Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘dogs’ Category

In which (three short updates) we see a little glimpse of Young Suitov's values. Wait, he has what now?

Suitov was currently standing at the top of the steps, in the early morning light, raking the gravel of the driveway. This was accomplished without touching it physically. When one is fifteen and a new mage, one tends to do things the flashy, inefficient way for the sake of it.

One Dog Night continues. (I really need to find a better name. They've been together for, what, a couple of days now, and the story's continuing for at least another couple.)

N.B. There is an overlap of a sentence at the end of some posts. That's just to do with where I break off writing. Will be fixed in a final edit.

Military dog recovers from PTSD after Iraq war

PTSD, which the military characterises as a condition that develops after a life-threatening trauma, has not been researched in animals as thoroughly as in humans. But some experts say animals can experience a form of it.

When will we get over the idea that our psychology couldn't possibly be anything like that of another large social mammal? Of course a dog can develop a traumatic disorder! Know something else? They can feel grief, jealousy, loneliness, humour and joy. Of course they bloody can.

All of those have biological uses. They're not just pretty, meaningless trappings we picked up around the same time as Gug and Mog worked out how to bash two flints together. There's a word for people who think they are the special only ones in the universe who can ever truuuly feeeel things so deeeeply. Well, there are several words for it, but I was thinking of "teenager".

I tend to work from a basic assumption that anyone with a nervous system pretty similar to mine is going to have a brain pretty similar to mine. Making allowances for my weirdly overdeveloped abstract thought and language habits, beginning from the standpoint that the other person's point of view is different but possible for me to understand, at least partway, hasn't led me far wrong before.

I think this is an advantage of being one of those strange, shadowy autistic creatures with supposedly no Theory of Mind. What I actually have is a default assumption that other people don't think like me, but that they do think. In my view that's much superior to swooping around empathising at people on the basis of what I personally like and dislike, not even realising how ridiculously I'm projecting.

"Oh you poor dear, how did you get all that red lacquer on your nails? Do you feel very ridiculous? Oh don't worry, I won't think you're necessarily a shallow bitch!" ← Learning not to do this has stood me in good stead.

The Golden Rule is not gospel for aspies. It's dangerous. I treat others, always assuming I care about their happiness, as I think they would like to be treated. Because then it's about them, not about me. Another good thing about that approach? It includes the potential for iterative improvement.

Last night, after going to bed quite upset about the family cat remaining seriously ill, I dreamed about my long-since-ex-dog, Bracken.

I was in some kind of town centre pedestrian shopping street, and she needed to wee, so I found a tree for her and that was all right. (Picture the usual sort of trees that grow in a one-paving-slab-size patch of dirt in town centres, surrounded by grilles on the ground, where idiots tend to drop cigarette butts.) Right near the end of what I remember, I saw my mother also preparing to pee on a tree, which was just odd.

Piper continues alive and alert, although lethargic, complaining of a dry mouth and barely eating (clear signs of kidney trouble, which both his humans suspected before it was diagnosed). On a positive note, we haven't seen any frothy pee after he started antibiotics. He is receiving fluids subcutaneously (in case you didn't know this, cats have a LOT of space under their skin. Loose skin is good protection from other predators who might try to grab them, and helps them squeeze through tiny places. Our neighbour Princess, a huge Maine Coon cross, has been observed forcing herself through a 6cm gap). (Apparently my school teacher genes are activating as some kind of coping mechanism.)

Giving up on our spoiled cat is not an option while he remains bright-eyed and squeaky and wants to live. If there were such a thing as kidney dialysis for cats, his mother would have him on it. We're far from rich, and he's not even a dog, but this is still a family member we're talking about.

Animals are sort of a big deal for me. I'm autistic, so it's a given that I can relate to non-human animals more easily than to humans. Furthermore, and given that it's my understanding that humans are hard-wired to need tactile contact with others, I can't touch other humans without it hurting (the discomfort is psychological but altogether real). If I'm after touch stim, I need – physically need – an animal.

The family pet is the first thing I look for each morning and the first thing I go and find when I get home from work, unless he happens to want something and has consequently come to wait by the door. He's my perpetual fall-back topic of conversation. He never comforts me when I'm sad, but he amuses me whenever he's hungry.

As it happens, I'm wired to live with two dogs, so lodging with a single cat was already less than ideal, but the thought of a house empty of quadrupedal life is… not something I can contemplate with equanimity.

Crack found in World Cup!

