Still here...peein' on the floor...

Hello! You thought I'd given up, hadn't you? Thought I couldn't handle this blogging malarky. Well baby, I'm still here and so is Buddy Boy Bingo.

So WHY have I been AWOL for so very long? Well, I was hit by a lurgy. Two days of illness and general ickyness. We were also slap bang in the middle of the Magners Comedy Festival in Glasgow during which Scott & I usually manage to swing a few child-free nights to see some gigs. This year we saw Frankie Boyle who was - to put it politely - really crap. In fact, I would say he was rather vile. We also saw Sean Lock who was fab and the fantastic Rhod Gilbert - he was the mutt's nuts (which I feel is a rather phrase for a dog blog).

But no-one is really interested in all that chat, are they? Noooo! It's all about the Buddster on here.

Buddy has now completed his Puppy Foundation Course at Wizard of Paws. He's a foundling, officially. He even has a wee loveheart tag with a paw on it to go on his collar to prove it, so it must be true.

Tonight we tried our hand (or more appropriately, paws) at a bit of recall. The whole recall thing is very important to me because I get very nervous when Dog McDogface is off the lead. On one hand, I love nothing more than watching him bound across open fields, his puppy fluff streaming in the wind behind him as he streaks off up the hill like a ferret up a trouser leg. It' a truly marvelous sight. Then I get all panicky thinking 'he won't come back! He won't come back!' and I start shouting on him with my nerves screamingly apparent in my voice. and guess what. He doesn't come back.

I will document our recall class on this very blog but not tonight Jospehine - Mama's very tired and must got to beddy -bye-byes.

Later, dog dudes

x

Ain't No Mountain High Enough...

This is a quick non-Buddy related post just to let you know that Scott and I will be climbing Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain, to raise money for Camille's Appeal, a charity which helps children under five who have suffered from brain tumours. If you were ever looking for a worthy cause to donate to, this would the one.

We'll be climbing Ben Nevis on August 7th, so please, if you can donate to our Just Giving page. We don't care how much you donate - every penny will help.

Thanks very much!

A New Loch Monster? No Worries, Nessie...

Another weekend, another family day out - with the Hell Hound. WE decided this week to see if Bud was a natural in the water, so we let Mother know we off on another jolly adventure, asked Cook to pack us a picnic with thick cut cut honey roast hams sandwiches and lashing and lashings of ginger beer... Sorry, I came over all 'Enid Bylton' there, but since there's now five os us plus a dog, I'm worried we're starting to morph into The Famous Five. Do let us know if we start to sound like dear old Eind, won't you? There's a good chap.

Where were we? oh yes, picnic. I packed ham sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, ham AND cheese sandwiches (variety is the spice of life y'know)and a Weightwatchers friendly (if somewhat tasteless) lunch for me. I hit my 'official' goal weight at WW, although my unofficial goal weight is still a few pounds away, but I was going to be damned if I was going to let a few crappy cheese/ham/butter laden sangers get in the way of my weight loss. Not when there's things like wine and chocolate to knock me off kilter. big bottle of fizzy orange (Orangina to be precise, diet of course) some Pepperamis for the kids, some Monster Munch crisps and we were good to go.

after much debate about where to go (Ayr? The kids have a pathological fear of the playground. Saltcoats? The weans love it there, but the parking's not so great. Largs? Too rocky. Troon? Too many condoms on the beach and we ain't picking them out of the dogs teeth - you get the general idea) we plumped for the exceedingly pretty village of Luss on the banks of Loch Lomond

Being 'The Johnstons', the first thing we did when we arrived was to demolish our picnic. We found a picnic bench and Lucy secured the Bud-meister to it by tying his lead on to it. It was a great spot with loads of dogs running about, but we didn't feel confident enough to let Bud off the lead, so he had to content himself by looking at the other dogs and staring at the ducks who were mooching about for the odd crust to be chucked in their direction.

.

Once we had chowed down, it was time to do what i had been looking forward to for the five weeks since we got bud - taking him swimming. As Renfrewshire Council have a No Bearded Collie In The Pool policy, Wee Buddy would have to make do with the Great Outdoors.

We made our way down to the lochside and expected Buddy to bound into the water. It didn't quite happen that way. It was more a case of a wellie-clad Lucy dragging him into the water and Buddy not particularly enjoying it. He came out of the water with his mighty fluff on his head and body intact, but his little tree trunk legs were more like scrawny matchsticks as they were so wet. I think you need a photo


So it turns out our puppy's not such a big fan of the water. No matter, we still spent a good few hours in the village, specifically the play park playing with the kids, watching the pup bounding about around chasing sticks and leaves. It was a glorious afternoon and one which I'll remember for a very long time. Here are some pics...

