What Do I Know?

Dogs Behaving Appropriately

 

Smitty, acting just like kids everywhere on Saturday morning

If you're tired of Fenton's misbehavior and prefer videos of dogs behaving appropriately, here's Smitty, watching Marmaduke on TV.

Okay, I know, he's got his feet on the table. But I'm still training my husband not to do that, so I can't fault Smitty.

Friday Calf Blogging

Pheasant, meet Calf.

It's only January, but the cows have already been let into the back pasture. Usually I have to wait until March or even April to see my friends. But the weather has been so warm...suddenly there are signs of spring everywhere. 

Including in the pasture. A couple of days ago I noticed a young calf lying in the grass. I grabbed my camera and headed to the fence. While I'm snapping photos, a pheasant walks across the viewfinder! Again, I don't usually see pheasants (or hear them) until spring, but there's Mr Show Off prancing around the pasture, right in front of my camera lens! 

I watched as he went over to investigate the calf. He got about 3 feet away, looked her over, and then turned around and walked away. 

Last spring there were so many pheasants out there they kept us awake, squawking all evening. (Don't know what a pheasant sounds like? Think of that sound an old-fashioned bicycle bell makes—that's exactly what they sound like.) Maybe that's why this year, we've (we, meaning "Sparky" of course) seen so many foxes. 

I predict a busy spring out back. 

Seven Blog Years

Last night, during my nightly conversation with myself, I realized it was about time for my annual "I forgot it was my blogiversary" post. And then I realized that yesterday WAS the seven year mark. So technically I DID NOT FORGET MY BLOGIVERSARY! Yay me. 

My anniversary, however, is another matter. I don't know if I've mentioned, but my husband and I eloped. Justice of the peace; no parents. Our two attendants were dragged out of the apartment swimming pool, wearing cut off jeans. 

So needless to say the date was never fixed in our memory the way it is for people who have proper weddings. Every year, one of us will get that "uh oh" look sometime in late May and remind the other: "Guess what we forgot? Again." 

Seven years, bringing you the best blog I can, day in, day out. (A blog year is like dog years, a 7:1 ratio, which means I only have to post once a week. So glad I finally did the maths!) Just imagine if I'd been writing a novel all that time...oh wait. I did that. My first novel took seven years to write. (And that doesn't count all the manuscripts that were begun and abandoned during that time.)

At least I haven't abandoned my blog. Or my husband, for that matter. 

Cows, Meet Dog

As long as I'm posting videos in the "cute livestock/dog interaction" genre, I might as well include this one someone pointed me to on Facebook: A boxer greets a herd of cows. 

Now, I've seen plenty of cows in my lifetime (well, the last few years, since I moved to this cow-ridden country) and I've seen many, many dogs, and I've even seen cows and dogs together. But I've never seen anything quite like the cow/dog interaction in this video. 

It will blow your mind, melt your heart, and have you thinking of a few more clichés. 

Go ahead, watch it if you haven't already. (In which case your heart is already melted and you are probably seeking medical attention right now.)

And get me that dog. I have some cows that want to meet him.

Fenton, Inspiring Better Recall?

I can't believe I forgot to mention this viral video in my last post, in which I lamented Sparky's lack of 100% recall. Fenton, the flat coat retriever who chased a herd of deer in Richmond Park, has not only inspired dozens of You Tube mashups but undoubtedly many owners have vowed to teach their dogs better recall.

The last thing I want is to find myself in a viral video, shouting blasphemy at my dog while he merrily chases wildlife about the English countryside.

This morning when I let Sparky out at 6 a.m. he immediately went to the back fence and started barking—on Sunday morning, when my neighbours were surely asleep. A fox must have been nearby, but it was still dark so I couldn't see anything. And when I called Sparky—"Come! Sparky Come! Come HERE!" (I didn't invoke Jesus, since Sparky isn't particularly religious) he ignored my calls. I could have run out in my slippers, and risked stepping in poop, but instead I grabbed the whistle. Tweet Tweet!

Sparky turned and raced for the door. The fox was forgotten while I lavished Sparks with turkey pieces (the high-value reward we use strickly for the whistle recalls). 

Hopefully my neighbours were able to go back to sleep. 

Where Are The Cows?

You may have noticed a lack of cows on this site, the home of the original Friday Cow Blogging. Not even any sheep, horses, or other barnyard animals have found themselves near my camera lens these past few months. 

As always, it's harder to find cows and sheep during the winter—ours go to another pasture to spend the cold months, when the grass in our pasture (not really ours, of course, we just live next door) isn't very tasty. 

But there's another reason. I used to hike several miles each week with my hiking group, which I was once the leader of, along with my dog Bailey. In fact, she knew the footpaths and routes of our circular walks better than I did—if she veered to the left at a Y I followed her, knowing she knew which way we'd walked before.

