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PUTTING THE FUN INTO READING

10/5/2015

What is Your Dog Thinking?

Dogs are loveable and wonderful friends and there's lots of evidence to suggest that they have feelings just like you and me. Take my dog Pernod for example ...

He was a cross-whippet that I rescued from a shelter. I didn’t like to board him when I went away from home in case it brought back unhappy memories of his sad start in life. However, I was lucky to have a friend who would look after him.

I missed him a lot when we were apart and apparently he missed me too. He would show it big time when I came to collect him. The moment he saw me, he would leap on me, his tail wagging fast enough to cause a hurricane. Then he would cover my face with big slobbery kisses.

But when we got home, his attitude completely change. For a few hours, whenever I spoke to him he could turn his head away and ignore me. He was in the huff and was letting me know that he was't happy that I'd left him. Once he was satisfied he had punished me enough, we were best buddies again.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Have you heard the phrase to dog someone’s heels? Meaning to follow them very closely. Well, that’s what he did. He dogged my heels for days. Whenever I turned around, I tripped over him. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom, without him following me. He refused to let me out of his sight.

That kind of behaviour sounds very human. Here's some other examples of our four-legged friends behaving like we do:

Dogs Get Jealous

Experts believe that dogs get jealous if their owners give too much attention to someone else. A University of California study found dogs didn’t seem to be too bothered when their owners ignored them, but when the owner showered attention on a stuffed dog that could bark and wag its tail the real dog got jealous. Read More

Dogs Are Smart

You might think your dog is as daft as a brush at times, but they are pretty smart. In fact, they’re as smart as a two-year-old child is. Researchers have found that they can understand up to 250 words and gestures, can count up to five and can perform simple math sums. Border collies are the cleverest canines, followed by poodles, German shepherds, golden retrievers and dobermans. Read More

Dogs Dream

Have you ever noticed a dog twitching, growling or snapping in their sleep? That’s probably because it is dreaming. Researchers found dogs have similar sleep patterns and brain activity as we do. Smaller breeds tend to dream more than larger ones. Read More

Dogs Curl Up To Keep Warm

If you are cold, do you hug yourself, or if you are in bed, do you curl up in a ball? Well, dogs do the same, They have an instinct inherited from their ancestors that lived in the wild to keep themselves warm and to protect their vital organs while they sleep. Read More

Dogs Pant To Keep Cool

When you get hot on a sweltering day, spare a thought for your pet. Not only are they wearing a fur coat, but also their body temperature is higher than yours is. A human's normal body temperature is 37C, but a dog’s is 38C. When we get hot, we sweat through the pores in our skin, but dogs only sweat through the pads of their feet, which is a small area. So they take in cooler air through their mouths by panting. Read More

To find out what my fictional dog Rufus gets up to in WOOF, A BOY'S BEST FRIEND, read a sample HERE

Have fun reading. Bye for now.

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PUTTING THE FUN INTO READING

9/13/2015

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The Lovable Pets In My Life

My love of dogs prompted me to write my children's book WOOF - A Boy’s Best Friend. In case you haven’t guessed, it’s about a dog. I don't have a pet these days unless you count the spider that hangs about my conservatory, but as a kid we had quite a number.

MICKEY

First there was Mickey. He was a mixed breed, but what kind of dogs his mother and father were was anyone’s guess. He was brown with big, flopping ears that were pretty awesome. Dogs with little ears prick them up, but big floppy ears stay flat on either side of a dog's head unless they are running, then they fly all over the place. Mickey's ears were COOL! They defied the laws of gravity and stood straight out on either side of his head when he heard a noise. They looked like the wings of an aeroplane and he looked like he was about to take off. But in case you’re wondering, no, he couldn’t fly – he didn’t have super powers. I adored him but have to admit that he was no oil painting. That said, he was loyal and would defend me with his last breath, pulling his lips back in an angry snarl when anyone came along that he didn’t like. What more could a six-year-old want than a furry Guardian Angel?

