Animal Links

 I'm like 10 pages back on this website, I hadn't seen it before.  I LOVE the black lab with the pacifier and the kitten and book. 

One of the blogs I follow A Vet's Guide to Life,  had an article with the 10 most common forms of Pet Poisoning in the household.  Do you have a pet?  Read it, try to remember it.  Maybe print it off.  I am lucky, Dispatch sometimes won't eat lunch meat if isn't offered to him in the proper spirit.  Pills on the floor?  Pills are evil things that Mama sometimes puts in his mouth and makes him swallow.  BLECKKK.  Plants? Thery aren't meat, why should he eat them?? LOL  If you do have a pet poisoned or just want to learn more about the subject you can visit the pet poison hotline.

Don't forget to go to the Animal Rescue Site and Click to give to animals, just click that's all you have to do.  Scouts honor.  You can also vote for your favorite Shelter. (details on the link) The Happy Tails Animal Sanctuary is mentioned by Borderblog.  I'm partial to any of the shelters along the Gulf Coast or Stover Animal Shelter.  I tried to type in Stover though and got an  Apache server exception but I'd already voted.

Animal Stories And Links

A proposed draft of China's first law on animal welfare prohibits the consumption of dog and cat meat, with a fine of up to 5,000 yuan ($730) and up to 15 days' detention for the guilty.  This is from the xinhuanet.com website.  What are mine and Dispatches 2 cents worth?  I say it's about GD time (and I don't curse, much, out loud).  Dispatch says he's glad he's little and skinny and probably tough.  He says also if mama lost a little more weight cannibals wouldn't look @ her so fondly either but that's another story.

Labrador Retrievers are still the number one dog in the United States (according to the AKC) but Yorkies while being 3rd in the USA are #1 in New York City (I can attest to one house in Wichita Kansas that has this Yorkie Poo that is definitly #1) Nice foot Sis.  Phone picture but I don't think you've seen it yet?

2009 Most Popular Dogs in the U.S.

1. Labrador Retriever

2. German Shepherd Dog

3. Yorkshire Terrier

4. Golden Retriever

5. Beagle

6. Boxer

7. Bulldog

8. Dachshund

9. Poodle

10. Shih Tzu The most popular pets with the biggest increase in rankings over the last decade included the Bulldog (from 21st to 7th); French Bulldog (from 73rd to 24th); Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (from 58th to 25th) and the making the largest leap the Havanese (from 92nd to 32nd). (Taken from the AKC page)  Notice the Havanese, we all know what kind of dog that is?  Say it! BICHON Havanese!!!! YAY  It's party time, get the tennis balls......Sorry about that, back to our regular programming. Havanese photo from Happy Havs Farm Havanese Puppies Even before the Obama family selected the Portuguese Water Dog it was on the rise in popularity ranked 80th a decade ago to 60th currently. However, it did make a jump from 64th a year ago when all the interest in this mid-sized, hypoallergenic breed began says the AKC.  I wrote about the Obama's selecting a dog if you are so inclined to self torture.  Hey it's my most popular post all the time so.............. no harm in mentioning it ad nauseum AGAIN. If you haven't left me for the AKC by now bless your little pea pickin hearts, (some of you may be too young to remember that, wasn't it Tennessee Ernie Ford?) you can go see how your favorite dog breed did here.  No use going anywhere else, I've said it all.  (Just kidding AKC)  Bichon Frise FELL lately?  This can not be so mon ami, Dispatch es tres bleu. (all the french I could think of that you want to hear)

I Sleep With These Males And A Dog Story

OK, this is my husband and my bichon frise, I know the bichon is kissable but doesn't my husband have handsome lips? This is what the bichon would like to do all day, ride on my husbands lap being supported by the arm so he doesn't have to expend so much energy. Laying on the floor otherwise is hard work you know?  I've since washed the windows inside and out since the second picture was taken.

 

It seems a dog somehow got on an ice floe and drifted for 75 miles in the Vistula River and the Baltic sea.  The dog is currently being interviewed for former owners.  I'm not kidding they are letting the dog see people who claim they have lost him, the shepherd has turned down two so far by not greeting them like a lost dog should greet an owner.   The dog isn't a huge dog but has a thick coat.  Poland has been experiencing an exceptionally cold winter thus causing extra ice floes, even in river, the dog wandered onto an ice floe and probably cursed in doggy and said "what have I done!"

Still Life With Pigs IV (and deer)

If you just started reading these pig stories they are about two newlyweds and 4 half grown kids who are deluded into thinking they can farm by evil spirits.  OK, they can farm but it's sort of a comedy.....




For those of you who aren't lucky enough to have played midwife to 30 sows @ a time a farrowing house is where they have babies.  Every month a new batch of sows go through there, the babies are raised to a certain weight and everyone gets moved, the sows to the "woods" and the pigs to the nursery.  Before the next bunch came in the farrowing house was practically sanitized.  Pressure washed and swabed down.  The only time it smelled decent.

One evening I was pressure washing the farrowing house.  It was almost a relaxing time because the kids had done the other chores and my husband was home doing something behind the farrowing house in the woods.  A pressure washer is a machine that heats up water and then squirts it out hard enough to etch wood.  That's why the kids weren't doing it although they did learn later.  Anyway it makes quite a bit of noise, I was probably singing (badly) @ the top of my lungs and the kids were in the house which was on the other side of the farrowing house, being that they were 9,13, 16, and 17 they were probably playing video games/had the stereo blasting/or were fighting.  

I got through washing and went to the house,  I hear husband coming  and he burst in the kitchen slightly bloody from the forehead.  He's all like I could have been killed and no one would have come, blah blah blah.  (this man never gets excited but when he does it's a bit dramatic)  He wants to know why I didn't come when he yelled.  I told him the chances of ANYONE hearing him when the pressure washer was on and he was on the other side of the woods, feeding floor and farrowing house were none.  We might have heard dynamite.  He is obviously going to live so we ask him what happened.    This is priceless but he will tell the story so he will let me now I think?  We won't tell him I told on the internet ok?

He said "a doe attacked me, a mama deer and her baby was crazy and made her attack me."  My husband came in on first of the hippies but wacky weed wasn't in either one of our vocabularies @ that time so naturally the kids and I immediately bent over double from laughter.  I'd taught them to take everything serious like that.  He did not think this was funny.  It took awhile for him to see it as such and us to convince him we would have come to his rescue IF WE COULD HAVE HEARD HIM!!!  did I mention we couldn't hear him?

It seems that he had been fixing fence really not too far from the farrowing house.  This fawn had come up to him and was nosing around, the mama showed up and acted aggressive.  Evidently the fawn wasn't an Einstien because fawn thought if husband was scared fawn should be too.  Husband had crawled under the tractor by this time and fawn followed him making distressed fawn noises.  He couldn't get it to leave.  Finally it came to it's senses and went with it's mother but she like stalked off, no timid tippytoeing for her.  She had gotten in one lick on husbands forehead which was the blood and the hoof print.  I'm sorry but it was just all so funny then and we couldn't quit laughing.

BTW husband?  He's only like close to 6 ft but he's shaped like a wedge (OK he used to be and he used to weigh several pounds less but so did I) and just a guy who looks like you don't want to mess with him, sort of thick up @ the top.  Unless you are an enraged mama deer evidently.   

In his defense in a previous life (first marriage) we had a bunch of dogs once @ the other farm.  They went into the woods on one side of the pond once and came out where they went in about a minute later.  There were part shepherds, Saint Bernard mix, a terrier or two and a poodle border collie mix.  And they were running, 

for their lives,


you guessed it a mama deer,



she was striking out with her hooves in front of her and I swear she had her teeth bared like she was growing.  The dogs were NOT turning around to see.  She ran right by us humans, didn't have time to go around, those DOGS had gotten to close to her BABY and she was mad.  

So those little innocent woodland creatures with the big liquid eyes?  It's all just an act.  As my daughter who was mentally scarred for life by the squirrel in my basement will attest to as well as my husband and his enraged doe.  

Still Life With Pigs III

I was only in my early 30s when we farmed so that explains why I worked as I did although I know older women who do it day in and day out. 

When we moved from the farm (to a NON working farm, the non part is important, it's like a giant lawn or deer feeding station, my husband wants to make it that working thing again?) I thought I was getting soft so I started digging up the sidewalk in front of our house which was OLD and cracked and uneven, smoothing the ground and then putting it back.  AND THEN for fun my daughter and I dug a yard pond and used an old stock tank to line it, the big kind of stock tank.   People said we couldn't do it.  That's a really big incentive most of the time @ least for us.  Yard pond is still there with my one lone water lily in it.  

WARNING gross things next.  I told you now, uh huh, you said I didn't warn you now, uh huh.  (if you don't know 70s music you won't get the last line and I can't remember the name of the song)

When we were @ the real farm @ first I was just learning all about the ins and outs of raising pigs.  You see I'd never really touched a pig much before we started raising them.  (real estate agent in high heels remember?)  When you castrate the boy pigs sometimes there is an opening between their scrotum and their abdomen that leaks out intestines to be exact.

So I was doing my first bunch of castrations, all was fine till I did this to this pig and his guts were showing quite literally, wasn't a big opening though so I thought maybe I could take him to the vet.  So we did, the kids and I, she explained that it was not in my medical ability to stitch the opening up which was like a hernia. (I learned how to do it and could make it work on most pigs that weren't too bad by the time we quit farming.  Can't sew up a pig, my rosy red.... anyway)  The kids were with me, I think the two boys and my youngest girl, and the vet had to kill the pig because she said it wouldn't be cost efficient for her to sew the pig up and it probably wouldn't work.  So she had to put poor piggy to sleep.  We got to take him home though and since we were pretty blase` about dead things and he was in plastic he was in the back seat.

