Rain rain rain rain rain

Never let up yesterday and still raining this morning.  It is so gooshy out there.  I almost went down yesterday while walking from the barn.  Really gotta be careful with well-worn rubber clogs on slick mud.  So glad I had the gravel driveway put in last year.  I probably wouldn't be able to get out, let alone get back in.  The last heavy rain about a week ago was the first time since I put it in that there was standing water on the low spot, but it's no biggy now.  The gravel is solid and grippy under the tires.  I'm sure there will be even more water by the time this system moves on.

Finally got all the does bred!  Mano...every single one was frigid!  I admit I didn't try every day so I might have missed their receptive days if they had one during that time, but still pretty frustrating.  The exceptionally warm weather this week motivated me to make a sincere effort, and every doe responded.  Almost every doe.  Every doe I tried.  I'm keeping one just turned senior open for shows this month and next.  I'll get her the next round.  Also didn't breed Broken Dream because she's for sale.

The other day, I realized I hadn't seen Silky.  Searched the yard for evidence and found nothing.  I did find a skull and bones out back, but they're so clean and white, it couldn't be her.  She hadn't been missing that long.  I have no idea who that was.  It must have been there under summer growth and only just now became visible.  Tried to think when I last saw Silky but realized I hadn't counted heads for a few days.  Probably due to the weather, or the fact that I've been keeping feed in the hopper for the winter.  They don't mob me for food every time I go outside, and if it's crappy out, I don't spend much time looking for them.  They hunker down under big plants when it's like that.

The day after I missed her, there she was at the water bowl in the early morning when I looked out the window.  She had a long drink and looked extra fluffy and perky.  Then she dashed into the Summer House to grab a bite.  And then dashed out and around the backside (unpenned) part of the carport.  All signs she's broody!  I hurried out to see where she went but she had disappeared by the time I got there.  Still haven't caught her in the act, but I think she's under the tractor's mower deck.  There isn't any other place back there to hide a chicken.  I had raised the deck and chute when I parked it there for the winter and apparently that's just enough room for a broody little hen.  But I can't see her under there.  I've found a few eggs in the yard here and there pretty much all winter.  I replenished the nesting boxes with hay and placed some fake eggs in each one.  Hope that gets them using the boxes.  The only hen old enough to remember using the boxes is Buffy and I happened to catch the red roo mounting her the other day.  Hope she shows the others the way.

In nature, this happened.

This is unusual because while I might see the occasional Great Blue Heron flying in the distance, I've never seen one here, and certainly not perched.  This one apparently startled the neighbor's dogs.  I don't think they knew what they were carrying on about, maybe they heard the wing beats.  It's a BIG bird and would make a fair bit of noise in flight.  I looked out to see what was the fuss, and this bird was flying low circles over the yard near the creek.  Then it landed in the top of a tree above the creek and sat there long enough for me to grab the camera and attempt to capture it.  Again, love my new camera.  This was so far away, I could barely see it with my naked eye.  Most of the shots were too blurry but this one was good enough to share.

In other nature news, I think I've finally foiled the cat.  Abby is good!  She's an excellent ratter, and too good at bird hunting.  She launches straight up and snatches birds off the feeders.  Grrr.  I attached cage wire to the bottoms of bird feeders which did spoil her aim for a while, but she is really GOOD.  At this time, I'm only filling the one feeder in the front garden, and she has honed her skills to where the wire isn't stopping her as well.  When I found too much evidence that she was taking birds again, I tried something else.  I made a barrier with some cheapo folding garden fence I had on hand.  I set it out far enough from the pole that she can't get good aim from that angle.  Of course she can walk right through the fence to wait under the feeder.  I knew that and thought about attaching chicken netting to the fence to prevent her from doing that.  Figured she'd just jump over it (it's about 3' tall).  Laid some more wire across the top of the fence so she can't jump from inside, and I do believe that has put a stop to that.  The added benefit is that the ground feeders like cardinals and juncos seem to feel more secure with cover over head.  They are spending a lot more time under the feeder cleaning up dropped seed.  I love watching my birds so I'm glad I can continue to feed them without putting them at risk.

Been trying to deal with a mess.  Wicked windstorm just before Xmas blew off the entire tin roof of the old shed.  This is the barnwood-slat thing that was here when I moved here.  In its defense, the roof was hanging on by threads and it was just a matter of time.  Mostly I just stored junk in it.  A lot of junk that, you know, never know when you might need it.  I don't even like to go in there during summer.  Hornets and spiders and snakes, oh my.  It was sort of an annual ritual to go in and straighten it up after enough cold weather had removed the creepy crawlies.  The rest of the time, stuff just got thrown in any old where so I didn't have to go into it any farther than necessary.

