my dog

dogs and wolves DO follow paths!

2012-01-24T18:48:00.003+11:00

I'm feeling pleased with myself for noticing Penny's path-following behaviour. As I said in my recent post on this topic, I had contacted the Wolf Education and Research Center to ask a question, and here is the answer that came a couple of days ago:

Absolutely, wolves nearly always use trails to navigate through their territory. The behavior is well documented among both wild and captive wolves, and wolves often mark trails (with urine and feces) we believe to assist in orientation to their territory. The behavior of using trails is likely to conserve energy as is takes far less energy to walk a path than to bushwhack. It also helps them conserve vital energy during the winter/snow months by using a beaten trail versus struggle through deep snow. I have personally witnessed captive packs break through deep fresh snow to use a trail after several feet of snow just dropped over the trail. In other words, they either have their common trails memorized, or can some how detect them under several feet of snow (possibly through olfaction--hence the urine and feces deposits?). Some breeds of dogs, such as bloodhounds, have been "trained" through husbandry to not do such trail use behavior so they can better scan the landscape for scent.
Hope this information helps. Let me know if you have any further questions. By the way, good observation on canine behavior!

Regards,
Jeremy

I'm really grateful to be able to ask questions of an expert like this. Isn't the internet wonderful and aren't people generous with their knowledge and time?

The Wolf Education and Research Center has a great site, with lots of interesting pages, but the one I've enjoyed most is Wolf Behavior 101. Now I know why Penny always shakes the water off after she has a swim. (I'm not going to reveal the answer. You'll have to go over there and find out for yourself, lol.)

dogs eating a varied diet

2012-01-20T11:15:00.004+11:00

We've prided ourselves for years on feeding Penny an 'interesting' and varied diet. Now I'm having second thoughts, because of something I've just read on Fully Vetted.

This is the problem. If a dog is suspected to have developed a food allergy, then you need to feed only a novel food for quite a length of time, in order to rule out all the foods the dog has ever eaten. We had exactly this problem when Penny developed skin problems last year. The skin specialist asked us to think of a food - an available one! - that she hadn't ever eaten. Kangaroo? She has that quite often. Duck? She's had it once or twice. Camel? She's even had that! And so on...

Fortunately, the specialist decided the problem most likely wasn't a food allergy. Since then we've been very careful about bothersome plants, like the ubiquitous and horrible Wandering Trad, and we wipe her 'private areas' after we come inside, with baby wipes. Worth the trouble, to keep her from licking herself raw!

The article, written by Dr Jennifer Coates, says that this problem of people giving their dogs all sorts of foods means that vets have to prescribe special dry foods. She says:

Veterinarians do still have the ability to prescribe limited antigen diets made from protein sources that have been hydrolyzed (i.e., broken down into such tiny pieces that they don’t stimulate the immune system). To avoid confusion, I’m starting to turn to these more than the novel ingredient foods that I have used in the past.

Now, at last, I understand why our vet had Penny on the seemingly boring special diet last year, before he sent us to see the skin specialist.

dog walking groups

2012-01-19T22:04:00.003+11:00

Two Pitties in the City has an interesting guest post about the value of group dog walking. I take Penny on group walks with Cindy, and have observed that these walks enhance Penny's social skills with strange dogs met in local parks.

One thing that I hadn't considered, but which happens in Cindy's group, is that initially the dogs need not greet each other. Very interesting post about this on a link from Two Pitties' page.

following paths is serious business

2012-01-18T22:37:00.008+11:00

Penny usually follows trails and paths rather thean setting out across grassy areas or pushing her way through shrubbery. She will wait a a junction of the path to see which way I'm intending to go, and then head along that track. She seems to perceive paths and tracks as serious business - going places, in other words.

Grassy areas, on the other hand, are for play. (So are puddles, of course.)

I wonder how much of this trail-following behaviour is instinctual and how much is training. After all, when she is on lead, we are usually walking on a path.

And when she's out with groups of dogs and humans, we usually follow paths.

Trying to find out a bit about this behaviour, I came across an interesting site called Wolf Behavior 101 where you can send in dog behaviours and get some information about how they relate to wolf behaviours. I've put in a query and now I'll wait and see whether I get a reply.

puggle runaways come visiting

2012-01-17T22:10:00.009+11:00

Penny was spending a few quiet days in the Upper Yarra Valley recently, but her peaceful time was disturbed by two unexpected and uninvited visitors.

When I spotted them frolicking around on our driveway, I hurried outside to say hello, because we are right on a busy country highway. Seeing they were friendly, I just opened the gate to our fenced yard and they dashed in to investigate, not noticing for ages that I had closed the gate behind them.

Penny was mightily unimpressed and went in through her doggy door to keep an eye on them from inside the house.

Presumably they don't have the same kind of doggy door at home, because they couldn't figure it out.

And that was the end of MY peaceful day, because I had great trouble finding where they'd come from. It beats me how come people don't know anything about their neighborhood. I tramped up and down streets sayaing I'd found a beagle and a pug, but either no one answered the door or most people didn't care that two dogs were loose. Eventually I came home again and set off in the car, and finally came across the person everyone needs to find when they're trying to solve a mystery - a young boy. He and his little sister were playing the front yard and knew the dogs. (I'd taken a few photos of them to show people.) Mum came out when they called for her and she rang the owner, who was at work forty kilometres away and would come and get them when she finished, later in the day.

'No rush,' said I. 'The yard's fenced. She can come when she likes."

My heart sank at the reply. 'They're escape artists. They can dig out of anywhere.'

Ohmidog! Off to the car. (1) I don't want them showing Penny how dogs dig under fences. (2) They'll be out on the highway again.

Race home.

ONE dog in my fenced yard. The beagle-looking one (the female) was in next door, playing with the dog who hates Penny and shouts at her through the fence every time we go out.

Grab a towel from the house, put it under her belly, haul her over the fence into my place. (And now I know why I'm sitting here with a bad back!) Open the door to our decking and they both cheerfully accompany me to try again if they can figure out how to get into our house.

I've got visitors of the human variety, and they come out to see how I got on with my search. The dogs rush into the house. Penny's even less impressed. I herd them out, they're locked onto the decking where they can't dig out. Relax at last, have a cup of tea with my very patient visitors.

Time for the visitors to go. What's this? Only one pug-like dog on the decking! And his lady friend exploring the outside world. But, thankfully, hanging around because her mate couldn't jump like she could.

Hang onto the one on the decking and the wanderer comes in to say hello. Hmm... it's going to be a long afternoon...

Thank goodness they were rather tired by this time, and settled down to have a sleep.

Penny showed her disdain for them by lying with her back to the doggy door at this stage.

And then a new visitor. Their owner had been so worried she couldn't stay at work. Was I ever glad to see her!!

And the first surprising thing was that they are both the same breed, puggles. Pug and beagle.

The second surprising thing was that the usual escape artist is the one who looks like a pug.

I made sure to get the owner's phone number. I MAY be seeing them again, I reckon.

mystery of river levels in the Yarra

2012-01-07T20:49:00.010+11:00

Today the Yarra was low.

As we walked along we were astonished to see a big branch sitting on the muddy bank, exposed from tip to tip.

Usually it looks like this. As it did yesterday.

Seeing we were at one of Penny's two favorite swimming spots, she headed on down to the water and swam happily for a stick, but we didn't like to see her slogging through the deep, soft mud, given that she had surgery on her cruciate sixteen months ago.

So moved on to the other spot, where the strangely low water has exposed rocks, not mud.

Melbourne Water has been working for months to rebuild the old weir at Dights Falls. Their site says:

The Waterways Alliance, on behalf of Melbourne Water, is completing works to replace the ageing Dights Falls Weir and build a new fishway on the Yarra River in Abbotsford.

The new weir will be similar in shape, location and height to the existing structure and continue an important role controlling water levels in the river.

A new fishway will allow fish to swim past the weir, benefiting 11 species of native migratory fish and unlocking vast reaches of the Yarra and its tributaries upstream.

And...

A temporary diversion of the Yarra has been set up at Dights Falls to allow the construction of the new weir and fishway. The diversion will be in place until the new weir has been constructed and will cause river levels for up to 16 kilometres above the weir to temporarily drop below normal levels on occasions.

The drop in river level will cause sections of river bank, usually under water, to become exposed.

So that seems to be the answer to the mystery.

the last day of Christmas

2012-01-06T21:50:00.002+11:00

We believe Christmas is over on the 6th of January, because twelve days of Christmas have gone by, so we're taking the decorations off the Wollemi pine that was our Christmas tree this year. Of course I started singing the old song about the Twelve Days of Christmas as I did so.

I was wondering why we sing 'four colly birds', when most people these days sing 'four calling birds', and discovered the word colly means black and so the song's about blackbirds.

And then I came across a couple of references to collie dogs, so naturally I couldn't resist having a look at those sites. It seems the breed might be named for the black-faced sheep they used to herd in Scotland, or maybe they are named because the dogs themselves were black.

Here's a quote from The Border Collie Museum:

Combe goes on the say that "some say that the collie, or colley in its [early] English spelling, got it's name from the breed of sheep it herded." She posits that the black-faced sheep may have been called "coaley" for black. This idea is also promoted by the often quoted reference in Chaucer's Nonnes Tale "Ran Colle our dogge...", the implication being that he was a black dog, and that's why his name was Colle (like "Blackie").

Merriam-Webster online dictionary seems to agree with Combe. Their entries for "colly" and "collie" seem to support the idea of a coal-black origin

frozen food and tricks

2012-01-02T14:27:00.004+11:00

Now that the hot weather has finally hit, it's time to think of some entertainment in the house.

For one thing, I've frozen half a can of food for Penny to eat tonight. (My favorite brand is ZiwiPeak, from New Zealand.

And I made a discovery. I just can't throw anything out, and those little tinfoil patty pans that Christmas mince pies come in looked as if they might be useful. I was planning to try putting them around seedlings because I've heard that snails don't like sliding over the metallic feel of aluminium foil. But in the present heat I think the reflected heat would cook the little plants.

But the foil pans are just the right size to cover a half-used can of dog food.

And I think it might be just the weather to practise some tricks in the house instead of being outside in the heat. I don't know if we could conquer such a demanding one as Johann's 'suitcase trick', though.

safe throwing toys for dogs

2012-01-02T12:27:00.006+11:00

Out again early this morning to beat the heat, we met a couple of lovely black dogs (and their human) at the dog friendly park along the Yarra River. They had a couple of Safestix, which their human had purchased online.

We were wondering whether Penny might try to nab one of the lovely orange sticks, instead of her boring old piece of wood (which I'm holding in the background), but she swam quite happily for the ordinary stick.

The dogs with the Safestix had to learn to watch carefully when the toy was thrown, because it momentarily sinks and then bobs up again.

Now I want one for Penny. Of course.

I can't find an Australian supplier listed on the Safestix site, so I've emailed my favorite pet supplies store, Murphys, to see whether they might have them or might get them in. Otherwise I'll order from either the UK or the listed New Zealand shop.

The Safestix seems to have a similar use to the Aussie Dogs Slapathong, which is also a floating alternative to a stick.

By the way, we never throw a stick for Penny on land. I've heard many people mention the dangers of tossing sticks for dogs to fetch, but I don't need to be warned of the possible consequences, because I once saw a man with a stick embedded in his face. He lived, but it was one of the worst things I've ever seen!

Sticks are dangerous.

Happy New Year to all

2012-01-01T22:13:00.008+11:00

Who would be up early on the morning of January 1st?

Dog walkers, of course, if the predicted temperature is 38 degrees (about 100 Fahrenheit).

But most other people must have been still in bed, to judge by the freeway traffic:

Which usually looks like this:

However, Penny tracked down some signs of life in the park:

Sure enough, there had been revelry in the park overnight. And there still was!

We thought it must have been a well-organised party, because they were all still having fun, having been there all night, and there was no mess. The river was barricaded off with tape so people wouldn't fall in, but no one seemed to mind us ducking under the tape so Penny could have a swim.

Oh, and you might have noticed dog-walkers weren't the only ones out exercising.

Christmas Eve

2012-01-01T12:39:00.004+11:00

Penny has been happy during the holiday season. We had a fairly quiet time, just enjoying the rest and the special week.

On Christmas Eve, she was out in the garden scouting around for intruders and found this cheeky possum. It was right in the act of leaping from the agonis flexuosa - fine for possums, a nice home - to our apricot tree - NOT okay!!

Did it care about Penny woofing around the base of the tree? No.

Did it care about me standing close enough to touch it? No.

I shone a torch right on it to take this photo but it still wasn't bothered.

Though it wasn't very happy about a flash photo.

I didn't want to scare it so much that it fell to the ground, because a wildlife carer told me ringtail possums have such a delicate ribcage that they will die if grabbed by a dog. (I can't find anything about this on the Net, though.) So I left the adventurous marsupial to pinch our apricots. I hope it didn't take more than one. What an optimist.

By the way, Penny got bored with the whole thing and went inside without me. She does like to find possums and tell us about them, but isn't interested in actually hunting them, thank goodness.

more about Christmas gifts for dog lovers

2011-12-23T15:39:00.005+11:00

I've just seen a great Christmas gift idea for dog-owning friends. It's on a Kodak site. You print out a book of vouchers offering to do things for them. The example on the page is a voucher for five dog walks. A great idea if you have to come up with something in a hurry and don't want to face the madness in the shops - and, if you're in Melbourne, the uncomfortable summer heat.

The printables are free.

I reckon it could include things like a dog wash, or an offer to walk along with the human and pick up dog poo - or maybe even a play date with your own dog.

Oh, I just thought of another one...
If you are a competent photographer, you could offer to go on a walk with your friend and take a photo of them with the dog, and they could choose the best one to be framed.

There are endless possibilities.

a Christmas gift for Penny the dog

2011-12-23T14:05:00.008+11:00

Just yesterday I was boasting that I had never bought a Christmas present for Penny. 'She's a dog!' I said to a friend on the phone. 'She doesn't even know it's Christmas.'

I will admit I have sometimes bought gifts for other people's dogs. But we all know they are really gifts for the humans, so they can have the joy of sharing them with their beloved companion.

But pride comes before a fall...

I've succumbed. I just bought Penny a gift.

A friend has set up a new business importing Polish tableware to Australia and I've come home with a pottery bowl for Penny.

Here's the story:

Hmmm...what's this in my eating spot? Is it edible?

No, it seems to be something shiny and hard. Not food.

Beats me what it is.

Nope, still no clue. Seems to be shaped like my old food bowls, but no food smell here.

Oh, well. At least this paper looks quite interesting.

Note from parlance - the tableware is gorgeous. When my friend gets her website organised, I'll post a link to it for any Australians who would like to check it out. (I don't ever do advertising, but when a close friend has made the brave move to set up an import company, I just have to give her all the support I can! It's all hand-painted pottery from a small family business in Poland.)

a gift for Penny

2011-12-21T21:46:00.003+11:00

Penny received a gift in the mail recently, from Snooza. We bought a great flea-free raised bed from them some months ago and I must have given them Penny's (estimated) date of birth, because the recent letter said it was a birthday present for her. Such a nice surprise.

Penny spends a lot of time on her raised bed each day, and the first part of the night. Some time in the wee hours she usually moves to her Snooza Orthobed, which is at the other end of the house, near the humans' bedrooms. We bought that bed about eighteen months ago, after her cruciate surgery. She loves sleeping there, but I've noticed it's quite flattened, so I'll have to see whether I can get a new foam insert for it. I think I need convoluted foam, but I'll have to do some research on it. WiseGeek says:

Another common use of this material is in the manufacturing of bed pillows and mattress toppers. For one thing, the unique pattern provides more cushion than flat foam since the coned peaks absorb physical stress and provide for better weight distribution. The material also permits more air circulation, and many hospitals use medical grade convoluted foam as bedding material to reduce the risk of decubitus ulcers, or bedsores.

I don't recall getting a gift from Snooza last year, so perhaps I didn't give her birthdate at that time.

Anyway, back to the gift...

It's like a Ropee, but the fabric cover the whole circle. Penny loves it, and I love it because I can throw it low and flat and thus Penny won't be in danger of jumping to catch it and re-injure her cruciate ligament. Of course, we only do short throws for her these days. Gone are the days of racing around parks chasing thrown balls. But it's great that she's well enough to run around at all!

where did domestic dogs originate?

2011-12-21T00:40:00.001+11:00

There's an interesting article at PhysOrg.com about a genetic study suggesting our dog breeds originated from South East Asia rather than from Europe or the Middle East.

Penny and the sticks

2011-12-20T22:42:00.006+11:00

Penny loves swimming to fetch sticks and toys.

Early in February, 2010 she made a major breakthrough in her fetching technique and brought back two Whirl Wheels, but has never been able to replicate this feat.

Until recently.

Just the other day, faced with a friendly rival swimming in the Darebin Creek, Penny did it again - this time with sticks.

And here's the proof.

You have to look carefully, but there she is, clearly, holding two sticks.

She made sure she kept her paw on the sticks so no-one could steal them.

(Yes,I can see there's an extra stick in the photo. I don't know where that one came from!)

dogs make us get out of bed at dawn

2011-12-08T22:15:00.007+11:00

Now the hot weather has arrived, it's time to get up early and walk at dawn. Yawn...

We went to lovely Yarra Bend park this morning and this is how it went:

You swim out...

You get the stick and bring it back...

You juggle it and jiggle it to get it past the rocks...

and stay out of the way of the people in the boats.

laboratory beagles set foot on grass for the first time

2011-12-01T23:26:00.002+11:00

I've just wept all the way through a video clip of beagles taking their first ever step on fresh green grass after a lifetime in a research facility.

I saw it at Wizewomon's blog.

I won't post it here. Just follow the link if you want to see this heartrending but beautiful film.

I am further determined to make sure everything I buy is NOT TESTED ON ANIMALS.

further adventures at Best Friend Retreat at Yarram

2011-11-28T20:07:00.007+11:00

When Penny and I spent a week at Best Friend Retreat, I thought the most enjoyable place was the Ninety Mile Beach, but I suspect Penny preferred the other swimming places, because she didn't seem to like the waves at the surf beach.

One great place was right next to the resort. It had a lovely deep pool on the Tarra River for dogs to swim, and a rocky waterfall where humans could sit with their feet in the water. However, one kilometre down the road was a spot I liked even better, and Penny adored - also on the Tarra.

We also drove about thirty kilometres to Port Albert, where there is a calm bay (no waves at all on the two occasions Penny swam there) and a lovely walk along the shore. The dogs jumped into the water beside the path at one stage and cooled off among the mangroves, but in general we just walked along the path.

holidaying at Best Friend dog resort near Yarram

2011-11-26T21:59:00.006+11:00

Penny has been away from home for a week, enjoying the magnificently dog-friendly resort at Best Friend Retreat at Tarra Valley, near Yarram.

Many places will accept dogs accompanying their humans, but at Best Friend the dogs are the guests and their humans the companions! Dogs must never be left alone. So humans take the dogs everywhere with them - unless they want their dog to spend the day in the reportedly luxurious kennels. (We didn't use them, so I can't describe them.)

Our trip was organised by Cindy, who had a birthday while we were there, so of course we had a party. The barbecue area is great for parties, because the dogs can come in with the humans, but we thought they should stay out in the little fenced yards until we had cooked the meat - for obvious reasons.

Tarra Valley is not far from the pristine Ninety Mile Beach, where dogs are allowed off-lead, so each morning we set off for long, long walks.

Ninety Miles of doggy bliss!

(More about Penny's holiday in the next post...)

a dog and some sticks in the muddy Yarra River

2011-11-15T22:09:00.007+11:00

As I said in my previous post, Penny had a swim in the Yarra the other day. The river was running fast, so I threw her sticks quite close to the bank.

But all of a sudden a really interesting, delightfully large stick came speeding along on the current and Penny wanted it.

She followed it along the high bank, looking down and wondering if she could jump that far. And I followed her, hoping she wouldn't do so, but interested to see what she would do about the problem.

But then the stick upped the ante by drifting into a dangerous clump of branches sticking out of the water and Penny began to gather her legs under her, preparing to leap.

It was time for intervention. So I hurried back to a safer entry spot and threw another stick in (a little one was all I could find) and - thank Dog - Penny ran towards me and jumped in to get it.

It must have been a good one, because she carried it all the way back to the car.

a dog swims in the upside-down Yarra river

2011-11-15T21:43:00.005+11:00

Last weekend Penny and I went to Yarra Bend park for a walk. At one end of the trail a sign welcomed us on behalf of the traditional owners of this land and I was reminded that Australia has a wealth of indigenous languages.

The Yarra, often referred to as 'the upside down river', was even more muddy brown than usual. However, this didn't mean it was dirty, so I let Penny swim.

The discovery of fresh water in the Yarra was crucial to the development of Melbourne. The river’s pristine upper reaches feed the city’s nine major reservoirs which supply most of Melbourne’s drinking water.

Further downstream however, the Yarra has long been dubbed "the river that runs upside down" because of its muddy colour. The water was clear at the time of European settlement but significant land clearing and development since the mid-1800s has resulted in suspended silt (or tiny clay particles) being carried downstream.

The muddy appearance does not mean that the Yarra is unclean. In fact, it is probably one of the cleanest capital city rivers in the world. Since the major clean-up campaigns of the late 1970s and 1980s, the river has again become home to platypus and a range of migratory native fish species. Platypus have been sighted in the Yarra River at Kew, less than 10 km from the city centre.

Penny stayed quite near the bank, which was good, because the river was running fast after the lovely rain we've had lately. I wouldn't have wanted her to be run over by the kayakers who were also enjoying the river.

the dangers of dogs eating beans

2011-11-14T16:14:00.013+11:00

Most evenings we eat vegetables and so does Penny. Her favorite place in the house is near the food preparation bench, where she sits patiently waiting for off-cuts of vegetables - carrots, particularly. One thing she loves also is the end of a bean. We've been giving her little bits of green beans for ages.

Lately I've been growing broad beans in the garden, mainly so I can dig them in and add to the nitrogen in the soil. But last night the pods of beans looked so enticing that we decided to cook some and eat them. (Okay, those who know we were supposed to eat the beans inside, and not the pods, are wincing, I guess.)

Human number two threw a couple of cut-off ends to Penny and decided to throw the rest in the compost, because of the funny whitish look of them.

Thank goodness she didn't give Penny the usual amount, because ten minutes later Penny was in the garden throwing up. And again, thirty minutes later, after she had her evening meal.

Of course, other than keeping an eye on her, it was immediately off to the internet to look for information.

First of all I came across this story, from bakers8:

I came home from work this week and thought that I would see if any of the broad beans were ready for eating. Upon viewing the vegetable garden I wondered at the fact that there were quite a few long stems of beans lying flat. It hadn’t been overly windy that day and it was dry. What had happened? Then I saw that there were no beans on any of the stems that were on the ground. No beans?
I puzzled for a while, picked some beans and went inside to prepare them for dinner. The chooks were happy to receive the empty pods and I thought no more about it – until M asked if I had fed Terry some broad beans. A lot of broad beans.
“No” I said, “I don’t think he likes them”.
“Well” said M, “there are a number of piles of dog vomit around the yard and it’s all broad beans!” (apologies to the faint and/or those with vivid imaginations).
Sure enough, there was the evidence that somebody had decided to have a little smorgasbord prior to my return. And he must be feeling rather poorly as he hadn’t performed the other disgusting dog habit of cleaning up after himself!

I also found this on GardenWeb:

Beans in the family Phaseolus Vulgaris contain a chemical called Phytohaemagglutinin. If you cook it, the chemical is released and poses no threat. Raw, it's pretty nasty. In humans, eating small amounts of it via raw beans isn't usually fatal (from what I know, so don't read this, eat some raw beans then sue me when you die or get deathly ill), but even eating a small dose can cause some serious sickness like vomiting and general malaise and all. It's not usually fatal in humans unless larger amounts are consumed, but it's still dangerous enough to where I wouldn't eat raw beans.
It's dangerous though to most animals, not just humans. So, a dog would be just as likely to get it, if not more likely, as a human.

After all this research, I began to wonder whether my plants were in fact the same broad beans that others were writing about. However, I felt sure I had identified my plants correctly when I looked at the photos on this site, and read:

In much of the Anglophone world, the name broad bean is used for the large-seeded cultivars grown for human food, while horse bean and field bean refer to cultivars with smaller, harder seeds (more like the wild species) used for animal feed, though their stronger flavour is preferred in some human food recipes, such as falafel.
The term fava bean (from the Italian fava, meaning "broad bean") is its most common name in the United States, with broad bean being the most common name in the UK.

By the way, Penny seems fine today. Also, quite separately from her reaction to the beans, we scraped our own cooked pods into the compost because they tasted so awful.