African-American women struggle to overcome wealth gap

Meanwhile, UN to set up agency promoting women's rights. I hope the 'gender' part of the title doesn't apply only to women. We should always aim for no discrimination based on gender, not 'gender equality' between the two mainstream groups.

Pretty ship at Tower Bridge

'Big budget' porn film shot in London hospital. Yes, apparently the offence is mainly over the fact that the film's budget was higher than the NHS's. Ditto occupational health standards. Zing.

Taiwan chocolate art exhibition. That 'jade' cabbage is beautiful. And the dice and mahjongg pieces, so cute! Exit through the gift shop… NOM.

Fluffy ostrich

Close encounters with giant harpy eagle of Venezuela, who very effectively sorts out a nasty ape that is trying to climb towards her nest. In the second clip, another young man stares out a different filthy ape and takes the mickey out of its walkie-talkie.

Meanwhile, webcam viewers freak out over human hands appearing in their shot of an osprey nest.

Respect is due to this badass lady, who chose to remain conscious during an operation to remove a tumour from her brain.

Dangerous dogs bill 'does not go far enough'. I disagree with the criticisms in the main…

Changes proposed include more emphasis on the owners' responsibility, attacks which take place on private property becoming a criminal offence, and legislation no longer being breed specific.

I don't fully understand the part about attacks occurring on private property (the interview clip seemed to suggest the opposite of what I understood from the article, and I haven't bothered to look up the details yet), but as for the other two changes mentioned, they're completely sensible. A person's race is never an excuse for criminal activity; childhood abuse and upbringing, on the other hand, certainly do shift the blame onto the family. Besides, you can't end up with a situation where you're forced towards genetically testing a litter of crossbreeds, and even ending up with brothers and sisters coming under different laws because of the exact proportion of Staffie in their blood.

The Bahá'ís just can't seem to catch a break. It looks likely that those in Iran (where, I will point out, their religion originated, unlike Islam!) are due further terrorisation and mob violence with the silent collusion of Ahmadinnerjacket's jackboot cronies.

The coalition government is sticking with Labour's Equality Act, apart from the bit about forcing employers to make public how much less they pay their women employees than men.

Inequality just isn't going away. The gap in life expectancy between rich and poor is widening, and somehow I don't quite trust the Tories to close it, even with their collective arm twisted by the yellow contingent.

'Hidden obscenity': Older men grooming teens for sex

Signs of child sexual exploitation 'being missed'

Neil Gaiman (video) on comics and literary success…

"Do you think being a comic writer means you've not been taken seriously?" "I think that coming from a comics background has meant that I have never cared at all about being taken seriously. … I come from comics. That's not even the gutter: that's the drain that the gutter runs into."

Good Omens is still the best thing I've ever read from Gaiman. It was co-written with Terry Pratchett, with the result that both loopy writers bounced off each other magnificently, to glorious results. (The worldbuilding in American Gods and Anansi Boys was enjoyable too, but only because Pratchett's Small Gods – which, unlike Gaiman's books, I can find really scary – had burrowed into my brain during a formative stage.)

I never knew Gaiman's family members were Scientologists. That must help with horror writing.

Speaking of living in a controlled environment, how do you fancy life in a village where children are banned?

Threecows!

30% of children feel scared when they see adults drunk or drinking too much, – which I suppose makes me 30% child, because I know drinkers terrify me. I'm more disturbed by the proportion of children ("nearly half") for whom drinking to excess is a normal, non-frightening sight.

I'll cheerfully admit that I don't know who Justin Bieber is, but 4chan has sent him off to North Korea. Well done, /b/uddies. Can he stay there?

I sent my father some advice on introducing a dog to new cats with no bloodshed. This is actually quite straightforward to accomplish, and you can get the general gist from my abstract:

The cat's unshakeable belief in its own inherent superiority, and ability to convince the dog of the same in the face of overwhelming evidence, is one of the reasons it is such a successful parasitic lifeform. The cat seeks to displace the dog's benign mutualism for its own ends without the host's knowledge.

I recommend Hillaire Belloc's exhaustive treatment, a classic for anyone interested in the subject. Meanwhile, in the realm of speculative fiction, many of the terrifying parasitic alien lifeforms in Neal Asher's novels are rather reminiscent of the cat or its passenger-cum-co-conspirator, Toxoplasma gondii.

Ouch! What's that pain in my horn fingers? Ah, it's my chronic Finnophilia flaring up again.

Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

(Only 1Mbps, I know – but you should bear in mind, if you live in a fortunate area, that over a quarter of the UK doesn't even have that.)

