Some Dogs Just Know How to Have Fun

Yawning Dogs!

I think Sonny was yawning more than me, and that is really saying something.

Last Week

We are freezing today, but last week we had our first real days of summer.


Bella and Jinx have the right idea about spending playtime lounging in the shade of the apple tree.

I lost my huge peach tree last summer. That tree had to be at least 20 years old and it shaded most of the dog runs and half of the smaller play yard. I currently have a twig of tree trying to replace it. I guess I should have planted new trees five years ago when I started this business, but who expects a decades old tree to get killed off in one season by bugs. Damn those Snot-Hole Borers. They took out the best peach tree and did a number on my Italian plum last season. I am hoping the cold winter and delayed spring is hitting them hard, 'cause bug poisons don't touch them.

I want to get some roofs up over the outdoor runs so the dogs have more shade this summer. I should have done it last fall, it sure would have been nice not to have to shovel snow out of the runs all winter.

Laney-Girl

I have lost another good doggie. It seems that Laney lost a fight with a cat this week.

My mom always says that bad news comes in threes. I hope she is wrong.

This is Smuckers

I remember asking her owner how she came to be named after jelly, but I can’t recall their answer. Her family calls her, Mucky. I kept finding myself calling her ‘Smuck’, which isn’t really that nice of a name. She really is a lovely boxer and doesn’t deserve to be called ‘smuck’, ’shlemiel’, ‘shmoe’ or any of the other Yiddish words I know. Thank goodness no one in Utah, other than me, seems to know what I am saying anyway.

I was trying very hard to get a picture of Smuckers for this post only to discover that she doesn’t like to be photographed. I am many shots of the back of her head and a number of her left ear. Her little sister, Prudence, seems to love the camera.

I think Smuckers liked coming here just to get a break from her kid sister. Prudence gets to run with all the other bouncy dogs and Smuckers gets to hang with me. Us old ladies need to stick together. Whenever Smuckers would come around for some loving, I would have to work fast. Prudence likes to butt in and demand all the love for herself. And if Pru stops running and pays attention to me, so does Sonny, BB, Bailey, and Poky. That is just too much dog for even I to love all at once. Especially, since they are want to get on my lap. At seven months pregnant, there just isn’t that much lap to go around anyway.

We had a very cold and rainy day on Wednesday. We even got some hail. The dogs had been stuck in the kennel for most of the day, when the sun decided to show up for dinner playtime. I was letting everyone have an extra long playtime to make up for such a crummy day. I had been snapping pictures with the good intentions of trying to blog again when I gave up on the camera. My ability to get a dog in a frame seems to be even weaker than before. So I was just enjoying the dogs doing what they do best, hauling around the play yard at top speed. I was standing by the inner gate, trying to stay out of the way, when I heard and saw Smuckers fall.

Did she trip?! Dogs don’t trip.

Did someone run into her?! No one was anywhere near her.

I rush over and kneel down next to her. I want to keep the other dogs away incase she is hurt. Normally, if I get down on the ground, dogs overwhelm me: licking, or knocking me over. I should have realized when I wasn’t shoving dogs out of my face, that something was really wrong. Her legs were out straight and stiff so the first thing I think of is that she is having a seizure. My dog, Sam, had those. I am three steps ahead in my mind…finish the seizure, put the rest of the dogs away, and put her in the car and take her to the vet. I am holding her shoulder and telling her that everything is going to be fine, ‘cause I have a plan, when her breathing slowed and stopped. It seemed like a long time, but it was probably less than a minute.

My husband figures it was either a heart attack or stroke to happen so fast. We both decided that going that quickly while having a great time with your buddies would be the way we’d like to go.

Maybe I have led a sheltered life, but at 43, I have never been present when someone died. The last thing I said to her was, “Oh no, Smuck, don’t go.” It was really simple and peaceful, she was here and then she wasn’t.

Usually, I get to hear about the death of one of my doggies when their owners call to cancel on reservations or when they see me in the grocery store. I don’t usually have to be the one to tell their moms.

I guess I have to expect that after 5 years, I would lose some of my clients. It is just as hard with Smuckers as with the first dog I lost, Snoopy. The biggest black lab you ever saw.

We buried Smuckers under my favorite pear tree. My kids and my dogs saw her off. My son wants to light a candle for her at mass this weekend. I told him, that I doubt Smuckers was a practicing Catholic, but I think it would still be okay. St. Frances would be proud.

This last photo taken about 5 minutes before she died.

I Sometimes Have to Wonder if Owners Think Through Their Dog's Names

If this dog's name doesn't cause someone in Helper to take a pock shot at me, nothing will.

Shouting 'DAGO!' across the play yard just can't be good for my health.

And I though yelling 'BOOZER!', 'BOURBON!', 'WISKEY!' and 'DUFUS!' was embarassing.

Big Dog, Little Dog

I no longer believe that people either love little dogs or big dogs. I have too many families made up of the wildest ranges of sizes. Gunny and Chewy - Rottwieller and Shitzu. Amica and Teenso - Standard and Teacup Poodles. But Dago and Giambi have to be the largest range - Extra Large Standard Poodle and Yorky.

What I have now learned about sibling dogs that vary this much in size...
It is very hard to keep both a really big dog and a really little dog inside the same kennel at the same time if they really want to get out. Big and little dogs require entirely different techniques for blocking an escape.

Dago and Giambi really have a routine going. Whenever I put Dago away, Giambi walks right out under his brother's legs without me ever seeing him.

Tummy Troubles

I thought my tummy troubles were over when the snow finally melted away and I could open the play yard gate all the way. There was a point in February when I thought that if we got any more snow, I wouldn't be able to squeeze past the gate.

Now, my tummy isn't giving me a hard time trying to get in - it is letting the dogs out. I can't seem to step into a run without letting a dog out anymore.

I had been trying to find a button that flew off my coat and across my dining room a couple of weeks ago. No luck so far, it might have headed down an air vent or under the china hutch never to be seen again. Getting down on the floor and looking for it was asking too much of me so I asked the kids. Unfortunately, my children's observational abilities are severely lacking. They couldn't find an elephant if I said I lost it in the dining room. I have decided to stop worrying about in since I can't button the jacket anyways.

Sorry to Break Up the Party

I thought I disturbed the deer's fun last night when I headed out to put the doggies away. I spotted 4 deer on the far side of the horse pasture, and they definitely spotted me. I was trying to sneak quietly away when I spotted a huge deer in the back yard, about 20 feet away from me. It is nice to see how much weight they have put back on after such a long hard winter.

I did my doggie duty and was headed back to the house when I walked right into the big get together. There was one deer standing in front of my steps, two or more on the far side of my car and at least 6 eating the grass on the side of the driveway. Man, it all shook loose when they heard me. Reminded me of how fast a house can empty of teenagers when mom comes home a bit too early.

Ah, Spring!

I have been looking forward to spring after such a long and cold winter. I imagined nice long play times with lots of running and wrestling. This winter play time shrank to about 10 minutes and sometimes only 5 and few bedtime session that lasted all of about 30 seconds. You'd be amazed how fast a dog can pee when the temps hit the single digits.

What I failed to take into account, and I do this to myself every spring, was that dogs lose their minds and their manners come March and April.

Watch yourselves and your puppies, there are more dog bites and dog fights in the spring than any other time. I find myself stopping play time early because the dogs that were having a blast for the first 10 minutes start threatening to bite each other's faces off in the second 10 minutes. It is a bit freaky to see a dog you know to be friendly and playful suddenly go Mr. Hyde on you.

Oh well, this too will pass and everything should settle down into normal dog behavior by the time May rolls around. Well, as normal as dog behavior ever gets.

Just Prior to Impact!

This is what I spent my weekend trying to stay out of the way of.

They Make an Unbeatable Tag Team

Sasha and Sierra Against the World.


So long as they have my chair to hide under.

Mingle, Mingle!

It is not normal for me to get this many dogs in one shot. It is a pretty big play yard and the dogs don't usually clump together like this.

Clumping makes me nervous, so mingle, mingle.


Gee, we really did have a crowd for Easter.

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

Running the kennel for the past five years has been a series of surprises. I thought, wrongly, that I couldn't be surprised anymore - than I had seen it all, and over come it all. Let's review some of my earlier shocks.


Ability to Destroy Chain Link Fencing
I was definitely surprised when a dog peeled up the chain link and decided to sleep on my shelving instead of in his kennel. I was really surprised when a huge dog pulled up and pushed herself through 5, count them, 5, kennel panels to get to the only other dog in the kennel. She didn't break into his run, she stopped in the kennel next door and took a nap.

