A Peter Story
Peter found this in a drawer a few days ago. He wrote it yonks and yonks ago*, for a magazine, and neither of us (!) can remember (!!) seeing it in any less ephemeral form, so he said yes, I could have it for the blog, since he hasn’t written me a guest blog in, like, years. Even if you’ve read it before, you probably haven’t read it in yonks either, and I like it, and it’s my blog.
And I badly need a night off, so tonight’s the night (as they say). I’ll tell you tomorrow about ringing at my old tower.**
The Third Dormouse
Anna lived on a farm with her father and mother and three brothers. One day soldiers came. They said they were soldiers, but really they were just robbers. They drove all the farm animals away while Anna and her family hid in the desert beyond the fields.
When they had gone Anna’s family went back to the farm and worked in the fields, which were full of melons and corn.
“At least you can’t drive melons and corn away,” said Anna’s father.
The melons grew and the corn grew and they harvested them and brought their crops into the barns for the winter. While they were harvesting the corn Anna found a dormouse with a hurt leg.
“Can I keep it until its leg’s well?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” said her mother, not thinking.
“Will it go to sleep for the winter?” said Anna.
“Perhaps,” said her mother, not thinking.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” said Anna.
“Perhaps,” said her mother, still not thinking.
So Anna took it home and called it Perhaps. When it started to get sleepy she made it a nest in a pocket of her knapsack, which her mother had told her to keep packed with anything she wanted in case the soldiers came again.
They did. They were different ones, but still just robbers. This time they took all the stores they could carry and burnt the rest. They burnt the barns and the house too. Hiding in the desert Anna and her family watched the flames.
That night they slept in a cave. In the middle of the night Anna had an odd sort of dream. It was just a voice saying in her head “Go to your Grandad’s.”
When they woke up next morning Anna’s mother said “I heard a voice in the night, telling us to go to Grandad’s.”
“So did I,” said all the others.
“It must be Him up There telling us,” said her mother.
“It will be a dangerous journey,” said her father, “because of the soldiers.”
But Him up There had told them, so they set out, carrying their knapsacks. The soldiers were everywhere, fighting each other and burning and stealing and murdering, but they didn’t seem to notice Anna’s family trudging quietly along. It was very strange.
At last they came to the valley where Grandad lived. The soldiers didn’t seem to have noticed him either. He was busy building a big boat.
“Ah, you’ve come,” mumbled Grandad with his mouth full of nails. “High time too. The others will be here any moment.”
“What’s going on?” said Anna’s father.
Grandad took the nails out of his mouth.
“It’s Him up There,” he said. “He’s sick of all this murdering and robbery and stuff, so he wants to wash the whole lot out and start over. But we’ve never gone in for any of that in our family, so he’s letting us stay on and help him. That’s what the boat’s for. The grown-ups can give me a hand with that, and the kids will have to look after the animals. Grandma will tell you what to do, kids.”
“Can I look after the dormice?” said Anna.
“It’ll be more than just dormice,” said Grandma.
Next day Anna’s two uncles and her two aunts and her nine cousins arrived, and the day after that the animals started streaming in. Tigers and bats and mongeese and lizards and wombats and rattle-snakes and tree-frogs and sheep and moles and porcupines and warthogs and . . .
Anyway there was a list, and Grandma checked them off as they came. Two of everything.
Yes, two dormice. They were very yawny and cross because they’d been woken out of their winter sleep.
“What would happen if there were three of something?” said Anna. “I mean, if you took an extra warthog aboard because you were sorry for it?”
“Him up There wouldn’t like it,” said Grandma. “He was very definite. Two of everything he said. One male, one female. No more, no less.”
“But what would he do?” said Anna.
“Strike us with lightning, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Grandma. “Or plague. Or send a sea-beast to gobble us up. You can’t tell with Him up There. Mysterious ways are what he moves in, and no mistake. Anyway, you’re doing the rodentia, so you’ll be too busy to ask any more questions.”
And that was true. The rodentia were the agoutis and the bamboo rats and the bandicoot rats and the beavers and the birch mice and the cane rats and the capybaras and the cavies and the chinchillas and the chipmunks . . . all the way through to the viscachas and the voles and the white-footed mice and the wood rats.