Three-legged dogs aid robot study

Specialist unit reports more male forced marriages

The Afghan women jailed for 'bad character'

South Korea professor charged over 'holy water' fraud.

Can they prove it was NOT holy water? Because I'm hoping there are no homeopaths walking free in South Korea.

The Child Exploitation Centre is apparently making cautionary cartoons about Paedobear. Er?

I'd like to see that cartoon shown on the page, but can't find it online. I did find this web safety film, which is excellent.

SIEGE POWER! Fifty-one brave souls sabotaged the drawbridge and held Red Castle from invading cherrypickers for three hours. This without any supplies of grapeshot, jelly shots, crossbow bolts or boiling oil. Bold defenders, we salute you!

Dog lifestyle study seeks 20,000 young Labradors

Wonder Woman gets trendy makeover. More from a source that actually understands comics:

DC Comics Has Ruined Wonder Woman!

To add insult to injury for WW fans, from that summary it sounds like a lame House of M style story. Oh well, I bet she gets un-rebooted at the end, making this (no pun intended) a non-issue.

A little Aussie town advises an American town on giving up bottled water.

If Australians can manage without imported purified water, there's hope for us all. It's a horrific product and I wish Concord, Massachusetts the best of luck in vanquishing the unethical companies that peddle it.

In pictures: Heroic dogs. I think I recognise that first dog from the cover of a book I own about dogs in warfare… clearly some much-deserved recognition.

But I don't think Peter really understood "the honour of meeting King George VI and a young Queen Elizabeth", do you?

A white councillor has been found guilty of racial harassment after, in a debate about ring-fencing funds for white communities only, she called another white councillor a traitor to her race.

Israeli pig-farming kibbutz draws religious ire – not because they're eating the meat left over after they're used for organ experiments (although some members of the kibbutz do indeed chow down on pork chops), but for the fact that they are keeping pigs on Ye Holy Lande at all.

I'm all for people not eating pork—along with shellfish, beef, sheep, tuna and anything else sentient that you care to omit from your diet—but if you claim that pigs are disgusting and dirty, rather than the adorable, sensitive, cuddly, ear-scritchy, bone-splintering fun they obviously are, there's just something wrong with you. These baby Sus scrofa are hereby holier than you until further notice.

China's latest walking fashion accessory: ZEBRA DOG!

Playthings. Perambulator.

OH HAI U GUIZE LETS HAEV MOAR FIREARMZ KK?

Now, baby red pandas. Two sets, actually. Baby Red Panda Born at National Zoo and Calgary Zoo keeps hands off infant pandas (mentions but doesn't specify the subspecies, but I guess at A. f. fulgens from this picture and this. A. f. styani tend to be darker, but obviously everyone varies and I'm not an expert. Styani are also bigger and live in the northeastern part of their wild range. I've been known to claim that my authorial totem is a big, dark styani. If you want to know why red pandas are brilliant, apart from the obvious, check their funky moves. ILLUSTRATED PARENTHETICAL DIGRESSION FUR THE WIN. Cough. redpandasrule)

A grab bag of newsy scraps I snuffled up before and after the weekend:

Italy raises alarm over blue mozzarella

Typing is helping a boy with autism communicate. I'm dismayed that it took until he was nine. NINE? What were his teachers doing all that time? To think of him being trapped inside all that time and (reading between the lines of the article) being spoken to as if he was an idiot who didn't understand anything…

This isn't a win for this child. It's a late, very late mitigation of an epic fail.

More than three guide dogs a month 'attacked by dogs'

Truro pensioners' action call over seagull attacks

Water voles make a comeback in UK (i.e. Ratty! I was always Ratty whenever we read Wind in the Willows when I was little. This is because Ratty is fabulous. Seriously. Read the book.)

Plastic bags to be put over Birmingham 'terror cameras'

Senior Italian cardinal accused of corruption

He says he will co-operate with the investigation despite his immunity as a Vatican diplomatic passport holder.

I reckon he was very likely ordered to do as much, just so the unfairness of 'diplomatic immunity' granted by their silly little made-up state is kept well out of the discussion.

Tuesday, 13th June 1911: a Very Important episode from Scott's Antarctic diaries. Yes, there's a dog involved. FACT: If they'd used dogs instead of ponies (as Amundsen did), they would probably have survived and, who knows, perhaps even beaten Amundsen (but not likely, because he chose the better route too).

By the way, if you hadn't noticed (I think I've mentioned it before), they're publishing Scott's Antarctic diaries in 'real time' on the linked site. You can subscribe and follow their RSS feed.

