Our host informed me today that I’ve run afoul of the pet photos clause in our blogging agreement, so here’s a photo of Old Daisy and Young Badger doing their synchronized sleeping thing:
Here’s the wee one looking like one of those lizards that can swivel their eyes in different directions. He’s just the goofiest creature on earth, as far as I know.
It’s notable that in every photograph where he’s not asleep, Badger looks alarmed. I don’t know why. His life is pretty stress-free. The only thing he’s in danger of in the photo above is someone throwing his damned tennis ball so he can chase it, which he invariably wants you to do.
He doesn’t play fetch like a normal dog, i.e., he doesn’t bring the ball back and drop it for you to throw. He expects to be chased down and have the ball taken away, then thrown. If you decline to chase him down, he’ll circle closer and closer, flaunting the ball and making a big show of how great it is to possess the ball, daring you to take it away until you finally do because the whole performance is so dumb.
Daisy very sensibly wants nothing to do with such foolishness and prefers to snooze and fart on her indoor or porch mat, depending on where the humans are located. She has the worst farts of any dog on the planet. If there was a way to measure such things, I would bet a substantial sum on it.
Open thread!
Jerzy Russian
I would imagine it should be possible to measure the concentration of fart molecules per cubic centimeter of air. Measuring how stinky the fart is might be harder, since that is subjective.
HumboldtBlue
As has been pointed out elsewhere, Badger always appears as if he has just seen Trump naked.
Betty Cracker
@HumboldtBlue: Haha, it’s true!
WereBear
Boxers and greyhounds. Known methane machines.
John Revolta
Badger would appear to be part asthma hound chihuahua https://www.retrojunk.com/article/show/3514/cartoon-king-2-ren-stimpy
Joy in FL
I love seeing your dogs.
kindness
I haven’t had a fetching dog in 12 years now. I miss it. Of my current pups one is a puppy and I would love it if he fetched but he doesn’t yet. He’ll chase it down but wants you to take it away from him just like Badger. The other is middle aged and she wants nothing to do with any fetch thing. If I threw a live squirrel she’d chase it but I wouldn’t do that to a poor squirrel.
Patricia Kayden
Tim Wayne
My dogs farted a lot when I had them on kibble. Since I switched them to the raw diet, they hardly ever fart and we go months without smelling one.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
She was in with an infection a couple of months ago and she got over it fine. Hopefully, once again.
Luciamia
Dog farts, eh? Got a feeling there’s plenty here that will take you up on that bet.
JPL
@Patricia Kayden: We are going to assume that all is well and if not then she needs to be kept on a ventilator for six plus months.
Kathleen
Badger would have fit in perfectly with the original cast (1930’s) of The Little Rascals. I picture him wearing a Spanky hat with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xco08d
NotMax
Part terrier, part Marty Feldman.
Marcopolo
In case any jackals want to get involved (or know anyone) in helping produce a vaccine for Covid-19:
And if anyone with some knowledge of how this process works would like to describe this stage of the vaccine development process in more detail that’d be nice.
JPL
Badger is the cutest dog evah.. just sayin
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Must be some way to capture and use all that methane to go off the grid.
MomSense
Awww, sweet puppies. I had a lab who fetched like Badger. We called him a Labrador Receiver.
BTW I love your pillow fabrics- such cheerful colors and pattern.
debbie
The ears heighten Badger’s general look of alarm.
NotMax
Although if Daisy teaches him to fart then you could shoo him with an accompaniment of “Outside! We don’ need no stinkin’ Badger!”
:)
mrmoshpotato
IT’S
BACONBADGER! ♥️Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jerzy Russian: Material for the IgNobel Awards.
mrmoshpotato
That’s the life!
donnah
My aunt had a Boston terrier named JoJo whose two front paws lifted off the ground every time he barked. He looked like a stapler. He also loved watching TV, back in the prehistoric times when TVs sat as consoles on the floor. We used to stand in front of him to block his view, at which he would impatiently move so he could resume watching.
I sense that Badger also has that abundance of personality.
CarolPW
@Jerzy Russian: That’s what gas chromatographs are for. Really, it’s right there in their name!
patrick II
Back when I was a freshman in high school I had a girlfriend whose dog had the worst farts in the world. Her parents would discretely leave us alone in the den but after a while send in the dog, which promptly ended any idea of a romantic make-out session.
