wrong basket

For several years Flo has had a penchant for the wrong basket. Like many dogs 'of a certain age' she muddles the scale.



But in the meantime, the dogs in her pack have got even smaller, and the baskets have shrunk accordingly.

It doesn't stop her taking over the terriers' territory though when there is a lack of alternatives.


 

seconds

From the archives:

THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 2006
compliment
Flo received her first ever unsolicited compliment the other day as we walked down the street. What a lovely dog, said a passing woman.(I think the first inklings of spring had clouded her judgement)

Flo received her second ever unsolicited compliment today as we walked along the street. Again - with the spring...This time a man pulled up, and wound down his window, I thought to ask directions.

I just wanted to say, that is a lovely looking bluey! He's beautiful!

Thank you. Yes she's great. (well, I'm thinking, it's true; she's mellowed)

I just wanted to know where she came from?

(Mars) Well, she's about 12, and all I know is she came from the Ballarat region...

Great looking bluey

Yes. She is... (But see my blog 2003-11 for the journey from nutcase to mellow senior)
 

k 2

K dog (curbee) turned 2 yesterday. I wrote this in late February, a year after adopting him.

Sunday marked the first anniversary of the arrival of K.
A year since we drove up through drought-weary Victoria and met him in a pound in the middle of paddocks next to an abattoir. He had spent the night there next to a storm-spooked ridgeback who barked all night. When the cell door opened he greeted us warily, a ball of nerves gradually uncurling. He was smaller than his photos. He looked like a mini-Jack Russell. But his wariness made him seem a fraction of the size of Bronte, the recently deceased JRT whose personality would fill a room.

Perhaps looking for an out, I said to the Ranger - "Oh dear - I don't think he likes me"
"It takes a little time" he said, and presented his closed palm to K's nose, a gesture of experience that quelled the fear-aggression; the hand was duly sniffed.

And we duly took him, with silent reluctance and trepidation. The weight of commitment.

I held him all the the way home, as he watched his territory disappear.



We don't know the mix. I missed the opportunity to get a discount-rate DNA-swab (at the Melbourne Show) to determine whether he's JRT + chihuahua, fox terrier or cat. We lean to the chihuahua theory, the Jack-ahua-hua or Jack-a-chi, because there are the moments of small frenzy we call the chi. Some things set him off, like shuffling feet, golf putting practice sets, and birds. Birds, in particular, make him squeak. It is very unpleasant, you would hate it, and it would probably take a herd of dog whisperers to arrest. We need to beam up cesar to zap the yap. He gets away with this obnoxious habit in general because the noise is lost on ovals near freeways...
3/2/11

...


Defending his behaviour to friends, my leniency, I would often say: he's still learning to trust us. Still? they'd ask.
Yes, even 16 months down the track that still holds.
It's a gradual thing and gradually in a little time it kicks in.

spring

one of the things we find endearing
about him is his spring
for a tiny dog, his four foot leap
at the door handle
bringing him almost level with the means
and the meaning, every day
he just about nails it


 

dog blog

New favourite dogblog - LabraDog Rescue and Rehoming

The photo of the full house reminds me of labradors past and labradors future, someday somewhere.

(and this yt clip is always an inspiration to that lab castle in the air)
 

the k

New dog turns one today.

Relieved that he got to this milestone; his small size makes him seem vulnerable to the everyday fence-gaps and donkey-hooves of life.
(on holiday in the country, he was straight under the fence and in with the donkeys, who had 'form' apparently with straying small animals, and whose mad braying sent him scurrying back pronto, untrodden)

He is a dog that stares. I often catch him looking like this:


Not so much a philosophical air, but rather one of caution. As if he is still getting his bearings, four months on.

We all are.


click for larger view

but four months on, I think we are cautiously very happy with each other.



 

canine news

Flo wearing a found fascinator.
The detail is not great but there was a delicate arrangement of cobweb, foliage and sticks that held together nicely for about 20 minutes.

