Mountain dog, or mountain goat?

Now that Dolly Dog is over 12 months old, and her joints are mature enough for the leaping and climbing and sand-running I used to have to try to prevent her from doing, there is no stopping my little (40.66kg) mountain goat. I cannot believe how sure-footed she is. And fearless. She's a sooky la la with strangers still, but get her near water or rocks and she will leap, plunge, scale, negotiate, and ascend.

Yesterday we went to one of her favourite places, Stony Creek in Cruickshank Park, Yarraville. There are a couple of steep embankments (I saw her go over the edge and ran down to make sure she was ok - by the time I got there she was hauling herself out of the fast-running water and running back up the very steep bank, impressing everyone who saw her) and a nice 25 metre "lap lane", so she can show off both her mountain-climbing and swimming skills. In fact, the swim is not really challenging enough for her any more, so she has to make it more demanding by finding something at the beginning to hold in her mouth as she swims...reeds, stick, tennis ball etc.

She loves all the swimming so much she gets almost hysterical with happiness. Then of course on the way home she is so exhausted she is fast asleep by the time we leave the car park. Then there is the rinsing and drying rigmarole once we get home. Still, in the absence of snow, cold water is the next best thing for such a furry baby!



Ready to go mum

Drive mum, drive!



Water baby

The 25m "lap lane"

Getting there

Coming up the home straight

Made it!

Champion!

Grass is an excellent towel

Quite tired now

The runaway

Last week my friend Mandy came over from Perth for the Dolly Parton concert (woo hoo), and stayed two nights, Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday morning I went to work leaving Dolly Dog at home with Mandy. Dolly had been a bit wary of Mandy, but seemed resigned to her presence. Mandy popped out to grab a coffee before heading to the airport for her return flight, and when she returned and opened the front door, Dolly pushed her way out, saw I wasn't there, jumped straight over the front fence (which she's never tried before) and took off.

I was in a meeting, and when I came out of it and turned my phone on, I had six missed call from Mandy. I listened to the first message and my blood ran cold. "I'm just running down the road after Dolly, she's escaped, please call me as soon as you can".

Jumping in the car and heading straight for home, I called Mandy. Dolly had been on the run for 45 minutes, crossing roads, being chased by not only Mandy but also taxi drivers and builders, and had finally been cornered in a neighbour's front yard. I still felt like throwing up, as I took shortcuts through carparks in my hurry to get home. I was so distraught that I forgot that Mandy's flight was due to take off in less than an hour.

When I screeched to a stop outside the neighbour's house, Mandy was standing in the garden.

"Where is she? Is she behind that gate?"

"No, she's here, under this bush".

Mandy and the neighbour had tried to get Dolly out from under the bush, using a broom and a hose, to no avail. Poor Dolly Dog came out as soon as she heard my voice, and looked up at me with sad, sheepish eyes. She was all wet from the hose, and looked at me as if to say "Oh Mummy, where have you been!?"

Mandy missed her flight, so had to take a later one, and after calming both her and Dolly down (wine for Mandy, Pet Calm Spray and cuddles for Dolly) I drove her to the airport before going back to work.

I'm pretty sure I lost 10 years of my life with the worry and panic, but Dolly seemed to recover well from her ordeal. We were both very tired after all that adrenalin though!

So, I've made Dolly promise never to run away from home again, and now we are getting ready for Christmas. Dolly has been invited to more parties than I have.

As all proper dogs know, reindeer antlers are for chewing, not for wearing, so the photos of Dolly in antlers were all too sad to publish!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Halloween from Dolly Dog

I am truly a tragic dog person. Inspired by an email doing the rounds of dogs dressed up for Halloween, I nipped in to Savers in Footscray and bought two (because I couldn't decide between them) costumes for poor Dolly. She was a very good sport about it.

OMG I love this so much! Yes, Dolly is dressed as a soccer ball. She didn't love it as much as I did. A bit snug around the arm pits.

So we changed into this for our trip to the pet superstore, where we received a show bag as a prize for making the effort to costume up. It's supposed to be a witch outfit. Note the spiders on the cuff thingys.

Happy Halloween!

Dolly the water-baby

Now that spring has arrived and we are getting a few warm days here and there, big hairy Berners like Dolly need to find ways to stay cool. So far, we have been to the dog beach at Altona once, and to Stony Creek in Cruickshank Park several times.

At Altona beach

It only took a border collie to show Dolly the ropes at Stony Creek, and she was galloping upstream to the pond. She loves to stand in the water, submerged up to her neck, and play with any dog who jumps in too.
I've made a couple of short films of Dolly's playtime, on which I sound like a pretentious idiot, so I apologise for that! From now on I will keep quiet when I film her. Maybe she'll become a YouTube star? Here's one of the films anyway.
 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TYpeHEIc72Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Not all dogs can swim, a fact I learned only recently. I thought it came naturally, and it did to Dolly, but if you are a pug or a dachshund, forget about it!

