thali speaks!

This is the blog entry we've been dreading for quite a while. This morning, just after 11:00, Thali went to sleep for the last time. One of the vets who had been treating Thali for some time, Siobhan, was kind enough to visit us at home with one of the vet nurses and gave Thali her last injection. Thali was very brave.

We'll miss you Thali...

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they gave me a bath, just when i was smellin' good, and now i don't smell like a doggy should. i helped martin and mel write a song once that went like that. they added this bit about being a blue cattle dog. you would think they know by know that i'm 1/2 kelpie and 1/2 border collie!

yep, they've done it again. i was just starting to get a good doggy smell happening and they bathed me. now I smell like this weird stuff and the humans tell me i smell nice. i hope they're joking... anyway, we get these things called chockies after a bath, so it isn't a complete waste of time! a long time ago there were a couple of times when i didn't like my post-path smell. once i went straight outside and rolled in the dirt. another time, while out walking after a bath, i found this great stuff that would make me smell better, so i rolled in it. both times the humans were very unhappy and gave me another bath straight away. i thought i would get more chockies... but i didn't... not fair!

so, what else has been happening? well, for a long time i felt really great. then i started to lose some fur and get sick. they stopped giving me my happy tablets and also stopped taking me for chemotherapy. for a while i felt great - better than i have for about 18 months.

lately i've been feeling pretty sick and have been throwing up a bit. the humans have made me sleep in the bathroom. it seems to be working because I'm now throwing up less! for the past few days i've been feeling a bit better again. so, i'm not bad but i have been sleeping a lot.

the humans have been talking about me a lot. i think they might be organising another party for me... or maybe they are buying me a present! i like presents! sometimes the humans look happy and laugh a lot. sometimes they look at me really sad. maybe they don't know what present to buy me?

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well, i'm still alive and chasing balls and frisbees. it's been an interesting month and a half...

first of all, martin went away. he went away for a long time - about a week. he came back very tired and a little unwell. i couldn't figure out why, but i found out a few days later. they had a party for me! he spent all that time planning the party! it was a very good party. there were some people i knew and lots of people who i didn't know. some of them threw balls and frisbees for me. some of them left pizza crusts where i could eat them but, unlike the party that they had for me when i was a puppy, there weren't any corn cobs for me. there was also some music...

since recovering from the party i've felt pretty good. there are a couple of drugs they give me that don't make me feel so good, but generally i feel better than i have for nearly 6 months.

oh yeah, dave came to visit for a few days. that was cool! he's a bit hard to understand - that accent is just unaustralian, but he's a really nice guy.

guess who else visited? go on! guess! anton! i thought anton had gone away to the other side of the world or something, but he hasn't! anton's cool...

guess who else visited? mel's parents... and they brought a puppy with them. the puppy's name is calli and she is a really cute ball of white fluff and looks kind of like a pussycat. so naturally i got jedda to bark at calli and bale her up in a corner. occasionally i would walk past and sneer and growl softly, just so calli knew who was really the boss. then, i left calli alone for a while and just when she thought life was going to get easier, i barked at her and baled her up in a corner. mel's parents took calli home... i think they knew what was best for her...

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wow, another big week. on wednesday they injected some cool drugs into me. they've been doing this to me nearly every week. the drugs certainly didn't make me feel worse!

i haven't been incredibly fond of hard and chewy things for quite a few years. sometimes mel gives them to me and i hide them. in fact once i hid a rawhide frisbee in martin's bed. he only found it when he woke up in the morning and he wasn't very happy about it. i guess he didn't want it either!

anyway, at the vet they had some pig's ears. they smelled brilliant, so i made mel buy me one. she also bought one for jedda. when we got home i told mel to give me my pig's ear, so she gave one to me and one to jedda. it was really cool! after i ate it i went to get a drink of water and noticed jedda hadn't finished her's yet. i thought of making her give it to me, but she had already chewed most of it...

by the way, i have a dirty little secret. i love tofu! one night during the week the humans were eating some food and there was tofu in everything! as usual, i sat there and made them give me some. i love tofu!

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i didn't feel so great over the weekend. yesterday my food was all wrong. at breakfast time mel gave me the normal bickies and they tasted funny and were hard to chew. martin went out shopping and came back with some chicken rings. i didn't know they use that part of the chicken to make food, but they sure taste great!

last night dinner tasted strange. mel got out the magic fork and fed me from it. that made it better and i could eat most of it. sometimes, when i was a puppy, mel would stir my dinner with the magic fork to make it taste better. other times, when that didn't work, she would feed me with the magic fork. i really like the magic fork.

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when i was young we used to go out walking on the horse trails where there were a couple of small dams. we used to see some other dogs swimming in the dams but i was scared to try. my humans used to throw sticks into the dams and i would fetch them if i could walk in. one day they threw a stick right into the middle and i thought "why not?" and jumped in. i started moving my legs around and suddenly i was swimming! i even fetched the stick! after that i used to swim most days in the summer - the humans would throw sticks and balls into the water for me and i would fetch them. it was great.

one day, when it was very hot, we went for a long drive in the car. i like going in the car, but it was very hot so i wondered where we were going. then we got out of the car and walked down to a river. it was like a dam, but much bigger!

my humans threw the ball in and i swam in and fetched it. that was cool, but the next bit was even cooler! both of my humans came into the river and swam with me! i didn't know they could swim - well, they didn't really swim, all they could really do was human paddle. still it was very cool, one of the coolest things we've ever done together!

there aren't any dams where we walk at the moment. maybe we can go in the car to that river again!

