Well that's a relief

I had an interesting birthday meditating the day away at Samye Ling Monastery. It felt like a worthwhile thing for me to do. Whilst I was wandering about I came on the resident peacocks, a male and his 4 missusses, all lined up on a railing. Made for rather a nice photo:

I got back on Sunday night and opened my cards and presents. Mountain Man has got us tickets for Warhorse on 24th January, which is on at Edinburgh Festival Theatre and I've wanted to see for ages, and my mother gave me an M&S voucher, which was very kind of her except that it was written to MM for his xmas present. Suffice it to say she'd already given him an M&S voucher for xmas so I know he wasn't without, but it was a bit weird to get something that didn't really feel like it belonged. Still she is 90 and she did remember to phone me (all the way from South Africa I might add) even though I wasn't there.

I'm getting boy present(s?) tomorrow and a lunch out, so I have that to look forward to.

Yesterday was Odi's first 'free run' which is the first time she's been off the lead out of the house. It has to be done under supervision and after all her inoculations (she had her final one on 3rd January). Because the Puppy Supervisor is inundated with puppies at the moment it fell to her deputy to perform the duties and, because she doesn't always have use of a car, we (as in Odi, me and MM) had to go to Portobello for the pleasure.

As soon as we got to the park and we let the dogs off (the DPS has a 7 month old chocolate lab) a woman with 2 Jack Russell terriers came in and let her dogs off. The woman herself bounded up to Odi and petted and fussed over her, much to my and the DPS's horror, and then wandered off to collect her dogs. One of them, who went by the name of Asbo (need I say more) wouldn't go to her and just wanted to play with Odi and Odi was very obliging and ran off with him. We called her back but she wouldn't come and just when I thought the DPS was going to pull out the red card and declare us failed, Odi came rushing back. After that small hiccup she behaved perfectly, coming when called, even to MM, who's had his trials and tribulations when trying to get her to come to him in the garden.

Odi had a whale of a time, rushing about and rolling in the (very) black mud. When we finished and put them on the lead she was almost beginning to resemble a black lab not a yellow one, and of course none of the mud showed up on the choccy one. I'm now realising that having a yellow lab/retreiver cross, and quite a blond one at that, is not quite so great when out walking in parks or fields, even if she is extremely pretty when cleaned up.

And today we were invited down to Kelso Race Course to go for a runabout with another Guide Dog lab, this one black and 7 months old. It was great to see them rushing around enjoying themselves and Odi even discovered rabbit poo, which was a very tasty snackette for her I think!

It's such a relief to be able to go anywhere and let her off the lead for a good old run. She really needed it. Overnight she's gone from an excitable minx to quite a sleepy, tired out dog. It's worth all the drying and brushing to get her back to her normal colour to see her being allowed to be a 'real' dog at last.

I'm attaching two more photos as evidence of growth. The first was taken when Odi was 8 weeks old and the second was taken on Sunday.

'Devil Eyes' at 8 weeks

'Devil Eyes' at 17 weeks