Thankfully the wind didn't blow it where it could do more damage, like my house or rabbit barn.  It did land on the carport but the next gust blew it down to the ground.  I decided it wasn't worth fixing it.  Hoping I can find someone to tear it down for the salvage.  I can offer a lot of scrap metal for payment.  There's an old lean-to type of barn at the back of the property that has been coming down little by little in every wind storm.  That thing is like my own personal dump.  I throw stuff up there that I don't know if the community dump will take it.  A LOT of scrap metal back there.  Before I can have the shed torn down, I have to go through what's in there and decide what to keep and where to put it.  Trying to do that when weather permits.  It has to be warm enough for me to work outside and not raining because...well...no roof.

tnt

12.12.12

When I saw today's date, well, it looked very cool as a post title.  Photo dump follows the rambling.

Let me rave about my new camera.  I'm calling it my Xmas present to myself.  Been looking at them for a while as my little point & shoot just wasn't doing it for me anymore.  I knew what I wanted in a camera and looked for those features.  I needed/wanted (1) wide focal range; (2) viewfinder; (3) fast shutter speed; (4) easy battery; (5) video.  Pretty much in that order of importance.

The viewfinder is the one thing that can't be found on most cameras, other than DSLR.  But I really didn't need everything else a DSLR has, and couldn't justify the high price.  Why was I so hot for a viewfinder?  It's so much easier to take pictures in bright sunlight.  The usual screen just isn't very efficient that way.

I wanted the wide focal range so I can get good closeups and zoomed shots.  Closeups of nature has always been one of my favorite things to do with a camera.  Fast shutter for moving targets.  Easy battery means AAs for me.  Fairly cheap and easily obtained.   I use rechargeables in the camera, but I like that I can carry a set of regular ones for quick backup.   Video was an afterthought as I don't know how much I'll use it.  Not having an outstanding internet connection makes it hard for me to watch videos online, let alone upload them myself.  But it's nice to have it if ever I wish I had it.  I've never had a camcorder before, except for the rinkydink thing in my cell phone.

The Pentax X-5 ticked all my boxes and I'm so pleased with it.  So far, it has done everything I've asked of it, and for half the price of the cheapest DSLR.  The battery life is excellent, too.  That was a thing for which all the reviews gave good marks.  I've had it for about a month now, and I'm still running the batteries that came with it, and you know factory-included batteries are not of the highest quality.  In fact, the battery meter is just now beginning to run down.  I'm very impressed with the quality of the 26x zoom.  It has an anti-shake feature and I've seen very little blurring at maximum zoom even when I knew my hand jiggled when I pressed the shutter button.  It's also very comfortable and light in the hand, and there isn't that long bulky lens that you'd have on DSLR.  Or the need to switch out highly expensive lenses.  The screen display is actually very good, too.  I can see right away whether a shot turned out too blurry.  The only extra thing I bought for it was a bigger memory card, and I found that at a good price at Big Lots (8gb for $8).  Oh and there's a nifty little lens cap strap.  It's designed to be attached to the neck strap but I rarely use that (too bulky and in the way).  I just zip-tied the tiny cap strap to the neck strap's ring.  I like that as I don't always have a pocket to hold it.  For a bit of insurance against clumsiness, I attached the wrist strap from my old camera to the other ring.

I posted a few pix on Facebook, but here's some of my favorites.

Close up detail on a clematis.

Red Admiral on pansy closeup.  Yes, that date is correct...butterflies in Dec.  I love the south!

Song Sparrow in birdbath at maximum zoom.

Mid-range zoom.

Birchen roo.

Something no other camera I've ever had could do well...aquarium.

In case you're wondering, these are assorted African Cichlids in a 45 gal. bowfront tank.  I believe most of the distortion is due to the curved glass.

Oh yeah, and my current crop of babies.  Baroquen x Smith's Lou.  4 weeks in these pix.  There's another broken buck but he's a bubba so I'll be petting him out.

I created the triptychs  to show the pattern from all sides.  Doe #1 is my fav of the 3 but I like the others, too.  That doe is also the 1st time Baroquen has thrown her excellent bold pattern.  I call it "color block".  She usually throws lighter like the others.  And yes, all otters.  The pattern is feathery right now but Baroquen's get always matures with very clean and crisp markings.  These will be just big enough for Spartanburg at the end of January.  That's probably my 1st show next year.

