Nellie sings!

This is Nellie, who stayed with us for a while a couple of weeks ago. She is a very smart and talented and silly dog, and her favourite song is the Coronation Street theme tune. Every time we played it, this was how she responded. In this video, Nellie is singing along to the old version of the tune, and as it turns out, she didn't like the bridge. Maybe it is just that she didn't know the bridge, and it wasn't very interesting.

Two wet squiglets

There is also video. Who wants to see video? Please register your interest in the comments.

Inevitably, this has to happen

Four squiglets in the bath

Hey, if you don't like the occasionally cute moments on this blog, there are plenty of other uncute places on the internet for you to loiter.

This is the kind of thing I have to deal with lately

Clonlara

Delicious dancing.

That's all you're getting out of me today, after 3 whole minutes of sleep in the past 24 hours and more. The Jetlag gods are tossing me like a baby seal between the noses of playtime whales. Too many trains (2) planes (2) airports (3) cars (2) and now, a bed I can splay out in. Tar is playing it cool. I will try to bribe him with great big American chewtreats. Meanwhile, he licks pee with great tenderness, so tender and loving I cannot stop watching him. He knows.

An intriguing tableau

Pooches, pooches who need poochhomes

Dude just reminds me of Tar, who also has this issue with ear rebellion. This is Mister Bigglesworth, a "cheeky mongrel puppy" who has been in Battersea Dogs' Home for approximately half of his young puppy life. UPDATE: ok. This one reminds me of George Michael. I can't hold it in anymore.

Liberty, described as "affectionate... loyal... highly responsive", who is currently Battersea's longest resident, at the Home since last August.

Penny, who is very sweet and talented but mustn't be given any chewsticks because she will bury them. Tar also has this difficult compulsion, even when there is only carpet to bury his chewsticks in. We have not thrown Tar out on the street, despite his foibles. Please don't throw your lovely dog out on the street because you discover their foibles.

Photos of dogs who need homes. Most of the dogs in this photo shoot are variant Bull Terriers. My guess is they have all been chosen because of their good temperament and cute physical appearance, to highlight the need for new homes. Bull terriers tend to top these Lists of Dangerous Dogs that have been made mostly arbitrarily, in order to ban certain breeds in Britain and Ireland. Not all bull terriers are Bad.

All the dogs in this photoshoot are all at Battersea Dog's Home, and I hope after this, they will all find new and loving homes, tout suite.

If these photos remind you of how much you need a canine in your life who understands pain and sorrow and has vast capabilities of empathy and paw offering, you will find your own local pound stuffed full of them. Some of these dogs have been at Battersea for months. They usually don't get more than a few days of a chance in your local pound.

Black on black

Tar, the profoundly handsome pooch.

Considerate poo

This picture speaks 'considerateness' to me. It is dog poo, neatly sitting on top of a cigarette box. Whatever way you look at it, it's considerate. I would like to meet that dog someday and give him a chewstick.

UPDATE In case you didn't notice, the poo is rocking the health safety warning. Considerate!

DubKbhBcnBknJoggingWhippet

I seem to have given up the visa quest. Or it has given me up. Or it has gone underground. I hope truly that Brooklyn is my home, deferred for now, but right now I am living in the moment with the nothingness from The Neverending Story eating all around the edges of the moment.

I have a habit it seems of living in cities that get abbreviated to three letters: Kbh (København = Copenhagen), Dub, Bcn, hmm, NY. Wow. Maybe that's it! NY is TWO LETTERS! That is the source of the difficulty. I might have to contact mayor Bloomberg now that he is in his untouchable third term and today, angry (you did hear about the fiasco airplane photo op farce that happened yesterday, didn't you? I mean, we all thought that if nothing else, the Obama administration was fucking smart) and suggest a New York NYN(y) appendage to the usual old NYNY set up. Then I can come, freely. Oh all things are possible.

I'm considering the possibilities of the potential relevance of jogging to my life. See, a jogger would never write a sentence like that. But maybe I'm learning. I am not completely inexperienced in this regard. I used to take off sometimes around a couple of the lakes of København and found it an intense exercise in discouragement and determination. Maybe that's what I need right now. It's also healthy.

I used to take care of a pair of whippets in Bkn (oh my god we've cracked it) and it was hilarious when I got the notion to bring them for a run. I would tear off as fast as I fucking could, and they'd be having a pleasant quick stroll. Sort of smiling up at me, warming up for the cheetah manoeuvres.

