End of daylight saving ...

Just finished changing all the clocks back from daylight-saving time to normal time (what ever that time zone is called). Craig was very impressed that I'm so clever, and dextrous, especially given that I don't have hands!

I just hope this change doesn't mess up my sleep cycle!

Check my cuteness while you can ...

Woof and hello!

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately - I've been busy. I'm becoming more independent, and often spend time in the backyard on my own, working on remodelling the dog cave and checking out the local magpies. They are always careful to land outside our yard, where I can't reach them ... lucky for them.

I thought I should check in and upload a photo of me at my maximum cuteness levels (as you'll see from the image on the left here) because I fear I won't be so cute by the end of this week. I overheard Craig telling Jude that he will be taking me for a haircut on Thursday - though I am a very handsome fellow, even I don't look as cute after a haircut!

As you'll see in this photo, I'm working the messy ragamuffin look at the moment. On sunny days I do get a bit hot and bothered so maybe the haircut is for the best. I'll get Jude to upload a picture after my haircut and you can decide.

Nothing much else to report at the moment - I've been taking the humans for walks every day as usual.  I'm not being fed as much food as I'd like ... People don't understand that I'm trying to train myself as circus performer when I jump up on them - they just yell at me to get down instead of helping me to refine my show.

I'm sick and tired of hearing Jude talking on and on about which car to buy next (I've added pictures of her favourites at the moment below). ANCAP ratings, fuel efficiency and comfort are all bunkum. Really all she has to consider is:

• which car has the best back seat to window ratio e.g. is easiest for me to look out of when we go for a drive?
• which car has the lower rear door sill - and will be easiest for me to climb into?

And for the record - I don't like leather seats ... they are too slippery for me when going around corners. I don't want to wear my nails down holding on.

More news soon.
Woof oh!

Visitor alert: Uncle Greg

I Lurve visitors! 

This weekend Greg came to visit us - yay, I love visitors! He's off on a week's golfing tour around some of the best golf courses in Victoria, and stayed with us for a night before meeting up with his mates.

This morning I'd been for a long walk with Jude ... I saw Craig at the top of hill calling me, so enjoyed a bit of off-lead sprinting to him. When Jude called me back to her I was just about to go to her (at a pace of my own choosing, while also sniffing all interesting smells along the way) when I noticed Greg standing by the letter box ... so that changed everything. I ran over to Greg to say good morning - Jude knows the way to the top of the hill after all.

I lurve Greg! I've spent a lot of time sitting and looking at him adoringly and I can tell that he's a good bloke. He has been nice to me despite my efforts to:

• get him to pat me by putting my head under his arm / hand and bouncing it up and down (didn't work mostly)
• get him to throw one of my toys for me to chase by dropping my ball (coated thickly with slobber) on his knee / elegant trousers
• talk to me / play with me by tring to hypnotise him with my intense stare. 

Greg is quite keen to head off to the airport this morning and sadly doesn't have time to play with me, though I'm sure he'd like to  - I guess that's because he's looking forward to seeing his mates - I can't think of any other reason! 

Woofs,

Toby.

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.