Grab a Tissue

Every day when I come home, and every morning when I leave, there is someone who is there for me - my dog Toby.

These days, however, his age is really showing. He's got quite a hitch in his get-along, stairs are a real challenge. He often stumbles when we walk, and tall grass is a nightmare.  He drinks water like there's no tomorrow, which is unusual for him (when he first came to live with me, it practically took an act of congress to get him to drink). His bladder isn't what it used to be.

Despite all this, he is always there for me. Any pat on the head, any kind word, he appreciates it.  Even if I don't toss the ball any more, and our walks are short, and I'm out of the house all day, come home late and soon got to bed - he still seems to appreciate the time we have together.

It is hard to know if "it is time."

Anyway, today I saw this video, and it beautifully demonstrates why we love our animals so. Sure, it's all anthropomorphic, but it is beautiful...and I challenge anyone to get through it with a dry eye.

A Walk Toward Camp Santanoni

Sunday morning I was being a slug - lying in bed, reading (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - about the 12th or 15th time). It was about 12:30 when a friend called to ask if Toby and I wanted to go for a walk over at Santanoni. SURE! I really should be getting up anyway.

So, we drove over and met Judy and Spike. This time I took my camera. Even though there isn't anything blooming, you just never know what photographic opportunity might present itself.


Like, for instance, these lovely percherons, just in from hauling some hunters and their gear back to the parking lots from the interior portion of the Santanoni Preserve.


Mostly Judy and I chatted while Spike and Toby sniffed and piddled. We walked this way a couple weeks ago, after several days of rain. The streams were rushing and crystal clear then, and I was sorry not to have brought the camera along. Today they weren't as robust, but the bubbling falls were still pleasant to listen to.


And Toby found the water good to drink.

The highlight of the walk was the large patch of milkweed we encountered. Most of the pods were completely fluffed out. Who could resist?





We left the field well-seeded for nest year.


And I know you are dying to see Spike, so here he is: airborne!

And ears all flying. He's a Maltese and just cute as a button.

We did over four and a half miles - took us about two and a half hours, because we were chatting and the dogs were sniffing and piddling - no one was in a hurry. Met the same hunters as we left that we met when we arrived. They had gone out to Long Lake in hopes of catching a float plane ride, but the pilot was not around, so they were heading back in as we were leaving.

We all got some fresh air and exercise, and we liberated hundreds of milkweed seeds. All in all, it was a very good day.

Weasel Wanderings

This morning was rather dark and dismal outside. It had tried to rain overnight, so there was a coating of ice on the car and the snow had a light crust. I was running late, so Toby got a short walk. For a change of pace, we detoured up to an abandoned property where kids ride dirt bikes in the summer and snowmobiles in the winter. I'm glad we did for I found this wonderful weasel trail, which included a slide:

I came back afterwards with the camera because I don't have any weasel tracks in my photo collection yet. I suspect this is a long-tailed weasel because they are the most common. If we were in England, this would be a stoat (short-tailed weasels are also stoats, apparently; to them a "weasel" is the least weasel, which you'd have to go up to Canada to find here).

The slide measures about 2" across.

Here's a shot looking up the slope. You can see where the weasel came from the woods and apparently did a little investigating.

After it slid down the wee slope, it bounded across the road, leaving these 2x2 tracks behind, which are typical of the weasels. The tracks were filled with snow, so they weren't too fresh. This animal may have come by sometime in the early night (it snowed a bit after it rained), or the tracks could've been from the previous night. I'm leaning more towards that because of the amount of snow in the tracks. It snowed quite hard a couple times during the day yesterday, resulting in about a half inch of new snow, which looks about right in these tracks.

A fox had passed by last night, too. Because I've seen grey foxes here, I'm pretty sure this is a grey fox trail. The tracks to the right show the typical "C" or rotary gallop, curving to the left. The tracks on the left are mine.

For comparison, here are my dog's tracks:

I can tell you he was pacing (a type of trot, where both the left feet move at the same time, then the right, then the left - like pacers at the race track) because that's his basic gait. Pacing is not a normal gait for most animals. Camels come by it naturally, and horses can be trained to do it. Looking at the tracks, though, you really can't tell this is what he's doing - you have to see the animal in action to note it. What you can see here, however, is each foot making its own track (no double registers here, where the hind foot lands where the front foot landed), and basically a sloppy pattern. Domestic dogs, for the most part, are not the efficient travellers their wild bretheren are.

So, here's a closer look at the fox's gallop:

With canines, the front feet are larger than the back (they are supporting more weight than the hind feet). In the gallop the feet land front-front-hind-hind, both hind feet coming down in front of the front feet. This animal was travelling from right to left in this photo, so the left-most tracks are the hind feet.

I took a close-up of one of the front footprints because I wanted to verify the size for grey fox. When measuring tracks, you want to measure the impressions made by the foot pads at the bottom of the print, not the hole in the snow, which is bigger than the actual foot. This foot measures about 1 6/8" ; on average a grey fox front foot measures 1 3/8 - 1 7/8", so this falls within the range.

And, of course, there is always the ubiquitous deer trail.

And this is Beau

The morning was rushed - I keep oversleeping. So, Toby got a very short walk down the street to the water tower and back. But, on the way, we encountered our neighborhood's newest resident:

This is Beau, an English Shepherd. He's a bundle of fuzz and energy, with one blue and one brown eye. He's very friendly and curious, and Toby wants nothing to do with him (Toby really doesn't cotton to puppies). After a little coaxing, Jeanne and I got Beau to sit still long enough for me to take his portrait, with the promise he would be on my blog. So here he is.

Jeanne was telling me that she was visiting her grandkids this last week, with Beau in tow, and one night they were outside playing with flashlights (her grandson, it seems, thinks "scared of the dark" is "scaring the dark," so he runs around waving his flashlight to scare the dark away - isn't that cute?). Anyway, the beam of the flashlight caught the eyes of the two other dogs that were out with them: yellow eyeshine. And then it caught Beau's eyes: one yellow eyeshine (the blue eye) and one electric blue eyeshine (the brown one). How cool is that?!?

The curious naturalist in me is now wondering: why is that? I guess I need to do some research on eyeshine.