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Lily and Tommy's Excellent Adventures

57K views 901 replies 21 participants last post by  Tyg'sMum2 
#1 ·
So proud of Lily.

Halfway through our morning walk we paused to play "Find Fat Mum", which involves me hiding in the bushes, and her scenting me out (a variant played with the OH, called "Find Twit Features", is also available).

So - Fat Mum hides, and Twit Features drops the bloody leash. In the middle of the fields, and in the company of a Noble Hound who has never been offlead in a field in the last 7 months - if ever - and who only answers to recall if she thinks there's something in it for her.

A greyhound can hit 45 mph in three strides. Fat Mum can jog for two yards before her trick knee plays up, and Twit Features is very nearly capable to moving under his own steam...

So: Twit Features calls out in alarm, Lily gallops round the corner of the bushes, I call her - and damn my eyes, she slows down and trots up to me, nice as you like.

Next week I shall attempt to train Twit Features.
 
#849 ·
Lily: I iz Little Swine Dog Any More Of This And Santa Will Not Bring You Any Presents.

Two nights ago FM and TF were having a quick and easy tea of soup and bread buns. Me and Our Tommy had already had our tea but I was fed up waiting for a bit of bread bun when they had finished, so I casually wandered up to the Twit and looked innocent before he had time to realise what I was up to I went Snatch! and grabbed half his bread bun and took it up my corner and gulped it down quickly before he had time to grab it back.

FM and TF were Not Amused. I had a Big Telling Off and then when they had finished guzzling FM gave Tommy some bread bun and said Tough Luck Lil Naughty Girls Who Nick Food Don't Get Any Treats.

I had a Big Sulk, but that didn't get me anywhere so I decided to be Contrite Girl instead and that seemed to work because there was no withholding of Bedtime Biskit.

Yesterday we had a nice walk round the village and then - what a surprise - went to the pub. There was a Big Christmas Tree, all sparkly and pretty, and our People were a bit worried that we might get a bit silly. But Tommy sniffed at a bauble and then went and lay down in his Safe Corner and I lay down right by the tree and looked appealing and we were both wearing our fancy jackets with stars and rainbows on them and several people stopped and admired us and said I looked just like a wrapped-up present from Santa.

Everything was going fine, and our people had ham-and-tomato sangwidjis and shared them with us and then two people walked in with a pale brindle greyhound and we went to say hello. Her name iz Gypsy and it was all sweetness and light until the Twit got distracted by something they asked him and took his eye off me. And there was a lady sitting opposite who had a sangwidj that smelled Absolutely Yum and - well, you can guess what happened. FM shouted and the Twit hauled me back before I could investigate the Yum and they both apologised to the lady. She sed No Harm Done, but FM said you could see she was Not Impressed and we were lucky that we weren't banned because you cannot have dogs going round stealing food off people's plates.

And of course I was in Trouble Again. FM sez she cannot Trust Me An Inch and we are going to have to work on manners and the Twit is going to have to work on Keeping An Eye On Me.
 
#850 ·
Oh Lily darling, I'm glad to see you. I waz missing you so much. You've been quiet for so long. I thought mebbe FM had a relapse of cough, cough, cough and was not up to being your secretary.

What, no photo of you looking pretty in your sparkly coat? FM is slipping on her job as secretary.

Tell FM iz not good shouting and threatening pur liddle girls.
 
#851 ·
Oh Lily darling, I'm glad to see you. I waz missing you so much. You've been quiet for so long. I thought mebbe FM had a relapse of cough, cough, cough and was not up to being your secretary.

What, no photo of you looking pretty in your sparkly coat? FM is slipping on her job as secretary.

Tell FM iz not good shouting and threatening pur liddle girls.
Lily: Fank Roo very much. We have not had many 'citing ventures because it iz So Cold and on the days it iz Not So Cold iz Very Wet Indeed and Tommy and me do not like going out when it is Very Wet Indeed.

