Back to Normal - well nearly...

Hi Everyone,

First of all our Mum would like to say how touched she was by all your kind messages, she is back at home now and taking it very easy. She can sit and type carefully on her laptop - we have to dictate from the floor instead of her lap that's the only difference at the moment.

We've been very good as instructed by everyone and not jumped up or anything, well, we did try but that was because we were soooooo excited to see her again, I thought Louis was going to pee but he managed to control himself.

Anyway apologies for this being short and sweet we just wanted to check in, tomorrow we plan to visit Blog World proper and see what everyone has been up to and whether everyone has got over the Party in the Bark. We don't have a photo of a poorly Mum but we do have this one of us when we were poorly, that didn't stop Louis jumping on me as I remember!

Be catching up with all your news tomorrow, good to be back, Dexter & Louis xxx

Can we get satellite TV with these on?

 

We'll be gone - but not for long!

Hi all,

This is just a quick post as our human Mom is in a bit of a flap - no change there then! She's been waiting for some surgery and had a phone call yesterday to say she's having it done this Thursday! We're not too happy as we dislike any interruption to our routine but she's promised to only be gone a few days or so, but we may not be able to jump on her straight away when she comes home from hospital, which is also a bit of a worry. Anyway she's having something called her thyroid removed which also means she might not be able to shout quite so loudly - this is actually looking better and better ;-). She's promised we can visit as many of your blogs tonight as we can but then we won't be back until next week sometime so I hope the next week is good for you all. We've promised to be good boys for the human Dad, hee hee she doesn't know it but we sleep upstairs every night when she's away.

We can't possibly have a post without a photo so we've picked out an old one we all like, this was Louis's first day with us and I wasn't sure if I was going to let him back inside or not ,but he asked nicely! See you all in a week or so, Dex & Lou xxx

What's the password then Titch?

We're in the bad books...

Oh dear, the human is not happy with us. This is what happened, you see we always sleep downstairs and very occasionally sleep on their bed as a treat. Last night she was very tired so said we could sleep upstairs as we normally sleep longer then, and she could have a lie in.

Well she didn't allow for Summertime did she, those birds with their dawn chorus woke us up so we thought we ought to let her know there were birds singing to be chased out of the garden. A little gentle nudging didn't work so I got Louis to jump on her head - that worked!

So, we were all up at 5.00 am apart from the man human who may need a jump on the head soon, she was even madder because by 5.30 am this was us and she was wide awake (ish) :

Have a great Sunday everybody, we'll be working on being good today Dex and Lou xxx
 

Blogville Picnic for Charlie

We've been looking forward to this big blogville event, there are so many things going on which you can find out about at Frankie Furter or Sarge's blog. We have these delicious fishes wrapped in chicken to take with us, they are our special treat. We're helping out at Pip's place but will also have to visit all the events going on across Blogville to help Charlie with his vets costs.

Right, everything's packed, she's calling us to go so see you there! Dex and Lou xxx 

PS, we should have said before that there is sound on this video just in case like our human you have yours on mute :-)

Woodland Walk in Pictures

Hello all, as promised we thought we'd post the photo's of our walk on Monday, this is the walk that's closest to home so we get to do it twice a day sometimes. Hope there aren't too many photo's, we didn't know which to leave out! 

This is the entrance - come on follow us...

There are so many lanes leading off here, we don't know which way to go...

...okay, down to the old fossil then turn left (and I don't mean the human!)

...Louis stopped on the look out rock to check out the area...

me...I'm headed for the big field, this grass tastes yummy...

...over this little wooden bridge...

...past the horses...see there is a little foal there...aaahhh....

...time for a quick game of tag...

and hide and seek...can you see me...I am in there (look on the right)

...before getting down to what we do best...furtling...

...hope you enjoyed coming on our walk with us...

...good bye woods...see you tomorrow...

Hope you enjoyed the walk all, have a great day. There is one last favour if any of you are on Facebook. Our friend Ralphy you may remember entered a modelling competition, well he was chosen for the final 10 out of 400 so thank you so much to those who voted. The voting began again this week until Sunday to pick the top 3 so if anyone would vote again I know Ralphy and his Mum would so appreciate it, this is his campaign video, spot Louis sat on the wall! Ralphy's video link  this is the link to vote:  Ralphys Voting Link
See you all at The Picnic in the Bark!!

Meeting new Friends

Hi Everyone, hope you all had a good weekend. We've been out for a long walk in the woods today, the human got some great photo's which she'll put on here later in the week but I really MUST tell you about two new friends I made today. First of all we were furtling about minding our own business when a Cocker Spaniel Pupster came racing round the corner and jumped straight on top of Louis, who retorted in his usual fashion by barking in his face - same old story. This pup was called Jack so we stopped and had a chat for a bit:

This Jack with me, Dexter, he's only 7 months so he's a big lad and very playful

 We'd only continued on through the next field and we met a Miniature Schnauzer Puppy, he is about 5 months and called Wilf, what a great name. He again decided to jump on top of Louis and got the same treatment as Jack - Louis is fine as long as other dogs respect his space - these lovely pups haven't learned yet who they can and can't jump on top of! Here's me with Wilf, Louis was sticking close to the human 'supervising' this time.

Hello, what's your name then Pupster?

Right, get ready 'cos any minute now we have to jump on each other!

Wilf, the playful puppy.

So, it was a fun morning all round,  have a great day everyone,  don't forget the 'Picnic in the Bark' coming up soon, it's gonna be great fun  (button on blog on the left of page) 
Love Dex and Lou x

Messing about on the River

Hi all, Louis here. Happy Friday to everyone! It's summer at last and that means one thing - more time for messing about at our favourite place, the river! Not that we like to actually get our paws wet - no, no, no - that wouldn't do, but we do like to furtle along there and explore. It's the river Avon that runs through our walk, here is the start of our walk as we head down to the river, the human has just managed to scramble through rather than over a 5 bar gate, always good for a laugh!

 Then it's a mad run through the buttercups to get to the river. Please excuse Dex in the background who has to stop and leave pee mail in every field!

Then of course we have to have a few stops for a good old roll in the grass! Us that is, not the human hee hee hee!!!

 

At last we reach the most exciting place, the riverbank, lots and lots of furtling to do here, and we won't be rushed. There are always new smells to check out :-)

So, that's what we'll be up to this weekend, hope you all have a great time whatever you so - let us know if you're doing anything nice, we love to hear what you're all up to. Love Dex & Lou x

PS. We'd like to apologise to those whose blogs we can't comment on - there is an error 503 message coming up on a lot of blogs - what is the matter with it lately...grrrrrrr.

Bad Beard Days

Morning all, I know quite a few of you have beards like us - do you ever have bad beard days?! We both have beards, Louis's is particularly long and a day of furtling around in the woods means his beard becomes a magnet for twigs, grass, those horrible sticky balls from plants - you name it! For the pleasure of being out and about there is always a price to pay and usually it's the dreaded beard comb out and wash - yikes! This is the problem:

Louis having a Bad Beard Day

 THEY also say our beards smell - what a nerve, they smell to high heaven especially when they get out of the shower - pooh, who would want to smell of coconut and vanilla - now that's what we call stinky! Anyway, after about an hour of teasing out bits of twig and bits, washing in whitening shampoo and conditioner, then a blow dry (we don't mind the blow dry but would never let them know that, it's high treat value you see) this is how we end up - until we go out in the garden that is!  I'll leave you with this picture of Lord Louis as he does have the longest beard, and that's only because he ripped all mine out when he was a pupster playing!

Little Lord Louis!

 Have a great day all, Dexter xxx

Westonbirt National Arboretum

Morning all, well as we had a pretty wet weekend we didn't really do anything too exciting - Louis got clipped so the human needs to take some photies of that for you but we thought you might like to know about another nice place to visit and that's Westonbirt Arboretum. Any of you in this part of the country will probably have been there as it's very popular for dog walkers, we only get to go there as a treat but it really is a treat.

Two thirds of the Arboretum is called Silkwood, where dogs are allowed, even welcomed! 

Spot the Schnauzer! This is part of Silkwood - loads of furtling space!

 Westonbirt is 3 miles south of Tetbury in Gloucestershire, Prince Charles lives not far from here but we've yet to bump into him there...you never know though! It covers 600acres and has 18,00 trees - that's a lot of trees to go round.

Some of the 18,00 trees at Westonbirt, one of the largest collections of trees in the world

There is plenty of exploring to be done, and lots of running space too!

