In my neighbourhood and what my dog did!

 Yesterday when I was driving to yoga class I passed this front yard all decked out with Christmas hats and giant candy canes.  I didn't have my camera with me so went back today to take this photo.  The house is set quite a way off the road so I tentatively made my way up to get a closer look.  I think it's rather a cute idea. 

 

Last Sunday afternoon hubby and I went to the local movie cinema to see the latest Bond movie which we enjoyed immensely.  In front of the car park and on the main road through our local town was this fantastic yarn bombed tree.  I took the following photos today too.

 

 

 Someone has put an incredible amount of work into this display and I love the bird cage too.

Now to the DOG!!!

I love my dog, I really do, but sometimes I don't like what she does.  In the last six months (please bare in mind we are talking about a 10 year old dog not a puppy), she has developed some not so nice habits like getting out of the yard, trying to dig under the gate and upending my pot plants on the back deck.  I did wonder if she was letting me know she wasn't happy that I left her for two months in May/June while traveling in Europe and the times I've visited Western Australia this year.  (She's always been at home and with family members).  She usually sleeps out on the deck at night in a very nice sheltered and warm kennel but as I was feeling sorry for her, we started to let her sleep in side.  She then developed another bad habit of sleeping on our lounge chairs which is NOT allowed.  Perhaps you may think I'm harsh but she is a pale Labrador and Labradors shed two coats of hair.  We have fabric lounge chairs and her hair gets stuck in the fibers resulting in vacuuming taking 30 minutes for one lounge chair. It's bad enough having two white haired cats let alone a dog that when she wags her tail, she sheds enough hair to stuff multiple pillows and cushions.  

Yes, it's a bit of a long winded story so if you are still with me well done and thank you for your patience.  In my wisdom (not so wise I since discovered), I bought a lovely big brisket bone for her thinking it would keep her busy during the night while she got use to sleeping outside again.  It did keep her quiet and out of my pot plants but two days later made her very sick with diarrhea and vomiting.  I felt so bad for her but she had to stay outside the second night because she was so unwell.  Apparently not too sick to do this though.

The guilty party.

  She is well again thankfully after a diet of boiled rice and chicken but I'm still not going to let her inside at night because she will be up on the chairs again.  We've tried putting things on the lounge chairs to stop her climbing up, so much so that we had boxes, bags and other paraphernalia nearly up to the ceiling.  We tried putting sachets of smelly things unpleasant to dogs like eucalyptus and tea tree oil on the lounges, we even sprayed eucalyptus air freshener near the chairs but to no avail.  After I cleaned up the above mess I decided that I would pour a liberal amount rosemary essential oil over the pot plants in an effort to keep her from upending them again.  It has worked for the last two nights, so fingers crossed she is breaking a bad habit.

Never a dull moment eh?!

May you all have moments filled with peace and well behaved dogs (if you have one) in the lead up to Christmas.

Anne  xx