World Cup...

There´s a photo competition with the topic "soccer world cup" in "my" fotocummunity and this is what I´ve come up with so far:
There´s hardly a subject I find more boring than soccer but I really want the third price, a digital single-lens reflex camera :).
No chance I guess but it´s worth a shot anyway, got nothing to loose.

more pics from dog walks

Jack in black & white - he´s not a "cute" dog to me, he´s a character...

Chip whith his giant ears ;)


Another beautiful sunset in Lingen

A cocker spaniel in the shelter - not a genius but very cuddly ;).

Trouble shooting

Another picture of Jack - with a mistake I made.
Can you spot it?

Attempt at making a shelter-ad for my car

Taken today when Claudia and me walked Jack & J.R., two of "our" dogs from the animal shelter.

"When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all."
Edward O Wilson, Professor of Science, Harvard

Radio

Excellent : Listen to "the Mark steel lecture" on BBC 7, it´s about Mohammed Ali, not about his sporting career but on the political background.

Cuteness overload

Emma, a beagle-mix puppy, Masha, a west-highland-white terrier and me, a human being.
Thanks to Claudia for taking this pic in our animal shelter.

"Whoever said you can´t buy happiness forgot about puppies!"

Mor dog an animal quotes here.

Here be dragons

Just for fun, a Kinder surprise egg , my digicam and me

Destruction...

I had to dismatle the guinea pig enclosure in my bathroom cause I managed to leave the lint trap of my new washing machine open and flooded it.
Of course some water managed to find aits way below the styrofoam slabs I used for isolation and that was it.
Besides, the shower tub seems to be leaking and the person living downstairs has got water stains in his kitchen - so hopefully today my landlord will check it ("check it out,man, it´s massive! " - my english will porbably deteriorate/change into comic speech if I keep listening to BBC 7 excessively) today and fix it.
Anyway, Rotschwein and Streifenschwein (red pig & stripey pig) had to move into the cage in the living room yeserday. It now apperars to be rather small. So I´m already thinking about building an nice cage for the living room.
I´ve got lots of ideas, unfortunualtely the good ones do involve some very expensive material,whi I really can´t effort.

Und unsere Morgen morden unsre Heute...

One for the german speakers : a poem from Annette von Droste-Hülshoff called "carpe diem".
I just wish I could...

Here´s you´ll find the complete poem online

Great Dog website!

I just stumbled upon a brilliant website on "dog-enrichment" while looking for guidelines on building your own hurdles.
A target stick I got already (got the idea from working in a zoo), but theres a whole universe full of tinkering ideas for me and fun for Jack !
Excellent site, highly recommended!

It´s Uniform Resource Locator (in case you ever wondered what URL stood for ;) ):
http://www.spass-mit-hund.de/

It´s german but most of the many pics are self-explaining.
I can´t wait to try out some of the stuff...

On a sadder note it makes me once again crave for taking Jack (or any other of "my" shelter dogs, come to that) home with me.
Not (only) becaue I believe they need and deserve a good home, but for purely egoistic reasons, I would love to have a dog!
Well, I´d better stop dreaming, got to be realistic once in a while...

Jack, exporing his new territory ;)

The big move

Finally the big day has come - today our shelter-dogs were moved to their new home.

The cats and rodents had already been taken to the new building the days before.

The "dog move" was mostly done by the keepers and a lot of volunteers (like me ;) ).
It´s been really good to see so many people working together for a common cause and everybody was in good spirits, I believe mostly because the improvement for "our" pets was so obious.
It´s been a nice change...;).

And even if it the coordination must have been pure stress for all of the keepers, especially the "boss", all of them managed to stay polite and civil - I was well impressed with their efforts.

In spite of the new building not being turnkeyed and although I would have liked some things differently, e.g. a bigger room for the small animals, it´s a job very well done for such a comparatively small association!
Especially if you like me were treated to the stunning contrast between the old and the new shelter.

I´m so happy that the dogs & cats (and some of the rodents) finally have got appropriate quarters.
The dog and cat kennels are great and for once it´s been a pleasure to shove one´s dog into them.

(Even though Jack and his new "kennel-mate" Aiko don´t get along with each other at all - I just hope they´re not going to start fighting in earnest, especially as Jack, the german hunt terrier, wouln´t stand a chance against the bernese mountain dog mix Aiko, who is bout four times his size.)

Compliments and thanks to the many people who have made this possible!!!

The new dog kennels:


in comparison to one of tho old ones:


The timid West Highland White Terrier Masha has already made friends with one of her new flatmates, a gorgeous puppy ;):

Got the new cage today - and no, I´m not a dwarf :).

Navigation wanted

Hi there,

I got myself a huge guinea pig cage (length 1,50 m) at e-bay germany which costs new about 150 Euro. I got it for 10 if everything works out tomorrow.

I´ll have to pick it up im "Haselünne", a town bout 40 km north of here.
So I turned on my beloved "map 24" ang got these instructions:
"Sie starten im Helschen in Emsbüren (Helschen) und fahren 292 m in Richtung Helschen (L58).
Verlassen Sie das Helschen und biegen Sie halb rechts in das Helschen (L58) ein. Folgen Sie dem Straßenverlauf für 109 m.
Sie verlassen Emsbüren (Helschen).
Verlassen Sie das Helschen (L58) und fahren Sie weiter geradeaus auf die L58"
(You start in Helschen and drive towards Helschen. Leave Helschen and turn half-right towards Helschen. You´re leaving Helschen.)

Now I won´t be surprised anymore if people can´t find me...I didn´t make it up, try entering Helschen to Haselünne and you´ll get the same result.

After 10 years as a Veggie and probably hundreds of hours spent on reading the lists of ingedients on Pizza & Co. I think this is a great idea: pruducts with a vegan/vegetarian marking.
I´ve seen them in the UK and in Australia but not yet in Germany.

Well, with the current "Gammelfleisch" scandal a there´s a good chance the vegatarian community with continue to grow and it´ll soon be a consumer group to count with.