tdierikx

I'm pretty sure I have some pics of Furahi's boy bits somewhere... *grin* Check out his physique though - one seriously well proportioned boy there! One of the keepers on Sunday told us that Furahi is like Lubutu's 2nd in command... and that if there is ever going to be a challenge for the alpha position, they reckon it will be Furahi that makes the challenge. Right now though he appears to be happy enough as number 2 boy in town. T.

You can also pay for Shelter Manager to be hosted by the developer - then you can have multiple users able to access it... *grin* Once you get the feel of how it all works, it's a very effective database to use. T.

Hot damn grizabella! What lens did you use for those photos? You got so close! Every time I go to Taronga the darned orangutans are hiding in the day room under blankets... grrr! Hopefully that will change as the weather warms up... T.

She is seriously too cute for boots! T.

I'm still grinning like a loon... Will wait until after the school holidays before looking for favours like getting close to the animals though... I think they will be pretty busy for the next 2 weeks and will need all hands on deck supervising rampaging children... the last thing they need is to be babysitting a person who wants to take photos as well. I'm thinking of asking my boss for a week off sometime after the school holidays anyways - that may be a better time to get up close to the animals with the minimum amount of bother for the staff. T.

I got the coolest email last night... from John Radnidge, the owner of Symbio... He's just come back from leave, and has looked at the photos I've dropped off on my visits to Symbio... and he likes! He's offered to get me even closer to some of the animals for some photo opportunities... SQUEEAALLL!!! I'm still grinning like a loon this morning... Symbio is expanding too. In the next 9 months they are going to be building their lion, cheetah, and lemur enclosures. The new reptile house is nearly finished, as is the koala breeding sanctuary. Their tiger exhibit only opened earlier this year, and has already won awards for it's setup... Seriously - if you are in Sydney, you really need to visit Symbio... you won't be disappointed... it's a really lovely place completely free of the argy bargy and rude crowds of the bigger and more famous zoos around. T.

My Lab girl gets called skinny - but at 28kgs, she could lose 2kgs before I'd be more happy with her condition. I tell her she's got "booty"... *grin* She has a nice tuck and well defined waist line - but she will be shifting some of the "winter weight" soon... and then I'm sure I'll be told that I'm starving her... Just because Labradors have no eating "off switch", doesn't mean that you feed them until they stop asking. T.

Pickles is the only one of my dogs that will go for birds - but she's only caught one to date... probably because her mobility disability makes her so uncoordinated... lol! T.

I used check chains on my older 2, a harness for Pickles due to her disability issues, and use a check chain for Harper the horse puppy. The older 2 "graduated" to flat collars once they had the obedience thing worked out and no longer need any correction. T.

Sunday's Taronga pics are up... http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdierikx/ Here's a taste... 22-09-2013-taronga 125 by tdierikx, on Flickr 22-09-2013-taronga 177 by tdierikx, on Flickr 22-09-2013-taronga 302 by tdierikx, on Flickr 22-09-2013-taronga 447 by tdierikx, on Flickr 22-09-2013-taronga 585 by tdierikx, on Flickr 22-09-2013-taronga 669 by tdierikx, on Flickr 22-09-2013-taronga 861 by tdierikx, on Flickr 22-09-2013-taronga 888 by tdierikx, on Flickr Enjoy! T.

Yesterday I and a friend went to Symbio again... Photos here... http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdierikx/ The Cotton Top Tamarin babies are now about 3 weeks old, and are starting to get bigger and more active... too cute for boots! 21-09-2013-symbio 114 by tdierikx, on Flickr The Tigers never disappoint - check out their reaction to their dinner being secured up a pole... Cinta... 21-09-2013-symbio 419 by tdierikx, on Flickr ... and then Jalur decides he'll have that thanks... 21-09-2013-symbio 440 by tdierikx, on Flickr ... and this little guy decided to say hello on one of the paths... 21-09-2013-symbio 1120 by tdierikx, on Flickr Oh - and you know Aleksandr from the Compare The Meerkat ads? 21-09-2013-symbio 022 by tdierikx, on Flickr Enjoy! T.

