walking the dog on Australian election night

We strolled along the top of the cliff overlooking Darebin Parklands tonight and gazed across at the lights of the city of Melbourne. It was strangely quiet in our suburb - perhaps everyone was inside listening to the pundits discuss the progress of the election counting.


We stopped off at a little park to let Penny run around chasing her night-time ball. She sure looks scary when she bursts out of the darkness at your feet with the red ball glowing.



When we got home Penny plopped down in front of the tv to listen to Kevin Rudd making the victory speech for the Australian Labor Party - certainly a new era in Australian history...

dogs off-lead around native birds

Today Penny, Jabari, Jabiri's mum and I walked in a new spot- Bulleen Park - where there were plenty of birds feeding on the ground and in the air around us.



The red-rumped parrots seemed quite undisturbed by the two dogs. When we approached them, they flew away about four or five metres and continued feeding on the ground nearby. I tried to take a picture with my phone but they were camouflaged in the grass. But here's a lovely close-up I found on flickruploaded by M G Jefferies.




The crested pigeons were also wandering around on the ground, looking as beautiful as ever. There's a great picture of one on flickr.

I think we must have been disturbing insects as we walked across the grass, because flocks of swallows were diving and swooping around us. The pee wees didn't seem to care where we went.

As for the occasional magpies, they ignored us, thank goodness. I think if it came to a confrontation we would come off second-best. I must say, they are one of my favorite birds, but it's scary when they swoop you!

a dog's nose and her sense of smell

Penny and I have fun playing scenting games. Two favorites start off with me telling Penny to 'wait'. In the first, I show her a piece of tasty food and let her smell it and then I go away and hide it somewhere up the other end of the house.

Penny puts her nose to the ground as she makes her way to where it is hidden, so I assume she actually follows the scent of my movements rather than the smell of the treat itself. When I tested this by adding a loop around our lounge room, she followed this trail exactly.

The second game involves me hiding at the other end of the house and calling 'come'. It's great fun to hide in cupboards and crouch down behind boxes, listening for the slow click, click of her nails on the floor as she searches. I feel young, rediscovering the excitement of a childhood game of hide-and-seek.

When we walk around the streets, if she is 'free' rather than being expected to 'walk nicely on lead', it's a slow trip, as she has to sniff every post, clump of grass, wall, lamp-post, rock...I'm sure you get the idea.

Smelling is obviously a delight to her. I read a fascinating description of the role of the sense of smell in a dog's life by Randy Kidd, DVM, PhD, at Whole-Dog-Journal.com

The summary at the end of the article says:

The dog’s nose may be his most powerful organ and it is certainly one of the most dynamic of all animal systems, with activities that range from basic smell detection, to sensing fear, to memory, to emotions, to mate- and pack-selection, on to a genetic history carried from one generation to the next. Fortunately, disease doesn’t often waylay its functional capability, and fortunately again, most of the diseases of the nose are easily treated naturally.

The entire article is worth a careful read, but some of the highlights for me were:

The dog collects scents by air-scenting (sniffing volatile oils that are traveling in the air) and sniffing the ground. A dog’s nose is ideally made for sniffing – the outer nares are mobile and allow for expansion on inspiration and contraction to prevent the entry of unwanted objects. When a dog sniffs, he inhales the scented chemicals into his nasal cavities, where they are trapped in mucus and processed by the sensory cells. Expiration forces air out the side of the nares so that its exit doesn’t interfere with odors still in the air or on the ground...

In addition, the dog has devoted a tremendous amount of his brain tissue to olfactory cells. (Some estimates allocate one-third of the dog’s brain to the chore of scenting.) All this adds up to a canine scenter that has thousands to millions of times the ability of his human counterpart...

In my opinion, the best “nutrition” we can give to a dog’s nose is a daily dose of natural odorants, generated from the fields and woodlands out of doors – the perfect way to build up the reserve of sensory cells and brain connections related to smelling.

An article called Dogs Smell!also has a discussion of dogs' sense of smell and there I read that different breeds have a stronger or weaker sense of smell according to the length of their nose - which seems pretty obvious. It's interesting, though, to wonder how these differing muzzle lengths come about, when all breeds of dogs are so similar genetically.In an interview with Raymond Coppinger, Juliet Clutton Brock and Robert Wayne,
Jonica Newbysays:

All dogs start life with a small muzzle. Then, at 8 weeks of age, the genes for growing noses suddenly switch on, until, from about 5 months they gradually switch off again.

But when you scramble the timing of those growth genes, you can get a long nosed dog. Or a short nosed dog. Or a dog that doesn’t grow up at all. That’s how nature gave us all these weird and wonderful shapes and sizes.

world records held by dogs

Penny doesn't hold any world records, which I think is a rather good thing, because I like her just as she is - maybe fame would go to her head, as it seems to do for humans.

However, when browsing the web I read at Canis online,a German blog, that Augie, a golden retriever,holds the world record for having tennis balls in the mouth - five balls. Of course, I had to see that for myself, so I went to Guinness World Records and saw a picture of her performing that feat.

Equally amazing was the record for the fastest time that a dog has unwound a car window - 11.34 seconds. Thank goodness Penny doesn't know how to do that.

dogs interacting off-lead

Penny and I dragged ourselves down to the park at 6 am today, as it was predicted to be very hot again. It was surprising to see how many others were there also.

She had a swim and a run around and then her favorite activity, chasing a ball. As we played, a group of other dogs came past and, as usual, Penny didn't want to interact with them while she had a precious ball to guard. One friendly golden retriever was determined to keep sniffing Penny's rear end and she seemed to be quite irritated but the other dog either wasn't picking up on the body language or didn't care. Eventually Penny snarled at him, but of course that's a tricky thing to do when you have a ball in your mouth!

