Bran Dog's Blog: 2009-01-04

Just like my mate Muppet I've been working on cultivating a reputation for myself. While Muppet is striving to let the world now just how naughty he is, I am going for the other end of the market and encouraging people to believe that I am the best behaved labrador puppy in the world. And so far it's working ;o)

I've learned to retrieve (rubbish), I have not killed (m)any toys, I don't bark (much), I am (mostly) doing as I'm told, I've been letting Mummy take lots of photos of me and I'm being nice to Flora (although we'll not talk about the incident where I decided to see if she'd give me a piggyback the other day and she bit my winky - yowch!).

I have been sharing sleeping space with Flora and she is happy for me to plonk my gigantic bum on her head and everything. I'm a bit bigger than her now so she usually has to curl up quite small so that I can have enough room to spread out...

Sometimes, though, I forget how big I am now and my head falls off of the sofa and my nose gets all squished up to the floor!

Sophie was all poorly yesterday so - being the best behaved labrador puppy in the world - I let her share our sofa.

Now, however, I find that there is a bit of a flaw in my plan >:o( Mummy took a video of me and Flora playing this morning and I'm not convinced that it shows me in my best light. Well. It certainly doesn't show me being the best behaved labrador puppy in the world....

Ah well. I suppose I'd better just admit that I'm not the best behaved labrador puppy in the world: I'm just a labrador puppy and I like being naughty ;o)

Betcha weren't expecting that one were you?? Mwahahaha!! Well that Christmas stuff was lots of fun! I got paper to chew on and toys to kill and lots of food and Nanny and Grumpy slept at our house and we slept at Nanny and Grumpy's house!! It was brill!!!!

On the day before Christmas, Mummy spent a lot of time trying to get me and Flora to be quiet but we were VERY excited and wanted the kids to play with us so we rarrred and bounced and boinged a lot.

....until Mummy got realllllllllllllllllllllly cross and threatened to put us to bed early and we wouldn't see Nanny and Grumpy. Spoilsport. So we decided to be nice. Or as nice as we ever are ;o)

In the morning, the kids made *lots* of noise and everything was veryveryvery exciting and happy and bouncy and we got "presents"!!! I was a very clever boy because Mummy was trying to get me to open my own presents. As if!!! I have a slave that can do that for me.... Flora loves opening presents so I let her take all of the paper off of them and then I stole whatever was inside it. She was so excited at opening presents that she didn't even notice that she never seemed to get anything out. I did have a quick go at opening my present from Auntie Wendy, but it was too much like hard work so I let Flora take over after a bit.

Mummy had entered us into a Secret Santa thing with her friends on The Refuge and I got a present from my friend Louie and his mummy, Amy. They got me lots of things but I loved the little elephant the best and didn't even start taking the stuffing out for DAYS after Christmas.

Flora had a Secret Santa present from a lovely lady called Brenda who sent us lots of treats as well! Stupid Flora was so excited about opening the presents and checking the bag that she got her head stuck!!

We got lots of presents from Mummy and Jacob and Sophie as well and some of them are even still alive! Mummy has said that we are very ungrateful though because we have killed most of them and she might not get us any presents next Christmas. Oops! They were lots of fun while they lasted though ;o)

We got these brill honky toys - a duck and a goose. They made great noises, not like any other toy I've played with, and we thought they were fab! The ducky is still alive and making noises, but the goose doesn't honk any more and is quite a lot thinner than it was in this photo :o(

Granny and Bamp came to visit us and then we went to Nanny and Grumpy's house for lunch. We got turkey and potatoes and lots of yummy things! This Christmas thing is great!! And then we got very excited when Mummy told us that we weren't going home but were sleeping at Nanny's house. So excited that we started wrestling again!

Mummy was so excited that she had to have a sleep. She looked very comfy and was right by the radiator so me and Flora decided to keep her company...

Mummy got a new camera from Father Christmas so we've had it stuck in our faces quite a lot, but she has managed to get some photos that make us look very gorgeous, even if I do say so myself.

When we woke up at Nanny's house the next day, Mummy said that we were going to have some special fun with the car and some turkey and no Flora. We played a very silly game where Mummy got into the back of the car and called me and dangled turkey through the guard thingy and I jumped into the car and ate the turkey and Mummy told me that I was a good boy then told me to get out of the car again. It seemed a very silly game to me but Mummy seemed to be pleased. She was very lucky because normally I can't be bothered to jump into the car and make her lift me in. Then we changed the game a bit and she stood next to me and put her arm in the car whilst holding turkey and told me to "hup". I don't know what she was on about but there was no way I was going to jump into the car to get the little bit of turkey in her hand when there was a big bag full of turkey in her coat pocket right next to me! Eventually, Mummy started using some naughty words and we went back into the warm house. What a silly way to spend a morning!

The next very exciting thing to happen was that we went to see Auntie Fi and Auntie Wendy, Wiggle and Sir Henery came in our car with us!!! It was lovely to see my Barn friends again but there were lots of tiny little dogs there with not much fur on their faces. They looked silly - like little old, wrinkled dogs! Mummy said that they were puppies and had had mange so nobody wanted them and they'd been given to Auntie Fi to look after. She also said that when their fur grows back, they'll look just like me. That's silly. Those dogs are very little and I was never that small!! Just look how much bigger I am than the little dogs...

I barked at them to try to make them play with me, but they didn't take any notice at all. Boring! There was one puppy there who looks he has potential to be lots of fun to live with and Mummy called him Bug (short for something rude,I think!). Auntie Fi phoned today to say that he has gone to a new home with a new family so they'll have lots of exciting times now!

On the way home from Auntie Fi's, us dogs were all snoring in the back of the car when we suddenly stopped. It was very dark and Mummy and Auntie Wendy jumped out of the car and there was smoke coming out of the car and a funny smell. Auntie Wendy got Jacob and Sophie out of the car and stood by the side of the road but we all had to wait in the car and just looked out of the window to see what was happening. A big yellow lorry turned up and made lots of noises and then suddenly we were moving but not moving and Mummy, Auntie Wendy, Jacob and Sophie weren't in the car!! A funny man in a yellow coat looked in the window and we all barked at him to leave the car alone, but he got in and sat down so that was alright and we stopped barking and smiled at him instead :o) The man in the yellow coat got into the lorry and then we were where Auntie Wendy had left her car so she took Wiggle and Henery out and drove to her house in her car, but we carried on doing the strange moving/not moving thing until we could see Nanny! Then we had a ride in Nanny's car - Nanny and Mummy and Jacob and Sophie and Georgie and Flora and me - back to our house. I haven't seen our car since :o(

And then Mummy and Jacob got poorly and that has been soooooooooooooooo boring! I haven't been able to go for walks or anything so I have been keeping myself very busy killing those naughty toys.

Mummy was feeling a little bit better today but a man was coming to mend stuff in the house and we still couldn't go out for a walk until he'd been, but Mummy let me play in the garden with her and a tennis ball for a while and then she got her new camera out again...