Category: Dooley’s diary

Today I was very brave,

I sat in the front of the car with Mark on the way to the forest.

He’s my New Friend.

He knows where the Bonios are kept.

Mark was most impressed with how good I was and said Good Things to me.

Lizzie and Mutley came too, and so we had a great time

Mutley was creating destruction and mayhem, so I took notice so that I might learn from him.

He had found a branch so long that he could hit both Helen and Mark with it at the same time.

He did it several times and then when Mark tried to take it off him he ran off with it and chewed it up into tiny pieces.

Although I want a Biting Mask like Mutley’s, I also want a Special Collar like Mutley’s too

Mark says I have to try to get the collar first.

He says if I get the mask first I’ll lose any chance of ever getting the collar, and that is An Important Thing To Remember.

I know Mark is trying to help me to get a Special Collar so I licked his arm until he mentioned my collar to Helen.

Helen laughed.

I ran off and played with Lizzie instead.

Rocco’s been in the local paper.

I’ve been concentrating on other things instead.

It doesn’t bother me at all.

Not even the slightest bit.

I’ve not given it a single thought.

I’ve far more important things to think about, and I’m sure everyone else has too.

I’m ignoring it completely.

I don’t think it’s such a big deal anyway.

Even if he did get a big full page spread with colour photos.

I’m not jealous in the slightest.

I’m not going to think about it even for one second.

I’d not have given them such a cheesy grin.

I didn’t ask him to sign my copy, he just accidentally must have stepped on it leaving his pawprint behind.

I’m certainly not going to frame it.

I’m so pleased that I now know someone Famous

I’m afraid to say that I’ve been in such disgrace lately that I’ve not even been allowed onto the computer to put my entries up.

I’ve committed a Deed so Dastardly that I’ve even since been blamed for the Business Over Helen’s Wellies.

I’ll explain once I’m not in such trouble.

In the meantime, I shall catch up with some earlier stuff.

Here are some pictures of My Good Self and Mutley at the field near the river.

The long grass has recently been mown and now we can race around as fast as we like.

Mutley is my Hero, have I mentioned that before?

You can see Mutley wearing his special mask to stop him biting.

I think it makes him look like a superhero,

I’d like a mask like that so that I could fly and jump tall fences in a single bound

Sometimes I wonder if I should bite more things so that I can get a mask.
I asked Mutley about it, thinking that he’d be pleased that I wanted to be like him and hoping that he’d have me as his superhero sidekick.

He said I was daft.

I think he must have just been a bit hot after all the running and swimming,

really we are great mates !

Rocco says Mutley in his mask looks like Hannibal.

Rocco says those sorts of things because when he spent months running wild in Ireland he says he absorbed a lot of knowledge of popular culture. Anyone would think he spent months watching DVDs to hear him going on and on. I’ve no idea who Hannibal is. Rocco said something about The Silence of the Sheep, but I’m a sheepdog and one thing I do know is the only way to get sheep to be silent is to bark at them.

One day I’d like to have Lots of Sheep To Bark At !

Here’s me and Harley looking at the sky.

Harley is staying with us and he is like a big animated teddy bear.

He also sometimes winds Rocco up which saves me a job.

Today I’ve been trying to explain to him the difference between Sky Chasing and Sky Groaning,

but I don’t think he fully grasped the intricate nuances of the subjects.

I’ve got them down to a fine art.

Most dogs never look at the sky, and only occasionally remember that is there

when they are trying to see in which direction a stick or ball went.

I watch it a lot.

I often go out with my head up as far as I can reach and study what the sky is doing.

Sometimes there are clouds, and sometimes they race overhead so fast I feel that I have to try and control them.

The best way of doing this I’ve found is for me to run up and down the path as quickly as I can so that the clouds slow down.

This is Sky Chasing.

Harley grasped the running part but just kept running after me, and not watching the clouds.

When I told him to watch the clouds, he kept running into me instead of looking where he was going.

He’s a bit bigger and heavier than I am, so after being trampled on a few times I swiftly moved the conversation on to the subject of Sky Groaning.

