Happy New Year everyone. Can't say I am very keen on all these fireworks going off. All around us are explosions and loud banging. Boss Woman says not to worry and that when I wake up in the morning it will be quiet again. Hope so, they are scaring me and Amber to death. Apparently Boss Woman has signed us up for a 1000 mile challenge walk. We have to walk 1000 miles during 2017. Not sure if she is trying to wear our legs out or what but I think she forgets that me and Amber are no spring chickens anymore. Boss Woman is touting around for sponsorship for us, with the money going to our friends at www.sbtrescue.co.uk, if you would care to sponsor us then please do. Not many dogs are as fortunate as me and Polly so we want to try and help other unfortunate dogs if we can. Even 1p per mile would be very very welcome.

Saw a little bad mannered Chihuhua down the road today that was snarling and barking at me and Amber as we walked past. Pffft. I growled back to tell it to shut up but Amber just ignored it because she thought it was stupid.
What I find very strange is that today on our walk, we saw about 6 or 7 people all walking around carrying their cardboard costa coffee cups like trophies. Like ... look at me, don't I look silly ....... Why can't they just be like me and have a drink and that's it until next time I feel thirsty? They all look the 'type' and all carry their stupid cardboard coffee cups around while they are walking the streets but I never see them drink. How very odd. People look at me and Polly and say we are that 'type' of dog, well me and Polly look at them and think they are that 'type' of people. LOL

Big Guy is doing a lot of work on the house and he had to dig a massive ditch because apparently we need a new electric meter and cable. The 2 men that came in the morning to put the cable in made a right big fuss of me and Amber. One of them had a Jack Russell and he said he particularly likes Terriers. Then in the afternoon a man called Vince came to put a new electric meter and he said he had seen us on the television last year, when we went down to Golant in Cornwall. He made a right fuss of us as well. I think he said he had a dog called Charlie. When we went for our walk in the afternoon to the woods, we met a man and woman who were out for a walk and they didn't like us at all, in fact the ignorant woman almost stood on Amber's leg. She was horrible.

Friday
17th March

Saw the very handsome Prince, the lovely white Samoyed down the field today with his Boss Woman. He is still a bit annoying but we have good fun chasing him. Amber always tries to grab is fur and I side swipe him, but he still comes back for more. I got into big trouble on the way back. There was a man on his hands and knees laying some blocks on a driveway and he had just put a layer of lovely soft sand down to bed the blocks on. Well, I walked up to him to say hello, only thing was, I walked on his newly laid sand, then I walked back to Boss Woman on his sand, leaving even more paw prints, then I went up to him again to say hello because he didn't acknowledge me the first time, leaving loads more lovely deep pawprints in his sand. He was NOT happy. The other workman went ..... OOOPS !!

Just a little word to say that as I am getting older I am much less tolerant of annoying dogs than I used to be. I never go up to other dogs and annoy them, it is only if they approach me and jump on me or try and dominate me that I growl. Anyway, we had a lovely walk today, almost 5.5 miles. On the way back there was a fussy old woman with 2 terrier types. Apparently one was on lead because if they were both off lead they would both run away and she reckoned if one was on lead then the other one (off lead) would stay close by. That was the theory anyway. One of the terriers was jumping up at me so I growled at it, I didn't try and bite it, I just growled to tell it off. The woman shouted at me but Boss Woman told her that mine was a normal reaction to an annoying dog and that her dog needed to learn some manners. Pfffft the woman was not impressed, then she told Boss Woman that once she tried to take a rabbit off her dog that it had caught and that the dog had growled and went to bite her :-( I seriously think that the woman needs to train her dog properly otherwise it might have to get put to death if it bites a random person and it would be HER fault, not the dogs. Yes, imagine if a Staffie had growled and gone to bite someone, it would more than likely get put to death without any further questions. Some people just have no idea at all how to look after and train us dogs.

Friday
7th April

7.42 mile walk today from Benham Marsh, where Big Guy dropped us off and we walked back to Thatcham. Not really liking this walk much because of all the cyclists whizzing past at high speed and not being very careful about me and Amber at the side of the path. They don't seem to care or even think about that if they caught us with their wheels, they could easily break our legs or worse and some of them were even doing trick cycling. It is quite shocking that a public footpath is shared by idiot cyclists who are actually very dangerous for us dogs or small children and they have the cheek to be rude to Boss Woman because she deliberately stands in the middle of the path with the intention that they have to manouvre around her to force them to at least slightly slow down. What these fools (some of them lycra clad) fail to realise is that first and foremost it is a public FOOTPATH only shared by cyclists AND they are supposed to show consideration to walkers (which they didn't). Honestly they are the first to complain if motorists don't show them consideration, drive too close to them, are rude to them and almost run into them. Anyway, as we walked through Newbury, there were 2 women one of which was from South Africa and they made a right fuss of us. I think the woman from South Africa said she used to have a Staffie but now has 2 Sausage dogs. What? How could you prefer Sausage dogs to Staffies? Pfffft. The very nice woman from South Africa had white trousers on, so of course I had to leave a few paw marks on them just to remind her of me.

