Giant Spider, Dog Report

Alas, I have not posted anything in some time! I suspected that no one was reading this blog, but apparently I was incorrect.

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...

Squirrel-watcher passes personality assessment

This past Saturday I took Tasha to a "Temperament Test" that was being held near Kansas City. The president emeritus of the organization himself was one of the judges (there are three), how exciting! He said he tested over 9,000 dogs. Yeah...OVER 9 THOUSAND!!! You can read more about the test, and past results, etc, here: www.atts.org (looking through the statistics for various breeds is really interesting). I entered Tasha as a mixed breed, due to her unknown parentage - she was the only mix there, actually. About 26 dogs were tested, we were in the second half, so we spent alot of time sitting around. Which was fine because there were CHICKENS nearby. Including a rooster that looked just like my mom's rooster Mr. Stripey. I gave him cookie pieces when no one was looking. Hopefully.
Here is a description of the test itself:
http://www.atts.org/testdesc.html
You can also see people take the test on youtube, just search for atts dog, some should come up.

The test is kind of scored on reactivity, with a low score being the dog didn't have much of a reaction to anything, a moderate (average) score being the dog had appropriate reactions, and a high score being the dog was very highly reactive. Ideally dogs would have scores in the average area, as far as I understood.

The one part of the test that I really had no idea how The Pie would react was the last item(s) where the "wierdly dressed stranger" appears with his whip/stick thing and begins acting aggressive before charging at dog/handler. Would she try to run? Would she try to play with him? Would she bark? Would she even notice? She's been around some pretty chaotic things so I thought that if she was not facing the correct direction she might just not even notice the guy. I just didn't know.

Also I had not thought this would be a problem, but the judge said one of the main areas dogs fail is the 'walking over wire cage footing'. You can guide the dog onto it, but they have to choose to stay walking on it and not jump off to a side. That is basically the only time in the test you can guide the dog at all other than just walking from one cone/station to the next.

During the test, Tasha did great. The only thing that was not perfect was the umbrella, where she tried to investigate the person behind it instead of the umbrella, but then she did, so it was fine. She walked right over the wire mesh, no problem. When it came for the aggressive stranger, fortunately she approached the station and faced where he was going to come from, so she did notice him right away when he emerged. And she did not try to run away or do anything silly! She watched him, with her head and tail in the upright position, and when he started approaching she moved a little closer, and when he charged at us she did not run or back away - she either stood still or moved even closer. Then as he walked away she just stood and watched him. I'm not sure exactly what her intent was, we weren't really even supposed to LOOK at the dog during the test, instead look at what the station is, so I was actually watching the dude. So, she passed her test with all scores in the 'average' zone except she got one higher score for being above-average interested in the 'neutral stranger' - considering her 'job' this is not surprising, ha ha. The judge said she was very well adjusted. Yay! Hopefully that will stand her in good stead for her Therapy dog "disaster stress relief dog" test NEXT weekend. Stay tuned for possible blog update following it...though it will be a busy couple of weeks!

Update for 2011...finally!

Here are a few interesting things that have happened recently!

Last fall I took Tasha to dog Agility classes at this local training place. Lately I've been taking her on my own (purchased a building membership, oh yeah) because the next class I need to take is never compatible with my schedule it seems. Oh well, building membership is not bad...here is PART of the facility:

In other news, we had considerable snow in early February. So much that my office was closed for emergency weather conditions. Of course, as an hourly I don't get paid if I don't work, so I did trudge into work one of those days. In 13 inches of snow it is hard to do anything other than trudge for very long! Here is the day after the blizzard:

Here is my sled perched atop one of the sledding hills at the park. The drop-off there is actually quite steep because the strong winds had blow lots of snow over the edge, forming a very steep angle for about 15 feet. Luckily the snow was pretty soft, so no one was injured (that I am aware of...except that one kid...but I think he was okay...).

