December with my dog

I'm surprised to see I haven't posted any updates on Penny's day-to-day life since October 6th. Where did October and November go?

Anyway, there is one thing to report for November - Penny had a long-overdue haircut. Here she is, energised after the visit to her lovely groomer, Gabby.

Penny has never been fond of being groomed, but when I took her for a walk prior to going into the salon, she tugged me down the driveway into Gabby's place. That's what I call 'voting with your feet'! Gabby has a gift for making Penny relaxed and happy.

It had been cool for November, so I covered her with a blanket the first couple of nights, as she has quite a thin coat.

I didn't have to do that for long. December arrived with a vengeance, and hot, hot weather landed on us. It was too hot, even at night, to walk, so I drove to Kepala to give her a swim. I loaded up a big container of  water in a cooler in case the car broke down, because I don't think she could deal with 38°C these days. She was panting in the back seat, even with the air conditioner going, but we got there safely after the 50 minute drive.

It was worth it.

The rules specify that humans are not allowed past the blue line, so I took that as a definite instruction to wade in up to the blue line. (When I wasn't taking a break in the shaded hut.)

It's not only about keeping cool. The benefits of swimming are wonderful for old dogs with joint problems. Look at how she stretches her limbs when she swims.

Penny and the swimming and Bowen therapy

With Penny getting older now, I'm super glad she learned early to enjoy swimming, because taking her for a swim in the lovely warm pool at Kepala Resort is a good way to help her deal with what we think is increasing arthritis.

We are also taking Penny for more frequent Bowen therapy at Bow Rei Me. 

And she's having a series of Cartrophen injections.

Here's hoping she improves. Maybe when warmer weather comes she will improve even more.

PS: While I was checking out the link to Bow Rei Me I saw a post about canine massage. I think I'll read it carefully and go and do some massage for Penny.

An ordinary day

It's been so long since I posted here. Penny's life has been going along in a fairly calm way, thank goodness, with walks and food and pats. What else could a dog want?

It is the humans who've been suffering the ups and downs of life, with her number three person needing heart surgery and then lots of rehab. But life is returning to some sort of normality as Number Three Person regains good health.

Here are couple of shots from an ordinary day.

Visit the river to swim and fetch sticks.

Roll on your really good stick and then chew it to check it's definitely worth keeping.

Be amazed at the one large sweet potato that grew in the garden.

Penny swims in the Yarra

I gritted my teeth and let Penny swim in the Yarra today. The last time she did so was the day before she ended up in hospital with what was eventually diagnosed as gastroenteritis.

It has rained a lot over the last few days and I think any bad stuff will have been swept out into Port Phillip Bay by now. Also, Penny really feels the heat and has swum in the Yarra for more than ten years. With the predicted hot, dry summer coming, I'd like to know she can swim. Otherwise we can only walk at dawn, and that's quite a struggle to do. (For me. I'm sure Penny is more resilient than I am.)

She didn't swim for long. After fetching the stick I threw, she was very pleased with herself and content to carry it back to the car.

water harvesting at a popular dog walking park

When we can't be bothered going far from home, we love walking at Chelsworth Park. We can walk around the sports ovals with Penny running free, but if we head off into the network of paths through the bushland along the Yarra River, Penny stays on lead.

We enjoy both types of walking.

Sometimes in warm weather we've seen dogs swimming in the new pool there. I do wonder whether it's safe, in terms of water quality and in terms of the grid across one end of the pool. I'm the sort of person who's always looking out for possible dangers.

Today when we arrived at the park, we saw some explanatory signs that we found really interesting. They explain what the pond is really for. We did know already that under the sports ovals there is a huge network of pipes to collect and store rainwater, and that the pond had something to do with it.

So, now we know to stop calling it a 'pond' and refer to it as a sedimentation basin. It seems to me that the water should be relatively clean, because the trap will have already caught the rubbish from the street stormwater drains.

But as to whether Penny should  swim there, I'll have to wait until we get more information about whether it's allowed. There's no sign forbidding it, though, and the water would only be rainwater.
On the other hand, the cement path leading down to it isn't very inviting.

I've wondered why the second pool rarely has any water in it, and now I see that it's actually a rain garden, allowing the water to sink into the ground.

It's amazing to think of so much water being collected and stored under the grass.

What a fabulous initiative! Living as we do in the driest continent on the planet - hmm, maybe Antarctica is drier, but I think that's not the case - we value our water.

