@doomspaniels / doomspaniels.tumblr.com
The Spaniels have their light-up necklaces, the magic words have been said ("wanna go outside?"), and the door has been rattled. Why isn't the door open? Why aren't the Spaniels outside?
(door lock broke! took it apart and put it back together, it works, but...😬)
Walking with The Spaniels around the farm after dark. They're in their LED necklaces, the area is fully fenced, I am carrying a miniature stall fork with a metal shaft for picking poo and also just in case something that can get over the fence is rude to the dogs.
In the main, the wildlife doesn't want anything to do with all our light & noise. But occasionally there's a creature making poor life choices (one armadillo just couldn't figure out "run when you hear us coming, there's lots of warning" for DAYS), and the chances of a hormone-confused attack are higher in, say, deer mating season.
Mostly, though, it's just the dancing lights in the dark.
Last night I opened to door to walk the dogs at 9pm and lightning struck, I think in my "front yard". All I could see was bright, bright and feel the simultaneous thunder. It wasn't raining, it hadn't been thundering, it started out of nowhere.
I closed the door and we went to recover in the bedroom while TFaTB (who was in a different part of the house, saw the house light up when I opened the door, but wasn't having a tachycardia episode) went to check on the horses (who were safe in the barn).
Tristan was not interested in Gwyn-style attempted comfort. He was watching the bedroom door and looking up at the ceiling fan in case it stopped. Little sister trying to wriggle at him was Not Helping.
Tristan's nighttime LED "necklace" popped loose and we couldn't find the clear tubing, just the central light that the tubing plugs into. Several days later, Tristan found it while we were out walking. Oh, look at that proud spaniel prance! He's got a Treasure, a Valuable Treasure.
I tried and tried to get still photos that clearly showed how the LED "necklaces" slid easily on & off. Tristan just sat there and posed. So helpful. He's an unbelievably good boy.
It's difficult to see The Spaniels after dark. There's a lot of space in the fields where we walk them. I have reflective collars on them, but light has to hit those just right for them to reflect anything.
We're trying the Nite Ize NiteHowl LED collars. They're much more substantial than they look in photos. Those tubes are solid and feel durable. They plug very securely into a short silicon tube with a light in it. The collars do slide right on and off of The Spaniels, and those spaniel ears hold the LED collars securely in place. It would be easy to pop one end off and reconnect it if the collar needed to be too small to go around the face easily. (I don't know if that would eventually wear out.)
We can see the lights from across a 2 acre field. It's about 200 yards (~180 m) to the far end, and we can always tell where they are in the field. Under the porch light or the flashlight they're more visible with the LED collar.
I have had these collars 3 days and they're already indispensable. And look, even the "pretty necklace" trick has a practical use. Much like science, when pure science research is frequently done just to see what the results are... once it's complete, sometimes there are surprising applications.
