Houdini the atheist dog

This week I took a stroll up the road to go and deliver the number of our fabulous dog walker to a lady that lives a few houses up. Deep in thought about how I can convince the government to make chocolate count as 1 of our 5 a day, I heard the sound of running paws behind me. I turned around to see my dog flying down the pavement towards me, ears flapping in the wind and a huge doggy grin on her face. She came bounding over as if to say, ‘You forgot me!! But don’t worry, I got out of the house and here I am! Aren’t you happy??’

Before we got our lion sized dog, I never understood how loyal a dog can be. She loves us so much that being left behind when we go about our daily lives really really upsets her. So she has worked out a way to ensure she is with us at all times- she can open the front door and let herself out. Now this is not a good thing.... She has escaped 3 times so far and thank goodness she has not been hit by a bus or frightened the life out of some poor parent walking their toddler down the road. The solution is to keep the middle door shut for the moment- that is until she works out how to open that one too.

In the mean time she likes to remind me of how horrible I am when I do have to lock her in the house- she like to shred paper as I have said before. The problem is that at the moment she likes to shred any book I am reading that has anything to do with God. So I have lost some pages of my bible, my Philip Yancy books to just mention a few. I wonder if she has an issue with my love of Jesus? Or maybe I just leave these books lying around too much. Anyway, all I am hoping is that she converts from her atheism before she is hit by a bus after escaping through the front door! I don’t want her to miss out on all the open fields of doggy heaven one day!

When the lion was a puppy

Another story from a few months ago:

Recall training was going well. I have to admit I was a little smug about it, proud of well we were doing. The day my smugness came down a notch or 2 was a glorious one.  The sun was high in the blue cloudless sky, the air warm and the world was friendly (has anyone else noticed that the English are much happier when the sun shines?).  On days like these the tow path is full of anglers hoping to catch something for the BBQ later. Boats are moored along the green riverbank, families are sat eating lunch on them with their children squealing in delight at the swans swimming on the river.

On that fateful day my fabulous friend was walking the puppy for me. She owns a golden retriever that is so well behaved and gentle that he was the obvious choice as role model for my puppy.

They had been walking along the tow path, enjoying the warm sunshine. A few men were along the river catching fish, their bait beside them, dreaming of their lovely BBQ later. The smell of the bait must have been too much for the puppy. She sped at top speed over to the startled man and before you could say ‘other people’s food tastes better’ she had eaten it all! Just like that! My friend raced after her, calling her back but the realisation that there was food about propelled the puppy forward. All the recent fabulous work we had done on recall forgotten as she hunted down another tasty meal.

Detecting the smell of fresh cheese sticks, the puppy continued on with her quest to eat! She launched herself onto a boat moored beside the riverbank. On it sat a granddad and his grandchild. Seeing the brown blur of a puppy jump onto his boat, he lifted his grandchild into his arms.... clearly he could not tell if it was a lion or a dog.... that meant that the cheese sticks he had bought were unattended! My exhausted friend was running and calling and the puppy was using her selective hearing! She gobbled the cheese sticks, the hungry little child began to cry and my embarrassed friend and shamed retriever dragged puppy off the boat. Then they proceeded to walk the ‘Walk of Shame’ back to my house, only the puppy had no shame only a rather full belly.  Back to the recall training I think!

Hahaha this is just like Akira

A roller coaster called Akira

This weekend I went away to Alton Towers to celebrate an exciting event with some amazing friends. This theme park is like Lego Land on steroids and for 8 hours on Saturday I was strapped in and flung around like a rag doll. I have a croaky voice today from all the screaming! But all of that involuntary motion reminded me that I have my very own ‘roller coaster maker’ here at home.

You see ‘puppy’ weighs 35 kg now and is a bundle of muscle. I bet she could drag along a truck like they do in the World’s Strongest Man competitions! For reasons I will chat about another time, Akira needs to be walked on a lead at the moment. Once we are on open land the lead of choice is a retractable lead. For those who are new to the dog world as I am, this is long lead that extends and retracts into a small hand held device and allows your dog to move a few meters away from you to explore whilst allowing you to have control over them.

