My Christmas Report…

Did you notice it was Christmas?? I did, I did I did – mainly when I got presents. Yes indeed Santa Paws did visit the Saunders household and new toys were the order of the day 🙂 . Here’s a run-down of events (with photo’s to illustrate).

The festive season got off to an inauspicious (what a good word) start when, on Thursday, mum fell over whilst stopping off in town on her way to pick up Daisy-dog. She twisted her ankle but is basically OK. It was a bit bruised so her whole foot has entertained us all with a display of colours which have changed on a daily basis such that her foot alone rivals the lights on the Christmas tree! It’s really quite entertaining.

Dad finished early on Friday, which was good because he was on Tex-walking duty due to the aforementioned ankle incident. It seems Daisy’s school broke up early as well but no one told mum so poor Daisy had to wait in the office until mum picked her up as normal, but I’m told that even though she looked like a little girl lost she hadn’t been on her own for long 🙂

Anyway she’s a game girl and has soon got into the swing of being on holiday. Saturday was just a day of doing a few chores and preparation for Christmas Day. Daisy and I wanted to go to bed extra early so that Santa could come but as we sleep for a large proportion of the day anyway mum said it was hard to tell the difference!

Of course Santa Paws did come for Daisy and me, but we had to wait for a while to see the fruits of his efforts as firstly mum and dad made a flying visit to dad’s family and then they came back and ate some food and then they opened their presents and then they ate some more food and only when they’d done all of that was it finally our turn (phew). But I suppose they were saving the best to last as they wanted to enjoy the spectacle 🙂 . So then it was our go and oh it was worth the wait. What did we get…

Well Daisy got a foxy Kong Wubba toy. (I have one already and we both loved him so mum and dad thought it would be nice for Daisy to have one of her very own). I got a mariners knot rope toy (well I am a boat dog after all). Then we both got a new marrow bone nylabone type thingy, a real bone and some chews. All in all not a bad haul and we really enjoyed investigating out present stockings. Here are a few pictures of us with the contents etc.

Stockings look promising 🙂

If we sit nicely...

At last Daisy gets Foxy

Yummmm

nothing distracts Daisy when she's eating

Then, just because I am such a lucky boy, I got an extra present of some tennis balls from my puppy family the Weavers. Thank you very much mummy Brenda and the rest of the Weavers – you know the way to my heart 🙂

And there's more

Thank you very much 🙂

Daisy

So all in all Christmas Day was very successful for me and Daisy.

It’s traditional on Boxing Day to go out for a good walk to blow the cobwebs away and we were no exception. We went over to Windsor for a walk along the river. In the summer this location has been one of my ‘back gardens’ when we are on the boat so it was nice to be able to show it to Daisy too. Here we are in a family photo with cousin Archie…

Us with cousin Archie 🙂

Of course he’s not a cousin really, we didn’t know him from Adam, but he was determined to get in the shot so who were we to deny him. Well it was Christmas. We did finally shake him off so here we are just the two of us 🙂

Just us 🙂

We did a long walk and were tired when we got back. Sadly, along the way, an indecently high level of generosity was forced upon me when I had to donate my tennis ball to a passing Jack Russell (not one of my new ones I hasten to add). It didn’t matter how politely I asked he was not giving it back. In fact when his owner tried to pick it out of his mouth all she got was a tennis ball with a Jack Russell dangling from the other end of it! At that point mum decided that this ball was a goner and that we’d just let the JR have it! I was not quite so convinced but decided in the end that I would rather go home with mum and dad than with the tennis ball and the (now attached) Jack Russell!

At the end of Boxing Day we had visitors when Dad’s dad and Judith came round for dinner. Always nice to have guests for that extra tickle opportunity 🙂

By the end of that we were all quite tired so I am reliably informed that the rest of the Christmas break will be quite relaxing with a lot of sitting around watching telly and eating chocolates (well that bit is for the humans only, apparently we’re not allowed the chocolate bit 😦 )

Overall it sounds OK to me so I think we can all go along with that plan.I hope you had a good Christmas dear reader and that Santa did deliver all you had hoped for. It will be next year before I blog again I think so I wish you a very happy, healthy 2012.

Lots of love

Tex

An update!

Gosh it seems a while since I blogged – I have no excuse other than lazy paws!!  Anyway, here’s a quick rundown of what has been happening here.

