Week three with the heffalump AKA the heffalump tries to walk on water

Who's a handsome boy!

This week has seen us all busy preparing for Christmas. The dogs don't know it yet but there will be plenty of chews, toys and treats for them in their stockings. This year as it's his first Christmas Balou has the most interesting stocking, also because he's not sure what kind of toy he likes most. He'll have a go playing with anything but generally prefers whatever the other dogs are playing with. This despite my best intentions and several new larger versions of toys just for him. Cue much woofing in exasperation as he hopes they abandon the toy for him to play with. Alas this is rarely the case.

This socialising malarkey is tiring. Better have a little break...

In terms of socialising Balou continues to do well, he seems to enjoy meeting everyone!

He now feels brave enough to try and play with
several of his friends and when the group runs around he occasionally tries to join in, usually falling over within a couple of seconds as he trips over his feet.

Walk away from the wolf, walk away from the wolf....oh, it's ok, it's only Lily

Hello!
His interest in birds continues, he now notices pigeons as well as crows and today he even spotted seagulls on the ponds in the Heath. As with all the dogs it was only a matter of when he would fall into the water and today was that day. Luckily the ponds are man made and fairly shallow so easy to pull pups out from. Scrap, Tilly and Bouche have all learnt the hard way that dogs can't walk on water and today was Balou's turn. We were walking along the side of the Model Boating Pond when he spotted a seagull sitting nearby, he didn't run, nor jump, but just kept walking off the edge, before plop, submerging himself. Given his waterproof coat and webbed feet I wasn't too worried about Balou but even so I quickly reached in and pulled him out. Back on dry land I gave him a quick hug before, he shook the water off and was none the worse for his soaking. If anything he seemed to find the whole thing quite funny! Luckily the pond was nice and clean, not like the time Tilly Pom fell in when the summer algae was flourishing - stinky!