And in the latest canine news, there is another hound around.
Curbee (not his real spelling) is a very small JRT mix, about 8 months old. Upon his arrival he flipped about the house with such alacrity, we thought he was a strain of mad acrobat terrier that might take 3 years to settle.
But he has since wound down somewhat and is currently sleeping soundly.
 

unsnare

My work:
to unsnare time's warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you.

Mark Doty Golden Retrievals

at NPR These Books Have Gone to the Dogs
 

fri dawgs

was idly browsing bluey youtube
and found a film with a blue heeler song

by Mary Ann Kennedy
Grammy nominated hit songwriter from Nashville, TN., Mary Ann Kennedy, creates music that celebrates the horse

- who also has a song about a jack.


(though wwwhere is the labra♪or mon amour j'adore ballad I wonder...)
 

dog friendly

i regret getting red gravel pebbles - hard to clean and now we have to partition that area off ,too(by the fence it is)
theyre good for security as they crunch underfoot but ive never been able to keep the dogs off it because like most dogs they like to run the perimeter of the property and check things out
ive never worried about where the dogs toilet because there is a lawn area they use but one or two ofthem like to sneak off to the gravel area and its a pain picking up their waste with pebbles attached
i reckon we should have just concreted - easier to clean

- dogz forum: Designing The Dog Friendly Garden
 

surfer

I'm sure if he didn't want to surf his size alone would make it dificult for his owners to force him

- reader's comment

via look at this

see also Ed
 

red shoes

- And speaking of op shops, I bought some new Dunlop runners (dog-walkers) at the Salvos, which was timely as the old ones are on their last legs.
At op shops, if you're lucky enough to score a new pair of shoes in your size, the colour of the shoe isn't an issue.

But they are very red.

But when she wanted to go to the right, the blue heeler and the red shoes walked to the left, and when she wanted to walk up the room, the blue heeler and the red shoes walked down the room, down the stairs through the street, and out through the gates of the town. She walked, and was obliged to walk, far out into the dark wood...

She was frightened, and wanted to throw the red shoes away; but they stuck fast. She tore off her stockings, but the shoes had grown fast to her feet. She walked and was obliged to go on walking the blue heeler over field and meadow, in rain and sunshine, by night and by day—but by night it was most horrible via

 

fido friday 5

AGB reminded me: Boynton's dog got "smiled at" by a rotty*.

I saw the rotty the other day actually, 3 years on, in situ, same old park, same old man walking her, his kindly-gentleman appearance belying the fact of his being in possession of a dangerous canine weapon, the dog itself impersonating a more benevolent labrador from a distance. The only give away is the lack of an otter tail, the lack of a tail at all.
When Bronte got biten by rooti on hunches, I'd almost led her into the jaws of faux-labarador myself, not dissuading her as both dogs advanced across the oval. Next thing there was the sound of dog fight, which for certain reasons I was determined to hear as a mere skirmish and not a serious biting which could have been fatal, according to the vet. The certain reasons involved Flo, of course, whose inclination to nip white dogs (not bite, if there are degrees of these things) was sometimes greeted with great alarm. This was a rather lax attitude on my part, I concede, harking back to some imaginary golden age when dogs had minor spats and skirmishes in public and people moved on. I concede belatedly that there are no degrees in these things*, a nip is as good as a bite, and Flo is never off the lead now - has never been off the lead for years.
So when Bronte got biten on hunches,and the kindly looking old gentleman shouted an enquiry of sorts across the oval, I shrugged and waved in an exaggeration of casual acceptance, in an effort to signal minor skirmishes between dogs are fine; they sort it out...
It was only after he drove away with his rooti (did I wave?) that I noticed the extent of her injuries, which were not at all minor. We limped back home in shock.

