Monday, August 25, 2008

Some photos

Here I am looking after master's shoelace and his boot



Because misery has been so slow and useless at updating my blog I thought I would post up some piccies that I meant to post ages ago.

Here is the bird who sits on the streetlight over the road. He is a seagull, and he only has one foot.



The woman who lives in the house opposite to us (next to the one with the shutters) puts out fish for the seagulls.

Footless comes to stand on top of the lamp and squawks, demanding his food.



Then he twirls round in a circle waiting for his food to arrive.



And flies down.



Looking for his food.



And wondering where it is.



Sometimes the cats eat the fish. The woman opposite also puts out food for the feral cats. But we have seen Marmalade (real name Harvey) who is not feral, polishing off this food too. Greedy Marmalade. I am not sure if anybird or anycat gets to eat the food that is put out for them, but it is nice of her to do it.

Especially as it means there are always lots of cats in my street prowling for food.

Misery went for a walk the other day - without me - and took this interesting picture of an overgrown cemetery with two sunbathing cats. Well, I thought it was interesting because I would like to have gone with her and chased the cats off the tombstones.



She also met some birds, and being somewhat strange, chatted away to the parrot. Here is the parrot listening to misery.



And here is a caged bird, which we don't like to see, but we don't know why it was caged so maybe there was a good reason.



And mistress wants me to add thank you very much to everypup who wished them happy wedding anniversary. They had a very nice weekend doing nothing, but mistress never does anything anyway so I couldn't tell the difference.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Murphy the Rotti



First, today is master and misery's wedding anniversary, so I would like to wish them a happy anniversary.

They have been married for zillions of years so I don't know exactly how many but it is more than 20.

That's enough of them. Onto ME. My darling girlfriend Guinness gave me the BFF gold card. Thank you Guinness, I appreciate that very much, and I hope we will always be best Blogging Friends Furever.



Today, I thought I would do a different post and tell you a story about Murphy the Rotti (although I don't have any pictures of him, so sorry about that).

Once upon a time, master and misery decided they needed to get some rewiring done at my finca in Spain.

It was difficult to get an electrician to come and do the work and one day master met a British man who was walking past the house. The man was out of work and turned out to be an electrician, so master asked him if he wanted to do the work on my finca.

The man went to have a look and said yes he would do the work, so they agreed a daily price. A few days later the man started to do the work. He would go home for lunch, but a couple of times he didn't come back in the afternoon.

When mistress was preparing lunch one day, master asked if there was enough for the man to eat too, and she said yes. So they all sat down to pasta and tomato sauce with salad.

After that, the man ate lunch with master and mistress every day. He particularly liked spicy Thai curry, and some mashed potato dish that mistress cooked. The man was not vegetarian like master and misery, so she tried to make sure that the food she cooked was suitably interesting.

But after a while, it became clear that the man and his woman were having problems. The man loved his woman very much, but she wanted to go back to the UK with their two children. The man took a few days off work to say goodbye to her and take her to the airport. She took the children and all their money and left him with nothing but a tatty old car and - Murphy the Rottweiler.

Murphy was a very big and very beautiful dog with a heart of gold. He had a lovely temperament, and could eat for Spain. The man had bought him for his woman just after they arrived in Spain because the woman "always had to have a Rottweiler." Apparently when they were in the UK, they had two Rottweilers, but they did not bring them to Spain with them, unlike master and misery who brought Paddy (cross-setter, and very cross) and Prince (GSD).

Master and misery were not impressed with the idea of people who "loved" their Rottweilers, but left them behind when they became inconvenient, and thought this did not bode well for Murphy.

The man had nowhere to live and was sleeping in his car. He did not know what to do with Murphy during the day, so master and misery said he could spend the days on our terrace. So there was Murphy on the terrace, Paddy and Prince in the house and patio, and me in the corral. Paddy was a cantankerous grumpy old dog and did not want any other dogs in his house, hence the demarkation zones.

Paddy


Prince


On the first day that Murphy arrived, the man was moaning about the woman taking all his money and saying how poor they were. Mistress asked if Murphy had eaten and if he would like some breakfast. Of course he wanted some breakfast, so mistress gave him some food. Every day after that she always fed him, as well as the man. Mistress thought Murphy was adorable.

