The Tale of Lloyd and The Invisible Fence
Allow me to regale you with a tale today. The tale of Lloyd and the Invisible Fence.
We are very lucky to have relatively unspoiled greenspace directly adjacent to our backyard, and a park on one side of our property. This means we only have one direct neighbour, and we get along just fine so we long ago decided to not build a fence in our backyard. We reasoned that this would spoil our view, and limit our access to nature, not to mention probably reduce our usable backyard since I mow a rather, ah, generous area not technically belonging to me. The kids and Harvey enjoyed a relatively large yard for a long time. Fast forward ten years and here comes Lloyd. As a fairly boisterous puppy, Lloyd was not overly concerned with things like legal property lines, the limits of our neighbour's patience, and the amount of effort it takes to bath a St. Bernard after swimming in the Carp river. Needless to say Nikki and I had agreed that we would get an invisible fence as soon as we could afford to (they aren't terribly cheap). This would satisfy our need to contain our dogs, while maintaining the fence-less backyard we love so much.
A quick web search and phone call and we were connected with our local dealer, who assured us the fence would work perfectly. Installation day came, and we were presented with a disconcerting amount of information about how to train your dog to live with the fence. This was news to us, but we faithfully followed the instructions and we trained both dogs to respect the little flags as a boundary (before wearing the shock collars). It went very well, really, since Lloyd and Harvey are actually easily trainable. Finally we worked our way to the day when we would test the actual shocking part of the shock collar. Harvey learned his lesson in about 3/10ths of a second, and we were done with him. Never since has Harvey even gone near the edge of our property, whether he had his collar on or not. Job done on that dog.
Lloyd was another matter altogether. While Lloyd easily understood that we did not want him to cross the flags, this understanding was only out of convenience as we soon found out. He seemed unable to notice the collar when it was shocking him. Literally, he would often stand directly in the field and casually take a leak while the collar was shocking him with the maximum voltage it could generate. I could tell the collar was working because his jowls were twitching in time to the zapping sound, much like one of those muscle conditioning machines you see on the informercials. Lloyd would soon be the only St. Bernard with a six pack on his jowls. We tried shaving him. He galloped joyously through the field at will and the Carp river smell permeated our household. He was oblivious, and we had a problem.
A call to the fence guy and he explained that he had never had this problem before, but there was a different type of collar he could order in for us to try. We waited, and it finally came. It was rather more formidable than the regular collar, with electrodes that made contact at the sides of Lloyd's neck instead of together at the front. The thinking here is the more meat the current has to pass through, the much more uncomfortable it will be. I gleefully (by now more than a little tired of the problem, and the baths) tried to put in on him, it barely fit his neck on the last hole, but I squished it on and we used it for a few days to test it out. There was no evidence that Lloyd could even tell that this leather torture device was frantically discharging itself into his neck.
Crap.
Another phone call to the fence guy, and he was even more incredulous. He had to come and see it for himself. So, we arranged a test and sure enough Lloyd couldn't tell where the fence was, while Harvey was wetting himself trying to climb the siding on the house from the sound Lloyd's collar was making. The fence guy turns to me and says, ok, listen, why don't you try putting two collars on him?
Folks, I am an animal lover, and I don't abide cruelty of any kind. It was only because I was so absolutely, resignedly sure of the outcome that I agreed, and we started to put two shock collars on Lloyd when he went out, which by any rights would be Freaking Painful to a normal animal.
On Canada Day Lloyd made a joyous spontaneous unscheduled swim trip to the Carp River while wearing two collars at the same time, and I left a message on Monday for the fence guy to come and get his fence and give me my money back. I have yet to hear from him....
Lloyd is clearly unable to determine the subtleties of an invisible fence, no doubt he's more of a physical fence kind of dog. We will have to go back to the drawing board on this one.
A Day at the Brisson’s Pool
The heat's here, and man were we ever quick to accept an invitation to the Brisson's pool over the long weekend. It was spectacular, and some of us were quick to engage in a favourite activity: kid tossing. Here are some surprisingly decent iPhone action shots of Gary obliging the boys with some airtime. They hated it of course, so we did it again and again.