Best stick ever.

Doggy Daycare Dramas

Dear Followers of Dolly's adventures,
It has been too long since our last post! And naturally, Dolly has been busy. Since Dolly was a mere 12 weeks of age, she has attended doggy daycare on the days I work (three per week). When I got a new job at around the same time that Dolly came to live with me, I didn't want to leave her home alone to be sad (or chewy), so I made some calls to doggy daycare facilities nearby. The one I'd heard really positive things about, Diggiddy Doggy Daycare in South Melbourne, wouldn't take her because she hadn't had her second lot of shots, so Dolly ended up going to Dog Central in Yarraville. They had much less strict rules, which should have been a sign. It probably was,  but I ignored it, because it was convenient.

Dolly seemed to really love it from the start, playing with other dogs all day long, then falling asleep as soon as her head hit the back seat of the car on the way home. Some of the carers there seemed to really care for Dolly too. It wasn't too long before I had to go to WA for a week to be with mum while she had radiation treatment for breast cancer. I was wondering who I could get to come and stay with Dolly, when Chelie, the boss at Dog Central, suggested I leave Dolly with them as they had a "sleepover" program. As advertised on their website, dogs were matched with carefully chosen carers, and went home with them in the evenings after daycare for loving and pampering, then back to daycare for the next day's play. Dolly was young, but Chelie assured me she would take care of Dolly herself.

On my return, Dolly was ecstatic to see me, and had a little cold, but I didn't think anything was amiss. When I asked Chelie about Dolly's sleeping and toiletting, she said Dolly had been an angel and that there were no problems. I thought that was a bit strange seeing as Dolly was not even remotely toilet trained at that stage, but again I didn't suspect anything.

Over the next several months I left Dolly for two weekend sleepovers when I made more trips to Perth, and again I dismissed my growing discomfort with the somewhat evasive answers I received to my questions. Dolly always seemed super-keen to go in to daycare, but at the same time she was starting to exhibit signs of fear when we encountered strangers, especially if anyone (strangers or friends) came to the house. I was worried enough to engage a trainer, the fabulous Tamara from Underdog Training who had run Dolly's puppy school, to help me with Dolly's increasingly severe fear issues.

Then one day a friend forwarded me an article that she'd seen in the local paper, which made me feel sick. Acccording to the woman featured in the article, and four previous staff of Dog Central, the dogs who had these alleged sleepovers actually had no such thing. No going home with a caring staff member, no love and pampering, no comfort. It turns out the dogs who were supposedly on sleepovers were just left in the warehouse overnight. No dog ever went home with any staff member.

To cut a long story shorter, I tried to get a refund, was offered a partial refund, considered taking the issue to VCAT (trust had been broken!) but finally decided I wanted nothing more to do with the evil Chelie so would not pursue it. She fashioned herself a dog lover, but turned out to be Cruella De Vil.

So, back to Diggiddy Doggy, who would have been delighted to take Miss Dog, but insisted (and rightly so) that she be de-sexed first. Obviously a cut above Dog Central who had never required that. Dolly by this time was seven months old, nearing her first heat, so off to Greencross Veterinary Clinic in Williamstown she went, and had the op'. Her convalescence was a trial for both of us as she recovered almost immediately, and could not understand why she wasn't allowed to go rampaging around the neighbourhood as usual.

Dolly post-op'.

So, my baby girl is growing up! Now nine months old, Dolly continues to amuse and delight me, she's enjoying Diggiddy Doggy Daycare one day a week and coping well on the other two days I'm at work, and she is coping much better with strangers - although my dog-loving friends are still a bit hurt that she doesn't seem to love them. I think she does really. On the inside.

Clever climbing dog knows she's not allowed upstairs, so we compromise.
She's allowed as far up as the landing. NB Quacky Duck, who you can see there, is no longer quacky.
Dolly specialises in de-quacking fluffy ducks.





Dolly is such a competitive soccer player she won't put the ball down even to wee.

The mystery of the missing toys...solved!

You may remember the mystery of Mr Chicken, Dolly's very first and much-loved squeaky toy. He went MIA some months ago, and I could never explain it. However, recent events lead me to believe the mystery has at last been solved. Mr Chicken, along with two most excellent bones, the original Mr Giraffe, the Collingwood football (thanks Upee!), the blue ball, and an 'educational toy' (not much fun but supposedly good for canine teeth) have been picked off one by one by....Foxy Loxy! Yes, our friendly neighbourhood fox has stolen all Dolly's toys.

