The Wise One

Throughout the stories that we will write you will soon come to the conclusion that Raven is sensible and Jack is something else. A long time ago before Jack arrived there was a great and wise dog called Murphy. He was able to teach Raven a lot about the Boss and the Other Boss. But he didn’t teach Raven how to teach. Sometimes we both dream about the wise one. He was golden and liked to get wet but refused to swim. Jack often pretends that he doesn’t understand the Boss although Raven has explained the rules. This can mean that we have shorter walks and fewer biscuits when that happens. Jack always wants to go out doors. Most of the time this is to help with the flower watering, but for a lot of the time it’s just for the fun of being let back in, and getting the Boss to open the door when Jack calls. The Boss hates this, especially when the talking stick is working or she is in another part of the house. Jack thinks it’s great and calls to go out again just when the Boss has settled down. Murphy would have stopped this.

The Boss is not happy.

The Boss is not happy. The immediate effect is loss of biscuits. Yesterday we were in the woods during the afternoon having a great time searching for sticks and balls. Jack found a woolly hand and accidentally swallowed it. This was our secret on the way home. We now know that woolly hands are not proper dog food and Jack yucked it back up when we got into the warm. The Boss was not happy. Just when the yuck was cooling down the doorbell rang and the talking stick started ringing at the same time. There was a bit of chaos for a while. The Boss found out about Jack’s secret when she cleared up the yuck. As well as loss of biscuits, our bed has gone into the large white rumbling machine to make it clean again. We know Jack is well because he has tried our proper food again and the strange smelly stuff has started coming out the other end as usual. The Boss is always collecting this in colourful bags. She can be weird sometimes, but she is still the Boss. Biscuit service resumed this morning.

Our Day - Part One

The Boss arrives at 0730 and lets us go into the garden. We have watched her put watery stuff onto the flowers to help them grow. We are trying to help but our watery stuff doesn’t seem to work. We wait outside the cooking place while a lot of breakfasts are made. We sleep while this is going on. Once we hear the sound of the plates coming back we get a bit excited in case there is some food left for us. A few of the people who stay with the Boss are vegetarians. These are wonderful people because it means there will be more sausages for us. We then have another sleep while everything is put into a white box. The box hums for about an hour and then all the plates come out clean. We think the Boss has another Boss; he is OK because we always get extra biscuits from him. Sometimes the Boss and the other Boss get confused and we get really lucky and we have two dinners. The Boss and the other Boss seem to have some puppies of their own, and sometimes we get to go out together. This is Raven with the younger puppy at Sty Head Tarn in Borrowdale.

Our favourite place, OK then "places".

This is our favourite place. The Boss calls this 'Derwentwater', its a lake. We just like water, and any water will do. This lake has a huge amount of the stuff. There are lots of places full of the stuff, all around where we live. Raven likes to run in and out, while Jack runs in and stays in. We both like swimming and can swim for ages. Some of the water is very dirty and the Boss has to wash mud off when we get home. Its weird but we don't like this wash water at all. We get our revenge by shaking when the Boss isn't ready for it. The Boss then uses more of the same stuff, but much hotter to wash that off. The Boss could come in the lake with us I suppose but that doesn't seen to be part of the plan.

This week has been fantastic. We had a terrific romp in Mungrisdale on Tuesday. This is behind Blencathra and is not so popular as the bits that are always on the TV.  We both think its amazing that we can type and understand English.  We understand a lot of words but that doesnt always mean we listen.  We particularly dont like the 'LEAVETHATALONE' word. This seems to be associated with enjoyment - when we start to  have some this word gets used? Before we tell you about our adventures we thought you might like to see what we look like. This was taken last summer. Raven is on the left, Jack is on the right.  The Boss took the picture.

Woof, welcome to our world of fun

Hi everyone, we are Jack (the smaller one) and Raven (the bigger one). We are two flat coat retreivers that live close to Derwentwater in Keswick in the English Lake District. For some reason our breed name didnt mention that we are black, very black actually. We are also very friendly but are addicted to collecting balls. Sticks are our second favourite collectable, if you have one we will play tug of war with you until you lose.

This blog is going to describe our adventures. We swim. We climb the hills. We eat. We sleep. We run about a lot. We also make a helluva mess when we have a shake. We are famous and have been used in advertising (only once, but its a start.)