Hey, smell where I've been!

National Optimist Regatta being held at Kohi last weekend ... so much activity!

"Wherever you go, go with all your heart."

~ Confucius 

The hound missed out on her chocolate drops today.  

Not because another hound had already vacuumed that part of the pavement but because 

we DIDN’T ramble this morning as my day was booked up to be BUSY.

It’s a public holiday here in NZ ... Waitangi Day .... a day that marks the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. In that year, representatives of the British Crown and over 500 Maori chiefs signed what is often considered to be New Zealand’s founding document.

As is usual on public holidays, the shop was open and,

as is usual on a Thursday morning, I had to work.  

I was also supposed to be participating in a Waitangi Day Market in Browns Bay this afternoon 

but that was cancelled this morning due to high winds and rain.

All those plans of busy-ness came to nought 

and our rambling NON-event COULD have happened.  

But back to the chocolate drops and their relevance in my musings.

On most of our morning rambles there’s a certain spot where the possums drop their poops.  Possum poops, for those unaware of it, are small and round and distinctly resemble chocolate drops.  Hounds find them QUITE irresistible!

It blows my mind.  

What is it about other animals’ droppings that makes them so desirable?

Look how well camouflaged this little crab is!

It’s not just possum droppings. 

 Indy eats fresh cow patties too and Sam’s rather partial to fish carcasses. 

Pongy breath afterwards is a given.

Zeus, the Neapolitan Mastiff we met at the Animal Awareness Day last weekend.

The hound and I have different notions of what’s an appropriate aroma.  She likes to ROLL in some of the aromatic deposits she finds ... be they droppings or smelly carcasses.

... and it's the first time I've EVER seen a pet goat on a lead!

Whilst I understand it’s completely normal behaviour for a canine I just don’t get why she does it.

Orewa Beach in the sunshine last weekend

Google, that arbiter of all things inane, provided an answer of sorts.

 In the pre-domesticated past of canines, hounds may have rolled in smelly things to “tell” their pack mates where they’d been and what they’d encountered on their adventures. 

It’s the hound’s way of saying, 

“Hey, smell where I’ve been!” 

Look this way from the yacht club and it's FULL of people!

Communication of yet ANOTHER kind.

Look the other way from the yacht club and it's only the significant other and the hound!

The problem is her pack .... ie, my family ... already KNOW where she’s been.

Rolling in the smelly stuff DOESN’T fill in any gaps for us at all.

Awesome day out at the Animal Awareness Day

Despite the occasional unsavoury aromas it’s probably fortuitous that she DOESN’T communicate using the words falling out of her mouth thingy.  

I’d never get a word in edgeways if she did!

“Humour is the sunshine of the mind.”  

~ Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton