Riley and his D.O.

My mum says that I’ve given my best friends D.O.  but I think my little friends are all perfect, and they have never told me that they have a problem with this. In fact I spend a lot of time carrying them around, resting my head on them and taking them outside or to my humans so we can all play together, but she says sometimes coating them with my Doggie Odour and drool gets too much and smells bad. 

Now I think D.O. is good (as I know where to “seek” my friends around the house when mum plays a game hiding them for me to find) but this horror story starts when I am not looking.

She rounds up my favourite friends (currently Horsey, Duckie, Quack and Rudolf) plus my chew rope and the rugs I sleep on and tries to drown them all. I hear strange gurgling noises. I can hear them crying out to me, but can’t get inside the big white box to them to show them how to always swim with their head above the water like I do.

After what seems like forever, and lots more strange noises and beeps from the nasty white box, she takes them out and attaches little torture devices to them so they hang on wires.

I am too short to help them, and even if I could get up really high, I haven't yet worked out how to use my paws to gently free them.

Then the fresh air spins my friends round and round, and they get dizzy and I notice that they look pale.

All I can do is wait underneath the wires and speak to them with gentle barks to let them know I am there and this unpleasantness will soon be over.

While I am waiting ramdom thoughts go through my head like:

• Should I report my mum to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Stuffies?
• What can our neighbours think of her strange behaviour?
• And why does she make strange comments about getting all my ducks in a row? Doesn’t she realise that two yellow ducklings hardly makes a row, although sometimes my grey and green ducks are also subjected to this torture and there are four to six ducks hanging there.

Then, after what seems like ages, we are finally together again and I realise that I love my friends even more for the things they endure just to be with me.

Have a great day, and remember to appreciate your friends.
Riley

Wordless Wednesday - Fighting my garden hose

Happy New Year

Greetings from New Zealand. Today was a public holiday so I was taken for a late afternoon walk around some of our Auckland bays. Firstly I went for a short car ride (I love going in the car) to Tamaki Drive, and we parked just round from Okahu Bay (near Kelly Tarltons which is an underground aquarium built in the holding tanks of Auckland's first sewage station!).

This is me with Rangitoto Island behind me. Rangitoto is an active volcano, although it hasn't erupted for over six hundred years, so I felt quite safe.

A different view of me, with North Head behind me to the left and Rangitoto island to the right.

My humans decided the first thing to do was walk to the end of Orakei Wharf which you can see in the photo below. I took the high road, also know as the wall beside the footpath. For those who know Auckland, you will now notice Devonport in the background.

The photo below was taken at the end of Orakei wharf. There were lots of people fishing all along the wharf, and I even saw a several fish being caught, but I managed to resist the temptation of eating the smelly bait, knives and fish hooks that were left on the ground in front of me.

Looking the other way, from the end of the wharf,  is Auckland's central business district. It looks grey, as there were some clouds in the sky.

Then a long walk back to the road...

and we turned right and continued on to Mission Bay (which is behind me in the photo below). The wharf , where I started my walk, is at the very right of this photo.  

Then my humans decided the sun was too hot to keep going to St Helliers, so we returned to Mission Bay for some food (they got some hot chips and let me have some!) and of course I had some of the water that my mum had carried on our walk especially for me.   

Both the beach and park were busy with people having picnics and playing games with their family and friends. I got to meet some new dogs, and had strangers pat me.

On the way back we stopped at Mission Bay fountain, which is in the park in front of Mission Bay beach.

Then another enjoyable car ride, and I was home in time for my evening meal, and the chance to snooze in front of the TV with my family.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year filled with the things that you love and enjoy most.

Woofs,
Riley

Hark it's my Christmas bark

Seasons Greetings to you all. It seems that Christmas is almost here, though if the local shops are to be believed the season began at the start of October - two and a half months ago.

Preparations are underway in my big kennel. My humans have even put a tree inside! This is my first “real” Christmas tree.