So we stop @ Farm and Home which is just down the road.  (Farm and Home=Wal Mart for farmers) We start to get out of the car and the kids ask if they should lock the car.  I say "why should we lock the car, what are they going to steal?  Our dead pig?"  For some reason (maybe because we were so poor) the idea of someone stealing our dead pig from the backseat of the old car was hilarious.  I mean pee your pants fall down hilarious.  You have to remember we were poor so we didn't have much to steal but a dead pig that weighed like 10 lb?  I can see someone sneaking across a parking lot with him......  You guessed it, the line "what are they going to steal....our dead pig?" has gone down in family lore.

So we go home with our dead pig.  City people won't understand this so much but we had a burn barrell for trash.  Call me inhumane or cold and cruel but the ground was frozen so I just through said dead pig on top of the burn barrel.  We had two dogs, Sam who was a blue heeler/australian shepherd (I know I said just blue heeler on the last post but I was tired and lazy) and Jolie who was a crazy Australian Shepherd, she only bit friends and famil and not hard, just a little blood.  Strangers she was terrified of till we moved to the other farm with the built in dog herd and she suddenly decided she had to be friendly dog or she was getting left out.  She was crazy because someone shot another dog that she was fighting while she was fighting it.  That's before we got her. 

Back to to the story, it's later in the afternoon, Saturday and I usually got out of Saturday evening chores cuz hubby was still home @ that point.  I was puttering around the kitchen and I notice the dogs are acting STRANGE.  Almost like they were drunk.  Falling down, staggering,  then they'd get up and do it again.  I panicked and ran out to my husband, he didn't know what was wrong, he hadn't seen them eat anything strange. 

We figured it out in time.  The dogs had been eating the pig that the vet had put to sleep.  Thank goodness they hadn't gotten enough of whatever she gave the pig to kill them but it was enough to make us think they were going to die.

I set the trash of fire, we burned lots of things making sure the poisoned but tasty pig was gone. 

Still Life With Pigs II

If you want to know you have superhuman strength and can do anything you should try farming.  I was an outdoorsy type person, fished in tournaments, helped cut wood, mowed, gardened, landscaped, hunted mushrooms, before we farmed.   Outdoorsy took on a whole new meaning when we farmed and so did every other aspect of life.  I could peel a pot of potatoes for 6 or 7 people and have it on the stove in 5 minutes, then I could go back outside and help him till I thought they were boiling.....put the pork chops on, we ate alot of pork.......and so on.  I've already told how I could do a pen of pigs which includes castrating them in 5 -10 minutes.  If you are grossed out easily don't look @ the link @ the end and quit reading right now.   I would feed the leftovers from castrating the pigs to the cat and the two dogs.  Calico Cat, Sam a blue heeler puppy, and Jolie an old crazy Australian Shepherd.  The wouldn't fight, they'd all sit in a semi circle around me and wait their turn and I would toss them what I would toss them and they would catch it.  Was quite amusing.  I would also sing to the mama pigs when I was doing this all to quiet them.  If they didn't quiet they got sprayed with antibiotic which they did NOT like but they usually decided I might be boss then.  You haven't lived till you've heard 30 HUNGRY sows throwing a fit, especially if someone slept in till say 7 am?  Then the first time I sang to them it's like huh? and they got weirdly quiet.

There were the sows that would get out of their pens during the night and we would play a few rounds of merry go round the farrowing house, forget jogging chasing a mad sow or being chased lends something to the whole running idea.  Sometimes they would just bop back into their pens, it was actually quite amusing, they would look guilty as they could be.  Sometimes they would forget that pigs are smart animals and try to get in the same pen as another mother breaking several pens down in the meantime and setting the whole tone for the day.  I said we repaired the farm building, we couldn't afford new  everything and it was a total disaster held together with baling wire slightly rickety. 

Of course we had to watch the first few litters being born, I mean I checked on all the mothers like every two hours when it was farrowing time but we STAYED out with the first ones I know as a family.  We ate ham sandwiches and sat on upturned buckets (the barn was sanitized @ that point, didn't last long) and ate ham sandwiches and drank iced tea.

I still have the cap I wore all the time in the winter and it was camo, only think camo I've ever owned.  It also had ear flaps, do you want to talk rubber boots? I remember when my husband I were not so newly married and we would fight over discuss who had the newest rubber boots, it was a very important subject.

Speaking of the proper attire for farming I liked rather loose sweat shirts.  There was a reason other than just warm and comfy.  I had to strip to the waist 4 times a day or get a shirt sleeve wet until we drilled another well.  You ask WHY would you do such a stupid thing dingy woman?  The water leaked, I had to turn it on and off to the big barn where we farrowed for awhile and to the nursery.  Pig nursery, full of teenage pigs.  You ask why did I need to be an exhibitionist to merely turn water on and off?  The turn off valve was like 2 feet underground down a shaft full of water .......because the water leaked. This fun feat often included draining and rolling up hundreds of feet of hose because something was frozen.  Also if the feed augers didn't work I had to carry it over there by hand in a wheelbarrow...... I didn't have a weight problem @ all for years.  And I learned to rebuild electric motors that ran the feed augers!

