I have long been active in an organization called the
Cetacean Society International, a group dedicated to the study and protection
of whales. As it happened, a celebrated landscape photographer named Ken
Roberts had a side hobby of photographing steam trains. When Mr. Roberts died
some eighteen months ago his family donated several hundred prints of his train
photographs to the Society. A project was initiated that was called “Rails to
Whales”, essentially selling the prints at very reasonable prices to raise
money to help protect whales.
The nearby town of Manchester held a one day art festival
recently, with a large number of artists there selling their work, at which a
booth space was donated to the Society to sell our rail photos. I spent the day
working at the booth, and brought Olive with me. Olive for the day served as
the unofficial mascot for the society. Many of the people at the art show came
by and watched Olive demonstrate her skill at catching her ball. We got many
comments on how clever, well behaved, beautiful, and sweet she was. Well, of
course.
It didn’t take Olive very long to settle into the pulse of
the festival. I set a bowl of water for her under our canopy tent where we had
the rail photos exhibited. She ignored a blanket that another Society member
set down for her to lay on, but found a soft grassy spot next to the water bowl
where she would go when she had enough of catching the ball.
Shortly after noon I decided to take her home, then went
back to finish up the day. We sold a reasonable number of photos and got some
people interested in helping to save whales and perhaps join our society, so it
was a good day.
Our next Cetacean Society newsletter will include a story about the festival,
with this photo of Olive and myself at the booth.
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| Olive and I at the Manchester art show |
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One of my neighbors is a kind and wonderful dog-loving lady named
Jen. Recently Jen fostered a sweet lab/pointer mix named Cal that had been
abused. Olive and Cal seemed to get along quite well. Unfortunately Jen is in a
situation where she could not keep Cal permanently, but did what she could to
see that Cal got to a good home. She even took a short video of Cal and Olive
to show potential adopters that Cal can get along with other dogs. The story
has a happy ending in that an animal rescue group found a loving family to
adopt Cal. The last report is that Cal was very happy and got along splendidly
with the family’s other dog, Hercules. Jen was sent a photo of Cal and Hercules
curled up together.
Nevertheless, shortly after the new family took Cal away,
Jen was feeling very depressed and missed Cal. Olive and I came by at that
point. Well, Olive seemed to know right away that Jen needed some doggie
affection. She went right up to Jen and gave her a kiss. That took Jen by
surprise, but she gave Olive a hug right back. Somehow dogs just know.
I had hoped to post the video of Olive and Cal, but Jen has
not sent it as yet. Perhaps in the future.
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Olive seems to love small children. One family has a toddler
who always puts on a big grin when he sees Olive. The other afternoon while walking
we came across the family walking with an inexpensive ball. I thought the ball
would be too big for Olive, but she surprised me by picking the ball up.
Unfortunately, in doing so she put a hole in the ball and it deflated. The
parents took it in stride and gave the ball to Olive. In fact, that is the ball
we had at the art show. Some photos the family took are below.
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| Anxiously awaiting the blue ball |
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| "That ball is mine now!" |
