Dog Walker Trampled By Cows And A Crocodile Story

This is not a funny story or a good one but proves large animals can be protective and even lethal. A woman was walking her two dogs in England, evidently they walked by a herd of cows with calves. The cows felt threatened and attacked. As the little kid who had to go after the cows every evening before milking I can attest they will turn mean on you. As an adult I've been chased while trying to round up the neighbors cows who had escaped and didn't want to loose their newly acquired freedom. Actually it was a young bull, not a cow exactly. I can jump fences with one hand thank you or I could then.
Link here.

This isn't exactly about animals but worth mentioning. In Australia two friends flew into a remote area to camp, they were flying over a saltwater crocodile infested lake and crashed. The pilot had only minor injuries but the passenger was more severely injured. The pilot buried his friend in sand because he thought the chances of immediate rescue were slim and it was getting cold. At last word they were both safe after being rescued when the pilot used a satellite phone to alert rescuers, the friend who was buried is in serious but stable condition. Humans- 2, Crocodiles- 0.
Link here.

Have a good day, we as well as most of the midwest have heat warnings so make sure your outside pets have shelter and plenty of water and the inside ones have plenty of water and are cool enough. As for Dispatch he is laying behind me in the computer chair, it's morning nap time, it's hot enough that he doesn't want to stay outside if I'm on the mower or using the weedeater, he'd just as soon stay in the air conditioning and tell me how I shouldn't be out there without him from his seat by the window!

Three Dog Stories And A Raccoon Tale

Jeter a Great Pyrenees rescue dog saved his family from a fire but died himself when he reentered the family home in Ohio.
Read about it here.

In Illinois a mixed breed dog named Redbelly found a newborn infant and alerted his master thus saving the baby's life. The baby had been left outside in the rain, the mother is facing charges but the baby is safe.
Details here.

In Guangzhou China, dog owners will be asked to get rid of all but one of their dogs on July 1. This policy is already in effect in other Chinese cities.
You can read about it here. Chinese dog owners are obviously upset and hope the policy is not strictly enforced.

In Tulsa Oklahoma a soda machine dispensed more than pop. Two baby raccoons were inside, a skunk whisperer (a new employment opportunity if I ever heard of one, sorry couldn't resist) was utilized as well as a vending machine employee to rescue the animals who will be released into the wild after rehabilitation.
Link here.


Here in Missouri? My son came down with his girlfriend. My bichon is not my sons best friend, partly because he likes to tease him, not mean, they play with each other. After a supper of pizza and wine I am going to mow some more while it's not raining. The picture? It's Dispatch in my granddaughters tutu that I made her for her first halloween. Dispatch wasn't impressed with it @ all. For some reason I got the idea to dress him in it last year. BTW I had on no makeup. LOL Notice Mugsey in the background hoping I don't get the idea the Labrador needs to wear a tutu also?

Four Dog Stories

Since my dogs are doing nothing extraordinary other than lay around in the air conditioning and we have had no animal visits other than the raccoon in the cats food lately (he was huge and I was like 5 feet away, I'd like to think he was more scared than I was?) I have four interesting dog stories for you. The picture to the side is my dog saying leave me alone, get that camera out of here, can't you tell I was sleeping? No reason I just like to show him off.


The first story is about a 70 year old man in Boston, he was always seen with his Saint Bernard, Wednesday the dog showed up wet without the man, when he was led into the nearby woods he headed straight to the water. Police haven't found the man in the water or anywhere else, they don't know the mans name and are still hoping for clues.
Boston Saint Bernard Link Here

Did you ever hear the story of the Akita in Japan that was so faithful to his master he went to the train station to meet him ten years after his master died, every day he'd go to meet him. There was a statue erected in his honor. NOW there's an Americanized version of the story in a movie, A Dogs Story, with Richard Gere no less!!
Link to A Dogs Story here.

The next story is about five puppies who were cloned from the rescue dog Trakr who pulled the last survivor out of ground zero on 9/11. The retired Canadian police officer won a contest and says the puppies are identical to his beloved dog.
Trakr's link here.

Roo is a pit bull, before you get all anti pit bull on me rescuers think Roo may have been used for bait to train fighting dogs, it's not a good story but it has a happy ending. After looking @ Roo I'm wondering how much pit bull my grandma's dog had in him and he was never aggressive.
I'll let you read the story here, it deserves to be read.