So we lived a mile from the highway and 1/4 mile from another house which was good for the stripping thing.  Farm naked was my motto.  JUST KIDDING, actually all the kids would be gone and I'd think I was all alone miles from civilization and no one could see the house so I would take a shower and NOT BRING A ROBE or my clothes.  You can guess the outcome?  Invariably we would have company drive up.  It was more special when it was male preachers.  Enclosed porch and front door was directly by only bathroom, "could you all just step outside or maybe just turn your back for just a minute PLEEZE."  Go see the pet pig, the chickens, or the calves that call the lawn their home. 

Lastly if you want to be grossed out go here. I'm not sure if this is a joke or photoshop but I REALLY hope it is one of them.  I may have nightmares.  I warned you.

Still Life With Pigs

I painted this still life, it's oil, 3.5x2.5 inches.  It sold long long ago on ebay.  But that is the still life and here are the pigs!

I really don't know if I've told anyone here this before but when my husband and I first got married we had elementary school age kids, (boys, his) and teenagers, (mine, girls) and he was determined to spend more time with them than he had his older kids.  So we farmed.  We were newly married you see and in love.  I lack the farming gene.  I swear there is this gene that makes you think all this farm stuff is grand. (it's called the crazy throw money away gene sometimes too)  I'm not a city girl but the first time I tasted homogenized milk (I was 6,on a train, going to KS to see my brother with my mom)I thought I was in heaven.  We had a dairy when I was growing up.  I did a post on this before, sort of I think?  We drank the milk from the cows.  We sold the cream, what we drank was NOTHING like whole milk or 2%, think lumpy skim milk.  I wasn't much on the butter thing either but believe it or not I have churned butter.  Farm life is just not what it's cracked up to be.  I think my problem was I grew up on a farm and then was Mrs. Earth Mother for most of my first marriage. (Mother Earth News was my primary magazine, I made my own yogurt and potato stamped wrapping paper, I've split lots of wood, we had 3 gardens and sold watermelon as a hobby for the kids, for years my kids we not allowed dessert except on weekends and pop only when someone would sneak it to them but that's another story, I was mean mean mama but they were healthy, of course I made all my own Christmas presents, macrame, crocheted).

 Anyway we had this farm because this was a man (new husband remember we are in LOVE) who would work and farm (and the bottom would fall out of the farm economy AGAIN).  And we had pigs. (I was a real estate agent when he met me,  I wore skirts and hose and high heels and hardly ever smelled pig poop but we were in LOVE, did I say this?)  When we first bought the farm we were going to raise cows, we had some bad luck and lost a bunch of calves and could get a contract to raise pigs and had all the equipment and buildings albeit was OLD and needed fixing.  We fixed and fixed and fixed. We had 30 sows farrowing (having baby pigs) @ a time.  I timed myself and I could do (cut teeth, tails, iron shots, antibiotics if we had a problem, and castrate the males) a pen of pigs in between 5 and 10 minutes, one of my skills.  We eventually had over 1600 head of pigs on the farm @ one time.  Then we went REALLY broke and my husband had to go back to driving a truck and I raised pigs with 3 teenagers and one almost teenager.  One would not come out of the house but that's another story.  She's the one who raised the runts in the house and kept house for me.

What brought this on was a post by Jan Mader on her blog Animal Talk.  She told of someone having to kill a badly injured squirrel.  It is necessary and humane and kind but it doesn't feel that way when you are doing it.
I can't remember many of the times we had to kill animals on the farm which was a blessing.  I remember lots of times I wanted to kill some animals, you haven't lived till you've looked for cows in a thunderstorm or been shocked by an electric fence one too many times.

We tried to raise the runt pigs in the house.  My daughter was pg by this time, I hope she doesn't mind me telling this.  Her runt pig died.  Like I think it was in BED with her, do not judge us, I drew the line @ sleeping with them.  Prettiest little runt pig and she was nuts about animals.  This is the daughter with 7 dogs now and 4 kids.  She came around the corner bawling and saying "how can I raise a BABY if I kill PIGS" insert horrible crying noises.  She's a wonderful mother btw. 

The next story is my runt pig story, it's not a pretty one but this pig was determined to die.  This was a tiny pig, teeny, we gave it special food and more antibiotics than it should have survived.  It was sort of the pet pig if you can have a pet out of 1600. (I did and one was named Velveeta, he SOLD Velveeta, she was the prettiest shiny black pig and followed me everywhere, this story is not about Velveeta though).

I was feeding on the feeding floor which is a large slab of concrete angled so the rain runs off of it and with sheds for shelter for the pigs @ one end, much of our activity went on on the feeding floor.  Anyway there was another building close by that was semi enclosed that we didn't use.  Runt was like several months old by this time and we knew we'd never be able to sell him or even let him live in good conscience, Runt was an UGLY pig.  Butt Ugly, looked like a white razorback with allergies and weighed like 20 pounds soaking wet when he should have been close to 100 or so. I actually figured up the cost of the medicine we had given him and with the expensive antibiotics it was well above $40, part of the reason we were broke I suppose.

