The big brown dog

We bit the bullet a couple of weeks ago and let Wally into the front yard WITH the dogs! It was a huge success. I'd been a bit worried, knowing that Wally likes to chase Barney and Mischa and that the poodles like to race along the fence line with Wally, barking at him. But when we let him into the yard with them everyone got along fine. The dogs gave Wally plenty of personal space.

Mind you, we'd never leave them all out alone, we're out there with them. Partly cause we're not sure what would happen if we left them unsupervised, but mostly cause Wally can be a destructive b------ ! He drank my tea and knocked over the cup, he chewed the clothes on the line, he tried eating the phone and the camera has a couple of tooth marks. But we've had quite a few glorious afternoons at the outside table with the dogs cowering under the table and Wally hovering over us.


Wally's losing his winter coat. I bought new brushes for him and we take turns giving him a groom. He just loves it. We brush and his eyes go hazy and his top lip lengthens in ecstasy. He also keeps turning his back to us and moving closer as if to say 'scratch my butt!' The yard is full of brown furballs.

And grass.

I had a good plan. I'd whippersnip the unruly green stuff to tame it, then I'd mow it once a week to keep it under control... That was the plan. But you know how it is. Too busy this weekend, too wet that weekend, too lazy all weekends... So it grows back and its never as short and as tamed as I planned. To think I have a ride on to mow it with too so I have no excuse. In Fentonbury I had 1.25 acres to mow so I bought a ride on. Now I have an average back yard of grass and I'm still using the ride on. Its quite ridiculous.

Hey, I LOVE my ride on! I feel powerful on it!


Anyway, the plan is to keep the grass down. To expose the broad leaf weeds and to pull them out or poison them as I go, leaving pretty lawn in their place. The weeding tool I bought has been defeated by the weeds. Some of those suckers are so big they have their own postcodes. Wayne dug out a few the other day and it looks like a missile testing ground out there. I'll have to dig holes elsewhere to fill these ones. So much for my plan!


Now daylight savings is back we've started walking the dogs in the afternoon as a family 'quality time' thing.

Wally gets upset when we leave without him and his whinnying is heartbreaking. We're considering taking him with us. The big brown dog. Can you imagine - taking the whole family for a walk! People around here already think we're wierd. We may as well live up to it.


We have two official walking tracks so far, one up the hill on our own property, another up the dirt road with the poodles only. No way can we walk 4 dogs on lead on the road so its the poodles who go out on that walk. We alternate walks so everyone gets to go out.

As to who's taking who for a walk, the jury's still out on that.

Only kidding. Wayne's great with the dogs. I'm useless. The only way I can walk Montana is with a halti, otherwise she can pull me over on the slippery gravel roads. The only reason I can walk Romeo on a flat collar is cause he never learned to pull cause he's never been walked on lead that much. But Wayne can walk either of them and have them behave beautifully with no obvious effort. Gotta love that in a man. That and the way he handles a horse... swoon!


Mischa has lost weight since I took over feeding and she's looking great. She's moving more freely and has much more energy. She actually has legs now. She's still rolypoly and her nicknames are still 'anvil a*s', 'barrel shaped dog', etc.

I also attacked Barney with the clippers the other day. He's taken on the roll of my 'meet and greet' dog when I groom dogs at home and as such he needs to look respectable. He looks like a brand new dog. Wayne's stopped calling him ugly and thinks he's almost handsome now now.

We had a visitor the other day who commented that they've never smelled better. They are now officially pampered pets!

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