When Guy died earlier in January, Larry plummeted into a life of quiet aloneness.  He stopped making guinea pig noises and would sit for hours totally still.  I guess considering he spend almost every day of his 5 years with his buddy Guy, losing him would have been earth shattering to the poor little dude.

P also had a lone guinea, Rusty, whose own friend died about a year ago.  So there seemed an easy solution and when TnT came over for dinner last Wednesday night they brought a little box with holes in it that contained Rusty.  Cliff put Rusty into Larry’s cage and they quickly introduced each other.

It has now been almost a week and both are very happy.  They eat together, sleep together and are both making all the proper guinea pig noises again.  Today is Australia Day 2010 and the boys are enjoying their daily feast of freshly picked grass, lettuce, carrot, cucumber and a bowl of rabbit mueslie!

Cliff and I have been living at the farm for the past 3 weeks while Sheldon & Caitlin are at their mothers.  Shimi absolutely loves the property and runs around the paddocks and quickly discovered the dam.  She has been going in for a swim several times a day and more when it is hot.  Sometimes she just stands in the water with a stupid look on her face but other times she swims laps backwards and forwards across the remaining muddy water.  She gets out wet, soggy, muddy and looking very pleased with herself.

Then, she sneaks back inside and sits on her bed - still wet, soggy, and sandy!

Guy

On Thursday, 7th January 2010, Guy passed away.

Guy joined our family (along with Larry) on 2nd February 2005. Guy had lived a charmed guinea pig life with our family being fed not only a yummy pellet and rabbit mix with grains and lucern but also a daily diet of fresh veges.  His favourite vege was Chinese Veges (Bok Choy) and he preferred it if you pulled apart the leaves.  He loved Cucumber, apple and carrot sliced and celery sticks immensely…..but, by far, his most favourite food was grass… and lots of it!

Guy leaves behind his guinea pig friend Larry.

Shimi at Avalon

Mahli and Shimi

We’ve had to wait until Shimi had her vaccinations to be able to take her anywhere because Parvo virus has been prevalent this year.  We headed down to the beach house on 28th December.  P&R, J&R, & TnT where already there.  Mitch, Sheldon & Caitlin came with us and Beth joined us for one day (before flying out to Canberra with Eila on New Years Day.  Eila turned 16 on New Year’s Eve.

So, Shimi saw the beach for the first time.  We knew she would LOVE it because she just loves water (of any kind) so much.  She loves the hose on, or the sprinklers, and sat on the black slide up at the farm with the kids wizzing down it this year.

Some dogs can’t dog paddle straight away but Shimi had no such trouble

Shimi loves water

and swam back and forth with

Cliff shows Shimi a shell

ease.  Having never been on a lead before we were amazed that she took to it quickly and just walked calmly at our side.  She was fussed over by everyone on the beach and said hello to every dog she saw.  She chased Mahli round and followed her up to Mahli’s favourite limestone caves.  Both dogs walked over the uncovered reef.

We took the pups for a walk twice a day and Shimi slept for hours afterwards exhausted, but very happy!

J&I, V&R and Luke, J & C came down to the beach house for New Years and V,R,L & C stayed over night.  Once they’d left we decided to stay another couple of nights before heading home.

Favourite reef bit

Mahli shows Shimi the caves

Shimi and Mahli Nov 2009

An angel when asleep!

Shimi is growing fast.  Mahli has decided she is not so bad and occasionally plays with her.  Shimi now has a size and weight advantage and sometimes decides to smother Mahli.

Shimi at work!

Beautiful Shimi is now 12 weeks old.  She has grown so fast and weighed in at almost 12 kilos at the vets this week.  She has trained extremely fast and learnt to sit on the first attempt (how did she even know what to do?).  We have always made dogs ’sit’ before we give them their dinner so I took her bowl out the back and said “sit”… and she did and I gave her her dinner.  From then on every time we said ’sit’ she does!  She also understands quite a lot of other words.  She learnt how to use Mahli’s doggie door at home and from that minute on has not messed inside during the day or night.  At 10 weeks I was getting sick of having to get up at 5 or 6 am because she was yapping in her cage for breakfast.  I was exhausted after two weeks of that.  So we decided instead of putting her in her pen to use it to section her off so she could only be on tiled areas and had the doggie door.  From that day onward she no longer whines in the morning and waits patiently for us to get up at 7am when I get her breakfast.  She is still not completely toilet trained at work as there is no doggie door it is more like ‘toilet timing’ when she gets up after a long sleep or after a drink or food we take her out and she’ll go to the toilet.  She’s had a couple of slip ups so she still has to learn to go to the door and ask to go out.

