Beyond Adolescence - part 2

[SpanielsGalore]

No point banning coffee, as it didn't work last time. 🙄
Haven't had any cake updates from a while. @VanGoSunflowers Have you stopped baking already? You still had 8 cakes to go to make it economical.

Maybe I should have got a black one 😉

The dog walker said today she's considering only having black dogs on rainy days! 😂

The best sort of beach is one with no one on it but me (and the babies who were somewhere off in the woods with DH).

Gorgeous and enviably quiet! Looks as if you picked the perfect weekend for your break @TheHungryHungryLandsharks

Dry and sunny here too for once, albeit rather icy underfoot in places.
Brie was so slow this morning and I had to laugh at her plodding along, yawning, as if she'd much rather still be snoozing at home. She's such a lazy one 🙄

@CoubousAndTourmaIet we have been very lucky! Due to rain for the drive home tomorrow but that’s fine 😊

I love that Brie plods along yawning! Sometimes I do wish mine would do that…

That being said, I feel less guilty about all the food I’ve consumed so far this weekend given how much exercise I’ve taken! Did 10 miles on Friday along the coastal path, and yesterday did another 7 miles - not sure Brie would quite be up for that? 😂

Are you still considering a second to join her? Or pressed pause for a while?

@SpanielsGalore how is P getting on?

@YorkshireFelix likewise to V - has he settled a bit yet?

It sounds wonderful @TheHungryHungryLandsharks

Ummm, no, I think it would take us a week to do 10 miles at Brie pace. That's why it's so funny when people suggest that a smaller dog would be easier now we're old. If only they knew 😆 I'd never keep up with a little one!
Surely Hen & Eris didn't do 10 miles though...? Or maybe they did, and I'm judging everything by our lazy arse standards...😴

We're still thinking about a second dog. DP doesn't want to rush into it, but we've 100% ruled out the idea of a different breed now at least. It'll be a PMD or nothing.

We've just ordered Brie a raincoat from Freckles @SpanielsGalore so thank you again for finding that 🙂

@CoubousAndTourmaIet I hope you are pleased with it when it arrives. 🙈 She has connections to SRS (the rescue I volunteer for), so I know lots of people who have coats made by her and they all ssear by them. I'll get K one when I get round to measuring her. Unfortunately, she doesn't do four legged ones for the other pair.

@TheHungryHungryLandsharks Hope you are having a lovely time. That's my kind of beach. 🥰
Does your DH effortlessly fit back into family life when he's home or does it take some getting used to? I had a friend whose husband worked away M - F and she used to hate weekends, as he'd disrupt all her routines and do things differently.

Your guess is as good as mine as regards P. Yesterday she was scooting. Last night she refused to sleep in the bedroom with us, and slept on the bed in the spare room. And she spent most of this morning draped across my lap. She had a whale of a time on her walk though. 🤷‍♀️

I'll let you know when it arrives @SpanielsGalore .
Yes, I noticed the spaniel rescue connection. I was sold when I looked at the reviews and saw photos of two Deerhounds whose owner mentioned struggling to find coats with enough body length.
Went for olive with mesh lining in size 3XL because we're both sludgy green and brown wearers. My DP said if I chose and ordered he'd pay for it 😁 I wonder if the same thing applies to puppies...🤔

@CoubousAndTourmaIet That's the sort of shopping I like - someone else paying for it. 😁 I need to find myself a new DP. Or get a job. 🙈

ETA - K was a birthday present from DS2. Not to be outdone, DS1 has promised to buy the next one. And I have it in writing so he can't welch on it. 😂

Ah, you're onto a good thing there @SpanielsGalore . Dammit! I knew there had to be some perks involved in having children. Too late for me now, sadly 🙄

Brie was kind of, sort of, my 60th birthday present to myself. Hope I won't have to wait until 70 for the next one.

@CoubousAndTourmaIet It would have been a lot cheaper/easier/less stressful to buy my own puppy. 😂 I think if I got another one, it would be my 60th birthday present. At some stage I'm going to be too old for energetic working cocker spaniels. And like you, I don't think I'd want to change breed.
I can't afford to insure and feed another one at the minute though. So I'll probably just foster.

Fuck's sake! A load of fireworks have just gone off here. The type that shoot up and do 20 pops and bangs each. P is trembling and asking to be picked up. Alexa is blasting out Prince at volume 9 to attempt to drown them out.

It's hard when you have your perfect dog @SpanielsGalore . Despite the negatives you know you won't be totally happy with anything else. It's funny though that the majority of Pyrenean people we know are older than us, so we're not giving up just yet!

Sodding fireworks are a curse lately. Is it for St Andrews Day near you though? Dunno... Sorry that it's stressing P 😟 Hope it doesn't go on for long.

I already know that we won’t be getting another lab after Dog - not that I don’t like the breed - I do - but I know I’ll need a smaller dog. Dog can be quite strong at times, and in ten years time, I’ll obviously be an only older. So I’ll want a lab-like dog , but smaller.

@Silverbirchleaf A cocker spaniel. 😁 Or a lab x cocker. Every one I know (3 😂) all look like mini labs.

@CoubousAndTourmaIet It's the switching on of the village Christmas lights. 🙄 Don't know why they've had to accompany it with fireworks this year. Apparently 'they' spoke to pet owners (Obviously not all of us) and put a warning on FB. Which is no good if you didn't see it. And no good for the sheep in the neighbouring field, who shit themselves and fled in a panic. 😢

A friend has a lab x spaniel (springer?). She ended up with a hyper dog. Not what she wanted.

