Category: dog ownership

Frosty Morning Romp

I took the dogs on an early morning hike or at least that was my plan, but when I pulled up to our regular spot there were other cars already there. That was when I noticed the large letters under the sign that said, “Dear Archery Hunting” and realized that we would be out there with men carrying large high powered compound bows. So in order to protect the dogs and me, we went elsewhere.

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Orso looking dapper in his bandanna

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Charlie in his bandanna

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The sun peeking through the trees

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A frosty dandelion

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Tall foxtails

Photos taken with my Canon Rebel

What a Day!

What a fun day Tuesday was, I couldn’t ask for a better day, oh sure. I woke up with a monster headache for the third day in a row. Switching from Daylight Savings Time to normal Central Time is a killer, even though we gained back that hour we lost in the spring. I keep waking up an hour earlier which is not good since we get up at 2:30 in the morning because of Mitch’s work schedule. Charlie and Orso are totally confused and don’t understand why they are eating an hour later but their stomachs are still on Daylight Savings Time. They were being especially annoying poking and pacing letting me know just how put out they were waiting for me to get my contacts in and clothes on. Ever tried putting a contact lens in when all of a sudden you get a jab in the back of your butt? Super good time.

The morning just kept getting better and better. I unplugged my phone from the charger pushed the button to turn it on and nothing happened. The screen stayed black and the phone felt hot. Wonderful, phone dead. It is two years old but I wasn’t ready for an upgrade, it worked just fine for me. I guess Sprint had other ideas and probably secretly sent a self-destruct code to my phone while it was charging. You don’t realize how attached to the little buggers you are until it doesn’t work. I always carry my phone when walking the dogs because between my “natural grace” and the things that go bump in the dark, I want to be able to call for help when they drag me off a cliff chasing some deer. I told the dogs that they better not knock my down or drag me around since I had no phone, like they care. I spent the day randomly calling my cell phone just to see if anyone called and left a message. No messages, just goes to show you that I really shouldn’t be so attached.

I was swamped all day at work with no time to take a breath, which makes the day go by faster, but didn’t help my headache. I had a consultation appointment with a plastic surgeon late in the day to discuss whether or not a mastectomy was a viable option and what the recovery time was. I have already read the horror story articles about women that the surgery didn’t go well for them, complications and infections, multiple surgeries and taking years to heal. I’ve heard the “It’s a great way to get a boob job” remarks and read the articles that paint a rosy picture of the procedure and wanted a realistic explanation from a reputable source. The plastic surgeon was awesome, we spent an hour and a half asking and answering questions. He explained the different types of reconstructive surgery available. When we left we both felt that we were as informed as possible about the procedure.

Mitch just had to tempt fate and suggested that since we were in the area, why not buzz by the Sprint Store and get a new phone. I don’t know about you, but there is no buzzing by a Sprint Store. We pulled into the parking lot and of course it started pouring down rain just as we parked the car. We made a mad dash into the store and was greeted with a packed house. Sprint was the place to be evidently. A Sprint staffer pointed out that there were eleven people in front of us (I think she wanted us to go home) and would be helped as soon as someone was free. Of course I didn’t know what I wanted, because I wasn’t looking for a phone so I wandered around looking at the different phones available. I am not super tech savvy so I mainly looked at the different sizes and colors. When it was finally our turn, I had narrowed it down to two models, decided on one based on the staff’s help and thought I was good to go. Oh no, I had to pick a color and a case to match, then it was screen protectors to avoid scratching the screen. The last challenge was trying to get my old phone to turn on so that they could sync all of my contacts and data over to the new phone.

Two hours later, we walked out of the store new phone in hand back into the pouring rain and headed home. Pour Mitch, by the time we finally got home it was too late for dinner. More good news, my headache was still going strong.

I Just Love Orso’s New Habit (Not Really)

Orso has a new habit and it’s a doozy. When I had my foot surgery earlier this summer and couldn’t walk the dogs, we had these wonderful friends that came over every morning and walked both of the dogs for me. Sometime during that time Orso decided that he really liked standing up on his hind legs and giving me a good greeting face to face. At ninety-eight pounds he literally can put his front paws on my shoulders and look me in the eye. What a great experience when coupled with that same ninety-eight pounds coming at you with a lot of exuberance and me being in a walking cast.