Well, after the snow had been around for about two weeks, it melted. Then we actually had a couple of very warm days - one day it was over 70 I believe. So the snow melted. And I went to check on the burrowing crayfish at the little park by the University. Tasha accompanied, and actually somehow managed to find the only active crayfish! Awesome! Here is The Pie wondering if we can leave yet...or is she watching a squirrel?

Sometime in January, I noticed that the big stream aquarium in the front of our office had a softshell turtle in it. Eventually I found out that someone kind of abandoned it at our office, so some coworker just chucked it into the tank. Well, it had not been eating, or looking happy. So I arranged to put up a tank for it in the basement (my office is totally full!), with turtle-appropriate conditions:

His name is Pancake...or Dr. Pancake. He has an interesting face:

Here is a video of him eating: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3zI4VE5nVs

In other news, this dog that I fostered for a few weeks was adopted just a couple of days ago. His name is Damien, but he is actual far from being a devil, ha ha. He looks like Tasha, yes? They enjoyed playing together, after Tasha decided he was not totally beneath her. Here is a video of them playing together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC4u-wozOx8

FINALLY, today The Pie and I had our first visit to the VA hospital long-term care center. It went well, and no one threw up. We are scheduled to visit every tuesday...until summer field season hits! Then will have to switch days.

Okay, okay, last thing: we finished hiring our summer field crew! They don't all start until later, but at least we know who will be working for us. We are going to be the most-educated, oldest, and most out-of-state crew ever.

Public service announcement

Celestial Seasonings holiday theme teas are NOW AVAILABLE in a grocery store near you ! Mmmmmmm Candy Cane Lane sure does bring back memories :)

Night of the Crawdad

Today on my lunch break I went by the campus park to check on the population of burrowing crayfish. There were many (about seven or so) active burrows (with clean openings or with fresh mud chimneys). I've been meaning to go check them out at night and see what they do, so tonight I took The Pie and a baggie of nightcrawlers and walked down there. I didn't see any walking around outside the burrows, so I cut a piece of worm, tied it to a string, and dangled that down a hole. Sure enough, a crayfish latched on almost immediately. I was able to drag the crayfish some of the way up the burrow so I could look at its little claws. Then it ripped off a piece of the worm and retreated. VERY EXCITING. So, I repeated at seven more burrows! Only one of them failed to yield a crayfish. At two of them I was able to tease the crayfish just enough so it came all the way to the top of the burrow! I did not try to catch them, though. After all that excitement, I was out of worms, so I headed home. Maybe next time I can take some photos!

Also, on the walk home I made the interesting discovery that those new Toyota SUVs That Look Like They Are Wearing Hats have not two but THREE windshield wipers. Unusual.

Hiking trip made possible by new car

My recent car purchase has enabled me to enjoy nature, which is especially valuable since the field season is over and I won't be spending half my waking hours tramping around in Ozark streams. So the Pie and I and the car headed over to Rockbridge State Park to tramp around some woods and streams. From the map, you can see there are a variety of trails to get lost on.


New car had to stay in the parking lot while Tasha and I went hiking. First we took the orange path, then got completely lost but somehow ended up on the white path near the Rock Bridge itself. So we went down to see it. But apparently it is closed - the boardwalk that used to go under it was missing and the path blocked off. But here is a photo where you can see under the bridge. Its not very bridge-like, really.



