Higgins Hörna

November 28 2005
Kebab meat, sausages and noodles

In the headline you see different things you can eat, and I've eaten two of those during the weekend! It was very nice and I was extremely happy with my findings, but of course mum wasn't impressed. It started Saturday when mum and I went for our first long walk in horrible conditions. You got all wet and mucky because the ground was wet and it was raining a little. The only goot thing that happened during that walk was when I suddenly smelled an interesting smell in the park, and when I went to investigate it.. guess whatP! Someone had dropped loads of kebab meat!! Before mum had time to react I'd managed to gulp down quite a bit of it. I know mum thinks I shouldn't eat things I find in the street, but who cares! It not only smelled nice, it tasted nice too, so the walk that was so horrible actually turned out pretty good.

When we got back from that walk we'd only been in for a short while and mum had only gotten her coffee started when the doorbell rang. It was a little girl that has her aunt living in our building and the girl comes every so often to ring our door and say hello to me because she thinks I'm cute..She used to be afraid of dogs, and mum says she probably liked the girl better then, because now she can come 10 times during a day and ring the doorbell. Anyway, the first thing the little girl said when she saw me was "But his ears looks like noodles!!" What did she mean about noodles?? It was my ears she was going on about! Apparently she thought my long wet ears looked like noodles... I know that you can eat noodles, but I've never found any outside and mum has never let me tasted any. The girl said that noodles looks a bit like spaghetti, and I know what those look like and I've even tasted some. But I don't think my ears look like that even though they are wet!?

Yesterday was actyally a nice day for walks since it's gone a bit colder so the ground wasn't wet and also it wasn't raining. Which meant I wasn't soaking wet coming home from walks. I like those kind of walks, and they are even better when you find sausages! I found sausages three times!! So that was a very good day for walks. Now it's not that common to find sausages that many times during one day, but apparently there's been something called Christmas markets during the weekend, and at those they sell sausages. Those markets are also visited by a lot of clumsy people. At least I think so because I don't think it's very common of people going to a market, buying a sausage and then put it on the ground for dogs to find. The best is when I find half a sausage, or even a smaller bit, because then I usually have time to eat it before mum sees what I'm doing. A full sausage is a bit harder to eat quickly, so usally mum sees it and manages to take it off me. So, finding three half sausages was a great thing to happen. I don't think there are any more, because I've looked everywhere going for walks today and I cound't find any, so probaly I ate all of them yesterday.

November 24 2005
Work

Guess what I've done today? I've helped mum working. I'm not sure if maybe she was going to do something extra hard or if it was because her parents had something else to do than looking after me today. If you ask me, I think it was because mum had something extra hard to do that she needed help with. If you ask mum it was because she doesn't want to complicate things if she can avoid it. Anyway, our day started out pretty normal, except for the fact that mum had her coffee and packed her bag before our walk, and also brought the bag when we went for the walk. We started out our walk the normal way, but instead of just going around the closest park, we started the long walk. I'd forgotten mum had told me the evening before that I was coming with her to work, so when a car stopped next to the sidewalk I thought we were going in that car. Mum told me we were not getting in to the car, and you should never get into cars with strangers, and then we continued to walk. After walking for about one hour I suddenly realised we were at that house I don't like and that mum was going to take me inside. I wasn't going to come with her, but as usual she forced me to come. When we got inside she got a towel out of the bag and dried my paws before going in the next door. When we got through the next door I got to meet a collegue of mum's and he was nice. He thought my reflective vest was very nice, and so do I! After we'd said hello to him we went out to where mum sits and works at a computer. Mum had brought another towel she thought I could lie on, and also my little water bowl. I had no plans on lying on the towel mum had brought! Instead I walked over to a carpet close by and laid down there giving mum the evil eye wondering when it was time to go home.

