Happy Christmas to all

 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 is a very different dog from Penny

 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.

Peppa in 2023

 I thought I'd post something today, in the hope of keeping this blog going. 

Life with Peppa is quite different to our previous times with Penny, but that's to be expected, as they are very different dogs.

Peppa is not a morning 'person', and sometimes sleeps or snoozes until late in the afternoon, after which she's ready for a walk or some play. 

In the evening, she's happy to sit on the couch and watch tv with us, and if we turn to Dog TV, she enjoys that too.

training a lhasa apso

 When we brought Peppa into our lives, we knew it would be necessary to get her used to grooming. So we did our best, and she's used to being up on the table getting special attention (and extra special treats) every evening. Fortunately, she loves it. We did come up with the theory that she had seen her mum and dad being groomed and thinks it's part of being a grown-up dog. Who knows what goes on in the clever little head?

She's more clever than we thought she would be, and has trained her people pretty well. Here are some of the favorites:

1. Jump appealingly up onto the human's legs and allow said human to stroke your head and tickle you behind the ears, at the same time slo-w-ly, quie-t-ly stealing a handkerchief or  tissue from their pocket. If tissue, tear it to shreds and enable them to get some isometric exercise bending to collect the shreds. If a handkerchief, mouth it dramatically as if you're going to swallow it and might subsequently need to go to the amazingly expensive Animal Emergency clinic. Wait until the human races to get you a super-nice treat and willingly 'give' the hanky to them in exchange for the treat, and get praised for being so co-operative.

2. Whenever you see a baby gate left ajar, race into the forbidden room and ostentiously wait in the doorway for the command to come 'this way' and receive a treat for your obedience.

 

 

3. Go out into the backyard and bellow at the top of your voice at any movement in the adjoining apartments and wait for the command to 'come'. Race in and get a treat. 

I suspect she's working on a few more commands for the humans to obey. I'll report when she has us even more under her control. 

Oh, and now that I have a close look at that photo I posted, I think I'd  better get off this computer and do that grooming. Obviously today was a rather exciting and messy playday.

 

Coping with the heat for the first time

As I mentioned yesterday, there has been a late onset of hot weather after a strangely cool and wet start to summer. I had  read that one way to help a dog cool down is the use of a gel mat.

It was a surprise to see how quickly she got started on using the gel mat - because it was quite a bother to get Penny to adapt to it and she hardly ever used it.

At first Peppa lay near it. I had read that it's a good idea to show her that a new gel mat can be a nice place, where you find toys and treats, so I tossed a couple of Ziwi treats onto it.

That worked nicely, especially when I added her high-tech toy (the insert from a toilet roll.)

So, there she was lying on it within minutes.

And soon she was stretched out with her belly on the cooling surface.

Here's hoping she continues to use it.

Lhasa apsos maybe don't have an interest in guarding fruit trees

 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. 

Peppa is her own person

 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.

 

Peppa has joined our family

 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.

Dogs all around

 I went for a walk today and it seemed there were  dogs everywhere. 

But were there dogs all around me? Or is it that I'm starting to attend to every dog I see, because we're almost ready to bring another dog into our lives? I think that is the truth.

So we've started looking online for puppies. 

Or maybe a dog will somehow enter our lives from left field. Who knows? We're open to that new family member now. 

I wanted to post today to keep this blog alive, and in writing I realised the truth of our readiness to meet another dog.

 

Life goes on without Penny

 I've been feeling low the last few days, and it's taken me until today to realise it's probably because yesterday was  the tenth of what we call the 'Monthiversaries' of her death on 11th March 2020. 

So I'm posting this, mainly for myself, to remember her:

best of dogs

beauty queen

agility dog

doggy dancer

lure courser

beach goer

lounge lizard towards the end of her life

friend

lazy bones at times

ball chaser par excellence until her cruciate ligaments let her down

eater of anything - meat, vegetable, you name it

companion

best of dogs.