I'd fixed Runt a nice little box in the semi enclosed building, it was early spring and he could get fresh air but yet be by the other pigs.  He couldn't stay too close to any of the others because he just didn't fit in.  You're thinking Runt was this sweet little pig that was ugly and misunderstood?  Nope, he was spoiled and had a nasty little personality.  I think it was just because he was our first true Runt that we kept him alive so long.  I'd cut off the antibiotics and he was getting weaker.  BUT Runt had one habit that was infuriating.  He had a nice warm wooden box with rags and straw, his own food and water.  Every morning I would go to feed and Runt would be on the feeding floor if he could make it or stuck in the mud if he couldn't.  He would be getting trampled with the other pigs or flailing in mud in front of the feeding floor, I'd wash him off and dry him as well as I could and back to his nice nest.  EVERY MORNING, 7 days a week for a month or more.  Runt wasn't friendly, I guess it was all the shots and I really do think he lacked brains along with health.  One morning the mud was deep and runny.  I didn't find Runt for awhile.  I didn't save him that time. I actually held him under as he was half drown already.  I can still remember it.  Not a happy story and most will disagree and say I should have killed him earlier, taken him to the vet to be put to sleep, not killed him....etc. but I killed him.

More farm stories in the days to come, hopefully cheerier.  OK, they aren't real farm stories, they are me on a farm, there IS a difference.

Feel Like Reading? Dog Link Upon Dog Link

Meadow Lark Fearnot, a regal beagle, came flopping his ears with inquisitive dismay. The stench of many persons assailed his infinitely delicate nostrils; he would have enjoyed belling at the crowd of 10,000 people or biting a small girl who sat at the south east corner of the arena; these things were forbidden.

That blurb was taken from a 1928 Time Article describing "the" dog show.

How did I find that obscure article?  I started @ an article  that makes you think about how your dog got to be the way he is.  If you are a dog lover you might want to read it, if you are remotely interested in dog behavior it's great.  Studies have proven that dogs are smarter than chimpanzees in relating to people.   This is also proven by the tennis ball, the kong, the pillow on the floor for the bichon, and his newly acquired love for cream.  Don't ask me how THAT got started.  Here's the little darlin wanting on mamas lap............... look @ those sweet eyes. Then in the next picture he isn't actually going to attack, he was just telling me which end was up, sorry so blurry but he was moving one direction, me the other and the truck the other.

Anyway Time has a whole list of dog related articles, some just have dog house etc. in them but most pertain to dogs.

And guess which decade this quote came from?

With infinite variation but only slight exaggeration, some such table d'hôte is presented daily in countless American households. Samantha the cat, Buddy the beagle, Carol the canary, and myriad other furred, finned, scaly and feathered creatures are not only members of the great extended U.S. family; they are more equal than most. The U.S. pet set gets not only more nutritious meals but also better medical care and vastly more affection than the great majority of the world's people.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,911616,00.html#ixzz0dYhNxgib

I don't necessarily agree with above statement, it's sort of like don't buy your daughter a new dress because you could donate to 1000s of needy charities.  Those of you who have daughters know it's in your best interest (and contributes to a positive mental state for several years) to buy the dress (and maybe donate something on the side).


 

New Animals Adoption Site

I don't know the whole story behind valuepetsupplies but they have pets to rescue on there! Check it out, bottom one is a havanese, top is bichon.

Dispatch in LOVE

This picture is Dispatch the bichon playing with a ball. He uses his feet like a cat sometimes, bats @ things etc. much more than any other dog I've seen. The ball is about to go off the chair, he will go get it in his mouth, take it back on the chair, chew on it, bat it around, let it fall, jump down to get it etc. He can play like that for a long long time. This is another bad hair picture. I've heard that other bichon frise use their paws like cats too?

I wrote the two youngest kids like Dispatch more than the others. Christy and Christi remember? We call my daughter Christy Sissy, makes life much simpler and was her nickname anyway, if I really get carried away it's Sissy Beth which makes it sound like we live in the deep South? You can tell my daughters resemble me but they don't look much alike but we all three sound just alike to everyone but my husband, especially on the phone. We have fun with it, I can fool my daughters husband on the phone for awhile till I get tickled.

Sissy Beth is Dispatches favorite of the kids to this day. When he was neutered his hormones evidently ran amok. Sissy Beth came to visit about that time and she was his intended. He's not a really bad little dog about having to hunch or wanting to unless he's showing dominance to another dog, and wasn't then either but he was in LOVE. There is no other way to put it than he was like a love struck teenager. He would hear her voice and even if I was in the room he would RUN to her, he had to sit on her lap and if he couldn't he would stare mournfully @ her but you could tell he just worshiped her. We still talk about it, he still likes her the most out of all the kids, but has never acted like he did that one visit she made. I still call her Dispatches intended once in awhile to get her goat. She has a pet sitting business in Wichita now, Happy Tails if you need pet sitting or house sitting she is your girl.

Here are the dogs greeting Sis about a year ago.

