Some More About Dogs

I haven't written in this blog for more than a month, but was reminded today when a friend sent me a video  of  the winning round of an Agility Competition. It wasn't Crufts. I think it took place somewhere in America. The Border Collie who was featured, was amazingly fast. I don't think I have ever seen such a fast round. The course was a fairly easy one, no tricks that I could see, but the speed was impressive and so was the handling, but with more dependence on spoken commands than we usually see nowadays.

My comment was that my Jack Russell would have done the course with ease, but unfortunately at a much slower pace. Beemer is 12 years old now and has slowed down considerably. On the plus side, now that I can't run with him any more, he has bonded very well with Yolande, his handler. His attention is totally her when on the course. 
 

 

The great Poodle war

Every morning I walk my two dogs Beemer, the feisty Jack Russell terrier and Lassie, my pretty little rescue dog, We go all round the grounds of the Old Age Complex where I live. At almost the furthest point from the gate is a cottage with  very well-kept garden. Here behind a high wooden fence , live two poodles, a big black Standard Poodle and his companion, a little miniature poodle. A cacophony of  barks always greets us as we pass their gate,  I am sure they are flinging  insults in dog language at us and my two give back as good as they get. I usually hurry past as quickly as I can.

Last week as we came to the Poodles' house there was, for the first time, no sound of barking. and the gate was open. The rules regarding dogs in our complex are clear, Dogs must be behind a fence or on a lead at all times. I thought the owners had taken the dogs out, but just after I passed the gate, the big Poodle came rushing out, snarling and with teeth bared, closely followed by the smaller one. My dogs responded with snarls and yelps. Neither of them are aggressive, but I wasn't taking chances and tried to hurry them away. The noise was terrific, not only were all four dogs being  most vociferous, but I was also shouting at the poodles to "Go home" at the top of my voice.

All this commotion brought the owner out. She joined in the chorus, yelling at her dogs and trying to grab them. The whole Poodle War didn't last more than a few minutes and it was much more like a shouting match than an actual dog fight. I don't think any of the protagonists got bitten. On examination afterwards there was some wet fur but no blood. The Poodles' owner was very apologetic. She told me she had just left the gate open for a few minutes while she helped her disabled husband into the car. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The "War" ended with no harm done,However, this incident illustrates the importance of  socialising  your dog, At our dog club we have special socialising sessions where members and dogs stand in a circle and then each person, one by one  takes his or her dog around and weaves between the others.
This works very well.. My dogs are not perfect by any means, but after taking part in these sessions from an early age they are used to meeting other dogs on or off lead and can almost always be trusted not to cause trouble.

Not everybody has the opportunity of joining this kind of  socialising session, but you can help your dog to learn how to behave around other dogs, by allowing him to meet them. Make it a one on one meeting at first and  allow just a few seconds of sniffing the first time, before leading him away. The next time let them greet one another for a little longer. Most dogs like to make new friends.

MARGIE CLOUGH'S DOGBLOG

It is such a long time since I wrote in this blog, but now I Have a reason for doing it again.
Lately I have been doing a Zoom writing course. Each week we have been given an assignment. This week's one was to set up a make-believe blog, give it a name and a first post.
Here it is

This blog will be called Margie Clough's Dog Blog

MARGIE CLOUGH'S DOGBLOG

Hi,

Let me introduce myself. My name is Margie Clough and I am the owner (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say I am owned by) two dogs, Beemer, a Jack Russell Terrier and Lassie, a cross-breed who looks a bit like like a little collie or a miniature Golden Retriever. In later posts I am going to tell you all about them

and the adventures I have with them, but in this first post I just have to tell you some great news that I have just heard. So The first item on my blog will be this:

GREAT NEWS

A new book on The relationship between people and their animals has just been published . It is Survival of the Friendliest by Brian Hare of Duke University.

Anyone who has done the online course Dog Emotion and Cognition will be excited to hear that not only is there a new book which builds on the work done at Duke on dog cognition but that a brand new course is envisaged based on this book. For all you dog-lovers who have never thought of tackling an online course-- Give it a go. You will learn so much about dogs and how they think and how they behave and it will immensely enrich your relationship with your pet. It has has certainly helped me to understand my two fur children much better. Start with the first course: Dog Emotion and Cognition. This can be found by Googling Coursera, a provider of online courses.

In this course, Brian Hare not only tells us how dogs have become adapted to living with humans, but also gives you fun games which you can play with your dogs that will measure their different types of cognition, e.g. their Empathy or ability to communicate.

I would also encourage anyone who owns a dog to join a dog club. All charge an annual fee, but dog clubs are not expensive. Both you and your dog will enjoy the club activities where you will make new friends and learn new skills. Different clubs cater to different interests. Some are meant for specific breeds, others concentrate on training in different disciplines, such as Obedience, Carting or Agility. Most of them have a web page which will feature different activities, competitions and shows. During Lock Down I have not been able to take Beemer and Lassie to their weekly training session and they have missed it badly. I try to keep up their training at home, but it isn't the same. They do try to keep fit by rolling Coco Cola bottles and chasing birds out of the garden. Digging is another activity they enjoy, but I am afraid they don't understand why I don't appreciate their attempts at helping with my gardening.

So Farewell until next week when you will be able to read about the Great Poodle Battle and the War with the Vacuum Cleaner.

.................................................................................................................................................................

I might post something about the dogs again.  Watch this space

LOOKING BACK

I haven't visited this page for a very long time. I have been busy with other kinds of writing. I was doing an online course which took up a lot of time. I also went back to a novel I started a few years ago when I belonged to Paul Mason's writing group. This novel was to be a response to  a prompt Paul had given us. He read us a piece in three parts each in first person but each in a different voice. While part of the group, I wrote the first part of my story, which was set in the seventies, in the time of the first wave of student protests. The second part was to be set in the eighties and the third in the nineties. Coming back to it, I am struggling with the second part and actually considering making it the third and final part. It is taking shape,but very slowly.

Working on a story set in the last century  has made me revisit my own past, the kind of life we lived then, the conditions in which we lived and the emotions and attitudes belonging to that time which can now be considered historical.  Now in my eighties, and turning a critical eye on my younger self, I am surprised to find that I have to revise my opinions on a number of matters.

Firstly, my self-image. Already in the previous piece I about living with mental illness, I am in the process of changing my opinion of how I coped with that particular problem. I have always been filled with regret that I had not been able to help my daughter more. I felt guilty too. I accused myself of being impatient, of often losing my temper of not making more of an effort to understand her, Looking back, I am actually surprised at how well I coped. Instead of seeing my inadequacy, I am appalled at the inadequacy of the Health Services.  All a patient gets is a monthly injection and a packet of pills and the rest is up to the long-suffering family. So, now I no longer  think of myself as weak but as actually rather strong, battling bravely on my own with almost no help in an almost impossible situation.

Another idea about myself that I have had to revise is my estimate of my mental capacity, I have always taken for granted that I was born with a high IQ. I had such a highly intellectual family so  I thought I should be as gifted as the rest of them. Lately IQ tests appear regularly on Facebook. I have taken one or two and found them rather challenging. This makes me wonder if my brainfar from being  exceptionally bright, is actually very average after all.  Not that I take Facebook  tests like this seriously,( I find them so boring that I seldom finish the) but I have felt in the past that I was inclined to under-perform and have sometimes been disappointed in myself. Perhaps there was no need for disappointment. Perhaps I am just not able to do any better. One might think that this would be a blow to my self-esteem, but in fact it is quite a relief. I can lower my expectations. I don't have to go on trying so hard any more.

A third consideration is my poor memory. Living in an old age complex, forgetfulness is something of  general concern. We are all afraid of the bogie Dementia and are constantly aware of lapses in our ability to recall names and faces. Now I make allowance for such lapses. Knowing that I may forget to go to them, I now write the dates of every appointment in my diary. I am amazed to discover that in old age I am more reliable at turning up to events than I have ever been. This makes me wonder if I always had a memory problem. None of my  school-mates used to get into trouble for bringing the wrong books or doing the wrong homework the way I constantly did. I was always writing out lines or staying in after school because of something I had forgotten to do. My memory for book-learning was normal, even above average. I can still recite most of the poems in my school poetry books and even today, I can tell you the capital cities and chief exports of dozens of countries, but it was the things I was supposed to do that I forgot. A poor memory for faces is a recognised disabling condition known as prosopagnosia,.Could I suffer from something similar. No doubt this condition has a  genetic cause. My father was famously absent-minded too.