella said that her and Kuki would be my girlfriends. So that was good.

How could I possibly forget Mati? I have too many girlfriends. I can't remember them all. Mistress was right. Mati is adorable and she looks after her bro Rocky who has been a bit crook recently. I knew I had missed a beauty off the list. I am very sorry Mati because I do love you. Very much.

And now I think about it, Amber from the Army of Four asked if I was doing auditions. Now, I know I am a nice dog, but I don't think I have the cheek to ask for auditions. But yes, Amber, you've already passed. I would be happy if you were my girlfriend.

Normally when I do paws with master I count to five. Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco. Sometimes we count to diez. But not to veinte, or mas.

Anyway Misery forgot to give me extra toast rations today. Horrible mistress. But she has bought me a fine new washing machine because the old one from her mum's was rubbish, and I like to have nice clean throws. Only the other day I decided it was too dirty so I went to lay on the floor instead of the sofa. What a hard life I have.

Nicknames (2)

Now I am tagged by Guinness and Shiloh to say what nicknames I have for mistress.

First though, to those who commented on the monkey nickname. It was master who called me monkey first. He called me "naughty little monkey".

I have no idea why. I am not naughty (well, not very naughty, or very often). I am definitely not little - I don't know if I ever was, I suppose I must have been. And as I said before I am not a monkey.

Now they don't even bother with the "naughty little". I just get monkey. Huh.

As you know I call mistress Meany Mistress and Misery Mistress. Meany when she doesn't give me sufficient extra breakfast rations, and Misery when she won't let me chase cats.

Of course since I pulled her over she has not taken me out again, so I don't get much chance to call her Misery any more. Master is a bit of a Misery too though because he doesn't seem to want to go on the cat hunts either.

But normally I call master Kind Master. He always speaks to me nicely, shares so much toast with me, gives me lots of strokes and pats and tickly toes, he is wonderful really so I shan't give him any nasty nicknames.



Now what else shall we call mistress? Wimp of course. We know she is Wimp Mistress after the cockroach in the bath incident. In fact she was home only the other weekend staggering around barefoot without her contact lenses. The next morning when she had put them in, she noticed a cockroach (it was dead so hardly a problem) lying in the bedroom doorway.

Her worry was whether or not in her half-blind state the previous evening, had she walked on it or not? You would have thought she would have noticed it go crunch wouldn't you? Anyway, apparently she felt sick even thinking about walking on it barefoot so she had to sit down before she vacuumed it up. I might start calling her Roach, hehe.

Idle Mistress naturally. She is not keen on kennelflatwork, she prefers messing around on my Appletop. Furpuller. She thinks pulling my fur out before it drops out, or before I pull it out, is a preventative measure to avoid doing the kennelflatwork and sweeping it up.

I will think of some more when she goes back to Spain. Perhaps master will have some good ideas.

Another tag

Big thanks to beautiful black Randi for giving me the I love your blog award because she says I am handsome (blush). That's a good start to the day.

Now Bama has tagged me to say my nicknames. But I don't have very many.

Pipps, Pippita, Ripps, Pipsqueak, Monster (like Bama), Little (?) Terror, and Captain Pippa or The Captain. Master and mistress used to call Princey Captain Prince, but they can't remember why (apart from the fact that he was in charge), so now I get called Captain Pippa. Here is Princey when he was in charge of the terrace. He is probably laughing at mistress.



Speaking of mistress I see there is strong support in my poll for hanging onto her. Hmmmm.



Edited to add: she calls me monkey too. I had forgotten that but she has just called me monkey now. I am not a monkey. I am a dog. Silly mistress.

Bye bye girlfriend, and tagged

I am sad today. One of my girlfriends - Beautiful Misty - has been adopted. I know I shouldn't be sad and I hope she has found her furever home and will be so happy as she deserves, but I don't suppose I will see her any more. Pooh. I will so miss her. You will always have a place in my heart Misty.

Well, as Guinness and Shiloh, and the Kapp Pack have both tagged me to say what sort of car I would be, I will play the game to try and raise my spirits a bit.