And lastly, a puffin with noms.

For those playing Godwin at home, there is mention of Hitler in the last section. But before that, the most important news story of the day is obviously this one:

Dog goes for walk up mountain, gets tired, is carried down.

Can we have your liver, then? Lab-grown tissues are something about which I'm ridiculously excited, both from a fant/SF authorial perspective and because I can't wait to nom down on some vat-grown meat. (Here speaketh þe blood-thirsty vegetarian carnivore, a straunge and terrible creature that doth graze on vegetarian BLTs.)

US experiment hints at multiple Higgs bosons. Honestly. It seems barely worth keeping up with particle physics, the way entities keep multiplying unnecessarily!

I have to wonder what subatomic physics will look like in a few years' time. I kind of hope it'll be unrecognisable, that we've been moving in the wrong direction and that they'll look back on all our groping after Higgs with nostalgic disdain.

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

A good article about where patriotism meets nationalism and racism. Do not on ANY account read the comments, for they are full of blah.

We do need a word in English for "discrimination based on country of origin". At the moment we use "racism" for both that and ethnic group, which gets pretty confused. "Nationalism" is already taken, though, and "countism"… er, no.

Discussion question

Hitler memorabilia is popular among young Indians.

Prayag Thakkar, a 19-year-old student in Gujarat state, is one of them: "I have idolised Hitler ever since I have had a sense of history. I admire his leadership qualities and his discipline."

The Holocaust was bad, he says, but that is not his concern. "He mesmerised the whole nation with his leadership and iron discipline. India needs his discipline."

Dimple Kumari, a research associate in Pune, has not read Mein Kampf but she would wear the Hitler T-shirt out of admiration for him. She calls him "a legend" and tries to put her admiration for him in perspective: "The killing of Jews was not good, but everybody has a positive and negative side."

Shilpi Guha says she started reading the book but could not finish it and she wouldn't like to dwell on the dictator's negative side.

So, can someone's positive side ever be completely outweighed by nasty things they did or said? Is there a limit in wickedness beyond which we can rule that there's nothing whatsoever worth emulating about the person? Or can somebody's works — art, architecture, literature, music — be judged on their own merit without being tainted by who made them?

I'd been considering the question from a different example the other day when I caught part of a BBC Four repeat of Stephen Fry's documentary on Richard Wagner (who, in keeping with his contemporaries, had some pretty unsavoury views about Jews; something that troubles Fry, who has Jewish antecedents and loves Wagner's music).

And I still don't have the answer. Some people enjoy religious music in spite of its glorification of a god they dislike or deny, and all the despicable things done by the Churches. I don't like music that puts forth a message I dislike, so I disagree there. But if the music is all about magic rings and Valkyries, or the book is all about elves and hobbits, telling its own story that on the surface is nothing to do with the author's other views, should it be enjoyed as free as possible from its mundane origins? Or does artistic criticism demand that we take nothing without its full and proper context, cleverly squeezing from every work symbolism for whatever we happen to know about the author's life and times?

Whatever, I'm still not going to read Mein Kampf. Snoresville.

I am interested to know what you think.

NUNS ON DRUGS

You can imagine an editor's eyes lighting up on being handed this story on a Friday. "Any clowns involved?" she asks, with a slavering sort of gleam. The work experience boy backs away, clutching a tube of Digestives to his chest.

America's forgotten migrant workers

"First an admission: I am a Jew, and a journalist. And now an apology: I hate the solipsistic writing I am about to be guilty of, where the journalist puts himself at the centre of the story."

So do I, but this is a good article nonetheless.

Thousands spent to bring Mauritius dog Dodo to Aberdeen. Money well spent. We came very close to doing the same one time when visiting Crete many years back. Poor little Nico got run over in front of us and we ended up setting his leg and treating him.

Cornwall tortoise sanctuary classed as zoo, which it turns out is a terrible thing for them.

I can offer a home to one or two…

Chinese soft-shelled turtle

How blind to change are you? The clips haven't been working for me so far, so I can't thrash you all.

High-frequency dog concert

Australia vets treat hundreds of "drunken" parrots

Surely if it's a seasonal 'illness', it's likely related to some kind of fermenting fruit? That would be my first guess towards a theory anyway…

Female long-tailed tit feeding a whole line of babies

Tech Know: Building a machine to play a wax cylinder

Australian bluetongue lizard

Web domains owned by BBC revealed, including bestmurders.co.uk, jellyparties.co.uk and watchagrownmanrot.co.uk. None as exciting as they sound.

