More about the kennelflat

Hello everydog

Well, I'm between two of my favourite dens today - guarding the gate (and looking for the odd strawberry....) and under the kitchen table here in the campohouse as we came back from the kennelflat the other day.

Mistress doesn't have internet access there so if we're offline for a few days you'll know where we are.

The kennelflat is for a mix of things apparently.

First as you all know, it is for me to go and chase different cats. (Thanks for the advice beautiful Bella - I know they are nasty - but I can't resist chasing them. And although I am very big and look like a furry sleepy thing - I am very fast - and sometimes I catch them!)

Secondly (I would have thought the first reason was good enough) it is for an investment whatever one of those is. I don't think an investment runs away so I am not interested. Master and mistress certainly hope it doesn't run away. Asset spreading - perhaps that might be like spreading butter on toast? I like buttered toast. Yum.

Thirdly - it is partly a holiday home. Quiet weekends in the flat 'cos the city is empty at weekends, and quiet weeks here in the country village. Mmmmmm.

And apparently it is also to give master and mistress something new to focus on. No idea what that means. Mistress has obviously been remembering her office jargon.

Anyway I'll say a bit more about it. It's small pokey and scruffy. Having spent a few days there master and mistress discovered the toilet was leaking. In fact it's leaking that badly they need to use the bucket to flush it, and when mistress lifted up the seat to pour in the water the seat fell off. Master has decided a new toilet is in order. Muy pronto.


It's painted in grotty colours. Master has already got through ten litres of paint doing the sitting room area. And that was only painted cream or lemon or something.

The kitchen bit is ORANGE, the bedroom and bathroom are SWIMMING POOL BLUE. Mistress says we have to use capitals because these colours are in our face. (They aren't in mine, I don't care).

But the block is quiet. It is first floor (mistress doesn't like heights). You can look up the street and see the Rock of Gibraltar,
or down the street and see a nice old building in the main street (mistress likes history - yawn - she wants to join the history society).

The flat was not expensive. Master and mistress (mainly master) are prepared to make it nice.

And there are cats. Oh, I've mentioned that.

CATS....and sofas

Free to a good home. No of course it's not me, everydog - but this dirty scruffy sofa.

Free in fact to any home. Even though I think I look pretty cool on it.

So why have I got a new sofa? Well, dogpals because master and mistress have bought me a new kennel. Well, actually it's called a flat or an apartment or something, but it's not much bigger than a kennel.

They really want some nice ground like Dachsies Rule, but for some strange reason they have bought this kennelflat thing.

Off we went from our camping trip to Gibraltar where, as you all know, I have been before. As usual everyone at the frontier was interested in ME and MY passport not boring old master and mistress. Some of the nice Spanish police officers tapped on the window and smiled at me.

We went to the nice quiet beach for a little walk, and then master and mistress got dressed up. Well, master did, couldn't see much difference in mistress to be honest. But master looked very smart.

And then they went to see a lawyer. They signed some bits of paper, handed over a cleared cheque, and waited for the keys to my kennelflat. But the woman they were buying from didn't hand them over.

"I don't have to move out yet, do I?" she said, smiling nicely at everyone - three lawyers, master and mistress all sitting there with their mouths wide open.

"Well, er, when were you thinking of moving?" said her lawyer when he got his breath back.

"Oh, some date to be arranged in the future," she said airily.

"Well, it is normal practice to hand over the keys now," he said. "How long will it take you to get packed and move?"

So she sighed heavily, and then said grudgingly "Perhaps a few days."

"OK" he said. "We'll all come back in a few days."

At this point mistress fell off her chair. But before she did she managed to say VERY assertively "Oh, no no no. We have driven down here to pick up these keys, and we are not going anywhere else today."

I have to hand it to mistress. I don't usually pay much attention to her, but if she wants something done or tells me to behave, best not to ignore her. Like this morning when I went in to get master up at 5.50am, they decided it was too early. "Come back in 20 minutes Pippa. Not five or ten. Twenty," she said. So I waited.

Anyway, back to the office with the strange woman who thought she would sell her kennelflat and continue to live in it. Master lightened the atmosphere and added that if the woman was still in the kennelflat that night, she would be sleeping with him. So everyone had a laugh, and then her lawyer told her she had the afternoon to get packed and get out, and to bring the keys back in the evening.

