I can’t speak for Domino yet because he’s only been here for a few weeks and we haven’t needed to leave him alone, but radio absolutely made a difference for Trixie and Tansy. The key is that it has to be the right audio for each dog, which you can only discover through trial and error.
Trix was an oldies fan and wasn’t super picky about it, which is interesting considering how much of a stress pot she was in general. This was nice, because it meant I could put one of the three or four oldies stations we could get on AM on for her and head out.
Tans, on the other hand, took more figuring out. I discovered this while Carin was in the hospital getting to know the captain. Oldies didn’t work for her, at least not when she was young. She appreciated them more in her later years, but when she was two or three? Forget it. She also had an especially big hate on for AM 740 Toronto, which I think is because that station often has a background electronic interference hum that bothered her. She wound up being quite specific about what she liked. It had to be Easy 101 out of Tillsonburg, in the days before Rogers bought it and ruined it. No other stations, not even ones that played similar music, would cut it. And you’ll never convince me that it didn’t help. I remember leaving in a hurry one morning and forgetting to turn it on for her. Man alive. When I got home that day it was like an episode of the Flintstones where she was Dino and I was Fred. She was always happy to see me come home, but this was something else. I made sure to never make that mistake again.
Eventually, both dogs got to the point where if we left them with a radio, it would take them a while to notice when we came home. Instead of waiting by the door or running out and attacking us immediately, they would wake up, saunter out and just be like “oh hey, you’re back. Cool.”
So having said all of that, I’m having a hard time trusting these findings much. Perhaps all of the dogs they looked at just don’t enjoy classical music and would have rather listened to a different genre. And though I’ll grant you I’m far from a dog expert, what I do know about them has me surprised that audiobooks would work in any situation. “Here, Floofus. Daddy’s gotta go out for a while, but this invisible stranger’s voice in a box that always kind of sounds a bit like it wants you for something but actually doesn’t will take care of you.” That just seems like a surefire way to freak them out.
Past research showed that classical music had a calming effect on dogs in chronically stressful situations, so researchers set about testing if it would also relax dogs separated from their owners for a short time. The findings, published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science, showed that classical music had only a moderately calming effect on the 82 dogs studied, and no welfare benefits were recorded when audiobooks were played to them.
But the dogs exposed to classical music were significantly faster to lie down and settle than those that were played audiobooks — which spent more time gazing at the speaker.
And on the subject of butterflies, maybe it’s just Carin and I, but does anyone who comes from around KW/Guelphish remember the commercial for I want to say the Butterfly Conservatory with the little kid at the end saying “A butterfly might land on you!”? And if you do, did you immediately think “Oh no! Poor butterfly!” because you know that when something lands on you unexpectedly your first impulse is to try and smack it to death?
I shall do my best to remove the images evoked by the words “75-year-old nudist” from my mind and focus on what’s truly important here, but please excuse any shuddering induced typos in the following text.
I have never been to a nude beach and have no plans to partake in such activities in the future. This is best for all concerned, believe me. But were I ever to change my mind, you can also trust me when I say that I would never, at any point, decide that playing a few numbers on the old pipe organ in appreciation of the scenery is an even remotely appropriate thing to do during my visit. This has everything to do with morality and common sense, but yes, knowing that I might also get shot to death by an elderly naked fellow for doing so does help as well.
A 75-year-0ld nudist is in custody after allegedly killing a 46-year-old man on a nudist beach at a lake near Lyon, France, over the weekend, according to French press reports. The victim had reportedly fondled his erection while deliberately staring at a female nudist when an argument broke out between the men.
The shooter then took his registered hunting pistol from his beach bag and shot the younger man, police say.
Onlookers reported that the victim—who was not apparently a regular on the nudist beach—had been a nuisance earlier in the morning when he masturbated into the water in front of sunbathers. Witnesses instead said the shooter was a long-time naturist who often discouraged bad behavior on the beach.
I’ll say.
Police have accused the shooter (hmmm…should perhaps be more specific here) the man with the gun (this is harder than I thought…dammit, that came out wrong) the one who is still alive (that’ll do it) of deliberate homicide.
Ok, I think I’ve made it. Pretty sure I even fixed all the typos. But I could use a good, stiff drink now. No! Not stiff! Gaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!
