at the Ninety Mile beach

Penny spent a few days last week at Best Friend Retreat in Gippsland with some of her friends from Cindy's walking group. The holiday camp is delightful, as I've written about before. Early autumn mornings in the huge fenced yard were a wonderful contrast to busy city life...

...especially if Cindy appeared. Penny LOVES Cindy.

But the highlight of the stay - from my point of view, certainly -  was the hours-long walk on the Ninety Mile Beach each day.

dog walking groups

Two Pitties in the City has an interesting guest post about the value of group dog walking. I take Penny on group walks with Cindy, and have observed that these walks enhance Penny's social skills with strange dogs met in local parks.

One thing that I hadn't considered, but which happens in Cindy's group, is that initially the dogs need not greet each other. Very interesting post about this on a link from Two Pitties' page.

dogs, mud and water in the Australian bush

Last time we went with Cindy's walking group to The Black Spur at Narbethong, it was wet.

Penny got muddy.

And guess what? It was still muddy today. Penny had great fun.

Four wheel drive vehicles have been along the road and have made some great ruts, just right for dogs to walk in, roll in, play in, chase in.





What a thrill it was to see Penny dashing around with the other dogs, given that this time last year she was crippled by a cruciate injury and we were waiting for surgery. I am so grateful to the surgeon, Dr Wing Tip Wong, who repaired her leg.

Here's how Penny looked after her adventures in the mud today.





I tried to convince her to clean up in a gorgeous little mossy creek, but to no avail. She sniffed around but I couldn't communicate the idea of laying herself down in the trickle of water. I'll have to brush up on my dog-speak!



She won't need too much dinner tonight, because along the way she dined on some delicious poo from a wombat. The great thing about being a a dog, of course, is that if your human is not quick, you get to not only eat great stuff like that in the Australian bush, but you also get to roll in it.



The idea is to roll so fast that even a camera can't catch the action, let alone a slow old human.

You might be wondering whether I let her back into the car after all this fun. Yes, I was kind to her, and didn't make her walk the eighty kilometres home. But we did stop for a long, long swim in a creek at Healesville.

Penny has a holiday

Penny's not here at the moment and it's very quiet in the house. It's strange that we are so aware of the absence such a quiet, laid-back dog. (Well, she's not quiet if anyone dares to pass by in the street, or if a person should come to our door, but in general she's just lying around keeping an eye out for someone to go near the lead or the food bowl.)

We went to a family wedding at the weekend, and needed Penny to be safe while we were away, so she boarded with Cindy, our trainer, pack leader and generally wonderful 'dog person'.

Although we're home once again, it seemed a good idea to let Penny stay over with Cindy for a few days extra.

When I dropped Penny off, Cindy wanted me to come near evening, so Penny could go for a walk with 'the pack' and get comfortable with the other dogs (whom she knows from our regular walks), before they all settled down for the night.

She certainly settled in quickly, taking off with the other dogs and with Cindy, not looking back to see whether I was keeping up, which is rare for her to do.



(That's her investigating the grass near the water.)





We know how lucky we are to be able to place Penny with such an experienced, caring person. I've even had photos of her sent to my phone, so I can see what a happy time she's having.

But it will be great to have her home once again!

Penny meets some old friends in the Australian bush

On Saturday Penny finally returned to Cindy's walk-and-talk group after nearly six months' absence. It's now eighteen weeks since surgery, and we're gradually picking up normal life once more.

The day started with a quick dip in the little pool Cindy had provided.

First you wait in line for your turn.



Then Cindy gives you some personal attention.



And then you return the favor by shaking some nice cooling water onto Cindy.



And then it's off through the Aussie bush for a stroll.



(Apologies for the terrible video. It was hard to keep up with Penny, who was ecstatic to be back with the group.)

Penny's Christmas party

At last! Penny is able to go out with other dogs. And, just after Penny reached week 14 after cruciate surgery, it was the day of Cindy's doggie Christmas get-together at Kepala.

My dilemma was that Cindy, quite correctly, told me that Penny needed to be off lead when she was with the other dogs. (And how true it was - Penny curled her lip and snarled at her old friends when I tried to take her into the pool area on lead.) Once she was off-lead she was fine.




So, how to keep Penny from exhausting herself racing in and out of the wonderful pool?



Well, a simple solution. I threw her favorite toy, the Whirl Wheel, which she hasn't set eyes on for four months. Off she swam to get it.



Hurrying, of course, to make sure none of the other dogs beat her to it.



And then, of course, she had to guard it, which mostly involved standing around on the edge of the pool - and, incidentally, resting.



After a few swims, we joined the others who had moved on to the grassy area. I thought Penny might race around with the dogs who were playing chasey, but she preferred to take it quietly with the humans.



And I'm pleased to say she seemed fine the next day.

Penny goes to a fun activities class

After attending classes for five years in Lilydale with Cindy, as part of K9 Kompany, and loving every minute, I was disappointed when that company closed down. But, at last, Cindy has set up her own classes!

Last Tuesday we arrived at the new location. It is just near the old place, but in the open and on grass, under lights. And Cindy had organised lovely new equipment. I could only get a few photos, because it was under artificial lighting and the flash on my little digital camera didn't reach far.






















I took some video clips with the little digital camera because I was so thrilled about the sessions beginning, but it was nighttime and the camera didn't really cope with the artificial light.

Here is one clip, dark and blurry, but I'd love to share my excitement, so please forgive me for the terrible standard of videos.

Penny learns a new command - 'dig'

When we used to go to K9 Kompany - I won't lament again the demise of that wonderful venue - Cindy was teaching Penny the command 'dig'. We would do it by hiding a treat under a towel and when Penny started to use her paws to move the towel aside to get at the treat, I'd say 'dig'.

What is the point of the 'dig' command, you might ask. Well, if I remember correctly, it's intended for film work. The dog learns to lie down and then do the 'dig' movement, and it looks as if the dog is dying. I wouldn't want to see any films where dogs die, so I guess I'll never find out whether I've remembered this correctly. But I seem to recall some movies where horses got shot and lay there moving their legs like that. (Not that I want to see dying horses in movies either, by the way!)

Our attempt at the trick wasn't all that successful, to be honest, maybe because, when we first got her and I read all the dog books, they recommended discouraging digging. So she now has to unlearn the fact that digging is not desirable.

However, when Penny went to stay with Cindy for five fun-filled days, Cindy sent us some pictures of Penny digging in a sand pit up there in Healesville, so I thought we could try the command again at the beach this morning.

And yes, she's learned to dig on command. Or has she learned to dig whenever she wants to? I guess time will tell on that one.

Here she is digging on command:



It's a rather energetic activity, as you can see from this photo: