Old dogs......and new tricks...

I think I am becoming an "Old Dog"..... firstly there is my very obvious grey patch... nothing a bit of dye can't fix. Then there is the fact that I am learning new tricks. I am in my final year of Vet Nursing and really feel like I am out of steam. I have been Vet Nursing for 20 years.... since the time when no one really had qualifications... so I am now studying and am nearly finished... roll on year end ...roll on..... Only books I am gonna open after that are FICTION.

I find that working, kids, home, dogs,cats, birds etc etc.... is hard to juggle. I sort of need more than 24 hrs in a day. So if my blog has been a bit "slow" thats why!

J met a boy "online" a year ago, after a year of getting to know each other E has come to meet us. He is from the Netherlands. So 2 weeks ago E arrived to meet J and see if the online romance was real........ Well it has been a pleasure to meet E and have him stay. After 2 weeks he is part of the family and we are going to be very sad to say goodbye next week. They are making plans about repeat visits.....


Its weird how small the internet makes the world... communicating with people on the other side of the world is as easy as if they lived next door. Due to the internet I have found friends I have not seen for 20 years..... Very odd... but strangely fun! I am having a ball catching up with old friends , seeing how they have changed, what they have become, their kids...

In fact just this week I am meeting an old school friend who is holidaying in Australia...we have not seen each other since High School....

The cats are good, the dogs are fine....the kids are great......D is "cancer" free so I guess we're good!

See ya
Si

It just takes time.....

Having a multi-cat household is tricky. Cats (except for Lions) are generally solitary creatures who prefer to have the house to themselves. So the intricacies of getting multiple cats to live together in harmony is a very delicate balance.



Our latest addition Ty, has finally become part of the clan. In fact there is a bit of a "Siamese Sect" forming. Poor kitten is excluded from this "Ol boys" club. Ty now shares beds with Blue and Bindii but Kitten and he have agreed to disagree. They still hiss and have a little altercation whenever they pass each other in the corridor.



Ty is a survivor, in a few short months he has settled in and managed to get the household under control. He had never had anything to do with dogs...... now he has two Greyhounds under his paw. The 3 Siamese play together, sleep together and share food bowls.



He is a lovely cat, rather opinionated but very loving. He likes to sit on my tummy every evening and watch my soapie "Home and Away".

I am currently on 10 days leave to write 3 exams and do 2 case studies.....aaargh! So I better sign off and get to work............

Si

Out and About with Greyhounds.....

Most days Karma and Shani go walkies. In fact if you mention the "W" word they leap to their feet and start bouncing around. They can also spell W..A..L..K...I..E...S, so don't try fool them by spelling it, they know. Once you have said the word its on, you have to go walkies or else.



Fortunately we live in a very beautiful place so going walkies is a treat for the "peeps" as well. Some afternoons if we are feeling lazy we go up to the school field which is fully fenced and we let them run, this does not take long. They gallop circles around us for about 5 minutes and then they are exhausted and home we go.

I always thought that my two had forgotten about "chasing" stuff, but it is there in the deep recesses. Recently we had a plague of mice, they even tried to move into the laundry to eat the cat food. I kid thee not I personally saw three scuttle past. In the garage is the bird food.... mice heaven. BUT my team aka Karma , Shani, Bindii, Blue,Ty and Kitten got to work. Shani and Kitten are best friends and they worked out a mouse eradication system that was better than anything I could have come up with.

THE PLAN

Kitten runs into small spaces and flushes the mouse out, Shani is waiting and pounces on the offending mouse... and then being a gentle greyhound she gives the "ready to be eaten mouse" back to kitten to eat. For about a week it was hunting , cats catching mice, Shani helping when the cats could not run fast enough. Mouse plague is gone....



All this mouse activity has sparked a distant memory in the doggy brains..... now when we walk along the water's edge they can smell rats under the boardwalk or in the rocks and they look like this......




At night I lock my cats up in the house so that the native wildlife is safe.... one night the cats caught 2 mice whilst locked in the house..... They must be a breed of "Stupid Mice" to locate themselves in a house with 4 cats............

I can't watch, I am not into hunting, but it is swift and final, the mice don't even have time to know what hit them. It sure beats rat bait ......and a slow end!



Ciao For Now
Si

BY GEORGE! I THINK SHE GOT IT!

Well......it has taken some time and dedication BUT finally Shani has made the connection! Its quite a simple equation SIT = FOOD + LOTS LOVE. Its is quite obviously not that comfy and she prefers not to sit on slippery surfaces. Being a very muscle bound greyhound (from lots of zoomies around the garden) sitting is hard. She is happy to sit on the lawn or the carpet. We are very proud Greyhound Parents. J and I were acting like fools we were so excited. A piped up "Hey, I can sit too"...."For chocolate"... Cheeky wretch!





I am having severe motivational issues on getting my Case Studies together. I am so tired from work that I can't seem to get my A into Z to work on my studies. Oh well will have to come up with a plan fast or I am gonna be in the Poo Poo soon.


I am planning to finish this year... finish my studies... then take a deep breath and do NOTHING! Yes NOTHING. My brain is closing down and only essential stuff will take place... no extra things to mess with my "Me time", actually I have been planning a nervous breakdown for years but have never had a spare moment to have one... maybe next year?? I have developed a tic in my left eye and am wondering if this is a first sign of madness? Or maybe its one of the last.....

Most folk start the new year with a "Get Fit" resolution.... I am going to "Stay Sane"...




Will blog soon again
Si

Not so "Sunny Queensland" and other "Stuff "....

