Anybody believe in signs ....

Www. The adventures of Gryff.  Anybody believe in signs from those that are at rainbow bridge! I mean really believe? Yesterday the GB magazine arrived and her indoors actually managed to tear it open and sit down with it....... Till the troll started up! After a couple of hours she put it back in its envelope unread and gave up. Now as I said, she's not been sleeping that well, so about 4am this morning she came downstairs to make a cuppa and a have a few biscuits with us. Ever since we can remember she always starts and ends her birthday with us. On the table were a couple of unopened Xmas cards and the white envelope. Having nothing better to do she opened the cards to find  that one has what looks like a berner pup on. It's like a cartoon of  eight animals looking over a gate to the snow, and it's from a couple who are older and have never seen a berner let alone met one. Anyway with the second cuppa she went back to bed taking the magazine with her.  Imagine how she felt when going through the photos, there sits Merlin, not once but twice . Two separate pictures with his nibs in, with that big berner smile all over his chops.  Now I know for a fact that she really wanted him here for Christmas! and with all that's gone on, her birthday was all but forgotten..... So why did he turn up on her day, basically three times. Once is a happenstance, twice a coincidence and three times.... ? All those letters arrived a week to the day and roughly the time he went, but by design or fate were left till today, her day.  Then add to that there was a card hidden in the big envelope with a berner on which she also found this morning (thanku.... You know who you are) and today is full of Bernese. So the question is..... DO YOU BELIEVE? If love is as strong as we like to think it is, can it still keep us connected to those we love and have lost?  And if we look and are open minded can they let us know that they are safe and happy. Cool runnings Gryff

I keep trying.......

Www. The adventures of Gryff. .... Well it's all I can do.... Since every other dog in this house was a puppy,  Merlin has always been there to look after us, to sort out who had what, and who has which bowl. Now with him leaving for rainbow bridge, everybody seems a bit woofy and short on tolerance. Her indoors is still really upset, but i am doing my best to be there for her. I've started lying by her in the sitting room, and when the door goes I bark and sit at her side like Merlin did when she opens the door. The only thing is, when he barked we all went quiet, when I bark everybody else carrys on barking. It worrys me that I might not be as good as he was, in everything  he did. Her indoors keeps saying that he had years to learn all he knew, and I am still a youngster, so I shouldn't worry. Even the troll, who is usually a bit bossy and DO IT NOW keeps telling me everything will be ok.  The Kray twins are really being little s@@ts! There were some Stollen finger things on the back of the table and they stole them..... Ate the lot without even thinking about us, so I had a few growls at them which of course brought her indoors down stairs. I thought she would go ballistic, but she didn't . So that just proves things aren't sorted yet.  Then there are other Bernese , young ones leaving for rainbow bridge and she gets cross and upset and says they are far too young to be leaving , where Merlin was older  by any standard and it  was still too soon for him to go..... His age , she says is what made him so wise and well behaved. I can't remember a day when he wasn't in charge or flirting with the ladies. He got invites from other families for holidays , or requests to babysit their new pups.... He went away on fellas weekends with his friend Rob , and that Miss Lola the St. Bernard . He carted, he  drove around in a motorbike and sidecar. He did fund raising with other dogs for half a dozen charities, and that smile never came off his face..... No matter what was going on , he could deal with it. Add to that he was majorly handsome and loved nothing more than a berner day out ..... Well how do you follow an act like that? Her indoors says we are all grieving but in different ways, (although some people say that us dogs can't grieve) and I think she right. From miss behaving to barking, to wanting loads of cuddles, us dogs do understand when someone leaves...... Sending love to all the homes that have lost a Bernese...... Cool runnings Gryff

Loved and lost forever

Have you ever had something or someone so priceless, that you can't actually put a value on them?  Something so wonderful that you can't function without it..... And you hadn't realised just how much of an influence it had on your life. How with it's being there all would come right, and you felt protected, balanced and whole? If you were out and about you found new friends because of it, and your old friends were there because of it. How any decisions based on their judgement were always sound, and if they didn't like someone then you walked away, because they were never wrong. How they had the capacity to read your mind and your mood, and had a natural empathy with strangers that needed  support or a friendly touch to let them know there was somebody on their side. How they teach without you even knowing that's what they are doing. How they set an example that seems almost impossible to emulate and sets the bar so high that people can't match them, and  your respect for them and their ideas is boundless. How just to be with you is all they ask for , in good times and bad, and without you realising, they just lift an eyebrow and peace is returned, or the turn of a head and what ever was going to happen just stops! How they can laugh with that silly lop sided smile, and make you laugh even when you felt like crying. How THINGS didn't matter to them , only the touch of a hand when wanted , or a cuddle.......  Heaven only knows what I would give to be able to feel that touch right now, to be able to feel that cuddle one more time. You are a breath and a heartbeat away, but all I can feel is your loss and so much pain I think my heart will break. Rest in peace and thank you for spending your life with me Merlin, now you need to teach me how to carry on without you........