 

Her 'tennis ball' tree is in full fruit, but with no Penny to protect the crop from the birds, we've been reduced to covering the fruit with bags. 

 

 But every walk is a reminder of how in her long lifetime she introduced us to the beauties of nature all around us. 

Thank you, Beautiful Girl.

Penny's garden of remembrance

Penny's ashes are buried in her special spot, outside the glass door where she liked to lie and watch the world go by in her last months. 

 At last it's time to plant the packet of seeds that came with those ashes - everlasting daisies. 

Now the  ground is prepared. We won't feed the soil, because they're Australian native plants and don't like a rich soil.

Hopefully, a beautiful garden addition in memory of a beautiful companion.

A timeline of grief for a beloved dog

I has been a long time since I could even think of adding to Penny's blog, but today seems to feel right.

Here's a recap of our grieving for Penny, in the hope that if another bereft dog owner stumbles across this post, it might help in the first sharply sad days and weeks.

Initially, it was a great comfort to hear from our friends and from those who had loved Penny. We left her ashes on the front table.

 We received a beautiful gift of a wood-block print of her, and roses.

As the petals fell, we left them beside her ashes and photo.

 Then came the sad decision to bury her ashes. We came up with the idea of making a new garden in a spot that had been neglected, but which was just outside the unused doorway where she had taken to sleeping most of the time in the last few weeks of her life. She liked that spot because it gave a view of the driveway and the front street, and was just beside the computer where one of her humans worked.

Here's one of my favourite photos of her in that spot:

 So we covered over the hole that held her ashes, and waited...

...because another friend had promised to give us a gift of a plant - a hellebore called 'Penny's Pink.' But it wasn't available in nurseries yet.

 Over the next few months we had to learn to walk in the places where we had always gone with Penny - without her. Sad, but filled with loving memories of a wonderful dog. This spot is Heide Art Gallery kitchen garden, where Penny strolled in her old age and I browsed the interesting plantings.

 And we visited some of the places where she had swum so often.

 We walked to new places, ones that had no memories of Penny, but brought her to our minds - she would definitely have plonked herself into that puddle!

 Finally, Penny's special plant arrived.

Now 'Penny's Pink' hellebore is growing in Penny's memorial garden.

And Penny is remembered with love. No regrets, though, because she had the best care all her life from the team at our vet and from us, and knew she was safe and loved. But her time had come.

A good dog has gone free

Penny's training release command to do as she pleased has always been, 'Go free.'

Tonight, as the vet euthanised her, her two humans stood on either side of her, stroked her and whispered into her ear, 'Good girl.'

I believe, as she faded, the last words she would have heard were her two humans whispering, 'Go free.'

We've been blessed to have such a marvellous dog in our lives. Even in this last week, she was calm through everything, the rush to the emergency vet only to discover a large mass in her abdomen; the visit to our own vet three times in the hope it might be benign and operable; today's last visit when she must have begun to bleed internally and had not even the strength to stand up.

I'm ending her story with two photos from today:

Out into the garden in the morning for a wee, and a lie down in the sunshine...

Gone free in the evening...

Gel cooling mat on a hot day

Two days ago it was 44°C (111.2°F) outside in our yard.

Penny was inside, but that was a dangerously hot day, and we were worried about her health, so human number two came home with a gel cooling mat. We wondered if Penny would use it, as she's averse to finding new bedding on her Coolaroo pet bed. We've never been able to convince her to lie on it without layers of bedding, which is a nuisance, as it would be cool in summer for her with just the mesh.

We put the gel mat on top of the blankets on the bed, and she stayed away from it. Frustrating for us, as the temperature climbed throughout the day, reaching 30°C inside the house. Eventually I had the idea of ripping apart the cover of one of her old doonas and placing the thin layer of cotton on the gel pad.

And, hooray, at last she decided to lie on it.

I was wondering how these things work and whether they are actually effective, but this review seems to be quite positive.

If we're in for more hot days like that one, as the science seems to suggest, we might even try putting the mat in the freezer for a little while before laying it out for Penny. I'll come back to this blog and add any future info as we go.

