Well, you got yer rats and you got yer bugs. Right at the moment, I’ve got a little of both.
The image above is used entirely without permission, though I think Pixar released it for public use. I think. Anyway, thank you Pixar. The real rats, which I did not have the dexterity to photograph, are actually the good news. We were in Paris, at the park with the youngest grandchild and her parents. Who should be running around enjoying the park with us, but a whole passel of rats. I was pleased to discover that Jacques, in the presence of a rat, goes into totally instinctive rat-hunting mode. There was a little gate into the bushes where the rats were hiding — hah, they thought — so I indulged Jacques by letting us in. Then I let him off-lead. Bwahahahaha. He was into those bushes like a shot and quickly flushed those critters into the open. The fence stopped him and the rats escaped, probably to the bushes on the other side of the park. Fine by me. I don’t need for all those little kids to see my dog gleefully breaking rodent necks right and left. But I was delighted to see Jacques just go for them like that. Now if only I could find some “go to ground” working terrier competitions here in France. That would be fun. And no worries, the rats there live, too.
The bugs are not so fun. As you can see I have changed the format of my blog. It was looking a little dated and I wanted to feature more photos and more entries. The widgets have moved to another page. So far, so good. However one page disappeared entirely and another, instead of uploading itself, uploaded a different page. And now, silly me for not using more low-res images, the home page takes a very long time to upload. Yikes, how do I fix all this? I’ll work it out but it will take some time. Meantime, I hope you like the new format, assuming you have the patience for it to appear. Comments welcome.
Bug Two might be a little more worrisome. I got a notice from Google: “Someone has your password.” I get a lot of false alerts from Google but this one was real. So I changed my password but the email had been sitting there for 45 minutes before I noticed it. You can do a lot of damage in 45 minutes. I have unique passwords for each of my accounts but honestly, that’s not much help. There are programs out there that can hack passwords in seconds. My bank account has two-step authentication. So boring but I think I’ll have to activate it elsewhere, too.
So if you notice some strangeness, sorry. Fixing this stuff is a priority but as you can see, I have a lot on my plate at the moment. At least there are no rats.
At Home in France 
You would enjoy a story about rat-hunting dogs in New York on the podcast This American Life. Look for episode 596: Becoming a Badger.
Good luck!
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I have heard that one. It’s funny. That’s another thing we could do here.
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Sorry to hear that your state of the art ecofriendly basement filling boiler thingy is inefficient
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Actually Julien, who is becoming more indispensable by the day, tells me it does work. He said it’s set for 20 degrees and it is 20 degrees, end of story. That said, the house is damp and in this weather, feels cold, so we set it to 22 degrees. I’ll give it a few hours to see what happens. And I suppose I’d better update the blog.
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Cyberrats are often more of a problem than real rats – Jacques may find them more difficult to chase
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That’s for sure, for me, too. I was going to reorganize that page anyway. I may just rewrite it.
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Well done Jacques….a true terrier…which is also an involved joke about medieval land records in England.
I used to have a small dog who was in great demand from local farmers as he would pursue rats to the limit, including chasing them over the rafters of a barn
As to the format of the blog, I am oblivious…I just like to read it.
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Hi. Thank you. I kept thinking the posts just disappear into the mists. I like the way the little squares give better access to older posts. I guess visitors have been finding them through search engines until now. The design is more urban than country but so is life, these days.
Jacques may have missed his calling. Back when this was a porcherie, he’d have had a wonderful time, doubtless even into the rafters. Now, not so much. The barns hold my car and that’s about it. No rat food, thus no rats. He stalks cats and the farm equipment that occasionally rattles down the road. Of all things he has taken to harrying me out into the garden, to keep him company while he guards the front gate. It works, too. The garden is looking much tidier and the farm equipment wouldn’t dream of turning in. It’s not a bad life but it’s not what he was born for.
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I had a rescued whippet X pharaoh hound named Achilles for the sole real son that I could sail ‘ Achilles .. heel’. He was monumentally lazy and couldn’t even be bothered to course the hares in the field at the back of the house. One day as I sunned myself on the verandah and he lay in the even stronger sun in the corner of the garden there was a flash of movement from behind the workshop. All of a sudden, literally like lightening he was on his feet and in a trice had snapped the neck of the offending scuttling rat. With that he mooched back whence he had come leaving me to dispose of the corpse. Instinct is gloriously strong. I’m glad Jacques has his intact.
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Well done Achilles!
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if Jacques actually caught something. Once I caught him standing over a baby bird, barking like crazy. I was able to distract Jacques long enough that the little guy was able to make his getaway. The question is, why was he still alive?
Today I found out where to find the terrier trials I have been looking for. I can’t wait to see how Jacques does.
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