Welcome to the Morgan Dogs’ Blog

Monkey is a monkey.

I have never known a cat to be so vocal! I know Siamese can be chatty, but my GOD this cat is loud! You hear him from the moment you dare to move a muscle in the morning, until the moment you close your eyes at night. It’s a good job we have no neighbours that could hear him through any walls. Can you complain about a loud cat?!

He is a very hungry cat too! All he wants to do is eat. He is on a cat food called Applaws at the moment as he doesn’t really seem keen on anything else (trust him to choose the most expensive brand) and is supposed to eat one tin a day. Monkey will happily eat three tins a day and still yowl for dry food as well. His tummy is looking a bit like a tennis ball, so I have cut him down today. Sometimes I think I am mistaking his noise for hunger when really he is just after a chat

He loves toys and I keep tripping over tiny blue mice and ping pong balls. His favourite toy however is a laser pen. It does different shapes like a star and a mouse but he isn’t fussy - he’ll chase it anywhere! He won’t give up either - he would go for hours! It is quite funny as when I am downstairs, I can hear him thundering around upstairs, on the bed, off the bed, down the stairs, on the sofa, up the stairs, in the bath, etc etc! He is more like a naughty dog than a cat and is really keeping us entertained

The dogs are miserable as the rain still hasn’t stopped. They hate getting wet. The chickens are miserable, even little Taz is miserable as in the summer he likes his cage out on the wall in the garden so he can hear the wild birds and soak up some rays! We just haven’t had a chance this year. I still blame Andrew for buying a new patio set and gas BBQ in May. He must have cursed us.

Birthdays and Buddie!

It is my birthday today - I am another year older and another year closer to 30

What really made my day though is this fantastic picture that Lon, a fellow malamute owner, did for me of Buddie. I really hope that she goes into doing commisions. As you can see below, she is very very talented and I would love one done of the others in the future!

Meet Monkey!

It has been a while! I keep meaning to update but life has been busy lately and I never seem to get to sit down.

The biggest news is that we have a new family member - Monkey the blue-point Siamese kitten! He is 15 weeks old and just adorable, if naughty. He has a bit of a thing for the laptop and can be found curled up on the keyboard when he is not sending e-mails or social networking on Catbook.

Other stuff. Buddie enjoyed his recent visit to the poodle parlour! He was apparently on his best behaviour and loved being bathed and brushed by a professional He thorougly enjoyed his holdiday with Jane and Rob of Green and Furry and had lost some of his podge, which was great!

Koda is coming to the end of his moult, and just as Kiska is looking fabulous with a gorgeous coat, she decides to lose it. That dog is a pain - she will never have a coat for longer than a week, I am sure.

The chickens are not enjoying all the rain. Where is our summer? They spend all day snoozing under the palm tree and only come out for food. I don’t blame them.

Showing Kiska

I think we may start showing Kiska again… just for fun.

Here she is at 6 months old. This was the Alaskan Malamute Club of the UK’s show back in 2004. She did very well and came away with two 2nds and a 3rd

We aren’t going to do any Championship Shows with her as there is just no point - we don’t want to do Crufts… so we will more than likely try her in a few local Open shows, if we can find any coming up soon.

I’m looking forward to seeing her in the ring again! She loves to show-off, so hopefully she will remember what to do and so will Andrew as he will be taking her in.
Wish us luck!

Rubbish Weather…

We are still having lots of rain here - when we moved, we didn’t realise West Wales was so wet. It is good for the garden though and the grass is growing back after a winter of mad dogs.

Hopefully the weekend will be nice enough to actually do something in the garden and maybe get some photos of the dogs without worrying about a damp camera!

Koda wasn’t in the good books yesterday after waking us up barking at half past five in the morning. Andrew went down to investigate and found four magpies sat on the fence closest to Koda, winding him up. He really hates magpies as if he leaves a bone on the grass, they fly down and peck all the meat off and he cannot do anything about it from the kennel except bark at them

These magpies were eating pizza put out for the hens, which must be far more appealing than bones.

Personality Transplant

For anyone that knows Alaskan Malamutes, you will know that 99.9% of them have an extremely high prey drive and cannot be trusted near livestock.

We found this out the hard way when Kiska and Koda decided to eat a few of our escapee hens. We have to be very careful with the hens, as they sometimes get loose and then they are fair game to the big dogs who will chase and kill.

So can someone tell me why it is, for the last few weeks, that I have found either Kiska or Koda IN the hen pen, hoovering around for food, without touching the hens??

Or, when Penny and Gertrude, the naughtest hens, have flown over the fence  into full biting range of the dogs, they have not given them a second glance? In fact, Kiska has sniffed them and walked away and Koda has dropped to the floor.

I cannot cannot cannot think of any explanation apart from someone has transplanted their Malamute brains and given them normal-dog brains.