Here’s Waylon Jennings with his classic, “You’ve Got a Homely Daddy That’ll Walk the Line”.
I can’t pin that one on my dad the way I can with so many of these. This one’s all on me, I’m afraid. I was a small child, but still.
But fear not, I can still go back to the dad well at least one more time.
As with a lot of these stories, we were piled into the van. My family didn’t do Carin style zillion hours long road trips, but we did drive around a lot. My mom had a Trisha Yearwood tape that was in heavy rotation on the car stereo at the time. I was not a fan, but I was outvoted by literally everyone else so I never said much about it. Now and then I would even join in on the family “She’s In Love With The Boy” singalong because hey, why not?
Dad almost never sang along. He sang, but he did most of his singing in the kitchen. In the car he was generally a listener. But not today.
Everything was going along just fine until we reached the line that says “It wasn’t very long ago When you yourself was just a hay seed plow boy Who didn’t have a row to hoe”. There was dad, singing is heart out loud enough to be heard over Trisha, mom and a couple of little kids. “you yourself was just a hay seed plow boy, WHO DIDN’T HAVE A MOTOR HOME!”
The rest of the song went unsung. None of us had enough breath to finish it. If the windows were down, everyone around us could have heard the laughing. They likely would have also heard poor dad saying “What!? What’d I say!? over and over again until one of us finally composed ourselves enough to set the poor guy straight.
I may need to think twice about watching wrestling when Domino is around, because it appears he’s mastering the art of the foreign object.
He likes to come over while you’re sitting down and put his front paws up on you. This has evolved into a game with him and I where sometimes I’ll try to tip him over and then we both end up on the floor, flopping, running, and wrestling around. He does most of the running, to be fair. But whoever does what, he loves it. At least I thought he did.
The last time we did this, things were proceeding as normal. We’re having ourselves a grand old time when suddenly he stops, calmly walks over to the big bone Carin bought him a couple days earlier, picks it up, strolls back over to me, takes a mighty swing and just drills me right in the back of the head with it. I laughed so hard it took me a good minute to catch my breath. I laughed, but he got me a good one. Right behind the left ear. Kinda hurt a little, not gonna lie.
So far, it doesn’t seem to have knocked any sense into me. We wound up playing tonight when he got home from a Walmart run. And wouldn’t you know it, the friggin jerk tried it again. This time he went for the face, but I was ready for him. I caught it and held one end of it so he could chew the other. That’s another one of his favourite things to do, so he was happy.
He’s such a fun dog, even if sometimes our ideas of fun are juuuuust a weeeeeeeee bit different.
I have so many questions, and I’m pretty sure the answers to all of them are alcohol and Florida.
A “heavily intoxicated” Florida Man was arrested Saturday night for calling 911 to report that his girlfriend “wished to eat Sour Patch Kids” according to police.
An arrest affidavit does not reveal why Joshua Larson, 37, allegedly phoned the police emergency number at 11:45 PM with the candy dispatch.
When asked about the call by a sheriff’s deputy, Larson “smiled and walked away” from cops outside his residence in Madeira Beach, a city 10 miles from St. Petersburg.
Larson allegedly struggled with deputies as they sought to place him in handcuffs. An “electronic control weapon” was eventually used to take Larson into custody, according to the affidavit.
Yes, electronic control weapon is basically just a fancy way to say Taser.
And also yes, they did charge this fella with misusing the 911 system.
I don’t know whether or not I’ve ever eaten a Hot Pocket. If I think really hard I can recall something with little chunks of ham and gross tasting creamy cheese in it that I think might have been a Hot Pocket, but I can’t be sure that that’s what it was. For all I know it could have been some knockoff dollar store Hot Pocket with a name like Humidity Pouch. But if it was a Hot Pocket, what I can tell you is that if somebody were to eat the last one we had in the house, there’s no way I’m shooting him for doing so. They’re all yours, brother.
Do they serve Hot Pockets in here?
According to WLKY, police said Williams became upset when he learned his roommate had apparently eaten the last Hot Pocket, and allegedly started throwing tiles at him. The roommate reportedly tried to leave, but that’s when Williams allegedly went back inside the shared home, grabbed a gun, and shot the victim in the rear end, arrest papers obtained by WLKY state.
The bullet recipient, who was not identified, was taken to hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries…from the shooting, at least. Who knows what all those Hot Pockets may be doing to him.
