Four-Legged Compass

Some of you may think I spend my life writing mystery novels and playing on my tractor, but that’s far from the truth. I’m a multifaceted person who is interested in all kinds of things, believe it or not. I’m always finding some weird rabbit hole to go down when I’m browsing online, and sometimes I even work those kind of things into a story. I’m just not sure how to make this latest bit of trivia fit into a Big Lake book.

By now you’re all familiar with Alli, my Velcro German shepherd. I call her that because just like Velcro, from the day we brought her home in early June, she’s been stuck to my side. That’s a common trait of German shepherds. While they love and protect their entire family, both two legged and four legged, they always seem to hone in on one person who becomes pretty much the center of their world. I’m thrilled it’s me, though sometimes I do get tired of tripping over her every time I turn around, and I would really like to go to the bathroom all by myself someday.

As I said, German shepherds love all their family. Alli is particularly fond of Mai Lyn, one of Terry’s kittens. Well, I guess she’s almost a cat now, but she is still a mischievous little ball of fur. And even though Alli is a giant compared to her, they get along very well. Mai Lyn will lie on Terry’s lap or the footrest of her recliner and Alli will lick her face, hug her with her paw, and they will cuddle. How cute is that?

Speaking of going to the bathroom (yes I’m really going to talk about that this early in the morning), I don’t just have a dog. As it turns out, I also have a four-legged compass. I learned this in one of those rabbit holes I went down into the other day. According to an article on PBS NewsHour, a study published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology reveals that dogs seem to have some kind of built-in directional ability and use the Earth’s magnetic fields when they’re going potty. The article says not only that, but that dog’s do so on a north-south axis. According to the two-year study, involving 70 dogs made up of over 35 breeds, researchers found that given a choice, dogs preferred to “excrete with the body being aligned along the north-south axis, avoiding east-west altogether.” Of course, I had to watch Alli carefully for a few days to see it it’s true, and it seems to be. So there you go, you don’t need a GPS, just Fido.

In other news, for the first time in weeks Terry felt up to going to town yesterday, so that’s what we did, and got quite a bit accomplished. We stopped at Lowe’s and bought a couple of extra chairs for the deck, two pairs of work gloves for me because if I’m not losing them Alli is running off with them and eventually bringing them back, as well as a couple of other things. Then we went to Tuscaloosa Tractor and I ordered the adjuster arm I need for my tractor ‘s three-point hitch. Since it won’t be in until later in the week, I stopped Tractor Supply and picked up something else that might work for a while so Travis and I can work on the range backstop today. We also went to the Shrimp Basket for an early dinner, and then went to Publix to stock up on groceries for the next couple of weeks.

By the time we got home Terry was feeling rather tired from so much activity, so once the groceries were put away we relaxed in our recliners for the rest of the evening.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. We saw this on an SUV in Tuscaloosa yesterday. I guess if you don’t have a stick family to brag about, you just have to make do.

Thought For The Day – Some days, you’re the pigeon, some days you’re the statue. Just live with it.