Showing posts with label farm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farm. Show all posts

Friday, December 18, 2009

Don't mind us, we're mindless

I've got Dexter in training to be a mindless idiot with no training on him whatsoever.

Say whuuut?
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That's right ... according to one of the stupidest discussions on a breed board I've ever read to date, if you play fetch with your dog, you're just an mindless idiot imposing your mindlessness and idiocy on your poor dog.

Poor dogs.

Stop smiling Piper! After 7 years of fetch, you are far too stupid to be happy.
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Sorry Tweed, sATCh and 5 times Nationals Qualifier, your enormous repertoire of commands is a sham and all I can do now is hope to fix the damage that 9 years of fetch has done to you. You'll have to stop looking so eager - I too am a mindless moron, and I'm probably too diminished to throw this ball for you by now.
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*insert eyeroll here*

I dunno about you guys, but I think that's a big load of hooey. I played fetch with my dogs just yesterday, and checked the ground over carefully afterward. Saw no signs of brains left in the grass, so I'm going to have to assume they didn't become dumber from the experience. I might be dumber for having read the discussion though.

I like playing fetch with my dogs. And 3/4 of them like it right back at me. All the eye-rolling I did might have impeded my reading comprehension, I admit, but what I walked away from it with was the idea that border collies are too smart to play fetch, but stupid not to play fetch, and therefore, people who play fetch should turn in their border collie ownership cards and stick to goldfish.

Uh oh. Scratch that.




Mr. Woo, of course, doesn't play much fetch. But Mr. Woo also sticks his head in thorn bushes, gets thorns in his ears, cries and bleeds and then repeats the experience the next day. And the next. Etc.

He *might* be kind of stupid.

Yay! What?
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Dexter has a message for the fetch haters.
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I do lots of things with my dogs. The other evening, I sat down on the floor and taught Dexter to run across the room and stand on a box. He knows sit, down, stay, come, gimme five, target, spin, get out, off, up, load up in the car, stay for paw wiping, tug, and my personal favourite "hugs and kisses" (when he puts his 'arms' around my neck and I lift him up for both those things). He's 4 months old and he knows tons of stuff! My dogs get to for walks, swimming, hiking up mountains, to agility classes, to flyball tournaments, to friends and relatives' houses ... and yes, they also get to play fetch. It seems ridiculous to me to belittle someone for playing a game with their dogs as part of a well rounded life of a variety of activity.

Less theorizing. More fetch. Kthnx.
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Yay! More fetch!
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On one of our daily constitutionals, I took this shot kinda off the cuff randomly and then laughed and laughed. It's like Wootie orchestrated it to not-so-subtly point out out how pathetic other tails in this world are, comparatively. Like, these sparse porcupine-tails are making him gag as he sees them fluttering around pathetically in front of him.
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And it goes without saying, of course, he's got no respect for the excuse-for-a-tail, the Naked Snake, sported by his youngest brother.
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In other news, "Little Man," now known as Journey, is healing up like a champ.
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If Tweed doesn't take him out first ...

Ooomph.
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And lastly, the people who share my property recently moved in with their border collie, Kila. Piper Does Not Like Kila, who is one of those border collies who stalks other dogs who are trying to play, cuts off their escape routes and grabs fur as they run by (given the choice between a dog who is enraptured with a hockey ball, and one who is allowed to obsess over other dogs, I'll take the former any day!).

Do. Not. Want.
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^^ imperious princess.

Sunday, December 06, 2009

It's coming from inside the house!

So there we were this morning, enjoying some Wootie Toy in the horse paddock.

Wootie got some air
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and some Mad Teeth(tm)
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And then he was off and running like a shot
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I wasn't sure what he was after. Could have been the big bold as brass coyote who was standing on my lawn in the middle of the afternoon two days ago.

Or it could have been the bunny rabbit that he enthusiastically chased up the road yesterday, and under the house foundation this morning. At least, I think it was the same bunny - the same very stupid, slow learner bunny.

But whatever it was he was after, he was convinced it was in the garden shed. Which is locked.

No matter.

