solution to the free acrostic puzzle

I've realised I forgot to tell you the solution to the free acrostic I posted on January 30. Apologies for taking so long!

By the way, we're not sure whether to  call this a crostic, an anacrostic, or even an acrostic. But who cares? The puzzle's the thing, not the terminology. (I hope you agree.)

Here it is:

The novel was Curse of the Scarab, by H Y Hanna.

The short extract from this enjoyable book was:

The grey tabby disappeared into a towering bush, which seemed to have grown straight into the back wall of the house. Looking closer, Honey realised that it in fact concealed a huge gap where the crumbling wall had fallen away.

And the details:

A - homologue

B - yew

C - hedgehog

D - Australian silky terrier

E - nymph

F - neglect

G - a cheetah

H - cavalier King Charles spaniel

I - upbeat

J - Rin Tin Tin

K - show

L - ebb

M - ohh

N - flew

O - To Say Nothing of the Dog

P - hatch

Q - etude

R - swab

S - chat

T - a watt

U - Red Wolf

V - a wag

W - bearded collie

You'll notice that the first letters of the solutions, reading down, spell out the name of the author and the title of the novel.

I hope you had fun if you did it!

a free crostic puzzle

I'm not sure if any of you (humans, that is) have ever done a crostic puzzle, but here's one, courtesy of one of Penny's humans.

The diagram is not a crossword, even though it might look like one. The whole thing is an excerpt from a piece of writing, in this case a novel. No hints as to which novel, of course, but if you have read any of Hsin-Yi's doggy mysteries, you might...oops, I wasn't supposed to give any hints.

Each word in the text ends at a shaded square, which is not necessarily at the end of a line. There's no punctuation.

You answer the clues as best you can, and transfer the letters to the diagram. The tiny letter in the top right of each square tells you which clue to transfer from.

Often you can guess incomplete words on the diagram, especially if you've read about Honey and her adventures - oops, forgot I'm not going to give away which author features in the puzzle.

As an extra help, the first letters of each answer, on the clue page, reading down, spell the name of the author and the title of the book.

In case I haven't explained clearly, here are some links to sites that describe the way to solve a crostic:
how stuff works
netcrostics

I'm including it as a jpg, so you would have to print out these two following sections, if you want to do it. I don't know how to make it bigger on the blog page, but if you click on each page of the puzzle, it opens in a new window where it's easier to read.

In a couple of weeks I'll post the answer, just in case someone wants to see it.

Have fun!

BTW, I've just had a thought. Seeing I'm a primary school teacher (elementary school), I'll mention that this puzzle is copyright free. Any teachers using H A Hanna's award-winning books in class are welcome to print off these puzzles.

Dr Who as a dog

I just followed a link from At A Steady Trot, and looked at all the Doctors from Doctor Who as they would look if they were dogs. I love David Tennant's character best of all the Doctors I've seen, but I have to admit I'd choose Christopher Eccleston's dog as the most resembling his human counterpart.

BTW, The Eccleston one sort of reminds me of the spooky Egyptian dog in Honey's mystery, The Curse of the Scarab.

who is Alfie the dog?

I've just added a new blog to my list of must-reads. It's called Alfie Dog and it seems to be a great place to download single short stories.

I wonder why it's called after a dog?

While I was rummaging through the site, trying to find the answer to that question (which I didn't find), I discovered there is an offer of a free download of seven stories. I'll go over there and get the stories after I finish writing this post.

And as to why I'm sort of off-topic for Penny's blog... it's  because I'm expecting one of my short stories to be published there soon! Of course there's a dog in my story - but it's not Penny.

I'll have to try to think of a story featuring Penny. But it wouldn't be a whole book, as Hsin-Yi is doing about Honey the Great Dane.

Honey's new online store

Honey is over her surgery to deal with her glaucoma and she's out and about again! Hooray!

And in other news, Hsin-Yi is starting an online store, which you can visit here.

The merchandise looks great so far, but I'm hoping Hsin-Yi will branch out into items that relate to all sorts of dogs and not just Great Danes - though Great Danes are wonderful, lol

I've already suggested the number one on my list for Christmas 2013 would be Christmas tree baubles that are dog-safe. We can't have any baubles in our house because Penny might grab them, thinking they are balls. After all, she pinches the plums from our plum tree each year and stores them up for future games.

So we limit ourselves to a small ornament on a table, up out of reach.

We like it, but it would be great if Hsin-Yi designs something we could use on a full-sized tree next year.

so sad to hear of Honey's ordeal

I was going to post about our adventures with nesting blackbirds, but since I've read the troubles Honey the Great Dane is enduring, I don't feel like writing a light-hearted post. Honey's glaucoma has worsened suddenly and she will be having surgery tomorrow - an injection into the eyeball to hopefully deal with the problem, but to also make the eye sightless.

I'm thinking of you and Honey, Hsin-Yi and Paul. Good luck!

walking with a group

Finally I got organised today to go to Ruffey Lake Park with Cindy's Walk and Talk group! It's been too long since we managed that.

We had a lovely time with all the familiar dogs.

I thought of Honey when we encountered a graceful young Great Dane.



He decided he'd like to join our group.



And who was going to say no to such a handsome boy?



Of course, all the bigger dogs in our group thought they should show him how to romp and play.





But Penny preferred to stay back from all the excitement.



The lovely visitor walked with us for quite a while, but then he and his human had to head for home.

a letter for Penny

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!

dogs, logic, jokes, public transport and bars

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.

practising for Honey's doggy dancing competition

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.

Penny still remembers some moves for dancing

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!

helpful video clip of training a great dane in canine freestyle

I've just come across a Youtube clip by Honey the Great Dane showing how she learned some moves for her dance routine. It was fascinating to see the development of the routines from beginning to polished result. I was particularly interested in how Honey learned to go 'around' a cane. I'm inspired to try harder with Penny!