Merrick Pet Care Treats Recall

I must confess I saw this first on The Pet Haven. Then I googled and found this. It seems that people are in danger of getting Salmonella from handling these treats.

This is from the FDA statement:
The U. S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use Merrick Beef Filet Squares for dogs distributed by Merrick Pet Care with a package date of “Best By 111911” because the product may be contaminated with Salmonella.

Kids VS Dog or Who Is More Jealous?

I think these pictures were taken in January or February of 2005 which would make Kaylin (granddaughter) almost 2 and Dispatch 1 1/2, isn't Kaylin a doll, she still is and not because she is the child of the one the other kids call my favorite (my favorite is supposedly my oldest stepson whom the other kids say can do no wrong in my eyes, @ that point I tell them I've disliked them all equally @ times). Anyway this is back when we thought Dispatch was a poodle which is another story, thus the horrible haircut. That and my oldest daughter decided to try her hand @ grooming him.

Dispatch (the dog in the picture a bichon and maybe poodle) was pretty good with the grandkids, didn't trust them but there was good reason. They did strange things to him. He did bite another granddaughter but she was teasing him taking food away from him and then giving it back, he learned better. Also Dispatch learned that if I had the camera out he had to be in the picture. He likes our children, loves some but that's another story.
Our children are all horribly jealous of the dog except for the two youngest who are both blond and Christy and Christi respectively, that's what happens when you have a blended family, I can't say Judy is jealous either but she is the youngest of my husbands two oldest daughters, so it's mostly the oldest kids that are jealous? My husband had a 10 year gap in between his two sets of kids so the respective oldest 3 of each family are the worst about not liking the dog. They say we spoil him horribly and they were never spoiled like that. One did admit ONCE that I must have spoiled the kids and they not known it considering how much I spoil the dog. She has @ last count 7 dogs with separate schedules because some of them fight so I don't know about me spoiling MY dog? We got Dispatch when the youngest child we had living with us was barely out of high school. Anyway the kids were basically gone from home and we had this foo foo dog that they were jealous of. We aren't talking babies here, they are in their 20s and 30s and professionals for the most part. But they don't want to h
ear about the dog, they grimace when we have to go home because the dog is there, they pass over the dog pictures, ...........they call him horrors, that stupid mutt?

For an example my oldest daughter who is really a loving caring upstanding person (she's the school nurse, has 4 kids, and a sunbeam group @ church) and I were talking the other day. I told her I had the new video of Dispatch "talking" on youtube and she said she could care less?

We went on a trip to the Florida Keys one Christmas eve when we were in Ft Lauderdale took my youngest daughter and my husbands youngest son and of course Dispatch too, it's referred to sometimes as the trip from hell because they had to ride in the back seat of the pickup with Dispatch who wanted his Mommy and Daddy in the FRONT seat the whole time. We went to the dog beach down there BTW, there and Dairy Queen, only two times we stopped except some state park with an old bridge and lots of shells. And yes the dog got ice cream @ Dairy Queen. BUT I did try to make the dog behave and not be like attached to me the whole trip.

So in short I guess the dog was our answer to the empty nest syndrome (what empty nest, they kept trying to come back!) and the kids didn't like what they viewed as a stupid replacement. And of course when we got married most of them were WAY too old to sleep with us (5-21 years old) but the dog gets to sleep with us, and go everywhere with us, and I carry him when he wants carried, and play when he wants to play (sometimes). I think the worst is if I talk baby talk to him and they say I never talked that nice to them. AND if they had came in from outside and jumped on the furniture with wet feet they would have been severely punished and the dog isn't, and he gets to sit on my lap when I watch tv or "daddies" lap. There are myriad more reasons why they think he is spoiled. Probably one of them is I blog about him and animals and not children but I don't think they want so much of their lives and habits exposed as Dispatches have been?

Anyway the kids are jealous of Dispatch. My husbands cousin has 3 girls the same age as some of our kids. They didn't have a dog inside when the kids were growing up either. The girls left home and voila, the parents get a dog. They have a NEW house in town, nice house and they get a terrier. Their girls tell me the dog eats steak and gets towels warmed up for him but I'm not sure that's all true. They say you have to be careful when you have a new baby when you have a pet already established in the home but no one ever warns about getting a new pet when you have children who are already established in the home?

Small Paws, Bonded Pair Of Bichon Frise For Foster Or Adoption

Courtesy Of Small Paws Rescue

We still need a foster home for this bonded pair. They are being boarded in Tulsa. They are darling boys from an owner surrender to a kill shelter. We can fly them to you for foster care and we are also accepting adoption applications as well. There will be a two-for-one- adoption fee for them both!