Keeping Calm And Carrying On...

Woof. Woof Woof. Arf. Whine. Whine. Woof. Woof Woof. Arf. Whine. Whine. Woof. Woof Woof. Arf. Whine. Whine. Woof. Woof Woof. Arf. Whine. Whine. Woof. Woof Woof. Arf. Whine. Whine. (Repeat for two hours)

^
That is my life between the hours of midnight and 2am, people. Our Bud loves nothing more than a damned good whinge at that time and let me tell you, I'm soooo over it now. Thanks to Gill Buchanan's sage advice, we are no longer getting up to settle him when he starts, we just roll over, throw a pillow over our heads and try to get back to sleep until Puppy Power realises he ain't getting jack. It's getting easier because his tantrums aren't as long now. But they're still long enough to make me wish that he had a battery compartment that I could flip open and remove the batteries for the night. Or maybe a mute button...yeah, that could work. A mute button for bumptious puppies - quick, get someone at JML onto it. Just think, you could soon see Puppy Mute Buttons on little plastic racks in Asda next to Ped-Eggs and Slankets. Remember people - you heard it here first.

So week two of our puppy foundation course. How did we get on? Well, due to the Gods conspiring against me and throwing everything from temperamental ovens, appointments running late and the phone ringing off the hook, we were late. And just for the craic, Buddy picked today - the day when my stress levels were hitting previously unsurpassed heights - to roll in a muddy puddle. A bath was not only a good idea, it was a necessity. Showering/bathing the puppy whilst you've got totties boiling, trying to pull a washing in, mark homework and organise a Girls Brigade uniform is not recommended. Do not try it at home. The bath was nearly as minging as the pup, I was quite astounded at the amount of muck that a nearly 13 week old dog can retain in it's coat - he must have increased his own body weight by at least 50%. I still haven't been up to clean up following Emergency-Bath-Gate, I'm not looking forward to that. Of course, I have provided photographic evidence of the utterly bogging state of the pup.



Anyhoo, I digress. Off to puppy training we went and arrived with a very over-excited puppy who was both still indignant and hyper after his bath. He was not for settling at all tonight and had to be taken out for several toilet trips - yet still managed to lay a cable on the floor inside Wizard Of Paws (apologies again to everyone in the room at the time - it was a real hummer).

Tonight we learned how to teach our hounds to stay and also how to handle the beasts. To give you a rough idea, you slip two fingers (steady now) under the dog's collar and then place your arm/hand underneath the dog, close to the back legs (personally, I try to steer clear of the general winkie area, if ya get my drift). Did the dogs like it? Not really. In fact, Buddy did go a tad on the loco side. He no likey. However, you persevere until the dog calms down enough to stand nicely with your fingers still holding onto the collar. I'll let you know when Buddy and I achieve this - it ain't gonna be any time soon. The whole point of the exercise isn't just to wind your dog to the high heavens, it's to let your dog get used to being handled at places like the vet or by a groomer. I've to practice it for five minutes a day with Buddy - I think I'll need to get some gardening gloves to protect my hands for those training sessions.

It's getting late and I must be off to my scratcher soon, mainly because I'll be spending the wee small hours listening to Buddy Boy Bongo sing his heart out (unless by some miracle he decides to give a by tonight - fingers crossed!)

Oh! One more thing! Buddy has a new favourite website! Okay, I love it too. It's Dog Judo - I know, it's beyond weird. Fopr some unknown reason, I'm having problems posting links into my blog entries, but I've popped a link into Buddy's Favourites and if you're a cut and paste kinda person, you can do cut and paste this: http://www.dogjudo.com/ Let me point out that no actual dogs are used for judo purposes, it's just a very clever website (but don't let Rexley and Roy hear me say that). I love it, especially Ep 12, Elastic Bands. It's brilliant, enjoy.

Fluff-Ball Update

It's been a little while since I updated ye olde blog but that's not to say that life is dull with him. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, if life with Buddy could just click down a gear or two, I could live that. Oh, for the chance to try.

