Christmas Trees & Doggie Pees

Not long after we got Bud I joined a doggie website or he did, I’m not too sure which, and I get the occasional email with hints and tips, some of which are quite interesting/informative.

Today I had one through regarding dogs peeing on Christmas trees and how to avoid this.  Oh, I thought, this could come in handy iminently.

So I started off reading it, about 10 tips in all, I got to about number five and I realised that I don’t think we will have an issue with Buddy and this particular problem.  Our tree, although undecorated, has been standing nearly in the middle of the living room, so it’s not easily unavoided, since Sunday and Bud has expressed no interest in it whatsoever.  It could be that it’s because it’s artificial – I’m not sure – I just know that Bud’s not bothered with it – other than giving us a funny look from the settee where he was lying when we put it up.

Anyhoo, perhaps in order to appear the font of all knowledge on avoiding doggie pee on the tree I carried on reading.  This was the last idea…

“Consider use of a belly band – Belly bands are snug fitting fabric bands which are wrapped around a dog’s lower torso.  They are fitted with absorbent pads so that if your dog does mark, the liquid will be absorbed by the pad and not the beautiful, pristine white  beard of your favorite pirate Santa ornament.  You can make belly bands or purchase them online.  A google search for “dog belly band” should bring up all the information you need.  Belly bands are certainly management tools more than anything, they will not train your dog to avoid peeing on the tree but they will ensure that if management slips up, your tree remains pristine.”

I think they would work because they will be too busy trying to get the thing off to pee anywhere!

Go on, google it, you know you want to, I did, I wished I hadn’t, but I had!  I tell you what if that was the only way to avoid a pee-ie tree I’d do without the tree. There’s more chance of me putting Bud in antlers than one of those. Speaking of which look what I got at the weekend…

Now where’s the staple gun?

Buddy and the Beach

I have been taking Tuesdays as holidays so that I can go to Armchair Yoga, however yesterday I was unable to attend for two reasons as it turned out.  The bathroom is being refitted so someone had to babysit Bud and as it turned out I couldn’t have gone anyway because I have a bit of a cold that I may not have been able to keep to myself.

I had contemplated taking Buddy somewhere different for his walk but then I started thinking well I have something to do and maybe I shouldn’t take him far in the car by myself on the motorway and then I thought if I have to wait for Bernard to come… well I wouldn’t hold my breath for that to happen.  I’m not saying it’s difficult to get my husband to go to places he doesn’t normally go but it took me four weeks to get him to come to the ‘nature reserve’ two miles up the road with us!  And then it was after a rainfall so it was muddy and although he didn’t quite get to the point of saying we couldn’t go again (he knows better than that) but I was advised to take a change of shoes next time we went.

A couple of people have suggested that I see if I can have my four weekly Zometa infusions at the local hospital rather than in Liverpool – if I did this I would never get my lunch out!

So with a view to enjoying TODAY and not putting things of until tomorrow (not because there may not be a tomorrow but because there may be something equally new and fun to do then) we set off in the car.

Buddy is not a good passenger.  He is all to keen to get IN the car but once we move off (and he does this if B is driving too) he starts to whinge.  Now I like the idea of him being fastened in but since we are completely down one seat belt and he started on another for the time being he is a loose cannon.

He whinges in the back – sitting up, lying down, looking out of the window, staring at the floor – he’s not fussy. Then he gets in the front, and is a little bit quieter and looks hysterically funny sitting in the passenger seat staring out of the front windscreen.

Yesterday however he got a little bit more than he bargained for and indeed had fair claim on a whinge.  There was a little bit of sudden bracking and he nearly ended up in the footwell.  He lay down for a while after.

I thought I did particularly well and managed to tune out his protests at being in a moving car by… turning up My Chemical Romance on the CD.  This however did not cover up the beeping noise produced when Bud shifted his little doggie weight to such a position on the seat that the car thought ‘Oh, there is someone in the passenger seat who has not put the seat belt on.  I must therefore make an irritating noise until they rectify this position.’

Needless to say we got there in once piece and had a ‘whale’ of a time.

We saw super large jelly fish – well they were super large to us at over a foot across – I’ve only ever seen little ones on a British beach before

It was lovely and sunny, freezing cold but lovely and sunny…

We met lots of dogs which gave Bud some more experience interacting with other canines – including a near hysterical tiny, tiny dog no bigger than Bud’s head which he just blanked twice.  I still wouldn’t trust him near another dog off the lead but maybe one day in the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuture.

Some of you may be aware that B has only ever read about two of my posts and what goes on the blog stays on the blog apart from ‘Keygate‘, so I shouldn’t really need to say that B doesn’t NEED to know about any frollicking in the surf, because remember we were in the his car…

This is an ‘arty’ shoot as someone had accidentally switched to panoramic…

We both really enjoyed ourselves, Bud so much that he was reluctant to get back in the car – YES IT WAS BECAUSE HE HAD FUN ON THE BEACH – and nothing to do with my driving.  And we both ended up having a kip on the seettee when we got home for all of 10 minutes until the tiler rang the doorbell.

I for one won’t be putting fun things off in the future, life is oh so precious and we really do need to make the most of it.

 

Irresponsible dog owners should be shot!

I just watched Panorama – I’d taken it out of the personal planner on Sky+ because I didn’t think I wanted to watch tonight’s episode however, B had gone to work and I was just finishing a couple of crochet squares so thought I’d give it a go before going back to sorting my sewing room.  Big mistake – there were tears, snot and sobbing and that was just me!

It started in Battersea Dogs Home  and explained that they were having to destroy dogs because of the abundant number of unwanted dogs and because of the number that were unsuitable for re-homing due to being aggressive.  Since pit bulls were deemed illegal staffordshire bulls were the legal loophole for fighting dogs.  The numbers of staffies being collected had increased in, I think, 10 years, but don’t hold me to that from 300 and something to over 3,000.  A third of the overall number of dogs taken in by Battersea last year were put to sleep with approx 1,192 of these being healthy animals.

There were two staffies featured, one a stray and one taken in by the owner for reasons not explained.  The later passed muster and would be re-homed, the former although friendly with people wasn’t with other dogs which well and truly marked his card.  This was when the tears started.

Apparently the RSPCA are now refusing to accept dogs unless the reason is geninue, they weren’t prepared to ‘kill’ dogs because they no longer went with the owner’s decorations.

Four dogs were being taken from a small dogs’ home to be destroyed by a local vet, this was when the snot accompanied the tears, and then it showed one of them being put to sleep – not looking it in the eye but near enough, because the vet felt it was heartbreaking to him and people should see what it was like.

One of the dogs looked like the staffy and jack russell cross we looked after earlier in the year (considering I did let him eat a sewing needle I may need shooting in the foot, maybe a toe) and this  produced sobbing to accompany the tears and snot.

As per the agreement with B that I could have a puppy after my SCT – I’d like an akita (B wasn’t too keen on this idea) but was leaning towards a Heinz 57 from a rescue centre.  This programme made my mind up but ideally I still want a puppy – although we’ll need to get our new settee first to match sure it doesn’t clash!