Sock’s Adventures: Meet the Pack

When not on holidays, we go on walks with a loose group of neighbours. When we’re all together we’Re quite an impressive pack (which means that we must take good care lest we scare some other doggo), so let me introduce them.

Meet Mistral

Big red flatcoated retriever standing behind a tree stump. Behind him is the forest floor

Giliell: This calf sized flat coated retriever is Mistral. He’s very chill, but will steal treats from a baby. If he were a human, he’d be everybody’s favourity uncle who shows up to every family gathering, but nobody knows exactly how he’s related to anybody else. His human has to work very hard to maintain his weight, because he’s for sure not doing it.

Socks: My pal. Always up for chasing balls, but sometimes he’ll push me out of the way and steal my treats. Still love him.

Here’s Ylvie

A big flat coated retriever, a small withe mutt and a medium black mutt standing on a tree trunk

Giliell: Ylvie is a small mutt with a lot of mischief in her little head. She and Socks love each other and will play, but currently Socks is a bit dominant at times and she’s bad at telling him “nope”.

Socks: I love Ylvie. I could gobble her up! But somehow everybody objects to my attempts of doing so.

Her brother Paul

Giliell: Sweet Paul. If you think that’s a cute haircut: it covers the missing eye on his left side. Like many white dogs with blue eyes, he’s suffering from glaucoma and lost his left eye three years ago. If the happens, the prognosis is not good. The second eye will follow, usually within a year. Paul was lucky, he got three, but two weeks ago he went blind. It’s a big adjustment, especially for his humans. While his dad knew that this would happen, he’s still in shock. But Paul is doing quite well. He curled up for a day, but then started to explore again and now goes on walks again.

Socks: Paul is my buddy. When we first met, he did not like me. His humans said it was because I was running around so much. But now we’re buddies. He even gives me kisses!

Here’s Rougette

A black and white dog sitting, looking at the camera, licking its nose

Giliell: Rougette should be a mess. Can you even guess what went into her? She’s a Dalmatian, Husky, Rhodesian Ridgeback mix who spent her first 6 months locked up in a basement with her parents and litter mates. But still she became a very gently dog, who’s only second to Mistral when it comes to begging for treats. She gets scared of strange men, but when Mr once joined us for a walk, she was easily bribable with treats.

Socks: Rougette is ok, but sometimes she wants too much of mum’s attention or my treats. Then I’ll snap at her. But this morning she actually wanted to play with me. That’s nice

And her big sister Kira:

A German Shepherd standing in front of her toy, tongue hanging out

Giliell: Oh Jazzlet, you would love Kira. She’s a working line GSD, always in action. She’s full power and elegance and when you see her waiting for you to kick her ball or throw her toy, you can see the wolves in her ancestry. She’s usually not very interested in other dogs, but she’s fiercely protective of her pack. If any other dog is unkind to one of hers she’ll sure teach them the errors of their ways, which can get dangerous because, well, look at that dog.. Socks is absolutely smitten with her, I think she’s his big idol. There’s no toys like Kiras toys, even when we have the exact same toys. Running next to her is heaven, but usually she just ignores him. But then last weekend something happened that none of us expected: Kira initiated playing with Socks. Her human and I were both confused and for a moment we didn’t even realise what was happening. Socks hadn’t nicked her toy or was bothering her, but suddenly she turned around, the started play bows and initiated play. And off they went. The rest of the group was a bit further along the way and when they arrived they tried to stop them, because nobody realised they were playing.

Socks: Isn’t she amazing? When I grow up, I want to be like Kira. She’s the bestest! She also never steals treats. Perfectest dog!

Their little sister Luna:

A small black and white mutt with short hair.

Giliell: And finally Luna, a very small (just 4 kg) rescue mutt, probably with a lot of Jack Russell. She’s keen, she’s fierce, and she can be an absolute asshole. Remember when I told you that Kira is fiercely protective? So Luna will start shit with Rougette and the Kira will intervene and discipline poor Rougette. She’s also a black hole for treats. When going for walks together or playing at the waterhole, I’ll use the opportunity to train Socks’ recall. Seem’s like I’ve also trained Rougette and Luna.

Socks: Luna is ok, I guess. Bit small for playing but man that girl can eat!

And last but not least: Benny!

A brown mutt looking like a short legged GSD

Giliell: Benny is another rescue from Romania, I guess that’s why he and Socks get along like a house on fire. He looks like one of those infamous Corgie mixes that always look like the other breed but with a Corgie’s short legs. Benny looks like a GSD with short legs except that he has the most human eyes I’ve ever seen in a dog. His human is somewhat elderly, so he won’t walk the whole distance with us, but walk the opposite direction and meet us towards the end. When we meet, there’s no stopping the boys.

Socks: My BFF! Did you have to leave him for last? Benny’s the best. He smells nice (Giliell: he’s neutered, which seems to smell like a juicy lady) and he likes running and I like running and then we run.

Giliell: Yeah, first there were two dogs, then there are no dogs, but a lot of noise in the underbush. As long as you always come back…

Socks’ Adventures: Fly like a bird!

Did you know that birds can fly? Like really fly? I was always suspicious of them being able to pull some kind of trick, because at home, those evil bastards hop around on the forest path and when I get there, they’re suddenly somewhere higher up. At home there’s a lot of trees. And a lot of birds. In trees. What there is not is a lot of open space. At the North Sea, it’s different. They’re really lacking in the tree department. BTW, mum, that was a dirty trick, promising that on holiday, I’d get a treat at every tree when you knew that there were very few trees. Anyway, back to the birds. They’re mean, and they can fly. Long distances. Fast. Especially the swallows. I really, really wanted to play catch with them, but mum said no. That was not cool. The stupid swallows kept teasing me and I was still on the lead.

Then one day, when I was trying to get to the swallows really hard, I head mum say something like “Gods, he’s pulling so much, I’m going to secure him around my body”. I didn’t understand exactly what she meant, but I knew it was now or never. While she was fumbling with the snap link, I took my chance, gave a good pull and there I was, running free. Into the Wadden, chasing those swallows. Wel, lots of yelling and running later I did come back, but man, that was good.

A small dog sitting far off in the distance in the Wadden at low tide

Did I run away even thogh I knew I shouldn’t? Yes!

Did I get dirty as fuck and need a shower? Also yes!

Did I get all that muck over mum as well? You bet!

Do I regret anything? Absolutely not!

A very dirty small black and brown dog sitting in the sun, looking very proud of himself

Socks’ Adventures: The Big Water

Socks:

Did you know there’s different types of water? I didn’t! I mean, water and me, we go way back. Like, I practically started drinking that stuff when I was a puppy. But the Fam showed me that you can even use it to get your paws wet? I’m still not the biggest fan of swimming. Usually we go to a small waterhole where the water is always cold and tastes really good. Mum and the Fam insist on throwing my toys in there when they could just throw them in the meadow, but I will admit that it does cool down. Also you can rub yourself dry in the dirt afterwards. Mum loves that.

Now, where was I? Right, water. There was a big water there. Like real big. But only sometimes. Sometimes there was a lot of mud. Mud is cool. The Fam took me there the first evening. There were puddles and mud and I quite liked that, but that water tasted really bad. I tried it and it was way too salty. And I tried again and it still hadn’t bettered its ways. Not even the third, fouth and whatever numbers come after that time. Stupid water.

Please meet Socks

With all the horrors going on in the world, let’s have something positive. Please meet the newest member of the Giliell family: Socks

I’ve always wanted a dog. I wanted a dog before I could write “dog”, but of course my parents said “no”. Later the circumstances weren’t right. First I was a poor college student, then I had two small kids in a small flat, then I had long commutes. Now the kids are mostly grown, we live in a house next to the woods and my commute is 10 – 20 minutes. The only other obstacle was my beloved not wanting a dog, but over the last 2 years the kids and I wore him down. Now the question was “What dog and when”? The “what was pretty easy. We wanted a small to medium mixed breed rescue and went with a rescue that brings in street dogs and dogs from kill shelters in Romania. Now, when you get your dog from a foreign rescue you have to be careful about some things, just like when you get your dog from a breeder, “breeder” or local shelter. We went with one that had a couple of decades of history, makes sure they visit prospective adopters and most importantly where the local contact / foster mum is a personal friend of our BFF’s mum.

Why not a local shelter? Two problems: First, someof them have unrealistic expectations like you mustn’t work outside the home and leave the dog alone. Second: German shelters are 80% populated by dogs that people shouldn’t have gotten in the first place: dogs listed as potentially dangerous like staffies, bullies, etc and their cross breeds and high need dogs like Malinois or Kangal. I can’t do a high need dog, which is what I also told the rescue lady, so we worked together. Our initial plan was to look for a dog that would then go on the March transport. She would foster until the start of the easter break and then we’d have 2 weeks to get used to each other.

