Their Place in the Country

Eliot and Alexandra Angle, interior designers from Los Angeles, built a wood-shingled house inspired by local barns in a remote corner of Nova Scotia. The share the cottage with their daughter, Elefe, now 3, and their Tibetan terriers, Sturtevant and Augustus.

Michigan Morels and Ramps

Morels to make Martha Stewart proud

Ramp tops

Alert: Please Leave Pets At Home In Hot Weather, Not in Your Car

Overheating Kills

With summer upon us, temperatures around the nation have been rising and nothing makes me more mad me than discovering a helpless pet locked in a hot car on a warm day - even if the windows are open. WHAT IN THE HECK are these people thinking!?!

Point Number One: Even on a relatively milld 85 degree day, it only takes 10 minutes for the inside of your car to reach 102 degrees - even when the windows have been left open an inch or two. Within 30 minutes a car's interior can actually reach a staggering 120 degrees. Your car is now an oven.

Point Number Two: Even if the temperature outside is a pleasant 70 degrees, the inside of your car may be as much as 20 degrees hotter. Parking your car in shade does not offer protection on a hot day because the sun moves.

Point Number Three: While humans have sweat glands all over our bodies that help regulate our body heat, dogs cool down mostly by panting, which is much less efficient than sweating. In only a short amount of time, a dog with a high body temperature can suffer critical damage to his nervous system, heart, liver and brain.

Can't Help Myself

Can't help myself from
sharing these pics of Rufus,
Grand Champion
Deep Acres Fields of Gold,
in the ring at the 2011
National Specialty show.

XO
Suddie

DOGLAND

So...we are headed today to Dogland, La Petite Hut, our cottage in the north woods near a most pristine bay. Can't say we're sorry to go. It's been beastly hot here.

Summer will be filled with walks and swimming and...PUPPIES.

Roxie has been dragging a bit carrying all that extra cargo in this hot, hot weather. I know she will be much more comfortable in the woods.

So...I am signing off for the summer. I will miss you, but I am sure I will haves lots of news when I return. If you need to be in touch: deepacresfarm@mac.com

Oh...and one more thing before we shove off, I just received this official pic of Rufus, Grand Champion Deep Acres Fields of Gold, from the Invitational of Top Champions. Pretty boy, isn't he?

PS. We don't actually live at Dogland. We just love the sign. We stay down the road a bit and love to walk by nearly every day.

New Film Realistically Portrays How We Live with Dogs

Christopher Plummer, left, and Ewan McGregor with their canine costar, Arthur

It’s a rare film that offers a realistic portrayal of the human-dog bond, but writer/director Mike Mills does just that in his new, very personal, movie, Beginners. Ewan McGregor stars as Oliver, who’s not only navigating his father’s final years (Hal, played by Christopher Plummer) but also a burgeoning love affair in the company of his father’s Jack Russell Terrier, Arthur — portrayed by the incredibly charming Cosmo. Oliver and Arthur’s relationship is just one aspect of this understated tale of self-discovery, love and loss, which — with the help of trainer Mathilde De Cagny and enhanced by McGregor and Cosmo’s natural chemistry — shines as an honest view of our lives with dogs.

How a Dog Drinks

Late last year, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used high-speed photography to describe the elegant way in which cats lap up liquid with the tip of the tongue, seemingly defying gravity. Dogs, on the other hand, form a cup with the tongue and scoop up liquid, the researchers said, spilling quite a bit of it.

Not so, according to Alfred Crompton, a zoologist at Harvard, and Catherine Musinsky, his assistant, who used high-speed light videos and X-ray videos to demonstrate that dogs and cats actually use the same mechanism to drink. They report their findings in the current issue of the journal Biology Letters.

“Dogs are just a little more exuberant and messy in their drinking, so it looks like it’s being scooped up,” Dr. Crompton said. “But they do it the same way as cats.”

Both animals reach into liquids with the tips of their tongues, pulling up a long column. Before the liquid drops back down, they open their mouths and pull it in.

But the dog tongue tip penetrates the liquid a little more deeply than the cat tongue, causing a messy spray around the tongue during withdrawal, Dr. Crompton said. This gives the false impression that dogs use a scooping motion.

“The video shows that all the liquid that was so-called being ‘scooped up’ falls right back out,” he said.

The test subject in the study was Dr. Crompton’s dog, Mathilda. Once the liquid was in her mouth, they saw that it was held in ridges called rugae on the roof of the mouth before it continued down her throat. This intermediate location for the liquid allows Mathilda, and other dogs, to lap continuously and pull in another column of liquid without losing the previous one.