The Chillout Zone (Off-Topic Thread)

DBB

honerbright wrote: »

Poppy and Roisin had a fight today, poppy came out with a small hole in her neck. Their play fights sometimes escalate into something more serious, very upsetting when it happens, I'm not really sure the cause or how to put a stop to it. They're fairly hard to seperate because they both latch on to each other. Best of buds 99.9% of time :-(

Oh feck
This always reminds me of when two kids are playing, and the expression "it'll all end in tears"!
It might be a good idea to routinely, calmly, and subtly break up their play sessions, just for tiny little breaks to help the two of them come back down off the emotional high, before it spills over into fighting.
If you watch two dogs playing, you'll often see them interspersing their game with lots of little mini-breaks, where they'll suddenly break off the game and sniff the ground, or have a drink, or a groom, just for a few moments before starting the play again, but at a lower level of excitement.
So while they're playing, interrupt by calling one or both over for a quick hello, or a scratch, anything really just to take their minds off the game for a few moments... you should find that as time goes on, you'll need to do it less often. I wouldn't be inclined to allow them to play together unless there's someone there just to keep an eye on things in the background.

tk123

Sneezing is how they pause a game in our house lol!! Or what's become my new mantra while Bailey's mouth has gone through its various stages of stitches, wounds and chucks removed-ness over the last month 'LUCY THATS ENOUGH!!!!'

Lucy is crushing my legs atm keeping me awake

SillyMangoX

Cream is knocking on my door. Actually knocking. Why did he have to learn this skill. His meowing is loud enough without using his back leg to kick the door

rannerap

Umi is definitely on the mend anyway. She was never a talker really before this but has started to meow quite a lot. Last night she had me up most of the night with a combination of pawing at my face, claws out of course! Meowing, biting my fingers and sitting on top of me/wandering around the bed

Pumpkinseeds

Our new garden wall is up and getting mixed reactions from the cats. Toby seemed shocked that it was there when he went out into the garden last night, he was making all sorts of strange meows. Jazzy and Felix are happy since they can walk along it and survey the neighbourhood. Poppy seems to be ignorning it for now.

I'm really annoyed at the attitudes of tradesmen in Ireland. We're having a gate made and the guy has to come out and measure up for it. We were chatting about it on the phone and with the design of the gate I want a small square cut out to allow access for the cats, since it's 6 foot tall and Poppy has difficulty even jumping up on the wheelie bin. Jeez, you'd swear he was doing me a favour. His first response was to tell me that cats can jump very high and could just jump over it:rolleyes: Yeah, I'm paying a lot of money for the fricking thing and I don't want my cats to have to scale a 6 foot gate. Whatever happened to the customer is always right? Got there in the end though.

baby and crumble

I see this picture is doing the rounds today on Facebook.



It's taking ALL of my willpower to not correct every single friend who's posting it and tagging me.

HAMSTERS ARE NOT VEGAN!

THEY'RE NOT EVEN VEGETARIAN!!!!!

Aaaaaaarrrggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

VonVix

Today I learnt... conkers are poisonous to dogs. As my boyfriend just said "great, another thing for you to worry about on walks."

tk123

I just spent AGES looking for the remote - found it under Lucy!! :rolleyes:

aonb

I cant believe some of you have blackberries that arent ripe yet - the hedges are TEEMING with ripe blackberries here for weeks. Just in from collecting two buckets full - eaten alive by midges - and all the blackberries gone in to the freezer. Have eaten so many this year, we're kind of getting tired of them. Never had such a bumper year for them.

For the SLOE gin folk, dont forget to prick the sloes before putting them in the gin! Or Ive been told to put the sloes on a tray in the freezer overnight before putting them in the gin - enhances the flavour.

There are tons of sloes about here at the moment. Has anyone made SLOE JELLY - I was thinking about trying that but wonder what it tastes like???

Ive made tons of gooseberry jam, waiting for the crab apples to start falling to make some crabapple jelly - my favourite and one that really says autumn to me!

Oh and any comments/recommendations for Rosehip Jelly - tons of them about too but was thinking to leave them for the birds maybe...

SillyMangoX

A lot of our blackberries aren't ripe yet but there's nearly a blanket of crab apples on the ground. Pity they're nearly all destroyed from the wasps also discovered we have sloes today. I didn't even know what they were our pears are very nearly ripe though, can't wait for them they are always so nice

DBB

aonb wrote: »

I cant believe some of you have blackberries that arent ripe yet - the hedges are TEEMING with ripe blackberries here for weeks.

I think the blackberries inland, away from the coast have ripened a lot earlier than the coastal ones... I was stuffing my face with them a couple of weeks ago every day when I was working in around Kildare, western Meath, Westmeath, and Offaly, really beautiful, juicy and tasty they were too... but at home here on the east coast they're still a week or two off being ripe!

Ive made tons of gooseberry jam

If damson jam has a competitor for loveliness, it's got to be gooseberry jam God I love gooseberry anything!
I've made tons of damson jam now... swap you some jars of damson for gooseberry?!

mymo

tk123 wrote: »

I just spent AGES looking for the remote - found it under Lucy!! :rolleyes:

I couldn't figure out why the tv changed channels every time I stopped tickling Oliver's belly one day, until I realised he was lying on the remote!
I stopped tickling, he nudged me with his head, every time he moved channel changed.

tk123

Lololololololol I came into the room a few mins ago to find Lucy starting to hang off the end of the bed. Told her to he careful to wake her up and she moved back a bit.... Well the front of her body just slipped off the end of the bed but managed to wake up and kind of catch herself before her bum went down! The looks she gave me because I was laughing lol!!

