Category Archives: Dogs & Other Animals

Fall Beauty

Country Life, Dogs & Other Animals, , ,

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I am fortunate to live in such a beautiful place. And I think fall is my favorite season of all. Just look at the shot above that I took over the weekend while I was kayaking. It was actually my first time kayaking on a body of water of any size. The weather was perfect and I thought, I’ve wanted to do this for years. Today’s the day. I’m so glad I did.

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This was my view as I paddled around the reservoir at West Branch State Park. I saw a blue heron flying low overhead, gulls, and ducks. Although there were a few power boats out, the water was still and peaceful. I could take a few minutes to stop paddling and enjoy the gentle sound of the waves . The leaves on the trees were just starting to turn but there were plenty of jewel toned leaves to enjoy. (Many thanks to my wonderful brother for the loan of his kayak so I could experience this.)

The next day I was able to get out for a walk with some of the dogs. The weather is cool enough now that we can get out more and go for walks.

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These are some of the views we saw as we walked.  I noted that the body of water seemed much larger when I was paddling across it in a kayak.

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The dogs always have a confused look when I stop walking to take photographs. They must wonder why I am stopping if I’m not even going to bother to sniff anything.

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This is one of my favorite walks not only because of the beautiful scenery but because the sound of the waves makes me feel like I am at the ocean. Almost like a mini-vacation.

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That is Sweetie on the left and Shelby on the right. Sweetie is our foster dog. She and Shelby make a nice brace walking so nicely together. I couldn’t ask for better companions to enjoy my day.

Sleeping Arrangements

Dogs & Other Animals, ,

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I was pondering our sleeping arrangements recently and wondered, why is it that only two of our dogs have the privilege of sleeping on the bed with us, but it happens to be our two largest dogs? This does not seem like very good planning on our part. Baxter comes upstairs in the evening and immediately jumps on the bed before I even get in. He will move on request, to make more room. He so loves to sleep on the bed that he will forgo evening biscuit time to go up with the first person to ascend the stairs for bedtime. He has also been known to continue snoozing on the bed in the morning once all humans are up for the day. Baxter weighs 55 lbs.

Phoebe, our resident greyhound, is the other dog that sleeps on the bed. She is slightly sneakier though. She comes upstairs and lays down on the dog bed on the floor. Here she stays until it is time for lights out. Some time after the light goes off she jumps on the bed, spins around as many times as it takes to suit herself and plops down. If I do not turn the light out soon enough to suit her, she starts sighing and gets louder until I am obliged to turn off the light. When she does make it up on the bed to start the spinning around, she acts like she is nesting and just making herself comfortable. I know she is really doing it to steal my covers! It does make some sense to me that Phoebe sleeps on the bed because greyhounds are so bony and angular and definite comfort seekers. Phoebe weighs 65 lbs.

What I want to know is, what is wrong with the dog bed on the floor? It is large and cushy with a pillowed rim around the edge. I think sleeping with the humans is as much a status symbol as the fact they are on the bed. I imagine if we slept elsewhere, they would want to sleep there too. Sometimes I am tempted to sleep elsewhere. When the covers are pinned so tightly under the weight of dogs that I can’t turn over, or I have a paw in the face, or a hip bone in my back, I am  fantasizing about sleeping somewhere other than where I am. But really folks, it dark and I am warm, and I have dogs. I’m not going anywhere. Baxter and Phoebe do get along extremely well. Baxter does often growl at Phoebe when she jumps up on the bed. That’s the end of it though. Soon we are all one big heap of humans and dogs.

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The other dogs all sleep downstairs. If I had planned better I would have the 18 lb. Nikki Pouncer sleep on the bed. She wouldn’t take up much space at all. She could sleep on the pillow by my head and I would never notice her. But wait, she is an indiscriminate eater of poop. Scratch that idea. I don’t care to have an odiferous assault while I am trying to sleep. You may be thinking, why don’t you just stop her from eating poop? Right. We have between 5-7 dogs here at any one time. You do the math. I’m not that fast. Even if I picked up each time the dogs went out, I can only pick up after one at a time. I do my best.

