More Pet Summer Holiday Photo's

Hi all, it's Friday so that means more Pet Summer Holiday Photo's. So exciting...we still have another Friday to post next week so it's not too late to get your photo's in. We know what Peeps are like leaving things until the last minute - ours does it ALL the time! Anyway here are this weeks entries and they are FAB-U-LOUS again.

Wanna play ball with Jack in Northern Ireland?

Roo out on Special Operations in Florida! (competition entry)

A cool looking Roo chilling out in sunny Florida USA

In training for the 2012 Olympics Doggy Paddle! - Wyatt in Oregon USA

Sing - a- long with Skye in New Hampshire USA!

Hat's the way to do it Bowie in Singapore.

Model girl Sheila in Northern Ireland

The back packing expert Shawnee in New Jersey USA

How great are those photo's?! You may notice there are two of Roo as they were both so good we included two, but only one will go in the competition, so, please feel free to send more if you have some great shots!

A final mention about our humans friend Lou who came round for Schnauzer cuddles today. She lost her best friend in the world Meg, a beautiful dog who went to the Rainbow Bridge very suddenly a few weeks ago, and Lou misses her like mad. We know it is a horrible time for her that only time will help so big hugs to her.

Have a great weekend friends in Blog land, we hope you like the photo's as much as we do and look forward to the third lot next Friday - yay!  Click button below for details of where to send your photo's. Love Dex and Lou xxx

Dog Days and Star Gazing.

Hi Everyone and hope you all had a great weekend, we joined the Feisty Three's huge party to celebrate the 4th of July weekend in America, we had a fantastic time! Happy Independence Day to all our American friends.

Well, we are into July now and we learned something this week. The start of July is the beginning of 'Dog Days', I expect you've heard the expression but did you know where it comes from?

Well, our human discovered this week that 'Dog Days' start in July and end at the beginning of September and are the hottest, sultriest days of Summer. Why are they called 'Dog Days'? Well, it seems that there is a huuuuge star in the sky called Sirius, also called the Dog Star! Well, what do you know! It is the biggest star in something called a constellation which is called Canis Major - hence 'Dog'.

The Canis Major Constellation dot to dot looks like a Dog!

The Dog Star is also the brightest star in the night sky, well that stands to reason - the brightest star should be named after the brightest animal. The Romans associated the hot and humid weather with Sirius, the Dog Star so these days became known as 'Dog Days' of summer.There is lots more info on this but our human is now getting a bit Geeky, she loves all this star stuff so we'll shut her up now.

All that matters to us is that Dog Days mean early walks before it gets too hot, lots of lying around in the shade (or in the sun in Louis's case, you might have known!), lots to drink and because of the light nights we often get an extra walk about 9 pm. Dog Days are our favourite.

We thought this photo best summed it up, Louis lying in the sun at 12 o'clock yesterday.

 

 Just a quick reminder too about our photo competition. We've got a badge thingy here which will give you the details in case you missed it, if you want to put it in any of your posts that would be fab. You have the whole of July to send one in - we've had some already which is brilliant because we can post them on Friday for you to see.

Have a lovely week everyone and hope you all had a fantastic Holiday weekend in the States.

Dex and Lou xxx

It's Photo Competition time!

Hi all, we are soooo excited. Our human said that we have made so many friends that it was about time we had a Giveaway! Well, I wasn't too sure what that meant and I did wonder if she meant Louis but no, she said not Louis ;-). 

Anyway we thought a photo competition would be fun as we so love seeing your photo's. The theme of the competition is 'Pet Summers around the World'. We have made so many great new friends from abroad as well as new buddies here that an International theme seems a brilliant idea.

The competition will run for the whole of July. All you have to do is email a photograph of yourself in the summer in your part of the world. If you want to use Photoshop or whatever that's fine, whatever you like - just something that says 'Summery' to you whether it's sunshine or snow, we hope we get to see lots of different seasons! Our friends at SAS reminded us that we forgot our feline friends so of course it's open to all.

Every Friday during July we'll publish the entries so far and then the winner will be picked by someone very special - our Granny! She's quite elderly at 80 years old but is a huge animal lover. She'll pick the final 3 and then we'll put them on here for you to vote the winner! You have the whole of July to take the photo and send it to schnauzerdays@yahoo.co.uk if you have any probs with emailing it let us know, we'll confirm every entry by email - we are soooo excited as we say, get snapping you guys!

The prize is going to be a surprize hee hee - it will be a selction of goodies from us including toys and treats - wowser! We've checked and we can send things abroad so everyone's welcome. We're not entering because obviously we'd win, but here is a photo we think is quite Summery as we're sat in the flowers but we're sure you'll have some much more Summery ideas! Could you please send a little message with the photo of your name and where in the world you are, it will make life easier when we come to print them all out, thanks!  Dex and Lou xxx

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?

 

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

Our Peep on Parade

Morning all and it's Sarge's Peeps on Parade weekend, and if Sarge says do it, then we do it! Anyone who hasn't joined in yet can get the info by clicking here: Sarge's Blog. We're hoping he'll notice what obedient little chaps we are and sign us up to the Blogville Force.

We interviewed her and this is what we found out:

Right question 1, what does your Peep do for a living? She would love to say she is a Rocket Scientist, or that she single handedly discovered a cure for a terrible disease but the truth is she has always worked in Accounts Admin, in other words she said she gets to do all the jobs no-one else wants to do. It does however satisy her compulsion to create spreadsheets and she is often heard saying, "I feel a spreadsheet coming on"! This is 'She who must be obeyed', it's not a new photo as she hides from the camera but this was when Dex was a pupster:

Question 2, what do we like to do with our Peeps? Well snuggling has to be pretty high on the list but top of the list has to be going out for walks, the highlight of our day, sometimes she does something called 'training' with us when we're out which is okay but it does interrupt our furtling about somewhat!

Training in the fields

Question 3, what are her hobbies? Well she loves dog training and is an Instructor at a training club every weekend. She started dog training in 1989 when they got their first pupster a Cocker Spaniel called Monty and she was hooked on dogs from then on. She also loves any sort of crafting and makes lots of things from jewellery to cushions and things. We're not too happy about this hobbly as it doesn't involve us and she also gets very annoyed when we run off and chew her cotton reels - well...don't leave it there for us to play with is our answer!

This is one of the bags she made when she should have been playing with us!

Next question is something serious and special about our peep, she didn't want to answer that one, she does hope she makes a good and loyal friend and we can vouch for that, she is our best friend after all. She was very poorly a year ago and had to have lots of horrible treatment which made her very sick. She says her wonderful friends got her through a very bad time and she is so thankful for them.
There are too many funny things to mention about her, she is always doing funny things, she trips up - A LOT -, she forgets peoples names, she drops things. She has more embarassing moments than she can bear to remember, the one that always springs to mind is when she was compering a dog display for a group of deaf children. She had an interpreter stood next to her doing sign language, she was very nervous and the first thing she did was pick up the microphone, tap it and say "Can everybody hear me?" - oh, dear...she didn't live that one down for ages.

We do also have a Man Peep who does loads of walking with us, but he doesn't get involved in Blogville but we've included a picture as he is a huge part of our lives:

In the park with our Man Peep - we walk for miles with him

Well, we hope that has told you a bit about our Peeps, we're not quite there with the human training but they're coming on great and we wouldn't be without them now :-) love Dexter & Louis x