DICEY

Next came Dicey. My dad came in from work one day and a little black and white furry head popped out of his coat pocket. He worked in a coal-fired power station and a stray cat had sneaked into the turbine hall and given birth to a litter of kittens. He decided to bring one home for myself and my brother. It was the most adorable kitten, which immediately got the name Dicey because of its numerous black and white spots that made him look just like the dice you would throw in snakes and ladders. As time went by, this tiny bundle of fur grew and grew until he got pretty huge. In fact, he was so tall, he would stand on the front doorstep, stretch up, lift the door knocker with one of his paws and bang it repeatedly demanding to be let in.

RUSTY

The next furry arrival to our home was Rusty. Unlike Mickey, Rusty was beautiful AND posh. He was a pedigree Beagle and had a very long, fancy name, like he should have lived at Buckingham Palace. We didn’t like it, so we called him plain old Rusty because he was rust coloured - with some black and white thrown in. Well, he was born in Newcastle. His long soft ears felt like velvet when you rubbed them. Rusty was a character with a capital C. Beagles have a great sense of smell and you often see them at airports with security staff sniffing for illegal food and stuff. They have lovely natures and are very popular pets. His nose was more or less permanently on the ground sniffing. How he didn’t rub it away on the pavements and roads, I’ll never know. As a pup, he often tripped over kerbs and crashed into lampposts when he was following an interesting smell. One day he flipped over a piece of wood and a dozen newborn mice ran out between his legs. They were blind and ran around helter skelter in total confusion. They must have been terrified. But Rusty was even more scared. He squealed like he'd confronted an angry rhino and ran for the hills with his tail tucked between his legs.

View image | gettyimages.com

PERNOD

My last dog, Pernod, was a cross Whippet. I got him from a rescue shelter. I say "got him" but he really “got me”. I was looking in the cages, my heart torn not knowing which dog to pick because I wanted to take them ALL home. When I came to Pernod (he wasn’t called that at the time), he grabbed my finger in his mouth and wouldn't let go. It wasn't a bite, more like a handshake. If that wasn't a sign he wanted me to take him, the pleading look in his eyes won me over. He was only a few months old, had been found all alone on the streets and didn’t have a name, so I took him home and called him Pernod.

GOLDFISH

Goldfish aren’t as cuddly as dogs or cats, although I couldn’t say for sure because I haven’t tried to hug one. If you have, let me know how it feels. But we had so many over the years, that I’ll give them a mention. Every June a huge fair comes to my home town of Newcastle. When I say huge, I mean gigantic. In fact, it's Europe’s biggest travelling fun fair. It has got bigger and bigger ever year and this year there were over 300 rides, food stalls and attractions. It began in 1882 and tens of thousands of people go there every year for the white-knuckle rides, to stuff themselves with candyfloss and toffee apples and play games.

View image | gettyimages.com

My favourite game was Hook a Duck. Dozens of plastic ducks floated around a circular water trough. The bright yellow ducks have metal rings on their heads and you use a pole with a hook at one end to capture a duck. All the ducks look the same, but some have a number underneath, which you can’t see, and you can only win a goldfish if you hook a duck with a winning number on.

View image | gettyimages.com

That's about it for the moment about my pets, but I’d love to hear about your pets and anything they’ve been up to. Drop me a line …

You can read a sample of WOOF - A Boy's Best Friend HERE

Have fun reading. Bye for now.

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PUTTING THE FUN INTO READING

12/26/2014

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Doozie Dog Facts

Rufus is a hero in my book WOOF A BOY'S BEST FRIEND. He and his four-legged pals see the world differently to you and me.

They know when a person is sad or ill and some people believe that they can see ghosts. Whaaaaaat!

Here are some fun facts about how dogs see, taste, smell, hear and feel.

SMELL:

You often see a dog with its nose on the ground. That’s because it senses the world best through its nose, which has more than 220 million smell-detecting cells. That’s a few more than a human, who has about 10 million.

The size of a dog's brain devoted to analysing smells is 40 x bigger than a humans. It's estimated that dogs can identify smells between 1,000 to 10,000 times better than humans!

HEARING:

Ever wondered why a dog barks at the vacuum cleaner or barks long before anyone knocks on the door. That’s because their hearing is their second best sense next to their sense of smell. They can hear sounds that are too quiet for people to hear, as well as sounds that are either too high or too low in pitch for people to hear.

