It hardly seems possible I've been here with my pack for one year today. I feel like I've always been here....
Well, now that I think about it, I suppose I always have been. I've changed a lot since I arrived as a little puppy. Chubby and serious looking my pack female said I looked when I arrived. I couldn't even go for long walks.
Now I love to run and jump, and especially like to go on my daily walk down my road. I have to put up with their incessant demands when I'm on the lead. Sit, heal, stand, stay... then they let me off the lead and I get to investigate. I know the smells of that road very well. there are Wallaby's that leave their scent and droppings, quolls, bandicoots, and of course other humans and dogs that frequent the walk. It's very interesting for me.
The alpha male takes me on a no nonsense walk. Brisk pace, so I run around a lot exploring when I walk with him. The female keeps asking me where her stick is. So I find one, and we play tug of war with it, and every time, she looses it just before we go home, so I have to do it all over the next walk. People.
Last week she took me to the cricket ground with a stick that helped her throw the ball a long way. (She's not a very good ball thrower, so it helped a lot) I chased the ball for ages, it was quite fun.
I've gone from sleeping in a little pen in the garage, to having my own house in the back yard. I quite like it there, and I get the run of the front yard as well. I have a new neighbour - Mindy a white fluffy dog who escapes fairly frequently. She comes to her fence and barks at me to let me know she's there, then wriggles through and comes over to our fence for a good long barking session. Her people call and call and then they hop the fence to get her. It cracks us up. People... they're so predictable.
I've trained my people quite well over the last year. If I stand at the front door, or ring the bell they have hanging there, they get up and let me out. Same when I stand outside and look at them. Sometimes I do it several times in a row just to see how many times they'll get up before they stop.
I've got them sorted out for feeding me too. When they get up, they come down and let me in, and I bounce around the kitchen as we walk through to the front yard to get my bowl. They get my food, and put it out front, then make coffee and come and sit with me and throw my orange ball. When they come home, they feed me again. On the weekends, when the female stands in the kitchen cutting things up, if I hang around her, she feeds me vegetable bits. I like that, and I always get a bit of pizza crust. After dinner is our daily walk. Like clockwork.
Lately they've let me sit on the couch with the female in the evenings. I like that because it proves I'm not really a dog. I'm one of them. They do tell me to get off that comfy sleeping platform they have. I don't know why, it's very comfortable, and I like it a lot. When they're not using it I like to sneak up and jump on it. I'd let them in my house on my blankets....
Well, I'd better run as I think I get to go to the dog beach today.
Woof arf arf... Elwood.