So instead of taking me to see my nice new kennelflat, master and mistress came back to tell me all about it. Then he opened a can of beer, she had a glass of wine, and we sat in my Landy for the next five hours until they walked off to get the keys.

But as you can see we eventually got in, and found this grotty sofa and a few other bits of naff furniture which master and mistress now need to get rid of as they have their own.

The really really good news, the best in fact, is that - and this is what I have been dying to tell you all - the place is full of CATS!!! Yes. Yum. There are cats all around. They hide under cars, they sit on window ledges, and one even sits on the steps of the block.

I have already made three special friends. A ginger one, a black and white one, and a black one. When I say friends I mean cats that like to tease me, that I really have to, need to, and absolutely must chase when they run away.

And I have made my action plans:
Plan a) dive out of block, pull master or mistress on their face before they are even down the steps and then try and get under the car after the cat.
Plan b) pull master and mistress towards every car in the street and try and get my nose under each car, even if there isn't actually a cat there.
Plan c) wander down the street nonchalantly waiting for a cat to do a sudden shoot across the road and then try and pull master and mistress into the street after the cat.

Yes, Pippa likes Gib. PippathecathuntingGibdog.
Or PippatheGibcathuntingdog. Who cares?


PS Almost forgot to say - we are all full of fleas now too. Perhaps the funny woman who had the kennelflat had a cat and the scruffy sofa is flea-ridden. A small price for lots of cats to chase in my opinion.

Off on the road part 2

Hola chicos and hello every dog too.

I am such a busy travelling dog I am getting dizzy. Or I would be if I wasn't asleep most of the time. Sorry but I've been on the road AGAIN. And I have such good news too. Anyway a quick update on the camping stuff to finish off the story.

So there I was, at the nice camp site. Tent up, all lying in the sun. Peace and tranquility.

In fact too much peace and tranquility. Not a cat in sight or smell. There were a few dogs behind a gate belonging to some staff but even they stopped barking at me.

What is a dog to do when there is nothing to do, apart from have a snooze?


Mistress took me for a few walks - still no cats. No badly-behaved loose dogs running around to come and harass me. Nothing. Some good smells though - well, hey they were different.

I had a look in the tent when mistress was making the beds. She never makes the bed at home but apparently they swap chores when they go camping and master cooks. All men have to be seen in charge of technical duties like cooking with camping stoves. Anyway the tent looked pretty dull inside so I figured I would be more comfy sleeping in my Landy.

When it got dark they went off to a bar for something to eat. So much for master being in charge of the technical side.

Master came back very excited but annoyed that mistress had not taken the camera with her. Mistress apparently hadn't thought a plate of chips and salad would look very exciting on my blog. I think she was right.

But master had spotted some more Land Rovers, and one of them even had SAND LADDERS. Don't get me wrong, I like my Landy. It's great for transporting me around in. Basically it's a sofa on wheels isn't it?

He didn't need to panic about whether he would be able to get any photos of them because when they came back from their supper, they were both parked near us. So we were a little family of Landies. But they had no cats or dogs. Pooh. They were dull - in my opinion. Sand ladders or not.


Master and mistress crawled into their tent and I watched them from the comfort of my Landy. Master left the tent door open so I could see where they were. He must think I'm stupid. I knew exactly where they had gone.

Then after a few hours when it was dark and we were all asleep, mistress came shooting out of the tent. It's a good thing it was dark mind, as all she had on was a vest and a pair of knickers. And she was jumping around like an idiot.

"Ouch, ouch. Ooooh. What shall I do?"

"Have some consideration for everyone else and shut up," said master grumpily.

So she ran up and down on the spot for about ten minutes. I pressed my nose against the window to watch and then got bored and lay down.

It turns out she had something called cramp in both feet and up and down her ankles. Must have been all the hard work putting up the tent.

Fortunately she didn't wake the rest of us again, and we had a peaceful night apart from when I had to bark at some feral cat that was raiding a rubbish bin.

And then we packed up, and off we went. But the best bit comes next. Mistress says this is too long a post so I can't say until the next one. Pooh.

Off on the road again....

