Mud

(This photo was taken when I was younger,

and I had to have a bath afterwards)

We have been absent from blogging and mud is one of the reasons. It is winter here in Auckland, and it has rained so much that you can see where we run around our back yard.

My human spends her time trying to catch us, wiping our feet, washing the floor, washing all the towels she uses to clean us with and sighing a lot!  She says if she had dogs that always lived outdoors, or self-cleaning cats (with small feet) she wouldn't have this problem. She also says if she lived in a big house with a "mud room" or a maid she wouldn't have this problem.

When Enzo and I go outside the rain water and clay squelches up between our toes and sticks to our fur. 

(Enzo with just a hint of mud on his back legs!)

 

 (Enzo's feet sinking into the mud in our back yard - he tries

to look innocent, but I know better)

(Mum's gumboots sinking into the mud and surface water)

When we play and chase each other around the back yard the mud covers us. Mum can't keep us on short leashes all the time. There are times we need to visit the garden to do our business and we also find interesting puddles on our walks, so she has put huge mats by the doors (inside and outside) for us to wipe our feet. She is constantly telling us walk in circles on these mats or to stand still while she dries us with towels (that we try to steal off her which is another fun game!), but sometimes all her rubbing does is work the mud into our fur. One of us usually manages to escape the towel like Enzo did in the photo below.

 (Did I kick mud onto Enzo's face?)

(Enzo's front paws)

Mum also laughs when we try to cover her clothes with paw prints. She says if she didn't laugh she would cry, so she cleans up after us and then the next time we come inside she just laughs at our paw prints. Sometimes she leaves some of our prints on the floors until tomorrow, rather than vacuuming carpet and washing floors more than once a day!  

 (Surrounded by paw prints - our floors had already

been washed once on the day this photo was taken)

Now we know that there are people who would be horrified to have paw prints on their floors (so wouldn't let their dogs inside), and they may find it hard to look at these photos as they would be compelled to wash the floors four or five times a day if we were their dogs, but I think our mum has realised it is better to have two dogs who make her smile lots and for her to spend time doing nice things with us (like going for walks and playing games) than spending all her spare time cleaning the floors. Plus she knows Spring will be here soon!

Woofs,

Riley

Winter

It is mid-winter in New Zealand, which means frosty mornings and cold nights. Here are a few photos from one of my recent walks.

Many of the trees have no leaves.

I am never far from these strange creatures, even in our inner city parks,

but they only take a mild interest in dogs and then they resume their lawn mowing duties.

There are leaves everywhere.

Time for photos. Enzo, on the right in the first photo (black collar and black tag - my collar is blue and has a blue tag), is eighteen months old now. He is almost my weight - but I have the furrier coat. Some people say we look alike and have trouble telling us apart but if you look closely we really are quite different.

Back to our walk. Look at the size of this tree! It is a Moreton Bay Fig tree and there are lots of these trees in the park.

The best thing about the Moreton Bay Fig tree is large roots. There are lots of interesting smells around the tree roots to explore. Enzo was in leg-lifting heaven.

I even found this plaque. If you click on the photo (to make it bigger) you can read about the tree.

Just remember that I live in NZ, so this tree comes from our neighbours in Australia.

 Still sniffing...

 and more sniffing...

So that was one of our winter walks. If you are in the heat wave in America I'd happily send you some of our cold winter weather - I just have to figure out how to send it to you!

Woofs,
Riley

Wordless Wednesday - watching you watching me!

Is light exercise good or bad for dogs?

Last night Enzo and I were about to take our humans for a walk around the neighbourhood, when the male one was using a torch to look for something. This got them commenting on how some cats will endlessly chase the light even though they can’t catch it. Of course dogs have always thought that cats have little brains, and this accounts for their often futile actions. When the torch was shone on the carpet we looked, we pounced a couple of times and then gave up. There was just no fun chasing a big white light.

