#983 Walkies Let me bore you to sleep (Jason Newland) (9th March 2023)

Hello and welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep. My name's Jason Newland and please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. Yes, my website's jasonnewland.com, a very exciting place to visit.

I'm sure you don't agree. So, Vinnie is now looking up at me because I mentioned his name. He's behind me, I think.

And he's got, I gave him one of those little bones. It's a rawhide. I think it's made of rawhide, I think.

But he likes them. So I gave it to him, hopefully to keep him occupied for the duration of this here podcast episode. But I don't know if you can hear, he's also playing with his snake, the new snake he's got.

And it sounds like a carrier bag. Why would they put a carrier bag inside? Unless it's that, that's for a reason. So that it's almost a focus distraction thing, you know, instead of a squeak every time they touch it crinkles.

Maybe. I don't know. I really don't know.

I'll be super tired today for some reason. It might be the weather. It's been very, very overcast.

It was, was it snowing? Was that yesterday? I'm losing track between days now. Might be yesterday that it was snowing. Yeah, yesterday was snowing.

But it was sleet when I went out. But apparently it was snowing about seven. But I was in bed by then in the morning.

So I got up quite early and went back to bed. And I got up again. In fact, I think it was hailing.

It was hail when I went out first thing. Now this morning, I went out, it was cold, but it was raining. Vinnie didn't want to go outside.

He wanted to go outside before he got outside. You know, I mean, he was all excited to go out and I put my coat on and put my shoes on. I put my woolly hat on, put one glove on so I could, you know, put the lead on him and then, you know, lock the door, then put the other glove on, walked down the stairs.

And he stopped halfway down the stairs. I didn't want to go any further. I said, what are you doing? What's going on? So he could clearly see the weather through the window of the door.

Maybe he could feel the coldness of the steps. I guess he would, wouldn't he? I can't feel it because I've got shoes on. And it's quite cold.

First thing in the morning. This was about six o'clock, I think. Six o'clock, seven, six, six, something like that.

So in the morning, so I, I went outside, I kind of, I didn't force him outside, but I, I encouraged him by saying, get outside now, at the top of my voice, which is, I'm sure went down very well with the neighbours that time in the morning. But no, I just like, come on. And he did.

He came out in the end, but he didn't want to, but he didn't need to do a wee-wee. So we just walked up the road, he did a wee-wee on the grass, and then turned round to walk back. He did not want to be outside because it's raining.

It was, I'm not sure how raining it was like, well, how much rain was there? Like in the world? I don't know how many buckets you could fill, but it was raining enough to make my glasses very wet. Oh, Jason wears glasses. We're learning new things about him.

Yeah, I've been wearing glasses for, how long, how long have I been wearing glasses? I've been wearing glasses part-time, you know, for reading stuff since I was 15, pretty much since I was about 15. So yeah, quite a long time. Wearing glasses all the time.

I'm not in bed or in the bath or in the shower or in the jacuzzi or the sauna or swimming with sharks and walking on the moon, you know, some things, you know, because they just float off, don't they, obviously. I don't wear, when did I start? I think it was 2012, around that time, when I started wearing glasses all the time, like, you know, during the day, about 2012. So it's been 13 years or so.

It's not a long time. I feel it's hard to remember not wearing glasses, apart from five minutes ago when I didn't have them on, but you know, I mean, generally, day to day, not wearing them because I really need them. I mean, I proper need them.

I can't, well, if I don't wear glasses, okay, I can't see people's faces until they get pretty close to me. I'd say probably 10 foot away, I can see their faces. I can see that they have a face.

You know, I can tell the difference between an elephant and a human, as an example, you know, I can see that it's a human being, so therefore they have a face. And sometimes I can kind of see, so if it's a friend who has a dog and I know the dog and I can kind of tell by the way they're walking and the height of the person, sort of, I think that's someone I know. But it's not until they get close that I can see.

This is without glasses. With glasses, I still can't see their face, but I can get, you know, get a rough idea. You know, once they get about 20 foot away, I can kind of see who it is.

I can't, you know, when you get used to people, when you get used to certain human individuals that you see maybe regularly, where it might be a neighbor, so it might be someone you don't even talk to, someone that you see on the bus, you can kind of recognize them from a distance because of the way they walk in or because of the, I was going to say, the clobber they're wearing, the clothes that they've got on. It means that some people wear the same jacket, you know, all through the winter. I am one of those people.

I don't wear it all the time. I don't wear it when I'm in the bath or in bed, usually. But it's kind of, you already did that earlier with glasses.

I can't believe you did it twice. So I do need the glasses. I do.

And it's a shame because I don't really, if I'm honest, not really, don't really want to wear glasses. Now you could argue, who would have had contact lenses then? No. No.

No, thank you. No. No, it doesn't.

Maybe when I was younger, if I'd have had to wear glasses in my 20s, I might have worn contact lenses. I'll be honest with you, I might have. From a vanity perspective, I might have gone down that road.