And, yes, the dormice. They weren’t any trouble. They curled up in opposite corners of their cage and went straight back to sleep. Anna couldn’t tell which was the male and which was the female, so she called them Possibly and Maybe. She didn’t tell anyone about Perhaps, in case they made her leave it behind. It was still asleep in the pocket of her knapsack, so she just hoped it didn’t count.
The sky darkened, thunder rolled round the hills, Grandpa banged the last nail in and everyone went aboard. Grandma stood by the gangplank and checked the animals off as they passed. The only one she missed was Perhaps, asleep in Anna’s knapsack.
TO BE CONTINUED***
* * *
* On a typewriter. Remember typescript? Which is bumpy under your fingers, and the ‘d’ or the ‘a’ or something is a slightly crooked, and the quote marks are straight up and down and there’s only caps and underlining, no bold and no italic? And you make corrections by painting over them, or by cutting and pasting pieces of actual paper? Nostalgia.
** Nobody died.
***I know. Famous last words. But this story exists.
One-Legged Dog, Part 2 – Guest blog by Diane_in_MN
I had shown Teddy in our club’s rally trials two years ago, at which time he had refused to go into his portable canvas crate because it was new and therefore scary. Since it was too cold for him to wait in the car, he had to be held on lead all day, which was a nuisance. So in addition to a quick private obedience lesson, we had crate practice at home for a week before the trial. This consisted of setting the crate up in the living room and giving him a chance to find out that it wasn’t a death trap. Luckily, it worked; the rally trials were scheduled in the morning on both days, and the Novice class was, as usual, scheduled last in the obedience trials, so he really needed a comfortable place to spend the day before competing.
Saturday started out well. Teddy waited nicely in his crate during the rally trial, and when I took him out to warm up once the obedience trial started, he was paying attention to me pretty well. (Ted loves all dogs and wants to greet every one he sees, so I am not necessarily his main interest when there are new dogs to be investigated.) I was happy to see that the obedience judge handed her clipboard to one of the stewards before approaching the dogs in the stand for examination exercise, because Ted doesn’t like clipboards* and might well have edged away from it, thus failing. When we entered the ring and started the heel on lead, he stayed in good position and gave me quick, fairly straight sits. He did a beautiful fast recall with a straight front and a perfect finish. When we left the ring to wait for the group stays, he was working on a very nice score.
Things went downhill when we went back into the ring for the group exercises. Once the dogs are lined up for the sit-stay exercise, handlers are required to place their leads and armbands behind their dogs; this allows the judge to identify any dog that breaks its stay. I had removed my armband and carried it into the ring, but Teddy caught a glimpse of it as I set it down, and he wasn’t at all comfortable with this white paper menace behind him. He didn’t want to sit with his back to it, and it took several circlings to get him to face out into the ring. Not good. The stay exercises require the handlers to leave their dogs and walk across the ring, then turn and face their dogs. Usually the dog will look towards the handler, but Ted wanted to watch the armband to make sure it wasn’t sneaking up on him, and kept his head turned back like an owl. But he held the sit for the required one minute and didn’t move when the handlers were sent back to heel position, so even though we had lost some points, we were still on track to get a qualifying score. The final exercise is a three-minute down stay, again with the handlers across the ring from their dogs. Teddy went down, but his ears were back and his eyes were nervous, and it was clear that he hadn’t become resigned to the armband. He stuck it out for two and a half minutes by my count and then it was too much for him, and he came to me. Failed exercise, NQ, aaargh. Not unusual for a novice dog at his first trial, but still—AAARGH.
So Saturday night, after we got home, we had armband practice.
The Sunday judge had been the judge of a rally trial earlier in the year at which Teddy had NQd spectacularly**, so I really wanted him to perform decently in her ring. The fact that she examined the dogs while holding her clipboard behind her back rather than handing it to a steward was not promising, but one can always hope. So we went into the ring for the individual exercises hoping for the best. I could tell that Teddy wasn’t performing as well as he had the day before, and he didn’t give me quick and reasonably straight sits until the end of the on-lead heeling exercise. And he was lagging. But he stood still during the stand for exam in spite of the clipboard—yay Teddy—and stayed with me during the off-lead heel even though a heeling pattern that runs down the middle of the ring gives a dog a lot of opportunities to stray. He had another nice recall and good finish, so we were looking okay going into the group exercises.
