Team Oakley!

Yayyyyyy! The awesome towpath team - BACK in action!

And a very 'rewarding' day it has been! Yummmm!

We started off with a good workywalkies into town where I got to reacquaint myself with my friend Pauline, the bestest checkout lady in Wilko, plus a few other human admirers in other shops too. That was all good. Then, on the way back, we met a Guide Dog Puppy in training. He is a lot bigger than last time we met. I think I heard Mum saying something about meeting up sometime for a playdate. I hope so. We tried to have a bit of a play this morning but we weren't allowed to get away with much.....something to do with best behaviour in uniform.....huff!

After that, we set off for our first cruise for ages. It was sooooooo good to be back doing our thing. Mum seemed to think that a bit of a refresher session would be a good idea. A reminder of all the adaptations to my work that we developed to deal with the towpath environment. Of course, I hadn't forgotten a single dot of any of it, but I was quite happy to go along with Mum's plan. After all, it involved lots of yummy rewards for doing my stuff!

I also got to enjoy a good game of chase with little Jack, the Jack Russell whose humanmum was working a few locks together with my Mum. He might be little, but he is super fast and great fun! I managed to nip back aboard our boat to get a ball to share with him. He even managed to get his little jaws around it!

Series of five photos showing a sequence of Jack and me playing by the lock.

Support for Molly Moo :)

Huffffff! I wandered away for a few moments to rest my aching chompers, came back, and my bone had vanished! MuuuUUUUUuuummm!

Oh well, I shall have to save up some jawwork for tomorrow!

In in the meantime, I would like to introduce you to a doggy pal who, like me, writes a dogblog. Her name is Molly and she used to be a very sad doggy before she was rescued by K9 Rescue and then moved to live with Mum's humanpals, Stella and Graham. Molly is now very happy and healthy and getting to eat all sorts of things I can only dream about.

Stella has promised that, for every page Like Molly gets, she will feed a piggy with some shinydisks. Then when her piggy, Bank, is full up, she will give half to K9 Rescue to help more doggies like Molly, and half to me for my fundraising to train another Guide Dog like me. Isn't that fab?!

So, please check out Molly's great blog, LIKE her page, and spread the message too by sharing it. Hopefully this will also mean that I will get yo enjoy a good playtime with Molly soon too. That would be a bonus!

https://www.facebook.com/mollymoosadventures/

Bone Time!

It's tomorrow now! I got my bone! Yummmmmy!

Well, actually, I only got half of it but this will do for now! Thanks Mum.

Now - serious gnawing underway. DO NOT DISTURB.

From last night......

Is it tomorrow yet? May I have my bone please?

Waddyamean it's the middle of the night? I've been asleep! I've been dreaming about my bone.......  

Close up pic of my nose when I rolled over on the sofa!

Bone Torture

Yummy workywalkies and a soggy freerun on Greenham Common. Happy day!

I took Mum workywalkies into town this morning. It seems my nose led us to exactly the right place. It was a day when all the flappy-walled shoppythings are in the town centre. The yummiest smelling one was at the end. It didn't have flappy walls though. It was a big white box on wheels, with a high-up counter. I was a bit miffed because that counter was far too high for me to reach it. My nose just pointed straight up at it and all I could do was dream of all the deliciousness up there. Mum asked for things like steak, chicken, lamb, sausages.......ooooooooh! It was torture! When the lady handed down a bag full of all those delights, I tried very hard to offer my services to help Mum carry it all. She was mean though. She just me to 'sit' and get my shnozzle out of it. Then she zipped it away in her backpack bag. Huffffff!

Next stop brought further hope: it was the shop with the red and white striped flappy bits outside and similar tantalising smells from within. It was torment sitting waiting in the queue. In there, Mum got the sausages and mince that she couldn't get from the high-up-box. That too got all-too-quickly zipped into that backpack. But then hope returned: Mum asked for a bone. The red and white striped man said 'yes' and even asked 'how big?'

'The biggest you've got please' was Mum's reply! She does love me! Yayyyyy! That bone didn't get zipped away. I was able to keep it under close scrutiny all the way home! Mum just carried it in its bag, in her right paw.

