Tag: Photography

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Jackie walked Ashley successfully for a couple of days right after we brought her home from the shelter, but then we had a couple of incidents where the dog pulled her over, or yanked the leash out of her hand, and we realized that it wasn’t safe for Jackie to be the dog walker.

A black dog with a white chest lying on the sofa, looking toward the camera

Over the past couple of years though, Ashley has gradually become more tractable, and today we decided to experiment once again with Jackie being the dog walker.

It worked great! Ashley pulled some, but I don’t think Jackie was ever in danger of being pulled over, or of losing the leash.

We were thinking of it especially because tomorrow I’m going to spend close to 10 hours at an all-day sword fighting workshop organized by my local club TMHF, which is bringing in three well-known HEMA instructors to teach classes. There’s a group lunch, but I’m going to have to miss it to dash home and walk the dog. But since this outing went so well, hopefully next time there’s something like this, Jackie will be able to do the dog walking. It’s also a useful backup, just in case I’m sick or injured, to have Jackie able to do what’s necessary.

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Just before my summer trip to Amherst, I got a Covid booster—even though the new Covid shot was just about to come out—because I wanted to minimize the chance of catching Covid on a plane or at an airport, and bringing it to my mom or brother.

Since then, I’ve been waiting for four months to pass, so I could get the new shot, now that it’s available. (It turns out that now you only have to wait two months, but nobody told me that.) Anyway, the four months are up, so I got my Covid booster and a flu shot this morning.

Me with two band aids on my left arm, where I got a Covid shot and a flu shot
Flu shot and Covid shot

My left arm is now moderately sore. In fact, it roughly matches my right arm, which has been sore for months now. (I think originally dog-walking injuries to my right elbow and right shoulder, exacerbated by sword fighting, and exercise. I’ve recently started walking the dog left-handed, cut my sword fighting practice to just once a week, and cut the weight way down on my kettlebell clean&press. Oh, and I have a modest bruise on the right bicep where yesterday I took thrust that just missed the protective plate on my fencing jacket. The jacket is also padded though, and the thrust wasn’t that hard, and the sword was nicely flexible to make it safe for sparring between friends.)

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Ashley caught a vole! I wouldn’t let her eat it, because who knows what parasites she’d get from eating a raw wild animal, but she took it very well when I made her drop the vole.

It seemed to have survived being in Ashley’s mouth for several seconds. So Ashley will get to try to catch it again!

A black dog with its snout in the leaves of last summer's flower garden

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At 10:00 AM on the first Tuesday of the month, the county tests its emergency sirens.

Ashley with her head tipped back on mouth in a little circle, howling along with the emergency sirens

The very first month we had Ashley, we happened to be walking right under one of the sirens at the moment it started up. Ashley started howling along with it, which made me laugh. And Ashley looked a little embarrassed, thinking she’d done something wrong. I didn’t want that, so I started howling as well.

Since then, Ashley and I (and Jackie when she’s with us) have howled along with the emergency sirens every month.

Our neighbors have not complained, although I suppose they think we’re rather weird.