Close encounter with a venomous mammal: the Hispaniolan solenodon

• Does anyone else by default assume tinnitus is actually your brain receiving a software upgrade from your robot dog overlords? #
• Did I say overlords? I meant protectors. #

Another blogger has reviewed The Barking Ghost [warning: complete spoilers], a Goosebumps book that I picked up a while ago from a used book stall.

It's the shortest and lamest member of my Black Dogs book collection. I'm currently trying to muster the energy to start The Kettle Chronicles: The Black Dog again; it's historical fiction about the Bungay Black Shuck incident, which ought to be epically fabulous, but it's written somewhat densely and the story is mostly about some human characters for whom I have little interest, so I only got partway through.

*skims the rest of the Wikipedia article* WAIT WHAT Shuckie is mentioned in Northern Lights? One of my favourite books of all time mentions one of my favourite historical persons of all time and I somehow have not NOTICED THIS?

Oh, since you're here, have some Black Dogs in popular culture.

Check out this blatant smear campaign to disqualify the real winner of the Ethiopian marathon based on race!! Shame on you, BBC, for aiding this injustice!!

Nottinghamshire bans dogs from parks

Pope Benedict chasing after 14-year-old girl

Pakistan acid attack victims search for justice

Turkish designers pioneer 'Islamic fashion'. I predict that there'll be a backlash, but hope that'll fail, and that it'll end up as a positive step.

Metalhead fox takes righteous action against the legions of pink.

German report reveals more cases of child abuse

Japan annual whale hunt 'halved by activists'

Panoramic 360 photo: Sudan homecoming. I like this new (for the BBC) technology – it's got lots of potential for interesting story-telling.

Race and racism in South Africa

To wash away the taste of all that mostly-horrible reality, have some ridiculous cute fluffy things.

First of April roundup

Google Translate for Animals

Labour's election strategy: bring on no-nonsense hard man Gordon Brown

Shakespeare was French (featuring the worst fake French accent EVER for added hilarity)

Ferrets used as broadband maintenance team

Science, Nature Team Up on New Journal (my favourite)

News trawl

Science writer Simon Singh wins libel appeal. Brit skeptics, science writers and anyone who's suffered 'libel tourism' under the UK's crap libel laws will be cheering Simon's victory. There's been great coverage throughout by the British legal blogger Jack of Kent, who has his initial summary of the ruling here.

By the way: the British Chiropractic Association happily promotes bogus treatments for which there is not a jot of evidence.

I know the date, but the Catholic Church doesn't do joking over mortal sins, does it?…

Catholic Archbishop admits to obvious fact (but qualifies it with fictional waffle).

Casino rips off woman by claiming the payout from a slot machine was a "mistake". Their logic seems to be that if you're dumb enough to gamble, you'll believe anything. The woman's $20 bet was refunded and she got accommodation while they 'sorted the matter out', presumably finding the mechanic who was supposed to have fixed the machine and beating him to a pulp in front of his kids or something. I'm just sayin'.

How dogs are helping the WWF save endangered tigers

Phew, It Works! Science Begins at the LHC

The storm buffeting God's Rottweiler (nice review of the story so far)

If it were up to me, armed police would be taking priests in for questioning, preferably in broad daylight in their full robes, and banging on the doors of das paedo-kapital demanding access to the Vatican's archives. This series of horrible revelations demonstrates, just in case anyone had been left in any doubt, that the civilised world has far too long allowed this sinister, controlling cult – this secretive, nasty organisation that cares more for its image and its employees than the children they repeatedly rape – to pass itself off as a respectable institution, not to mention a legitimate country, not to mention having the gall to tell the rest of us about morality. If it were me, I'd be distributing the Roman Catamite Klatsch's gold and wealth right now between the children whose rapists it nurtured and protected.

In fact, here's an idea. Israel isn't fucking off its illegally-occupied territory, so let's give the Palestinians Vatican City as their capital. Now that's what I call a two-states-with-one-stone solution.

Anyone left that I haven't offended? *checks my 'personal views' disclaimer's still in place* Moving along, then…

In "no SHIT, science" news, dogs' various growls are confirmed to be different depending on context.

Vote on pet shock collars ban in Wales. That's Cesar Milan out of a job then.

Meanwhile, dog owners countrywide ask if they're "still allowed to put it in the bath and drop the hairdryer in".

The ECMA has yet to release a statement clarifying that point, but has warned that the proposals are discriminatory against unsuitable owners who are unable to control their dogs without abusive machinery, and hints that it may take the case to the ECHR.

Absolute genius.