Good Dog Bling.

Terrible terrible news. Bling was poisoned by illegal hunters between Petralona and Krana on Mt Minthi. There was a white capsule by the track side. Bling was on the lead because of sheep, but she grabbed the capsule, gave one loud yap, and by the time I was on the ground next to her, the life light was fading in her eyes. I hope and believe she knew that I was holding her and that she felt all the love I had for her. She wagged her little tail as she lost consciousness. I believe, I want to believe, that she did that because I was saying "Good dog Bling, good dog Bling" and she was aware of that and it comforted her as she died.

Good dog Bling.

A three collar dog

WELL WE finally set off. About time. I was wildly excited, but I behaved quite well on my lead, and was especially responsible when Penny was riding and I was on the lead, which I have to be on small roads near villages, because I am completely disobedient. In one village I ran after and caught a chicken. SUCH FUN. I could easily have killed it too, except suddenly, out of the blue, I got a VERY hard smack, and a telling off and was put on my lead. I had a mouth full of feathers Can`t tell you how hard it is to spit feathers out when noone will let you stop and sit down and do it.

In another place we had stopped at a water trough. A nice man came by with goats. I chased them.

Everyone shouted and then the shepherd, who had seemed such a nice old man caught me a helluva crack with his crook.

After that I have been thinking a bit more about chasing livestock. But cats.. well that`s another story..

At every village and homestead dogs run out and bark at me. I hide behind George, from where I scoff at them for having no collars on AT ALL. Pathetic. My owner cares about me: One reflective collar so I show up at night.One Protective collar to save me from ticks, ok its one of those gender bender ones that make everyone in the world infertile plus it contains chemicals that recent studies show makes children 400 times more likely to develop cancer of the brain .. but it keep ME safe. Then there is another so called environmentally friendly collar that is supposed to make me smell horrible so insects are repelled. Apparently there are awful flies here which.. if they bite you you die. Plus mosquitoes which if they bite you you get ill.

We went over the mountains and up there, exactly where six years ago, Penny had found 6 dead foxes, we found a dead fox. I was just rolling in it when I foun d myself on the lead and being jerked at. We passed loads of dead foxes. There were no cartridge cases, so they must have been poisoned. Shocking irresponsibility! And still going on.. just poisoning creatures like that. And, if Penny hadn`t been aware of the danger, I could have been a deader..She has TRIED to train me not to just pick up any old rubbish and eat it, but I am not the kind of dog that they have in the training books and havent responded to conditioning. So We had to go over a whole mountain with me on the lead. When we were quite near the village of VASTA we met a shepherd, and asked about the poisoning. He said some awful people did this every year.. which says something about the number of foxes, and the efficacy of poison as a control method...

Top picture shows one of 7 or 8 dead foxes we saw.

eating crow

Ist photo shows me getting fit for the ride. I have twice daily workouts. You`ll notice the blue tinge to my tongue. This is because I normally yap while running which doesn`t allow much air to get into my bloodstream. I am also proud to be completely disobedient at all times.

Next picture shows me with a LEONTICE. (Leontice leontopetalum)

The fact that these are coming out in our garden is a sure sign of Spring.

We should be on the road ...

Photo shows rooks waiting to attack me for eating a dead crow.

Apparently we are waiting for the lorry. This means we haven`t got much to do except get stressed out. Penny is very unreasonable at the moment. For example, when I started to piss on all the carpets and she had to wash all of them - why did I start pissing on the carpets? Excited about the trip I guess- she got bad tempered.
So I mostly stay in the garden. About 2 weeks ago a crow died in the garden. I may, or may not, have been implicated in its death. Anyway all the rooks, crows and magpies in the area gathered and made a frightful racket and also dive bombed me.

I met a young crow on my first ride. It dropped out of a tree and sat on the ground near our camp. It was dehydrated and Penny gave it water. Then it became very aggressive and hopped at me whenever I went near it- I was only looking-and it was scarey. But it had nothing on these mobs of corvines. They made such a noise that Penny came out to see what was going on. I sat by the corpse, and growled when she came near. It was MY dead bird, and I intended to keep it. But as soon as she left the birds came back and drove me off.

Two weeks later... I happened to smell something delicious.. yes it was the dead crow which I`d forgotten all about. I thought I`d better roll in it and then eat it. But the crows and magpies were guarding it -after all this time. Penny heard them making a racket and saw that there were loads of them sitting in the trees around the body. I had made off with a wing by now and was hiding with it in the bushes.

But interesting that crows guard dead ones of themselves. For two weeks. Its enough to make you piss on the carpet. I think I`ll go and do that now.

dogma

This is Bling`s personal BLOG.

About me: First. I was found when very small in a rubbish dump.

I had been abandoned there. Luckily Penny decided not to leave me to die, and brought me home in a briefcase on her motorbike.

After a few days I felt much better.

Soon horses came to our garden. At once I was fascinated by them, and not scared at all. At first, for reasons of discretion I barked at them from the balcony where they couldn`t get me. But soon I was down in the garden barking at them from up close and personal.

A good thing about them was that their food was left on the balcony where they couldn`t get it, but I could. From a young age I learned to help myself to food whenever I felt peckish. Of course you have to be careful about helping yourself to butter or cheese, you need to be quick, when you owner is in the toilet, for eg, you rush into the kitchen, grab what you want and then make a dash for the bottom of the garden. She always seems to know though. And she don`t `arf shout.

When I was a bit more than one year old I met George for the first time. He normally lives with some other horses, and so I didn`t meet him for ages, though I knew he existed, because she often comes home smelling of him.

When he came I was wildly excited and also jealous. So I snapped at him and also jumped up and grabbed his tail and swung on it. He didn`t mind.

Penny then left us to bond. At first I stayed on the balcony yapping, but after a while I went to join George who was dozing in the shade of an almond tree. He did snuff me once or twice but I put a stop to that by snarling and snapping. Then he didn`t bother me any more.

At feeding time I got into his feed bowl and flew at him when he tried to get his food. I got a severe telling off about that, so then I just stayed near his bowl and ate as much barley and sugarbeet as I could.

George is a very messy eater and covered me in food.

Then we went on the big adventure of my life.. we went for a one month ride. I LOVED it. And I ADORE George. I play with him all the time. You can see me doing that on Penny`s blog.

The winter seemed dull after that. Even though I got a smart jacket to keep me warm

Then, the other day Penny got the saddle bags out. I recognised them at once.

I know what that means! soon George and I will be on the road again!

Hurray!