It’s been a while since I posted. There hasn’t been much going on here worth mentioning. I am doing some programming work for the company I used to work for. I wrote a pretty complicated program about 20 years ago to read NOAA satellite data, and I have to update it. I’m glad I put copious comments in it so I can figure out what I did all those years ago.

Zoe is making slow improvement in the two areas that need improvement. The first is in not chasing cats. Here she is with Mollie in calm times.

Unfortunately, Mollie tends to run when she sees Zoe, and a small running animal triggers Zoe’s hunting instinct.

Zoe and Sam are getting along quite well. They play well together. I have been taking them into the front yard after lunch almost every day and letting them have 15 or 20 minutes of very vigorous biting and chewing on each other.

I originally let them both off the leash, which worked well for a few times, but they decided to take a four-hour trip around the neighborhood a couple of times, so they are now playing on leash. My arm has been almost jerked out of my shoulder socket a couple of times when Zoe gets a good head of steam and runs to the end of the leash. I got a nice rope burn another time. But they enjoy it.

Zoe has snarled and snapped at Sam twice, if I remember correctly, but this is more typical of their relationship now.

As both of my readers know, I have been taking our dogs on a longish walk every morning for several years, down the road and then back up. I have always looked forward to it, but not so much now. Sam and Zeke were so well behaved on their leashes that I could just walk and let my mind wander. And I like to let my mind wander. However, Zoe is not leash trained. She pulls so much it actually makes my arthritic knees hurt. So now I usually turn around and head home about halfway through the normal walk.

I have a head collar (Gentle Leader), which is supposed to help train dogs not to pull. It has two loops, one that goes up high on the neck like a normal collar, and one that goes around the muzzle. When the dog pulls, it puts pressure on the muzzle and tends to turn the dog’s head back towards the person holding the leash. Some people think the Gentle Leader will train a dog to walk without pulling while wearing the Gentle Leader, but not when not wearing it. In any event, it’s a trial for me to walk her right now.

I try to give the dogs enough freedom on their walks to investigate since they spend most of their lives inside. Lately, that has involved leaves in the ditch beside the road.

They run their heads under the leaves and push forward, like they are plowing the leaves. The leaves are pretty deep. I imagine they provide good cover for little creatures like mice.

So, for the next little while, I expect to be trying to leash train Zoe, and trying to remember how to write the code to apply response function files to spectral radiance files.