Firstly we had a spate of minor illnesses.  Dad went away for a couple of days and came back with what I can only describe as kennel cough.  Lots of sneezing and coughing.  Not life threatening but not nice for dad really.  Not nice for mum either because she developed kennel cough a few days later. 🙄

Not to be outdone I had a trip to the vet because I had another gippy tummy, due to me having a taste for disgusting things – well that’s what mum says. 😳 . The vet loved me (of course) but mum was less enamoured when she had to put her credit card into one of those machines.  As it spat out a piece of paper detailing the cost of my visit I’m sure heard her mutter “Happy Christmas Tex”!

That wasn’t the end of the us being poorly, around the same time Daisy developed some ear trouble so she had to go to see the Guide Dog vet.  Diagnosed with a bit of an infection she had to have drops and ear cleaning.  Flipin heck, I would not be putting up with all that drop lark!  I think mum was relieved that if one of us had to have ear problems it was Daisy and not me, she is much more tolerant that I am.  I legged it every time Daisy’s drops came out of the bag … and nothing was actually happening to me.

Just to round things off Pippin bunny also had a vet trip because she had a tummy problem too (more or less the opposite of my problems but very tricky if you are a bunny it seems).  This episode co-incided with mum taking a trip away so dad was left in charge of bunny meds.  Now bunnies are worse than me at taking medicine (because you cannot reason with a bun).  Spotting an absolute beginner, the normally placid Pippin displayed her displeasure by biting dad.  It’s fair to say he’s gone off rabbits a bit since then.  This is Pippin – see she looks mean doesn’t she!

Minor illnesses aside we did manage to do a visit to some local Cubs to give a GD talk.  One of the leader’s daughters also came along to the group, she recognised me instantly … you see I am famous after all.  Oh no she’s not a blog reader (she was only about 5) it seems we have visited her school to do a talk – mind you I think we have visited most schools in Berkshire now so the chances of second meetings are high!!!)  Anyway here is a picture of me with the cubs.

So as I mentioned mum went away overnight last weekend.  It would have been a boy’s weekend at home except we had Daisy as well and as she’s a girl it couldn’t be a boy’s weekend could it?  Mum went gallivanting off to a dance with her dad, my granddad.  She had a good time it seems and best of all granddad came back to stay.  As you know I am all in favour of house guests as they seriously increase my tickle opportunities.  I was not disappointed, (this is particularly important as I am having to share tickles with Daisy at the moment).  Anyway Granddad stayed with us for a few days but has gone home now. 😦

We Saunders are now officially on the run down to Christmas.  The tree is up and there are some presents under it.  I’ve read all the labels but there aren’t any there for me yet (hmm actually I can’t read so maybe there are some there for me).  OR possibly mum was serious about my trip to the vet being my present after all … I don’t think so do you?? 🙂

So dear reader all I have left to do for now is to wish you a very Happy Christmas and to say that I will report back after Santa Paws has come for me and Daisy-dog.

Happy Christmas

Love

Tex

Upstaged!!

By a bloke in a dog suit!!! I ask you.

Here we are together – tell me which one of us looks more dog like? (Anyone suggesting the brown one should be ashamed!!)

Spot the dog (well not a dog called Spot obviously)

We were at Holme Grange last weekend supporting the Guide Dogs stall and the Holme Grange Christmas event.

To be fair Les (the man in the suit) did a sterling job. His presence attracted a lot of kids to the stall and as a consequence I saw a fair few pennies going into the collecting box. I was offered a few too but mum said it was best to put them in the slot of the collecting dogs head as opposed to my mouth. Apparently retrieving the money from a plastic dog who has ‘eaten it’ is easier than from a real one who has done something similar!

So I have to give a shout out to Les aka Prince for all his hard work on Saturday. Overall the branch raised £357 for Guide Dogs and takings were up on last year so that was an excellent outcome all round.

I must say I have had the last laugh on the big dog because Daisy tells me he is no more! For some reason they chopped his head off and left it on the floor of the entrance hall at the Guide Dog Centre (she saw it when she was going to school so I know it’s true!) Seems a bit drastic when he’d done such a good job. Ruthless these people ruthless!!

Duties at Holme Grange done, the rest of the weekend was mine to relax and enjoy. We all went out for a walk and Daisy and I had a good time running around. I think overall she got better marks than me for behaviour. She is a bit of a goody two shoes really, always going back when called, turning on a pin for the whistle – personally I prefer to keep the humans guessing just a tiny bit  🙂

Anyway we had a nice trip out and then it was back home to watch the last F1 race of the season. I’m not sure Daisy is much of an F1 fan (being a girl and all that) I noticed she slept through most of it. Mind you so did I (and actually so did mum!!) A good Sunday all round really. I’ll leave you with a few pictures of Daisy and me on our walk.

Hope you had a good week dear reader.

Love

Tex

Daisy

investigating

Just playing honest...

Ready to go home now