There's a Crocodile in my Pool

My best mate, Smudge came over for a play yesterday. It was such a hot day that we spent alot of time swimming in the pool.

Smudge is a Koolie (an Australian herding breed) and he is a month younger than me.
Smudge lives in the country, and mum reckons he might finally be bigger
than me next time we see him.

I can beat him in swimming races.

And I don't mind sharing my pool toys with him.

Smudge: "Oh crap, Taj is gonna get me!"

But something strange happened to Smudge when he got wet.

He turned into a crocodile!




He didn't actually want any of my toys.




He just didn't want me to have them!




But I'm clever, and I'm quick! He can't keep my toys away from me forever!

And every now and then I made sure I splashed him in the face when I jumped in:)


He's not really as ferocious as he looks, and I can still swim faster than he can!

Mum says I have my first obedience class tonight, and we go back to puppy agility tomorrow, I can't wait!

Woofs and Tailwags,

Turbo Taj

How to Hypnotize a Border Collie

In order to hypnotize a Border Collie, you need two things. The Border Collie (of course) and the all important magical, alluring hypnotizing tug-toy!

First of all, you start waving the tug toy to get his attention....
(this step usually takes less than .0897 seconds to execute).

Then you move tug-toy left and right like this....

Then you pull it up and down like this....

....so your Border Collie looks like this.....

Then you spin the tug-toy around like this...

It won't be long before the Border Collie starts to do this....

And when he starts to look like this, you know you have...

...a tug-toy hypnotized Border Collie!

Disclaimer: No Border Collies or magical, alluring hypntotizing tug-toys were injured in the making of this blog post, however, the photographer is still feeling dizzy.

Whhheeeee!!! I can Walk on Water!

I had the best-est, most fun-est day yesterday! It was so hot, so Mum took me and the kids to a little river we have close to home, and I know I'm pretty clever (being a Border Collie and all), but look at me, I can actually WALK ON WATER!!!

Turbo Taj - Super Star!
(Ed: other than minor cropping of the background, this photo is straight out of the camera)

This is what this great place looks like, Mum says its even prettier in winter and you can see what it looks like if you have a look at the pictures of Solar the Siberian in her "Dogs" set in her Flickr.com album.

I tried to catch some little fish, but they were pretty quick!


I got to swim and swim and swim some more!


(Ed: Cue theme song from Jaws)


I'm not sure what happened to the rest of me, but its attached to my tail somewhere!



Mum thought I was noble looking, but I was really just eyeing off the ducks.



Border Collies are much better than Retrieving Water Spaniels!


The Face Plant was, of course, intentional.



I had to keep an eye on my kids though, just for a second at a time. I had the major zoomies and couldn't stop running and jumping and swimming. Mum said I got a bit silly and she had to put the retractable lead on me to spoil all my fun.



Nobody told me that there were holes in the water, but they all laughed when I fell in.



I even got to chase dragonflies!


I barked and barked...


and chased them some more...


I got so excited chasing the dragonflies that I fell in the water.



Mum said the only time my feet were still was when I did this....


...and this.



The one good thing about being on the retractable lead was that mum could reel me in,
those underwater rocks sure were slippery!

Mum said that she would have had another 500 or so photos to share with you all, but she was laughing so hard, most of them turned out blurry.

Its great to see all my friends adding their funny photos to our competition, my mum and dad sure are laughing lots!

Woofs,

Taj

Five months old today!

Well, it might be the last day of 2007, but today is also my five month birthday, so as a special treat mum and dad and my kids took me to a new park to play.

There is a small river that runs through it and mum said I would be able to swim in it, but when we got there mum was a spoil-sport and said definitely no swimming as the water was too dirty (probably because it is summer and has been very hot).

I was not impressed, it was a hot day and I really wanted to go for a swim, I don't care if the water was dirty! But at least Mum bought the chucka and I got to chase my tennis ball.





Then dad threw the ball with the chucka and the ball bounced off a tree and into the river. But my dad's a good dad, he got the ball out for me (of course, I could have got it myself, but they wouldn't let me go in the water!)

So I got to chase my ball again for a while, but then...

Somehow my ball rolled over the edge of the steep part of the river bank and ended up back in the water.

I knew that I could get it if they just let me!



Dad said that it was too far down and that we had to say goodbye to that ball.



Mum said nevermind, that was why she bought extra tennis balls with us, but I really, really, really wanted the purple and green one that was in the water, not a poor substitute red and green one!


My dad knew how much I wanted that ball so he tried to get it out for me. He tried lots of different things to catch that ball.




You can see the big branch that he tried to fish the ball out with.


It took a long time, so mum took me for a walk up the river. I still really wanted that ball. Us Border Collies don't forget things or give up easy you know.




Then Dad called us back because, after about 20 minutes of trying, he had finally caught the ball!


But the thing is, I didn't actually *want* the ball, what I really wanted was to go into the river myself to fetch it!



So I carried it back to the river bank...


And rolled it over the edge, just like I do in the pool when I want to go for a swim...


Mum and dad said I was a little monster and that it could stay there now.


Bye bye ball, it was fun while it lasted, I'll miss you!

Woofs

Taj.