Bush fires!

We had bush fires that passed close to our house last week. As you can see in the photo below, the fires came quite close to Hidden Valley, where we live. This shot was taken about 1.5 kilometers from our place. The CFA did a wonderful job of saving properties and animals.

To fight the fires, 'sky crane' helicopters were used to drop large volumes of water on problem fire areas. One of them sucked water up from the dam (Lake Grenville) at the end of our street. Uploading the water happened very quickly! I was hoping none of my duck friends would get sucked in - but the helicopter was so loud that I think they had plenty of time to get away.

Craig and Jude were worried that the fires might come too close to our house - Craig got lots of hoses set up so we could extinguish any embers that might land in our yard or on our house, or to douse grass fires should they come towards the house. He set up a hose from the water tank too. The thing that I liked most about these preparations was that there was quite a bit of dousing going on - and I luuurve jumping into the water and biting it. Someone has to show the hose who's boss!

Anyway - it's all good. The fires are under control now, and even though there are still occasionally fires that somehow reignite, the CFA is still doing a great job of keeping us safe. Thanks CFA!

[Message from Hamish] GOOD RIDDANCE TOBY!

This is Hamish, reporting in from Ballarat. I'm relieved to hear that Toby is going back to his own house today. Now don't get me wrong - he's a nice enough fellow even though he is a bit of a clutz - but he has been here for five days now, which is a long time for visitors to stay.
Let me list my concerns:

1. He loves me and keeps following me everywhere. While it might sound quite nice to be the subject of such adoration, it's actually a pain after a while. I can't get a moment to myself, and he wants to keep playing chasey all the time, even when it's 40 degrees outside!
2. He puts up strong competition in the table-bludging stakes. Toby has the advantage of being tall enough to see what's happening on the table, so knows just when to pay premium attention. What's worse is the fact that despite his youth, Toby is expert at bludging - he sits up straight, tilts his head at cute angles, and keeps eye contact, all the best tricks! This has had a negative impact on the volume of treats reaching my mouth.
3. Toby has questionable personal hygiene habits. He says he can't help it because he has long curly whiskers that attract mess, but he keeps leaving twigs and leaves etc from the garden in my water bowl! 
4. Toby doesn't know about barking at the postman - he puts no efforts into communicating with the postie at delivery time - hmmmph!
5. Toby has made me expand my eating repertoire when I'd prefer to be concentrating on my traditional targets (human food)! To keep up with him I've had to eat some new foods like carrots and baked bone-shaped biscuits for dogs. Heaven help me, but I had to eat a carrot the other day, after making a big production of stealing Toby's carrot when he was distracted. I was just trying to get the focus of attention back to me ... it didn't turn out that well for me. What I learned was: a) carrots should only be eaten by rabbits - they taste disgusting, and b) carrots are messy - I ended up with bits of carrot caught in my white ruff! Yuk! 
6. Toby takes up a lot of room - he often lies close to my humans, where I should be!
7. Toby is good at playing with toys. Maybe he even likes playing with them - who knows why? Humans seem to find this amusing. So Toby prances around with his toys, squeaking them and throwing them in the air and catching them etc., and hogging all the attention. 

So early this afternoon, I will be lining up at the front fence waving goodbye to Toby. I'll have a pensive expession on my face but inside I'll be doing a little dance, becaue we'll have peace and quiet again. 

See you next holidays Toby!

cheers,

Hamish

Hamish is starting to like me

Woof-oh, and greetings from Ballarat.

I've been staying at Gran and Pa's place for 3 days now, and I think Hamish is starting to really like me. At lunch time when Jude have me a carrot to chew Hamish stole my carrot when I was looking away. He ran around and around the living room holding it in his mouth. Jude said he looked like Groucho Marx - smoking a huge cigar.

Eventually Hamish stopped showing off and got down to eating my carrot! What a cheek - but it's almost worth it to have him liking me. 

Hamish is not happy!

Eureka! This is Toby reporting in from Ballarat. 

I don't know what's up with Hamish - I don't understand why he keep running away from me? I'm sure he'd really enjoy playing games with me if he just tried. At the moment he just keeps running into places where I can't fit. I can't work out why. Wait for me Hamish! 