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Shelby would be too busy patrolling to keep the house safe from intruders and strange noises. She would have no time to sleep on the bed. Shelby is what we call “a busy girl”. She goes in a crate for the night so she can be off duty and get some rest.

Roxanne

And Roxanne is old and arthritic at 15. She is no longer able to get up the steps. At her advanced age she likes to wander around during the night anyway. This is not conducive to sleeping. She is free to wander around downstairs to her heart’s content for the night though.

By this time you may be wondering how I get any sleep. After years of practice I am able to sleep through most anything. I have slept through dogs walking across my body, through barking, through storms and loud noises. Not everyone can do this and I consider myself fortunate to have learned such a skill. Not something you can put on a resume but none the less, it is one of those important life skills that is indispensable.

 

The Grief and Growth of Loss

Dogs & Other Animals, Thoughts On Life, ,

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Losing  a pet is nearly  always  a  painful  thing. They  were  a member  of  our  family  who is  no longer  with  us.  This  death of a pet leaves a void, an emptiness  that  will  leave us forever  changed. I’ve  heard  those  who say they  will never  have  another  pet. That it is too  much pain  to go  through  again. Or that  they could  never  replace  their  beloved  with  another. Of course  they  can’t. That’s  not  the  point.

I don’t  understand  these  people. That’s  ok, they probably  don’t  need  for  me  to  understand  them. I  try  to  reframe the  loss of death  in a different  perspective. The  void that death leaves  is a gift  in a way. We were  blessed  to  have  a  presence  in  our  life  that  was so great  and  so valued that  it was capable  of  leaving  such  a   void. Over  time  the pain lessens. It becomes  less sharp and  eventually  becomes  more of an emptiness. But this emptiness  one day  begins to fill with  wonderful  memories. These  memories  will  be with us forever.

I  feel  that  it is  a  tribute  to  our lost one to some day  have  another  pet. Of course  they  do  not  replace  the  one  who  has  gone  before. They are a new being  that offers  their own  gifts. I feel  that  it would  be  selfish  of me to never have  another. Love  should  be  shared  with  the  living  who can  benefit. The love that  I  shared with  previous  pets, like  my beloved  Duncan pictured above, was such a wonderful  thing that  I  want  to  have  something  similar  with  another. Even  when Duncan  was still  alive I called him the greatest  love  of my life. Our bond was so meaningful  and  strong  that  I  recognized  it even  then.

I’ve  heard  people  say “I can’t  get over the loss  of (insert  name).” I’m  not  sure  that  I  want  to  get  over  such  a  loss. Pain does indeed  lessen but pain also  shows the  importance  of  what  was  lost. If I  didn’t  have  a great  love, I wouldn’t  suffer  a great  loss. Needing  to  recover  from this  pain and  fill  a void  makes the  loved one become  a  part of you  forever. And  with  each  memory  that  is melded  into  my heart, it mends. With each addition  my heart  grows. Until  one day I hope  my heart  will  be big enough  to  be filled  with  nothing  but love . This  is  the  legacy  and  tribute  that I want  to  leave  to the  ones  who have  gone  before.

The Mind Is a Scary Place

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, Thoughts On Life, ,

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Time for another look into the inner workings of my mind. Scary thought, isn’t it? The brave among you will keep reading.

I got another lesson in self control over the weekend. Someone called and wanted me to take their parents’ dog into rescue because said parents had their house re-carpeted. My first thought was, you’re kidding, right? Sadly, no. The caller went on to explain that the dog was now living outside in a kennel but it had a dog house. Like the dog house was some great gift that made them caring, compassionate human beings. Never mind that the dog was now probably wondering why he was suddenly relegated to live his life outside, away from his pack. Winter was coming the caller informed me so they wanted to turn the dog into rescue before it got too cold. Did they want a gold star? It seemed so.

