Dogster

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The Princess Diaries.

LAMB CHOPS AND MOVING ON IN LIFE.

Hmmmmmmmmmm............... there was a terrrrible, horrrrible noise at our house last night! In fact this noise hurt my ears so badly I had to dive behind the sofa, and I wouldn't come out for anything! :(:(:(

"XENAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" mommy shrieked from the kitchen. "Did you eat the lamb chops that were meant to be for daddy's and my dinner tonight?"

As I try to wipe the scene that followed completely from my mind, I will give you the latest updates on my family. :):):)
My babies are all doing extremely well, and as of this weekend they will be outside in the playpen run in the yard off our house every afternoon if the weather is fine.
They are running everywhere, playing with their toys and all have mouths full of teeth now.

This brings me to my news - I have decided I am "completely over" this motherhood thing! :( I worked out this mathematical equation about baby puppies.

Baby puppies teeth + mommy doggy's mammaries = much pain. :(

I don't want to feed my babies anymore, so they are being weaned and Holly has taken over looking after them. :)
This has made me extremely happy as I am now back in my old run during the day where I can watch the world go by at my leisure from the roof of my kennel.
Holly is lying on the deck between the swimming pool and the house every afternoon watching my babies for me, and my babies are safely in the playpen. The play pen is actually two playpens clipped together, and they are joined to either side of one of our small doggy kennels. The babies haven't yet discovered that they can go into the kennel, so mommy is leaving a doggy blanket in front of it for them to sleep on.
They are now having 4 feeds of puppy gravy a day, plus baby cereal with a dietary supplement in it when they wake up in the morning.

I'm still sleeping in mommy and daddy's bedroom at night with them so that I can give them their middle of the night feed - albeit reluctantly. If I don't go and feed them in the whelping box when they wake up they cry and bark until I do, and that noise drives me nuts!!!!! :(:(:(

Daddy is working really hard on finishing our new doggy apartments, and the concrete for the run out the front of the second one was poured this morning.
I can't wait to move into my one, cause it's all fully insulated, has double glazing and will have a separate area for my puppy babies down one end with a special baby gate to keep them in their area at night. The doggy apartments will each have a sink bench unit with hot and cold running water, slip resistant water area heavy duty commercial grade vinyl on the floors, thermal drapes at the back windows, shelves for our blankets, storage cupboards for towels, wash cloths, and also our kibble if we are having it as our diet at the time, plus special doggy stretcher beds for the mommy dog - which is ME. :) Oh, and I must mention that there will be a special wall panel heater for the middle of the winter to keep it at an even temperature when it gets really cold in the winter and snows.

I think all doggy furiends will be envious of our new doggy apartments when they see them - I know my corgi furiend that came to visit me the other day barked about coming to live with me!

XENA THE HUNTRESS.

I was lying in the whelping box listening to the hungry sucks of my puppies having their fourth breakfast this morning when daddy opened the bedroom door.
"Xena, I need you," he told me as I sat up and promptly shed my sucking puppies. My puppies were not happy with this and immediately complained!
I jumped out of the whelping box and followed daddy outside to see what he needed me for.

It's Autumn down here near the bottom of the world. The red oak in our garden is ablaze with color, the silver birches are as gold as the sunshine, all the vegetables from our huge organic garden have been harvested, and the ground is either frosty or drenched with autumn rain when we wake up in the mornings now.

This heralds the beginning of an annual event at our house - a rodent invasion. :(:(:(
When we had kitties living here they used to get extremely fat at this time of the year and turn up their noses at their kitty kibble, rather preferring to dine on the almost unlimited field mousies that either played amongst the carpets of autumn leaves, or took up residence in the old sheds here.
Mommy was so sad when our kitties left us to live at the Rainbow Bridge, she told everyone - "No more kitties. I've shed far too many tears over my kitties over the years." :(

So, it was left up to us doggies to curb those mousies invading our house.

Holly would never catch a mouse - she's just too gentle to kill anything.
Howard Jr thinks it's another dogs job to catch rodents.
Angie is too silly to catch them!
Nixxy our doggy boarder caught mice, but her time boarding with us expired and she's now back with her breeder thinking about having puppies.
The sad excuses for every dog that lives here not to catch a mousie just goes on and on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Except for me. :)

Mommy and daddy went to do the grocery shopping a couple of nights ago, and left me in charge of the house.
Upon their return they found; the pantry open and the floor items in total disarray over the kitchen floor, the sofa moved a couple of feet away from the wall, our big toy basket tipped over, the TV unit moved (thank dogness the TV is actually anchored into it), the books on the bottom of the bookcase all pulled out, and me sitting triumphantly with a rather wet, chewed mousie at my paws!
"Oh no, it's mouse time of the year again," daddy groaned as mommy started to tidy everything up.
"Well done Xena," mommy told me, and she gave me three pieces of liver bait. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmy. :):):)

