Mum solved the Mystery of The Missing Slipper

Two whole weeks, it's been missing.

There was a day when the other one nearly joined it but the stand-off between me and Mum in the bathroom doorway lastest a bit too long. I tried to preten that the slipper wasn't in my mouth and to look innocent and dodge one way then the other but Mum kept dodging the same way, whilst moaning "drop ittttttttttt". Eventually I pretended that I didn't have it, spat it out and ran. Ever since the slipper has been hidden away.

Tonight though, the missing slipper turned up. In Cassie's bed. Cassie wasn't in it, she was in my bed, but that's besides the point. It wasn't in my bed, never had been and nothing can be proven about it's whereabouts in the last fortnight. Mum seems pleased it's undamaged, but that can be worked on.

My skills are improving.

Sometimes, I get it right

This was my first show:

I got

First place, Any Variety Not Seperately Classified Utility Puppy

First place, Any Variety Not Seperately Classified Utility Junior

Best Puppy, Any Variety Not Seperately Classified Utility

Reserve Puppy, Utility Group

Exhibit A

M'Lord, Mum presents Exhibit A:

(for the avoidance of doubt (and for Cindy...swoon), this is Mum's leg... and upon her leg is what used to be a Pop Sock. In two halves. With holes. Big holes. And little holes. And a bit soggy.).

M'Lord, Mum also presents Suspect M:

(and again for the avoidance of doubt, this is a very very guilty looking fluffy, yet slightly grubby, creature, pretending to nonchalently sit quietly in order to get away with the crime put before you).

When questioned, Suspect M claimed "It wasn't me, Guv, it was already hanging off the dog gate when I sat next to it".

Please may Mum have your verdict?

Before Muppet and After Muppet

This post is a bit different from others. You see, Auntie Jenny has had a word. She says I have a potential new girlfriend called Cindy (aka the Golden Furry Friend), who is loved by Kirsty. Cindy is a bit special and I have to impress her.

Cindy does things for Kirsty that other dogs just couldn't do and she takes her everywhere and looks after her, and acts as her eyes. And Kirsty has been reading my blog to Cindy (swoon...), only it didn't really work that well because there are lots of pictures and Cindy can't tell Kirsty what the pictures say.

So, this blog we're going to say lots more words. I hope that's ok with the other Muppeteers and that you'll all understand that Cindy needs to think I'm lovely, OK?

So, lets start with me. Cindy take note at my handsome-ness. I'm about 16 inches high... a good height, I'm sure you'll agree. I'm black and white, and I'm called Muppet because when I was little my black fur grew in an M shape on my back and I had to have an M name to match it... and Muppet kind of stuck. My fur is soft, becoming double coated, and very mad. It's not yet grown fully so it's currently about two inches in length all over, floppy over my eyes and it sticks up in all different directions. My eyes have two great big black patches with floppy black fluffy ears to match. My tail is long and it curls up over my back, in a big circle of fluff. Naturally, that fur, particularly that on my legs, is often covered in mud. It's white on my legs, the fur that is not the mud, and so I try and get it as dull as possible and seem to be attracted to big puddles, the muddier the better. When I jump up on my hind legs, I can just reach a human waist and demand their attention by grabbing their shirt sleeves, if they ignore me too much. Sometimes I can swing off their skirts too but that's when they really aren't paying me any attention at all.

You will have gathered that anything that goes wrong usually ends up being my fault. But I have two big naughty sisters, called Cassie and Meg. They teach me how to be naughty so nothing is my fault really. Our house isn't that big, and we have a dog flap in the back door that I can run out of when things get a bit crazy, and I can run quicker than Cassie and Meg and hide faster. Cassie is a Boxer cross dog. She's brindle and white and has fur softer than soft, that is very short but she's incredibly pretty and if you cuddle her, she'll put her head on you and snore herself to sleep. She's poorly though, she has been since she was a baby and if you got your Mummy Kirsty to feel her left hind leg, she'd notice that her muscles are different in each leg and that she has a lumpy knee. She has no ligaments in that leg and it's arthritic but unless you looked with your hands like your mum does, you wouldn't know that she's poorly. She's a bit bouncy... Cassie not your mum... and we have lots of fun together, because she looked after me since I arrived as a puppy. Meg is a Working Sheepdog. She is black and white like me but she has spotty legs and a spotty face too. She has a short coat, and it always falls out and drifts around the house and makes dustbunnies under the sofa that my mum has to hoover out all the time. She's also stroppy. Very brainy, but stroppy. She shrieks quite a lot, and her most annoying habit is to jump up and down and tap her claws on the laminate floor in the dining room constantly until she gets her dinner in the morning. Mum says it's the same time and the same dinner every day and so getting so excited by doing the same noisy thing is really really really really silly but she still does it, while me and Cassie sit for our dinner quietly (yes honestly we do quiet).

I also live with two noisy budgies who are more boring than words. And of course thecatwithnofurthing and Lucy cat. Thecatwithnofurthing would be blue tortoiseshell and white in colour, if she had fur. But she doesn't. Her face is very pointed like a siamese cat, with big buggy eyes and huge ears like a bat's wings, and she has a wierd mieow, and if you feel her skin she feels just like suede. And she's hot like a hot water bottle, all the time. She lives either on top of the radiator or under the duvet. Lucy cat is a moggy, she looks and feels just like any ordinary moggy (she's black and white too like me and Meg) except that she's fat. But don't tell her, because she gets upset and goes off in a huff to sleep a bit more. Both of the cats live indoors, thecatwithnofurthing because she'd get cold outside and Lucy cat because she is stupid and thinks she's a catwithnofurthing. Her favourite sport is Muppet-baiting, and that's always done lying down with one paw outstretched, because she won't move far to bait anything, let alone a Muppet.