I have no idea where he came up with this new “fun” discovery of his. Maybe he picked it up from watching westerns on television in the mornings after I left for work. We started leaving the television on when we were not home for AJ our black lab who had severe separation anxiety issues to help him cope and just continued on after he died. Maybe I should stop this practice; it seems to be giving Orso ideas.

Since then we have been trying to break this new habit without much success. Orso has decided that rearing up like a horse is a great deal of fun. He’s started standing up routinely when we meet other dogs walking during the afternoon. This is his new way of saying hi I guess. The look of terror on the other dog owners faces don’t seem to agree with his idea. If he sees a deer in the darkness on our early morning walks, standing up barking at them and then lunging forward is huge entertainment for him. Couple that with me getting lurched around and jerked almost off my feet and we’re having a great walk.

I figure that in the near future I am going to be paying for a really nice vacation for my orthopedic surgeon.

Play Day

Our friends rescued a very skinny Belgian Malinois they thought was about a year old but it turns out he is somewhere around seven months to a year old. Once they got him home fed, rested and feeling safe, Eddy’s energy level raised. Eddy has the inexhaustible energy of an atom. No amount of walking, fetch and wrestling with the other two dogs, is wearing him our regularly. And to keep the other two dogs from eating him, we throw Orso at him and let them wrestle around. Orso is very good around other dogs but even he has his limits too.

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Eddy is super fast and seems to glide over the ground

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A rousing game of tag

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Orso standing and assessing the day

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Eddy looks vicious but that is just the Malinois game face

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Orso had had enough and was going to show Eddy who was the big dog

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Face off – looks scary but all in good dog fun

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Charlie watching ready to referee if needed

Skunk De-Skunker or A Public Service Announcement

Pheasant season is right around the corner and if your dogs are anything like ours, they get into a lot of thick tall grass searching for the elusive scent of a pheasant. Often other creatures pop out of the underbrush, such as rabbits, deer and on occasion, a skunk. That happened on one hunting trip. The dogs were hot on a pheasant that wanted to run through some prairie grass and would not break cover, when the dogs stopped short. As I caught up to Charlie and Orso I could make out something black sticking up in the grass and the dogs were barking at it. I just barely made out the shape and screamed, “Skunk! Leave it –leave it!”

I back pedaled as fast as I could to get out of range, but Charlie and Orso were not so lucky. As Charlie turned the skunk sprayed them catching Charlie on the right side of his face and shoulder, Orso got sprayed on his shoulder. As bad as the dead skunk stench smells when you are driving down the road and get a waft of the road kill aroma, a live skunk spray victim smells worse. It is a cloying sickening sweet, decaying smell that gets in your nostrils and won’t go away.

We took the dogs back to the hotel and first put Charlie in the tub and used all of the shampoo we had scrubbing, rinsing and repeating over and over until the stench was not as overwhelming as it first was. A trip to Walmart for more shampoo and it was Orso’s turn. Even though we were able to cut the stench down with the multiple baths, the stench was still there when you got close to their heads and shoulders. It took almost six months for the smell to completely go away.

After we got back from our fateful hunting trip, we decided to put together a skunk de-skunking kit. In the October 2008 issue of Gun Dog Magazine there was an article about skunks and dogs and it listed a de-skunking recipe. Below is the list of ingredients and instructions for anyone that takes their dogs hiking or hunting and just might need this.

16 ounce bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide (For best results, change out the any unused Hydrogen Peroxide on an annual basis. This is the keep it fresh and active in case you have to use it.)
1 pound box of Baking Soda (transferred to a waterproof container
Dawn Dish Soap
Latex, plastic or rubber gloves (several pair)
A plastic or metal two-quart or larger container to mixing the ingredients (we used a gallon ice cream pail)

Measure one or more cups of baking soda into large container. Add 1/2 cup or more hydrogen peroxide to form a paste. Expect mixture to foam somewhat. Squeeze one or more ounces of liquid soap and while wearing protective gloves, hand mix the ingredients until smooth and slightly runny.

Hand rub mixture into dog’s coat with a massaging motion concentrating on the region where most of the skunk oil is located. Leave mixture on dog for 10 minutes or more. Then rinse with ample fresh water. Avoid getting the mixture in the dog’s eyes. Flush well with fresh water if it does get in his eyes.