Then we heard rattling as dad searched for something. He found his measuring tape that had something called a “laser” attached to it, and when he turned it on there was the most mesmerising tiny red light. It made us quiver and run towards it at such speed that we crashed into a wall and mum said something in an angry  voice that sounded like “OUTSIDE NOW” which made the red thing move as fast as it could to the front lawn with Enzo and me chasing it. There we ran and we ran, but we could never catch it! Of course I was cleverer than Enzo, but he was better at running and quickly turning than I was. We ran up and down the lawn, around trees, trying to catch up with the light. Dad never knew Enzo could move so fast! Sometimes, when we were really close, it had to escape us by going up the fence. I was vaguely aware of mum saying we might crash into each other, but we didn’t – we just ran and ran, and I pounced and we both ran as fast as we could wherever the little red light went until our tongues were hanging out. Even though we never gave up the chase we never caught it - somehow it escaped and then it was time to go back inside.

Now some people might not call running around in the dark light exercise, but Enzo and I thought it was so much fun we didn’t realize we’d had a workout. My humans (who were both standing with their feet not moving) said they had some exercise too as, at times, they were both doubled over and making strange sounds while watching us.

Then they decided I had had enough exercise, so dad took Enzo out for a long walk. I was left at home panting (also known as smiling with my tongue hanging out) for ages. I slept very well last night dreaming of how I am going to catch that little red thing if I ever see it again!

So is light exercise good or bad for us, as mum is thinking of using this method to tire the young pup out (as well as his usual walks) on cold winter nights?

Woofs,

Riley

PS Mum was using stomach muscles so much (laughing) she couldn’t take pictures, so the photos in this post were taken in daylight when we were still. Perhaps one day she will get a video of us in the dark chasing the light.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

I've been missing in action. My human got really busy with family stuff and hasn't had much spare time lately. She told me it was more important for us to go for a daily walk than to sit at a computer. Now that she is less stressed I hope that I can get her to post more about what Enzo and I have been up to, and I also want to catch up on what you have been doing.

For anyone who is still here reading my blog... thank you!

Woofs,
Riley

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Riley and The Bird Lady

I've made a new friend - The Bird Lady. Isn't she wonderful!

My Monday morning (a public holiday here in Auckland, New Zealand) started with Enzo and I being chauffeured to the Auckland Botanic Gardens to see the "Sculpture in the Gardens" exhibition.

For those of you who can't visit the gardens before the exhibition finishes you are welcome to join me on my walk.

You can click on my photos to make them bigger if you want to see more detail.

Here I am, already to go, in one of mum's favourite areas where there are lots of smelly herbs (or "erbs" as Americans say). 

The sculpture trail consists of 21 artworks along a 2km path. Each sculpture had a sign with number, the artist, name of the work, materials used and price and mum has included some of the information under the photos for you so you know what you are looking at.

 1. Jim Wheeler OBJECT OF DEVOTION

Bronze

2. Richard Wedekind BARISTA ALCHEMY

Painted steel, stainless steel

3. Elementals group  GARDEN ELEMENTALS

Metal, wood ceramic and resin on stainless steel poles

The people weren't part of the sculpture - there were people and dogs everywhere! Here are a couple of the GARDEN ELEMENTALS close up.

Then we found this carving...

4. Tui Hobson  BIRD STRATEGY

Macrocarpa

Mum always thinks that it is better if there is a Golden Retriever in the photo to give you an idea of scale...

At the native plants area of the park we found these floating in the pond ...

5. Bev Goodwin  EXOTIC BLOOMS

Mixed cable ties, leis, acrylic, mosaic tiles, hub caps, wire netting

 

 I'm not sure how native plastic is to New Zealand, but they were very bright and cheerful amongst the other plants.

Around the corner (still amongst our native plants) was this...

Permanent Sculpture Collection

Colleen Ryan Priest  CAUGHT IN THE ACT OF LOOSING YOU (2009)

Then an old boat. We weren't sure if this is it meant to be art or if it is just an old boat. 