Hello everydog

Here I am back from my camping adventures - I am now officially Pippathecampingdog. Camping is fine for dogs. I recommend it.

Master and mistress took hours - I am talking HOURS here - to pack my Land Rover. Then they were both so worn out with all their rushing around, they had to sit down for half an hour before we left. They said something about not being able to rush around as much as they got older. Yawn.

Anyway in we all clambered and off we went. Master decided to go on the motorway although he doesn't like them much, but it took sooooo long last time we went travelling using the ordinary roads that he thought it would be more sensible. And he had a bad knee too, so didn't want to keep changing gear. I don't know what that means but I believe him.

I don't really care so long as someone else is driving.


After an hour we all stopped for a nice drink and a peepee. We all shared a bag of crisps and sandwiches too. Yum. Mistress went off to take some piccies for an internet friend.

Boring old castle stuff.


Then we all got back in and set off on our journey down the coast to the nice camp site by the beach. After another hour we arrived. Mistress had been past recently on the bus and said she thought they might be doing some development work there as she had seen a JCB or something.

We pulled up outside and there were signs (in Spanish) in the office window. "We want electricity and water now!" and "We want a load more things too!" There were no tents or caravans and it was definitely shut. Closed. Not open at all. Half demolished. Not available for Pippa, master and mistress.

Master and mistress looked at each other and came up with Plan A - go to a site they went to years ago, but they didn't know if it took dogs, Plan B - go to a site slightly further away that they went to more recently that they knew took dogs, Plan C - go to one that mistress saw from the bus window a week or so ago. They decided on Plan C as it was nearer.

And it was brilliant. We had our own little section and I spent most of the afternoon watching master and mistress putting up the tent. And these two claim they have been camping before? Ha! They were so useless after four or five attempts at putting poles in holes there was a huge pause for mistress to find the instructions and read them out to us all. I was in hoots. So here are some pix of the incompetent tent putting-up, (and me supervising of course), and I'll catch you all later 'cos we are a bit tired. Too much fresh air, Pippa-walking, and putting up tents, hehehehe.

I think I'll lie under this nice bench and see what happens.


Nothing obviously. A load of standing around.


No, the tent is nearly up and he is bashing in the pegs with a hammer. Mistress has stopped playing tents and is now taking pix for my blog. Quite right too.


What a laugh.


More later when we have all recovered. Ruff from Pippathecampingdog.

Camping

I think we are going camping. Does any dog know what this is?


Here I am supervising the preparations

Master and mistress seem quite excited. Apparently mistress (The Keeper of The Purse) likes camping because it is CHEAP.

When she was a little girl, her mummy and daddy told her that camping was for poor people, so she never went camping.

Then she went to Australia, and went camping on the beach with some friends. She says it was good fun, even though one of the tents fell down, and they all slept in a mix of tent and poles and people. (mistress says to add - note slept - no more no less - only slept)

A little bit later in Sydney she met master and he had a very small tent. Her mummy and daddy must have been right because master was quite poor when he was young, but he liked camping.

Off they went to the Blue Mountains and crawled into his tiny tent together. I don't think one of them would be able to get into it now. Hehehe Although they still have the tent. It is a Vango Zephyr Solo. (Mistress is so useless she got the name wrong until master corrected her.)

On their way home they had to go up Govett's Leap. Mistress does not like heights and thought this was horrible. But the alternative was yet another night in the pokey tent! So she clambered up the metal steps and collapsed at the top of the gorge. (Mistress is interfering with my blog again and wants to ask my Australian dogfriends if the metal steps are still there?)

As if. Twenty years later. I am a dog and I think it is highly unlikely.

Anyway back to camping. For some reason, even taking into account Govett's Leap and the pokey tent, mistress was by then addicted to camping.

Whenever anyone else their age was taking proper sensible holidays, master and mistress were off backpacking and camping. Round Europe, or long distance footpaths in the UK.

When they were still in Australia she went back to see her mummy and daddy (first time after she had got married) and master had told her to get a tent. (He was still working in Sydney - there was a postal strike at the time so he didn't even have to write to her. Well that's what he told her anyway, hehe).

As you've worked out, mistress knew little about tents, so she told master about a very light one she had seen. "No," said master over the 'phone, without seeing any pix or anything. "That won't be strong enough. Get the other one you mentioned."

