After spending all of Saturday at a hot, crowded urban dog show, we thought it only fitting to head out to the beach – in this case Crow Point at Braunton Burrows – for some doggy (and human) down-time…
Mingus tries for lift-off using his newly retro-fitted "Helicopter Ears."
After combining forces to dig a huge sand-pit comes a rare moment of stillness.
Phoenix: sandy + wet = happy!
Mirror Phoenix.
Adam commands Phoenix with the power of his Blackberry...
Mingus shows that he can do sandy & wet just as well as Phoenix.
“Experts” tell us that today may be the last scorching hot day for the foreseeable, so the only possibly course of action was clear: head to the beach!
The scene of today's adventures - at Northam with the golden sand of Braunton Beach in the distance.
It was so windy on the beach it felt like we were on Tatooine, Luke Skywalker’s home planet in Star Wars; sand was blowing everywhere and formed small columns on the beach that scattered towards the sea. Phoenix seems to like crunching sand.
Phoenix met up with her half-sister Henna (Ebeegeebees Razzie) together with her breeder and human companion Catherine today. Henna is almost a month to the day older than Phoenix but the two pups are more or less the same size and look incredibly similar to one another. After much bouncing ‘n’ boinging at one another on-lead – and much to their delight – we let them both off their leads where they proceeded to have a good old tear-around. One of the things that was really interesting to see is how the two “girls” completely tuned into one another and reacted to everything as one pup-unit, something that we’ve not observed Phoenix do with any other puppy. Somehow both pups knew that they were with another of their own kind….but can you spot which is which in the above pictures????
The official hottest-day-of-the-year-so-far saw us pack a picnic and head off to the far west of Cornwall, just a few miles from Land’s End. The whole region is dense with megalithic monuments and we visited the Merry Maidens circle as well as taking a moorland walk that encompassed Lanyon Quoit and Mên-an-Tol. This last is reputed to have a pixie guardian who grants miraculous cures. In one “case” a Changeling baby was put through the holed central stone in order for the mother to get the real child back – evil pixies having changed her child – The ancient stones came through (naturally enough…) and were able to reverse the Pixie spell. Sadly we didn’t spot any pixies, evil or otherwise, but did enjoy a meet-and-greet with a German Shorthaired Pointer and her owners who, after establishing that “She’s not a Spinone is she?” became quite infatuated with Phoenix.
Digging is very big with Phoenix right now. She has a number of “ongoing projects” around the garden and approaches them with a certain amount of seriousness. This hobby is considerable enhanced by the presence of approx 500,000 field voles that randomly pop out of the grass before uttering a high pitch shriek and diving for the nearest burrow. Phoenix has yet to even come close to catching one of these squeaky rodents, but she’s nothing if not determined.
Barking vocabulary has extended to now include a kind of strangulated howling, deep contened moans and an ear piercing sound that is used when over-excited.
We’ve decided that “rufty-tufty” is the best description for her personality, as opposed to “hoity-toity” for the cats. “Boinging” has also become shorthand for that intense burst of bouncing that accompanies any kind of event involving gardening and/or other dogs. She’s also expert at jumping on plants, chasing spades, chewing wheelbarrow tyres and barking….often all at the same time. A rare gift.