Mum says all objects in this house have two statuses. Before Muppet and After Muppet. After Muppet things have been Muppeted, mum says. It's not fair really.

At the weekend we had lots of fun with Mum's tights. She left some in the bathroom for us to play with, on the floor, and so when me and Cassie had run in and out the dog flap to the garden and back again...while Mum was asleep in the morning, they were quite well played with. There was a foot in the garden and a leg in the dining room. I think it makes them very easy to put on but Mum wasn't convinced. Of course, I was no where to be seen when Mum found them...

And then there is the blanket. (there is a picture of this one below for the other Muppeteers): it's of Cassie's blanket. Cassie's blanket is double bed sized, it's very thick wool (a proper blanket like they used to be, not any of these new fleecy sort), and it is very warm. Cassie is always asleep on it.

The blanket has lived in this house, and in Cassie's basket, since forever. But this weekend it managed to spread itself all round the dining room in lots of little bits, covering up the cold floor and making the blanket look rather fetching in a new holey design. Now, those big holes in it just sort of appeared. Honestly they did. The fact that you can get a human being through them (although Lucy the cat is actually going through one of them in the picture, I think to test it was big enough) just shows how creative a blanket can look, if you really try. I know it makes the blanket single sized now and the seven holes Mum counted are only on one side and so the other end of the blanket is just fine, and I swear I showed Mum that.

I couldn't possibly pass comment on the growling and dragging noises that were coming from the basket area prior to Mum's discovery of the new look blanket, and you have to remember that I have only baby teeth and that both Cassie and Meg have big nasty teeth that can do lots of ripping.

Thecatwithnofurthing could also be in the frame, she scratches lots of blankets to get underneath them to get warm to make up for her lack of fur. I don't know for certain that she was upstairs under the duvet with Mum at the time. If Lucy cat had bothered getting up at all I suppose we could look her way but I don't think even Mum is that silly.

Mum bought new blankets. No idea why...

So, my lovely Golden Furry Friend, lots of woofs from Muppet. I hope I described things better and I hope you love me as much as everybody else does. If you are lucky, I shall share my naughty secrets with you so that when you are off duty you can be a bit sneaky with your Mum.

PS Cindy, there is a picture below that shows a small fluffy black and white puppy decimating a blanket. The puppy might look like me and the blanket might look like Cassie's. It's a doppelganger, honestly.

Mum has nothing to report

[Muppet's Mum speaking]

Despite a thorough investigation of the patio this morning, I am disappointed to note that no mud could be identified as being out of place and likely to have caused Muppet's filthiness yesterday evening. However, the wall surrounding the new koi pond did have suspicious muddy paw prints on it, and on the other side of the wall is a very large new raised flower bed, with further muddy paw prints. As Muppet has not, to the best of my knowledge, attempted to copy his two older sisters and leap over the pond to the flower beds or to walk on the pond wall, and as his paws are as big as theirs, I am afraid I cannot verify whether or not he has started to do the same. Muppet does however remain firmly in the frame for the hopping-live-Toad-in-the-lounge-incident of Monday night, and thus we must remain suspicious that he is still up to no good until we can prove otherwise.


[Muppet speaking]:

Ner ner ner ner ner.

See, they do work

Perfectly well, in fact. And no, I don't want to explain.

(Note from Muppet's mum: it is far too dark outside to work out exactly why Muppet came in from the paved patio area that doesn't have any mud on it, covered in mud, but there will be a thorough investigation in the morning).

My Paws Are Fine

I have to put paid to a rumour that my paws are worn out by Tigger jumping, thus rendering me unable to blog. It's true, Tiggering takes it out of me, but the honest truth of the matter is that I have a useless mother who didn't turn on the computer.

So, what's been happening. Snow. What's that about then? I go outside and this weird white stuff is there, I roll over and over and over in it, and roll snowballs with my nose, then eat them. Fab! Except I'm not allowed to do it much because mum keeps moaning about my fur being white. Believe me, put me next to the snow and that theory doesn't last long. Someone made a snowman in the office car park. Wish they'd have told me it was made of snow, because I had to defend mum from it and circle it for a long time checking it out before finding it was a snowman. I'm sorry we don't have photos, but mum made lots of complaints about cold fingers.

In the office, Mum finally bought me a new bed. The computer case I used to sleep on (because I wanted to, not because I had to, I should add, before the RSPCA get a whole host of complaints... ) got too small (gosh these pics are old - i had shorter hair back then!!) so I got a new one. I fit that one.

But, I've grown a bit and found that as I have, the bed has balance issues. (like my posh coat?)

It is thus that I have had to find an alternative. (I also go here to sulk when i'm not allowed to dip in bags for scones).

I also have a special waiting place, next to the broken biscuit box and next to the fridge. Because you never know who might wander past and notice a poor, tired, starved, hungry puppy sitting next to it.

Sometimes they notice, sometimes they don't. I could starve, I really could.

We still go to Ringcraft every week. Last week, Mum said I was a star. She went to a show in town the week before, to see what she has to do to show me off lots. She met lots of other Tibetan Terriers, and saw how hard it is to show a dog and prepare our fur and take all the equipment with her. We have our first show on the 21st of February... and realising that she has very useless wrists and lots to carry, Mum decided to get a trolley for me to be wheeled around on like a king. It arrived at the office last week. And didn't get used to wheel me about.

Mum got told this week in Ringcraft that I have the nicest temperament in the whole class (along with a 10 week old newfoundland that Mum is threatening to bring home eeeek), and she beamed all the way home. Could you please tell her that again now that she keeps on pointing out that her favourite scarf seems to have had an accident, after it threw itself into a bit of rough and tumble involving me and Cassie?