Towards the end of the job, the man was talking about going back to the UK to be with his woman. Master and misery were worried that he was hinting at leaving Murphy with them, and sadly they couldn't logistically manage another - huge - dog. Murphy was so big and powerful that when he had jumped up to hug mistress after his food, she had nearly fallen over. They also thought the man wanted to stay in their spare room, and they had visions of never getting rid of either the man or his dog.

On the last day, the man had his lunch as usual, master and mistress offered him a shower, paid him his money, and off he went. He had done a good job by the way, and M&M were very pleased. Master had helped of course, by doing a lot of the hacking out and plastering, so it had been cost-effective and pretty efficient.

A few weeks later on, the man told master and misery that he was going back to the UK to find his woman and children, and he was going to try and rehome the dog. Master and misery were very sad for Murphy, and thought the man was silly because it was clear to virtually everyone that the woman didn't care two hoots about him, whereas Murphy did.

Murphy was rehomed with a nice person and everyone was pleased about that. Master and misery knew some kind people who lived just outside our pueblo who had acquired a few dogs as you do in Spain - from cardboard boxes left outside supermarkets and other places where people dump unwanted dogs, and they had helped with the rehoming. They also let the man stay with them for a couple of nights before he left and they took him to the airport. They brought him to say goodbye to us, and collect a few things he had left with us for safe-keeping. And then he was gone.

The man and the woman rang the kind people a few times and asked about Murphy. They wanted to make sure they could have him back if they returned to Spain. Murphy was fine and happy with his new people.

Some time later the new people and Murphy moved. The kind people told master about this, and said we are not going to tell the man and the woman where they have gone because we think they are irresponsible and Murphy has been disturbed enough in his life. So master and misery and the kind people entered into a conspiracy of secrecy and the last we heard was that Murphy was still happily living with his new people.

If anyone is interested in what happened to the man and the woman - she left him of course - and he was very upset. She came back to Spain for a holiday with one of her (teenage) daughters, slept on the beach one night and with some gypsies the next.

I should say that this is not a post about Rottweiler owners - it just happened to be the breed concerned - but rather about people who buy dogs for status symbols.

The saying "Dogs are for life (and not just for Christmas)" is probably over-used, but it is still true. This couple bought and abandoned three dogs to our knowledge. Dogs that are large, often classified as "dangerous," expensive to keep, and because of all those factors, difficult to rehome.

The only ones who are dangerous in this story are the people who paid thousands of pounds for pedigree dogs and then ditched them when they didn't fit into their life.

Anyway, the story had a happy ending for Murphy which is all I care about, and we are going to have a fine party weekend for master and misery, and it is a Bank Holiday on Monday, so it will be an extra long party.

Take care pups.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

The rubbish bin



Most mornings when master goes out to work he takes the rubbish downstairs with him and dumps it in the bin outside.

If he doesn't, naturally I think it is important to check it out to see if there is anything yummy in there.

They used to use an open topped bin, and it was under the sink so it was difficult to get at and I had to pull it over.

Now mistress uses a flip top one and it is much easier to open and take out what I want. And what I don't want too.

My best find is the paper that the butter is wrapped in. When master puts the last of the butter in the dish he throws the paper in the bin, and if I am lucky I can take it out, lick it very clean, and then tear the paper into tiny pieces.

Next best are the plastic cartons that the vegetarian sausages or rashers or slices came in. There is not really anything to lick but they smell nice so I like to lick them anyway just to see if there are any nice flavours left.

The trouble is that if mistress is still in the bedroom when I do it, she usually hears me and calls out "Pippa. Stop." And being good I do stop.

But the other day master forgot to take it down to the outside bin. Mistress was going out later, and thought 'I must take the rubbish out so Pippa doesn't raid it.' And she forgot. Haha!



As you can see it wasn't much of a haul though. I wasn't too impressed with master's smelly old insoles, and the boxes for the new ones didn't smell remotely interesting.

And much as I like peas, I don't like to eat the nasty hard pods.

Still, it is always worth a look, and a good laugh to get mistress to clear it up when she comes in.

Here I am laughing at mistress.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Paws crossed



Thinking of some of my pals at the moment.

Randi, my favourite Lab/Newf, is having an operation to remove some cysts today (Tuesday), so hoping the results come back and say that there is no problem with them.

