Category: Animals

MOSTLY TAILS AND A TONGUE, IN BLACK & WHITE – Garry & Marilyn Armstrong

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge:
Tongues and Tails

Garry got the best horse’s tails, but I got Duke’s tail and tongue. He has an amazing tail. Not a half bad tongue either.

I also had some great cow tails too, but my favorite didn’t work in black and white. He was so patchy, black and white, he literally blended with the foliage. You could see his tail, but his entire head got lost in the dappled foliage. So that particular cow didn’t make the cut.

Photo: Garry Armstrong. That’s one great horsetail! 
Photo: Garry Armstrong – Another great horsetail
Photo: Marilyn Armstrong – Cows also have tails 
Duke’s glorious tail – Photo: Marilyn Armstrong
Duke’s ever-ready tongue. Watch out! All food belongs to him! Photo: Marilyn Armstrong 

 

 

BOAT DOGS – BY ELLIN CURLEY

Tom’s brother, Todd, came down to visit for a week and he brought his six-month-old Catahoula Leopard Dog, Houla. with him. It was like having a toddler around! We spent four days on the boat with the three dogs. It was exhausting to supervise the puppy, but it was also a lot of fun.

Here are some photos from our time on the boat with our dogs.

Houla taking in the view from the outside
Lexi on the flybridge, chilling
Remy looking in from outside the cabin
Houla checking out the table setting
Houla on the deck table
Houla at the dining table
Houla on the path leading to the bow
Remy with Todd and Tom driving the boat
Remy and Lexi on the path to the bow
Remy hanging out in the sun on the bow
Remy and Houla playing on sofa
remy and Houla still playing on sofa
Remy and Houla playing, again, on sofa
Remy looking out the side of the boat
Remy looking out of the gate at the boat entrance

BARKING QUESTIONS – Marilyn Armstrong

Barking Questions – If only we could bark a few answers!

Our dogs bark at us. They look us in the eyes, then they bark. So we have conversations with them.

Duke

Duke: “Bark, bark.” Short whimper.

Marilyn: “What?”

Duke: “BARK bark BARK bark BARK.”

Marilyn: ” Garry, do you know what he wants?”

Gibbs

Garry: “No. Duke, you’ll have to speak up. What do you want?”

Bonnie: “BARK! Bark, bark, bark.”

Garry: “I’m sorry, we just don’t speak dog.”

Bonnie

Dogs look at each other, clearly frustrated. I’m sure they want something and apparently, whatever it is, it’s quite specific. I get when it’s food because then they bark at the plate or the fork or try very hard to get right in there and eat some. But the rest of it?

Bark? Bark bark bark? Definitely a question.

They need to learn to speak more people-like. Or we need to find a better way to ask them the bigger question. Why don’t you dogs speak English? Are you aliens? Do you have green cards? Are you guys legal?

FOWC with Fandango — Question
RDP THURSDAY PROMPT – BARK

PHOTO CHALLENGE: ANIMALS IN NATURE – Marilyn Armstrong

Photo Challenge: Animals in Nature

I realized this omitted my dogs, the local milk cows, and the chickens. That left birds. I have seen many wild creatures, but I haven’t gotten their pictures. I can tell you about the tortoises and coyote, chipmunk, bobcat, and fisher cat. Squirrels, deer, rabbits, gophers and I know we have begun to have bears, too.

But when we get right down to it, what I have photographically, are birds.

Reflective 
Turtles
Geese swimming in one line down the Blackstone River 
Our own little Red Finch
Dirty water swan 

Cardinal in snow
Up and away! Photo: Garry Armstrong – Not wild, but maybe he should be? 
Junco, probably.
Great Blue Heron 
Black-crowned night heron 

GARRY DESERVES THE DUKE, BUT WHAT ABOUT ME? – Marilyn Armstrong

Duke is not our first dog. We’ve had a big selection of hounds, terriers, and mutts of various backgrounds, sizes, ages. Somehow or other they have all fit in here because anyone or anything can fit in here, assuming they want to. For years, there has been great howling and yapping and barking in this house and that’s the way we seem to like it.

Duke

The thing we’ve never had, however, are truly obedient dogs. We don’t demand obedience, so we don’t get it. I wasn’t a very good disciplinarian as a mom, either.

Discipline makes me feel guilty. Who am I to demand obedience? Who do I think I am anyway?

Garry is worse. Garry was born with a gene that says “whatever you tell me to do, I won’t do it.” It’s a special piece of DNA that screams “Oh yeah? Who’s gonna make me?” Even in the Marine Corps, when his drill instructor yelled at him, he laughed.

It got him a lot of days scrubbing bathrooms with toothbrushes, but it’s in his blood. He cannot help himself. I cannot help him either. He’s a tough nut. People think he’s so easy-going … and he is … unless you get him mad. Then he isn’t. Easy-going.

Duke is the dog Garry deserves. Duke also has no grip on “Do what they tell you. Be a GOOD dog.” You stare at Duke and he stares back. You can see every inch of Duke screaming “Oh yeah? Who’s gonna make me?”

Certainly not Garry. They try to stare each other down, but Garry starts laughing long before he manages to get obedience … and anyway, I don’t think Duke can do it. It’s not in him. The other dogs, if they hear that “tone” in my voice will do what I say because they hear the “alpha” note — and figure they ought to behave, even if it’s just a few minutes.

Not Duke. Nope. Never. He doesn’t do “obey.” He would make a feral cat look like a well-trained pup.

Unless I’m holding a piece of chicken. Chicken is another level of training and if I actually needed Duke to behave, I would need a lot of chickens. Possibly a whole cow. Or an entire flock of sheep and maybe a school of shrimp. Do shrimp swim in a school or is that just fish?

Anyway, Duke is the dog Garry needed. He is the dog that will go eyeball-to-eyeball with Garry until they are both laughing themselves silly. Well, Garry does most of the laughing, but I swear Duke is grinning.

So we know why Garry wound up with Duke, but what did the two Scotties and I do to deserve him?

WHICH WAY? NO, REALLY … WHICH WAY? – Marilyn Armstrong

Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge – August 24, 2018

Garry and I got lost in the hospital. We went the wrong way out of the elevator and suddenly, I realized I’d never seen those bank machines before … and the cafeteria … we hadn’t passed that on the way in.

No one gets lost like we do. We have a special talent. Even when we find our to the place we are intending to go, we will probably get lost in the parking lot or inside the building. Or while trying to find the restroom.

The only place this works in our favor is when we are looking for new places to take pictures and just drive randomly around, hoping we’ll find a new dam or a lake or a heron.

So for me, “Which Way” is a valid expression of the meaning of what I humorously call “life.”

Out the window of Miss Mendon

They don’t need a road. Goats can just go. They are walking on top of a stone fence.
Horses don’t need a GPS … YOU are the GPS.
Chickens don’t get lost
Walk down the aisle?

NOT VERY SENSUAL – Marilyn Armstrong

Boyoboy, I can’t think of any time in my life I have felt LESS sensual. Life just isn’t like that these days. It seems to be more about regularity, eating right, hoping nothing breaks, and wondering if the retirement money will last as long as your life and what happens if it doesn’t?

I think that’s where dogs become more important. They are furry, fluffy, cozy, and snuggly. They are more than a best pal. They are the other “person” who remembers to kiss and hug you. Dogs love you and you can safely love them back. All they want is a biscuit and some playtime or a walk.

The longer I live, the rarer such behavior becomes. Someone who loves without wanting something back. Amazing, eh?

RDP #79 : Dog