Ninja Cat
Posted: Mon 15 September, 2008 Filed under: Animals 1 Comment »(via Pete)
I don’t normally bother with YouTube videos, but on occasion I’ll make an exception.
And yes, this is an exception. Live with it.
Loss of Network
Posted: Sun 14 September, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Geeky 1 Comment »In the evening, we sometimes completely lose the wireless network. This is why :
If you look under the cat, you’ll just see the grey box with the word “Belkin” on it. Yes, that’s the wireless router. He’s found that it’s warm, and also that it gets our attention. So when he’s hungry, this is where he sits, ’til he gets fed.
Furry little fucker.
Devious Bitch
Posted: Fri 29 August, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic Leave a comment »I meant to write about this a while ago, and completely forgot. (Well, I think I did – I don’t remember writing about it, so *shrug*) But anyway, the other week, Hound finally confirmed my suspicions that she’s a devious cow. Let me explain…
At home, Psycho Cat has his food in one particular room, which Hound is kept out of by means of a stairgate. (like people have to prevent children from going up stairs) When she was younger, she used to jump the stairgate, but since we’ve moved to Norfolk she doesn’t even attempt that any more.
If for any reason the stairgate is left open and the cat’s food is down, Hound will go in and scoff as much of it as possible. At that point, because of Hound’s megaoesophagus, she’ll then spend the next 30 – 60 mins puking it back up and re-eating it. This will continue until either a) it stops of its own accord or b) she pukes it up, one of us gets her into her cage, and then clears up the (now warm, and eaten several times puke.
Herself always says that this thieving of Psycho Cat’s food is just because she’s a dog, and thus a scavenger at heart who can’t resist stealing food. Which is fair – but when we were in Bracknell, I often wondered why Hound wouldn’t jump the stairgate to steal the food when we weren’t in the house.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I came home and Hound was fast asleep. I went in to the kitchen, and could suddenly hear her scoffing away in the room with the cat’s food in. Hound had gone in there – the stairgate was open – and hoovered up the entire of the cat’s tuna.
But she’s shown her hand now. Because I know I didn’t open that stairgate. So the devious cow can resist stealing the food while we’re out, because she knows she won’t be able to go and puke in the garden. Therefore, she also knows that stealing the food will make her puke it up. She understands cause and effect – she knows that if she scoffs that food, she’ll be ill, so she waits until someone is around to feel sorry for her before she does it.
And in my book, that makes her a devious conniving bitch. And no longer will she have my sympathy when she’s stolen the cat’s food, and is now looking all mournful and “I couldn’t help it, it was just there” while she’s puking it all over the back garden.
Canine Excuses and Licences
Posted: Tue 26 August, 2008 Filed under: Animals, News, Thoughts 2 Comments »There’s a story on the BBC news site today about an inquest into the death of a toddler who was killed by a Rottweiler. I don’t want to use terms like “attacked”, because it seems that dog grabbed the child because it saw the child as a new toy.
The dog had apparently been kept in a yard, and hadn’t been walked or exercised once in more than five months. Now, I can’t envisage keeping a dog un-exercised for five days, let alone five months- even a small lap-dog, let alone a lopping great Rottweiler.
The coroner called for “stricter controls” on the breeding and sale of dangerous dogs – but to me, this isn’t about a dangerous dog, it’s about a bored dog. The coroner should be recommending stricter controls on the owners of dogs – dangerous or not – rather than on the breeders. (And yes, in this case the dog was bought “in a pub” from an unregistered breeder. Personally, though, I don’t believe that every dog in a similar situation is a dangerous dog – a lot of it depends on how that dog is then trained and brought up, rather than its initial situation)
And you know what would make that control of dog owners easier? Simple, the return of the dog licence. I’d be happy to see it administered by a non-governmental organisation, such as Dogs Trust or RSPCA – and you can’t/don’t get a licence until you’ve been visited by a registered inspector from [administrating authority] who fills out the licence there and then. And you can’t buy a dog without showing your licence, your approval to be a dog owner.
Yes, you would still end up with deals done ‘in a pub’ – but you could also have the offence of having a dog without a licence, and make it a very expensive proposition. For example, a £1,000 default fine per unlicensed dog with higher penalties if that dog is also mis-treated. Even, perhaps, a fine that is 50% discounted if you get a licence within 14 or 28 days of being discovered – which still leaves a significant amount to be paid.
Even when you’ve got the licence, you’d be liable to be checked on at random, in order that the inspectors could check your dog was still being well looked after, exercised etc.
To me that just all makes sense. So why isn’t it happening? Have I missed something that makes this harder to do?
