Please form an orderly queue for Pawtographs...

Some of you may have already read on my wirey pal Eric's blog that the pair of us were going to be featured in the February 2010 issue of the UK magazine, Your Dog. Well, it's finally out and we are included in a 6 page breed feature about Wire Fox Terriers.

I was dismayed to discover that J1 has muscled into MY photo and is mugging away. I have blanked out her face to spare you all the horror and you'll see that I am turning my head away in disgust. Eric's human was much more sensible and stayed out of the limelight but she did include some wheelie photos. Pah!

J1 was huffing and puffing a bit about the article because it says we are "relatively easily trained" (yeah, right!) "especially good with children" (Mmm, couldn't eat a whole one) and "friendly" (ha!) .

[Click on article to enlarge]

Anyway, now that I am officially famous I need to be escorted everywhere by my security team to keep my adoring fans in check. Please form an orderly queue for pawtographs...

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.

My Pawfect Christmas

Hope you all had a splendid Christmas! I know I did. I spent the day with my 2 Irish Terrier pals, Molly & Seamus. Molly was having a bit of a bad hair day and didn't want to have her photo taken so here is Seamus lounging in front of the fire:



Here's the table before all the eatables and drinkables were brought out:



J1 & J2 had rather a strange vegetarian Christmas dinner of Tomato Rassam soup, Thakkali curry, Plaintain and Mango curry, Chana dahl, Spiced cashew nut rice and chapatis. Their human pals, P, A & T had turkey with all the trimmings, including yucky brussel sprouts.

Us dogs had our own splendid dog Christmas cake courtesy of the Dog Dogs Bakery:



We also had our very own individual peanut butter biscuits dipped in carob to take home:



I'm afraid that my biscuit didn't last long enough to be photographed.

After all that food we relaxed in front of the fire. In case any of you dogs think I'm going soft or something I think I should point out that I NEVER cuddle up close to any other dog apart from my pal Seamus, not even Molly!



All in all it was a pawfect Christmas. How was yours?

My pawfect holiday

This year for our annual jaunt, Molly, Seamus and I decided to go to Rye Harbour in East Sussex. We were accompanied by 5 humans, including J1 & J2.

This is the lovely cottage that we hired.



It was located about 5 minutes walk from Rye Harbour Nature Reserve which lies within a large triangle of land over about 325 hectares (800 acres). It has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) because of the many unusual plants and animals that live there.

Here's Molly and I at one of the entrances to the Nature Reserve.





We walked here most days, either along the paths or onto the beach. There was plenty to see and do and lots of interesting birds, plants and my personal favourite, RABBITS! Can you read the label on the plant Molly is looking at? It's hemlock! Because of its poisonous properties it used to be considered an evil plant and was associated with witches and the devil. I wonder why she's so interested? Has she got plans for Seamus and myself?




The building in the background is a Martello Tower. 103 of these towers were built between 1805-1812 as part of the defences against a possible French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars. They were built of brick, 13 foot thick on the seaward side, stood about 30 foot high and were equipped with a cannon on the roof. Only about 45 of them now remain and most of them are in ruins like this one or have been converted.




On one of our excursions we visited the nearby town of Rye, which is very pretty with its cobbled streets, a medieval church and Tudor and Georgian houses.



We also visited Bexhill-on-Sea, home of the beautiful De La Warr Pavilion. Built in 1935, it was the UK's first public building built in the Modernist style. Its original purpose was to house entertainment and conference halls, functions rooms, a library and a terrace restaurant. After a huge restoration project (completed in 2005) the pavilion is now a national centre for contemporary arts.




Enough with the history lesson, I know what you really want to see is more photos of us enjoying ourselves! Here I am with Seamus on the beautiful beach at Camber Sands. The beach stretches for miles and is divided into dog free and dog friendly areas, but even in the dog friendly areas all dogs must be kept on a lead.




The local beach at Rye Harbour was always very quiet and we could be let off our leads.






We all had such a wonderful holiday. I wonder where we'll go next year?

Let them eat cake...

Hello pals, I'm back from my travels! We had a pawfect holiday and I promise I'll show you some photos in my next post. Firstly, I think I should tell you about my birthday. Molly, Seamus and I celebrated in style. I had a yummy cake and loads of scrumptious treats, all from The Dog Dog's Bakery. Do you want to see what was on the menu?





I would have saved all my DWB pals a piece of cake but it was sooooooooo good that we finished it in record time.



We also had lots of lovely treats and Molly and Seamus had their own treat bags to take home ...

Here we are getting in the pawty spirit...

I think Seamus and I ate too much cake!

Thank you for all your lovely comments and good wishes and to everydog (and cat) who mentioned my birthday on their blog, three cheers to you! Special thanks to Precious and Stanley for the e-cards which sadly I can't reproduce here and to Pinky for the dog jokes.

Butchy & Snickers sent me this...

Thanks pals!

Finally, I want to say a special thank you to Asta NYC who got me a wonderful present. You may remember from an earlier post that I said that I didn't want any gifts and perhaps you would consider making a donation to charity instead? Asta asked me if I had a particular charity in mind that she could donate to and I chose The Daisy Fund. This charity helps with medical bills for Fox Terriers that have been rescued. Thank you Asta, that was such a thoughtful gift.

All in all it was a wonderful birthday. Roll on next year!

Blog off!

I'm going to be off blog for a few days, having fun with Molly & Seamus the Irish Terriers. Toodle pip!

Walking the dogs

Here I am out and about with my Irish Terrier pals, Seamus and Molly. This video was recorded a couple of weekends ago and really it's just an excuse for J1 to use the tune "Baby Elephant Walk" (turn up the volume on your computers). Is she implying that I walk like an elephant? You can't see it from the film, but the sea is just to the left of us so the scenary is not as boring as it looks. Notice how Molly keeps trying to push in front of me. She should know by now that I ALWAYS get to walk in front.

Stoned!

"Paws off you two, these stones are all mine"

I think I may have mentioned in the past that I'm very fond of stones. Whenever I go for a walk, if I see a stone I like the look of I'll attempt to carry it home with me. I tend to like BIG stones best, and they can be very heavy to carry in my mouth. Sometimes they don't quite make it home with me and so I leave them on the pavement for other dogs to find. The stones that do manage to survive the journey tend to end up in my garden. When J1 & J2 are sitting outside in their deckchairs, I like nothing better than finding my stones and throwing them at their feet. And then barking. Loudly. Inevitably, some of them get confiscated but you'd be surprised at how many other stones you can find in the garden by a bit of digging and rooting around. I don't think this habit particularly endears me to J1 & J2 but I like to think it keeps them on their toes.

Anyway, the reason I'm telling you this is because it turns out that I like stones so much that I've grown a few inside me! They're in my bladder to be precise and although they don't hurt at the moment, they've got to come out. This means another horrid operation but I don't know when it will be yet. I'm hoping that once the stones have been removed they'll let me keep some as a souvenir so I can show them to you. I know you can't wait to see them!

Beach boys (and gal)

Here I am again with my Irish Terrier pals Molly and Seamus. I think I've told you about them, they're my best buddies. Even though they're not Wire Fox Terriers they're still plenty of fun. Molly likes to boss us boys about, but hey, we let her cos she's soooooo darn cute. Can you imagine the mischief we get up to when we're all together?!