This post is going to be a bit of a mish-mash ‘coz I’ve got so many little things to catch up on and tell you! 
But first – before I forget – my blog friend, Oskar the Mini-Schnauzer is hosting a fantastic new game called “All About Your People“ starting today (Fri 16th July) - to play, all you have to do is to do a post telling us all about your humans and then you must add your link to Oskar’s page with ‘Mr Linky’ (here) – please visit Oskar’s blog for more details and to get ideas of what kind of things to tell us about! I do hope everyone will join in and play – we all know so much doggie stuff about each other but I know our humans all help us a lot with our blogs so it would be nice to find out more about our human families! I will be joining in and doing my post on my humans this weekend as soon as I can!
OK - now, there’s been a bit of an exciting change here – our neighbours on one side gave their house to some other humans in return for a lot of money paper…and so a new family moved in. I knew there was something different the minute they arrived – I could smell it – so I had to go and check it out – and then I realised… they have a doggie!
She is a black Labrador-cross named Molly. How exciting to have a new doggie neighbour!
Except that she isn’t friendly at all! 
It’s not like we haven’t been properly introduced. When the new Neighbour Humans arrived, my human, Hsin-Yi, asked them if us doggies could meet on the street outside our houses first so we could say hello on “neutral ground” rather than through a fence. So we did and I thought it all went really well – I mean, she didn’t exactly run up to hug me but we sniffed each other’s bums politely and walked around each other, nice and relaxed…(sorry – there are no photos ‘coz Hsin-Yi was busy supervising our meeting and couldn’t take pictures!)
But then after Molly settled into her new home, every time she saw me through the fence - she would rush over and shout nasty things at me in a loud, barky, snarly voice – what my American friends would call HBO words! 
Oh! It was so horrible and gave me such a fright – so I would shout nasty things back at her. I’ve got a bigger, booming-er voice – so there! 
But then Hsin-Yi would hear and come out and give me a Telling-Off for having arguments with other doggies!
So unfair! It’s not my fault – Molly is always the one who starts it! I can’t help shouting back if a Grumpy Doggie shouts horrible things at me through the fence. Even Molly’s humans said sorry when they heard and told us that she is a bit of a grumpy doggie – in fact, I notice that she shouts nasty things at everyone and everything that comes past our houses! I mean – really! Isn’t it exhausting to keep jumping up constantly and shouting nasty things at everyone? And what a racket she makes!
...
Hsin-Yi can’t stand dogs that keep barking and making lots of noise constantly so she has taught me that I can only shout at people if they walk straight up to our house and come to our gate. If people or doggies are just walking past our house, then I’m not allowed to shout at them ‘coz the street is for everybody to use and I mustn’t be rude. So usually, I just lie in the garden and watch them walk past.
But even if they come up to our gate, I have to stop shouting as soon as my humans come out to see who it is – or call out and tell me it’s OK. I’m not allowed to keep shouting and shouting just for the fun of it (anyway, I wouldn’t – what fun would there be in shouting and shouting? How exhausting!)
Of course, there are some special people who come to our gate every day – like the Postman - and I’ve learned that I mustn’t shout at them – so I just stand politely and watch them do their stuff. (Besides, the Postman might bring me nice parcels from my blog friends! 
) I wish Molly could learn this too! All her constant shouting is giving me a head ouchie!
Hsin-Yi tried to help by coming to the fence with me and talking nicely to Molly and even giving her some treats, so that Molly would associate ME with nice things…but although she was all nice and wriggly with Hsin-Yi and wanted to cuddle up to Hsin-Yi through the fence, she kept giving me dirty looks all the time and if I so much as looked at her, she would start shouting nasty things at me again!
So in the end, Hsin-Yi said there was nothing we could do about Molly’s grumpiness – she is 9yrs old and her humans have let her develop a bad habit of grumpiness now and she isn’t living with us so Hsin-Yi can’t do any training with her – so there is no hope. Hsin-Yi says I will just have to stay away from the fence and try to ignore Molly when she is shouting nasty things at me.