The story unfolds on a clear, blue sky sunshine day in London. A Saturday, which means that every man and his aunt are out on the common having a picnic and playing football. It is such a luxury to see the sun that I cannot wait to get out the door with Akira. She is so grateful to be out that she walks beautifully next to me all the way to the common. Here we amble around happily, watching the kids play and the grown ups fall asleep in the sun. Akira LOVES chasing a ball but she needs to stay on the lead and I am kicking the ball just in front of her so she can pick it up and bring it back to me. This seems to working well and she is enjoying a bit of a play. Again I drop the ball and... it bounces... it all happens in slow motion. I see the ball fly far from me, she also spots it and takes off. 35 kgs of muscle chase after the small blue circle. My brain begins to scream at me---- NOOOOO!--- but my body freezes. I hear the long line extend- ‘ZZZWEEEE’. At last my legs defrost and I begin to run but it is too late! ZZZWEEE and then click as Akira reaches the end of the lead. I try to run as fast as I can but my legs just cant move fast enough and I cling to the lead for dear life. Then, I launch into the air and fly for a few meters, landing on my stomach. My sunglasses fly from my face, the bag empties all over the grass as I  get dragged another meter and stop. I look up from the ground just in time to see Akria trot back over to me and drop the ball at my head.  Shucks, I hope nobody saw that!

Who needs to pay to go on a roller coaster when you have a huge dog?

Gin and dogs don't mix.

My evening walk with Akira was thoroughly amusing today. Walking along the Ham lands we came across a couple with 2 dogs .The couple however were a little worse for wear. Now I am not in the habit of judging a book by it’s cover. I am sure I looked a little nuts myself to be honest- a haze of red frizz surrounding my head and I displayed a 'ministry of funny walks' type of gait. The walk is not my fault though. I have new wellies and they eat my socks so when I walk my socks gradually slide down until they end up in a ball at my toes. Without knowing I do it really, I compensate for the 'sock slide' by sort of scrunching my toes and walking a bit like I have needles in the bottoms of my wellies...

Anyway, back to the couple. The clues that gave away their slight run in with the gin bottle were clear. They yelled ‘Hellosh’ over to me, waving their hands above their heads. I squinted to try and see if I knew them, I am sure I had not met them before. Then the ‘I am sho shorry, I am sho shorry’. At this point I had stopped and was just staring at them in a sort of perplexed way, trying to work out if they had done something terrible I needed to be mad about... but I couldn’t work it out. I noticed the man was holding the rather boisterous dog on the long line and that his partner was propping the man up. They were crab walking towards a group of trees and I just hoped that the dog would not notice the squirrels in these trees. Perhaps I should have shouted across to my new friends and warned them but I didn’t. (note to the couple: if you are reading this then ‘I am sho shorry’).  The big dog saw the squirrels and made a dash, the line went taut and the man was catapulted over to the trees. His ‘supportive’ partner clung on to him for dear life and so the couple practically flew towards the trees. At this point I thought I had better retreat but as I turned I heard the man yell over to me again ‘I am sho shorry!’. Please don’t be, you have brightened up my day!

But I don't eat paper!

New research shows that dog owners pick dogs that reflect their personality! I am not sure what this says about my husband and I??
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2132374/Dog-owners-pick-dogs-act-like-say-researchers.html

Conversation with a dog

Coming downstairs in the morning and finding a shredded newspaper in the lounge:

Me: akira, what is this??

Akira looks around the room: What is what?

Me pointing at the newspaper: What is THIS?

Akira: Oh that? Do you like what I have done with the look of the room?

Me: No! I like seeing the floor and I also like reading the paper before it is shredded.

Akira, wagging her tail excitedly:  But do you like what I have done? I worked so hard on it?

Me: No! For goodness sake, I have told you over and over that paper in not for eating it is for reading!

Akira: Huh? Reading? I was going to make a paper mache cat to eat later, just for fun.

Me: Do you understand that paper mache is creating a new thing, not destroying it?

Akira: What?

Me: Look just stop shredding things ok?

Akira: Can you google ‘Making cat animals out of chewed up sunglasses’ for me please??