It wisnae me!

Further to Monday's post...

Surely it doesn't take a forensics expect to deduce that the dog who, yesterday morning, left this mark on Gail's hitherto pristine new coat, has much bigger paws than any fox terrier we've ever met. 

Beyond doubt the culprit was Fergus, the exuberant ten month old Labrador whom we meet in the park most mornings. He is a VERY NAUGHTY DOG.

Living dangerously...?

So Gail has bought herself a cosy new winter coat, and her ten year old dirt-coloured dog walking jacket has been consigned to the Oxfam pile. 

She tells me all her friends have been complimenting her on the purchase, saying what a nice cheery colour orange it is. 

Well I must say I was a bit surprised when I saw she'd made the 'brave' decision to wear this coat for the Aberdeen'n'shire monthly fox terrier walk yesterday. 

It struck me as a high risk strategy but I kept my thoughts to myself. The planned walk was along the muddy riverside track leading to the ruins of Fetternear Bishop's Palace. Maybe Gail would be lucky and none of us fox terriers would run through the puddles and then leap up and leave pawprints on her still pristine outerwear. 

In the event, we foxies (Agatha, Rupert, Merin, Jinx, tall newcomer Otis and myself) were all having such fun rampaging around and jumping all over each other that we more or less let the humans alone.

And the bright new coat remains miraculously pawprint free. For now, at least...

Nobby the future agility champion...

Today, we are taking part in YAM-aunty's Final Friday Feature, with a special piece in which broader questions about achievement are examined with respect to my progress in my weekly dog agility training sessions. 

Clockwise from left: Einstein, Churchill, Darwin, Rowling

Can you believe that my owner Gail is beginning to doubt I might ever be agility championship winning material?

The accusation is that I am ill-disciplined and lacking in focus during the Tuesday evening training sessions. Clever, yes. Agile, most definitely. Creative in my approach. Too much so, apparently.

Well I guess I am not the first to have their genius go unrecognised in their earlier years. 

Have you heard of the physicist who revolutionised our understanding of space-time but, like me, had 'issues' with school discipline? Yes, that's right, Albert Einstein.

How about the great wartime leader who was said by his school teachers to have a keen mind but a spirit not suited to regimentation. Sir Winston Churchill, of course. Although the description could perfectly be applied to yours truly.

Then there's Charles Darwin, he of theory of evolution by natural selection fame, whose father once said to him, "You care for nothing but dogs, shooting, and rat catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family". Surely, it's obvious that an interest in rat-catching correlates strongly with excellence in other areas of endeavour?

Did you know that J.K.Rowling, world famous and phenomenally wealthy Harry Potter author, was at university considered just an 'average' student who prioritised social life over studies? Well I am also renowned for prioritising my social life, I want to point out. 

I could go on, but I think I've made a compelling case. I simply cannot understand why Gail is still wearing her 'deeply sceptical' expression and suggesting how about I just concentrate on actually trying to follow instructions about weaving through the weave poles and not be forever racing off to 'socialise' with my fellow trainees, and then we might actually make progress at agility class..... 

Oh it's hard to be so misunderstood.

THIS WEEK AT AGILITY

While teacher's pet Harrison masters the weave poles...

 ....Nobby and his training pal Breeze focus on scoring yet more treats...

Gail says she might call her next dog Breeze. She thinks 'Gail and Breeze' would make a good pairing. (A joke that works better spoken than when written down...)

Asleep on the job?

 

"What kind of a guard dog are you Nobby?"

That's what Gail asked yesterday when she returned from coffee with her friend Sheila. 

Where to even begin with the unfairness of this implied criticism?

Well first of all, why was I not invited to the café rather than being left home alone. Gail's excuse, that the only nearby eaterie open on a Monday is not dog-friendly, seems to me a poor one.

Then there's the deeper question of my role in life. Guard dog indeed!  Who said? That strikes me as a distinctly lower class occupation (one might as well say 'bouncer'). I think 'privileged companion' better describes my position in our household. And if you want to call me 'high maintenance', well I see nothing wrong with that, at all.

But even if we accept the contention that I should be keeping an eye out for intruders, then I most certainly want to refute any idea that I was "asleep on the job". Surely we all know by now that, whatever my apparent state of rest, it only takes the sound of distant footsteps moving towards the biscuit tin and I am instantly on high WFT alert.  

I can't believe any of my friends have ever been accused of dereliction of duty with so little justification. 

The November Swimsuit Edition...

 Stonehaven, 17/11/2023

I asked Gail why she did not join these ladies, who were evidently enjoying their dip in Stonehaven harbour. 

She says she does not have the physique for swimming in the North Sea at latitude 57ºN in mid November. 

Frankly, neither do I. (Although if Gail upped the treats supply, perhaps I might?)

Nature Friday beach games

Who needs expensive toys when the sea provides kelp - lots of fun at no cost to purse or planet!

Happy Nature Friday to blog hop hosts the LLB Gang, and to all the lovely NF contributors.

 

A fine November walk in Torridon

One of Gail's favourite walks, starting directly from our cottage, is the path leading to a wee peninsula jutting out into Loch Torridon.

On the Ordnance Survey map this is given as Rubha na h-Àirde Glaise, which I'm told is Gaelic* for the green-grey promontary.  (I must say a lot of these place names sound rather less exotic when rendered into everyday standard English.)

The footpath is described by humans as 'tricky'. 

Not so, of course, if you are an agile fox terrier! 

Remains of buildings and animal enclosures are scattered about the peninsula. Apparently there once was an inn where folk from settlements around the loch, arriving by boat, gathered to exchange news. I wonder if they brought their dogs too?

On Saturday we had the place to ourselves.

I guess I am lucky to have an owner with such excellent taste in walks. (I'm hoping I get a treat for writing that.) 

And perhaps, if I claim that the November weather in NW Scotland is always as favourable as pictured above, then our tourism bosses would also present me with a special award. 

I can at least honestly claim there are no midgies around at this time of year.

*Gail says: Gaelic has all but died out as a means of communication in the Torridon area, as it has in most of Scotland, but the language lives on in names for places and features of the landscape, as lovingly recorded on this website: Loch Torridon Placenames

Don't bark for me, Argentina...

Or should it be "Send in the Clones"?

It's not often I see my owner smile, then gasp, when she's reading about the prospect of yet another ultra-conservative libertarian nutter winning a major election. 

But then Gail showed me this picture from Argentina. 

What do you think Nobby, she asked? 

I said he looks a decent sort of a chap, do tell me more about him. 

Well it seems the human in the photo is called Javier Milei, and he is the current front-runner in the forthcoming presidential elections in Argentina. 

The dogs are his four bull mastiffs, Murray, Milton, Robert and Lucas, all named after right wing economists.

Hmmm, this is beginning to sound just a tad bit weird. 

That's not the half of it, Gail tells me. All the dogs are exact genetic copies of 'Conan', Mr Milei's beloved pet who died in 2017. The clones were created in a lab in upstate New York.  

And apparently this animal-loving politician consults his "four-legged children" on matters of election strategy. 

Suddenly, our politics in the UK is looking a little less strange...

Gail wonders whether all the dogs get on well together, and if they are similar in temperament to each other and to their 'parent' dog. And which one of them would take up the post of 'First Dog' if Milei wins the election. Can he even tell them apart?

I, Nobby, am thinking about all the excellent advice I could offer my country's leaders, should they ever care to ask...

Cyclamen or Cycle-women?

Which do you think is prettier?

Cruickshank Botanic Gardens, Aberdeen University on 6 November 2023

By the Boxcar Café, Cults, 2 November, 2023

Happy Nature Friday!

Why winter tyres?

Well I'm not complaining, because Gail drove me in the car to her garage, and while nice Phil was fitting her winter tyres we went for a walk up to the University of Aberdeen campus. In the time it took for me to pose in front of buildings old and new, the car was made ready for the snow and ice.

