Tippy doing homework.

These pictures are amongst my favourite of Tippy. As you will see she was a very good dog doing her homework. I don't remember what was wrong with the lamb other than it must have needed warming up, by the look of Tippy's coat it was a wet day so no doubt the lamb suffered because of that. Anyway I can assure you it is a real live lamb and Tippy chose to be there with it, it wasn't something staged for the camera.

You may have noticed that I have made my other blogs private, I have had to do this for personal reasons and I will reopen them as soon as I can.

Sea Dogs.

This picture is one of my favourites of Tippy and Tommy playing in the sea - are they having the time of their lives or what?

All at sea.

I hope you aren't getting to fed up of seeing Tippy having fun at the seaside, I will move on to her doing some work soon so you can see she that she didn't live the life of a playdog all the time. Unfortunately when we were working we didn't always have time to be taking photographs which is why there is a lot of her on holiday. Here you can see her playing ball, running around and playing in the sea.

I hope you don't think I'm going in there.

Last week I showed Tippy taking a swim at the seaside. As she got older she was less keen to venture in to the water. This week’s pictures show her content to watch Tommy slashing around, by the look on her face I get the impression she thought he needed to grow up.

Tippy the Sea Dog.

I always think it’s great the way that dogs can just jump right in to water and start swimming without ever having seen anything deeper than a muddy puddle and without a single swimming lesson and all without the slightest hesitation. As you will see from this week’s pictures. Tippy was no exception to this rule, especially if there was a ball involved. I can remember there was one time at Durness in northwest Scotland when we were playing ball on the beach and at one point it ended up in the sea. As always Tippy was immediately on the case which was great as it meant we didn’t have to get wet retrieving the ball. The problem was that on this occasion instead of for the ball staying put it was going out to sea with Tippy in hot pursuit. I started to have a panic attack when both the ball and Tippy disappeared around the outcrop rocks. Thankfully she was soon to reappear from around the other side with ball in mouth which she dropped at our feet, she was completely unfazed and ready for another shot at retrieving.

Tippy's Top Tips.

Those of you who read my blog will often see Tommy getting involved with the gardening work. Tippy was never an enthusiastic gardener but there were a few occasions when I could get her to pay attention for a few moments. This week’s picture is one such moment. I’ve included the post that the picture was taken for so you can see what it was all about.

Tonight Tippy is going to show you a little something we put together the other day. Me and Tom went to the garden centre as Tom wanted some bonemeal so while we were there I decided to buy some pots to do something I've been thinking about for a while now. I was just going to get three ordinary clay pots, it doesn't really matter what the pots are like as long as each one is smaller than the other, the reason for this will become evident in the next picture. As it turned out there were three pots that both fit the bill and that took my fancy.

If you start off with the biggest pot and fill it with potting compost and then take the next size pot and just put it on top of the one you just filled and lightly press down, this will both firm the compost in the lower pot and also mark where the pot will eventually sit. There should be a part all the way around the lower pot that the second pot didn't touch and this is now where you need to put some plants, I used Busy Lizzies but you could use begonia's or sat Petunia's, trailing Lobelia would be good too. When this is done then you do the same thing again with the second pot first of all filling it with compost as with the first. If you planted the first pot right you should be able to just sit in down on top of the first pot without damaging the plants. See the picture below.

For the third pot you can finish off with the same sort of plants if you choose, I decided to put a Fuchsia in the top pot as I felt it would just give it that bit more height. Below is the finished article although I'm thinking I might see if Vicki can get some some trailing Lobelia from the shop as I think it would be better with something flowing down a bit although in time the Busy Lizzies will grow up and fill out.
This next picture was taken later on in the summer and shows you how it all worked out.
All the best,
Bob.

Learning to live together.

In last weeks post I spoke of how Tippy got on with Tommy so this week I think it's only fair to include our other dog which is a West Highland Terrier called Scampi. She doesn't often get included in my posts about the dogs because she isn't my dog, she belongs to our daughter Fallon.