I never had any problem with her on our walks. Walking through woods, pastures, along rivers, through crops—I could always trust her to never wander too far, and more importantly, she never bothered any livestock. 

That's a serious issue here. Most dogs are allowed off lead routinely, unlike in the US where dogs are rarely off-lead. Yet there is a Countryside Code that must be obeyed: you always leash your dog when there are livestock about. Even well-behaved dogs must be leashed. I obeyed that rule, even though I had no doubt that Bailey wasn't about to worry sheep—she did want to eat their droppings, however. (Yes, dogs are gross. We love them anyway.) Technically, a farmer has the right to shoot a dog that's worrying his livestock, and I had no wish to argue with a farmer over the meaning of "worrying". I kept her on lead, except when there were no sheep about. 

But she had plenty of fun at other times, since most of our walks passed through all types of countryside. She enjoyed plowing through the Thames, plopping down in puddles, and plunging into fields of bright rape, unhindered by a leash except when we crossed busy roads. Her recall wasn't close to perfect, but it didn't matter: I had absolutely no worries that she'd get into trouble. (Mud, yes, and smelly fox poop, yes, but trouble, as defined by the Countryside Code, no.)

Flash forward to now: Sparky isn't to be trusted around livestock. Not that he's really ever been given the chance; I know him too well. He did once slip away (I dropped the lead going over a stile) and he quickly found a nearby paddock with two horses. He raced up and down the fence barking, and then slid underneath the barbed wire. He didn't come when we called, and after eventually rounding him up, I swore I'd never let him off lead again. 

His recall is better now, but I have no doubt he would never come if there were exciting sheep nearby. And since he's blazing fast off lead, he covers ground too fast for me to be comfortable with him off lead in the countryside, at least not in an area that's likely to have livestock over the next hill. 

So we've been making do with walks in the park and the Common, and weekly forays to the almost enclosed hillfort nearby. We let him off leash only when there's no traffic nearby and no livestock. Since he's dog-reactive, we once kept him on-lead around other dogs, but we no longer worry about that. He's learned very well how to tell other dogs he's not interested, and only the occasional pushy dog gets a bark in the face. 

Hence, no livestock photos for me. I could walk without him, but then I'd just have to come home and walk again, with him. I may do that more in the spring, but meanwhile, I've signed us up for a recall workshop, held on a farm with livestock. I'm hoping we can introduce Sparky to some sheep under controlled conditions, and at the same time improve his recall. Right now it's close to perfect—in low and medium distraction situations. When he's chasing squirrels, forget it. I have no doubt he wouldn't respond to our whistle if he was barking at sheep. 

In the meantime, here's a video of Sparky, showing off his recall in a medium-distraction situation (helpfully provided by the neighbor's gardener and his little dog). It'll have to do until I can get to the countryside with a free hand for a camera. 

Cheap Wine, Because the Government Says So!

A graph to peruse while sipping that 2009 Bordeaux

I have no problem with government policies that raise the price of beer to reduce alcohol comsumption and its adverse effects—namely, drunk driving. (That's partly because I can't stand lager or cider—both of which taste like cold piss.)

But here's a policy I like even better: Cheap wine! Yes, it turns out lowering the price of wine means fewer adverse effects of alcohol, in particular binge drinking. 

Seems people don't binge drink wine. (No? Pass that Medoc!) That means fewer traffic fatalities as wine becomes a larger share of total alcohol consumption. 

This research came about by looking at states that allow wine to be sold in supermarkets, versus states that require you to go to a state liquor store to purchase wine. (Thank god I never lived in one of those states!) Those that allow supermarket purchases of wine have lower prices on wine, since supermarkets offer competitive wine pricing. 

So David Cameron, along with increasing the price of Stella, should considering lowering the price of Bordeaux. We'll all live healthier, longer lives, and when Southern England is warm enough to produce decent wine, we'll see a lot more economic benefit.

A Kentish red anyone?

The Other 99% the Media Ignores

I bet everyone has heard of Madelyn McCann. Her sweet little face once sold millions of newspapers, prompted millions of website clicks, and earned newscasters a few more minutes of viewers' attention on networks around the world. 

But who had ever heard of Alisa Dmitrijeva, until her body turned up on the Queen's estate in Norfolk? 

I hadn't either, since her disappearance in August failed to stir the media's attention. She was seventeen and bears a striking resemblance to little Madelyn McCann. So it evidently wasn't a lack of photogenic qualities that caused her disappearance to fail to make worldwide headlines—as is often the case with the thousands of missing children and adults. 

About a year ago Joanna Yeates went missing right before Christmas. We all heard about this young woman, perhaps because her family was so adept at getting the word out, or perhaps the local authorities did a better job getting her photograph out. And the media attention didn't drop off after her body was found by walkers on Christmas day, either. We all watched, riveted to the news, as first her boyfriend and then her landlord were suspected of her murder and later exonerated. Recently a neighbor was convicted of her murder, in a trail we all heard about on the evening news. 