After a while someone came walking from where mum and I had come so I barked. Which was a bit embarassing when I realised I'd just barked at the nice man we'd just met. But really, when he came out to where mum and I sat I didn't recognise him since he'd put his jacket on. He was going away at some meeting and after he'd gone I went over to sit on mum's lap. I'd gone bored with lying on the floor, and since mum is used sitting at the computer typing with me on her lap I thought it was a good idea. Besides since I'd figured out she'd only brought me along to help and support her when she was doing something extra hard I thought it would be easier giving my support being really close to her. Just as I had relaxed on mum's lap I heard someone was coming so I lifted my head to see who it was, and since I didn't recognise him I barked. It turned out to be mum's boss, and fortunately he didn't get mad at me barking at him. I also remembered meeting him once before, when mum forced me to come with her at an interview before getting this job. The boss went out in to the small kitchen and when I heard noise from there I got down from mum's lap to go and see what the boss was doing. I was sneaking behind him so he wouldn't see me, but I wanted to make sure he didn't need help with some sausages, ham or something else you can eat, but it didn't seem he needed help.

I've come to the conclusion that even if you're a boss you can't tell mum what to do. I thought that bosses were making all decisions and could tell people what to do, and I'd hoped that during coffebreak he'd tell mum to give me her sandwich, or maybe he'd give me something to eat, but no. Mum said that just because you don't know a person very well you're not supposed to sit just below them begging for something to eat, and then her boss said he knew not to give dogs anything before asking their owners. So my begging eyes failed me again, I didn't get anything to eat! Now that I've thought about it some more I've realised it was the same with mum's boss at the hotel, he wasn't very successful either in giving me things to eat. He tried to give me stuff a couple of times which only made mum go mad telling him he wasn't allowed to give me spicy sausages or anything, and after that he never gave me anything without asking mum first. So I really wonder what's the point of being a boss.

While mum was working I was either on the floor, or on her lap, but at one point mum's leg had fallen asleep so she put a towel on a chair and let me sit there. I thought that was extremely silly since I don't like ordinary chairs! If I get chairs of my own I want them to be armchairs!! Really, it's very uncomfortable lying on a normal chair, nowhere to rest your head at all, and no pillows. Totally useless! So as soon as possible I got off the chair and went in under the table.

Finally it was time to go home, and I got completely wild jumping and dancing around, trying to get mum to hurry up. When she'd finally cleared away things at the desk, gotten her coat on and my lead on I grabbed the lead betwen my teeth and made sure we got out of there as soon as possible. When we got outside I spotted a car and thought we could go in that since a car is much faster than just walking. Mum reminded we we'd walked to work, and we took the same way home as we'd gone to work. When we got home I hurried inside and laid down under the wooden cabinet taking a nap.

November 20 2005
Weekly report

In the beginning of the week it was very hard to walk The difficulties only appeared outside since it was very windy! It's hardest to walk when the wind comes very strong from behind since it feels like someone is kicking your but! You have to turn around every so often to see who it is kicking you, only to find out there's no one there when you turn. I thought there for a while it was mum kicking me, but since the same thing happend when I was walking behind mum I realised she'd been telling me the truth when she'd said she didn't do anything. A couple of times I sat down and refused to walk any further because the wind was really annoying me. Now it wasn't only windy from behind, I also got the wind against me. I love it when my ears flutter in the wind, but when the winds were really strong I nearly flew backwards and couldn't get anywhere! I think it was lucky I had my lead on, or I might have flewn away...

Now it hasn't been that windy all week, we've had a couple of non-windy walks too. One of those un-windy walks was extra exciting since .I'd never been to that place before. I took that walk with mum's parents, and first it was like our normal walk in the forest. But then they decided to walk straight forward in a place where we normally make a turn and that's when the exciting bit started. Lots of new smells and things to look at!! There were so many exciting new things I even forgot my usual habit of asking for treats. You see I've managed to teach mum's parents that I need an extra treat now and again on our walks or my bloodsugar level will go very low. Heeheehee... I must say it's easier to fool mum's parents than it is to fool mum, because I get a treat almost every time I run up and sit down just in front of their feet! Mum don't give me treats every time, sometimes she just sits down and give me a cuddle telling me you shouldn't eat treats all the time, and she doesn't believe for one moment that my bloodsugar lever has gone low.

