A walk in downtown Auckland…

Our 1st Open Home was on today and I was very excited. I checked the flowers that I planted yesterday – mmm, they’re growing nicely!

Then I went out to supervise the House-Selling Human putting up a flag which tells everybody to come and look at our house.

Hmm...if you say so

We had to go out of the house during the Open Home time, so that other humans could come and look around. My human, Hsin-Yi, said this was a good opportunity to take me into downtown Auckland and practise “walking in the city” because I will be doing a lot of that when we do this thing called “moving overseas”.

We won’t be living in a place like Auckland with lots of big parks and green spaces for me to run around in – she said I will have to get used to walking on narrow pavements with big crowds and noisy traffic and people staring at me and also learning to sit beside cafe tables and wait politely for her outside shops.

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So first we parked in Princes Street by Albert Park so I could have a walk through the park and a little sniff and a wee…Albert Park is very beautiful, with lots of flowers and there are always many people walking around, especially young humans from Auckland University. The only bad thing is that it is not an ”off-leash dog park” so I cannot run around by myself.

Albert Park, Auckland

Ooh! I found a football!!

I was so excited that Hsin-Yi let me play a bit with the football I found:

Then we walked down Victoria Street, to Queen Street which is the biggest street in downtown Auckland and always has lots and lots of people. Hsin-Yi made me sit at the traffic lights and then we practised walking through the crowds. It was quite good fun – there were so many new smells! And there were young humans going past standing on a board with wheels, which moved with a loud “CLACK-CLACK-CLACK” sound and then another human went past on a VERY noisy motorbike machine but I wasn’t scared because my humans took me to many places with loud noises when I was little so now I am used to it all.

We walked along Queen St and then up a narrow street called Vulcan Lane which was really pretty, with lots of cafes and people sitting at tables outside. This leads to an area called ‘Chancery‘ which Hsin-Yi says is very “trendy and fashionable” – that means it’s a place that humans like to go to, to show other humans that they are cool, and there are many shops there selling fancy human coats or other ‘pretty-things’ which need a lot of money paper to buy. It is a really beautiful area with a nice atmosphere.

Me by the fountain in Chancery Square...

Hsin-Yi was really happy because we found a lovely cafe called Columbus Coffee (Podium Level, Metropolis Building, 42 High St, Auckland 09 309 5677) which had LOADS of space around the tables outside – usually, it’s very hard to sit at a cafe with me because I am so big – but this was great! I did a Sit Stay by the table while Hsin-Yi went into the cafe to order and then Hsin-Yi made me practise a Down Stay beside the table while she had her lunch. And as a reward for my good behaviour, she got a banana muffin all for me! Mmm – it was yummy!!

My first cafe visit in the city...

When we finished, we stopped off to buy some sushi for Paul who could not come with us because his back sickness is not better yet. Then we walked back through Albert Park to our car.

A lot of humans were pointing at me and staring and some even touched me, without saying hello first – which is very rude! Some dogs get very grumpy when humans do that – I wish more humans would learn how to say hello to dogs politely! Although I don’t mind because my humans took me out to meet lots of different humans when I was a puppy, so now I am friendly to everybody. Hsin-Yi says it is really important for all dogs to have lots of socialisation so they can be calm and friendly in lots of different situations, even when humans do silly things to them.