I carried my armband into the ring again, and was careful to put it and my lead closer to the wall behind the dogs than I had done on Saturday. I was hoping that this would keep Ted from seeing it out of the corner of his eye. For whatever reason, he did sit in place immediately, and he did look at me during the sit-stay exercise. This can be a long minute, because it’s easy for a dog to get bored and lie down, but it passed successfully for us and we had just the long down-stay to go. Again he went down, again I crossed the ring, and if looks could nail a dog to the floor, mine would have done that to Teddy. At the same time I was trying to count out three minutes, but I got well beyond 180 alligators before the judge’s stopwatch called time. Hearing “Back to your dogs” was welcome, but nothing like as good as hearing “Exercise finished” with my dog still lying down where I’d left him. YAY TEDDY!! We qualified!!
At the end of an obedience class, all qualifiers go back into the ring to receive class placements and qualifying ribbons. We didn’t get a placement, but qualified with a very nice score of 187 out of 200.*** When one is working on a title, a qualifying score is referred to as a “leg”. I am happy to say that Teddy is now a one-legged dog with a green ribbon to prove it, and hopefully will be a three-legged dog with CD behind his name before he’s too much older.
Teddy relaxing at home with his winnings.
*********************
* Remember distraction = paranoia? This is more paranoia. As far as I know, no one has ever tried to kill him with a clipboard.
** Grooming area with blow-dryers going full blast ten feet from the ring. Need I say more?
*** This score also gave Teddy the award for high-scoring Great Dane in the trial. Since he was the only Dane in the trial, this is less impressive than it sounds, but it got him a nice stuffed toy that lasted two entire weeks before he destroyed it.
One-Legged Dog, Part 1 – Guest blog by Diane_in_MN
My working-breed club holds two rally and obedience trials each year, one of each on both days of a weekend at the end of January. Our entry is very small, as we restrict entries to working breed dogs (think Boxers, Great Danes, Mastiffs, Newfoundlands, Samoyeds, for example), and these are not the most common breeds in obedience competition. Our exhibitors like this, as it gives their dogs a chance to win the highest awards at the trial.* And the small entry means the room isn’t crowded and noisy, which makes it a great place to start an inexperienced dog in competition. So this year I entered Teddy in his first obedience trial.
Obedience competition is not a dog event that is often shown to the general public. It doesn’t have the glamour of conformation shows like Westminster or Crufts, or the excitement of agility trials, with dogs running through obstacle courses and leaping over steeplechase jumps. I like to compare obedience work to the school figures that competition figure skaters used to be judged on in the Olympics: a set of formalized exercises that must be done with great precision in order to obtain a top score. The basic, or Novice, obedience exercises are heeling (both on and off lead), standing for examination, recall, and sit and down stays. These sound like basic good behaviors for dogs, and so they are, but obedience competition requires that they be performed in certain very specific ways. Heel position is strictly defined, and the dog will lose points if he forges ahead or lags behind the handler. He is supposed to sit in heel position at every halt, and will lose points not only if he fails to sit, but if he sits slowly or crookedly or anywhere other than in heel position. He is supposed to come straight to the handler when called, sit in front—squarely in front, not crookedly—and return to sit squarely in heel position (“finish”) when told to do so. And the handler is not allowed to speak to the dog after giving a single command for each exercise. The sit and down exercises are performed in a group, with all the dogs in the class lined up against a wall or ring gate. There are many opportunities for the average well-mannered dog (or his handler) to fail to qualify (or “NQ”) in an obedience trial.
