Nice warm and cosy fire

It's winter in Oz right now. Even if the weather is not going down to extreme cold temperatures, the evenings can be a bit chilly. So usually, in the eve we settle in front of the telly (well the Ashes are on right now!) with a cup of tea, and we start the gas fire. Mawson is a great adept of the fire and has declared that the space in front was his. He also requests his comfy little bed as pillow... 

If it is not on, he sits next to the fire staring intently at Martin.

I must say that I like the warmth of the fire, but I sometimes wonder how a living creature can stand so close without being cooked. 

Comfy late night sleep,
lucky you don't hear the snoring...

He also loves the white tufty carpet we have there, and enjoys doing the aimless GSP roll on it at any occasion. The life of a dog is so hard!...

Melting in the carpet

Who dares disturbing me while on important business????

Little red riding hood all mixed up!

I think that Mawson is getting mixed up with the storyline of his fairy tales. Maybe, I shouldn't have told him "the little red riding hood" in its original french version... He mixed the little red riding hood, and the wolf disguised as grandma all in one...

Torture!!

How much must I be shamed before the RSPCGSP comes to sort mum and dad out? Now they want me to shake the paw of everybody I meet! Even at the park in the morning, in front of all my buddies!!! NOT COOL! I had to get the comfort of mister black rat to help me through the emotional hardship that they documented here. Please somebody help me, that's abuse for sure!!

Ready with the camera? I haven't got all day!

Here, you're happy? Yes... Hello... can I go now?

Quality control

Mawson has adopted an infallible system to make sure every item we bring in the house is passing a rigorous quality test.

Quality control goes as follows:
1- approach new object, sniffing
2- look at new object from top with ears and lips flopping down
3- drop toy in new object
4- look around satisfied that new object has been tested

This works for swimming pools (ok we didn't "bring" that one in the house but it needs regular testing just in case we changed something), pots of paints, buckets full of car washing shampoo... everything!
I sort of prefer that testing method to his first encounter with an open pot of paint, where he dived right in with his nose before I could get to him... well I think he still remembers his light turquoise nose and the wash that ensued. Luckily it was an easy water based paint, but now we are extra careful...

Ready for next testing

Agility

Nearly three months ago, Mawson successfully graduated to 3rd class in obedience, we might go to 4th soon now! We had been working hard on that, as it is the obedience grail to be able to start some other cool activities. They appear not to want silly puppies running around crazily during non-enclosed classes... weird.... Anyway what it means is that we were able to start agility!!!
He had really enjoyed the bits and pieces we did in puppy classes, and it is a fun way of getting energy out of a teenage GSP, or any GSP for that matter.

I started doing the class on saturday mornings, but as I am doing the obedience classes on the saturday afternoon, Martin has taken over, so we both have our speciality. Mawson has taken on very well and seems to have a lot of fun. He is still learning a lot, how to do all the different equipments but most jumps, tunnels, tables and A frames are go. There are a few things we haven't yet done such as the walk over (he is a wimp), the see-saw (scary!) and the weaves (he has a big butt...) plus a whole lot of other things, but for now, we are having fun. I must say that the main problem for Mawson's advancement is us! It is actually really hard to get oneself organised and not either confuse Mawson as to where to go next, or trip onto our own feet. And also there are always birds on the course....

I'm flying!

As we are a bit crazy and on holidays right now, we have been doing a bit of construction at home, for Mawson to do some homework. We are pretty proud of our efforts! (don't pay attention to our awful lawn, it appears that the curl grubs are back with a vengeance this year yet again, sniff)

Homework