So unfair! Now I can’t go and sniff around one part of my own garden – near the fence – because of Evil Grumpy Molly on the other side – and even when she shouts nasty things at me, I have to be polite and ignore her and not shout back! Humph! AND her humans keep her out in the garden all day (she only goes in their house at night) so she is always there all the time! I only go out in the garden when it is sunny to sunbathe – but every time I do, Molly is there giving me dirty looks! But Hsin-Yi told me I’m a very good doggie for ignoring her and I always try my best to make Hsin-Yi happy, because I love it when she talks to me in her Happy Voice and gives me cuddles – so I am trying my best to ignore Evil Grumpy Molly.
Anyway, soon I had other things to worry about than a grumpy doggie next door…you see, my humans started noticing strange things each morning when they woke up. They would find bags of things around the house with holes in them – almost like little teeth had chewed on them! Especially a bag of old clothes that Hsin-Yi was going to take to the charity shops – the holes kept getting bigger and bigger, until the clothes themselves started having holes too!
What could it be? Were we having midnight visitors?
Hsin-Yi said there was one way to find out: so she sprinkled lots of flour all around the bag and waited to see what would happen…
.
…and this is what we found the next morning!
Tiny little pawprints leading from the flour around the bag to a hole by the stairs going down to the basement…I think we had a mouse!
At least, my humans thought it was a mouse because the hole was really too small for a rat and also, there was no small black poo everywhere, which is usually the sign of rats.
But what they were really surprised by was that this was on the other side of the living room where I sleep…
….so what was I doing when this mouse was scampering around, chewing holes in everything, they asked? Why wasn’t I sniffing it and jumping up to tell them, like any proper guard doggie would?
Well, er…um…I’ll have you know, I was busy! Doing important things!
Ahem, excuse me! Most doggies (or humans) might not understand this – they think sleeping is only a boring thing you do when you have nothing more fun to do – but us Danes know that sleeping IS a very important activity all by itself – in fact, it’s one of the most fun things you can do! I’m always busy sleeping for most of my days, you know. So it’s not my fault that I was busy doing this important thing when the mouse decided to come visiting!
Anyway, after a lot of grumbling from Hsin-Yi about me being “a useless dog” – my humans decided to go and get some ‘humane mouse traps’ because they didn’t want to hurt the mouse. They hoped they could catch it and take it far away to a new home somewhere else.
Well, they got the humane mouse traps and put peanut butter in them and put them down for 3 nights…but nothing happened! But there were no more chewed holes either. So my humans thought maybe the mouse had decided to go and make its home somewhere else…
…and then a week later, my humans were horrified to wake up one morning and find little bits of black poo everywhere!! And something had climbed up on the shelves in our pantry and chewed holes in our bags of oats and nuts! RATS! And this kept happening every morning. Hsin-Yi tried her ‘flour trick’ again but nothing was coming out of that little hole – which meant that they were coming from somewhere else. My humans tried to find a humane trap for rats but nobody seemed to sell any nice ways of making rats go away! They were all horrible cruel traps and poisons and Hsin-Yi felt terrible about killing the rats. (She really likes rats and would like one for a pet – they are very clever and you can train them to do all sorts of tricks!) But you can get bad sickies if there is rat poo around the house everywhere…so in the end, after a lot of thinking, Hsin-Yi called the Landlord Human and the next day, a Pest Control Man came and put poison down for the rats…
The house on our other side has been empty and forgotten for a long time - but now there are new humans moving in and they are building the house again, so they have knocked parts of it down and dug up lots of the ground around...and it's only since they started doing that, that we've started having midnight visitors. So my humans think lots of rats and mice must have been living in the empty house next door and now that they are losing their home, they're coming over to ours!
Hsin-Yi was very upset about poisoning the rats but she felt better when she remembered that if rats lived in the wild, they would have enemies that would kill them and eat them too, so I guess this is sort of like that…
Well, that’s enough talking about grumpy, yucky things!
Sammy the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Now I want to introduce you to 2 new friends: Sammy the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who lives in Missouri in the faraway place called America, and Oscar the Maltese Terrier who lives in Melbourne, on the other side of Australia!
Oscar the Maltese
I feel very honoured because both Sammy and Oscar sent me messages recently, telling me that they have been reading my blog for a loooooong time (Sammy’s human reads it almost every day!) and that I’ve inspired them to start their own blogs!
So they have only just started their first posts and I thought it would be lovely if you could pop over to say hello to them if you have the time because they don’t know anybody in Blogland yet and so don’t have any visitors to their blogs yet!
