The Feistmeister!

Toby is ... a real puppy. I say that because Jack was always an old boy in a puppy body - very chilled out, very cool. Toby, on the other hand, is 6.1 kilos of pure naughtiness and feistiness. Newspaper isn't for peeing on - it's for shredding into tiny pieces. The laundry hamper is there purely for chewing practice. And where Jack would get a tap on the nose for being naughty and rock back on his haunches and stop, Toby's response is to come back for more. And more. I think we have our hands full!

Katie and Toby are doing great. Toby jumps all over her and tries to take her toys, and she growls at him and keeps him in line. We've found when Toby is being naughty the only way to bring him down is lay him on his back and hold him there - the whole submissive/dominant thing. It used to take about 5 seconds for Jack to "give" - Toby is around 30 seconds!

But, when he snuggles up for cuddles and rests his tiny head on your arm, it's all worth it. We miss Jack so much still, but Toby really is helping. Jack's ashes will be buried under a white manuka tree this weekend, right next to my garden shed so I will see him often.

In other news, we have two white fantail doves - currently confined to our dovecote (it was at the house when we bought it so we figured we'd use it). Another couple of weeks and they'll be allowed to fly free. They are a very pretty pair, so hopefully we might get some babies too!

Apart from all of the animal news (Sandy and Dream are just fine, tho a little nonplussed by a black barking boy who thinks they want to play) we have some busy times coming up. My sis in law comes to stay next week (yeehah), then my best buddy and our Godson are visiting from Aussie (woohoo) and then it's Xmas! We've both been pretty tired, so the plan is to take things as easy as possible between work, renovations, gardening and garden building...

On the IF front no blogging at all - the course for fostering isn't till next year so we are kind of in a limbo. I still have my sadnesses...some days better than others, and I guess those pains will always be around to a certain extent. I just have to keep looking ahead, and enjoying what we have right now. Life just isn't easy sometimes, and maybe that's the point.