breathing space: furkids

Showing posts with label furkids. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 1

Fantail versus Fur-kid

With the summer heat beating down on everyone and chasing off the backyard Brown Shrike to seek cooler climes, the Pied Fantails have taken over the garden.

Seasonal king of the backyard: the Pied Fantail

Unfortunately for the fur-kid, whose curious exploration of the backyard has come to mean being dive-bombed by one (or two) very aggressive bird(s)!

The poor dog is at a loss as what to do with this angry bird going for his butt!

(domesticated bantam chicken and wild colasisi sounds in the background)

The fur-kid seems to have forgotten his lesson from last year where he would carefully scope out the backyard from the side, taking a careful look at the gardenia bush which was a favorite perch, before making his appearance.

This time the attacks are pure surprise as the bombers come from above at the opposite end of the garden. The base seems to be a huge tamarind tree.

The cause for such fury? Well, it looks that love is in the air and the fantail pair are on their way to raising a new generation of little feathered hellions.

Unfortunately, they've already dropped two ivory colored eggs on the ground! I haven't spotted the nest yet, but I am certain it is high up in the tree and certainly beyond reach to return the eggs. Hopefully the pair has more than 2 eggs in their basket!

Hoping there are more eggs in the nest.

Monday, August 27

farewell maggie

maggie

(2002 - 2012)

you will always be the baby.

i won't be able to take care of you anymore,

but i know you are well now with emily, sabine & pearl,

waiting for me over the rainbow bridge.

it's the end of an era.

Sunday, August 12

rainy day reads

it looks like my life is back to normal starting tomorrow, and the weather situation is looking up. hopefully we have several sunny days before the rainy season kicks in again.

having left my work in the office (wink, wink), i had almost a whole week catching up on extra-curricular activities usually reserved for semestral breaks. well, at least activities that could be done indoors while on house flood-watch.

as the neighborhood creek swelled and overflowed over and again with the hard rain, the doggies were stuck indoors with albert, warm and safe and ... asleep! it was tempting to follow their suite, but the rain made me too nervous to rest and i had to keep busy and awake.

what do fur-kids do on a rainy day? clockwise: maggie: sleep, bertie: eat, dooku: sleep

with the usual outdoor stuff out of the question i was stuck with virtual butterfly-watching and vicarious birding.

rainy day reads: kenn kaufman's kingbird highway and khew sin khoon & horace tan's singapore butte- and cat field guides

adri had gotten me 2 books from his recent trip to singapore: a butterfly photographic field guide and a caterpillar photographic field guide. so as rain poured outside my window, i was transported to sunny gardens with butterflies fluttering about. the philippines' shares many species with south-east asian neighbor singapore, and although there are many local and endemic species unique to our country, we don't have a handy field guide available (unless i count butterfly enthusiasts lydia & co.- but they won't fit in my bag and i can't bring them on bird- and butte- watching trips all the time!), so in the meantime hong kong and singapore field guides have to do.

i am addicted to the singapore butterfly enthusiasts websites, the butterfly circle and the very organized online photographic gallery. i have been trying to get a copy of the butterfly field guide for the longest time since its launch 2 years ago. many have failed (sorry george & ben for having you walk all over singapore in vain) but it was finally adri who got them for me: super duper thanks adri!

from time to time i would leaf through kenn kaufman's kingbird highway, a chronicle of his personal"big year" in the 1970s. the bird club launched the first local big year competition last july, but i didn't join. i have different objectives for my current birding year, and a competition to see the most birds in 365 days is not one of them!

now i'm starting the work week normally and looking forward to sunnier weekends so i can move on from virtual and vicarious activities indoors to actual and personal adventures outside!

Thursday, August 4

sun! glorious sun!

sunshine after weeks of rain:

good for laundry AND for labradors.

Monday, July 19

goodbye emily

emily
1997 - 2010

emily, the sweetest and happiest dog ever.
thanks for all the wonderful memories.
you were my favorite.
wait for me at the rainbow bridge em.

Thursday, July 9

Sabine, my little monster dog

I chose Sabine from her litter because she paid the most attention to me. She was my second lab, I knew not to take the rowdiest puppy, nor the smallest one. I took her home in February 2000.

She grew up to be a beautiful dog, and so much more the sport-y dog than Emily. She loved playing ball, and chased birds and cats with gusto. She swam in Caliraya, she swam in Anilao. She sat when I asked her to, lay down when I had to cut her nails. When she slept in my room, she woke me up if she had to go in the middle of the night. She was a good dog.

During the Ateneo Dog Walks, my companions would call her monster dog, because she would stand her ground against the bigger pit bulls and even a giant doberman. Sungit was how they would describe her.

Still, she always had an air of dignity about her. She would lie on her stomach, head up, front feet crossed in front of her, a ball by her side.

Her kidney problems started when she was 7 years old. It was after the heaviest downpour we had experienced in Tierra Pura, the only time that the flood waters reached the inside of the house. It seemed a miracle that she recovered, and she was back to chasing balls. She was back to normal, always greeting anyone with a ball, toy, or (in the lack of those) stone, ready to play fetch.

On Tuesday, after a very bad month of struggling with the recurrence of her renal problem, the only recurrence after 3 years, she finally closed her eyes to rest, and as I stroked her fur, breathed her last.

We buried her in the backyard, with one of her tennis balls. I will miss my little monster dog. I hope she now has endless fields to run around in and all the balls and birds and cats she wants to chase.

Sabine
1999 - 2009