Cousteau Factfile

Gabbahey pointed out that I hadn't blipped my lovely boy for 9 whole blips, so here he is. I like the way he's looking straight at the camera.

Why Cousteau? I'm a French teacher and Canterbury used to be heavily into diving (he'd like to get back into it). Cousteau was the obvious choice.

Cousteau is nearly 2 and a half years old. He is from a litter of 9 Hungarian Vizsla pups, most of which stayed locally, so he gets to play with his family a lot. His mum is called Zsa Zsa and she is gorgeous.

He's sparky, cheeky, fairly obedient, cuddly, gentle, energetic and loving.

He has an amazing nose and can sniff out bunnies, food, toys, us pretty easily. This being the case, his favourite game is hide-and-seek. He'll spend ages looking for whatever we've hidden and he particularly likes looking for us (and food). He likes to play tug and wrestling with Canterbury. A few too many close calls have led me to stop playing games like that with him. He's too strong.

Favourite toy? Cousteau is what is termed as 'an aggressive chewer' (it's the only aggressive thing about him). He doesn't have toys for long enough for them to become his favourite. His 'destroy' record is about 5 seconds, which was pretty impressive. If he had to pick what he enjoys destroying the most, it would be plastic bottles (the big juice type) and soft toys.

Cousteau loves cuddles and attention. He's recently developed a love of swimming and he also loves to chase sticks, though he doesn't always bring them back. He much prefers to do a victory lap, prancing around like a show-pony. He also enjoys chasing other dogs and being chased.

He hates the vacuum cleaner, the lawn mower, being washed, being put in 'time-out', being told off and his halti (thing that goes over his nose that makes him easy to control when on lead). He can't stand chasing a dog that is faster than him. It drives him mad but is fun to watch.

He tolerates having his teeth cleaned, having his nails done (as long as there is a steady supply of treats), his halti (if he knows he's going for a bike ride with Canterbury) and posing for photos (again, treats are essential here).

When he was a puppy we weren't allowed to walk him off lead for the first 12 months. It was tough due to all his energy but means that his joints have formed nicely and he should be able to keep going for a long, long time to come. It also meant that we could teach him lots of tricks to keep him amused.

He was supposed to be a stud dog but he's quite a bit bigger than breed standard so became surplus to requirement. We weren't too sad about it. Cousteau and I hated the whole showing scene. Agility is much less elitist.

To the Mods: No border, just a line. :)
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