Well it appears the drought is breaking..... unfortunately it coincided with my Clothes Dryer also breaking, funny how that works huh! We tried to save some money by having a go at fixing it ourselves... just broke it more and landed up taking it to the Appliance Man. He was able to diagnose the problem over the ph........and $70 dollars later we have an operational dryer to help dry the tonnes of wet soggy clothing produced by my family daily....

It has been rather hectic again, getting organised for final year, discovering the College lost my application and having to then re-register after the "cut off" date. Note to self....never be so organised that you register early because then you assume you are all good and only discover the $%^&( up later! Anyway no harm done apart from the fact that it all took some fancy footwork to sort out.



The Greyhounds are well, Karma is starting to show signs of ageing... she turns 8 in May and seems to be a bit stiff when she gets up and down. Hell I am only 42 and I seem a bit stiff too...... Shani is well, not the smartest Greyhound on earth but very very sweet and loving. She is struggling with the concept of "sitting"... has not made the brain connection between her bum hitting the ground and the command with a treat....... Ah well we can't all be smart.......



Girls seem to be settling into school again and the year starts to flash by again. does it get faster the older you get? Does it seem more chaotic as you age? Lexi is playing soccer at school and was hobbling around this morning after actually doing some exercise!




D is "its March and all is well", we are getting more towards taking it a month at a time... rather than a day. Always find it a bit scary to plan things because that is when "LIFE" throws another curve ball..........

Will post more soon
Sayonara
Si

Obedience...or lack thereof... and a whinge about stuff.

Well Mon evening saw the start of "Dog Obedience" classes for the greys. There were lots of dogs and most were puppies who I knew from work. Shani and Karma were excited to see them as they have a special job, whenever we run a "Puppy Pre-School" my Greys are invited to come and accustom the pups to strange big dogs.

They are so gentle and sweet with pups, from the boisterous staffies to the teeny white fluffies. Karma and Shani join them in "play time" and are very calm and soothing to the pups. Shani especially loves meeting the new pups, Karma is mostly interested in the cheese treats that are available..... She will sit, drop ... anything as long as the cheese keeps coming.

Karma has definately done "Obedience" before and as is her way listned to every word... until it started raining! Karma does not "do" rain....she looked at me and made her saddest "baby Seal" eyes... and stopped performing. She was very inconvenienced by the wet and was only playing along because she is such a good girl.



Shani was very excited... so many other excited dogs around! She wasn't sure what to do... and it made it very difficult for her to concentrate. She has the attention span of about a nanosecond...
I have to stand miles away with Karma or else she just watches what Karma does. To her credit though she did make progress.




Greyhounds find it quite difficult to "sit" it is not a natural position for them. Karma will sit on command but cannot remain sitting for a long time and will stand up again. So when all the others are "Sit and Stay" we are training to do "Stand and Stay".



Other than that things are fine. I am just irrationally cranky and irritable. D likes it because the kids are very nice to him and avoid me like the plague.... not that I blame them. I almost want to get away from me as well! So I find myself shouting at everybody and grumbling under my breath. They are all laughing at me and being very cooperative with my grumpiness.

Things that are annoying me:

1) Having to ask for routine chores to be done everday at least 5 times.
2) Stupid annoying people out there who make me roll my eyes.
3) Cat fights in my house.
4) Interest rates.
5) Time or the lack therof.
6) Eating too much.
7) Lack of exercise due to motivational problems.
8) Motivational problems.
9) HOUSEWORK and SHOPPING!



So until the grumpiness passes.......I am going to eat too much, lie on the couch where possible and grumble under my breath... I am over 40... I am allowed bad behaviour... I earned it by getting this far!

Sayonara
Si

Been busy...its back to school time!

Shani doing "Dead Dog"



Well life in L household has been a flurry of buying schoolbooks, uniforms and setting new rules... Yesireee this year we gonna get ORGANISED! After the long holidays and people in this family playing on the computer pretty much 24/7 ... I have been battling to get everyone to realise that you can't go to bed at 2am when you got school tomorrow....

Also January is a mad month moneywise, trying to recover from the Christmas overspend and re- kit the whole clan for the New Year, takes some intricate "Financial Gymnastics". The four-legged beasts are well, Karma and Shani are just lovely. They are starting an obedience course next week. Karma is fine she can sit,drop etc but would be devastated if I left the house without her, so I figured she can come along as well.



Shani needs to learn the basics, she has no clue and gets very confused very quickly. She is a bit of a scaredy cat and gets fearful about things sometimes. She will do a classic "Greyhound Freeze" which means she does not move and the only way forward is to physically pick her up and move her to wherever you need to go.


We went to visit "Greychicken" and "According to Flo" was there as well. Patch and Rocky have a new house and we went to visit. The 5 greyhounds hurtled around and around the garden, much fun was had. The humans got to have a glass of wine and eats lots of cheese and biccis.....

A started high school yesterday and despite her nervousness and panic, she took to it like a duck to water. Here is photo of her with her best friend/partner in crime K.



J is in Year 11 ... not long and she will be finished with High School. She has been going to gym lots and is impressing me with her new found fitness. We missed putting the bin out for collection the other day, she sprinted all the way down the road, caught the truck and sweet talked the Garbage Man (in her most charming manner) into doing another round of the neighbourhood to collect our bin! Only afterward did it dawn on us how fit she has become to be able to do that... I would have passed out at the end of the driveway.........

On the cat front, things are settling and our dear Mr Ty aka Cranky Cat has settled in to the routine. A is his chosen slave and he follows her like a dog EVERYWHERE and sleeps on her head at night.



I am enjoying the last weeks of freedom before my final year of study commences...

All is good
My battery is not too bad
Chat soon
Si