Letter to breeder…week 12
Hi Lexi,
Where have the days gone since my last update, it’s nearly a month now since I last wrote to you and Christmas also seems a distant memory.
Rio got through the Christmas period very well; I think it helped that I was off for the whole period so he had someone to play with all the time 
We eventually managed to move the Christmas tree back into the living room on Xmas Eve but not before having to wrap a load of storage boxes up with paper and place them in front of the tree to stop him from going behind. He did manage to get behind a couple of times and only had the tree over twice! He was pretty good at leaving the decorations alone, although there were a couple of times when we found stars and bells around the house. On Christmas Day, Rio was in his element and loved the time we all opened our prezzies; he couldn’t believe his luck with all that paper he could chew.
As Rio has got bigger we have had to remember to put things we cherish out of reach; he is now quite capable of getting items from the work top without too much effort and many a time I have come down in the morning to find some cutlery or paperwork on the floor; the latter normally unreadable and shredded. He is also a sneaky puppy; any chance of getting into somewhere he shouldn’t and he will try. The shoe cupboard, for example, is a place he loves to get into and usually emerges with a ‘prize’ for his efforts. He thinks it’s a great game to then run away with it although his favourite hiding place, behind the sofa, is now out of bounds due to his size.
We have persevered with the BARF diet; we are trying to vary what we give him to make sure it is balanced; Tina thinks Rio eats better than we do! We have found a butchers that does bones, chicken, rabbit and offal at good prices so we will start to use them more. Rio has started to fill out a bit (he was getting a rather large tummy) so we have cut down on what we feed him, especially in the morning as he was tending to leave his food anyway. He is also going off his vegetables, to the point where he manages to eat all the meat around and leave the green stuff. Typical child I suppose.
We’ve now sussed out that if we add honey or peanut butter he normally finishes it off, but we don’t want him to think he can have those flavours every time. Yes, typical child. We’ve found that buying whole chickens and then quartering them is an ideal and cheap way to feed him. He does seem to enjoy chewing the carcasses.
Since Christmas we have also started to let him off his lead down the local park; normally early mornings or later at night when there are no distractions of other dogs or people. He has done really well with his recall and normally stays fairly close. Last week he went to his first obedience class at the Oundle & District Dog Training Society. I was a bit apprehensive when I took him as I wasn’t sure how he would react to so many other dogs but he was really good; having no problems with the sit, lie down, recall and stay commands. The only one we need to work on is ‘heel’ as he does tend to pull when walked. Hopefully with lots of practice and following the instructors advice this will improve over the coming weeks.
Over the past couple of days we have given Rio a bit more ‘freedom’ in the house as we have taken the two stair gates down; the one in the kitchen was rarely used and the one guarding the stairs seemed to encourage him to get up them even more. We have resigned ourselves to the fact that he will now go upstairs, but hopefully by keeping the door shut will encourage him to not bother in future. Unfortunately last night Matt forgot to shut his bedroom door when we all went out and we came back to chewed rubbish and soft toys on the landing carpet.
We have also given up trying to keep Rio off the living room furniture; he now believes it’s his right to get up on the sofa’s whenever he wants and usually in the place you have just left. He has also got this habit of sitting on your head or body whilst trying to watch TV. I think it is an attention thing as normally there is a toy in his mouth showing a “Oh please play daddy!” kind of look.
His favourite place to sleep seems to be my study; it is normally quite warm and out of the way so I think he now thinks that is his ‘den’. As I type this, Rio is currently asleep under my legs.
As so finally to some latest video of Rio. I have put together a small movie of Rio. Enjoy.
Looking forward to reading your blog on how Seren and Maia are getting on.
Best wishes until next time.
Graham (and Tina)
In: Family Stuff, Pet Stuff · Tagged with: golden retriever, oundledogs, puppy, rio
Time off to relax…no chance!
So with the Christmas festivities over it was time to get on with the job list I’d created and promised I would complete whilst I was off work.
Firstly was to clean the leather sofas which were in need of some tender loving care, especially as a certain puppy now believes he’s outgrown his own bed and can sit on them at will. In the four years since we have owned the leather suite I have regularly cleaned them which has kept them looking OK, although there are some patches due to wear and tear (non-puppy made I might add).
Luckily Rio is now getting so big he is struggling to get behind the sofas which means the wires for the recliners are pretty much safe again.