He decided to just dig through the side of the shed.
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When that proved to be frustratingly slow, he decided it would be faster to EAT THROUGH THE SHED!
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What the hell?


He's teaching Dexter very bad habits!!
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Good. More Wootie Toy for me.
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Lord help me. Now I have to fix the shed.

In other news, we have raised $1500.00 for Little Man's surgery! You are amazing people, and you just made a little puppy's future so much brighter. We cannot thank you enough.

We'll be holding the draw this week and will announce the winner on the blog and on the website. So be sure to check back to see who gets a custom portrait from Laughing Dingo Studios!!


Thursday, December 03, 2009

3 Tails From Today

ha ha.
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"Tail" #1

Let's sing a song.

Little Fatty WooWoo
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Was digging in the swamp grass
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Killing all the field mice
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And looking sad when I took them away
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I know, I know ... one day I won't be able to catch him and then he WILL eat them. But by golly, I will not let him do that while I'm watching!!! I can't stand seeing their little feet sticking out of the corners of his smug little mouth. Reminds me of MC Hamster too much.

"Tail" #2

Today, Tweed got the zoomies.
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Random, unprompted, totally goofy butt-tucking zoomies! I love it when he does this, because I love that my almost-10-year-old dog can go from somber adult...
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... to insane puppy in under 2 seconds
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He was so full of joie de vivre that he even played with Dexter!
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It looked like actual fun, not even a mercy play.
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Dexter was having the time of his life, because he has been trying to convince Tweed to play with him for weeks and weeks. And he has been completely unsuccessful. It took the zoomies to break down that wall.

Dex was overjoyed, until Piper decided to play. Piper is very good at gentle indoor wrestling, but outside, she's a Toothy Sniper and she always ends up hurting someone - or someone ends up making this face:
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MOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM! Help!!!! Piper's trying to play again!!
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"Tail" #3

Dexter fell in the water. He tried to jump a ditch, under-estimated, and fell in.

This is what he looks like when's wet:
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Holy crap, what was that? A watery abyss??
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Screw that. I'm outta here.
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Here are some stick faces


This is Wootie's stick face. I know it looks like he is flirting with the camera, but really he's keeping a beady eye on me, because he HATES it when I advance on him with waggling fingers, threatening to steal his stick. Which, of course, is exactly what I was doing. Heh.
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This is Tweed's stick face. It's not very dignified.
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I are serious dog. This are serious stick face.
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Dexter has no stick face, because nobody would let him have the stick.


He has pouty/envious-of-stick face instead.
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Monday, November 30, 2009

Swamp Things

(cue ominous music)
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When it rains heavily, the back of the property turns into a wet, grassy swamp. This makes all of my dogs (except Dexter) ridiculously happy. They get to swim, splash and bounce around like morons. They also get to hunt.

Although really, I don't know what they are hunting for.
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Maybe for the origins of the Magical Flamboyance (tm)?
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I think it comes from a mysterious portal just beyond those trees.
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And if you find it, you can fly! See?
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Food Lady, Tweed is being ridiculous.

Everyone knows the magic lays just beneath the surface of hog fuel.
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It's quite funny - when it gets wet, the hog fuel of the horse paddock and around the barn makes these really strange, creaking, groaning and whistling noises. Piper is *convinced* something is alive under there.

There! There it is! Did you hear it?
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Didn't you hear that? It's under there! Right there!
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Dexter! Come here and help me dig this up the magic!
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And Dexter is happy to oblige, because the Swamp Things make him very nervous and he'd much rather be here than there.

Ack! They're coming! Run Food Lady, run!!
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Oh foolish youth.
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Oh oh - looks like Dexter found the magic portal!
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One day this kindgom will be mine. All mine.
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Poor Wootie. Even though he likes playing Swamp Things, he really wishes there real and alive things for him to hunt.

It won't be long before he gets his wish. I'm told this property is overrun with bunnies and pheasants in the Spring and Summer months.

If I think he's fat now, imagine how portly he'll be when he's eating all the little wild critters in his kingdom? Or maybe the frantic chasing will balance it all out ....