The Twit took a photo of me by the Big Christmas Tree so I shall make sure he downloads it.

They are having chicking escallops for their tea tonight so I have been Specially Good all day.
 
#853 ·
Tommy: Well, we haz had no Long Walks because of Weather. The wind iz howling down the chimney and we is wrapped up in warm fleeces and blankies and FM sez we iz probably warmer than she iz.

There are only four Big Sleeps left until Crisp Mouse. FM sez she needs to buy some Black Pudding for the gravy and make sure Santa haz some chocolate for the Twit's stocking and other than that it is just taking things out of the freezer on Saturday and doing some of the cooking on Sunday. If we iz lucky we might get a few bits of the Sunday cooking to keep us going . . .

For Crispmouse Dinner FM is cooking chicken and piggies in blankies and roastie potatoes and peas and carrots and Yorkie Puds and stuffing and gravy and she sez we can have a little bit of everything 'cept the stuffing (because of nonions) and we can have some of the Crispmouse Cake because the Twit does not like Fruit Cake and so she will make a Carrot Cake and use Cream Cheeeze instead of icing.

We say YUM!
 
#854 ·
Lily: We went to buy some Black Pud at the butchers but the queue of people wanting to collect their CrispMouse Turkeys was half way round the block so FM said O Sod It We'll Do Without It so we went for a stroll round the village and a quick coffee instead.

The lady in the chocolate shop said that the local supermarket was jam-packed with last minute shoppers and she hadn't been able to get her kid's selection boxes so FM said Did You Know There Are Plenty In The Village Shop Or At Least There Were Ten Minutes Ago and the lady thanked her and said I'll Pop There Just As Soon As I've Served You That'll Save Tears On CrispMouse Morning and FM said I Have Decided If We Haven't Got It Now We Can Manage Without.
 
#855 ·
Lily: I iz being Suspiciously Good. I haz zizzed on the sofa while FM crawled round on the floor wrapping prezzies and moaned about not having learned to buy things that are Box Shaped and Easy To Wrap (she had particular difficulties with TF's new cap!) and I did not try to help her by eating the wrapping paper or fighting the sticky tape. I did not even look interested when she had a go at wrapping a Very Big Toblerone! She says it is called a Sharing Bar but she doubts she'll see any of it.

Tommy and I know there are only two more sleeps to CrispMouse and we are not going to risk being on Santa's Norty List! But whether we will behave like Good Hounds on CrispMouse Day remains to be seen.

Tommy: I think we'd better be Good until after FM has given us our special CrispMouse dinner . . .

Lily: Good call, bro . . .
 
#856 ·
Dear Santa

This iz Lily writing. Mummy sez it iz no good me pretending to be Contrite but I really really iz and I really really do not want to be on your Norty List.

I waz Good Girl and went for Long Walk with Daddy and my brother Tommy while Mummy was cooking some Yum. And when we came back I waz still Good Girl even when she took the Yum out of the oven! But the kitchen still smelt of Yum...

I promise that when I opened the oven door it waz not so I could steal any Yum. I only wanted to look: I waz going to close the oven door again and go and tell Mummy how clever she is to cook lovely Yum! But Mummy caught me with my snoot in the oven and said No No No Little Tripehounds Might Burn Their Snoots You Norty Girl I Have Told You Before Santa Does Not Come To Norty Girls.

I did not mean to be Norty, Santa. I only meant to be Good Girl and tell Mummy how clever she iz.

Please don't put me on the Norty List, Santa!

Love to you and Mrs Santa and the Reindeer and all the Little Elves

Your friend Lily xxx
 
#858 ·
Lily: Santa did come and bring us pressies! We had a stocking each with lots of treats and chews in them, and Tommy haz a squeeeky bone and I haz a squeeeky elf and they are both put away for a bit because the squeeks are giving Mummy One Of Her Heads.