A stream emerges from under the bridge, from a cave that is further up the trail (which is still accessible, but there were lots of people down there so I passed on the cave - Devil's Icebox - on this trip). In the stream I saw several frogs swimming around, there is one in this photo:


And on one of the boardwalks I saw this interesting caterpiller shown in the photo below. Which reminds me of a funny story. Friday at work I had just sent one of our hourlies to go sign out a vehicle for us for the day, and turned to walk down the hallway. There was a big lizard there. Well, a skink. It was slithering/crawling/walking along the edge of the hall, trying to find an exit. So I called the hourly back to help me catch it. Then other people noticed and became interested. In the confusion it escaped into the mapping office, so we ALL went in there, including my boss's boss, and eventually the hourly was able to herd it behind some boxes and I caught it on the other side in an empty snack bag from the trash can. I took it outside and, unsure of where to put it, finally decided on my boss's windowsill. When I got back inside, I told him about it, and it was still there on the sill when I looked out. He didn't look out for about ten minutes though, and by then it was gone, and he declared that he didn't believe it ever existed. I think he was only kidding, though... Well hopefully the skink was okay, it was covered in crumbs when I let it go.

Where were we? Oh yes, the caterpillar.


After hiking for an hour the Pie was pretty hot (it was about 89 degrees out) so we went back to the car for a Pie Toy to play fetch in an isolated area of the stream. NO DOGS ALLOWED OFF LEASH, you know. Hehehehehheh.




After getting the dog soaking wet, we headed back to New Car and got in and went home, uneventfully.

You can see a short video of Tasha in the stream here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dvWT1Z4toY

New car

The other day I purchased a car. It is a 2009 Toyota Matrix. You can see it below:

As you can see, it is silver. Very silver! Not many pieces of black plastic trim slapped on there to get in the way when one is waxing it. Excellent. In its overall appearance, it has that modern-car-kind-of-lobed, overly-curvaceous appearance that most newish cars have (except the Scion xB, and that new Toyota SUV that looks like it is wearing a hat) and that I am not too wild about. It is not hideous, and it kind of has a cute face:


I think the face looks like some kind of chubby little animal that is very happy to see the viewer. What do you think?

Its appropriate that its face looks a bit chubby, when you consider its very wide rear end. I'm not sure the photos communicate it quite right, but even for a hatchback the car has a rather large aft region. Which is great because it means more storage space! Yes!

Some of you may be wondering why I have selected this car, so here is a brief rundown of the features of this make/model/year/specific vehicle that interested me particularly.

Reliability - the previous years of this model have all had very good reliability, as reported in several different places/reviews/etc. This model year has a somewhat different engine than previous years, but no problems have been reported yet.

Cargo - the seats fold down to form a nice big flat surface on which to put dogs. Of course, most hatchbacks do this, so this isn't really specific to this model. What is specific to this model (and its twin, the lovely Pontiac Vibe) is that the cargo area including the backs of the rear seats is all hard plastic. This is excellent, as dog hair will not cling to the upholstery - this was a constant battle in my last car, Carl.

Fuel efficient and good EPA smog rating - this model and year seemed to have quite high MPG (26-32) and air pollution score (6) as seen on the fueleconomy.gov website. It gets less mpg than say a diesel, but since I live in a city I was concerned about the poor cyclists, like myself. Of course now there is the VW clean diesel Jetta wagon....but its too new still for me to afford. Someday....

Manual - I only looked at cars that offered manual transmission...for personal reasons I suppose, and other than the Honda Fit they usually get better gas mileage, supposedly.

Safety - I really lucked out finding this car that came with the optional side airbags, raising its side crash rating from 3 to 4 stars! If I recall the front crash ratings were quite good for all the models I was looking at.

The negative points of the car are that the outside appearance is not too thrilling to me (lots of people say they like it, I think I just prefer the way older cars look) and that it is somewhat difficult for me to see out the back because I am so short. It is better than the Prius I was in, and hasn't really been a hinderance so far.

Hmm, let's see what else...the interior is comfortable and 'cool' in silver and black with some blue accents in the fabric...there is a 6 disc CD player, which is probably more than I can handle...it has cruise control, functioning A/C...no sunroof, but electric windows and such. It has heated wing mirrors - I had never heard of that before, but I suppose its a good thing.

Well, that's enough blathering on about the new car. It needs a name. And possibly a vanity plate (6 letters only, plus one space allowed). Suggest away :)