SUMMERTIME

No matter how long it is, summer is always too brief. That's why I always make the most of it by staying outdoors as much as possible with Terri. Flower often joins us when we laze around in the back yard. Once September hits, I'm even more aware of the need to soak up the warmth of the sun before the cold sets in (although I generally do this in the shade of the big spruce to avoid too much UV exposure).

Summer's shortness parallels the canine lifespan so that's another reason Terri and I enjoy as much time together as we can playing her favourite games.

TOYS !

Today was a super day for playing outside. Flower went out, ate some grass, spit it out, walked around the house and settled down on the deck.

Terri played with her rapidly diminishing baseball, kept unravelling it when she fetched it to me and eventually came to the small inner ball. I hid that so it wouldn't be chewed and swallowed. Her next toy of choice was a teeny blue toy fragment (below the red Kong in the photo) that's hard even for me to find in the grass. We played a long game of "find the teeny toy in the grass" until our neighbor dropped by to say hello. The toy selected for a game of catch was her new red Kong which is replacing the so-far-unrecovered black Kong hiding in the eaves.

That takes us to the present which seems to be a good time to do some mowing. Cloud cover has cooled the air quite a bit. It seems such a short time since I mowed the grass but it needs to be done again before it gets too high/long.

RELAXATION ?

When you have a healthy athletic shepherd around, there is no relaxation in the form of uninterrupted reading or even uninterrupted gardening when you're outside. Indoors, you have a quiet sweetheart lying on the floor or couch. But outside ... she's returning her favourite toy again and again to be thrown "immediately"; otherwise you'll get an earful of barking, "Throw it now! Throw it NOW !!!"

I wonder if some of my friends who camp with their dogs manage to relax completely without interruption? And for how long?

FUN IN THE SUN

... and in the shade. It was a great day to play inside the fence where the trees offer the most shade. Terri and I played catch for an hour while Flower napped.

Suddenly, Terri had to run out the front door for an emergency call to save Flower from the big bad cat that pounced at her on the porch. Terri raced around the house and looked for the culprit while I shouted "Go, get him!". She chased him to a fence/wall corner and I shouted for her to keep at him. He had to escape by going under my house. I should keep a powerful water gun handy for that mean cat.

HAIRCUTS

Some people shouldn't be left alone with a pair of scissors. Poor Terri -- now she has to go around with a BAD haircut. It's SO bad that I'm posting a photo in which you can't see the extent of my madness when I'm clipping.

Terri: You've made me look ridiculous!

APRIL SHOWERS

... BRING MUD PUDDLES

It seems like a long spring this year, waiting for drier weather so the mud puddles don't last so long. I mustn't complain -- it could be much worse. People in more northern parts of Ontario and in the west have been getting snow. No, I wouldn't trade places with them.

In fact, I think that eastern Ontario has ideal weather for people like me who prefer sunshine to days and days of rain (Vancouver), sudden snow falls in the wrong season (Alberta), rain and floods (Manitoba), or some very short summers (Maritimes). Winter snowstorms often pass by south of us and we don't get the snow squalls that make areas near the great lakes so dangerous for driving. When it comes to location, I'm a happy camper :-)

WHAT IS THAT?

That is the result of too much ...

... and not enough of this, due to rainy days and days with VERY COLD winds from the north!

You'll note the mud Terri is sleeping in, in the second picture. There's still lots more where that came from :-(

THE TONGUE

The talented tongue. Though not as long (at least in my experience) as some other dogs' tongues, it can get onto trouble nonetheless. It tends to lick me more often when I've got vitamin E lotion slathered on my skin -- I don't know if that is good for Terri. Must look it up.

TERRI - BRAT OR ?

I was in the bathroom, cleaning the counter and moving the black garbage bag from room to room to prepare for tomorrow's pickup. Walked into the kitchen and OMG! Somebody's had a pool party in here! Yes, water covered most of the kitchen floor and I could see no source but the empty water bowl. I had to grab the wet mop. Since the floor is ceramic tile, no real damage was done (that I know of).

So ... was Terri a brat for spilling and splashing water all over the place or was she helping me by getting the floor wet and ready for mopping ?

