Number58

Friday afternoon was cold but sunny, so Harry found the sunniest spot in the garden and sneaked up on to the garden bench to bask in the sunshine.

No doubt he was dreaming of the warm summer days still to come.

Harry basking in the sunshine

There’s a new word been added to the English Dictionary here at Number 58……

Blaze (verb). To bother persistently, to be pestered to the point of distraction.

It happens to Harry a lot. Especially when his good friend Blaze is around.

Harry and Blaze running in the field

Harry always enjoys his trips to town and if given the chance he would much prefer to travel on public transport. He really enjoys travelling by train or bus – it’s so much more interesting than travelling in the back of the car.

Harry gets to people watch on public transport, something that he loves to do and on a bus there’s always plenty of interesting people to keep him occupied.

He always attracts lots of admiring glances and there’s usually at least one elderly lady on every bus that falls totally in love with him and wants to take him home. Harry’s response is usually to turn up the charm a notch or two and look adoringly at her, whoever she may be.

Harry riding on the bus

Harry has always been fascinated with wild life programmes on the TV. He will gaze intently at the screen if any kind of four legged creatures appear, but last night he was in heaven. We were delivered some particularly close up shots of a most unpleasant looking creature in the name of entertainment. Harry couldn’t get close enough.

Bugs, insects, critters, creepy crawlies, call them what you like, but nothing will make me love them the way Harry does. The more legs they have, the more exotic they are, then the more passionate he is about them.

And the more nose prints we get on the TV screen.

Harry up close and personal with the TV screen

Harry has always been one for the ladies. Most of his best friends are girls and he just loves to flirt.

On a recent trip to a local market he took things one step further though and made a bee-line for the stall selling ladies underwear.

We wondered if he was shopping for anyone in particular.

Harry heading for the underwear stall

It’s been a long time since Harry played in the river as the water has been so cold, so today he was making the most of the opportunity. When it came time to go home he just didn’t want to know and stood there with a very stubborn look on his face, daring us to go in and get him.

We didn’t.

Harry standing in the river

One of the things that Harry will learn when he goes to training school is how to navigate around roadworks. With that in mind, whenever we know of roadworks locally, we always try to take him to have a look.

When he was younger Harry was always fascinated by the sandbags draped over the base of the roadworks signs and insisted on stopping to have a good sniff, but now he just strolls through as if he did this sort of thing every day of the week.

Harry striding through the roadworks

Now that the weather has turned a little bit warmer we have started grooming Harry outside. He has never really objected to being groomed, probably because he gets a reward at the end for staying still while he gets fussed over, but now he just can’t wait for the whole process to begin.

And the reason?  It’s because we ask him to jump on to our garden bench to make it easier for us. It’s the only time, and the only place that he is allowed to jump on the “furniture”. And he just loves to stand there like The King of the Castle, surveying his kingdom.

Harry standing on the bench - King of the Castle

On Friday we took Harry into town to an exhibition at the old nineteenth century magistrates court, now an arts and resource centre known as The Courthouse. We had coffee in the cafe, then had a wander around looking at the exhibits.

Jail cell windows in The Courthouse

One of the attendants suggested that we might like to take Harry upstairs where we could see one of the original jail cells.  Harry, being the inquisitive pup that he is, marched straight in to the open cell, did a full inspection of the hard wooden bed, checked out the primitive toilet in the corner and decided he wasn’t particularly impressed. His expression said it all – Where were all his creature comforts? Where was his nice soft bed, his toys, his bowl?

Harry definitely didn’t want to hang around – prison was just so boring.

Harry inside the cell

Usually when Harry comes in after a free run he is still in a state of high excitement, the adrenalin is pumping and he cannot stay still, not even for a millisecond. For the sake of our sanity we have learned (the hard way) to distract him and give him something else to focus on. Our tried and tested method is to give him a treat pushed inside a bouncy rubber Kong® toy.

Harry has to work hard to get the treat out and it usually takes him five to ten minutes during which time he calms down to the point where his eyes start to close. He then takes himself off to bed and falls straight asleep.

Recently he discovered that if he threw the toy in the air, when it landed and bounced, the treat would fall out and he would get his reward much quicker. It all became to easy for him. So we increased size of the treat making it even more difficult, but we hadn’t bargained with Harry’s sense of ingenuity.

Today when we gave him his treat filled Kong® he ran straight out the kitchen, then we heard a loud THUD, THUD, THUD.  Running into the hall we found Harry halfway up the stairs watching the toy bounce down the stairs, promptly spilling out his treat when it hit the bottom.

Now, it seems, we need to go back to the drawing board and think of something else to calm him down after a run. That, and vacuum the muddy footprints off the stairs.

Harry halfway up the stairs