Keeping up appearances.......

Seasidegal58

Re: photos - you have just given me another push to sort out the box of photos that belonged to my late mum - it lives under the bed still and I have a lovely photo album that they're supposed to go in. Must get myself into gear.....


I much prefer albums where you can actual turn the pages, than looking at photos that live in the cloud..............

HappyNow

Honey_Bear wrote: »

Adorable, isn't she. Unfortunately, she is also a cat chaser, after all. I had a long conversation with the rescue involved, and we agree that our kittens and that puppy are not the right mix, so I'm not taking it any further. OH and I both think our kittens are developing their personalities at a much greater rate since we lost Kelpie and think that they may have been rather frightened of him, and cautious around him, so we're determined to let them have the space and freedom in the house they need. That means that we're doing to have to rule out those potential adoptee dogs that say they'd be okay with a savvy cat. Our new dog has to be 100% cat okay, and those dogs are out there, because I've had three of them already.

Ah, shame she won't be the one for you. There definitely are non-chasers out there - our Donkey Dog is a prime example. He's huge, but there's just something very relaxed and non-threatening about his demeanour. He'd never dream of chasing a cat - not even a strange one he met on a walk. When he first moved in here the cat was a bit wary, but within just a few days the cat had labelled him 'pushover' and they were completely comfortable sharing a bed. Happy Dog, on the other hand, is great with ours but would, if allowed, chase a strange one. I think we would struggle to introduce a new one into the household and we probably won't ever try.

If you struggle to find a cat-friendly one, would you consider a new puppy, straight from its mum? I've always found that they are very accepting of all members of their brand new family and your cats would be able to lay down the ground rules from the off. New puppies are also BAGS of fun!

HappyNow

Seasidegal58 wrote: »

Re: photos - you have just given me another push to sort out the box of photos that belonged to my late mum - it lives under the bed still and I have a lovely photo album that they're supposed to go in. Must get myself into gear.....

I much prefer albums where you can actual turn the pages, than looking at photos that live in the cloud..............

Well done if you have sorted them, although I bet you haven't yet! I agree, albums are the best way to store photos but boxes under the bed seems to work too. We have a combination.
Definitely no indoor jobs getting done here while the weather is so good. It's hard to believe it's only February.

Honey_Bear

I know just how much fun puppies are, and they're utterly adorable in every way and yes, the temptation is very, very strong. One of my parents' dogs had a couple of litters (both accidents), and I was the person who spent most time with them, getting them ready for adoption.

Everyone wants a puppy though and the older dogs languish in kennels and really, really need a home. Besides which, older rescues tend to arrive house-trained and while I can scrub carpets, I'd much rather not have to do so.

Of course I want a puppy! That little bundle, Flossie, wasn't the first I'd tried to adopt!

I'm very, very divided about this subject.

Right now there are a few dogs that I think I could give a happy home and I'm resisting temptation because none of them strike me as The One. When The One comes along, that'll be when I get serious, but either of those two puppies could have been The One; that's the problem.

Seasidegal58

HappyNow wrote: »

Well done if you have sorted them, although I bet you haven't yet! I agree, albums are the best way to store photos but boxes under the bed seems to work too. We have a combination.
.

How did you guess that!:rotfl:

HappyNow

Today is the last day of February 2019. It's time for me to accept that no last minute miracle is happening and my goal (written in my signature since Dec 2011) to clear all unsecured debt by Feb 2019 has not been achieved, in spectacular style! Signature updated. I'm putting a positive spin on it by remembering that our overall wealth has more than doubled since Dec 2011 thanks to an inheritance and a lot of hard graft.

It's a lot of debt to be carrying at our ages,but we chose to keep the debt and build our dream home and I don't regret that for a minute.

I've just re-done our budget, and we can comfortably manage £750 per month towards debt, including the mortgage. Maybe more some months, but I'm happy that £750 is do-able while still leaving us a bit of 'fun money' because I'm very conscious of the years passing.......

Seasidegal58

£750 per month towards your overall debt is not to be sniffed at! And another here who is concious of time passing and likes some 'fun money' to spend whilst still in a position to earn it!:D

HappyNow

Well! Just popped on to update my signature and spotted that a very special person has been on here, reading and thanking! Hello to DOLPHIN if you happen to see this. Sorry I missed you and if you do happen to be passing through again please give us an update on how things are going for you.

Honey, if you should read this I am really pleased that your new doggy has settled so well and is making you happy. I'm another one who's more of an animal than a people person (please forgive the forum stalkery).


SSG, I've already had a nosey on your diary. If you read this I definitely recommend retirement - or at least partial. I do 2.5 days per week now, topped up with my defined benefit pension, which I was lucky enough to be able to take without an early-payment reduction. My life is sooooo much more relaxed and enjoyable.


So, payday on Friday and we are still carrying a lot of debt but it's reducing and affordable so I don't worry about it. I've always got one eye on the bank account and we still don't waste anything, but we don't deprive ourselves of anything that we need or really want.

Luckily, it turns out that most of the things we enjoy doing are either free or cheap - walking the dogs, gardening, enjoying the local wildlife. The house renovations are pretty much finished and now we're on with the garden. From the outside the property still looks very much like two separate houses, so there's lots of heavy work to do. The back garden is nearly finished and I've been growing lots of fruit, veggies and flowers this year. Along with the house, we inherited a big greenhouse and potting shed which are both now full to bursting The actual garden isn't fenced properly yet, so I've not been able to plant much out because we have a lot of deer and rabbits who would nick the lot!

And next week we are going on holiday for two weeks, back to the exact same place we went in 2016. I'm so excited, but this morning I tried on my summer holiday clothes which have been packed away since 2016. Oops.