It will be CrispMouse Dinner in a little while and Mummy says we can have a bit of Everything (cept the stuffing).

Merry CrispMouse Everyone!
 
#860 ·
Lily: I am not Miss Popularity Plus.

On The Day After Boxing Day, FM and TF were eating left-over chicking and rice for their tea. Me and Our Tommy had already had some chicking for our tea, but we knew full well that they would save us some of theirs as well.

I like chicking. It is SuperYum. I did not want to wait until they had finished before I got some more Chicking, so I tried to help myself from FM's plate.

FM did not want me to help myself from her plate, so she tried to move it away from me.

I did not want FM to move her plate. I wanted some of her chicking.

So I bit her.

After being a Total Disgrace for some time, I think I am back in her good books. I hope I am, anyway.
 
#866 ·
Hope you don’t mind me asking but have you checked lily is getting enough food or checked by a vet as your last few posts have been around her being a bit “testy” with food.

FYI hope you’re okay and your fingers heals quickly. I love reading your stories about the hounds.
She was vet-checked a few months ago (as was Tommy): our vet told me they were both "boringly healthy". I weigh them every six weeks when we go for nail-clipping, and she's a couple of kilos heavier than she was when we adopted her but within the weight range for her size.

She's a very greedy little hound - very food orientated. Her foster mum had problems with her snaffling food, which we all put down to her being undersized (she's small for a grey) and possibly having been bullied off her food by her siblings. When she was being fostered she had to be fed separately from the two resident hounds and to be fed with a slow feeder bowl to prevent her bolting her food down. We've overcome this: she and Tommy are fed in different rooms and she waits for his to be put down before going to her own bowls. And she's slowed down her eating speed.

I think part of the problem is that the weather is so horrible at the moment that neither of them want to go for much of a walk and she's getting over excited. And of course it was chicken, which she can't resist. Tonight we had a snack tea on trays, and she lay down and waited until we called her before coming over to have a few little bits.

The bruising is fading.
 
#865 ·
Zak has been really greedy lately too. He tried to eat a foam scourer the other day. Luckily got it of him or it would've been a visit to the vet. Maybe they need more calories in winter? I've started giving him veg to fill him. Though you Lily are always getting your treats, your a lucky girl:)
 
#867 ·
What does Zak have for his breakfast? L & T have a little porridge made with water and a drop of milk, or a Weetabix with warm water and a drop of milk.

Veg are great fillers. L & T love carrots, tomatoes, calabrese and cucumber - also peas and sweetcorn, although these last two go through them undigested!
 
#868 ·
Zak has his kibble and a topper of butchers or sometimes sardines for bf and tea. In between he has biscuits and a camel skin chew also raw carrot. I've been adding pasta or cooked cabbage, cooked sweet potato to his tea. Last thing he has a spoonful of natural yogurt and a bonio to stave of bilious vomit. His racing weight was 34 now he's 35. But he'd eat all day if we let him. He is very greedy and pesters all the time for food.
 
#869 ·
I suspect that part of the problems with greyhounds and food is that in racing kennels they're encouraged to eat everything that's offered to them (according to the guidance from the Trust). And they're not around when their trainers/handlers eat, so there's no food that's off limits, and treats are given sparingly. And then when they retire and go into a home environment there's always food around . . .

Lily is also an accomplished bin-diver. She knows full well how to open a pedal bin, and will knock the bin over to get to the contents if all else fails. I have failed completely when it comes to training this out of her: I just bit the bullet, got rid of the bin, and make more frequent trips to the dustbin or the compost bin (which for some reason only known to her, she completely ignores).
 
#870 · (Edited)
Lily: I iz being Very Good and Loving and Not At All Greedy today.

Tommy: Nor am I!

Lily: True, bro. But Mummy sez she haz remembered an Interesting Encounter she and I had three years ago – before Tommy came to live with us! – and I should tell everyone about it.

