It seems that I have missed my summer update, but I kept waiting for the summer weather that I remember from last year and it never happened. Now when I stick my nose out of the back door in the mornings it tingles with the cold, and it is dark in the woods in the evenings again. Still I don’t mind too much, I have no energy when it’s too hot and my people don’t take me on such long walks.
I did enjoy the last few months though, to start with I went to my first Game Fair back in July – it was such good fun! A little confusing at first, I have never seen so many dogs and people together at once, but it was good fun plowtering through all the mud and finding all the smells. I also bumped into my Clumber Spaniel friend who I played with once on a beach last year, which was a nice surprise. She had been busier than me, as she had taken part in the scurries whereas I just watched. I told my people that I was learning too, but I don’t think they believed me. I also came face-to-face with a huge deer, much bigger than the ones I try to chase in the woods, and quite scary with his big antlers. He wouldn’t let me look at him too long though, he started stamping his feet.
One thing I have discovered this summer is that when I chase birds away from my garden they don’t just disappear as I thought. I have found them in the sky! This is very strange and quite frustrating to watch them and not me able to reach them. My favourite birds are the ones my mum calls swallows and martins, they fly so fast and swoop quite low so I can chase them and almost catch them! She says they’re leaving soon though – instead of flying like they used to, they are chattering about in groups and landing on the wires around the house. Another sign that summer is pretty much over for another year.
We’ve had a bit of a false start to the Spring so far – the sun came out, and the flowers grew and we’ve spent loads of time in the garden (my mum digs holes and fills them with plants and I dig them up again). A dog could really get used to life like that. But now the winds and rain are back and we’re huddled inside with the heating on again.
I went on my holidays last month. My people went to visit relatives in the Midlands and I went along with them to prove I could behave in polite society. It was a lovely place with a jungle of a garden, and squirrels! We went for long runs in the park everyday and I also played nicely with the children, who weren’t as scary this time as they were the last time we met. One of the days we were there, my people left me with the relatives and came back with lots of toys and goodies for me, and I could smell so many different doggy smells on them I was quite jealous. The bags all said Crufts on them, and they told me it was where all the most beautiful and best-behaved dogs in the world go to show off, but they preferred scruffy little me. Don’t know who they’re calling scruffy…
Don’t forget to keep checking my events page – I won’t be going along to many of them myself but they all look like good fun!
Well, I think I have seen it all now! Do people always develop such strange behaviour at this time of year??
Things seem to have returned to normal now, and the world is spinning more slowly again. All trees are back outside where they belong and I have stopped finding sparkly bits of paper under the furniture. I did have fun though – there were a lot more people around than usual which meant that at first I got loads of attention, and I soon got the idea that I was to stay away from the tree that had been planted in my living room. The kitchen started to smell very interesting too, and the oven was on a lot, which made it nice and warm to sleep in there.
So Christmas was good to us here – amongst other things it produced a squeaky snowman and a really tasty bone. It also marked the start of the extension of my boundaries to include the stairs. Now a word of warning to the uninitiated – these may look a simple enough prospect from down below, but right in the middle of a charge they can catch you unawares and cause you to lose your footing. And coming down, well, it’s best just to close your eyes and go. After tripping in my haste to explore for the umpteenth time, I had to promise to take it more steadily or the stair-gate was going right back on. But it’s worth it – in fact, just before sneaking on here to update you on my shenanigans, I was having a snooze on my peoples’ bed!
The other thing I like about this time of year, and something that I remember from my early puppy days, is snow. We had loads before Christmas which was really deep (although I didn’t get buried in it like I did when I was a pup) but it all melted away too quickly. Between Christmas and New Year we had another fall, not much more than an inch this time, but it was so cold that it stayed for days, frozen to everything and made the woods very pretty (and stopped my people from complaining about the mud!).
So now we have a brand new year and I’m told that I’m almost all grown up now and that I should start behaving like it. I am, after all, over a year old. But I’ll let you in on a secret which I don’t think they know yet……Labradors Never Grow Up!
I've been having lots of fun recently - my people say it's 'Silly Season' because the weather's colder so I have more energy, also it's been very windy and it blows up my tail and makes me giddy. The trees have been throwing all their leaves into my garden so I have to chase them round quick before they get raked up, although I think this is an idle threat because I haven't seen anyone venture into the garden in gardening clothes yet. And our walks are so much muddier! Great pools of the stuff just lying around for pups like me to dive into - but I only get the chance to do it once, as after that I get put on the lead.
I think I must have been a very good boy this weekend because I was taken somewhere I've never been before. We drove a little further than normal to get there, and the air smelt funny. When we got out of the car there was lots of mud and grass as normal but as we walked a little the ground suddenly went strange, my feet sank into it and there were grains in between my toes. And then there was a huge Puddle! It went on forever, I couldn't see the other side, and it kept moving and chasing my feet. It was also spitting at me a lot but when I caught some it didn't taste very nice. I had a wonderful time, I chased lots of birds who were running around at the edge of the Puddle but when I tried to follow them into it, the ground suddenly disappeared and I had to swim. The ground on the edge of the Puddle was great for digging in, making funny sucking noises. We met a friend of my mum's and her Clumber Spaniel - I hadn't met one of these before, she had a little tail and short legs but she was much better at playing football than me.
After all that fun, I had a warm shower when I got home to get those funny grains out of my toes and then I had my dinner, and curled up and slept for the rest of the day. I hope we do it all again soon! I was speaking to my labbie friends on the hill and apparently this is called The Beach, a well known doggy delight, and the only reason I hadn't been sooner is because my puppy legs might not have coped with such strenuous exercise. But now that I'm almost a year old, I can foresee many more trips in the future. If I'm good.
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