Dolphin1

HappyNow wrote: »

Well! Just popped on to update my signature and spotted that a very special person has been on here, reading and thanking! Hello to DOLPHIN if you happen to see this. Sorry I missed you and if you do happen to be passing through again please give us an update on how things are going for you.

Hi HappyNow

Nice of you to remember me. I am still loitering although I have clearly fallen very behind with your diary, missing some very major events (both happy and sad) so apologies for that.

All is ok with me, thanks for asking, although now that I have no daily targets everything has gone to pot. Weight has gone back on, going to bed too late, spending far too much money eating out etc. I regularly start afresh with my targets but seem to get nowhere.

I hope that you are having a lovely holiday!

(Honey Bear - to save me stalking, I would love to hear about your new dog next time you pop by Happy's diary.)

Honey_Bear

Dolphin1 wrote: »

Honey Bear - to save me stalking, I would love to hear about your new dog next time you pop by Happy's diary.

Hi Dolphin. :wave:

Darling Kelpie died on Boxing Day after a very happy Christmas Day, during which he ate his turkey, slept on the sofa and thoroughly enjoyed himself. He'd been ill for a while, I knew it was coming, and he died very peacefully at home surrounded by people who loved him. I cried every time I talked about him for two months, missed him dreadfully and he makes me smile now every time I think of him.

So ... it took a while to find another dog because it had to be special enough not to make me regret getting another one too quickly (done that twice) and I knew I had to break at least one of my hard and fast rules. It took exactly three months of searching pretty much every single day, and the only reason I found this one was because I realised this rescue had a button for 'New and updated dogs' in addition to the 'Only Dogs' and without those I'd never have found her.

She'd been, very briefly, in foster and the fosterer said she was clean in the house (she isn't always now, but I've learned why and we're working on that), walks nicely on the lead (well, she does, sort of) and ignored the cats (she most certainly didn't here to begin with and isn't 100% trustworthy even now, but I know exactly when and why it happens, so we can manage the situation).

She's an ex-breeding b i t c h and has spent almost all of her life in a crate, and was so skinny when we collected her you could count her ribs and vertebrae just by looking at her. She had an upset tummy for weeks (turns out she can't tolerate rice so the chicken and rice diet was a disaster!) and had a faint so thank goodness she's insured because that little episode cost a bomb as they found an irregular heartbeat and a murmur. She's now fine, but with a watching brief. She had wasted leg muscles and we had to start off with very short walks to build her up, but she's now on three walks a day, a total of roughly two hours and she's very happy with that.

Because we have so many visitors to the house the new dog had to be stranger friendly, and after ten weeks this one now races to the front door, tail wagging so hard it looks as though her bum's going to drop off whenever she hears the doorbell - and at the moment that includes when she hears the doorbell on the radio. She barks when she's trying to make herself understood and then sometimes because she thinks it'll get her something she wants but only in the evenings. During the day she's pretty silent. She hardly every whines, but very occasionally yips a bit if she thinks she's being left, like in the car.

She's learned her name but her recall is ropey so she hasn't been off the lead yet other than a secure dogplay area I've found, she's learning to pee outside rather than just marking every lamppost she comes across (she cocks her leg!), she loves the food she's now on which took a while, loves treats (who wouldn't? Poached chicken breast - sometimes you have work with their limits) and is the happiest, waggiest, friendly little soul you can imagine.

She's a tiny 10kg, purebred (a pedigree but with no papers, obviously) golden cocker spaniel, the prettiest little thing you ever saw. At the moment she's very worried by the marvelous dogwalker who I want to be able to leave her with overnight in future which is a worry, and would be a perfect candidate for separation anxiety if she weren't happy in her crate. Apparently they're breeding them very small now for agility and they're exceptionally fast in the ring, so that's what her puppies would probably have been sold to do. (I curse those dog breeders, I really do. In the early days she used to stand by the closed back door and bark and bark and bark even when she's made her own way down there from the kitchen door which was still open. Sometimes even when I opened it she'd carry on barking. I think her puppies used to be taken away and put somewhere else and she'd have been desperate to get to them. Imagine that for your whole life. I jibber with rage when I think about what she's been through, litter after litter after litter.)

Kelpie never got his head around crates and I should have tried harder with him over that, but because Layla's not 100% safe with the 18 month old kittens she's crated at night, and is perfectly fine to be left in it for a few hours during the day if I want to go out. It's such a relief to be able to do that but I've taken that part of her training very, very slowly and she's been as good as gold about it.

At long last, after a series of delays that drove me mad, we've got a training session with a wonderful dog trainer tomorrow in a secure field just north of Plymouth. I don't think she's ever had the opportunity to really run and I'm so looking forward to seeing if that's what she does. If she doesn't do so automatically Kay's got a fabulous friendly young Collie that I think will be able to show her how to play and how to run. At the moment she's showing no evidence of knowing how to do either.

According to the vet nurse who did Kelpie's hydrotherapy this dog is a perfect candidate for scent work which Kay also trains for in addition to agility and obedience. We need all the help we can get because Layla's only five years old, so with any luck we'll have her for a good long time. I'd like well-behaved, happy dog, and I think with this one the chances are she's bright, willing and courageous enough to be all of those things.

She's already showing signs of working spaniel behaviour, and given that she's never, ever had a chance to do any of the things spaniels are trained to do I find that quite extraordinary. I can't wait to get into the training field to see how she is with someone who knows how to bring out the best in her!

Kelpie slept for two solid days after 40 minutes with Kay! This little dog will think all her Christmases will have come at once tomorrow afternoon at 3.00 pm.