Large Fierce Mammal

Dusty - His mother looked about the same, only black with a white blaze on her chest.

Once upon a time my business included operation of the dispatch centre that handled calls for the Lunenburg-Mahone Bay Police Service and five Lunenburg County fire departments. A regular event was somebody losing track of their dog, or someone calling in to report that they had a stray in their possession. The logistics of these calls led me to the decision to have them brought to me for assessment and then, if the dog in question wasn’t unmanageably aggressive or in need of veterinary care, I would take them in and hold them for 24 hours pending the owner turning up. After 24 hours the plan was for the dog to be transported to the SHAID animal shelter but in the end that only ever happened once. In every other case the owner called, could positively ID their dog, and a reunion was orchestrated without delay.

One of those calls marked the start of a lengthy relationship between me and a promiscuous mutt named Shadow. We met while I was working a shift as Duty Dispatcher, through a phone call to the police from an exasperated man who lived on the third floor of an apartment building in downtown Lunenburg. As soon as I picked up the phone, and before the caller even started speaking, I could hear a loud chorus of yowling that, as it turned out, was coming from a dog that had climbed the fire escape to his door, and was now demanding that she be let inside. The man told me that his prowler was a female black Labrador Retriever type dog that he believed had recently had puppies because her teats were quite prominently pendulous. He said he liked dogs but couldn’t let her in because he had two cats of his own. I dispatched a unit and, within ten minutes, met Shadow for the first time.

She smelled like low tide, was wearing a grungy leather collar with out of date Municipality of Lunenburg tags, and wanted me to wear her for a hat. Full body wagging coupled with excited, non-stop vocalization that ran the full range from howling to high pitched yipping – she was one excited girl! It took a while before she came to realize that I was not going to permit her to climb up one side of me and down the other, but even after she calmed down, any attention I gave her started her ramping up again. My own dogs, of which I had three at the time, thought she was nuts. (more…)

Our kitchen is equipped with a steadily growing library of books about food and drink. Add to that our voracious surfing of blogs and other websites on those subjects and it’s not surprising our diet is as rich and varied as it is.

But this article isn’t about anything so grand as a recipe that will rock your next dinner party. Instead, I’m going to reveal some very simple and tasty tricks Mrs. LFM uses to sex up two commonly encountered ingredients – water and ketchup. We like these ideas so much we decided they were too good to keep locked up in our fridge. (more…)

Bullshittery shot with my cel phone camera.

I was on a construction site last week. A historic old church in Mahone Bay is undergoing renovations and I was there to inspect the upgrades made to the fire alarm system. One of the structural changes involved the addition of a mezzanine above a portion of the Sunday School hall. Access to the mezzanine is by means of a pull down attic hatch with integral ladder. (more…)

Less expensive “waterfront” property.

Lately I’ve found it impossible to swing a dead politician without hitting something that refers to the 2012 apocalyptic deadline. Apparently there’s no point in hand wringing over rogue asteroids any more because it’s all pre-determined. If you’re diagnosed tomorrow with a condition that will make your life unbearable in three or four years, forget about it. Things are about to get a whole lot worse.

The term “end of the world” means different things to different people. Depending on your depth of character, it runs the gamut from the extinction of all life on earth to the announcement that Ricky Martin is gay. I’ve lost track of how many times the world was supposed to end in the over half a century that I’ve been alive, but I can say with certainty that my earliest realization that there was something out there big enough to scare my parents came to me at the age of five as I watched their reactions to the Cuban missile crisis in October of 1962. I remember them sitting hunched over pamphlets and plans for fallout shelters, agonizing over how they would afford the necessary supplies and modifications to our basement. (more…)

Unfortunately, there is no vaccine to cure or prevent human cluelessness, although a 200% “Not Paying Attention” tax is being considered.

J. Allen Boone said, “There’s facts about dogs, and then there’s opinions about them. The dogs have the facts, and the humans have the opinions. If you want the facts about the dog, always get them straight from the dog. If you want opinions, get them from humans.”

It’s an unfortunate fact that what a lot of dog owners “know” about dogs is actually an assemblage of loosely connected beliefs, absorbed more than actually learned, from a combination of childhood experiences, common misconceptions heard spoken so often, and for so many years, that they have assumed the mantle of truth, television programs, movies, and things the dog they have now is trying to tell them that they just don’t get, even though they think they do. Interestingly, a lot of these people have had a series of dogs over many years that they lived contented lives with. How did this happen in spite of clueless handling? Because dogs are incredibly perceptive, empathic, and adaptable, all of which gives them the ability to work around the crazy, delusional, and often stupid side of humans. (more…)

This is not an invisible fence.

