A very small life

If you have picture windows in your house, you may have heard the particular thud of a bird hitting the window. The sound is so sharp and quick that it can leave you wondering if you heard anything at all. To ward off reckless fliers, people sometimes put decals of crows or other shapes on large windows or sliding glass doors. My house has white, horizontal blinds on the windows. I keep them open to let in the light but lowered so that the windows don’t look like an empty expanse to birds.


At least I thought the blinds looked like a barrier until today when I heard the ominous thunk followed by the barking of two Airedales. Sometimes a bird is stunned and best left alone to recover. Today’s bird, a juvenile goldfinch, was not so lucky.

Juveniles have duller coloring than adults as well as a dark upper beak.

Although the goldfinch is the Washington state bird, we don’t often see them anymore. The population of songbirds has declined drastically everywhere. Reasons normally include habitat loss, acid rain, climate change, even predation by household cats, though a recent study in the UK supports habitat loss as the main reason.

I went outside to the front porch to find the bird dead of a broken neck below the window-box nasturtiums, one eye closed and the other beginning to dull. Most birds around here sport variations in shades of brown; to find some golden coloring is like finding real gold. I took photos to remember the colors and when examining the markings on the bird’s wing, discovered the flight feathers are so delicate as to be translucent.

This is the time of year when birds, opossums, spiders and other wildlife leave their families to search for their own territory. That’s why we find more of them on our front porches and in the roads.

Early in the summer I mentioned the low odds of any bird surviving to reproduce. How important is one tiny goldfinch?

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Peaches the Greencheek Amazon talks about TLP Day with the help of  Pita (inside the cage).

It's also a good day to click a "Like" at the Pedigree site on Facebook.* The notice says: January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010, for every Fan or Like of The PEDIGREE® Adoption Drive at facebook.com, PEDIGREE® Brand will donate 8 oz. of PEDIGREE® Brand Dry Food for Dogs to animal shelters selected by PEDIGREE® Brand, up to a total of 2 million lbs. of food, the equivalent of one bowl of food for each of the estimated four million dogs that wind up in shelters and breed rescue organizations each year. Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.

*The one thing I didn't do was click the "Get Started" bar which would allow Pedigree to access all my Facebook information and contacts.

Remembering better weather

We've had days of glum wet dark humid rainy weather, a promise of much more of the same to come. Miro and I are doing lots of "fetch" indoors while Alanis, not understanding the concept of running after a toy, much less bringing it back, stands in front of me wagging her tail. Miro gets praised for bringing the toy back--sometimes I don't even have to pry it out of his mouth!--and Alanis gets praised for standing there.

Here's the real reason for this post. I was recalling sunshine by looking at photos from a couple of weeks ago in Victoria's Butchart Gardens.

This is part of the sunken garden, a former quarry.

And Krispy Creme, the honorary Indus Airedale, in her "rub my belly" pose.

A gift from Sunshade and Jaffa

Miss Sunshade and Jaffa (a.k.a. Stinky) from Vancouver, BC were in town last week with their humans. We tried to get the dogs together for an Airedale playdate but the timing didn't work out, not to mention the dreary weather all Labor Day weekend. Sunshade, however, was kind enough to send this:

I've seen "Baby on board" signs like this in cars but not an Airedale one. I have it on a house window. If I put the sign in the car, somebody (and we won't name names) might chew it up. You know how those things happen--the dog's sitting around, waiting for you, and something just happens to be near the teeth, which do some idle nibbling and, whoops, where'd that thing go?

Many thanks to Sunshade and her crew! We're thrilled and honored to receive a gift from a blog-buddy.

A puddle of puppies

I spent a few days on Vancouver Island, BC visiting Joanne Helm and her beautiful Indus Kennels Airedales. Mary Quite Contrary had puppies the week before and here they are all piled up. Like Alanis, Mary is a Terrydale girl from North Carolina. Mary arrived when Alanis was still living at Indus and Joanne says the two girls went off together in a corner to touch noses just like a couple of people exchanging gossip from home. Like Alanis, Mary is a beautiful, elegant bitch. She wasn't super happy about this stranger coming in to look at her puppies, so she woofed at me every time she saw me, not the Airedale BigBadBark but a little warning to behave myself.