Anyway mum was so busy wrestling with holding dog leashes and a camera so she missed taking photos of five of the sculptures (including one she really wanted to show you by Lucy Bucknell called Big Man), but here is the next sculpture.

8. John Oxborough  DOUBLE STRETCH

Premium steel, Oamaru Stone

Then we walked through the rose garden... 

 Permanent Sculpture Collection

Samantha Lissette ROSE CATHEDRAL (2008)

Over one of the bridges... 

 and in the lakes were these...

10. Todd Douglas  STILL:LIFE

Raku clay, porcelain

Now as a dog I don't know much about art so this next piece really confused me as all it seemed to be was plants with a plaque inside. I really didn't understand it, but the sign said it was for sale for NZ$6,000 which seemed a lot of paper money to me.

11. Bronwynne Cornish  BIVY

Kanuka, glass , ceramic

The 21 works range in price from NZ$900 (for an individual piece in a group works) to NZ$75,000 (which is approx. US$730 to US$60,500).

By the way you will be pleased to know that during our entire walk neither of us two dogs lifted our legs on any of the art! 

This next sculpture consisted of flexible fabric covered shapes that formed seats when you sat on them...

12. Lgop co-op  PROJECT ZELTSITZ IN GONDWANA

Steel, aluminium, stretch fabric and signage

Dad and Enzo checking it out...

There were lots of pretty flowers at the Auckland Botanic Garden (it is mid-summer here in New Zealand).

What do you think of this one? It sort of looked like it was falling apart to me.

14. John Edgar  CORE

Basalt (Auckland), sandstone (India)

Time for another photo by the gateway.I am on the left and Ezno is on the right. 

15. Chris Moore  GATEWAY

Forged steel, bronze

Next something to challenge my Golden Retriever mind. You see Jeff Thomson, the artist of the next work, is famous for his corrugated iron (a common roofing material here in NZ) sculptures. Over the years he has made many interesting animals out of old corrugated iron - in fact he was one of the first to do this in Australasia, but here he has started moulding concrete into corrugated iron forms and references this to gorse (a horrible prickly weed bush with yellow flowers that covers land) and is hated by farmers), but to me here is all this other stuff now covering the land.


 16. Jeff Thomson  WHEN GORSE CEASES FLOWERING

Concrete, corrugated iron

Moving on...

18. Llew Summers  BIRD WATCHER

Bronze 

 And then some more birds. These ones moved around in the wind like weather vanes.

 19. Bing Dawe  WATCHING OUT FOR ST FRANCIS

Sheet aluminium, steel pipe, carved and painted wood

At last I saw her. There she was on a park bench waiting just for me to go up to her and sit beside her. She was so lovely. Look at how she is made - all that detail, and the lovely patina she has from being touched by human hands and from the weather turning her a lovely shade of rust.

 20. Jamie Pickernell  THE BIRD LADY

Mild steel, galvanised and powder coated steel, totara

I wanted to take her home so that she could be in our garden. I would have invited all my friends to meet her and spent time outside watching her and checking that she was OK, but mum said that The Bird Lady was one of two sculptures that had been bought by the "Friends of the Garden" to become part of the permanent collection at the Auckland Botanic Gardens which means that even though the exhibition is ending soon, we can go back and visit my Bird Lady anytime we want to.

Our walk continued to the final sculpture which (back where I started amongst the herbs).

 21. Christine Hellyar  KAVA KAWAKAWA FOUNTAIN

Cast bronze, water

So that was our 2km stroll around the the park. All that was left was for Enzo and I to have our silly "who has the biggest tongue" competition which he always wins (as I think his head is still trying to grow enough to catch up with the size of his tongue) before we had a cool drink of water and a car ride home.

 (Riley)

( Enzo)

If you would like to know more about any of these artworks visit this link for information about the artists, their statement about the meaning of their work, photos and audio.

So which sculpture is your favourite and why do you like it?

Woofs,

Riley