One night when mum and I was out, mum got slightly annoyed. I was sniffing something very interesting and mum heard someone come running and it sounded like a child. When she turned around two little girls was standing a bit away from us with a dog on a lead and it looked as if it wanted to come over and say hello. Mum didn't think that was a good idea since the two little girls could hardly hold on to the dog. Mum told me to sit down and she had a look around to see if she could see an adult belonging to the girls and the dog. Further away at the parking lot she saw a woman that she thought was the mother of the kids, and the woman was walking over to a car. Finally the mother called over saying that their dog was a puppy and didn't really know how to say hello to other dogs. Mum was muttering something about it not being the dogs fault, rather the owners fault. Mum had just then realised that the woman, the two little girls and the dog had come from a house across the street, and when mum heard the running footsteps it was probably the dog seeing me starting to run over the street and the girls not being able to hold it back.Even though it was a puppy, it was about my size so the girls had probably more or less been hanging from the lead when it took off. First of all it's dangerous to run over the street just like that, and also it's not very suitable to let a child take responsibility over a pup who doesn't really know much about anything.

One afternoon mum and I were standing outside the library, and I was looking for a huge pile of sand that had been there just a couple of days ago. I knew I was in the right place, but the pile of sand was gone! While I was there sniffing, wondering if maybe the sand had blown away this old lady came over and said she needed help to get down from the pavement. I was wondering what the lady meant, did she want mum to push her off the pavement right out to the street or what? That would be one way to get down at least. But apparently mum doesn't push little old ladies off pavements. Instead she held out her hand for the lady to hold on to while she made the step down on the street to cross over. The lady said she had problems estemating how high the pavement was compared to the street, so that's why she needed help not to fall. After mum had helped her she thanked mum over and over, and by that time I was ready to leave since I'd gotten bored looking for the pile of sand.

Mum is always going on about how curious I am, and the picture above shows you just how curious I can be. I've noticed a couple of days earlier that mum was re-arranging stuff in this cupboard so I wanted to see what she'd done. So I went to the door and hit it with my paw a couple of times until it opened a little, then I pushed it wide open. It was pretty exciting sniffing and looking at all the stuff in there, and mum said I'm a bit strange since I'm so interested in sniffing the hover as long as it's in the cupboard. I know she's saying that because every time she opens the door to that place I run and hide under the bed in case it's the hover she's getting out.

I also had to check the lower shelf in the cupboard to see what she'd put there, but as far as I could see there was nothing there I could eat.

November 13 2005
Exhausting

You might think that weekends means just peace and quiet, but that's not the fact. Yesterday though was pretty restful, mum and I slept long and didn't have to wake up with the alarm going off. Today though was a very exhausting day, so I think I'll try to get mum to go to bed real early! We went for our normal walk when we got up, and after that mum normally eats breakfast, but today she surprised me by putting me in the tub and giving me a bath straight after our walk. I didn't even have time to notice her preparing a bath for me, which meant I had no time to hide from the bath. I was on her lap when she was checking her e-mail, and then she just got up and went with me to the bathroom! Talk about being surprised! After my bath was done, mum showered and cleaned the bathroom and then made her breakfast before sitting down in the sofa watching tv for a while. Then it was my turn again. I had been running my bathrace around the apartment after the bath and then I'd been lying in the corner on the sofa while mum watched tv. I know that I always get to rest covered with a towel after a bath before it's time to get up on the table for getting my coat dried and brushed. Actually I almost always tell mum it's time for that, I usually dance around her feet all the way to the table and tell her to lift me up. I hardly ever do that for a normal brush, and had I known what was coming I wouldn't have danced today. Mum made me stay forever on the table and got the scissors, clipping machine and everything out! I got my claws clipped, my ears cleaned and I must say I was completely exhausted when mum was finally done and let me go donw on the floor. The worst part is that I've already heard mum saying she missed some hairs here and there, but I hope she's not putting me back on the table! I've had enough of that for today! I don't mind if there are hairs sticking out here and there, and if my paws don't look the same, who cares? As long as I can walk and run around as usual, I don't think it matters if one of my paws looks as if it belongs to some very small bear!