Alien Dog
Posted: Fri 22 August, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic 1 Comment »I don’t quite know what’s happened with Hound today. We’ve got the men in digging a poxy big trench down the front drive for the replacement water supply pipe. The mini-digger is fairly noisy, and of course it means we’ve got people at the front and side of the house.
Normally, Hound will bark if anyone even sets foot on the driveway, yet with all this going on, she’s actually laying at my feet, ignoring everything. It’s most bizarre, and I think it’s quite possible that aliens have come down, abducted Hound, and left us with a milder copy.
OD
Posted: Fri 8 August, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Thoughts 1 Comment »Last night, I overdosed Hound on a sedative tablet. There was good reason for it, but that doesn’t stop me feeling more than slightly guilty about the entire episode.
We’d already had one big thunderstorm, and Hound had suffered a bit of a panic meltdown, but was coming back OK. Then about 9pm we had more thunder, and she just lost it all over again – running up and down the garden, not knowing what to do with herself.
It’s at these times that she does stupid things, get aggressive and protective, and just gets herself in trouble – particularly after two events on the same day – so I got out the bottle of ACP sedatives we got a while back for dealing with fireworks. I don’t like giving her sedatives, it’s not something that I feel is the right way to deal with the situation, but sometimes it’s still the best way to do it. Anyway, the bottle says “Give one tablet, 90 minutes before expected fireworks time”. She wasn’t that bad, so I opted to give her a half tab instead.
Only, um, it turns out that Herself usually gives her a quarter of a tablet. So I’d given her double the normal dose of sedative, and she’d already had her normal homeopathic pills which also help calm her down (although not in extreme cases like thunder and fireworks)
Long story short, fifteen minutes later she was curled up and asleep, even with thunder and lightning overhead. But the sedatives really take her out, and by the time we were going to bed, she couldn’t even walk straight. When it came to trying to walk her over to her cage, so we could do all the “locking up” stuff for the night (the normal routine) she got into the hallway and just collapsed, flopped out and wouldn’t move. All very “Oh, it’s just too much effort”. I’ve never seen her do that before, and to be honest it worried me – I had visions of having done her some serious harm by giving her too much of the ACP sedative.
We got her back into her basket, and did all the normal stuff, then went to bed. Again, this is something that we’ve never been able to do before – she always runs round and gets stupid, which is why she normally just goes into the cage ’til we’re done. This time, just spark out in her bed.
And basically, Hound stayed there all night. I don’t think the poor cow even moved. She certainly didn’t move when I got up this morning, even while I was eating toast in the same room. Again, needless to say this caused more concern – normally toast will motivate her to do most things.
She did get up to run out when I went up to let out the chickens though, so I’m a lot more relieved. After visions and thoughts of “Can she actually move? Have I somehow paralysed her? Or when she’s been tottering about last night, has she damaged something?” it was good to see her walking/running again.
Mind you, she’s still not completely over it (or wasn’t when I left the house) so she hasn’t had any of her normal homeopathic stuff today yet.
I’m glad she’s OK, and seems to have slept through the rest of the night (and another thunderstorm) OK, but all the same, you can be sure that in future I’ll remember that she only needs a quarter tablet. And yes, I do feel guilty about it, even though it was an honest mistake. Thank Christ I didn’t give her a full tablet, like the recommendation!
T’under
Posted: Tue 29 July, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Driving Leave a comment »Last night, as blogged about elsewhere, we had a heavy dollop of thunder and lightning (plus rain) at about 3am.
Now, where Hound is concerned, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” this weather described perfectly.
Thunder and lightning
Very very fright’ning
So at 3am, we were both awake with a Hound lying under the bed, terrified, and attempting to burrow through the skirting board and escape that way. The fact that if she ever did get through the wall, she’d be outside and stuck in all the thunder and rain has never quite sunk in. Every single flash of lightning that came, whang, she’s burrowing again.
Bizarrely, we have found one thing that seems to work with the idiot furbag, and that’s having me keep on talking to her, reassuring her that we’re there, not going anywhere, and that (despite her insistence otherwise) everything is actually OK, and she doesn’t need to worry. Or burrow. So long as I keep on talking to the four-legged bollock-brain, she’s OK, and doesn’t scratch/burrow.
Of course, that also means that I have to stay awake through the duration of the storm, and through the other side ’til she comes down from her orbital plane. So I finally got back to semi-decent sleep somewhere south of 4am.
When the alarm went off at 5.15, I just ended up deciding I wasn’t safe to walk, let alone drive the two hour journey to Essex. So I re-set the alarm for an hour later, and shifted myself when it went off again. It means that right now I look like someone’s beaten me up, the under-eye luggage is so serious, and I’ve still got another two-hour journey home to go.
Should be interesting.