Then, there is poor Mr. 836. He's having a bad hair day.....and nose day....and, well, he just wasn't thinking he was going to do a photo-shoot when he got up this morning.
Despite the ruffled look, he is kind of cute, no?
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Introducing
Some of the guys. The whippets are still banished from the land as there are cow-types roaming. However, I must admit that the cow-types are handsome in their own kind of way. Introducing Mr. 370. Is he not just a HUNK?
Then, there is poor Mr. 836. He's having a bad hair day.....and nose day....and, well, he just wasn't thinking he was going to do a photo-shoot when he got up this morning.
Despite the ruffled look, he is kind of cute, no?
Then, there is poor Mr. 836. He's having a bad hair day.....and nose day....and, well, he just wasn't thinking he was going to do a photo-shoot when he got up this morning.Despite the ruffled look, he is kind of cute, no?
Poor Peanut
Peanut was here for a purpose, which he achieved....maybe. Only time will tell. He was here to breed Gabi.
The whole breeding process scares me. I have never bred a litter of dogs. Gabi is accomplished on the race track so despite her lack of eye pigmentation, I think she deserves to be bred. I fear something happening to my Girl Goober. Because I believe that waiting too long likely makes pregnancies more difficult, I am breeding her this year (age 4). Now, the breeding of Peanut to the Girl Goober....well, I caught that one. This will be a litter of nuts.
Poor Peanut had to make it through this to do the deed:
The faces of Gabi can be quite interesting during "that time." M-hmmm. Quite interesting.
Peanut pined. He refused to eat for a few days and then would eat only hand fed food for 3 days. I was embarrassed to send him home. He was a shadow of his former self. I think he should bounce back quickly, though.
There are a lot of different reasons for choosing him. Although he hasn't been a runner, all of his littermates who are running have excelled. He is Mati's littermate, and I have lived with 3 from this litter for various periods of time and they all have incredibly similar, sweet personalities. Finally, there are some genetic reasons for going with him rather than his brother Stoli, who has been running.
So, if puppies happen they should be here in November....the nuts, the hurricanes (the first tie occurred on the weekend that Ike blew through our 'hood), the giving of thanks......so many themes. But are there puppies? At this point, if there are puppies, I will be happy. If there aren't puppies, I think I will be relieved (although a little disappointed).
I have never bred a litter before now. I am not liking this process. This is day 35 post breeding, but I still can't tell that Gabi is pregnant. According to this on-line calender that i found two weeks ago, I should have been able to palpate the embryos. Not. I just got a bundle of muscles. There are signs like nipple enlargement that mean little to me as my girls usually have this with their false pregnancies. This week, I am supposed to see waist thickening. I THINK we might have it, which is why I am finally posting. Maybe. But, I am not sure. So if you see a picture of Gabi in two weeks and she looks like she always does: false alarm!
The whole breeding process scares me. I have never bred a litter of dogs. Gabi is accomplished on the race track so despite her lack of eye pigmentation, I think she deserves to be bred. I fear something happening to my Girl Goober. Because I believe that waiting too long likely makes pregnancies more difficult, I am breeding her this year (age 4). Now, the breeding of Peanut to the Girl Goober....well, I caught that one. This will be a litter of nuts.
Poor Peanut had to make it through this to do the deed:
The faces of Gabi can be quite interesting during "that time." M-hmmm. Quite interesting.
Peanut pined. He refused to eat for a few days and then would eat only hand fed food for 3 days. I was embarrassed to send him home. He was a shadow of his former self. I think he should bounce back quickly, though.
There are a lot of different reasons for choosing him. Although he hasn't been a runner, all of his littermates who are running have excelled. He is Mati's littermate, and I have lived with 3 from this litter for various periods of time and they all have incredibly similar, sweet personalities. Finally, there are some genetic reasons for going with him rather than his brother Stoli, who has been running.
So, if puppies happen they should be here in November....the nuts, the hurricanes (the first tie occurred on the weekend that Ike blew through our 'hood), the giving of thanks......so many themes. But are there puppies? At this point, if there are puppies, I will be happy. If there aren't puppies, I think I will be relieved (although a little disappointed).
I have never bred a litter before now. I am not liking this process. This is day 35 post breeding, but I still can't tell that Gabi is pregnant. According to this on-line calender that i found two weeks ago, I should have been able to palpate the embryos. Not. I just got a bundle of muscles. There are signs like nipple enlargement that mean little to me as my girls usually have this with their false pregnancies. This week, I am supposed to see waist thickening. I THINK we might have it, which is why I am finally posting. Maybe. But, I am not sure. So if you see a picture of Gabi in two weeks and she looks like she always does: false alarm!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Things that make you go, "hmmmmm....."
As I have written previously, I am trying to go "green." My attempts have been modest: I purchased a car that gets 35 mpg, I am recycling my paper, plastic & glass (which has decreased what I put curbside by about 75%). As I consider getting ridden of my allergen permeated wall to wall carpeting, I am probably going to go with carbonized bamboo. It looks nice, is renewable (believe me, I have seen how hard it can be to get rid of that bamboo), and has an excellent hardness rating.
