Chiff and Fipple Forums

Further, cats cannot rightly be singled out when it comes to surplus killing. Who's "singling out" cats for surplus killing? I've no problem with wild animals displaying natural behaviour in the wild. Nature has been balancing that equation for millions of years. The problem with supporti...

Sean Doyle recorded The Flower of the County Down , which he claims are more authentic lyrics to the ubiquitous SotCD on his album The Light and the Half Light . Backed by his son John Doyle on guitar and a piper I don't know. I can't find it on youtube, barring one really weedy cover, but it's wort...

I grew up with a dog who had special bark that was only for 1) snakes, or 2) someone pulling lengths of garden hose through the lawn. We had (minor) acreage and several gardens and vegetable beds, so someone was constantly hauling hoses around. She found it both alarming and a lot of fun.

What's the expression: "North Americans think 100 years is 'a long time', while Europeans think 100 miles is 'a long way'".

I don't believe you're all that far from jemtheflute. If he doesn't spot this post and chime in, I'd suggest you give him a hail.

I've read a couple of articles about the fox breeder. Interesting stuff, but more importantly to my mind is how it makes a case for those who suggest that dogs may not have descended solely from the wolf, but other canids as well. Haven't heard what molecular genetics has to say about that, though....

Oh, no, no. Most terribly sorry. How could I, being in the hallway, possibly have seen my neighbor's transition in time and space from entry to hallway to stairs? That would be unthinkably logical. How silly of me. Who knows where the stairs might be in relation to the hallway, or what might lie be...

OK, hallway. The neighbour & the bike were, according to your account, on the stairs. Which is, notably, not the hallway. Are you now changing it to say that they were in the hallway with you after all?

But s1m0n, we still don't understand much of how dogs and cats perceive the world. We have ideas and theories regarding their perception of the world, but it is still impossible for us to really understand their perception. So to take a general theory that "sight isn't their primary sense"...

Lester observed someone going up the front stairs. Rather than charge directly, he went up the back stairs to execute an ambush. Instinct doesn't suffice for that level of planning. Once again, any cat is capable of observing prey, stalking it indirectly, and planning an ambush. This is not inexpli...

(In case there is a question regarding the traits being genetic, here is an article from the BBC about Soviet scientists who worked for decades to domesticate foxes . His study also put a priority on these 'juvenile' and 'adolescent' traits so that the foxes would become domesticated.) I think you'...

Are you even capable of enjoying a good story without flaying it to within an inch of its life, just for the exercise in nitpickery for its own sake? The only reason I'm picking any nits at all is that you began accusing me of not 'reading' information that wasn't contained in your account. We're o...

If I say she took a bike upstairs, visual contact is already implied. Graph it out for me. Where exactly is that implied? If it was the first time your neighbour had come home with her bike, then I'd buy that you might have needed to see it to be sure. But when I've spent any amount of time in apar...

Anyway, one day as I was out in the hall with Lester - he was helping me with the laundry, probably - one of the tenants came home from bicycling, and as she lugged her bike up the stairs, Lester got this look of inspiration - you could almost see the light bulb go on - and immediately he went up t...

In your head, is it a witty practical joke? Absolutely. Oh, and once again, do read, would you? He didn't hear a noise; he saw someone going from point A to point B, and based on that observation, executed a plan on the spur of the moment. If he wanted to merely mock-charge, he didn't have to go to...