A very rare occurrence...

The kitties have not been on the kitty tower together, until now. I slunk off to grab my camera because this is such a rare thing and I knew it wouldn't happen again any time soon.

They shared like this for about 10 minutes before Frou had enough and left. Mittens can't out muscle Frou, but sometimes she can be more stubborn in the war of attrition.

Diligent nail cutting may have it's rewards...

This is Bender tonight. He has been put under, had two nails which had been partially ripped off tidied up, and his others cut right back.

He has ripped nails off before. He goes so hard chasing his ball that his nails break under the force. This is the first time he has ripped off a dew claw, but it didn't completely come off.

While he is healing the vet said no walks for a week!! She said that if we get desperate we can take him out but should try covering up his foot with a sock. I think he'll be OK to walk in a couple of days. There is no way I'm keeping him in the house for a week!

Bender's nails have never really seemed to need trimming - they get worn down by themselves, but after this I think I will keep them as short as possible. The quicks should be fairly high up now the vets chopped off all his nails while he was sleeping. Hopefully we can work with his paw-aversion by offering yummy treats and maybe only doing a paw at a time.

I clipped Barbie's nails as soon as I got home. Her nails are so thick and dark, I got her quick a couple of weeks ago and she screamed at me. I only just nipped it though, it barely bled. She tries to pull her foot away after you have done one, but she doesn't carry on like Bender.

I had a look at using a Dremel to file dog's nails on youtube, and for the added noise and hazards, it seems like it takes longer than just using a good sharp pair of dog nail clippers. I think I'll stick to the clippers!

SPRUNG!

Greyhounds are agile and athletic creatures, but when we first got Barbie she didn't know how to use her legs for anything aside from walking, trotting or sprinting. Anything that involved uneven surfaces was a problem. Stairs, jumping into the car and jumping over logs while hiking were all very difficult for her. It even took her months to figure out how to get onto the couch.

Our regular routine is that I get home from work, get greeted enthusiastically at the door, and struggle my way through the house to let the dogs outside.

I usually do something else for 10 minutes - go and check the letter box, bring the bins in, take off my shoes, that kind of thing. Barbie makes her presence known at the back door when she wants to come in.

This evening I had just walked up the driveway and back, when I spotted this through the kitchen window.

The grass in the yard has just been slashed, so Barbie was on this narrow ledge between the retaining wall and the fence partaking in the only green grass she could find. If she's happy walking along there, the dog walk should be no problem for her, I reckon!

The lounge room makeover is complete, what is the verdict?

I have mentioned that we were getting new carpet and a new couch, and we were trying kitty repellant to keep their claws out of the new couch. I also got catnip spray to attract the kitties to the scratching tower I bought for them.

The catnip spray has no effect on the cats. I think they are the kitties that aren't attracted to catnip at all. I had tried catnip leaf toys with Froufrou before and she showed no interest in them. I was hoping that Mittens would like it.

The No Scratch Spray is supposed to have an odour totally repellent to the cats. It certainly seems to work. We used it on the old couches which they were already in the habit of scratching and it kept them away. We sprayed it on the new couch and I have not seen either of them lay a claw on it.

They do like to sit on the couch now though. It's been a bit of a change from having three separate couches where everyone claimed their own space. Now that the couch is just one continuous U-shape, everyone has to share a bit more deliberately.

The dogs have also shown their appreciation for the new carpet by spending hours sprawled on it. It is so soft and really nice to walk, sit or lie on. The lounge room is finally done and I think we are happy with the result. Since we moved in we replaced all the light fittings, painted and got curtains.... and now finished with the couch and carpet. It makes the rest of the house look a bit shabby now. It is certainly not that nice to walk on the old carpet in the bedrooms and hallway after luxuriating on the new stuff!

It will probably be another year before any more big renovations or replacements happen around here, so we will all be hanging in the lounge room more than usual!

Toy Drive

Barbie didn't know what a stuffie was when we got her two years ago. Actually, she didn't even know what leaves were and was fascinated by them. She used to scoop one up in her muzzle and carry it around with her.

Anyway, I have been working with her to build her toy drive. We have gotten her a large variety of stuffed toys and I think I now have a good feel for the ones she likes. She prefers the expensive ones from the pet store that have more than one squeaker - she will take them to her bed and methodically munch on them until they squeak. There are some op shop stuffies that she likes, the softer the better.

So I went into the op shop in the city the other day and spotted a monkey with long arms, legs and a tail, for a princely sum of 50 cents. It was suitably soft and was already missing an eye. When I took it up to the cashier the lady said 'oh, I am so glad this little guy is going to a good home'. I didn't have the heart to tell her what kind of home he was actually going to.

She would have been absolutely horrified.

He has held up pretty well so far, about 5 or 6 tug sessions like this one. He is a bit goopy from Bender's slobber and lost his other eye, but so far all of his limbs are intact. Hopefully the monkey will hang around long enough to get a name, but we shall see....

Mittens is unhappy

Mittens.

We are getting our new couch delivered on Saturday, and we gave away a couple of our couches on gumtree last weekend. As you can see the lounge room is quite empty. We dragged the bean bag out of the spare room to sit on. While the bean bag was in the spare room, Mittens sat on it for hours. Now that it is in the lounge room, nothing has changed, except that Mittens now has to share. Mittens doesn't like to share.

The story of chewed Kindle (Amazon is great)

Barbie has a habit of eating pens and other things that are left on the coffee table, but she usually doesn't eat things that are bigger than, say, a TV remote.

For Christmas N bought me an Amazon Kindle WiFi - and it was excellent - I had read about 5 novels on it, and it had been living on the coffee table, next to my Macbook.

So dear readers, you can see where this is going. N works away, and when she goes, sometimes the doggies suffer from Separation Anxiety. I went to work as usual, and came home to see my Kindle was on the floor. It was still inside it's cover. A closer look revealed that the cover was mangled, and when I got the Kindle out this is what I found.

You can see the two teeth mark dents, one in each corner. The screen had been broken and the 'ink' had leaked so that only part of the screen still operated as it should. I posted on Facebook lamenting the Kindle's premature death and a friend suggested I contact Amazon, tell them the truth, and see if they could do a deal.

I logged into the live chat and told the operator what happened - my dog ate my Kindle. They asked me to try to reset it and I said it still didn't work, so they said 'the only thing to do since your Kindle is still under warranty is send you one free of charge'. They e-mailed me a return label and then sent out my new one. I got UPS to pick the broken one up from work.

The new one arrived today.

Thank you so much Amazon, you are awesome. Now I can keep buying and reading books from Amazon - I guess that's kind of the point. I can't buy books if I don't own a working Kindle now, can I?

Barbie would also like to thank Amazon, for without their generous replacement Kindle, she would be banished to the wasteland of the backyard every weekday for months.

Belated Wordless Wednesday

Beach video redux....

Well you saw my photo post on Saturday, here is a video of the shenanigans. It is actually pretty rare to find a dog that is willing to race and chase with Barbie, so she always enjoys having a buddy aside from her brother.

Also, I know a lot of my blog followers have probably already seen this as it's doing the rounds on Facebook, but here is some agility inspiration. These dogs are so fast and fearless on the course, it's pretty amazing to watch.... and the handlers! I better get back into running.

Beautiful Beach Day!!

Whoa, where did you go Bender? Oh, all the way back there....

Come on, keep up, I'll just trot this time!

It's Greyhound AFTERBURNER TIME!!!!!

Best buddies run together...

Bender the ocean monster emerges from the deep with his treasure.

This is a very unfair game of chasey!