I might not have done. You know, it's never really appealed to me, contact lenses. And then you may say, what about laser surgery? No.

No. No. I would, if I was, if my eyesight was really bad, and there was a difference between being able to see and not being able to see, yeah, I'd take surgery.

I'm pretty sure most people would do whatever was necessary. But my eyesight is not at that level. And my nan had laser surgery when she was in her, oh blimey, probably in her 80s.

And she, I remember her saying, she could not believe the results. And I said, are you happy? She said, well, yes and no. Her eyesight had improved a tremendous amount.

But she also said she didn't realise up to that point how old she looked. Because she'd always been looking through her eyes, like looking through the reduced vision that she'd had for decades, probably. So she hadn't seen herself clearly.

And it was a bit of a shock to her. That's what she told me, it was a shock. Then she looked at me and she said, wow, you're quite pink, aren't you, Jason? I said, okay, I'll leave it.

You'll have to start noticing everything. She said, why are you so pink? I said, I don't know, it's just the way I was born. You're not very tall, are you? Quite short, actually.

I said, okay, nan. I mean, you must have noticed that with your eyes before. No, I never noticed how short you were.

And you put on the pounds and yeah, you've got a bit of a belly on you. I've had a belly on me for years, nan. No, but wow, that's, that's, your dress sense is awful.

I thought you were quite smart. Can we just leave it now, please, nan? I mean, I'm beginning to regret you having the laser surgery. Yeah, so I didn't speak to her again after that.

That's not true. It's not true. Apparently it's Mother's Day this weekend in Britain.

Yeah, I've got nothing to say about that. It's Mother's Day. Yoo-hoo.

I did get a message from Mary. William, Mary, Mary. But I don't know how to read it out.

So thanks, Mary, I got your message. But of course, I won't read it out because you asked me not to. I would just say maybe if you send me a message and you don't want me to read it out, put that at the beginning.

Because sometimes I don't read the messages until I read them out. Well, sometimes I read the message, but I'll forget that I've read it or I forget that I didn't, hadn't read it out, or other things similar. I'm just thinking, talking about messages, I see what's on YouTube.

I might have some messages on YouTube that I can read out to you. Right, software has been updated on your iPad. Oh, go away.

Why don't you see, you know what I've done on my phone, on my iPhone. They've changed it so I can't, I used to be able to just turn the phone so that I was not disturbed by anybody. So people could ring and it would just go, it would just ring or go straight to the answering machine or whatever.

So I could see who'd rung me, but they wouldn't disturb me. So I didn't have to turn my phone off, or turn the phone on to flight mode. Because sometimes I want to use it to make a video, or even record an audio.

And if you use software on a phone, like if you use a camera, someone rings you, it generally just disrupts the recording, and the recording stops. Now they've made it complicated. I don't know how to do it anymore.

So anyway, I've got Do Not Disturb on my iPad, which is good. Not that it makes any difference, because I don't get phone calls from there. Oh, yeah, I'll just tell you now.

I just made a fantastic recording. Even if I do say so myself, I made a absolutely spiffingly wonderful new relax and sleep hypnosis daily recording. It'll be available for about two o'clock tomorrow morning.

So it's Thursday, the ninth of March now. So Friday, 2am UK time, don't know what that is in other time zones. There's too many time zones in the world to read them all out.

And I just think it's quite a good recording. It's just you know, I'm a little bit biased. But I do like it.

It just, you know, when sometimes you do something, it just feels nice, it feels right. Doesn't happen very often for me. But on this occasion, I felt that maybe I'd almost, I don't know, just felt like it was a good recording.

Because when I make a hypnosis recording, let's say relaxation recording, whatever, I'm going through what I'm talking about. I'm doing it myself. And if I'm practically falling asleep, because I'm so relaxed during the recording of the session, then I imagine, and it is just my imagination, but I imagine that other people listening to it will perhaps have a similar response to what I had during the making of said podcast episode.

So that would be, yeah, that's kind of where I gauge it, I guess, from my own perspective. And if the words flow, and if it's if I was uninterrupted, whilst I was recording it, which I was, I was didn't have any interruptions, I mean, it was fairly quiet, apart from a few tummy rumbles from myself. Then he was in the bedroom, with the door closed, this door was closed.

He's in here now with me, eating his bone. Now, I don't like to leave him in the bedroom on his own for any length of time, unless I have to. But you know, if he's happy to just chew on the bone, and he leaves me alone for an hour, when I make a recording, this, these recordings, and it's fine.

But if it's a hypnosis, whisper recording, I can't have in the background chewing and crunching. As far as I'm concerned, and maybe some other people agree, with this podcast, he's part of the podcast, he's part of the Let Me Boy To Sleep family, as it were. You know, he's, he's not a replacement for Andre, no one can replace Andre, he's his own, he's his own person.