* well, who wants to think of a severity spectrum in such moments, or the objective assessment of the severity of biting problems based on the evaluation of the wound pathology




cattle dog in sulky



I'm a great fan of the unsolicited comment from strangers as you walk your dog, daydreaming about horticulture.
Last week as I walked Flo, the unsolicited comment yelled across the street was simply: Ritalin...
 

beach dogs

A blue heeler does not love the ocean



- well this blue heeler, anyway.
When I used to take my labrador to the beach, his joy was visible.
His joy was audible.
But Flo can take it or leave it.
She may look like she's enjoying the water, but she's merely doing a low-key scan of the horizon as always, on the lookout for something to herd.
She was more interested in the foreshore, walking on a leash.
She had a bit of a paddle, because it was there.
But she didn't leap, dig, swim, wag or cut loose.
A labrador belongs here.
A blue heeler turns her back on it.

just smile

...continuing the canine theme...

After seeing a link to Google Story Creator Google tells you a story (via things)
I decided to run the what is an e-word-heating-coil-in a toaster* idea through that machine.
The story created did include the nice line, check wiki for more information on the Watt , but I had more success after keying in my default lorem-ipsum-text-reserved-for-generators -
black labrador:

So for me and folks like me it s not just a dog but an embodiment of all the hopes and dreams of the future the fond memories of the past and the pure joy of the moment.

just smile because they just don t understand.

Tonight's visit was a definite low point in a slow period of decline. I ordered mine to be cooked rare and my husband and son ordered theirs to be cooked medium.

fido friday

Not long ago, it was noted that there were relatively few lol dogs in local circulation. So here's one for dogblog frido friday. And because Doug (RIP) would have been 18 tomorrow *.




Photo taken about 10 years ago. I'd been out to Safeway and this was how he greeted me at the door. He'd been quietly raiding the rubbish bin when (evidently) his head became wedged in the swing-top. I think the yellow plastic ball was being proffered in nervousness or desperate "gallows humour".

yarra

Yarra Moments
Like all rivers, the Yarra is more than water. It flows with love and memories and rites of passage. Sample musings from those who know and love the Yarra

I was looking for photos of the Yarra. When I lived downstream, I'd walk around the high cliffs opposite the Breweries with m'dog every day, sometimes humming the Whirling Furphies' My Brown Yarra which was released when when Doug was about two. My black dog used to jump into the river collecting bacteria in his ears, sometimes retrieving frisbees sometimes running with the wolves bears. To have buried him within that well marked territory would have been quite fitting.
There is more on the song among the stories at Yarra Moments

Over 17 years the song that began as “a nasty little poem” has become Melbourne’s unofficial anthem. “Somehow it clicks with people’s memories and hearts. Expats have been in tears when hearing it overseas because, I think, it’s a song about home, rather than just about the Yarra

(you can hear it here)

And there is a great(dane) dog tale in Horace Sierak's wonderful My Half at Rudder

As time went on, Pete grew up alongside my brother and I. He would join us for swims in the river during the summer months when it was hot. He particularly enjoyed sharing in a canoe ride whenever anybody would take him.

bark

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116: Eleanor

From a collection on YouTube via grow a brain

masked dog

I don't know if it's an ISP conspiracy to get us dial-uppers all adsl.ed, but things are still very sluggish around here. The servers were officially addled yesterday - so the surfin was bad. I could say this is why I missed the post a cat day. Not a Friday and not a cat, but here is Flo the mad bluey. I photoshopped slightly to capture the masked bandit look. Who knows - under the mask there might be a spaniel.




And one thing I know: Flo will never get her own pet mobile (via J walk)

You can now call your pet anytime

I don't think we would have that much to say to each other.

Had he still been with us, I may have been tempted for a weak nanosecond to indulge Doug - except experience tells me that dogs are usually less than excited to hear a familiar human voice transmitted by telephone. They cock their ears in mild acoustic interest at best. Bronte - the cleverest here - much prefers random animal noises, but they are not exactly reassuring. Even if she did recognise my voice on her collarset, it wouldn't soothe her. The spatial confusion would trouble her. It would only say non-presence, speaking absence, and she'd run under the bed again.

And it is sobering to read on the Pets mobile site that Current estimates predict pet and pet related expenditures in 2004 to exceed $34.3 Billion in the US alone.
See post below.

