My first strip

Lady puppies - contain yourselves - it is not that kind of stripping. What I am talking about is much less sexy, much more brutal, although the results are curiously satisfying.
I have just been stripped for the first time. Hand-stripped then (shudder) "carded", by a pleasant lady called Kate. It was confusing that such a pleasant lady should do such unpleasant things to me. She literally pulled my hair out with her bare hands. Now, I'm not saying that my hair wasn't really annoying me and making me all hot and bothered. But please, is there not some other way? Must I be subjected to this humiliating ordeal?
And whilst the results are pleasing on a practical level, aesthetically I'm not so sure. Before, I had what you might call teddy bear charm. A shaggy, scruffy appearance that everyone seemed to love. Now, my whole look is much more neat and tidy, still cute, but without that rugged edge...You must be dying to see it anyway... I won't keep you in suspense any longer..

What do you reckon Henry fans? Still got it?

20 reasons to be mad

1. It is raining outside
2. There were no dogs in the park
3. Mummy is doing stuff on the computer and not playing with me
4. I am wet and muddy
5. I keep getting told off for weeing inside, but being told off makes me want to do it more
6. I am bored
7. What on earth is that giant furry thing that is all squishy and noisy that Mummy brought home yesterday and she keeps sitting on? I hate it. I want to bite it and dig at it constantly, so much that it literally drives me crazy. I want it to leave again
8. I want to eat the olive tree and get shouted at every time I do
9. I want to eat the black thing that Mummy talks on but got shouted at for that as well
10. I am bored of my toys
11. Daddy completely ignored me before he went to work this morning.
12. I hate Mummy and Daddy
13. There are so many better places to be than in this flat, even when it is raining, why can't we go to them?
14. I can't jump onto the bed by myself
15. When I jump onto the coffee table, which is nice and cool on my belly, I am removed from it.

16. Where is Jeanie and why can't she be here all the time?

17. Mummy has shut the living room door so I can't go into the bedroom
18. Mummy is boring.
19. Being a puppy is so restricting, I can never just do my own thing. Why do I always have to go on that stupid lead?
20. Why can't I just eat what is in the fridge?

Observations on change

I think it was Heraclitus who said: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." Well, if you replace "man" with "dog", it still applies. And this is what I have been thinking about lately.

The Thinker

Here are some things that have been changing lately:

- My size. It was small and I could fit in my basket and all other dogs looked big. Now I can't really fit in my basket (er, new one please Mummy) and some dogs I actually find a bit on the small side nowadays, like chihuahuas and maltesers. I still prefer bigger dogs, I don't know why, I guess I just identify more with them. But it is amazing - the world seems a less daunting place now I am bigger.

- My busys. This may be TMI (Mummy taught me that phrase), but they change all the time. Right now it is baaadddd, runny and smelly and makes me feel funny. When the busy changed, then soon after my food changed as well and I started to get this soft mushy, well, bland if I am honest, stuff instead. Also at this time, we stopped going for walks with Jeanie and Mummy and Daddy kept trying to shove things in my mouth. Mummy and Daddy were always hanging around me and stroking and patting me and saying "poor little thing". It has been a time of great dietary as well as physical and emotional upheaval, all seemingly linked with my busys.

- Mummy's tummy. It is getting bigger. Not just a bit bigger like bloating, but progressively more and more huge. She keeps her hand on it a lot and won't let me walk around on it like I used to. She talks to it, puts tasty lotions on it, puts headphones on it. It is a bit distracting really. It is no way more interesting than me.

- While other things get smaller as I get bigger, another thing that is getting annoyingly bigger is Jeanie. She used to be smaller than me, now she is bigger, even though I am a month and three days older than her. It doesn't matter too much, because like I said, I am way more confident nowadays, but it does mean she can jump on stuff and I can't follow her, including on me.

Jeanie trying to jump on my head

- Smells. Smells are like that river Heraclitus was on about. Constantly changing, always fascinating, and each time I smell a new smell, I feel like I change a bit too, like he said.. I feel more confident with every sniff, more knowledgeable, more worldly. I am six months old now, equivalent to a 15-year old, in your terms. So it is no surprise really that I know so much is it? 

Why I am a little shitbag

"Little shitbag" face

Now, I don't exactly know what the expression "shitbag" means, ok, but this is just one of the many things Mummy has called me today. The others are:

- pesticles
- menace
- misterchiefs
- naughtyface
- trouble bucket
- a teenager

The use of these names has almost exactly coincided with the following behaviour:

- poos and wees indoors - two of each. The first round was at 5.30am. What else was I meant to do when I couldn't get outside and they didn't wake up on command? The second round was Mummy's fault. She had shut the back door to prevent me doing what I do with the plants (see below) so I couldn't get outside.

- shoving my face in the pots where the plants are to eat the soil, then dragging the soily, twiggy bits inside and shaking them around a bit. Soil is wondrous. Soft, earthy, moist - why wouldn't Mummy want it everywhere too? I brought it in to show her but I won't be making that mistake again. She took it off me then GOT RID of all the lovely soil with that noisy sucky machine. The picture above is me after the soil dragging. The picture below is what the balcony looked like afterwards.

I forgot to mention that I also stripped the olive tree of half of its branches/ leaves

- general exuberance, energy and independence of mind. I haven't been following Mummy around all day today - I have been doing my own thing. Because I can. This started yesterday with the independent chewing of cables (shouted at for that too). Then the independent chewing of the new oak tree sapling that I am given to understand was some sort of 30th birthday present for Mummy. Well, she should have got to it first then shouldn't she? I also chewed a birthday balloon, but didn't get shouted at much for this. See below.

That's balloon string wrapped round my face

It continued with the chewing of books, then the chewing of the cardboard box under the bed. All of these things I consider to be mega fun and a good and productive use of my time - it all helps improve my gnashers after all - but Mummy has a different take on things. Why does she always restrict me? Take things away? Shout "no!" loudly and scarily when I'm just having fun. Jeez Mummy perhaps you should have some from time to time and just loosen up a bit like me. Maybe get yourself a cardboard box to chew on or something.

Park life

So this is the pattern of a normal walk. We leave the flat. This bit is hugely exciting and I am always filled with anticipation, which I express by jumping and running about so Mummy can be in no doubt that I want this to happen very much. We go downstairs in a lift. This bit is boring but then not long until we get to the doors that you can see through to... OUTSIDE!!! Place of wonders, place of dreams, place of places to do busy busys freely. Obviously the first thing I do is busy one (up the pillar now because I can cock my leg up, but only the right one) then I do a little run, then sometimes busy two.
I always insist on us walking through the big garden where there are sometimes folks about before we go out into proper outside, with the roads and cars and stuff. Mummy sometimes resists this but I resist back and more often than not, this results in a Henry victory. So I have a little run around there and roll in the nice softy soft grass. There's always good sniffs about too. Once this walk phase is over (it can vary from 10 minutes to about half an hour, I'd guess) we go proper outside.
Now, I don't want to knock any of outside because it is all infinitely preferable to inside. But this in-betweeny bit is a bit tedious. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like the sniffs. There's loads. It is the ground that is the problem - it is all hard and scratchy, not soft and diggable, like ground really should be.

Here is me and mummy on the hard ground

Anyway, we only have to do this bit for about ten minutes before Allelujah! We get to acres and acres of grass! With people! And dogs! On this particular day there was lots of people lying on the floor, which affords brilliant access, as you can see from the below example:

Me jumping on fun lying down man

Oh yeah, then there was this big group of men that really liked me too, so I played with them for ages:

That's me, on top of the guy third from left

Also in parks, you don't need toys, because the ground provides many natural ones for you. Like.... STICKS! Best invention ever - they fit easily into the mouth, are light and easily transportable and can be chewed too. This one was a really good one:

Check it out

Also, an excellent thing about these places called parks is that I am allowed off the lead. Mummy says I shouldn't be as my recall is not very good and I always run over to people - and what if the people don't like me? But she lets me anyway because I am so cute. Look, here is me being really independent:

Look at my confident stride

So folks, that's a typical walk for you. We didn't see many other dogs on this one but usually there are loads. No matter, people are much better anyway. 'Til the next time.

Me snaps

Hi there, OK so Mummy is always always taking loads of pictures of me - I'm getting pretty used to it now. Here are a few from the last month, in chronological order.

Here is me with Daddy on holiday. We were on the beach which is why my face is all covered with stuff. In this pic, you get a clear shot of what is called my "winkie". As I mentioned in the last post, this has been drastically altered in recent days. There's a swollen bit between my legs now.