And he's, he's, you know, he's made his own, is, I don't know what the right word is, but he's made his own mark. He's, you know, he's, he's definitely made an impression on me anyway. I can't believe, it feels like he's been here forever.

And he's only been here two months, well, two, maybe three months now. So it was December, January, February, March. So he's been here about three months.

I don't remember if I can find out, I can find out exactly. Because did it. Okay, I can find out.

Here we go. Nope. Oh, okay.

No. Oh, no. Okay.

Right. Well, it was the week before I fractured my back falling downstairs. And I've got a message here from my dad saying, ha ha ha ha ha.

No, he sent a message to me about it. And that was on Wednesday, 21st of December. And I know I fractured my back the week of Christmas.

So it was, I think it was the either the Monday or the Tuesday. So either the 20th or the 21st of December last year, 2022. I pretty sure I got Vinnie the week before the Saturday before that.

Which would be 22nd, 2022, 22nd, 21st, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 12, 11. So the 11th of December Saturday. Let me check if that's a real date.

11th of December. It might be you know, it's possible. You never know.

11th of December, December, December, baby, baby, baby. No 10th of December. Did I say the 11th? I meant the 10th.

10th of December. That's when I got Vinnie. That's the date I got him.

Now, I was supposed to go to my dad's for a Christmas dinner. It was like a family get together. I had a cough.

And I'd had it for about a week. I was hoping it was just going to subside, but it's still there. And I didn't want to take it to his house just in case it was a bit more than a cough, you know.

But I was still functionable, functional weather. I spent a couple of days a bit unwell. Previous to the weekend, but by Saturday, I felt okay.

But I was still coughing. And it's quite hard to travel like that, especially in these days. Since you know, the thing that happened a couple of years ago.

So I phoned and I just, I didn't phone on the day I found a few days before, probably the Tuesday or Wednesday, just to say I can't I can't do it. I'm not gonna be able to get there. Because I didn't want to take where it might just be the cold or whatever, but I didn't want to take it to them.

It's not fair, is it? So on the Saturday, I did feel a bit sad, you know, that I didn't get to go up there. And I haven't seen any of the family other than my dad and my stepmom since probably 2019. Probably the last time I saw them, any of them.

And I think it was August 2019. I think. But since then, I've not seen any anyone.

Because I was, I couldn't get up there Christmas. I can't remember if I was a bit under the weather or just I can't know. No, I had Andre so I couldn't.

I could have gone up there for the day. But there was a reason why I didn't go up there for the day. Not Christmas, but like for the Christmas, December period, you know, family get together.

And then everything was kind of closed for two, two years, pretty much. And now we're so 2000 and 2000 to 2020 2021. And then last year.

Oh, no, I did see my dad. On New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve.

19 1999 2019. I saw him in New Year's Eve. And that was before you know, all this stuff happened in 2020.

And this I didn't see them again. Until I didn't see him in 2020. Didn't see them 2000.

I might have seen them just before Christmas in 2021. I'm not sure. But I did see them last year.

I saw them. No, I didn't see them. No, I didn't see them.

So from from December, the end of December 2019. I didn't see them again until it was I think March, February or March last year, and I went up and visited them. And I stayed for a couple of days in a hotel close by.

And because I didn't have Andre anymore. So I you know, I could stay away for a few nights. And yeah, so I saw them come home.

I can't remember when I last saw them. Oh, that's it. Well, I saw them.

I don't think I saw them for the rest of the year. And I saw them in December. Because we had a Christmas dinner together in a local restaurant place around near here.

So we did that in December. And then I'll see them next month. What was the reason I mentioned this for? I don't recall.

Oh, yeah, when I got Vinnie. So I got him the day that I was supposed to go. So if I had gone to my Papa's and my step mama's.

I wouldn't have Vinnie. Probably, I mean, I might still had him. But you know, they were looking for someone to take him and my friend had him.

And, you know, the circumstances, the stars aligned or misaligned, whichever way you want to look at it. And the circumstances just came together, which ended up with me having him. That day, you know, from then on, from that evening onwards.

Now, if I hadn't been there, I would have come back on the either the Sunday morning or to come back in a Saturday evening. Anyway, so I still instead of meeting Vinnie in the lunchtime Saturday, I'd have met him in the evening or Sunday morning because I'm pretty sure he would have come up. My friend wanted to show him to me because he needed to find somewhere because he basically.

A neighbor wanted to find a new home for him. So my friend said, I'll take him and I'll find a new home for him. If I can't, then I'll keep him.

And so the same thing might happen. I might have met him and said, I'll have him. Because he's very much a handful for someone else to have him and another dog, even though they're both dogs, love each other.

He's a handful. He really is sometimes. Sometimes he's not, but you know, he's got so much energy.

He's supercharged. Always, you know, apart from when he's asleep. But even then, he'll get up in a second's notice and suddenly be wide awake and alert.