Sky Groaning is something I’m still trying to understand myself, and I’d hoped Harley might have been able to share some insights, but unfortunately it was all beyond him.

The way I see it is this:

Sometimes it rains.

Rain is A Very Strange Thing.

I bark at the rain because it can ruin a pleasant snooze in the sun.

Sometimes the rain comes from the clouds.

Sometimes the rain comes from the washing that Helen hangs up.

I run up and down under the washing line and notice that our blankets seem to rain a lot.

Which is odd, because they are always dry when they come back into our beds afterwards.

The swaying blankets drive me mad, just like the clouds, so I used to bark at them.

But now I Groan at them instead.

Helen calls it my Sky Groaning, but she doesn’t realise I learnt it from her in the first place.

One afternoon when I’d spent a long while trying to control the weather,

Helen returned from Being Out and came and joined me in looking at the sky.

She saw the rain coming from the clouds and the rain coming from the washing and she gave a very big groan.

The next day it was really sunny all day.

I was very inspired by this and now often practice Sky Groaning several times a week.

Harley said I think too much about the sky and should play more instead.

I said he plays too much and should think more about the sky instead.

Rocco was smirking at both of us again, I don’t know why.

I have been promoted today, I now sit in the footwell in the front of the car on my own.

Even Mutley doesn’t sit in the front.

To prove how good I can be I sat very still and only moaned a bit even
though I could see plenty of cars that needed herding.

Helen wagged her finger at me and gave me the Collie Eye when I forgot
myself and nearly barked.

I was very good and stayed in my place even when Helen got out of the
car to open the gate.

I think I am beginning not to associate the car with barking or at
least that is what Helen says is starting to happen.

I was allowed back in the river today and swam for ages,
I like to chase the ripples.

Helen said it was a stress free walk.

Mutley and I are never stressed,
it’s only Helen that gets like this.

Oh and I don’t like to be a tell tale but Mark will not be pleased to
hear that Helen had a cigarette on the way back.

She is supposed to be giving up and has no will power unlike me.

We’re all in trouble over this Business Over Helen’s Wellies

( see Anonymous Dastardly Dog )

I’m not saying I know who did it
I’m not saying it was me

But I’m Being On My Best Behaviour just in case Helen suspects it was me

I think that she does suspect it was me, but the great thing about living in a rescue is that there are always enough other dogs about that Helen is never certain , unless she actually catches the culprit in action.

Being caught in action is definitely Something To Be Avoided At All Costs.

Some great other news though, my constant barking in the car has had an unexpected consequence – I now get to ride in the front!

This is great as the passenger footwell feels like A Safe Place, and I get lots of fuss, which takes my mind off most of the Things To Bark At.

Being in the front does give me a better view of more Things To Bark At, but Helen’s admonishing finger soon reminds me I’ll get Barked At if I’m not On My Best Behaviour

Yesterday I was so tired from Doing Exciting Things, that I fell asleep on Jan’s legs

I dreamed that there were Lots of Things To Bark At

Today Helen and Emma told me that because of my errant swimming habits I wasn’t to be allowed near the river.

I don’t mind because at least I can still bark in the car.

I barked a lot today and Mutley could see I was having so much fun that he joined in.

Mutley is my hero.

I was barking because Spike was sitting on top of my cage and also there were soooo many cars to herd into a tight circle.

I heard Helen tell Emma (who had her fingers in her ears) that the only way to not hear me and Mutley was to put a tape in and turn the volume up.

Helen put on a tape which she said was Bauhaus and it should be loud enough to not hear me.

It was so loud that the car was throbbing which made me bark more as it was very confusing.

I thought we were under attack from that loud clappy thing that the sky does sometimes.

Helen started to laugh and said that she was sure that the man was singing “I am a dog and I have to pee, I pee everywhere on grass and trees”

Personally it was so loud I don’t know how she could hear a word and his singing was awful.

We at last arrived at the field and boy were we dogs glad, her taste in music is just awful!!

They decided that it would be easier to drive up the track and let us straight onto the field.

HA HA, the car started to slide from side to side and then it nearly got stuck.

We could have been there for ages and not had any bonios.

