Oz garden visitors

We have a pretty nice Australian (quasi) native garden in our house. I like the fact that we also get a few indigenous species of fauna passing through, and I am not talking about all the birds and the possums... We have seen two blue tongue lizards (one big and one small). I am really happy about them being around, I am making sure that Mawson never gets to play with them. Not that he would be courageous enough to go near, but you never know with him. They are great lizards that love to eat snails like me! And slugs (not like me!!). This means I can't get rid of slugs anyway, because I do not want to poison the lizards nor the snails... I'm hoping we will see them back when the weather hots up again :).

The biggest of the resident blue tongue lizards

In a less popular and less attractive way, but also very useful, we get a lot of spiders of all sorts, the most impressive are the golden orbs, they are huge! I also like the silver orb much smaller and they have a shiny silver abdomen, very cute...

A "little" golden orb spider (the body was at least an inch)

I'm sure I'll have a few more visitors to show later on. For now, we are trying to eradicate some pesky parasites that eat up our trees :(

Agility trial

Today was a bit of a crazy day. The Northern Suburbs Dog Training Club, where we do our obedience and agility training with mister pup, was having their annual agility trials. It was our first agility trial attendance, but definitely not the last. We might be crazy and do some agility competition and I have started thinking that I might also go for obedience trials! I must be mad!!!
Mawson did not enter for this year's NSDTC competition, because he is just a little pup (the lower limit for competing dogs is 18 months!) but he took notes of what to do, and what absolutely not to do (I am a bit concerned he might have put gold stars on the what not to do stuff...Martin will have to see...).

Martin was doing his duties and helping at the stewarding tables. He got some good tips and an overall very educational day. During that time, I was keeping mister pup busy with some walks, doing some bits and pieces of obedience training and a big bit of crowd mingling. We even behaved like a good pup with a little girl coming for a pat! I was very pleased.

So for the occasion Mawson got a new collar especially for agility (can't have a dangling tag for that so need an embroided collar with his details) and also a stretchy lead that doubles as a toy - also for agility. Who's a spoilt boy, hey?
Even more than that, we got some old agility equipment that we are going to revive, and get Mawson in tip top shape.

We are all a bit snoozy now as it was a fairly early start for a sunday. We had to get there at 6.30am so we got up at 5.30am!! Even Mawson was yawning...

A little distraction from looking at agility

Mister Flea's demise

Mawson is pretty good for a big silly pup, and has not chewed/destroyed too many things in the house (considering...). At nearly 17 month old, he still has toys that he got when he first got here, at 9 week old! One of the first toy he had was a soft toy in the form of a flea. We found that so cute with Martin that we had to get it... And Mister Flea became an instant hit with Mawson, was being carried away and squeaked everywhere.

The original look of Mister Flea

Now, a little while ago, Mawson decided that mister Flea needed a bit of a revamp... I don't know if that was part of an imaginary puppy horror story, or if mister Flea gave him "the look", but all I know is that we came back one day to a fully blinded Flea, looking rather sorry for himself! I succeeded to do a saw up job and gave him back a bit of his dignity (I was quite impressed with myself, I must say!) but mister Flea has never been the same flea ever since. And somehow, I am not sure there was a lot of remorse, from a certain naughty pup, at the demise of his life-long faithful friend...

doesn't look remorseful to me...

Routine is good for minions #2

I am finally back on, after I got mistreated by that vet. Did I tell you he stabbed me? And not only once, and mum saw it and she didn't say anything at all!! I'm sure that's abuse!

So anyway, where was I about the adequate training routine for my minions...

Oh yes, the right preparation for my daily occupations.

Well you see, I have to send both mum and dad to work during the day, so they can pay for my expensive tastes. They just overdo it and abandon me for the full day, but anyway, they try to make up for it by leaving me some stuff to do. What they don't know is that I enjoy having a biiiiiig loooong snooze while they are out, oh the bliss of silence. Until those pesky birds wake me up, or the neighbours' barkers.

So, after the whole faff about my breakfast, I go out to make sure the birds know that I am on duties. Then mum and dad get their stuff. Usually dad disappears and mum grumps that she has to make the place monster proof. That gets me a bit uneasy because there might be monsters in the house, I looked everywhere but so far, paws crossed, I haven't seen any! 

At this point, I am so sleepy that I go have a snooze on my bed to leave mummy choose my treats, I have some favourites and I realised that, the more miserable I look, the more I get treats! She always falls for it and gets a few more, yayyyy... Here comes the sad puppy eyes mwahaha! Anyway, I don't see why she needs to take only a few things out she should just leave me the boxes and I'll sort it out... :) 

Barely enough for a week, if you ask me

Amuse gueules

It cost the pig an ear and a foot,
instead of the usual arm and a leg,
though I wouldn't mind the usual...

So my day overall goes as:

1- When I am finally allowed (when mum is AT LAST ready to leave and stops running around), I go and hoard all my treats and start the hard work of eating them all
2- I go on my bed and fall in a treat induced coma (NO I don't snore!!!!!)
3- I wake up, I yawn, I have a scratch and a stretch
4- I do a little round of the perimeter of my kingdom
5- Oh a forgotten treat!
6- I go and have a snooze

7- I wake up, I yawn, I have a scratch and a stretch
8- I do a little round of the perimeter of my kingdom
9- Oh a forgotten treat!
10- I go and have a snooze

11- I wake up, I yawn, I have a scratch and a stretch
12- I do a little round of the perimeter of my kingdom
13- Oh a forgotten treat!
14- I go and have a snooze

15- I wake up, gah that's getting boring! What time is it? Damn, I need to remember to learn how to read that round stuff with moving part. Hmmmm let's go and rearrange a few things, oh a rug, tut tut tut shouldn't be there!!! Let's move it in the next room...
16- Go wait on the bed patiently...

And then at last they come back, never early enough if you ask me. And I am always bursting for a wee. But now we can start the end of day routine, yay.
Alright I'll paw that later, got to get ready for my walk.

Mawson

The useless hunter

Whatever Mawson thinks about his ability to hunt, we discovered during that trip that mister pup was possibly not cut out to be the best hunter/pointer ever. He could certainly improve with training, but his natural abilities are fully hindered with his impatience for anything and constant whining.

A pointer should silently and steadily sniff out and point at the game not have to be shown the kangaroo and proceed to jump up and down while sounding like a squealing pig (really I have videos but haven't worked out how to add them here, it's silly!).

They are there, whiiiiine!

We had to keep him constantly on the lead unfortunately, as he would have been gone straight out after the kangaroos and wallabies, and we were really unsure he would come back. The two main problems were that it was a very large area that we have never visited but mostly the large kangaroos are not exactly friendly with stupid silly pups...

Looking the part

I must say that the walks were great and I have never seen that many hopping things around, which wasn't helping for Mawson to get relaxed. This also means that we will have to have shoulder reconstructions with Martin as mister pup was running from side to side and even nearly dragged us down hills... But still, I am looking forwards to go back :)

Startled kangaroo

Unimpressed wallaby