Young love thwarted.
JPL
@patrick II: That’s awesome..
mrmoshpotato
@debbie: Haha, so true!
SiubhanDuinne
@Patricia Kayden:
Oh fuck.
ETA: I hope she recovers from this as robustly as she has recovered from all the other ailments that have come her way. I wish her a speedy, comfortable, and full return to health.
ETA2: Also, I don’t want to hear any “breaking news” out of Plains, Georgia. You got me, Universe?
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: Don’t even go there.
JL
My family had a boxer when i was growing up. I love boxers. Sweet and bonkers.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
I know, but it’s hard not to.
BruceFromOhio
Yay, puppehs and dog farts. What a great post!
jl
Thanks for petpix. As for Badger, some dog breeds always look alarmed. Their alarm look is always 11 on a scale of 1 to 10.
In other news, from things I’ve today, Trump is really making up for having to wear that mask. The interview that will be aired tonight looks to be a doozy.
Jay
Casey used to fart farts that could clear a large room out, while she was sleeping. They were enough to wake her up and she would sulk out of the room casting side eye, as if to say, “you filthy, dirty people, which one of you did that”.
of course, the old rule of she who smelt it first, dealt it, gave us a 5 second warning to clear the room.
Leto
Our dog has a similar chase habit, except she wants us to just chase her around the apartment. Back when we had a yard, and I could move faster than molasses, I would chase her in big circles. The #1 rule though in both instances was I’m not allowed to catch her. That is a mortal sin and offends her delicate sensibilities. Or when she finally gets tired and says no mas. Otherwise it’s: why aren’t you chasing me?
Regarding farts: if she’s down on the floor licking her bits, and toots, she’ll run from the scene of the crime as if she’s been utterly betrayed… The other instance usually involves her hopping up on the couch and getting a bit of “turbo assistance”.
Chetan Murthy
@Patricia Kayden: Oh god. If I were religious, I’d be praying right now. For her, and for all of us.
Jay
@Leto:
jet pack?
JPL
@Leto: The latest mutt is the first that looked at balls and showed disinterest. He does like to kill stuffed animals though.
Bluegirlfromwyo
Badger and Buddy (my pom) fetch the same way, only Buddy fetches old, rolled up pairs of socks. ?
Jay
raven
How Bout them Dawgs!!!
Leto
@Jay: I’m tempted to video her and dub over Knight Rider’s KITT turbo boost sound. *vroom vroom*
@JPL: She is an avid squeaker hunter. If the toy has a squeaker, she’ll get it. So many products that were touted as “indestructible” apparently didn’t take her smarts/persistence into account.
Edit: she doesn’t like Kong/rubber toys. We’ve tried but even with peanut butter or other treats stuffed inside, she hates those toys. Has to be stuffed animals with squeakers.
Benw
GOOD DOGS
narya
@Marcopolo: Dunno if this applies to vaccines, but, in general, IIRC, Phase I trials determine whether the med will kill people or have serious side effects, Phase II trials try to determine if there’s a dose response on a specific axis (e.g., more drug = more response), and Phase III is to assess efficacy (i.e., does it do what it claims to do, and/or does it do it better than current available drugs). For regular drug trials, they might give some folks with Condition X UsualTreatment and other folks NewTreatment (ideally, double-blind, so neither the treatment administrator nor the subjects know which treatment they received)–that’s the gold standard, anyway. There are drugs (e.g., cancer tx) that you don’t give to healthy volunteers, and there are drugs that can be really hard to evaluate against standard treatment (e.g., psych drugs of various sorts). In this case, I imagine they’d do a double blind (placebo/vaccine candidate). If something is showing noticeable efficacy (or previously unseen but serious side effects) early, they will stop the trial before completion.
jl
@narya: I think for vaccine, phase III particularly important for getting better estimates of safety for large groups, and estimating effectiveness ‘in the wild’, that is, does the vaccine reliably prevent infection over extended period of time, at typical exposures people experience.