THEME

If you've read the previous posts, you may have the impression that this blog does not have a theme. You would be wrong. In this blog I plan to write about any topic I please from AA batteries to Zygoptera, as long as I find it interesting, informative or entertaining. Naturally, I'll be posting about my beautiful dog, Terri. Expect to read about animals, logic, the pitiful lack of knowledge about English grammar in the North American population, technology, science, and science fiction.

Don't expect to read about sports -- I wasn't athletic during my school days so I didn't cultivate an interest in sports except for a small fondness for baseball. At school I had often wished we could spend more time playing softball -- it was the only sport I enjoyed. All other sports felt like work but softball was fun; I wonder why?

I suppose you would like me to satisfy your sudden interest in Zygoptera right now? Very well. I used to think that damselflies were the females of dragonflies but that the "male" word dragonfly was simply used more often (similar to dog-bitch male-female terms). It turns out that my thinking was wrong. They are different suborders: Odonata is an order* of insects containing dragonflies (suborder Epiprocta) and damselflies (suborder Zygoptera).

* If you studied biology, you know that living organisms are ranked by kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species**. Dragon/damsel-flies aren't just different species but different suborders; meaning they have many distinct characteristics. See a stunning photo of a damselfly here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ischnura_heterosticta02.jpg

** An aside: There is no mention of "suborder" in the main list of divisions. Various sub-this and sub-that's are devised when taxonomists realize that they need to split animal (or plant) classifications again and seven divisions just aren't enough.

I'll leave you in suspense about the other topics for now.


You found your toy?
Oh! Frabjous joy!

TERRI IS 6

Terri's sixth birthday reminds me of A. A. Milne's poem "Now We are Six":

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

Terri was born Jan. 11th, 2005 in a small place west of Gaspé. When I arrived to get her in March, I brought my black Lab into the house to see how they would get along. To my delight, she started following Chimo and they trotted around, inspecting the large basement room. The trip home was not without incident. I was feeling so giddy with delight about Terri, I didn't pay attention to my speedometer and was soon stopped by police. I figured I might as well let the dogs out, even though they hadn't been in the car very long because Terri had already had an "accident" in the crate; the first of many. The cop was probably not impressed that I was more concerned about my puppy's pooping than the speeding ticket.

Since it was winter and I have a long-standing hypothermia-phobia / aka cheimaphobia ("when the fear of cold becomes a phobia, it is known as cheimaphobia or cheimatophobia"), I decided to paper train Terri. This worked out very well and Terri has never "gone" indoors except on newspaper during those early days. Oh -- I forgot. Terri has "gone" indoors twice -- both times in the bathtub. What a smart and cooperative dog.

With a more experienced handler, I'm sure Terri would have a number of titles by now. So far we only have novice rally-o titles from both CKC and CARO. If I get my act together, we will get a title at the next rally-o level. This will depend on me learning the new exercises and practicing often enough so Terri is solid in doing all the novice and advanced level exercises off leash. I need to go back and read Morgan Spector's Clicker Training for Obedience: Shaping Top Performance--Positively and get training again.

Terri's favourite gift for today is 2.5 hours of playtime in the snow in -8°C cloudy weather.

COUNTRY LIVING

Terri has been enjoying her home in the country for 3 1/2 years now. I love to see her race around the yard, enjoying the freedom of all that space. Herding dogs need room to stretch their legs and half an acre is as much as I care to mow -- any more and I'd want a little goat to keep the grass short.

It's funny how my attitude has changed over time. When I first moved to Orleans after living in areas closer to downtown Ottawa, it felt too "remote". I felt I was out in the middle of nowhere. That idea changed when I quickly learned to appreciate the 5 minute walk to acres of unused grass & woods for my Labrador retriever to romp in. During the years in Orleans, those acres provided many hours of quiet enjoyment for both of us.

Chimo died in 2005 when Terri was 9 months old. Around this time, the grassy acres I had delighted in started to be built up. There would be no romping room there for Terri. While some people were enjoying the proximity of the big box stores, I felt hemmed in.

By 2007 it was definitely time to move to a quieter, more relaxing neighbourhood. I found just the kind of place I wanted: not too far from civilization (shops) with neighbours neither too close nor too far away and with active farms in view instead of construction sites. It was the right move at the right time.