And my pal Little Sal had a lump removed so she is feeling a bit sorry for herself. Little Sal and Jasper bigdog have just started up a new blog, although Sal's first brother Harry had his own blog before he went to the Bridge. Sal and Jasper are both rescued collies.

Kai, one of the Danes at the Zoo Crew is also going through a rough time at the moment with his orthopaedic problems and has been having difficulty getting up and down and walking. He and his family could do with lots of good thoughts and healing wishes.

Not forgetting my pal Jackson, who came home after his gruelling op, complete with 21 staples, but finally managed to celebrate his barkday at the weekend. Hope you continue to improve and keep the Js in order.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Practice makes perfect



I thought it was time to put my Ao4 lessons about not looking at the camera into practice again. Got to keep up our skills.

First attempt


Looking at the ground


Looking at the wall


Looking at master


Best paw forward with master in synch


Having a scratch


Back home again

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Furry dogs



Mistress is getting in my face.

It is quite beyond me why mistress seems to think it is a good idea to take pictures of me when I am sleeping.

If I am asleep that means I do not wish to be disturbed.



It is hard work being a furry dog in summer, as many of you pups know.

I do not want a camera in my face, flashing nastily, or mistress prowling around the place looking for a good angle.



And another thing. It is my right to scratch and remove my own fur for it to flutter round the flat.

It is then mistress's job to clean it up. I do not wish her to pre-empt my fur removal with the Nasty Brush.

Here is some of my fur. This is from our sitting room. I normally manage to scratch at least three loads a day similar to this.

What is that sock doing there? Oh, mistress found it under the chair when she moved it to retrieve more of my nice soft fur.



Just as well she has to sweep up my fur or she probably wouldn't have found the sock for months.

I leave a similar amount of fur in our bedroom too. I say ours, because they sleep in it at night. During the day, mistress moves the thermarests and I flop on the floor in there. Mistress leaves the curtains closed for me so it is nice and cool and I claim it as my daytime bedroom.

Some time ago I added some info to my sidebar about husky/GSD crosses.

But I forgot to mention it. So if you are interested in huskies (of all types), or GSDs, or just big furry doggies, there are some really interesting photos on there.

ETA:
Here is the link as well. I have just made mistress have a looky and there are even more nice pix added since the last time, and yet another one who looks just like me. I am so excited to think that there are other dogs out there like me. It is good not to be alone. Oh and if any pup does look at the site, silly mistress added my photo twice. hahahaha.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Beetle-Pet



No not another Crump-Pet. A real live one. Elfreda Beetle.

You all know what a silly wimp mistress is with a few dead - or live - cockroaches in the bathroom at my finca in Spain?

Well, the other day, she went into the bathroom here in my Gibflat, and spotted one on the floor, on his back and waving one of his antenna at her.

She ran out as usual and when master came home she asked him to "Do Something" with it.

But master told her not to be stupid (as if) and that it was a beetle not a cockroach.

Master turned the beetle over so that she could run around and play.

A bit later on, Elfreda Beetle came into the kitchen to explore. I went over to have a look at her. She wasn't very interesting. She didn't smell interesting and she didn't seem worth eating so I left her alone.

She played climbing up the mop.



And fell on her back again which I thought was rather silly of her.

Then mistress went back to my finca in Spain for the weekend. When she came back master had to give her the sad news that Elfreda Beetle had fallen on her back once too often and was no more.

Before anypup asks, apparently mistress called her Elfreda Beetle because of some film/book with an Elfreda Beetle in, although mistress has forgotten which one it was.

So I didn't have a Beetle-Pet for very long at all. Onto some cheerful news after that short sad story. Some fine friends have given me another nice award.

Charlie and Eva gave me this one.



That is very kind of them, thank you to both Charlie and to beautiful Eva.

And a while ago, Rocky at The Hudson Furkids asked which blogs pups and their people visited when they wanted to laugh and feel less stressful. I was one of the ones Rocky and his family visit to cheer themselves up. I don't mean to be funny but if I make pups and people laugh then that is a good result. Thank you for saying that Rocky, and I am sorry it has taken me (ie mistress) a long time to mention it. I hope my Beetle-Pet story wasn't too sad.

Right, Misery and I are off to eat some grapefruit now and then a snooze will be in order.