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Patrick has decided to send Chandler off on a dog-show tour of China this month. He has some handlers here are the moment prettying Chandler up ready for a show tomorrow.

Apparently I am not the best of influences, and show dogs aren’t supposed to stand up on their hind legs to give hugs or to chew on people’s ears.

Between shows, Chandler is going to stay at a doggy retreat in Beijing, where he is going to meet some girl Chandlers and relearn how show dogs are supposed to behave.

What am I going to do without Chandler for a whole month?? NOOoooo….

I was devastated to find they had trimmed Chandler’s lovely socks today. He has the hairiest feet, and when he runs, the hair flaps about in front of his feet as if he is wearing socks that are starting to fall off just a little. Makes me laugh every time.

I managed to rush in with a camera and take a pre and post trim picture…. socks or no socks… what do you think?

The handler just thinks I am odd.

Chandler has many odd habits.

All through summer, he refused to sleep on any sort of bed or blanket, seeming to much prefer the hard tiled floors.

We didn’t mind so much when it was warm, but have been worrying about what he will do in the winter when it gets really bloody cold here.

I caught him one wintery evening last week curling himself up into a very small ball in the corner and covering himself up with the corner of the curtain.   Although he looked very, very cute I decided it probably wasn’t doing his joints any good so went on a mission to find a blanket he approved of.

I folded up and put down an ugly old bright green rug and Chandler was mightily impressed.  He rolled about on it snorting and grunting happily for a minute then dashed off about the house to collect all his toys.  After he had collected all his belongings and placed them carefully on his new bed, he curled up around them and promptly went to sleep.

As we only have the one Chandler-approved bed, and Chandler must sleep within 3 feet of wherever I am situated, I now have to drag the great ugly rug about the house with me wherever I go.  Generally, when I move the thing about, Chandler just follows along and plonks himself down wherever we stop.  If he sees me drag it into the bedroom in an evening, however, he realises it is real bed time and rushes off to find a toy to sleep with.

Seriously, Chandler is just SO CUTE.

We met Chandler’s best friend in the park again today, the biscuit-bringing grandpa.

He was rather unimpressed that I haven’t been spending enough time walking Chandler in the early afternoons, as he has been bringing biscuits and waiting in the park every day but hasn’t run into us recently.

We spent a nice few hours today sitting in the sun by the lake and chatting to the small crowd that gathers whenever we come to a stop anywhere, and Chandler got his fill of biscuits and ear scratches for the week.

Chandler keeps making more and more friends in the park.

We ran into a grandpa in the park today that rides around on a very impressive motorised scooter-chair-tricycle type contraption.

We have seen him once before when he stopped me to tell me off for not wearing a coat on a cold morning. Today he beeped at us happily and stopped to pat Chandler’s ears.

He then produced a bag of biscuits from somewhere within his vehicle and instantly became Chandler’s new best friend. We chatted a while even though I found his grandpa-style mumbling a little difficult to understand. He is one of the good communicators who repeats things a few times in different ways rather than the general method of yelling them at me louder and louder until giving up.

We managed to discuss a few things; the fact that he is from Shanghai and thinks it is a much better place to live than Hefei (a spooky coincidence… we have just this week been thinking about moving there), the fact that I have too many freckles and it is very strange, and children.

Our new friend was horrified to hear that Patrick and I have been married four years but are yet to have any children, and promptly announced the fact to everyone passing by.

I think I will start giving our big-Chinese-wedding date when people ask how long we have been married, rather than the real date, then I should have at least another year to go before people start fussing about our being child-less.

Walks in the Park with Chandler are never dull.

I don’t write enough about Chandler, he is such a laugh and so sweet to be around, I am sure I could fill a whole blog with his antics alone.

He went through a period last week of refusing to eat his dinner unless under very special circumstances.  I am not sure at all what brought it on, and as of yesterday he has resumed usual eating practices, so it must have been just a phase.

For exactly a week, Chandler decided he would not eat a single biscuit unless it was in my hand or if it was in his bowl with Patrick dancing about madly behind it.

I am glad he didn’t need me to dance about, as it was still quite warm all week, and Patrick was finding Chandler’s dinnertime rather tiring.

I don’t really know anything about competition dogs, except that they have very odd names.  Chandler’s pedigree certificate lists his name as “CH Redog’s Ticklish Affair”.   (Not so bad considering according to the certificate, one of his relatives is known as “Goodtime Happy Ending!)

I don’t know if it has something to do with the way show dogs are trained, but Chandler doesn’t sit.

He stands up, and he lies down, but there is nothing in between.  I could count  on one hand the number of times I have seen him sit.  Each time it was when he was sooo excited I think he just couldn’t concentrate enough to stand on his back legs AND his front legs all at once, so his bum collapsed to the floor.

Chandler generally tires of things quickly.  In the short time we have had him he has already loved and left two toys.  When he has a favourite toy, he carries it everywhere he goes and sleeps with it cradled in his foot next to his head.

One thing he never tires of is trying to eat our socks as we put them on in the morning.  This he will always enjoy.