There are more formal walkways through the trees - no traffic is allowed so it's safe...

...and then there are lots of tracks leading ff to explore

The humans usually take their trusty thermos flask of coffee and find somewhere to sit and listen to the birds while we explore, we'd recommend a visit to any of our canine friends, the autumn is beautiful as the trees are such wonderful colours but it is busier then, at Christmas there are carol services by candlelight. There are events throughout the year, in August they have an event called Treefest which sounds great, details here if you'd like to find out more.

Thanks to everyone who came up with names for Toad, we loved them all and have decided to keep it simple so Mr Toad it is - we've been told to keep away from him as he can be poisonous if we lick him - as if!!  Have a great day everyone and don't forget to check out the Picnic in the Bark event on Jun 17th, details on Sarge's blog, we've got a button thingy on the blog to take you there...it only took her an hour to figure that one out!

From Ostrich to Toads!

Hi all, we have 2 pieces of news to tell you about. The first one is that we had a delivery of a new treat this week, you'll never guess, well maybe the title gave it away a bit - it's Ostrich Gullet!! It might sound and look (to any humans reading this) quite awful but as all my canine friends will know looks when it comes to food can be deceiving and this is no exception - it is fantastic. 

Okay, it might look a bit odd, but it tastes ggggrrrreat!!

It's really low fat at 1.2% which is why we can have it, after Dexter having pancreatitis a few months back it's been low fat all the time so the human scours the Internet looking for low fat things we'll like, we've got her well trained!

Don't try and get between me and my Ostrich!!

 So, that's the first excitement, the second is a new resident who has made his home here, we haven't given him a name yet so are open to suggestions if you have any?

The Toad with no name...

It's a toad! We've had a few over the years but his one was hiding under an empty plastic compost bin which was by the back gate waiting to be given away. The human picked it up and there he was. She made sure there was enough space for him to escape and left him, but he was still there an hour later. She slid a tray of water underneath for him in case he was drying out...she had no idea if this was the right thing. Anyway, she keeps checking, and he's there every time so it looks like he wants to stay!

Have a great weekend all, and don't forget to leave a name for Mr Toad!  Dexter & Louis xxx

Coco goes on holiday!

Hi all, our human friend Heather has had a visitor. She has been looking after a dog called Coco, she hadn't been on holiday with them before so we asked her along to tell us about her adventure.

Hello Everyone, CoCo here and I am an 11 year old 3/4 French Poodle and 1/4 French Bulldog.
Louis and Dexter have asked me to drop by and share with you all 'What I did on my holidays!'

This is me, Coco

2 weeks ago the humans dropped me off with the nice doggy sitter people who had volunteered to look after me when they went on holiday to Turkey. I had waved my humans off early in the morning and I was a little upset and I started to feel a little sorry for my self.

However, this wasn't going to last because little did I know the Doggy Sitters had lots of things planned and lots of new places they wanted to take me.

After half an hour of sniffing around my new surroundings I checked that the humans had packed all my comforters and put them in my basket, two blankets, 3 rugs, 2 rubber bones and  my orange discus. I had already noted that my favourite biscuits had been handed over - so I wasn't going to go hungry, didn't need to worry because they did remember to feed me… and I did hover up they delicious food they carelessly left lying around. 

New places to play, they'll have to be fitter to keep up with me!

Once we had all got used to each other we loved spending time together. Playing with the Frisbee is the  bestest game ever!

The bestest game ever!

Every day they took me work so I wouldn't be lonely and I made sure all my paraphernalia came with me. They work in an office on a farm, so at lunch-times and break-times I had great fun going on walks across the fields.
 
After a few days I really needed ( I didn't say wanted) a bath. Here I am looking a little sorry for myself, I had a lovely blow dry after this  which made up for all the water.

Would you please stop taking photo's, can a girl get no privacy around here?!

The best thing of all was all the long walks and the play times in the park. My sturdy limbs did not succumb to any injury and I felt as fit as a flea by the end of the two weeks- just a little tired, but I'm not letting on because I want to do it all again next year.

 

Thanks Coco, that was great, what a fun holiday to have, maybe ours can go away and we can come and stay!! ;-) We hope we're looking as good as you when we're 11.  Dex & Lou x