How Old Is Norman The Dog ?

[The Old Ruminator]

This intriguing question has been posed in this weeks Descent. Indeed we shall eventually know and a competition has been launched. I wondered how much deterioration of the remains had occurred. My image was taken some 30 years ago so can be compared with the one in Descent.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

The recent image in Descent shows deterioration of the skull and disturbance of the fore legs. Certainly a shame as the latter shows poor conservation or at least the ignorance of it.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

The collar with his name tag was removed 40 years ago.

 

[Leo]

Hello Nick,

I have a small collection of photographs, including ones found on the net and my own, of Norman. The square stone in your photo used to be on the "path" that you walk on here, but has also caused the damage to the feet. It was part of a wall that was made, clearly with good intentions but it's proximity to the feet meant it got kicked into the bones. In November 2014 a friend and I moved the stone away to a position similar to your photo to try to avoid further damage occurring in this way.

I can't help but think that the plastic wrap present at some stage in the past and mouldy food offerings (also removed), didn't help with the decay of the dark organic deposits visible clearly in the older photos but now much reduced.

Alexander Henderson

 

[The Old Ruminator]

My Norman image is free for anyone to use.