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Tag Archives: golden thread
Through a Dog's Eyes
THE houndbloggers don't watch a lot of television, but the other night we stumbled upon a documentary we thought we'd pass along. It's called Through a Dog's Eyes. In basic terms, it's about a program called Canine Assistants that matches services dogs with people who need them. The documentary shows Canine Assistants founder Jennifer Arnold as she and her team raise and train puppies into competent service dogs, and then match dog and human, then help the pair train together.
The canine-human partnership can be mutually fulfilling.
It's the relationship part of the story, and the way that training becomes a language that bonds the dogs and their people, that particularly interested us. As the documentary's summary at PBS noted, "Sometimes what began as love at first sight deepens. Occasionally the initial chemistry doesn't last. Overall, it's a bonding process that, as with any relationship, takes work and time."
We're pretty sure a lot of huntsmen would agree with that!
Most of all, Through a Dog's Eyes provides another interesting view into the canine-human relationship and how surprisingly rich that relationship and its language can be. The golden thread clearly is not limited to packs working in the hunt field, but also can connect individual dogs and their owners. There's some fascinating research about that bond and how dogs learn from people, and that's covered in this film, too.
To watch the documentary for free online, click here.
Posted in Hound's Life, hounds, In the Kennel, Uncategorized | Tagged Adam Miklosi, Canine Assistants, canine cognition, golden thread, Jennifer Arnold, PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, service dogs | Leave a reply
Lives of dogs
Posted on August 10, 2010 by houndblogger
THE spring and summer have been all about training the hounds. The entered hounds (those that already have hunted with the pack) have their training reinforced while out on summer exercise, and the year-old puppies–Baffle's litter and Dragonfly's son Driver–are learning about pretty much everything. This process is eye-opening for those of us who follow along on foot and horseback. It may look from the sidelines like a big dog walk, but summer hound walk is full of quiet revelations and light-bulb moments, both for the hounds (cattle!) and their human companions (who knew Driver was a swimmer?).
But, watching the Iroquois hounds and huntsman Lilla Mason, you see more than just training at work. Ideally, working hounds and their huntsmen develop something deeper than just a conditioned action-and-reaction relationship. In hunting, it's called "the golden thread," and it exists in other spheres, too.
Verlyn Klinkenborg, writing in the New York Times, touched on it in a short piece he wrote back in February while visiting sled dogs and their musher, Kelly Murphy, in Minnesota. The piece, headlined "Why Do Sled Dogs Run?" included this:
I listen to the one-way singsong between Murphy and his dogs: encouragement and caution and admiration. I watch the driving legs ahead of me–28 of them–on dogs whose frames are small and light, nothing like the creatures I'd imagined. And as we cut through the white ash swamp, hissing across the ice, I find myself wondering, why do sled dogs run?
It is not a matter of driving them. All the work is in pacing them, restraining them. When Murphy stands on the brake and sets the snow hook–a two-pronged anchor–the gangline quivers with tension. The dogs torque forward again before he can shout, "Let's go!" All the one-word answers to my question are too simple: love, joy, duty, obedience.
The dogs were out yesterday, and they'll be out again tomorrow. They don't run for a reward or toward a goal–the greyhound's mechanical rabbit. They get yelled at when they chew on the gangline and petted when the run is over. They don't catch or flee anything. They would keep running if the musher fell off his sled.
The start is a mayhem of yelping and baying and yipping. The finish is 21 dogs, three teams' worth, silently lapping the air with their tongues. And between the two–start and finish–is a reason the dogs describe in the only way they know how, by running and running and never letting the line go slack.
In the case of scent hounds, there is the critical difference that the trail–and their noses–do pull them along (like the greyhounds' mechanical rabbit, I guess!), but in Klinkenborg's description you get some sense of the combined instinct, breeding, training, and sheer joyous energy that we see in our working foxhounds, beagles, and bassets.
For more on the Lives of Dogs …
One of several dog collars on display as part of the National Sporting Library's Lives of Dogs exhibition in Middleburg, Virginia.
The National Sporting Library in Middleburg, Virginia, currently is hosting a good exhibition called Lives of Dogs in Literature, Art, and Ephemera. It runs through Dec. 11. But there's more! To coincide with the exhibition, the NSL also will host a symposium on the origins and evolution of hunting and sporting dog breeds. The symposium will take pace on Saturday, October 23, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will be limited to 100 participants. Two of those will be houndbloggers, I can assure you!
Registration costs just $60, or $40 if you're a college student or graduate student. The symposium will take place at the library.
Speakers will include Ben Hardaway, joint-Master of the Midland Fox Hounds in Georgia, whose topic will be "Foxhounds and Hunting: Where We've Been and Where We're Going."
Other speakers and topics:
James Serpell, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, on "Dog Origins: The How, When, and Why of Dog Domestication"
Nelle Wyatt, University of Tennessee, on "Past Meets Present: Dogs in the Ancient World"
Martin Wallen, PhD, Oklahoma State University, on "So Many Hounds, So Many Kinds: The English Foxhound in the Eighteenth Century"
Harriet Ritvo, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on "Pedigrees, Breeds, and the Victorian Dog Fancy"
For more information on the symposium and registering for it, click here. And to see a good slide show from the Lives of Dogs exhibition, click here.
Posted in Hound's Life, Summer Walk, Uncategorized | Tagged golden thread, Lives of Dogs, National Sporting Library, new york times, sled dogs, symposium, Verlyn Klinkenborg | 1 Reply
Like driving someone else's racecar
Posted on January 14, 2010 by houndblogger
Substituting for an injured huntsman means taking over a pack that has been trained by (and that has bonded with) someone else, and it takes more than just knowing how to blow the horn.
WHEN Iroquois huntsman Lilla Mason broke her ankle out hunting in November, she was lucky in one respect: she had an experienced huntsman to whom she could pass the horn. And that person, Iroquois joint-Master Jerry Miller, was someone who works with the hounds daily alongside her.
That mattered, because as we've seen, Lilla has put a lot of time and training into the hounds (Jerry has had an important role in that training too). Having someone who knows the hounds and the huntsman's style is vital to ensure the hounds' steadiness until Lilla returns.
"Unfortunately, I got hurt right after the opening day of the hunt season," Lilla said. "I've spent months since the last hunt season–from April to October–training the hounds and getting the pack exactly where I want them: responsive, together, controlled by voice. I've done that in the training style that Jerry has devised over the years, which is a kind, humane, quiet style. The reason it's such a relief to have Jerry hunting the hounds for me now is that I know he knows he is a substitute. He hunts the hounds in that quiet way, but he's also going to be very careful not to take the hounds over as his own, because I'll be back.
"The worst thing would be if someone were to come in and hunt them in a different way from the way I do and try to take the pack over. That would usurp all the work we've done, and when I came back, it would be much more difficult for me to finish the season in the manner which it began."
His years as Iroquois huntsman and his role as architect of the pack's training program has stood Jerry in good stead during the times he has subbed for Lilla out hunting and on hound walk. (Photo kindly given by Peggy Maness)
For Jerry, the prospect of taking over the Iroquois pack was more complicated than just accepting the horn and blowing it. A pack of hounds doesn't automatically respect a horn; they respect the person who has worked to forge a bond with them through training. In order to maintain the continuity of what is effectively Lilla's team, Jerry is careful to leave as little of his own imprint on them as he can.
"As much as I like them and would like to have these hounds be mine, that's like taking somebody's racecar and driving it as a substitute in the next three or four races," Jerry explained. "The first thing you need to do is not to wreck it. That's the worst thing you could do. You don't want to tear the transmission up and don't tear the motor up, either. Just take it around carefully, because you're not really the driver of that car. You'll take it out because people want to come out and see the race, but the idea is to race it fairly and competitively, but don't do any damage to it.
"The thing about a pack of hounds, and the reason you like your huntsman and Masters to have longevity, is because you breed the hounds not only for your country, but also for the way the huntsman hunts hounds," he continued. "You can read about this in all the literature, but you can ruin a pack of hounds in a week or two weeks. If someone else other than Lilla came in and tried to impose their own personality on those hounds through the way they discipline them or reinforce them, and especially if they try to push them around or bully them, these hounds react to that. Some hounds won't come back because they've gotten upset, and they'll just be unruly. And the longer they stay away, the more they learn bad habits."
Having temporarily turned her horn over to her back-up huntsman, jt-MFH Jerry Miller, regular Iroquois huntsman Lilla Mason wore a regular member's black coat when she returned to the hunt field for the first time since her injury.
This hunt season, we've seen two strong examples of how important a hound considers the bond with its huntsman to be. When Strawberry first arrived this fall from England, her confusion at finding a completely new huntsman was clear. Since her birth, Strawberry had only ever known one huntsman–the Cottesmore's Neil Coleman–and she was perplexed to find herself without her usual leader when she debuted under Lilla in November. Her first response was to head straight back to the hound trailer.
Similarly, when Jerry hunted the hounds for the first time after Lilla's injury, he had to endure the pack's initial skepticism about him, even though he knew them from training.
When he first blew the horn, the pack remained at the trailer, waiting for Lilla. Sure, that guy who walked with them in the summer had the horn now, but he wasn't their huntsman. Their huntsman was Lilla. And they would just wait for her to show up, thanks. It took Jerry some minutes to get the pack away from the trailer.
Hunting history is riddled with similar accounts of hounds who, once "joined up" with their regular huntsman, will only have eyes for him (or her). Consider the case of whipper-in Jean MacLean in her first attempt to walk out the Clear Creek Beagles when huntsman Buck Wiseman was out of town:
When Buck was away and needed her to walk the hounds out, she discovered that the young hounds she'd helped raise from puppyhood merrily packed up with her when she opened the kennel gate for morning exercise. But the older hounds that had been there before she arrived were so skeptical that they would sit just outside the kennel and refuse to come along with her. They were, she realized, waiting for Buck. To them, she wasn't the real deal, and no amount of biscuit-tossing could convince them to follow her.
