Incest - oops!

This here is Dancer (The dog, not the Juvenile Herring Gull (he was only there watching George the Seal - see earlier post). Dancer is a Samoyed cross labrador - "Her mother was a Lady, her father was a handsome stranger". See "Tammy" posts of yore. Dancer is female and neutered, and owned by Mr Silverwood. Unfortunately, Tammy's other pups did not all sell, so there's a boy still knocking around the dog-run, who is sibling and litter mate to Dancer.

Don't people think that boy dogs are attracted to lady dogs, no matter whether they are Mum/Son? Anyway, to cut a long story short, Tammy has had pups again by Dancer's brother. They look fine at the moment, at about a week old, with their eyes still closed, but........

Meanwhile, all's well here and we have just had a pig's ear treat. The humans are chillin' for the weekend around a good bottle of Rioja, and comfort food - Cumbrian sausages, mash and beans - Denis would be soooooo proud!

Have a good weekend

Deefer

Clicking

Thought you might like to see how the boys are getting on with the Cambria restoration. This shot is taken from the port bow looking astern, so you can see that "we" are now into the curving frames that start to form the bow, but also you can see the shaped frames which start to bring the stern shape in towards the transom.

Those rear-most frames are almost "S" shaped where they join either side to the stern "deadwood" (bottom central timber running "north-south", painted red here, top centre of pic). and then curve out to give the width. This is the barge almost a year into the 3-year build project. It started, really in November 2007.

Meanwhile, you know how sometimes you just "click" with someone. Well tonight that happened to me and a 19 month old white Jack-Russell bitch called Tammy. Dad, Meg and Haggis were forgotten as we two dived into vigorous play together, running, running, running, wrestling and tumbling. Sometimes the H would join in to try to trip me up, but I was really just focussed on Tammy.

Later, when sis Ellie came up across the Rec, we said a quick "Hello", but then I carried on playing with Tammy, and Haggis chased Ellie around. Often we were right under the humans' feet (isn't that always the way?), but then sometimes we'd carve off in great circles, off round the rugby posts, or trees, or the park benches. So it went on for about 30 minutes, chacing and racing till we all had to have a lie down and collapsed, panting on the damp grass. Fantastic!

Tammy and her Mum are from Graveney, a nearby village (although originally, the Mum is a Northerner, from Bradford). We hope we see them again. It is great to find someone to play with as an equal, not someone who's either going to kill me, or wimp out!

Exhausted

Deefer

This I have to see

Who can remember over a year ago, back to 30th Dec 2006 when I was only 3 months old and we visited Ireland, and the Silverwoods? Search back through this blog using the keywords "Samoyed" and "Tammy" and you'll find that living next door to the Silverwoods, and kept almost entirely in the garden was a big white fluffy Samoyed, which we as a family took out for a walk to the local woods.

Well, that young lady is now grown, and has produced a litter of pups, just before Christmas 2007, and the Silverwoods have bought one. However, this pup, who is called Dancer, is no pure-bred samoyed. No. I'm not one to gossip but (looks over both shoulders) it would seem that Tammy had a short fling with a "handsome stranger". She's an attractive girl, and said stranger managed to scale an 8 foot garden wall to press his suit. He was, some say, a short haired labrador....

So, the pups are apparently "interesting looking". This I have got to see, and when the Silverwoods eventually furnish me with pics, I will , of course, post them

Holier than Thou
Deefer

For Chow read "Samoyed"

Now we've had a chance to look in dad's dog book, we see that Tammy (see 30th Dec) is not in fact a Chow. Chows have that squished in face, like they've been chasing parked cars. We now think (but are still willing to be corrected) that Tammy is probably a Samoyed, one of those spitz type things

Well, we got our first 2CV ride today, but didn't get to the forest - it's been raining all day, and the forest gets very sloppy underfoot, so rather than bring home 3 plastered dogs, Dad opted for the open close-cut grass of the Bishopstone cliff tops. This is the next dog-walk west from Reculver, and comes with the advantage that parking is free! Dire graphic notice boards depict humans falling to their deaths as bits of the cliff top peel away "Unstable Cliffs. Keep away from cliff edge!"

So - we got a lovely fast run-around, met yet more nice dogs and stayed relatively clean

The 2CV is Dad's pride and joy project car, recently tarted up and sprayed beautifully back to factory finish. We prefer it to the "real car" because the back seat is nice and high up relative to the rear windows, so we can see out. Luxurious smooth quiet motoring it is definitely not - all squeaks, rattles, lurches and wind noise. Proper driving! Mind you, Dad was not so sure me leppin' up onto the narrow eadge of the rear seat back was such a good plan. He drove very carefully for a while so I didn't plummet into the boot, or fall forward onto Megan or the H, and was very releived when I eventually decided to hop back down to safety. Wuss!

Deefer

Tammy the Chow??

This is "that dog" - just an overgrown puppy really. Still young but lots bigger than me. Dad thinks she's a Chow, but is more than willing to be out-voted on this one. As you can see she towers over me and was so bouncy in the forest near Silverwood's house, that I was glad she was kept on the lead. Still - all the humans think it's only that she doesn't get enough exercise and given enough practise she'd be grand and calm. Mr-Em is quite taken with her. She's called Tammy, and I think he has visions of donning a black balaclava and smuggling her out under cover of darkness!

By the way - I should have said, the Guinea Pigs all survived but have not, to my knowledge, produced their babies (kittens? Guinea piglets?) yet

Ah well, from wet, rain swept, soggy. gale-blown Kent, chewing a bit of goose-neck (the hard life).......

Deefer