Wordless Wednesday

Whiteman Park - Dance of the Borzoi

We took the dogs for their weekly offleash burn at Whiteman Park this morning, and as we pulled around the corner I spotted two huge, beautiful furry sighthounds hanging out together. I didn't know what they were - I thought maybe Salukis, or Afghans, but since I have never come across these dogs in the flesh I didn't know for sure.

I took Barbie over to say hello, and then she got a small white and grey greyhound tail who followed her around the park - she seemed to barely acknowledge the other Greyhound and she certainly wasn't going to run with her right behind her. I chatted to the owner of the elegant furry sighthounds, and she told me they were Borzoi. She just told everyone they were hairy Greyhounds as it was easier. The Borzoi boy gave me a cuddle, leaning into me while I patted that luxurious coat, he was very tall, probably taller than the big Greyhounds I've met like Daddy and others. Barbie sniffed them but she didn't want to run with them, she knew they could easily keep up with her.

The Borzoi chased Bender a bit, and then spent a lot of time just gracefully gliding around the park. They are a sight to behold when they run, with all that beautiful silky hair flowing. Barbie did go for a burn, but only when she didn't think the Borzoi would come after her! Then she got chased by a small orange dog who was deceptively quick. She enjoyed the race with the little orange dog, and we ended up over near her owners. Her name was Ellen and she was an Italian Greyhound cross.

Ellen's owners asked me a bit about Barbie's recall. Ellen isn't keen on coming back when she is called. I told them we started at Whiteman and other safe places to practice recall. I told them that sighthounds often need some extra work and need to be well bonded to their owners. Ellen is three and they haven't had her all her life, so I think they will be OK if they keep working on it. She did seem to be a very dog-motivated dog, she wanted to chase other dogs but wasn't interested in me at all!

Bender, as usual, pretty much ignored all the other dogs and chased his ball. When we went to leave he didn't want to go home though - he decided he wanted to play with some labradors once we were outside of the park and on the wrong side of the fence. Cheeky dog!

Barbie's new bed

Since the kitties got a new piece of furniture, N decided that Barbie should get a new bed. We bought the biggest, cushiest bed in the whole shop. Barbie approves!

She spends most of her time on this bed - even at night, she has given up sleeping near us in the bedroom in favor of the big cushy bed in the lounge room.

Preparing for a new couch

We currently have three couches, they were all acquired second hand and are all sporting a bit of damage from the cats. One of them is stained because it was outside on a verandah for 3 months when we lived in a shoebox posing as a house.

Anyway, we have decided to finally do away with them - I think at least two of them will make good couches for a student share house somewhere. The first problem is that we need to divert to cats away from scratching couches to something more acceptable.

Enter: the delux kitty tower.

I have been meaning to build them one of these for ages, but I never got around to it. N was in a spending mood when we were at the pet shop, so we settled on this tower as it was the most stable of them all. Mittens has voluntarily jumped onto it and settled down on it, but Frou only went on it when I put her there. Neither has had a scratch at it yet.

The woman at the pet shop suggested that when we get our new couch we can use a repellent type spray to discourage the kitties. I was wondering, is there an attractant type spray we can put on the tower to draw them to it?

How do you keep your car clean?

You know dog owners who really love their dogs by the smears of slobber on the windows of their vehicles.

I bought a 'new to me' car late last year to replace my old four wheel drive which was totalled by an idiot just before Easter in 2011. We immediately took it on a 4000 kilometre road trip with the dogs in the back. I made sure I got some robust seat covers, and the floor mats that came with the car are rubber and cover the floor almost completely. The dogs did their best, filling the car up with sand, smearing their slobber on the doors and windows, and Bender even puked about 2 litres of water into the footwell behind the drivers' seat. We mopped the spew up with towels which we washed in the laundromat at the caravan park, but the car smelled pretty bad after that.

When we got home, I took the car to the car wash. I spent a lot of time cleaning the outside which was caked with dust from the outback. Then I had to carefully pull out the floormats so as to not spill the sand all over the place. It looked like I had created a beach next to the car. Then I took all the seat covers out and chucked them in the washing machine. I vacuumed all the carpet - as there was a line of sand around the edge of the floor mats. Then I wiped down all the doors and dashboard with Armourall - there was a mess on the dash that wasn't the dog's fault though, N missed when she tried to put her Coke back in her cup holder and it went all over the front of the car. The whole process took a few hours.

Now that I've had the car for a little while, there is Bender hair floating around constantly. I know that I won't frequently spend hours cleaning the car.

N's car is worse. It has ferried the dogs to the beach and back for months on end without being cleaned. She is embarrassed to let friends ride in the back.

So what does the interior of your car look like?

Dogs with new toys!

It cooled down a tiny bit on the weekend and we went shopping, so we got some toys out of the bargain bin for the dogs.

My MacBook's magsafe power cord which usually works very well when the dogs run across the power cord failed this time around. Happy to report it's OK!!!

The orange snake was removed from the rope in about an hour and it is looking sad and destuffed on the living room rug.

It's hot!

Due to the weather, Barbie has been liberated from sleeping in her crate for the last three nights. There have been no little wet surprises on the carpet in the morning. Hurray!

It has been a little dull around here though. The dogs have not really wanted to do anything, they are too busy lying around panting. I have been busy reading all about snow and ice on the other side of the world.

Hopefully there will be a slightly cool change next week and our adventures can resume!

A kitty has gotta earn her keep...

Lately we had a influx of rats and mice into our garden. I'm not sure if it was something to do with the weather, or the fact that the garden is an unruly mess, but I got sick of seeing all the mice and rats scurrying around outside.

You would know that Froufrou and Mittens are inside kitties. Frou is an inside kitty because she is an efficient, ruthless and indiscriminate hunter. Mittens is inside because she has no street smarts.