So she bought a Wild Country Quasar. This is more than 20 years ago and the company has changed a lot and been taken over as usual. But they still have the tent and still use it. It has had a new ground sheet, and some new poles after a drunk fell on it in one of the Scottish islands (it was one of their best holidays by the way). They still have the Vango too. I don't know why. Perhaps it is for me, although I think I will sleep in my Landy - on my comfy seats.
And I can guard it all night, and play boundaround if I get bored. In the morning I will be able to bark and wake up the whole camp site. I think this is going to be such fun.

Anyway, master and mistress decided they didn't want their dogs to go into kennels when they went on holiday (this is before the days of passports), so they bought a slightly bigger tent to take in their Land Rover. It was a still a Wild Country one, but they don't think it is as good quality as the very first one.

And then they bought something called a Caranex to fit over the back of their Land Rover. This meant they could sit up straight and cook at a table when it was raining in the UK instead of doing everything lying down in their little tents. I am glad we are going camping in Andalucia where the sun shines every day. (note from mistress - it doesn't shine in all of Andalucia every day - but you can usually say it will shine somewhere in Andalucia)

So pups, and huge dogs, and all my mates that come and read my blog, we should be off-line for a couple of days (as us computer-lit doggies say).

The camp site is by the beach, so mistress had better take some nice piccies. We will all be outside in the fresh air and perhaps there will be lots of cats and rats for me to chase round the camp site. I don't know, but I can always live in hopes.

So it's no more of this....



But a bit of this.....



I think the strawberries are more interesting than the camping gear, and no-one is watching me....



Bored now...they can get on with it...not a dog job

Catch you all in a few days. Ruff. Pipps. Soon to be Pippathecampingdog.




Edited to add clicky linky to Australian bush and to admit I'm not sure exactly where we climbed up but it was horrid! So the pic shows Pulpit Rock which may have been where we ended up.... - Kate

Another hard day at the gate

I like to lie at my gate and guard my terrace.




I don't know whether I like my photo taking or not though. But I will look at the camera just this once.




What's that noise over there?



No, now I am definitely bored with silly old photos.

About me

I don't remember where I came from, and master and mistress don't know either.

Spanish people around here say I am not local and that I am a mountain dog because I am big and furry. I don't know whether they mean that I come from the mountains or that my breed comes from the mountains in the past.

But most people seem to be in agreement that whoever I lived with didn't come from around here or they would all know who I was. And that my previous owners must have driven quite a way to drop me off in the countryside so I couldn't find my way home.

That seems to happen quite a bit here. People drive through and in a quiet street or a country lane, they chuck a dog out of the car, and then they drive off.

And we have to find our food, water and shelter. Quite a few people throw bread out for us stray dogs, but it does get a bit tedious chomping through hard bread. And it doesn't exactly keep body and soul together too well in the middle of winter. Some of the smaller dogs are quite lucky and get taken in quickly, but us big ones don't seem to be wanted.

Master and mistress know some kind English neighbours and she used to feed me. She always carries dog biscuits even though she doesn't have a dog (she used to have some dachsunds).

I saw her the other day and jumped up to give her a big hug - but she didn't have any biscuits.

Anyway, I pretended I wasn't disappointed because I am sure she will have some next time.

Some of the other kind Spanish women used to throw me some food too when I was on the streets, and they still come and say hello now. But lots didn't.

When I found master and mistress they thought I might have been a cross Alsatian, or part Husky. But I don't have blue eyes, I do bark, and I don't have a German Shepherd build or temperament. Although the colouring looks similar to a GSD on my body. My face is much lighter though.

I like other animals too. I go to say hello to the horses and donkeys at the stables over the road. I am not interested in chasing goats or sheep. I like to chase cats and rats of course, but they are not livestock. So I must be a mix of some sort of sheepdog/livestock guardian.

After a while master and mistress told me I needed to go and get some papers, and have some injections and a microchip so everyone would know who I was and where I lived.

Mistress was very worried in case I already had a chip. She didn't want anyone to take me away from her and master after they had looked after me and cared for me and made me better. Master thought it was very unlikely, most of our neighbours certainly don't pay for chips, jabs and papers.