Sometime after the run panels started to look like I crocheted them back together we replaced the light weight chain link with the 'keep the teenagers away from the power lines' gage.

Ability to Climb Chain Link Fencing
I just had no idea that dogs could climb when Maggie first scaled the corner of the play yard, ran home and sat on her back porch to be let in. (Lucky for me, they just live down the alley from me.) It is because of her that the corner of the play yard and all the runs now have welded wire panels on top.

I thought I had the climbers beat until I kept finding Chaser on my front porch. I couldn't figure out how he was getting out. His gate wasn't open. I hadn't left him out. There was no sign of having dug under the fence. After the third round of putting him back, I decided I'd better hide and watch this furry Houdini. Not only could Chaser climb the corner of his run, he could fit through the wire fencing at the top and then walk the top rail to the edge, jump down and head directly to my front door. A second layer of fencing a chunk of old rug finally contained him.

Inability to be Contained
This would be Cotton, a very large and very white Labrador. He ate a dog door. First, he pulled the frame off the wall and then he ate parts of the fiber board door. Cotton doesn't do well with containment. For all of Cotton's stays, we leave he run door open all night. Thanks to the CEU Welding Department, I now have nice metal doors for all my dog runs. I forgot about leaving Cotton's door open one night and found that Cotton managed to yank out of it frame but not to eat it.


Until now, Cotton had been my only escapee from a closed up at night kennel. Last weekend, I went down first thing in the morning only to find Boozer, the beagle, sitting in his outside run. He didn't seemed bothered by being locked out and I was planning giving my husband a very hard time about missing a dog when he did bedtime duty the night before. Only, he didn't leave Boozer out, Boozer GOT out. We don't know how he lifted the door and got under without it guillotining off a chunk of his tail. I am going to make sure he gets one of the kennel door that wasn't cut quite straight. I can barely pull those out. It is moments like this when I really want a 'kennel cam' - I still can't believe that cute little puppy is an escape artist.

That is one way to get out of Doggie Duty!

My husband has been doing much more than his share of the 'dog duty' with this winter being so very cold and me being so very pregnant.

(It also has to do with the fact that I am often asleep on the couch long before the doggies' bedtime.)

He headed down to the kennel last night only to come back really fast. That usually only happens when it is so cold, the dogs don't even want to be out. It was a lovely day yesterday, no gale force winds for once, so I was surprised to see him back so soon.

(I hadn't even had a chance to finish watching the last ten minutes of Medium, that I fell asleep for the other night)

Turns out that NONE of the dogs would come out of their kennels for him. I guess I will just have to do the bedtime shift this week. bummer.

It's A Girl!

Well, I guess I mean it will be a girl. Right now it is still a parasite that is sucking my will to live.

I defy any woman who has a baby since the 1980's to claim that she did not, at least once, think about the dinner table scene from Alien movie while pregnant.

Yet Another Winter Wonderland!

No WONDER everyone is sick of WINTER!

Here Cometh the Thaw!

Not soon enough for me. This winter has been so long, so cold, so snowy, and just so grating on my nerves; that the thaw could not come soon enough.

Turns out that it wasn't going to last long enough either. I really did enjoy the past week or so with temperatures in the 40's. Even if that did mean that my path down to the dog kennel kept defrosting into more and more land mines. The kennel's play yard started its usual transformation into a mud pit as well. I get to play "Water Engineer" while the dogs play. I dig little canals to drain puddles and the dog run by a wreck them like four footed Godzillas. Oh well, I can always dig them again - it keeps me out of trouble.

Another New One on Me

I have never seen a dog projectile vomit before.

I have seen dogs barf. I have a barfer myself. Whenever my dog's stomach is bothering her, she eat things she seems to think will help it, such as Barbie's clothes, my son's socks, part of my bedroom rug, the corner off the living room curtains, and the laces out of my new black cross trainers.

When all of this comes back up, there is a great deal of pacing (this is notice to kick her out of the house) and then retching and then 'plop' there is something unidentifiable as edible on my Persian.

But never before have I seen PROJECTILE vomit come out of a dog. It was amazing. Paco was tearing around the play yard when he yipped like he was hurt. Before I could even focus on his speeding form, he yipped again. There was no one with him to be hurting him. That is when he produced a 10 foot 'technocolor yawn' as we called it in college. I have no idea what he managed to eat that had to come up that fast and that far, but it didn't deter him from trying to eat it a second time.

