So long since I've posted about Peppa's life. But I can't resist showing this photo of her in doggie heaven, having the best Christmas ever. Her most beloved man is home for the day from the nursing home, celebrating Christmas in his own sleepy way.
She's on the job, keeping him safe from any dangers.
She does see him regularly, at the home, but that's not as good as having him here, of course.
Have a happy Christmas and seasonal celebration, everyone and everydog.
Peppa and I go to play-and-train most Sunday mornings. It's great fun and a chance for Peppa to be around other dogs.
In going there, I've definitely confirmed that Penny was a very different creature from Peppa. Penny was not afraid of anyone or anything, a calm presence and a confident explorer of new situations and people.
Peppa is timid. I'm not sure whether this is because she is a 'Covid baby' and spent the first months of her life in a quiet household in a basically silent neighbourhood. It has been said that we had 'the longest lockdown in the world.' Perhaps it wasn't the longest, but it did teach Peppa that there should be no sound out on the street after nine pm, and established that she should alert us to anyone out and about at night. We don't mind that, as she is a great watchdog.
However, I think it's probably just her temperament to be nervous in new situations.
Today we tried out a new short tunnel, in the expectation that she would go through it, seeing she has been through longer and darker tunnels at dog play sessions.
But no. That red thing looked quite strange and threatening...
Eventually a piece of cheese tempted her to put her head into the tunnel. But no way was she going to step in.
So that's where we've left it so far. It's always 'baby steps' when introducing her to anything new.
This is just a random post to keep Penny's blog alive. So many beautiful memories. There will always be only one Penny.
But Peppa is beautiful and lovable also.
She's great company when we're watching tv. I was never sure Penny registered what was on the screen, but I feel sure Peppa does.
Since we've been attending the Play and Train classes at Warringal on Sunday mornings, life has become more settled at home. Peppa has had frequent tummy upsets and visits to vets, and we seem now to have found foods that she can stomach.
And, best of all, we've found that her appetite is improving and she will take food as training rewards.
Consequently, we're able to play in the kitchen with the toys I bought from K-Mart.
At the moment, I'm rewarding for simply not being scared by the new objects in the house. I was surprised, after fifteen years with phlegmatic Penny, to realise that Peppa is a totally different personality, who needs lots of time to adjust to novelty. (Penny thrived on novelty!)
Peppa raced out the door this afternoon when our neighbour called, and we did our usual heart-searching about our awful standard of dog training.
And then I began to wonder whether we had the same issues, so many years ago, when we had Penny living with us. Our vet agrees with us in referring to her as 'Saint Penny', haha. In comparison to Peppa she was indeed a saint.
I thought I'd look back at my own old posts from 2007, when Penny was around the age Peppa is now. And I'm finding it not only entertaining, but also actually helpful.
One thing I'm noticing is that Peppa is more of a digger than Saint Penny was. I might have made an error of judgment in letting her 'help' me when I was weeding around the strawberries. She sure did love digging that big hole! It was a bit of a pity that a few of the strawberry plants ended up strewn around the area. But hey, she had fun, and it wasn't all that hard to replant the ones she removed.
I guess we'll find out soon if I've created a 'digging monster'.
I'm going to do a search on my old blog for references to digging and see what comes up. In the meantime, I'm intending to scroll through fifteen years of Penny's blogs to see which links still work and make a note on each post as to which links are no longer viable.
Just a quick update on Peppa to keep this blog alive. She's had ongoing issues with her eyes, but a couple of courses of medications seem to have settled the problems for now, and keeping up with the facial grooming helps.
We're bemoaning the fact that she's not well-trained, and today I thought, 'Well, whose fault is that?' So off on a short training walk in the street, with lots of high-value rewards. She was great. She does get a walk every day, unless the weather is really against us, so it's not as if she doesn't get lots of stimulation. But sometimes it can be easier to let her just roam at the end of the lead. Lazy humans!
In general, she's a delight. If you don't mind sock-stealing...
As you can see, butter wouldn't melt in her mouth:
Peppa was sitting at the top of the steps on our back porch the other night, staring at something. I went over to see what it was, and she wandered away.
It was a giant rat, eating our pears on the tree, so big I thought at first it might be a possum. But the skinny tail gave its identity away. It ran off into some of the bigger trees and along the fence, after I came close.
Some guard dog.
And today she sat in the same spot gazing at rainbow lorikeets as they nibbled more of the fruit.
The tree is only a couple of metres high, and right alongside the railing. She could practically have snapped up the rat or the birds without even stretching! (Well, given that the rat was nearly as big as she is, I wouldn't actually want her to try, to be quite honest.)
When I came closer, the birds flew up into another tree and chitterted at me in annoyance until Peppa and I went inside and the cheeky birds could resume eating our pears.
We have to resist the temptation to compare Peppa's progress with that of our beloved Penny, because we need to remember Peppa is a separate individual, with her own life story to experience.
Here are a few shots of her first two months with us:
Learning to be comfortable in her new bed.
Welcoming next door's cat who came visiting.
Chilling out.
Conquering the doggy door.
It was a long trip home in heavy traffic, last Thursday...
and the driver was taking great care, because there was a very special new family member on someone's lap.
Peppa!
Her name was meant to be 'Pepper', but the breeder spelled it this way, so that's what we will call her.
It feels sad to be writing on Penny's blog without Penny lying asleep in the house, but we've finally made the decision to try to find a new little soul to live with us. It's been more than fifteen months since Penny died, and though we have more grieving to do, Peppa is bringing us joy.
And she's brining us visitors. The cat next door came into our house for the first time in his life on Friday, when his human visited to meet Peppa. He was nervous of Peppa, but he's a cat used to dogs, so we thought we'd try to get off on a friendly footing with him. Peppa was most interested to see him, but he didn't want to be friends. Yet.
She has turned out to be a calm, confident little girl. Here's hoping we can give her the wonderful life she deserves.
