Animal Insting

In the picturesque Swiss village of Lauterbrunnen, the locals are worried.

Dozens of alpine cows appear to be committing suicide by throwing themselves off a cliff near the small village in the Alps.

In the space of just three days, 28 cows and bulls have mysteriously died after they plunged hundreds of metres to rocks below where they were killed instantly.

'We are investigating because cows growing up in the mountains normally can estimate dangers and do not plunge down cliffs.'

According to local reports, there had been violent thunderstorms in the area which may well have spooked the animals.

Cows wandering at high altitude are a common sight across much of the Alps, where farmers let them loose to graze on the green plateaus above the villages.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1209638/Scientists-baffled-suicidal-cows-throw-cliff-Switzerland.html#ixzz0YONKnEUP

Barry got into trouble bigtime one night last week because he ate a ginormous hole in Mom's purple blanket, and also a smaller hole.  Anyway, Mom's pretty sure it was Barry who ate the holes, although he might have had some help or at least got the idea from me, but I am pleading the 5th Amendment!  Here's a picture of the blanket with the holes in it.

The purple blanket is one that Mom bought at an estate sale last summer, and she liked this blanket quite a bit because it was all kind of shiny and pretty, and it looked like it hadn't even been used.  Plus it only cost, like, a dollar.  So Mom was very happy to have this nice purple blanket on her bed.  Except that the purple blanket was made for a king-sized bed, and our bed is only a full-sized bed, so the blanket was really big, but Mom cut off one end of it, and that made it a better size for our bed.  It turned out to be lucky that Mom cut that piece off of the purple blanket because now she can use the piece to patch the holes that Barry made.

So that's one example of getting into trouble that happened lately.  And here's another one:  when Uncle Joe and Uncle Tom were here visiting, Gabe bit Uncle Tom on the hand.  Before that, he snapped at Aunt LaDene, who was also here at the time.  The reason he snapped at her was because she tried to pet him on his head, which he doesn't like people to do if he doesn't know them very well.

A lot of people don't realize that dogs don't like it if people reach out over their heads because this is a dominant, threatening sort of gesture when one dog does it to another dog.  So that's why dogs don't like it much.  But lots of people think that is the proper way to pet a dog, even when you have only just met the dog.  Also these same people might look at a dog right in the eyes, which is another thing that's scary and threatening to a dog, so it's no wonder people get bit sometimes when they do this.

Anyway, Mom told Aunt LaDene that she shouldn't reach over Gabe's head like that, but it would probably be okay to pet him on the back or side.  Well, Mom was wrong about this, and when Aunt LaDene tried to do it, Gabe snapped at her again, so Aunt LaDene decided maybe she should not pet Gabe at all, which Mom agreed was a good plan.

The problem with Gabe is that he goes right up to people and acts like he's friendly and stuff, so that's why people are always trying to pet him.  I have told Gabe that he would just be smarter to stay away from people he doesn't know, which is what I do, but he doesn't take my advice because (1) he is a boy and (2) I am just his little sister, and he thinks I don't know anything.

So then what happened was that Gabe got on the sofa right next to Uncle Tom, and Aunt LaDene told him not to reach over Gabe's head, so Uncle Tom tried to pet Gabe on his back, and Gabe snapped at him and made Uncle Tom's hand bleed.  Mom put some ointment and a band-aid on it.  Also Mom apologized a whole bunch.  It seems like Mom is always having to apologize for stuff that my brothers do.  Maybe life would be simpler for her and for me if Mom just got rid of all the boy dogs!

Well, then the other thing that we got in trouble for -- and by "we" I mean Gabe and me -- was that Saturday night when Mom was trying to do her email right before bedtime, we were in the bedroom, playing with the red doggy comforter.  We were growling and playing tug with it, and then Gabe started trying to chew on Mom's bedspread, so Mom kept coming in the room and telling us not to chew stuff up because she did not want another big hole in something like Barry made in the purple blanket.  Mom took a photo of us, but we weren't exactly doing anything bad at that moment.  My mohawk was up, although I don't know if you can see that in the photo.  That's why I was turning around to look at my back.  Or maybe I was looking at my butt.  I can't remember which.  Anyway, after Mom took the picture, we mostly settled down, and no bedding was harmed, which made Mom happy.

