Autumn Ponderings

Hello,

It’s good to be back! The fireworks really frighten me so I climb up on my Mummy’s lap and burrow my head under her arm until they finish. If she has to go and do anything, Auntie takes my place or I lie on the floor close to her, then I climb back on her lap when she sits down. Mummy says that if I wasn’t epileptic, she would try to toughen me up a bit, but she tries to keep stress to a minimum for me. I AM getting better though, and only tried to hide at the back of the cupboard once this year. My People also taught me that I am just as safe with Auntie as I am with Mummy so this meant that Mummy was able to go to a Fireworks Display in the nearby town (she LIKES fireworks! I don’t understand!). She met up with Auntie Judy and Uncle Ricky – this is the one day of the year that they always get together. Mummy was nervous about it but apparently Auntie Judy behaved herself and didn’t say anything wrong and Uncle Ricky was ok with her and bought Mummy a beer so it was all ok.



We have had some nice walks with Melody. One day, though, it was pouring with rain when poor Auntie Geri decided that she needed to climb through a ditch and took quite a spectacular fall when an evil bramble from heck wrapped itself around her foot and tripped her up. She had to go the The Bone Cricker to get put right. Melo is a bit of a wonky dog (it makes me love her more) and she goes to The Bone Cricker sometimes too and gets her pelvis sorted out. We met some lovely dogs today – two Briards and a Giant schnauzer, all ladies, all lovely, and we saw Blossom so that was a very enjoyable walk indeed. It was sunny and bright and cold and Auntie Geri and Mummy were discussing how beautiful the autumn colours are this year.

We met a lady the other week who Mummy didn’t like one bit. She had two dogs, one 19 month old GSD and one elderly lady dog about whom Mummy said that if she was a GSD then so is Mummy (!). This woman was boasting to Mummy about her old fashioned training methods and that she had thrown her puppy to the floor 30 times in the last 3 weeks. Mummy was appalled and tried to educate her about positive training methods but the woman just talked over her and kept saying “Right” at the end of every sentence (which Mummy HATES) so Mummy was getting really annoyed, especially when Mummy told her how she and I have worked hard so that I will be polite to strange dogs because I am a bit nervous of them when my head is fuzzy and the woman said that I am NOT fear aggressive, I am dominant aggressive, which Mummy thinks is nonsense because I am not a dominant dog, I don’t like responsibility! Apparently this woman had had her dog out working for 4 hours and wants to buy some land off the farmer to work the poor thing and we GSDs shouldn’t even be out for that long until we are 2 as we have to protect our hips. Mummy thinks the woman is an idiot, but she says that what is really frightening is that this woman kept quoting a local dog Warden and said that these are her methods and she rehomes GSDs all the time which Mummy says is a frightening thought as no dog trained so harshly should be going to a pet home.


Bella and Dylan have to be on their leads from now on because they were very naughty the other week. They picked up a scent and ran off and thy were not found until the next day, in a village 4 miles away, tired and cold with bleeding feet. Now they stay on lead and have to behave. Mummy says that Uncle Benjamin went missing for 2 hours once and that was bad enough. She says that I am never to go missing and I don’t plan to – when I did jump through the window, I came home when I couldn’t find her. I just want My People!

I went for a walk with my Auntie today because poor Mummy is ill again – but proper ill this time, she has to be feeling really bad if she doesn’t take me out. I could tell that she was feeling horrid though and I didn’t hassle her to take me herself, in fact it was nice going with Auntie, we went a good distance and she threw my ball a lot and we saw Auntie Geri and Melody at the end of the walk so all in all, it was pretty good!


Mummy and Auntie are struggling with money just now so Mummy was very embarrassed because she had planned a get-together for a group of her friends to celebrate Christmas and now she can’t afford to go. She was talking on the phone with Auntie Tracy about it and Tracy said that she should cancel the night and that everyone would understand, and then Uncle Steve and her said that they will treat Mummy and Auntie to a lunch out so that Mummy will still have an outing at Christmas and it will be with close friends so they can ‘have a laugh’. Mummy is very very grateful and she and Auntie accepted (this is Auntie’s doing as she is very proud) only on the condition that they can take them out in return when their finances improve. Auntie Tracy was right about the friends too – she said that if they were any sort of friends, then they would understand and when Mummy did talk to them everyone was really nice and some of them said that they couldn’t afford it wither so Mummy was doing them a favour. On the rare occasion that Auntie and Mummy both go out in the evening, I go round Auntie Angie’s - she cuddles me all the time and I get to go on the put up bed in her living room and we lie on that together, sometimes with the two girls as well (Ella is 4 and Lauren is 2) and that is all snugly and nice and I enjoy it!

Mummy says please don’t ask about the whole The Mother saga. She broke her heart about losing The Holiday and now she discovers that the arrangement was only ever supposed to be for six weeks. Auntie Judy is making big dramas about The New Home and is reporting it (that’s what she did at the last Home and she was always moaning about the one before as well!) and then she says she is moving her to a new New Home but then she is told that something terrible happened there and people were heard screaming (!) but she chooses not to believe it (!) and wants to move her there anyway and then she can’t get the funding sorted etc etc etc. She came over uninvited last Sunday and disturbed our weekend and was talking on and on about this stuff and poor Mummy was getting more and more thin-lipped and cross.

Auntie Geri is still working hard to get her Hypnobirthing and Hypnotherapy business off the ground but now she has got a ‘proper’ job as well, doing promotion work for some people she met at a business function. She is enjoying it very much and tells us all about it on our walks.

Baby Harry has fitted right in to our household but he is not the quiet little bird we expected him to be, he chirps almost as loudly as Oliver does. He soon learned that lights out means silence and those birds are not to chirp until Mummy wakes up in the morning and he comes out and has a fly when I am not there because I am frightened of flapping wings – don’t ask me why, I just don’t like it….


Well, that is my news for now, I hope you are all well and enjoy my Autumn pictures,

Regards,

Bruce xxx