By the way, the next day the temperature only got up to 20°C (68°F) - around noon - so in the  evening it was more a question of whether Penny was snuggled up into warm enough bedding.

That's Melbourne weather for you!

BTW, we do have cooling in the house,  but it struggled to deal with such a hot day.

Old dogs and new behaviours

Wow! Nearly two months since I posted about Penny and her adventures.

Well, at her age - and mine - just getting out of the house and walking is an adventure.

We're finding that although twenty minutes' stroll is enough for her, it's not sufficient to maintain our own health, so today we humans took a long, brisk walk separately, after taking Penny to Heide Museum of Modern Art in the morning for an amble around the outside artworks.

Here she is posing in the strangely cool evening. How weird that parts of Australia are burning up in bushfires and other areas are so cold that some are even predicting there could be snow on the mountains at Christmas!

As you'll see in this photo, she's quite grey around the muzzle now. I'm not sure when I noticed that - perhaps it was after her latest clipping. 

dog and tree

What a beautiful sight...

A gorgeous dog and a wonderful tree  trunk.

snoozing privately

In a busy household it can be difficult to get a few moments' private rest.

But Penny seems to have solved the problem. In an unused doorway that looks out to the street we keep one of Penny's many beds. This one is an elevated one and her preferred spot for sleeping or keeping an eye out for passers-by.

As I walked past, this evening, I did a double-take.

What? A closer inspection showed a canine outline inside the curtain.

Here's hoping she manages to get off the bed without tripping herself on the curtain. (You have probably guessed that we think Penny is more important than clean curtains.)

physiotherapy for an old dog

Penny seems to have a weakness in her right  rear leg, so we're doing 'reps'. Or maybe we should call them 'sets'. Who'd have thought it would be so complicated being an old dog?

Anyway, Penny doesn't care what we call them. She just wants to eat the food she's offered. (Usually little bits of raw carrot.)

She puts her front paws up on a little stool.

I tap her left rear leg and she lifts it and I support it gently, not taking her weight, but just reminding her to keep it in the air.

Seeing she's totally focused on gobbling the food, she seems to hardly notice she has her weight on her weak leg. 

I think it might be working, because she jumped from the footpath into the back seat of the car recently, the first time in months we haven't lifted her in.

I wish she didn't lick her paws, though. You can see how stained they are. We're working on that problem too.

tale of a dog, a djembe and a kangaroo tail

One of the humans has a new goatskin stretched across his dejmbe, so of course he had to try it out as soon as he got it back after the repair.

And of course Penny had to have a look at it as he placed it on the floor. Unfortunately for any future joy she'll have in listening to djembe rhythms, he gave a nice loud thump just as she looked up into the bottom of it. It sure must have been loud to a dog's hearing, as her head was inside the cavity of the drum.

So now Penny hates it. Here she is peeping around the corner of the next room to check what the scary noise is.

To cheer her up, I presented her with the enormous kangaroo tail that we recently bought for her. We got such a huge one because I worry about her choking on a small bone. (Yes, I know it was a bit of overkill.)

As usual, she headed out the doggy door to bury her bone. But what a problem... The bone wouldn't fit through the small space. So round and round and round and round she went, trying to figure out how to get to the backyard.

Until I took pity on her dilemma and opened a door.

So the search began for a place to bury a long, long bone.

This way?  No, perhaps this spot?

And finally, a good hiding place.

By the time she was finished, you couldn't even see there was a bone. I'm constantly amazed at how much dirt she can move with her nose.

And back inside.

But then she changed her mind. She decided to fetch it. At this stage it wasn't a red juicy-looking bone. It was dark with soil.

And so the day continued. Chew, chew, chew, chew... Until she was so exhausted with the effort that I began to worry about her.

Eventually I decided she was panting so much I'd try to take it, as planned. I swapped it for a frozen cube of mashed vegetables in warm water.

Hours of fun for all.