Meet Schotzy and Sassy! They are both darling and are a bonded pair. They may be siblings. They were surrendered to a kill shelter in MO.
Got room for two more?? How to Become a Much Needed Small Paws® Rescue Foster Parent! Fill Out an Online Adoption Application!
Small Paws Rescue

This is TC now.....help me keep my marriage, get these dogs before I do. I can't judge other people but to surrender these two to a kill shelter makes me ill. Thank goodness they will be fostered or adopted now..... hopefully. Check out their other bichons and mixes and if you can't do anything else donate to them or your local animal shelter. I've got two big garbage sacks of clothes to go to our thrift shop that is ran by the local animal shelter. Every little bit helps. I'm serious, I'm going home soon and these two would make wonderful playmates for Dispatch but he would have no Daddy or says Daddy so SAVE ME FROM MYSELF....please?
Just think, if you adopted these two you could have TWO blogs about bichons..... JK, I have two animal blogs and only one bichon.....it is possible to live without a bichon but you just feel sooooo much better with a little teddy bear face staring @ you sleepily in the morning with one eye cracked open.

Further Adventures With The Bichon And The Border Patrol

For those of you who have never been close to the Mexican border with the US by way of highway there are inspection stations where they stop all vehicles and search for aliens or anything illegal such as drugs. I've always wanted to say "no habe englais" when they ask if I am an American but I've refrained which is just as well considering jailhouse orange isn't my color and I thoroughly respect the border patrol, they have guns. A friend of ours did get stopped for an hour or so when the search dog went nuts over her truck, they wouldn't let her call her husband and he was waiting for her up the road. Evidently she had ran over something like a tossed out bag of drugs or something. I told her I would have asked if I was under arrest and called my husband when they said no. I'm stupid that way though and probably would have worn jailhouse orange but she got to leave after an hour of puppy going nuts. Another friend of ours (HI KELLY!! how ya doin?) was driving a truck from WI to TX weekly and one night he was tired. The border patrol asked him how he got such a nice new truck. You'd have to know Kelly but he said well the drug running helped pay for it. They did not find him humorous but let him go after a day or so.

So now we come to the Dis and what happened today. I try to hold Dispatch tightly and attempt to make him be quiet when the border patrol opens the door and peeks inside. I swear I think the dog is learning to read because I pick him up several hundred times a day but when we get close to the border patrol station he starts that thing that's between a cough and a bark when he sees the signs, then when we get closer and Daddy puts on the brake he goes into the full bark. Shush is not really in his vocabulary if he thinks there is a good reason to bark. A german shepherd and men in green suits opening up vehicle doors is plenty good reason he thinks to throw a full blown fit. So Dispatch is barking... he is evidently telling the German Shepherd I'll mop this place up with you, see what a giant q-tip can do (meaning Dispatch the Bichon) I know the search dogs are highly trained but it seems every time we pull into an inspection station they go nuts? So the younger border patrol opens the door and says we are OK but he's going to have to arrest Dispatch for threatening him and disturbing the peace, he almost has a straight face as he is saying this above the big deep barks and the little not so deep barks. Then he asks us what we have on the truck and then says we need to LEAVE as the German Shepherd is saying let me @ the q-tip fluffball and we will see who does the floor mopping. I believe Dispatch said in parting that if the GS tried to mop the floor with him he would choke on the fuzz and die before he got Dis bit but I could be imagining that?

Dog Work And Bad Breath

Dispatch has always been a busy dog. He's always been a people dog too, accommodating and sweet smelling. Here he is making sure Mama doesn't make the mistake of leaving him in the camper as he's pretty sure he wants to go in the car where the suitcases are...... sitting in the street should work?
Here he is directing the morning gathering of a hurricane crew cleaning up after Katrina in Biloxi MS. His Daddy and "brother" are the two biggest ones.

Here he is either washing Matt's boot or checking air pressure in the tires with moisture?

He is keeping Daddy firmly in the chair later in the week. Daddy had gotten staph from a chainsaw cut on his leg and a case of Daddy telling Mommy I don't need a bandage anymore a sock is fine......took 6 months and we both had staph by the time it was over. For the med geeks it was MRSA too! Daddy wasn't even supposed to be out in the heat but he thought Mama couldn't boss the hurricane cleanup crew as well as he could, he was probably right.
Dispatch was keeping Daddy weighted in the chair. Daddy isn't a good patient.
Dispatch even smells good when he is so upset he doesn't know what to do? Mama took him to the vet and they had a groomer there too. Horror of horrors. He'd never met a real groomer before and this was first in a long line This is also when the vet confirmed the French Canadians we lived by in FL were right. They said "ee es sich a sweet beeechon (bichon)" (talking about the dog when I would walk him) I said in my Missouri drawl, "hez a podoll, don't chall know a podoll when ya alls sees one?" (I maybe exaggerated my drawl a bit?) But I am digressing he still smelled fairly good.

