In China

As I am in China now I have not seen Kramer for several weeks now - except on Skype. He has no idea that he is being held in front of a camera for me to see him. I do miss all at home - Kramer especially - but that is life as I learn more about China and teach English here.

I do not see many dogs here in China - but strangely a lot more than I expected to see. I saw two on a busy road on Sunday and feared for them, but I suspect that any dog that ventures on to a Chinese road is either very silly or very clever. I think though that most people would go out of their way to dodge them.

Surprisingly many of my students are afraid of dogs. Few have them as pets at home, so they are a little fearful of them.

I didn't bring a photo of Kramer - but one day when I work out how to use the AV at the school, I will show them some photos of him.

Check up on my exploits in China here.

The stolen tomato sandwich

Yesterday I made myself a tomato sandwich - and it was a good one with thick slices of tomato on my linseed bread. I had eaten half of it, when I suddenly remembered I needed to get something from my bedroom draw, so left my sandwich on it's place on the coffee table. I was gone from the room for only a minute or two, but when I returned Kramer was happily munching on my sandwich. He had somehow climbed up to the table - at least leaned up with his front paws and taken it and eaten the lot. I know I shouldn't have tempted him - and I know by the way he licked his lips that he enjoyed the snack.

Afterwards he went back to doing what he does most of the time - sleeping. He is going to miss me when I go to China. He's funny when I come home from one of my adventures - he "dumps" MM who has cared for him in my absence and becomes my very best friend.

Lazy Days

It is hard to get Kramer motivated. Perhaps it is the heat and humidity, or just that he is getting older, but it is hard to get him to do anything. In fact if we left him to sleep all day IN the house, he would be fine.

He has been very naughty and noisy - in part due to noisy neighbours I suspect - but he's barked at night. We know he only wants to come inside the house - and forsake his "bedroom" downstairs.

So I decided to take him for a walk. Walk? You can almost hear him protesting. He leaps up and around when the lead is produced and he helps to put it on, but at 6 feet from the bottom of the steps he stops. It is hard to know why - is he wanting someone to carry him on his "walk"?

Sometimes we have no choice - he just refuses to budge - but I insisted he walk. He'd walk a short distance and stop. And just sit and look around him as if he is on a sightseeing tour.

Until I "kickstart" him again.

It is so painful. No wonder we don't enthusiastically organise a walk for him as often as we should.

Wet and smelly

We have had constant rain for several weeks. Not always heavy rain, although there is widespread flooding in south east Queensland and northern New South Wales, and millions dollars of damage has been done.

Here we have had more rain than in recent times, but still are in "drought" officially as our water supplies are less than optimum.

The trouble with days of rain, and high humidity is that dogs (and cats, and other animals I guess) get to smell. Kramer is really on the bugle. Phew!

And guess what a dog will do when he/she has just been washed? Roll in the wet smelly grass. So one has to be well organised to wash the dog and get him dried quickly and inside. We do use a hair dryer to dry him, but he's often very challenged by the noise of the dryer. But he looks and smells so nice when he is nice and clean.

I think today is dog washing day!

Lazy Dog

Kramer's not done anything very strenuous lately. I know he is getting older - and the weather has been wet and windy, so he seldom goes outside. He stays indoors as long as he can and sleeps as long as he can.

Still cute. But lazy!

Kramer on the mat

Kramer enjoyed lying on the carpet at Lagoon Pocket B & B when we stayed there. A lot more accomodation places are accepting well behaved dogs.

We have found that not all of these accomodations that accept dogs have one item that is essential. A fenced yard - so that the dogs don't get curious and wander off. Gives a little more peace to the dog owners.

Kramer wouldn't go far from us - but still we would have liked a fence.

What a cute dog!

It doesn't matter where we go Kramer makes friends. With humans that is. NOT other dogs. As well as attacking his reflection, he showed the same animosity to the other dogs. Two large dogs stayed with their owner in one of the other suites. Fortunately at the other end of the complex, so they didn't have to cross paths.

When we went to dinner at the hosts home on the Saturday night, the two other dogs were there too. James and ?, (I've forgotten the name momentarily)and Kramer made very threatening noises, so they were cast out of the little deck, and Kramer remained the only dog. If the other dogs dared come near he'd growl, while meanwhile sucking up to all the other adults at the dinner. The hosts and the other guests.

And he gets away with it! I mean he really should make friends with the other dogs, but it all seems too hard. It is easier to keep him on a leash and keep him close to us, so that he can't threaten the other bigger dogs.

On the Sunday morning it was the same, though only one of the bigger dogs was there. The other had disgraced himself by rolling in some fresh cow poo, so was banished for the morning.

Oh, well!