Author: keres

I think I may have been remiss in never once posting to the Dog Blog the most iconic of all Australian animals – the Koala.

So here’s one.

There are no Koalas in Tasmania, except for those in Wildlife Parks, which is where I photographed this fellow.

Koalas eat eucalyptus leaves, which are extremely tough and very low in nutritional value. In order to get any food value out of them Koalas’ stomachs are basically a big fermentation vat.  And the rest of the Koala is basically a slow moving and slow thinking (brains eat up lots of energy) transport mechanism for that vat.  But, they are very cute.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Andi.  What did the dogs get you?

I’ve mentioned before that the only other land mass that reaches this far south of the equator is the tip of South America.  So, the winds that hit Tasmania often haven’t seen land since half-way-’round-the-world.  Which is the long way of saying that it’s very windy here.

One of these days I’m going to get a mic and podcast sounds to go with this diary.  It’s hard to get the full effect of windblown dog without the wooshing sounds to accompany the image.

This used to be our front lawn.  

Imogen refers to Luna’s “refurbishment” as “the battle of the Somme,” where apparently every square yard of dirt was struck by a shell – twice.

It was starting to rain when I took this picture (thanks Andi), so now she’s inside asleep (and gently snoring) on the couch.

Because I was out all day yestserday (Thursday), the dog blog is running a bit late.

In the morning and afternoon I was plumbing.  And in the evening I went to hear David Suzuki talk about his new book.

I did manage to take a few photos though, including this welcome swallow.

Poor Luna, she tries so hard to be good.

Here she is, assiduously trying not to chase  . . .

Heckle, who is only a few feet from her, standing on the edge of the front patio and waiting for her to leave so that he can steal her kibble.

Luna often sleeps with her tongue out.

It’s a look.

Puppy pacifier.

At the local swap meet I found a guy who sells 25 metre/80 foot rolls of cotton rope for ten dollars.  So, I’ve been making Luna chew toys out of it.

She has a hard time leaving Albert be when they are both in the same room.  He had the last two teeth on his right side pulled on Monday, so we’ve really been cracking down hard on her to leave him alone.  This afternoon, she responded to getting yelled at by getting her chew toy and gnawing on it – hence the appellation, puppy pacifier.

The “Morning After the Night Before” edition.

Luna managed to get loose yesterday when I was away taking Albert to the vet.

So, the saga.  Yesterday I got home and found her cable broken and Luna missing.  After driving around in the dark and talking to the neighbors for most of an hour I finally found the neighbors who had her – about a kilometer up the road.

She had come into their yard to visit their dog, and the wife had seen the trailing cable, realized she was not supposed to be out and tied her up.  If only she would have read the number on her tag and given me a call as well – anyway, it was nice of her to catch Luna for us.

So, to follow up a stressfull evening, last night when I put her to bed I made the mistake of latching her cable to her name tag ring and not the ring on her collar.  So, when I got up at 4:45am to use the toilet, once again, there was no dog.

Off I went, again, driving up the road while Imogen went the other direction.  Fortunately, Imogen found her in the neighbor’s yard across the street.

From the smell of her, she not only rolled in something dead, she ate some of it as well.  She’s not feeling too good at the moment.

Albert goes by many names.  The longest is “Grand Poobah of the Ancient and Venerable Order of Floor Lickers.”

He licks the floor a lot.  We don’t know why.  Sometimes it’s obvious that we spilled something.  Sometimes he just licks, and licks, and licks.

Apparently the sooty fire poker (actually a small shovel that lost its, well… shovel) met his “standards” for licking as well.  

Would you let this into your house?

I did, several times yesterday – after much vigorous toweling off.

Currently she’s sleeping in a muddy hole she dug earlier this morning.