My First Christmas

Hi all, sorry I haven't been around for a while. I've been away doing something called 'Christmas'. Christmas is really cool - it means mum and dad stay at home with me all day and we go and stay at Grandma's and eat lots of food and get lots of new toys to play with. The new toys are wrapped up in paper and you have to open them as quick as you can. Here's me with one of my presents.

Yipee, it's one of those tennis balls in the shape of a ring that my friend Lucky has, which I like to steal from him.

Aaaah, aaaah, I can't see......

Blimey, Christmas is tiring sometimes. I love my new scarf though - it's what everyone will be wearing next year, don't you know.

Best of all, I got some of those Robodog eyes I've wanted for ages.

Also at Christmas you get much better food than normal. This is called a 'Christmas dinner' and it's full of yummy things like duck, carrots, potato and gravy. I tell you what, now I know what duck tastes like I'm gonna make more of an effort to catch one.

At Christmas you go for much better walks than normal. The beach near Grandma's house is really weird - the pebbles are really really tiny. They kept going up my nose when I did digging and made me sneeze.

Then we went to a forest which was good for photo shoots. It looks like I'm posing for the camera but really I thought I'd seen a duck. No such luck though.

Happy Christmas

Sometimes I am so thoughtful and considerate, I think I should have been born a girl. Last Friday night mum and dad went out on a christmas do. As a special treat I thought I would make the lounge look all lovely and christmassy for when they got home. The inside of a cushion made a fantastic snow scene although it didn't quite give me enough snow to cover the whole floor. I think it created the desired effect though. When mum and dad got home they loved it. Well...mum did. Dad didn't seem so keen but I think he was really annoyed that he hadn't thought of doing that for mum. I am such a good pet sometimes.

My sister, Bean

Today was possibly the best day of my life so far. I was down on the beach having my normal afternoon walk, when who did we bump into but my litter sister Bean! Mum says she planned it as a surprise for my 6 month birthday.

As soon as we saw each other, we recognised each other. We did none of the polite 'sniff each other's bums first' nonsense - straight into a good ol' rough and tumble. Which lasted over 2 hours.

I tried to get Bean to come into the sea but she hadn't brought her bikini.

The mums tried to get us to sit for a photo but I was having none of it! Here's me telling Bean to stop being so obedient and get back to playing.

Time for a quick drink at the local cafe.

A second attempt at the 'sit' photo but I was too amazed that Bean had some of those Robodog eyes that Hamish had recently. I really must get some of those, they seem to be all the rage lately.

Then before I knew it, it was all over and we had to say goodbye. I loved my afternoon with Bean and really hope to see her again soon. I'm knackered now, but managed to wake up to pose for the camera. Then back to sleep, woof zzzzzzzzzzzz.

New Forest Viz Whiz

This weekend I got to meet lots of other Vizslas again at the New Forest Viz Whiz! There were 11 of us, all different sizes, shapes and ages. There were even 2 other dogs who liked my name so much they thought they would steal it. I don't blame them - it's a cool name.















This is us all lined up. I'm the one doing the best sit, 4th from the right.

This is Charlie blowing raspberries on Ditto's tummy, which she seemed to enjoy. Not half as much as Charlie did though. I don't blame him, Ditto is very pretty but mum says I'm too young for 'that sort of stuff'.




















The next day we went to somewhere called Aldridge Hill near Brockenhurst - Charlie you should get your mum to take you there, it was great! Dad seemed to think it was some sort of photo shoot - Redgirls you would have been proud of me.

I'm becoming a bit of an impressionist. This is me doing my Tyrannosaurus rex impression.














This is me being a show jumping horse.














This is me trying to be an autumn leaf.




















And this is me doing my blue steel pose.














Finally time for some play with my favourite pink ball - mum you must stop buying me pink things, it's ruining my street cred.




















Can you still see it's pink if I hide it in my mouth?

Ding dong kong

This one's for you Ziggi - where are you Zigana? Anyway thank you for telling my mum how to use the kong properly and giving her some ideas of things to put in it. Once we had got rid of the silly 'kong' biscuits that just fall out, I'm having much more fun with it. Sometimes it gets filled with bits of carrot, sometimes scrambled egg and last night we tried melted cheese which was sooooo tasty. If anyone has any other good ideas of what to put in it please let me know! (Mum says any type of animal poo is not allowed...boo)

Sheep Herding

This weekend we went off in to the country again. I've begun to realise that going in the car means going somewhere nice so I'm beginning to like it. I'm happy to sit in the back now in my basket and also I have a nice big window to look out of and check where we're going. I'm still car sick though so Mum brings my breakfast with us and I eat it when we get to our destination which seems ok by me. Apparently 'normal' dogs eat their own sick but I don't like doing that, apart from once when I was very young.