I’m sure you’ll enjoy following their adventures!
Right! Just before I go, I’d like to share with you one of my important daily duties: saying goodbye to my human, Paul, and seeing him off to work!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et0XZOb4vO8
.
Look out for my next post which will be all about my humans!
Mom is squirming in her seat here reading about those rats -- she is very glad you found a way to get rid of them -- she is very sorry, but she doesn’t like them at all.
We have very noisy neighbor dogs too -- bark, bark, bark all day and sometimes all night -- very rude, and very annoying. We are very quiet pups outside, we save our wooing for our humans inside.
That idea about telling about our humans sounds like fun, maybe we can convince Mom to try it too.
Have a great weekend.
Woos -- Phantom, Thunder, and Ciara
That is a a lot of news. I am sorry your new neighbor dog was not raised well. It must be exhausting for her to have to be so nervous all the time. You will just need to ignore her. Sigh.
As for those rats! EEEEE! Momma is not nervous about a few mice now and then as long as they stay out of the kitchen but rats would kind of scare her because she would not want to see them jumping about. Plus their poo, very bad.
I cried a little watching Paul leave you. That is so sad. I hate it when momma goes to work.
Slobbers,
Mango
Hi Honey,
our lady-human reads your blog regularly too and loves it, she too was inspired to make us a blog a couple of months ago when we started training at All Breeds in Auckland (I see you used to go there too!). Have a look at our blog sometime.
licks & sniffs
Snoopy (the little one) and Arrow (the big one)
Hi Honey!
Rats are not very nice where we come from!! I am glad that you were able to find out what was making such a mess! We also have a doggie in our neighborhood that barks at us and digs under our fence!!!! She loves to get us all worked up! My daschund brothers can’t stand her!!!! My mom always has to scare her away because she destroys our yard!! we have a leash law here but her owners do not abide by it!! I understand how you feel about your doggy neighbor!
We loved reading your story and I completely agree with you on the importance of beauty sleep!!!
slobbery kisses,
Kadie
That is too bad your neighbour is furry friendly -
She doesn’t know what she’s missing -
Hugz&Khysses,
Khyra
My Chico is a real yapper. Shiver isn’t so much but once Chico gets started, Shiver joins in. I dont’ let them stay outside though if they’re being naughty like that just because I know I wouldn’t want to listen to someone else’s dog barking up a storm. Once they come inside, they’re quiet.
Sorry to hear about the mouse problem. I’m pretty lucky in that I haven’t had to worry about that yet, knock on wood!
You have a very important job of saying goodbye to Paul! Chico will say goodbye to me but Shiver almost never does. He lowers his tail and runs off to hide in the bedroom. They both greet me when I come home though!
Can’t wait to read your next post “all about you humans”!
I’m sorry that your neighbor is evil and grumpy! No fun at all! I am a little noisy when people come to our house, but mostly because I want to make sure that Mom and Dad know we have visitors. (And, in all fairness, our handyman spooks me out a little bit because he always makes all sorts of booming and banging noises when he is here…) But for all of my ‘young dog boisterousness’ I’m not grumpy, and when I play with other doggies (which I am starting to do more and more), I’m not super noisy…
Thanks for the note about the swimming! Mom and Dad have a floaty ball on a string that they can ‘retrieve’ if I don’t. Today at the pond there were TONS of other doggies, even some doggies like me who were leaping into the water and swimming into the center of the pond (it’s not very big) to get tennis balls. And it sort of looked like fun. I haven’t quite decided to make the leap yet, but I went VERY DEEP (up to my ears!) to get my ball when another doggie showed interest in MY ball. And since today was kind of hot, it was nice to be wet on the walk home -- we walk 2 miles each way, so I am nice and dry by the time we are done!
*kissey face*
-Fiona (and Abby the Mutant Puppy)
Hehe you make music when you walk in your house Honey -- “clink clink clink”!
Alot has definatley been going on, grumpy old dogs, rats and flour and new bloggie friends -- we’re heading off to visit them right after this!
Laura thought it was a very clever idea to put flour down to find out where the little outside visitors were coming from!
You look so very cute with that big toy in your mouth, I(Jasper) do the exact same thing -- I must shove something in my mouth when my people come home!
