To sleep, perchance to Dream…

“To sleep, perchance to Dream…”

~ Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Honey-coma

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(and HsinYi’s favourite! ;-) No, I was NOT falling out of bed – I was just – ahem – trying a new position…)

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Big Honey Dog novel update:

Thanks again to everybody for putting up with us being anti-social while Hsin-Yi is writing her book!

She has been working REALLY hard – she’s now on Chapter 18 & almost at the end but she’s actually gone over the word limit! She was always told that a book for 8 ~ 12yrs (“middle grade”) should be 30,000 ~ 40,000 words…unless it’s a fantasy, where you’re allowed up to 60,000 words. Well, she’s gone over 40,000 already (!) so she’s decided that she’s not going to worry about it too much…if she can bring it in under 50,000 words, she should be OK! :P

Anyway, this is just the 1st draft which will get shredded anyway ;-) – so it’s probably fine to over-write a bit now – and then try to cut it down in revisions!

Manuscript Progress:

 

Keeping busy…

Hi everybody – just a quick hello to let you all know that I’m still here! :-)

I’ve got so many adventures & cool things to tell you about (and I haven’t done that post yet about my Senior Doggie Exercise Programme!) but my human, Hsin-Yi, is still rushing to finish the 1st draft of her novel so she can’t help me blog much at the moment. She’s on Chapter 15 now, though, and nearly at the end….so I hope we’ll be back to blogging regularly again soon! :P

And don’t worry – Hsin-Yi might be spending every free moment she has writing-writing-writing – but she’s still making sure that I’m keeping busy & having fun! Here are some of the things I’ve been doing recently, such as…

….taking time to smell the roses…

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…hanging out with Muesli…

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…working on the novel with Hsin-Yi…

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…campus tours at the University of Western Australia…

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…catching up on my beauty sleep…

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…meeting up with friends…

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…more hanging out with Muesli…

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…doing some late-night shopping…

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…catching some sun…

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…helping to restock the pantry…

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…and of course, enjoying the Perth sunsets! :D

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Big Honey Dog novel update:

Thanks again to everybody for putting up with us being anti-social while Hsin-Yi is writing her book!

Manuscript Progress:

Thank you to those who left comments with stupid Pit Bull myths – they’ll really help Hsin-Yi in writing the story! If anybody else knows any really ridiculous Pit Bull myths, we would love to hear from you. :P We know the usual ones like Pit Bulls having locking jaws and bigger bite strength and being “born mean” and unpredictable…but have you heard of any other really ridiculous ones? The more outlandish, the better! Thank you :-)

Ocean Beach Vs. River Beach?

River Beach…?

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OR

Ocean Beach…?

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Life’s tough when you’ve got to make these choices, isn’t it? ;-)

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Big Honey Dog novel update:

Thanks again to everybody for putting up with us being anti-social while Hsin-Yi is writing the 1st draft of her children’s novel! :P We thought you might be interested in following her progress on her manuscript as she races to finish it before the end of May – so we’ll be adding little updates with my posts from now on.

Manuscript Progress:

* Can you help with research for the story? What are some really ridiculous myths about Pit Bulls? We want the really silly, outlandish, unfair misconceptions that some people have! Thanks!!

Breakfast at the Botanic Gardens Cafe & Muesli’s Great Outdoors!

* We’re adding a cool, new update feature on the progress of the Big Honey Dog novel – check it out at the bottom of this post!

You all know how much I love going to cafés and you’ve probably noticed that since we’ve moved to Perth, I haven’t really had a chance to – er – feed my muffin habit yet! ;-)

Well, my humans have been on the lookout for dogfriendly cafes to take me to (they’re quite fussy and only like taking me to cafes which have a lot of space around the tables, in a pretty place with nice views) – and they found a great place not long after we arrived in Perth: the Botanical Cafe in Kings Park & The Botanic Gardens!

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Check out the fantastic views from the tables on the terrace!!

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It was still mid-summer when we first arrived in Perth, though, and REALLY hot – the temperature was close to 40ºC (104ºF) on some days! 8-O Well, you know I don’t do well in hot weather anyway – and since they diagnosed my dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) at the end of last year, my humans have been super careful with me. Although I’m still “pre-clinical” and not in heart failure yet, my humans don’t want to do anything that might make my heart stressy and so they never take me out in any kind of hot or humid weather. Better safe than sorry!

So they decided that I would have to wait until the weather cooled down before I could go for a cafe visit…but in the meantime, they would go and check the place out first themselves!

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Paul’s healthy fruitbowl breakfast which looks almost too beautiful to eat! (guess what Hsin-Yi had??)

My humans did see some doggies when they went – but they all looked awfully hot, with their tongues hanging out, panting-panting-panting like crazy.

bulldogsMy humans felt especially sorry for 2 Bulldogs that they saw who were drooling so much with their panting that they were practically standing in their own puddles! Poor things…and they were tied up on leashes so they couldn’t really move around very well, to stay in the shade…

Hsin-Yi thought it was a bit irresponsible taking Bulldogs out on a day like that – you know all the brachycephalic (squashed-nosed) breeds have to be REALLY careful with hot weather ‘coz they can overheat so easily and just drop dead suddenly.

That’s what happened to the famous Actor Human, Jeremy Renner’s little French Bulldog – who was out running around on a sunny day: he was fine one minute and then suddenly keeled over the next…and he was only 18 months old!

Anyway, so my humans thought it was a great place, with very dogfriendly Staff Humans and loads of tables to choose from on the roomy terrace – and they promised to take me as soon as the weather got cooler.

Well, now we’re officially in Autumn and the weather has finally started cooling down – so a couple of weeks ago, my humans took me to the Botanical Cafe for breakfast!

First, we had a little walk in the Botanic Gardens to work up an appetite…! ;-)

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Did you watch my “Senior Doggie movie”? :P That was the wall we were playing on at the end of the movie. Hsin-Yi was walking along it so I wanted to do it too – but she was spoiling all my fun ‘coz she got scared that I might fall off the wall and hurt myself. She said I’m “old” now and maybe not so ‘sure’ on my paws as before and I can’t see so well anymore, since the cataracts are blurring up my remaining eye…so every time I climbed on the stones and tried walking on the wall, she started fussing around and making me get off! Humph!

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Anyway, it was time to head to the Botanical Cafe for breakfast! We nabbed a great table on the terrace…

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I had a nice spot in the shade, on my comfy Pet Futon (which my humans always keep in the car machine – so handy for going places and great for the “Bed” command, to make sure I stay safely in one place, without having to be tied up on leash) and I could look out and see all the way to downtown Perth! :P

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Time to look at the menu now…ooh, they’ve got lots of different muffins! I decided to have the Pineapple & Coconut Muffin…

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While we were waiting for our breakfasts to arrive, lots of people & human pups (as usual!) wanted to come up to say hello & give me pats…you can’t be shy if you’re a Great Dane! ;-)

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I was more interested in these big, black birds that were strutting around, though – they were very cheeky and came awfully close to the tables and I even saw them snatch some leftover yummies from some of the other tables!

Hsin-Yi said they’re called crows and lots of people don’t like them coz they think crows are creepy because they hang around cemeteries and stuff  but Hsin-Yi really likes them. She says they’re very, very smart and can learn all sorts of tricks, just by themselves! She studied them when she was doing the Animal Behaviour option in her Biology degree at University and she was amazed at all the things they can do, like bend a wire to make a tool to fish yummies out of a jar! (http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/news/2006/06/060606-crows.html)

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Watching a crow near our table…

Oooh! Breakfast has finally arrived!

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YUM! My muffin looks good!!

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I wanted to taste some of Hsin-Yi’s Egg & Bacon Roll too but she was a total pig and kept it all for herself! Humph!! :evil:

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Time for a family photo before we finished…

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…and then we went for another little walk before going back to the car machine. We strolled a bit down beautiful Frasaer Avenue, which is the main road into Kings Park & the Botanic Gardens…isn’t it gorgeous?