Then she got a foster dog on the January transport and told me: “Come look at this one, I thinks that’s the onbe for you”, so we went for a first visit. The dog we met was still very shy and had to be carried across the doorstep because he was afraid, but we instantly fell in love. The little guy even matched the name my daughter had already picked back when we first decided to get a dog: Socks.

Small tri colour dog being carried, looking very shy

Look at how shy he was back then!

Within days we agreed on a “test” day and then a few days later went to pick him up. He very quickly lost all that shyness once he realised that finally had a family.

The doggie lying on his back with his mouth open next to a leg. You can see a hand giving belly rubs. He looks cheeky.

Did I mention that we’d wanted a mixed breed? Joke’s on me.

The rescue guessed that he was an Australian Shepherd mix, which, if you look at pics of tri colour Aussies does make some sense.

By Wikimedia Commons

But some things didn’t quite add up:

He’s looking very much like an Aussie, except for his build. He’s relatively short legged and pretty small. If one of his parents was an Aussie for those Aussie looks, what was the other parent?
No characteristic double coat.
None of the herding behaviour I remember from our friends’ Aussie mix
Digging. He loves digging so much

Last weekend somebody said: “He looks like a Kokoni” and I was “he looks like a what?” Please meet the Kokoni, one of the world’s most ancient dog breeds. They’re thankfully not a recognised breed by any kennel club, but they have been around in Greece for probably 3.000 years, while being rarely known outside of Greece (but it’s not too far away from Romania where he was found). I looked the breed up and sure there was my dog. Not only were there pictures that looked exactly like him, the breed description also describes his character to a T. Thankfully since nobody has ever come up with any breed standards, they have no known breed specific health issues. They’re friendly, active, loyal and smart and they’re also used to keep mice and rats away. That explains the digging.

So how’s life with a dog? Of course it’s work. My day now starts at 5:30 so I can walk the dog before I go to work. But you know what? It’s doing me good. Getting up has always been my nemesis, and I’ve been known to hit the snooze way too often. Guess what? The dog doesn’t have a snooze button, so I get up at 5:30 and then we get ready and I arrive at work without being in a hurry. Also the first week or so I was totally exhausted because I wasn’t used to walk 5-7 km each day, but I’ve built up the stamina and also my jeans fit much better. But the best of all ist coming home and being greeted like I’d gone to Antarktca in a Tshirt and still came back.

Have some Sheep

It’s been a week and a half since school started and I really could do with some holidays. It’s not the kids, it’s being new at with a new class. Having to do all the administration while significantly lacking in knowing how to is a drag. Each school has their perfect system and, well. It’s also funny what is pretty normal at one school but an absolute no go at another. Because I need a holiday, you get some holiday pictures.

A white sheep on green grass in front of the blue sea

Sheep are vital in maintaining the dikes. Their hooves put just enough pressure on the ground to make it hard enough, their grazing is just right to encourage the grass to grow deep and strong. Cows are too heavy, goats are too greedy. Sheep are also cute. While most will run away when humans approach, there’s always one or two that enjoy cuddles. Yes, I cuddled a sheep. It was very fluffy.

So enjoy your fluffy holiday break.

white sheep on a green dike. The sea is far in the back

Here Be Dragons

When I went on to water my greenhouses in the afternoon, this little fellow was on the wall just below the handrail.

I suspect she was just as surprised as I was and she did stay still while I was trying to snap a few pictures with my phone without spooking her. After I came back from watering the tomatoes, she was still there, just a few cm further.

She eyed me suspiciously and after I snapped a few more pictures in a better light, she finally got fed up with the strange giant who kept putting a big black rectangular thing near her and she jumped straight down (about 140 cm) and scuttled near the wall. She kept watching me warily from there and I did not snap more pictures because I did not want to stress her. When I went by again a few minutes later, she was away.

I have always liked lizards, I consider them to be beautiful. It lightens my mood to meet one in my garden, I like to know they are around.

Holidays with Hindrances 4: Muckross House, Farm and Abbey

Welcome back. I hope you’re having a nice weekend before we all go in for another round tomorrow.

While in Killarney we didn’t actually visit Killarney House, but went to Muckross House instead, since that was just 5km from our campsite, so we went there on foot, visiting Muckross Abbey on our way.

A beautiful hike past the lake.

Muckross Abbey is a very pretty ruin, but the graveyard has been in use since at least the 2000s.

Tree growing in a small courtyard in the ruin of the abbey

That one looked amazing. I’m sure there’s a message in the tree long surviving the religious building.

grey brown manor house. On the hedge in front there#s a plush opossum

Welcome to Muckross House. Our plush of the day is Opossible, who enjoyed his trip a lot.

Richly furnished room with a golden harp

“Ireland was a poor country” my ass…

According to legend, Lady Catherine died at 140 when she fell out of an apple tree. Life goals!

The gardens were truly beautiful.

Muckross Farm is an open air museum depicting rural life in Ireland in the 1950s. Yes, you read that right. Apart from trades like the blacksmith they have three farmhouses showing a poor family farm, a middle class family farm and a well off family farm. Remember that nice room in the picture above? In the 1950s people in rural Ireland lived like they hadn’t lived on the continent for at least 50 years. no running water, no electricity. Good old medieval “1 room for sleeping, 1 room for living and sleeping” conditions. But the animals were very cute.

This year I did something new: I shamelessly took selfies and asked people to take pics of me. Am I young and pretty? No. Am I alive? Yes. the person with the camera rarely ends up in pics themself, but I realised that if I died tomorrow, my family would probably forget what I look like in a week because there’s no pics. Here they are. That horse was amazing.

Voyager Says Hi

Master of Mischief, Jinx

Hello, Dear Readers. I hope you’ve all been navigating well through the craziness.
It’s been a long time since I said hi, so hi there. You can’t see me, but I’m wearing my usual awkward grin and waving my paws in greeting. I’m seriously out of practice writing, so this may be a bit rough, but I owe you an explanation for disappearing so suddenly and staying away for so long. The short answer is that I’ve entered the late stages of scoliosis. My spine is contorting and collapsing, and I’ve been experiencing increased disability and pain. A more detailed accounting may come in future posts, but it won’t be the focus of my writing. I still prefer to focus on life’s simple and gentle details, and I want to reflect that in my posts.

My corner of this blog began as Jack’s Walk, and there will still be nature (with less walking) and animals, but now mainly of the feline variety. That handsome boy up there is Jinx, who has grown to be a whopping 14 lbs. of floof and mischief. He and Sophie have passed their first birthday, and they’ve both accumulated a few stories I’d like to share with you. There are other things I’d also like to share, but for now, I want to keep it simple and try to post about once a week.
The timing of my return feels right, and we’ll see how it goes. I’m looking forward to becoming an active part of this community again. It feels a bit like coming home.

Degupdate: Candy is back, and this time she brought reinforcements!

After our sweet Estelle passed away, it was clear to us that since we didn’t want to give up Candy, we would need new friends for her quick. Thankfully our breeder agreed to take her in and socialise her with two young degus. This went really well and left us just a week to get Degustan back in shape again*, since Candy and Estelle had eaten away quite a lot of the wood holding the wire in place. Of course we ran from problem into trouble, since most parts are cobbled together from leftover pieces, so what used to fit the last time doesn’t fit now. But we finished yesterday and went to pick up the crew today. So please meet Candy, Sky and Lulu.

An adult brown degu, a juvenile white and a juvenile brown and white degu snuggled together in a carrier.

When we brought them home they were a bit shaken from transport, so the two babies snuggled close to Candy.

Juvenile brown and white degu held in hand

Lulu is a shy little girl. She has already claimed what used to be Estelle’s favourite spot: behind the running wheel.

Juvenile white degu sitting on a girl's upper torso. The face of the girl is not visible, only the mouth

Sky, on the other hand, is more like Candy. They will probably have some fights about who’s the boss when Sky grows up. It’s funny how much juvenile degus look like adult mice.

Adult brown degu nose to nose with juvenile white degu in an enclosure.

Here you can see Candy encouraging Sky to go exploring. It is clear how much comfort her presence gives them. When Candy went on a short trip outside of the enclosure, they both hid and only came out after Candy returned. Now, please, let those three have a long and happy degu life, my heart can’t take any more breaking.

