The Adventures of Miss Luna

We visited Mum’s friend a couple of weeks ago. She has two little girls, they’ve started walking now so we decided to go for a walk to the park so we could all run around together! They have a doggie called Rusty, he’s pretty cool. I think he likes me cos he kept trying to kiss me all the time. He’s alright, but he needs to do something about his smell – or stop rolling in dead stuff in the park! Ugh!

Rusty LOVES his girls though and they love him too. He’s so patient with them!

The girls like taking Rusty for a walk, so we decided to let them take me for a walk too. I had to be really careful and stick close to Mum so I didn’t pull them over!

I reckon I did a pretty good job!

I even posed for some photos with them, all pretty like.

Then had my moment in the spotlight, the sunshine was nice and warm.

All that babysitting and modelling work is pretty taxing, so when we got back to Mum’s friend’s place, it was time for a rest. On Mum, of course.

This is part two of this story!

So you already saw a preview of my little beach in the last instalment. It’s the place Mum takes me walking to in the mornings before she has to go to work, it’s just down the road from where she lives, pretty handy huh! Because it’s a beach (although quite a small one) we can do all the fun stuff we get to do on the big beaches we go to on weekends. One of my favourite things is chasing sticks!

Mum throws them out into the water for me and I swim out and get them, then run back. I like it when Mum pretends to chase me (pretends, cos we both know she could never catch me if I really tried to get away) and I prance around thinking I’m pretty special.

Up the end of the little beach is a tree that Mum and I like to sit under for a while sometimes. It’s quite peaceful!

I look out over the water and watch the birdies and the people in boats cruising past.

There’s a pretty good view from there over to the big tall buildings of places called Main Beach and Surfers Paradise.

I don’t care so much about that though. I care more about…..

ZOOMIEEEESSSS!!!

There’s something awesome about the sand over near the wall at the end of the beach. It’s so soft, and deep, and SQUISHY! Every time I walk on it, I just feel the urge to go totally silly!!

Yaaahhhh!!!

After zoomies always comes digging. Digging is great – Mum lets me do it and even tells me “Dig dig dig, Luna!” to make me dig faster! If you’re wondering, at home I know I’m not allowed to dig holes in the garden, but at the beach, it’s on!

I judge how well I’ve dug a hole by how much sand I get all over the place, all over me, all over my face and if possible, all over Mum too if she stands too close! Afterwards I like to go have a rinse off in the water.

And what better way to rinse off than fetching sticks again!

Another thing I love about our little beach is the playground. Now I know this is usually for human kiddies, but there are never any there, so Mum lets me play on the the play equipment! This spinning thing is kinda fun, but makes me a bit dizzy sometimes.

I like jumping up on the platforms, sometimes it takes me a couple of goes though!

I always get up there eventually! I like being up high.

My favourite thing however is to go down the slide. I love slippery slides, always have!

Eventually though, it’s time to leave the little beach and walk home. I take one last longing look over the water…

Then it’s off back home again along the bike path. Mum decided to get a bit creative with the early morning shadows!

She decided the light was so pretty, she wanted to try and get some nice photos of me and her. Mother and doggy-daughter pics! She set me up on the hill sitting nicely (I’m good at that), set the camera up down the hill a bit, pressed some buttons then ran back to where I was sitting! Quite frankly I thought she could do a better job of the process and was telling her so, when the camera took the picture.

Mum told me to shush because she knew what she was doing, and we had another go! I tried for my best ‘looking into the distance trying to look interesting’ pose. It was good enough, apparently.

Back home, I always head to my water bowl for a big long drink. Going to the beach is thirsty work! Especially when you accidentally eat lots of sand and seawater.

Before I’m allowed inside, Mum makes sure I am dry and have as much sand off me as possible. She also likes to make a fool out of me by hanging a big pink towel over my back like a horse rug. Thanks Mum, super funny joke. Can I have my breakfast now?

I hope you enjoyed our two part morning walk adventure! Coming up in the future (hopefully soon!) will be the rest of Kaya’s memorial post, plus a fun modelling adventure with me at the surf beach! And oh, oh! I nearly forgot! Since Mum is such a Facebook Addict social networking expert, she’s started up my very own Facebook page! How exciting! It will link to all my blog posts here (don’t worry, it’s not replacing the blog) and will be a place where Mum can put random photos and videos that don’t always make it to the blog. Make sure you become a fan at Luna the Great Dane today!

Ok so Mum ended up caving and has decided to keep posting my stories here instead of on her own la-di-dah “professional” photography blog. Good! I like my home here thanks Mum!

She did want me to mention though, that with her job and her photography stuff and taking care of me and her horsie Rocky and all the other things she gets up to, she won’t be posting very often. But that’s better than not at all, right?