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My humans like it ‘coz it reminds them of the beautiful entrance to Cornwall Park back in Auckland, NZ – one of their all-time favourite parks. (Well, Perth is the only place we’ve lived in Australia which really reminds us of NZ, with all the green, open space, beautiful water views, uncrowded places and friendly people). There are more beautiful views of downtown Perth and the Swan River from Fraser Ave…

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My humans had got a really nice picture with the Perth city view when they came to breakfast last time by themselves… (and yes, Hsin-Yi got it by self-timer: she propped the camera machine on the top of a park rubbish bin! ;-) )

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…so I wanted to get a similar picture too! I didn’t need to use self-timer to get mine though – hee! hee! – Hsin-Yi took it for me. What do you think? (it was a much hazier day so my pictures didn’t come out so well…)

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Well, meanwhile, Muesli’s been enjoying the great outdoors too recently…at last! Remember back in Sydney last year, my humans were forced to make Muesli into an “indoor kitty” and only take her out on harness & leash because of our Psycho Neighbour Doggie  – but they’ve been really looking forward to giving Muesli her freedom back! They felt so bad that Muesli couldn’t go out in the fresh air & sunshine and hunt bugs and eat grass and dig dirt and do all the “normal”, natural kitty behaviours. Well, thankfully, our new house in Perth has a lovely, quiet enclosed garden with NO psycho neighours of any kind ;-) and so Muesli can finally go out again at last!

But she didn’t get to go out as soon as we moved in – you see, when you move house, it’s best to keep your kitty indoors for at least 4 weeks before you let them out – otherwise they might try to go back and find their old home! A lot of kitties get lost this way :-( So my humans made sure to keep Muesli inside for well over 4 weeks – and then finally came the big day!

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Poor Muesli – she’d only ever had courtyard gardens in Sydney & Newcastle so she had never seen grass in her life!

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She soon got used to walking on it, though, and chewing on it and rolling around on it! :P The best thing about the grass – Muesli discovered – was that it hides lots of CRICKETS!! Muesli had never seen crickets before – back in Sydney, she mostly hunted cockroaches but now, she spends a lot of her time diving and pouncing and racing around after crickets! ;-) Hsin-Yi hasn’t managed to get a picture yet but she’ll try to get one to show you Muesli in action soon.

Oh – and another new thing for Muesli is the kitty door! (aren’t we lucky that our rental home comes with a ready-installed kitty door?) She had never seen one before but she learnt how to use it quick enough – hee! hee! ;-)

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Muesli is very sweet – if I go out in the garden, she always follows me out…and if I come in, she’ll be in through the kitty door after me in a few minutes! ;-) She doesn’t stay out in the garden by herself much and so far, hasn’t really tried to go much beyond it (she’s been going outside about 2 months now). She might explore more as she gets braver…although maybe not: unlike my first kitty sister, Lemon, Muesli is a Scaredy-Cat and always runs & hides whenever she sees any strange human or thing or noise. So she’s probably going to be one of those kitties who’s happy to just remain in her own garden all the time, where she feels safe! ;-)

My humans are really pleased that Muesli still remembers her Kitty Recall! Whenever they go to the back door and call her name, she’ll always come running from across the garden. It’s very handy especially for when they want to call her in, in the evenings when they lock the kitty door (kitties in our house are never allowed outside after dark).

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It’s so nice to have Muesli outside with me now. We spent a lot of time in the garden together – sniffing things, pottering around, enjoying the sunshine…and the peace & quiet! It was a bit lonely when I was out by myself but now I always have company! :P

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Big Honey Dog novel update:

Thanks again to everybody for putting up with us being anti-social while Hsin-Yi is writing the 1st draft of her children’s novel! :P We thought you might be interested in following her progress on her manuscript as she races to finish it before the end of May – so we’ll be adding little updates with my posts from now on.

Manuscript Progress:

 Hsin-Yi hasn’t been doing so well in the last couple of days and not hitting her 1,000 words per day target, so she’s a bit frustrated…she spent 1/2 of yesterday doing research for one scene! :roll: But she’s hoping to make up for lost time in the rest of this week! :P

 

 

A visit to AQWA & some fishy shopping…

Thank you so much everybody for all your comments in my last post, with the GREAT ideas to help Hsin-Yi’s novel! Thanks also for understanding about us being anti-social for a while and not being able to come round & visit any blogs until Hsin-Yi finishes writing the 1st draft of her manuscript. By the way, I hope you don’t think Hsin-Yi is being nasty to kitties in her book – it’s just that there’s one doggie character who HATES cats in the story and so the “cat insults” are for him! :P

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Well, today I wanted to tell you all about a fun day trip my humans made a couple of weekends back…they went to check out AQWA: The Aquarium of Western Australia!

AQWA sign

AQWA is on the coast, about 30mins drive north of downtown Perth, perched on the edge of the Indian Ocean. It is part of the Marmion Marine Park which has lots of beautiful limestone islands and reefs and even humpback whales, who play in the waters when they swim past during their southern migration.