There's no doubt we'll be hearing more about Alisa, a Latvian student who'd been living in Norfolk. The details of her murder, if that's what it was, will be retold while we're preparing dinner. Her picture will become familiar, and we'll be reminded to hold our loved ones close. But when one of our loved ones disappears, only a "lucky" few of them will find the media is prepared to devote non-stop coverage to finding their body—unless it turns up on the estate of royalty. 

I don't have a clue what algorithm results in vast media coverage for one missing person, while thousands of others go unnoticed. Do the public care more about a missing four-year old than a missing seventeen-year old? Or a missing blonde girl than a missing black boy? Hopefully not. Yet every day over six hundred people go missing in the UK (two thirds are adults who voluntarily leave). It's impossible for the capital-centric UK media to devote front page coverage to all of them—perhaps the advent of local television coverage will help correct some of the geographical disparity of media attention.

Yet the United States, with a vast network of local media, is even worse. A small percentage of missing persons cases make headlines there—"missing blonde girl syndrome" is well known, even when the blonde girl goes missing in Aruba. There are whole "news" programs that detail the courtroom proceedings of high profile crime cases. News has become entertainment; a mention of Casey Anthony is guaranteed to get more viewers to tune in than a live appearance by Angelina Jolie. 

What about the 99% of missing persons whose photos never make the front page of a website, whose names aren't as well known as Beyonce's baby, whose families will never worry about a media scrum outside their front door? Their lives are lived and lost in quiet anonymity—not such a good thing when the first hours are crucial in finding a missing person.

Would people care less about the Madelyn McCanns of the world if they realized there were missing toddlers in their own vicinity? Would we care less about Joanna Yeates if we knew there have been thousands of missing young women over the years? 

I suspect we would. There are only so many trending topics on Twitter we can absorb. 

The Hazards of Living in a Nanny State

A perfectly legal Chinese lantern blasts off in a Buckinghamshire garden. 

Not long after I moved here I noted the many contradictions of living in a supposed "nanny state", a term used to describe the sometimes extreme measures taken by the government to keep its citizens safe and healthy. 

For instance, I heard about a town that cut down all its lime trees because a limb had fallen, and it was feared that the trees could fall on unsuspecting passersby. Graveyards are also seen as places of potential fatal hazards after an old leaning tombstone fell on a child once, thus requiring notices to be put up. And then there's the size of Teddy bears: mustn't encourage our tots to gamble at the Fun Fair by offering too-large bears as prizes! 

But anyone who's ever called Great Britain a nanny state obviously never endured a night of anything-goes fireworks. The three weeks of pyrotechnic frenzy around Bonfire Night sound like Baghdad during Shock and Awe. BOOM! Welcome to Buckinghamshire during Diwali.

Recently, a friend on Twitter mentioned that New Jersey didn't allow any fireworks at all for home use. I was surprised to hear New Jersey was even more health and safety conscious than the UK, with its Teddy-limiting laws. New Jersey?! Isn't this the birthplace of concrete shoes?

Yet the law in the UK seems to allow celebratory fireworks year round. A few months ago, my daughter took the dog on a walk and came home with a strange story about some twenty or so weird glowing apparatuses she'd seen in the sky. Since she had a friend along for confirmation, we believed her, and it wasn't until an American neighbor put on a Fourth of July fireworks show in his garden that I realized what she must have seen: Chinese lanterns. Apparently it's entirely legal to send flaming bamboo and paper balloons into the atmosphere. As we watched our Chinese lanterns disappear over the M25, I wondered if there were any thatched cottages nearby.

Surely these must be safe, I reminded myself—I live in a nanny state! I'm not even allowed a damper in my gas fireplace, or an electrical outlet in my bathroom! No worries. Right?

But today I read in my local paper that over New Year's, two fires were caused by Chinese lanterns. A car caught on fire when one blew underneath, and a tree went up in flames after one was caught in its branches.

I found this comment interesting: 

Chris Bailey, head of Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service’s community safety team, said: “You can’t control the direction they take or where they will land.

“There is no guarantee that the fuel source will be fully extinguished and cooled when the lantern lands, and that’s a real fire hazard.”

He said unsuitable locations for flying lanterns included areas near telephone and power lines, areas near standing crops, anywhere near buildings with thatched roofs, areas of dense woodland and areas of heath or bracken.

That pretty much describes all of England. 

A nanny state that can't be bothered to regulate dangerous fireworks, yet doesn't allow dampers on gas fireplaces, in case citizens kill themselves? It's one of those contradictions that make me more certain than ever that political labels are meaningless. I live in a theocracy, where the state media broadcast church services, yet much of the population never attends church or even thinks about religion very often. 

It would be enough to make my head explode, except for the fact that I'm sure the Health and Safety Executive has issued a guideline against exploding heads.

So bring on the nanny state. I'd like more of it, please—just don't tell me how big my Teddy bear can be.