KU Natural History Museum

Keeper, Dad and I went to the KU Natural History Museum. https://biodiversity.ku.edu/visit

It was a blustery day, and we parked in the visitor's parking about a quarter mile away from the museum. Got to work through the edge of a crowd headed into the Kansas Union (looked like a school group on lunch break), and had one early middle-aged man step in front of us, plant himself and ask a

Blurry picture of Keeper staring at the display glass
out of frame is a mounted male lion.

question. I find that to be incredibly rude, as sudden stops can cause me a great deal of pain, so I answered his question as I sent Keeper around him, and never broke stride. I am really pleased with how good she’s getting at just keeping going, rather than wanting to pause and ponder.

We went in the accessible entrance, not the big stone steps out front. It's a big building, split for use as a museum and for classes and administration and such. It took us less than an hour to check out 3 of the 4 floors of the museum. (Neither Dad or I was super interested in the explanation of evolution floor, so we stepped in, looked about, and went back to the elevator to the next floor.)

Perhaps the biggest surprise was that the taxidermy mount of Comanche, one of the horses to survive the battle at Little Big Horn, is still there, still on display. My favorite part was the live snakes, particularly the hog-nose snake. I think the wolf spider in Bug Town was as big as my thumb. And there’s an indoor bee hive, with a clear acrylic tube going out the window, and it's fun to watch the bees. I'm glad we went.

Can't remember what she was looking at here- tiny model horses?
I'm always fascinated by what catches her attention.

Keeper was a bit stressed to be in a dimly lit area with loud children running by on the 3rd and 6th floors, but she did really good work and continued to accept treats, even if she was drooly. I think I'm most proud of the way she handled the taxidermied polar bear on the main floor. She saw it, and stopped in her tracks, then tried to sniff from a distance. We did a slow, curved approach, with me telling her it was fine, it was dead and wouldn't move. We got around behind it and she gave it a little sniff (not *quite* touching it) and then she was able to dismiss it and go back to her work. Lots of praise and cookies for that.

She did bop her nose on the glass trying to sniff one of the big fossil bones once, but for the most part she was very, very good about keeping her nose to herself even as she stared at a mounted lion, or other dead, posed critters. She's also a much, much better museum dog than Duncan was. She ambled along, waited patiently as I read things, or moved at good speed when asked.

Keeper doubts my intentions as she stands in front
of a triceratops skull (cast?).

I think what weirded her out the most was when I asked her to stay so I could back across the hall to use her for scale with a triceratops skull. Her body language –ears back, whale eye, tail down, stress panting and drool– was very unsure. I think she believed I was setting her up for some prank.

We did have a couple moments where a group of kids would all parrot “doggy,” but very few actually approached her, and those that did left her alone when I told them not to pet Keeper. (If you’ve seen the Mine! Mine! Mine! scene from Finding Nemo, imagine 10 kids saying “doggy” like that.) The walls of the hallways were glass to protect the displays, and the floor was tile. The sound was almost more than I could handle, and Keeper did good work through it all. It was nice how many kids already knew not to pet a service dog, and how on top of it most the adults were.

Keeper was even the stress-reliever for one kid in the live snake area. I heard one little voice say "Look, there's one animal you like here! Look at the cute dog!" and then they both smiled.

Then it was back out into the wind and lighter foot traffic of campus to the parking lot. Keeper's still not fond of being passed when she hasn't heard them coming, but it's a milder and milder "where did you come from?" reaction. There were a couple times she didn't even double take.

It wasn’t a long outing, but it was mentally demanding for both of us. I hope she found it at least somewhat enjoyable, as I surely did. I think the plan next week is to go to Cabela's.