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It was a beautiful drive up along the coastal road, through Perth’s northern suburbs..

West Coast Drive 2

…to arrive at Hilary’s Boat Harbour, where AQWA is located.

Hillarys Boat Harbour

WA-coast My humans love visiting aquariums. They’ve been to the Sydney Aquarium, the National Aquarium Birmingham, the London Aquarium, the Kelly Tarlton Aquarium in Auckland, and the New England Aquarium in Boston, which is one of their favourites.

AQWA isn’t a very big aquarium but it packs a lot in! It covers all the waters around Western Australia – 12,000km of coastline – so that people can see all the different fish and seaweeds and shells and other marine beasties that live around here.

From the icy waters of the Southern Ocean, through the sandy bays and jellyfish of the Perth Coast, past the sharks & stingrays of the Shipwreck Coast, all the way up to the warm, tropical waters and beautiful coral reefs in the Far North…

…it’s great you can see it all in one place! :-)

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The moray eel – the “wolf of the sea”!

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The Lionfish – one of the most dangerous fish in the sea, with poisonous spines on its beautiful fins that can give you a really horrible ouchie!

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SHARK!

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The seahorses were my humans’ favourite exhibit – they are such fascinating creatures!

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The deadly Stonefish. – one of the most venomous fish in the world..can you see them?

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Grey Nurse Shark

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we found Nemo!

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Patting stingrays at the touchpool…

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The octopus was a real star and he knew it! He loved all the attention from the people around his aquarium…

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Paul being VERY silly in the Shark Tunnel!

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AQWA has a special turtle rehab centre, where they look after sick or injured turtles and then release them back into the sea!

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the giant tropical reef aquarium

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After all that walking around, Hsin-Yi was starving! Time to head to the AQWA Cafe…hot chocolate with marshmallows and crispy potato wedges with sweet chilli sauce – Hsin-Yi said it might sound like a weird combo but it was yummy!

Well, the only bad thing about AQWA is that they don’t allow doggies inside! :-( (well, except guide doggies) – so I didn’t get to go. I was very grumpy. My humans tried to make me feel better by saying they could still take me somewhere to see fishies in aquariums…

…What??

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Humph! That isn’t a proper aquarium! It’s just some stupid fish tanks in the pet shop! :evil:

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I didn’t even believe these fishies in the jars were real…they hardly moved!

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They are called Siamese Fighting Fish and my humans thought it was very sad that they’re kept in such small jars. A lot of people think that’s the right way to keep Siamese Fighting Fish because they think that in the wild, the SFF only live in small puddles anyway.

This is a myth – actually, the SFF came from fields in South Asia where people grow rice (called “rice paddies”) and in the dry seaon, when most of the water dried up, the SFF learnt to live in small puddles as a special skill to survive. But that doesn’t mean that they should live in puddles (or tiny jars) of water all the time!! 8-O (you can read more about the proper way to keep them here: http://kb.rspca.org.au/What-sort-of-environment-should-Siamese-fighting-fish-be-kept-in_440.html)

So really, they should be kept in a proper big tank – although you should only keep one of each, coz they’re very grumpy fish and they will attack each other! They don’t mind living with some other fish but they don’t like their own kind! :P

Anyway, enough about the stupid fishies…let’s go look at something more exciting, like TREATS!!! :D

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We had a nice wander through the store – it’s called City Farmers and it’s a nice, big roomy pet shop, with wide aisles and lots of space for a Great Dane to turn around! :P

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All the Staff Humans came up and made a big fuss of me…

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…and then just before we left, Hsin-Yi said I could pick out my own treat! YAY!

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I got a nice, smoky pig’s trotter – yum – and I waited nicely in line to pay for my treat…

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Ooh, another doggie customer tried to jump the queue…Oi! Get back! I was here first!

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Honey+FletcherActually, he was only a puppy – his name was Fletcher and he was about 7 months old.

I really liked him! :P (well, you know I have a soft spot for Schnauzers…hee! hee!) We had a nice sniff together.