The first-level obedience title is Companion Dog, or CD, and requires the dog/handler team to get three qualifying scores (170 points out of a perfect 200) in the Novice class under at least two judges. I have obtained the CD title on one** dog, my bitch Zinka, who didn’t go into obedience competition until she was six years old. Zinka was a singleton puppy, so in order to socialize her with other dogs her own age I started her in puppy kindergarten at eleven weeks old, and she continued training throughout her life. But she showed in conformation until she earned her championship, so she had to remain intact—the historical reason for dog shows was to select the best breeding stock, and in American Kennel Club competition, dogs and bitches must be intact in the conformation ring. And her co-breeder and I had planned to breed her after she finished her championship, so it wasn’t until after she had had her puppies and was spayed that I showed her in obedience.*** After training for six years, Zinka was totally bored with Novice exercises and didn’t display much enthusiasm in the ring—she specialized in sluggish heeling and the death march recall—but she did qualify three times in spite of herself.****
Zinka at 3, finishing her championship.
Zinka at 6, getting her CD.
I had great hopes for my last boy, Zinka’s son Atlas, who was a willing and enthusiastic obedience dog, but he lost a leg to cancer at age three and was then ineligible to compete. So I was very pleased when Teddy turned out to be a good worker. He started competing in rally obedience events when he was a year and a half old and earned two rally titles^, one requiring off-lead work. I had planned to move on to the third level of rally competition before looking for a CD, but found that Teddy had a big problem with distraction^^ in the ring when off lead. Given that obedience competition is more structured than rally, and that much Novice work is on lead, it seemed like a good time to get him into the obedience ring. So we entered the Novice B^^^ class to test the waters and see how he’d do.
********************
* In an all-breed obedience trial, it’s possible but unlikely that a working-breed dog will win the top award of Highest Score in Trial. Our dogs are big (and so slower on sits) and were generally not bred to work closely with a human partner like herding dogs or gun dogs were. Border Collies, Shetland Sheepdogs, and Golden Retrievers are the usual stars of obedience competition.
** In 17 years of training. This tells you that I am not a hotshot dog trainer.
*** It’s not easy to do obedience work with intact bitches. They can’t train effectively or compete at all for the three weeks that they’re in season, and even if they haven’t been bred, they have more or less symptomatic false pregnancies which definitely affect their behavior. If you have a bitch who takes her false pregnancy seriously, you can lose three months out of every six. Zinka took her falses very seriously indeed.
**** In her last trial, she followed the off-lead heeling pattern about fifteen feet behind me. I think she caught up with me on the halts, but I don’t recall that she sat once. I believe she was trying for a score of 165, but she didn’t quite make it and qualified with 171. You bet we got a picture!
^ Rally obedience, or rally, is a relatively new event that was designed to bridge the gap between basic good behavior training and competition obedience. Rally exercises use obedience skills in various combinations; less precision is required when performing the exercises, and the handler is encouraged to speak to the dog throughout their time in the ring.
^^ Let’s be honest and call it paranoia.
^^^ The Novice class is divided into two sections, A and B. The A section is open only to people who have never put an obedience title on any dog. I used up my one and only shot at Novice A with Zinka. The B section implies that even though the dog is green, the trainer is not, and handler errors are scored accordingly. You will always lose points if you screw up, but you’ll lose more in Novice B.
Dark Days for Robin — guest post by Jodi Meadows
Last weekend, I went on book tour* with three amazing authors: Brodi Ashton (EVERNEATH), Courtney Allison Moulton (ANGELFIRE), and Cynthia Hand (UNEARTHLY).
I was warned about going on tour.
When I found out I’d be going on one of the Dark Days tours, I researched author tours. I saw warnings about eating when you can, sleeping when you can, and making sure you pack a carryon bag in case your checked bag gets lost and you can’t change your underwear until it catches up with you — which it won’t, because you are constantly on the move.
Dutifully, I prepared myself for starvation and sleep-deprivation, and made sure I had all my clothes packed into one bag that could fit under the seat in front of me on an airplane. (You know how those overhead compartments are always full of, like, someone’s sweater they can’t be bothered to hold on their lap.) I was ready to be in public-mode for all hours.
Yeah, the Dark Days tour was not like what I had prepared for. While my first day was a 4AM day–I had an early flight–the tour itself was not filled with 28-hour days. (I’m sure they could have managed if they’d wanted.) We had time after flights to hang out with one another, talk, eat, even visit with family.
Our days went like this: get up, eat breakfast, take an airplane, freshen up at the hotel, go to the event, and then eat dinner. (Lunch was kind of hit or miss, since we were usually in the air at lunchtime. One of our media escorts threw snacks at us as soon as we got in her car, though. She should get a raise.) Not a bad day, right? The events were pretty awesome, too.