So that's all the trouble that we managed to get into during the last few days.  Mel didn't get in any trouble at all, but I think he was just being a show-off about what a good dog he is.  I've told Mel that life isn't any fun if you don't get into trouble occasionally, but he doesn't listen to me, probably for the same reasons that Gabe doesn't!

Mom says that on some days she just can't take time to help me with my blog because there is Other Stuff to Do.  I think this is very sad and unfair, but sometimes I just can't win an argument with Mom because she is bigger and stronger than me.  But she said that on days when I don't have a "real" blog entry, I could maybe post a nice quote or two about dogs, so I guess that's what I will do.  I just hope that tomorrow I can write a real blog entry again!

Quote #1
Dogs have given us their absolute all.  We are the center of their universe.  We are the focus of their love and faith and trust.  They serve us in return for scraps.  It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made.  
~Roger Caras



Quote #2
If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater... suggest that he wear a tail.  
~Fran Lebowitz

From a distance these sculptures look like ceramics, but when you take a step closer you will find out that it is pure illusion.

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The unique and alive 3D sculptures are made out of many photographs of the original subjects.

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3D Sculpture, 100 photography, Cool Art, Somethin Beautiful, sculpture gallery, famous sculpture

Well, mostly Thanksgiving was a day like lots of other days, which means I did a lot of napping and Important Stuff like that.  It was sunny, which was good.  I like sunniness a lot.  We went Walking with Dogs in the morning, like we usually do, but it was COLD out!  The wind chill was in the 20s.  We saw a man running with his dog, and this man had shorts on and NO SHIRT!  We think he was probably totally crazy!

Mom was going to go to a movie yesterday, but then she decided to stay home because it's nicer staying home with us dogs than it is going to a movie.  Except she didn't say that, exactly.  What she said was she had a lot of things to do here at home.

One of the things she did was clean the house, which she doesn't do very often, as I told you before.  I thought maybe that meant that Hank and Aunt Cheryl were coming to visit again, but Mom said they weren't coming.  Instead, Uncle Joe and Uncle Tom are coming later this morning, and that's why Mom wanted to clean the house.  Maybe you remember that Uncle Joe and Uncle Tom are Mom's professor friends from college, and she stayed with them when she went to Homecoming.

Anyway, they are just coming over to see some paintings that Mom has, and to have a little visit.  They are not staying overnight, like Aunt Cheryl and Hank did.  Barry and Mel will have to go in the bedroom with the door closed while our guests are here so that nobody gets a dog bite.

Mom had to use the noisy vacuum cleaner in order to clean the house, so that made all us dogs kind of nervous.  We had to keep going from one room to another to get away from the noisy vacuum, which made it hard to take a nap.  But before Mom started cleaning, she hung out with us for a while in the Sun Room, which is what she sometimes calls the room where she keeps her plants.  And while we were hanging out, Mom took some pictures of us hanging out.

Then in the evening, we had Supper of Dogs, like usual, and then Mom made a fire in the fireplace, and we watched a movie on TV.  So it was a very nice Thanksgiving Day, especially since Mom stayed home all day, which she is not going to do today because she and Aunt LaDene are going to go out and do some shopping after Uncle Tom and Uncle Joe leave.

Today is called Black Friday because everybody goes shopping, and all the people who are shopping end up with their credit card bills in the red, but the merchants end up selling lots of stuff, so they are in the black.  At least I think that's how it works.  Anyway, black is better than red.  I know that for sure because I am a black-and-white basenji, and I am cuter than any red-and-white basenji!

Today is Thanksgiving, so I made a list of stuff I am thankful for.  I like to make lists, as you may have noticed, and then I like to put them in my blog.  So here's my list for Thanksgiving:

1.  I'm thankful that I live in a warm, dry house with soft dog beds and meals of yummy dog food that are served twice a day.

2.  I'm thankful I have a nice mom who feeds us our two meals a day and also scratches my ears and rubs my tummy and lets me keep a blog.

3.  I'm thankful for my brothers, except when they are trying to hump me or when they steal treats from me.

4.  I'm thankful that I don't have Inflammatory Bowel Disease or a bad back, like Gabe has.

5.  I'm thankful I'm a basenji because they're the cutest and best dogs ever!

6.  I'm thankful that Mom made some chili last night with ground turkey and saved some of the turkey for us dogs.  Although of course it would have been better if she had roasted a whole turkey breast.

7.  I'm thankful I have so many nice friends who read my blog and sometimes even say they like it!