Penny has been clipped for the first time

2011-11-08T22:05:00.004+11:00

In seven years of life, Penny has been groomed quite a few times, but we have never gathered the courage to allow the groomer to clip her. However, she is going for a holiday soon (more about that in a future post) and we think there might be paralysis ticks in the area, so we thought we should get her clipped to make it easier to check her each evening for ticks.

When I picked her up, I wondered who the beautiful stranger was. She looked gorgeous. Here she is at home, perhaps giving me 'the look' because she wasn't too pleased about having to visit the groomers. (Lovely ladies with a pleasingly professional attitude - I'm very happy that we've found this place. It's Hot Doggie in Warrandyte.)

First item on her agenda was to get herself nicely mussed up, so it was out to her favorite rubbing seat. (It used to be for humans to relax in the outdoors. When did it become Penny's seat?)

What a surprise! Penny is dark in some spots. Now that we can see her coloring more clearly, we are reminded that her brother was black.

swimming outdoors at Kepala

2011-10-28T22:35:00.006+11:00

Having enjoyed watching Penny swim at the indoor pool at Kepala the other day, I thought we'd head off there again today, and seeing it was a warm sunny day I booked the outdoor pool. I think it's a very good bargain to be able to have the whole pool for thirty minutes and only pay $8.

Here's a dog's eye view of the water. Inviting!

I slapped on plenty of sunblock, because this is the time of the year when we get burned, after a winter of not having to take note of the UV levels. However, when I got there I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Penny was happy to swim around fetching her toys and all I had to do was sit in the shade and watch, occasionally tossing her toys in to the water. As long as the toys were floating she was determined to fetch them all back to dry land.

Here she is, working hard to collect them all. It's rather tricky, because as soon as she gets one to the shore and heads out for the next one, the wash from her passing sweeps it back out into the water. But she did it eventually.

dogs and fitness

2011-10-25T18:41:00.007+11:00

We believe it's important to keep up Penny's level of fitness, especially as she had her knee operated on last year. She had the traditional repair of her cruciate ligament, and for about seven months she swam regularly, often twice a week.

Now that we have more confidence that she is recovering well, we've returned to some of our previous activities. The long-awaited return to Cindy's Allsports class has been the highlight of our week. So it was disappointing the see that she had a slight limp after last weekend's class.

It was a hard decision to stop going to the Allsports class, but we will rest from it for a while to make sure she's okay.

So, back to the swimming...

I decided to take her to Kepala Canine Resort, because it's a bit closer than the other pool we've attended for about a year. Also, Penny can play in the water rather than just do therapeutic laps.

One of the things I love about Kepala's indoor pool is the mural. It makes me feel relaxed just to lean back on the fence and look at it.

I also like the fact that the pool is raised above the level of the floor, so I can walk around with Penny and encourage her to swim by racing her for her floating toys. She gets up a real speed when I'm hurrying around the edge to grab the toy. The entry is easy for her, too. There's a raised platform for entry:

She's supposed to enter by the ramp to the right of this photo - although there's a gentle slope, dogs need to be confident enough to push off into deep water when they reach the bottom of the slope. Definitely not a problem for water-loving Penny.

She thinks that's a pretty good place to come out of the water, actually. (But about half the time she did come out at the other end, the correct place for emerging. It depended on which ramp was closer when she reached the toy.)

It's entertaining to throw more than one toy in the pool and watch her organising the retrieval. Eventually she came up with the idea of swimming for one, depositing it on the side, and going back for the next.

She always collected her favorite first, of course - the beloved Whirlwheel.

It was great to discover that her AussieDog Slapathong floats, too!

Local walks

2011-10-14T20:51:00.003+11:00

Having a dog makes you get out of the house. Sometimes it feels like a bother to have to go, but once you're on the way, it becomes a pleasure.

Today was one of those days when it's an absolute pleasure to even think of setting out. The sun was shining, not too hot, and the local gardens beckoned us to come and see.

After all the years of drought, I still can't get used to the lush growth all around.

It's the best year I can remember for irises.

It was quite hot, so Penny seemed happy to come back home after a short amble around the streets, to sit at the front window and watch the world go by.

Japanese discount store treasures for dogs

2011-10-05T21:16:00.007+11:00

A new Japanese discount store called Tokuya has opened near us, and it's quite an adventure to shop there, because all the packaging is in Japanese. A friend and I came away with a collection of 'treasures' this afternoon - some of my items were dog-related, of course, or I wouldn't be writing about them here, lol. Their website is also a treasure trove - of hilarious English. But who am I to laugh, when I can't speak more than one word of Japanese? Well, maybe two, with awful pronunciation...

Anyway, back to the dog-related goods.

The first one is what I guessed to be plastic spikes to place around seedlings so Penny won't walk on them. Wonderful!

Great packaging - the message is clear. (I think...)
Here they are in position.

Next was the cutest little freezer-pack, just right for keeping Penny's treats cool in summer when I'm using the great little Black Dog treat pouch.

The third is an expanding pole. I guess it's for hanging things in a small space. But it will make a good target stick.

We tried it out in the backyard. The sticks come in lots of lengths. This was the smallest, I think. (Please excuse the terrible dog-handling technique. I can see I'm out of practice. We'd better start doing some targeting once more.)

dogs and sore throats

2011-10-04T13:42:00.004+11:00

I had a sore throat for most of the last week, and one of the ways I dealt with it was to rest for a while each afternoon in bed, in the belief that rest is always helpful in making a good recovery from illness. Penny loved the fact that she was allowed to curl up with me - she's not normally allowed on beds.

It did occur to me to wonder whether Penny might catch my sore throat, but I thought that was not possible. Now that I'm feeling better, I've looked on the Net and, to my surprise, discovered that dogs can catch a sore throat from us humans - but not vice versa. She's looking healthy and happy today, so I assume it didn't happen!

And that's not the only dog-connection to sore throats that I came across. The old name for a severe sore throat was quinsy. And that word came from Greek roots meaning dog collar or dog strangling. More about this at my word blog.

Now, that I can understand! If Penny is walking on lead and spots something irresistibly fascinating, she goes for it, whether or not she's being strangled by her collar and lead. From the gargling sounds I'd say she suffers a temporary quinsy.

It's the same root word that underlies the idea of cynicism.

Martin McKenna and dogs

2011-09-29T19:53:00.005+10:00

Here's a link to the most interesting interview I have ever heard with an animal behaviourist.

Martin McKenna, interviewed by Margaret Throsby, had me in tears as he recounted details of his unusual, harsh upbringing and explained why he is so attuned to the thinking of canines.

The interview is long - an hour - and has interludes of music chosen by Martin. Quite a bit of time is taken up in discussing his own life, also.

But I believe he has a lot to tell us about our dogs. For one thing, now I understand why Penny sits down facing away from us each evening after she has eaten!

At Dogz Online there's a short discussion of dog owners' reaction to reading his book. The general consensus seems to be that he has valuable insights but some of us aren't in a position to apply all his theories.

If you do a search of the Net, there's a lot of information about him, the most reported fact being that he lived with a pack of dogs for some time.

one year after cruciate surgery

2011-09-25T20:15:00.005+10:00

One year ago we were celebrating the fact that Penny had recovered enough from cruciate surgery to walk down a small ramp to the street and sniff around.

How long the recovery seemed to take!

But here we are, twelve months later, having fun once again. For all those people out there whose dogs need surgery, I say, 'There will be light at the end of the tunnel. The time will pass.'

Here's a short clip of Penny running a small agility course yesterday. (And that was after an hour's walk in the country!)

I wouldn't want to see her doing too much of the agility, though. We were told after the surgery she will always have to be careful. Yesterday was the first time she has jumped as high as she does through the tyre. We'll watch her carefully this week to see that she is not limping. And we still do exercises most days to strengthen the muscle in the repaired leg.

the story of Oscar

2011-09-20T12:04:00.006+10:00

With all the publicity lately about the push to bring in a law to protect dogs from cruel treatment in puppy farms - Oscar's Law - I looked around to find why the law is named after Oscar.

Warning - I cried when I read it. But Oscar WAS rescued.

In the report on Oscar, Debra Tranter, his saviour, says that she now realises that many of us can't cope with confronting images of suffering dogs and that we need to have hope that change can happen:

Tranter had been running Prisoners for Profit, an anti-puppy factory campaign that “bombarded people with horrific images”, which she now believes were too confronting.

“With Oscar’s Law, I feel I need to reach ordinary people with dogs, not necessarily dog people. I want it to be positive and empowering,” she says.

“Oscar’s Law aims to abolish puppy factory-farming and the selling of dogs in pet shops, but it’s not about showing negative images all the time and making it seem hopeless,” she explains. Tranter believes success will come from enabling consumers to make informed choices, so people know that if they buy from a pet shop, their money will keep dogs in those sheds.

I don't know Penny's breeder and can only hope we have not supported a puppy farmer. But as far as we know, she came from a suburban home in Melbourne, from a breeder known to our vet. (We bought her from the vet.)

dogs as commodities

2011-09-20T11:09:00.004+10:00

I was speaking yesterday to another dog owner about the horrors of puppy farming. He seemed a little defensive, replying that his dog was a wonderful companion, with a great temperament, even though the dog had come from a pet shop. (For brevity's sake let's call his dog Ben.)

A surprising reaction at first, but on second thoughts I understood where he was coming from. The anti-dog-farming movement needs to get the message out that it's not only the puppies we are concerned about. I said to him, 'Yes, but Ben's mother is possibly suffering agonies as we speak. Ben is sitting here on his comfortable armchair while his mother perhaps lies cold and lonely in a concrete pen, thrown enough food each day to keep her alive, possibly ill but well enough to live until her next litter is delivered.'

I hope I made a difference to his thinking. I didn't realise until I went to the rally last Sunday that there is an issue with legal puppy farms, because of the lack of regulation to protect the 'livestock'. I had thought it was only the illegal puppy farms that were problematic.

In view of the problems here in Victoria, I thought it was timely to get an email from the new vet who is blogging at Fully Vetted (taking over from Dr Patty Khuly). She wrote about the fact that Pet Sellers in Michigan in the US may have to guarantee the health of animals they sell. In her discussion she quoted an article from dvm360

Pet owners in Michigan may soon have the opportunity to “return” sick or diseased animals to their place of purchase if proposed legislation passes.

Senate Bill 547, introduced Aug. 24 and immediately referred to the committee on regulatory reform, would apply only to dogs and cats sold from pet shops, breeders or other places where pets are sold for profit.

According to legislation, pet owners may return an animal for full price, exchange the animal for one of equal value, or be reimbursed for any veterinary expenses as long as they don’t exceed the original purchase price of the animal. If the animal dies, the owner is entitled to a replacement plus reimbursement of veterinary fees, as long as they don’t exceed the original purchase price, or a full refund, according to legislation.

If passed, the law would apply when a veterinarian states in writing that the animal displayed symptoms of a contagious or infectious disease 30 days from purchase and that the disease or illness existed at the time of sale or when a veterinarian states in writing that the dog or cat has died or is sick from a hereditary or congenital defect.

I have mixed feelings about this legislation. Dogs aren't commodities. But perhaps this kind of legislation might bring puppy farmers out from the shadows into the light.

On the news the other night a puppy farmer was interviewed and her attitude to the dogs in her 'care' was horrifying. She does appear for a moment in this Sunrise News clip. (I can't see any way to avoid the advertisement before the clip - sorry.)

more about the Oscar's Law rally

2011-09-18T20:29:00.006+10:00

At the rally on the steps of State Parliament today we listened to a variety of inspiring and interesting speakers, about the horrors of puppy farming.

Then we set off along the street to Treasury Gardens. I think it's important to take to the streets when holding a rally, because in stopping the traffic, or diverting it, we show that as a society we are willing to take time out from normal life to think about an important issue - in this case, the fact that Australia is disgraced every time a dog suffers in the hell of a puppy factory.

When we reached the gardens, there were lots of marquees representing the organisations devoted to the welfare of animals. Great to see so many exist!

I've brought home the hand sign we held at the rally and put it on my letter box. Maybe people passing by our house will wonder what 'Oscar's Law' is. This is what the Oscar's Law petition asks of our political leaders:

To the Legislative assembly of Victoria The petition of the residents of Victoria brings to the attention of the House the hidden industry behind the pet shop window. Puppy factories farm puppies and sell them to pet shops and trade them online. The dogs are often kept in cramped filthy conditions for their entire lives and their behavioural needs are never met. The dogs not only suffer physically but are psychologically traumatised due to confinement and constant breeding, when they are no longer able to breed they are killed and replaced.
The petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Assembly of Victoria support Oscar's Law and abolish puppy factories and ban the sale of factory farmed companion animals from pet shops and online.