Joanne is very happy about this litter and told me about quality necks, heads and shoulders but I can barely discern one from another in that pile. When their eyes open and they start playing on baby agility slides and climbers, then they'll really be fun. Go to the Indus website for photos of Mary and gorgeous Gabriel, the sire.

Thieves!

After a too-wet spring destroying blossoms and reducing pollination, this has been a poor summer for growing anything. My plot of everbearing strawberries produced a couple of handfuls of blueberry-sized strawberries. This berry was one of the few normals, which I found on the front porch rail. Here's why it was not on the plant:

The thief didn't even have the courtesy to eat the whole thing.

Possibly the thief was the same squirrel who destroyed the single squash on one of my winter squash plants.

Not the work of slugs--those are teeth marks.

I'll just have to heap more compost and chicken fertilizer on the garden and hope for better luck next year.

Not for dinner.

A visit to grandma's house

We went to Grandma's house on Lake Washington. Alanis stayed home because she doesn't  like the water. First thing I did was check out the pee places.

Then I headed into the water.

What am I supposed to do out here? Maybe water ski?

I know! I'll visit the neighbors.

See the long line? Mom dragged me back from the neighbors' house before I could go run on their lawn.

Since Mom wouldn't go into the water with me on a leash in one hand and a camera in the other, a run on the beach will have to do.I went back up to the house--to say hi to Royce, Grandma's Great Dane.

I wanted to play but he just stood there. Mom says he's old and I should be careful around him. She says I should be more careful around her, too, because she has enough scratches and bruises to last for the next five years. If she had a thick, hard coat like mine, she wouldn't have to worry.

Does Miro need orthotics?

I wear orthotics in my running shoes because my feet pronate, meaning the ankles go in and the toes point a little out. The orthotics keep my feet moving at a balanced heel-to-toe line. It looks like Miro's left foot needs an orthotic, too.

Artistic types are always a little different, aren't they?

Update on canine osteosarcoma research

The American Kennel Club Health Foundation sent out an alert today about research into canine osteosarcoma (OSA), the most common malignant bone cancer in dogs. It's common enough--particularly among large breeds-- that if you haven't dealt with it on one of your dogs, you probably know someone who has.

While one purpose of the news release is to show that the AKC Health Foundation is helping to fund this research and would like to have readers contribute, its other purpose is to request blood samples for the genome mapping project in which researchers are searching for the mutations in genes that make dogs susceptible to this disease.

The next time you take your dog for a check-up and have blood drawn, you might want to send a blood sample to the genome mapping project. The more dogs that are enrolled, the better chance the researchers have of getting reliable results.

From the link above, here's what they're looking for.
"Investigators are enrolling all purebred dogs that fall into any of the following categories:

1) Have been diagnosed with OSA

2) Over eight years old and without cancer

3) Have other types of cancer/hereditary diseases (see the comprehensive list at Dog DNA)"

It's a bit of a bother--you have to get the kit, get the blood, fill out forms, send it all in--but when has something been too much bother for our dogs' well-being?

Dangerous precedent in California?

Proposed legislation in California would make it a crime for anyone other than licensed veterinary technicians and veterinarians to provide services such as pet massage or water therapy. Here's the link:  CA Assembly Bill 1980. The purpose of the bill appears to be to protect consumers and their pets from fraudulent therapists but it's badly worded.

Scroll down to section 3 and see this: "(3) Existing law prohibits the practice of veterinary medicine


without a license and specifies that a person practices veterinary

medicine when he or she, among other things, represents himself or

herself as engaged in the practice of veterinary medicine or

administers a treatment of whatever nature for the cure or relief of

a bodily injury or disease of an animal.

This bill would provide that a person also practices veterinary

medicine when he or she performs physical rehabilitation or

musculoskeletal manipulation upon an animal, unless otherwise

authorized by regulation of the board." (But there doesn't appear to be a provision to cover the "otherwise.")

When we consult someone regarding the health of our animals, we want to be sure that person is well educated and trained; but this bill seems to make a narrow interpretation of what constitutes proper training. It would also raise the price of services if a person trained to offer T-touch also has to complete the two-year course to become a licensed veterinary technician. Do you really need the massage therapist to be able to draw blood and give shots? Would you even want her to? Is the bill meant to protect consumers or to raise money for the state with the purchase of licenses?

CA residents might want to contact their legislators about this.