Licks and lots of slobber,
Lexi and Jasper the Danes
What a creative way to find the visitor in your house!
i’m so sorry to hear about your grumpy new neighbor. i’m afraid that may happen w/ L&J too. we’ve never lived close to any neighbors before. it will be a WHOLE other training experience. especially with street traffic (people and dogs). i like reading how Hsin-Yi handles it because it gives me ideas of different ways to handle these if we encounter them, instead of my boring old skillet routine. besides, skillets aren’t nearly as fun as treats, right?
k, will reply to email later. using Mr. WD’s computer for a few days and his keyboard is so tiny, it’s so hard to type on it!
cheers!
wild dingo
Oh my goodness, that flour trick is such a good idea and so funny -- lots of cleaning afterward though! How did you stop Honey tramping through it and making her own flour tracks? We had rats move into the ceiling of my house in Timaru, they built a nest on the tin roof above my parents bed and all night they would hear them scritch-scratching around -- it drove our dog Moby crazy cause he could hear them too. So we had a poison man come & put poison in the roof. Well, the rats ate the poison & it made them really thirsty (in their house all the pipes & water cylinder are in the roof) -- one night a few days later all of a sudden the lounge sprouted a waterfall! The pipes had burst from all the wee chew holes & there was water EVERYWHERE pouring from the roof! It totally flooded our house. Naughty rats had the last laugh after all. hehehe
That was so cute, Honey going potty. I never noticed her tail wags back and forth like a pendulum. WE love you honey and wish we could give you a big old wet smushy kissy!
Thanks for the invitation to play the new game…
we are behind even with the other one, but even if in delay, we will catch up!
Sorry to hear about the rats… my human hates them too…
My human is now teaching me to respect frogs… we have two in the garden and i am guarding them…
Very interesting -- my human will ask your human how she told you not to bark at people passing by…
She has started the leash training as agreed but I guess everything will be postponed to august… they are going to leave me home and they are going on holiday… I am going to stay by Maura… Casauma … my breader…
I should have fun too… Maura has 4 dogs so I will have a lot to tell to them… not sure… my human already acts weird you know… I believe that deeply she would rather stay home with me…
ciao Lucille
we dont like if sanne goes away
we always miss here
wen she gets home we make sure she’s very welcome here and tell her never leave us again!
get story
we gonna check out the new blogs 
Kissslobbers
El’bow & Hauwii
Hsin-Yi was very clever to think of putting out flour to track the mouse that really was a rat!
Hopefully your new neighbor dog will get used to you being around and stop being grumpy. Sometimes it just takes a little time.
Oh my. I can come over and help your human hunt those rats down. I LOVE to hunt. Sometimes we see this city rats outside and I just have to stand on my back legs, shouting, telling my human I want to hunt i down and kill it. It is something in my blood, I MUST hund everything that moves quickly. Like rats and rabbits and birds. Maybe I can help you? That way you can get your beauty sleep and I can have some fun.
It sounds boring with that grumpy dog as a neighbour. I don’t like doggies that yell at med. I too never yells, like you. I don’t see the point. Only when I see something to hunt. I hope she atleast understand that you are a friendly dog so that you can use your own garden proparly.
Oh, and I shall pay your new friends a visit! I am also new in this blog-thing. At least in english. That is why my human often spell funny, because we talk another language called swedish. Anyway. I made a post about my name too, so you guys can read about my name and how I got it. Hope you come by my bog when ever you have time. (This blog thing really takes a lot of time, especially now when I am trying to write in english.)
Affiekissies
Cerberus the Cool
P.S You are my idol. I will also try to learn a freestyle number. I have never met an affie that dances.
Oh Honey, you looked so sad when Paul left for work. You must love him very much.
I hope the little critters move on to your grumpy neighbors house soon!
Hi Honey!
Thank you for visiting my blog! It was a nice surprise for my human today when she had an exam and a nose and throat sickie.
I have to admit, I am quite protective of my people and my yard especially when some noisy teen-humans walk past our house late at night smashing their bottles. I’d like to teach them a thing or two about manners.
I know how you feel when Paul leaves. When my human leaves me in the house I sit staring at the door until she gets back. My other humans make fun of me but I really don’t understand why I just can’t be everywhere she is.
