Giant Scary Spider

All my family knows that I am terrified of spiders so going out to the barn has become an adventure this past week.  These giant spiders are in evidence in the afternoon - I"m not quite sure where they are during the day, likely lurking and watching from their lair!  This dandy fellow had created a web yesterday which spanned across the gate; the webbing is remarkably strong!

We wish him well but hope he won't jump or fall on me with his giant and scary self.

Betsy and Briarlea Stryker - quite the team!  Stryker is one of the ABdFC's Top 20 Performance Bouviers this year!

Betsy sent a note this morning:

Stryker got his top 20 invite today...he said "Top Twenty...no way, I'm # 1"!!! He for sure is in my heart. He is a most amazing dog and friend...always doing something funny and unexpected...what a great dog thanks!!

We hosted a stockdog clinic at my friend Phyllis's this past weekend.  I provide the stock and do the organizing and she provides the students.  We had Larry Painter fly up from Missouri to conduct the clinic; he's well known up here for his good way with students and upright dogs.  Susan brought along Noche' for the clinic and is shown here working her flanks - Noche' needs to 'go bye' or clockwise .. or 'away' or counterclockwise ... she is a very biddable Bouvier and a great first herding dog for Susan who is a novice handler.  It was a lot of fun for me to watch the two of them progress over the weekend!  Noche' is by Solo out of Ruby so has a lot of potential for work.

Man Ray, en garde!  Keeping his coat cut short for the summer, he is yet a handsome young fellow!

This is Cheezborgah!

 

Mark writes that: "puppy teeth almost gone!!!! she has not been biting as much, it must hurt her-good for us. she still has not wrecked anything but a flip flop

 

I am looking for cart harnesses, easy comfortable for her, maybe borrow/make a puppy one to train with. and an adult later. I'll take a picture of her cart.  It is tied up in the coop. she has the energy and drive to play-train and be fun, she does do well on leash but will pull if you let her. She does want to be dom. attacks from the back, can be very sneaky with a selective memory.

 

She sounds much like Ray!

Solo, Una, Trouble, Gale, Ray, Mabel and Fancy.

Mabel, Trouble's puppy, has been here for a visit.  Here are the current Bouviers living with us, out in the big dog yard this evening.  The fawn puppy is Fancy.

Got lots done today, sold our red saddleback fantails, powerwashed and primed the front of the house, tilled and weeded the lower garden, trained dogs, bathed Mabel for her return home tomorrow, moved the pigs, did some writing and mowed the lawns.  Tomorrow comes early!

Venny's Refrigerator Pickles

Makes 1 gallon.  You can add a 'little' water if you need to top them off but I"ve found that if you leave them be for an hour or so they generate enough liquid on their own.

Put into the jar:
7 c. sliced cucumbers
1.5 cups sliced onions (I omit these if I don't have little ones)

Mix and heat until the sugar is dissolved, simmer a minute or so:
2 T. pickling salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup vinegar
1 tsp celery seed (optional)

Cool down a bit then pour over the cucumbers. Refrigerate.  Ready to eat the next day, they keep nice and crisp for about a week.  They're generally gone well before then at our house.

I have no idea who Venny is but this is where the original recipe came from.  I got it from our Finnish neighbor Elaine Mannikko when we lived in Minnesota.

Where DOES the time go?  Here it is, mid-July already and the house still needs cleaning!  The monarda are particularly robust this year and, miracle of miracles, no mildew on them!  These, next to the barn are actually much darker in real life than it shows on my computer ~ they're quite dark purple/pink and I thought they'd look great with the yellow lilies but that's not quite working -- oh well!  The hollyhocks on the other hand have had a very tough year with fungus; I've cut these pink ones back to the ground.  I brought the seeds for our hollyhocks back with us from our trip to England's Kew Gardens about 12 years or so ago.  Ever since they've delighted us with their vigor and color but this year, well, it's tough.

