All in a Dog's Day

I know I post a lot about the dogs, but, what can I say? I guess I'm going to be one of those people who pull out fifty pictures of their kids to bore guests to death with. "And this is little Junior burping"... but, I don't have any kids, and my dogs are cuter and more intelligent than most people's kids anyway, so I know you want to hear all about them. Alas, without further ado, I present another post about..... The dogs. Sunday was a big day for Dogs In Canberra. The local dog park, down by the lake, hosted a fabulous event called "Dogs Day Out". Alfie loved it. He met, sniffed and licked hundreds of dogs, big and small, waded chest deep in the lake, got checked out at the free vet stand, almost stole somebody's egg sandwich off a picnic table (oops), and drank as much water as he could possibly hold in an attempt to mark every tree in the park. Harry just growled the whole time, but that's beside the point. Everybody else had a blast.

Alfie at Dog's Day Out, meeting his first friend.

I even bought both the dogs a Doggachino from a fancy gourmet, organic dog treat company. Classy, huh? All the other dogs at the park lapped up the stirred-soy-milk, liver-treat -sprinkled, Starbucks-inspired goodness like it was the last treat on earth, but not our dogs. Alfie and Harry sniffed it and turned their noses up, totally un-interested. Trust my dogs to have no class. Look at these dogs lapping up their Doggachinos: Our dogs' pathetic interest wasn't even worth a picture. In honesty, though, I think Alfie was just really, really interested in everything else that was going around him. Sensory overload. We also had a nice chat with the Canberra Greyhound Adoption Service, who are going to come out to our house to do a house check this next week. If we pass, we'll get to become foster parents for greyhounds through Friends of the Hound, an adoption group in Sydney. They were impressed with Alfie's outfit... Rory made him wear St.Kilda's uniform all weekend, in celebration of their AFL win on Friday night. But he was very, very cute, wasn't he? Now, do you want to see a picture of him burping?.....

Harry, on his way back from Dog's Day Out. He hangs his head out the window like nobody's business.

After the Dog's Day Out, we spent Sunday afternoon gardening. We mowed the lawn, which had gotten so bad that the Mommie Possum who made a home in the front had to send out search parties to find her young in the tall, tall grass. It tickled Alfie's belly, it was so long, and was definitely getting to be a snake hazard. I also made a flower bed in the front yard, up under the front windows. We are now growing jasmine, Lady O (a native shrub that has red flowers), and some ornamental cabbage. Its been a week now since I planted my pansies, and they're still alive, which I think is probably a good sign. Generally speaking I have a thumb blacker than coal when it comes to gardening.

See? Still alive.

Cool lettuce thing I bought at Bunnings. It was half off, apparently (according to dad), cause we're ending the lettuce growing period around here. Ah, well. Looks like I'll be having a nice salad soon!

That's the flower bed I made this weekend to the right. Obviously, its not very established yet. And we badly need to paint the outside of the house... we're hoping to get some small shrubby things to border this landing.

In the backyard, we planted lemon and lime trees and some native trees. Alfie was quite funny... we've very nearly won the Battle Of The Digging Dog in the backyard, and neighbours probably hear more of us sticking our heads out of windows saying 'No, Alfie! Alfie, that's a No!' than they would like. But he's a good dog, and he's almost broken the habit. So seeing us digging big holes without any yelling at all threw him for a HUGE loop. 'What?' his expression seemed to say. 'I thought this was a No.' But he got into it pretty quickly, and helped deepen one of the holes. We put the tree in, and, much to Alfie's confusion, started filling in the hole. When we were finished, Alfie looked at us, looked at the tree, and, very slowly, lowered his paw to start digging it up. "NO, Alfie!" we both yelled. But the seeds have been sown, and I'm willing to bet the trees won't last the week. Oh well, who likes lemonade anyway?