Recently, I was reading an article in Science magazine about biofuels. I had heard, what I believe is likely an urban legend, that biofuels burn less efficiently and that they tear up gaskets in cars. This article suggests that they burn more efficiently. However the very disturbing information was that grain-based biofuels, under their current form of management, may be causing more environmental harm! Due to tilling crops, with the burden of soil erosion, the need for fertilizers, etc. this may be a source of increased global warming.
PEOPLE! We need, no HAVE to start thinking in this country. The incredibly detrimental impact of fossil fuels on our environment has been well documented. Why would we choose to up-ramp another fuel source, that will potentially increase the global warming effect? Oh, yeah. It's easy.....fail.
The article goes on to describe cellulosic ethanol. This is a type of biofuel produced from the structural material that compromises the "mass of plants" -- the corn stalk, grasses, woodchips can all be starting material. This has great promise since the starting materials are potentially in much greater supply than that used for grain based ethanol. For reasons that are beyond my brain this morning, although this material takes more processing to get to the sugar monomers that are needed to ferment the alcohol, cellulosic ethanol is predicted to reduce greenhouse emissions by 85% over reformulated gasoline. Also, it can be made from sources that be grown without annual tillage, thereby reducing soil erosion and helping preserve soil integrity (without the need for toxic fertilizers). Actually, it sounds like something that might be grown on the less fertile land that we have in my area.
As we go forward, we need to think about our choices. As I watch the current financial debacle, I see a panic response to something that was predicted over 9 years ago when the subprime mortgage business started (there was an interesting article in the NYT written in 9/99 predicting the bailout that is now underway; I must admit that they didn't envision the magnitude of the bailout). It seems that there is a panic patch being applied to something that many were writing about and suggesting for the last several YEARS. We can not afford to apply the same panic response to our environment. That being said, we also can not afford continue to stick our collective heads in the global sand and do nothing....which seems to be the approach that our government has perfected.
Just my 2 cents...probably shouldn't be writing in a sleep deprived state, though.
Recently, I was reading an article in Science magazine about biofuels. I had heard, what I believe is likely an urban legend, that biofuels burn less efficiently and that they tear up gaskets in cars. This article suggests that they burn more efficiently. However the very disturbing information was that grain-based biofuels, under their current form of management, may be causing more environmental harm! Due to tilling crops, with the burden of soil erosion, the need for fertilizers, etc. this may be a source of increased global warming.
PEOPLE! We need, no HAVE to start thinking in this country. The incredibly detrimental impact of fossil fuels on our environment has been well documented. Why would we choose to up-ramp another fuel source, that will potentially increase the global warming effect? Oh, yeah. It's easy.....fail.
The article goes on to describe cellulosic ethanol. This is a type of biofuel produced from the structural material that compromises the "mass of plants" -- the corn stalk, grasses, woodchips can all be starting material. This has great promise since the starting materials are potentially in much greater supply than that used for grain based ethanol. For reasons that are beyond my brain this morning, although this material takes more processing to get to the sugar monomers that are needed to ferment the alcohol, cellulosic ethanol is predicted to reduce greenhouse emissions by 85% over reformulated gasoline. Also, it can be made from sources that be grown without annual tillage, thereby reducing soil erosion and helping preserve soil integrity (without the need for toxic fertilizers). Actually, it sounds like something that might be grown on the less fertile land that we have in my area.
As we go forward, we need to think about our choices. As I watch the current financial debacle, I see a panic response to something that was predicted over 9 years ago when the subprime mortgage business started (there was an interesting article in the NYT written in 9/99 predicting the bailout that is now underway; I must admit that they didn't envision the magnitude of the bailout). It seems that there is a panic patch being applied to something that many were writing about and suggesting for the last several YEARS. We can not afford to apply the same panic response to our environment. That being said, we also can not afford continue to stick our collective heads in the global sand and do nothing....which seems to be the approach that our government has perfected.
Just my 2 cents...probably shouldn't be writing in a sleep deprived state, though.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
I tried to poison the dogs...
Obviously, not really. I would never poison my dogs. But I was a bad owner. Very bad.I had taken the girls (Gabi and Mati) into work to take care of some last minute business before the weekend. I left them in the truck as temperatures were cool. When I came out, they had chewed into a container of fire ant bait and eaten bait..... my heart stopped. I drove home as fast as I could and gave them each a big dose of hydrogen peroxide. In dogs, that will induce emesis (unfortunately for us, I know this from other experiences with not-dog appropriate ingestions). Both girls threw up a moderate amount of the bait. I called my vet, who told me that they should be fine....not believing that, I called a friend who is a vet and works at veterinary school. Unfortunately, we were beyond the bewitching hour, when most had gone home, but she was able to access some articles that I had been unable to find. After a frantic series of calculations (I just can not do math when I am freaked out about my dogs), we determined that they dose that they had received, assuming that they hadn't thrown up was quite small and would not hurt them in a one time exposure.
Still....it had my heart going. I think the ant bait is made with corn meal as a carrier, and dogs love all things corn (at least mine do). I try to keep my home and yard safe....it's always that time when one just happens to let their guard down (or forget about that 3rd container of bait).
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