Of Geese and the Day Job

Don't be put off by the heading - I don't work with geese on a daily basis. Nor, indeed, do I force geese into working. The two things in the post title are all-but totally separate, conjoined merely at my own whim and the availability of new(ish) Rusty photos.

Firstly, some momentous news - Rusty and I passed our qualification walk on Friday just gone so I'm now allowed out on my own with Rusty in harness. This doesn't mean that Guide Dogs will just leave me to my own devices - oh no! I'll be getting frequent aftercare visits to make sure both Rusty and I are doing OK and to give me any support or extra training that might be needed. What a great service.

And so to some geese. Rusty, being a young dog, can be a bit excitable and might occasionally be prone to being distracted when he's supposed to be working: i.e. guiding me and making sure I don't walk into lamp posts, stray people or unexpected trees. One of the great novelties, as far as Rusty is concerned, of moving to Millbrook is the fascinating and greatly distracting amount of bird life on the lake. And I have to walk along the lakeside every day to get to work.

Just as illustration here's a shot of the lake as it was on Friday 27th March 2009 - the day of the famous "Handbags at Dawn" duel on the dam. Yes it was dawn, yes we did bash each other with handbags. The full story can be found by clicking the link "Handbags at Dawn".

Returning to the narrative, such as it is, Colin the Trainer hatched a plot to get Rusty a little less interested in the flappy things on the water. And so, Mrs the Millbrooker and I found ourselves sitting on a bench by the lakeside, ignoring his-four-legged-self and chatting between ourselves as he slowly worked out that the gaggle of Canada geese, the sole Egyptian goose and the myriad black-headed gulls are nothing to do with him and are quite-dull-if-you're-a-dog-really. Once he had worked that out he became far more interested in eating catkins, so that was time to head back home again.

At the time of this shot, the waterfowl were still considered quite exciting.

I've zoomed in here, so you can appreciate just how exciting. 

Control yourselves, now.

Moving swiftly on from a story concocted from almost nothing - Rusty and I have been attending my little office at the hours which are set by my employer. As always, I think it's a bloomin' cheek that they expect me to be at work during the hours that they pay me, but it seems that this is normal behaviour for employers and I just have to put up with it.

Rusty probably works harder in the office than I do on most days, but has less need to disguise his sleepy moments from the management.

Sometimes, though, I might be actually trying to achieve a little something vaguely productive only to be disturbed by an inquiring face wondering whether I might prefer to pay him some attention?

More Rusty news and Millbrook drivel soon......