Once the hounds finally moved off, Jerry still had his work cut out for him. One crucial element he had in his favor is his knowledge of the individual hounds and the philosophy under which they are trained.
Jerry Miller's role as back-up huntsman, he said, is to maintain the pack's steadiness and "not to do any damage" until Lilla can return
"A hound doesn't just react to a couple of toots on a horn," he said. "You have to know every individual hound. If you were going to play the piano and I took every third key away, that's going to make it harder for you to play. You have to know which hound is acting up, which hound you have to pick up, which one you have to set down."
Hunting hounds without imposing his own hunting style on them has required restraint from Jerry.
"He's hunted them slowly and very deliberately, waited for any hounds that are missing so that the pack doesn't get too spread out," said Lilla, who has been following the hunt in a car regularly while she's recovering. "It might be more fun for riders if he went out and hunted them the way he would if he were always the huntsman, but he's doing it this way so that the hounds will be better off when I come back.
"This helps me. If he had done things differently, it would have completely confused the hounds, because they'd have gotten used to a totally different style than mine, and I'd have to start over with them," she added. "The ultimate honor you can do another human being is to do something for them that you know is not going to make you look your best. He knew he wasn't going to look like a hotshot huntsman. He did it for the hound program."
Part of "Lilla's team," as portrayed by Peggy Maness
Mind you, it's taken some restraint from Lilla, too. While Jerry is hunting the hounds, she minimizes her contact with the hounds and rarely even speaks, in case the familiar sound of their regular huntsman's voice distracts them.
"The worst thing I could do while he's hunting is come out and be too loud, because pretty soon they're going to get around me and stop doing what he's asking them to do," she explained. "They have to be obedient to the person who has the horn."
"She has the golden thread with her hounds," Jerry acknowledges. "They know her personality, they know what she's doing and when she's upset. You can see it in them. When Lilla gets upset with a few of them, the others react to it, too. They just tighten up together and go on. But if someone new comes in and gets uptight with them, those hounds will just disappear. They'll decide they want to stay away from that person.
"And if a new person comes in and tries to be their best friend and keep them right next to his horse, that can be just as bad, because instead of working, the hounds will just trot along next to his horse like they were on a trail ride. So there's a fine line between discipline and reinforcement. I try to put them in, let them work the covert, then be on the other end to pick them up and go on to the next covert, without imposing on them.
"I have to maintain things. I have to make sure that everyone responds and that I don't get three or four hounds that decide they'll refuse to listen and go hunting on their own, that decide since Lilla's not out they don't have to listen to anybody."
It's a slower style of hunting, but it preserves the pack and their training in the near term while Lilla recovers.
For a glimpse of Lilla's relationship with the hounds, see how they gaze at her in this video taken from the huntsman's point of view on hound walk this summer:
There's a code of honor among huntsmen that holds the relationship between huntsman and hounds, that golden thread, as sacred. Jerry 's restraint in hunting "her" hounds is honoring that tradition, Lilla said. She has reciprocated, too, by wearing a black hunt coat–rather than her red huntsman's coat–when she returned to the hunt field for an hour (with her leg in a cast!) at her first hunt since the injury.
"What Jerry has done for me is the most honorable thing a retired huntsman can do for one who is active," Lilla said. "He's not out there for the sake of his own ego. He's not trying to look like the best huntsman in the world, and he knows he's not going to look like the best huntsman in the world doing it this way. But he knows they're not his hounds now; I trained them. And that's the way he looks at it: 'I'm just the substitute.'
"One huntsman would never insert himself or do anything to possibly damage or interfere with another huntsman's relationship with his own hounds," she concluded. "Your relationship with your hounds is like a marriage, and you wouldn't step in between a huntsman and his hounds any more than you would step between husband and wife."
So how is Lilla's recovery coming? Very well, she says. She's started riding again, and she had that happy hour out with hounds just before Christmas.
"Since I got off crutches, it seems like every day there's been immense improvement," she said. "I've been riding, but I still have this inconvenient boot on my leg. I need to go see a welder and get a big stirrup made. I'm riding in a dressage saddle and in a controlled environment, and, with the weather we've had, nobody's riding outside anyway. So I'm very encouraged."
Copyright 2010 Glenye Cain Oakford, http://www.houndwelfare.wordpress.com
Posted in Hound's Life, hounds, Hunting, Uncategorized | Tagged Buck Wiseman, Clear Creek Beagles, Cottesmore, foxhound fox hound, golden thread, hunting horn, huntsman, Iroquois Hunt, Jean MacLean, Jerry Miller, Lilla Mason, Neil Coleman, Strawberry, training hounds | 1 Reply
Falcons' eyes and hounds' noses in the news
Harry: 300 million scent receptors. Me: 6 million scent receptors. That explains a lot!
THERE were two news notes that got my attention this weekend. One was a book review in Sunday's New York Times about Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know. It's an attempt to understand and explain how dogs experience the world, and there are some interesting observations in it (I already bought my copy). This isn't a dog-training book; it's more of a natural science book, although it's written in very accessible, non-technical language. I'm not that far along in it yet, but here are some interesting bits and pieces:
A beagle's nose has 300 million receptor sites, compared with a human's paltry six million ("I could have told you that," says Harry the Stealth Beagle)
Scent equals time, for dogs. "Trained dogs don't just notice a smell. They notice the change in smell over time," writes author Alexandra Horowitz. "The concentration of an odor left on the ground by, say, a running footprint, diminishes with every second that passes. In just two seconds, a runner may have made four or five footprints: enough time for a trained tracker to tell the direction that he ran based just on the differences in the odor emanating from the first and fifth print."
Dogs are social animals, but their idea of a pack doesn't appear to be based on the "alpha wolf" pack theories put forward by trainers who say owners should behave dominantly. "What dogs do seem to have inherited from wolves is the socialty of a pack: an interest in being around others. Indeed, dogs are social opportunists. They are attuned to the actions of others, and humans turned out to be very good animals to attune to." Trainers who use dominance techniques are "farther from what we know of the reality of wolf packs and closer to the timeworn fiction of the animal kingdom with humans at the pinnacle, exerting dominion over the rest. Wolves seem to learn from each other not by punishing each other but by observing each other. Dogs, too, are keen observers–of our reactions. Instead of a punishment happening to them, they'll learn best if you let them discover which behaviors are rewarded and which lead to naught."
We've certainly found that last part to be true in our household. It took some creative thinking to find our way around Harry's sinister side and Toby's seemingly incessant barking when we made the dogs' meals each night. Various forms of "no" didn't have much effect, but psychology did, and in surprisingly short order.
THE other bit of the hunting world in the news this week was a story on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition Saturday Show" about the use of falcons to keep starling flocks away from California's vineyards, where they can wreak expensive damage to the grapes if left to their own devices. Though just under five minutes long, it was a fascinating piece on an ancient hunting art. You can hear it (and also read the accompanying article) at the link above. One of the more tantalizing aspects of it was the notion that "the golden thread" arguably can exist between falconers and their charges, just as it does between exceptional huntsmen and their packs. Clearly, falconer Tom Savory thinks so. In any event, the working falcon-human partnership here is as interesting as the working hound-human one. In each case, as one vineyard owner says in the piece, you have an animal "that basically is doing what it would do in nature anyway, but for our benefit."
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged alexandra horowitz, alpha wolf, beagle, dog training, falconry, golden thread, hound, hounds, Inside of a dog, national public radio, new york times, pack theory, scent receptors, Tom Savory, vineyard, weekend edition saturday | Leave a reply
Hound's Life: In Dog We Trust
Posted on July 15, 2009 by houndblogger
Much of hound training and exercise is about developing mutual trust between huntsman and pack
We've been blessed with cooler temperatures recently. Good news: it feels much better, and less sweat gets in your eyes as you walk up hill and down dale with the hounds. On the other hand, cooler weather makes for a real test of control, because it makes the scenting better. That means the hounds are more likely to pick up the trail of a coyote who passed through their exercise field overnight–and it's very tempting to follow that trail.
You might think controlling a pack of hounds is a function of force, but it isn't. It's more about the huntsman knowing his hounds, their habits and personalities; out-thinking them when necessary; and, probably hardest of all, having a level of trust between huntsman and hounds. If your hounds trust you, they're more likely to follow your instructions than if they're merely intimidated by you.
The huntsman really is the leader of the pack, but it takes time and effort to establish the kind of communication that makes for the most effective leadership. Summer hound walk is key to that, because it gives huntsman and hounds a chance to work in the open as a team–the members of the pack with each other and the pack together with the huntsman.
On a recent hound walk with 12 couple of hounds, Iroquois huntsman Lilla Mason's "lesson plan" for the morning was to keep the hounds' attention closely focused on her and encourage a quick reponse to her orders. As you might expect, any huntsman's lessons might not always go as planned when 24 hounds trot through pastures filled with the alluring scents of nature and livestock; there are many variables in walking, as in hunting, and those too inspire lessons! But this walk goes much as expected, despite the cooler, gray morning.
The first thing Mason does is to look the hounds over carefully as they spill out of their double-decker hound trailer for their walk. She has been gone for 10 days on a rare vacation, and she's seeing the hounds again with a fresh eye for subtle changes. One she spots immediately: Alice has emerged from the hound trailer looking slightly "spooky," as Mason puts it. Her tail is down rather than up and perky, while her nose, which usually would be down to investigate smells, is up. Her ears are pressed slightly back against her head. These are small changes that an inexperienced visitor would easily miss as the hounds mill and bound around together, but to Mason it's evidence that Alice probably has been intimidated by another hound in the trailer, although now that they are all out of the trailer and in the exercise field, the other hounds don't appear to pay Alice any mind.