Tar wonders if there is any chance of A Great Adventure Of Doing Things

West Side Story Drama in my kitchen

Koko, yes the Rita Hayworth one, has just come into season this past couple of days. Just in time for Monty, the suddenly Aflame and Renewed springer spaniel, who normally spends his days asleep, but now who is frantically in love. We have to keep them apart, so that Koko does not return to her owner having lost her honour. We will NOT be putting purity rings on them or playing Jonas Brothers pukesounds in their ears, but Monty IS pissing all over everything to let Koko know he is coming for her, calling out to his beloved to keep her faith, that he is on his way. They are making their bark-aria as I type.

This is likely to continue for some days. This may be like this for a week. Hey! We need some patience over here. Can whoever gives out the patience bring a truckfull of the stuff over here? Just dump it in the yard, we'll make light work of it.

Thanks.

Tar

Meet Koko

She is our latest one.

It seems that all I can really write about in the public sphere at the moment is #mousenews, or #catnews, or #dognews. For ye of no twitter, the # is a shorthand way of indicating a topic, within the 140 character space restraint of the tweet form. (Favourite recent hashtag: #whencrackgetsintothecattery).

It also helps with @ replies, when someone responds to a particular tweet on a topic, so you know what the hell it is they're talking about. Some people don't use or get hashtags at all, some use them dilligently and very properly, and some have fun with it.

But just about everything I have to say about anything is getting sucked into my current project, a record I'm writing here in the hut, with only the local fauna spilling out onto the internet afterwards. So I imagine that a lot of internet folks think I am running a menagerie around here (not hugely far from the truth of my current circumstances) or that I am animal-obsessed. Fact is, there are not a lot of people around and the animals are almost always entertaining. And they have stuff to say. And I listen. I tweet for them sometimes. Clean up their pee. We form bonds.

So. Koko. Koko is one of these glamourous, pretty, troubled types. I'm thinking, Rita Hayworth. She's also playful (particular interest in ball games), likes to be given lots of attention and has hissy fits when she is not being attended to at all times. We like her very much and she sleeps in a bedroom at night, spends most of the afternoons in the kitchen.

It is time for my second coffee of the day, and another session assuring Koko that she is loved for her mind.

Cat Friday

A short expose of the truth of cat.



This seems to me to be a kind of parable about the dangers and responsibilities inherent in getting everything you've ever wanted.



And in every cat friday there's got to be a dash of sheer dog truth. Because they are the other side.



Now stop purring all over me and go clean up your litter tray.

Tar on a wet path

Lucy and Tar: a selves-portrait

Molly needs a home

Molly is an almost three year old yorkshire terrier/jackrussell cross who looks like a yorkie purebred, and who has more puppy in her than sense at this point in her life. She is also one of the most entertaining, endearing pooches I have ever met. Favourite tricks include Her Famous Kangaroo Act and peeing with both back legs in the air. And she needs a new home, as of today.

Molly was saved from drowning by a very kind woman who now feels out of her depth with her. A colleague of Molly's current owner wanted to drown all 9 (9!) puppies in Molly's litter, and so Molly's owner rescued them and found homes for them all. Molly was the runt of the litter. None of the puppies had been weaned properly and Molly's first weeks in her new home were spent being syringe-fed milk. She didn't take to all this upset at all well, and still Molly is a fraught and finicky eater. She will only eat when hand-fed, gets upset around food very easily, and mostly wants to eat the food that the humans around her are eating. She has just learned poor ways. 

Molly likes to hump her favourite blue blanket and LOVES long walks in the countryside, where her kangaroo act can really shine. She is always at the very end of her extendable lead, straining to get somewhere Very Important. When you pick her up, she trembles in your arms and will look very seriously and earnestly, directly into your eyes for as long as you can stand it. She LOVES to play. She needs to be around people a lot, probably because she was half weaned by one and probably doesn't realise that she isn't half-human after all.

Molly has no sense. She will happily approach twin rottweilers and insult them in the bawdiest terms and offer to take them both on and show them a thing or two. She does not understand that she is a mere bean burrito to such creatures, and that really she is reliant on their mercy for her survival in such cases. She will also run directly out into roads without any awareness of traffic at all, so she will need to be rehoused in a home that has good security around it, in terms of walls or strong fence. 

Molly needs a new home because her owner is a single mother who is taking on further education and a fulltime job in this coming year and Molly would be at home alone all the time during the day. Molly really likes human companionship a lot. She considers them kin.

Molly seems to carry the memory of the precariousness of her origins with her, she has a certain troubledness to her, a certain complexity that is unusual in a small dog. 

I am deeply fond of Molly, and we are going to do all we can to find her a suitable home, ie. a fantastic one. Molly has special needs, and it is important that she finds someone who will be a steady presence in her life, aswell as enjoying her special skills.

If you are living in the Clare/Limerick area and you would like to join the list of eager potential Molly kinsfolk, then please, by all means, email me, or leave a comment below. Thanks.

Molly