Cherry Blossom Adventures

Australian Cattle Dogs (Abbey is a blue heeler which is another name for an Australian Cattle Dog) are very intelligent dogs. We had a blue heeler when I was little for awhile and she was sent to obedience training and it took twice as long to train her because they are too smart (for their own good sometimes!) and are very independent.

Abbey will sit, shake hands, wait for food and jump on command. She will not obey no,  stop, “dame”, or down. We are working on them though. The main command we are trying to work on is “no” because she has started howling at the moon and or barking at everything (including rain?!?!?)  and we are trying to incorporate “no” into her doggie vocabulary understanding list so that the neighbours don`t get too pissed off.

See, it is believed that Aussie Cattle Dogs were bred by combining collies, bull terriers, dalmations & dingos (A native Aussie dog) - but we beleive that Abbey is more dingo than anything else. Her tale & ears are particulary dingo like, and with the howling at the moon it is definitely easy to see where the dingo comes in.

She also likes to try to herd us up- and traditionally that is what cattle dogs were bred for…to herd the cattle and nip at their ankles to keep them in line. Abbey will nip at our shoes and walk behind us…even on a walk she prefers to either walk right beside us or behind us instead of in front (unless she sees a bird, another dog or a person because then she goes off running!)

Apparently, the blue heeler pup we had when we were younger used to round up my brother, who would have been about 2 or 3 at the time…she would run around behind him and try to get him cornered into a corner where I beleive she would try to lick my little brother to death.

We haven`t had much issue with Abbey biting, although she will nip our hands when we are patting her if she gets excited and chomps down instead of licking but we have noticed that she only does that with us and never with any other people (which is good- we would hate for her to nip a child). The jumping and the howling are probably our biggest issues…

Tomorrow the farmers markets are happening down in Manly, about a half an hour walk from our place and we have already decided we will all get up early, take Abbey and walk down there. She will probably go a little psycho because there will be a lot of peope around but a lot of people take their dogs and we want her to get used to being around a lot of people…

Hopefully nobody realizes she is more dingo than blue heeler…

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Three weeks ago we started with this…

and now I am happy to report our little veggie and herb garden  is going well and now looks like this:

So far we have harvested (hehe!) some lettuce and a couple of strawberries as well as a bunch of herbs on and off when we need them (including basil, mint, chives, coriander & dill) and yesterday we added some sticks to keep up the corn and tomatoes and transplanted the snowpeas next the gate so that they would have something to climb and creep up.

We had limited space but a lot of things we wanted to grow  so we kind of just planted everything in there and hoped for the best.

It drives Abbey insane that she can not get into this little garden area and whenever one of us goes in to pick stuff out (or if we get the hose out and try to water the garden) she barks and barks and barks. I think she despises the fact that we are paying attention to the garden and not to her (although with her insessive barking it is hard to ignore her!!)

She would be very disappointed in me I think, if she found out I was posting about the garden and not her so here is picture of Abbey from the day we made the garden- she was trying to help with the digging!!!

I love having a garden, even though I have a bit of a brown thumb (It is my dad that has the green thumb I guess you could say)…I really hope to recreate something similar when we are back in Japan, albeit a bit smaller than this one. I think it will only be a week or so before we have an abundance of strawberries, lettuce, beans, snowpeas and more herbs than we know what to do with. The capsicums, corn & onions may take a little longer! The spinach however I think may not make it- I have tried to resurrect it without much luck although I suppose it could make a miracle recovery but I doubt it. It is great to be able to go outside and pick lettuce for a salad or some fresh coriander for a Thai beef salad or basil for roast veggies. It will be a lot more exciting when we can pick more off it…

The first red strawberry to appear was quickly halved and gobbled up by Shun & I and even he had to admit that it was a pretty damn good strawberry (So far it is the only one on there that has been ready to eat- there are about 15 flowers and little green strawberries popping out though!)

Does anyone have any garden hints or veggie growing tips? Would love to hear them!!!

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In case there is any confusion about how crazy my family is I thought I best upload a video.

Presenting my father and Abbey the amazing box jumping dog-I am pretty sure my dad will make a pretty awesome grandfather one day because he will behave like an absolute idiot in front of anyone and kids love that (and so does our dog!) Oh and by the way, despite still having some health concerns my dad is doing really well which is a weight off our shoulders!

Oh and here are just a couple of photos of the little cherub!

There are a couple more photos at flickr! I had some other videos too but seriously internet in Australia is so slow that uploading takes about a month!