Shimi checking out the damn overflow pipe

She now towers over Mahli in height and is almost double her weight and she knows it as she uses these to her advantage when they play.  She is a bully and sides on to Mahli and pushes her against the wall or stands over the top of her.  She’ll even walk past Mahli and turn and knock her over with her backside!

We’ve been spending weekends up at the Piesse Brook property and Shimi LOVES it.  She loves sniffing around the paddocks, checking out the dam and the overflow pipe.  Playing in the mud and checking out the ducklings.  She is content sleeping in the house in the cool on and off during the day while we are outside working.  She comes down every now and then to see what we are doing and heads back inside if it is too hot.  Even at night she’s totally trustworthy to leave loose in the house as she uses the doggie door to go

Shimi even gets cuddles when all muddy!

out to the toilet and then comes back inside and goes back to sleep.  It is so nice having such a trustworthy dog who doesn’t bugger off every time you open the door like Mahli did as a puppy and young dog.  Even now you can’t completely trust Mahli not to disappear when you have your back turned.  Beth is taking Mahli down to Mandurah this weekend.

First Meeting

Today Shimi is exactly 8 weeks old and we brought her home.  She did not enjoy the trip home in the car but decided she loved her new bed.  Mahli had smelt Shimi on us over the past weeks and she tentertively met her on the front lawn before she came into the house.  Mahli’s behaviour reminds us of how Jessie was when we brought Mahli home as an 8 week old puppy…. if she looks the other way and pretends she is not there.. then she is not!

New bed

Kids in the Kitchen

On the middle weekend of the Spring School holidays J, P & R and kids and Cliff, Mitch, Sheldon, Caitlin & I spent a few days at Mandurah.  We were only spending Saturday and Sunday night there.  We decided that the kids could cook dinner on Saturday night.  Caesar Salad was decided on.  Mitchell (18), Eila (15), Sheldon (15), Caitlin (14), Lewis (13) and Aaron (13) headed to the kitchen and without one fuss all decided what part of dinner they were doing.

Mitchell diced the chicken and he and Aaron headed off to the bbbq to cook it.  Caitlin diced and cooked the bacon.  The boys diced up bread and drizzled it with garlicy olive oil and put it into the oven.  Eila, Sheldon & the others then set about cutting up the salad.  Lettuce, onion, capsicum, avocado etc.

The final result was spectacular and delicious and we were all very proud of our kids.  Not so much because of the food but because not one of the whinged and there were no disagreements.  Total Team Work!

More amazing is that without a sound Eila headed back to the kitchen and washed and wiped up on her own!

Shimi gorgeous at 7 weeks

Shimi - 22 Oct 2009

Shimi is 7 weeks old and she is absolutely beautiful.  I dropped into see her on the way home from work today.  I figured it would be good if she got to know me a bit and that if I smelt and sounded familiar when we pick her up next Saturday to come to her new come that maybe she would settle more easily.

All of the puppies are just so gorgeous…. 7 weeks is just a lovely age when all their little personalities start to come out.  As it turns out Shimi is a quiet girl.  Several of the others were yapping a lot, one kept climbing over the little fence into the next pen, no matter how many times Stef put her back!  I picked Shimi up and sat her on my knee and she happily stayed there for 15 minutes.  She sniffed me all over and looked at me quietly.  She reminds me a lot of the type of puppy Jessie used to be (Jessie of course the reason why we chose to get a goldy!).

9 sleeps before Shimi comes home

We chose Shimi today!  3 weeks until she comes home.

Shimi 5 Weeks old