And because I know you’re all thinking it now, here you are.
I have a bit of time, so I thought I would write about how Domino and I are doing, and what I have learned about him so far.
He’s so good in the house, but he moves so quietly. He could get into a lot of mischief if he wanted to. Thankfully, most of the time, the place he wants to be is right next to us, or laying across our feet. When I have to get up, I feel bad for disturbing him!
At first, he wasn’t sure what the routine was, so would want to chase each of us around. But he’s starting to figure out how to settle when it’s not play time or go time.
He has learned that the kitchen is not a place where he should be, and he hangs out at the border. There was one time where he forgot and waltzed in, but that is the only time. Most times, he just parks himself at the edge and watches.
The bathroom is another story. He never drinks out of the toilet, but sometimes he just walks in there by himself and we have to tell him no…or sometimes he’ll try to chase one of us in there when we’re taking care of things. At least he listens well.
One weird thing he does is if there’s a tea cup or a water glass on the desk, he comes running over and swings his head at it, so we have to keep a firm grip of the tea cups so none get knocked over. Silly guy! At least he stopped sticking his face in the water glasses.
In terms of work, he’s working hard to try and learn the area. But he’s super unsure of himself. I don’t remember Tansy being this uncertain when she was new, but maybe I’m just forgetting. His pace is a little weird. I know he can go fast, because I’ve seen him do it, and when he’s sure of what he wants to do, he can move. But when either there is something that’s coming up that he’s not sure what to do about, or he just doesn’t like the cracks in the sidewalk or whatever, he will slow right down. He also slows down when he’s distracted by something, or when he has to poop en route. I’m not used to dogs slowing down when they have to relieve or when they’re distracted, usually they speed up, so I’m having trouble interpreting what his slowness means.
And about the upcoming obstacles, he slows down before I can even perceive them. If he slowed down right before showing me something, that would be fine. But he is super cautious and will see something several feet ahead of us and start slowing down. I’m blind, remember? So if it’s too far ahead, unless it’s making noise, I have no idea what the problem is! Also, if he gets too confused, he’ll just plant his butt. That hasn’t really happened since I got home, so maybe that’s less of a thing. This is all new guide dog stuff and we’ll work it out. I just notice it.
He also takes things very literally. I call him Domino Bedelia. One night, we went on a loop of the neighbourhood so I could show him what pace I like. So I took the clicker and every time he hit a good pace, I would click and treat. At one point, I clicked and treated. Then he wanted to slow down, but he knew he just got treated for going fast. I could feel the war on. “Slow down? Speed up! Slow down? Speed up!” I wondered why. Then I heard it. A car was in an upcoming driveway and was about to pull out. I realized the war was ” slow because car? Speed up because click! Car? Click! Car? Click!” The decision to slow down won out, and I praised the heck out of him. But he was willing to take me literally and keep the higher speed. I sometimes wonder if he gets the bigger picture. Probably none of them do at this stage, but I notice it a lot with him.
He is also a very good rule-follower. This is good in some cases, like when we’re in the house and I tell him to stay out of the kitchen. But sometimes rules need to be bent in the real world. For example, there is this crossing where the Light Rail Train (LRT) goes, and there is an island that you go over before you’re through the danger zone. When we hit down curbs and up curbs, he often gets treats right now. But in this case, I want him to stop very marginally and then keep going in case the bells and the lights start going off when we’re on our way through. But he wants that treat! So I hope he will learn that rules aren’t followed exactly.
He’s also very very very sensitive about my every move. Sometimes I think I’m sending signals that I don’t mean to because he’ll stop dead or look at me as if a treat should be on its way or something. Or if I’m not in the precise following position, he will think there’s something wrong. There’s a reason the instructor would say “Catch up to your elbow.” He was allowing me to pull him around if I got too far behind him, screwing up our line of travel.
I’m also noticing that my foot orthotics, or shoes, or both, need some help. Because of this, my feet are in a bit of pain. I also think that pain is causing me to limp a bit and he’s picking up on that, and that may be why he’s slowing down, especially if I’m on the return route. He is a very perceptive dog. If I can just harness that perceptiveness, I won’t have to say a thing! It will be magic!