To brighten Alice up a bit, Mason quickly gives her some extra attention. She reaches into her vest pockets, which are filled with dog biscuits, and quietly calls Alice's name. When Alice looks to her, Mason tosses a few brightly colored treats specifically at her, and Alice catches them expertly. Alice's day is looking up!
As Mason collects the hounds and moves off with them on foot, Alice's tail already is rising, and her ears are forward. She's back in the game. As the pack heads down a shaded dirt lane toward the cow pasture where they spend most of their walk, Lilla points her hunt whip in Alice's direction. "She's getting better now." In fact, she already looks much better, striding out and sniffing the air, her confidence fully restored by the simple attention from her huntsman.
A Study in Stillness
Mason keeps the hounds in a fairly close group and is quick to speak up at the occasional hound who strays a little too far from the circle or pushes on a little too far ahead. The whippers-in are all but silent, a policy Mason prefers. A whipper-in, she feels, should not call a hound's name unless it is absolutely necessary. Their silence helps the hounds focus more acutely on Mason and every word she says, reinforcing her bond with them by keeping her communication direct and uncluttered. To correct an errant hound when Mason is walking them, a whipper-in generally will walk toward it silently, extend a whip and perhaps drop the thong down to the ground from its usual position, curled like a lasso in the hand. If the whipper-in says anything, it will only be to quietly hiss "Psst!" or "Pfft!" or, at most, to say "Get back to her" quietly to the hound. Otherwise, the whippers-in, or whips, keep quiet as they walk. They will never hit a hound and almost never have occasion even to crack their whips.
Even their movements seem quiet and unfussy, with no excess motion, no waving and gesturing, no idle conversation, and no running except when the situation calls for it. This quietness in voice and movement is vitally important. The whippers-in are like extensions of a huntsman's arms, eyes, and ears, spotting and turning any hound that the hunstman cannot see or reach. Otherwise, the whips should not do anything that might distract the hound's attention from the huntsman and the business at hand.
"I need the whips to the side of me and behind me," Mason explains, "never in my peripheral vision and not in front of me. You should never see a whip unless something is wrong. Have you seen Herman at all on this walk?"
No, I confess, turning reflexively to look for the whip in question. There he is, just outside of my vision, to our left and slightly behind us, striding noiselessly through the damp grass. He is where he can see, and intercept if necessary, any hounds behind Mason that are out of her view.
"That's what I mean," Mason says with a smile.
Paper: from puppy to switched-on pack member
The Education of Paper
As we walk along, Mason has noted another change in one of the hounds. Paper, a puppy who will join the hunting pack for the first time this fall, is noticeably more responsive today than he has been before. The light bulb is going on, and Paper is figuring out that he is part of a team that responds to a leader, rather than just a puppy out for a walk in a group. When he lopes ahead of the loose circle of hounds surrounding Mason, she calls to him. He stops, turns, and immediately bounces back to her, getting a biscuit for his trouble. In earlier days, he was slower to turn and would look back blankly, maybe take a minute to consider whether he really wanted to leave whatever fun was calling him. The return now is automatic and happy.
At a pond, Mason makes the hounds wait patiently in a group before letting them dash in for their swim. The old Paper was inclined to wander down to the waterline alone, completely unaware that the rest of the pack was sitting behind Mason for a reason and that he was sticking out like a sore dewclaw. But the new, switched-on Paper promptly sits down among his peers with a certain amount of pride, beaming at Mason along with the older hounds. He's begun to glean that there's not just a pattern to the exercise, but there's a point to it, too. He's no longer just following the pack; he's participating in it.
Mason lets them go with a "whoosh" said under her breath, in about the same tone you might use in a confessional. But the hounds have been listening for this faint signal, and they hear it and respond like an opening floodgate. With howls of delight, they rush past Mason and into the pond, disturbing a blue heron, who flies up and flaps across to the opposite shore, disgruntled.
Having plunged into the water, most of the hounds come right back out again. It's chillier than usual, and they're content to wade up to their knees or come back to Mason to ask for biscuits.
When a huntsman achieves the highest level of trust and understanding with his hounds, he is said to have "the golden thread" between himself and the pack.
"You didn't stay in very long this morning," she says to the hounds gathered around her, tossing a biscuit at one of the smaller bitches. Jerry Miller, the Master who had been walking the hounds in her absence, tosses biscuits in a high arc, but Mason throws them like a major league baseman making a double play, fast and in a flat line direct to a hound's mouth. Even this is a sort of exercise: they must pay very close attention to Mason. If she says their name, a biscuit will likely be fired in their direction in short order. Sometimes one heads their way with no verbal warning. All of this–her low voice, her fast pitches, her few words–draw the hounds' attention closely to her and her alone. The hounds hang on every word, and, what's more, they listen for the words rather than simply react to them. Their eyes on their huntsman are intense and keen.
A few biscuits do go astray, bouncing off a nose or richocheting off the snapping jaws of the intended target, and that causes three or four hounds in the area to pounce simultaenously wherever the biscuit lands. But there are only occasional growls over the spoils, a marked difference from my house, where a bit of dropped toast can spark a three-dog melee. In the Iroquois pack, the hound who missed his biscuit usually pops right back up again, steps a little closer to Mason this time, eyes fixed on her, and there you see a glimmer of the communication Mason is building between herself and the hounds: I trust, the hound is saying, that you will do right by me. She does. It's a little gesture that creates, stitch by stitch, that vital bond between Mason and the hounds when it really counts: in the hunt field.
Paper's Indiscretion
Leaving the edge of the pond, Mason heads up a grassy hillside. "I don't like them to get too far out in front of me going up a hill," she says after calling a few leading hounds by name and slowing them down, "because, if they do, you can lose sight of the first few before you reach the top of the hill, and they can get away from you that way."
She stops the hounds frequently to teach them that when she stops, they must, too. Interestingly, she does this with her voice, her body, and the biscuits, but her hunting horn stays tucked between the second and third button of her shirt, unused. The other tools are enough.
"They've got to know that when I stop they need to," she explains, "because if I'm out hunting and have no whips nearby to help me collect the hounds, the hounds have to know to stay with me even without a whip there reinforcing that."
The huntsman is the leader of the pack, and, to lead effectively, must understand and communicate with the pack
While we are stopped in the grass, Paper, who had been on the group's leading edge, looks back in our direction. Suddenly, he turns and begins trotting purposefully past us, his eyes fixed interestedly on a point directly behind our left shoulders. We turn, too, and see what he's spotted: a pair of black calves galloping away down the hill together. Paper, now past us, picks up speed and heads for a gap between Herman and another whip, Hagan. Instead of calling out to Paper, Mason turns quickly on her heel and walks briskly away from him, leaving him to the whips to collect. "Hey up!" she calls out brightly to the rest of the pack. "Come on!" She walks forward in double-quick time, and the other hounds turn away from Paoer, too, and join Mason in the walk, tails wagging merrily.
Paper's indiscretion is therefore minimized, with little trouble and no fuss or yelling. The whips have intercepted him and blocked his path. He halts, looks for a moment at the retreating calves, then runs back to the pack, which has moved on without him.
"If I had kept standing there and yelled, 'Paper! Paper!' then they'd have all turned and thought, 'Oh, what's going on down there with Paper?' And they'd have wanted to go with him," Mason explains. "You're always having to outmaneuver that curiosity–their jealousy, really–over what some other hound has found, is doing, is smelling.
"You try to minimize new things so that the puppy gets the idea they're really not a big deal, but you also have to understand that puppies do need to see things in order to learn to ignore them or work around them without getting distracted."
"Let them hunt"
If the hounds must trust Mason enough to follow her communications to them, she must also trust and listen to them. It's not always easy, she admits, because watching your pack take off in full cry, and then galloping after them yourself, is a leap of faith. Are they chasing what they are supposed to be chasing? Will they come back? Can they be stopped if necessary?
"It's the hardest thing," Mason says of letting yourself go, not overthinking, and trusting the hounds you've trained–especially at those moments when you're out there alone with them in the country with no whips close enough to offer immediate aid.
Mason remembers one incident in particular. The pack was on the scent of a coyote, speaking as they ran the line. But suddenly they went silent
"They had lost the line," Mason recalls. "They swirled around, but they didn't speak. Then, collectively, they all ran by together, still not speaking but going somewhere with a purpose. It was confusing to see. They clearly had something in mind, but I was at a loss to know what it was."
Having moved to a different place in the field on their own initiative, the hounds started speaking again and took off on a line.
A retired huntsman who had been watching from his car on a country road bordering the field had seen the pack before Mason had gotten up to them, and he told her what had happened. Two coyotes had been running ahead of the pack. They separated and ran in opposite directions when they reached the field, and the pack had lost the scent of the one they had been following. They tried briefly to regain that line, but then quickly made a single-minded decision: to turn back to the spot where the coyotes had split and follow the second coyote instead.
"It turned out that, as a pack, they had made a really wise decision," Mason says. "Foxhounds hunt by scent, not by sight, and that means you have to have a lot of trust in them, because often you can't see what they're chasing. That day was a good lesson to just stay out of their way and let them do what they're dying to do, what they've been bred for centuries and trained to do. Let them hunt."
Posted in Hound's Life, Summer Walk | Tagged coyote, foxhound, golden thread, hound, hound training, Hound Welfare Fund, houndwalk, Iroquois Hunt, Jerry Miller, Lilla Mason, nightline, scent, scenting, summer exercise | 3 Replies


…Ford Expeditions, Chevy Silverado trucks and the Dodge Ram. Also, we offer some of their wider, low offset off-road fitments. Black Rock 937 Type 8P Steel Black Rock 942 Type D Steel 17x8 For more steel wheel options for your vehicle, take a look at "Steel Wheels Available at Tire Rack."
Which Wheels are Best for Winter Use?


text:
Kurfürstin Amalia oder Kurfürstin Amalie ist die Bezeichnung folgender Personen:

 Amalie von Pfalz-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld-Bischweiler (1752–1828), durch Heirat Kurfürstin von Sachsen
 Amalia von Neuenahr-Alpen (1539–1602), durch Heirat Kurfürstin von der Pfalz

siehe auch:
 Elisabeth Amalie von Hessen-Darmstadt (1635–1709), durch Heirat Kurfürstin von der Pfalz
 Maria Amalia von Österreich (1701–1756), durch Heirat Kurfürstin von Bayern
 Wilhelmine Amalie von Braunschweig-Lüneburg(1673–1742), durch Heirat Königin und Kurfürstin von Böhmen

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Miniatures Wargames Back Issues for sale- SOLD!!!
I have hauled these magazine around for YEARS and read and re-read them, now it is time for someone else to get to read them.
There are 26 back issues of Miniature Wargames, all from the late 90's and early 2000's. Lots of great articles with tons of scenarios, rules, painting articles, etc.
Only $25 + free shipping via USPS Medium flat rate box to the continental US only.
I will update this post when they are sold, leave a comment below if you are interested.
See pics below for some samples of what you'll get. Think of it as a surprise smorgasbord of wargaming articles at less than a dollar an issue!
Meanwhile, i have been steadily plugging away on the last batch of 28mm pulp figures I want to do this month. Pictures will follow, I am going to set up a gallery for all of my figures, stay tuned.
Mrs. Tin Man and I were in the craft store last week, and I picked up this wooden fairy door to paint for her. After using my normal terrain painting technique, which is usually for ancient ruins or burned put buildings, instead of a "fairy door", it turned into a "scary door."
Never fear, though, she is going to add flowers and other fairy-like stuff to it. Stay tuned for actual figure pictures!
"Men, I need a volunteer to knock on this door."
And here is what the cats think about my effort to organize the game room.
I am awash in figures and periods, far more than I could ever have dreamed of having when I started in miniatures 20+ years ago (or board wargames 30+ years ago). Yet, I am bogged down physically, in terms of storage space, and psychologically by unfinished projects.
Over the last couple of years, I have endeavored to clear out those figures I will not use anytime soon. I am going to continue to do this in 2015. But, to take it a step further, I am going to take a radical pledge.
I will not purchase any wargaming figures in 2015.
Does not matter what scale, or period, not a single new figure. Instead, I will focus on painting what I have (which is considerable) and working on terrain projects and most importantly, PLAYING GAMES.
I will keep the public informed of my progress. I do hold open purchasing crafting and terrain material and occasional rule sets, hopefully this will not become my Achilles heel.
Wish me luck, and godspeed you in your gaming for 2015!
Cleaning out my storage area, and I have discovered bags and bags of WW2 microarmor I bought 10 years ago that I shall never use. I also have a small American and German force painted and based I would like to sell as well.
Why you ask? Because my favorite 6mm manufacturer, Peter Berry at Baccus miniatures, has announced that he shoudl have a complete 6mm WW2 Normandy campaign line ready around the end of the year. I am just going to restart the project then, I have more than enough painting to keep me busy!
So, I am selling what I have and starting over.
What do you get? Well a painted and based Americam and German force, which can be a reinforced company or battalion, depending on the scale you play. All of the infantry is Heroics and Ros I think.
The rest is literally ziploc bags of vehicles and figures. I will not tabulate them, but there are King tigers, half tracks, amphibious vehicles, Shermans, 88's, and all sorts of stuff. Many have bent / missing barrels and everything is being sold as is.
But, for the privilege of not making me count it and helping me clear space, I am selling the whole lot for $65 even, free shipping via USPS priority mail, shipping to the US only.
Please respond in the comments with your email address and I will contact you directly. Thanks!


If you want to choose the best mutual funds, there are only a few basic things to know. After identifying your investment objective and tolerance for risk, you're ready to begin building a portfolio. Fortunately, the two greatest strengths of mutual funds are their accessibility and simplicity: Almost anyone can buy them and they are easy to understand.
Before you begin looking for the best mutual funds, you'll need a good tool to help you do the research. There are several different mutual fund research sites you can use to find the best funds. You can find and use all of the basic mutual fund selection criteria with Morningstar's Fund Screener. This fund screener is free if you sign up for their basic membership.
To choose the best mutual funds, you'll need to know how to judge performance. Compare each fund's historical returns to an appropriate benchmark, such as the fund's relative category average or an index. For example, performance for most stock mutual funds is compared to the S&P 500 Index.
Keep in mind that mutual funds are best used for long-term investing (more than 3 years). Therefore put the heaviest weight in your selection criteria on the 5-year return. Also look at the 10-year return if the fund has been around that long. If the fund outperforms the benchmark for the 5-year returns, keep it on your radar. Otherwise remove it from consideration.
Many investors overlook manager tenure, which is how long the manager has been managing the fund. Look for manager tenure of at least 3 years and be sure the time frame you are reviewing represents the same time frame the manager has been at the helm of the fund. If, for example, you've found a fund that has an outstanding 5-year return but the manager tenure is only 1 year, it means the current manager receives no credit for 4 of the past 5 years' performance.
Fees and expenses are a direct drag on investment returns. So, funds with low fees and expenses tend to perform better over long periods of time than those with higher relative expenses. Only consider mutual funds with an Expense Ratio below 1.00%. Note: The average Expense Ratio is around 1.50%. Also, avoid sales charges (loads) by using only no-load funds.
Turnover is a measure of a fund's trading activity. This means how often the fund manager is buying and selling the stock or bond holdings in the fund. Turnover is often expressed as a percentage, called Turnover Ratio. A low turnover ratio (20% to 30%) indicates a buy-and-hold strategy and low trading costs, which is generally best for investors. A high turnover ratio (more than 100%) indicates a strategy of significant buying and selling of securities, which creates higher relative trading costs.
By nature, mutual funds are diverse investments; they hold dozens or hundreds of stocks and/or bonds all in one basket. However it is still a good idea to check the fund's holdings, which is how many stocks or bonds are held in the funds you are researching. If, for example, a fund only invests in 20 different stocks (holdings), there is an increased risk of high volatility (fast movements up or down in price).
You might see high gains as well as significant declines in value over short periods of time. For proper diversification and lower relative risk, check to be sure that the fund has at least 50 holdings before investing.
The previous points are primarily for selecting mutual funds that are actively managed, which basically means that the fund managers are trying to outperform the stock market average returns, measured by an index, such as the S&P 500. However over long periods of time, especially 10 years or more, the majority of actively managed funds do not consistently outperform the stock market indexes, which is why many investors like to use index funds.