Rinse the dog with plenty of fresh water.

NOTE: Do Not mix the solution before it is needed. It is unsafe to store this mixture for any length of time, so mix only when needed, apply immediately and discard afterwards.

We haven’t had to use our kit yet and hope we never have to, but we take it with us on each hunting trip. Of course I probably should do that on our hiking treks too.

The Walk from Hell

I did not enjoy our walk this afternoon, no not at all. It started off so promising. Mitch was busy putting brakes on my car when I got home from work, so I fed the dogs and changed my clothes. I put their harnesses on them, grabbed my phone, stuffed a couple of poop bags in my pocket and grabbed the leashes off the coat rack. We walked outside, I leashed each one up and told Mitch we would be back shortly and would fix dinner then. It was a beautiful afternoon, mid-seventies and a light breeze, perfect for a dog walk.

Nobody else was around just the dogs and me; we were about halfway to the dam when Charlie stopped to sniff something in the ditch next to the road, took a step and jerked sideways and sort of jumped and limped to the road both at the same time. I looked at him and he was holding his left foot up as if he had stepped on something and cut his paw or had been bitten. I looked down at his elevated paw and saw something sticking out between two of his toes. It looked like a small stick sticking out of a dark brown rock wedged between his toes.

So being the loving caring pet owner I am, I reached down to pull it out. Imagine my surprise and disgust when I discovered it wasn’t a rock wedged between his toes, but instead it was dog poop. I now have dog poop on my left thumb. Gross! Charlie had stepped in some other dog’s feces and was as disgusted about it as I was when I touched it. I walked over and pulled a leaf off of a bush to try and wipe as much off of my thumb as possible. I didn’t have a Kleenex with me and if I did it would have been in my pocket and I certainly wasn’t going to stick my poopy thumb in my pocket to retrieve it.

After wiping as much as I could off of my thumb, I picked a bigger leaf to try and wipe the poop off of Charlie’s toes. Charlie was being his usual uncooperative self and jerked his paw away from me causing me to get dog poop on my right thumb. Now I have dog poop on both thumbs, I am thoroughly disgusted and feel super gross. I can’t touch anything with my thumbs because I don’t want to get the gross icky poop on anything else. I decided to turn around and walk back home. I held the leashes in each palm curling my fingers around them with my thumbs sticking straight out so I wouldn’t accidently touch anything with my thumbs.

Halfway home and so far so good, no other people or dogs show up and both dogs are behaving rather well, when all of a sudden now I have a goddam gnat flying at my face. There was nothing I could do, I couldn’t swat it, just wave my arms around like a crazy woman and jerk my head spasmodically to try and keep it away. I can only imagine what someone thought if anybody looked out of their window at me.

Where is a wet wipe when you need it?

Cranky Me

Stand back everyone I’m going on a rant. Run, don’t look back, save yourself, I have passed irritated and have reached flat out cranky. I am working on three days of sleep deprivation and am pretty sure there will be a fourth and a fifth and so on. The reason for this new state, the weather has finally cooled off enough to allow us to open the windows and turn off the air conditioning. Refreshing you would think, but no, our neighbor has a Chocolate Lab puppy that is about nine or ten months old, a sweet loving and totally out of control monstrously large puppy. The neighbor’s will put the puppy out on a run I think just to get some away time from him. And what do puppies do when they are bored and have no one exercising, training and loving on them, puppies find ways to entertain themselves. They chew on inappropriate things like the deck, and furniture, dig up the yard and most of all, bark. Lucky us, the puppy is tied up outside our bedroom window.

The first night the puppy barked for an hour. He would bark nonstop for about five minutes, then stop for about five minutes lulling me into the false sense of relaxation, thinking that the neighbor had enough of him yapping and took him in. No such luck, he was just resting his vocal cords. This on and off barking continued on and on so that when the neighbor finally did take him in for the night, we were both so keyed up, neither one of us had any restful sleep. Getting up at two thirty in the morning for our work schedule makes for a short night anyway, but add only maybe a couple of hours of sleep and we have the start of short tempers. The second night we went to bed earlier because of the prior night’s lack of sleep and hoped for the best. The puppy started off again and barked his on and off routine for about forty-five minutes making another night of misery for us. Last night, he barked for an hour and a half. Mitch finally broke down and called the neighbor and left a message.

