Archie Turns Two – Clumberdoodle Archie’s 2nd Birthday April 2019
April 2nd 2019 and Archie celebrates his 2nd Birthday and was totally spoilt, but then again aren’t all loved dogs??
After breakfast he opened his presents from us. Archie has lots of toys but they do not last very long as I have come to the conclusion that manufacturers of dog toys do not actually test them on dogs!!!
Soft dog toys he is lucky if they last a few days before there is just the body left. The first thing Archie does is to remove any labels – he hates labels on anything. Then if the limbs are soft he will suck them until they are soggy and then he chews them off, so basically he is just left with a body.
So the present opening began. For his presents today, I got him a colourful rope dragon toy. I have to say that any toys with ropes in them are quite sturdy, but even Archie will eventually try to shred the ropes.
Another toy was a turtle with a spikey ball as his body and then floppy legs, head and tail, so no doubt the only thing that will be left will be the spikey ball body. His unwrapping was interrupted by the Postman, as the Postman coming is one of Archie’s highlights of the day. He loves to pick up the post, or even take it direct from the postman, runs up the stairs with it and then gets a treat!!!!
The third present was a Frisbee, which he loves, although his previous one didn’t last all that long as every time he caught it he would chew bits off, so much so that eventually it was completely misshapen and would not fly. Hopefully this one is stronger and will last a bit longer.
He played with his toys which also included his favourite position, of jumping up on Steve’s back to look out of the front window – he really is the original “Neighbourhood Watch Dog”!!!
He then tried to lay in his bed, but there was no room.
We took Archie out for his walk after lunch up on to Henlake Down and took his Frisbee and he loved it.
The weather when we got up on to Henlake was sunny but cold, but looked in the distance to see what looked like a snow shower coming our way.
Well it wasn’t snow but a heavy hail shower and we had to take shelter by a hedge. Everywhere turned white and so did Archie, but he thought it was great fun as he loves the cold. Luckily it didn’t last too long and the sun came out again.
When we got home it was time for his home made birthday cake which I am sure that many other owners make their dogs a birthday cake? The recipe for this particular dog cake can be found on Archie’s 1st birthday blog so please click the link if you would like to make it https://www.karenfreemansworld.com/clumberdoodle-archies-diary-12-months-onwards.html. The only difference this year is that I made 2 smaller circular ones instead of using a loaf tin and of course 2 sausages as candles.
Steve (my husband) got very jealous as he said I make a cake for the dog but not for him!!!
HOWS THAT FOR RESISTING TEMPTATION!!
Well as you can see he lapped it up.
Then later in the day Archie’s human brother (from a different mother) Adrian came to bring him some more presents, so the 2nd unwrapping ceremony went on and on and on, but Archie definitely got the hang of disposing of the wrapping paper.
Added to his previous presents, he had a huge colourful rope Cleo caterpillar toy (however please read more about this at the end of the post under Pupdate which includes a cute photo), a “Happy Birthday” rope balloon shape ball, 2 of his favourite hide bones, a bag of chocolate drops and a new red collar. He had been one very lucky dog.
Then to finish off the day it was off to obedience classes, and I have to say that Archie behaved extremely well tonight and did all the exercise very well. As there was lots left of his birthday cake, the other dogs in his class all had a slice.
So after a very busy day as soon as he came home through the door at just before 10.00 p.m he was absolutely shattered, and so to bed.
I just had to add this photo that we took of Archie a couple of days before his birthday. He was extremely interested in reading the newspaper with the aid of some reading glasses (he obviously wanted to see if the Brexit fiasco had been sorted yet!!!)
PUPDATE RE CLEO CATERPILLAR TOY
Not only Archie loved this, but I thought it was a great dog toy too. It had rope legs attached to it’s body so an ideal pull toy for dogs (or so I thought). However after less than about half an hour I noticed little bits of red material on the floor. On inspection the very flimsy material on the main body of the caterpillar (where the rope legs are attached) was shredding and disintegrating exposing the filling. As soon as you touched it the material just kept on shredding. Immediately I took it away from a rather upset Archie, but he could have choked on these pieces of thin material and also the filling.
I immediately contacted Jollyes (where Adrian purchased it from a local store) main customer support to alert them as I felt that this dog toy was not fit for purpose. I did notice that another review had been posted about this product also saying that the material was flimsy and she had to sew it up a number of times. However this was not possible on Archie’s as there was no material to sew together as it just kept on disintegrating as soon as you touched it.
I have tried a couple of times to submit a review on this product no Jollyes website but to date it has not yet been posted, but I would urge anyone thinking of purchasing this toy not to.
8/4/2019 Update. My review has eventually been posted for Cleo the Caterpillar on Jollyes website, so please take a look if you are thinking of buying this product https://www.jollyes.co.uk/danish-design-cleo-the-caterpillar-dog-toy.html#reviews
It was suggested that Adrian take it back to the store which he did (incurring a 20 mile round trip) and the staff member who saw him did agree that the quality of this toy was unacceptable and offered a refund. However Adrian did not want to upset Archie, so he purchased another toy, which Archie loved – his favourite bird – a pheasant.
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