You know, someone knocks on the door, he's asleep, you're like, jump up. The thing is, something I am noticing about him. I don't know if he's becoming more comfortable here, but I've noticed that he's not jumping out of bed first thing in the morning.

Like he used to. Although to be fair, he didn't used to sleep in my bed. He used to sleep in here.

Now he sleeps on my bed at night. Because he's been really good. He hasn't been barking.

If he does have a little, I'll kind of tell him no and he calms down. Provided no one knocks on the door, he seems to be okay. So we've been going to bed 10, 10.30 in the evening.

There's still activity. There's still people coming and going and cars and people in the garden, closing the gate and stuff, because it's quite early still. He seems fairly relaxed.

He has, I've got the door open in the bedroom and in the living room. So he can come in here, sleep on his bed if he wants. Sometimes he does.

I'll wake up and he's not there and then then I go back to sleep and I wake up and he is there. So he just does what he wants. He'll come in here.

Perhaps his food is there, his water is there, his toys are there. So he can do whatever he wants. So he's not stuck in one room.

So before I used to put him in the bed, in the living room. I tried to have him in the bedroom and he just used to disturb me too much. So I put him in the living room for quite a good few weeks.

I closed the door, but he has everything in here. He's got his own little bed. He's got food and water and toys and everything.

So he's got all he needs. And then when I used to come in, generally he'd jump up straight away first thing in the morning and want to go out. Now, and he's been sleeping with me for a few weeks now, probably.

I don't know how long, but I've forgotten when it happened. I just, it gradually happened, if that makes sense. I kind of, I gave him, I gave him a couple of hours.

It was basically, I'll let him sleep on the bed with me. If he starts barking, he goes in the living room and that's it. And he's just, I used to close the bedroom door, hoping that that would stop him from barking or maybe, you know, but then I thought, well, that's not really fair.

So if he needs to go and have a drink or needs to eat, or he just is awake and he wants to play, that's not fair to keep in one room. So now I'll leave the doors open. The part, the reason why I did have the doors closed is, the bedroom door closed is because there's less likely that he'll hear the noise of other people going in and out of their houses or their flats.

But he hears that anyway. I mean, he communicates with the dog downstairs. He actually barks, you can hear he's actually talking to the dog downstairs.

He's not doing it loud. They've got super hearing, haven't they? So they're communicating. I don't know what they're communicating.

Maybe they're just moaning about us. I can't believe I got stuck with this boring old man. Maybe, it could be that.

Yeah, boring old man that takes you out five, six times a day for a walk. Walks miles every day. You get every single thing you could ever want apart from love.

Now he gets, he's spoiled, I would say. But why not? I try and be disciplined with him when it comes to the roads. You know, I'm very, I really do try and get him to cross slowly and to stop.

When I say wait, he just stays. I don't say stay, I say wait. And he just stands there and looks at me.

And sometimes I make him wait for much longer than he needs to, just so he gets used to it. And say, okay, good boy. And he carries on walking.

I need him to learn to do that, because it's not really a case of if he escapes, because I know he's going to do whatever he wants to do. He won't stay on the pavement. He'll just do whatever.

But at least when I've got him on the lead, he doesn't pull into the road, because he still tries to do that sometimes. If he sees something on the other side of the road that he wants to get to, like many dogs, he just goes to get it. Because he doesn't know about, he doesn't understand about cars and stuff like that.

So that's my job to protect him. And it's going okay. He's, most of the time, when we're out, it's early in the morning, or it's in the fields, or it's, you know, it's local.

It's not near a main road. So there's not a lot of traffic to deal with. But I really notice it when I go onto the main road.

And I'm on the pavement, and it's a tiny little pavement. It's big enough for one person to walk on. It's a struggle to put, you can't really have a dog next to you.

They've almost got to be ahead of you. Which isn't good if the dog decides he wants to run into the road. But so far he's, I say he's not good.

He's not good in that scenario, because he keeps trying to pull. He literally is walking on his legs. He's walking his feet and his hands basically just waving around like he's conducting an orchestra or something like that.

And I try and just walk normally, and he won't. He's pulling because he wants to wants to walk fast. And that's okay because I've got an extendable lead.

It's okay in the park or in the field. But it's not any good on the main road. I need to keep him as close to me as possible.

Because the longer the lead is, the more chance he's going to just wrap himself around my legs. He likes to do that, which is not good for me. And so I have to really keep an eye on him in those situations.

I really like taking him onto the main road. I hope that he'll eventually calm down enough to behave well, you know, to walk slowly. And I hope because he's really is starting to, he's starting to slow down a bit when I ask him to.

Now we cross the road and he is walking slower across with me. He's still walking too fast, but he's walking slower. He doesn't pull the lead as much as he used to.

And he is stopping when I ask him to, when I say wait. And then I say, okay, cross slowly, slowly, slowly. And I do it all the way across the road.