The fines for repeat offenders can get pretty steep. Some councils have a scale that starts off hefty enough, but gets more expensive each time your dog is picked up for being at large. $960 sounds about right for 2 dogs that have been picked up numerous times... T.

OMG - do NOT show those pics to Katdogs!! Nelly is a dead ringer for her failed foster Jodie... Aaahhh - what the hell, I'm gonna email her the link to the pics... *grin* T.

Baby gate or some other barrier between you and the bubs while you clean up their messes. Simples... I had a litter of 9 large breed rescue foster pups during winter here a couple of years ago - had to keep them in the lounge room with the heater on low. The mess they made was phenominal, and they were also very play oriented when I wanted to clean up. I have a few crates - travel and cage - that I would pop the naughty little buggers into when I had to clean up. T.

At least she's getting a response... if my dogs don't want to listen to me, they don't even acknowledge that I'm talking to them... *grin* T.

Sage advice there from one who does the "job" exceptionally well... T.

The dogs could have been run over by a car instead of being picked up by the rangers too... who's fault would that have been if the dogs have a history of being at large? There is obviously "fault" on both sides of this particular situation - the owner for not securing their dogs and having them escape numerous times - and the RSPCA for not communicating to ALL staff that those particular dogs were the subject of a negotiation with the owners to pay the fee to get them out. A simple notice on their kennel(s) may have averted the mistaken euthing in this case... T.

I have 4 dogs. 2 have access to the backyard and kitchen, 1 has free run of the rest of the house, and the destructo horse puppy is crated (in a crate much larger than she needs) when I'm not home. I have 2 dogs that cannot run together because if they have a fight, it's to the death, and I don't want to come home to a dead dog. The horse puppy knocks over the old girl, so they don't run together either. All of my dogs are fine with the routine, and still get plenty of one-on-one mummy time with me... that said, I don't really have much of a social life, and prefer the company of my dogs. T.

I second this opinion. T.

A 2 year old large breed dog with hip displaysia does not mean that it was sold to the buyer that way - and HD can be rectified with surgery, but it will cost a lot more than $500. Puppies don't come from any decent breeder with diseases, but many will only have had their first vaccination before they go to a new home - and new owners do so love taking their new "baby" everywhere, regardless of any warnings stating that they need ALL their vaccinations before they are unlikely to pick up something nasty. Some strains of Parvo have as little as a 2 day gestation in small pups, so automatically blaming a breeder for selling you a "sick" pup may not be the case at all. But we live in a society where responsibility is always someone else's province, right? T.

Awesome! The best I've seen to date... T.

Thanks for the compliments on my eye for composition... really all I do is think "do I like what I'm seeing through the viewfinder?" and if the answer is "yes", then I press the magic clicky button... *grin* I must also confess that I shoot in JPEG - not RAW, and using the presets on the camera - so what you see is what the camera has given me... the only post processing I do is adjustment of contrast if I've shot through grotty glass - and my photo resizing program does a tiny bit (5%) sharpening of the resized photo. I reckon it's the interesting subjects one finds at the Zoos that makes for good photos - not always so much the photographer or their cameras. T.

I'm mostly at full zoom for the closer shots Roova - the only time the quality gets a little softer is when shooting through glass. The expensive Canon 100-400mm L lens gives great quality at the far end of the zoom spectrum. Then again, the Tamrom 18-270mm lens also gives very nice quality at it's far end - excellent value for money that one! I tend to shoot Taronga Zoo with the Canon 100-400mm lens because the animals are a bit further away from the public, and I want nice close shots - but at Symbio I tend to shoot mostly with the Tamron 18-270 because the animals are so much closer to the public. I shoot most of the Symbio Tiger shots with the Canon 100-400mm though, because it gets me REALLY close... *grin* None of my pics are cropped - what you see is exactly what I took on the day. T.

Thanks piper! T.

Deb Tranter is behind Oscar's Law - I was raising a query about the OL affiliation it seems NARGA followers have. T.