Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.

This post isn't dog (or even pet) related--so feel free to skip it! But here are some photos from my  recent trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. It was a very cool place.

"Baby", the first computer

A re-created textile mill

Dolls... of some kind?

Some electric thing

Lamps!

Big engine thing

Showroom - living room from the 1950s

Showroom - kitchen from the 1930s(?)

Showroom - kitchen from the 1950s (?)

Showroom

Showroom

Gas gallery: this place STUNK of gas. Ew!

Gas lamp

Cement gun

Coal/miner man

Gas oven and a very cool apron/dress thing

Lamp-lighter man

Awesome looking engine part

The BEST bicycle

The Importance of Being A Mouse.

It has happened! I've finally found a way to tell my girl mice apart. As with most things to do with mice, it is the tails that are important here.

Flower is a little bit squinty, and has a fairly thin tail.

Tosca has a bumpy, wiggle-y tail.

Mozart has a fairly fat tail.

Kinkajou has a kinked tail.

And Wheatley, of course, looks slightly different to my fat girls!

Hello!

I keep meaning to post, and then forgetting. My busy, busy life of doing absolutely nothing is destroying my little mind! Please accept a Lola, begging for forgiveness (and a throw of her ball).

I've finished for summer now, and I'm spending a lot of time exercising my little demon dog. The downside to this is that she's regressed in her alone training; yesterday she was on her own for six or so hours whilst me and a friend went to a museum in Manchester (pictures coming later! it was fantastic!) for her birthday, and when I got back there was a poop/pee explosion all over the floor. Ick. She also peed in her crate in the hour that she was left after I'd walked her.

On the plus side, I've been able to do a lot of conditioning toward other dogs. We've been biking along a pretty extensive canal almost every day, and given that the weather has been absolutely stunning we've usually seen 8-9 other dogs on average. Each time, I've stopped my bike and either picked her up (if the dog is making a beeline toward her) or just fed her for remaining in place as the other dog passes. She's been able to keep her cool with dogs passing within a metre or two; though if they come right up to her, she'll freeze and react. Trying to work on/around that, but it's difficult because it's so reinforcing.

Jess is doing great, but she isn't doing much. The mice are happy in their cages, and they get dried mealworms very often. The girl mice are much less skittish now that they're in wire cages, though the downside to these cages is that the girls are very messy. It's kind of alarming just how much waste they can squish between the bars in a single night! Wheatley remains a good boy though.

I'm currently looking for a part time job, and thinking that I should start researching for my dissertation. That's going to take up basically all of my life next year (especially the first semester, I expect) and I really ought to start on it sooner rather than later. But I also need to remember that I have this here blog, and to come post and comment more often. I miss you all!

Mice: Wheatley.

I'll have some more posts soon. We've not been very busy lately... but in a weird way, I've been doing a fair amount. I'll put up a big update post tomorrow. :)

St George.

Happy St George's Day!

Lola doesn't care who the chap is, or that she had to suffer through the "indignity" of wearing the Britain's Got Talent bandana, as long as I agreed to throw the ball after. Dogs are so easy to please.

Deadlines.

I love deadlines! Love them so much!

University is a big challenge at the moment. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. Easter holidays went past in a blur of essays and talking about essays. Woo.

Wheatley's cage has been upgraded, now that he's big enough not to slip through the bars. He's in the blue version of the girls' cage. They look very cute next to each other! I'll take a photo soon; at the moment I haven't taken many because I have a new laptop (!!!), my first, and I don't want to kill my internal memory with all of my photos. So I need to get an external hard drive before I take hundreds of photos again.

The dogs are doing good. My friend Bethan came around again for a week and a half; by the end of that time, Lola was wiggling at her constantly, not growling at all, sitting on her whenever I didn't pay her attention, and so on. It was very cute. Jess, of course, was happy to be fussed over.

Once university is done (just a fortnight until all of my final deadlines, then free for summer!), I'm going to start taking Lola into town each day to work more on her reactivity. She's doing very well, though still has meltdowns about running children and dogs. But we'll be working on it.

Snapshot Saturday.

Friday Photos.

Yesterday, the new cages for the mice (pink for the girls; blue for Wheatley, though he can't go in his until he's a little bigger) arrived. The girls thanked me by throwing their substrate out of the cage overnight.

The photo makes it look smaller than it is - but it's a really decent size.

We also took Lola and Millie out, for a nice long walk to take advantage of the sunshine. They enjoyed it!

The walk got cut short when we reached a fence we couldn't go past without dogs being on lead (and no sign beyond that of a field where Lola, at least, could be off again) so we headed back. But not before finding what looked like a crash site for aliens...

On the way back, we saw a small, scruffy brown terrier that came out of its garden to bark at us. Lola, at first, was unimpressed; I backed up with her, hoping the owner would come out before she started barking, as I was out of treats. She did really well though, and only started growling a little when the other dog reached Millie. And then, weirdly, she started whining. Her body posture wasn't as tense as it usually is, so I let the leash go slack and she led me to the dog. She sniffed, wagged her tail, and tried to invite it to play. :) Good girl.