HAPPY 2015!!!

Happy New Year all!! Here's to a fantastic year filled with adventures, dog walks and so forth.

All of the season's greetings aside, this year started off on a bit of a wobbly leg for us. We got home on the 1st of the new year, to a freshly ransacked house...This was obviously very upsetting to both us and Salvador, as I'm sure he felt this would never have happened, was he here to protect his property. I'm sure the smell of intruders still linger in his always busy nostrils and as a result he is now even more on guard than before. Literally NOTHING can go past our house, front or back, without him alerting us. It's not great being slightly more paranoid, as one tends to be after these incidents, and suddenly waking up to a manically barking dog at 2am...but then I stick to my theory that I don't think anyone would have broken into the property if Salvador was around, because he would have been on high alert the moment someone entered the garden. Yet another reason to get a dog!!

As far as New Years resolutions go - I'm not sure if we have that many. I have however decided that we will be taking Salvador along to restaurants more often. Now not all of us are lucky enough to do this, bit living in Cape Town, in a mostly pet friendly suburb with loads of on street dinning delights, this is definitely something we are going to start doing.
In fact, we took Salvador and his friend Jameson to a lovely, laid back place called The Stall in Franschhoek today and I was pleasantly surprised at his good behavior. This being said, he was exhausted when we got home, as I think trying to behave all through lunch, at a foreign place with so many new smells, just took its toll on him mentally. He handled himself well though.
There seems to be many places around Cape Town that is relatively dog friendly - I mean it's probably always going to be hard to find a place where they literally beg you to bring your dog along(I'm not sure if one can be sure of the cuisine at such an establishment...), but there are definitely some that would sooner ask you if you would like a water bowl for your panting pooch, than chase you off hungry. We will be checking out some places this year and with Salvador's help I'll inform you of the good ones!

Another thing we are working on this year is going for a well calculated, peaceful jog - now as you can see, I've underlined a bit there as this is a big block in the road for us. Our current jogs starts off with a bang - literally a BANG, as in the gun shot at the beginning of a sprint race, because we are bounding off at break-neck speeds! Somewhere midst all the pulling and jerking we then come to an abrupt halt in order to tend to some toilet business...it is towards the last 2 minutes of this mad sprint that we reach a stage of total bliss as Salvador gets a bit more tired, but before you know it we hit the front step and the chaos is over. As any of you who are keen runners can gather, this is no way to exercise, well not for me(I'm sure Salvador tires himself out quite a bit), so we will be tending to this issue in the coming months.

To end off this New Years post, I am glad to inform you that we will be able to stay on at our current address for at least another year! This comes as a great relief after we were told that the house we are renting is on the market, in which case there was a big chance that it would sell and we would be stuck in the horrible tumult of finding another pet friendly residence - one of the hardest things to do in this town! But we are definitely staying and couldn't be happier!!

HERE'S TO A GREAT 2015 !!!    

xxx

Moving On

In a few weeks time there will be some big changes. We are making the move to the big city from the farm and I cant help but wonder how this is going to affect the every day life of Salvador. He has been living on the farm his whole life now and all the open space has turned him into a very active little guy. Having his friend Henry about and the luxury of lots of neighbors that adore him and take him for runs will be a thing of the past and unfortunately moving closer to the city means a much smaller area for him to play around in, but what are the alternatives? I can't even think of them so we are just going to take this head on and figure it out as we go along!

Many a dog has been abandoned or given to new owners because of moving issues. I think often one thinks it's cruel to take a farm dog into a new space that can be very confined, but I can't help but wonder if the stress of an owner leaving you behind is way worse than living in a smaller space.

Before I got Salvador, our previous neighbors moved form the farm into a much smaller place in the suburbs. Their two dogs stayed with us for 3 months while they were making the transition and those two went through some very traumatic times. The one started nipping and was extremely nervous all the time and the other appeared to be totally depressed (he was a young Jack Russel and was usually over excited about just everything) refusing to go for walks and ignoring games time, which he previously adored. Fortunately they went back to their owners after a few months.

In some cases leaving your dog with a reliable new owner for the sake of him/her staying in a big enough space to meet their needs is obviously the way to go. One can hardly take Scooby Doo or Beethoven to spend the rest of their days cramped into a tiny city apartment, especially if there's going to be no one at home most of the day!

I'm fortunate enough to only work half days and on some of those days Salvador can come to work with me. My boyfriend also works from home so on the alternative days someone will be home. My fitness regime will have to be bumped up as a lot more walks will be needed to expend the massive amount of energy packed into this small dog and we have already scouted the area to make sure there are dog friendly parks around for some free running and interaction with other dogs and people. With a little bit of extra effort I'm sure we are going to be just fine!