Friday, March 27, 2009

Puppy therapy

My friend breeds Cairn terrier pups, and recently one of her Cairns had a litter of four. We've been watching them grow up. They're almost four weeks old now. Last weekend we went over for some puppy therapy.

Gordon and a fat, happy, snoozing little Cairn!


Do you think he's in love?

Look at that adorable little face! (The PUPPY, not me!)

And now for something completely different. Can you guess what these are? I was looking at them through my microscope:

I'll tell you in a minute.


Meanwhile, the LOVEBIRDS:

Naomi is a bit of a tart, though. She's been hanging around Julius a lot lately, and he's really warming up to her, despite appearances to the contrary in that music video of mine (I'm going to create another one soon!)

Okay, the microscope pic? Porcupine quills! As you might be able to see, they are barbed. They remind me a bit of a closed pine cone. The quill goes smoothly into the skin, but when you try to pull it out, the backwards-facing barbs open out and grab on. This is why the vet needed pliers to get the quills out of my dog's muzzle. In fact, the tip of one of these stuck into my finger as I was putting it under the microscope, but I yanked it out before it got very far!

Happy weekend!

7 comments:

  1. Nothing better than puppy therapy! Were you tempted to take one home?
    That Naomi is the Mae West of her time!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gotta love the puppy therapy!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous5:16 pm

    OH GODDDDDDD ... these blasted touch pads. the cursor was on the back button on the browser and my palm just ever so lightly brushed the touch pad and the damn thing went back to the previous screen and I lost all I'd written WAAAAAAAAA damn damn damn.

    Ok...I'm ok .... anyway as I was SAYING .. mr C looks pretty contented with those darling puppies. I'm sure they have some kind of tranquilizing effect on just about everyone ...unless you were a robot on Battlestar Galactica ... just started watching that series on dvd. ..taking a Star Trek break ...hahah.

    OK and anyway, the porcupine quills are fascinating and frightening. It's amazing how they can become so attached so quickly! Where did you get those? Were they left over from the Tristan encounter? How cool to see them through a microscope.

    and talking about scoping things, did you see the moon and venus in close proximity in Feb? it was similar to the one in Nov, but they were in different positions relative to each other. It was beautiful ... just after sunset.

    p.s. eagerly anticipating the next video release ... you need a production company name and logo. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh my, I HATE it when I wipe out something like that, Dr. Sloth. Thanks for taking the time to type it again!

    I am looking forward to visiting the puppies again. Apparently they are active now and can hear!

    Yes, the quills were leftover from poor Tristan. I brought some home from the vet in a pill bottle. I gave a bunch of them to my friend's son, the junior naturalist!

    It was overcast for that conjunction, pissed me RIGHT off.

    I took some funny cat footage today and am DYING to turn it into a video. Hopefully I can match or surpass my first effort!

    Shelley, I will have to start calling Naomi "Mae!" Hahahaha!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I guessed the quills correctly but still wanted to comment. .... I'm thinking puppy therapy turns into home therapy. I can see it coming. That's how I ended up with 2 chihuahuas and not one.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm always melting, when I see puppies! Of course you are cute too! Did the Porcupine insitant happen recently? Poor doggy. I've only seen dead Porcupines so far.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Monika, Tristan got quilled last August. Fortunately for him, it was a young porcupine with small quills, and he only got about 20 in his muzzle. We took him to the emergency vet, who said he once had a dog with a THOUSAND quills!!

    ANd Robin: nononononnnonononooooooooooo! :)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for all your comments, which I love to read!