I’m proud to say that I did not let any of the comments racing through my mind come out of my mouth. Some of the kinder among them were:  idiot, moron, are you serious? I bit my tongue and kept them to myself. Why? Because I’m a good person? No. Because I knew that if I alienated them, I would not get the dog who would then spend the winter cold and alone. So as is always the case for people who do dog rescue, it’s about the dog, not about me or anyone else. It’s about saving the dog. That’s why I continued to be pleasant and helpful.

Whenever something like this happens that my mind can’t come to peace with, I try to frame it by Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World. If I can’t deal with it, I look to another source. Prayer sometimes helps me but I want to change the world so I put it into this formula.

  1. Change yourself. I’m trying to change myself, that’s why I didn’t blurt out my feelings.
  2. You are in control. I was in control for that moment. Yay, me!
  3. Forgive & let go. Well I don’t hate these people. That’s something.
  4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere. I referred the people on to our rescue intake coordinator to get this dog to us.
  5. Take care of this moment. See #2.
  6. Everyone is human. Maybe when these folks were younger they were better able to deal with having a pet. Maybe they have health problems that make a dog too much for them.
  7. Persist. Well, I will continue to rescue dogs. I don’t know if I really persisted in this instance.
  8. See the good in people and help them. Even though I don’t agree with the decision, I will try to help these people rehome their dog.
  9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self. Not sure if I did this by keeping my mouth shut. Helping the dog is what I do and who I am though.
  10. Continue to grow and evolve. I’m working on it.

 
Somehow I can’t help but feel I fell short with this interaction. I didn’t teach those involved anything. Maybe that is not my purpose. I will have to learn to be content with whatever comes of the situation. I will have to put more effort into learning how honor number 3 on the list. At the very least I got a notable story.

What the Dog Ate, Part III

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings,

Phoebe

 I am intending this to be the last installment of What the Dog Ate, but I know better so I am just calling it Part III. I’m sure that some of my current or future dogs will eat some amazing things as well.

Pictured above is Phoebe. She looks so innocent, doesn’t she? Don’t be fooled. One day, when she had not been with us very long,  we were looking for the cable remote to turn on the tv. We thought we must have really misplaced it because we couldn’t find it anywhere.  Eventually we did find bits of it but couldn’t be sure where the rest of it was. We had seen Phoebe pick it up before so we knew it was her. Some time over the next few days my husband was picking up after the dogs and came across a very incriminating pile. It was covered with numbers and buttons that said things like “menu”. If only we had a digital camera at the time! That would have been a photo for posterity. Or at least a good laugh. Phoebe is older now and doesn’t get into much trouble anymore. The only thing she did recently was take fur bundles from dog brushings out of the trash can and distribute them around the living room for decoration every time we left her in the house. Just bought a trash can with a lid on it.

We also had a strange dog eating conundrum in our rescue a few years ago. We got a call from some adopters who took their recently adopted dog the vet because it was passing a pair of lacey thong panties. The foster home and the adopters vehemently denied owning any such garments at any point in recent memory. We can only assume that the item was ingested at the dog’s original home. All ended well with the exception of one vet bill with a never to be known cause.

Sassy

Then there was the foster dog above that some of you may remember. This is Miss Sassy Pants. She came home from the vet’s with one of those stretchy, self adhesive bandages on her leg. I put her in her crate for the night, as I have done with many a dog, and in the morning the bandage was gone. I never did find hide nor hair of that bandage so I have to believe that it passed unnoticed and all is well.

Lacey and Sky

Skylar was another foster pup who had a remarkable digestion. This boy loves his toys. Especially those he can chew. I had to take a tied and knotted polar fleece bone from him one day because he was destroying it. Apparently, I was too slow. Skylar liked to go to the mail box with us. One day on the way back to the house he stopped to make a deposit in the drive way. It went on and on. This turned out to be because he was passing a piece of that pink polar fleece bone that was about six inches long. It snowed that same day and many days thereafter. I saw that pink remnant during the spring thaw and got another good chuckle.

I’m sure we’ve had other “passings” over the years but none stick in my memory banks as well as these. I hope cleaning up after your dogs is a mundane and unimpressive task.