Oh!....I'd Pop To Attention In A Heart Beat!
I am speechless hahaha this is excellent!!
...I don't know what to say. this is so good. please give me some of your skills!!!
That is a killer-sweet hat.
Another amazing portrait, I'm amazed by the details on the clothes, like everyone, but by your colour scheme that is very harmonious and relaxing. Great job !
The details on this piece are crazy gorgeous. Wonderful work.
Wow, she's got a really cool hat. That's easily my favorite detail.
Beautifully done. The details and overall design are wonderful.
She is simply spectacular. You have an incredible eye for detail.
This. This is ... this is just badassery.
I wish that someday, I'll become this great of an artist...or even GREATER!
Loving the awesome detail on the clothes. But really everything about this piece is gorgeous.
she is great and beautiful!!!
Lovely picture. The outfit is adorable.
good work ! very pretty, soothing colours.
Wow, this looks pretty awesome Great job!
Love the details on her clothes! Beautifully done!
Beautiful details on the jacket!


text:
Explaining the Digital Dilemma
Reducing to digital form everything written and published, and even said and thought, is surely going to produce as many cloud-stored ones and zeroes as there are grains of sand (ballpark estimate, only).
For the rest of us, an essential aid in the monumental change in human affairs represented by gazillion-byte digitization will be generous experts who help us swallow the changes in bite-sized bits.
One such is Ruta Abolins, the director of Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia's Russell Special Collections Library. She is now contributing a regular column, "The Digital Treadmill", to Vocer (pronounced [vo kər ː]), a German online media magazine based in Hamburg and Munich and funded entirely with donations and endowments.
Its publisher is the non-profit Association for Media and Journalism Criticism (VfMJ), whose mission is to highlight the media and journalistic criticism of younger writers and practitioners.
Arbolins has been involved with moving image and sound preservation since she was in college. She is a former board member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. She recently put together an exhibit on media collections for a new building dedicated to preserving cultural heritage.
Her column on "the digital treadmill" takes its name from The Digital Dilemma II, a 2007 report from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scences that outlined concerns about the longevity of Hollywood studios' digital motion-picture materials, as well as those of large commercial, scientific, and government organizations. It found a key problem: organizations don't have an operationally and economically sustainable means to do that.
In her first column, Arbolins begins with an admission, not one she alone would have to make: "So much of what I knew or what I thought I knew about moving image archiving and the preservation of film and video has changed since 1990 when I got my first job in a film archive."
She explains: "The faster technology changes, the more quickly we must develop preservation strategies that anticipate and adapt to these changes. And everything is sped up even further because the preservation of digital data is on the fast track."
Categories: Shorts • Techie's Corner
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Can someone please tell me why my winning conditions aren't working? I'm making the game connect four however whenever I run the program, it drops the circles and everything but the winning conditions do not work. I'm not too sure if I'm calling to them not correctly or if it's just not being called to in the right spots. Please advise. I appreciate your upcoming answers.
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;

public class ConnectFourJan {

  static boolean winCheck;
  static drawBoard drawConnectFourBoard = new drawBoard();
  static int [][] spotOnBoard = new int [6][7];
  static int maxRow=6;
  static int maxCol=7;
  static boolean endOfGame = false;
  static boolean gameStart;
  static JPanel boardPanel;

  static JButton firstOption = new JButton ("Drop");
  static JButton secondOption = new JButton ("Drop");
  static JButton thirdOption = new JButton ("Drop");
  static JButton fourthOption = new JButton ("Drop");
  static JButton fifthOption = new JButton ("Drop");
  static JButton sixthOption = new JButton ("Drop");
  static JButton seventhOption = new JButton ("Drop");

  static JButton playAgain = new JButton ("New");
  static JButton reset = new JButton ("Reset");
  static JButton exit = new JButton ("Exit");

  static int blank =0;
  static int red=1;
  static int yellow=2;
  static int firstColour= red;

  public static void board() {
    spotOnBoard = new int [maxRow][maxCol];
    for (int row=0; row < maxRow; row++){
      for (int col=0; col< maxCol; col++){
        spotOnBoard[row][col]=blank;
      }
    }
  }

  public static class drawBoard extends JPanel {
    public void paintComponent(Graphics g){
      super.paintComponent(g);
      drawConnectFourBoard(g);
    }//end of paintComponent.

    void drawConnectFourBoard(Graphics g){
      g.setColor(Color.BLUE);
      g.fillRect(0, 0, 100+100*maxCol, 100+100*maxRow);
      for (int row=0; row<maxRow; row++)
        for (int col=0; col<maxCol; col++) {
        if (spotOnBoard[row][col]==blank) g.setColor(Color.white);
        if (spotOnBoard[row][col]==red) g.setColor(Color.red);
        if (spotOnBoard[row][col]==yellow) g.setColor(Color.yellow);
        g.fillOval(100*col, 100*row, 100, 100);
      }
    }
  }

  public static boolean winCheck(int colour) {
   int box;
    if (colour==red)
      box = red;
    else
      box = yellow;
    for(int j = 0; j < 6; j++) {
      for (int k = 0; k < 7; k++) {
        if(spotOnBoard[j][k]==(box)) {
          if(((j -3) >= 0) && spotOnBoard[j -1][k]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j -2][k]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j -3][k]==(box)) {
            return true;
          }
          else if(((k -3) >= 0) && spotOnBoard[j][k -1]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j][k -2]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j][k -3]==(box)) {
            return true;
          }
          else if(((j+3)<= 5) && spotOnBoard[j+1][k]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j+2][k]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j+3][k]==(box)){
            return true;
          }
          else if(((k +3) <= 6) && spotOnBoard[j][k +1]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j][k +2]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j][k +3]==(box)) {
            return true;
          }
          else if(((j -3)>= 0) && ((k +3)<=6) && spotOnBoard[j-1][k+1]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j-2][k+2]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j-3][k+3]==(box)){
            return true;
          }
          else if(((j +3) <=5) && ((k -3) >=0) && spotOnBoard[j +1][k -1]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j +2][k -2]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j +3][k -3]==(box)){
            return true;
          }
          else if(((j -3)>=0) && ((k -3)>= 0) && spotOnBoard[j -1][k -1]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j -2][k -2]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j -3][k -3]==(box)){
            return true;
          }
          else if(((j +3) <=5) && ((k +3) <=6) && spotOnBoard[j +1][k +1]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j +2][k +2]==(box) && spotOnBoard[j +3][k +3]==(box)){
            return true;
          }

        }
      }
    }
    return false;
  }

  public static void displayWinner(int n) {
    if (n==red) {
      JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "red wins! Congratulations!", "Winner!", JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE );
    }
    else
   JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Yellow wins! Congratulations!", "Winner!", JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE );
  }

  public static void main (String [] args) {
    board();
    ButtonHandler listen = new ButtonHandler();

    firstOption.addActionListener(listen);
    secondOption.addActionListener(listen);
    thirdOption.addActionListener(listen);
    fourthOption.addActionListener(listen);
    fifthOption.addActionListener(listen);
    sixthOption.addActionListener(listen);
    seventhOption.addActionListener(listen);
    playAgain.addActionListener(listen);
    reset.addActionListener(listen);
    exit.addActionListener(listen);

    JPanel topPanel = new JPanel();
    topPanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(1,7));
    topPanel.setBackground(new Color(0,0,0));
    topPanel.add(firstOption);
    topPanel.add(secondOption);
    topPanel.add(thirdOption);
    topPanel.add(fourthOption);
    topPanel.add(fifthOption);
    topPanel.add(sixthOption);
    topPanel.add(seventhOption);

    JPanel bottomPanel = new JPanel();
    bottomPanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(1,4));
    bottomPanel.add(playAgain);
    bottomPanel.add(reset);
    bottomPanel.add(exit);