A dog's hearing is 10 times more acute than ours, and they hear at a distance four times as far as we can.

Their hearing varies depending on their age and breed. Like people, dogs can start to lose their hearing as they become older and, in some cases, a dog may go completely deaf.

TASTE:

Although a dog’s sense of smell is much stronger than mine or yours, their taste buds are much weaker. We have roughly six times the amount of taste buds than our four legged buddies i.e. around 9,000 taste buds compared to a dog's 1,700.

TOUCH:

A dog’s entire body, including its paws, is covered with touch-sensitive nerve endings. Touch is the first sense a dog develops. Mothers begin touching their puppies almost immediately after their birth by licking and nuzzling them. The sense of touch is important to a dog because it helps it socialise with other dogs.

SIGHT:

It’s not true that dogs can only see in black and white. They can see colours - but not as vividly as humans. They have only two cones in their eyes to detect colours, while we have three. Dogs see mainly blue, greenish-yellow, yellow and shades of gray. However, they have better night vision and side vision than humans and are good at seeing moving objects.

And did you know that a dog’s whiskers are important:

They help a dog find its way through dark or small spaces. They can detect slight changes in airflow and pressure, helping a dog "see" obstacles in its path even in a pitch-black room.

You can read a sample of WOOF - A Boy's Best Friend HERE

Have fun reading. Bye for now.

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PUTTING THE FUN INTO READING

4/22/2014

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Super Spider Facts

Spiderman is one cool dude, but he’s not the only spider in the world with super powers.

Here, RepugnANT, one of the “stars” of my children’s book ANTics, shares some info about spiders.

Hi guys, I’m not going to tell you my name because only other spiders can say it. The ants in The Crawly Kingdom where I live (let me rephrase that) – WHERE I RULE, call me RepugnANT. Why, I don’t know. Something weird to do with them all having names that describe their personalities and ending in ANT. So, I’m guessing RepugnANT means handsome or strong.

Anyway, enough already.

I’ve taken time out from my busy schedule of terrorising anything smaller than myself to tell you about spiders.

First off – we’re pretty awesome. Different spiders have different super powers. I, on the other hand, have them all.

Let me start by telling you that we belong to a group of animals called "arachnids". We are not insects. Spiders don’t have antennae while insects do. We have eight legs, insects have six.

People terrified of us guys suffer from ‘arachnophobia’. It's one of the most common fears in the world. I’ve heard about 10% of men and 50% of women have it.

Did you know that there’s a lot of us about:

* around 40,000 different species

* we are found on every continent of the world except Antarctica.

In case you didn’t know, we’re eco friendly:

* we help the environment keeping your home, garden, school and workplace free from pest insects.

And we’ve been around for a very, very, very long time:

* scientists have found spiders in amber dating back to about 2 million years.

Let me tell you how handsome we are:

We have two body parts:

* In the front part are our eyes, mouth fangs, stomach, brain and the glands that make the poison we use to paralyse our prey.

We have four sets of legs on the front section. These are covered with hairs which pick up vibrations and smells from the air. When we move, we always have four legs on the surface and four off the surface. At the end of the legs, we have, at least, two small claws. We also have 48 knees. No kidding! Eight legs with six joints on each.

* The second part of the body is called the abdomen and at the back end of the abdomen is where you’ll find our glands that make silk.

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

People are fascinated by our eyes and our silk, so let me tell you something about that.

* Spiders are near sighted, so can't see items that are far away.

* Most spiders have eight eyes - 4 sets of eyes. The pattern of how they are arranged depends on the species.

* Some spiders have two eyes while others have four or six.

* What we see through each of our eyes can be very different. Generally speaking, the eyes on the centre of the head and close to our face are used to detect the size, shape, and color of an object. Eyes further away from the centre of the face (along the side of the head) are used to detect motion.

AS SMOOTH AS SILK

Most spiders create silk because:

* we make webs and capture prey

* female spiders make silk to protect their eggs.

Abandoned spider webs are called cobwebs.

Our silk is said to be one of the strongest natural materials in the world:

* it's being used to make parachutes and bullet-proof vests.

* and in Papua New Guinea, people use our webs as fishing nets.

A question I get asked a lot is how come we don't get caught up in our own webs?