She put a lot of time into researching their breed traits then. 🙊

Depends how old you are now I suppose, but you might feel differently in 10 years. There's a lot of much older people than us with Labs and GR around here who seem to manage fine.

I have a Cockerdor, and though he is absolutely the love of my life, he is bastard hard work - on the best of days, he has the energy of a spaniel and the strength of a Lab. In his defence, he is working lines both sides so I got exactly what I signed up for.

A Cockerdor from show lines might be what you need - Bill is only 24kg, which is very small compared to most Labs, but he has the intelligence and trainability of a Lab, and is lovely (if high energy) as a companion.

Very helpful around the house as well, and super useful if you need holes dug.

@Bupster I like the christmas toy. Very festive!

Bill’s bigger than I thought he was. M is 24 kg and I think he’s huge, but he’s very leggy and slender.

It didn't begin as a toy... 😄

@CoubousAndTourmaIet Brie would enjoy a weeks walk though - imagine the sniffs she could have 😁

So the long route goes from the Norfolk Wildlife Trust at Cley, along the coastal path to Cley proper then past Blakeney and then throughMorston, Stiffkey and then to Wells. DH walked from the Wildlife Trust to Cley which is about a mile each way with Eris, then went back to the car and drove to Morston where he picked up Hen and then from there went to Wells to wait for the rest of us 😀So Eris did about 2 miles, Hen did about 4.5 and the rest did about 10.

Then the next day, Eris did a mile with DH and the rest came with me 😊DH is well trained and waits at the coffee shop and gets me a coffee for when I arrive.

@SpanielsGalore He fits in pretty well to be fair. But we speak at least once a day every day outside of work and often during our working day as well, and he talks to DDs every evening as a minimum so he's always around even if he's not physically present. The only real issue is getting used to sharing a bed again as he's over 6ft so us + dogs is a bit of a squeeze. And he snores. I do often have to resist the urge to smother him - there are no dogs in prison.

Oh poor P! Is she better now the fireworks have stopped? She's a sensitive little soul.

@Silverbirchleaf Several of us have said that spaniels are basically smaller retrievers, so perhaps a spaniel? That being said, DMum had Goldies until she was well into her 60s and only stopped because she got sick of hoovering...the irony she now has my rabble at least two days a week 😁

Wow! @TheHungryHungryLandsharks That's an impressively organised walk and good on your DH for being so obliging. It sounds as if your precision with time and distance worked well. I do think this is stuff that the "average" dog owner doesn't even consider and sometimes I find it troubling that the very old or very young dog has to fit in with the one in the prime of life. I suppose it's why you, me and @SpanielsGalore get along on here. We three know our dogs inside out!

I joke about Brie being lazy but she set a decent pace on our woodland trail walk last week. I think she just gets bored with the same three local loops, and I'm sure if we took her on hols she'd be energised and happy to do a good few miles. The yawning on our walk yesterday was very funny though - it was so obvious, she does ham it up a bit 😂

The dog size/weight/owner's age thing is leaving me befuddled. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. We pretty much match each other weight for weight at 55kg; I've "bulked up" according to my physio (by half a stone in fact) since walking Brie because she is immensely strong. In March I turn 62 and she turns 2. But there isn't a smaller alternative breed. I suppose I need to set an age limit for getting a second dog, but then again, DP is 4 years younger than me so that's quite helpful 😁

We often wonder about the couple who took Boo's littermate. They were older than us, probably at least in their 60s. The littermate was female so probably smaller than Boos 27/28kg, but we do often look at him and think "this is a young man's dog". Mind you they probably knew what they were doing 😂

@TheHungryHungryLandsharks She was fine after about an hour. Fortunately it was only one loud, long multi shot firework. (According to their FB post.)

@CoubousAndTourmaIet I have the opposite worry. 🙈 I'm finding it difficult to meet K's needs whilst having two on restricted exercise.
N can only manage 20 - 30 minutes a day.
P is allowed 30 minutes, two or three times a day.
K can do a lot more.

On Friday I did three walks. 1. All three down the sea front for 30 minutes. 2. Met a friend at the woods and walked K for 1 hrs 45 mins. 3. P and K at the sea front for 30 minutes.
But it's not really sustainable to do on a daily basis with fewer day light hours and whilst trying to decorate the kitchen.

I wonder if dogs do get bored of walking in the same place. I can't imagine my lot ever getting bored of the woods, because the smells change every day. But years ago someone told me I was cruel for always walking my reactive dog in the same place. They'd read it on the Internet, so it must be true. 🙄
P would get bored of beach walks, as there's not enough there to interest her. She does 5 minutes of mad running in a big open space, and then she's had enough.
I should explain my sea front walks are through fields which border the sea front. There's lots of wildlife and interesting smells for them. They'll occasionally run onto the beach, but not for long. And if I try to walk on it, they keep buggering off back into the field.

I don't think there are any set rules as regards owner's size/age etc v dog's. It's personal preference and what you feel capable of managing. I am on my own, so need a dog I can manage in an emergency. Landsharks had to phone someone for help recently. I have no one to call on. And there are no OOH vets in my county to do home visits.
I calculated 60 as being my last chance for a puppy, as that would make me mid 70s hopefully by the time they passed. And I don't know how fit I'll be by then. But I regularly meet an 83 year old out walking her collie. And she's recently bought a camper van to go away for weekends. So who knows! 😂

Unnecessary and irrelevant photo of them together, because it makes a change for P to stay around long enough after K has invaded her space for me to take a photo. 😂