    JPanel mainPanel = new JPanel();
    mainPanel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
    mainPanel.setBackground(new Color(0,214,154));
    mainPanel.add(topPanel, BorderLayout.NORTH);
    mainPanel.add(drawConnectFourBoard);
    board();
    mainPanel.add(bottomPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);

    JFrame window = new JFrame ("Connect4");
    window.setContentPane(mainPanel);
    window.setSize(720,700);
    window.setLocation(500,100);
    window.setResizable(true);
    window.setVisible(true);
  }

   private static class ButtonHandler implements ActionListener {
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent a) {
      if (a.getSource()== firstOption)
        dropCircle(0);
      else if (a.getSource()== secondOption)
        dropCircle(1);
      else if (a.getSource()== thirdOption)
        dropCircle(2);
      else if (a.getSource()== fourthOption)
        dropCircle(3);
      else if (a.getSource()== fifthOption)
        dropCircle(4);
      else if (a.getSource()== sixthOption)
        dropCircle(5);
      else if (a.getSource()==seventhOption)
        dropCircle(6);

    if (a.getSource() == playAgain) {
      gameStart=true;
    }
    if (a.getSource() == exit) {
      System.exit(0);
    }
    if (a.getSource() == reset) {
      for (int row=0; row < maxRow; row++){
        for (int col=0; col< maxCol; col++){
          spotOnBoard[row][col]=blank;
        }
      }
      drawConnectFourBoard.repaint();
    }
    }

    public void dropCircle(int n) {
      if (endOfGame) return;
      gameStart=true;
      int row;
      for (row=0; row<maxRow; row++)
       if (spotOnBoard[row][n]>0) break;
      if (row>0) {
        if(winCheck(firstColour)){
          displayWinner(firstColour);
        }
        spotOnBoard[--row][n]=firstColour;
        if (firstColour==red)
          firstColour=yellow;
        else
          firstColour=red;
      }
      drawConnectFourBoard.repaint();
    }

   }
}

A: Your problem is that in dropCircle, you're populating boardArray, but in winCheck, when you're checking for a win, you're looking in spotOnBoard, which is a completely different array.  That is, you're setting values in one array, but looking for them somewhere different.  This is never going to work.

A: In addition to what others are saying, your for loop seems to have a bug in it:
for(int j = 0; j < 6; j++) {
    for(int k = 0; k < 7; k++) {
        if(/* condition */) {
            return true;
        } else if(/* condition */) {
            return true;
        } else if(/* condition */) {
            return true;

        } else {            // bug
            return false;   // here
        }
    }
}

return false;

This will only check the very first iteration so you need to remove the else.
It also seems you don't check the result of winCheck:
winCheck(firstColour);
displayWinner(firstColour);

And I think you mean something like this:
if(winCheck(firstColour)) {
    displayWinner(firstColour);
}

A: The answers are likely going to change as you make revisions to your program, but you seem to be missing the core concepts of how to use the arrays you've defined for your game.
Strings, ints, booleans, doubles, etc. whatever Objects/primitives you decide to use to model your game, you should be using consistently across the program. (ie: Strings should be compared using .equals() as has been mentioned numerous times) and the data structures you've provided should serve a meaningful purpose as well (ie: don't assign a new data structure for use in one place and assign another of similar purpose in another place if you can legitimately share the same data in both places).
As of now, it looks like you have a bit of a problem in your dropCircle method.
public void dropCircle(int n) {
  if (endOfGame) return;
  gameStart=true;
  int row;
  for (row=0; row<maxRow; row++)
    if (spotOnBoard[row][n]>0) break;
  if (row>0) {
    if(winCheck(firstColour)){            // checking for a win here will result in
                                          // false because the winning position has
                                          // yet to be assigned.
      displayWinner(firstColour);
    }
    spotOnBoard[--row][n] = firstcolour;  // move this line above the if statement above.
    if (firstColour==red)
      firstColour=yellow;
    else
      firstColour=red;
  }
  drawConnectFourBoard.repaint();
}

Another point to note is your consistent use of Strings and ints to represent board state. You can conceivably implement this whole game using the same data type, and it would eliminate a good deal of your logic errors, which are most likely being caused by poor handling of data types.
One thing I might suggest, is you rename and consolidate some of your data structures.
spotOnBoard implies a single space on the board, when in fact, this array is your board. The spot on the board, is the element at [row,col]
Second, I would look at the javadocs for Object equals. Specifically String equals.
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/String.html#equals(java.lang.Object)
Good luck
Edit: Revised to reflect OP updates and suggested actions to take.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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text:
Home»lifestyle»features
'Snapping back into shape isn't normal': Dietitian Aoife Hearne gets real about post-baby weight loss
Aoife Hearne with her daugher Zoe at home in Waterford. Picture: Mary Browne
Friday, July 12, 2019 - 09:00 AM
Operation Transformation dietitian Aoife Hearne believes women need to be realistic about their post-pregnancy bodies, writes Ciara McDonnell.
There is a sign taped to the front door of Aoife Hearne's house, warning off rogue door-knockers by informing them that if they wake her children, there will be hell to pay.
As mum to Dylan, four, Ailbhe, three, and Zoe, 13 months, the dietitian and consultant on Operation Transformation is refreshingly honest about the realities of life with three under five.
"Look, it's not easy," she admits. "There is a lot of juggling and a lot of help."
Having spent the last five years pregnant, nursing, or both, Aoife is keen to erode the myth of springing back into shape after a baby.
"When I was pregnant with Dylan, I had this Instamom idea that I was going to run into labour, but that did not happen," she says.
"I got SPD (symphysis pubis dysfunction, which causes pelvic pain) and I couldn't exercise and that was really hard for me.
"I didn't end up on crutches but I was walking around like an old lady. That led to five years of no exercise.
Truthfully, I found a way to get out of every single Operation Transformation 5k.
Just last week, Aoife set herself the challenge of running for 20 minutes, and she succeeded.
"It was the first week where I felt that I want to get my body back. I want to feel fitter. People might think that I'm fit, but I'm not — I'm hiding a multitude."
Of course, the demands that govern new parenting do not allow for lengthy sojourns in the gym, and the key to success, says the dietician, is being realistic.
"Zoe is definitely our last baby, and I don't think I was ready until now," she says.
"My body is only getting back into the normal run of things — menstrual cycle and all that stuff that I didn't really have for the last five years. It's been a crazy few years but I'm looking forward to exercising again."
Time is the one thing that new parents lack, says Aoife.
"That's why running is so effective because I can do it in 20 minutes. I don't have time for classes — I laugh at Karl Henry every week with his healthy to-do lists. I'm like, 'Karl! Seriously!'"
Postpartum life is a busy one, and it's important to be honest about the demands of a young family.
Aoife suggests focusing on small changes that are easy to stick to.
Vive l'amour: New dating app gives control back to female users
"I know that personal trainers say that you can make time — I'm sorry, but when you have young kids, it just doesn't always happen.
"I think women have to be realistic too and not expect so much of themselves. There will be times when you can't exercise, and that's OK, but focus on eating well during that time.
"If you don't eat well and you don't exercise, then you're in trouble."
Aoife calls herself a 'samey' kind of eater, perhaps as a result of habits honed during years as an athlete.
She eats regularly throughout the day, starting with porridge or Weetabix most mornings.
A quick rummage through her cupboards shows that the dietitian is just like the rest of us.
Along with healthy staples like brown rice, pasta, and oats, she has a treat press — yes, really! — stocked with Curly Wurlys and treat-size chocolate bars like Penguins and Cadbury Snacks.
Her fridge is stuffed with real butter and yoghurts, lots of vegetables, and an emergency can of Coca-Cola ("only when I'm pregnant or hungover").
Everything in moderation is the message Aoife wants to spread, and she is evangelical about it.
I'd love to see women learning to trust themselves a little more so that they recognise their own hunger and fullness signals.
"I don't subscribe to this notion of restrictive eating. No foods should be off limits, we should give ourselves permission to eat all foods and that's why you will see all foods in my presses," she says.
Having three children in quick succession is intense, and sleep is a priceless commodity for Aoife.
Her middle child Ailbhe had an undiagnosed posterior tongue tie until she was seven months old, leaving her full of wind and, as a result, unable to sleep.
At the same time, Aoife's thyroid went into overdrive, to the point where specialists were telling her that her body was toxic and she would need to stop breastfeeding.
"Mentally I found it very hard to keep it together," she says. "I remember sitting in my GP's office thinking I had postnatal depression and I was so worried.
"Only that she knew me so well, she was able to say 'no, you're just exhausted' and that gave me such comfort.
"It was a very difficult time for my husband and I. We were both trying to work, and never knowing if we were going to sleep. Sleep is everything."
Add filming Operation Transformation into the mix and it's hard to marry the Aoife Hearne who came across on screen with an exhausted mum dealing with a health issue.
That time was not an easy one for the family, she admits.
"It was really challenging in that I had to be 'that person' for Operation Transformation, and I felt I did a good enough job, but it took every single drop of energy that I had inside, so when I came home I was useless to everyone else.
"Hair and makeup covers a multitude and definitely helped me put the game face on. I knew I could crumble when I came home, but it was unfair in some ways, crumbling on the people who are most important to you. I suppose that's life, isn't it?"
In the face of years of sleep deprivation, it stands to reason that diet rules go out the window for most of us, she says.
"When you don't sleep, hormones in your body change to drive you to want sugar and high fat because your brain hardwired to know that's what's going to help you get through.
"Because I knew that, I tried to set myself up for success, and not have those things around me as much, so I couldn't lean on them."
Like most new mums, Aoife had a freezer full of dinners when her firstborn arrived, but by the time Zoe was born last year, that kind of militant planning was out the window.
She stocked her kitchen with healthy snack foods like oats ("great for milk supply") and a steady stream of fruits and veggies.
Eating the correct number of calories in the early days of breastfeeding is an essential contributor to establishing milk supply, she points out.
When you are breastfeeding in the early weeks you need more energy to fuel that milk supply. I would recommend around 500 extra calories for the first six weeks because that milk supply is very ramped up during this time.
Aoife cites breastfeeding as crucial to regaining her shape postpartum.
"Without a doubt, breastfeeding made getting back into shape really easy for me. It really helps to contract the tummy."
One of the greatest myths around food and breastfeeding is that that you need to eat in a specific way to increase your supply, says Hearne.
"There is no science behind that at all. Your milk quality is not affected by what you eat.
"Oats are really good to increase your milk supply, and you must drink enough water to make sure that you are making enough milk.
"There is some evidence that caffeine may make the baby more irritable but generally, although women always blame themselves for their children being fussy, it's probably because it's the early weeks and babies are fussy by nature."
It's important to be realistic about our bodies in that fourth trimester, and role models like Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle are doing a great job of showing what real women look like postpartum, according to the dietitian.
"Bouncing back and snapping back into shape is not normal. We saw Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle after their babies with a little tummy and that's how most women's stomach's look after giving birth.
Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton pictured at Wimbledon last month. Pictures: PA Wire
"There are a few women who don't look that way, but it is very rare. I think that women should know that you will probably be in your maternity clothes for the first few weeks, and that's normal."
For those who wish to get back into their old routine, it's all about being kind to yourself, advocates Aoife.
"I totally understand that at some stage, you want to get out of your maternity jeans," she laughs. "There is nothing wrong with getting moving and getting into some kind of a routine.
"It can be a very difficult transition from never really having to actively lose weight to be in a place where you do.
"Knowing how you do that is quite daunting and you feel like you are never going to fit back into your clothes again."
Having a baby changes us inside and out, and it's important to realise and celebrate the journey that your body has been on, says Aoife.
Be gentle, nurture yourself, and realise the journey you've been on.
I would love to see women accepting their bodies for what they are, and appreciating what they've been through.
"It's pretty amazing that we can make our own people and then grow them and keep them alive — all on our own!"
Self-assessment is key
Constant self-assessment is key to reintroducing early postpartum exercise, says performance and lifestyle nutritionist Fiona O'Donnell.
"Once you've been cleared by your GP at your six week check, it's a good time to start introducing some gentle exercise," she says.
"It's important to be checked out by a medical professional, just in case there is any Diastasis Recti (separation of abdominal muscles) present.
"In terms of starting exercise, walking is great. To me, it's all about taking a step back and assessing your situation as a whole.
"Oftentimes, sleeping or ensuring that you are getting nourishing meals take precedent, and that is totally fine."
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A bipartisan group of seven governors rejected President Donald Trump's request to send their states' National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border because they object to the administration's policy of separating minor children from asylum-seeking adults.
Democrats Andrew Cuomo of New York, Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, John Carney of Delaware and Dannel Malloy of Connecticut said they wouldn't send troops. Republican Charlie Baker of Massachusetts told The Boston Globe his state won't provide National Guard troops at the border over the separations. Democrat Ralph Northam of Virginia and Republican Larry Hogan of Maryland each went as far as pulling back crews that had been deployed to the Southwest.
In April, Trump directed the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to work with governors to deploy National Guard troops to the border region to assist in security. The deployments became politically charged in recent days by his "zero-tolerance" practice of splitting up families that enter the country illegally while seeking asylum.
"Until this policy of separating children from their families has been rescinded, Maryland will not deploy any National Guard resources to the border," Hogan said Tuesday on Twitter. "Earlier this morning, I ordered our 4 crewmembers & helicopter to immediately return from where they were stationed in New Mexico."
Trump hardened his resolve to maintain his policy of separating children from parents amid an intensifying backlash from the public and lawmakers.
Trump said Tuesday at a speech to a small-business trade group in Washington that he has "only two options" for immigration enforcement, either "totally open borders or criminal prosecution for law-breaking."