Happy Holidays

Manna Pro

Manna Pro recently gave its Facebook fans a $3 coupon.  I've been using these coupons for over a year.  Not that one, but different ones they put up as old ones expired.  The others were for $2.  Last December through January, I paid a little over $10 (after $2 coupon) per 50lb bag while TSC ran a 6 week long price reduction.  Heck of a deal.  The usual sticker price at my TSC is around $14, and has been for quite a while.  It fluctuated a little higher a few times but that was in response to the hay and grain market at the time.  Drought or other weather disaster caused price hikes in feeds.  When the farms recovered, the price went back down to normal.  Sometimes the price fluctuated a bit lower.

Recently there was some sort of glitch in the supply chain and MP was nowhere to be found in many areas. What little there was in feed stores was way too old.  Breeders were not happy, and I don't blame them.  I guess I was the lucky one, it didn't happen to me.  It helps that I have fewer rabbits now and I'm not going through as much feed, but when I went to my TSC, it was stocked and it was fairly fresh (about a month old).  If the glitch affected my store, I didn't see it.  I didn't need feed until the glitch was fixed.

I wondered why the latest coupon was so generous,  MP had never given a $3 coupon before.  I thought it was to placate the ones who suffered during the glitch and thought that was very nice of them.  Then I went and got feed this week.  The price had jumped exactly $3!  I had never paid that much before.  I don't know why the price hike.  Maybe it was trickle down from the glitch, maybe there was something in the hay/grain market I wasn't aware of.  Maybe both.  I don't know.

During the glitch, many breeders made a fast switch to a different brand.  What are you gonna do, the buns gotta eat.  Some are doing so even though it's available again in protest of the price hike.  Unfortunately, here in TN, the options for quality rabbit feed are limited.  There's Purina (NOT!) and off-brands, that's about it.  If you want something else, you have to drive a LOT farther for it, or rely on someone to help you get it.  I'm not inclined to do either so I'm glad MP is here for me.  The price isn't killing me, and it will probably go back down again.  If not, well, I'm still not switching.

Some breeders began to seek another feed before the glitch because they felt MP wasn't doing it for their herd.  They complained of poor condition, lack of litters, poor milk production, and the general condition of the feed itself.  That's why I switched from Purina to MP so many years ago.  I'll buy TSC's off-brand before I'll go back to Purina!

I don't have any complaints about MP, other than the recent price hike.  I get plenty of live litters and always have on MP.  I've never seen a case where a doe didn't have enough milk for her litter.  Condition of the buns comes and goes but it always does.  As long as they are eating well, it's good.  It's when they don't eat you know there's a problem.  I don't even have to supplement with hay.  That's another topic, but I rarely give the buns hay anymore.  The rabbits' digestive systems are working just fine without it.  Even weanlings do well.  MP is apparently providing all the fiber they need.

Complaints about the condition of MP were about fines and corn.  Fines are caused by over-handling.  Every time the feed is moved, it grinds some pellets into dust.  Feed that is warehoused before going to the retail store is handled several times from mill to store.  I actually over-handle it as well.  It goes from the car to the wagon, unloaded into the barn, and then into the storage bin.  It might get moved around some more before it goes into the bin.  I'm not that strong so I'm not handling the bags gently.  From the bin, I scoop it into a pail, and then it's scooped more as I feed each bun.  That's a lot of rough handling.  I don't gripe about fines because I'm causing at least half of them.  I consider the amount of fines I see to be normal.

The occasional corn kernels in MP are from the cleaning process at the mill.  They use the hard kernels as a food-safe scrubber in the equipment.  Sometimes it ends up in the bags.  No biggy unless there is way too much.  I know someone that happened to, but it was an isolated event, and their feed dealer made it right.  I've only ever seen a few in any bag.  MP does not include corn in the feed itself, although small pieces of cracked corn might end up in a pellet.  If I see yellow, I just pick it out and toss it in the chicken feed.

There's something important I learned not too long ago about condition.  It's about genetics as well as feed.  They have it or they don't.  A certain buck improved the hindquarters on my current young does which was something I was sorely lacking.  Before him, my buns often had thin flesh condition in that area (as well as less than great structure) even though they ate and drank very well.  Judges feel the rump first and if that turns them off, the rest of the animal has no chance.  All the feed or conditioners can't fix that.  But breeders immediately blame the feed when they think their buns are out of condition.  They never consider it could be their breeding stock.  They might be tricked into thinking the bunny suddenly went out of condition, but maybe it was the transition from childhood to adulthood.  That happens, you know.  Some bunnies are just better jrs than srs.  If they go to pot after maturity, that's when you cull them.  You want stock that gets better as they mature, not worse.

