In the past few weeks, myself and a technician from Arkansas were finishing up some fieldwork around the MO-AR border. Several times we thought we saw giant spiders on the road, but that seemed insane, so we discounted the idea at first. But then:
A giant spider on the road!
We rescued it from the road and then took some time to photograph it and watch it walk around. It seemed quite interested in walking...onto us.
I think maybe it was attracted to the moisture on my wet wading boots, since it was quite dry there recently.
The technician's waders were pretty dry, so I don't know why it was so excited to walk up his leg! The smartphone is provided for scale.
While we were looking at it, a landowner came over to see what we were doing. He said that he had been seeing them on the roads during the autumn down there. He asked if we wanted a box to take it with us, but we could not think of a reason we would want to do that! We left the tarantula by the side of the road instead. The tarantulas that live in that part of the US are not significantly toxic to humans, or other large mammals. The bite can become infected, as can any puncture wound, so we were still glad not to have been nibbled.
In other news, Tasha and I have been going to dog agility trials recently. We've been training at it for some time now, and she seems to have loads of fun. We finally went to three trials, and cleaned up. She had only two classes (one of each type) at each of the first two, and she "qualified" in all of them. In a class, you are judged on time and number of faults (knocking over jump bars, making mistakes, etc). If your time and number of faults is low enough, you "qualify". Once you qualify in three of each type of class, you move up to the next level of difficulty (Novice, Open, Excellent). This weekend we went to another trial that was held locally. On Saturday she had one class in each of the two types and she qualified in both of them, so on Sunday she advanced to the next level (Open). In fact, she has gotten perfect scores (no faults) in all of her eight classes to date. I think we almost got one today, for leaving the "pause table" early, but we were just in the nick of time.
Some more explanation of classes:
There are two main types of class - 'Jumps With Weaves' or 'Standard'
Within each type there are 3 levels - Novice, Open, Excellent
Within each level there are many jump height classes - 24", 20", 16", 12", 8 "
Within each jump height it is divided into "regular" or "preferred"
Tasha always runs 20" preferred. That means the dog "should" be in the 24" category, but the owner has chosen to run the dog one height class lower (usually based on conformation and/or age). My trainer recommended Tasha run in preferred because her body is longish and she is six years old.
Here is Tasha basking in her 4 qualifying ribbons (green) and her placing ribbons (3 first, 1 second).
Actually she hates that I made her sit there because it is near the 'toilet' part of the yard.
It is not quite as impressive as it looks, because in two of her classes (Sunday, Open level) she was THE ONLY DOG. However, I looked at the score sheets and in one of those classes she was still the top scorer among dogs in 20" classes, while in the other she was second. So not too shabby :) In the other two classes (Saturday, Novice level) she placed first and second out of...I think five and six other dogs.
Of course, the most important thing is to HAVE FUN!
I have neglected to mention that she was able to do so well in spite of having little puncture wounds about her head and neck where she was bitten by another dog one week ago. She seems to have forgotten, and did not act weird around the dozens of other dogs at the trial.
Actually, her last two trials back a couple months ago were right after she had recovered from surgery to remove a skin tumor from her shoulder.
We have another trial next weekend, hopefully more fun will be had! I will try to remember to post about it...
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