• Tag Archives dogs

  • “It’s time to reappreciate the original software: paper.” Dale Dauten

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    I’m really getting to the point where I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing anything because I spend so much time on the computer. The hourly watching statistics for TV in the American household could apply to the Internet in my case. Sad.

    But, I do want to relay a few things.

    * My abs hurt like hell. For father’s day, I decided my daughter and I should go bungee jumping (first time ever). Whoo. It was interesting.  She decided that she was only going to do one ride. The Skyscraper. As we were buying our tickets, they told us the Skyscraper was out-of-order. I climbed up the seven story tower to bungee jump and waited as they got all the equipment ready. While I waited, there was a guy fixing the Skyscraper. I’m not sure what was scarier – the fact that I bungee jumped, or the fact that we went on the Skyscraper right after they had fixed it.

    Here’s a video of the Skyscraper (note, this is neither me or my daughter):

    As to the bungee jump, it was scary (I won’t lie). Throwing yourself off a seven story scaffolding is scary enough. I closed my eyes halfway down.
    I’d do it again though. I think it was the Skyscraper harness that made me tighten up my abs. Ouchy. Fun ride though.

    (I hate heights)

    I wouldn’t suggest that bungee jumping cured my fear of heights, but it made me look at it differently. I’m looking forward to going again to see what it’s like the second time and see how I get more comfortable with it.

    * The lady next door whose dog barks a lot is having a hard time. There’s some cats in heat that have found that her side of the fence is a safe lovin’ zone, and dog free. They start yowling, the dog goes nuts and she has to start banging on her window to distract them. We can’t stop laughing when we hear it.

    * I don’t have a third point but it always feels like I should include one.

     


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  • “A puppy plays with every pup he meets, but an old dog has few associates” Josh Billings

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    One of the last CERT classes had a bomb sniffing dog, which was pretty sweet. When we walked in, we were “investigated” by him until he was satisfied we weren’t holding.  Unfortunately, it did have the effect of renewing my interest in owning a dog.I decided to research owning a dog again. For a long while I’ve put it off because my backyard fence is rotting. After going to my friend’s house, I realized that his dogs actually didn’t spend that much time in the yard. Also realizing that my ex-brother-in-law has the sweetest doberman (also an inside dog), there was a glimmer of hope. Throughout the years, our family really only managed to mainly have cats. My father always claims he was a “dog person” more than a “cat person” which is true.  Throughout the years, I’ve aimlessly consdered having another dog, but until I had my house really didn’t seriously consider that option. In my childhood, we did have two dogs, but none after that.

    The first was “Scotty”, a Scottish Terrier.

     I didn’t find out until right before my father passed that his side of the family (East Coasters) were somehow involved in breeding them – which is why I think we ended up with him. All I remember of him is that he was old and had skin, eye, and hearing problems. He also had that old, slow, puttering dog walk. Scotty never bit me (that I recall) but since my age was about six, it’s hard to recall everything. In the end, due to his age, we had to put him down. After my father passed, I considered getting a Scottish Terrier, but their thick fur and sensitivity to heat are not well suited to Texas.

    The second was “Tracker”, a black lab. I’m pretty sure I considered her “my” dog even though she really was the family dog. She was home the night the house got robbed. My mother (to this day) will swear that I caused the dog to run away.  Her supposition was that because I walked the dog one day before school, that I made Tracker too excited the following days – and didn’t walk her again, and then she got over-anxious and ran away.  After reading a bunch of dog psychology books (which inherently sounds goofy), I have a much better understanding of where we went wrong with Tracker. Of course, this being something like 1980, we didn’t have the unlimited resources of the internet to help us train our animals.


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