Lawn Care
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.
I love a nice, rich, full lawn as much as the next moron. However, it seems that my other love of enormous four-legged animals is in direct opposition of this. To call our pathetic grass a lawn is a bit generous, as anyone who has been to our house in the last ten years knows. At least in the front yard, where the dogs dole out daily punishment in the form of steamy yellow rivers. There's no escape for my grass, even in the winter when Lloyd melts canyons through three feet of ice and snow to poison the frozen turf underneath.
The back yard fares a bit better since the dogs don't get back there quite as often, but it faces another yellow menace: dandelions.
Since I am too much of a tree hugger to really put anything on the lawn that would handle that problem (organic fertilizer snake oil salespeople, I'm looking at you) we end up with lots of dandelions. Lots and lots of dandelions. There's a reason why we have so many, it's right next door. Not sure if you can tell from this poorly lit cellphone pic, but that's not a blanket of fresh snow in the park beside our house, folks.
Anyway, I was cutting the grass for the first time this year and I stumbled across what must be the first step in the dandelion revolution: the dandelion missile. Here's a couple of blurry shots, you can see it has a separate stem inside the launcherlion.
It seems clear to me that this dandelion was preparing to launch not only seeds, but a fully grown plant right into the air. Who knows what they were planning, but it seems I have thwarted them for now, even accidentally.
What horror would have been unleashed had their dastardly plan come to fruition? We may never know. I will be watching for the next thing, however. Heed the grass, folks.
Yes people, even our dandelions have dandelions.
Breakfast with the boys = Quite a motivator for Dad
So, this morning I wake up a little earlier than usual and start organizing the front hall closet, cleaning out old winter clothes from the basement, etc. As a result I am in jeans, T-shirt and iPod earbuds when the boys are eating cereal. Quinn turns to me and says:
"Shouldn't you be at work?"
To which I reply:
"Um, I have been off work for three weeks now. Haven't you noticed that I'm around in the morning, and around in the afternoons?"
His response; "Oh yeah." Quinn may not be the most observant 7, almost 8 year old. He then says; "Hey, maybe you could get a job as a snowplow driver."
I respond and say; "Uh, you could almost say that I already have that job, ha ha...". The subtlety was lost on him, because he said "Wow, really?" and I had to explain that a snowplow driver is basically unemployed in the summer. Quinn is not at his best in the mornings....
Cael, ever helpful, pipes up and says "You should get a job as a night guard! (a la Night at the Museum, one of his favourite movies) You know what you would get then?"
There's basically no answer to this, so I say "What?"
His cheerful response; "Friends!"
So, friends, I guess it's back to the basement for me, at least until my shift at the museum starts tonight....
Cael’s Phobia
Yesterday Cael and Nikki and I were driving in the van, and Cael announced that he has a phobia. Keep in mind, he's 6, so we were pretty interested to hear what kind of self proclaimed phobia he could have. He eloquently announced:
"I'm scared of things with sharp teeth that jump out at you."
I don't think that many of us would disagree with that one, buddy. Least of all this guy, who was sitting at his computer at 2am in his home, and was bitten on the hand by a 3 foot King snake that had managed to escape from his neighbour's house. He then had the presence of mind to capture the snake before getting 911 assistance.
That's taking it to another level of pants-shitting terror, methinks.
Finally, we have this tragic story of a little boy who would have done well to have a phobia like Cael's.
Boy’s Tragic Death Could Have Happened To Any Family With 20-Foot Pet Python
Happy 9th Vallenversary
March 3, 2010 is our 9th anniversary.
or
3/3/2010 = 9th
or
3 + 3 + (2+0+1+0) = 9th
9 = 9
Cosmic.
I love you honey. The universe wants it so.
This sort of number geekery has happened before here. It seems I am a one-trick pony.
Archivery
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- I just ousted @scootermcgee as the mayor of Subway on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/9rMJHS
- â@pattonoswalt: Bustles and plums! #VictorianEraOrgasmYellsâ. Good lord, just followed Patton and this is like tweet #5. Sweet.
- My new blog post: "Nerd Humour Alert" http://nn.nf/1cvco
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