That is something I will never understand about barfing dogs. If what you eat was so awful that it had to come back up, why in the world do you think it is still something worth eating?

And why is that they rarely barf it up the second time, anyway?

Dang, I Had No Idea It Was That Cold!

BB arrived at the end of last week and on her first playtime, I spotted her holding her back leg up.

My first thought is that these big idiots had hurt BB. My second thought is, if you idiots have actually hurt BB, who exactly is going to play with you? As you all know, I am no fun.

I check her leg and I don't see anything wrong, nor does she react like my exam is hurting her. So, I let her walk around. No limp when she is walking, just holding her passenger's side rear leg up. All the way up, not just off the ground, all the way up to her belly like a shiny black flamingo. Hold it, wasn't it the passenger side? Now it is the driver's side rear.

She is not hurt, her feet are cold - so are mine for that matter.

Then she did something I have NEVER seen before. It was the most awkward pose I had ever seen a dog assume. BB sat on her butt, in the snow, tail tucked and lifted both legs up off the snow - up to her knee, ankle? whatever it is really called.

Forget the wind chill factor, you know it is cold when a dog won't put their feet down and colder than that when BB walks over to her kennel door to let back in. With that I can assure you that hell has officially frozen over.

And so much for never having seen that pose before...Oreo did the exact same, butt down - feet up, position right after BB did. Must have looked like a good idea.

Mary, Mother of God! Save Me From People Who Don't Train Their Dogs!

Oh my God! What is with all the badly behaved dogs lately! twelve bucks a day is just not enough for me to be used as a punching bag. It is not like my balance was ever very good, but now that I have a 20 pound basketball hovering behind my navel, I can fall over on my own without any help from over sized and under trained dogs.

I have pointed out in the past that charging extra for big dogs is the biggest scam that exists in dog boarding. Big dogs are, as a rule, easier to care for that little dogs. People teach their big dogs to 'come' and to 'sit' but it seems that one bothers to work on their Shitzus. It is always something the size of a loaf of bread that I end up chasing around the play yard until I catch them and toss them back into their run.

Not this month.

Once again I am faced with a a dog that weighs somewhere around 120 pounds and is completely without any manners. JJ knocked the tar out of my dog sitter until she brought her husband over to manhandle him into some obedience training. Thank You! By the time I got home he wasn't ricocheting me into the fencing, but he was still bolting out the gate. There is just something spectacularly painful about being whacked with a metal gate when the temperature is in the single digits. Only followed by the muscle wrenching involved in making a stubborn Labrador, collar set too big, get back into his kennel.

I have the sore arms to prove I did in fact muscle him into that run and the satisfaction of seeing him walk in, most times, when asked now.

I pay the mortgage, I get to be top dog.

I thought I was going to die.

This morning, I was having a nice first playtime of the day. The dogs were all having a blast and I wasn't freezing. It was gray and dreary, but clearly into the double digit temperatures.

I spotted a kestrel coming in low over the play yard and was watching for where it landed in my back yard. I rarely get to see one that up close. When out of the corner of my eye, did I spot Maki, Smokey, Paco and Buddy coming straight at me, shoulder to shoulder like the four doggies of the Apocalypse.

Maki veered off at the last moment and they never even touched me.

Maki is a big girl, and a rough and tumble kind of a a girl, and she is having no problem keeping up and even beating my 'wild boys', but at least she remembers her manners.



I guess it is not true about your life flashing before your eyes - maybe I would have found out where I left my cell phone.

Wild Boys in Action!

Pretty Day!

Not pretty enough to make me forget about all the shoving.

Wild Boys!

If I Could Have Your Attention

MEMO

To: All Doggies
Re: Moratorium on Kissing

Due to the unanticipated inclement weather, all dog kisses are now banded from December to the end of February. Some additional portions of both November and March will fall under this new regulation and will be announced when necessary, but without additional notice.

Thank You,

Aunt Erica
The Management



Maybe it is just that dogs don't get the concept of frostbite, but I can really do without dog spit on my face when the temperatures drop into the single digits.

Or perhaps, it is just because they can't read.

Instant Friends!

Just open gate and mix!

Right Way, Wrong Way, Side Ways....

