Snow!

We've got snow! It's not something I've seen very often so I got quite excited. Apparently I'm going on holiday in the new year to a place with LOADS of snow so i've got to get used to it.

Walkies in the snow is fun cos you can SEE the tracks that you're sniffing.

New home

I've moved house! I spent all my puppyhood and life to now in Bournemouth so I'd never lived in another house. We've moved to Basingstoke to be nearer to mum's work. I like the new house - what I like the best is that we're right next to fields and yesterday I caught a rabbit! There's deer and all sorts - so lots to keep me busy on my walkies. Just as well as I've been here two weeks and only met my first dog to play with today.

Unfortunately I cut my foot this morning whilst playing in the bushes. I had to go to the vet and got this stoopid huge bandage on that I have to wear for 10 WHOLE DAYS!!! I was much better this afternoon so we went for a walk and now mum is worried cos the blood looks like it's coming through the bandage. Oops we probably did too much. Mind you the vet said it was ok to walk as long as I had my boot on.

We went onto the building site to look for Oscar who's gone missing. I trod in some slurry stuff with all four feet so nearly ended up with concrete boots let alone stupid vet boots!

Rockpooling

We went out to the Jurassic Coast over the weekend to do something called 'rockpooling'. I thought that time was probably better spent looking suave and sophisticated....


Maybe this is my better side?

I didn't really get the concept of rockpooling, so thought I'd better read up on the thing first...


Seems some people aren't content with looking at pools in rocks and must go out and swim around.



I wasn't too fussed about getting my paws wet so stuck to dry land.


Nope, still don't geddit.


Something called a 'fossil'... Still boooored....


Ah, hang on a minute. I seeee!!! Now if you'd said that I'd find a handsome dog who looked just like me in the water I'd have tried MUCH harder from the beginning! No wonder they spent so long staring at the sea!

At the polls

I made sure to exercise my constitutional right last night at the polling station. I was going to dress up specially in one of my bandanas but then I realised that they are red or blue. That might say something about my politics and everyone knows a dog should keep that to himself. Come to think of it I don't think I have a bandana the colour of the 'Free Bones for all Dogs' party. DOH! There goes the secrecy.

Posing

As the bluebells were blooming I thought I'd take the opportunity for a little photo shoot, and to see if I could have a stab at the cover shot of the Vizsla 'Bible'. See the elegant dog pointing in the bluebells....

Now, see the EVEN MORE elegant dog pointing in, quite frankly, much better bluebell coverage than that pathetic attempt above.


Hrm, next time I'd better try to keep my head down a bit and lose the collar. Right - off to the woods again!

Playtime!

I have my girlfriend Eszti over to play - hooray! We've been playing pretty constantly since she arrived and mum thinks it is SO cute she can't take her eyes off us. Which isn't getting her work done :-)

Change is afoot

So much for writing more in my blog this year...oops. It's a very busy time for us though. Mum is coming to the end of her studies and has been on the Big Job Hunt. It's not so much fun as squirrel hunting apparently. Anyway apparently it is all over now and she has found a fab place where not only are animals treated alongside humans already, but there's even a chance that I can go to work with her! This is good news. Only trouble is that i'm a little on the, ahem, vocal side when I hear people arriving at home. And barking noisily at work is Not An Option.

Soo - any tips to dampen down my protective instincts a bit?

New girlfriend

Trouble is you can see the effect I seem to have on the ladies. Eszti, like Ditto, is a master at the lip curl. Anyway we had a nice lunch on Sunday in a pub together (well, come to think of it the humans forgot to order us any food, some lunch!) and we did the lazy play thing where you lie on the floor and open mouths at each other. I think she's pretty cool anyway, even if she does give me funny looks :-)

There's been a lot of rain around lately, which means a LOT of mud. Mum has developed this annoying habit of rinsing me off after practically EVERY walk!! And all because she didn't one day and missed a stoopid cut i had on my leg. Ho hum, at least she's not using smelly shampoo. It's not very dignified though, although perhaps more showers would be a good thing as far as Eszti is concerned? Stop the funny looks? I wonder...

Smiling

Ziggi likes to smile. I do a fair bit of smiling too :-)

The other thing I do is wash myself with my paws and tongue. Does anyone else do this? Mum thinks it's because I think I'm a cat. I suppose Oscar has always been a role model for me so maybe i've learnt it off him? I lick my paw and rub it over my face. Great for getting those tasty eye bogeys hah hah.

I went for a cycle ride with my folks in the New Forest last weekend. It is SO much better when they cycle. Usually I'm hanging around waiting for them to keep up, looking over my shoulder etc, it really takes the 'flow' out of a walk I can tell you. But when they cycle they cruise along just behind me and we can FLY! Get so much further too!

I had a small area of skinned paw on my right foot before we went so mum put this boot on me as we were running so far. I ended up wearing right through it! What do other people do - my other feet seemed ok, they didn't wear through...maybe mum should trust to nature and let my pads do the work!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Sorry to have been so quiet in 2008, will have to make it my new year's resolution to write more blog posts. Christmas was fun, I got some cool toys, some robodog eyes and this VERY uncool hat, gah...

I have wanted to try agility for some time now, but if you're not a collie around here it doesn't seem possible. So I've decided that agility is for girls and have taken up the new sport of dog steeplechasing. Much tougher, much rougher, much better!

Speaking of dodgy hats...I went to the pub on boxing day and look what they did to me! It WAS cold outside mind you.


And I'm VERY unimpressed that the cold has led my feline housemates to discover my bed, which is all toasty by the radiator in mum's study. I suppose in his defence it *did* used to be his bed, but he never used it so fair's fair. It's mine really. But now I've got to share it. I think I will have to get a bit tougher with Oscar in 2009...