Take off, eh?

Lots of pictures taken today (this one courtesy of Tamzin), and many Ridgebacks at the park.

Here are Ramsay (L) and Rory...I just want to know if any of my boy's feet are actually on the ground? Doesn't look like it.

Fall Pics

"Okay, Rory, you go that way...yeah, way over through those trees. Don't worry, we'll wait here for you...really, we will...uh huh...."











Seth still has lots to teach Rory. Especially when he's having such a good day. Sometimes, walks with Rory are too much for Seth's old bones, but this was a beautiful, warm fall day and he was feelin' fine.

"When ya sniff, make sure you get your nose right down into it."

This is Rory doing his impression of a gremlin. Check out those pointy ears!

Pretty boy.

Again with those ears. And that tongue.

Bathroom Reading

Bathroom reading at our house is a jumble of golf and I/T magazines. I'll note here that I dabble in both, however, the magazines are not mine. But when in Rome...
There was a simply stupendous article in one of the I/T mags written by somebody whose sole purpose must have been to purge himself of every hyphenated buzzphrase (should that be hyphenated?) he has ever come across. It included (and this is not an exhaustive list) delightful gems like: next-generation in-memory (double whammy I guess); policy-driven; latency-agile; low-latency analytics; premised-based business intelligence; distributed-caching infrastructure; event-stream processing; real-time business intelligence; changed-data capture; data-warehouse strategy; and dynamic task-brokering. Three of these were actually one after the other in the same sentence. I'm not sure I gleaned anything from the reading except that it's pretty amazing Norm and I actually speak the same language.
My personal favourite from the article is: trickle-feed extract transform load. I don't know about other dogs, but Ridgebacks would never be happy with trickle-feed anything. They need it all at once, right now, just dump it all in the bowl, hurry, oh please, and make sure he didn't get more than me. As for transforming it, well, they don't have a problem with that. Ask Norm. He mows the lawn

Brotherly Love

Today we ran into Ramsey and his pugs and peeps at the park. This made Rory SOOOO happy! We had come across another Ridgeback already, but he was on a halti and his owner wasn't letting him off. Other dogs are okay, but Rory much prefers a bit of Ridgeback wrestling and chasing games. Us too. It means he has been tuckered right out since we got back home. Of course, getting back was a bit problematic...for the first time ever Rory ignored my call to come, and instead went in search of his brother. He just wasn't done playing yet, even though his tongue was practically dragging on the ground. He wasn't hard to find. A visit to the butcher for knuckle bones and Rory's day was made perfect. Seth's too, since he got to stay home and rest his weary self AND he still got a bone.

Creature Comforts and Malodorous Mayhem

Yesterday was one of those days where the only thing I could think of on the way home from work was climbing straight into bed – so my arrival involved a quick greeting to the happy hound crew (“What? No walk?”) and then a beeline straight for my room. PJ’s, blinds closed, under covers. Ahhhh…..bliss….quiet. Wait...click, click, click went the sound of toenails on tile floor, and a shadow outside the bedroom door. Up, out, take Rory back to the kitchen, reassemble admittedly poorly designed gate/box/chair mechanism to keep Rory from roaming the house unattended. Back to bed. Whine, scrape, click, click, sniff, nudge door… Right, up, out, back to kitchen. Rebuild blockade, add another chair. “Stay!” Yeah, not so much. I finally resorted to the “zones” gadget. Handy little collar warns and then zaps little canine buddy when he comes too close to the white disk thingy placed on top of the blockade (by the way, Seth is watching all of this with great interest, as he is quite content to stay in the kitchen and hog all the blankets to himself). “Oh” says Rory, “you want me to stay in here, okay, I get it now.” Sure he does. Until I go back to bed. There was nothing to be done for it, so I grabbed some dog blankets and invited the dogs to join me in the bedroom. Well NOW they’re happy! And I’m happily anticipating a nice little nap. Just as I’m drifting off, Keelan gets home. I don’t know what it is, but kids absolutely must knock on the bedroom door every five minutes if their mother is in bed. He’s a teenager and we could go all day without more than a few (quality, of course) verbal exchanges, and now he is a veritable fountain of information, insight and probing questions. Fabulous. And the dogs are farting. Well, Rory is anyway. There’s another of life’s mysteries. How is it that Rory and Seth can eat the same food but Rory’s farts are borderline fatal while Seth’s are merely unpleasant? There must be a way to use this to my advantage. The farting, I mean. There is yet another knock at the door. “Release The Noxious Hound Gas!” I yell to nobody in particular, then: “Come in.” Keelan opens the door and is immediately bowled over by the aroma. Funny how fast previously pressing matters can be set aside.

Marshmallows, anyone?

August 31 - probably a new record for the earliest lighting of our fireplace. It's chilly and wet here and if the drive back from B.C.on Friday is any indication the rain is here to stay for a while. After spending the day canning B.C. peaches, and making pickles, and walking dogs in the drizzle, this is a good way to kick back. But first, Rory had to watch America's Funniest Animals. He actually watches it, especially the birds - it's the strangest thing to watch him watch the TV. Of course, he also stares intently at his own reflection in the glass cabinet doors. He growls at himself. Not in a "Grrrrr.....you are SO handsome" way, more like "Grrrrr....uh, growl, uh, WHO are you and what are you doing in my house???" thing.

Lights! Camera! Oh, s#%t, STAND STILL!!!

Not that it needed to be confirmed, but a photo shoot is about the best place to figure out that Ridgebacks are not Border Collies. Or Golden Retrievers. Check out Tamzin's blog for today's details on the adventures of the boys (and a girl) in the high-stakes world of print advertising. When he was photographing Kika who is an absolutely adorable, mellow, docile little female RR, the photographer was so impressed he said that he would rather take pictures of puppies than children, any day. Hmmmm...thinks I. Wonder if he knows what he's facing next? He soon found out. But first, Seth. Mellow enough. Certainly obedient enough - he knows what 'stay' means. But old. And the lights were hot. And the sheet they had him sitting didn't provide any traction. Poor fellow. One of the guys in the studio said his favourite shot was the one where Seth's eyes were closed tight, tongue hanging out - he looked like he was laughing! Anyway, there were a few good shots, and more later on. I don't know if Seth will do Raimi justice, since the dogs are all supposed to be the same dog at different life stages and Seth is not quite as impressive looking as Raimi. Beautiful enough in his own right though.




Tamzin described the moron mayhem accurately, and her show collar idea was our saving grace. Also, putting a rubber mat under the sheet provided more traction. There ended up being some absolutely gorgeous shots of Rory and Raimi. Seth came back in and things went much better for him too.




I brought my camera to take pictures of the dogs having their pictures taken. Weird, I know. So, I got pictures of Kika in the spotlight, which I'll send to Tamzin to post and forward to Barb. Tamzin used my camera to take pictures of Seth during his turn in the lights. Somehow, we managed not to get any shots of Rory or Raimi having their pictures taken. Probably because we were pretty focused on climbing ladders, throwing toys, coordinating dogs, treats... There are a couple of pictures of the boys checking out the lunch fixin's. Of course.