Penny stayed home today

Penny didn't come with me today when I walked in one of our favourite spots, near the confluence of the Merri Creek and the Yarra River.

Long ago, I sort of complained that we had been banned from entering our number one top-favorite, most loved swimming spot. I'm glad that a short time later I wrote about our acceptance of the new restrictions, because today I found out what a special spot this is and why it should be protected and allowed to regenerate as natural bushland.

This week is Wurundjeri Week. The Wurundjeri are the indigenous people whose home is this region of Victoria, and they are conducting walking tours to teach the public about their culture. It seems the places where there is a confluence of streams or a crossing place have special significance, and our old swimming spot is the meeting of the Merri Creek and the Yarra River.

It was lovely to be made welcome in this special place. I've often noticed the sign at the start of the off-lead area, and enjoyed trying to read the language on the sign, but it was even better to hear a speaker of the language welcome us.

Today: high bushfire danger. The temperature reached 31°C. Tomorrow's predicted weather: top of 22°C.

I think Dr Tim Entwistle is right. It's time we realised the 'seasons' we've inherited from Europe don't apply to Australian conditions. Today was summer and tomorrow is predicted to be spring. I'll start adding Dr Entwistle's Sprinter and Sprummer to my vocabulary. Or, perhaps I could investigate the traditional seven seasons of the earliest inhabitants of this area, the Wurundjeri people.

The Wurundjeri clan that inhabited the Melbourne area would often spend the summer months upon the banks of the Yarra and its tributaries. In winter, they would often head to the Dandenong Ranges (known as Banyenong) to make use of its timber for firewood and shelter. Wurundjeri divided their year into seven seasons rather than the familiar four. The arrival of a new season was based on the onset of a natural event such as the blooming of wattle or the first appearance of the blue wren.

As Penny and I drove home from another delightful Bowen session at Yarra Glen with Deb, we stopped at Warrandyte - lunch for me and a swim in the Yarra for Penny, seeing today was a foretaste of summer. We met some girls who'd seen a snake swimming in the river yesterday and I asked them whether the snake swam with its head up out of the water. They said it was flat on the surface of the water. It bothers me that if Penny saw a snake in the water she might think it was a stick and swim towards it.

But it wasn't likely there'd be any snakes around where we swam today, at a delightful little sandy beach, because of the...

horses!

Penny didn't even see them the first time she dashed into the water to collect the stick I threw.

It was only when she was shaking out her wet fur that she decided it might be a good idea to stay well back from these enormous dogs. (She hasn't been near horses before.)

Once I threw her stick back into the water she was off again, not in the least bothered by the horses.

Or the inquisitive ducks...

dogs can help our native birds

There's a great article in The Age newspaper today, about a small wetland in a densely urbanised area, where native silver gulls were driving away most other species of birds.

In an effort to get rid of the gulls without harming them, a variety of strategies were implemented. The one that interested me was the decision to allow dogs to visit the wetlands off-lead.

The article says: The species of birds and frogs that frequent the site have doubled to more than 51. Of the 48 bird species that visit, 42 are native. Six of those, including the dusky moorhen, Pacific black duck and Australian grebe, have started breeding at the site.                                                                                                                                             So far, three species of frog have been recorded at the wetland: the common froglet, spotted marsh frog and striped marsh frog.                                                              Melbourne Water senior biodiversity scientist Will Steele said he wouldn't be surprised if turtles started arriving too...                                                                                               Dr Steele said the native birds...seemed willing to put up with dogs if they kept a safe distance.

I hope the dog owners who visit the wetlands will realise they have a responsibility to make sure their pets do keep a safe distance. I guess there would be signs telling them the dogs can't swim there. That's how it often is in wetlands.

Penny rarely takes notice of birds. I'm not sure whether it's because she frequently swims in creeks and rivers amongst water birds and walks past land birds...

or whether it's due to all the training in her early years, being rewarded for ignoring birds.

However, we would never assume that she's not going to attack a bird. There's a first time for everything, so we remain vigilant.

If you click the the link in the first line, above, I think you'll enjoy the whole article, and especially the video clip of the wetlands, where you can see an off-lead dog walking past.

having heaps of fun on a hot morning

So, it's still hot in Melbourne. But that doesn't mean Penny can't have fun, as long as we go out early.
The shadows are long and the grass is burnt brown, but there are still patches of green to investigate. I wonder why this nice-smelling spot is green?