Let's see, what has the black and white Fluff Bucket been up to? Well, since he's discovered the FREEDOM (Braveheart stylee) of getting out for walks since the Event That Must Not Be Mentioned (which was getting his second inoculations, we still can't talk about it in front of him without him going in the huff) Buddy has decided that The Great Outdoors should remain great and he has decided against toileting outside. Seriously, we could take him out for an hour and he would be a poop and pee-free pup but as soon as you open the front door and walk back in the house, the little torag is either getting into to his pre-poop squat and having a fly slash under the dining room table. Frustrating? Yes. Maddening? Absolutely. I don't know how many kitchen rolls I've been through but it's safe to say that Plenty (previously Bounty;) ) will not be going out of business any time soon.


So the puppy does the odd crime against carpeting in the house. We could live with that, right? Of course we could. But one thing that I am not remotely amused with is Buddles' new nocturnal activities - crying like a big girls blouse. All night. Very loudly. On Friday night he turned into a howling hound and kept us awake. What did we do? Stay strong and ignore him? In an ideal world, we would have. But at half past two in the morning it is incredibly difficult to ignore the constant arf arf arf arf woofy woofy woofy arf arf arf woofy woofy woof at ear-splitting decibels. Especially when you're in a post two glasses of red wine haze. We made the classic mistake of going down to see what Dog McDog-face was barking about and guess what? He just to say hi. He just wanted to be petted. He just wanted to have a wee chew at our fingers. Basically, all he wanted was anything except from being left alone to go to sleep. Yes, this puppy is a clever cookie.

Night time howling and carpet defecation aside, what else have we been up to with Budweiser? Puppy training of course! Yes, we've started the puppy foundation course at the brilliant Wizard of Paws Canine Care Centre under the watchful eye of the super-lovely Gill Buchanan. Why oh why can't Gill just move in with us? She gets Buddles to do things when she asks him. How is that possible? When I do the 'sit' thing with him, he just looks at me as if to say 'aye right missus, very good. Make good with the dog treats lady'. However under Gill's encouraging coaching Loopy and I managed to get him to sit on demand - we even got him to lie down on demand. We have continued with the training at home, but now Bud is getting wise to us and as soon as he sits down and gets his treat, he lies down automatically waiting on his next treat. What'cha gonna do? The training is very positive and reward based - we don't punish or berate the pups and use motivation and rewards. If anyone trained me with a grab-bag of Minstrels the way we're training the pups with treats, I'd sit nicely and lie on demand. Damn straight. There's a lovely mix of breeds at the class. There's our Bud, a teacup chihuahua aptly named Tiger, a pug named OB and Border Terrier called Bree. Buddy looked at least twice the size of all the other pups but when you consider that he's 88% pure fluff, I suppose he's just about the right size.

I know that reading about me bleating on about cleaning up pee and suffering from dog-barking related sleep deprivation is perhaps now the most riveting reading. S'ok, I can take it, I'm a big gal. A big, puppy-bore blogging kinda gal. So here's what I thought I'd do - I thought I'd give you a little insight into life through Buddy's eyes....

Wow, they've all gone to up those stairs that I'm not allowed up. Hmmm. Must process that information. I did manage to sneak up there one day and man, it was good. Really good. you know what they've got up there? Slippers. And shoes. Loads of them. Do you know how long I could chew shoes for? A long time my friend, a very long time indeed. And that's before we even get into the bathroom and you know what's in the bathroom? Only the toilet bowl! How much fun is a toilet bowl? It's a lot of fun. They've even got a toilet brush up there - I'm not kidding! A toilet brush!!! Seriously, it's like Disneyland up there for puppies. But there's one problem - I can't get passed that infernal obstacle they put in my way. What do they call it? Oh yeah, the stair gate. The stair gate appears to Buddy-proof. How can I beat the Buddy gate and get up those stairs? Ooooooh I know, know!!!! Bark at it! Barking will work. yeah yeah, let's bark! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! (repeat to fade...)

You get the idea.

Reading back, I think this post sounds quite negative and believe me I don't mean to be. Because as much as I may moan about the pee-saturated kitchen roll, poop infested carpet and nocturnal howling, I really, really love my little Buddy Boy Bingo. I love coming downstairs first thing in the morning and seeing his little fuzzy face. I'll be even happier when I can come downstairs and see him in the morning without having to negotiate my way through yellow puddles and puppy logs but I'm sure that will day will come. Here's hoping it comes before Plenty report record profits and we're bankrupt after buying mountains of the stuff.

Till next time...stay safe people. Buddy loves ya.

Woof woof...

I have stuff to tell you about the Buddster's progress, but I'm short of time so if you can satisfy yourself with this pic for the moment, that would be great.

I firmly believe this is possibly the best photograph of a dog ever taken. Is it a kangaroo? Is it a rabbit? No, it's a lesser-spotted Bearded Collie...