King's College Chapel (c.1500)

Sir Duncan Rice Library (2012)

But I do wonder why the need to spend money (which could be used for dog treats) on preparing the car for the sort of wintery conditions which are these days not so often experienced in Scotland.

Gail points out that our Torridon cottage is located at the bottom of a 15% gradient hill with sharp bends, and in a part of the world where everyone knows everyone else's business, she doesn't want to find fame as the idiot who had to be rescued because her car didn't have the right tyres and so it slipped off the road when there was just a sprinkling of snow and a small patch of ice! 

I guess that's reasonable.

PS from Gail: readers might have noticed some rather blurry photos of late. A couple of months ago my phone camera started refusing to focus in certain situations and I still can't work out why.

Nobby's poetic response to Scotland's recent wet weather

IF (THE NOBBY VERSION)

If I were a frog,

And not a soggy dog,

I wouldn't mind the rain.

If I were a lobster

And not Sir Nobby Nobster

I'd really not complain.

If I were a walrus

And not remotely porous,

I'd frolic in the ocean.

And if I were a sealion

And not a whip-smart canine

I'd always choose a soaking. 

If I were a puffin,

For whom a flood means nothin',

I'd not be agitated

But I am a fox terrier,

And frankly I am merrier,

When my land's not inundated.

Nationalist mushrooms?

Who knew that the rivalry between England and Scotland extended to debates about fairy toadstools*? 

You doubt me?

Well let's consider a recent discussion on the 'Nature Talk' WhatsApp group (membership comprising Gail plus four friends in England), as seen on Gail's phone.

Her friend Helen posted this picture, taken near Southport, England.

Gail followed up with one she had taken in the Beinn Eighe Nature Reserve, Scotland.

Janet, who lives in Nottingham, England, initiated a small controversy - responses by Helen, then Gail.

I am pleased to report that the discussion ended amicably with the posting of two more photos of recently spotted fungi!  

*Fly agaric / Aminata muscaria (toxic to humans of course)

Happy Nature Friday! And thanks once again to our LLB Gang friends for hosting the blog hop. 

Tough wire-haired fox terriers, tough owners!

The Aberdeen'n'shire Foxie walk, so often the highlight of my month, was scheduled to meet at Balmedie Country Park (a stretch of beach and sand dunes a few miles north of the city) on Sunday the 29th October.

Doubts crept in when Gail looked at the weather forecast on Saturday night. Would anyone really show up with 30 mph (gusting 50 mph) winds blasting straight off the North Sea and bringing heavy rain? 

Come the morning, the rain at least had not arrived but the wind definitely had. While Gail strapped on my red jacket, she also prepared me for disappointment, saying she feared we might be the only ones mad enough to turn out in these ferocious conditions. 

How very, very wrong, she was. 

One by one, vehicles carrying foxies and their hardy humans arrived in the car park. 

Look, here's Merin! And Rupert! And Jinx! And Dougie! And Edmund! And BEST OF ALL Agatha! 

So we set off through the sand dunes to the sea. The tide was high, driven yet higher by the wind and waves. 

The humans deemed the narrow strip of beach too dangerous given the strong possibility of rogue waves and summoned Rupert, Agatha and me back up to relative safety. 

It was all tremendously good fun! For us dogs anyway. 

While we rampaged around the dunes, the humans managed just snatches of conversation between pulling hats and hoods over ears to protect from the sea spray, foam and whistling wind.

"...you have to take them for a walk anyway..."

"...worst period of gales and rain I can remember..."

"...don't want any of them swept away by the waves..."

"...at least the sand's wet so it's not blowing in their eyes..."

"...sorry, I didn't quite catch that..."

"...all this racing up and down the sand dunes will tire them out..."

"...the dogs are having a great time anyway..."

"...should choose somewhere more sheltered for next month..."

Oddly enough, we didn't meet a single other human or dog during our hour long walk in this normally popular spot.