Strange Dog

Ronnie, our very strange dog came to us as a rescue dog of dubious age (we think about a year old) and even more dubious background.

To begin with he had to cope with the resident mistress of the house, a full pedigree Yorkie called Daisy. She gave the young tearaway a pretty hard time, but he soon settled in, although he chewed everything in sight including bits of wall and furniture.

Very strange dog indeed!

But his strangest trait was his incredible ability to jump like a cat - vertical takeoff and covert landing in your lap so softly you'd hardly know he was there!

He also has a strange habit of making a nest for himself out of cushions on the sofa - by walking over them round and round in circles pressing them down with each paw, one at a time, sometimes with two paws down (say left front and right rear) and the other two up in the air, then bringing those two down and lifting the other two up - very comical to watch - until he's satisfied his creation is a nice soft bed then he plonks himself down on the well- trodden down cushions.

We believe he must have been raised with a family of cats to have taken on this behaviour - there could be no other explanation!

In other ways, of course, he is all dog, albeit strange.

Ronnie likes to pee everywhere, and when he gets hold of a soft, fluffy toy he likes to shake it to death before ripping its head and arms off (how delightful) and then gutting its stuffing and spreading it all over the room. Such fun!

Well. That's how funny dogs can be, eh Ronnie?

Well, it's not a real duck, but a thoroughly shaken and battered fluffy toy that Ronnie has "killed". It used to have a squeaky device inside that drove Ronnie mental, so he spent all his playing time trying to figure out how to "kill" the duck and stop it squeaking.

Eventually he succeeded by locating the device and dissecting the bird to remove it.

Job done!

In the photo, he's guarding his conquest in case Daisy tries to steal it from him!

Not so strange when the toys are for dogs, after all...

Ronnie is being just the doziest of dogs at the moment. Even when he's busy typing his own blog...

Whether it's his age - he's 10 - or its the transitional weather that can't make up its mind whether to rain, be cold or let the sun do its thing and make us too hot!

He's taken to sitting on the various sofas and chairs in the house in some chaotic rotation throughout the day for Lord-knows what reason.

As I'm working away on this thing, I look behind me and he's fast asleep on the sofa at my back. Ten minutes later, I look around and he's gone. I didn't hear him move - I reckon he just floats off into another room when I'm not looking!

Well, I go make some coffee and there he is, asleep on one of the kitchen chairs! Not the most comfortable of beds, but he a strange dog, so I suppose that makes it ok!

Well, another 20 minutes go by, I get up to take my cold coffee that I forgot about back to the kitchen and he's not there...

Well, I'm intrigued, so I go off round the house looking for him. He's not in any of his usual snoozing hidie-holes, so that can only mean one thing...

Yep, I find him hastily sneaking off one of the beds he knows he's not allowed on...

Strange dog by nature...

This is strictly for dogs and dog lovers everywhere!

Ronnie is not allowed on the beds. Period.

But that doesn't stop him from sneaking on when he thinks no one is around to catch him. Well, this time he got caught in the act!



Not just on the bed but snugly tucked up on the pillow, no less! The absolute pinnacle of comfort for one cheeky little dog!

Unfortunately for Ronnie, I had the camera in my hand and sneaked this shot off before he had a chance to wake up and realize that the game was up!

The second the flash went off, he was up and running like a demented cartoon character - hitting the floor running as he scarpered out of there like a bat out of hell!

Quite often, due to different working hours, either I or Janice ends up taking both Ronnie and Daisy out for walks on our own. It always strikes me as a little odd that when they are with me they behave fairly well in doggy terms. But when they're with Jan, Ronnie morphs into a raving nutcase.

When he passes a garden with another dog in it, he does one of two things. Either, if he's not to crazy, he attacks Daisy and tries to bite her lead off (she gets him back big-time when they get home).

Or he goes do-lally and jumps up at his lead, grabs it in his mouth and hangs there in mid-air. His eyes glaze over and he just hangs, swinging from the lead!

That's his way of protecting Jan, I suppose.

Crazy!

This delightful photograph was taken last year while we were all on a nice day out on my mountainside farm. As we live on the coast in what is now quite a built up area, it's nice to get away every now and again into the countryside.

Of course, as this photo was taken facing down towards the ground, it could have been taken anywhere, but take my word for it, we were halfway up my mountain!

Ronnie loves it up there because he can run around for ages and not cross the same piece of ground twice! There are lots of different smells for the dogs to ponder over and all the extra exercise they get tires them out, so they tend to sleep in the car on the way home.

Angel for animals heaven!

Daisy was sked nicely if she'd like to go for a walk with Ronnie, to which she turned around and sauntered slowly, ever so slowly out of the room. I'm sure if she could have given me the finger she would have!

If you ever want to give your dog a treat, do not under any circumstances give him or her chocolate, especially plain chocolate with a high cocoa level. In my For Dogs website, I wrote a pretty damning article about dogs and chocolate that every dog owner should know about.

It could mean the difference between life and death for your dog. If you get a chance, follow that link and read the full article.

You'll never look at a bar of chocolate the same way again when it comes to treating your dog. So do them a big favout and stick to doggy treats instead, they're a lot healthier for them.

He's your best friend and he'll never let you down. Or she, for that matter!

So why don't you show them you love 'em back every bit as much as they love you by buying them a treat every now and again. Sure, you could grab something in the local store and that's fine

But when you don't have such a lot of time on your hands or its cold outside and you really don't feel much like wrapping up and braving the winter weather, why not take a look at these guys?

PetsMart are no small back yard operation, they've been around for a long time and are one of the biggest pet accessories retailers in the world, so if they can save you a few dollars or make life that little bit easier by letting you buy your best friend's treats online, then surely it's worth a few minutes of your time to surf their website and see what they've got on offer.

You might be in for a very pleasant surprise!

The doggy sites I already had a new addition last year, but I decided it was surplus to requirements, so it is no more.

This site was not a blog, but a static website that had live feeds to eBay listings to bring you some great deals on dog toys, dog accessories, dog leashes, dog collars, dog treats, in fact anything that you could think of that your dog could ever want can be found on eBay's extensive auctions or "Buy it Now" stores.

To make life easy for you to find exactly what you're looking for, we've gotten some great software from eBay which enables the site to plug in directly to the live listings. That means you can go to the new website, open up a page for the item group you're looking for and go straight top a listing with only those items on. That'll save you ages searching for them yourself!

And the service is completely zero cost to you!

How cool is that?

Yep, this lens all about Ronnie the strange dog has got some fans now after creeping up to page one in the Yahoo search engine for the term Strange Dog.

Well, it's richly deserved, for the never ending hard work I put into my lenses and the endearing little guy himself!

Cheers to Ronnie!

If you feel like treating your best friend to something nice, why not take a look at Pets Mart?