Nicole
When we first got our rescue pit mix, as I hadn’t had a dog in 20 years, I googled for information on what to feed the dog and that was a mistake, as I fell into a website that VERY STRONGLY advised against anything with grain in it. So I read all the reviews they posted about dog foods, went for the one that got the best reviews, and the result was my poor, skinny, fresh-from-five-weeks-in-a-shelter dog went poop 5 time a day (consistency of pudding), and had farts that I think would have given Daisy a run for her money. Like, I wasn’t sure we could keep the dog, they were so bad. She also would only eat about once every 2 days, and wouldn’t take treats, or look for scraps on the sidewalk, or anything.
After a worried trip to the vet, and a prescribed month on rice and chicken and probiotics, the vet told me grain needed to be the main ingredient in our dog’s food. Sigh. I have received many a lecture from a well-meaning dog person in the seven years since about grain when they see me with a big bag of Beneful, but I shrug and say, “Doctor’s orders.”
And yeah, I know there are plenty of dogs who legit can’t handle grain. Mine, for whatever reason, needs it for her digestion, and now eats her food every day, and loves treats and had a glorious 5 minute struggle on the street last week trying not to give back a chicken bone she’d grabbed before my husband saw what she was doing. I’ll take that over the farts. They were brutal.
Jay
jl
@Jay: Standard issue BJ commenter has no problem continuously clearing maximum possible amount of bile. Cole should give RBG a free blog subscription, with a pet calendar?
prostratedragon
Jay
@Nicole:
glad it worked out, love, love , love Pittie X’s and 99% of their owners.
each dog is different.
Leto
@Nicole: one of the many nicknames for our dog is “Street Food” because of the same reasons.
Jay
@jl:
saw a yard sign the other day that said:
Wear a mask,
social distance,
Wash your hands,
as if RBG’s life depends on it.
Had to socially distance ask. Texas Refugee in the GWN.
Jay
@Leto:
c’mon, not Food Truck or Taco Truck?
SiubhanDuinne
@Jay:
It’s my experience that the hospital’s notion of “resting comfortably” and the patient’s notion of “resting comfortably” are two quite different things.
Jay
catclub
Do they put color in your farts? I could fart a rainbow.
Baud
@Jay:
Nice.
The Moar You Know
I have a stunning golden retriever. He is beautiful.
He won’t retrieve. Chases the ball, does a little victory lap, drops it.
He can’t swim. Sinks like a rock. Likes water only so long as he can feel ground under his feet.
He is terrified of cars, bikes, anything with wheels. He’s not a big fan of the dark. He is also utterly terrified of roads and sidewalks and has been since he was a baby. It’s what got him failed out of Guide Dogs (yep, real service animal!) at 11 months, which was fine by me. We had raised him anyway. They actually asked me “you know he’s got some serious issues, right?” No shit, buddy, I’ve been living with them every day. I can handle it.
He will go for a walk in two places and two places only. If you try and take him anywhere else he’ll go for about a half-mile, freak out, sit down and refuse to move. Carrying an 80 pound Golden back to the car is no fun.
He is lazy as fuck.
He is moody as shit, too. And not terribly cuddly unless it’s bedtime and it’s cold outside. During the summer he’s taken to sleeping on the floor.
He is wonderful to little dogs. He charms everyone who meets him (unless he’s in a shitty mood). He likes other dogs unreservedly unless they’re mean to him.
He loves me and my wife even though he rarely shows it overtly. I am his favorite. My wife’s a little pissed about that and should be, because he was her idea, not mine. And she did most if not all of his training. He’s a great dog in spite of being more than a little mentally weird because of her work.
I love him with all my heart
In about five minutes he’ll get up on the couch beside me, face away from me, and lie down with his butt just touching me. He’s such a fucking frat boy.
Jay
@SiubhanDuinne:
so far, luckily, my experience has always been “call a cab”, you guys need the bed for someone else much more.
since being an infant, ( 2 months, incubator baby), I have yet to spend a night in the hospital.
jl
@Jay: every good dog requires certification that food has spent time on a filthy surface as a guarantee of quality. Just coming from some damn truck don’t mean nothing. Has it been plopped on a filthy sidewalk? OK, now you’re talking high cuisine. Dogs won’t eat any old slop, they are picky, have high standards.
