New Year's Greetings

Hugo scrunched himself in behind
me on the settee so I took this picture
 of him over my shoulder!

Hugo and Pip tell me it has been a long time since I last wrote about them so I shall start by saying Happy New Year to everyone!

The weather has been awful lately and everywhere is squelching mud underfoot so walking hasn't been very pleasant over the last few weeks (and a lot shorter too!). I was not very happy with Hugo and Pip a few weeks ago when I took them for our usual evening walk up on to Selsley Common. The ground was very slippery and I fell over three times. Lots of other Akita owners have told wonderful tales of how, when they have fallen over, their dogs have stayed by their side while they limped home and I had always imagined that my two would do the same. I was wrong! I was not hurt in the slightest (apart from pride, and fortunately no-one else saw me) but the pair of them took not the slightest bit of notice of me lying on the ground, hanging on for grim death on to their leads as they, virtually dragged me along the ground in the excitement of new smells ahead.

Martin, my OH, had a new car just before Christmas and it has the luxury of sliding back doors that open at the touch of a button. Hugo and Pip just don't understand them though and still try and get in the car between the sliding door and the body of the vehicle, not realising there is a huge gaping hole in front of them!

Miss Pip likes to get as close to the fire as she can

Toby suffered one of the hazards of his profession last week when he mistook his thumb for the bunch of coriander he was chopping. Consequently there was a visit to the hospital which resulted in a very large padded bandage and instructions to keep the hand raised. Hugo is VERY interested in this strange attachment - he doesn't know what it is but he does know he wants to kill it! 

Hugo looks very comfortable here

Miss Pip and friends

Hugo does not believe that anyone should be able to sleep later than 6am in the morning, even when it is not a work day. He rather exceeded himself though the other morning. I was awoken by one of them whining and thought that perhaps they wanted to go outside urgently so up I got. Both Hugo and Pip were very excited and wanted lots of fuss as I went downstairs with them and opened the back door - they did not even set foot outside and looked at me as if I was mad. What they would rather like was one of those nice hide chewy things so I relented and gave them one. They then happily trotted back upstairs and were both lying down on their beds, chewing away by the time I got back up there. Then I looked at the clock - 4am. Come on guys, really!!

Stare out!

We love each other