On the Dogs Life site I read an overview of the debate about the sale of puppies in pet shops and thought it covered the subject well.

Oscar's Law - ban puppy farms

2011-09-18T19:36:00.008+10:00

When I went to the City today to join in the rally against puppy farms, I left Penny at home. But plenty of others took their dogs.

Sitting in the sunshine, I chatted to the lady next to me about the fact that it's hard to see images of suffering dogs.

But we agreed -and one of the speakers emphasised - that we have to face the awful truth that terrible things happen to dogs so that we can buy cute puppies in pet shops. The rally was urged to make a resolution never to buy a dog from a pet shop.

olympus camera pics of dogs

2011-09-13T19:44:00.007+10:00

My new Olympus camera has an amusing feature. There's a certain setting that automatically takes a photo if it detects a dog's face. It's strange to hold the camera and hear the click as it automatically fires off.

It doesn't seem to be quite sure what exactly constitutes a dog face, though. Some were fine:

But some were not!

We figured the felted object might look a bit dog-like. But wine bottles and doorways?

However...I think the feature might be useful. I just have to figure out how.

to penelopise - or penelopize - with Penny

2011-09-10T14:04:00.004+10:00

I've acquired a new word in my vocabulary.

The Australian spelling is penelopise and the American spelling is penelopize.

It relates to having a way of gaining time when you're putting off something you don't want to do. In the original case, Penelope, the wife of Ulysses, wanted to stave off agreeing to marry any of her pressing suitors, because she hoped her missing husband would come home. (He did.) She said she'd choose someone when she'd finished a tapestry she was working on. Each morning she would pull out the work she'd done the night before.

So, each time life is getting me down with too many stresses, I can penelopise, by simply walking out the door with Penny and setting off to enjoy the neighborhood. We all know that as soon as you come indoors from walking the dog, she's ready for the next one, so it's just like Penelope's tapestry.

Penny's not actually named after Penelope. She's named after the penny coin, because she was such a lovely copper color as a puppy.

If you'd like to read more about this word, I've blogged about it over on my Word Blog.

walking at Yarra Bend on a lovely Spring day

2011-09-08T22:59:00.007+10:00

When I arrived home this afternoon I was told that Penny had gone to Yarra Bend Park with one of her humans, so I jumped in my car to join them.
I parked partway along the path I thought they would take, and had the pleasure of seeing Penny realise I had arrived. Watching her race towards me was pure joy!

After walking on the flat for a while, we headed up a hill, which is good exercise for Penny to strengthen her left rear leg, the one that was operated on for a cruciate tear, almost exactly a year ago.

There were birds perched on a rock half-way up the hill, but they didn't seem to mind us walking towards them, until we got too close.

Walking past one of the eucalypts, we had a lesson in why the Australian bush burns so well. Just look at all those strips of flammable bark hanging down. Eucalypts need to burn to regenerate, and the strips of bark have the effect of allowing a grass fire to run up them and set the foliage on fire. (I'm not quite clear about this process, but I do make a point of clearing away all the hanging bark at my place in the hills.)

By the time we arrived back at the cars, nature had turned on a gorgeous sunset to make our walk complete.

Red Dog

2011-09-07T21:03:00.003+10:00

Penny stayed at home while I went to see the Australian movie 'Red Dog' today.

It was just as enjoyable as I expected. I felt involved in the story and found the setting - the Pilbara - fascinating. However, the extra ingredient was seeing how the dogs performed.

Yes, I said 'dogs'. The film-makers have promoted Koko as the star, but it seems likely there would have been more than one dog involved at some level. For one thing, the story covers more than ten years of Red Dog's life, so I presume they had an older dog in some scenes.Surely the producer wouldn't have had all his eggs in one basket by having only one dog starring in the show, when that dog might become ill or suffer some other misadventure.

On the other hand, this interview with Luke Hura, the trainer, suggests that indeed only one dog played the part.

I suspect the emphasis on this one charismatic dog is part of the marketing strategy, and a clever one at that. An Encore article casts a little light onto this strategy.

On marketing the film, Woss planned for television, press, outdoor and a more guerrilla approach. “Have you seen our screen test with Koko? We had two aims with that, to prove Kriv had a sense of humour and that we could get peerformance from the dog without CGI.” It’s had over 100,000 hits on YouTube – where it’s evident marketing began back on 28 July, 2009...

If “Australian cinema” has become a genre with a audience reach only so far, Woss knew his reach was further. “I always knew there would be a fanatical hardcore group of people who would watch Red Dog and they were called dog-lovers. If we made a good movie they’d come to support us. They may not be the kind of person to go to the movies regularly but they will go and see Red Dog, more than once.”

I think it's easier to market to dog lovers if we think of Koko as the star, rather than an anonymous group of dogs. Whatever the exact details, the dog or dogs make the film.

On the other hand, everyone seems quite comfortable with the idea that different dogs played Lassie.

I do intend to go and see the film again, because I want to try to distance myself a little from the engrossing story and look at the wonderfully detailed behaviors by Red Dog.

It's the best film I've ever seen for celebrating the way dogs freely choose to live with us. Red Dog never wears a collar, never walks on a leash, is never forced to do what humans demand. Oh, except for one funny scene at the vet, which I'd better not spoil for anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet.

He exemplifies the free spirit of the dog.

If you love dogs you must try to see this film.

And if you look at this trailer for the film, you'll notice just near the end that there is another star - Red Cat!

Oh, and here's the above-mentioned 'screen test', which I've posted previously, just in case you missed it. It's wonderful.

remembering those puppy days

2011-09-05T21:04:00.004+10:00

When we go to the mountains for a break, Penny always makes a beeline for her old puppy mat. It's quite a trick to fit onto it.

Of course, once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away (or in our kitchen, to be precise), she used to fit easily.

She does have a big version of the mat, these days.

returning to training

2011-09-02T20:46:00.008+10:00

At last, Cindy, our long time trainer, has restarted her regular sessions! And what have I discovered, after a year away from training? I've discovered that Penny is still clever and I'm still clumsy and uncoordinated. But Penny doesn't care and I sure don't.

Cindy lent me a book called 'The Other End of the Leash', after I told her how much I enjoy the author's blog. I haven't read far into the book yet, but in the early part the author, Patricia McConnell, looks at the ways we humans use our bodies when interacting with our dogs.

So today, on a lovely spring day, after a quiet time in the sun for Penny and hard work in the garden for me,

three of us set out for Yarra Bend Park.

We practised 'come', to get ourselves in the mood for some work, and tried out the idea of leaning slightly away from Penny to avoid crowding into her body space when she arrives. Did I say leaning SLIGHTLY away? I think my directions from behind the camera might have been unclear, lol.

On the other hand, Penny did beautiful 'comes', racing towards her human and sitting precisely in front.

Even though Penny's 'come' is usually good, we thought we'd try the idea of calling her and moving away as she arrived. Patricia McConnell explains the logic of it like this:

The best way to get a dog to come to you is to turn away from him and move in the opposite direction (which is actually "toward you" from the standpoint of the dog)...Dogs want to go the way that you're going, and to a dog that's the way that your face and feet are pointing.

In a way it was silly to be changing our established 'come' command, but it was fun to vary things and see what happened. After all, we're not practising for obedience competitions, we're simply out to have fun and communicate well with Penny. Here's a picture of her arriving in a rush as her human walks off in the opposite direction.

wheelchair for dogs

2011-08-30T20:16:00.003+10:00

I received an email today from Dr. James St. Clair, whose booklet about home therapy after cruciate surgery was a wonderful resource when Penny had her cruciate repair.

He included a link to this YouTube clip showing a wheelchair for dogs with crippled hind legs. I was amazed to see the dog running around, climbing down stairs, and even lying down while still in the apparatus.

dogs, mud and water in the Australian bush

2011-08-28T18:59:00.012+10:00

Last time we went with Cindy's walking group to The Black Spur at Narbethong, it was wet.

Penny got muddy.

And guess what? It was still muddy today. Penny had great fun.

Four wheel drive vehicles have been along the road and have made some great ruts, just right for dogs to walk in, roll in, play in, chase in.

What a thrill it was to see Penny dashing around with the other dogs, given that this time last year she was crippled by a cruciate injury and we were waiting for surgery. I am so grateful to the surgeon, Dr Wing Tip Wong, who repaired her leg.

Here's how Penny looked after her adventures in the mud today.

I tried to convince her to clean up in a gorgeous little mossy creek, but to no avail. She sniffed around but I couldn't communicate the idea of laying herself down in the trickle of water. I'll have to brush up on my dog-speak!

She won't need too much dinner tonight, because along the way she dined on some delicious poo from a wombat. The great thing about being a a dog, of course, is that if your human is not quick, you get to not only eat great stuff like that in the Australian bush, but you also get to roll in it.

The idea is to roll so fast that even a camera can't catch the action, let alone a slow old human.

You might be wondering whether I let her back into the car after all this fun. Yes, I was kind to her, and didn't make her walk the eighty kilometres home. But we did stop for a long, long swim in a creek at Healesville.

dogs and asparagus

2011-08-16T20:16:00.004+10:00

It's strange, but fortunate, that Penny doesn't eat the vegetables and fruit in our garden, even though she likes the occasional vegetable offcut in the kitchen. (Oh, she has taken to eating a couple of the fallen olives lately, but luckily they're in the front garden where she's not allowed, so she only gets to snatch one if she's out the front with us welcoming visitors.)

I'm growing lots of baby asparagus plants from seed and I know I'll have to wait about four more years before I can harvest them, but I got to wondering whether it would safe for Penny to nibble on them. I found some sites that say it is safe to feed asparagus. However, I've posted a question on Dr Renee's Roar Kingdom blog, because I'd like to confirm the information with a local vet.

One of the sites mentions the possibility that the dog's faeces might become green, and I'm sure glad to know that in advance, because we had a scare one time when Penny ate black dog biscuits and her poo turned blue.

Another site warns of 'bad odors in their dog’s gas or urine'.

Okay, we'll be prepared, when our asparagus comes up nice and lush - in three or four years!

On my other blog, I'm writing about the history of asparagus, and, guess what? It makes some human's urine smell stinky, also.

But the funny thing is that even though for more than two and half thousand years people have been writing about growing, cooking and eating this plant, no one ever wrote anything about this stinky effect until the seventeenth century.

the singing dog

2011-08-05T20:55:00.001+10:00

I know this YouTube clip is not new, but it's new to me! I was sent the link today.

I love it.

Red Dog the movie is coming!

2011-08-03T22:23:00.006+10:00

At last the new Australian movie, Red Dog, is coming to our screens! And Margaret and David gave it a great review. It's based on a book by Louis de Bernieres - the book retells the mythology that exists around a real dog who lived in the Pilbara.

Luke Hura, who trained Koko, the canine star, used to train at the Lilydale Showgrounds, where Penny trained with Cindy, and we've taken a great interest in hearing about the search for the right star and the time spent preparing him for this role - about two years, I think. Margaret and David in their review of the film said the dog was found here in Victoria, even though the film is set in Western Australia.

Here's Koko's casting 'interview'. It's great!

It seems that Koko was living it up in a posh hotel in Sydney the night before the premiere.

I wonder what the future holds for Koko.

is pet ownership actually good for our health?

2011-08-03T18:26:00.002+10:00

I came across an article today about a psychologist who thinks we should look carefully at claims that pet ownership is universally good for us.

It's generally accepted that it is, but according to Harold Herzog, Professor of Psychology at the Western Carolina University, we need to investigate this claim in more scientifically rigorous ways. He says that previous reports

often suffer from methodological problems, such as small, homogeneous samples, lack of appropriate control groups, and reliance on self-report to measure participants' health and well-being.

I feel that having Penny live with us has been good for everyone in our household, but I certainly don't know any way to prove that, because I don't know how things would have been if we had not brought her home. Somewhere on the Net, as I browsed yesterday, I saw a piece about introducing a new dog into the household, and it made the interesting point that once a dog comes into the home we cease to be individuals and become a de facto 'pack'. I think that's a good thing.

a new toy to make Penny think

2011-08-01T19:51:00.004+10:00

I bought a new toy recently, despite my decision to stop buying unnecessary 'stuff' for Penny. (But I can forgive myself for this broken resolution, because someone has to spend money and keep the economy ticking over.)

