swimming in Darebin Parklands

Yesterday Penny and I came across another section of the Darebin Creek where it is fun to swim. She swam for ages, setting out across the little area to collect tennis balls, as I fiddled with my camera and took lots of shots. Penny didn't seem to tire of it for ages.

Here are some of my favorite pictures:

First, the ball landing. (I wish they were sharper!)






Second, Penny going for the ball.




Third, shaking out.



Fourth, Penny concentrates as she waits for some ball-throwing on the grass to dry off.

dock-diving for dogs comes to australia!

At last, dock diving arrives in Australia!

Penny loves bellywhacking into the water - a couple of times previously I've posted a photo of her doing this - and she learned it on an outing to Kepala Canine Country Club, some years ago. She copied bigtoe7's dog, who was leaping into the pool with joy.

And now I've spotted a recent video upload by bigtoe7 showing her dogs taking part in an official Dockdogs event.

But, alas, it was in New South Wales - nearly a thousand kilometres away. And it seems to have been a one-off event, from what I can see.

Now I'm going to hope it comes to Melbourne!

I notice I'm not the only one who'd like to see it here - there's a discussion and a couple of pictures at Dogzonline.

making a game out of meal times for a dog

Having been reminded by Johann about how important it is to keep a dog's life interesting, I thought we'd make a game of mealtime yesterday morning, so I kept back some of her meal (minced turkey, Omega3 oil and Glyde) and hid small portions in the house and then in the garden.

The last time was the hardest. I'm fairly sure she was hunting by tracking my trail, but probably she was also scenting the food itself. (I don't know how I accidentally duplicated the first part of the video. Sorry about that!)

flyball at the Nillumbik Pet Expo

At the Nillumbik Pet Expo in Diamond Creek today we had a fun-filled day, with lots of different activities. (Diamond Creek's name reflects its history as a place to fossick for semi-precious stones, but it's misleading to think anyone found diamonds, as far as I know).

When we arrived, I was fascinated by a display of lovely furniture that would look great in anyone's living-room.



They reminded me somewhat of the elegant crates that I posted about almost exactly two years ago, the Hardwood Hideway, in that the standard of construction looked wonderful. I heard the man say that there are no nails in these locally made Lyrebird Pet Furniture products, it's all made with clever joints - tenon joints, I think he said, but I forget the exact name of the joint he mentioned.

But as I was looking at this display, Penny tucked her tail between her legs, crouched low to the ground and headed back to the car, dragging me. I can't believe how strong she is when she's determined. I couldn't figure out what was scaring her so badly, and didn't know whether it was a sound or a smell, so I picked her up and carried her to the marquee where our flyball club was set up, hoping she would settle.

I thought it might have been the smell of the ferrets.



Or something about the reptiles.



Or the farm animals.



There were also rats, so I thought perhaps it was them. Anyway, she settled enough to have fun racing, though she stopped in the middle of her run to stare in the direction of the scary thing, before finishing her turn. (Lucky it was only a flyball disply, not a race.)

Then we headed off to have a turn at her all-time favorite thing, lure coursing.

And the scary thing was right there, so that she had to bark loudly to scare it away, and head off, tail between her legs and belly to the ground once more. I haven't got a photo, because I was too busy convincing her she still wanted a turn at the lure coursing.

And the terrifying thing?

Teensy tiny ponies! (Big compared to Penny, of course)

renovations to the pond in Darebin Parklands

Well, after more than a year of arguments, meetings, discussions, demonstrations, rallies, it has finally started - the redevelopment that will ban Penny and her mates from the traditional dog swimming pond in Darebin Parklands. As far as I know, the pond was originally edged with giant rocks so dogs wouldn't destroy the banks as they went into the lovely deep water.





Here are a couple of shots of Penny enjoying her favorite swimming hole.






Usually the water was just at a good height for jumping in, but on one occasion there was a flood and even the rocky bank was under the swirling waves.



It made me feel sad to see the machines moving in and the non-native trees being removed.



And those lovely rocks, on which we've had so much fun, dug out.






Let's hope the sacrifice is worth it, and that the creek's water quality is improved by the works that are taking place. Water is the land's life blood, as we remember every summer - we have to value anything that improves the ability of our waterways to stay healthy.

Time will tell...

the dog crate comes in handy for the urinating visitor

Today I was excited to think of a use for the large crate I wrote about on 24th September - the over-large one I bought by mistake and couldn't return because we broke one of the handles struggling to open it.

Scruffy, the timid dog who lost his best mate a while ago, has taken to urinating inside our house whenever he visits, so we decided he would have to stay outside unless he was under our watchful eye. But today was quite hot and we were worried about him, as he has a thick coat.

And then I had an inspiration! I lugged in the crate and tried to entice him in it with a couple of treats, but he was too wary to enter. So I lifted him in, fed him some liver treats - and he settled down.

At first he wasn't too sure about it.



Then he seemed to settle, though from the look of his ears he wasn't quite happy. (But he tends to be on edge a fair bit of the time, I must admit.)



Penny wondered what a visitor was doing, sitting in her nice crate and being fed treats (especially as she wasn't getting the treats, due to the question of whether she is overweight).

washing a dog after a swim in a polluted creek

Penny had a bath immediately after we arrived home from Darebin Parklands this evening, because she had jumped into the creek. The creek looked and smelled awful!

Only yesterday I'd been delighted to see it was crystal clear and inviting. But today...



We walked downstream to see whether the water would be clearer after rushing over the series of rapids that have been designed into this section of the creek.



But the water quality was terrible all the way along.