Life's Context » Fauna

Our Home Was No Place For A Lady.

Periapex — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:55:26 +0000

Resting In Peace near Hector, by the stream that runs behind our house, surrounded by the very Nature that she loved.

She is survived by 1 cat, 2 dogs, 6 fish, 3 parrots, and 2 humans.

7 Months old on April 10, 2010.

Rex and Lady.

Periapex — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:41:13 +0000

Say Hi to Rex and Lady (bet you’ll be able to tell which is which without me giving you any hints).

I’ve always preferred dogs to cats, but some convolutions of the universe knotted together to drop these two into our home: Our neighbour’s cat (a stray who goes to them for bed and breakfast) got knocked up and had some babies; We’ve had a crazy mouse infestation in our walls this year; When we saw these two, we knew they were way too cute for their own good so we decided that we’d better look after them.

They are currently in training. I’m getting them used to flash photography…

Annual Hiatus.

Periapex — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:23:15 +0000

The usual suspect.

My annual summer bloggin’ slow-down is currently in full effect. You might see some stuff on here every now and then but you’ll definitely see more stuff from me on Twitter or Flickr because those are places that I can hit and run.

Summer is just too short here in iglooland to spend it typing my crazy life’s details. Don’t worry, I’ll be back. I always return.

Talk to you soon (I hope). I’ve gotta go and chase another visitor away…

Roxy.

Periapex — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:36:03 +0000

Elvis Presley in Suspicious Minds:

Why can’t you see
What you’re doing to me
When you don’t believe a word I say?

We can’t go on together
With suspicious minds
And we can’t build our dreams
On suspicious minds

Ameloblast and Roxy in our kitchen after a messy training session. Actually it was painful (for me) more than messy because I was trying to teach Roxy how to take treats gently:

Roxy is a 2 year old mixed dog that we rescued from the Toronto Humane Society a couple of weeks ago. The teenager who surrendered her to the shelter because he could not afford food for her said that she’s an Azores Cattle Dog. If she does have some of the Azores islands in her those genes are quite diluted. She hardly resembles a purebred ACD.

She has a docked tail and poorly cropped ears. A lip injury along with some scabs along one thigh were suggestive that she had been in a fight just prior to being surrendered.

She and Ameloblast are slowly becoming tolerant of each other and some day soon I’m sure they will become good friends.

Adopting a dog from the SPCA is not as easy as it used to be. If you have never adopted a dog from a shelter it’s definitely not as easy as you might think. The interview that potential adopters are put through can be quite stressful. An extensive questionnaire must be completed and then a meet and greet is set up between you and the dog. If everything goes well there, anyone else who is going to be in close contact with the dog at home must be brought to the shelter as well. This includes other dogs.

Shaz, a professional dog trainer, was our interviewer at the shelter. Thanks to him we were made aware of potential issues between Roxy and Ameloblast and once we brought her home we were able to watch and react to problems before they became issues.

As with any animal that you rescue, you don’t know what sort of life they really have had and you probably do not want to know. All that you do need to know is that a dog like Roxy just wants to have a home that they can call theirs, they want to be loved, to be fed, and to be entertained. Given all of this, they will become your forever friend and you will have saved one soul from a sad ending.

None of us ever asked to be born to this world. Once here, though, we just want to live a life that is happy, positive, and fulfilling. Dogs feel no differently. Anyone who has owned a four-legged pet knows this.

Shh, Don’t Tell My Vet.

Periapex — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:17:34 +0000

A Painful Long Weekend.

Periapex — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:55:39 +0000

It’s Canada Day here in Canada! Is that redundant?

Anyway as long-time readers of my blog have come to understand, I need to be supervised on the weekends — especially on long weekends. Self-injury is one of my problems.

This weekend was no exception.

Instead of me taking it easy and enjoying all of the sights on our place:

I decided to dust off our bicycles and adjust the brakes. After I was finished adjusting my brakes, I took the bike out for a test ride. Everything checked out well going uphill. I turned around and started on my way home — downhill.

The skid mark is the only evidence of my accident.

Cruising downhill, wind blowing by me, the bike felt good. Back brake felt good, front brake felt pretty responsive to light pressure.

It was as I was testing the front brake that someone who doesn’t know any better ran in front of the bike. My reaction was to squeeze the already-squeezed front brake harder. The reaction of my newly adjusted bike was to stop the front wheel without question or hesitation.

I know that my lines weren’t great, but I think I might have pointed my toes as I did a somersault over the handlebars. Mediocre dance form that was.

I’m now the owner of a modest case of road rash. I don’t have Bandaids long or wide enough to cover the scrapes, so DentalInsider suggested that I use Maxipads to cover them. Good suggestion, but I’m not sure how to get them to stick on. This will be maybe yet another use of duct tape.

Moral of story? If you’re masochistically inclined, know that softened water on open wounds is the same as salt water on open wounds.

This Is What Cheap Dentistry Is Like.

Periapex — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:30:42 +0000

For those of you who think that the practice of dentistry is merely a technical skill (like putting tires on a car), think again. Here’s a quote from a foreign-trained dentist who got in trouble for practising without a license here in Canada:

“I used to pull teeth, extractions, fillings, root canals, bridges, dentures. When you work like this, you gain the experience and you gain the ability.”

But Mr. Bytyqi said he and his wife, who is also a dentist, struggled to find their feet in the profession after they arrived in Canada as refugees in 1999. They have two children, aged nine and 11.

[...]

He also failed a Canadian eligibility exam four times despite taking courses to upgrade, he said. A letter from the Association of Canadian Faculties of Dentistry, dated November 2004 — after the last test Mr. Bytyqi said he took — states his score was 31 per cent.

Mr. Bytyqi said the exams relied too much on theory, which he had studied decades earlier.¹

Yeah, screw theory, let’s get down and dirty and just rip those teeth out of your head.

Footnotes:

Story on Canada.com.

This Year’s Deer Visitors.

Periapex — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:12:11 +0000

The deer in the backyard have been less visible this year than last. We’ve seen their tracks, but haven’t actually seen them. Not until this past Saturday.

I managed to grab my video camera and shoot a couple of minutes of footage. I got some really nice close ups. Unfortunately, my camera decided to malfunction during the video download and so I only got the first 30 seconds or so of what I shot. The really nice close ups aren’t in the 30 seconds.

The footage includes a shot of the deer feeder that we bought a short while ago.

Sundance Hooping Around.

Periapex — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:00:59 +0000

We haven’t featured the parrots on the blog for a while. Here’s Sundance posing. Polly is in the background and if the picture had audio, you’d hear Tango screaming from the left.

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Pecker.

Ameloblast — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:15:00 +0000

This is one of the guys that has been making noise around our house lately. Not as cute as Woody, but almost.