And then when I get to the other pavement, the other side, I say, wait. He still tries to walk off most of the time, but sometimes he will just, he'll listen to me and he waits. And he looks up at me, I say, okay, good boy.

And we go, and then we carry on. So that's one of the few things I've tried to teach him and come back, you know, come here. And if he doesn't do it, I said now, come here now, in here.

So, because I don't want him running off. And then I just don't want him running in the road, basically. It's a basic, I think it's a standard thing not to want to happen, isn't it? And he's, he's got a bit of an attitude on him.

He's got a bit of a chip on his shoulder, you know, every now and then, like, you can't tell me what to do. You're not my real dad. It's getting old now, mate, come on.

What have I got to do to be real dad? Well, I figured you'd know that. I said, no, I don't mean physically. I can't go back in time and impregnate your mum.

I mean, that's not actually possible apart from legally. But he said, no, but what do you want? I don't know, I'm not decided. I want to be able to, you know, I just want to do everything I want whenever I want it.

Join the human race. We all want that. But none of us get it.

Apart from those people that do exactly what they want whenever they want it. The prisons, prisons are full of those people. So, you know, we kind of have to be a little bit open to not being able to do everything you want to do every time you want to do it.

So there. So he's a little bit cocky sometimes. But I think he's, I don't know, it's hard to tell.

I don't really know much about body language with anybody. Humans, it's just, you know, some people like say, oh, yeah, I don't know anything about dogs and dogs. He's doing that because of this.

Well, my opinion is, I don't understand why humans do what they do. When I figured that out, then I'll start trying to figure out why dogs do what they do. Yeah, I don't know why he's doing this, because what, you know, you can put two and two together sometimes and probably get the right answer.

If he's happy, he's, he's, he's tailwags. And you can see he's happy because he's getting excited. You know, he's happy to see his friend downstairs or his uncle downstairs.

He's happy to look, he wants to go out for a walk until he sees it's raining and he wants to come back. Or he gets excited because I'm going to give him a treat. Oh, you know, he's trained me.

He's trained me now, to whenever I bring him back from a walk, he gets a treat. And on my bookcase over there near the TV, it's the other side of the room. Not that I live in a mansion, the room isn't that big, it's a few footsteps, but it's over there.

And he's got, I've got these, they're like Tupperware things that have got treats in them. And so I can give him different things. There's like one, two, three, four different treats I can give him.

Every time I get back from giving, taking him for a walk, he expects a treat and he demands a treat. Sometimes he even barks at me when I forget. Because a priority for me when I get home is firstly to take my wet clothes off.

Now, unless of course I haven't wet myself, then, you know, I just take my coat off, take my hat off and my gloves. And I want to wash my hands because I've touched stuff outside. And even though I picked up his poo in a bag, I still feel a little bit soiled.

So I wash my hands. But he doesn't want me to do any of that stuff. I take my shoes off.

So what I generally do is I take my hat off, my gloves off and my coat. Not always in that order. And I take his lead off.

I might take his lead off first, because that goes on the rack. I've got this little coat rack that's above the radiator near the door. And I put, and it's, it's basically just got the, like the coat handle things, you know, one and then a little one underneath, a little curly thing.

So I put his lead, the handle of his lead on the bottom one, and I put my coat on the top one. Now the middle one, that's where I put my, my door keys. And there's another one, another knob thing.

And I put another jacket, whatever on there. I'll put the hat and the gloves on the radiator. So yeah, I usually take his lead off first.

He doesn't play around anymore. Like he used to like, just, I don't know why, but he would not do anything I said. He just would not, would get back when I first got him, he'd get back and he would walk into the living room or the bedroom and he wouldn't, and he'd be on the lead still, the extended lead, and he wouldn't come back.

And I had to pretty much stare him out to get him to walk back. He doesn't do that anymore. He just happily walks, he just waits for me.

If he does go into the bedroom, I say, come here, and he comes back and I'll take it off. Putting the lead on him is easy. Before he used to mess around to put it on, now it's easy.

He just waits for me to do it. But he's very, he makes a really big deal about reminding me that I need to give him a treat. Because if I forget, because I'd sometimes forget, you know, I've got other things to think about sometimes, like changing me underpants if I ever wet myself, and I just, I might go and wash my hands.

And he'll be like, and I come out and he'll be standing there staring at me at the doorway of the bathroom. And, you know, I don't close the door when I'm in the bathroom, it's only me and him here. And, wait, what? That's a bit rude.

He just said, you know, you can close the door if you want, I don't mind. I really need to see that or smell it. It's like, okay, come on.

So I wash my hands, I turn around and he's there just staring at me. And what he does is if he doesn't get his treat, he starts to grab my trousers, starts to bite my trousers, like almost to pull me to the treats. Like, because that's what he expects now, because he's trained me to do it.

And although it's not priority to me, generally, I usually remember, but bearing in mind I take him out, you know, a few times a day. So what I've done is I've halved the treat, because I'm thinking he's getting too many treats. And they are doggy treats, it's not biscuits or human food, it's all, you know, stuff that's good for him.

