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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.