An Afternoon Stroll

Country Life, Dogs & Other Animals, Gardens, Thoughts On Life, , , ,

Woods

I took a little walk around the property over the weekend. Started out by walking the trail in the woods so that I could get a picture of some flowers I knew were in bloom there. I’m not sure what they are. I did not plant them. Someone who lived here before me did. I  find it unusual that these are blooming in the shade of the woods and others of the same kind are blooming in a flowerbed in full  sun. Apparently they’re not too particular. How fortunate for me. I am also fortunate that those who lived here before me cared about plants and wildlife. It is apparent from the many plantings that grow here. It is obvious that many of them were planted to attract the birds, bees, and other animals.

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We maintain a small trail so that we can walk here and get a small tractor out to a fire pit and camp site that we made. Truth be told though, we have most bonfires in the dog pasture so that the dogs can all be with us. Every day is National Dog Day at our house! In fact I think it’s safe to say that that mine could be called National Dog Life. This has been my choice and I must say, I am very happy with it.

Shelby, Phoebe, and Baxter

Wood crib  Morty and Ollie

On my way back to the rest of the property, I pass the wood crib and am thankful that we already have a  good portion of the winter’s wood drying. So are the animals. They love nothing better in the winter time than to curl up in front of the wood burner and soak up as much heat as they can.  When it is time to add more wood, we must forcibly move them so we can open the door to throw on another log or two.

Coleus

Hydrangea

Back to our walk. I enjoy the colors of many different plants, from the coleus, that has beautious color in its leaves, to the hydrangea with its large leaves that are stunning on their own merits and have wonderful blooms as well.

Purple verbena     Peach verbena

And I am getting so much joy from the verbena growing in the wall planters this year. They are a sweeping sea of blossoms with some stalks growing upright and others hanging down. When I see them all growing together, for some reason, they remind me of coral under the water in the ocean and this makes me feel that they are magical.

And so ends a brief foray into my home and mind. Both are busy places.

Maizie Remembered

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings,

Maizie

Maizie was one of our forever foster dogs for Northeast Ohio Shetland Sheepdog Rescue. She passed away last year but I thought this tribute to her was worth running again. The thought of her smile still brings me joy.

Dear Person Who Abandoned this Senior Dog,

Maizie was found by the pound and when they sent you a letter to come and get her, you did not come. She spent 30 days in the pound kennel waiting for you before the efforts of two rescue groups brought her to our house as a foster dog. Today we discovered that she has kidney failure and will live out the rest of her life with us however long that may be. What lesson am I supposed to learn from this? Perhaps to have compassion for you and not be judgemental? I will work on that.

I know that I have been blessed to know this dog who is sweet, loving, and grateful for every bit of attention. She smiles at us constantly and is one of the happiest dogs I have seen. Occassionally she will try to play and has a small, joyful hop to her step. Our lives have been enriched by knowing this kind dog.

My dreams will be sweeter knowing that I have helped and loved this girl. May you be able to sleep at all.

Maizie sleeping with our cat Lacey
Maizie sleeping with our cat Lacey

 

Dog # 356

Dogs & Other Animals, Rescue Happenings, ,

Sweetie

Time for a new foster dog at our house! This is one of the longest stretches that we have gone without one. It had been around three months since, Blitz, our last one, got adopted. This is Sweetie. She is a  35 lb sheltie that the vet said is no more than three years old. She has been at our house for a week and a half now and she is very sweet, if a bit needy.

Sweetie came from a local dog pound and was adopted directly by one of our previous adopters . She got spayed, brought up to date on her shots, and was treated for an ear infection. She had a couch to sit on, humans to pet her and walk her. She was living the good life. Unfortunately she had one trait that was not very  sweet. She liked to threaten the other resident dog in the home and attack him when he came too close to “her” human on the couch. To their credit the family gave it a go and consulted two private trainers and also asked our rescue for advice which they tried. It was a Herculean effort. But things didn’t improve very much and in the end they feared harm would come to the other dog they had for several years before Sweetie came on the scene.  So Sweetie came into our rescue and the family will wait for a more mellow dog to come through our rescue. This is the way it goes. Not every dog can fit with every family.