The next job on my list was to clean the oven. When we bought the new oven a couple of years ago, Tina vowed that it would stay as clean as it was when I unpacked it. Yeah right!
So with Tina muttering about getting a professional company in to clean it, I volunteered to do the job instead and so on Tuesday I got cracking. I used a product called Oven Pride, which is basically a pot of caustic soda and a big plastic bag and some rubber gloves. You stick all the metal runners and shelves etc into the bag and leave over night. The stuff is vicious if you get any on your hands but boy does it do the job alright. With the oven cleaner than the plastic tooter I got from my Christmas cracker that was another job done (and I even changed the bulb that stopped working about a year ago).
Next was fitting an outside light. Since the council decided to save some money by switching off alternate street lights, it’s been very dark outside our garage at night (and during the day sometimes). Whilst it’s not been a major problem pre-puppy, since we are now using the drive a lot more when taking him for walks I thought it would be as good idea to install a floodlight to help getting to and from the street. Initially I was going to install a switch but in the end went for a floodlight with a PIR fitted and bought it from Wickes. It was surprisingly easy to install, connecting it straight into a spare slot on the consumer board in the garage. And last night I went out and adjusted it so that the PIR triggers just as you walk onto the drive. Perfect.
Finally today, with a pile of ironing nearly touching the ceiling (well a bit of an exaggeration) I decided to tackle it whilst Tina was at work. Rio loves the ironing; or should I say loves trying to grab the clean clothes from the ironing pile which is fine until you realise that he leaves dog’s slobber on them. Yuk! Luckily he wasn’t too bad this morning and soon disappeared for a kip. I did job in just over an hour and a half, not bad really, but still not in the same league as Tina who could polish off a pile of similar size in half the time!
With the ironing done and another load of washing loaded in the washing machine (domestic goddess or what!) I could finally have a play on my iMac and create another video, something I’ve not done for a couple of weeks.
For some reason I haven’t shot much video over recent weeks but I did manage to take this one last night of Rio asleep.
And so with the weekend beckoning and my jobs done, I can have a very lazy, relaxed few days before returning to work on Tuesday. With a few bottles of drink still in the fridge and the Christmas chocolates and peanuts wanting to be consumed I think I will make the most of the long weekend and ring in the New Year in the manner in which I know best…over indulgence!
In: Family Stuff, Home Stuff, TV Stuff · Tagged with: domestic goddess, floodlights, ironing, leather suite, oven pride, puppy video, rio, Wickes
That time of year…
I do like this time of year.
Although I’m not a party goer, I do like the atmosphere during December. Everyone seems to be in an upbeat mood and most look forward to the festive break with a feeling of “ah, I need some time off and what better way to spend it than at home with the loved ones!”
Of course Xmas does seem to start earlier and earlier each year; for me Christmas started when I was off for a few days in November and did some prezzie shopping. This was followed shortly after by the annual recovery of the Christmas decorations from the garage roof space and the covering of the tree. This year was of course slightly marred by the puppy, who was slightly more interested in removing the said decorations but hey, we still have a tree of sorts.
Then comes the Christmas work party(s). This year I managed to get my whole team together for a lunchtime do at a hotel in Daventry. We combined it with a retirement celebration for one of my guys that leaves at the end of the month. Everyone had a great time and it was nice to get the team together, even though they couldn’t drink much. To compensate though I did buy each of them a crate of beer to take home as a thank you for their efforts during the year. What a nice boss I am!
Later the same week, we had our Manager’s do, this year held at The Belfry in Warwickshire. Again, it was well organised and everyone had a good time. And this time we were able to drink something (judging by the headache I had in the morning)!
As is tradition each year, we all had to buy a Secret Santa present for a fiver and the morning after the party everyone took it in turns to open their prezzie. I got a QI facts book (someone obviously knows me well). Just before the opening ceremony the Heads of Department did a Christmas Quiz, which went down very well, especially when they tried to act out some Christmas films for us to guess.
And so to this week.
I held my team meeting on Wednesday. I normally do a round up of the year and then I did the same quiz the HOD’s did last week, which seem to go down well. Prizes were given out and we had a good laugh. What went down really well was the small films I created using an online service called JibJab. Here you can create mini movies of people using uploaded photos. The team loved the ones I created using photos of them. The best was the Star Wars one.
I did a couple more festive ones too.