On on the way back, we came across two blue manhumans. Well, they were wearing blue fur-substitutes on their top bits. Mum stopped to yacketyyack with them. I got mega fusses from them - and yummies too! (With Mum's permission first). This yacketyyacking went on for like forever........ I did manage to snaffle a few super fusses from passers by though. That made it OK. It would've been even OK-er if Mum had put that bag down, but she failed to recognise the potential benefit of such an action.

This afternoon, we went out in the car. I thought it was going to be boring, but I was wrong. We pulled into a carpark that made me squeak! My favouritest place in the whole of Newbury! That enormous freerun paradise; Greenham Common! Yippppppeeeeeeee! I really didn't care a poop that the sky was leaking! it was a fabbydabbydoozee afternoon!

I was was a tad soggy afterwards but the lady in Lidl's seemed to think it was cute when I used her leg to dry my face a bit! Heehee!

i think Mum has hidden my bone in that white cupboard with a light inside. She says I can have it tomorrow. So......sofa now.......sleep......then tomorrow will come sooner.....right?

Looking after Granny

Home again! Yayyy! Floatyboatyhome!

It it has been a heck of a day leading up to this homecoming though. Bag-packing, car-packing, workywalkies, meeting up with Bella the yapping puffball that I played with a long time ago, a trip to Pets at Home to sit on the shiny platform to check my numbers again (Mum says there is a discrepancy between branches and I'm not as skinny as she thought I was getting. I think this means a little less extra rations. Huffffffff!), a couple of other stops in the Worthing area. Ooh! I did manage to divert Mum to the all important pic-mix section in PAH. I did a bit of essential hoovering duty and persuaded Mum to dig deep with that big scoop. Well.....it would be unthinkable to run out of good boy rewards wouldn't it?!

We we finally left Worthing and began the long car ride that took us to visit Granny in Bournemouth, via a stop at a human yummyery where I made friends with two minihumans who are Carers for their Mum who has something called MS. I don't know what that is but Mum was telling her all about Canine Partners. I hope she gets one to help her. We working dogs just love to transform the lives of our humans and their families. When we arrived at Granny's kennelblock, she was sitting in her wheelieseat just inside the doorway. She was snoozing. I woke her up by plonking my head in her lap! She liked that. It made her laugh!

After a little while with Granny, we went into Bournemouth town where I had to strut my stuff through the crowds to "Find Boots". Of course I did! Straight in the magic doors! My bum may have bounced a tad as it hit the floor maybe a bit harder than intended - in triumphant expectation of my due reward for being Mum's smartybotty! Heehee! We went right to the back where a nice man mended the little tiny twiddly thing that came out of Granny's earole.

A visit to Granny's flat was a bit baffling: there was a strange long cover over the carpet right through from the front door to the bathroom. There was neither of the two human spending seats - just holes where they should be. There was a new bath, new bowl-on-cupboard, and a new flat square bath-thing that looked a bit like the bottom of our warmrainbox but without a front yet. The walls have new cover-rectangles all over too. We only stayed long enough for Mum and Dad to pack yet more stuff into bags. Then it was back into the car again, another brief visit to Granny to give her back her earole twiddly thing plus a few other things, then another longish drive to floatyboatyhome in Newbury.

I finally got my dinner, very late, and only after a long wait for a Dad to get the box out of the car. I thought I was going to wilt away! Phew! I then had to take Dad for a leisurewalkies while Mum unpacked and stroked the boat's floor.

Now, I hear my sofa calling me....... Budge over Mum....

Oakley - Official Bed Tester!

Another new bedroom tonight! Life never stays predictable or boring!

Tonight, after bag-packing, a long workywalkies, and a long car-ride we have arrived at Papa's home again. We're not in the White wheeliebox outside this time though. We are inside and my bed is on the floor between Mum's and Dad's little beds. They normally sleep in one big bed but tonight they are separated by me! I have, of course, first of all, checked their beds out for them. I approve! They may be declared comfy!