And since our house seems to specialize in challenging, dominant dogs, she came here. I have come to realize that not only do my husband and I have experience with rehabilitating problem dogs, but our own dogs have experience too and are a part of the process. The pack we currently have is very well adjusted and help to show new dogs the ropes and what is to be expected.

Baxter Shelby

Baxter and Shelby in particular are very good at acclimating the new dogs. So I  knew if Sweetie got threatening beside me on the couch, I would just remove her to the floor. Sitting with us on the furniture is a privilege and if you don’t behave, you don’t get the privilege. And if she threatened our dogs at other times I knew they would handle it. Baxter especially is very benevolent. He never starts anything but if other dogs threaten him in his home, first he will hold his ground, then if the other dog keeps at he doesn’t use his mouth but pins the other dog to the ground with his legs. It is actually impressive to see. Shelby won’t take any guff either. First she curls her lip at the instigator to warn him off. If this is not effective she will usually do it a second time as if to say “didn’t you hear me”? After that she will rush the offending dog possibly nipping them or running them over. Neither Baxter nor Shelby will do this without cause. They usually look to see if I am accepting of their behavior as well.

They have had to do this with Sweetie a couple times so far. She seems to avoid them now although earlier this evening I saw her try to play with Shelby. The two look very similar. It is hard to tell them apart from certain angles.

As I have gotten to know Sweetie I have discovered that she really isn’t an aggressive dog.  She is insecure and needy. She is looking to see where she fits in and wondering what she can get away with. I have noticed that she frantically seeks petting. I just ignore her until she lays down so she learns to calm herself. As she finds  her way, some of these behaviors will fade and she will become better adjusted.

Sweetie’s name does fit her. She is sweet and affectionate and cuddly. Though I  think the best bet for her would be to be an only dog or to go to a very experienced multi-dog home.

Sweetie

Northeast Ohio Shetland Sheepdog Rescue dog number  356.

What the Dog Ate, Part II

Dogs & Other Animals

Young Duncan

The question in this instance is “What didn’t the dog eat”? Duncan was a challenge from day one. I got him as a pup of about three months old. He was covered in fleas and full of energy. He starting giving me challenges from that first day when I struggled to give him a flea bath. He thought I was trying to drown him and struggled accordingly. If I had known what was to come, I might have given up on him right then. As he grew he was loads of trouble and constant challenges. Thank goodness I did not know what was to come because out of the ashes of our many turbulent times, rose the Phoenix. Out of great challenges come great rewards. Over the years he became my best friend and we grew into bonded souls. A greater gift I have never had.

But the early years, oh my. He was in constant motion. The only time he was relatively still was the time he spent chewing Nylabones or ripping apart toys. If I turned my back for a minute he was into something. And this was after walking 3-5 miles each day. I struggled with rather to crate him while I was doing things like cooking dinner, running to the washer, and other household chores, or let him be loose in the house. If I crated him, it just made for more energy and mania later but I had to do chores sometime. And if he was out of sight there was trouble. Sometimes when he was in sight, there was trouble! I had paw prints at shoulder height about 5 ft. up the wall from him using it as a spring board to turn as he was running in the living room. The coffee table had one of its corners chewed off. Toys lived short lives in those days.

Luckily Duncan was always a happy dog that was submissive to humans. He never did give me any trouble in that regard, he just wore me out. A few times I tried putting him in the attached garage for just an hour so I could get some work done but he could still get some exercise. That resulted in the seat being chewed off a bicycle, the pull handle being chewed off the lawn mower, and other assorted things becoming covered in tooth marks. Then there was the day he started chewing through the drywall of the garage, trying to get back into the house, so that he could be where I was. That was the last time he spent in the garage. After that I leashed him to the coffee table so that I could work in the kitchen. The leash suffered some gnawing and the coffee table lost another corner but what was one more?

