Rain at the River

It has been a long time since we went to the river - it's where I learned to swim when I was just puppy. It could be me, but it seems like the water got a lot smaller than it was back then. Maybe the River is a bit like the beach - sometimes there is lots of water and not as much sand, and other times the water is further away and the sand goes on for ages. 

It has been a very rainy weekend, but rain does not bother me because Anatolians are waterproof, and it doesn't bother Mum even though she doesn't have fur like mine. There was been some thunder and lightning too. Even though my brother Zeke is older than I am, he's scared of thunder - I'm not, since it's up in the sky and it can't hurt anybody up there. Besides, if it dared come down to the ground, I'd teach it a thing or two.

 

We walked down the river and I had to do some work, doing sit, wait, drop, and come. After all that work I took a break. When the thunder started to rumble from the sky, Mum said it was time to go home.
I think I like being at the river when it rains.

Home away from home

Today we didn't have an Adventure, because Mum went to Work then came home when it was dark. So I thought I'd talk about an Adventure I had a few weeks ago, when Mum and Dad went for a long drive. I don't know why I wasn't allowed to come - I love car rides! - but the place Zeke and I got to stay at instead was a LOT of fun. It was called 'Cordelia Pet Care', and several nice German Shepherds lived there, plus lots of other dogs that stayed a few days, just like us.
At first, I didn't know if I would like it there because the first thing that happened was that I had a bath! Nobody besides Mum had ever given me a bath before so I wasn't sure about that sort of welcome. But I felt better after I found a nice patch of dirt to roll in so I didn't smell so terrible!
Every morning after breakfast, Zeke and I got let out into a yard just for dogs to play in! There was a pool just like at home, too, for me to swim in. 

 
I showed all the other dogs how to use the pool, and even occasionally let them swim in it. Only when I wasn't using it.

 
 Zeke was grumpy of course, he just lay in a shady spot and grumbled at the other dogs if they tried to get him to play. (I am the only dog Zeke will play with. He says it's because I'm 'so annoying' but I know it's really because I'm his favourite.) But that was okay, because it meant that the other dogs played with me instead. 

It was like being at the dog park all day!

After a long day of running, resting and playing all over again, there was just enough time for one last swim before dinner. 

Mum and Dad came back after three nights, and it was good to see them and go home and smell all the familiar smells (The cat next door actually came into MY yard, grr!) - but I had a lot of fun at Cordelia, and I hope that if Mum and Dad have to go on another long car trip without me, I get to stay there again.

On the Golden Beach

Another beach adventure was had tonight! Even though I had to do lots of work doing sit, stay, and come, I did get to have some fun. Plus, my reward for doing work was pieces of steak! Mmmm... steak. 

It was a such hard work doing so much I had to have a little lie-down.

 While I was relaxing, a wave snuck up on me. I don't know how they keep doing that...

 
We walked all the way down the beach to the river I love to swim in best. Sometimes the river is really full, and sometimes it is shallow. Sometimes, like today, it has these really neat little pools just for me to play in!
  


We swam a little more, and chilled out a little more, and then it was time to go home. I shook off all that water...

But then Mum sat me down and dried me with a towel anyway! Sigh. Sometimes there's no understanding humans.

Sunset Beach Adventure

This evening we had a Beach Adventure, I had lots of fun even though Mum said there were too many people and other dogs for me to run around off the lead. But I still got to go swimming (the water is really warm again now), teach a coconut a lesson, have a good roll in the sand, and all the wonderful things a dog can do at the beach. 

This wave snuck up on me when I wasn't looking... there I was just sitting down in the water, minding my own business, and it came out of nowhere and tried to get my ears wet!  

Most of the Adventure was very peaceful as you can see in this photo. Except for the part when we walked across the grassy area where there were lots of people and a few dogs, one small dog who was tied up  barked at me. Mum said it was okay, so I was a good dog and didn't bark back. Why do small dogs bark so much anyway?

This is the coconut I found! If you've never chewed on a salty coconut before, they are the best, and you ought to try one as soon as you can.

Tasty coconut.

I got to swim a lot, since Mum says swimming is good for big dogs, especially in salt water. It's important when you have a heavy fur coat like mine to shake yourself really well after each swim, otherwise the water soaks down to your skin and makes you uncomfortable. 