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Well as most regular readers know we picked up our new puppy last Saturday so we have had her for a week now! I have finally updated some photos but it is very hard to take photos of a constantly moving bundle of energy!

She is adorable though and we all love her. A lot of people (in real life) have asked about what we will do with her when we go back to Japan next year but in fact she is actually a dog for my dad as he has always wanted another (we had one briefly when we were kids!) blue heeler cattle dog! He is very happy to finally have a puppy and loves to play with her when he is home- doing silly  stuff. On the first night shumpei said to me ” This is what he is going to be  like when we give him grandchildren, hey” and he is right….he loves to be silly and puppies and kids definitely bring the silliness out of him more!

Having a puppy is like having a baby though- although she can move a lot more than a new born! But she does poo everywhere and will pee wherever she is standing at the time. And lets not forget the biting- she is teething and tries to latch onto anything she can get her mouth around. We have tried chew toys, balls etc etc yet her favourite things to bite are my hair, shumpei`s toes and sandles and my dads pants!

She loves her food and has already mastered sitting and waiting when we get her food. Usually she sits when she sees us coming with her food because she knows now she will get it quicker then! She also loves her bed, and because she is an outside dog, she will always return to her bed when we go upstairs, jump up and (For the first couple of days we had a box next to her bed because she couldn`t jump in by herself and needed a bit of a lift!) snuggle down with her towel!  Her bed is under the house in the garage so she can come and go outside as much as she pleases and lucky for her under the house is even warmer than upstairs!

She now recognizes my car too so will come to the fence when I come home even if Shun is playing with her in the yard at the time! She is a good puppy and if we can just get a handle on the biting/chewing she would be a very well behaved dog. She is starting to understand “no” and “dame” and will respond well to hand actions (like come here, palm down for sit etc)

She can`t really seem to bark yet- I have heard her kind of bark once. I didn`t realize that she wouldn`t be barking when she came home but I guess it takes a little longer yet! We will be taking her to the vet in a couple of weeks for her final shot and will ask the vet about it then but I think it is fairly normal!

She also pretty much refuses to go for walks- we have tried just to take her across the road the park (on the lead) but she isn`t interested. We know not to take her for big long walks but we thought she would want to get out a bit but no, she just lies down and refuses to move. Oh and of course she tries to chew on her lead. It is all a bit of a game for her!

Shumpei tries to speak to her in English- it is so cute! He says “Abbey- no!” and “Abbey- come here” or “good girl” but I know he also speaks to her in Japanese so we might have a billingual dog on our hands! haha!

And here you go- some photos!

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Spent the day at home today with Shun and Abbey (and dad for some parts- and even mum came around for a walk and a coffee!), lazing about and crossing off some stuff on my weekly resolutions list! So yay for me! So lets review- my list was as follows!

- hoop at least 10 minutes everyday - I hooped outside today for about 30 minutes while Abbey watched, most of the time sitting right at my feet as I hooped! In the end Shumpei had to call her over because I was so scared I would step on her….but she likes to sit in my shadow in the shade!

- track the food I eat in my little weight watchers book and do at least 4 walks! - I did this and I counted points plus I went for a half hour walk (But we were out for an hour because half of the hour was spent playing with Abbey in the park, running around, then Shumpei minded her while I went for a fast walk with mum and dad!)

- blog another 2 times- Well this is once and the next post will probably be all about our new little addition Abbey!

- Contact wedding celebrants (at least 2) and set up meetings for sometime in the next couple of weeks!- I am going to email two people I have found now and try and set up some meetings!

-Study Japanese for 3 hours! - I did this today!!! Kanji! I don`t think I remember any of it but I did at least do it! It has reminded me though how far I have to go because honestly my retention for kanji sucks and new words sucks (I am a lot better with grammar!)!!

- Plus one bonus that I was going to add today! I have decided it will be to start a new knitting project!

So I a putting it out there- I want a cool, easy pattern for a baby hat (or boots!)…preferrably with the name of wool I can get in Australia. I don`t even know where to buy wool in Brisbane though- Maybe Lincraft? Suzy if you are reading please pretty please send me the pattern for that umbilical cord hat we talked about! I am thinking that might be the one!!! But if anyone else has any ideas let me know (I will also search on ravelry!)

Hope everyone else had lovely lovely weekends- I know it is a long weekend in Japan too (for those lucky enough to be there) so I hope everyone is having fun!

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