Twenty-eight-year old Sokne – not her real name – has a degree from a private university. She also has a latent psychological disorder.
She would often visit casinos for days at a time without going home, staying until there was no money left to gamble.
For Sokne, help came in the form of severe intervention from her family.
While a government ban technically prevents Cambodian citizens without dual citizenship from gambling, for those wishing to do so, a variety of illicit routes exist – from the nation's glittering casinos, where the ban is loosely enforced, to informal card games to betting rings for everything from football to the next rainfall.
But while the temptations are myriad, treatment options for addicts are essentially nonexistent.
Further, pervasive cultural attitudes lead to an avoidance of treatment, experts say.
Dr Sothara Muny, of the Cambodia-based Transcultural Psychological Organisation, noted that while gambling addiction is an undeniable problem in the Kingdom, it is often lumped together with issues such as drug addiction.
"Many people do not consider it a disorder, but they do consider it a reason [for larger issues]," he said.
Muny also noted that while his organisation deals with everything from drug addiction to depression, it has yet to receive a patient seeking treatment for gambling.
Dr Timothy Fong, professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, Gambling Studies Program, notes that other issues, including shame and stigma, contribute to the issue's lack of recognition.
"Asking for help and talking about personal problems and emotions is not a widely accepted practice amongst Asians, which discourages seeking treatment," Fong said.
In the lazy hours following lunch, tuk-tuk drivers huddle on a street corner near Koh Pich for an afternoon ritual.
Six drivers crouch in a circle, shoulders slumped, focused on the activity in the centre. The drivers are playing a game called kate or a high card betting game. For one game, a wager can cost 1,000 riel with a payout of 3,000.
"We can play 10 times during a break time, and when we see police, we run away to continue driving," said one tuk-tuk driver.
But for these drivers, who typically earn around $5 to $7 a day, even a single game of cards is high risk, as a chunk of their wages could easily be lost in a few afternoon bets. What's more, for low-income addicts, travelling beyond Cambodia's borders for treatment is a fantasy.
Outside the Kingdom, gambling addiction resources in neighbouring countries are expensive to access – one treatment centre in Thailand draws wealthy foreign tourists for a month of residential therapy, with each paying $10,000 for resort-like treatment in lush Phuket.
In locations like Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, community-based resources are available for free and funded by the government, noted Daphne Yeung, assistant supervisor of Tung-Wah Hospital in Hong Kong, which treats gambling addiction.
In Cambodia, no such treatments exist.
As a casino dealer in Cambodia's border town of Bavet, Sopheak – a pseudonym – is accustomed to the behaviour of gambling addicts.
But while they may have the dealer's sympathy, Cambodians suffering from gambling addiction are only seeing their gaming temptations multiply.
In Poipet, Dreamworld Poipet Casino has announced a $7.5 million expansion. That comes on the heels of NagaWorld's nearly $400 million expansion in the capital.
According to Fong of UCLA's gambling studies program, in areas with legalised gambling institutions, issues of addiction are less vocalised, creating a situation where the government and regulating bodies aren't compelled to act because of local community pressures.


