IT"S EASY TO LOSE A LUSI GOOSEY IN THE SNOW!

What a difference a few days makes! On Monday we had lovely sunshine reminiscent of the late days in fall but on our walk today it has been snowing. There is already enough snow to cover the branches and were it not for Lusi's coat, it would be quite difficult to see her against the landscape such as it is. I should probably have bought her a bright red coat and not a green one as it only seems to have added to her ability to be completely camouflaged when she is under the fir trees!

    

We made our way through the trees and brush to avoid being on the river bank; the water level was so high from two days of rains that it had flooded over the bank in some parts and I was concerned that Lusi might try to investigate the newly created river bank if we walked too close to the river. In fact the current was so strong and the water flowing so fast that it might easily carry an unsuspecting pup down-stream. I need not have worried so much though because Lusi was in fact happy to play in the snow and then she played "recall" from the bushes which we both enjoyed.

LUSI GOOSEY'S WALK BY THE RIVER

 Lusi loves to go for walks down by the river. Even when she was a small  pup at ten weeks old she liked to lie in the long cool grass after surfing through it at high speed. Now she is a lot bigger and stronger she will leap from one spot to another whenever there is a small hillock. She will create her own course in the grass and run it several times in rapid succession. If she hears a noise  like the train approaching she will jump into the air for a better view. She did the same high jumping when I threw her a frisbee to retrieve from the long grass. As the frisbee has a particularly unpredictable landing spot Lusi quickly deduced that she could get a much better idea of its landing location by jumping to see where the frisbee was coming down.

Lusi surveys the landscape from her vantage point

Since we have been going to puppy agility classes we take every opportunity to find unusual surfaces to walk or climb onto while we are out on our walks. Lusi will now "look" for boulders and tree stumps to climb onto. The tree trunk was a little trickier at first but she soon got used to the texture of the bark and the curved and narrowing dimensions of the trunk where it divides into two branches at one end. We decided that this photo looked like a painting by the nineteenth century English painter, George STUBBS.

LUSI GOOSEY'S FIRST SNOW!

We have a light snowfall in November, the first snowfall of 2011 which leaves the ground covered by a mere dusting of snow. When Lusi goes outside she appears to be overwhelmed by the strong scent in the snow. Here, she is starting to track the scent and is following it closely with her nose. Then suddenly there is a moment of recognition of the scent and Lusi leaps into the air with sheer excitement. The freeze frame stills in the video show just how athletic Lusi is and how extraodinarily funny her movements are!

LUSI GOOSEY HAS HER FIRST RIDE ON THE BACK STEP

"There isn't anything funny about this next video except for that hat thing," is what Lusi Goosey is thinking..."It looks like a bird in flight," says Lusi Goosey quietly to herself!


Ah, she thinks I don't know that she hasn't quite bought into the whole idea of dressing up. Well,my motto is, "if I can do it I am sure that she can", even if it does make her look like a Lusi Goosey! Besides, riding on the back step of the marathon vehicle is an important job.

LUSI GOOSEY GOES CROSS COUNTRY BIKING OFF LEASH

We want to train Lusi to work as a carriage dog so that she will run alongside a horse drawn carriage at the axle. She has been going to the barn to get acquainted with all the sounds and smells since she was about ten weeks old. Now we are teaching her to run alongside a bike so that she understands that she must respect the wheel and not run into it. We have done a few bike rides along trails now; sometimes on the leash and sometimes off. Since it is a long time since I have been biking I am going quite carefully and slowly on this cross country trail but this is ideal for Lusi who would like to run very fast so she is having to adjust her pace to mine. The recall between my husband and myself is a great interlude for Lusi to burn off some of her high energy!

LUSI GOOSEY GIVES HUGS AND KISSES!

Lusi Goosey makes us all laugh when she gives hugs and kisses. At five months old and close to forty pounds in weight, she's quite an armful. There is something about holding her in this position which immediately invites "goosey" behaviour. She will also do a piggy-back, (sorry I mean a doggie-back) when invited.

WHO IS LUSI GOOSEY?

Lusi is our 5 month old liver spotted Dalmatian. We call her "Lusi goosey" whenever she does something that makes us laugh...which is a lot. This is something of a surprise to us since we have owned dogs all our lives; first German Shorthaired Pointers and then Chihuahuas, not to mention my daughter's lovely Lab-Shepherd cross which came to live with us for several years.

As a child I had always wanted to have a dog and perhaps that is why we now have four dogs living with us: two older Chihuahuas, Loki and Cola, one youngster, Remy, and our latest addition to the family, Lusi Goosey the Dalmatian.

The comment that I am most often met with when I meet someone is, "Oh! A Dalmatian... you hardly ever see Dalmatians anymore!" It seems that everyone is in love with the breed and yet our idea of what a Dalmatian is has almost exclusively been moulded by Disney studios. I suspect that the rise in popularity of the Dalmatian breed with the movie "101 Dalmatians" was just as quickly followed by the decline in the numbers of the breed as people sadly discovered that this beautiful dog could not be as easily accommodated in the family as they had anticipated judging from the movie and their possible previous experience with other breeds that are happy to lead a normal family life! 

Featured in breed books as a high energy dog it is difficult to describe that level of energy except perhaps in terms of hours walking per day!

As an eight week old puppy, I was surprised at how big Lusi had already grown as we arrived to collect her! Even more surprising to me was just how fast she grew in the coming weeks. She is now five months old and weighs around forty pounds with at least another fifteen to go. Despite her growth, Lusi is very much a puppy still. Her brain is yet to develop about half as much again; in fact Lusi really is just a "half-brained" dog! This definitely partly explains why Lusi is "goosey", but I am beginning to suspect that Dalmatians rather enjoy being goosey; it seems to be part of their personality.