Tuesday, February 21, 2006

The Bones

Ok, I'll start with things Cookie is actually allowed to chew, and like all dogs I have met, he likes bones. He is encouraged to chew bones. He has all he can use. But it is apparently not enough - hence this blog.

These aren't just ANY old bones, mind you, none of your chop-bone-off-the-plate sort of bones, these are pieces of some very large animal. Ox perhaps, or buffulo, I'm not sure. Big anyway. Heavy certainly. I know this, not because I can bring myself to actually touch one (you'll see why later), but because he is tremendously proud of them. Whenever I go to sit on the back step to keep him company, he scampers off to find one of the several hundred that he has, and comes lolloping back with it in his mouth.

That of itself is endearing, but there is a problem.

In his efforts to show you the bone, it is whacked into and wiped up and down your leg continuously. There is a sort of double action going on - apart from wanting to push the bone into your lap, as he wags his tail the rest of his body and head (and bone) sort of wag a counter-point. So you end up with a sort of up and down and side to side motion all happening at once.

But I can live with that if I have sufficient time to shower carefully later.

No, the problem is the bones are heavy. They are difficult to grip, partly because they are approaching the size of his head, and partly because of the primordal ooze that covers them. Whether he gets tired, or just slips, I don't know. What I DO know is that you do not want your bare feet under one when it falls.

These bones are also very bad for lawn mowers. When you hit one that has been lurking in the long grass, there is this sort of terrible grinding, splintering, hacking, spitting sort of thing that goes on. Suffice it to say that I think I may finally have to go and buy a replacement set of blades.

The worst thing about bones, apart from the fact that they are completely useless as a distraction from chewing other things, is that they are.....how do I put this....EWWWWWWWWWWWW!

Here is an example:


No, don't adjust your colour balance, that's what they look like. And to give you an idea of size, its the better part of the length of my forearm.

Ok, to be fair, this is an average sort of bone. Some are completely bleached white and picked clean by ants, the other extream is, well, lets just say I'd prefer not to meet one in a dark alley.

The bones are routinely buried then retrieved, covered in dust, flies, gunge, grass clippings, and things that do not really bear describing. But of course, to Cookie, the single word that applies best is: YUMMO!

5 Comments:

At 6:11 PM, Blogger wysiwyg said...

While fiddling with the hit counter just now, and checking the searchability of the blog, I came across this post.

Some people are such wimps.

Why if I'd taken Cookie back when the piddling/poohing stage first got to me, he wouldn't have made it in the front door!

But that is another story. And a good one, believe me.

Anyway, did you know that if you search all of Blogger (2 million plus blogs I believe), there are ONLY 2,708 posts (not blogs), that match?

Perhaps its just not a very interesting topic for people.

Ah well. *I'm* enjoying myself.

 
At 6:24 AM, Blogger Sarah said...

I did notice your hit counter. The thing has amazing dark powers and can make you its bitch. In case you hadn't noticed.

When we give Ria a bone:

1. It's considerably smaller than a T. Rex fossil.

2. She grabs it firmly in her teeth and slinks off to her secret place and isn't heard from again until only bone dust is left. And a smidgen of primordial ooze.

It's nice to know that you're enjoying yourself. (Insert snarky comment here.) My family is enjoying you, too.

 
At 11:35 AM, Blogger Sarah said...

wys, I'm not weirding out here, I swear. I really like your "Visitors so far" (VSF) copy. It's so much friendlier than than the robotic rectangle with a number in it. I checked your counter's website but couldn't find the VSF option. Is it your little custom job?

Anyway, I want to imitate your counter style. If you share your HTML secrets, please let me know how I can alter my template.

Thanks.

And I am so envious of your weather.

 
At 1:59 PM, Blogger wysiwyg said...

Scat,

During the "Install Code" steps, you get asked whether you want to have a graphic counter or a text counter - I changed the default to a text counter, which is the essential difference between how yours looks over how mine looks.

Mine just gives you a bald little number on the screen which is a bit meaningless. To make it a bit prettier, I added the "Visitors so far" text on a separate line just above the javascript code you insert to get the counter to appear.

To see how its done, load the page, then (in IE) go "View" and "Source" and scroll down to where it says "Start of StatCounter Code".

 
At 1:51 PM, Blogger wysiwyg said...

BTW, sorry about the slow rate of posting, things have been very busy recently. I *will* get more stuff up soon.

 

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