Max’s Dog-Blog

Sorry for lack of blogs the last few days. I seem to have been busier than ever!

Here is the update from the Bennison household.

Firstly, and most importantly, my male human is making a good recovery from his broken ankle although his leg is sore and it is hard to walk too much. However I took him on some walks in Auchtermuchty when we were there this week so he has now been to the Superior (previously known as the Common) and also my new woods. Hilary was delighted on Friday afternoon to find she didn’t need to take me out after work! However Tim thinks it will be some time before he can manage the 6 am pre-work  weekday walks for some reason.

Hilary has a cold and is moaning about it a lot and making these nasty barking noises.  She went to the concert by the Dunfermline Choral Union last night which Tim was singing in, and kept trying to hold back her coughs till the appropriate places. The concert was apparantly very good but being a dog I didn’t get to go. Today she is leading  the young church and is worred about croaking through her lesson and of course breathing germs all over the inn0cent sweet children.

Today is a busy day. Tim has FOUR services including a special World Day of Prayer one for Children this afternoon, and Youth Fellowship tonight.  Needless to say I am left at home on guard during these exciting events.

Hilary and Tim have both been cleaning like mad, in both my homes. Hilary spend  2 1/2 hours yesterday cleaning my flat and couldn’t  believe the amount of my hairs that were everywhere. She then came back the the Rectory and started cleaning it too. And, miracle of miracles, Tim even went down on his hands and knees and scrubbed the Rectory kitchen floor!  I was getting worried about them and this new cleaning hobby when I realised that it is due to us having visitors this week!

Tim’s dad, Grumpy Brian, and his wife Dora are coming to stay!

I am pleased to report that my male human is now plaster free and his lower leg is now visible again! He has to take care and have some physio as it is weak, but  he is delighted at being able to drive again! Walking is a bit more difficult and awkward without the support of the plaster, so I think I may have to put up with my female human on my walks for a while longer!

In other news I have definitely developed a taste for gloves. Especially purple ones. Last night when Tim smugly drove home from a church meeting in Perth he entered his study to find on the floor a half chewed purple glove. This time of the fleecy variety not leather. It was from a pair Hilary often wore to walk me so had some very interesting smells!

Hilary would like to report that she has cold hands now.

It is an exciting day in  the Bennison household!

It is PO day - full name PLASTER OFF day- yes, my incapacitated male human is due back at the fracture clinic at the hospital for a review of his broken ankle, and , he sincerely hopes, the removal of the now rather unpleasant plaster cast!

He is hopeful that all will be well and he will be able to drive again (six weeks of being dependent on others for lifts and trying to cope with my female human’s driving has been rather frustrating) and hopefully when his leg regains some strength  again he will also be able to take me for walks!

Yay!

I am optimistic that he will feel so guilty at NOT having been able to walk me for the last six weeks that I will get lots of extra walks to compensate!

And as for my female human, as she has walked me my last 76 walks (6 weeks x 7 days x 2 walks a day less the 2 times I missed a walk while she was away for work the day after Tim broke his ankle and the 3 nights (6 walks) I was sent to prison while she was away for work in feb….gosh I am running out of paws…but it is 76 I think)  she will be so much in the routine of it all that she won’t want to stop!

Lots of extra walks for me I hope!

Last night Tim found a rather chewed up glove shaped bit of material in his study… I denied all responsibility and blamed Monty cat. That usually works!

This morning he showed it to Hilary. She laughed and thought it was one of Tim’s gloves. It was black and cream in colour and he has gloves a bit like that- but these were  found and were still intact! The humans were a bit puzzled. Hilary got ready for work and then realised that one of her NEW best purple leather gloves was missing! They had been in her handbag which she had carelessly left open at a low level… and someone had taken one of the gloves!

A quick check of the remaining glove in her bag revealled the truth. Although the glove itself was pale purple in colour the lining inside was black and cream!

And to make matters worse they were very new gloves indeed- she only bought them on Thursday last week as a treat to herself! Soft nice leather gloves so that she could drive in them, as her hands were always getting so cold!

The humans searched the house and garden high and low (well they had a quick look as Hilary was defrosting her car to go to work) but no sign of the  rest of the missing glove…

But tonight on my walk (and if you are eating I would look away now) I managed to um, pass some of the glove….I had obviously chewed and eaten it!  Hilary winced as she cleared up after me and looked at the lilac streaked mess… most people can pick up their glove from the grass and wear it, but in this case it was definitely bye bye glove ! 

 And very tasty it was too.. I am now plotting how to get my mouth on the other one!!

I am back in Auchtermaxty again but only for one night - we came yesterday (Friday) as the humans both had things on on Thursday night in Dunfermline. I have enjoyed my short break though with three long walks with Hilary and also time snoozing in my flat. I am slowly managing to teach the humans that the sofa by the window in the living room is mine! They keep forgetting though and have an annoying habit of dragging me of just when I have managed to get comfy.

 I clearly already have ownership of the sofa bed in the study though- though just occasionally I let a human sit there too.  With a bit of luck Hilary will manage to post a photo of me sharing a joke with Tim on that sofa.

The humans left me on guard duty in the flat  for a while today and went to a place called Falkland for lunch in a pub. That sounded rather fun although Tim had to walk further than they had planned. Never mind it is only a few more days  now till his appointment at the fracture clinic when hopefully the plastercast will come off!