Whoops, sorry Mum, did I get you? (Ha ha!)

I also got to have a really fun roll in the sand, and Mum took a video of that. It takes a lot of skill to dig sideways, you know.

After one last swim to wash off all the sand, we headed back to the grassy area (I got barked at again by the small dog. I think it must have been scared I was going to eat it, but Mum wouldn't let me) and Mum dried me with a towel, and then we drove home. I wish I could have a Beach Adventure every day! 

So Many Adventures!

Today was another day that Mum did not have to go to Work, so we had lots of Adventures instead. First, we went somewhere new, a place called 'Queens Gardens' which is very very green. As soon as we got out of the car, I smelled all the flowers and growing things, and we went in and walked around smelling them.

This is almost a cave made out of a tree. In my opinion, this is a very useful feature for a tree. I wish we had one of these at home. I think it would be a nice, shady spot to lie when it gets hot.





I also learned that roses smell nice...

 

 But cactus plants do NOT smell nice and also they are sharp.

 We found another really BIG tree which I thought was an appropriate size for an Anatolian. 

Then we checked out something called a 'hedge maze' which have big green walls of plants we had to walk in circles through. I am not sure why there were so many dead ends, since we just had to turn around and go back the way we came, but humans do weird things sometimes. 
In the hedge maze, we found a statue that Mum liked.

Then, I showed Mum the way out!

 

After we left Queens Gardens (Car ride!!) we stopped by the Strand to do some rollerblading, and we did some practice lessons too. That's where I have to do things like sit, drop, wait, and come, which Mum puts me on a special long lead to practice. Then, we went over to Grandma's place, and I got LOTS of treats, because Grandma keeps a special bag of them for when Zeke and I come and visit. I was pretty tired by then but I still guarded Grandma's kitchen very carefully. You never know when something might fall on the floor, and that would be dangerous for the humans. (They wobble around on just two legs, a silly design, if you ask me.) All in all, it was a very good day of Adventures.

Friday's Night Market and Airport Adventure

On Friday, I had many adventures, but when we got home in the afternoon we found we had no Internet! Mum spent lots of time talking to the Internet People on the phone to fix it. Then Dad talked on the phone to Internet People. Internet finally came back on yesterday!

So, on Friday, Mum and I went for a car ride (Yes! Car ride!) that was strange, because we don't usually do car rides in the middle of the day, but Mum made the car do cold air instead of putting the windows down so it was nice and cool in the car.  
We went to the airport to watch some planes, then I was allowed inside and Mum and me waited for some mice to arrive. Some of the pets Mum keeps are mice, and I don't really know why she wanted more since they all look pretty much the same to me.

But anyway, we picked up the new mice, and the nice man who brought them inside patted me, and we drove home again. 
Then, once the sun went down, we had another adventure! We went to the Strand again, but this time, we didn't rollerblade because it was Night Market night. I was happy because I love Night Market night, there are always lots of people who want to talk about me and give me pats and attention. Mum was happy too since she wanted to do some Christmas shopping. I remember Christmas from last year because Mum made me wear a red and white hat. We brought a present for James and for Grandma, and then I helped pick a present out for Cousin Aimee. (I can't tell you what we brought, because Cousin Aimee reads my blog, and Mum says Christmas presents have to be a surprise!).  



Then we walked around for a bit longer and I saw a BIG BIG dog, even bigger than me. So I had to bark and growl at him to tell him than these were MY Night Markets, thank you very much! Mum wasn't very impressed though. She told me to stop barking and sit down, even though the big dog was ignoring me! Of course I wanted to keep barking at him. But I did what Mum told me to. Then when he walked by (He didn't even look at me. Talk about rude!) I had to lie down and stay quiet. Sigh. Sometimes it's very tough being an Anatolian. Still - it was a good Adventure!

Late-night Strand Adventure and some rude dogs

Usually on the nights that Mum does not come home until near-dark we don't have very long Adventures. (We usually walk around our neighborhood on these days, but it isn't very exciting and I don't usually have Adventures then.) But tonight was different, we went for a car ride (YAY!) to the Strand, which is a long path that runs by the ocean. It has lots of fun things to do, like doggy drinking fountains for me and playgrounds for little humans and also delicious-smelling outdoor ovens called 'Barbeques' that humans use to cook meat on. I really don't understand why any human would want to cook food inside when there are perfectly excellent barbeques to cook on outside.