It really doesn't matter as long as I am on top!

Definitly a WHITE Weekend, But Also a BLACK and BLUE One.

OW-CHA! I am a collection of bruises held together by stiff muscles. I blame the sore muscles on all the snow shoveling, but the bruises are the work of Timber, Smokey and Paco.

I thought I was getting Smokey's jumping all over me under control. Actually, that was really wishful thinking on my part - that I could retrain that dog to not be a jumper in just a couple of days was really overly optimistic. It seemed to me that he was landing less blows, though I probably just got better at dodging them. All that went out the window with the introduction of Timber. Unbelievable as it may seem, he is a smaller dog, yet a bigger bouncer than Smokey. OUCH!

Then Paco arrived, just as big as Smokey and just as ill mannered.

Now that there were three of them, they didn't even try to contain themselves.

I tried blocking them with my knee - they were on to that pretty quickly. Soon, every raised knee hit a shin or a shoulder bone and never a soft chest. I was getting the negative reinforcement more than they were. Then, I tried just putting my hand to their necks, ala Dog Whisperer. That worked pretty well to deflect them until my hand started hitting shoulder bones instead of necks. I learn my lesson pretty quickly that time, too.

Well, at least one of us is trainable.

Funny Dog Pictures

Duchess and Rosie

I read those names on the calendar and got a mental picture of a matched set of Shitzus. I was right about the matched set, I just got the scale all wrong.


Rosie is ten and Duchess is one. Rosie usually doesn't bunk with her kid sister and her mom was worried that 'the baby' might drive her nuts. ( I had a little flash of the future with my daughter at age ten being driven crazy by her new sibling) Rosie seems to be doing just great, since we have 3 other wild and bouncy dogs to where Duchess out.

Rosie and I try to hang out, we old ladies need to stick to together, and stay out of the way of the 'kids'.

Did Anyone Get the License Number of Those Dogs that Ran Me Over?

I get bumped, knocked, bruised and bounced into the fencing, but as rule, I don't get knocked off my feet. Yesterday, Duchess and Lucy took my feet right out from under me. These two have already crashed into my chair and a tree, so I should have been watching out a bit more - steering is clearly not a priority for them.


They both hit me just above the ankle and I went down. I am just glad that I had my hands out of my pockets or I would have landed teeth first into the snow.

Kibble Envy...It is Never a Pretty Thing

White Christmas! Ba Humbug!

White Christmases have never been my thing. Even before 'White Christmas' meant canceled appointments, I always thought it was mean to wish for something that was going to mess up everyone's travel plans.

If you are one wishing for snow this year, you must have been a very good boy or girl - we are getting the whitest Christmas that I can remember. Mother Nature is making up for no rain this October by dumping and dumping on us this December. This is our second session of an all day and all night snow. Normally, when we get a dumping and I break out the shovels and by lunch the sunshine will finish clearly the driveway for me. I can't remember it snowing and snowing and snowing without stopping, ever, before this winter.

But back to Christmas wishes, I must have been a very good girl, too, because I got what I wished for this Christmas...a kennel full of good doggies.

This group is having a great time with each other and with all the snow. This is when my job is its best, instead of needing my supervision, they entertain me to no end. And get this, BB hasn't even arrived yet - this is going to be the best Christmas ever.

Little Buddy, Little Buddy, Big Buddy...

too many Buddies for me.

Sadie and Her Ball

The never ending game of fetch. That is until my husband sailed her ball over the fence and into the plums.

Button, Button, Whose's Got the Button?

We do!

Button was not doing to well on her first visit to the ranch. She had her tail tucked so high that she was giving herself a wedgie. My husband to the rescue - all dogs love him.

They Can Keep This Up FOREVER!

Hard Dog to Photograph

How Much is That Doggie in the Window?

The One with the Waggily Tail?

A Day Off, Well Almost...

Scooter went home at dinner time and I have a completely empty kennel. That never happens anymore. I have 3 dogs coming today, so not exactly a whole day off, but I did get out of a bedtime shift and a breakfast one. WooHoo! When it is this cold, that is a vacation day! I even got to sleep in, wow!

Your guess is a good as mine.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out what breeds of dogs combined to make Smokey.

Putting the PLAY back in Playtime.

Finally!

The Dynamic Duo verses The Mighty Mights

Finally, they are having some fun.