But I'm thinking now he's getting too many treats, so I've halved them. And he doesn't like that. So I give him half a treat and he looks at my other hand, like, why'd you do that? What did you cut it in half for? I said, I'm sorry, but you know, I'm trying to cut down on the treats.

The thing is, he has, I'm pretty sure, his thigh muscles, like his bum, the muscles, yeah, his thighs really, they're almost like a bodybuilder. You hear that? He's having a drink now, so he's probably going to harass me. He's got the most muscular thighs, considering he's a little dog, proper strong legs, because of all the walking he does.

And I have started to let him off the lead in the field. And I've changed my tactics for that. Before I was, I had him on the lead and I'd let him run off the length of the lead and I'd call him back and give him a treat.

And I'd do that a few times to try and get him used to coming back to me for the treat. And then I let him off the lead, I think it was last week or the week before, I don't know, can't remember, but he, he was so good, but I kept calling him back and giving him a treat. And I kept calling him back and in the end, he got fed up and he just ignored me.

And I realized that he just, he wanted to play in the field, he didn't want to continuously be called back. He didn't, he wasn't even interested in treats, because they were too often. So the next time I couldn't get him back, because when I did call him back, he just ignored me.

So he's still in the field now. I'm actually in the field now waiting for him to come back. Two weeks has been, I think I've lost weight.

So he, what I did, I changed it. So I let him off the lead once we get into the fields away from the road, because there's a field near the road. Once you get into the field, it's nowhere near any kind of roads.

I let him off. And every now and then, I'm talking probably five, four times, five times during the walk, which can last an hour and a half, two hours sometimes. I'll give him a treat, but it'll only be a small treat, won't be like a, you know, the treat he gets when he gets home.

Just be enough, just a little biscuit, a tiny little thing. And it seems to do the trick. The thing is, when I call him, he does come to me, even if he doesn't get a treat now, when we're in the field, generally.

Sometimes it takes a little bit of calling, but he does come to me. And the week before that, I let him off for two weeks before that, I did let him off to, and he didn't come to me and he ran over towards another dog. And they ended up giving him a treat so that I could get his lead back on.

I didn't like that. That was a little bit embarrassing, really, that I had no control over the dog. So I'm hoping that as we progress, he will come to me when I ask him to.

I don't want him, I don't need him to do tricks. I'm not joining the circus. It's just basic stuff, you know.

It's just for his safety and for mine, because you don't know what another dog is going to be like. And he's so friendly. He loves everybody.

But I need him to come to me when I say. And he's starting to do it. He's starting to realize where he belongs, but he realizes that I'm relevant to his life.

I don't know how to put it, really. That was a weird noise. He, when we are walking, he does continuously look back.

So he will run off a good hundred meters away and then he'll look back. Or I'll walk ahead a hundred meters and I'll look back and he's literally walking directly behind me. I don't hear him because he's so quiet.

And he's just walking behind me. I'm looking behind me and I can't see him because I'm looking further in the distance. I'm like, oh, where is he now? And he's just there, just literally a foot away from me.

A foot? How many feet in a foot? A size five foot feet. Is that five foot long? So if I'm a 10, my size feet is 10. Does that mean my feet are 10 foot long? I don't know.

I'm not sure how they work out, but it's about a foot, about one of my feet. So it's either a foot or 10 feet, but he's very close. And he seems to want to stay close to me.

Although he does get distracted very easily. And that's the same in all situations. He's easy to distract.

I'm like, oh, look at that, a moth. And he's like, oh. I mean, even the other day, I mentioned this probably, but he was doing a wee and he saw another dog and he started running towards the dog.

He was on the lead, but he was still weeing. The wee was going everywhere. It was weeing all over everywhere.

Honestly, he forgot what he was doing and he got so excited to see another dog. And you know what? I would love, or maybe I don't know if I'd love to, but to have that amount of enthusiasm that he's got towards anything in life, providing it's a positive thing, would create a success, I do believe. You know, that amount of complete, not just determination, because when he wants to do something, he's determined.

And it really amazes me how much he's got in common with Andre, his brother. I can't really, it's just like, he even lays on the bed in the same kind of way that Andre used to lay on the bed. It's weird.

It's just very strange. And he does similar things. You know, Andre used to bite my clothes, used to bite my trousers and stuff like that.

He does that. Andre was determined, always. He never gave up, never quit, ever.

He wasn't easily distracted, though, Andre. He was very much, very focused. Vinnie's focused when it's important to him.

So, for example, if he sees a dog, so if he's doing a wee, he's not really focused on that, easily distracted. But once he sees a dog, it's hard to distract him from that. Or if he sees a little girl or a man jogging, or anything, he just, like, that's what he wants.

He wants to go near that person and jump up at them and say hello. And I, maybe I should try and stop him jumping up at people, but he's so little. He's not a physical threat.