Bit of a longer walk today, 8.59 miles and me and Amber were very tired when we got back. I think Boss Woman is forgetting that me and Amber aren't young dogs anymore and we get tired after long walks these days. It was a very lovely peaceful walk from Crofton up to Hungerford and then we caught the train back to Thatcham and luckily the trains were running today so Big Guy didn't have to pick us up. Soon after we set off, we passed some boat people who lived on their boats permanently and of course Boss Woman had to stop and chat. A Staffie type black dog ran out to greet us from one of the boats, which me and Amber weren't keen on, so Boss Woman shouted to the owner to get her dog away because it was pestering us. Another boat person had a very grumpy bad tempered Staffie type dog tied up to his boat and it had a muzzle on because the owner said it had a tendency to bite other dogs so he was ordered by the Police to muzzle it or it would have to be put to death. Boss Woman seemed to like it even though me and Amber didn't. It was growling and barking and making a right racket as we walked past. We saw (and chased) a few Herons and we saw a sparkly green/blue coloured Kingfisher.

Tonight I heard shooting so I shouted at Big Guy to go and have a look and when Big Guy went into the garden he heard someone someone shooting as well from the field at the bottom of the garden AND they were shining their very powerful lamp into our garden. Boss Woman called the cops and they went to speak to them to check their gun licences. Apparently the men were shooting rabbits and foxes, in the night, in the dark, near our fence and the cops didn't even arrest them because the men had permission off the local landowner Venner and they claimed they were only shooting rabbits and foxes, because apparently there is a rabbit problem. Well that is all very well, but the deer come into our garden for safety because people are often shooting in the fields behind AND we haven't seen the deer for about 3 weeks now, so we can only assume that they shot the deer as well even though they said they didn't when Big Guy asked them. The field where they were shooting also backs onto a railway line so it isn't exactly the safest place to be shooting anything, especially in the pitch black. After the cops had gone, one of the men who had been shooting came to our door to explain himself to Big Guy and Boss Woman which they thought was a very weird and very intimidating thing to do. There the man was, about the height of a garden gnome, dressed in combat clothes, with his gun still in his car, trying to justify his actions. Me and Amber went to check him out and we didn't like him at all and we didn't even wag our tails or greet him. He was horrible. Boss Woman reckons if he wants to go shooting, he should join the army, but being a nasty horrible coward he would rather shoot something that wouldn't shoot back at him. The man said that he had shot a dog fox just outside our garden fence, so if me and Polly had been stood in OUR garden behind the fence, we might have been shot as well. What the dangerous fools don't appreciate is that by shooting the foxes they make the rabbit situation worse. Last year when the fox was feeding her young, the foxes were busy all day hunting and catching rabbits to take back for their babies. Makes no sense at all what they were doing except that they just like killing for the sake of it. They were shining their powerful lamps into the trees as well, which was worrying for Boss Woman because we have barn owls nesting around here and they could be shot along with pigeons or anything else the murdering idiots decided on.

Beautiful peaceful walk (with only one stupid cyclist) from near Pewsey up to Bedwyn, 8.78 miles, where we caught the train back. Again at the side of the canal as we have done all week. The paths were a bit narrower on this section and some of it was a bit near the side so Boss Woman had to be a bit careful so she didn't fall in. On the way past some boat people there was a ginger cat that didn't like me chasing it and tried to scratch me and further on by some more boats we saw a Persian cat that looked evil so I left alone and didn't chase it. Boss Woman saw a green snake swimming across the canal but she wouldn't let me and Amber inspect it, just in case it swallowed us up like a Python would. We passed the Bruce Tunnel 459 metres long but we couldn't go through it because there was no towpath so we had to walk over the top which was just as well because it looked dark and scary. Further on we saw the first swallow of the year, skimming the canal for flies, or maybe it was having a drink from the filthy canal water, I am not sure. As we got near Bedwyn, there was a posh talking man with 3 not very posh dogs. There were 2 long haired pointer type dogs and a dopey brown spaniel. Anyway the long haired pointer type dogs went mental as we walked past and tried to attack me and Amber and because they were so strong they almost pulled the man into the canal. Actually it would have served him right if they had, he should have trained them better, they were VERY badly behaved.