I'm taking a writing workshop from the U of W this summer - it's fun - and I hope I'll have the inspiration and energy to update this blog more often.

In from mowing our weed....um, hay field, I am a little dizzy from the heat and the black polyester back brace that has rivers of sweat running down my back.  What a delight to see this little face peering out at me!  I can't tell yet if he is a red squirrel or a chipmunk but regardless, he's part of our daily life now as we monitor his progress from just baby to (hopefully) youngster.

It was Jim's birthday yesterday, we celebrated with strawberry shortcake (mostly a vehicle for whipped cream) and I presented him with a new Weather Station.  He thinks its ridiculous, I think it's wise.  Time will tell....!

Last week we took the white chickens off to Koenig's in Clear Lake, WI and brought them home in plastic.  It's amazing how quickly they grew!  Since life on our little farm is always part of a cycle, it is fun to report that we hatched out almost 20 ducklings this week - both runners and calls. 

The vegetable gardens are doing well; our tomatoes, potatoes, onions and squash all look excellent.  The cukes are coming along and the blueberries look like they will be heavy and blue soon.

In this week's dog report, we're glad to say that young Noche' got her HT title -- this is a beginner level herding title -- and Trouble got 2 qualifying legs in Advanced Ducks, one was a placement.  She needs one more "Q" to title and the good news is that she's entered next weekend so we'll keep our fingers crossed!  On deck is young Gale ~ a wild thing still, she needs to mature before doing a lot of work with her but we're fooling around with the stock and obedience and she's coming along by fits and starts.  Ray continues to charm all who meet him and is going to be a very fun Bouvier.

Summertime and the livin' is easy.... here's Cooper from our Solo x Ruby litter enjoying a swim!  He just had his 2 year old birthday last week. Great photo, Kiri!!

Crystal knows it's not all about making pies and driving to dog training!

This weekend Solo got his first leg in Open obedience and Trouble did well by taking a first place in Started Sheep on Saturday to finish her title, then on Sunday she qualified on Open Sheep as well as in Advanced Ducks, taking a third place to finish that title.  Good Girl, Trouble!

Domestic dogs display empathic response to distress in humans

June 7, 2012 in Psychology & Psychiatry

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(Phys.org) -- Research from Goldsmiths, University of London suggests domestic dogs express empathic behaviour when confronted with humans in distress.

Dr Deborah Custance and Jennifer Mayer, both from the Department of Psychology, developed an innovative procedure to examine if domestic dogs could identify and respond to emotional states in humans.
Eighteen pet dogs, spanning a range of ages and breeds, were exposed to four separate 20-second experimental conditions in which either the dog's owner or an unfamiliar person pretended to cry, hummed in an odd manner, or carried out a casual conversation.
The dogs demonstrated behaviours consistent with an expression of empathic concern. Significantly more dogs looked at, approached and touched the humans as they were crying as opposed to humming, and no dogs responded during talking. The majority of dogs in the study responded to the crying person in a submissive manner consistent with empathic concern and comfort-offering.
"The humming was designed to be a relatively novel behaviour, which might be likely to pique the dogs' curiosity. The fact that the dogs differentiated between crying and humming indicates that their response to crying was not purely driven by curiosity," explained Dr Custance. "Rather, the crying carried greater emotional meaning for the dogs and provoked a stronger overall response than either humming or talking."
The study also found that the dogs responded to the person who was crying regardless of whether it was their owner or the unfamiliar person: "If the dogs' approaches during the crying condition were motivated by self-oriented comfort-seeking, they would be more likely to approach their usual source of comfort, their owner, rather than the stranger," said Jennifer. "No such preference was found. The dogs approached whoever was crying regardless of their identity. Thus they were responding to the person's emotion, not their own needs, which is suggestive of empathic-like comfort-offering behaviour."
More information: The full paper has been published by SpringerLink and can be viewed here. The paper is also available at Goldsmiths Research Online here.