And so we’re getting close to the end of the week before the holiday period starts. Today is my last day at work and tomorrow is the big shop day. This year will be slightly different as I will dining the shopping myself as Tina will be working. Still hopefully the supermarket won’t be too busy…yeah right!
Merry Christmas to all my visitors and hope you all have a Happy New Year!
In: Home Stuff, Me Stuff, Pet Stuff, Work Stuff · Tagged with: christmas, christmas party, Elf's, JibJab, Star Wars, Staverton Park Hotel, The Belfry
Letter to breeder – week 7
Hi Lexi,
Not sent an update for a couple of weeks now, it’s been a busy time recently what with Xmas looming etc.
Rio is growing fast!
He had his last puppy class a couple of weeks ago, learning some new commands such as ‘come’ and ‘lay down’ We’ve practiced both on and off the lead and he is getting better although he does still get distracted by the slightest of things. Still at least he is listening or sorts. His walking on the lead is getting much better too and his walks are lengthening, in fact he’s just had the furthest so far, although there was a break half way to visit my mum. He’s meeting other dogs whilst out for walks and had great fun playing with ‘Molly’ a springer spaniel in the park.
Oh no there are two Rio's!
Rio is getting used to being in the car although getting him in and and out of the car is a challenge as he cannot jump into the boot yet. I end up having to lift him in and out and with him weighing over 16kg it’s getting harder. Still it won’t be long before he’ll be able to jump in and out. We took him to the local Pets at Home store and got lots of fuss, I think the store helpers wanted us to leave him there.
We had to reevaluate the food we have been giving him as we didn’t think we’d been giving him enough bones. And so last weekend we raided the local supermarket for some cheap whole and thighs of chicken and hopefully now he’ll be getting the calcium he needs. We also have upped the about of vegetables and are trying to give him fruit as well. I tried him on banana yesterday and of the first time he didn’t clear his bowl; with the sliced banana still at the bottom. I suppose it is an acquired taste. He has his first fish meal yesterday, which did go down well. He also has had pigs kidney, although he did struggle to bite into it and I ended having to cut it into chunks for him.
He is still biting everyone and everything, although the ‘leave’ and ‘down’ commands are helping and occasionally he takes note. We have learned that when he gets really excited that’s when we put him in the kitchen to calm down and he usually then goes to sleep (not always though).
On the first weekend of December we decided to put the real Christmas tree up and decorate. He didn’t seem to bothered about it at first and we even have a photo of him asleep underneath before the netting was removed. Unfortunately it was a false hope and within two hours Matt and I were relocating the tree into the dinning room where we can shut the door, to Tina’s utter disappointment. Rio just thought we’d put up a tree full of doggy toys and he was not going to leave it alone. Never mind, there’s always next year!
As you have to do with a child as the get bigger we are starting to have to put more and more of our things out of reach of Rio or else he’ll have them. We have also had to put a stair gate up to stop him from going upstairs. Hopefully this will only be a temporary measure and he will learn that that place is out of bounds. Tina did make me laugh the other day when she sent me a picture of Rio looking at himself in the bedroom mirror wondering who the other puppy in the house was.
We have been reading your blogs and keeping up-to-date with how Maia and Seren are getting on, I do hope you get to the bottom of Seren’s lump on her head and it’s not too serious.
Next week is Christmas time and so it will be a real test to see how Rio copes with many visitors over the festive period.
I hope you all have a great Christmas and will send you an update in the New Year.
Best wishes,
Graham (and Tina)
PS I have made a calendar using some of his pictures. Here is Mr January 2012
In: Pet Stuff, Stuff · Tagged with: golden retriever, puppy, rio
Web Stats
Last week my domain provider (www.reg-123.co.uk) upgraded my site for free. I’m not 100% sure what I have gained from the changes although I do know that as of last week I now have lots more fancy web stats available for me to analyse.
As my site is not here to generate sales or try to drive loads of people to read my drivel I have never really bothered about who visits, where they come from or whether they leave comments (regular visitors will note that I do have two stalwart commentees Masher & Paul who often leave their thoughts which I do appreciate).
When I checked my stats last time I did notice that my traffic did increase during the 28 days of February challenge period, which guess goes to show that more blogs equals more visitors.
Some of the facts from my stats are quite surprising though. For example the top search string that brought people to my site was when they typed in ‘i phone 4 s’ which suggests writing about Apple products is a way of generating traffic. Other searches included ‘mac keyboard layout uk’, not quite sure when I wrote about one of those?
