Well most of you will know that Max came home a week last Tuesday, and ever since I’ve been wondering what I’ve taken on. I now have a 7 month old Springer pup who has boundless energy, is as mad as a hatter, isn’t the brightest lightbulb in the pack and is totally food obsessed. He and Jez spend a lot of time each day play fighting. Jez is pretty gentle and surprisingly tolerant (which goes to confirm what I’ve always said – that she’s a very gentle little soul). But Max gets carried away and the teeth fly, and poor Jez ends up with puncture wounds in her cheeks and under her chin. Oh, and Jez is quiet about it, whereas Max growls and moans the whole time and it sounds like he’s either being killed or about to kill her. And all of this in our living room!
Max is a bit of a conundrum actually. I’m not sure I entirely believe what the RSPCA was told (that his owner had to give him up on moving to a flat). I’m not sure Max has ever had a garden – he certainly won’t stay out in it – he dashes out, goes to the toilet, then tries to dash back in again. And he doesn’t seem to have had much training. He will sit now, but Down is totally beyond him! And he’s a nightmare on the lead. I tried about an hour of lead training with him on his own today to no avail. So the Gentle Leader is coming out – I expect he’ll hate it as much as Jez does. But I can’t have him pulling so much when I have both of the on the lead. Then there is the fact that he was very nervous (the RSPCA had warned me they didn’t think he was socialised). It was odd, he took to Jez straight away, but the first couple of times out on a walk if he came up to another dog he’s shoot between our legs. Fortunately being around dogs with Jez soon got him over that. But he doesn’t seem to have ever been down the beach (judging by his reaction to the sea) and isn’t too keen on traffic. So what did his owner do with him?
The one good thing is that he is good off the lead. In fact, he’s often better than Jez, who keeps going back to her own stubborn ways and doing what she wants to do when she wants to do it. So down the beach, in the woods and over the Heath we can let them off and let them run about and tire themselves out. Oh, and Max loves water and mud. He comes back wet and black (we have a lot of boggy stuff round here). Normally I hose him off in the garden, but a couple of days ago it was so bad the hose wouldn’t shift it, so he had to go in the bath. And if the past few days he’s discovered he can swim so likes to go in the water and have a swim round. Jez still refuses to do more than paddle though.
Meanwhile, I’m really pleased with Jez’s recovery. She is running flat out with no problems at all, and other than being a bit stiff when she first gets up after a sleep, is fine – no limping, no skipping. We’ve started her course of injections to help her joint along – she goes for the second on Monday.
As I said before, we had our friends Eric and Maria down last Wednesday and Thursday. It was lovely to see them again, although Eric gave Chris and I his cold (well, I haven’t had a cold, more a chesty thing), so we’ve both been feeling pretty rough). The dogs were relatively well behaved, and on Thursday we took them down the beach. We kept Max on the lead, but after a while let Jez off. If you haven’t seen it, you can have a look at a short video of them.
And I have a few photos of Chris, Eric, Maria & the dogs down the beach.
While we were out with Eric & Maria my phone went – my cousin Linda asking if they could come down at the week-end! So we had a quick turn around of guests, with Linda & Paul arriving Friday afternoon. Just in time for the dogs to get overexcited and take their play fighting a bit too far. Which was all I need as they are both a bit nervous of dogs! Fortunately they settled down again after that.
It was good seeing Linda & Paul again, with the added bonus that Paul fitted the new shower pump, so now our main shower works well again. On Saturday we all went down the beach again, but this time it was lovely and sunny. So, more video
and more photos…
And if you’re wondering how well the dogs travel together in the back of the car, well, here’s the answer…
And one good thing about these long walks is that it tires them out.
But it was all too much for Chris and he spent most of Sunday in bed.
Since then life has got back more or less to normal. I have provisionally arranged for a bathroom fitter to replace our en suite in 3 weeks time (although I still need to order all the stuff so may need to postpone him). It will be great to have a bath I can use again.
Well, I think that’s about it until the next time.
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