It's called 'dogit' Mind Games and on the manufacturer's site there's the cutest video clip of a puppy playing with it. I think it would be great for a puppy, but I must admit Penny solved it in seconds.

However, I think it's a well-designed toy. It's made of sturdy plastic and sticks to the floor with suction cups, so that it avoids the problem of the Nina Ottosson toys of the whole thing moving around the floor as the dog investigates. (But I LOVE the Nina Ottosson toys in general and find them more challenging than this one.)

This game involves three different types of activity and here we are trying the first one, in which she simply has to pick up the green pieces to find the food under them:

Penny liked finding the treats, but it was fairly straightforward. So we tried the next activity:

And then I set the toy up for the next type of game:

And Penny tried it.

Overall, I'd say it's a good game.

not complaining about all the recent rain

2011-07-27T18:26:00.007+10:00

No, I will never again complain about too much rain, after all the years of drought we've had.

But...

it sure has rained a lot recently. It's got to the stage where it's hard for a somewhat older dog walker to keep her footing. Most of the best places around here are along the Yarra River, or along local creeks, because that's where the public open land is, and they are swampy and muddy places.

But great for a dog who has part-poodle heritage. (I was quite surprised to realise the word "poodle' is a derived from the word 'puddle' and that poodles are water dogs.)

Of course, having wandered through every puddle as I minced around the edges, Penny had a delightful layer of mud up to her belly.( I thought it would involve a third dunk in the bath for her - two recently - but luckily it brushed out easily later at home.)

It rained most of the time we were out, and the clouds threatened even heavier rain.

So, of course, we and one other lone woman with dog were the only silly billies tramping through the slush. But wait! As we walked along the edge of the golf course, what did we see? The other type of all-weather people - golfers.

We headed back to the car past the tennis courts, and took note of the sign on the gate that should stop any complacency about the current rain. After so long without rain it will take more than one wet season to restore nature's balance.

dogs, humans and emotions

2011-07-24T22:17:00.009+10:00

I know that Penny can have different moods.

According to Professor Mark Bekoff, formerly of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, most people agree that dogs experience emotion. He says:

I often begin my lectures with the question: “Is there anyone in this audience who thinks that dogs don’t have feelings—that they don’t experience joy and sadness?” I’ve never had an enthusiastic response to this question, even in scientific gatherings, although on occasion a hand or two goes up slowly, usually halfway, as the person glances around to see if anyone is watching. But if I ask, “How many of you believe that dogs have feelings?” then almost every hand waves wildly and people smile and nod in vigorous agreement.

Here are a few pictures of times when I felt sure I knew what Penny was feeling:

FEELING SICK AND UNHAPPY

ANNOYED THAT A STRANGE DOG WAS IN OUR HOUSE. (SHE HAD MOVED INTO THE BOX I'D PREPARED FOR HIM AND WASN'T BUDGING)

HAPPY

ENGROSSED IN FOLLOWING A SCENT

CONFUSED ABOUT HER UNMANAGEABLE LEG, SORE AND UNHAPPY

I came across an article on the Animals Australia page by Professor Bekoff and found it interesting. I thought I would quote a few parts of the article:

In scientific research there are always surprises. Just when we think we’ve seen it all, new scientific data appear that force us to rethink what we know and to revise our stereotypes. For example, spindle cells, which were long thought to exist only in humans and other great apes, have recently been discovered in humpback whales, fin whales, killer whales and sperm whales in the same area of their brains as spindle cells in human brains. This brain region is linked with social organization, empathy and intuition about the feelings of others, as well as rapid gut reactions. Spindle cells are important in processing emotions. It’s likely that if we seek the presence of spindle cells in other animals we will find them.

When I first began my studies centering on the question, “What does it feel like to be a dog or a wolf?” researchers were almost all skeptics who spent their time wondering if dogs, cats, chimpanzees and other animals felt anything. Since feelings don’t fit under a microscope, these scientists usually didn’t find any—and as I like to say, I’m glad I wasn’t their dog! ...

Part of the challenge in understanding the behavior of a species is that they look like us for a reason. That’s not projecting human values. That’s primatizing the generalities that we share with them.” [Quote from Professor Robert Sapolsky, a world-renowned ethologist and neuroscientist and author of A Primate’s Memoir] No matter what we call it, researchers agree that animals and humans share many traits, including emotions. Thus, we’re not inserting something human into animals, but we’re identifying commonalities and then using human language to communicate what we observe. Being anthropomorphic is doing what’s natural and necessary to understand animal emotions...

What we have since learned about animal emotions and empathy fits in well with what we know about the lifestyle of different species—how complex their social interactions and social networks are. Emotions, empathy, and knowing right from wrong are keys to survival, without which animals—both human and nonhuman—would perish. That’s how important they are. The borders between “them” (animals) and “us” are murky and permeable.

Professor Bekoff was speaking in relation to the use of animals in science, but I think his words have an important truth for us as dog owners. I'll finish with one last quote:

Our relationship with other animals is a complex, ambiguous, challenging and frustrating affair, and we must continually reassess how we should interact with our nonhuman kin.

MARC BEKOFF has published a book called The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy—and Why They Matter (New World Library, California, 2007).

the dangers of commercial pet foods in Australia

2011-07-23T19:11:00.003+10:00

When Penny was eating a commercial dry food as part of a hypo-allergenic diet to deal with skin issues, I was unhappy, because I prefer not to feed her that kind of food. I can't see that a monotonous diet of one product could possible be healthy. I was relieved when we went to a skin specialist who told us to discontinue the diet.

Recently there has been a report in a newspaper in Queensland, raising serious doubts about the levels of sulphur dioxide in some commercial pet meat products. I sometimes buy these sorts of products, but avoid the ones where there is an extremely long use-by date, because I'm wary of the effects of preservatives on Penny's health.

We do buy 4Legs products, because they say they don't use any preservatives. It was a 4Legs email that sent me the link to the newspaper article, so I guess they are wanting to reassure pet owners that their product is not involved in this problem. On their site they have this to say about pets fed exclusively on pet mince, pet meat or food rolls.

The Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) has warned that pets fed exclusively with pet mince, pet meat or food rolls that are high in preservatives may suffer fatal health problems. This is because these products often contain high levels of sulphur dioxide. Known as Preservative 220 – 228, sulphur can inactivate the vitamin thiamine (Vitamin B1), which is vital for brain development. Degeneration of brain function can quickly lead to paralysis, seizures and death.

In one way this is scary stuff, but on the other hand I don't think anyone would feed their dog exclusively on these products. I think it's more likely that an owner might choose one dry food product - which I think is equally questionable, as I said at the start of this post.

a great dog training post

2011-07-23T18:48:00.003+10:00

Jaana, the winner of Honey's Dancing With the Doggy Stars competition, is presenting a series of posts about her training methods. I recommend that you head over there for a look if you're at all interested in dog training.

I must admit there's such a lot in the latest post that I have saved it to my computer so I can re-read it at my leisure.

mother dogs teaching their young how to behave

2011-07-20T20:17:00.002+10:00

Further to my last post about the book by Professor John Bradshaw, I was particularly interested to read the latest post by Sue, who writes The Portuguese Water Blog.

She relates some stories about a mother dog deliberately teaching her pups to play with certain toys and sticks. I found it interesting, given that Professor Bradshaw says we need to look at how dogs behave in packs and stop thinking they behave as wolves do. The pups in Sue's story are four years old and still living with their mother, so I think it's a most interesting blog.

do dogs relate to humans more than to other dogs?

2011-07-19T19:57:00.006+10:00

Slavenka has posted recently about a book by Professor John Bradshaw, called In Defence of Dogs.

I followed the link in her post and read an article at guardian.co.uk I agree with everything I read.

For instance, I have observed that Penny:
will sometimes sniff other dogs but doesn't like being sniffed;
likes humans more than she likes dogs;
is concerned that the 'pack' stay together on a walk;
is relaxed about her humans leaving the house because she trusts, from experience, that they will return;
Is not concerned about dominance;
loves to win a tug of war game but does not change her behavior because she has won.

Some aspects of the short article were new to me:

He says:

"People have been studying American timber wolves because the European wolf is virtually extinct. And the American timber wolf is not related at all closely to the ancestry of the domestic dog."

Bradshaw's hypothesis is that domestic dogs were descended from more sociable wolves but that "whatever the ancestor of the dog was like, we don't have it today". The wolves alive now are unreliable specimens, necessarily rough diamonds, who have been able to "survive the onslaught we have given them". And here is the rub: new research – including work with Indian village dogs – shows that dogs "do not set up wolf-type packs. They don't organise themselves in the way wolves do"

And:

He writes about love (science plays safe and calls it "attachment") but in answer to the question: does your dog love you? replies: 'Of course!" The positive hormone, oxytocin, is triggered by love: "Dogs experience a surge of oxytocin during friendly interactions with people."

I think I will have to buy this book and read it!

native wildlife and dogs in Lorne

2011-07-16T11:26:00.001+10:00

When I was in Lorne recently, I went for a walk along the street that parallels the main beach street, and I was concerned to see an off-lead dog wandering across the road in front of me. In a strange town you're never sure whether to try to catch a loose dog, because it might be the local custom to let dogs roam more freely than they do in the big cities. However, I bent down to see if it had a collar, and did a double take...

Frantically I tried to unzip the pocket of my raincoat - yes, it was raining - to reach for my camera. And this is what I managed to get, as the 'dog' scurried away from me:

Overseas readers might think it's an everyday occurrence to see a koala in Australia, but let me assure you, it is not! Not for city dwellers like me, anyway. And most of us live in cities. Here's a quote from Encyclopedia of the Nations:

Australia's population is mostly urbanized, with about 88 percent of its people living in an urban area. Sydney alone has over 20 percent of the country's people.

Once the koala was in the tree it relaxed and I had all the time in the world to photograph it.

It eventually got a bit tired of me staring and staring at it, and turned its head away.

I wonder how well dogs and koalas co-exist in Lorne? I did notice the house beside the tree had a notice saying 'beware of the dog'. I suppose it might be like our own garden, where Penny goes out each evening to see if she can find any ring-tailed possums on the ground. They're always high in the tree, to her great frustration and my great relief.

Tennyson's poem about the sea

2011-07-15T22:41:00.003+10:00

When I wasn't taking pictures of dogs at Lorne - missing Penny and thinking how much she would have liked to be there - I was photographing the cliffs and the rocky outcrops.

The coast along The Great Ocean Road is a photographer's paradise!

The rocky part of the shore made me think of the sad poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson that a long-ago teacher made me memorise. (I'm glad to have had such a tough-loving teacher!) It's called Break, Break, Break.

visiting Lorne without Penny

2011-07-15T20:43:00.005+10:00

I've been to Lorne for a few days, leaving Penny at home with her other humans. I had a great time there, and saw lots of dogs enjoying this magnificent beach, which is located along The Great Ocean Road.

There were signs at each town saying dogs had to be on lead within the township, but I saw many dogs romping on the beaches along the coast, so I think it must be okay to play on the beach in winter. I had a look at the Cheeky Dog site, and it certainly suggests that this area is a great place to take dogs, so perhaps Penny will come with me on my next visit.

Most of the dogs I saw were racing around on the sand, and a few were in the water, near the edge, but there were signs around that even the clumps of seaweed had interested at least one canine.

I'm fairly certain dogs wouldn't be allowed on the beach in the middle of the day in summer, when there would be more people around than in this photo.

But on the other hand I wouldn't want to be walking with Penny in the heat of a summer's day anyway!

We met a couple of people with a most gorgeous blue staffy, and they said they were staying at Separation Creek, in dog-friendly accommodation called Surf Shack. From the look of the website, it seems lovely indeed.

positive thinking and dog training

2011-07-10T20:29:00.001+10:00

Jaana, in Estonia, the winner of Honey's Dancing With the Doggy Stars competition, has begun writing about her training methods. I read with interest her post about the need for the human partner to think positively.

I've learned in the past that if I get stressed about what I want Penny to learn, it goes badly. My reason for trick training with Penny is to give her a chance to use her intelligence and to have fun, so I agree with what Jaana has said.

a multi-lingual dog toy

2011-07-08T21:06:00.007+10:00

Penny has been missing one of her humans, who was travelling in France. But now she's back and Penny's happy to have the pack all together.

You can read about the travels of this human on her own blog, if you wish.

No humans received a gift on her return, but the important family member did. Here's the toy for Penny.

