Wednesday 27 May 2015

don't use Roundup if you have dogs

The World Health Organisation said in March that Roundup  'probably' causes cancer in humans.

If it is dangerous to humans, how much more so must it be to dogs, who walk 'bare-footed' on ground that has been sprayed!

I have previously posted about this pernicious substance. It's a dreadful product.

Thursday 21 May 2015

dogs and vegemite

Penny could have told Jimmie Fallon how to eat vegemite on toast, without seeing Hugh Jackman do so.



She, like any true-blue Aussie dog, loves her toast with vegemite. (Or peanut butter, for that matter.)



Even if her humans are miserly with the bread. (Bread isn't really good for her.) That's her teensy piece on the edge of the plate.



But she's willing to go through her routine of tricks to see which one will be randomly rewarded on this occasion. She usually does a couple of spins, one direction after another, to see whether that earns a response, then backs away, tries a short 'speak', takes a bow, or gets up on her hind legs (wonderful to see she can do this now, after her cruciate surgery five years ago).

Today, it was the hind legs raise that got the tiny reward.


Wednesday 13 May 2015

dogs understand how to be sneaky

While I was working on the compost pile yesterday, I scraped off the top layers of shredded paper and garden greens, revealing an underneath layer of well-rotted kitchen scraps.



When I looked toward the pile from the other side of the garden, Penny was nearby, licking her lips, and I reckon there was a ring of black around her mouth, though I couldn't be sure from that distance. If she'd been a human, she'd have been whistling unconcernedly and glancing aside innocently. As it was, she stood her ground, her tail at mid height, enduring my suspicious stare.

We faced each other for minutes rather than seconds, she the picture of nonchalance, until she decided I wasn't going to move. She headed inside the house and didn't come out again.

I've put a barrier in front of the compost, even though the 'tastiest' bits are now safely reburied under boring mulched branches and leaves and such like.

She wouldn't have been near the compost today, anyway, because she was with me at Yarra Glen, having a wonderfully relaxing and health-enhancing Bowen therapy from Deb.