We have finally got some veggies in the ground and growbags! The greenhouse veggies are doing well and the veggies in the plot are too. All we have left to do is make a herb section and get some salad veg in

So far we have: Runner beans, peas, cauliflower, pumpkin, spring onion, radish, tomato, cucumber, courgette, butternut, melon, sweetcorn, basil, parsley, coriander, mint, oregano and sweet red peppers. And all from seed too. Next year we will have more groundy things like carrots, beetroot, parsnips etc but couldn’t this year as the land wasn’t ready. Still, we will have quite a bit to be going on with!

So Long Alfie and Vlad…

We were sad to say goodbye to Alfie recently. He has gone off to his new home with a lovely family who have three Jack Russells - so he will be in his element

Other stuff - the dogs are all great - the weather has been really miserable recently, so I haven’t been able to get any decent photos. Here is one Andrew took a few days ago of Koda.

The veggies are doing great, apart from the fact that the veggie patch is still not ready, so the stuff that needs to go in the ground (beans, peas, root veg etc) cannot go in yet. I am determined to get it planted as I do not want to let my seedlings go to waste. Everything is grown from seed, which makes it all the more important!

Andrew did manage to get the growbag stuff in though. So the tomatoes, cucumber and courgettes are doing well. The pumkin plants are becoming monsters too!

We have “harvested” our first lot of herbs too - the parsley has been growing fast and is now hanging to dry.

And last of all, sadly we lost Vlad the hen Found her at the top of the garden which is strangely where they all seem to go to die. Run free Vlad.

Hot!

The weather has been so hot here for the last week. Too hot for the dogs really although Buddie and Alfie don’t seem bothered by it at all!

We decided to take them both to the beach this afternoon as it was slightly breezier today - still too hot for the big dogs unfortunately so they will have to make do with an after dark walk this evening!

They had a great time although we decided against the tennis ball launcher we had brought - it was just too hot. Buddie swam and swam - he loves the water. Alfie didn’t dare to follow him in! The strange feeling of the sand was enough for him!

They met up with some springer spaniels and a very handsome black lab - also a lot of school children who were litter picking. Alfie got recognised as a Fox Terrier which was lovely Most people I fear think he is a Jack Russell!

They managed to both have a taste of our crepes and strawberries after their run, which were thoroughly enjoyed by both humans and dogs. I can hear snoring coming from the kennel, so they must be tired and happy! There is nothing better than a lovely run on the beach.

A Few Posts in one!

I haven’t been able to get into my Blog for some reason but my password has now kindly been re-set and here I am

There isn’t really that much to update about, but I will post some pictures of the gang and perhaps do a couple of posts with some backdated ones.

So most recent things? Well the dogs are all fine - Kiska is now completely bald and Buddie is starting to blow his coat. He loses his coat like a Malamute, so it is not fun and he needs a very good brush. My new nail clippers arrived from Jane, so claws will be trimmed at some point soon. Cue a screaming Kiska.

On the weekend, we finally laid the gravel in the kennel part of the garden. It was a mixture of mud and wood chippings before and now looks so much nicer.

All we need to do now is give the kennels a coat of paint, as they haven’t been painted for three years!! They should look a lot better then as they are quite tatty looking at the moment.

We also bought a huge garden box for all the dog toys, which Buddie has learnt to open with his nose. It is too deep for him to get any toys out though! He is obsessed with tennis balls at the moment so we bought him a giant bag in Pets at Home.

That’s all for now really as my food is cooked!! More later about veggies and chickens and things

Eco-Living…

This is inspired by a post on someone else’s Blog.

We like to think we are “doing our bit” for the environment. There are many ways in which we can improve, but I think we are well on our way to Green Living. A good site I have just joined is Edenbee which helps you work towards achieving your goals in the way you change your life to make it more Green.

At the moment we:

• Keep chickens in order to obtain free-range eggs. We would have liked to rear table birds but I cannot see us doing it in the near future. I just like having the eggs and we don’t really have enough space for extra sheds without the dogs having less space in the garden.
• Do not throw away anything that can be eaten by dogs, hens or put in the compost bin. Nothing is wasted.
• Have just started our own vegetable patch. We have recently bought a greenhouse and are going to try to become fairly self-sufficient as far as veggies are concerned. We buy Organic if we need to buy anything.
• We recycle everything apart from plastic, as our local Council does not take plastic for some reason. However, Andrew has just found a plastic bin in a local town, so we can start taking it there. Glass, tin and card/paper are collected, and we have a three way bin in the kitchen to separate things. As a result, we only put rubbish out once in a while.
• When we shop, we only use canvas/resusable hessian bage for our groceries. We stopped using plastic bags a while ago and we have stopped using poo bags in the garden for the dogs. We only use them now when we have to pick up in a public place.
• Our baby’s nappies are cloth washable nappies.
• We have started doing things around the home like turning the oven off 5 minutes before the cooking time ends, unplugging chargers, washing clothes at 30 degrees, having showers instead of baths etc.

There are probably many more things that I cannot think of. I think we are doing pretty well as most people our age or living in our area couldn’t care less. It is nice to know that we are doing our bit and even though we can’t save the world, if more people lived this way then it is bound to make a difference. I just wish our council would take plastic!