He can't cause any problems. He can't knock any, he couldn't even knock a, okay, he could probably knock a baby over, like a toddler. But he's the same size as a toddler, you know.

A toddler would probably knock him over. He wouldn't mean to knock anyone over, but he couldn't even knock a child over. He's not, he's not big enough.

He'll jump up. He'll lick their face. That's the most he'll do.

But then I found out from my other, from his previous mum, his, I don't know, foster mum, that she had him for three months. He bit her in the face. That's why she got rid of him.

And he hasn't, apart from when I first got him, he hasn't really shown those tendencies. He was quite aggressive when I first got him. But now, other than when I'm play fighting with him, he doesn't really get aggressive.

And apart, yesterday he bit me, and I told him off. But we were play fighting, but he bit too hard. It was an accident.

He didn't mean to, but I let him know. Like, oi. And Andre was the same.

He, when I first got Andre, he was biting me. He really didn't like me. He was a baby, and he did not like me at all.

But eventually, you know, we came to an understanding. We signed a contract. He promised me he wouldn't bite me anymore, and he didn't.

He snapped a couple of times. You know, if I disturbed him when he was asleep, he'd, like, snap. But he never, it was more like, go away.

He wouldn't even be awake. He probably wouldn't remember doing it. It was just a natural response to being disturbed.

But normally he was fine. I could cuddle him, pick him up, and he wouldn't even wake up. Put him in the washing machine.

So he stopped biting me, and I learnt, he learnt the word gentle. That's all I said. So if we were play fighting, and he was going a bit too far, I'd say gentle.

And after a certain time, he never, ever, ever, no matter how hard we went the fight, he never, ever hurt me. He wouldn't do it. He couldn't.

Like, there was almost, it was programmed into his mind that he couldn't bite me hard, even though he could have bit me harder, and it wouldn't have mattered. But he was gentle, even though he play fighted with me. And he, he probably didn't play fight as much with me as he wanted to, because he liked getting rough.

And he knew he couldn't really get as rough with me as he wanted to. But my neighbour, he'd get really rough with him, and he'd bite him hard. Playing, not, not horribly, just he would bite him and really, like, go for it.

Play, play fighting. I'd pick him up, and he'd just, just be gentle. Wouldn't do it with me.

Wouldn't be, wouldn't be rough with me. He'd play fight and get sometimes carried away, and he'd have a really good time, especially on the bed. He'd hide from me under the covers, and then jump up at me, and try and catch me, and, and he'd bite me in that.

But he would never, it was always gentle biting, you know, more gumming than biting, even though he had teeth. And now Vinnie's like that with me. He's, he bites, but he never, yesterday, accidentally, I think, is, is more, it was an accident, you know, he's, he's, because his teeth are not even.

The ones at the back are a little bit further back, and whatever, I don't know. So, and he, I guess he doesn't know my, doesn't know my fingers as well as Andre used to know my fingers, which sounds like a weird sentence for some reason. There's a lot of noise downstairs, but he's a good boy, and he's, I think, I think he's starting to, I think he might be starting to like me.

I'm not sure. It's hard to tell. He seems happy.

He does. I think he's a happy boy. I hope he is.

That's, that's all I can really hope for, for him, is for him to be healthy, and to be happy. I can't do anything more than that. That's the most I can ever do for him, is give him what he needs, like physically.

He's got a home. He's warm. He's got shelter.

He's got food. He's got water. He's got treats.

He's got toys. You know, the toy collection will grow over time, and I'll get other things for him over time. He has my attention.

He gets to play, and I play with him, and he gets walks, you know, quite a few walks a day. He gets to sleep wherever he wants. So he goes on the bed.

He sleeps on his own bed, on the settee, or in my bed. He kind of, you know, I think he's got, he's got it quite good. It could be better.

I think if he had a garden of his own, he'd love that. If I had a little dog flap, they could come and go through the front door, or the back door rather, and into the garden, and out. He'd have a lot of fun there.

I think if he had another dog with him, it'd be happier as well, possibly, because he'd have company, and I don't know. It might not be true. It might not be the case, but he really, he's got so much energy.

I think he'd love to just play, play with another dog. In fact, the other day, there was someone in the park, and this is quite early, about six in the morning, and there's only the two of us there, and I've never let him off the lead in the park yet. But I thought, there's no one around.

It's literally no one around, and his dog wanted to get, wanted to play. So I said, well, might as well. So I let them off the lead, because they were just getting tangled up.

So I let him off the lead. He let his one off the lead, and they ran around the park for about five minutes at the time of their lives. They really seemed to enjoy it.

Absolutely just racing around, jumping on each other, rolling around, kissing. You know, it was, it was nice, nice to see. And so, yeah, he's, it's nice to have a dog that loves everybody.