In the afternoon when mum had finally decided she was done grooming me, we went for a walk and then we went for a ride in her car. We went to her parents, and I almost thought she was going to leave me there as she does during the week, but she stayed too! We'd gone there since it was something called Father's Day, and we gave her father a plant. Mum got coffee and cake, and I got some livertreats and also I got to tear the paper that was around the plant in little pieces. I managed to decorate the space under the coffee table really nice with the paper! By the way, they told us they'd been asked about me earlier today. They'd been out for a walk - apparently they go for walks even if I'm not there - and a woman had asked them where the dog was. They'd explained I belonged to mum and that they only look after me during the weeks. That must mean I'm a celebrity out where mum's parents live!!

November 7 2005
Visiting

I'm only saying one thing: Peppersalami.... that's really good stuff!! It's a pity I don't get truckloads of that every day!! Now don't think mum has gone completely demented forgetting her opinion that dogs shouldn't eat anything else than dog food, liver treats and doggybiscuits. We went to visit her sister in the afternoon, and when Stefan came home he gave me the peppersalami, but mum and her sister didn't find that out until it was time for mum and me to leave. When Stefan told them mum's sister started to give out to him that he shouldn't feed me things my mum doesn't allow, while mum was just standing there giggling shaking her head saying it was a good thing Stefan had been at work most of our visit.
When we got home I was pretty tired, first I'd spent half the day at mum's parents, then mum and I went for a walk when she'd collected me from there and then spending the afternoon at mum's siter also means keeping an eye on little Martin. You specially need to keep an eye on him when the humans sit down for coffee, since Martin is very good at dropping things, and I have to clean up the floor after him. He is getting better and better though at not dropping things, I saw him eat three buns without dropping one little crumble on the floor! I also checked out his room and all his toys but couldn't find anything to eat.

November 4 2005
Strange

I'm still upset with mum taking me for that monster experience, but she's promised to bake new biscuits for me so maybe I'll forgive her... Yesterday and today I've been at mum's parents in the afternoons as well, since mum has been working in that other place where I'm also not allowed to go. I really find it silly with places that don't allow dogs! But I guess I shouldn't complain, I'm guite well off at mum's parents during the days. Specially since they don't take me to monster places! I do get a bit tired by the end of the week since I have to get up early every morning during the week, and I really don't like that. I think you should get a good long sleep before having to get out of bed! That's why I think it's good with mum's parents, because even if both of them are up when I arrive, they usually go in and lie down for a while reading the paper when I've arrived. Then I get to snuggle up in their bed and sleep some more.

I was really happy when mum came to get me today because I'd had a rather busy day. When we got home I ran straight in to the computer room and got in under the wooden cabinet to sleep and it wasn't until later I discovered a strange thing. I could smell dog in the appartment, and it wasn't my own smell! I was sniffing my way around the hall and the bedroom and looked with suspicion at mum before jumping up in her bed to see if I could smell this dog there too. There was no other dog smell in mum's bed, so while I was up there I decided to arrange the duvets and pillows since mum had failed doing it properly as usual.After I'd fixed up the bed I just fell down in a heap on the bed.

I was there quite a while even though mum was talking about going for a walk, but I really didn't have any interest in coming with her. Besides it had been raining during the day and I didn't want to get wet again. So mum sat down on the bed talking to me, and I thought I'd go up to her and cuddle a bit, and that's when I noticed it!! I could smell another dog on her jumper!! I carefully sniffed my way all over her jumper, both back and front and I was looking at mum to get an explanation. I thought it smelled a bit like our little neighbour. She's a little Yorkshire terrier and her name is Lotta, but I didn't understand why her smell should be on mum!? Mum explained to me, and I have to say that mum actually is a nice person. It turned out that when mum came home for a quick lunch before going to the other place to work she met little Lotta outside the elevator. She was there all on her own, and no matter how much mum looked she couldn't see Lotta's owner. Now it is a very small old lady who owns Lotta, but she's not that small that she can't be seen. It turned out that Lotta had locked herself out, and couldn't get back inside her apartment again, so mum rang the neighbour's doorbell but no one came to open. Mum started to wonder what to do. She sat down and talked to Lotta, and then lifted her up which must have made Lotta a bit nervous because she peed in mum's hand!! Heeheehee!! Mum didn't get angry at Lotta though, she knows Lotta is quite shy and probably was a bit nervous being on her own in the stairway. So, mum had gone inside our apartment leaving the door open so that Lotta could come in if she wanted, and mum was thinking of what to do since she would have to leave again in a while. She thought that maybe Lotta had gotten out when the neighbour was going shopping or something. Litte Lotta is as I said very small and also very fast, so she could easily have run out when the old lady opened her door to go out. Mum decided to put a towel and my smallest waterdish out in the stairway so that Lotta would have somewhere to lie down in case the neighbour wouldn't turn up before mum had to leave. She also rang our other neighbour's doorbell to ask for help, but there was no answer. Then mum started to worry that maybe something had happened to the old lady, maybe she'd gotten sick and maybe Lotta had slipped out if someone had been there to help the lady. Then mum decided to call the neighbour on the phone, and after a while the lady answered and she got all upset when she heard her litte Lotta was outside the apartment door not able to get in again. It turned out the neighbour had gone out with the garbage to the shute and she'd seen Lotta run out in the stairway, but she didn't see her when she was going in again so she thought Lotta had ran in to the kitchen. When the lady got inside again she'd gone to watch tv and she hadn't heard when mum rang the doorbell.

