h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello Eco,

My submitted photo was accepted as a suitable dressing for your mealtimes for dogs article at A12737586. I hope you like it. I have two pooches, both are pretty spoiled, I think, but they put up with some of my oddities in return. Stop and leave me a note some time at U7464049. Have a good day!!

Thanks very much, that's a great picture!

Is that one of your dogs?

Just realised I answered that with the wrong account, sorry about that, but both accounts are actually the same person. :D

Ah, no problem! Some hear voices, some have split personalities?

Yes, that was one of our dogs. We try to keep only two at a time these days, but one just isn't enough.

I used This guy (Riley) because a) he is better with the "wait" command, and b) he fit in the chair much better than our pointer!

I followed a few links around h2g2 and saw you tend towards dogs too. That's why I thought you might get a chuckle out of the picture. If you find the time, check the "alternative uses for socks" article (should be a link on my page) which has a picture of Popeye, our other four-footer.

Have a good one!

Aww, they're both lovely!

Yes, I love dogs too - I've got two of my own, which is just the right number for me. I also foster over the colder months, attend lots of novelty shows and obedience competitions in the summer months and currently I've got one of my mum's dogs staying with me. She's going home today sometime I think.

My dog Fred is the best at obedience commands, Beauty is very well behaved and does obedience as well, but she's not really a natural. At the end of April she's taking part in a Greyhound display, which I'm very pleased about, and she's working hard for.

Have you ever tried trying her in an agility event? It takes lots of training but it looks like fun. My sister-in-law sometimes competes with her whippets, although they do more coursing these days.

We've thought about trying the Jack Russell at agility or their own event, which is like coursing, I can't think of the name of it right now. They chase a lure into a tunnel, often made from hay bales. It's a hoot to watch.

Beauty is a bit old for agility - she's 7, but we do take her over the beginner's course at my local club from time to time as it helps with her confidence when we encounter obstacles when out walking.

Last year we joined a 'Longdogs' club and let her do some racing, but it's quite a distance from my house, and at 7 she's getting a bit old really.

Fred, the terrier, can't do agility because it hypes him up too much, so we do working trials with him. He was offered a trial on a lure when Beauty was with the racing club, but I felt he would be much more interested in the other dogs, than in the lure. I may be wrong, or he may have learnt as time went on (Beauty started out chasing the other dogs, rather than the lure even though she'd been a racer!), but I haven't been able to find anywhere that does that sort of thing locally.

At the moment we're waiting for my training centre to start flyball, which might suit him a bit better. We're working on teaching him to catch at the moment!

Terriers do fabulously at agility, especially JRTs, so if you get the chance to do it with yours, I'd go for it!

You're right, of course. Most dogs start agility as pups. Unless she seemed to be very interested in doing it, it would probably be more work than play.

JRT's are great for agility, and I even built some jumps, but we somehow never find much time to work with him. Training our youngest (17 year old) son is taking up a lot of our time .

We have tried both the pointer and the terrier at the coursing event. They let us run them between whippet races. It's hilarious to watch the terrier go after that lure, since it's as big as he is. We only run him about 1/2 the course, because his legs are so short. The pointer has actually run the course faster than some of the whippets! But he's getting on now too, he'll be 8 March 13th. When I take him birding he runs until he drops, so I have to limit his time in the field. Too much enthusiasm and not enough air. We're both getting too old for more than a few hours out. I'd take him for more walks around the mountains we live in but we've had so much snow this winter it would kill him. Yesterday I got up on a mountain top and ended up with snow in my pants pockets it was so deep in spots. I'm not short, five foot 10 inches. I was pretty tuckered when I came out. Once the snowpack gets down enough I'll start running him again.

I stopped taking the terrier, because he goes off and doesn't return, and we lost one a few years ago that way. There are too many big predators here. Bears, coyotes, bob cats, fishercats, even an occasional mountain lion believe it or not. Little dogs don't last long if not looked after .

I guess from the mention of scary creatures that you live in the States?

I love to do a lot of walking with the dogs - Essex is really flat, so we're not really very good on more hilly country - walking around Dartmoor for a couple of days last year nearly killed me!

We hardly ever get snow where I live - if it comes it doesn't settle, so I'm very envious of you and your snow walking. At the moment Fred can't go out because he's got a bad leg and I miss it very much. My greyhound can still go, but it's not the same taking just one, and means the other one is left alone which I can't bear to do. On Sunday my son stayed home with him while I took Beauty out on a 'Greyhound Walk'. There must have been 30 greyhounds, and 50 people!

The walks started once monthly, and are now weekly in different places. Really it was to raise awareness of the breed that they make good pets and raise a bit in donations for rescue, these days we're full of gossip and fashion talk about where they got their coats/harnesses/funky dog gadgets. And all the dogs love the walk!

Some people still bring dogs waiting for homes, and we get joined by people interested and wanting to learn more. It's a good morning out!

Right you are, I live at the edge of the Berkshire mountains of Western Massachusetts. It's beautiful but they have their drawbacks. I used to jog, but a 3 mile run here in the mountains was like 6 in the valley, our flowers bloom 2 or 3 weeks later than down below, and we get snow sooner. But it's pretty, especially come autumn when we live in a golden world. Autumn is why I settled here.

I know what you mean about leaving one dog behind, our JRT is so indignant when I return with the pointer! He literally attacks him at the door, and poor Popeye just stands there looking sorry until Riley gets it out of his system.

We had a "rescue" greyhound on trial once, but our children were tiny at the time and he was a nervous dog straight off the track, so we found him another home without children rather than risk him snapping at one of the boys. Now that they're young men, perhaps we'll look into it again when the inevitable happens. The trouble is choosing! There are so many dogs needing rescue.

But if we all just do a little, some day it will all add up.