Normally we go to the beach the week before Christmas (something about escaping the madness of Auckland), but because of work (a concept that I'm still too young to understand) they couldn’t go this year which meant they decided to get a real tree, as the tree wouldn't wilt with the Auckland heat while they were away - if that makes any sense!

My first pine tree smells really nice. So far I haven’t watered it or tried to eat the decorations, but I am still a bit confused as when I go outside I can water the trees out there, but I’m not meant meant to water this one. Only mum is allowed to fill up the stand with tap water.

Yes it is summer here. The days are hot (today it is 27 degrees C / 80 deg. F) and our "New Zealand Christmas Tree" the pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) is in bloom around the neighbourhood

(this is the one in my front garden)

and also lining the shores of many of our beaches. It flowers every summer and looks festive.

(photo off the web - see

 http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/pohutukawa-flowers )

'Tis the season of sandy beaches, the smell of suntan lotion and barbeques, swimming, boats across the waves, children playing games on the beach, the sound of cicadas in the trees and lazy days spent doing very little. Many people go camping or to their bach (a bach is the North Island term for a holiday home, traditionally a simple building at the beach but now many are like normal houses. In the South Island of New Zealand a bach is called a crib).

I went to a couple of Christmas parties with special games for dogs like musical mats, relay races, bobbing for toys in a paddling pool, egg and spoon races (we had to run and pull our owners with our leash while they carried a raw egg in a spoon in their other hand), and a game my humans were most proud of me for… a relay race where teams of dogs had to carry a piece of sausage in their mouth, with the team that got the most amount of sausages to the finish line winning. Unlike most of the dogs, I didn’t eat the sausage, so thought it very unfair that mum took out of my mouth at the end of the race, but I did get to eat some pieces of sausage at the barbeque later.

My mum is now up to wrapping presents to put under our tree, talking  to me about the people we are going to see soon and also telling me stories about the others (including her grandparents and her last Golden Retriever) that she still loves and misses but who can't be with us - and explaining to me how many of the special little things we do on Christmas Day are part of traditions from her time with them.

Also there is something called an advent calendar hanging on the dinning room wall, and my humans have been eating little chocolates from it every night. I’m counting down my meals (I have far too many "sleeps" to count them) until the big day when I can find out what is inside my Christmas stocking.

Can you guess which stocking is mine?

I've tried to be good this year, so I'm now spending  my spare time dreaming of what toys Santa-paws might leave me, the joy of shredding wrapping paper, the spoils of Christmas dinner (like turkey which is another strange tradition in NZ as many people have a roast dinner even though it's normally a really hot day – something to do with their English heritage) and I'm also dreaming of seeing my family and friends who are travelling from around the country to see us.

Thank you for reading my posts during my first year of blogging. I have really appreciated all your comments, and enjoy reading your blogs (even though sometimes mum and I get way behind in visiting you - next year we hope to do better) to learn about my new two and four legged friends.

Wishing you all a safe and Merry Christmas filled with peace, happiness and love,

Riley

Wordless Wednesday

You got me and I got you

Today is four years to the day since my family got me, so here are four photos to show you how I’ve grown since the 18th of November 2006. 

The first photo was taken during my four hour car ride home (when I was eight weeks old). Dad went slightly mad with his power tools cutting air holes out of the side of this temporary box (there was never going to be a lid on it), but I didn’t spend much time in this box as I was happiest sleeping curled up on mum’s lap while dad drove the car.

Here I am in the same box when I was six months old, during my long legged skinny phase. I didn't have my Golden Retriever tail feathers yet.

Then exactly one year from the day that they got me I'm posing for a photo in the same box – much bigger, furrier and four times the weight that I was in my first photo! I was too big to curl up, so had to stand instead.

You can see recent photos of me, in my posts below, showing what I look like now. I don't think I have changed much since November 2007. Can you see any differences?

My family are so happy they got me four years ago. They believe that they got the best puppy in the world, even though we all know that there are lots of you out there that also got the best puppy (or kitten or human) ever on your own Gotcha days.

I'm really happy I got them too.

Woofs,
Riley