West Wittering

To celebrate my recent blogoversary, Molly the Irish Terrier and I went for an exciting day trip to West Wittering in West Sussex. The beach is HUGE and there is also a nature reserve nearby. It was a lovely sunny day but it was really cold. Far too cold to go anywhere NEAR the sea, let alone in it. There were lots of other dogs there but they were all nice and friendly, not like me.

I found a green ball that someone had left behind and set to work destroying it while J1 had a freezing cold coca cola and J2 and T had a nice cup of tea and a sit down. Estimated time for me to puncture and rip holes out of it and then cry* like a baby? A mere 3 minutes.

[*I would like to point out that I wasn't crying girly tears; Oh no, they were manly tears of frustration!]

J is for...

I've got a lovely new shiny red tag for my collar. What do you think the "J" stands for?



Jaunty? Jazzy? Jocose? Jolly? Jumpy?

Nah, I think I'll just stick to Jackson.

Celebration time

It's been a year to the day since I started this blog. Happy Blogoversary to me! The very first comment here was left by Butchy & Snickers and soon after joining Dogs with Blogs I got visits and comments from my pals Mackie, Gus, Bogart, Maggie, and the dear departed Oscar.

During the past 12 months of blogging I've learnt many important things; Wally taught me how to roach, I've picked up some great HBO words from Tanner and I'm learning French courtesy of Faya and Taky (mais oui!). But most importantly of all I now know what a munchkin is thanks to my good pal Lenny. I've yet to sample one, but I'm working on it!



It's also been a year since I had a malignant tumour removed from the parathyroid gland in my neck. The cancer hasn't come back so far so that's double reason for celebrating. Please have a treat or two on me and raise your glasses to drink a pawtini to my continued remission!

To all my Valentines...

A fish-eye view

J1's friend T bought her a pawsome Lomo fisheye camera for Christmas. It's not a digital camera so we had to wait for AGES to use up the film and get the prints developed. Also, you can't really use the viewfinder cos the lens cuts across it, so all the shots are trial and error. Our first pictures were in artsy black and white. Some of them are quite scary.

Rawhide: A cautionary tale

I know a lot of you dogs love rawhide. I do too, but I don't get it very often. J1 is a bit of a worryguts and I am only allowed to eat it under supervision. She is also very careful about throwing away the smaller pieces so they can't get stuck in my throat. She tells me it's because I don't chew nicely and that I'm a greedy guzzler. Anyway, that doesn't matter now as after what happened last night I don't think I'll be having rawhide again, and here's why...

I was happily gnawing away on some good and leathery rawhide and as usual I tried to swallow a rather large piece. It was all slippery and gooey and so the inevitable happened. It got lodged in my throat. I was finding it very hard to breath and started coughing and spluttering. I couldn't dislodge it myself, no matter how hard I tried. J1 prised open my mouth and could see the rawhide right at the back of my throat. However, as she only has one pair of hands she couldn't hold open my mouth, shine the torch inside AND retrieve the rawhide by herself. Now J2 is not very good at manhandling me, especially if I wriggle about. He didn't know how to prise my mouth open safely so J1 had to give him a quick lesson so he could hold my jaws while she shone the torch inside and tried to reach the rawhide. After a couple of attempts, she managed to reach it and pull it forward and out of my mouth. It was a piece of rawhide 4 inches long, all soft and squishy.

If they hadn't acted quickly I would have choked. I was having difficulty breathing but somehow I knew that J1 & J2 would try and help me. J1 did some basic first aid for dogs on her grooming course and is quite comfortable in prodding and poking me. It's no fun, let me tell you. But at least she's confident about sticking her fingers down my throat.

So to all you rawhide-eating dogs. Please chew carefully. Don't swallow large pieces. Ensure your owners know how to prise open your mouth safely and most importantly of all, only eat it when you're being supervised.

As for me, I'm going to stick to my sweet potato chews.