That was the whine, here comes the rant. I love dogs, but a barking dog grates on my soul. I cannot stand listening to a dog barking nonstop. If the dog starts barking go and check on the dog and find out why he’s barking. If it’s an intruder, shoot him and let the dog eat the intruder, the dog won’t be barking while he is eating. If nothing is wrong and the dog is just bored, get up off of your duff and go play with him. Run him around the yard throwing a ball, put him through some training drills or walk him. Anything to exercise his body and brain, but don’t leave the dog outside on a run to make the rest of the neighbors miserable.

I would be mortified if a neighbor called me to complain that my dogs were causing any inconvenience for them. I just don’t understand people anymore. What has happened to manners and thoughtfulness? The saddest part about the whole mess is that the puppy will probably be the one to suffer the most from our sleep deprivation. He will probably be kenneled more and for longer periods causing more out of control behavior or worse turned over to a shelter because the owners don’t want to deal with the problem.

Okay so much for my rant, I’m still tired and cranky, but I feel a little better getting that off my chest. Mitch and the dogs thank you too for letting me vent. Cross your fingers for us that maybe just maybe we might get a decent night’s sleep soon. That or pray for cold weather so we have to close the windows and turn on the furnace.

What a Couple of Fair Weather Sissies!

My chair has been bashed for the third time now and I have almost been knocked out of it twice, all because these two hooligans have decided it’s game on. When Charlie and Orso go at it, furniture gets moved whether it’s occupied or not. It is eighty-five degrees outside and these two sissies think the only place that they can play and wrestle is in the house. At almost nine years old, Charlie is a tad on the cranky side most of the time and won’t play with Orso. Orso who is the perennial puppy is always up for a free for all, so when Charlie is in the mood Orso will take advantage of every moment of neck chewing he can get.

Normally the wrestling only lasts for five or ten minutes tops, but tonight this has been going on now for twenty minutes. There is lots of heavy panting, but no one is giving an inch of ground. Barking, snarling and bodies leaping on and off the bed, means a good time is being had by all. Mitch has been trying fruitlessly to stay out of the line of fire, but it’s not working. He’s been bowled over twice now. I call a time out when one of them grabs the edge of my rug in his teeth and wants to play tug of war. Nothing is safe from the jaws of death around here.

After twenty five minutes Charlie has finally called a truce and both have tongues hanging all the way to the floor. A quick drink and both collapsed on the floor to cool off. Now I just have to cross my fingers that maybe they will both sleep all night long and not come nudge me in the middle of the night to see if I’m awake.

Cramping My Style

Work is cramping my style. I have been swamped at work lately. So busy, that I have been going in an hour early every day and working through lunch just to keep up. That extra hour of early time means that I don’t get to do any writing and of course when I have no time to spend writing, I have lots of great story ideas. All of these ideas come when I’m either walking the dogs, taking a shower or doing something else that entails my hands being otherwise occupied and there is no paper or pen around so I can at least jot down an idea. Then just like a dog seeing a squirrel, I start something else and totally forget what I wanted to say. I have no idea how many story ideas that I’ve lost and are floating around in the mishmash of my brain among all of the other things I’ve forgotten, like where I put the electric bill.

What I need is a thought activated idea recorder that will record my random thoughts, organize them into complete sentences and write a finished polished story. I could then take my idea recorder, plug it into the computer and download this wonderful story. What a superb product this would be. Every writer I know would have one. Sadly I know of no such gadget or believe me I would be the first to own one.

But back to my original thought, work is definitely getting in the way of my writing. (See what I mean about “squirrel”? One minute I’m focused the next off on another tangent.) The audacity of a company in the business of making a profit through the labor of their employees, said company shows its’ appreciation by paying us a salary and actually expects us to work and earn that salary. Can you believe it? Actually work to receive my paycheck? Oh man, the unfairness of it all. But I really like eating, I’m not the starving artist type, so I go in and work every day giving it my all, so for now I have to squeeze out my writing time when I can, right along with my work out time, which isn’t getting done on a regular basis either.

Our Resident Herons

We have a Blue Heron that stays at the lake every summer and this year we have a newcomer, a White Heron is summering here too. These two were fishing for their lunch when the dogs and I were out on a stroll.
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