I need to be something slow and sleepy, but friendly, and occasionally lively - for when I see Harvey/Marmalade. And something that stands out from the crowd too, because people are always coming up and saying hello to me because I am big and furry and friendly.

So I could be my Land Rover, it's a similar colour, (without the dark bits - apart from the tyres of course, and there are darker bits in the interior), it's slow and sleepy, and very strong like me. But it doesn't go fast when it sees cats. And it is not elegant, sometimes I can look quite elegant when I have my paws poised. Even master would not say a Land Rover was elegant.



That's the most I can think of right now, but I will ask master when he comes in from work as mistress is rubbish on cars. Although she says perhaps I should be a Jaguar or a Daimler as they are very powerful and nice-looking. They have a better pedigree than me but I don't think that matters. Hmmm, I quite like that idea. Perhaps mistress is not rubbish on cars.

1967 Jaguar 420


Or a nice black and cream 1990 Daimler DS 420


Or perhaps the same totally in cream? 1990 Daimler DS 420 on eBay, latest bid at £3,601


And for my faster days, a nice sporty E-type, 3.8 coupé


Images taken from the following websites:
Gladstone Carriages (Jaguar), Elegance Wedding Cars, eBay, and Squidoo E-type Jaguar.

Edited to add: I forgot to tag some dogs. So how about the naughty Bamonster, the Barkalot Boyz, Pacco de Mongrel, and Ume.

Disclaimer

I, Pippadog, would publicly like to disclaim anything to do with the previous post, which shall be known as the Cinderfella post.

Apart from anything else it could have been a set-up. Can you see my head? No. OK, it might look a bit like me and it is in my kennelflat, but Mistress could have lured another dog in to take the pic.

In fact, she could have carefully slipped the magic flip flop, I mean her flip flop - it is not magic at all - under my paw.

I shall let you know what really happened. There I was, waiting patiently as usual for buttered toast, or raspberries or sausage and tomato, anyway the measly portion of mistress's breakfast that I do get to eat.

And what does she do? Notices that in my haste to sit as close as possible, I had sat on her flip flop - she's always leaving them lying around - so she took a photo while I was busy willing the food into my mouth, and I didn't even notice.

I suppose she thought it was funny, and then - on top of that - she posts scurrilous comments with it. She is just plain bad and horrid.

Furthermore I am seeking damages of a considerable sum.

Oodles of buttered toast. Grapefruit. Raspberries. Sausage and tomato. Cheese. Pilao Rice, Veg Korma and Poppadoms. (Double rations of curry - one of my faves).

I can't think of any more for now but that will do. On the grounds that the whole Cinderfella post is defamatory. I have heard mistress talking about this sort of thing so I think that is what I mean. The post damages my reputation in the eyes of the right-thinking dog on the street and especially my girlfriends.

I WANT MY GIRLFRIENDS. They are beautiful and I love them all very much. And I was just barking nicely at three other beautiful girl dogs - Randi, Mati, and Kelsey Ann - in the hopes they might join the list.

Please girls, I love you very much and I don't wear any clothes, never mind mistress's girly stuff. Honest. You do believe me don't you?

So here are some proper PippaPix where I am out bonding with master. Mistress was only allowed to come on the condition that she took some nice pix of me.

Checking out the street

Shake-a-paw with master

Stopping to look at the boats

Snoozetime

Cinderfella

Yes, I think the magic flipflop fits.

I am so excited.

Now where is the other one?

And my Princess Charming too of course.

Mistress again, tagged, and girlfriends

First before anything else, my good friend Cleopatra has asked all my Malaysian pals to visit her blog regarding the atrocious dog-catching competition being organised over there. Good luck with your efforts Natasha and Cleo.



Another complaint. Mistress is moulting, or shedding or whatever you want to call it.

Her hair is falling out. Admittedly not in big clumps or anything but occasionally I notice long brown mistress pelo on the floor.

It doesn't belong to master because his is very short and white or grey. It certainly isn't mine, because it isn't proper fur and mine is white or cream or dark.

How come she moans at me for a few little clumps of adorable Pippafur all over the floor yet she is allowed to moult her boring brown hair? Unfair.