---

Comments: masked dog

nice puppy

and very sluggish on the dial up here, too
Posted by Zoe at November 9, 2004 11:11 PM

Actually Zoe, she's not that nice ;)
(as compared to, say, a labrador, or most dogs really, although the pointy ears are growing on me. So to speak)
She was brought up on a farm, my flatmate inherited her, and she's still got the mad herder in her. Daily she impersonates a pet, but the wolf is always lurking. Oh well, she gives me filler on slow days - and as you say, it's very 'slow days' here at the moment.
So slow I almost took the broadband leap.
Posted by boynton at November 9, 2004 11:35 PM

Valiant Boynton! In genteel defense of the men of the forest.
There's a spirit map that explains the $34.3 billion US pet indulgences being side-by-side with vanishing primate cousins, not to mention songbirds and elephants, but that map's rather hard to find at the moment.
Thanks for the reminder that it's there.
Posted by vernaculo at November 10, 2004 10:36 AM

I suppose it's indulgences in general.
The indulgences of humans.
Consumer choices across the board.
It's just that the indulgent pet dollar sits so easily side by side.

Chasing up an $AUS figure I found this:
Aussies favour pets over foreign aid
http://smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/27/1090693953957.html
"An Australia Institute report, titled Overconsumption of Pet Food in Australia, estimates Australians spend more than $2.2 billion on their pets compared to foreign aid spending of less than $2 billion"

Pets are so often the prime example of warped priorities. I'd also like to see how other indulgences stack up. I bet Australains spent more on chlorine, cosmetics, cars, computers etc
Posted by boynton at November 10, 2004 11:07 AM

erm...

I bet "Australians" do too.

And I hope the map can resurface..
Posted by boynton at November 10, 2004 11:20 AM

Greetings, Scrivener -
You are allowed three mispellings daily, gratis, provided they're made in the interest of diligence and rapidity of locution. All others will be charged to your account, in the event we find it.

Cheers,
Grammar Board Ltd.
"Your Guardians of Proper Usage"
-
I have loved some dogs more than many humans, and in the mix of loved ones I recall I make no distinctions by species, because my heart insists that it be so.
It's not the pets' lives, it's the owners', that's where the fault is. It's a kind of environmental PCness to start with the symptoms and move toward the disease, because it's easier and simpler.
As though we're all units in some abstract accountancy.
We're not, I'm not anyway, and I don't think you are or I wouldn't have written this.
Posted by vernaculo at November 10, 2004 08:17 PM

Dear Board

3 free daily misspellings seems generous, but
even then the pressure to be foolproof is onerous. I suspect I may need to upgrade my Account. Do you offer a Plan with Unlimited typos and grammatical errors over a fixed term?

Yours,
Scrivenro

Posted by boynton at November 11, 2004 11:43 AM

loon

walking rogue dog up street, she has almost completed a perfect round of pretending to be canine companion - (as complex as dressage for such a dog) -when she suddenly enters that wolf zone and starts stalking something in the distance, oblivious to all the usual suspects, totally focused on this herd-able object loose on the footpath. Unlike other dogs she shows no embarrassment when she encounters the truth. At least the illusion did not burst but floated happily away, gloating.

---

Comments: loon

argh! the truth has slipped from our grasp (aka that link appears to be broken). any more clues?
Posted by Gianna at August 27, 2003 01:33 PM

Oh no!!
That link was fine all day yesterday then, bang - the balloon bursts!
That link was actually a picture of a balloon dog - which was a bit of poetic license on my part, Gianna, as I'm not sure if Flo was seeing canine or feline or even bovine (folk-memory) or plain bird in the small balloon bouncing happily along up the street.
Thanks for the alert. I may have to substitute -
fix the link, but break this thread - eh!
Posted by boynton at August 27, 2003 01:45 PM

Fixed.
alas the purple jpg not quite as good as the earlier green model.
Posted by boynton at August 27, 2003 02:03 PM

ah!
Posted by Gianna at August 28, 2003 12:23 PM