Another thing many breeders (especially newish ones) blame feed about is fur condition.  This too is a genetic thing.  Some go through the molt very quickly and are almost always ready for show season.  Others are in some stage of the molt for a good part of the year.  I gave up Siamese Sables many years ago because they were so frustrating in that respect.  There was a very small window when they were in show condition and color, and most never regained their glory after the first adult molt.  I noticed other shaded lines in the region were better off this way.  It wasn't the feed or the climate.  It was the genetics.  I didn't have it.

I'm not saying a feed can't affect the overall condition of a herd, or their ability to reproduce, it certainly can.  However, if many breeders feel the feed works well, maybe it's not the feed.  Maybe it's your stock or some other condition in your barn.

I have litters.  Considering it's fall going into winter, and that I hadn't bred any does since June, I'd say that's really good.  Most of these does are first-timers.  Baroquen's litter of 4 are FAT babies.  They were getting more milk than they needed even though I only allowed them to nurse once a day for 2 weeks.  I was bringing the nestbox into the house at night as I usually do to protect a valuable litter.  I have no complaints about Manna Pro.  Just like gas prices and pretty much everything else, I'll live with price hikes.

I also have no complaints about my local TSC.  They're outstanding, and the fact that the feed is not too old is the result of their intelligent management.  I know not everyone can say that about their local store, but I'm so glad that I can.

Happy Thanksgiving

What's in a name?

As anyone who has researched rabbit colors knows, different breeds have different names for the same color.  No one is sure why this breed is called that, and that one calls it this.  I think it has to do with the mindset of the founding breeders and some of those go back to the country of origin.  It might have been how the color was described in that country and then how it was translated to English.  Or my theory...Americans will always create new words and they just ignored the original translations.

If you look at ARBA's Standard of Perfection (SOP), you can get pretty confused.  Take Flemish Giants, a very old breed.  What most breeds call Chinchilla is called Light Gray in Flemish.  Sandy and Fawn, I'm still not sure just what these are genetically in Flemish.  I assume they're agouti, but not sure how it translates in other breeds.  It gets really confusing when someone doesn't specify the breed they are talking about.  Fawn in Lops (and Flemish) doesn't seem to be the same genetics as Fawn in Netherland Dwarfs.  Maybe it is, but Creme in Lops seems to be the closest to Fawn in dwarfs.

And that's what it comes down to...what the color is genetically.  How sweet it would be if ARBA standardized the color names across the board based on genetics.  There is a finite number of genetic combinations for color so it could certainly be done, but that's probably never going to happen.  Among different breeds, well, it's like trying to communicate with different languages.

I've only raised Netherland Dwarfs so that's the language I speak.  The reason I felt like writing this was a recent discussion about an unrecognised color on a dwarf.  They were trying to decide what to call it.  The owner of the odd color was flaunting her genetic knowledge and making it more complicated than it needed to be, and I don't think she was entirely accurate in her reasoning.  I'm all for keeping it simpler so everyone can understand.

So what was the color?  It was a Sable Point with tan pattern trimmings.  White markings on the nostrils, ears, tail, and belly.  Some people might call it "martenized".  Genetically, this would be a non-extension Sable Marten, but she started the discussion by calling it non-extension Silver Marten.  Big difference there!  Let's pick those colors apart.

It was a Sable Point, no doubt about that.  Sable Pt is non-extension Siamese Sable...shaded.  Sable Marten is tan pattern Siamese Sable...again, shaded.  Silver Marten is not shaded.  It's Otter minus Otter's gold trimmings.  In other words, the gold has been replaced by silver (white).  Referring to this as Silver Marten was completely incorrect.

So what do you call it?  Easy.  Sable Point Marten.  Most everyone can grasp that concept.  This person even suggested a color in Europe which didn't translate to anything an American breeder can relate to.  I forget but it was something gray.  Really?  Maybe if you're colorblind, you'd see gray, but this bunny was brown!  Non-extension Sable Marten might be the correct term but who wants to write/say all that every time.  It's why other non-extension colors like Tort and Orange have nice short names.  Sable Pt Marten...short and easy to understand.