This event saw daddy placing mouse traps all over our 120 year old house, and caused him to go on a very early morning rodent hunt of our property.
Daddy observed the usual Autumn influx of field mice playing in our old sheds, a massive black water rat out by the front creek (we can never eradicate these as we have a creek at the front of our property, and another one at the back of the 6 acre paddock), and when he went to check on our eight chickens he couldn't believe his eyes. Their feeder which is hung from the chicken coop roof (so that rodents can't reach it!) had six long field rat tails hanging over the side as they hungrily gobbled our 8 chicken's food.
Daddy scared them away, and tried to find their burrow, but couldn't as they all just ran out into the paddock.

Daddy's failure to find the rat burrow led to his summoning me from my puppies.
I ran around the chicken coop excitedly as daddy went inside and then brought out a rat poo. Daddy let me sniff it as he told me to "seek."
I ran around the chicken coop several times, and then I found a trail which led me out into a patch of tall weeds in the paddock. From there I followed the trail back to a wall of bricks that had fallen down in an earthquake, to a hole down in the ground that was almost hidden.
I barked frantically, and started digging at the hole until daddy came running over.
"Good girl," daddy praised we excitedly as he ran and got the garden hose.

Daddy put the running garden hose down the burrow. He patted me and told me I was the most clever girl ever as we sat there waiting for something to happen.
We waited for what seemed like an eternity, and then a field rat leaped a little way along from us from the wall off collapsed old red bricks.
I instinctively leaped into my alter ego "XENA THE HUNTRESS."
XENA THE HUNTRESS was faster than a speeding bullet as she caught rat after rat with her sharp fangs, throwing them high into the air so that they could step onto the rat rainbow bridge a little easier than most.

At the end of it all I lay down panting as daddy stood beside me with his hay pitchfork, and he counted the dead rats I had brought back to him.
The field rat score was;
Daddy 3
Xena 9
death by drowning 3
and some that escaped.

"Xena, you are an awesome huntress," daddy told me as he lovingly rubbed my ear. "You are such an awesome dog, it really seems a waste that you are just a mere show dog. You would have made an awesome top police K9."

Hmmmmmmmm, while daddy may be right, the sad fact of the matter is the police and security forces generally prefer dark/black male dogs like Howard Jr because of their initial appearance to the criminal element.

Mommy and Daddy think I would have really loved being a dog with a job, a police K9, because of the amazing attributes I have like tracking, etc.. that are prized in the police force and security industry.
However, if I was offered to the police they would only ever view me as the little (59cm) gray (sable) girl, and would probably never explore my incredible prey drive/natural tracking ability, my innate sense of obedience, my ability to "leap tall buildings," my incredible agility and the speed I have when I run - just because I don't have "THE LOOK."

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........................ SIGH..................... I guess I may as well go back to the whelping box to clean and feed my puppies.

THE PUPPY BLUES. :(

Motherhood isn't what it seems. :(:(:(
It's all dirty puppy bottoms, and being used as an eternal milk station! :(

Each of my puppies has more than tripled their birth weights in their first two weeks, and they are all sparkling clean and smell like the sweetest baby puppies ever. I'm keeping their whelping box as neat and clean as a pin, and even Holly has given her nod of approval on the way my puppies are kept.
The day she went in to inspect them, she stepped into the whelping box, sniffed it thoroughly, sniffed my puppies thoroughly, and then jumped out with a smile on her face.
If it had been Georgi's puppies, Holly would have been in there licking them furiously, digging up their bedding (even though it's changed every morning), and whining at mommy to do something about these dirty puppies!

Our family's "dog mother" came to do a second structural assessment visit on my puppies yesterday.
"Well done Xena," she told me as she patted me, "your puppies are being very well done and they are immaculately clean. They smell so beautiful, just like all new born baby puppies should."
Now our family's "dog mother" saying that is like having a blessing from a saint!

All this puppy stuff has made me feel a little "blue" though. :(:(:(
You see I'm normally such an active busy ADHD dog, just keeping my puppies clean and feeding them is taking it's toll on me. :(:(:(
Daddy started walking me down to our nearby local little park area when my pups were 3 days old. A week ago he started taking me for a slow gait of 1km a day beside his pushbike. I want to gait faster and go further, but daddy said "Xena, you don't want to bruise your mammaries!" ---- "blush." :(