My humans were quite relieved ‘coz now that I’m a – ahem – mature lady, I am not so tolerant of other doggies anymore and I am quite fussy about my “personal space”. I HATE strange doggies barging up to my face, especially if I’m on lead, and I can get quite stroppy sometimes! :evil:

But when it comes to puppies, I’m usually very patient and let them get away with murder. :P

Still, it’s very important for people to teach their puppies manners and especially not to let them go rushing up to other strange doggies. Even if the puppy is friendly and just wants to “say hello” or play, the other doggie might not be! Some doggies are just not sociable types and some are old like me and getting a bit grouchy (especially if we’re blind on one side and can’t see very well on the other or have ouchies from arthritis) – so they might react very grumpily if another strange doggie comes into their personal space.

And if a puppy gets a bad experience by being attacked by another doggie, it could ruin his temperament and make him “fear aggressive” – besides which, it is teaching him really bad manners to just let him barge up to everyone. So it’s always best to teach your puppy to politely IGNORE other doggies, especially when they’re on leashyes, they have to learn “self control”! :P – and only sometimes, when they get special permission from their humans, then they can go up to say hello.

Anyway, Fletcher really liked me…he followed me out into the car park and I think he wanted to get in our car machine and come home with me! ;-)

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But I told him I’m an Only Doggie – I might like meeting puppies and playing with them for a bit but when I go home, I like having the house to myself!! :P

Well, OK, except for the Kitty Princess, of course… :roll:

Sigh. New house...same old problem

Sigh. New house…same old problem!

An apology to my blog friends & Some help for my Big Honey Dog novel?

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(Oh, don’t think Hsin-Yi looks like this when she’s writing! In fact, she doesn’t look like this most of the time – hee! hee! This was a special occasion – when it was her birthday recently and she put on make-up & dressed up nicely to go out for dinner with Paul. But she was trying to get a nice picture with me & Muesli first…and we weren’t cooperating!
No, when she is writing, Hsin-Yi is usually in her pyjamas & old dressing gown…she says the best perk of being a “writer” is that you can go to work in your pyjamas and stay in your pyjamas all day! )

I wanted to say a special “sorry” to all my blog friends because we haven’t been able to visit anybody for weeks and probably won’t be able to come visit & comment on your blogs for a long time yet…

My human, Hsin-Yi, is working VERY hard to finish writing her novel – the Big Honey Dog mystery story for children! – and so she has to put any free time she has on that. (You might have noticed that I’m not posting as much on my blog recently – coz Hsin-Yi just hasn’t got time to help me – humph!).

She was feeling very stressy about not being able to visit any blog friends – so I told her that I would make a special announcement on my blog, so that all my friends would know. I am sure they will be very understanding but Hsin-Yi always feels really bad, especially if people visit us and comment – it seems awfully rude not to return the gesture!

But Hsin-Yi has been trying to finish her novel for ages now – and she just never manages it because whenever she has free time, she always does other stuff first, like writing my blog, checking email, answering messages, editing photos, making movies, updating my Facebook page, etc, etc …but now, she says it’s Time To Get Serious. So now when she has free time, she doesn’t even allow herself to open her email or the internet or anything – she just opens her manuscript and starts writing.

Hsin-Yi is 2/3rds of the way through the first draft now and she wants to finish it before the end of May. So please bear with us for the next few weeks – we don’t mean to be anti-social or unfriendly but this is really important so we’re going to have put the novel first for a while.

She will still try to help me post on my blog as much as she can but we won’t be able to come round & visit any blog friends (or respond to messages much) until she finishes writing the first draft. Sorry! :-(

Don’t worry – I won’t be bored ‘coz I’ll be busy helping her with the novel too. Who do you think is Doggie-Editor-In-Chief? ;-)

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Whew! Who knew writing a novel was such hard work?

Oh – and there’s something that Hsin-Yi’s been stuck on so maybe some of you might be able to help? Hsin-Yi is writing a ‘middle-grade mystery’ – a mystery story for 8 ~ 12yrs olds, starring a group of doggie friends – including me! :D (well, OK, not me exactly but a doggie inspired by me…)

…one of the things she needs in the story is some “cat insults” – like insulting things that doggies would call kitties, if they didn’t like them. So far, Hsin-Yi hasn’t been able to come up with many names – the best one she could think of was “Hairball-Puker” – can you think of any others? Any really nasty, horrible, insulting names that a doggie might call a kitty? (suitable for a children’s book, of course! ;-) ) Please tell us in the comments if you do!

Thank you!!