I wasn't sure whether the sniffing was in fact a friendly gesture, so I was interested to come across a site on the Net that has detailed descriptions of dog body language accompanied by sketches and photos.

Two interesting items were:

Some confident, dominant dogs will roll on their backs, exposing their bellies, in an attempt to reassure a more shy or submissive dog, or to get that other dog to play. They will be relaxed when they do that, and usually still look the other dog in the eye. Sometimes mounting ("humping") another dog is a sign of dominance, but not always; this often-misunderstood gesture can also be used by a lower-ranking dog to try to demonstrate his allegiance with a higher-ranking animal.

Note that among dogs, the hierarchies are usually maintained and demonstrated very casually and almost always by more submissive members of the pack. Very high-ranking animals very seldom demonstrate their rank, unless they lack confidence. Most demonstrations and almost all fights that occur over rank are done by the middle-ranking or unconfident members.

The article was by Stacy Braslau-Schneck and ended with a list of lots of links with more information.One was a body-language quiz. I managed to get most questions right, but not all.

dogs and hot weather

The hot weather that started last week has not abated and Penny is feeling the heat. We were supposed to go to training tonight but we didn't go because it was still about thirty degrees at 7:30 when it was time to go. (That's in the mid eighties fahrenheit, I think). It's predicted to be up around the high thirties (mid to high nineties fahrenheit) tomorrow again. It's unusual for such high temperatures to continue day after day in November.

I found a video that discusses the early symptoms of heat stroke in dogs and I tried to watch the video but it took a long time to load and there was an advertisement about pet insurance before the main video clip. Synptoms to look out for were excessive panting, redness around the eyes, weakness, irritability, vomiting, and finally, collapse. They suggested giving cool water to drink, not cold, as cold water may make the dog vomit. In a mild case of overheating you could sponge the dog down with a cool wet towel and have her lie in front of a fan. In a case of seriously dangerous heat stroke, where she has greyish gums and a blue tongue, they said you would place her in a cool bath and call the vet.

I also came across an article by Lori Verni with good tips for keeping a dog cool in summer. I was interested that it said not to remove your dog's natural insulation by clipping the fur too short - we haven't clipped Penny at all because I had been told the coat insulates and also prevents sunburn. Penny doesn't seem to have that hot double coat that some breeds have.

Another tip was to remove bedding from the bottom of a crate so the dog can lie on the cooler bottom. Penny's crate is available for her but she always tends to lie on the floor near the crate if she is hot - often, upside down to expose her belly to the air. I know myself when I'm trying to grab some sleep on an unbearably not night I will often lie splayed out rather than curled up, so I think I know how she feels!

Champlain Islander, has hot weather tips also. One section discusses whether to clip your dog's coat in summer and says

Many people clip or shave their dogs in the summer time with the logic that less hair will allow for a cooler canine. However, Dr. Karen Campbell, a veterinary dermatologist at the University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Urbana, Ill., explains that clipping your dog may be counterproductive. The canine coat is designed to hold heat near the body in the winter, but also to insulate against the heat from the sun in the summer. Leaving your dog's hair coat intact will actually provide a cool microenvironment for your pet. Your pet's fur also helps act as a sunscreen to protect its skin from ultraviolet radiation. Yes, dogs can get sunburn as well.

Dr. Campbell does concede that a dark-colored dog will get a lot hotter in the summer due to his color (dark colors absorb more heat energy from the sun). If you do own a dark-colored dog it may be beneficial to clip it despite the loss of the insulating properties of their hair coat.

One thing is for certain, dogs that are outside in the summer heat should be properly groomed. Dr. Campbell reminds us that a matted coat will trap moisture on the skin providing an excellent environment for skin infections or even worse problems.

the lilydale show and dog training demonstration

Penny and I had an energetic but hot day at the Lilydale Show today. K9 Kompany, the dog-rescue and training company where we train each Tuesday, was having a demonstration of a typical lesson as part of the Lilydale agricultural show this weekend. We went along as part of the demo class.

It was a hot, hot day and we had to wait our turn at the little pool while other dogs cooled down.









Before our session, Cindy, our regular teacher, suggested Penny go and check out the livestock around the area, so she wouldn't be tempted to investigate the interesting smells during the session. In fact, she wasn't interested at all and concentrated well in the demo.



We participated in two sessions and then had a walk around the show to check out what was interesting. Penny found:
two pieces of hot dog
one hot dog bun
one piece of tomato
one onion slice (wasn't allowed to scoff it!)
eight chips
Some lovely smells to roll in.

We then went back to watch the teachers working with their own dogs. They showed doggy dancing, agility and games. It was fun to see their dogs racing to pick up soft toys and put them in a bucket.










We also saw their dogs performing tricks.




Penny was quite upset with me when I booked her in at the mobile dog wash to get rid of the nice smells she'd collected during the day. I thought it would cool her down, but as it turned out I needn't have worried, as the rain pelted down for five minutes and she would have been wet anyway.



















Finally we went to the arena to watch the Grand Parade, which unfortunately wasn't very 'grand' because it was missing the horses. I haven't visited this Show before but apparently the horses are a big feature of the Grand Parade. The horse events had been cancelled because of the widespread outbreak of equine influenza that has caused so much trouble lately in Australia.

However, having read Wayfarer Scientista's blog and realised that dog sledding is such a popular sport in her neck of the woods I loved seeing the Aussie version of sledding as it went past in the big parade.