Butt bump and barge.....

Now guys this is just for you because if the the girls find out about it, all you will be able to find of me is bits in various ditches scattered around the countryside..... It attracted my attention yesterday when I saw three lady berner butts trying to get through the door together that either we needed wider door frames or SOMEBODY was getting a little wide in the beam. Now Freya has always been slightly that way inclined, some say from having two lots of puppy's .... But I say it's due entirely to her nose. If ever a nose was finely geared to search and eat , it's hers. The  smallest crumb never gets past her. The merest  suggestion of an aroma from the kitchen seven doors down and the old radar sniffer is on full alert. As far as her daughters are concerned , Lace and Asti, (the Kray twins) well it could be either hereditary or in my opinion it's due most probably to all this power carting they've been doing over the last few weeks. I mean Merlin has three vehicles and the one they have been driving around ( for that read borrowed or stolen without owners permission)  is only the heaviest , the longest, and is on pneumatic tyres which we all know are much harder to pull than wooden/metal rimmed wheels) . I mean body building or what? Add that to their long walks with this geezer called Monty, and then their walks out with me, and all I can see is muscle and BUTT. I suppose in fairness it's not a picture I would ordinarily see, because I am always out the door first, but it's definitely one I don't want to see every walk. I mean it's enough to knock all the puff out of a bloke if you get caught in the stampede!!! Add to that the fact that SANTA PAWS is on his way quite soon, and I can see some serious dieting going on in the new year. Her indoors has actually put a tree up in the hall this year. On top of the big wooden chest. Something about it NOT being a pee post for any dogs coming through the house. Very very unusual for her.... She doesn't really do Christmas, something to do with not needing anything from Santa Paws, or what she wants isn't possible. Well bark for herself I say... I can think of loads of bits I need, want or could do with....... Bet the girls can too, especially FOOD lol. Cool runnings Gryff

OOOPS a daisy!!!

Well I mean how embarrassing can a two legs be? I am just so glad that I wasn't there and it was the Kray twins that had to put up with glowing red cheeks when her in doors embarrassed all and sundry on Saturday morning. As you know her indoors had a BEING MEAN weekend planned. First I had to be wash dried and ironed on Friday in time for a show I was supposed to be in on Sunday. Then she was planning to drag the Kray twins out carting with the big red Sleigh at an old folks centre on Saturday! and then Sunday was her day for making me dance around a show ring like something off STRICTLY!  Well guess what..... She went base over apex, with legs wriggling about in the air, and all the air puffed out of her, to say nothing of the sleigh landing on her front padding bits, all because she doesn't actually have EYES IN THE  BACK OF HER HEAD!!! You got it, lifting that big old sleigh that she makes us pull, into the van with help from Uncle Rob, she went and fell backwards over a stone that holds the gates open...... Like she hasn't seen it a million times (and I've pee'd on it as well) . Just because it got moved a few inches from where it would normally be! Well she should have eyes in the back of her head. Do you realise that if the cart hadn't landed on her padded bits it could have been damaged? And then to add insult to embarrassment she still made the Krays cart and me get out of my basket early Sunday morning to go to the show. Well anyway , when we got there i was the perfect gent, didn't pull or make a fuss, but when it came to her getting out of the chair..... Well I just rolled around laughing. Talk about stiff, creaking and had it! There wasn't an icecream in a warm place's chance of her even walking me round that ring let alone making me MOVE. JUSTICE at last , I could go home, creep back into my lovely warm basket and dream about Sunday dinner..... Then some un named and closely related nanny suggested that somebody else run me around the ring. I thought my nanny loved me (especially when I got the sausage  and the treats that kept accidentally falling from her fingers in my direction)  but I am not so sure now . Anyway to cut a long story short, I did ok with a second and a third, her indoors got us home and was high as a kite a couple of hours later on some fancy pain killers but only after we got a Sunday lunch (including hers which she didn't eat) fit for an apology to us dogs for the embarrassment she caused us.  Cool runnings Gryff