Life With Dog While One of Us is Gadding About in Queensland

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Dog and I are on our own.  Roger got tired of the rain and cold in South Australia so he jumped on a plane and went to Queensland.  The dog was not impressed: he missed having someone to follow around during the day while I was working.  He busied himself by running around in the soggy backyard protecting me from pigeons, only to be brought inside in disgrace due to barking at pigeons.

The pigeons didn't care, either.

Representative pigeon, not in the back yard.  But still not caring.
 

Roger explored Brisbane City on the ferries, making the most of 50c public transport and revelling in sunshine. He even went all the way up to the top of the Queens Wharf Sky Tower although he wasn't quite game to actually set foot on the transparent bits of the viewing deck.  He sent me lots of photos, just to make me jealous.

Taking risks.

Oh alright, I'm jealous.

Brisbane city by night.

By the time 4:30 clicked around the dog was quite bonkers from having been cooped up inside and not allowed to bark, so I put him out of his misery and took him to the dog park.  Being the 60kg behemoth that he is, if he ever decided to run away there would be no chance of holding him back so he is condemned to only running safely within fenced areas.  Not that he runs anyway, not him.  At the mercy of years of targeted breeding, his guardian switch kicks in and he pees on every post, inspects every new dog, and barks to repel passing joggers and children on bicycles.  Should there be a spat in the dog park he's right there to calm things down, not that any of the other dogs take any notice of him.  They're similar to pigeons in that regard.

We're going to the park?  Finally!
 
It's a hard life being the Fun Police Dog in a dog park where everyone else is doing inexplicable things like racing around catching balls (he just can't see the point of that) or, God forbid, doing silly puppy things like fighting over possession of sticks and running in exuberantly pointless circles.

He tried, he really did.  He said hello to all the other dog owners and had a clumsy attempt at play but just couldn't quite pull it off.  He wandered around the sandy play areas while tides of border collies and german pointers frantically chased balls around him.  Eventually he rolled his eyes at me and walked rather pointedly toward the exit.

I felt like letting the chooks out into the garden, just to give him something to guard.  Although I suspected the chooks wouldn't listen to him anyways, and there was the small matter of getting them back in the pen once they had tasted freedom.  Instead we had our respective paltry dinners and one of us went to sleep on the fluffy mat in the living room.  The other one of us watched TV and fielded exuberant texts from Queensland.

"I'm in Toowoomba now. The weather is miserable!  I'm glad I'm not wearing shorts!  But the hire car didn't have the car I booked so I'm driving an Audi instead." 

Poor honey.  T'was quite the hardship.
 
He sent me a photo of his cosy cabin in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, complete with sunshine and (full) wine glass.
My heart bleeds for him.

I know who's going to be on Dog Park duty all next week.

 

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