With Frou in the house, the small rodents never make their way in to the house proper, but they do get into the ceiling sometimes.

Anyway I decided that we would have to do something about all the rodents in the garden, so I started letting Frou out for a few hours a day. She had an immediate and devastating impact on their numbers. For the first few, she asked to come inside and ate her prey in the laundry.

Now there are no rodents left, she is going to be re-confined to the house. Well done Froufrou, but I'm not going to let you go on to hunting the birds and lizards.

Ball Obsession disturbs humans.....

What does the above image look like to you? A baby doll? A plastic version of a human baby? Right, that's what it looks like to me too.

The dog's perception is rather different to ours. Bender does not see the above object as a baby doll.

Can you guess what Bender thought it was? When we let the dogs loose at the Yardie Creek Caravan Park in Exmouth, Bender immediately started searching the yard for balls. He retrieved a couple from the kid's sand pit, and they were quickly confiscated. We were trying to have an adult conversation, and he was more disruptive than the kids.

Starved of balls, he found the youngest girl's doll and picked it up by it's head. It looked a little disturbing, him carrying a baby around in his mouth by it's head.

It was met with laughter and cries of "the Dingo got my baby!" (for those who aren't Australian, context of the quote here).

We also confiscated the baby doll from him, but from then on he was obsessed. He picked up the baby in preference to the boring old tennis balls every time. L joked that when her girl grew out of the dolls, we might be getting a very strange package in the mail full of baby heads.

Can you imagine throwing one for Bender in the park or at the beach?

More Road Trip (Day 6, 7 & 8) Exmouth - Bush Bay - Geraldton - Perth

After our last coffee at the homestead, we packed up and bid farewell to Yardie Creek Caravan Park. We headed back down the coast towards Carnarvon. We stopped briefly in Carnarvon to take the dogs for a walk and a wee break.

We saw a group of young indigenous fellas jumping off a bridge and swimming near a housing estate in town, and we decided it would be a good place to walk. When we got up there though, Bender didn't want to walk over the bridge - it was a weird bridge, an old railway bridge which seemed to be a drawbridge. It freaked him out. Anyway we were surrounded by the young guys, they were most interested in Barbie.

I suppose I should explain a bit here. Greyhounds seem to have a different reputation amongst country dwelling Aboriginal people than they do amongst urban folks. We live quite close to a train station, and often there are young Aboriginal guys hanging around the train station, the shops, or the nearby park who see Barbie and I stroll by. They always say 'hey, roo-dog! get 'im a good feed of roo.." Most kangaroos would be no match for a savvy Greyhound, that's for sure. Anyway it's happened so often that I have the idea there are at least some Greyhounds being used to hunt kangaroos in outback Australia.

Back to our stroll in Carnarvon...the now familiar "hello roo dog" was voiced as they all came in for a pat. They were less sure of Bender, but as Bender stayed calm some of them patted him as well. After a lot of questions about our "roo dog" we went on our way, bundled back into the car and headed towards our camp site in Bush Bay.

By the time we got to Bush Bay the sun was pretty low in the sky. It's a popular fishing spot and a few people were pulling their boats out and leaving by the time we had set up.

The tide was heading out as the sun was going down, so we went for a stroll along the beach. Barbie was being driven crazy by the small, zippy little birds that were on the mud flats hunting. She could only see them when they moved but she really wanted to give chase.

Both the dogs seemed to enjoy the walk.... and then we went back to cook dinner - but there was a huge problem - the gas hose for the stove had sprung a leak. No cooking for us! We had to eat the mangoes that they had given us up in Exmouth for dinner. We didn't really have much food left!

The dogs lying politely on their beds - got a good night's sleep despite being a little hungry. I even munched on some dry pasta - it wasn't particularly satisfying. Next camping trip I think I will bring some 2 minute noodles to eat in case we have issues with the stove again - at least you can chew them more easily dry than pasta.

Barbie woke me up in time to see the sunrise, though Bender didn't seem to want to go anywhere. I took Barbie for a wander around so that she could toilet, and then ran into N and Bender down on the beach - I guess he wanted to come after all!

We packed up as quickly as possible because I was hungry - we stopped at the first roadhouse we came across (which I think was Wooramel Roadhouse, 100ks South of Bush Bay). There was a scraggly little Jack Russell dog there who came trotting over to me and the dogs while N was in the road house getting our food.

We had lunch at Billabong Roadhouse, which has become a favorite of ours, and the lady there remembered us. She said 'wow, quick trip', and chatted to us about her dog - apparently he catches budgies (which are a small Australian native bird) and buries them on his walks. We sat in the shade near the roadhouse and watched her big dog in his backyard. Bender and Barbie were very good, not trying to get over to him or bark at him. He was a big brindle mastiff type dog.

After a fair bit of driving, we pulled over for a break at the rest area at the Murchison River. There is free camping here, and I think if we didn't have a house to stay in at Geraldton, this is where we would drive to on the first day heading North.

This lizard decided to pose for the camera - he was very cute and he wasn't afraid of the dogs at all.

Barbie decided she was hot, so she lay down in the water. The water was pretty stinky!!!

We let Bender offleash as there weren't many people around and the ground was hot - so I thought it would be better for him if he could choose where he put his paws. When I took his leash off he looked around at me, surprised, like he was saying "really?..... thankyou!"

It was just a short drive to Geraldton from the Murchison rest stop, and we stayed again at the house with the neighbouring horse. Bender kept asking to go out the back but he wasn't allowed. We had a great night's sleep, and headed back to Perth the next day.

The kitties both greeted us enthusiastically when we got home, and the dogs passed out. I think they slept for two days straight!

So that's it, our road trip up North with the dogs. Overall pretty successful if I do say so myself!