Penny liked it and settled down to enjoy it, and perhaps, clean her teeth on it.

And we could have the pleasure of practising our language skills by trying to read the label!

you never know what's around the corner when walking your dog

2011-07-07T19:01:00.002+10:00

We often walk in Yarra Bend Park, because it's an interesting place for both dogs and humans, and has been organised to be very dog-friendly.

A couple of days ago we explored a little further and found the place is even more amazing than we had realised. We crossed a bridge, turned a corner, and found a huge new area.

This photo is taken from our usual side, looking across the creek (in the dip) at the large grassy open spaces of the new area.

Not only were there open places to run, and hills to climb and descend

but also clumps of vegetation with winding paths to explore.

We found ourselves in an area bounded by houses, and a fellow dog walker told us it's a good area to walk in the evening, because the street lighting illuminates the part near the street.

We did have to walk alongside a busy road to get back to our starting point, but that's fine as long as we're careful. And of course, Penny is on lead there.

a letter for Penny

2011-07-04T21:35:00.005+10:00

Great excitement! Penny had mail today.

A letter from Honey the Great Dane.

And what was in it?

It appeared to be a sheet of paper. And something else.

Thanks, Honey! Thanks for arranging the wonderful Dancing With the Doggy Stars, and thanks for the certificate and prize!

a great day for dogs in Victoria

2011-07-01T20:15:00.003+10:00

Today in The Age newspaper I read that animals here in Victorian pounds or shelters do not have to be killed if they are still in the institution after 28 days. Thank goodness! The article says they will have as much time as necessary to find homes.

The Victorian government, after consultation with major stakeholders and with the public, has ruled not only to remove the 28-day limit, but also that:

Animals can be fostered for a variety of reasons, such as for veterinary or behavioural rehabilitation, if they are juveniles, or if they require short term care to provide respite from the pound or shelter environment. Animals can be fostered for any time period, as long as it is done in accordance with the written foster care agreement.

Severely injured or unweaned animals will no longer be automatically killed on admission. (I didn't know about that rule!)

Puppies and kittens must be inspected more frequently than older animals.

And:

A new enrichment, exercise and socialisation section offers guidance on improving the environment and welfare of shelter animals, particularly those housed in the long term. This includes the ability, under certain circumstances, to exercise dogs off premises, or to be socialised in groups.

The government announcement sure is welcome!

bushwalking with dogs at Narbethong

2011-06-29T03:31:00.000+10:00

Last Sunday Penny and I went to Narbethong to walk in the bush with Cindy's dog group.

We set off from The Black Spur Inn, a historic building that survived the terrible 2009 bushfires and acted as a relief centre fot the region in the time after the fires.

It was wonderful to see how the bush is regenerating after the fires. The greenery was a sign of hope, and the blackened trunks a reminder of the helplessness of humanity in the face of nature's overwhelming power.

There's been lots of welcome, life-giving rain over the last few months. Which, of course, means there are some lovely puddles (lovely, depending on your point of view, of course.)

What dog could resist such a great puddle? Certainly not Penny.

And there was a great stick in one of the puddles.

Penny had a bath when we got home!

dogs, logic, jokes, public transport and bars

2011-06-28T12:10:00.009+10:00

Honey's human, Hsin-Yi, commented on my last post about dogs on public transport. She remarked that service dogs are allowed on all forms of public transport.

Which reminded me of a joke I read recently. I think I have finally got a sort of understanding of formal logic, after reading a short, funny book called You've Got to Be Kidding; How Jokes Can Help You Think. I'd really recommend this book as an enjoyable introduction to critical thinking. I laughed all the way through and drove my family mad constantly telling them jokes and explaining the logic point behind them.

Anyway...

the joke was about a bar, but it could apply to public transport.

A guy goes into a bar with a German shepherd dog and sits down at the counter. The bartender says, "You can't bring that German shepherd in here! Dogs ain't allowed!" The guy replies, "But this is a Seeing Eye dog." The bartender says, "Well, in that case, I guess it can stay." After awhile the guy and the German shepherd get up to leave. As they are heading out the door, another guy with a Chihuahua is coming in, and the first guy says, "The bartender won't like you bringing a dog in here, but if you tell him it's a Seeing Eye dog, maybe he'll let you stay." The second guy looks dubiously at his tiny Chihuahua, thinks a few seconds, thanks the guy, and goes in. The bartender says, "Hey! You can't bring that chihuahua in here!" The man stares straight ahead and exclaims, "What! They sold me a Chihuahua?!"

And you may be wondering what you could learn about critical thinking from this joke...Well, you'll have to buy the book.

life with a dog but no car

2011-06-27T19:32:00.005+10:00

I've been reading about the efforts in Europe to persuade people to abandon their cars and move around on foot or by bicycle. I'm all in favor of this, as I worry that our present use of private transport is unsustainable.

But I'd like to know how those governments are planning for people to travel with their dogs.

In Melbourne, for instance, we are allowed to take dogs on trains, but not on trams, buses or country trains (unless they are small enough to be carried in a container). The dogs are supposed to be muzzled, but I've never seen that happen.

Today I went to the Royal Botanic Gardens, to take photographs and meet fellow enthusiasts. I left Penny at home, but I saw quite a few dogs there. So I thought perhaps I'd go there another time, by train.

And according to the signs, dogs are welcome, as long as they are on lead. There was even a dog drinking bowl at the outside tables of the cafe. There was no water in it, though, and the cheeky mynahs seemed to think the bowl belonged to them.

The gardens are extensive and beautiful. I'm sure Penny would enjoy sniffing around these palms, for instance.

At least twice a week, if not many times more, I put Penny in the car and head off to a walking spot some distance from our house.

But should we all be conserving fuel by only walking around our own localities?

did humans breed into dogs the desire to bark?

2011-06-26T04:33:00.003+10:00

Slavenka has a link to an interesting article about the possible evolution of barking in dogs.

In part, the article quotes Eugene Morton, a zoologist and animal communication expert at the National Zoo, [I'm not sure which zoo that is]:

“Barks are used by juvenile wolves, by pups. It’s neotenic — something derived from a juvenile stage, and kept in adults. That’s probably what we selected for,” said Morton. “We don’t want dogs who are dominant over us. The bark might go along with that breeding for juvenile behavior. Or it could have come with something else we selected, such as a lack of aggression.”

That reminds me of an amusing idea I once heard, that dogs are wolves that never really grow up, and we like playing with them, because we are apes that also never grow up! Whenever Penny and I are running around the house playing keepings-off with a soft toy, I think of it, lol.

great new veterinary blog

2011-06-24T22:07:00.005+10:00

I've been following the new veterinary blog by Dr Renee O'Duhring. It's great to read her take on animal health, because she approaches it from a proactive direction - ie, keep your dog healthy rather than try to fix up problems after they occur.

She has written a post about 'the physical and mental benefits of providing your pet with a natural diet. '

I was interested to read it, because she discusses the question of whether dogs are purely carnivores or whether they do well with some plant matter in their diet. Penny definitely likes some vegetable matter in her diet and will scavenge it for herself if we don't include it - grass, horse poo, possum poo, you name it - she's dining on it when left to her own devices.

I asked Dr Renee a question that I've been trying to research on the Net and in the Yahoo groups, without any luck, and received a most interesting and informative reply.

Here's the comment I put on her post:

Dr Renee, thanks for this great post! I try to feed a varied and natural diet, but sometimes I start to worry that I'm not doing enough. It's hard to resist the blandishments of the big pet food company [companies], whose advertising is in my face every time I enter a pet food shop. (Though I do mostly feed things I buy on special at supermarket meat departments, or through my own butcher, or plant-based ingredients that are similar to what we eat ourselves.

I'd love to ask you something I can't find any information on. I asked at one of the Yahoo Groups I am a member of - won't name it, as I'm disappointed and angry about the only response I got, which was that my question was inappropriate, because I should only feed meat, as this is the only "species appropriate food". Not true, as you have noted, given that in a natural environment, dogs will scavenge some plant matter.

My question is this: I grow yakon, which is a very different plant food, in that it has inulin in it (a great food for human diabetics, might be interesting to know if it would be useful for diabetic dogs...). My dog, Penny, LOVES it, and I occasionally give her tiny scraps.

Do you know of any studies that look at the effect of inulin on dogs?

And if you can give me some advice, wuld it be okay to post your reply on my own website? (Fine if you prefer not, of course.)

And here's the reply, which she said was fine to post here:

Hi Parlance. Interesting question about yakon, and funny timing as I have been experimenting with it myself! There is one study I have come across in the Cambridge journals on the effect of oligofructose (which is the carbohydrate in yakon) in companion animal diets, as well as a few on PubMed. One study showed that inulin "may favourably alter the composition of the colonic bacteria", which is one of its functions as a prebiotic. There is certainly nothing suggesting yakon would be harmful included in the canine diet (in moderation). Some pet foods include chicory root as a source of inulin so it seems that pets do benefit from it. Read more about that here: www.dogfoodproject.com
Not sure whether it would be helpful for a diabetic pet or not, as pet's nutritional requirements are very different from humans. Hope that helps, and glad to hear Penny enjoys foraging for all things delightful!

I'll certainly continue to follow Dr Renee's blog.
.
.

Loukanikos and the Greek protests

2011-06-22T12:11:00.003+10:00

I've read that Loukanikos ('sausage'), the political dog, is out on the streets again with the Greek people protesting about their politicians' mismanagement of the economy.

The Australian recently led an article with a mention of Loukanikos.

A veteran protester, Loukanikos, dared to show his face among rioters wearing balaclavas in December 2008. He dodged tear gas last year and he faced down riot police last week.

But Loukanikos is an unlikely mascot for the violent uprising. For "Sausage" - as his name translates - is a furry stray dog. This underdog has come to symbolise a struggle threatening to bring down the euro.

However...

I looked at old footage of Loukanikos on the streets, and the last still photo is interesting. How come he has tags on his collar if he's a stray?

DWTDS and Heide Museum of Modern Art

2011-06-19T22:22:00.009+10:00

Penny had a quiet day today, while I sat at the computer looking at the THIRTY-ONE entries for Honey's dancing competition - Dancing With The Doggy Stars or DWTDS.

However, there was still time enough for a walk, of course. I couldn't decide which of the many lovely places to visit, so I thought I'd just head off towards the Yarra and see what nice spot we came across. And we got lucky! I headed down into Banksia Park, thinking we would have to walk on lead, and noticed a sign pointing to a 'dog friendly' area at the rear.

It was quite small, but beautifully designed, with one looping path, strong fences all around, and clumps of undergrowth to break it up into smaller areas so the dogs wouldn't have to be all in one place.

It even had a special entry with double gates, like a kind of 'air lock', to protect the dogs from the cars in the car-park,

and drinking bowls with taps.

After we'd walked around for about thirty minutes, I gave in to Penny's wishes - she had headed to the gate each time we passed it. I thought she must be tired. However, once I put her on lead she seemed to get a fresh lease of life and we headed off to explore, even though it was getting dark.

To my surprise I discovered we were just behind the Heide Museum of Modern Art and dogs were allowed into the gardens.

We wandered around, Penny using her nose to explore, and I using my eyes to enjoy the massive sculptures, and then we even went into the kitchen garden.

By this time it was quite dark, which by the way explains the terrible quality of the photos. Also, I only had my phone. Next time I'll take my camera. We will definitely be exploring this spot again.

a different kind of dancing

2011-06-11T22:56:00.001+10:00

If you want to feel good, go over to Sparky's blog and watch him dance.

how dogs drink

2011-06-09T20:51:00.004+10:00

A couple of weeks ago PhysOrg.com had a post about how dogs drink. It seems they use the same technique that cats do, and it's quite a complex action. There's a clip showing a slow motion x-ray view of a dog drinking.

The description of the action says the dog creates a column of water from the dish, and then closes her mouth, trapping the water. I think it's more clearly visible in this slow motion video. When I saw this clip, some years ago, I thought there was a kind of vacuum, but now I do see how the dog traps water. It appears that it takes three laps before any of the water reaches the throat.

In this clip we see another dog drink, but I also enjoyed the human trying to drink like a dog!

In this one you can clearly see the column of water rising to the dog's mouth.

dogs and grass eating

2011-06-08T22:50:00.003+10:00

Many's the time Penny takes herself outside to eat grass. Sometimes it's plain that she isn't feeling well, and is using the grass to clear her bowels (the folded leaves come out the other end looking just the same as they went in!). Other times she eats grass and vomits it up, presumably for a similar reason.