*I’m afraid my colleagues think I’m crazy. We were chatting on Friday, with me mentioning that I need to finish the project and a colleague shared that yeah, with his hamster he always had to replace the wooden boards not just because of gnawing, but also because of the pee. I said “oh, that’s no problem for me, I put down tiles” and they all looked at me like I had sprouted an additional head…

A Day at the Zoo 3: Because the Night

Night zoos are one of my favourite things because they have the coolest animals. They’re also bad for taking pics. Even my most light sensitive lense isn’t much good, mostly because it’s too dark for the auto focus but also too dark for me to use the manual setting. But there are some acceptable pics.

The tree porcupine was kind enough to step into the little light and my focus. This is where digital cameras with their near limitless image storage play to their strength: I probably deleted 100 blurry images to walk away with about 6 decent ones.

Very dark and blurry picture of an echidna

Nope, that’s not a worse pic of the same animal, that’s actually an echidna. No, I don’t care that the father next to us told his kid it was a porcupine. Zoos offer many learning opportunities, but obviously no learning obligations.

And now, are you ready for one of my absolute favourites? The aardvark!

We were very lucky: on our second visit to the night zoo, the aardvarks (3 wonderful animals) had their enclosure cleaned and the caretaker had turned up the light there. They didn’t mind (they could have gone to their dark burrow) and posed for some nice pics.

Aardvark in action!

Look at that snout!

There is a story that goes with the aardvarks: The zoo in our state capital also has a night zoo with aardvarks, but while this here has the glass all up the enclosure, our zoo only has it about a metre high, just enough so the aardvarks cannot escape. Some years ago when we visited the zoo, Mr looked at the aardvarks, not realising that there was nothing between him and the animals at the level of his nose. Well, the aardvark obviously thought it was only fair game that if Mr got to look at it, it got to look at Mr, went on its hind legs, put the front legs on top of the glass and put its snout almost into Mr’s face. The look on my beloved one’s face was something I still treasure to this day.

Mini Holiday 2: Fishes!

Aquariums are always cool. Fish are cool. Glass fish are double cool, just hard to take pics of.

A tiny but relaxed blowfish.

The head of a fish üoking out of the ground

What’s up?

Nobody ever told me that piranhas are sparkling!

A striped scalar with several smaller fish around

No trouble finding Nemo here

All of Frankfurt is decorated in support of Ukraine, and it seems like even the fish are showing their solidarity.

Mini Holiday: A Day at the Zoo 1

For the easter holiday we wanted to do a day trip with the kids, but given the ongoing pandemic we didn’t want to do a theme park with all the screaming and close contact that entails. But even my two very cool teenager can be lured into a nice zoo with interesting animals. This time we chose Frankfurt. It’s easy to reach by train, not too far for a day trip, and the train tickets were still in the affordable range, though they only were because the kids were free.

And my camera got something to do (it’s getting bored in here), with the stalker lens giving insecure men inferiority complexes. So stay tuned over the next days for a lot of animal pics.

A male lion lying on a stone, looking relaxed.

This chill boy has his enclosure near the entrance, and showing off his amazing talent of chilling 20hrs a day, he didn’t move once between us arriving and leaving.

I saw a sloth! At least that’s what the signs claim. But it had moved from the canopy to a location unknown between our first and second visit.

A binturong family with 2 babies on top of mum

Look at those babies! Binturongs are seriously cute, even though they always look ancient, even when they’re babies.

Walking in the Woods

Two weeks ago Mr and I went to our local woods for the first time this year. Living next to swamp and marshland has its advantages, but it also meant that for most of this year the paths were unwalkable, unless you wanted to recreate that child-traumatising scene from the Neverending Story where Ayax drowns in the moor. It was nice, apart from the fact that the mosquitos must have been starved before they got us.

We found lots of common earthballs (though I really like the name “pigskin poison puffball”, which would make an amazing name for a band), which are nice to look at, but not good for eating if you value your survival.

And I met a frog. I don’t think that they are poisonous.

small brown frog sitting in green leaves

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Sock’s Adventures: Meet the Pack

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Socks’ Adventures: Fly like a bird!

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Socks’ Adventures: The Big Water

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Please meet Socks

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Have some Sheep

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Here Be Dragons

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Holidays with Hindrances 4: Muckross House, Farm and Abbey

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Voyager Says Hi

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Degupdate: Candy is back, and this time she brought reinforcements!

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A Day at the Zoo 3: Because the Night

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Mini Holiday 2: Fishes!

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Mini Holiday: A Day at the Zoo 1

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Walking in the Woods

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