Stan and Shannon explore

Shannon arrived on Thursday, since then my family have been toying with names. They do not want to have two dogs with names starting with "S" they think that we might get confused. So the are experimenting with names, I rather like Yelnats which is Stanley backwards! I think that the family have been reading and watching Holes too much!

I am slowly getting used to having another hound in the house. She is certainly inquisitive and has tried to show me how to play games. I am a kind of take it or leave it kind of guy, although she does look like she is having fun when she is playing, so maybe I will join in more soon. She also likes to get on the sofas and on the beds, which I do not do and my family do not like Shannon doing, but she still does! She has lots to learn. She does do stairs but comes down very slowly. We have been playing musical beds, but it all seems to be fine at the moment, there is always one spare place to flop and now that Shannon has discovered the beds and sofas, she has lots of choices when the family are not looking!

We have been on plenty of walks together and Shannon likes to investigate everything, she even balances on her hind legs to see over things. Shannon has met lots of other people on the streets and they all like to see both of us. Today we were walking and we met two of my regular friends, the Beagles, their owner calls me 'Stretch.' She thinks that Shannon is lovely and the Beagles kept their distance but were friendly too, towards Shannon. Shannon is still working out what it what. My, or should I say, our family took us to St Heliers today for a walk on the beach. There were kite surfers, mini humans, mini dogs, bikes and cars all over the place all of which seemed to be of tremendous interest to Shannon. I guess she is finding it all as exciting as I did when I first arrived.

When we got home we were both zoom groomed, I love this and Shannon seemed to too. Then Shannon showed great interest in a scarf on the hat stand and tried to pull it off. How history repeats itself. I did exactly the same thing just after I arrived! Only when I did it, my family did not notice my attentions and I pulled the whole hatstand on myself and gave me a terrible fright!

Moon Dancer joins Big Dapto

My family have so enjoyed my wonderful company that they have decided to get more of me!

One of the younger members of the family took me out for walk today, this is most peculiar mid week as they are all usually either working or doing homework. But still, I am never one to miss a walk as they often end in a run, especially when the muzzle comes out.

So today off I was taken on this walk. About 5 minutes into the walk, we chanced upon one of the other members of my family, who had another hound on a lead. This new hound is Moon Dancer, we spent the rest of the walk getting to know each other. I am not the most sociable of hounds, I like to keep myself to myself, but this girl looks like she might be fun, we will have to see.

It is early days, but she came home with me. I showed her round and she started to show me how to play, not sure about that at the moment! It seems like "Shannon" as she is called likes to run, so we could have fun together in the reserve behind our house soon. You can see photos of Shannon running here.

Here is a photo of Shannon and I out on our walk today.

GAP Takapuna run

My family took me to Takapuna beach today. The weather initially looked a bit bleak, but it did pick up. The great thing about the walk was all the other hounds who turned up. I think I counted 15, but it got very confusing with all the new names. Shame other Stan and Arrow were not there, but maybe next time? Now the list of names that I remember from today are: Boxer, Disco, Hero, Jess, Hoss, Cruzer, Enzo, Bobby, Fitz, me of course! Ice, Titch (Boo!) Ronan and one other black hound whose name I forget!

If there are any of you who I have forgotten please remind me in the comments box.

It was great fun, we were all well behaved and lots of other dog owners came up to speak to us. As you can see from the slideshow below I had a good rest when I got home! My family keep on looking at Thursday on the family calendar for next week, then looking at me, something is up, not sure what, but will keep you informed.