“One Lovely Blog Award,” and THE BOOK arrived!!

Our blog friend Chrissy, who has a Beagle called Bernie, has given Cookie and Cinnamon a sweet award! Thanks, Chrissy! I always enjoy reading your blog.

The rules of the “One Lovely Blog Award” are:

• Accept the award
• Post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
• Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
• Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

As 15 blogs are too many, we would like to pass this award to the following three friends:

Honey, who's inspired us to take on dancing.
Marge, who's making her agility trial debut soon.
River, who's been doing a wonderful job, helping so many rescued dogs.


This morning 'the book' I had preordered finally arrived!! You may want to ask what book it is. It is a book titled "Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats" (Author: Bradley Trevor Greive, Photographer: Rachael Hale), which our friend Honey the Great Dane is in. I will sneakily show you one of the pages she is on. Every dog in the book is so beautiful, but, Honey, you really stand out!

I think this full-colour book is a great value for the price. I haven't read the stories in the book yet, but I look forward to reading them on the deck in summer.


Note: Although Honey and her friends' photoshooting was done here in Auckland, New Zealand, the book "Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats" was published in the US. So, I ordered it from Amazon.com and had it delivered from the US to New Zealand.

One Sunday morning

In the change of season Cookie sheds so much that his fur is all over our clothes every time we pet him on our laps. This morning we FURminated him again, and even more loose fur came out than the last time! Comparing to Cookie, Cinnamon doesn't shed much.

I love this...

Soooo gooood...

A big pile of removed fur

Hay, Cookie.

Stop tickling me, Mum.

Mum, I said 'Stop.'

Hmm. Not too bad after all.

Snapshots from daily walks

A few minutes after this shot the rain started pouring down.

We found this charming mosaic in Ellersile.

Cookie loves walking in this local street.

Watch this video. Both Cinnamon and her friend Bertie the Poodle raise their hind leg and do marking. Strange girls!

Go for it! Becoming a dancing Beagle!

Cinnamon has joined the beginner Heel Work To Music class at Manukau Dog Training Club.

She had been doing agility until she was diagnosed as having Hip Dysplasia (HD) about a month ago. Although she has had a series of injections to heal and repair the joints, her gait hasn't got better at all. But, for Cinnamon, who loves to perform, normal dog life like simply eating well, having regular walks, and enjoying lots of naps during the day would be so boring that I reckoned that training her for dog dancing would be a good idea. In dancing we can choose moves that won't hurt her hips.

The class we go to is held at the same venue on the same day as the famous great canine dancer Honey the Great Dane practices her routines. But, our beginner class starts an hour earlier than her advanced class. In the beginner class there are five dogs, Ricky, Inka, Mozzy, Coco, and Cinnamon. I am going to introduce our classmates in a future post.

In the first session yesterday we learned the basics such as how to use a clicker, how to recall the dog and then make the dog stand in front of you immediately, and how to make the dog follow your hand.

Using a clicker was nothing new to us, as we had been doing clicker training for about six months already, but what I found difficult was to make Cinnamon stand in front of me as soon as she came to me. I have always taught her to sit when she comes to me, so she always sat as soon as she came back to me yesterday. If I said 'Stand', she stood, but only after sitting. Or, if I held some food in front of her face when I called her, she stood right away without requiring me to say 'Stand'. We are going to practice this one for the next two weeks so that hopefully by the next class we will have mastered it (There is no class next week, because our instructor, Jan, will be away).

Practicing to stand in front


Practicing to follow a hand


Cinnamon was a model dog in the class

Walk in Roberta Reserve

It has been raining a lot since I returned from Japan. But it was a beautiful fine day yesterday, so we went to Roberta Reserve in Glendowie for a walk. (We went to the same reserve on Thursday, but the sky was not as clear as it was yesterday. Click here to see some photos from the walk on Thursday.)

Clear sky!


Cinnamon had a great time running around with another dog


Cookie enjoyed the walk too


What is Cinnamon looking at?


Two dogs playing in the water with thier human

Last week there was a house move in our neighbourhood. This house was removed from the site for redevelopment of the land owned by a church adjacent to it. I remember that I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a house being carried on a trailer at night for the first time, as I had never seen anything like that in Japan.

On Tuesday the house was loaded on two trailers


On Wednesday only a half of the house was left


On Thursday the land was vacant