The main reason that I didn't make it to the Iron Heart party this year was because I got myself a dog. This is Disco, he's a Peruvian Inca Orchid.
He's currently about four months old, and probably about the size of a Whippet. Like his owner, he's also completely bald.
I had a guest hound, Tex, for the first half of this week. He's a Peruvian Hairless puppy, about eight months old. His owner had fallen ill a few weeks after getting him, and he'd gone to stay with her friend. Unfortunately, after a few months in hospital, she passed away. I went to pick him up in Wagga Wagga, which is a couple of hours from where I live.
Here's Disco meeting Tenor the Azawakh, with Tex in the background. Azawakhs are a really rare sighthound that were originally kept by the Tuareg people in North Africa. They can be a bit prone to biting, as they were kept as guard dogs, but Tenor was friendly. He also quite liked Disco.
I made a stop about halfway home because the weather was hot, at over 40°C or 105°F. My car's air-conditioning had been unreliable for months, which didn't help, and the compressor blew up halfway to Wagga.
Peruvians come in three sizes. Disco is about 64 cm or 25" at his withers, which is at the top of the large size, whilst Tex is 50 cm or 20", which is borderline between a medium and a large. Unlike a Poodle, the sizes exist more as a spectrum. The dogs have the same father, but Disco's mother is a large, whilst Tex's was a small medium.
The heatwave continued all week. I took the dogs out on Tuesday morning, and they cooled off in the river. Tex decided that swimming was quite fun, apparently he hadn't done it before. Disco doesn't generally go in any deeper than he is in the photo.
I had to drop Tex off at the airport on Wednesday afternoon. The heat built during the day, so I headed to Melbourne in the morning, as the weather was much cooler, and we went to the off-leash dog beach.
Disco tried to steal a ball.
Tex had a ball running through the water...
... and he got plastered in sand about an hour before his flight!
I did wash him off before taking him to catch the plane.
Tex is a lovely pup. He's gone back to his breeder, and I think that she's planning on keeping him long term.
Having two dogs was a different experience, and I've only had one before. I think that Disco enjoyed having a playmate, which meant that they entertained each other, but handling two on a walk was much trickier than one.
This is a Kookaburra. They're a relative of the Kingfisher that's native to Australia, and they're about the size of a crow.
They're hunters, and I saw one today that had caught a small snake. That's the large worm in its beak. It's not a great photo, as I snapped it with my phone on maximum zoom.
Disco at a Sprint Dog trial last week. He can outrun Usain Bolt, as he covered a hundred metres in just under nine seconds. His uncle does it in under eight, so he's got some speed to come.
The Aurora Australis was visible from outside my house this evening.
There's an area of native bush or woodland in the park near where I live, and there's some wildlife that frequents it.
Yesterday I saw a couple of older gentlemen on the bridge across a creek that runs through it. It turns out that they were watching a Platypus. It climbed out onto a log, and I got a rather poor photograph with my phone's camera.
The sighting came about half-an-hour after I'd been verbally abused by a woman for having my dog off-leash in an off-leash area...
I saw an Echidna back in December. They're a spiked marsupial that resembles a Hedgehog or Porcupine.
I've seen a couple of Kangaroos, and several snakes. I don't have any pictures of them, because I'm normally trying to stop my dog from sniffing them or following them into the undergrowth.
I got my pair of Sailor Moku Denim Pants from Papa Nui a couple of months ago, and the Australian summer has been really hot (over 40°C or 105°F last week), so they haven't had a huge amount of wear.
Continuing the theme of clean and dirty, here is Disco on Sunday afternoon posing after winning Best of Breed at the Royal Sydney show. I should cheapen the victory by pointing out that our rival failed to turn up, after she unfortunately injured her knee. But the advantage of a rare breed dog is that it is likely to win its class by default.
And here he is on Monday morning after he spent an hour chasing a Pitbull and a sheep around a small farm on the outskirts of Sydney. It was probably the highlight of his weekend.
Disco got a lot of attention at the show. I probably had to explain what a Peruvian Hairless was hundreds of times over the two days, because it's a fairly unique breed. Well, except for the Xoloitzcuintli who were further down the aisle...
@motojobobo Sprint Dog is a good source of action photos.
Unfortunately, Disco didn't take after the lure when I took him coursing a few weeks ago, otherwise I'd have some good pictures of him chasing it.
In fact, for a scion of an ancient sighthound breed, he was completely useless. The lure went straight ahead, but he turned left and ran down to the far end of the field before coming back to me.
@Giles my coach tends to cycle weights. He'll start me off (for example) deadlifting for six reps, then that will drop that number as the weight increases.
In your case, you could drop back to 80 kg for six reps, then increase the weight by 2.5 to 5 kg per week until you get back to 100 kg.
Romanian deadlifts have also proven to be a good accessory. I'm currently performing a set after I've finished the conventional deadlift.
Disco at a Sprint Dog trial last week. He can outrun Usain Bolt, as he covered a hundred metres in just under nine seconds. His uncle does it in under eight, so he's got some speed to come.
Incidentally, this photo stolen off the Cabourn Instagram is (I think) my heavily abused Ventile smock. I wore it for years, but it was getting too small, and some of the seam seal tape had fallen off, particularly around the neck. There might have been a couple of holes in it too.
I dropped it off in the Cabourn store, and I was promised a discount on a new piece, but I never managed to collect it. A few years ago, I saw a post on Instagram saying that Nigel had abused. No, he didn't!
I just heard about Nigel. I liked his work, and I met him on a couple of occasions, this was photo was taken in the Covent Garden store they used to have.
He was over in Australia six or seven years ago, and I saw him at Pickings and Parry. He commented that my Iron Heart denim mountain parka was a nice jacket.
@Tobi have you seen how Savotta tests their backpacks?
I've seen a few photos of the Grand Seiko Ushio 300 Diver where the dial and bezel are darker, and I think that it looks a lot better than in the photo I posted earlier.
Maybe it's something I need to see in the metal before I make a judgement.
@Go-For-Chill the dial might look better in the metal than in photos too.
I still prefer the black textured dial to the blue and green though.
@Giles the SLGA015 has a black version of that dial, which I think looks better.
Hopefully they'll offer the new model in that colourway in the near future.
