To insanity and beyond ...: Never forget to see the humour in ANY situation!

Indy's tired of sliding around in the car and Chocolat's tired of having her photo taken!

Today we had MUD .... lots of it .... and the hounds had a ball! Chocolate brown took on new meaning and not just for the hounds. Julia had it all over the back of her legs ... I had it up the front of mine .... that’s what happens when your mud-covered Labrador decides to give you a bath! Julia’s mud was from another hound but more of that later.

Pink skies over my city

“Never forget to see the humour in ANY situation” is a quotation Indy should have taken heed of this morning. He couldn’t understand Julia’s and my mirth AND Chocolat’s excitement at all our laughter when Julia and he arrived to fetch us this morning. The look on his face was priceless ... I was laughing way too much to be able to take any half-decent photo!!

The dog pond has been closed ... not sure why.

So she found a mud puddle instead.

Julia, in her wisdom, had decided to put the back seat in her car down for the hounds .... to give them more room, as my hound has earned a reputation for taking over the entire back seat and leaving Indy to sit squashed in the corner.
Goodness knows why Indy tolerates this but he does.

... and got rather muddy!

In any event, the back seat doesn’t lie completely flat, it slopes up at an angle. Julia has a coupe so I have to open the front door to move the seat forward so my hound can jump in. Indy’s sitting there, a look of abject dismay on his face as he holds himself upright against the side of the car. Bear in mind, Julia’s parked on my driveway which is rather steep so the acuteness of the angle Indy’s sitting at is exacerbated.

She's trying to encourage Indy to join her

His face was a picture and the more I laughed, the more Julia laughed, and the more we both laughed, the more my hound tried to lick us both to death! Indy couldn’t understand what we found so funny. The look on his face was telling us that he DIDN’T find it AMUSING at all and could we please just get moving so he could regain his composure!

One happy muddy hound!!

He didn’t get to keep his composure for long though. On the way to Waiatarua Reserve Julia had to accelerate fast to get ahead of a slower moving vehicle. Yep ... you guessed it .... as she put her foot down both hounds slid on the blanket down the length of the car to the boot! My hound decided she was staying there ... lying down flat with her bum against the boot was, according to her, the safest option.

I’m not sure Julia will put the seat down for them again ... neither of the hounds showed any appreciation for her considerate gesture.

Walking the hounds at Waiatarua Reserve reinforces for Julia and I the need for more dog training for humans. It’s not the hounds that need the training though, it’s their handlers. I’m becoming more and more intolerant of humans who’re unable to recover my hound’s ball from their hounds! My hound, despite being addicted to logs and balls, knows to come to me and drop whatever it is she’s carrying if I tell her to .... especially if it’s not hers.

The large Chocolate Labrador that normally pinches her ball was there again and he’s a determined blighter .... despite putting the ball away in the backpack he still tried to grab the backpack. Then we had Tom, another Labrador - black this time, who came racing out of nowhere and grabbed the ball. Chocolat chased him for a while trying to get the ball back but eventually his handler managed to grab him and prise the ball out of his mouth.

I think we’re going to forgo the ball and stick to logs in the reserve in future ... there’s always plenty of those around should another hound take a shine to the one she’s carrying.

Julia ended up with muddy paw-prints down the back of her legs as a determined Jack Rusell tried to help himself to Indy’s treats. Despite repeated calls and instruction from his handler, he refused to leave us alone.

More and more I’m beginning to think that it should be compulsory for ALL dog owners to sit the RDOL

test (Responsible Dog Owner Licence). Dogs are an integral part of many New Zealand families, more so I think than what they are in South Africa. It’s normal to see hounds at coffee shops and restaurants lying quietly under the tables ... admittedly in the outside area ... but it’s not something that I saw a lot of in SA. Often when I go down to the village with Chocolat, I’ll see other hounds sitting patiently outside shops waiting for their humans to return. She knows the drill now too.

Julia and I did have a thought as we wandered around the reserve ... maybe it’s NOT the other humans that are wrong ... maybe WE are .... maybe OUR hounds are TOO well behaved!