The Dog Whisperer

[gloria townsin]

I find this programme with Cesar Millan very interesting. Dog phsycology is a good subject to study and think about, there are so many ways it shows how our own behaviours, attitudes and stances affect other people. I'm sure there are people who will find fault with his methods the same as they did with my old neighbour Barbara Woodhouse, but there is a lot of proof in the way the dogs react to his methods that show he has an aptitude to tune in with them. The problems with lots of dogs is their owners lack of ability to treat them like dogs which doesn't mean you can't love them but you do need to remind them you are the pack leader and not them. There are so many dogs in rescue now, some because they have been ill used for breeding and no longer wanted but also those who had the ability to be nice dogs but have been spoiled by owners who having found they could no longer control them have packed them of for someone else to take care of, a real dereliction of duty.
You only have to look on web sites such as - www.freewebs.com/manytearsrescue/dogslookingforhomes.htm
to see how people treat their unwanted animals. Looking at this and other rescue sites makes me glad I no longer breed dogs.

[Jeniwren]

And I can give testament that his methods work! Miss B, our 5.5 yr old Bedlington used to suffer horribly from anxiety when we left and when we returned home. Since introducing a calm submissive state in her and actively ignoring her as we exit or return she's like a different dog. And she's walking much better on-lead as well.

Cesar is now DH's new guru :wink: :lol:

[gloria townsin]

The first dog ever in my life was my Nan's neighbour's Bedlinton Terrier, named Sally (as in Sally in our Alley - Gracie Fields popular war time song). I loved her, she started my love of dogs that's for sure. Odd I have never had another Bedlington in my life. Same neighbour's cat was called Monty, another war time name. Black long haired cat who I carried upstairs in my Nan's where he was promptly sick, possibly due to my hugging. :roll:

[Jeniwren]

The first dog ever in my life was my Nan's neighbour's Bedlinton Terrier, named Sally (as in Sally in our Alley - Gracie Fields popular war time song). I loved her, she started my love of dogs that's for sure. Odd I have never had another Bedlington in my life. Same neighbour's cat was called Monty, another war time name. Black long haired cat who I carried upstairs in my Nan's where he was promptly sick, possibly due to my hugging. :roll:
Hi Gloria, Beddies are rare these days....even more so out here in Oz. I've never seen a Beddie in the nearly 6 years we've had Miss Bride BUT I did see my first pet Beddie (other than Miss B) in Ludlow last June. He was named Monty and the poor people who owned him had no idea what struck them, I was on their poor dog like a rash :oops: I was so excited at seeing another Beddie & I was missing Miss B too.

[gloria townsin]

They are like little lambs and they are certainly speedy when it comes to shifting. Sally will always have an affectionate spot in my heart as will another dog 'Mickey', he belonged to our B&B landlady when we holidayed in Blackpool. Mickey, or Mickey Dripping as they often called him for reasons I never went into, was a largish terrier cross probably had some Airdale terrier. I used to walk him round the block on his lead, which he did with an 'I'll suffer it' attitude, dear old boy, I have an old picture somewhere of him with my sister, he must have been ancient as I remember him from a time long before my sister was born. Then there was Simon a black Poodle, Patch another JR type Terrier that lived opposite and Goldie a......Golden Cocker Spaniel. I suppose I can measure some parts of my childhood with animals that were in my life but didn't belong to me as my Mum didn't really like animals enough to let us keep any. Oh forgot the lad next door's tortoise.......how I envied them all their pets.

[gloria townsin]

Back from a hectic day at Crufts. Had the pleasure of seeing a friends Poms winning his class, his litter brother taking second place and yet another litter brother 4th (should have been third but that's showing!) so in one class all her pups were in the cards.
Busy day, no demos today they are planned for Sunday, which is up to the individuals involved but I do hope they don't behave in a reckless fashion as to upset the dogs is neither clever nor does it show a love of animals. Unfortunately the KC is more than responsible for the current bad feeling about show people but as per usual the blame is being shifted to them to save face of the bigger concern. All in all it was a really good day and we had fun which has been sadly lacking round the rings for a while. To become so intense about it that it creates bad losers is no good to anyone. :)

[Jeniwren]

Gloria I'm so glad you had a good day of it...and CONGRATULATIONS to your friend and their Poms :D I've been wondering how it'd go.

I/we never had any pets when I was a child either....my mum was scared (phobic) of furry animals. When we were about 8-9 yrs old my best friend's family got a Tonkinese kitten who I named Fleur (flower) and we thus called her "the only furry Fleur that purred"...and there began my "thing" for cats :D

I used to spend most of my weekends at their home and we used to smuggle Fleur into our beds :lol: which was strictly against the rules :lol:

My daughter now has our puss....Oliver, a half-Siamese (a siamese in a mackerel tabby fur-coat disguise) who's turning 16 this May 1st!

[gloria townsin]

Thank you Jeni for your Congrats it was lovely to see someone so surprised and thrilled, so many show people take a win for granted and don't show a flicker of emotion, my friend was amazed and bemused by it all and floated home to tell her folks.

I am hoping to become more efficient with the cam-corder as I had it switched on when I thought it was off and vice versa, which means I have a lot of green carpet recorded and not my friend walking her dog in the ring........so I will pay more attention to detail or Memorial Weekend recording will be a wash out. :roll:

[Kath Mulligan]

Oh I am so glad I am not the only technophobe on here, Gloria!! When I thought I was recording at Memorial Weekend last year, I discovered afterwards that I hadn't clicked on the right button to record, then when I was playing with the camera back home, I recorded a 10 minute piece entirely focussed on our front room radiator because I thought the wretched recording bit was turned off! But I did manage a bit of successful footage of some splashy waves when we were in Sennen, so shall have to refresh my memory of how to do it before next week.

Kath

[gloria townsin]

It's maddening isn't it Kath? I truly thought I was getting some good shots of my friend and her dog, I thought how pleased she would be to see how well her dog went.........tried to show her, but all I had was a bit of her with the dog being examined on the table then zilch........only green carpet. I knew right away what I had done. I had, so I thought, stopped the recording and restarted it (wrong!!) when she put the dog on the floor to walk it and of course it was switched on and I was moving all over the place chatting away, gaily filming green carpet, then of course turned it off to record her walking the dog - duh!! So I have to get to grips with it in the next week. To add to my 'new' gadgets I had to buy a new mobile phone yesterday, why? because I managed to lose my phone charger and they don't make it anymore.......so my guess is I will be struggling to use the new one for at least the next month possibly longer, probably won't become fluent with it until it is defunct, rather like the old one. :roll:
Jeff and Nina suggested changing something to do with my computer the other day - I was really worried as I am hopeless if things change, takes me ages to sort it all out again.

[Janet Swan]

Phew - it's not just me then :oops: ? Unfamiliar technology just makes me so nervous :roll: . I've had my first digital camera since January, and don't seem to want to get round to playing the instruction disk or trying to connect it up to my p.c. to view the mere 25 shots I've taken and kept so far. So, today, I took them into the Kodak shop to be printed and will collect them tomorrow - just as I used to do with my lovely old 35mm camera :lol: . Probably in a year's time I will still be following the very basic initial instructions in the little booklet that came with the camera, and the assistants in the Kodak shop are so helpful, so I needn't worry anymore about improving my knowledge, need I :wink: ?

Oh, and I have today appointed Kath as one of the official photographers at Memorial Weekend, so please don't expect me to post any photos myself :D .

Janet

[Kath Mulligan]

You, my dear Janet, are a chicken!!! :wink: :lol: If your camera is anything like mine, you honestly can't go wrong with loading the pictures onto your computer since with mine, so long as I plug the right connection lead into camera and computer sockets, it does the rest itself with minimal input from me.

I have no problem with being charged with uploading my pics to the forum - think I have managed to get to grips with that now. How I shall fare with any video clips I manage to shoot remains to be seen. Presumably I should have to create a Youtube or Photobucket account for that? In which case, I shall be calling on Claire's expertise to sort that out for me!

[Jeniwren]

I see a Sealyham Terrier has won Best in Show....Yippee to the terriers :D

No comment about technology 8)

[Janet Swan]

You, my dear Janet, are a chicken!!! :wink: :lol: If your camera is anything like mine, you honestly can't go wrong with loading the pictures onto your computer since with mine, so long as I plug the right connection lead into camera and computer sockets, it does the rest itself with minimal input from me.

Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! Yes, I am a chicken :roll: :oops: :lol: . Even finding what to plug in where is advanced stuff for me, dear Kath, so bear with me :wink: .

Janet

[Kath Mulligan]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Kath

[gloria townsin]

I am better off if I work through things on my own, it's when someone goes now you do this, this and this.........going at the speed of light so I have no hope of following what the heck they are doing.......then I kind of grin and say o.k. knowing I will go gently through it all as if they had never told me.
I know my computer does all kinds of fancy things that I have never discovered.......but I seem to have lived without them so I guess they can't be too important. The thing is I have never had a single computer lesson and while that is o.k. in the main there are things I could learn that would make me much more efficient. Nina has just sorted out my lap-top and she has to show me what she has now put on it........she discovered an e-mail I thought I had sent to FOMS in August that was still sitting on the lap-top, so heavens knows who I wrote it to. If anyone has just received it could they just bin it please. :oops:
But I can truly say Janet that the camera link up will be easy if you just do it slowly and it gives you all kinds of ways to keep your photos or print them plus you can edit them which can be great fun. The photo I took of Patricia's Monty last year for instance I just zoomed it in to cut out a lot of the background and printed it off to send to Patricia. So don't be too worried, have a go at it when you feel you have the time not to rush, that's when things go wrong for me.

[Sparky]

It's a lovely sunny day here today. On our early morning walk I heard the first Scarlet Finch singing and saw the first North American Robin of the year. Both are migrants from warmer southern climes and nest here in summer so perhaps spring has sprung!