So one day, master and I went for a nice long walk into the nearest town and went to see a nice person called a vet. He checked to see if I already had a chip, and I didn't so then he put one in for me. He told us it would hurt a bit and I yelped, but I didn't blame master. Everyone told me how brave I was and stroked me and gave me treats. I'm not sure I want to rush back though.

Master had the money ready, but he wanted me to have my very own passport as well as the jabs and chip. So it cost twice as much as he had originally been told. Mistress is usually very mean with the money but she had made sure he had plenty that day so master could pay for my passport too.

Because I have my passport I have been to a different country already. Before Christmas we went to Gibraltar, which is not too far away. I am so important that everyone wanted to see my passport and they were not interested in master and mistress at all. Perhaps it is because they are British and I am Spanish. I hope we go again.

Night night

Night night every dog.

Here I am snoozing safely under my table.

No-one can get me here.

I might go to my sofa - later.

Zzzzzzz Pipps

Food mmmmmm

Here is a mushie omelette to share with all my friends. Actually that isn't true at all. There wasn't even enough for three of us. Although mistress did use two large eggs and loads of mushrooms.

Mistress is a fine cook. Yesterday she made pie, but the greedy twosome were in such a hurry to eat it, she never even took a pic. And they ate ALL of it. Not even a little bit for me.

I so love pie too. Nice buttery pastry and lots of yummy vegetables. At least she made extra filling so there was some of that for my breakfast. Or there would have been TROUBLE.

Master can cook too. When they met many years ago in Sydney (Australia - I haven't been there), he got in from work before mistress and would sometimes cook tea.

One day he bought some steak and put it under the grill ready for when mistress came in. He boiled the potatoes too and some vegetables.

But when he tried to grill the steak it would not cook properly. So he asked mistress what was wrong. She looked at the steak and she looked at master, and she said, "But darling, this isn't rump steak. What did you buy?"

"I bought er...chuck steak...it was cheap," he admitted.

(We call it stewing steak in the UK).

So she put it in a pan with some vegetables and a few hours later they had a fine stew. They got married not long after that.

Anyway, here we are walking off the pie (not MY PIE, sulk sulk).

Taking master for his walk.

Master full of pie having a rest.

My neighbours

Here is Perro Blanco. He is one of my neighbours. He is in charge of the horse stables across the road. We are not friends.

When I first adopted master and mistress I was frightened of him because he always barked at me through the fence.

He still barks at me but I am bigger now, and more confident, so sometimes I bark back. And I always have master or mistress to protect me.

If I am feeling mischievous I lift my leg and have a little pee pee through the fence on his head. Perro Blanco always looks so puzzled and has to shake himself. Master nearly falls over laughing.

I don't know if he has a name, but lots of dogs round here don't have a name, they get called by their colour, so he is white dog. Or El Malo, the bad one. Although master and mistress say he is a good guard dog for the finca, because most people and everydog (except me of course) are frightened of him. By the way my ear used to flop like his before mistress made it better.

Our human neighbours next door have a little dog called Lassie. She is not very friendly to any dog or any people either. When I found master and mistress the man next door said I wasn't worth anything because I was a street dog. I was very upset.

Master stood up for me and said what a fine dog I was, and walked off with his nose in the air. Now the man next door says I am a big tough dog, a rascal, and he ruffles my fur. But we haven't forgotten what he said before.

Because we live on the corner we have neighbours just over the side road. Luna (a Belgian Shepherd) and Engordo (I think he is really called Loulou not Fatty), a small dog. I am friends with them, but mistress as usual has not taken pix of them yet. They live with Carlo and his cats and his chickens. His cats change but they are always large and furry. I don't mind them too much as they don't play The Runaway Game. They don't invade my space and I leave them alone too.

Behind Carlo lives Tia Negra. Master and mistress call her that because when they arrived her hair was black and she is Carlo's auntie. (Hence auntie black hair). She is really called Maria, but everyone round here is called Maria. When I was on the streets she used to feed me, and not just stale bread either. She is nice.

Down the street there is a very large plot of land, well, large for round here. The owner has a huge tractor and some little dogs. They play The Runaway Game and I want to chase them. Here is one of them running away, heheheh.