And when he knows he’s got this, you can feel it through every bit of his body. That trot trot trot is glorious! But I can’t praise him too exuberantly because if I do, he’ll stop dead. “Cookie? Now?”
When he came home, I wondered when I would start getting new dog comments from the public. Would I get mobbed on the first day? Thankfully, the universe has been kind and they’ve been coming in at a slow trickle, gradually increasing to a steady stream.
I was trying to teach him where a crosswalk pole was so he could find it. We weren’t the fastest at it, and someone started telling me to “go now, the cars are waiting!” I know what they were going for, but I was going for long-term gain here. I’m sure the drivers can get over it. They’re in a car, they can make up their time. But if I teach the dog wrong, it’s a lot harder to get over.
Another one said my dog wasn’t as good as my old one because I had to feed him to teach him stuff and he was looking at me for help. Never mind the fact that she made that comment when we had been home for two days and this was his first try at this route.
Another one said he had a very human face. Can someone explain this one to me? Maybe it’s just because he’s yellow and I’ve heard that those ones have a more expressive face. There’s a picture of him in the Domino meeting post. Maybe someone can see what they’re talking about.
They also noticed he got excited if they asked him if he liked pizza. Someone else got him all excited about the word Pizza too. I wonder if someone called him Pizza Boy because he’s Domino, and the whole Domino’s Pizza thing.
But the funniest one I got was one guy said “Is that a new dog? The old one used to be black! Or did you dye it yellow?” Um…nope. On a related theme, lots of people wonder where the other one went, never mind that I’ve been walking around with a cane for 9 months. I guess it’s not noticeable until I walk out with a tall, yellow dog.
I watched my own graduation. That’s always weird. When it’s going on, it’s a blur. But when you’re watching it, it’s possible to notice things. One thing I noticed was that I said he was subtly playful. His play isn’t subtle at all now. He’ll be snoozing and then decide he wants to play right now! He’ll walk over to one of us and put his paws on us like he wants to climb us. It makes me laugh. He’ll get up in the morning and grab a bone or a kong. Sometimes he wants one of us to hold the bone while he chews it. Sometimes he wants to tug with the kong. Um, dude? There isn’t a lot of room there. He loves chasing that kong down and bringing it back, growling all the way. And his tug games have definitely picked up their ferocity. It’s fun to see the change.
Especially fun to see is the level of zoomies. He hasn’t done it often, but after a route where he felt particularly proud, he tore around our place, having a great time! If you had recorded it and told me it was a Tansy recording, I would have believed you.
He also does more flopping and shukhing in the mornings. I think he’s starting to feel at home.
We have discovered that he loooves fruit. We were chopping some up for a smoothie and he was very interested. I gave him some bananas and he frigging loved it! Then when we made another smoothie a couple of days later, he was very intrigued! He couldn’t take his eyes off Steve while it was being made, then he chased him around the living room when he was bringing it to me, then he watched him get his own and the nose was on high alert, just hoping some was for him. Sorry, Dom, no bananas for you today.
With Tansy, I seemed to only need to groom her every other day. But with him, it’s an every day thing…until I figure out what his hair needs. It doesn’t take me long, but I pay attention to his big bushy tail and his soft ears and the hair underneath them. I also do it at night so I have all the time in the world to pay attention.
I don’t know if Domino is as into music as Tansy is. I caught myself singing a few different songs to him while grooming him. I wonder if any of them will have meaning for him. The first was Sister Golden Hair. I was thinking about the way his hair feels, and I just started to sing.
The next was “Golden Years” or in his case, Golden Ears. I start to sing it while I’m brushing out his hair, under and around his ears looking for mats.
Another one I find myself singing is “Stand” by REM. Tansy used to know the “stand” command, but he doesn’t seem to know it. I’m trying to teach him but it’s going slowly. I found myself singing the song as I tried to show him what I wanted.
And I can’t remember how Tansy managed to learn “turn around”, but I’m trying to teach him the same. Inevitably, it’s Total Eclipse of the Heart” time.
I’m still learning how to get him to let me brush his teeth. He adores the toothpaste, but he doesn’t seem to like the toothbrush. I have tried the big end of the toothbrush and the finger brush, but he seems to be a fan of neither. Then I have to wipe off the big bunch of toothpaste on his shnoz. Maybe I’ll try the small end. Silly guy!