The first time I became aware of Foxy Loxy was one evening when he approached the back (glass) door to steal a small bone, saw me, and fled. I shrieked, Dolly snoozed on oblivious, and Foxy Loxy disappeared back to whence he came. Several nights later, at around 4am, I was awakened by the sound of squeaky toys being squeaked in the back yard. Dolly was safely asleep inside, so who was playing with the toys?
As I got up and went downstairs it occurred to me that I hadn't seen the football or the blue ball recently.
Standing at the back door looking at a yard bereft of toys, it dawned on me. Foxy Loxy had been the phantom squeaker, and it was he, that wily creature, who had been picking the toys off, one by one, until Dolly and I were left with nothing but memories of our squeaky friends.

I saw Foxy Loxy one more time, when I was up at 5am to go the airport. He was on the roof of the shed, scanning the yard for new squeaky buddies to take back to his den. For him, or for his own pups I wonder?
I went shopping and bought Dolly some new toys, including an exact replica of Mr Giraffe. Dolly was overjoyed! Now we bring all the toys in every evening before bed. Sorry Foxy Loxy, but I think you have enough play things to be going on with for now.

                                        New toys, including Mr Giraffe II and the much-loved but
                                        very bedraggled Ms Duck (thanks Em and Andreas!)

                                     Stop mucking around taking photos mum, it's play time!

                                          My giant baby, six and a half months old.

Can I eat that?

Dogs have some habits we usually see as disgusting, but they don't care what we think, and I respect them for that. A while ago Dolly had a cold. She was lethargic and snotty, poor pup. To cheer her up, I gave her a "chicken meatball" (a manufactured doggy treat which probably doesn't contain much chicken) which she rolled around in her mouth for a while, tossed up over her head, pushed across the floor with her paws, and finally deemed safe to eat.

Minutes later she did an enormous sneeze, and a slug-like booger came out. Before I could grab a tissue to clean it up (thank goodness for floor boards) she had looked at it, cocked her head as if to say "Where did that come from? Can I eat that?" and slurped it up. Mmmmm, tasty.

So she's not sure about a scooby snack, but immediately decides snot is good eating?

And then the next day on our walk she picked up something from the side of the road which she was rolling around in her mouth before I stuck my fingers in and pulled it out...it was a delicious little nugget of poo. Ah dogs; so gross, so cute! I think I'll save the vomit story for another time.

      Getting so big, and only 5 months old.












Eat poo? Who, me?

Bouncy castle bush (and have you seen Mr Chicken?)

Dolly under the bouncy bush. Snacking on the bouncy bush's neighbour.

There is a bush in the front yard that Dolly treats as her own personal bouncy castle. She runs full speed down the side of the house and leaps on the bush, which invariably bounces her off. It's beginning to look a bit the worse for wear. I have looked under it, and all the other bushes, but cannot find Mr Chicken. He's been missing for at least a week now, and it's beginning to look as though he may have flown the coop. Mr Giraffe, Mr Bird and Football are no substitutes as far as Dolly is concerned. Have you seen Mr Chicken?

Have you seen this chicken?

Water Baby

How much is that doggy in the window? (note Mr Chicken in the background)

Dolly loves all things aquatic, including rain. I'm trying to vaccuum and mop the floors today (I really should do them every second day right now) but mushy puppy is hindering my progress. When she drinks from her water bowl or from the bucket outside, she feels it is really best to insert head and paws as well as tongue. It's all about staying cool I suppose. With everything wet outside this morning her whole tummy is damp, so when she comes inside, everywhere she lies on the floor she leaves a big wet splodge.

We've had a big week...I've started a new job, so Dolly's been going to daycare. Like many single mothers I am spending most of what I earn on childcare! But Dolly is safe and she loves it. She's so tired from walks and playtime that she falls asleep in the car on the way home. The only thing I'm not so keen on is the "perfume" they spray on her just before home time. Thursday's was (allegedly) cherry. It was the same sickly chemical smell that once caused me to throw an air-freshener out of the car as it gave me such a headache I couldn't tolerate it for a minute more. Friday's aroma was "grape" which was no better. I have asked them to desist with the perfume. If it smells awful to me, why would a dog with it's superior sense of smell want it up their sensitive nostrils? Then again, why would they want the smell of another dog's poo?

Pitiful Pup

Dolly still hasn't worked out that when I go upstairs, I will eventually come down again. It's a puppy thing. Sometimes I just have to go up there. To shower, for example. This morning I hadn't been upstairs five minutes when I looked down to see this pitiful sight. That wee is a protest wee if ever I saw one. Also, see Mr Chicken. More about him next time.