Well, that's simple – our bodies have oil on it to stop us from sticking to the silk. Clever stuff!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Now we're getting around to my favourite subject - FOOD. Spiders catch their food in different ways:

* Many spin webs

* Some stalk their prey, jump and ambush them.

* Others create a silk thread, which they dangle in the air, then climb down on, in order to jump on a tasty meal.

* And others jump. Jumping Spiders can jump up to 50 times their own length. They win loads of medals in the Spider Olympics.

FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD

Most spiders prey on other animals, especially insects and other spiders. The biggest among us have been known to kill mice, lizards and birds.

We bite our victims using poison injected through our fangs to subdue our prey before it has too much chance to fight back. Crafty, eh? Our fangs work like a pair of needles. Ouch! And one other thing - we can't chew, so we like to change our prey into a liquid.

Yum!

Well, it’s been nice talking to you. You can learn more about me and my mission to catch those pesky ants in ANTics. Read a sample HERE:

Have fun reading. Bye for now.

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PUTTING THE FUN INTO READING

2/19/2014

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Lights...camera...action

I love going to the movies. And it’s my dream that one day, one of my books will be turned into a movie.

Many people have said that my children’s story ANTics would make a great animated movie. That is so cool. One of the reasons may be that when I wrote it, I saw all the action taking place in my head just like watching an animated movie. And there wasn't a piece of popcorn in sight.

The action, the dialogue and the scenery appeared in my imagination as if someone had shouted, ‘Lights Camera Action’.

View image | gettyimages.com

Animated movies have wowed movie goers for a long time. Many people think animation kicked off in 1937 with the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but it was about before that. My research tells me that such movies were being made from the early 1900s.

MOVIE MAGIC

How are animated movies made? Well, in the 20th century, most animated films involved a series of sketches that were photographed. They were all a teeny weeny bit different and when they were looked at quickly, they gave the impression of the images moving like a horse galloping or a car being driven.

With the introduction of computers, animation took on a whole new meaning. Today, animator’s drawings are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system. Software programmes are then used to give the impression of movement. It's still a massive job and can take years for a film to be brought to the big screen.

More than 100 years of animation. Awesome! That means there's a huge number of animated films out there.

MY FAVOURITES

I still have a soft spot for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Among my other favs are: The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Bambi, Pocahontas, Antz, Brother Bear, One Hundred and One Dalmations, The Jungle Book and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.

View image | gettyimages.com

What about you? What are your favourite animated movies/characters? And tell me the reason why?

Also what's your favourite part about going to the movies? Is it the popcorn, wearing 3D glasses. Let me know.

You can read a sample of ANTics HERE

Have fun reading. Bye for now.

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PUTTING THE FUN INTO READING

12/21/2013

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Amazing Animal Facts

Ants are the stars of my children’ fantasy novel ANTics. One cool thing about ants is that they have two stomachs. Wow! Imagine that.

Here’s some more amazing animal facts that you might not know:

There are about one million ants for every single person on the planet and someone said if they were six feet long, they’d rule the world.

Elephants rumble, roar, trumpet, bellow, cry, scream and snort. They also make very low sounds that cannot be heard by humans but can be heard by other elephants a long way off. Have you ever seen pictures of an elephant stomping its feet. It’s not having a hissy fit; it’s giving a warning or a greeting. The cool thing is that the vibrations made by their stomping can travel 20 miles through the ground and the messages are picked up by other elephants through their feet.

The world’s largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs as much as three elephants. Their tongues alone can weigh as much as one elephant and their heart is as large as a small car. Wow!

Zebra's stripes are like human fingerprints and no two zebras have identical stripe patterns.

It’s the same with Tigers. No two Tigers have the same stripes on their fur. But did you know they have striped skin under their fur as well? The pattern of their stripes helps them blend in with the trees and grasses so they can't be seen when hunting their prey.

Goldfish have pigment in their skin, which reacts to light. So the fish will lose its gold colour if kept in dim light and over time it could turn white.

Bats can eat up to 1,000 night-flying insects per hour. So if you had one for a pet, you wouldn’t have to feed it.

