Things I am scared of

Well, for one thing little Brittany dogs aren't supposed to act as bodyguards and generally lay waste on Master's enemies. I may bark warning if I suspect that someone if about to do mischief, but that's where I draw the line - if you want your dog to do all that growl and bite stuff then look somewhere else. 

Growling at larger dogs is ok though, as long you run faster

As for me, this is a by no means complete list of things I am afraid of:

• Explosions, fireworks, things that go boom.

  

  Here I'm hiding in Master's closet during New Year's fireworks.

• People that carry sticks, brooms and umbrellas.
• People that talk loud and/or in a dialect I don't understand.
• Large foreign dogs that run at me.
• People in hunter's outfits.
• Being in shops and office, except for the ones with toys or food.     

 

I protect Dad from all sorts of enemies and mischievers...

...unless they are...

... very large.

 In other news, now that we are back online Master's Flickr account has been sorted out.

This means that you can check out hi-res pics of me in  his photostream  . For some reason most of his pics are of dogs (M: maybe it has to do with being forced to spend four hours a day in dog parks ? )  , but if you are one of those weird persons that like to watch non-dog pictures you should be able to find something.

Don't forget to leave a comment or better still if you have a Flickr or Yahoo account you can do that "follow" thing, which is like the human equivalent of biting somebody's ankles for fun and profit ;

Online, at least !

Today a technician came and installed our new ADSL line. Master said that my assistance wasn't needed, so I left him and the tech to their cable pulling and went into Dad's room, in order to protect him in case the line misfired or something.

Follow me !

 Everything went well though, and now we have a bigger, better and faster connection (plus a huge backlog of postable stuff), so stay tuned for more meaningful posts and thanks for your patience ;)  

Cupramontana - No Country For Dogs

Ok, so we are back in Cupramontana, waiting for the new non-Fastweb phone line to come alive in Rome (will take some time though).

Cupramontana is a quiet, ancient village on the hills of Jesi, in central Italy. It is a nice place for humans   but not so for dogs, because of the lack of any sort of dog park. It is not that dogs are unknown in the area, but most owners either have a yard and they just keep the dog there, or else at walk time they just push the dog out of the door and if it gets run over by a car well never mind, it was just a dog.

This is very sad, and - before you ask - yes, letting your dog roam unsupervised is downright illegal in Italy. However nobody here seems to worry, except possibly for a half dozen of masters that actually do care for their dogs. You would think that for a town of 3000 inhabitants with two football stadiums, one baseball stadium, a sport palace and a number of parks and unused land parcels raising a fence around a free area and call it a dog park should be a no brainer. But no, the city council of Cupramontana has "more important issues to deal with", so they can't let such a menial matter to interfere with bringing peace to the world, finding a cure for cancer, contacting aliens or whatever they think taxpayer's money is supposed to be spent on.

So I can either get walked at roadside (sidewalks being another thing the City Council would rather not be bothered with), or I can visit the two semi-abandoned public parks, both of which are unfenced and dangerous for both dogs and children - Parco Colle Elisa is so ugly and unconvenient that even junkies give it a wide berth, and Parco Grande Torino is a muddy slope that for some reason is always wet and its benches are placed at 45 degrees, like something out of a bad five-years plan in Soviet Russia. Or else Master and Dad can drive me for like 20 miles of twisting mountain road to the nice dog parks in Pianello and Jesi, where I can run around and play.

This is me in the nice dog park of Pianello Vallesina pawning ™ the fine dog Rolly at frisbee and tennis ball and most everything else :)

Next time less rants and more pics. Kissies :)

Communication breakdown

Standing by...

Is it possible that in Our Lord's Year 2014 both your telephone and data line die of a sudden death for "unknown technical reasons" and you are unable to get it fixed OR to switch to another provider ?

The answer is yes, if you make the huge mistake of using the Italian provider Fastweb. Dad's phone line died on December 20th, Fastweb did not fix it and blocked the switch process, and the bottom line is that with some luck our phone and internet will be back in service at the end of March.

Buyer beware.


In other news:

• Dad hasn't been that well, but now he's much better.
• I have been bitten a number of times by stupid sociopathic dogs, so now I am more careful in choosing playmates.
• Rome has been flooded last week and I found a nice pond for diving and splashing.
• Silvia came visiting from Edinburgh and left me a sock for a present !

Here I pretend to jump at the ball...

... but what I really wanted was to bite Silvia's forearm, haha :)

More on this in later posts including some very nice pics of me pwining other dogs (nice ones that don't bite me), but first we need to get the phone line going so don't hold your breath. Kissies :)

Rain is boring

It's been raining for like forever (M: four days), and where I am now there aren't dog parks, or any decent place to walk a dog for that matter. More on this next time. As of now I'm totally bored, and I so  have to resort to chewing Dad and Master's shoes to pass the time (I have been notified in not uncertain terms that I'm not to unstuff pillows any more, no matter if they look abandoned or not. Nobody mentioned shoes and slippers though, hehe).

In other news, Master has calculated that in one year he would walk me about 1300 times, for a total distance of at least 3000 km. So it was only to be expected that he selected pixiewalker for his flickr handle - if you are on flickr make sure you follow stalk him and comment his photos make fun of his meagre skills, this will teach him that his time would be put to a much better use if he spent it all playing with whatever little brittany doggie he happens to have at home.
 

Goodnight and kissies :)

Cast page updated with Dad

We moved in the country, but today there is not much to do because of rain and other annoyances, so we have updated  the Cast page with a short profile of Dad. Dad is arguably the most important human person we have at home because he is my legal owner and always gives me treats, so check it out.

I make funny faces to cheer up Dad

Dad is often seen in these pictures because Master is on the other side of the camera trying to make it work. Plus, I tend to stick with Dad when he comes out for a walk, because I must protect him from dangers and also help him to dispose of any dog treat he should have in his pockets. This means that the pictures with Dad and me are much less likely to get blurred that the ones taken while I play "bite-my-ass-if-you-can" with my dog pals. Unless Master really screws up, that is :)

Now Dad is smiling, but the stupid lens made my nose look big.

Since we are talking of pictures, Master has just realized to his huge dismay that he has a Flickr account on account of having a Yahoo account.
So now he will be compelled to post some of his less suckful photos on flicker for everyone to laugh at.  More on this later...

Pixie the Little Brittany Dog Goes Social

Master read the Wikipedia page about Brittany Dogs, and found out that allowing Brittanies (?) to socialize is extremely important, lest they become shy or aggressive (I'm neither by the way, my socializing strategy is giving kissies to any dog that's larger than me and to their masters as well - works fine most of the times).

Giving kissies...

...  works like a charm :)

 However, the bottom line is that I have gotten my own Twitter account. Master is still trying to figure out how to cobble Twitter buttons and gadgets on the blog (M: and fix the pillow that Pixie just chewed...), but in the mean time you can memorize  @_pixielittledog, which at some point will start to produce meaningful twits.

Stay tuned...