Love, Oscar and the gang
Honey, I’m so sorry you have a shouty neighbor doggie. She must not have a very happy time if she’s always shouting!
You did a good job telling Paul goodbye!
We can’t wait to hear all about your humans!
Oh, Honey! My Brudder Ranger shouts and shouts at my furend Hope that lives next door. It just makes my mom and dad nutty cuz they don’t like barky loud dogs either. And Hope should be able to be in her backyard without getting barked at. So mom and dad -- who try to only use positive training with us -- have tried lots of treats and clicks and stuff to gets Brudder Ranger to tolerate Hope being in her backyard. But she just drives him crazy and he says it’s his duty as a terrier to drive away all dogs from our fence.
Sooooo…mom and dad finally resorted to squirting Brudder Ranger with water! Oh, he hates water almost more than I do! And you know what? He stops his bark, bark, barking whenever they bring out the squirty thing. They feel kinda bad about it but he’s none the worse for wear -- just a little bit wet and a lot more quiet.
Anywho…glad you gots rid of your rats. (If only Brudder Ranger lived closer, he woulda helped you with that.) And I’m very much sorry that Paul forgots to take his toy with him after you kept reminding him like that. Humans…what are ya gonna do?
Wiggles & Wags,
mayzie
It looks like you fulfill your morning duties with great enthusiasm, Honey!
P.S. Thank you for commenting about me on your blog!
I do not chase mice either. That is work for cats. We dogs tell people who don’t belong to stay away from our houses. That is the natural order of life. We do not like rats here, and Momma goes nutsy over mice. I’m glad we’ve never had rats, because I believe she’d go insane with fury!
So Sorry Molly is not a friendly dog, but there is no accounting for how some people allow their children or dogs to behave. As long as you are polite, everyone will love you all the more.
I’m so glad none of my people leave for work. Ryan will go to “high school” this year, so he will leave me each morning. It will be peculiar. It’s so sad that Paul leaves you so early each day. I’m sure his home-coming is joyous!
Drools,
Thor
Wanted to let you know I’ve visited your site. And wanted to invite you to visit mine. I am a private animal rescuer and I am hoping to draw some readers so that I might attract an advertiser. The extra $$ would really help out with the cost of rescue work.
P.S. I LOVE Great Danes. If I didn’t have so many animals in my care already, I’d love to share some life with one.
It seems you never have a chance to get bored! I thought your humans were so clever. coming up with the idea of using flour to investigate where those intruders were coming from.
We are lucky. Our new next-door neighbour’s dog is very well-behaved and friendly.
Rats don’t stand a chance at our place coz the alley cats roam the streets. In fact, my human discovered a beheaded rat in our backyard. It was a bloody mess (literally) and my human had to call her parents to help remove the rat because she was squemish!
That does look like a grumpy neighbour dog. How sad for Honey. Maybe things will ease up over time.
Such an interesting blog, and so much to comment on:
1. I have a house in the hills, where Penny has holidayed all her life and last year a new family moved in and they have a bad-tempered dog who barks at Penny through the fence every time we go out. Now Penny sometimes barks back and I can’t get any gardening done with her there because I am forever calling her back and rewarding quiet ignoring of the annoying dog. Okay…we can cope with that. But now they have chooks on the fence line. Okay, we can cope with that… but they have a rooster, who crows all night. What with the dog yapping for three hours the other night at anything that moved in the whole valley, and then the rooster crowing from three am, I thought I’d go crazy. But I guess it will all work out…somehow…
2. rats. We have them too, and I also can’t come at killing them, because they are so intelligent and interesting. But, I agree, if they come inside they will die!
How did you make sure the rat poison was safe for Honey? I’d love to know, because I worry about how to safely get rid of our rats if they come inside.
Oh Honey, gorgeous leggy Honey -- how we’ve missed you! First off FH got a migrane and then we got the tummy sickies and now poor JD has a very poorly paw (he might need surgery!)
So we’ve been a bit too distracted to visit our pals. Now our tummies are better and although JD is still suffering quite badly his tablets keep him a bit sedated so we FINALLY have a bit of time on our paws to catch up with our pals.