I'm old school, and while I have adapted my thinking to allow for new (to me) genetic knowledge, I still think of many things the way I learned them.  One thing that was hard to grasp was Tort Otter vs. Tort Marten.  I learned from the old time breeders of the time (Glenna Huffman for one, who published several genetics books, and who I knew personally) and a non-extension tan pattern was referred to as Tort Marten.  A Tort with white tan pattern trim.  Several years ago I was corrected that this is actually Tort Otter because of its genetics.  Ok, I've accepted that, and since everyone calls it that, I do too.

I tried to accept that the concept of Tort Marten doesn't exist.  But wait...it does.  A friend showed me a non-extension Silver Marten.  It's not yellow so I guess technically it's not a Tort, but since "torted" is often used to describe a non-extension color, it can be used on this.  What did this Tort Marten look like more than anything else?  Ermine!

Ermine is another term I learned early on.  It's showable as Frosty in some breeds, but it's not recognised in dwarfs.  Ermine is non-extension Chinchilla.  A new term a lot of people seem to like (I guess for how exotic it sounds) is "Ghost Chin".  This is one the British came up with, but I prefer the old American term.  We are in America after all, and if we had stuck to the European color names, everything would be completely different!  And there's the general theme of naming dwarf colors for the animals they most closely resemble.  Otter, marten, chinchilla, sable, lynx, etc.  Sable Point looks like and is the name of a variety of Siamese cat.  Ermine isn't really an exact match for the color on rabbits.  The ermine is a weasel with a winter morph coat of pure white with a black tail tip.  Ermine fur coats were pure white with the black tips included for accents.  The color on rabbits is actually closer to what a silver fox fur coat looks like....white with widely scattered black ticking.  Maybe Silver Fox would be the correct term for the color following that line of thought, but there is a breed called Silver Fox so Ermine it became.  I'd have to look it up but maybe ermines do have an in-between phase where they look like the rabbit color.

BTW, I was an adult when it was still fashionable to wear fur.  I loved my rabbit fur coats and dreamed of affording the pricier furs.  Nothing made me feel warmer.  Silver Fox is a luxurious gorgeous fur!  Imagine how rabbits could be revitalized as a commercial industry if it was ok to wear fur again.

How do you tell the difference between an Ermine and a Tort Marten?  It's in the genetics.  Chin is agouti and dominant.  If neither parent is agouti, it's not Ermine.  Tort Marten is tan pattern which cannot carry agouti.  If the parents are tan pat, it's a Tort Marten.  If the parents are both, it's a bit trickier, but what I saw on this Tort Marten was that it was considerably darker than Ermine.  It was light gray instead of white.

A few years ago, an importer brought in what is called Yellow Chin in Europe, and tried to spread them around.  This was something entirely new to everyone and I was frustrated by the importer's inability to explain it well.  It looks like Ermine but it's not non-extension.  The best I could get from the very poor communication skills of the importer and what little info I could find is that it's a wideband Chinchilla.  Wideband is a completely different gene than non-extension.  It's what makes the Tan (color and breed) black and red, and fills in the white agouti markings on Steel with black or brown.  On Chin, it made the white band wider to the point of the entire coat being predominately white.  Apparently to those that understand its use, Yellow Chin produces perfectly colored Chins and Silver Martens with bright crisp white.  However, I saw much confusion and even the importer kept referring to it as Ermine.  If you use Ermine with Silver Marten, you are going to end up with Tort Otter/Marten!  It's not the same, and when people introduce a new idea like this, they need to explain it well or every newbie is going to think that Ermine that popped up in a litter is useful that way.  Oh and what about its name "Yellow Chin"?  It's as far from yellow as you can get so that makes no sense.

An example where an unrecognised color became accepted with just one name is Blue-eyed White.  Many years ago, BEW breeders agreed that the marked offspring from BEW x any other color should be called just one thing.  Before that, they were called sports, dutch-marked, mis-marked, depending on who you were talking to.  I even know someone who still calls them parti-color.  He puts that on his pedigrees, and the only one I've ever known to call them that.  Those terms actually refer to a specific breed or a separate gene.  BEW breeders (all breeds) all agreed they should be called Vienna-marked (VM) and Vienna-carrier (VC) to separate them from the other genes and breeds.  It became commonly known, and even Evans Pedigree Software included the VM/VC designation in its database.  It made things so much simpler and now everyone who gets into breeding BEW learns it right off the bat.