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it was probably the first time martin's parents came to visit us when we were all living at the house that was in my old yard. it was pretty late when the humans put me outside to sleep in my kennel, but i managed to spend a bit of time thinking about how to impress them all the next day. i woke up early, did a bit of barking to remind all the other dogs who was boss, and then waited by the back door thinking some more about my plan. it was a good plan - they were going to be impressed!

some time later, mel let me inside. i ran most of the way through the kitchen and jumped into the air. i landed perfectly on the table that the humans use for eating, smiled and wagged my tail. martin's parents seemed a little surprised that i could jump so high and still manage to land so well. in fact, they were so stunned by my athletic abilities that they didn't speak for quite a few seconds.

martin and mel told them i had never done that before. they seemed very proud of me!

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well, it looks like it has been well over a year since i've blogged. something called greylisting started happening to my email, so I stopped winning as many prizes and stuff. i guess i lost interest for a while...

anyway...

you'll notice that this blog hasn't often really been about me. more about stupid people who send me stupid email. well, that's going to change for a little while. i'm going to write about some of the fun things i've done and cool things that have happened to me.

"why?" i hear you ask? well, you see, i haven't been too well. i finally got the humans to take me to see some vets. i heard the vets say something about lymphosarcoma. various searches on the internet suggest that isn't anywhere near as good as, say, being allowed to eat a whole pack of schmackos for breakfast. anyway, i'm not sure the humans understand - they keep patting me and hugging me and telling me i'm beautiful. that seems like a weird response! whatever the case, it seems that some time in the not-too-distant future, i might end up joining smudge at the big doggie oval in the sky. it'll be nice to see her!

anyway, my next blog entry will be about something cool!

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i've got a huge backlog of blog entries, since my humans left jedda and i with the so called `porridge grandma and granddad' for weeks and weeks and weeks! let me tell you, we didn't see much porridge, but we sure did have a good time! however, on to more important things...

the humans were talking about how jo and mikey got engaged. you'll note in my previous blog entries that i wondered whether mikey was as cool as someone really cool like anton? no doubt mikey: you're a very cool human indeed! that jo is one nice girl - i've never even felt like biting her!

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estella fleming, you legend! i am interested! i don't have any back pain, but i do have this pain in my hip. my humans rub it for me sometimes and that makes it a bit better, but i think some codeine would really hit the spot. now, if only i had a credit card... hmmm, i guess i'll have to keep limping so the humans take me to see doctor peter...

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orlando overton claims to be selling `top quality software'. hey orlando, it doesn't look top quality to me: there's no linux... there's no open source software listed at all! all my blogging is done using top quality *free* software!

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everette frank (if that is his real name) offers free quotes for life insurance and even offers smokers rates. do you think he's in cahoots with lloyd roman?

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paige lovell offers me improved sleep and emotional stability. paige, i get enough sleep, but i sure could use some of that emotional stability!

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sidney kaiser asks if i've heard of a no risk investment. ummm, no....

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joe clifford is selling a way of `reversing aging while burning fat'. he reckons he can do it without exercise... but then he's probably 200kg of human tv watching, burger eating wholesome goodness! joe, come and climb over the fence into my yard and try to sell me some mumbo-jumbo and i'll show how to burn fat...

... oh, and by the way joe, where do you get off trying to turn the biological clock of an 8 year old dog back 10-20 years?

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wind flower offers up some chinese folk art paper cuts. i think these would look cool in my kennel. oh yeah, and being a dog and all that, i visit partner web sites all the time...

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trinidad krueger has also been smoking something: "hey man" right back at you!

more seriously, thanks trinidad! you have confirmed this whole stock thing for me though - it is beef stock! oh, and mate, if you want to attract my type, lose the loser domain name - if they get lost in my back yard there'll be no love lost...

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lloyd roman is trying to sell me cigarettes! lloyd, i'm an 8 year old (ok, an 8 year old dog), and my throat is a little hoarse (no, not a "little horse") because i bark a lot but, i'm sorry, i don't smoke...

by the way, what have you been smoking? "bialystok pathos dunkirk abstracter haiti polarogram ..." right back at you. hey man...

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aweks (or is that "ear wax"?), you're one profound dude (or perhaps you're stupider than morton solis - i guess i'll give you the benefit of the doubt). can you please answer a question that's been bugging me: if a tree falls in a forest, and there's nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound? profound, dude...

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shane posey is offering me a university certificate. i always knew i was smart. apparently "no classes needed". i think some classes would be good - if i took some classes i might be smart enough to understand that interesting stuff at the bottom of his message: "inform acerbic sunscreen thoriate principia ...". looks like latin to me - so you probably do need a university certificate to understand it!

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