Hummingbirds rapidly flap their wings up to 80 times per second. So fast, they make a humming sound. Hence their name. This helps them hover in mid air from flower to flower. And they are the only birds that can fly backwards.

Mosquitoes find dark colors like blue and black most appealing and are less attracted to light colours. That's why bug zappers have blue lights. Dark colours absorb heat and lighter colours tend to reflect heat. Mosquitoes have sophisticated and highly sensitive heat sensors and tend to be more attracted to people dressed in dark clothing, where there is more heat.

Octopuses are fascinating aquatic creatures. They have eight arms and three hearts. They have a bizarre eating habit - when stressed, they’ve been known to eat their own arms. Well, I suppose if you've got eight you might not miss one.

Flamingoes can only eat when their heads are upside down. They stick their head in the water upside down and suck mud and water in through the front of their beak. The top and bottom of the beak have bristles that form a comb-like filtering system. The water and mud flow through and are pumped out the sides of the beak. What’s left is the flamingo’s food, usually algae and small crustaceans including, crabs, shrimps and crayfish. They are pink because their diet mainly consists of shrimp, which contain a red pigment.

Because its eyes are on the side of its head, a rabbit can see behind itself without turning its head

Giraffes clean their ears with their 21-inch long tongue.

Lions have one of the most recognizable animal calls. They have reportedly been heard roaring a whopping five miles away. That should give you plenty of time to run away.

Snails need moisture to stay alive. If the weather is too hot and dry, they can find a place to hibernate for up to three years until the climate is more suitable for them.

Cockroaches can survive many situations. They have a high resistance to radiation; they can hold their breath for 45 minutes and can live for several weeks with their head cut off before they die of starvation.

Here’s a truly amazing fact to finish with. Nearly three percent of the ice in Antarctic glaciers is penguin pee. Since the temperature is below 0 degrees, there’s nowhere for it to go. It’s so cold; it can’t wash off or evaporate. So if you find yourself at the South Pole, think twice about putting ice in your soda.

You can find out more about my fun ant characters by reading a sample of ANTics HERE

Have fun reading. Bye for now

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PUTTING THE FUN INTO READING

12/7/2013

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The Dream Team

Hi, it's ExuberANT (but call me Zube - all my friends do). That's me (the good-looking one) in the middle on the left. Did you know that our creator, Dakota Douglas, met us in a dream? Awesome! This is how it came about:

While waiting to meet someone, she saw a group of ants carrying a crisp (US-potato chip) about 50 times bigger than a single ant.

WE MIGHT BE SMALL BUT WE ARE MIGHTY and we can carry things much heavier than ourselves. We don't like to boast because we're modest as well as handsome, but we are one of the world’s strongest creatures in relation to our size. We can carry between 20 and 30 times our own body weight. Are you impressed - well you should be. That's like you trying to lift a fully grown African elephant. Get the picture?

Back to DD's dream. First there were the workers who carried the crisp, then several bossy boots directed operations and when it seemed like the job was too big, one ant went for extra helpers.

When the helpers came, they all worked as a team and carried the crisp back to their nest. You see we are like those French guys with the funny hair and hats who keep shouting, "ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL". I think they stole that phrase from us because that's how we work; we all work together for the good of every single ant in the nest.

EVERYONE DREAMS

People often say they don't dream, but they do. Everyone dreams - except when they have certain medical problems. So if you think you're not dreaming, you just forget your dreams.

And that's not surprising. While asleep, your dream is very clear, but within five minutes of waking half of your dream is forgotten. Within 10 minutes, 90% has vanished like a puff of smoke.

DREAM FACTS

Here's some other interesting facts about dreams gathered by my best pal, BrilliANT. He's one seriously, smart little guy. Take it away, Brill...

Hi guys,

Did you know that:

* people who are born blind can’t see images in their dreams but they have dreams with a bigger sense of taste, touch, smell, hearing and emotion. However, people who lose their vision after the age of seven can see images in their dreams, though the images tend to fade as they get older.

* All the dudes you see in your dreams are real people you have seen before, although you may not remember their faces. Just think of all the faces you see in magazines, on the TV, in movies, in the street, in shops. They are all stored in your brain.