But sometimes she just eats it for no apparent reason. I've posted about this once or twice. Or three times, to be exact.

So it's interesting to read a post at Green Kingdom - at last, a blog by an Australian vet, and a holistic one at that! - about the value of greens in a dog's diet. In part she says:

That proves how great grass is at cleansing and detoxifying!! Sprouts, leafy greens, herbs like parsley or dandelion leaf, grasses like wheatgrass or the easily accessible couch grass (also known as 'dog grass'!), and seaweeds like chlorella, spirulina and kelp are all very beneficial in the diet of your pet.

Wow! Couch grass! We have that. We have it all over the place - growing through the raspberry bushes, twining through the nasturtiums, weaving its way underground to emerge between the chives...

We have it everywhere! Lucky Penny.

we over-vaccinate dogs in Australia

2011-06-08T22:42:00.003+10:00

Recently I looked on the site of the Australian Veterinary Association for information about the optimum vaccination timetable for dogs. I've read many times that it is no longer considered necessary to vaccinate dogs every year, so it was great to see the recommendations of the AVA.

And I've noticed a similarly informative page at Roar Kingdom, the site of Dr Renée O’Duhring, a holistic veterinarian and Michelle Southall, a veterinary nurse.

Penny's working for The Man

2011-06-06T22:58:00.003+10:00

Well, it was the Big Moment in our kitchen tonight. Due to the fact that our technical help - ie the only person who maybe could press the remote on the iPod and hold a camera steady at the same time - would be unavailable for the next week or so, we realised we'd better get our entry in to Honey's dancing competition.

Penny entered into the spirit of things, soldiering on through myriad practices and dress rehearsals - actually, totally chaotic attempts at the routine - until we came up with this final version.

I'd be the last to admit that Penny added in some moves of her own as we went along, but I guess perceptive viewers might work that out, so I'll come clean. And you might also notice her casting longing glances at the BIG BISCUIT on the kitchen bench, the intended reward for her hard work.

And yes, she did get the biscuit.

Brodie Bodie inspires us to practise our new trick

2011-06-05T21:56:00.004+10:00

Honey has posted a YouTube clip of ~~Brodie~~ Bodie the Border Terrier doing a doggy dancing routine based on Happy Feet. And Penny and I are thrilled to see that just at one minute and fifteen seconds into it he does the trick Penny and I have been trying out. Inspiration to keep practising!

And the other thing that's so great about the routine is seeing how effective and striking a simple costume can be. I love the outfit 'Mumble the Penguin' is wearing. And - the idea of using flipper on her feet makes the whole thing come alive.

Penny's dancing routine is sort of almost ready

2011-06-02T20:57:00.004+10:00

Well, the fun continues in our kitchen, thanks to Honey's idea for a no-stress doggy dancing competition.

To be quite honest, the competition part of it isn't the attraction for us - rather, it's the fun.

And as you'll see in this sneak preview of a bit of our routine, it's all about laughing and enjoying ourselves together. I think Penny's wagging tail speaks for itself.

terrible suffering of animals exported live from Australia to Indonesia

2011-05-31T23:56:00.002+10:00

I couldn't bring myself to watch the Four Corners expose last night about the ghastly, horrific suffering of the cattle who are exported to Indonesia from Australia, but a friend who forced herself to endure the terrible footage told me about what she saw.

How can Australians let this terrible business continue? I'm a meat eater, and so is Penny, but we try as much as possible to source meat that comes from animals who had a reasonable life and a humane death.

We have to raise our voices and stop this torture of living creatures!

I can't look at the footage, but even the things written in this article are too terrible to think about.

practising for Honey's doggy dancing competition

2011-05-31T23:18:00.008+10:00

Well, Honey's competition has inspired us to get back to basics and resume having fun with doggy dancing. For a long time after Penny's operation on her cruciate ligament I've been rather nervous about trying out too many moves, because I'm scared of injuring the knee. But it's such fun dancing in the kitchen that I got brave tonight and tried out old familiar moves. Tomorrow will be 'crunch time' when we see whether she is limping.

I dragged out the great video I bought when I attended a Richard Curtis seminar last year - oh, was it last year? Maybe it was the year before, now that I think about it. Last year is a black hole of depression about Penny's increasingly sore knee and then the long, slow recovery. Okay, maybe it was 2009...

No, just checked back and it was April 2010.

Anyway, I sat down and watched it and decided to build on the old reversing trick she knows quite well. (Richard Curtis calls it 'verse'.) We're going to try to conquer a new move where she circles backwards around me. If we get super sophisticated, I'll try turning in the opposite direction as she does it. You can see him doing it in the beginning of this routine.

I'm not thinking we could incorporate this in her routine for Honey's competition, but I thought it would be fun to try it anyway. (Our so-called 'routine', by the way, is pretty chaotic so far, but we're having fun, and I know that's the point of this competition!)

Here we are, back at work... or should I say, back having fun?

This is only the first part of the circling move. We'll stick with this part of it until it's definitely part of her repertoire, then maybe we'll try the next part of the move.

NOTE: My sister just looked at this post and told me that in the Richard Curtis routine the dog is circling forwards, and in the move I'm trying to learn with Penny, she will circle ~~forwards~~ backwards.

how will we feed protein to our dogs in the future?

2011-05-25T19:55:00.006+10:00

Twice this week I've heard about 'test-tube meat' but I can't recall which radio program said that in the Netherlands they've grown pork in a test-tube. I found an old link here. However, I think on the program this week the speaker said that one problem with the experiment is that the cells, as they grow, start to differentiate, to specialise, so that the product is not just muscle meat. (I'm not sure about that, though.)

It is the second mention of the topic, though, that has me writing this post. One of the most informative bloggers around is the US vet, Dr. Patty Khuly, who has written a discussion of the ways in which we might find protein to feed our pets in the future. She looks at the possibility of feeding our animals laboratory-raised meat, or insects, in part referring to a story on npr about in vitro meat.

I think the idea of lab-raised meat is somewhat repulsive, but not half as much as I find it repulsive to think of the cruel way in which we humans treat animals as 'things' and raise them in ghastly factory-farms. If we could create artificial meat in a petri-dish (a GIANT one, lol), perhaps it would be the end of our cruelty to food-animals.

But might it also be the end of those species? Would creatures like cows, chickens or geese, for instance, survive into the future if we stopped farming them? Perhaps it would be another one of those mass extinctions that have dotted history.

If our dogs ate insects or artificial meat, I wonder how they would get the calcium they need? I like feeding Penny meaty bones on occasion, not just to clean her teeth, but to add calcium to her diet. (I'm not very well-informed about all this, so maybe I've got it wrong.)

It's an interesting topic, at any rate. And I think it's a conversation we'll be having over the next decade or so, because it's obvious there just isn't going to be enough protein to feed humanity in the near future, let alone other species.

blogging about dog friendly travel

2011-05-23T21:46:00.000+10:00

Two Pitties has come up with what I think is a lovely idea - that we should post about our own cities, including things travellers could do if they had a dog with them.

She lives in Chicago, a city that I once visited and loved. I was only there for a few days, but I fell in love with the magnificent buildings. And I saw something I've always wanted to see - fireflies!

Of course, I didn't have Penny with me - in fact, that was before Penny came into my life and I realised I could be just as happy walking in a park with her as travelling the world.

the aqueduct walk at Warburton

2011-05-21T18:01:00.000+10:00

Many's the time Penny and her humans have walked the lovely Aqueduct Walk at Warburton, but usually we start at the top of Yuonga Road and head back towards Melbourne.

However, there is another section available for walking these days, the section that heads towards O'Shannassy Reservoir. Like the rest of the Trail, it's flat and well-kept.

One thing I love about it is that in some places you are in a typical section of rainforest, with magnificent treeferns,

but there are also sections of pine forest where you would swear you were in Europe - except for the native plants scattered beneath the tall trunks.

the value of microchipping your dog

2011-05-20T19:04:00.007+10:00

Today Penny and I drove to Blackburn to walk at Gardiner's Creek. As we travelled along busy Elgar Road, to my dismay I saw a puppy running alongside the traffic, trailing its lead. I couldn't leave it, obviously lost and frightened as it was, so I parked in a side street - which, fortuitously turned out to be a dead-end court - and left Penny in the car while I followed the dog.

It was panicky and wouldn't let me close, but I stayed between it and the busy road, and eventually herded it into the yard of a house at the top of the street. Calling out to let the homeowner know I was on the property, I followed it. A lady came out and we realised it was in a corner of the yard with no way out except past me. The poor creature allowed me to come close enough to grab the lead.

The lady told me she'd seen the dog around a couple of days previously. Thinking that it might be local, I called in at a nearby vet and told them I had a lost dog in my car. (Amazingly, Penny, who can be quite unfriendly when I arrive with lost dogs, sat quietly and ignored it.)

The lovely staff on the desk at the clinic took the dog in and set about checking for a microchip. Yes, there was one. But no, the owner hadn't registered an address. I had no option but to leave the puppy in their obviously kind hands and leave.

But as I walked with Penny I worried that the dog might end up in a shelter and be killed, as so many are.

So I headed back to check whether it was possible for the puppy to go to an organisation like 'Rescued With Love', where it doesn't have to suffer the trauma of a shelter.

And, what do you know! They had managed to contact the owner - and he was overjoyed. Because... the puppy had been lost since last Sunday, and they lived in Mordialloc, twenty-two kilometres away!

It seems they had come to Box Hill to look at the model railway, the puppy ran off, and they had searched in vain for days.

The poor hungry, filthy dog (its ribs were showing through) was already having a little meal, a warm bath and lots of love.

But I think the best moment would be when its own special human walked through the door.

Penny explores the giant redwoods

2011-05-17T21:24:00.007+10:00

On Wednesday Penny and I discovered two new redwood trees planted near the river in Warburton. I wonder why they are there?

It seems as if someone has decided to extend the stand of trees that have been there since the early twentieth century.

It's quiet and strange under the gigantic old trees, because of the silencing effect of the pine needles, something we Aussies are not used to, but Penny seemed to like it there.

dangers for dogs in the kitchen

2011-05-16T18:57:00.002+10:00

There's an interesting video on PetPlace.com about chocolate, grapes and uncooked dough. We are always careful about the first two, but it was a shock to realise bread dough is so dangerous, both in terms of bloat and of alcohol poisoning. If Penny were to eat a bit of uncooked dough, she would be in for a double dose of danger.

dogs burying bones and Elocon cream for skin problems

2011-05-14T17:57:00.005+10:00

Yesterday Penny enjoyed a nice old bone, one which she brought in from the garden. We can't figure out where it came from, because it seemed to be a lamb shank bone, and the last lamb shank she had would have been in January, or early February, given that we fed her the ultra low allergenic diet for months.

However old it was, she sure enjoyed it, chomping on it for more than an hour. She arrived back inside with a dirty face, so I guess some of it is buried out there again for later enjoyment.

It's so satisfying to be off the restricted diet!

We're wiping her vulva area with baby wipes each time we see her wee (who would have thought that buying a puppy could lead to having to do that?), and we have put Elocon cream or lotion on her vulva, paws and rear end for a week. Now we'll put the cream or lotion on twice a week.

So far so good - no bottom licking and no paw licking!

practising our routine for Honey's competition

2011-05-05T21:37:00.003+10:00

Penny and I have chosen our music for Honey's dancing competition and we're starting to practise. In the kitchen, of course.

Here we are trying out two movements. One is sitting still. Hmmm...shouldn't be too hard, but who knows, on the day it will probably go pear-shaped. The second is picking up something and walking beside me with it in her mouth. Not as easy as I thought it would be.

But we're having fun.

dogs, allergies and diet

2011-05-04T21:24:00.003+10:00

Today we have been set free from the boring, boring hypo-allergenic diet our vet suggested. We followed it religiously, but unhappily, for months, but today when we went to see the skin specialist she said she doesn't believe commercial low allergen diets work, because they all have some proteins in them. For instance, one famous brand has rice, and another has soy.

Hooray! We can go back to our usual wide mix of foods.

Penny still has a rash around her vulva, and still has rashes between her toes, but we are going to wash her bottom with baby wipes (non-alcoholic ones) and try to control the symptoms of her allergies with Elocon cream and lotion, applied as sparingly as we can.

We'll go back for a review in seven weeks. Perhaps we might have tests to see if environmental factors are making Penny itchy, but we'll wait to see whether that is necessary.

