Walk in the woods

Kimmy has phantom pregnancy

Kimmy thinks she's pregnant (or even that she had puppies!). She collects her squeaky toys and brings them in her bed and lays down with them and licks them as if she would puppies. She whines when she can't be with her "pups".

She seems withdrawn and somewhat depressed. Subdued and just taking care of her imaginary pups.

When I take her for a walk, she is back to her normal happy self, though. Finally it cooled off a bit here so we can go out during the day without risking heat stroke.

Always when I think things are going swimmingly

something happens to awake me from the dream...

Yesterday, I needed to run some errands in a nearby town and decided to take Kimmy with me. She hasn't been in public for a while, and I thought now was a good time to start taking her to town with me again.

But she was like a raging maniac! Instead of holding her leash with one hand and Ben's hand with the other, I needed both hands to hold on to her because she lunged at people and other dogs. It was awful.

At least she didn't bark at people, just tried to jump at them, but with other dogs we met, it was a disaster. She would lunge at them, barking really angrily, and I had a hard time holding her down, because at 10 months of age, she is strong like a horse. I did manage to rein her in and put her in a sit, but not without some struggle, and of course, the minute or two it took me to handle her was enough to scare the other dog's owner and people around.

I felt horrible, sweat ran down my body in streams, I capitulated and decided to cut the errands short and head back to the car immediately. We had to pass through one last street of the town centre (pedestrian zone), with a small café that had tables outside where people could sit and have their drink.

At one table, the people had a small dog under the chair, I didn't even notice the dog until all of a sudden Kimmy lunged under the chair, with me attached to her leash like a flag, barking very nastily. I lost my footing and she dragged me a couple of meters with her, effectively pushing several chairs (with people in them!) out of her way with my body, until she was millimetres away from the poor little dog.

I started dragging her away and it took all my power to do so. I was painfully aware of the shocked looks of people and honestly wonder why the dog owner didn't call police on me, I was so not in control of my dog, it was absolutely dreadful :(

I dragged Kimmy to the car, got in and cried. I am such a failure of a dog owner! If I saw someone in the street with a dog behaving like Kimmy did, I would think the dog was a disaster in the making.

I am just sick to my stomach from this. Kimmy behaves so calmly on our walks, even when we meet people or other dogs, but yesterday showed me how uncontrollable she can be and shattered my hopes that she was "trained".

It's clear - I can't handle her :(

Kimmy - 10 months old

Kimmy and Benny

We need to move!

Yesterday morning Gerry was at work as usual and there is the phone ringing in the butcher shop. MIL answered it and it was our neighbour from across the street, and wanted to speak with Gerry.

MIL told Gerry who was calling, and Gerry said "I can't come to the phone, the shop is full and I am in the middle of serving a customer. Tell him if he wants to speak to me, to stop by in the afternoon - he lives across the street from us!"

So MIL went back on the phone and told him Gerry was busy and couldn't come to the phone, and the neighbour then proceeded to tell her that he wanted to warn Gerry that he is going to file a police report against our dog."

WTF???

So Gerry then called me home to warn me and say if someone rings at the door not to open.
Nobody came, though, not even this afternoon. So I guess the neighbour doesn't have the guts to say things in Gerry's face?

By the way, Gerry and I were wondering just a couple of days ago why this neighbour stopped greeting us...

The worst thing? He is a primary school teacher in our village school. Ben will have him in 2nd grade!!!

We haven't liked this guy for various other petty reasons already before, but now we REALLY hate him, obviously.

About 2 months ago Ben was riding his bike to school, I was walking beside him, when this idiot came blazing with his car from behind a turn and startled Ben so much he fell from the bike and skinned his knee. The asshole saw that Ben was crying, I was checking his bleeding knee, and he SMILED and drove away.

(There is no sidewalk in our cul de sac)

Update

Right now, Kimmy is still with us, and we're both (my husband and I) at a loss, really. I've been practicing the Nothing in Life is Free tactic with Kimmy and I can see (objectively, I hope) certain changes in her demeanor.

We've been also practicing "bicycle situations". To let her know that it's unacceptable to run after or even try to attack a bicycle in motion. Which she obviously has the instinct to do.

I must say, last night as we went for a walk, we stopped at a neighbour to say hi, and let Kimmy play with their labrador for a bit (off leash), and then we saw a bicyclist passing. Kimmy stood there, in her "alert" stance, watching the bicyclist intently for a couple of seconds, while I growled in a low voice "Noooo", and she turned to me and laid down. Yessss!

Our trip to Legoland

Friday, 23rd June 2006

The drive to Legoland, Gunzburg, took a bit longer than anticipated (over 6 hours), due to some stop and go traffic along the way due to road construction. We finally arrived at Legoland just in time to pick up our reservation package, and head to the hotel we had booked, about 4 minutes drive from Legoland.



Hotel Zettler in Gunzburg was very nice, and family oriented, just what we needed.



We were starving, so after checking in and getting a bit refreshed, we headed to the hotel restaurant on the terrace.



There were other families with children in the hotel, all of them Legoland visitors, of course. Although from different countries (USA, Germany, Luxembourg (yes, there was another Lux. family beside us), Switzerland), all the children were well mannered and pretty much quiet during the restaurant meal.



As we were in the middle of our appetizers, a group of young German businessmen in suits entered to get seated in the middle of the restaurant, their table surrounded by families with children. As they approached their table for 8, one of them said loudly to the others: "Ich hasse Kinder!" (= I hate children).

We could plainly hear it and I'm sure the other parents as well. Nobody said anything, but I was sorely tempted to tell the arrogant jerk: "The kids will grow out of being kids, but you will be an asshole forever!" Oh well...

In every case, after a few beers, their table was the only loud one, and they were also the only smokers in the restaurant as well...

We went to bed early in anticipation of a busy day ahead...

Saturday, 24th of June

After breakfast, we headed to Legoland - finally! Ben was beside himself with excitement!



This photo was taken right after we got inside, the flowers behind Ben are all made of Legos!



Benny and the Legoland mascot.



There were so many attractions, rides and playgrounds for children, restroom at almost every corner, plenty of stands with food and drinks and ice creams, and of course shops with souvenirs and Lego.



Also roller coasters for adults and a log flume that looked very cool but I didn't want to alone on it and Gerry couldn't go with me because we couldn't leave Ben alone.



This is an obervation tower that we went on to look around the park. Not good for those who are afraid of heights!



Benny in a souvenir shop.

One of the attractions we liked best was the Gold Search. There you could sift through sand in a "river" to search for gold nuggets. It was great fun for all three of us, to see who could find more gold.



The gold pieces were tiny, so it took a while before we could fill a small metal plate with our "loot".







After our plate was full, we could exchange it for a golden medal for Benny.

A part of the park was dedicated to miniature of real life buildings from all over the world. They look like the real thing, but are all built from Lego bricks:

View of the water play area of the park from the observation tower:

Some of the rides:

Benny and Diego Maradona (a soccer player from Argentina):

Benny on the playground:

The Schnitzel Depot:

In the Lego factory, where we saw a short movie about how Lego bricks are made, and got each a small Lego brick as a souvenir:

We got back to the hotel in the evening, tired but happy.

Benny put on his new Golden Knight costume on:

Sunday, 25th June:

After breakfast, we packed up, checked out of the hotel, and drove to Legoland for a few hours of fun. Benny and Gerry went on a Lego Racers ride.



It was again hot and humid.

After a few more rides, we had lunch in one of the restaurants, and then we had to hit the road again to get back home.

We arrived at 8 PM.