It was a snowy day in January, and we went for a walk. Because our house faces west, we do not get the sun on the front until the afternoon and if the snow starts to melt, it iz not very long before the weather gets cold cold cold and all the melting snow freezes again and goes all slippy which means it iz dangerous for Mummies of a Certain Age.

This is what had happened the day before, and the pavement at the front of the house was Very Slippery. So we crossed over the road – Careful Lily Slow Slow Slow There’s A Good Girl – and walked up the road on the other side where it was Safer For Mummies.

After a while we got to the bit where the kids had been playing with a sledge and the snow was all compacted (I had to ask Mummy about that word) and so the safest place to walk was in the middle of the road where the snow was still all soft. Our road is a cul-de-sac so it was very safe to do this.

We had nearly got to the top of the road and Mummy was thinking about us walking through the paddock when there was a rustling in the bushes! I stopped to see what was making the rustle (and Mummy said O Lily If It Iz A Squiggle Please Don’t Try To Chase Him You’ll Have Me Over) – and it was not a Squiggle! It was a big red foxie! He stopped and looked at us, and we looked back at at him, and he was only a few feet away. And when he had had a Good Look he trotted off down the road.

We stood and watched him until he was out of sight and decided that he was on his way to the coffee shop at the end of the road where there is a broken plank in the fence and Mummy said perhaps Mrs Foxie had sent him out for some takeaway bacon sangwidjis for breakfast because she couldn’t be bothered to cook.

I thought this was a Good Idea so we went home and Mummy made bacon sangwidjis for our breakfast.

We haz seen lots of foxies since but we have never seen one in the road again. Sometimes they come into our garden at night and stare through the Big Window at us, and in the spring we hear them making Baby Foxies, but Mummy will not let us go out and play with them.
 
#872 ·
Lily was very good seeing that fox and not wanting to chase! It was very slippy on our walk today and Zak was on the grass with me still on the path, when he got the scent of something. He bunched his shoulders and tucked his bum in as I'm sure you've seen them do when they're about to take off and do a zoom. I had a horrible vision of me ending up back in A&E, so quickly pulled him close and told him soothingly to calm, which thankfully he did. He hasn't been to his field for a while because it was swamped last time. I'll have to get him there soon though to let him blow off steam.
 
#874 ·
Tommy: We thought we were going on a Big Adventure today because the Twit emerged from the TwitPit early (for him) and after breakfast we all got in the TwitMobile.

But we thunk wrong. We went to the village and it was pouring down with rain and we parked at the vets. FM had booked us for a nail clipping and I went in first. It was the nice nurse who mended my paw the last time a Norty Nail broke off and she loved me up and told me I was Good Brave Boy and gave me a treat. Then Lily went in and while she was having her pedicure I made friends with a little cocker spaniel and when Lily came out and FM was making a nappointment for us to see the vet so we can have some worm tablets the door opened and a fawn greyhound walked in with her new Dad! Her name is Beauty and she was only adopted this morning and her Dad wanted to sign her up for the Pet Health Club. So there were treats all round and lots of sniffing.

And it was still raining Wet Wet Wet so we went to the pub and helped our people eat their sangwidjis and made friends with a cocker spaniel (a different one) called Sky and a border collie called Baloo who is a rescue dog. Baloo is a Bit Timid because he had a Hard Life and was beaten before his People rescued him. But he is getting Much Better and said Hello to me and Lily and helped us eat some biskits.

And then we came home and had our tea and zizzed in front of the fire while the Twit got back in the TwitMobile and went and did the shopping. So it was not really a Nadventure but was nice to get out and make new friends. And Lily was Good Nice Mannered Girl and did not try to go self catering and I was Good Boy all day.
 
