Friday, November 27, 2009

Some gratuitous dogblogging, and patterns.


Dogs don't do deferred gratification.  Give them something they like and something they like even more and they'll go straight for the thing they like even more.  Saving the best till last just doesn't enter into their thinking.

I decided I'd try to change this, introduce the joy of waiting for one's pleasures, into Mol's life.  Instead of mashing the little bit of cooked potato and shredded meat she has with her dinner in with the boring dry biscuits as I usually do, so that she picks it all out first, only incidentally swallowing some of the croquettes while she's about it, I left it in one whole delicious mushy layer in the bottom of the bowl, and completely covered it with the hard tack, a kind of Dog's Dinner Surprise.

She stuck her nose in, and was indeed surprised, and paused for a moment.  Something funny going on here, she thought.  It smells like there's meat and potato in this, but where is it?  Then she dug straight through the biscuits until she found the surprise layer, and ate it first, as usual.

Her friend Moos, in the picture, doesn't get meat and potato in his dinner, but he's a happy enough fellow anyway.  It's unusual to see him running behind her, she's usually falling over her paws trying to catch up with him as he races away across the meadow.  She's not a great one for doggy friends, though she seems to look forward to seeing him, and Porridge too.

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Today's croppings: Patterns.
































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12 comments:

PurestGreen said...

I miss having a pet. Your croppings would make a beautiful calendar.

Dale said...

Such wonderful photos!

Rouchswalwe said...

The only time in my life I was without a pet was in Japan. It was awful walking into the door at the end of the day and not being met by a happy tail.

The snail shells made me catch my breath. I don't know why exactly, but seeing cracked, empty shells make me sad.

Zhoen said...

Good old Moll.

I was struck by the broken translucence of the shells as well.

jarvenpa said...

Wonderful photos, and wonderful dogs. Thank you for stopping by my blog; poems are difficult to make comments on. I'm glad to think you are reading them from time to time.

(My dog not only gets the tasty bits first but then waits until I am distracted and steals the special cat food).

Sheila said...

These are great! I love the last one; what sort of tracks are they? Makes me think duck, but I really have no idea.

Dogs and delayed gratification....sounds like our dogs are just like yours!

Lucy said...

Thanks chaps.

Pattern and texture are quite close, some of these could have been called texture, some of the texture ones might have fitted here.

The snail shells are from a thrush's midden. Any stray rock round here tends to accumulate them. One good thing about a ramshackle garden, there are always plenty of snails and therefore plenty of songthrushes, and quite a few stones lying around for anvils too. They seem to prefer the little red and yellow snails(rather than the hefty brown ones), whose shells fade into interesting shades.

I think the tracks are probably just seagulls. It was the notorious tidal mud in the notorious enormous car park round Mont St Michel. Pretty grim until I started studyiing the shapes and forms to be found in it. Most of the shots didn't really work out though.

Crafty Green Poet said...

beautiful crops and lovely dog story!

christopher said...

Ruminations

So I've been thinking
maybe my muzzle's too white,
revealing my age.

My bones creak louder
than snails that crawl along stems
and leave trails of slime.

I shall bound forward
nonetheless, leaning into
the long afternoon.

Reluctant Blogger said...

Funny re her food. My children have different approaches to food and were born that way - one of my sons always saves his best bit of any meal to last, the young one scoffs the best bit first and the middle son eats a bit of this and a bit of that. So odd.

Amazing how similar Breton is to Welsh.

Unknown said...

Are the sardines chocolate sardines?

Lucy said...

Yep, chocolate sardines!

Christopher - gorgeous, thanks.

(I also added one the post editor queuing system caused me to leave out...)