Like, he's not as keen on cats as I wish he was, not in a way that I want him to be. But that's a dog thing, isn't it? It's just, that's just a nature thing, unfortunately. Although it's not, if you've got a cat and a dog, you can live, they can live together in harmony.

I've lived in a house with cats and dogs that lived fine. It's, it's, it's a weird one. I don't know why they don't get on, outside of that.

Although some dogs and cats do get on, so I'm just not letting him near any cats in case. Well, I don't know what he's going to do. I don't know what he's going to try and do.

It seems a little bit too enthusiastic. He's, he is, he's obsessed with pussy. It's like, come on, leave the pussies alone.

You know, it's nice that he's, he likes the dogs and the humans, but the pussies just, they, because they hide in the bushes. There's a lot of bush around here, and you can't, I can't always see them because at night, you can't see them. And that whole thing about cat's eyes, I can't, can't see their eyes in the dark.

You can only see a cat's eye when you shine a light on it. So, you know, it's pointless without, you need light in order to see the cat's eyes. So having cat's eyes in the roads, you know, as a, as a, like a middle of the road thing.

Well, you can, surely you can see the middle of the road if you've got your lights on. No, I don't know. Maybe not.

Because they don't work without light. Do they work in the moonlight? I don't know. No idea.

Have to ask the moon, I guess. Right. Well, that's me done for the day.

I will, however, have to edit and upload and all that jazz. So, so I've got two different recordings to process. I also need to eat.

I need, my stomach's churning, proper churning. And it do it no way. I can't believe how many, how much spam I get in my inbox.

And also to my phone. The amount of packages that I need to, that has been tried to be delivered and I've got to go and, you know, check online and give them my details. And it's not, none of it's true.

It's so much spam. But in the old days, spam used to be Viagra pills or just, well, sometimes just legitimate businesses just sending advertising out. That's what spam originally was.

It wasn't dodgy stuff or any kind of, you know, crooked stuff. It was just companies, websites, going a bit over the top with, you know, getting email lists and just bombarding them with advertising. But I get hardly any normal advertising anymore.

I think it's because it was banned, wasn't it? Illegal or something. Now it's just weird stuff. I had one from a woman.

Where is it? Let's have a look. I had one from a woman. Where is it? It's from a week ago, I think.

So let's see if I can find it. Oh no. I'm not finding the blimmin' thing.

Where has it gone? Oh, here's something interesting. YouTube. I didn't read any of the messages out on YouTube, did I? Okay.

YouTube have now changed their financial thing. I don't have any advert. I do have adverts on YouTube, but I don't get money from them.

They just put adverts on themselves. But your... Oh, what is this? Nope. Oh, never mind.

I can't find it. It must have been ages ago. It was some kind of like... Oh, never mind.

I wanted to read it to you. Never mind. I can't be bothered.

He, this YouTube had a, they've got a YouTube channel where they tell the creators, they update them on what's going on. Now, you can't use excessive expletives anymore on YouTube. You can't use expletives in the title.

And there's certain words that you're not allowed to use, really, in videos. And if you know, so they're, they've got some kind of software that can go through every video and pick up naughty swear words. Of course, I don't really, I don't do swear words or swear in my recordings.

So it's not really affects me, but I'm not monetized anywhere on YouTube. So it doesn't affect me anyway. Although YouTube do play adverts on some of my videos, which I was like, that's a bit cheeky on them.

So they've also initially, what they did, and this was, I think, November last year, they put this into practice and didn't tell anyone. And some of these really popular YouTube channels started earning a lot less, you know, used to earning thousands of pounds a week or a day even went down to earning practically nothing. Because all of their videos have been demonetized.

Because they've been swearing in them. And they didn't know this was a new rule. So people that were earning a living for making YouTube videos, perhaps weren't able to earn a living doing it anymore, like suddenly out of the blue.

Now, they even had any, any videos with rap music, because pretty much all rap music seems to have swearing, doesn't it? For some reason, apart from Will Smith. They, I don't know, there might be others as well. But they they demonetized anyone that had rap music that had swearing.

They've changed that now. So yes, that's okay. Which is weird.

So the person making the video can't say the F word. But the you can have background music on the video, which is allowed to say the F word and the N word. And then the other words because rap music generally seems well, from my experience, seems to have a lot of that stuff in.

So I'm thinking that doesn't really make sense. So people that have had success doing like comedy, and they they've got adult content, or maybe just they swear, are going to lose the monetization, not like for the all their back videos that it goes all the way back to the start. So that, you know, they might be earning, they might have lost huge amounts of money that they would normally get.

And I don't know, it's, it's up to YouTube ultimately, isn't it? But all that dog downstairs barking. But yeah, basically, I just, I want to go now. That's why I mentioned it here.

So take care. Remember to be kind to yourself. Be gentle with yourself.

Lots of love from me and little Vinnie. Bidinny bidinny mininny. Mini Vinnie.

Bye. Bye. Bye.

Are you still eating that thing? It's taking you ages.