White Rock

We landed in White Rock last night at around 10pm. The trip was quite good, though we had a 3-hour layover in Edmonton. WestJet rules; they always seem to do things right for the most part. They have an almost magical ability to drop you off at the gate next to the gate where you need to get your connecting flight and they somehow turn around a plane in 10 minutes.

On the flight from Edmonton to Abbotsford, the plane was about half full, maybe less. I've never been on a plan that was so empty; it was just plain weird. We had the exit row on both flights (yay leg room!) but the woman next to the exit door on the Abbotsford flight decided to move to have her own row to herself. The guy in the exit row across the way was completely by himself.

I picked up a new dog book in Saskatoon and read it on the plane. I seem to do this about every year or so, but now with a new puppy on the way, I'll be reading and re-reading a few dog books. I'm not sure what it is about dog books, but I tend to be able to read them very quickly and, obviously, I never tire of them.

This particular book is written by Tufts Vetrinary college, with many staff contributing. Basically, it's one of those, "We see too damn many dogs that need help so we're going to make sure it stops," books. It's also the first puppy book I've ever read, which is astoundingly weird. For some reason everything else I've read has been on training, behaviour, psychology, history, stories, more training, and philosophy. Why I've never read a puppy book, I don't know.

Most of the book was excellent advice, if a bit heavy-handed (meaning somewhat impossible to do if you have a life at all). The authors do, however, do an excellent job of dispelling many myths, particularly in the area of nutrition and health. Because Tufts is asked to provide clinical research for dog food manufacturers, they really know their stuff. You can sense their frustration when you read about many of the various myths about doggie health, such as raw food diets or "all natural" diets. I guess that pseudoscience is rampant everywhere!