Well if Hamish won't play with me I think I might try teaching myself to knit. Not sure why, but suddently everyone got stressed and came running at me and telling me to "Drop the wool!" - maybe because it was attached to the half knitted back of a jumper?  I was just checking out the wool, an essential part of my new career as a knitter. I don't know what they are worried about - there are plenty of other balls of wool in Gran's knitting bag -  maybe I'll just go and get one of those. 

Ballarat holiday

Woofetty-woof and hello.

I'm quite excited! Good news - I'm going to see my good friend Hamish in Ballarat tomorrow. I'm staying over for a few days ... I'm sure he'll be glad to see me! I kow when we visited the beach at Christmas time that he pretended that he didn't like playing chasey with me ... but he's probably changed his mind now. 

I'll take Jude with me too - it's so much easier to get to Ballarat when she drives us, as opposed to walking. 

In the photo below I'm planning what I'll pack to take with me - so far I'm thinking: food, my bed, my favourite toy, a few treats to share with Hamish ... 

I'll report in on how things go with Hamish ... he he he

Toby

Tough day at work today

Woof - oh!

I had a hard day at work today - had to run outside and check that the washing was drying correctly about 200 times. By the way, I'd like to clarify that I am not responsible for the washing that 'falls' off the line. We live in a very windy location and I think items simply fall off when hit by particularly strong gusts of wind.. 

Anyway, I'm exhausted now - see proof here >. Now if the humans would stop waking me up by taking my photo I'd be grateful! (Jude was grumbling something about this making up for me waking her up at 11:30 PM last night when she had just got to sleep - and I was just trying to show her how much I loved her by licking her ear. You think she'd be grateful wouldn't you.)

Sleep easy, Tobes

A dog's work is never done

Woofs! Hope all is well with you. :)

Sad news - our friend Steve's much loved dog, Milly, passed away today. RIP Milly. I know you had a great life and that your human family loved you very much!

Since Jude heard about Milly she's been feeling sad - so I've been working extra hard on being cute / annoying / clever to cheer her up. I even let her have the ball to throw for me without a tug of war - that's a world record!

I am blogging today, to keep you up to date with my latest gardening achievements - in the backyard - and I think you're going to like what I've done with the place. You know that beautiful acacia cognata I showed you back in October? (see here on the right >> it used to look like the first photo) ... Well I've fashioned it into my backyard control tower come dog cave. Where the branches used to gently brush the grass I've chomped through many many small branches and fashioned a large doorway - now I can get in here easily to spy on kangaroos, magpies and cockatoos feasting on the common on the other side of our fence. I haven't quite finished yet - you'll see that there are still a few (dying) branches remaining in the doorway that I haven't finished chewing through. I'll get onto them next week.  My dog cave / control tower is now flooded with dappled sunlight, making it easier for me to find and retrieve the treasures I store here.
... One small step for Airedales, one giant leap for landscape design ... 
That reminds me, I must check the RMIT course list and see if there's a horticultural course I could sign up for - I hear they offer lots of TAFE courses!

Phew it was hot last week. It didn't really bother me - I quite liked being given ice cubes and lying near the air conditioner vent. But it really slowed the humans down and they weren't keen to go for long walks. It was a great relief therefore, that the weather has changed and it's much cooler now. I've been for long walks both Saturday and today and have found much to sniff, investigate and in some instances, pee on. Did I mention that I've taught myself to cock my leg when I pee? I'm very proud of my achievement. Being able to lift my leg allows me much more accuracy in securing my scent on desirable targets, plus it means I get much less pee on my own feet! That's a good thing because Jude used to say that I was gross when my paws got messy.

One bad thing about the hot days - I was 'helping' Craig water the outside plants (this involves jumping into the stream of water coming from the hose and biting it) when he decided that it would be a good idea to get me wet all over so I could cool down. I didn't like that one bit - the water was cold, plus it messed up my curls! Don't worry, I thought of a way to train Craig so he wouldn't do it again - as soon as we went inside I ran around the house wiping my wet sides along the walls - he he he! I'll leave you imagining how he reacted. Woof-oh!
Toby