Now I think I’m down to the odds and ends. I found his family tree page and read about his litter. I also see that he’s the seventh Domino so far. Lucky 7? Anyway, I had this silly thing I would say to Trixie. I would tell her she was a trooper…no, wait, that’s your brother. That was because she had a brother named Trooper. Now I found out that Domino has a sister Dandelion. So if I’m picking up his poop and I think I feel a dandelion get snagged in the gift, I say “Gross! You pooped on your sister!” I hope nobody hears me and thinks I’ve truly lost it.
I was so happy that for years, I didn’t have any guide dog abandonment dreams. I thought I was over that. But I had one about Domino. I had a dream that I stumbled into this huge lecture hall. The floor was slanted like in a theatre and it was full of guide dog users. I squeezed into a seat and figured out that this wasn’t where I was supposed to be. So I stood up and headed back out the door, holding onto what I thought was my guide dog. But then I noticed suddenly that this dog was massive and his gait was totally different. Not only that, but his harness had tape on the handle! At first I thought I was nuts, but as we tried to walk more and more, it was very obvious that this wasn’t my dog. I was trying to figure out how I was going to walk back into that huge lecture hall and find him when I woke up with this compulsion to make sure Domino was in his bed. Of course he was. He was on tie-down there. Everything was fine. Let’s hope that was a one-off.
During his time with me, he has already amassed several nicknames. He already had “Dom” but I find myself using it, along with “The Domster”. I also call him “Ghost Boy” because of the way he moves like a ghost, silently floating around the room. But one day, I randomly called him “Droolio Iglesias” because of how much he drools! Good lord! I thankfully don’t have to wear a drool rag anymore, but it’s apparently visible. I was walking with someone who said he had a little bit of foam around his mouth. Foam? How long until some John Q. Public thinks he’s rabid? Give me time, I’m sure he’ll have a list of nicknames a mile long.
Wow! That post turned into a beast! But all in all, I think we’re going to be fine. I was out with a friend yesterday and he was telling me the things Dom was glancing at, and they were places we had been before. So he is putting things together. We’re just very very new. Plus, with me working from home, we tend to keep going to different places. So the poor guy doesn’t have one primary route to work on! But even so, he’s figuring it out.
If you enjoyed that 1934 Yankees Tigers game I posted a couple of years ago, then chances are this YouTube channel I just discovered is going to be your jam. It’s called Classic Baseball on the Radio, and it’s exactly what you would think it would be with a name like that. Full length radio broadcasts of old baseball games. Yes, commercials included. New ones seem to be added pretty regularly, like this May 13th, 1979 meeting between the Jays and the Rangers that went up nine days before I sat here and wrote about it.
Unfortunately it’s not Tom Cheek’s call, but hopefully there are some of those floating around in here.
I’m pretty sure that today is the first day in my life that I’ve watched MTV. I don’t remember seeing it on any of my trips to the States or during visits with the various friends and family who had the cool old big ass satellite dishes. And no, I’m not counting the useless Canadian MTVs that have existed in one form or another since the early part of this century. Those are dumb and you shouldn’t count them either. Why someone would choose to launch an MTV that basically wasn’t allowed to play music videos due to licensing and competition rules is anyone’s guess, but someone did. Yes, we did used to have competition rules in Canada, believe it or not. Actually, the history of MTV Canada is one of the better flashing neon signs advertising that we no longer do that I’ve seen in a little while. Essentially, through a series of acquisitions, Bell Media wound up owning both MTV and Much Music (Much was the service that the aforementioned rules were protecting) and running them both into the ground.
But anyway, back to real MTV.
It launched at 12:01 A.M. on August 1st, 1981 and these are its first two hours and 20 minutes of life…mostly. The uploader had to remove a couple of the songs to prevent the video from being repeatedly taken down. According to the description, April Wine and Cliff Richard weren’t happy with being included in a pretty important bit of history and wouldn’t change their minds even after the point was politely explained to them. This has me a little bummed out personally, because I’ve always liked April Wine and am taking my folks to see them as a combination Mother’s and Father’s Day gift a couple of weeks from now. You always hope that the people you’re giving your money too will be cooler, even if you know better.
Parts of this are pretty clunky what with the messed up levels and awkward transitions between segments, but it’s hard to overstate just how influential it ended up being.
I wonder how many of those dial position stickers they gave away.
