Dogs, cats and archaeology
Footie cat is 18 now, and is supposed to have special food to support his dodgy kidneys. This would be easier if ALL the other animals did not love Footie's special prescription food and make a bee-line for it as soon as it is made available. Footie, however, can be offered special prescription food here, or there, or perhaps in the other place, and may sample a little of it. But really , he prefers to reserve his appetite for that wonderful moment when Rosie Roo has demanded a third plate of dogfood liberally decked with garlic-flavoured mince, and then turned up her long nose at it. Then it is Footie's moment! He leaps into very slow and creaky 18-year-old action, and...
When we adopted him, Brythen had a few odd little fears - skateboards, prams and small-wheeled bicycles, towels, small inoffensive female children, people wearing pink, and the rather more normal (if sad) fear of people carrying sticks. We sorted the stick problem some time ago, and a very helpful skateboard-wielding lad spent twenty minute throwing sausage at him last year, which was very nice of him and seems to have sorted out the skateboard thing.
Today we were approached by a madly cycling small pink-clad girl on a tiny noisy pink bike. I duly gathered Brythen in, in case he decided to shout at her in that way he has been known to do (Bark says: Go away! I am a big scary dog! AAAGH, GOAWAYGOAWAYGOAWAAAY!!!!!) He usually backs away when he does this anyway, but the owners of small pink girls sometimes are inclined to focus on the large dog apparently poised to spring, and not notice the fact that he's actually moving backwards... But no! He was quite happy. He glanced at her briefly and was completely unbothered. Hurray! I think that means we only have towels to go.
I tried some scentwork with Rosie Roo and Brythen, since someone on the Lurcherlink forum suggested it was a good way of helping reactive dogs focus on smells rather than dogs at a distance. Rosie Roo showed some promise at it, and I'll try with her again. Brythen was painfully, appalling, disastrously bad at it - like he was when I tried to teach him Treiball. He would NOT touch or look at the jar for himself. He is Way Too Polite for that. Instead he would at most glance hopefully at it, and its odour of sossidge, and then lie down without going near it. Oh well. He is a good boy anyway, he doesn't have to have an interest in scentwork!
I'm enjoying reading about all the finds at Saveock Water archaeology: seems to be a very strange and interesting site, with 17th century 'witch pits', a crystal-studded neolithic hearth, a votive pool, ancient tin smelting and recently they found some aurochs footprints! I'd rather like to go and do a dig holiday there, but I don't see that I can really spare the time, alas. But they do have 'taster days' starting this year, so maybe I could at least do one of those. It's out West past Truro, but not too far to go in a day, I think.
When we adopted him, Brythen had a few odd little fears - skateboards, prams and small-wheeled bicycles, towels, small inoffensive female children, people wearing pink, and the rather more normal (if sad) fear of people carrying sticks. We sorted the stick problem some time ago, and a very helpful skateboard-wielding lad spent twenty minute throwing sausage at him last year, which was very nice of him and seems to have sorted out the skateboard thing.
Today we were approached by a madly cycling small pink-clad girl on a tiny noisy pink bike. I duly gathered Brythen in, in case he decided to shout at her in that way he has been known to do (Bark says: Go away! I am a big scary dog! AAAGH, GOAWAYGOAWAYGOAWAAAY!!!!!) He usually backs away when he does this anyway, but the owners of small pink girls sometimes are inclined to focus on the large dog apparently poised to spring, and not notice the fact that he's actually moving backwards... But no! He was quite happy. He glanced at her briefly and was completely unbothered. Hurray! I think that means we only have towels to go.
I tried some scentwork with Rosie Roo and Brythen, since someone on the Lurcherlink forum suggested it was a good way of helping reactive dogs focus on smells rather than dogs at a distance. Rosie Roo showed some promise at it, and I'll try with her again. Brythen was painfully, appalling, disastrously bad at it - like he was when I tried to teach him Treiball. He would NOT touch or look at the jar for himself. He is Way Too Polite for that. Instead he would at most glance hopefully at it, and its odour of sossidge, and then lie down without going near it. Oh well. He is a good boy anyway, he doesn't have to have an interest in scentwork!
I'm enjoying reading about all the finds at Saveock Water archaeology: seems to be a very strange and interesting site, with 17th century 'witch pits', a crystal-studded neolithic hearth, a votive pool, ancient tin smelting and recently they found some aurochs footprints! I'd rather like to go and do a dig holiday there, but I don't see that I can really spare the time, alas. But they do have 'taster days' starting this year, so maybe I could at least do one of those. It's out West past Truro, but not too far to go in a day, I think.