violet-and-mate

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More old photos early morning Violets. She ended up deciding it was too early and she wanted to go back to bed.

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Found some old photos to edit, here’s a few silly ones of my mother and sister’s dogs. Last two are my little sister playing with Lassie’s snoot. Lassie sometimes ends up like that on her own it looks pretty funny.

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Quick watercolours of my dogs I’ve done when I’ve been uninspired.... Violet’s eyes aren’t coloured I guess I meant to continue on that and just never did. I like to do quick watercolours when I’m facing artblock, so if you’d like one of your pet let me know and I might get around to it.

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Longtime no post, I’ve had more trouble with my illness and on top of that have badly injured my knee so not out there taking new photos except the odd snap on my phone. We’re still kicking though, here’s Violet distracting me from reading a book.

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breed hype is bad and sucks. people care more about jerking off over their breed of choice than ACTUALLY helping people make a qualified decision over whether that dog is a good fit for them or not. 

i’ve seen people vehemently state that their breed NEEDS X amount of hours of exercise per day OR ELSE, and if you can’t provide that, then you’re a shit dog owner and you’re blacklisted from owning this breed goodbye. unless you’re unemployed, work from home, or have X hours of free time to devote to this dog every single day you’re shit out of luck.

like not only is it annoying but most of the time its a gross exaggeration. “this breed was bred to work 25/8″ okay but DOES IT? are the parents of your dog are actually performing X amount of exercise per day? some hunting dogs get put up in kennels with no interaction during off-season. herding dogs are not working the entire day - they do their job, then it’s done.

when i told the breeder of my working cattle dog i was a student and lived in an apartment and had zero experience with the breed, do you know what she said? “okay, just make sure to exercise him.” i said sure and that was it. this was an actual working line dog whose parents were out herding cattle during the day, then relaxed as normal pets afterwards. her attitude was SO refreshing. if i’d gone to a rescue, i’d have gotten shot down instantly. (and by the way, on average days he got maybe an hour or less of combined of exercise/training and was fine).

so many new dog owners are looking for guidance and advice and they get told the breeds they are ACTUALLY interested in are too hard/not for beginners/etc, and get pointed to golden retrievers and retired greyhounds. if new people are interested in your breed, please give them helpful advice. don’t automatically jump to assuming they’ll be a shit owner. we all started somewhere.

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More crunching, check out those teeth.

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Random video from Vi’s birthday last year. Just her chomping on twisted bully sticks.

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So I took a photo of Violet while she was sitting on me using my phone’s front camera and I think it automatically used that feature that airbrushes faces? Pretty sure it airbrushed out some spots.

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Dogs had their vaccines and check ups the other day. Violet has suspected arthritis in her right hind leg something I expected as I’d noticed a change in her gait but it’s left me distraught. I spent most of last year sedentary, in hospital or on my couch and I feel like her last good year was wasted. Vi’s on meds for it now but she’s refusing to walk often, didn’t at all yesterday and refused this morning, I hope it’s more the heat, I had dreams of longer walks with her like what we used to do when the weather finally cools but now I’m concerned we’ve had our longest walk already. I guess it’s a strange thing to be so upset over, just feels like she’s gotten old far too soon, she’ll be 9 in exactly one month but.... it once felt like we had forever now I fear that very soon it’ll just be me and Mate on walks, Vi waiting at home on the couch or one of the dog beds.

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Yeah don’t think I got a single good photo here. Mission accomplished you little ratbags.

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I swear they conspire to ruin every second photo. Violet’s little scrape is from where she got too excited running about and ended up landing a jump very poorly on gravel and going down on one side. Didn’t yelp but man it looked painful.

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Failed shots from this morning.

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Phone photos from this morning.... trying to get photos of these two with just my phone is hard especially when they just want to keep going. Took photos with my camera not long after but need to get around to editing them hopefully later tonight I’ll check them out.

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Violet once caused me to fracture my ankle. One evening we were walking in an area we hadn’t been before and the grass was quite long, Violet got onto a scent and was leading me, I stepped into a hole I couldn’t see through the grass right as she yanked on the leash. Didn’t think much of it at the time because adrenaline kicked it so I continued walking on it. Turned out the fox wasn't far ahead of  us hence why she yanked suddenly. Another time I was letting the dogs run off leash early in the morning and while I watched the sunrise over a lake one tackled the other right into the backs of my legs and I flew face first into the mud. Not even a scratch on me but it wasn’t painless so I guess it counts.

What’s the stupidest way your dog has injured you? I’ll start: I held a High Value Toy above my head and Mallow tried to climb me to get it, resulting in scratches on my titty 🙈 if this scars, I’m gonna b miffed

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Crappy phone photos. Used to be a wooden lookout tower here but it was old and rickety and so was taken down, a couple years back I took the dogs up it was hoping it was still there. A sign said they’re considering replacing it so here’s hoping. Mate wasn’t up to going with us that morning (don’t recall if he was just tired or if it was when his foot was injured one or the other.)

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Tired dogs refusing to pose in front of a curious steer.

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Hello! I (@blueboyluca) recently started following your blog and it’s great! What is one goal you have for you and your dog(s) this year? What’s the story of how you decided on/got your dog(s)? If your dog(s) was an ice-cream flavour, what would they be and why?

Hello! Thanks for the questions :D

My goal this year is for us all is to get fit again, I spent much of last year in hospital (and the rest of the year recovering) and the dogs were left in the care of my father who couldn’t walk them as much as I would because of his arthritis. As it is now after a 4 hour walk in the morning the dogs often refuse a 2 hour walk in the evening but this might just be due to the heat.Violet was the reject puppy from a litter of pig dogs born in my hometown and GSPs  just happened to be a breed I’d researched for a novel (I don’t write anymore but I used to back then) I was confident her mix would make a great companion. I turned out to be right after a rocky start due to some issues she had with hating most men presumably this is why no one wanted her. Mate I took on from someone who just couldn’t handle him and as he’d taken to escaping decided to rehome him before he got run over. He was to be a companion for Violet just wanted something that would get along well with her and could keep up with her.

I spent a silly amount of time thinking about what ice cream flavours my dogs would be on this morning’s walk I’m boring and haven’t tried many flavours but I eventually came up with something.Violet would be rum and raisin, strong flavour but the raisins provide some sweetness…. make it a sundae add in a few nuts and that’s Violet  - Mate would be that rainbow one, bright, sweet, widely loved (despite being just bubblegum flavour in disguise) also get some nuts on there too… just dump all the nuts on it.