We REALLY know where you are coming from in relation to the grumpy doggy next door as we have the EXACT same problem. We have a doxie next door that barks ALL the time -- we can hardly go into the garden now. We actually NEVER bark in the garden unless Max hears someone going past the house being noisy OR the doggie next door hurls herself against the fence. Yup -- you heard correctly -- our fence has nearly been knocked down by this rude, horrible little doggie. She shouts horrible swear words at us and is aggressive too. Max simply ignores he but, JD shrieks at her as he hates not being able to meet other doggies.
FH tells us off very sternly which is not fair as it’s never us that starts it! FH does get very annoyed with our neighbours but she says we need to feel sorry for this little doxie because it NEVER gets taken for walks. The owners say as she’s a little dog she doesn’t need to be walked -- can you believe that!?? -- and have actually said some very rude words to FH when she tried to explain to them that a doxie is NOT a low energy doggie and it needs a daily stimulus. We realise that the poor dog is probably going slowly insane, but we still get upset whenever we hear her. We can’t go out into the garden without her starting to bark instantly….sigh!
We’re sorry you have additional visitors in your house. FH is a little squeamish and said she wouldn’t cope very well if she was in your situation -- she’s such a wuss! But we LOVED the photo of you all snug and sleepy on your giant bean bag -- lovely!
Schnauzer snuggles -- JD and Max.
Honey your Mum is very clever! I loved your goodbye to Paul, you are both lucky to have each other!
As we have explained here, if you want an animal to catch mice, get a cat. That is so beneath us.
Too bad your new friend next door is not so friendly! Maybe she changes her mind!
Ana is very happy because she finally found someone that likes rats as much as she does (So, thank you Hsin-Yi)! Hoomans, right?
We can’t wait for your next post!
Kisses
Rufus and Indie
That was a very cute way of you hooman to find out who the visitor was. My hooman couldn’t kill rats either They are actually quite cool she thinks. So she says if we ever have a rat problem she would go away for a while, not thinking abt the poor rats, while daddy can sort it out… Well -- and in nature they might get eaten alive but they have a fair chance to run!? Hmmmm…
Anyway -- how to sum up the Molly situation?! Poor you, poor Molly, idiot, stupid, ahhgggrrrr hoomans those neighbours… It is so annoying to see things like that knowing there is noting you can do
Slobbers Teal’c
Hi Honey,
That’s a shame your new neighbour always wears her grumpy pants. My neighbour, Bruiser, is a swell guy. We often rumple in the park. Both of us rarely bark, so when we do, our humans check things out.
My cat Ashley, may hate me, but he loves rats. He brings them in from the bush and upsets all the humans. I think they’re goods fun too.
That’s very nice the way you say goodbye to Paul. When my Dad leaves, I stare at the door for a long time. But then mum distracts me with breakfast too, and I let the day begin.
Kisses, Sparta
hello honey its dennis the vizsla dog oh hay yes it is ruff wen rats ar ware they shudnt be!!! my mama and dada yoozd to hav pet rats but stil wen rats invayded the garadj they wer forsd to terminayt them with ekstreem prejyoodis but i no they wer not verry happy abowt it!!! ok bye
Honey, I know what you mean about the grumpy doggy! At our old apartment, there was a mean grumpy dog that barked all of the time. I didn’t like that at all! I was glad when we moved. But, a few days after we moved we realized something, the grumpy dog had also moved, the same week we did, and he’s right across from my porch!
That grumpy dog barks even more now!
Hi Honey. Too bad Molly isn’t a friendly dog. You could be great friends!
found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later
We had a rat once. Lots of evidence (I did not think of your flour trick!) but that was it until the day I opened the door and saw it and screamed. Moose ran straight through the house and out the back door and went as far to the other side as he could! He would not come back in for at least a half hour and only then because I offered food! I guess the guarding aspect is not their strong suit! Sorry to hear about Molly, I guess if I sat around outside all day with nothing to do I might be a litle grumpy and anti-social too. Reminds me of when Moose was afraid of out neighbor puppy. I am sorry you can’t be friends with Molly but glad you are not too scared to go out in your own garden!
Very nice Hunny Bunny send off for Paul. I can’t believe you had to be filmed whilst getting clean! No wonder you did not go right away. Sheesh!
Hi Honey! oooo I love chasing rats in my… I mean my hoomins barn. You are such a good girl!
Tail wags and licks,
Brodie