So. little Lotta's adventure in the stairway ended happily, and the neighbour thanked mum over and over and said it probably was good that she hadn't realised that herself that Lotta was missing from the apartment. She said if she had, she'd probably had a heartfailure. She'd said it was bad enough as it was, but luckily mum had been there to help sort things out. So I guess mum isn't that bad after all, at least as long as she desn't drag me along to monster places!

November 1 2005
Terrifying monsterthings!!

I'm of the opinion that dogs should be able to go with their owners anywhere, but now I know a place where dogs shouldn't have to go to. It was a really terrible and scary monsterplace!! I've been to that place once before, but I'd totally forgotten how horrible it was and wasn't prepared at all of what was going to come. The place was as horrible and full of monsters as lasts time, and I never want to go back. If mum ever brings me to that place again I'm going to move out!! It was just normal to start with, mum had collected me from her parents, we'd been up in the apartment for a while and then mum said she had to go and fill the car up. We do that now and again, and it means mum feeds the car in a special place, and it's not scary at all. But guess what, the monsterplace is where mum feeds the car! When mum had fed the car she went in to pay, and then she came back and drove off as she always does, but she only drove around the corner and then we had to sit and wait outside what looked like a garage. After waiting a while mum started the car, drove up so some thing, opened the window and pressed some buttons. When she'd done that, a door in the garage opened and in we went. When we got inside, mum turned the engine off and made sure the window was closed, and then we just sat there. I was in the back seat wondering why we were sitting in a garage when suddenly the monsters came out! First they sprayed water all over the car, so I was glad mum had closed the window, and then the monsters that sprayed water disappeared and some even scarier monsters appeared! It was a terrible noise and these other monsters were trying to get in to the car! At that point I had no intention of sitting on my own in the back seat, so I got between the front seats to be close to mum. First I was going to sit on the seat next to mum, but then I thought it would be safer to get down on the floor so the monsters wouldn't see me. Mum was just sitting there, very calm and brought out her camera. She said I didn't need to be scared, she was only getting her car washed. What did she mean "getting her car washed"?? Apparently mum didn't see the big scary monsters outside, or she pretended not to be scared thinking she could scare the monsters off with her camera. As if monsters are scared of cameras! I know it takes more to scare a monster, because they didn't go away when mum took her camera out. Instead it got even scarier and to feel safer and calmer I went down on the floor and got behind mum's feet to hide.

I was watching the doors carefully so that I could see if the monsters tried to get in that way, but luckily enough they stayed outside the car. Then it was so scary I didn't even want to look!

As you can see I have a mean mum because she didn't do anything to protect me against the monsters, she only took photos and didn't move a finger to scare the monsters off! Finally it seemed that the monsters got tired of scaring us, or maybe they were off to scare someone else, because they disappeared just as mysteriously as they arrived. Mum said we were done and that I could get out from my hidingplace and back to my own seat in the back so we could leave. She said she couldn't drive with me behind her legs like that, and after checking around, not seeing or hearing any monsters I moved over to the back seat again. Due to that horrible monster experience I was totally exhausted, and I spent most of the evening taking up most of the sofa.

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