Oh, and there was snow in my forest this morning, it was rather fun and Hilary took a photo off me therr. I am a bit small in this picture  but I rather like it as the forest looks exciting!  I am looking forward to showing my forest to Tim when he is able to walk about again.

We are heading back to Dunfermline in a bit and there is more snow there by all accounts!

I thought it was getting nearer Spring with signs of little flower things poking through the ground, but it seems it is very much still winter. Yesterday it hailed on my afternoon walk (a particularly noisy hailstorm I must say) and today we awoke to snow!

It was quite pretty actually when Hilary and I trudged round the streets at 6.30 this morning - we were the first ones out in it and made a lovely trail of paw prints! The park looked very white and Hilary said it was light enough with the snow for me to be let of my lead for a play!

But by tonight’s walk the snow was  wet and more like slush, and it was very slidey in places. Hilary nearly slid a couple of times and that was nothing to do with me pulling her (for once!) The park was virtually deserted tonight and there was only one dog (Sam I think) and his human out braving the wintry weather. Hilary and I both got soaked and I had to be thoroughly dried off by my male human on return!

Yesterday we had humans for tea. Not for us to eat (they are a bit big even for me) but to eat with us. Well, I say “us” but I really just lay on the floor and behaved impeccably well  while the humans ate a  yummy meal home cooked by my male human Tim.

It was my extra human Bryony and her boyfriend Patrick who came, which was good fun ! I saw them coming down the drive and barked like mad and gave them a proper bouncy welcome. I was really excited at seeing them! They only stayed a few hours though and then headed back to Edinburgh.

I see Piccolo’s visiting humans have gone now. It does sound hard work Piccolo looking after so many people at once especially the small humans. But they sound very nice. I hope you are enjoying having your own humans to yourself again now!

Me on the common

Well,  here I am in my flat in Maxty again trying to supervise my two humans who are being very awkward for some reason. They seem to be continually moaning about me, telling me to settle down, stop dropping biscuit crumbs,  get off my sofa (when all I want to do is look out my window and see what the noise is) and now they are even  complaining about the amount of hairs I am leaving everywhere! Anyone would think this wasn’t MY flat!

Anyway Hilary and I have just had a lesson from Tim on how to bluetooth photos from her phone to the computer so we can get them for my blog. It is quite a complicated process but of course being a superior dog I understood it straight away. Hilary, on the other paw, is struggling somewhat so I am going to get her to practice!

With a bit of luck this will be a photo of me at the start of this blog,  on my walk this morning.You can see Hilary’s shadow on the right hand side of the photo. It was strangely sunny and snowy at the same time!

 Hilary and I had been planning to go to my forest here, but that means a short car trip and we both felt too lazy to have to defrost my car first thing. So we did a local walk instead, up the lane opposite my flat, past the school and up to a farm and a lane that goes up to Auchermaxty Common. We then walked right round the Common and there were lots of interesting smells there. I met another dog too who told me lots of interesting stories. The “common” is an area of land given to the dogs of “Auchtermuchty”  (and their humans).King James V granted the Common Lands to the Burgh of Auchtermuchty in 1517. A number of the town’s householders, the ‘Small Heritors’, still have the right to graze animals, fly falcons and cut turf on the Common today. The bit we are on is called the Whitefield- I think because it is covered in snow! There is lots of gorse and broom there and we managed to get a bit disorientatated on the way back to the main path but I soon found our way home!  This is me posing on the track on the way back.

Actually I was a bit worried at being associated with something called “common”. It is  not exactly befitting of a superior dog now is it! So I think I might rechristen the area “Auchtermaxty Superior” instead, which has a certain ring to it!

I have just realised that I am off to Maxty (formerly known as Auchtermuchty) tonight!  Staying in my holiday home again!

My humans are running around getting things packed (Hilary) and cooking tea (Tim) and after a church meeting  tonight  (to which yet again I am not invited) we are heading off for a couple of days, returning on Saturday in plenty of time for Tim’s Sunday marathon!

Hilary has explained to me that she will go to work from there tomorrow morning but has reassured me I will still get my 6.15 am walk first - but around Maxty not Maxfermline!  Am already looking forward to the new smells and also to seeing some of my new friends in the forest on Saturday!

I will blog again from my flat and this time try and have some photos - if I can work out how to do that!

My humans don’t get it. The importance to us dogs of having a proper sniffing time on our walks, I mean.  Honestly humans are so weird.

As I am apparantly “not very good on a lead” most of my walks are off-lead ones, in the park, the forest etc, and I can stop sniff as much as I want to then and then easily run to catch up with my slow walking humans. But, on the lead it is another story!

Recently due to Tim’s misadventure with his ankle it has been my female human walking me,  and the morning walks, and some of the afternoon ones, have taken place in the dark because of her work commitments. As she is a Wimp she feels the need to be attached to me on these walks by the means of a lead. That means I can’t stop and sniff as often or for as long as I want to! It is SO frustrating!

She just doesn’t seem to get it, that stopping to sniff at certain points is a bit like humans having to check messages on email or facebook or something- I NEED to stop and smell to find out what’s been happening, who has visited that spot , what my canine chums are up to, and so on. And despite me trying ever so hard to train her to stop frequently so I can sniff she still moans under her breath and drags me on.

This morning on my very early frosty walk (she got up at 5.15 am- I was still sleeping!) she even had the cheek to tell me “Max this is a WALK not a SNIFF” when I stopped yet again.

Humans. They just do not understand….