This first picture is a rare one in that Tippy was actually looking at the camera, unlike Tommy she was quite camera shy and would usually look anywhere but the camera.

As you will see from the pictures they all got on very well. I think Tippy did very well accepting them the way she did because for ten years she had us all to herself and then within a matter of a month she acquired two friends.

When I look at this picture I sort of get the feeling some kind of bribery is going on. whenever there was an offer of food Tippy always hung back as in the picture. because of this I once got my foot bitten by Tommy. They all had a treat and I threw one for Tippy and she just stood looking at it and then the next minute I saw tommy make a dive for it so I stuck my foot out to block him and he grabbed hold of it. He got shut outside on his own until bedtime and then spent the night by himself in the kitchen for his troubles. I should have known better because at the time he had an issue with feet for some reason, he got very nasty whenever anyone put their feet anywhere near him. Anyway he is cured of that now and even lets you massage his back with your feet while he is laid down also as you have seen in a video he no longer takes foot without permission. I know this is nothing to do with tippy but I tell the story so you can see what sort of thing she had to put up with from the other dogs. We got Scampi as a puppy so there were puppy things for her to get used to as well as bad dog things.

Like a married couple.

This picture was taken on Tue 13 Mar 2007 07:31 during our morning walk.

I think on the whole Tippy had a good relationship with Tommy which is surprising as Tommy was no gentleman on the first meeting which occurred while driving down the road on the quad bike on the way to check out the stock on the morning of the 6^th June 2005. As we passed the forest entrance we noticed this big black collie lying under the rail across the entrance. At first I though it was just a dog walking with someone as we got lots of dog walkers in that area being surrounded by forest as it was. Even so I though it was worth checking out so I did an emergency stop and reversed up and could see no one with the dog who remained lying down. So I switched off he engine and got off the bike. I always tried to catch stray dogs as they can be a problem with the stock if they become hungry. Of course I always approached with caution but on this occasion it wasn't me that needed to worry but Tippy because in a flash the dog jumped up and flew at Tippy who had remained on the bike. Tommy is still prone to this behaviour although it's now a rare occurrence rather than the rule as it was back then. It looks scarier than it actually is as he never makes contact, just a big scary fuss and then backs off and on this occasion went to lay back down under the rail. That was the only time there was any kind of unpleasantness between them and came to live together in a similar manner to that of a married couple. 

 

When I look at this picture I get the impression that Tippy is not amused by Tommy's antics with the stick, It's like, 'put that down you darn fool before you go and hit someone with it'.

Tippy walks the Cleveland way.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been showing you some of the things that Tippy got up to on her holidays/vacations. Of course during ever holiday there was lots of time spent walking but sometimes the whole holiday was one big walkies which we enjoyed so must have been absolutely the best kind of holiday ever for Tippy – as long as there were no cows!

These pictures were taken at the beginning and end of a week spent walking the Cleveland Way in North Yorkshire which is 112 miles long, just imagine how many sniffs there were!

The start of the Cleveland Way.

Just incase you are wondering Vicki was only trying to make Tippy look at the camera and smile and not trying to strangler a it appears in the picture.

At the end...

...and some bits in between.

Tippy the hustler.

This week I'm going to continue with more pictures of Tippy on holiday where she is in Wales. We had a cottage for a week in a small village and as it was pretty late in the year and the nights came in early we went to the village pub a few times on an evening, the owner of which allowed Tippy to come also. Usually she lay under the table and no one even knew she was there most of the time. However one night Fallon (our daughter) and Debbie (a friend) decided they wanted to play pool so they went off to the other end of the pub where the pool table was and as it sounded like they were having a lot of fun we too eventually went over to watch. Well it didn't take Tippy long to figure out that they were playing with her favourite toy – a ball, a whole table full of balls!! This game was doggy heaven to Tippy and she was round and round the table checking out every shot they made. In the end I think she got so frustrated with them missing that she decided to show  how it was done and like a flash she grabbed one of the balls and ran off with it much to the immense amusement of everyone in the pub. Someone said on leaving that it was the best nights entertainment they'd had in those parts for a long time.