I ride my bike to work every day. Well one of my bikes. Mostly I switch between my Giant CRX2 flat bar roadie and my Surly Long Haul Trucker. Sometimes I ride the xtracycle and that gets a lot of attention.
Anyway, I was at the lights yesterday morning waiting for my turn, and noticed a guy rock up on a CRX with nice looking mudguards on it. I was checking them out, and the rider said to me...
"Wow, how many bikes have you got?"
I said "four, but only 3 I ride in to work regularly".
He said 'thought so', and we turned our attention back to the lights.
On to the dogs....
When I got home yesterday, Nic told me that the fence had broken. We live on a strata titled block, and the fence between us and our strata neighbours has cracked along the bottom. Their soil level is probably 2 inches below ours, so the constant pressure of the soil against the fence, along with naughty Bender, jumping on the fence, has lead it to break. It's an old asbestos type fence, so it is pretty brittle. It is also covered by the strata insurance. I'm hoping we get a nice new colorbond steel fence to replace it, otherwise it's likely to crack along the bottom again. We are thinking about adding some obstacle to stop Bender from getting down the side, as he's jumping on the fence more than we realised, and it's annoying the neighbours a little. They have a gorgeous rottie called Jaeger (yeah he's a young 20-something dude and typically named his dog after alcohol). Jaeger doesn't bark or retaliate at all. He is only 18 months old but he is the most placid, lovely beast. He barked a bit when he first moved in but has settled down a lot. He does howl when he is left home alone at night though. Nic thinks we should introduce the dogs in a neutral environment but I'm not sure it's going to stop Bender being an idiot.
While the fence is broken, the dogs are going to be in the house while we are at work. The fence is likely to be fixed on Friday, so that means they have four days of 8 hours being shut inside. This suits Barbie just fine, as she will sleep alternately on a cushion, on the couch, and perhaps on our bed. Bender, I expect, will go a little stir crazy without being able to sniff the air and bark and jump on fences!
I think we are going to install a gate there so that we can shut Bender out of that part of the yard. We never actually go down there anyway so it might be a good place for an outdoor cat enclosure. The cats would definately appreciate that. There is a piece of garden fence type wire strung across the gap at the moment so we can let Bender outside without having to supervise him the whole time. Jaeger hasn't shown the slightest interest in getting into our yard.
He is such a cool dog. I hope they all get along. I think Bender might be a bit of a beast and try to hump him though. I'm not sure that they are compatible as Bender finds larger male dogs difficult to cope with. I guess we have to try.