And it had better not turn up in my Pippadogbix either. Or there will be trouble.

Well apart from my daily whinge, we're having quite a nice time. We are practising a leisurely life, mistress and I, while master goes out huntergathering for Pippadogbix.

Most of our morning consists of breakfast so that is a great start isn't it?

After master and I have done our cat hunt - he thinks it's a walk but I know it is a cat hunt - we eat his toast.

Mistress then makes his sandwiches but I don't seem to get any of those, I think I may base a new protest on that, and after a lot of sitting around he disappears.

Then unless she is feeling incredibly energetic, we all have a snooze. Then I have my official breakfast. Naturally I would share it but mistress doesn't want it, so it is all mine.

Then she has her breakfast. We used to eat raspberries but she has been doing the Meany Mistress routine again, so she has cut us down to Kiwi fruit or grapefruit.

The rasps are very nice, especially as we have to eat them all in one go or they go off. I used not to like Kiwi fruit or grapefruit, but if there are no rasps - what is a Pippadog to do?

Develop a taste for them. Although I think Meany was a bit surprised I like the nice sharp grapefruit. It takes her an age to peel it and separate all the segments, so we just chill out together while she does it. Yesterday she forgot to give me some. Horrid mistress.

Then we have our next course, which is wholemeal toast and something. I have acquired a taste for the nice organic mushrooms she buys but they are not in stock at the moment. So today we shared a vegetarian sausage and a tomato. I say share, you can imagine what sort of share it was.


Waiting - on my sofa, next to the table - for mistress's breakfast. I am not losing sight of the sausage and tomato.

And that's a large part of the morning gone. Tiring too, so we have a look at a few blogs, or just snooze around somewhere until lunchtime which fortunately isn't far away.

Tagged

Lorenza has tagged me to tell about my first day. But there is not much to tell. Master wandered round the village looking for me because they had agreed if they saw me again they would take me in. He had some nice biscuits so I followed him home to their nice patio.

Then mistress fed me and gave me some water.

After that master took me to my new kennel which was a huge corral. He made me a fine raised bed off the floor out of some wooden pallets, and with a big blanket on top.

When they had to go in the house, I found a yummy stick to play with. And we went out for walks, and they came to talk to me lots.

I couldn't go in the house straightaway because they had two other dogs, and they needed to be introduced to me. Well, Paddy never liked me the little rascal, but Princey was nice.

I wrote about it a few months ago so the full story is here and here.

Girlfriends

And Randi wants me to write about my girlfriends which I am always happy to do so I will save that for another post.

Thanks

Finally thank you to everydog for your insightful comments about my dilemmas with mistress. There is much food for thought there. I was particularly impressed with Fee's comments about scrawny smelly woman especially as mistress is pretty scrawny.

And of course if I dumped her on the streets, and the paparazzi did find out, who would be my PR person? I would need mistress for that because she knows how to do it - she used to get paid for doing it - so someone thought she knew what she was doing. I need to sleep on this one. Oh, and my nose is not getting pinker, thank you Ume.

A new mistress?

Official complaints

1 Mistress does not do my breakfast early enough.
2 When she has her breakfast she does not give me enough mushrooms. Sometimes she does not give me any. I only get measly buttered toast.
3 She has been to Gibtel but we are still not on broadband. So she can't do my blog during the week.
4 She is a rubbish compañera. There is a bit of chat, but not much else.
5 She pulls my fur out. Why? It falls out anyway, or I pull it out and then she can sweep it up.
6 She doesn't cook enough food for them at night to leave for tasties for me for my breakfast.
7 She has not visited my friends' blogs at the weekend.

Good points

1 She doesn't leave me during the day to get bored.
2 She has started to do nice therapeutic rubbings on my ears which are nice, but they are not much, in the scheme of things.

So I am in the market for a new mistress. Any suggestions pals? Are there better models? Where do I find them?

And I might have a problem convincing master. He seems to think mistress is OK.

I feel a new poll coming on. And thank you to all of those four of you who said she was a wimp regarding cockroaches because she is. Just that the poll didn't quite reflect that.