#875 · (Edited)
Lily: We haz been Sploring! We set off to walk to the woods, but the paths were all flooded and muddy and horrid. We splodged through as far as the entrance to the woods (which the Twit calls Poo Corner because there is a poo bin there) and we could see that the woods would not be Nice. The Twit said Let's Go Home but instead of turning round and splooging through all the mud again we went up the road past the little paddock where we sometimes see mutjac. There were no mutjac today, but there were two horned sheep who we stood and looked at (FM does not not know what sort of sheep they are) and then a nice man stopped and admired us and said how elegant we iz.

Then we walked home on the pavements. It was nice and not-slippery underfoot and we practiced Wait and Cross at all the junctions even when there wasn't any cars.

It was a Different Walk and Fat Mum says we shall remember it for when it is not raining but the ground is Very Muddy because she thinks she knows a way we can do most of the walk all on pavements.
 
#876 ·
Tommy: Yesterday was Proper Sploring! We got in the TwitMobile and went to the big park in the town centre (which FM says is a zample of Victorian Philanthropy At Its Best, wotever that means) and walked all the way round. We made friends with two shih-tzus and were Good Calm Hounds when people whizzed past us on bikes, and saw lots and lots of fat squiggles and geeses and pidgins and swans.

And then we went to the little Edwardian Tea Room where dogs are always welcome (and the lady in there said most of the dogs are better behaved than the people) and FM agreed, especially when some shouty little children came in and started running about. But we were Good, so there were Coffee Licks and biskits.

We do not go to that park very often. Our People will have to rectify this.
 
#877 ·
Tommy: It may be chilly chiily outside but we iz still going for Nice Walks!

We haz been through the woods and across the horsesis fields several times (but not the cart track because the ditches are blocked and the paths which were deep in mud are now icy icy and FM says at her time of life she does not want to take up ice skating) and we have been down to the village lots and lots sometimes to walk round the green and sometimes over the meadow to the start of the Railway Walk. We haz also helped our People eat up a big Pub Lunch (and Lily let John-the-barman love her up, which is a first!), visited Unka Lee's pet food shop - where we looked very hopefully at all the treats and FM bought us some - and a quick visit to the vets for a check up so we can have some tablets to get rid of wiggly worms. The vet says we iz in Excellent Condition 'cept for Lily's teefs, which have plaque so FM has spent some of the housekeeping on a big tub of stuff to put on our grub to get rid of it and bought some Puffed Buffalo Tails which are s'posed to help keep teefs nice and clean.

And then we met a greyhound called Cat who we first met ages and ages ago when I was New here, and our peoples all went to the pub to drink coffee and talk greyhounds and we hounds all lay in front of the fire and zizzed.
 
#879 ·
I must admit I haven't given them any yet (they're still in the back of the car). Lee says one of his regular customers swears by them: apparently he cuts them into smaller lengths and gives his dog a bit each day.

The tails are about 18 - 24" long - I certainly can't break them with my hands, and suspect that OH may need to use his favourite Junior Hacksaw to cut them, rather than a knife.

I'll let you know how it goes!
 
#881 ·
Lily: I iz Deliberately Misunderstood. I iz a Clever Little Girl, but That Woman doesn't understand that and calls me a Cunning Little Ratbag.

Last weekend she cooked a mince and tomato and pasta Thing and Tommy and me had some when That Woman and the Twit had finished their teas and it was Yum. And she had cooked too much pasta and the fridge was full, so she put the leftover pasta in the oven for the next day.

She was having a nice sit down and a cup of tea when she heard a Clang! in the kitchen and she ran in and found that I had opened the oven door and pulled the colander out and had gobbled up all the leftover pasta except for one little bit which she gave to Tommy (who hadn't helped me get the pasta out at all!)

So I was a Cunning Little Ratbag. And for the last two days there has been a Big Lump of Corned Beef sitting in the microwave and I know it iz there and I keep going and looking hopefully at the door of the microwave and jumping up to see if the door opens like the oven door does, but so far No Luck. And all she does is say Hard Luck Kid!

Iz Not Fair!
 
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