Gilbert the Good - Would you like a carrot?

 

Gilbert the Good - Would you like a carrot?

'Did you say carrot?'

Our humans ask us that almost every day, as if we’d ever say ‘No’.

(What? Oh, sorry, ‘No, thank you.’

Me and Roxy have a carrot most days.

What? Oh, sorry, Roxy and me have a carrot most days.

What? Oh, sorry, Roxy and I have a carrot most days.

What? Oh, sorry, Roxy and I each have a carrot most days.

Some people are so fussy about the way we speak.)

Honestly, we have to watch our pees and queues here, you know. I don’t really know what queues are, but I don’t know why we have to watch our pees.

(What? Oh, sorry, it’s ps not pees, and qs, not queues. It means minding our pleases = ps and thank yous = qs. Clear as mud, that is.)

'You did say carrot, didn't you?'

Anyway, me and Roxy, I and Roxy, Roxy and me, Roxy and I really enjoy our carrots. Janice tried to photograph our expressions when she asked if we would like a carrot today, but they change so quickly and she’s not very good at the photography lark. Barry’s much better, but he’s very precise. Focal length and aperture and lenses and all sorts of other things have to be considered and that’s why he ends up with dozens of photographs of one thing, trying to get the perfect shot. Janice is a point and shoot person so that’s why so many of her photographs are out of focus, or are shots of feet, or smudged windows, or the ceiling. Anyway, she tries her best and you can’t ask more than that.

How do I know about these things? I listen. I listen really carefully. Roxy listens, too, and sometimes she hears before I do, especially if I’m in a deep sleep.

I can hear a packet of biscuits being opened in another room, or a pear being sliced. Janice wondered if we could hear a banana being peeled, but that would just be plain silly.

(What? Oh, sorry, I’ve split an infinitive. Let me see if I can sort it out. I should not have said ‘that would just be plain silly’ because I split ‘would’ and ‘be’. So, I’ll try again. ‘

That just would be plain silly’. Is that better? No, it’s clumsy, so should it be, ‘That would be just plain silly’? That’s quite difficult to say, too, so perhaps I’ll simply say, ‘That would be plain silly’ or simply, ‘That would be silly.’

I’m a dog, for goodness’ sake. Some people expect too much.)

                                                Crunchy!

To resume . . . Added to that, I have an excellent sense of smell. We have been playing retrieving games indoors and in the garden. It’s great fun. Herschel and Jellicoe join in, too, but their noses aren’t as powerful as ours so they don’t find treats as quickly as we do.

                                            'I do like carrots!'

Roxy eats much quicker than I do. She finishes her carrots and chews in half the time it takes me and she’s always looking for more food. Actually, she’s quite greedy, like most Labrador bitches. I suppose they have to eat as much as they can to build up their energy reserves in case they have puppies. I don’t think Roxy will be having any puppies.

TTFN

 

Gilbert

Moments

Moments

Just a reminder, should you need one, that this is the box my food comes in.

I can barely keep my eyes open. I need sustenance,  I shall soon have to go and sit on Janice to remind her to fill my bowl.

Roxy enjoys her chew. She is an enthusiastic and noisy consumer of chews. If she were to eat boiled sweets - and given half a chance, she would! - she would be a cruncher, not a sucker. 

She finishes her chew quickly then looks round to see if there are any more on offer.

                               

                Ah, yes, Master Gilbert is still munching his chew. He's slower,  much quieter, a more reflective consumer. Sometimes, he can be persuaded to give his chew to Roxy. It's not so much 'give' as fail to retain. He's a good boy, though, and doesn't complain, and there's not much left, really.

Chews are good for the teeth and jaws and also for the furniture, pencils, shoes, flower pots and anything else that would otherwise be used as tooth cleaning apparatus.

Playtime in a new garden

 

Playtime in a new garden

Susannah and James have just moved.

 Roxy and Gilbert are enjoying playing in their garden.

Adder

 

Adder (Viper berus)

Early this morning when Susannah went running with Arthur she found an adder on the track. It was small and probably dead. 

Adders are venomous but there are very few reports of adder bites since these snakes are shy and rarely seen. Like all snakes, they are cold-blooded and have to bask in the sun to increase their body temperature and speed up their metabolism.

Here is a joke from my childhood:

‘Why couldn’t the viper viper her nose?

Because the adder adder handkerchief.’

Susannah has just returned from walking Roxy and Gilbert. She didn’t find any more adders.

 

 

Missing in action?

 

Missing in action?

The problem with recording stag beetles for the Great Stag Hunt (https://stagbeetles.ptes.org/take-part-in-the-great-stag-hunt/) is that one beetle looks pretty much like any other.

We found one a few years ago that had 5½ legs. Over the course of a couple of day the cats kept bringing it into the conservatory. They seemed intrigued by it but didn’t want to do anything with it other than carry it from outside to inside.

This morning we found one on his back on the patio. We tipped him onto his front and realised he was missing one mandible. It didn’t stop him rearing up aggressively, poor little thing, but then he moved away quickly, as much as a little creature can. Gilbert was extremely interested and wanted to nose him but we told him to desist.

An hour and a half later the beetle was in our sitting room, courtesy of Herschel, who deposited him and left. We have now put him back outside and hopefully that is where he will remain.

I wondered if beetles could regenerate missing parts and sadly, they can’t. We will never know how he lost his mandible; maybe it was in battle with a rival, who knows.         

  Monsieur stag beetle will develop a list to the right, I think.

Sticks!

 

Sticks!

Dogs like sticks. They chase them and chew them and carry them, the bigger, the better. Small sticks are a hazard – extricating one from the roof of a dog’s mouth is difficult so we always try to distract them from anything smaller than 10” x 1.5”.

All our dogs have enjoyed retrieving and carrying. The Jack Russells used to work in concert, two going forwards, one going backwards on the same stick with a great deal of noise. 

                Here are Sam (long tail) and his mother, Biddy, at the seaside. Sticks can be found everywhere!

Sam JR collected sticks and would not be parted from them when it was time to go home, Consequently, we accumulated a substantial wood pile.

Our first Dalmatian, Cariadd, specialised in very large sticks, more like tree trunks. She was immensely strong and very intelligent and would always find a way to manoeuvre her telegraph pole through a narrow gap. 

Here Cariadd waits for Barry to toss the 'stick' for her while Bethan watches.

The Labradors are stick merchants of a slightly different cast. They are bred to retrieve and not to give up until they have picked up their quarry. In water, they thrust their noses under the surface to sniff out their objective. 

Dogs can smell underwater and can be trained to locate things in rivers or lakes or other bodies of water. They are sometimes called cadaver dogs and 

will indicate when something or someone is many feet deep in water and

 mud. 

Yesterday, Roxy’s stick disappeared. We don’t know whether it was waterlogged and sank or got tangled in something. Whatever the reason, she could not find it. Eventually, she had to be enticed out of the pond with the promise of ‘biscuits’. Even then, her response was not immediate, but she soon found another stick and all was well in her world again.