Mum also wanted me to let everyone know the situation with her and my Dad. They actually aren’t together any more, which is kinda sad, but as Mum explained, these things happen in life! I actually live with Dad for most of the week but still get to spend time with Mum a few days a week too. So Mum doesn’t get to see me nearly as much, but when she comes and gets me, I get pretty excited cos I know we are off to do something fun!

We often go to the beach, or out to see Rocky, and of course we always go for lots of walks too. When I stay the night, I even get to sleep on the bed!

As soon as Mum wakes up, I know I need to get stuck into hassling her to go do something exciting (I LOVE my morning walks) or she might fall asleep again! I’ve noticed humans tend to do that, how lazy! I make sure I have her attention by staring at her, making yowling noises and sighing heavily and frequently. Here’s my stare.

When I know she’s definitely awake and getting out of bed, it’s time for my to make my departure from the bed too. I like to do this by putting my front feet on the ground and walking away with them, while doing a bit STREEETTCCHHH and a yawn for good measure.

This is Mum’s house. She has a nice front patio with a bed on it so I can lay out here and survey the front yard. Guard dog duties apply at both my houses! It’s how I earn my keep apparently. I’m a pretty awesome guard dog too, I have a really scary deep bark! I like scaring people who I haven’t met before, it’s kinda fun. Though I have to stop when Mum tells me to “shush”. What a killjoy.

We were just about to head out the front gate for our walk, when I decided that I better check the perimeter.

I once saw a cat in the far corner of the yard. Now everytime I look over there, I’m sure I see it again! I bet it lurks in the bushes all the time, just to keep me on my toes. So I always have to run over and check and do a big scary WUFF, just to make sure.

Mum lives in a really quiet street, so we practice my offlead walking and road sense.  Not that I really need much practice, I’m pretty darn awesome at this. Do you know, I’m so good, that if Mum runs onto the road, yelling and jumping up and down even, I still won’t follow her onto the road?

I just sit there on the edge, waiting for her to say the magic word (which is OK!). Then I always make sure I stick nice and close to Mum, and then get off the road quickly. Roads are pretty bad places for doggies to be, so I’m pretty glad Mum and Dad put the time into teaching me this!

We’re soon at the fun walking place! It’s basically a canal that runs along the back of some houses, with a walking track.

It’s a great place to sniff around because lots of other doggies get walked there too and there’s always something new to smell.

I like to call it “catching up on the gossip”.

Of course there is always time for a bit of posing action. It’s a bit of a deal we have going these days, I do some modelling work in exchange for Mum taking me fun places like this. Works for me!

On the walk, we get to go through a little tunnel thing, it’s kinda like being in a forest!

We have to cross a bridge, and then a pretty busy road next, so Mum puts me on the lead.

On the side of the busy road, we stop, I sit, and we both look for cars. First left -

Then right!

Next we walk down a short street past some houses, before getting to one of my favourite places! Mum makes me stay, and wait until she says OK.

Then I race off onto the sand!

This is what me and Mum call ‘the little beach’. It’s not a real surf beach, like most of the ones we go to on the Gold Coast, but there is sand. It’s actually part of the canals and river that  sit in behind where the surf beaches are. There are lots of flash houses on the water that have their own jetties and boats! Would be pretty cool to live on the water, cos then I could go swimming ALL the time – I love swimming!

Anyway here’s a link showing where our little beach is.

There’s a nice park with a playground next to the little beach and we often see other people walking and swimming their dogs there too.

Mum took sooo many photos that it’s just too many for one post, but she’s going to do another post that has the rest of them, hopefully soonish!

Love and licks, Luna xxoo

One of my favourite things to do these days is to hang out with Rocky while Mum rides him! Most of the time, we go ‘out the back’ to this huge paddock with cows, where we get to run really fast. Running with Rocky really fun, horses are very fast! Sometimes though, we just muck around in the arena place instead. Jumping is my favourite thing to do – I can do a whole horsey jump course – even better than Rocky can!

If Mum is just riding around though, I like to trot around with them and supervise. This time Mum was riding Rocky ‘bareback’ which means without a saddle contraption thing! People are always telling Mum that she should put a saddle on me for some reason. I’m glad she doesn’t. I think Rocky is happier without a saddle too. It just makes it a bit harder for Mum though, so she doesn’t go very fast for very long. He’s a bit bony, she says!

I’m usually pretty happy just following them around. I try not to get in the way, but sometimes there is something awesome that needs sniffing and I stop in front of them, but Mum just yells ‘QUICK!’ and I get outa the way pretty fast!

The best part is when we get to do jumping! I love jumping. I like showing Rocky how it’s done.

Unfortunately he hasn’t quite got the knack of hanging his tongue out the side like I do, which is an integral part of jumping. And everything, really. But he does try, and that’s the main thing.

One thing that Rocky is getting pretty good at is modelling. Mum has taught him to stand pretty and put his head down like this to make him look handsome. Being a budding professional model myself, I like to stand by and give a few tips here and there.

He still doesn’t get the importance of the tongue thing, but we’re working on it.