Here is me lying in bed next to Daddy. I like the bed and it is especially fun in the mornings, when I am allowed to snuggle up and put my head on the pillows, like Mummy and Daddy do. My favourite thing is to squish my face between the two pillows so it is all dark and safe - I can't see anything, so nothing can see me, type thing. I like digging on the bed too as it is all soft and bouncy. Sometimes I am able to sneak under the covers briefly, but they always pull me out.

Here is me about to go down some stairs... well actually, I didn't go down these ones on this particular day, but that is not because I can't do it! No siree, I can go up and down stairs to my heart's content now. But on this day, I just didn't want to, as you can probably tell from my expression. These ones aren't nice because there are holes in the side rails that make me nervous. So we actually took the lift instead.

Here is me today with Tonto, the border terrier who is exactly two months younger than me that lives downstairs. He is ok but a bit annoying. I am clearly the bigger, stronger dog, but he so doesn't know it and is always trying to bite me - my fur, my paws, my tongue. It's like, Tonto, for heavens sake, calm down! That's what I normally say to him, either by ignoring him or showing my teeth just an appropriate amount, or pinning him down of course. In this picture I am looking up because Tonto's Daddy is holding something good in the air, and I reckon Tonto is just working out which bit of me to try and bite next. So tiresome, these puppies.

If not myself, then who am I?

                                                      Me with tennis ball I found in the park

This was the question I was asking a lot on Monday evening and quite a lot of yesterday too. It wasn't that I was trying to be a philosophical doggy Descartes, just that I felt so strange, not like my self at all. I had to keep checking in the mirror that I actually was myself because I couldn't quite believe it. This is what happened: on Monday morning, Mummy took me to the vets. I love the vet, I don't care what anyone says, it is great there because there are dog smells, treats and lots of friendly people. All of the same was true this time, except this time, I stayed there and Mummy left. She looked at me a bit intense when she left but I didn't think anything of it because that nice tall man was holding me and he smells of other animals. So she went, and I went downstairs. Fun! Lots of other types of animals down there like cats, and a new kind that I have smelled before but never seen, which the girl down there told me are called rabbits. The nice tall man left me for a bit, then came back, gave me a stroke and fuss (but at the same time was doing something a bit uncomfortable to my neck) then suddenly I felt all woozy, then I was asleep. I remember thinking I don't want to be asleep because I want to look at all the other animals, but I couldn't help it, I was suddenly so tired. Next thing I knew I was awake and looking at bunnies again, but there was this funny lump between my back legs that hadn't been there before. I was still a bit too tired to really investigate it though so I just played with the nice girl and looked at bunnies.
Then mummy came to pick me up but for some reason I couldn't be bothered to really be nice to her. I didn't want to go and leave the bunnies, but she meanly put me in the stupid car. Normally I like to look about in the car but I just flopped. Where was all my energy? Was this feeling something to do with the new lump between my legs?

So we got home, but it wasn't really home as I knew it. Everything seemed kind of strange. I couldn't settle even though I was so tired it was unbearable. Mummy kept trying to be near me but I didn't want her near me. She put me on the bed but I didn't want to be on the bed. She gave me a new tennis ball - I wanted that obviously. But I couldn't really be bothered to do much with it. She kept saying it was ironic that I was so obsessed with my new ball just as I'd lost my old ones. Mirror mirror on the wall, what is she on about?!

Why is she annoying me so much today? Why am I scared? Why can't I take my eyes off the front door? Why can't I stop licking this strange lump between my legs and why does it hurt more and more? These were my thoughts. Reader, I was scared and confused.

That night was awful, the next day gradually got better. It is only today that I feel like I've finally remembered what life is all about (playing, cuddles, walks, people, treats). It's like I've been to puppy hell and back. But now I don't even mind the new thing between my legs any more. It seems to be getting a bit smaller - Mummy keeps looking at it all the time, which makes me feel weird, and Jeanie is always sniffing it now, then pouncing on me. Such an annoying girl sometimes. It hurts a little bit but really not much.

Whatever happened to me at the vets? I guess I'll never really know, since I don't understand most of what Mummy and Daddy say unless it starts or ends with Henry. But they were worried and now there not, so I guess everything is alright.