Everything is better outside!

At the Strand, I lay down on the lovely green grass to wait for Mum to put on her special shoes with wheels, which are called rollerblades. We often rollerblade at the Strand because the path is nice and smooth and if Mum tries to rollerblade on the road or on pebbly paths, she wobbles a lot. Of course I don't rollerblade myself, but I do trot beside Mum. It's a lot of work, because I have to listen and watch Mum carefully so she can tell me when to go faster, slower, or to the sides of the path around the other people. Mum always says what a good dog I am when we rollerblade because I know how to stay beside her and not pull ahead - even people we go past comment that I'm a good dog for that. Sometimes when there are no people mum crouches down to go faster on her rollerblades and tells me to run, and we almost fly along the Strand! We never stay at running speed for very long, since it is harder to go around the other people (who are far, far slower than me and Mum) and also if we keep going for too long I get too hot. I'm glad we always rollerblade at nighttime when it's cooler.
There is a nice spa bath on the Strand that I like to cool down in too, but today it had no water in it so I couldn't have my spa. When we went past the waterpark, which is a playground with lots of water-jets and a big bucket of water at the top that throws water EVERYWHERE, it had no water either. Since there were no humans on the waterpark I tried to go in and explore, but Mum still told me no. "Even when it's turned off, dogs aren't allowed in the waterpark, Maya."
All the way down the end of the Strand we stopped at our favourite ice-cream shop. (Mum says it is actually gelato, but it tastes just like ice-cream to me. Really tasty ice-cream. Mum has a cup of ice-cream, and although I am not allowed to have one of my own ("Dairy isn't good for dogs" - who said anything about dairy? I just want an ice-cream!) but I am allowed to lick Mum's cup once she is finished. Today, to my surprise, there was another dog sitting in front of our ice-cream shop, a spaniel, and she was very rude. As soon as she saw me, she started barking, and well, I won't repeat what she was saying in dog-language but it wasn't polite! Mum told me it was okay, then I had to sit and drop, even though I really, really wanted to bark back at the rude dog. Since Mum said everything was okay, I ignored the dog while Mum tied my lead to a post to so inside and get our ice-cream. When the rude dog kept barking at me I stood up to show her I was three times as big as her and if I wanted to come over there and sort her out, I would. Mum noticed me though and from inside the shop, she called and signaled for me to sit. I sighed, but I sat back down. I did notice that the human with the dog had picked her up and put her in her lap. Mum would never put me in her lap when I was barking at another dog!
After ice-cream we headed back to the car. "Don't get used to having desert before dinner, Maya." I don't see why not though.
Halfway there, two very very small miniature fox terriers saw me and immediately started yapping loudly. Then they ran towards me, leaving their humans sitting at a bench. I was so surprised I just stood there as they ran right up to me - dogs are not allowed off the leash at the Strand. Once more, Mum told me that it was okay while the humans at the bench called their tiny dogs. I wanted to growl at them but because Mum said everything was okay I settled for putting my ears back and glaring at them warningly. If they had been barking at Mum, I would have had to growl and jump on them, but they were barking at me and they were only the size of my paw so they couldn't have done anything. Once they were back at the bench with their humans we kept going, and can you believe it - the two tiny yapping dogs actually ran after us! Their humans called them again and finally got them back, then we kept going. I could sense how annoyed Mum was at the humans who owned the tiny terriers and left their leads off, and I decided if I ever saw those yapping dogs again I'd teach them a few polite words to say about respecting big dogs.
Because it is very tiring trotting and running so much Mum and I stopped for a rest break and lay in the grass to watch the waves washing over the sand.
 

A nice pair of humans came over to pat and admire me and ask Mum lots of questions about me. After they talked for a while and I got plenty of pats we kept going. By the time we got back to the car I hardly had enough energy left to get excited about the ride home. I lay down on the backseat and Mum clipped my seat-belt onto my harness, and I thought before I went to sleep what a good night's Adventure it had been. Even with the rude dogs!