Nicole
@Jay:
Yeah, she’s been a wonderful first dog back after 20 years of not having one. She’s been a great fit for our family. You’re right; they’re an easy breed to love.
Miss Bianca
@Nicole: Oh, you should hear a vet I know rant about dog/cat food fads – it’s epic! the tl/dr version is: “Dogs are omnivores by design, cats are meat eaters by design, just remember that and feed whatever works for your pet”.
Nicole
@Leto: That’s hilarious. “Street Food.” Heh.
Man, and the times she just LICKS the sidewalk. Like, what the hell can possibly be on that to make it worth licking?
Though, it could be worse. My aunt had an otherwise delightful Scottie Terrier who liked to eat poop.
Nicole
@Miss Bianca: That makes me really happy to hear, because yeah, it sure does seem like there’s no one-size-fits-all for pooches and their diet. Nowadays I mostly google, “Is ( insert a human food) safe for dogs?” while I’m cooking so I can give her nibbles. Even there, she has her preferences (bok choy, yes. Carrots, no).
Jay
@jl:
guess you never met Allie, or Casey, who always wanted to have a word with the Chef about the quality of the caviar,
or Digger, who saw “street food/spawned out salmon/rotting garbage/roadkill/etc” as something to roll in, not eat.
CarolPW
@catclub: Sorry, no. But kidding aside they can be used to identify organic compounds. They were used (probably by graduate students) to figure out the chemicals causing the odors in asparagus pee and bandages.
Dan B
Cats here! (I know, horrors – Not Kosher!!!) But we’ve got a small boy cat who was born in a greenbelt and would have been a coyote treat. He plays fetch! Who knew? He’s also a very pretty two tone grey striped with a “scorpion tail”. He’s got lots of quirks but has learned to love getting petted and tolerate getting picked up and hugged.
Jager
For dogs, if it doesn’t smell bad it has no smell at all. The only smell I’ve seen our German Shepherd (Anze the Dog) recoil from was a dead rattlesnake on the road. Asked the vet about it, he said, “Venom”. Anything else, no problem.
The Thin Black Duke
@prostratedragon: Thank you. This was amazing.
Jay
@Jager:
dogs live in an olfactory world. Everything has a smell.
only bears are better at it, but luckily drug/bomb/rescue/tracking bears have not been widely adopted.
a bear can smell a tuna fish sandwich, inside a ziplock bag, inside a lunch box, inside a cooler, inside a camper, from 5km away.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
Badger’s got Marty Feldman Eyes.
Jager
@Jay:
Having had some experience with bears, Jay. I’ll pass on this tip I got from a climbing ranger in the Bugaboos, when you pack out your trash, put the really ripe stuff in a small plastic bag and tie it to your pack strap. If you are confronted by a bear as you hike out. Stop, untie the bag and toss it behind the bear. then slowly back away. It works. The rangers even pass out small, red plastic bags if you don’t happen to have one.
Jay
@Amir Khalid:
i thought the song was “Betty Davis Eyes”,……
Odie Hugh Manatee
“Daisy very sensibly wants nothing to do with such foolishness and prefers to snooze and fart on her indoor or porch mat, depending on where the humans are located.”
“The dog farted! WHY DID YOU FART, TIPPY? Look at him, he knows he farted. I seen his ass open up. Just like that.Well, I just happened to be looking at his ass by chance. I thought he was doing deep breathing exercises. I don’t know. What the hell do I know about the dog, for Chrissakes?”
SFAW
Betty –
Thanks for the Badger pics. As I’ve said before, I’m a cat person, but I really like seeing Badger. [No disrespect to Daisy, of course!]
J R in WV
Our white Lab mix, Alice, is 75 pounds of cute.
But being a farm dog, she is free to roam the ridges, and to sniff out carrion. I would venture to bet that a pupper eating old ripe carrion will produce the worst farts in history.
Bar none!!!
Ruckus
@narya:
I was on a trial, different situation entirely, for the VA, but it turns out the company that made the drug/placebo had a small problem with some sort of manufacturing error and there was a toxic substance in the medication, not much over, but over the very small allowed limit, so it was all pulled. So the trial is now on hold. That was about a month ago, haven’t heard a thing since.
Miss Bianca
@J R in WV: Believe me when I tell you, this is true.