This summer I’ve made a few new friends and a lot of old friends stayed with us too. I would like to introduce all of them to you!
First summer dog that stayed with us for a couple of days, was hairy Harry. I like him a lot: he is lazy, like me. Oh, we play! But only for a bit, then we nap again. He also is very slow with his food which gives me a good chance of ‘helping’ him in that area, haha! But on walks he likes to join me in my hunt for garbage. Yes, Harry is a good friend of mine.
Two other regulars were here for a while too: Jess (left) and April. They look so much alike, they could be sisters! Who knows, maybe they are related, but they do live with different families. They got along really great… a bit too wild for my liking, but it was nice they could drain each others energy. Susan lets them run off the leash often, they are both very good and listen to her. April lives very close to us, so even when she is not staying here, she sometimes comes over to play with her friends for a bit! Jess lives on Hong Kong Island but is on Lantau often too. When Susan doesn’t have space for her, she stays with my aunt and uncle.
The dog that stayed here the longest of all was Jessie! According to Susan, Jessie is the most beautiful dog. I like to play with her and I also like her because she shares my interest in cow poo. This is the reason Susan doesn’t walk Jessie off the leash, although she is allowed to play off the leash sometimes and in the mountains she is also well behaved.
Jessie is the best swimmer of all the dogs I know! She loves the water. One time, she jumped in the ocean and swam and swam. The humans were about to go after her when she turned around and came back with a puffy fish in her mouth! She was so proud. But the humans took the fish from her. I thought that was kind of uncalled for.
Old boy Barnaby was also here for a while again. I’m not too sure about Barnaby…. He gets on my nerves, because he is so obsessed about food. I know, it sounds weird coming from me, but I kind of feel threatened when he’s around at meal times. He just barges through all the other dogs (me!) to be as close to the food (my food!) as possible. This upsets me so much, I sometimes growl at him. So usually Susan feeds us separately. When he is around, the humans have to take into account that he is much taller than me: he can reach things that are on the kitchen bench. I can’t. That bugs me too. Anyway, it’s sort of nice to not be the biggest scavenger around and I share my bed with him when there is no food around, so I’m sad to hear he moved to New York this week…. I hope he’ll have lots of New York Cheese Cake: yummm!
Funny girl Hetty was one of our first guests ever and we always love having her around. Susan says she has the cutest ears in Hong Kong! Hetty is a dog with a mission. Or actually: three missions.
1) Getting her paws on food
2) Watching gekko’s
3) Collecting socks
I don’t really get the sock thing, but Hetty is quite determined. Socks must be collected. The dirtier, the better. If they are around, she will find them. Then she proudly presents them to Susan.
Another crazy girl is Zuma, a dog with a sense of humor! She just loves to run and play, she makes silly faces and silly jumps. Zuma loves life and Susan loves Zuma. Susan says she is the perfect dog (what!?). Zuma is still very young and has a bad leg due to an untreated injury she got when she was a tiny puppy. But luckily, Zuma is adopted by the sweetest family and after she stayed with us, a doctor treated her leg. She will stay with us again in a few months time and Susan is really looking forward to seeing Zuma with her ‘new leg’! Maybe she will even join us on mountain hikes then….?
Talking about crazy girls….. I think these two might be right up there with Zuma. Lucy (left) was with us for a long time. She is only a puppy and I think she doubled in size in the time she was here! She is sweet and playful and she especially liked Jessie, who was very playful and patient with her. She also liked Olive (right), who only stayed with us for a couple of weeks. Olive was a bit shy at first, but felt at home quite quickly. Susan thinks Olive felt much better about our house because of all the other dogs that were around. We seemed to boost Olive’s confidence. Oh, and about this picture: none of us know what is really going on here, they were just always doing silly things like this, making Susan laugh really hard.
So we had a house filled with big dogs. Well… bigger than me. Until Gatti arrived. He is small, but fierce. He plays very well with all the other dogs, big or small. I liked to play with him too! When he just arrived, Susan was a bit nervous about him getting hurt. For example by Lucy, who sometimes plays very wildly. But in the end he was more wild than Lucy! Sometimes Susan even had to make him stop bothering her, so she could have a rest. Gatti also likes to get himself really dirty. Water, mud, sand…. He just jumps into it, enjoying it all. Because of his short legs, he would get dirty much quicker than the others. So Susan rinsed him with the garden hose almost every day.
Rasmus! He has become a true regular this summer. He already spent a couple of days with us in spring and then was here for a long time in summer. And even after that he sometimes came back for a couple of days. I really love Rasmus, I play with him a lot. I think Rasmus loves being here too, he is good with all the dogs and loves Susan. The only thing Rasmus doesn’t like, is new people. All the other dogs, including me, welcome anybody. I mean, we bark at first but lets be honest: one treat and we’re happy to be friends with the most creepy stranger. But Rasmus can’t be persuaded to make friends easily. Susan doesn’t mind though. She says he is the only one who is actually a true guard dog!
When summer got to an end, two young boys came to stay with us for a while. Sandy & Dusty were found on the Mui Wo beach last April and they were lucky that a nice family took them home and decided to keep them! What can I say about them…. Sandy (right) loves other dogs. Sometimes a bit too much, as he keeps licking faces! When I get up in the morning, I’m a bit grumpy and I don’t really need a big slobbery tongue on my face thank you very much! But it’s quite easy to correct him, one small growl and he’ll quit it. Dusty is more into humans. But both are very good boys, they are good off the leash and enjoy playing with the other dogs. The best thing is, they keep each other busy and play together like crazy. Being puppies, they did pee in the house a couple of times the first week they were here and they also chewed up a couple of things. This inspired Susan to start the Facebook support group ‘look at what my dog chewed up‘.
Last but not least, these are Sandy & Dusty’s ‘sisters’ Lucy and Ruby. I know, it gets confusing. It’s like we ran out of names and started over again. These two old ladies are both miniature pinchers and very different from young Lucy and me. To be honest, I don’t interact with these small creatures a lot… Susan walks them separately most of the time, although in the evening, when husband joins us, we all walk together. The thing these two like best, is food. And that’s something I can relate to!
Would you like to see more pictures of me and all the dogs that stay with us? Follow us on instagram @susanshappytails !