Helen’s language was not ladylike and I think Emma was starting to wish she hadn’t come on the walk.

They told us that as Spike and I had been so troublesome yesterday that they were going to sit by the tree and that we were to run about and do doggy things.

I don’t know what she means, I was doing doggy things when I was barking!

On the way back I sat in the front with Emma and was very good and very quiet as you can see from my photo.

I let Emma stroke me and Helen said that I am getting better all the time but still needed work.

I don’t know what she means by this as I work all the time at barking, cleaning her windows and washing Mutley’s ears.

I am a very hard worker!

I know that she loves me because, even though I wasn’t eavesdropping, I heard her say that I am her little fruitcake and she is not letting me go to anyone that doesn’t understand Collies.

She said Mark or Griff weren’t to hear this as Mark would think I was going to get a collar with stars on it like Mutley and Spike’s and that Griff said he lived with enough crazy fruitcakes.

I thought fruitcakes were those squashy sweet things that sometimes drop on the floor to be eaten !!

Today I had such a good adventure that I’m too excited to write it all up.

You can read about it in Helen’s diary instead!

This is me at my window.

It is a special window that allows me to watch what is going on inside the part of the rescue that only Mutley and Spike and the humans are allowed to go.

Mutley and Spike have attained the ultimate status of being lifetime residents. They also have very stylish black collars with stars on them.

It is my aim to one day have one of these collars so that I can be just like Mutley.

Mutley is my hero and he often asks me to lick his ears for him, which of course is heaven for both of us.

I’m one of the few dogs that is allowed to be taken on walks with Mutley and quite often when he is running he crashes into me and knocks me off my feet, sending me sprawling and rolling in the grass. As you can tell from this, we are great mates.

Helen is wise to the fact that I want ultimate status and laughs whenever Mark asks her on my behalf about whether it is time for my collar yet.

One is the ways I’m trying to change Helen’s mind is by developing lots of great ways to make myself irresistable.
For example, the messy marks on the window are all made by me.

I’m very proud of them.

I often lick the window to make them and once I start the smooth glass just feels so good on my tongue that I can’t stop until I’ve licked the whole window, sometimes several times!

This morning I was able to give the window a jolly good lick until Mark tried to film me doing it.

I could hear him on about it making an hilarious screensaver, but I don’t want to lick peoples computer screens, just my own window thanks very much.

I’ve also noticed that when I do this, visitors on the other side of the window look at me very strangely, and sometimes laugh and point, but I don’t care because Window Licking is intensely absorbing.

I recommend that you try it!

We often go for our walks by the river.

Each trip is an adventure and I enjoy going out so much.

It is all so exciting and there is so much going on that the journey is always very noisy.

Sometimes I can’t hear anything over all the barking I’m doing.

There are always lots of things to bark at !!

Mark came with us this morning, but luckily he forgot his camera so I didn’t have to worry about whether I still had paint on my ear.

A while ago I had a close encounter with a newly painted door and set new standards in doggy fashion by sporting a painted ear.

But I’m not sure if it has all come off yet or not.

Mark came with us a few weeks ago , when I got so excited by passing traffic that I started to eat the car. Sadly, Helen has replaced all the trim panels now, so you can’t see my great creative achievement, but believe you me, there were chunks of door and side panels with great bites out of them everywhere.

Now I have to travel in a cage so that other car drivers don’t crash into us whilst watching me. I ate my way out of the mesh cage, so now I have to travel in a sky cage.

But I can still see lots of things to bark at through the door and I know that there are lots of other things to bark at even though I can’t see them, so I bark anyway, just to be sure I’ve not missed any!

For a while I was unsure about the river because it was A Very Strange Thing.

Sometimes it seemed to eat Rocco, Mutley and Spike.

Mutley is my hero, so I barked at it.

But they were always alright afterwards, just completely soaked, and yet they didn’t seem to mind.

It was Very Strange, so I always used to stand on the edge and bark at them for being so silly as to go in and get wet.

Now I love swimming and am determined to become the Best Swimmer Ever.

Sometimes other dogs come on our walks, like Harley and Sadie did today, and they just stand at the edge, barking.

They are very silly not to come in and swim.