When Duncan was about 3 years old we moved to a new house, I got remarried, and we had a new family. Every time someone asked what happened to this, the answer was, Duncan chewed it. Until finally when anyone asked what happened to this, they would say, never mind, I know, Duncan chewed it. When he was around 5 years old we started him in obedience with the 4-H group that my daughter was in. I usually handled him while my daughter used one of our other shelties. His behavior did start to improve at this point. His offenses became limited to things like eating multiple hair scrunchies, socks, and underwear when he could find them. He had a remarkable constitution and was able to pass everything that he took in. He would get in the trash and eat it, even the can I got with a lid. We had to put the trash can up high.

This new house I moved to has about 1/4 acre of fenced land that we call “the pasture”. The dogs get to go out there and spend time in it when one of us is home. Weather permitting, they can spend a number of hours a day there. I think this helped Duncan more than anything. He could burn off steam by chasing cars along the fence line. He was happy because they always went away and he was safe because of the fence. When he was 7 years old and had regularly gone to 4-H obedience sessions for about 2 years, Duncan passed the test and became a therapy dog! I was thrilled. The dog who had caused so much trouble became a joy. He shared that joy with others too when we went on visits to nursing homes and residential homes for profoundly disabled children. He visited because it made me happy and that was his greatest goal in life. He liked it because we got to spend that time together. After he had been visiting for a few years, I could point where I wanted him to go and say “go visit” and he would.

 At some point during these years, Duncan and I became best friends. We were highly in tune with each other and could communicate well. I think without the early trials that our bond would not have been so deep. When you put that much effort into a relationship, you forge a deep bond. That’s not to say that Duncan was without fault in his later years. He still got into a few things and had that gleam in his eye. Even when he was 12 years old he would still get into grandma’s kitchen trash can. It had a button that you had to push and the lid would pop up. Duncan learned how to push that button and could get that can open in seconds. When we went to visit, the trash can had to go on top of the refrigerator. I must admit, by that point, I was rather proud of his cleverness, rather than upset by it. Thus ends installment two of What the Dog Ate. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately as this means dogs ate more unique items) there will be another installment to follow.

Duncan-Best Smile Ever

What the Dog Ate, Part I

Dogs & Other Animals,

Amanda and Cassie Cassie and Amanda

My dogs have eaten some amazing things over the years. Fortunately for me they all seem to have the constitution of goats. I have been astounded by the things they can pass one way or another.

My first memorable bout with canine ingestion of oddities occurred when I had my golden retriever pups, Amanda and Cassie. They were a handful from the start. I would not recommend obtaining two pups at the same time. The two were littermates and no one wanted to take Cassie because of some congenital problems so we took her too. We got two for the price of one. This turned out to be a poor decision for a number of reasons, one of which was that they liked to split up and go in different directions. They seemed to know that I could only follow one pup at a time so the other was bound to get away with something before I caught up.

I don’t know when the notable ingestion occurred. I wasn’t even aware of it for some time. Mysteriously, Cassie’s collar was missing one day when they were several months old. We were in the house going about our daily lives, nothing unusual, no roughhousing. Although I guess the fact that there was no roughhousing should have been a clue that something was up. The next time I looked at Cassie, no collar. It was no where to be found. I finally gave up. Days passed with no collar sighting. I became more and more puzzled. I did eventually find the buckle to the collar but that was it.

About two weeks later we were sitting around the house and Amanda started retching. It must have gone on for a while because I remember running to get paper towels and coming back to catch whatever was going to present itself. What presented itself was Cassie’s collar sans buckle. It was intact and still in one piece. In fact it was in remarkably good shape. Aside from being slightly slimy, it looked like nothing had happened to it except for the missing buckle. Amanda looked proud. She had continued eating and performing all other bodily functions as normal throughout the previous two weeks. I did not know whether to be impressed or appalled although I was thankful that no veterinary intervention was required. And thus concludes one of the tales of Amanda and Cassie, and Part I of What the Dog Ate.