Mrs. LFM and I work professionally in the field of dog rehabilitation and dog owner training. It also periodically happens that a dog can no longer remain in its present home and we are called upon to be involved in the re-homing process. Some of these dogs have issues and require rehabilitation before they can be placed, others do not, but no matter what, the adoption of any dog through Golden Mountain Dog Solutions requires the signing of an Adoption Agreement. This Agreement is non-negotiable, each item in it exists for sound reasons, and the adoption process ends immediately for any candidate that refuses to sign it as written.

Item 11 in our Adoption Agreement states:

“The Dog is not to be confined within an area contained by an “Invisible Fence” or any similar product designed to automatically administer electric shocks or other corrective signals, nor shall it be subjected to the effects of systems or equipment designed to control barking or otherwise modify its behaviour through electric shocks, exposure to sound waves, or to  radiation of any frequency.”

This policy isn’t unique to Golden Mountain Dog Solutions. There are other animal rescue organizations that include some version of this stipulation in their own adoption contracts. (more…)

Writer H. L. Mencken once said, “It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.” Those words came to mind as I read the article that appeared on the CBC website this morning titled “Deep Water Oil Drill Record Excellent: Chevron“.

As the title implies, Chevron Canada executives are trying to soothe public concerns over their stated intentions to drill for oil in 2600 meters of water at a location just north of the Grand Banks, 430 kilometers northeast of St. John’s Newfoundland. The article describes the intended drill site as being “… significantly deeper than the Deepwater Horizon project in the Gulf of Mexico, “ and quotes Chevron vice-president Mark MacLeod as saying, “Chevron has drilled over 300 deepwater wells. We’ve never had a blowout in deep water.”

Taken as a simple statement of facts as known to date, I’m sure Mr. MacLeod’s words are completely true, but they carry the implication that drilling for oil in deep water would be safe as long as Chevron does it, and therein lies a deeper and even more reprehensible falsehood. His quote reminded me of another one, in this case spoken in my presence some years back. Canadian Forces Base Cornwallis in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley region had been decommissioned, placed under civilian management, and renamed Cornwallis Park. I had undertaken the contract to assess the state of fire alarm and assorted other protective systems in all the buildings in the Park, and to make recommendations for repairs and upgrades where required. (more…)

This is a follow-up to my article titled The Best Marinated Herring I’ve Ever Tasted that was posted here back on 4 February 2010. In case you missed it, herring lovers will be pleased to know that the exquisite Solomon Gundy made by Mersey Point Fish Products is now sold at both Sobey’s and Super Store, and it’s now available in both stores in the 750 gram herring addict size. The bigger the better because around here those little jars get empty fast!

Group shot taken at the 2010 Essex Area Spring Outdoor Adventure Camp organized and hosted by 2nd Kingsville Scouting. Photo courtesy of Marlene Ross with thanks to Eric Noeldechen.

As related in my 30 May 2010 article titled Scout Leading Revisited, I was once tapped to fill the post of Publicity Chairman for the Lunenburg District Scouting Commission. Among my duties was the writing of a weekly column that appeared in both the Lunenburg Progress Enterprise and the Bridgewater Bulletin in space generously donated as a public service by their common publisher.

My involvement with Scouting in those days overlapped the 75th anniversary of the Movement’s founding. As usual, major events in the history of an organization are often marked with a tagline that sees as much exposure as possible while festivities are being observed, and this was no different. The one chosen in 1982 was “The Spirit Lives On”, and was promptly adopted by me the following year as the byline under which my first column appeared on 23 February 1983. (more…)

I have just received word that a particularly vile enemy of mine, a person I have always detested to a degree I find difficult to put into words, has done me the courtesy of dying. I am happy to report that, by this act, a life that rejoiced in the misery and misfortunes of others was finally capped with at least one act of decency.

To my mind, this person was a misery the world is better off without, and while I can’t take credit for having had a hand in offing them myself, I will be celebrating their deletion from this mortal coil for at least the next six months.

I offer these words in the sincere hope that they will help to offset the litany of sappy bullshit that was this person’s obituary.

Let the revelry begin.