SillyMangoX

Just saw on Facebook that someone set fire to a dog shelter in Manchester with at least 43 fatalities. Allegedly the person who did it is only 14. How awful

ferretone

Just posted my obituary for Lola, whom we lost 2 weeks ago, in the Departed Pets thread. However, we decided not to let the grass grow under our feet. We visited Dogs Trust last weekend, and picked out a gorgeous GSD X pup, just over 3 months old. We had our home visit on Wednesday and got approved, so we will be picking her up on Sunday. Wish us luck with her

ferretone

Here's a pic of the pup we're getting. We had to make it through the glass, as all the puppies in the centre are currently in quarantine, due to a bug one of them picked up.

Whispered

Want jam and cute puppy too please.

tk123

In the park this morning...which was extremely foggy and a bit freaky... Anways Lucy hopped into the river and started stalking towards a small sea gull..she was getting closer and closer and I realised it must be injured because it wasn't flying away. Next she was right beside it and it kind of opened it's wings and flopped down in the water. I ran over calling her but she'd look at me and then wouldn't come out - she kept nudging the bird with her nose and it started to swim away with her following. Luckily it swam across a deep part that Lucy isn't to keen on crossing and I got her attention with my emergency squeaky tug and she hopped out for a game!! O M G!!! I don't know what I would have done if she'd killed it!!

SillyMangoX

I Finally managed to pass my exams so am officially a vet nurse!(well I will be after graduation). Cream congratulated me by licking my eyelids. He has a strange way of showing affection.

muddypaws

tk123 wrote: »

In the park this morning...which was extremely foggy and a bit freaky... Anways Lucy hopped into the river and started stalking towards a small sea gull..she was getting closer and closer and I realised it must be injured because it wasn't flying away. Next she was right beside it and it kind of opened it's wings and flopped down in the water. I ran over calling her but she'd look at me and then wouldn't come out - she kept nudging the bird with her nose and it started to swim away with her following. Luckily it swam across a deep part that Lucy isn't to keen on crossing and I got her attention with my emergency squeaky tug and she hopped out for a game!! O M G!!! I don't know what I would have done if she'd killed it!!

Had sea gull pie for dinner tonight? As harsh as it is, it may have been better if she had killed it, if the poor thing was badly injured, otherwise it will probably have a long, lingering death.

mymo

I have forgiven Toby for my face, it's not looking too bad today, scared a kid from the preschool in the place I work yesterday.

Really hoping it heals up quick, can't even cover it with makeup since my skins so sensitive I rarely wear any, even then it's very light, not the kind of stuff to cover 3 big scratches.

Saw some kids with their new puppies where I work, pups look barely 6 weeks, maybe only 5, "sure they're eating a week, gotta get em young for the kids" is what I was told when I said they were too young to be away from the mother.
And worse still, kids had them on the street, there was a big parvovirus outbreak last year, bosses dog nearly died despite being vaccinated. We know of 5 dogs who died and 3 more were very ill.

angeldaisy

Aaaaargggghhhh, they'd really test your patience someday!

I had to leave Elly and Tara outside this afternoon while I was in college. Got home, let them in, fed them, then had to pop across the road.

Because I was only going to be 20 mins, figured they'd be fine not crated. Baby gate was up to stop them getting out of kitchen.

So..... I get back to find Elly had managed to get over the gate. Ok not a problem, or so I innocently thought! Cue me checking the bedrooms to find she had pooed on our spare bed and weed on our bed!!!! B#@##y dog!!!

Whispered

God, the rehoming thread is desperately sad.

Pumpkinseeds

We were window shopping at bedlinen yesterday, if I'd the money I could buy pretty much everything in BT's bedding section:D. It occurred to me that no matter how much money we had or how gorgeous the bedlinen would be, there'd still be a flannel throw on the bottom of the bed as Toby insists on it or he won't stay on the bed.:rolleyes: I often find myself buying duvet covers based on what's most likely to hide cat fur rather than which ones I really like.:)

mymo

Same here, even went for a dark coloured sofa this time.
I have a selection of throws for every room.

Pumpkinseeds

mymo wrote: »

Same here, even went for a dark coloured sofa this time.
I have a selection of throws for every room.

Toby is so fussy about throws. He loves fleece throws on the sofa and on his armchair, but not on the bed Even in the hottest weather we had to put a flannel duvet cover across the end of our bed. Strange chap.

SingItOut

I bought some new soft blankets for the dogs in penneys (all gone down to less than €3!) but since I've been sick the last few days I ended up keeping one for myself :pac:

tk123

Bailey was off his lead today for the first time since his surgery and was delighted with himself!

VonVix

Y'know, I never really liked rottweilers, they never appealed to me at all.

Now everyone at work lets me know if there's a rottweiler around... because all I do nowadays is play and wrestle (well, they tackle me and I just go with it!) with every rottweiler I see. Omg they are such big babies, they are the cutest lumps I've ever met. I could imagine they'd be bloody hard work though, with possibly wanting to play with you all the time lol!

tk123

lol Lucy's best friend is a Rottie boy named Bear! :pac: