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Harry (in particular) and Spike hate sirens and fireworks. So New Years Eve is pretty tough for them.

This year we took them with us for the 9pm fireworks. We actually found a lovely place near home where we could see the top of the harbour bridge, and an uncrowded park. It's not a fantastic view, so its not worth making a super effort to get there, but its good enough, so mostly the locals walk there.

We sat on the grass with Harry and Spike in our laps, while the fireworks went off. Harry only barked a little bit, when they echoed. So we thought it was a great success.

There's another spot around the corner, which we planned to go for midnight. The middle of the road outside the BP station has a pretty good view of half of the harbour bridge, so again, the locals come around. It's not particularly classy, hanging around the BP station, but being part of a community is nice.

But why on earth do they need to do baby fireworks every half an hour? Not sure if they're official, but I swear every twenty minutes or so, there was another loud fireworks bang. Just enough to set the dogs in a panic. Often enough to barely give them time to relax and recover.

The fireworks are lovely, but someone should tell the planners that two big bangs is enough - we don't need little ones driving the dogs crazy.

Whinge over.

Happy New Year!

just in case you noticed any problems on the long weekend....

the aussie company that hosts my site got hacked on the weekend by "the turkish hacker", and wiped out most of the sites they host.

I didn't find out until sunday evening (would have been nice to know my sites were down!) when i logged on and found the turkish flag staring back at me.

i rang/emailed/tweeted/messaged the company, and they replied that they were in the middle of backups when the corruption occurred. so they didn't have a backup!
luckily i had my own backup, and spent the next 4 hours restoring all my sites (i have a few others, like halloween-australia.com and some other hobby sites).

I think it's still a little bit slow, but maybe thats because there are heaps of people like me, all trying to restore their sites themselves at the same time.... i'll keep checking to make sure everything is fine.

we're not going away for the holidays, so spike and harry will have lots of walks over the next few days - rain or shine

thanks for your patience and happy long weekend!

Does anyone know of a place you can hire dog trailers?

For short trips Harry and Spike have had a seat belt, and the rest of the time we walk everywhere. But some friends have asked us up the coast to a dog-friendly place, and by the time the kids are in the car, it's tempting to hire a dog trailer to put behind the car.

Has anyone used one? Are they comfy? Are there hire places in Sydney?

cheers

we were bad humans and went away for the weekend (but at least the dogs were warm at home with the kids).

by chance we stayed at two places that were dog friendly.

the first was in the middle of a forest, on a horse-riding property (we were just passing through). The main home had a sign that said "dogs stop here - we have cats and horses and chooks", which was fair enough. But there weren't any fences.

The second was a real dog lover's home. As you drove in, the dog that lived there would jump up to see what friends you had brought. And inside the house (with good-sized dog flap on the door), all the plates, magazines, cups, notices were all dog-themed. There was an outside dog run, if your dog slept outside.

But there were only 3 sides fenced, with only one side with mesh to the bottom.

Harry would have escaped within seconds, and probably chased the neighbouring bulls, got excited, and then got lost.
Spike would have been in heaven - he never runs away.

Although it was a beautiful dog-loving paradise, I would still not have stayed there, unless Harry was on a leash the whole time.

Is that usual with dog-friendy holiday places, or are some of them completely fenced and escape-proof?