On this week's walk there were these things called 'sheep' which I had heard about from Bella. Apparently it is a game where you have to get all the sheep in to their pen.

This seemed pretty simple to me - within a few seconds I had them all running in to their pen but I didn't manage to close the gate which is the sign that you've won. Now why would I want to close the gate so they couldn't get out again??

That all seemed a bit boring so I was really pleased when I found out that next on the list of activities was swimming. I like swimming in rivers - it's much warmer and muddier than the sea. Also the river didn't try and move up the grass towards me before I'm ready, like the sea does.

I did lots of retrieves from the river and Mum says my swimming technique is getting better as I keep my legs below the water now. This was my favourite part of the day and I was quite upset when the humans said we had to go now for lunch at the pub. I put on my best sad face but it didn't work so off to the pub we went.

Time for a quick kip and a chance to catch some rays. I must remember to tell Bella how boring sheep herding is and get her into some proper sports like pointing at flies or water retrieves.

New Girlfriend

The last few weeks I have been hanging out with a nice black lab called Louby Lou. I think she is my new girlfriend. I get really excited when I see her and we love rolling around together and biting each others ears. Bella is a bit jealous I think especially as she introduced us. Bella goes to school with Louby Lou.

Bella says we keep leaving her out and we 'only have eyes for each other'. I don't know what she means, Bella is still my 'other' girlfriend. Mum says it's not the done thing to have 2 girlfriends but my dad Grant seemed to have plenty so I don't see the problem. I have told Bella she is also still my girlfriend and that Louby Lou is just a friend but she said something about 'the camera never lies'.



Then, later on we met up with mum's friend from work and her Doberman called Echo. She was also nice and I liked taking her for a walk. She said she would drop me a line sometime.



On Sunday we went to the south downs again (cow pate land!) which was great. Mum got us lost so we ended up walking a bit further than we should but it meant I got to eat even more poo than I would have done. We stopped at a pub midway and I got the leftovers of a 'sunday roast' which seemed pretty nice, although not as good as cow pate.

Then on the way home we met a lovely chocolate brown GSP who I had a run around with. She was extremely fast at running so most of the time I just stood still and waited for her to come back to me but here I am running alongside her.

Her name was Luca...She was my sister

In the mornings I go to the park with Dad and we see another Vizsla who runs round the park with her Dad. Sometimes she stops to play but not often as I think she and her Dad are pretty serious about this running business. My Dad says he doesn't run with me as I'm not allowed to do much running yet but Mum is not convinced by this story!
Anyway, to cut a long blog short, one day when they stopped to talk and wuff to us, the Dads got chatting. They reckoned we looked really similar and had the same characteristics (errr come on Dad, we're both Vizslas...). However, turned out they weren't so stupid after all and actually we have the same Dad - Galfrid Grant of Gunfield. Luca came from Dorset though (I think Grant gets around a bit) from the Ulurudawn Vizslas. So she's my half sister, living right here in Brighton! This made me like her even more and now when we see each other she always stops for a play.

Although she's very pretty, I don't think she sits very ladylike. I must give her some lessons in 'sit'.

Vizslas are like...buses

I have just had the best weekend ever! We went to stay with mum's parents in Bournemouth and on the Saturday I met up with 8 other Vizslas on a beach called Hengistbury Head. It was almost like being back with my litter mates but they were all different sizes. Radar was the same age as me and we had a good play together. Goulash was only 9 weeks old but she was great fun as well. Best of all I got to meet my half brother Charlie. Here we are playing the Hokey-Cokey. You put your right leg in...


Knees bent, arms stretch rhaa rhaa rhaa...come on Charlie!

Goulash, being a typical girl, was fashionably late and made an entrance to catch every one's attention. The lucky pup arrived in a boat! We all thought this was great and barked and jumped around on the shore to welcome her.

Welcome ashore Goulash!


After all that excitement things got back to normal. The girls (Ditto and Hazel) played whilst the boys (Dexter and Herbie) ...well, I'm not sure what they're doing but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Then, that evening, I got to enjoy a dried bull's penis. Mmmm yummy. I think I have to thank Charlie for this as he recommended them when he met my mum's mum at the meat shop. It was lovely. Mum kept trying to come near me, probably so she could have a taste herself, but I made it perfectly clear that this was mine!

On the Sunday we went to the New Forest with one of mum's friends and their Labrador called Molly. I liked the New Forest. Instead of cow pate there was horse pate which was just as yummy but a bit dry.
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I played fetch in a stream which was much nicer than the sea and you could drink the water.

I went in on my own without Mum having to come in with me.

This is me and Molly. She was great and loved to play fetch with her ball, which I kept stealing off her.

What a great weekend - are we going back there again next weekend mum??