dogs and bug poisons

It mystifies me why anyone would want to kill the bugs that share this planet with us, but I guess we are all different. Our garden is run on organic principles and we aim to have a variety of plants that will attract birds and bugs to keep the 'bad' bugs under control.

Imagine my dismay, therefore, when I saw a guy getting ready to spray bifenthrin all around a home near us. When I confronted him - politely, I hope - he said the homeowner needs to get rid of the ants and spiders on her property.

Get rid of all ants and spiders? Wow! Armageddon for insects and arachnids.

And, in the long run, death for every fish in the local waters, danger for local cats, and - sadly - eventual death for birds, as they gorge on the dying insects.

In the long run, of course. All these effects won't be immediate. And as long as it's rare for anyone to create a kill-zone in their garden, I guess the results will be minor and will be dealt with by Mother Earth.

But what about Penny? She's been locked inside the house all day, with all windows closed, and she's desperate to go out to relieve herself, so as soon as I finish typing we'll hop into the care and walk somewhere distant from our now poisoned street.

Here's an interesting and informative site that discusses bug sprays from a vet's perspective.

And here's a toxipedia article that I found helpful.

You know what? That house nearby will soon have lots of new spiders and ants as the local survivors move in to their garden.

By the way, it's deadly for bees.

And bad for cats.

cats can make a dog's hair stand on end

Penny's been creating a mighty racket this evening. She's on watch for our neighbour's cat and she's shouting to tell us she's seen him outside in our front yard.

If we didn't realise that there's such a thing as static electricity, we might have thought the sight of the cat has made Penny's hair stand on end!

The endless renovations at our house are slowly coming to a conclusion, and so far Penny has weathered the awful noises and mess quite well. One of her humans has been living in the neighbour's house, minding the cat that resides there - and getting away from the renovations -  and now that she's come home to our house, the cat thinks he'd like to visit us whenever he pleases.

But Penny doesn't think he should. She seems to think if she barks loud and long enough, he'll go back to his own yard.

the raindrop drinking fountain

Penny has a new drinking fountain. We've found she prefers running water to the still water in her drink bowl, but I thought this new one would be better than her old one, because it's stainless steel and  can go in the dishwasher.

I can't show you a picture of Penny drinking from it, because so far she's ignored it. But it's only been a couple of hours, so here's hoping she likes it.

I hope she doesn't drink from it like this:



And I feel sure she couldn't manage to drink like this from our new fountain:

dogs and cats still being rescued from the Victorian bushfires

Tonight at training with Penny, at K9 Kompany, I heard a lovely story. (K9 Kompany is the dog training component of Coldstream Animal Shelter.

A dog the shelter people nicknamed Happy has been reunited with his family - from Kinglake, I think. The humans have been in intensive care in the hospital but are now out, and Happy is recovering from burnt paws. I think he will have to wear his little protective boots for six weeks, or maybe it was six months.

But... here comes the amazing part... the family's cat has just been brought in to the Coldstream shelter. Thank goodness for micro chipping, which has reunited one more member of this distressed family.

Pets are still being found, nearly two months after the main fires. Some, for instance, hid down wombat holes during the fires and are just now coming out of hiding.

It is a moving experience to read through the updates from the Shelter about the ways in which they are still helping animals recover from the fires. I particularly loved the excited post on the day they trapped Stardust the cat in Marysville.