Now we can focus on getting organised for Honey's dancing competition. I'll have to think of some nice tasty treats to encourage Penny - but really, she just enjoys the dancing for its own sake.

Penny still remembers some moves for dancing

2011-04-29T17:09:00.003+10:00

I've spent ages roaming around the internet looking for some music for a routine for Honey's dancing competition, but nothing so far has inspired me.

However, I thought I'd see if Penny was still keen to go in the competition. Yep, by the look of her wagging tail, she still thinks dancing is fun. She even remembers some of the moves, which is pretty good considering we've been out of action for nearly a year.

I found an old walking stick in the umbrella stand in the hallway, so maybe that will be part of our routine.

I thought I'd post a clip of our preparation to encourage others to enter. I figure if they see me bumbling around the kitchen they'll know it's a competition for all levels!

Swimming to get fit for the dancing contest

2011-04-22T16:36:00.005+10:00

Now that Penny and I are preparing for Honey's dancing contest, she's keen to get fit. So we went off to Ruffey Lake Park today, braving the (wonderful drought-breaking) rain. Penny decided she needed to swim to loosen up her muscles for some of the moves, so we were glad to see a notice that said swimming is 'encouraged'.

We had fun throwing Penny's whirl wheel and she enjoyed the swim.

It was only on the way around the Lake that we came across another sign saying swimming was 'discouraged'. Whoa! What was going on? So we went back to the first sign and checked it more carefully.

Hmm... looks like someone had scraped away one letter from the sign and left it for a cursory glance to give the wrong impression.

Anyway, we all had fun, and we did what they said. We only let Penny swim near the rocks so she wouldn't degrade the banks.

Honey's dancing contest

2011-04-18T21:24:00.003+10:00

Honey is having a doggy dancing contest and ...perhaps... we're going to enter!

After Penny tore her cruciate ligament last year, we stopped our fun activities - flyball, canine freestyle (doggy dancing), tricks classes with Cindy and even tennis-ball chasing.

And we've been feeling a bit down, ever since.

But Honey's competition has come along at just the right time, when Penny finally seems to be moving okay. We went to Yarra Bend Park with Cindy on Sunday and stayed there for four hours, and the next day Penny wasn't limping!

We won't win, of course, because I'm such a terrible dancer, but it will be great to have a reason to start dancing again. The rules say that only dogs who've never danced in public can enter, so we should be okay to do that. We did go to classes with Sue Cordwell, at Melbourne Canine Freestyle, but never got to perform, because of having to drop out when Penny had her operation.

So, it's time to get out the music, think of a routine we can do in the kitchen, and get cracking!

Penny and the feather duster

2011-04-12T23:09:00.003+10:00

Penny is continuing to let us know she's tired of the Hills z/d ultra low allergen diet.

Last night we decided to close off the gate from the back patio to the back garden for fear she might dine on the fresh compost I had spread on the vegetable garden. However, in a slight glitch to this clever plan, we actually locked her IN the backyard instead of locking her in the house, and sure enough there was a nice big hole in the compost. It looked about the right size to be a well-rotted (and no doubt, tasty) sweet potato.

And then, when I came home in the afternoon I found...

Penny's neck decorated with a little clump of feathers.

And what looked like a dead bird on the floor.

We were mystified, until we realised it was a feather duster.

Seeing Penny hasn't destroyed or chewed anything in the last five years or so, I think we have to take these behaviours as a sign that it's time to give her an interesting diet.

We'll go to the dermatologist as soon as we can get an appointment.

The rains continue and Penny visits Darebin Parklands

2011-04-12T22:48:00.006+10:00

We went down to Darebin Parklands today to see the swollen creek and to enjoy the fresh green growth, such a pleasure after the years of drought.

But of course, as in our famous poem, there are 'droughts and flooding rains', and I realise not everyone may be enjoying the flooding we are experiencing at the moment. Today the water was up over the path even early in the morning, and we had to retrace our steps, instead of making a circuit of the park.

Because of the lack of access to our usual route, we didn't go to the off-lead area, so Penny walked on lead for an hour, usually a annoying time for us, as she likes to surge ahead.

However, today was different, because Cindy told me about the Sporn Mesh Non-pull Harness - and it works! I bought one at Coldstream Animal Aid and slipped it over Penny's head as I was shown, and she doesn't pull now. It's just amazing. As you can see from these photos, the lead is quite loose - well, most of the time!

Penny scavenges her own meal

2011-04-11T22:11:00.004+10:00

It seems Penny's tired of the Hills z/d ultra low-allergen diet. It's been as boring as can be ever since we started it, but we followed it to try to get a handle on her allergic response to something unknown.

Today I took her with me when I visited a friend's garden. I was talking to my friend and noticed a strange silence from Penny. "Where's Penny?' I said.

'Oh, no doubt exploring the garden,' my innocent friend replied.

'No, where's Penny?' I repeated. Penny is usually relaxing nearby - unless she's discovered something to eat.

A look around and there she was, nose in a nice bowl of leftover rice salad set out for the birds, scoffing the meal as fast as she could.

Well, it was time to start adding something to her diet to see if the allergy returns. I just hadn't counted on it happening today.

Penny has a holiday

2011-04-04T20:19:00.006+10:00

Penny's not here at the moment and it's very quiet in the house. It's strange that we are so aware of the absence such a quiet, laid-back dog. (Well, she's not quiet if anyone dares to pass by in the street, or if a person should come to our door, but in general she's just lying around keeping an eye out for someone to go near the lead or the food bowl.)

We went to a family wedding at the weekend, and needed Penny to be safe while we were away, so she boarded with Cindy, our trainer, pack leader and generally wonderful 'dog person'.

Although we're home once again, it seemed a good idea to let Penny stay over with Cindy for a few days extra.

When I dropped Penny off, Cindy wanted me to come near evening, so Penny could go for a walk with 'the pack' and get comfortable with the other dogs (whom she knows from our regular walks), before they all settled down for the night.

She certainly settled in quickly, taking off with the other dogs and with Cindy, not looking back to see whether I was keeping up, which is rare for her to do.

(That's her investigating the grass near the water.)

We know how lucky we are to be able to place Penny with such an experienced, caring person. I've even had photos of her sent to my phone, so I can see what a happy time she's having.

But it will be great to have her home once again!

non-allergenic diets for dogs

2011-03-30T21:17:00.002+11:00

It's been complicated living with Penny lately. Not only are we dealing with intermittent lameness due to her injured cruciate ligament and consequent recovery from surgery, but she's also been very much bothered by skin irritation.

Even though we generally adhere to a raw diet, we took our vet's advice to try a totally non-allergenic diet, a Hill's food called z/d. We just hate feeding her this, but have strictly stuck to it for five weeks now. (The vet wanted us to try at least six weeks, and friends have told us that's standard for giving allergens time to get out of a dog's system.)

One of the problems has been that Penny doesn't like the food all that much. She eats it, but looks longingly at what we eat.

Also, I haven't felt like using it as rewards, as it has no great value to her. So that's been another problem with her deterioration in walking nicely on lead and generally behaving well. As Honey's human often reminds us, it's necessary to keep training right through a dog's life.

But...

after all this time following the diet, I went to the vet to buy another bag of it last Friday, only to be told there's a supply problem and it's not available. I must say, I wasn't impressed, and went to other clinics to try to buy some. Eventually, having contacted eight clinics, I acknowledged that it didn't seem likely we could continue the therapeutic diet.

My own vet clinic had canned food, though - Hills' z/d cans. Lots of them. So I bought them, feeling as if we were sliding down the slippery slope to tooth problems and unhealthy diet.

The vet nurse told me it's possible to slice the canned food very thin and bake it in the oven, thus turning it into dry treats.

And Penny loves them!! Da da! Training begins again.

And, to top it off, the manager of our vet's other clinic had had the forethought to stock up on this food when she heard there were supply problems.

So, we're going to stick to the program for another few weeks and hope Penny's skin problems clear up.

at lillydale lake in lilydale with our dogs

2011-03-29T18:52:00.007+11:00

Penny had a great day last Sunday with Cindy's walking group at Lillydale Lake - which, strangely, is in Lilydale.

We walked on lead for most of the time, but there was plenty of opportunity, also, to walk off lead

explore the water with other dogs (no, that's not Penny!)

mooch around

and sniff.

However...

The next day she was in pain, not even putting her rear left leg to the ground! That's the one that had a cruciate operation last September.

I think the big problem is that, since her operation, training has gone out the window and she now pulls on the lead when walking with a group of dogs. The pulling puts strain on her hind legs.

Yesterday she rested, and we applied ice-packs to the knee intermittently throughout the day. Today she is walking on four legs, so it was back to slow ten-minute walks around the streets, but I'm not sure about her level of pain, so it's off to the vet first thing tomorrow morning.

dogs eating duck poo

2011-03-25T21:20:00.000+11:00

When I heard the doggy door click-clacking yesterday, I rolled over in bed and blearily ascertained that it was indeed the middle of the night - well, 5:30 am is the middle of the night to me. So what was Penny doing going out at that hour, given that she is 'off-duty' at night and doesn't stir?

I threw on a layer of clothing and staggered out with a torch, to find her eating grass. And eating grass. And eating grass. Uh, oh! I remembered the ducks on the banks of the Yarra.

And I recalled how Penny had grazed that area, refusing to come when called - which is unusual. At the time it took me ages to realise she was eating the ducks' poo.

I met a local walking with his dog and he warned me not to let Penny eat duck poo, because it can spread botulism, and he said at all costs to avoid wombat poo because the wombats have a type of blood-borne mange that is incurable. Apart from comcern about Penny getting this mange, I feel sad if he's correct that most of the wombats around the Yarra Ranges have this mange.

I had a look on the net and came across an article that says even in wombats mange can be dealt with. Interestingly, it said that humans too are afflicted by one of the mange mites - but in humans we call it 'scabies'. It's not the same mite that affects dogs.

At any rate, Penny's night-time grass grazing worked its magic, and out came a nice greenish poo. There's no definite information around about why dogs eat grass, but this is one time when I feel sure the grass eating was because of an uncomfortable bowel.

Thank goodness she seemed fine in the morning!

in the hills with my dog

2011-03-25T11:51:00.001+11:00

Penny is used to spending some time up in the Yarra Ranges, and mostly hangs around in the house waiting for a chance to go out on a walk or a swim. And up there, the Yarra is usually clean, unlike its muddy lower reaches at Warringal Park in Heidelberg.

We usually cross the river at Warburton on the swinging bridge built by the Australian Army.

However, there is a home-grown attraction at our own place, now, because our neighbors have chooks - and they've situated the chicken run right beside our fence, just in the spot where the big branch fell from the mountain ash and crushed the top part of the fence.

Penny decided to sit and watch the chooks...

and watch...

and watch...

It's great to see her so calmly getting used to them, but until the fence is repaired, I won't be leaving her alone out there, that's for sure.

At Warringal Park and warnings about snakes

2011-03-24T20:55:00.005+11:00

On an impulse, I drove Penny to Warringal Park the other day, because I wanted her to just mooch around rather than walk a distance. (She was still a little lame.)

To my pleasant surprise, we were greeted immediately by an old dog-walking friend and her dog, even though we haven't been there for years. Penny and I were both pleased to see them. Sadly, I heard that five dogs have been bitten by snakes recently when they ventured near the banks of the river. As I understand it, they are all alive, but one is still fighting for her life. I hope she makes it and returns to good health.

Before I heard this scary news, Penny and I had been down to the river - the danger spot! The water was, as usual, brown - it's not for nothing The Yarra is known as 'the upside-down river' with the mud on the top. Penny swam for sticks and then enjoyed guarding them.

Revisiting an old haunt required a lot of sniffing, of course.

a dog hunts rats

2011-03-18T22:46:00.004+11:00

Penny has been taking it quietly lately, because she seems to be limping quite badly at times. We've been sticking to short street walks. I think I might have overdone it by taking her on a two-hour walk in the Upper Yarra Valley recently. (But she had a great time!).

We'll go to the physio next week to see how her recovery from cruciate surgery is going. And we've started doing her home therapy more regularly. I think we had become complacent, even though we have been told her leg will never be the same as it was before she injured it.

But today she spent her time rushing down the back steps to check out some intruder in the lush growth in our backyard - growth that is the happy result of all the lovely rain we've had lately.

I think we have rats in the garden once again. She stalked them (or it?) around the garden beds for ages, her slowly waving tail the usual indication that she was on the hunt. It was good to see she was using all four legs to go down the steps, but she did hop the last step on three legs.