The more obscure searches included ‘empty plate spaghetti bolognese’ and ‘painting eaves without a ladder’ which again I’m baffled about. As for the most popular search engine used to get to my site, surprisingly it was Bing, although the most varied was Google. There were a lot of visitors driven by Egypt references, I guess that was due to the recent troubles over there. I bet people soon moved on when they came across my diaries of our nile cruise which was not quite as newsworthy.
The numbers are quite interesting too. In November I had over 38,000 visitors with an average daily number of visitors equalling over 1200. When you actually dig down though many of the visitors were machines, spider bots, checking and referencing content for their search engines. If I was getting that volume of real visitors I would certainly be looking at ways to get some income from advertising
In: Web Stuff · Tagged with: reg-123, web stats, website stuff...
Letter to breeder – week 6
Hi Lexi,
Rio had a good week last week, partly due to the fact that he’s now allowed to go out for walks. He gets two walks a day; one early morning before I go to work and one in the afternoon or evening depending on who is around to take him out. He is still only walking for a few minutes at a time but is generally walking well on the lead now. Occasionally he does just stop in the middle of the path or green as if to say “I’ve had enough for the minute and I’m taking a breather!” but soon gets up, normally with a bit of coaxing.
He is also starting to know where his lead is and gets excited when it is taken from the drawer, although we haven’t seen the excited barking yet that we used to get with our old dog Kane. He has met a couple of other dogs out on walks and was playing very nicely when he met another puppy  the other day, he doesn’t seem too phased or wary about meeting others.
Rio watching Ant & Dec
Last night he went to his first puppy class. We were a bit apprehensive about how he would behave but in the end he was OK, although the trainer did say to us towards the end “I think it’s best if Rio went home now” leaving the other puppies to continue their training. He was learning the command ‘Leave’ last night, something that will be very useful when he has your ankles locked in his jaws!
Rio is now over 13kg and getting bigger by the day. He has now dropped down to three meals a day and we are starting to get to grips with the BARF diet, trying to vary what he has each meal. We have realised that some of the vegetables he can have can be given raw so he has a special pot in the fridge just for his grated food. We have also had to cut down his food slightly to accommodate for the extra treats he’s getting as he is getting a bit of a belly.
We have noticed that Rio has a mad ‘half hour’ at some point in the evening; he starts off playing nicely but the excitement builds to point where he can get quite unmanageable and has to put put into the kitchen, especially when he starts biting us and the furniture and no matter how much diversionary tactics or treats he is given he will not give in.
We have had to start making sure things are put out of reach of Rio as his inquisitive mind thinks its good to grab and ‘steal’ anything and everything. I did have a pair of shoes in the conservatory for going out in the garden with him but now I only have one and we have searched high and low but cannot locate it. He also seems to know when he shouldn’t have something as he runs with it and hides in a place where we cannot get to him (such as the back of the sofa). 
Luckily he is getting to a size where that particular place won’t be accessible for much longer.
At the weekend we bought a real Christmas tree which traditionally we put in the living room. Tina is adamant that Rio will learn that it is out of bounds to him but I’m not so sure and am certain it will end up over between now and when the festive season is over. He has had a sniff of it already where it is currently being kept so hopefully once it is indoors he will just ignore it. Yeah right!
That’s it for now, I hope you are enjoying the updates and are happy to hear that one of Maia’s puppy is doing so well.
Regards,
Graham & Tina
In: Home Stuff, Pet Stuff · Tagged with: golden retriever, puppy, puppy classes, rio
So popular with the female species…
Yes, it must be correct as women keep telling me!
Well that’s not quite true…
The women that keep sending me e-mails say they would like to add me to their contacts and go out on dates with them. It seems that they have found me on Facebook and want to befriend me. And they also keep sending me photos of themselves. And with names like Alison Allick, Brooke Trang, Pamela Ragan, Tiana Saccone and Natalie Pernick they do sound nice girls.
Do you think I should take up their offers?
On second thoughts I think it might be time to review my privacy settings!
In: Rant Stuff, Web Stuff · Tagged with: email, Facebook, junk mail
Christmas is coming…
So it must be time for a new gadget!
“So what do you want for Christmas?” Tina enquired whilst we were shopping at Peterborough yesterday.