Another term I learned from Glenna is "ee".  This is the designation for non-extension in the color genetic code.  Rough example: Aa-Bb-Cc-Dd-ee.  I began to do as she did and call some things with this prefix such as ee Himi.  Why not call all the unshowable non-extension colors this way?  Non-extension Otter/Marten would be ee Otter/Marten.  It would be so simple if everyone agreed (like BEW breeders) that this best describes this color code.  The Sable Pt Marten that sparked this blog would be ee Sable Marten.  Simple.

What you call a color is important to understand it within your breed, and that includes the unshowable colors.  Can't we at least keep it simple and somewhat uniform?


tnt

Whipper

I just felt like devoting a post to him.  Whipper is a Smooth Collie, now about 8 years old.  I got him in Michigan just before I moved here.  He was about 4 months at the time, and came from a show breeder.  He is the best dog I've ever had.

Whipper is the guardian of the place.  It's mostly a night shift job because his main nemesis's are raccoons and coyotes.  Since I fenced the backyard, the birds and rabbits are completely protected from either of these predators.  He has a cozy doghouse on the porch with a thick bed in it, but I bring him inside on cold mornings (I'm up stupid early).

What prompted me to write about him is a behavior I occasionally see.  Smooths are rather rare in this country.  In the UK where they originated, they were the working collies where the Roughs became the more common companion dogs in the US.  However, Whipper doesn't have much opportunity to display his heritage as a herding dog here.  Except sometimes.

When he gets riled by something, he tears up and down the yard barking.  What does he get riled about?  Noise in the forest.  Often instigated by the neighbor's dogs (who run loose), but sometimes he starts it.  Any crashing noise in the woods puts him on high alert.  It could be a coon scrabbling in a tree, or coyotes running through the underbrush, or maybe even a bear.  I've never seen a bear but I've seen scat so I know they are there.  I can put him on alert by saying "Coon!".  He's so sensitive to this kind of noise, even chainsaw work sets him off.  Branches or trees crashing down, it's all the same to him.  Something is in the forest.   

When he gets fired up like this, that's when I see what I believe to be his herding instincts.  As he's running up and down the yard, he makes a quick little jog at whatever chickens are in the vicinity.  He lowers his head at the bird, and to someone who doesn't know him, it might look like an attack.  I think he's actually herding them to safety.  "Run to cover!".  He swings away from the bird as soon as it moves out of his way.

Most of the time, he ignores the birds, and I'm not the least bit worried he will hurt them.  They don't fear him and will peck the ground all around him when he's laying in the grass.  There was a time this summer when a rooster was annoying him while he was relaxing in the grass.  The bird kept trying to peck his front feet.  I don't know why the bird was so fascinated by his feet.  Whipper bared his teeth and swung his head at the bird, but that was all it was...a warning.  "Leave me alone, you annoying little chit."  

He's not what I'd call a guard dog in regards to people.  He doesn't bark when someone comes up to the house, although I wish he did.  He might bark at a passing car but not all the time.  We don't get much traffic back here other than the people who live here, so he knows who belongs and who doesn't.  The mail and paper carriers are the only other daily traffic and he doesn't react to them either.  Unlike the neighbor's dogs who are kind of stupid that way.  They chase my car, and the mail and paper carriers...pretty much everybody but their own people.

If there was one thing I don't like about Whipper it's his intense fear of thunderstorms.  I blame it on an incident a couple years after I moved here as he had never exhibited this fear before.  That July, the neighbors were shooting off fireworks.  Whipper wasn't confined to the yard, I hadn't put in the fence yet so he had the run of the place, and he spent a lot of time over there.  I didn't like it, but tying him up wasn't a good option so I didn't.  He actually learned his guardian skills from their dogs (different dogs back then), so it was good in that respect.  Anyways, he disappeared for a day and half.  I don't know where he went.  I looked for him but didn't find him in the area.  When he came back, whoever had him obviously meant to keep him.  They had given him a bath.  I could smell the shampoo.  I was so happy to see him again (couldn't help thinking "Lassie Come Home".), I tried tying him up, but that just doesn't work very well here.  It was shortly after that I invested in the fence.  And ever since, he's terrified by thunder, and gets anxious about gunshots.  I don't allow him to become a "velcro dog" when he gets like this because it just makes me tense (I don't like violent thunderstorms either).  He goes off to his "cave" under the back deck.  I don't know why he feels safe there, he gets wet when he could stay dry in his house on the covered porch.

Whipper is showing his age a little but not so much I think about the day he's gone.  He's getting a little gray about the muzzle and looks a bit stiff after laying down for awhile, but other than that he's pretty spry.  I try not to think about it.

tnt