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Torrid UVa. men's basketball blasts North Carolina, 76-61
Published Monday, Jan. 20, 2014, 8:57 pm
Front Page » Sports » Torrid UVa. men's basketball blasts North Carolina, 76-61
UVa. broke open a close game with a 12-2 run to close out the first half, and blasted reeling North Carolina 76-61 in Charlottesville Monday night.
The game was a nip-and-tuck battle for the first 17 minutes. UNC (11-7, 1-4 ACC) led 27-26 at the 5:57 mark of the first half on a dunk by Kennedy Meeks, but two free throws by Joe Harris made it 28-27 Virginia 25 seconds later, and Carolina could only manage one field goal the rest of the half as the 'Hoos went into the locker room up 38-29.
UVa. (14-5, 5-1 ACC) started the second half on a 10-4 scoring run to lead by 15 at 48-33 on a free throw by Harris with 17:10 to go. The Tar Heels would not get closer than 11 points the rest of the way.
It was 66-53 Virginia with 5:56 to go when Malcolm Brogdon hit a three from the top of the key to extend the lead to 16, and from there the Cavs grew the lead to as many as 23.
Virginia shot 48.1 percent from the field (26-of-54) and 40 percent from three-point range (8-of-20). North Carolina was 41.3 percent from the field (26-of-63) and just 26.7 percent from long-range (4-of-15).
UNC outrebounded UVa. 39-38. The Heels committed 11 turnovers to Virginia's eight, but UVa. outscored UNC 17-8 in points off turnovers.
Harris and Brogdon had 16 points each to lead Virginia, which also got 13 points from Justin Anderson, eight points and nine assists from London Perrantes and six points and 11 rebounds from Akil Mitchell.
Meeks led UNC with 16 points.
Team Notes
• At 5-1, Virginia is off to its best ACC start since 1994-95 (5-1)
• Virginia won its 12th consecutive ACC home game (tying the longest active streak in the league – Duke)
• All five of Virginia's ACC wins have been by double digits
Player Career Highs
• London Perrantes had a career-high nine assists
• London Perrantes' nine assists were the most in a game by a Cavalier since Jontel Evans had 10 assists vs. Howard on Jan. 4, 2011 and the most in an ACC game since Sean Singletary had 10 assists vs. Boston College on Jan. 19, 2008
• Malcolm Brogdon (16 pts) scored in double figures for the sixth straight game and the 12th time this season (17th time in his career)
• Joe Harris (16 pts) scored in double figures for the 13th time this season (82nd time in his career)
• Justin Anderson (13 pts) scored in double figures for the 12th time this season (24th time in his career)
Updated Virginia Record Book
• Joe Harris (224 3-pointers) moved into third place on Virginia's career 3-point FG list, passing Sean Singletary (222, 2005-08)
• Joe Harris (1,474 points) moved into 18th place on Virginia's career scoring list, passing Othell Wilson (1,469, 1981-84)
• Akil Mitchell (666 rebounds) moved into 14th place on Virginia's career rebounding list, moving past Elton Brown (660, 2002-05) and Wally Walker (665, 1973-76)
Virginia Head Coach Tony Bennett
On the pace of the game: "The game got going early in their pace [of play]. They seduced us into a faster game than we needed to be in. We got control by the end of the first half offensively and defensively, and played the way we needed to play in the second half."
On foul shots: "It was a hard playing, physical game. They are quick to the ball and hard on the glass, and they put a lot of pressure on us. It was a physical game and we tried to take advantage of that when we could, as well, which resulted in a lot of free throws."
On the win: "I challenge these guys with the quality of their play. In the second half they responded. When you whip a donkey it kicks, but when you whip a thoroughbred it responds. I am not saying we are a thoroughbred or a donkey, or that we got whipped, but we challenged the guys to get the game back in their control, and the fact that they responded and played quality possessions is what I like the most."
On Akil Mitchell: "We keep telling him to get on the glass, take what the defense gives you, and get the 'X-Factor' baskets and plays. That's when he is at his best. Manufacturing offense is not his strength. He made a nice play, and I have been proud of how he has fallen into his role to help us and help himself. I like where he is going."
On Joe Harris: "Joe is playing efficient games. It is rare to have a player of his caliber with his unselfishness, who really doesn't care if he takes the shots or not. The other guys give us the balance and better chemistry. The guys are more shot discerning and they are making plays. To see Joe have four assists and no turnovers, he is unique in that way."
On London Perrantes: "I know he was really good defensively tonight, because I know how good UNC's Marcus Paige is. He made a couple of nice drives. He has a calming effect on our players. When he gets the ball he does not get sped up and he sees things that most guys do not. He was very complete."
On Anthony Gill: "He was good on his ball-screen defense. This was a game where I can go down the list and say that each guy gave us a good lift. Gill is taking what the defense gives him, instead of forcing the action. He is taking a lot of perimeter shots and spinning off, getting on the glass. This was one of the better games he has played."
North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams
On game: "Virginia was the more efficient team. We had some offensive rebounds, but we did not finish them off. Joe Harris is a great player. I love watching him play on TV – not when we're playing against him. Tony Bennett has done a great job getting everyone into a certain role and the players understand how he wants them to play. He has done a lot better of a job with that than I have. The missed opportunities really hurt us tonight, and we are not taking advantages of the mistakes the other team makes."
On offense: "I've got to get my team to play harder and with a greater sense of urgency. Our kids are trying, but they are lacking alertness. Virginia's players instinctively went after those loose balls harder and faster. Right now, it is not one particular thing. Tonight we had several mistakes."
On defense: "Going into halftime, it was a one-point game and they scored off of both turnovers there. London Perrantes made that big three before the half and it was a dagger. We gave them a lot of easy balls. We had a failure to box out, failure to get around in front and failure to make the switch. That's three different mistakes."
On Leslie McDonald not seeing much action: "I wanted to give someone else a chance. I didn't think that he deserved to play, but I didn't want him to sit out. He shot the ball great in practice, but he has got to get better at shot selection."
On pace of game: "Virginia did a better job of settling down. They have three great ball handlers and Virginia is a very unselfish team. They know who they are. If you look at our team, we have a very negative ratio. Virginia was being more aggressive."
Virginia Forward Akil Mitchell
On the win: "It's good. It's good to beat any team that good. When Justin [Anderson] is out on the floor and playing great, we turn into a different team."
On UNC's offensive rebounding: "They got too many rebounds in the first half. I really wanted to set a tone in the second half on the glass. They were scoring a lot off of offensive rebounds in the first half and I really wanted to shut that down."
On beating UNC: "It's definitely nice. My old AAU coach was a big Carolina fan and I always had friends on the team and guys I played with. To be able to play them is a dream come true and to beat them is really special."
Virginia Guard Justin Anderson:
On Virginia's first half: "We definitely sped up our pace. We went away from our game for a second there in the first half. Some of that blame can be put on me – I took a couple of quick shots which maybe led to them scoring in transition. But I think we did a good job of getting back and making it tough on them. Sometimes it doesn't go like that, especially against a great team and traditional program like North Carolina – who usually makes you play in transition. But we played with great balance in the second half and that's Virginia basketball."
On Coach Bennett's message during the first half: "He was just being Coach. He told us we got away from what we do but luckily we're still in the game and we wanted to buy in. We trust him and his game plan, so we wanted to buy into that and be successful and that's what we did."
On the game plan: "Our goal was definitely to stretch them out and make them guard us and come off the screens and flares. We wanted to make them run the floor and move more. They're really good when they can pack it in and use their length. Brice Johnson is long and McAdoo can really move for a power forward. We wanted to look for the open guys. Joe got really hot from the start and that was a beautiful thing to see. He got us started off on the right foot and it was a great collective win."
Virginia Guard Malcolm Brogdon:
On the win: "We're not content with the win, but we're happy about it. That was a good team. I know they've been up and down this year, but they're really talented and well coached. I think we established our path early and got it done."
On Virginia's slow start: "I didn't think we came out and played Virginia basketball in the first half. In the second half Coach Bennett made adjustments and told us to slow down and play our game, and I think we did. We got stops and limited their second chance opportunities and we started playing Virginia basketball."
Senior Guard Joe Harris
On the victory: "It feels very good to come away with a win against a solid team like Carolina and now we get a day offtomorrow when we all can get some rest."
On the overall execution: "We knew they were a very talented team, and no disrespect to them and their program, but we expected to win coming into the game. We prepared very well and had a good game plan. Coming in we knew that if we got them into a half-court game we felt pretty confident about it."
On the fast tempo of the first half: "It was not good, we talked about how we did not want to get into a track meet with them. We wanted to play our tempo and our style. Our first half was not good – we did not play very well at all. We were ahead by nine and did not feel very good about it. We came in and talked about how did not want to go up and down with them. We wanted to grind it out and make them earn everything and have to guard us."
Freshman Guard London Perrantes
On his game-high nine assists: "I was just getting the ball to people in the right spot and they were knocking down shots. We finished pretty well in the beginning. We got to the lane and got some open looks and dunks. I have to give credit to my teammates who were knocking down shots and finishing."
On playing against UNC: "It was a good experience, going out there and seeing that Carolina Blue is a dream come true for me. Especially being at Duke last weekend, it's difficult to explain. Coming out and getting that win against that team is a good experience for me."
On hitting his shots: "I feel like I did the last couple games. I have not necessarily looked to shoot the ball. I have confidence in myself that if I get it I will shoot it. In blow out situations I like to get other people involved and get them going, because we are going to need everybody in the long run."


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Constantia is een geslacht van weekdieren uit de klasse van de Gastropoda (slakken).

Soorten
 Constantia acutocostata Bandel & Kowalke, 1997
 Constantia elegans A. Adams, 1860

Vanikoridae