* Do you dream in colour or black and white? Those who watched black-and-white television as youngsters tend to dream in black and white while children who watched colour TV will dream in colour. Ask your grandparents. If they grew up watching black and white TV, they most likely to dream in black and white.

* Depending how long you sleep, you can have about 1,460 dreams a year – that’s about four per night.

* Many animals dream because they have the same brain waves during dreaming sleep as humans. Have you ever watched a dog sleeping? They are so funny. Their little paws move like they are running and they make yipping sounds as if they're chasing something.

* During the Roman Era, dreams were thought to be messages from the gods. Some dreams were submitted to the Roman Senate for interpretation. Dream interpreters even accompanied military leaders on battle campaigns.

* The Iroquois tribe of Native Americans staged an annual dream-sharing festival in which they acted out their dreams.

And finally ...

Here's a little tip: if you have trouble remembering your dreams, one way to bring the memory back is to write down or draw the snatches you do remember as soon as you wake up.

You can find out more about myself, Zube and our new pal HesitANT by reading a sample of ANTics HERE

Have fun reading. Bye for now

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PUTTING THE FUN INTO READING

11/15/2013

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AWESOME ANT FACTS

Hi, my name's ExhuberANT but you can call me Zube. I've dropped by to tell you a little about ants.

Ants get a bit of a bad press. But, give us a break. We're pretty cool creatures once you get to know us.

Did you know that:

* We live in colonies, which vary in size and can be very crowded, housing up to millions of members.

* In 2002, scientists discovered a super colony stretching 3,600 miles long from Italy to Spain consisting of billions of ants in a network of nests. Wow! And you think your house is crowded.

* Most ants dig some sort of mound in the dirt or sand with a system of underground rooms connected by tunnels. We use our saliva to make the dirt walls of the tunnels hard. Rooms in the nest consist of a chamber for the Queen, whose job in life is to make babies, also nurseries for the young, to store food, for waste, and rooms where the workers can rest.

* We are really friendly guys. What you Two Legs call social insects and every ant has a job. We work as a team to survive. Workers build and maintain the nest, they take rubbish from the nest and put it in a rubbish dump outside, they care for the Queen and the young, and forage for food. Colonies even have undertakers who are responsible for removing dead ants from the nest. Bigger ants with big heads in the Ant Kingdom are soldiers. They are good fighters and their job is to protect the nest. They've been known to use their big heads to block the entrance to the nest to keep intruders out.

* We are one the world’s strongest creatures in relation to our size. We can carry between 20 and 30 times our own body weight That's like you lifting a fully grown African elephant.

* Our bodies are pretty cool, too. We have six strong legs that help us run very fast and powerful jaws at the side of our head that open and shut sideways like scissors. An antennae is attached to our head. We use these two feelers to communicate with each other; to hear, taste, touch and smell. And we have two stomachs. One to store food for ourselves and the other a social stomach to store food to share with our nest mates. How about that? Generous as well as good looking.

* And here is something really cool. We were around when dinosaurs roamed the earth and today we can be found on every continent – except ANTarctica. Get it! ANTartica.

There are more than 10,000 species of ants around the world. Here’s a few of them:

* Carpenter Ants get their name because they build their nests in wood
* Pavement Ants make their nests in or under the cracks in pavements.
* Red or Fire Ants have a painful, fiery sting
* Slavemaker Ants raid the nests of other ants and steal their young, which they force to work as slaves in their nests.
* Leafcutter Ants use their sharp jaws to cut leaves, which they turn into pulp to make fungus gardens to feed their nest mates.
* The giant Dinosaur Ant of Peru is one of the largest
in the world, measuring about 3cm long.

You can find out more about what we get up to by reading a sample of ANTics HERE.

Have fun reading. Bye for now.

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READING IS FUN

What is Your Dog Thinking?

Dogs Get Jealous

Dogs Are Smart

Dogs Dream

Dogs Curl Up To Keep Warm

Dogs Pant To Keep Cool

Have fun reading. Bye for now.​

The Lovable Pets In My Life

Doozie Dog Facts

﻿Super Spider Facts

Lights...camera...action

Have fun reading. Bye for now.

Amazing Animal Facts

AWESOME ANT FACTS

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Have fun reading. Bye for now.

Super Spider Facts