Part of the problem is his Daddy has a nose like a bloodhound and always has. So when Dispatch started getting bad breath we looked to the teeth, a bit of tartar but not much, so we went with the treats and the bones designed to clean teeth. This was in September or October I think, I bought doggie toothpaste and until you've used that on a dog you haven't lived. We finally just stick it on a paper towel wrapped around our finger (plastic finger thingy was gone out of our toothpaste for dogs) and I disinfected his toothbrush and use it because I forgot mine. Yes I use the dogs toothbrush but get over it, IT'S DISINFECTED!!! He only used it once anyway, that was enough for me and him both. His breath wasn't much better, in fact it was getting worse. So I said OK, he can do pepto bismol so how about listerine and water on a paper towel and swab out his mouth? After this he seemed to prefer his Daddy over his Mama so much more? Wonder why? Every time I went to the pet store I forgot to buy anything for his breath. So yesterday Daddy and I were shopping and I'd refrained from buying the breath tabs for dogs @ Wal Mart because lets face it, Dispatch is picky, if it's not cheese, milk, ice cream, or meat it had better be really sweet or he'd better be starving. He refused to eat pork except for bacon or ham for years. The breath tabs are mint flavored. Daddy said let's try them as Daddy can smell the dog clear across the truck. Do you think he would even get CLOSE to them?
Does this look like the face of a mint eating dog? He will struggle but let me do almost anything to him. He let me dig @ his head once with tweezers to get a partial tick out of his skin. I break the breath tab in half, I plead with Dispatch, get a death grip on his head while he's on my lap and stick the mint in his mouth and he sort of chews on it in an effort to push it out of his mouth. After about 3 of those sessions the breath tab is mostly gone and I stick it in his food hoping he'll have a change of heart. The mints do seem to be helping.
Tomorrow maybe a post on Doggie flatulence..... yes he passes gas and it's HORRIBLE!!

Catherine Zeta Jones Maltese Puppy

Pictures from Splash......Looks like a Bichon Frise to me too but they say it's a puppy and a maltese. In any case she is one of my favorites and seems sort of down to earth, once you get past being married to Michael Douglas and that movie star stuff. Maybe that's why I like her, her husband is so much older.....did I say that? LOL

"The Shop" and Animals

I tried to get the top picture larger but....It was taken about 1980 or so, my daughter Christy was holding Heavy Dog and JJ was holding Suzie? I think these were poodle border collie mixes bred from years of people WANTING these poodle border collie mixes. Sugar and Spice were the first ones, vicious sisters, tried to kill each other regularly but so sweet to all humans and other dogs.
The next picture was taken about 1984 or 1985? This was by the woodstove in my dad's mechanics shop. He kept EVERYTHING as you can see. Christy, my dad, and JJ. Dogs were Sally (golden retriever/german shepherd/stray from KC MO, named after Sally Rand the stripper, my dads idea)Log(my dog, Sally and the St. Bernard next doors unfortunate but LOYAL offspring, Log looked like a stump when he was a puppy) Oetman (Sally had 13 puppies I got her spayed right after that, didn't think she was old enough, Oetman was/is a preacher)Martin(offspring of an errant Airedale and ??? who came to our house and left shortly after she blessed us with puppies, we had Martin, John and Abraham, John died and yest they were after the song). In JJ's arms Cujo, yes that's Cujo, she's smaller than Dispatch I think, wire haired Terrier. That dog was SPOILED. I made the kids hats that were 6 ft long and were scarves or mufflers too. How lovely. My dad wasn't crippled yet, I think he jumped off of the tractor shortly after this picture was taken (huge tractor and he JUMPED)and had a botched knee operation due to worn out cartilage and had 5 more operations and could barely walk the rest of his life. Oh yes, the cat? Why that's Shop Kitty!! What else did you expect her name to be? We had more dogs @ one point but had a farm and just seemed to collect them.... then we had the sheep that ran with them and thought it was a dog......and yes there were dirty calendars hanging about, it was a mechanics garage you know. Dirty in those days was pretty mild though!! LOL I thought bathrooms were supposed to have those calendars and black lingerie tacked to the wall in them, @ least mens bathrooms?
Today seems like memory day.......I wrote about Florida and art galleries and a hat on Tresa's Blog.

Earthquake in Haiti, How to Help and News, Also Katrina Pictures

Cnn on the earthquake in Haiti. At the bottom of the page is a number to call for relatives and a link to go to for information.

Pat Robertson either has lost his mind or need to be sent to Haiti to prop something up. Sorry if that offends but that's the way it is. Don't get me started, I'll sound like One Tin Soldier.

Dooce has a link to Chris Sacca and how to help.

You can visit the Red Cross site to see how you might help.

I do believe in the power of prayer to whatever higher being you espouse.

Britt Bravo has several links on how you can help as does planetgreen.

I will share some of my Katrina pictures taken right after the public was let into the destroyed area around Gulfport/Biloxi. The pictures say January 1st of 2006. They were mostly taken in Pass Christian and Longbeach MS, the one of the dog was NW of Gulfport a stones throw away from where Brett Favre grew up in Kiln. The dog is standing in my office, so many phone towers were down I had to go up on the hill to get phone service or internet for awhile. The apartment building was in Biloxi I think or right between Biloxi and Gulfport. Most (except for the one that's obviously on the beach) of these pictures were taken blocks or 1/2 mile or more from the beach. Remember the United States had her own disaster not too long ago, let's help our close neighbors in their hour of extreme need. Please?