Nice 5.83 mile walk up to Ham Bridge and back on the Kennet and Avon Canal and we saw loads of stuff going on. First of all there was a Canal Trust boat which had slipped it's moorings and was blocking the canal, so some people had to push it back and tie it up again. Then we saw a teenage guy on a black skatepark type bike, lurking about near the lock, he was laying on the floor and retrieved something from under the lock workings. After that we saw an Albanian man who was pulling his boat with a rope down the canal, he said it was because the boat had no engine and he needed it moving further down the canal. Then we saw a stinky woman who smelled of cigarettes and booze - she was a bit loud and a bit drunk AND she was in charge of 2 adult huge huskies and a puppy husky. She was telling Boss Woman that one of them had bitten someone and they had to have 17 stitches. Seriously? Not put to death apparently, because she rehabilated it. There was a man with a lovely miniature dachshund, no taller than about 6" and as he passed the stinky drunk woman on the narrow path he picked his dog up because he said his dog might rip the throats out of the huge huskies and he couldn't risk his dog hurting them. LOL He also said the woman was pissed, whatever that means. Further on then we met a gang of people walking together, all strung across the path, none of them moving out of the way, so Boss Woman had to walk right at the very edge of the path to make way for them. I REALLY do think that a lot of humans need to go on a training course, just like I did as a puppy so they can learn some manners and discipline. it's just appalling the way some humans carry on. Then, just as we got to the lock and about to come off the canal walk, we sat watching some farmers and their cows. Apparently the farmers were tagging the cow's ears with a number of some sort on it and putting some elastic bands around their testicles to make them drop off so they turned from bulls into bullocks. The animals didn't half squirm and it looked like it was hurting them. What was really funny though was that they had a little French Bulldog following behind the cows to help herd them. I could have done a better job actually.

Well here we are in Glastonbury. I have been before and I love it here. The climb up to the Tor is good even though it is always windy on the top. There was a guy playing his guitar and singing and loads of people stood around. Apparently they were celebrating the life of someone called Gemma who had been killed by a van in Tasmania and with her being a hippy, they thought it was a good way to celebrate. They also released loads of balloons as well, which Boss Woman thought was a rather stupid thing to do, considering all the unnecessary litter and pollution that would have caused. A little boy was running around and he kept making a fuss of me. He was a bit clumsy and he tripped over and fell on me and told me I was a naughty dog. Boss Woman told him that I was a very good dog and that I had broken his fall and saved him from getting face planted on the floor.

So Keira the evil cat went out on Saturday night as usual and when she got back in Sunday morning, she was injured. Her tail was all covered in blood and half of it was hanging down. Anyway she had to go to the vets and they chopped off her tail ~ she will look even more evil than usual now!
We had a lovely 4.98 mile walk back from Basildon on the Thames path and met loads of interesting people. There was one dodgy man coming towards us blocking the path, that we didn't like, and me and Amber didn't even wag our tails at him, he was dead dodgy. He asked Boss Woman if we were okay and she said "sort of ...." LOL which seemed to scare him off enough to leave us alone. Further on we saw 2 men on a boat called Clara so while Boss Woman had a chat with them, me and Amber sat under their chairs in the shade to cool off and then further on still we saw a man who had been in the Thames for a swim, so me and Amber went in the water as well. He was fascinated watching me splashing, because what I do, I make a splash and then try and catch the water splash in my mouth, which he thought was very clever. He said me and Amber were water dogs. Then even further on, nearer home, we saw a group of Nepalese people and Boss Woman exchanged 'Namaste's' with them. We have seen these people before, when they shared their blackberries with us. Well this time, they gave Boss Woman an orange and they shared their digestive biscuits with me and Polly. We do like these people, they are very generous and also they like me and Polly and unusually are happy to share their food with us, even though we are dogs.

A few people have been enquiring about me, so just to give you an update on myself. I have been getting a bit more tired than usual recently. Boss Woman has been really worried about me because I have started lying down a lot more on our walks when she stops and putting my head on the ground like it is hurting me. If I see a squirrel or rabbit then I can find the energy to chase it but I have lost the ability to catch them anymore, but then again, I am almost 11 years old! When Boss Woman has a sit down, then I have taken to lying right at her feet, just so I can keep an eye out in case she runs off without me. Auntie Tracie at the rescue said to Boss Woman that she shouldn't fret so much, and that life is about quality not quantity and I must say I have had a very good life here with Boss Woman looking after me, even if she does get cross with me sometimes (usually when I eat stuff I shouldn't!). I have no more lumps appearing on my foot BUT I have quite a few fatty lumps all over me that the vet said to keep an eye on. When people ask Boss Woman how I am, then she looks very sad but she has no need to worry, I still have some life left in me yet and I can still do 7 mile walks when necessary. Which, I might add, we have now walked a total of 963.5 miles, with 36.5 miles left to go, of our Viewranger 1000 mile challenge, but I think we will exceed this easily and go for about 1200 miles. We have a few people sponsoring us and the money is going to my friend at the Staffie Rescue, where Boss Woman helps. It has been a bit hot these last few days and so me and Polly were glad that Boss Woman took us for walks near the river Thames and the river Pang, so we could jump in and cool down.

Crikey, that steam train that just went past blowing it's whistle really loud, didn't half make me jump