I Think

Where are you in that line?

bump

I am 8th in line there.

My dog Rocky is a barker. He has barks for everything. As I fix his dinner, he stands there repeatedly barking. I start to fire up the dish washer or air conditioner, he goes nuts with the barking. He goes in the kitchen and barks at the cabinets, because there once was a mouse under there. The wife and I start a conversation, he barks the whole time. But, now, I have a trainer's noise clicker. I use it sparingly, but he takes notice if I click it. I don't mind some of the barking and he is welcome to bark in the yard to his heart's content. I just want him to be a little bit considerate about it.

Rocky is too wise, re the training clicker. I am pretty certain somebody from his past used one. His barking has calmed considerably, without even using that thing. All I have to do is hold it in my hand.

I've not used one, but none of my/our dogs barked exceedingly - Sandpaw, Kelly, Pacco, Katy. Pacco was quite expressive when he wanted to be, sort of singing.

Amusing now, re Rocky and the clicker.

Some dogs are so intelligent, I would hate to go against them in an IQ test. I read the other day that a German Shepherd looks through your eyes into your brain. Sometimes I believe it.

Running new PVC pipe lines for the new tub, yesterday. The glue and primer can be quite messy, as any ex maintenance man and most do-it-yourself-ers know. So, I put them inside a flat bottomed plastic container, to catch the drippings. Well planned, well executed. Until I picked up a five foot length of pipe to cut, as a first step. I immediately knocked over the plastic container and the smelly purple primer went everywhere. This is why when the neighbors ask if I am interested in odd jobs, I tell them "No."

I visited the Bulwer-Lytton contest site the other day. I did not know they accept submissions the year around. We all know, they based the contest on "“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.” — Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)" I always remember the first seven words, but forget the rest.

I remember visiting London in the late fifties, and the heater in the hotel room had to be fed some money to keep it on. Of coarse, I stayed in the cheaper hotels.

That's the first time I ever heard of feeding money to a heater. But if anybody would do that, London seems a place for it.

My French poodle (miniature...13 lb) is way too people-smart. She has my every move calculated and programmed.

Our recently deceased Sophie was also a barker, as soon as I picked up her food dish she would begin barking and didn't stop until her food was placed back on the floor. Ruby isn't much of a barker, and dinner time passes without so much as a yip. I really miss the barking.

I can send you an audio clip, but I'm sure it's not that barking you're looking for.

JellyBean barks at funny situations. She'll warn about noises outside...or if my next-door-neighbor, whom she adores, is out on his adjoining balcony. Not too constant and not loudly...just sort of like small eruptions...then the after-shocks.

I do have to close my vertical drapes on my picture window as it overlooks the parking lot (2nd floor) or she' ll announce everyone's coming and going.

She never barks about food. She has no concerns about being fed as it's always there when she is hungry. If I forget, she comes over and places a paw on my arm and then says, "Dude?"

I know. Most of my time living here in this neighborhood I've been dogless; the times Pacco and Katy lived with me, years apart, I enjoyed their barking. During my no barks in the house years, I like to hear neighbors' dogs barking, just as I like to see people dog walking, kind of like a doggie fix for me.

One day my neighbor apologized to me re her barking dogs and I said, no, no, I love hearing the barking. Truth is, the barking adds life to the neighborhood, just like the passing quail and the very occasional roadrunner do.

Now if it was a full grown basset hound right next door, essentially a few feet away, I might feel a bit differently, but the one time I heard a basset bark, I was amused at the stunning depth of voice, and the volume.

Personally, Rocky could bark 99% of the time and I would not care. My wife gets tired of it. I grew up in a family of 12 kids. I love a noisy house. I sometimes aggravate my kids because I give their kids toys that can make noise. Kids and dogs are not meant to be quiet, unless their individual nature requires them to shush.

Texas Quote of the Day:
The Rio Grande these days is known for sometimes not having a lot of water in it. Jeff Kelsch, who works with Rio Grande Scientific Support Services out there, told the NY Times "the joke is that if you fall out of your canoe, you stand up and dust yourself off."

If you love your dogs, you should hug them, right?

Wrong.

In an article published in Psychology Today, psychology professor and neuropsychological researcher Stanley Coren argues that most dogs are actually stressed out by hugs.

The study analyzed 250 Internet photos of people hugging their dogs, scanning for for known signs of anxiety in the dog, including turning their head away, showing the whites of the eyes and slicked back ears.

Coren's data revealed that 82 percent of dogs in the photos showed at least one of those signs of stress. About 8 percent of dogs seemed happy with the hug and the remaining 10 percent appeared neutral or showed an ambiguous response toward the gesture.

"Dogs are technically cursorial animals, which is a term that indicates that they are designed for swift running. That implies that in times of stress or threat the first line of defense that a dog uses is not his teeth, but rather his ability to run away," Coren wrote.

"Behaviorists believe that depriving a dog of that course of action by immobilizing him with a hug can increase his stress level and, if the dog’s anxiety becomes significantly intense, he may bite."

If you want to show your dog you love them, Coren recommends petting them or giving them "a kind word" instead.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-26/dogs-hate-hugs-study-suggests

had a tornado on my street this morning. one person killed. my home is okay. we have no electric, so i am borrowing a laptop.

I know this is not part of the Texas vernacular, but oy. Glad you're ok.