We hurry along to the swimming spot and Penny fetches her Whirl Wheels. The river's brown, but here's hoping it's not polluted. (The Yarra is always brown; that's why some people call it the upside-down river.)

But wait! Someone's coming. Penny is aware of the newcomers before her human notices.

So now she's not going to swim. She will sit at the top of the embankment and guard her toys.

But that doesn't mean the others can't have fun.

 We went for a walk and Penny raced around on the grass chasing her toys - who'd have thought, all those years ago when she had her cruciate repaired, that one day she'd be running free once again?

Then we headed back for a last swim. A lovely morning that her human would have spent lazing in bed if she didn't have a dog to get her out on a hot summer's morning.

Thank Dog for dogs!

mad dogs go out in the midday sun

Here are the first few lines of the old song, Mad Dogs and Englishmen by Noel Coward :

In tropical climes there are certain times of day
When all the citizens retire,
to tear their clothes off and perspire.
It's one of those rules that the biggest fools obey,
Because the sun is much too sultry and one must avoid
its ultry-violet ray --
Papalaka-papalaka-papalaka-boo. (Repeat)
Digariga-digariga-digariga-doo. (Repeat)
The natives grieve when the white men leave their huts,
Because they're obviously, absolutely nuts --
Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The Japanese don't care to, the Chinese wouldn't dare to,
Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one,
But Englishmen detest a siesta,
In the Philippines there are lovely screens,
to protect you from the glare,
In the Malay states there are hats like plates,
which the Britishers won't wear,
At twelve noon the natives swoon, and
no further work is done -
But Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

And here is Penny, at twenty minutes past noon today. (40 degrees Celcius/ 104 Fahrenheit)

Has she gone mad? Probably not, but she's a glutton for fun with her Whirl Wheel.

I ordered her inside! (BTW, the plants are covered to try to stop them frizzling in the extended horrible heat.)

Now she's relaxing in front of the fan, and I'm hot and bothered in the next room because I'm too kind (or soft) to deprive her of the fan.

But this morning, early, we walked at Willsmere and she had a lovely swim with her toy. Two toys, actually.

It was cool in the shade of the trees. Thank God for old, established trees!

answers to some questions about dog walking at Yarra Bend Park

On 17 April I  blogged about the strange 'crop circle' at Yarra Bend. (Not really a crop circle, of course. Just preparation for indigenous planting.)

It was great, therefore, to see how the planting is progressing.

In another section of the park, at the place we are sad to be banned from, there is also planting.

I don't think we'll ever be able to swim there again, because once dogs lose access to an area, they're unlikely to win it back again. But on the whole it's a fantastically dog-friendly park. 

dogs not allowed in the river

We're disappointed to see a new fence around our favourite swimming spot at Yarra Bend Park, the place that is generally wonderfully dog friendly.

Penny headed straight for her usual swim as soon as we took her off lead when we had walked under the freeway, and what did she see? This:

Not a sign saying 'dogs on lead' - but a brutal 'NO DOGS'.

How sad for us. It's a safe place to enter the water and there are rocks for tired humans to sit on while dogs have fun.

I have faith in those who run the park, so I assume there is some need to protect this part of the environment. Perhaps water birds will nest there.

Time will tell.

midwinter walk along the Yarra river

Our usual swimming spot on the Yarra looked lovely today, even if it is midwinter, just past the shortest day here in Melbourne. Of course, even though the sun was shining, it was too cold for a dip.

Or was it? Penny didn't think so.

Then it was time to dry off with a run around.

Even though we were walking at noon, the shadows were long, a reminder of the time of year.

It's so great to know Penny has recovered from her recent surgery!

out in the wide, wide river

Penny hasn't built on her recent success at fetching two toys at once while swimming in the Yarra. It must have been an accident, because she doesn't appear to remember how she did it.

Yesterday she was, as usual, swimming in the river for her Whirl Wheel, but she absent-mindedly took one with her when she went for the other.

So, a problem. How to bring them both back to shore? She's a determined  dog, and swam in circles, trying to figure out how to do it, gradually drifting further and further downstream.

We weren't worried. Well, not yet. But she was starting to flag - we can usually see she's tiring when she sinks a bit in the water.

Here's a clip of how she solved it. You can hear us calling her to head back to shore with the first one. After all, we didn't really care if the second toy floated down the river and out into Port Phillip Bay, as long as Penny got back safely to shore. But as you can see, she wasn't going to give up. (By the way, the birds chirping in the background are bellbirds.)



After all that effort, it was time to shake the water off...

and roll on the toys.