It has been a long cold winter.

Steve.

[Kath Mulligan]

And on her Facebook page, Brenda has commented that she has seen raccoon tracks across her pond, so she too is hoping that Spring may be on its way.

I love this time of year when everything is starting to spring into life again. There is something good about all the seasons, but Spring has always been my favourite; the fresh green of the new leaves, the birdsong, the cheerful yellow of the daffodils and forsythia etc. It just makes me feel glad to be alive.

Kath

[Sparky]

I agree,kath. We have such a short growing season here(frost free only from mid-May to early September)that everything grows like mad when it starts.You can almost sit and watch the plants and trees and flowers growing.It's great.

Steve.

[gloria townsin]

Had to travel to the Cotswolds today for a meeting - it was lovely, such a pretty area, saw lots of cottages I could just love to live in. Trouble is so many of them are now in the midst of nasty newly built houses which detract from the chocolate box image of the village, but I guess people need somewhere to live!

[Linda]

Gloria it was me that got that email...I was so puzzled I thought something had gone wrong with my PC and Jeff and I started double checking everything.....the mystery is solved!! Hahahahahah!!


Yes isnt Spring wonderful...we had a really mild day today and it was still...I was able to simply hear the birds singing...it was peaceful and I felt calm and sighed happily.

...funny I always think of the Marvelettes single 'When your young and in love' (the opening line is 'Spring in the air.....) and start humming it...not god when you cant sing...but I love it...makes me feel 'spring like!'

[gloria townsin]

You Old Romantic Linda........I love 'April Love' sung by Pat Boone always sounds like Summer arriving........it was a big hit when I was at school. That is one among many as we have so often discussed. :D

[Janet Swan]

I remember 'April Love' too and thought Pat Boone was just wonderful - ah, they don't make songs like that anymore :wink: . I bought a double CD of 'Hits of the 50s' recently, just to wallow in nostalgia from time to time. Every Sunday evening, I look forward to listening to 'The David Jacobs Collection' on BBC Radio 2 - he often plays other lovely songs from 50+ years ago.

Janet

[Kath Mulligan]

OK confession time! I used to have a huge crush on Pat Boone and sat through umpteen showings of State Fair at our local fleapit! I thought he had a gorgeous sexy voice and remember being quite devastated to discover that he was married with four kids. :cry:

Kath

[gloria townsin]

While we're on a Pat Boone theme, can I just throw in 'Love Letters in the Sand'? "On a Day like today, we'd dream our time away, writing love letters in the sand.............How I laughed when you cried each time you saw the tide take our love letters in the sand.........You made a vow that you'd always be true, but somehow that vow meant nothing to you......" (not sure if all those words are right, time has marched on since I first dreamed along to it). The last time I wrote a love letter in the sand it said "I love Cornwall" it was 2007!! :D :D

[Kath Mulligan]

Let's do it again on the beach in Penzance after the AGM on Saturday.

FOMS loves Cornwall 2009

Kath

[Janet Swan]

Let's do it again on the beach in Penzance after the AGM on Saturday.

FOMS loves Cornwall 2009

Kath

Dear Kath, sorry to crush your plan, but I seem to remember that the tide is always in by afternoon or evening ... but you could always skip breakfast and get up early one morning ... ? :wink: :roll: :lol:

Janet

[Kath Mulligan]

Just checked the tide timetable for Penzance. High tide is 13.24 on Saturday, so there may be enough beach visible after the AGM is done to get down there and do it. We shall find a way!!

Kath

[Janet Swan]

Just checked the tide timetable for Penzance. High tide is 13.24 on Saturday, so there may be enough beach visible after the AGM is done to get down there and do it. We shall find a way!!

Kath

Anything to avoid missing breakfast, dear Kath :lol: :lol: :lol: . No doubt you are packing your waders, just in case :lol: :lol: :lol: .

Janet

[Kath Mulligan]

I have been known, many times in the past, to be down on the beach for a walk long before breakfast, working up an appetite, so that wouldn't stop me!! :lol: :lol: Might just feel a bit silly being down there on my own drawing messages in the sand though!!!

Kath

[gloria townsin]

Who said you will be alone Kath? :lol: There's something quite satisfying about writing a message in the sand I found. :D

[Kath Mulligan]

We could even turn it into a temporary advert for the Chronicles.

Read the Minack Chronicles by Derek Tangye. They are beautiful.

And then hope for some curious passers by on the Prom who might just stop to look.

Perhaps we should suggest it at the end of the AGM, Gloria, see how many others we can get down there to help us!

Kath

[Sybille Weber]

Brilliant idea, Kath!

My drawings in the sand, when I was young, usually consisted of Union Jacks.

[Kath Mulligan]

I'll take some photos if we do it, then you can all get to see how mad we can be!!! :oops: :lol:

Kath

[gloria townsin]

Kath told me on Sunday the tide was in so we couldn't write our message in the sand............but I'm sure we will manage to do it sometime.