“Hmm, I said, I’m not really sure I will have a think”, not really having a clue what to suggest.
When I got home I thought I’d check out the Apple site to see what was new when I spotted that they were having a ‘Black Friday’ sale for one day on the 25th November. Not one to miss a chance for a new Apple gadget I checked the prices today and saw that the iPad 2 had been reduced in price, £30. Still I already have an iPad 1 so could I justify getting another? I then recalled there are were number of online sites where you can sell your old gadgets, sometimes for good prices. So a google search later and I found ‘Gadget Panda‘ and got a really good quote for my existing iPad, which is in pristine condition. I still have the original box, which meant I would get the top price too.
And so I ordered the new iPad, along with a Smart Cover, which cleverly protects the screen when not in use and have agreed it can be wrapped up as a Xmas present to open next month. When I mentioned it to Matt he said he was thinking about getting one too, so he ordered the same model this afternoon (we agreed to give him some money towards it for his Christmas present).
With the old iPad packed up and posted to Panda, I just hope the price they have quoted is honoured or else it could be an expensive present!
In: Gadget Stuff · Tagged with: apple, Black Friday, iPad, iPad 2, Panda Gadget
Rio the Movie
Coming to a cinema near you soon…
In: Family Stuff, Movie Stuff, Pet Stuff · Tagged with: golden retriever, iMovie, puppy, rio
Letter to breeder – week 4
Dear Lexi,
It’s been a couple of weeks now since my last letter; having a little puppy around certainly keeps you busy and doesn’t you much time for other things.
Little Rio is not so little anymore; he is growing so fast even Abby noticed how big he’d got in the four days she has been away. He’s definitely going to be a big boy! When weighed at the weekend he was nearly 11kg and picking him up is now becoming a back-breaking exercise. He is also starting to get the retriever wiggle, the distinctive movement that only his breed seem to be able to do.
We are slowly all getting into a routine; us humans learning the needs of the new addition and the puppy learning what is acceptable and what is not (sometimes!). As Matt is an early bird for work, I get up just before him at 5.30 am to sort out Rio so that Matt isn’t faced with cleaning up the accidents from the night before. We have only had one totally clean night so far Rio is still struggling with the concept that toileting is to be done in the garden.Still lots of encouragement in the form of treats is starting to help and he’s getting better during the day with fewer mistakes.
Rio went for his second jab last week, again he wasn’t phased by the experienced and everything checked out OK. Hopefully that was the last time I will have to carry him in, the vets is in walking distance for future visits.
Tina and I had our first puppy class this week; it’s a free service run by Anne from the vets sister practice in Oundle with the initial class only for puppy owners. We sat with two other families and discussed puppy socialisation and got some good advice on some of the techniques to improve behaviour. Next week the puppies will be joining us, that’ll be an experience!
Rio is spending a bit more time out in the garden on his own, although he has to be watched as he has got a habit of biting some of the plants in pots; I think our gardening endeavours will have to be put on hold for a while. He got through the fireworks period quite well, although there were a couple of loud bangs that got him running back in doors at great speed. He does seem more frightened of the dustmen when then call on Monday’s, Tina says he doesn’t like them at all!
He is now big enough to get onto the conservatory furniture and has selected his favourite chair to sleep on, I’m not sure how long he’ll be able to fit on it though and how long Tina will allow it to continue!
The main event of this week was his first adventure out for a walk. We had been practicing to try to get him used to walking with a lead in the garden with limited success so the real walk was going to be interesting. I took him out early in the morning and he hated it. His backside was firmly on the ground for most of the five minutes we were out. With a bit of encouragement, a good deal of dragging and some treats we did manage to get back home but it was a struggle. I can remember exactly the same thing happened with our old dog Kane, so I know that won’t last and he’ll be the one dragging me around the streets!
As you know next week Rio will be twelve weeks old and it’ll be time to cut out one of the four meals he’s currently having. I’m not sure how that’s going to go down as he does seem to know when his meal times are, and will suss out something is missing. Still, we will be increasing the amount for each of the three meals though.
I hope Seren and Maia are getting on well together and the little one is not getting up to too much mischief!
Until next time.
Best Regards,
Graham (& Tina)
In: Family Stuff, Home Stuff, Pet Stuff · Tagged with: dog walk, golden retriever, puppy, puppy classes, rio, vets