First, we had interviews with local book bloggers. I think that helped us loosen up a little and got us ready to answer questions in front of dozens of people. Then, we headed into the store where they’d set up tables and chairs. Someone from the store introduced us, we each spoke or read for a few minutes, and then we answered audience questions until it was time to sign books.
One of the strangest things was how the audience kept looking at their cell phones . . . but not because they were ignoring us. After the event, when I looked at my phone, I saw dozens of tweets repeating things I’d said during the Q&A. And photos! (Thing I’ve learned: photos of people speaking are almost always awkward looking. *mouth hangs open weirdly*)
Overall, I had a lot of fun and loved meeting the other authors and all the readers who came to see us. It was a great experience.
Another recap of the Austin stop (with some great photos).
Courtney’s “behind the scenes” video.
* Yaaay Jodi! –ed.
A few of my favourite things, part 2 – guest blog by B_twin
I’ve loved sheep since I was a little kid. Drysdales (the breed) are wonderfully calm sheep with a lot of personality. Unfortunately, there aren’t many left in Australia (although there are still reasonable numbers in New Zealand.)
Firstly – gratuitous Die-Of-Cute pics.
"Awwwwwwww"
Due Date approaches.....
Lily’s Story
Lily
Lily was an orphaned lamb that we bottle-reared a few years ago. She was always of a very sweet temperament – never becoming demanding and belligerent like some hand-reared ones can be.
Last year she had twin lambs and then tragedy struck. A fox attacked both lambs and then stole away with one, leaving Lily to stand mournfully over the remaining dead lamb.
This is what then happened (taken from my journal entry at the time):
“… there was a new – tiny – set of twins born to another ewe and while I was checking them out Lily came over and… tried to steal a lamb…
I’ve never actually seen a grieving ewe do this before. Ewes often will thieve prior to when they lamb but not 24hrs later after they have bonded with their own lambs.
So, Lily is trying to steal a lamb and I saw it was going to be a real problem for the new mum.
I wonder if…….
I raced back to the house to get little Imogen^ who, unfortunately, had been fed not long before so was not starving hungry.
As I went back to the paddock with Imogen trailing along after me I was calling out to Lily and she came over to meet me at the gate. Lily is baaing and Imogen is baaing.
This couldn’t work. Imogen is nearly 2 weeks old. No way.
Through the gate and Lily is checking out the lamb that is baaing. Oh, not hers. Imogen has forgotten a little what the other animals are besides the dogs and the 2-legged-mummy.
But still, I walked up the hill and Imogen followed. And Lily followed as well. I got them into a small yard and then went to get some reinforcements for the next challenge.
With Mum’s help I held Lily still while Imogen fussed about and “remembered” what the teat on the bag was. Imogen drank. Lily stood reasonably still – when held.
Lily was certainly interested in Imogen but the smell wasn’t right. For her to be interested at all though was amazing. She wasn’t butting her away which I would expect.
Next phase: Transfering the dead lamb’s smell.
It’s a very old shepherd’s trick to cover a lamb with the dead lamb’s pelt to fool a ewe into accepting a lamb. I’ve actually never tried it before. First time for everything.
I moved Lily out of sight of the lamb/Imogen while I strapped the lamb pelt onto Imogen. It’s not a super fit – she’s nearly 2 weeks old and the dead lamb was small. She ends up with bright blue baling twine and looks oddly like she’s wearing one of those stereotypical caveman outfits.
Lots of baaing going on and so I let Lily back in Imogen.
She sniffed the lamb’s back and she got excited, poor darling, then she got confused because the head and bum of Imogen doesn’t quite smell like her lamb.
Desperation to have her lamb won.
She let Imogen drink. ”
I spent an anxious night wondering how things would go. Would I have a very hungry and confused lamb in the morning? Maybe I shouldn’t be too hopeful?
In the morning I discovered this:
Lily accepting Imogen as her adopted daughter
:) :) :)
And then they lived happily ever after… :)
_________
^Imogen was abandoned by her first-time mother. She was being bottle-reared just as Lily had been several years before.