Provided by Goldsmiths, University of London

My 9 year old granddaughter Crystal is with us for a few weeks this summer.  Here is her first attempt at pie: chocolate on the bottom, butterscotch on top with a butter/lard crust :)   Made from our goats' milk and topped with whipped cream, we're sure the Surgeon General would approve!

 

Taken today, young Noche works on her flanks, stopping, recalling....

This is one of our goat kids - his parents are both from Jacobs Pride, a Nubian breeder in Arizona.  Our favorite doe, Cadeau, is sired by his grandfather out of a 6MG doe; we plan to breed Clover to this fellow in the autumn.









And this is one of the uses for our goats' milk  -- my first attempt at making soap!

 This is Man Ray, our new 'keeper' puppy from Solo and Trouble - we opted to have his ears cropped, the first since Solo's disasterous crop - and hope he continues to grow into the dog we think he will.

After 2.5" of rain in the past 24 hours, we were astonished this morning to see our Nelly Moser clematis in bloom!  This has been a reliable clematis for us ~ maybe not the showiest but a delight nonetheless!

Dog Bite Prevention Week: Dogs Don't Like Hugs

By Joan Orr on 05/22/2012

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A different kind of love

One of the most important things you can teach your children is that dogs don't like hugs and kisses. This is a tough lesson, because many (if not most) dog owners simply do not believe it themselves.
Children learn early on that giving hugs to parents, siblings, and stuffed animals is a way to show love and affection. The desire to show affection extends naturally to the family dog. To a child, the family dog is just an animated stuffed animal.

Sadly, this desire to show affection to the family dog is a major cause of facial bites to children. Dogs may tolerate hugs from kids, but few actually enjoy this type of attention. If a dog does more than tolerate this inappropriate handling, it is only on the dog's own terms—when the dog comes to the child for attention, and only if the child does not hug tightly or hang on too long. There is no dog that loves hugs from kids anytime, anywhere, anyhow.

Listen to the experts, including the dogs!

How do we know this about dogs? In part, because every dog-behavior expert tells us. For example, in her wonderful book For the Love of a Dog, world-renowned author Patricia McConnell says that she has at least 50 photos of kids hugging dogs—and in not one of them is the dog happy about it. We also know because dogs tell us, and dogs don't tell lies!
If your dog is enjoying a hug, he will do one or more of the following:

• Ask for more if you stop
• Lean into you
• Relax and close his eyes
• Pant and wag his tail with a loose body

If your dog is not enjoying a hug, he will do one or more of the following:

• Turn his head away from you
• Lick your face repeatedly
• Lick his lips or flick his tongue out
• Yawn
• Lick or chew at himself
• Sneeze
• Wriggle to get away
• Hold his body tense
• Shake off vigorously when you let go
• Show a half of moon of white in his eye
• Wag his tail stiffly

The dog in the video is typical of a dog about which owners would say, "He just loves the kids; they can do anything to him." If you hear yourself saying these words, take a closer look and see what the dog is really saying. In the vast majority of cases, the dog is saying, at least some of the time, "I don't like this—please make it stop."

Prevention is the key

When a dog tells us something and we don't listen, eventually the dog may not be able to take it anymore. At that point, the dog's only recourse is to use his teeth to say, "Stop that."
Be an advocate for your kids and your dog. Intervene as necessary, and allow only interactions that the dog truly enjoys.

I don't have a more recent picture of Briarlea Reina de la  Noche' BN (Solo x Ruby) or I'd use it to let you all know that she got her JHD title yesterday on a mixed sheep/goat flock.  This is a beginner title in herding for young Noche who turns 2 years old in June!  She is also entered in AKC trials in June -- results to come!  Noche' was the puppy I kept from that litter and she's turning out to be not only multi-talented but a beauty as well.  She lives with Susan Yochim in Woodbury, MN.

New obedience title with placement to finish for our good dog Solo!