Ok, you thought you could get away without a Dispatch story? Nope, the other night we had bad thunderstorms about 1 am. Normally this dog sleeps through most thunderstorms, he might stir or he might jump if it shakes the house. He woke me up worried for this one, wanted me to DO something. So I got my purse and my cell phone and laid it by the steps down to the basement, seemed logical to me? Then I watched it on radar as much as I could. It was bad here but just a few miles to the south it was horrible, one out of every 10-20 trees uprooted, huge oak trees laying across power lines and houses. Here the patio table blew over and some of our lawn furniture was out by the highway but nothing major. Dispatch did sense that there was bad wind close by though. Mugsey the labrador was much more worried but he's afraid of gunfire, fireworks, lawnmowers......... The only other time Dispatch has been really worried about a storm we lost our garden shed outside, up up and away, found it twisted out by the highway so when he's worried I guess I will listen.

Two Awards From Three Bloggers!!

Seems like I'm always behind, ask my kids and grandkids, their birthday presents and cakes are often not on time. I haven't written on this blog for awhile so I'm behind on that too! Lawn needs mowed, there's always the house and now it seems our neighboring town got "blown away" in the storms last night, wonder if I can get gas for the mower there?
I'm back, the town is still there, trees and branches down all over, I think they may have lost about 10% of their huge trees, too much rain and too high a wind. BTW I stopped @ the Stover Animal Shelter Thrift Shop to see my friend and make sure she was OK. They have 3 female maltese in central MO if anyone is interested. Back to the storm it was straight wind with much rain and saturated ground, many of the huge old trees just fell over because the ground was mud. The warning sirens didn't work, they were on too much last week from the tornadoes and burnt out. Can we say bad weather is our name? Only a few houses damaged, park is BAD, a roof off of the old quilting factory.
Back to the awards!

'Your blog deserves to be shot!' This award is from Checkers The Peekapoo
and from SASSY SASHA THE LOVABLE SHIH TZU two of my bestest doggie buddies and their mama's aren't bad either. Seriously two of the cutest canines anywhere with their people and adventures, check them out they are sure to give a lift to your day! Thank you Sasha and Checkers.
And the rules are:
1.Post the award and link it to the person (or canine) that gave it to you.
2. Choose 5 life situations that could be repeated in slow motion and explain why.
3. List up to 12 blogs and pass the love to them.
Since this is mostly for Dispatch my dog I will give his life situations that he likes most that could be repeated in slow motion (all day long as far as he is concerned)

1. Any kind of rub involving the belly, chest, or ears.
2. When mommy feeds him and gives him more of the white pieces of kibble because he likes them best.
3. Going to bed and rubbing all over the bed to make sure it smells like him.
4. When he gets his collar on because then he knows he's going somewhere.
5. And last but not least waking up and scooting a little closer to mommy so he can feel her and giving a sigh before he goes back to sleep.

In the case of this award I would like to nominate:
Percy and owner from Percy's Adventures
AL and her dog Coffee from Burnt Chicken Republic
Bell and her mommy from Awesome Dogs @ OB Dog Beach
Hickchick and her brood of foster puppies @ Hickchick Thinks
Thomas @ K-9 Corner
Crystal Jigsaw and her dogs (soon to some be puppies too!) from Crystal Jigsaw
These are great animal blogs, well they have some people things in them too, please check them out though!
And every one of my followers and blogs I follow are deserving, check them out, there's another dog blog but I don't seem to be able to find it! I found it!! A Dog's Beach
you get the award too, sorry it's a bit belated.

The next one is from my friend MzzLily @ her blahwg! blog. It's the "Love My Friends Award". I thank you and I am honored once again. All of MzzLily's blogs are interesting and have excellent writing, examples of what blogs should be. And a nice person to boot.
This is a description of the award:

The Love My Friends award is bestowed on to blogs that are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated.

If you click on my awards to the side you will see who has given me awards in the past. I would like to include those bloggers, since they have already received the award I can't actually pass it onto them but they are the ones who are deserving of it. I'm talking about you MzzLily ( becoming an author... my journey) and Squirrel Queen (The Road to Here), as well as those above who passed the "your blog deserves to be shot" award to me, Sasha (SASSY SASHA THE LOVABLE SHIH TZU) and Checkers (Checkers The Peekapoo) and of course their mommies too! And also Rae (Weather Vane) excellent writing with an excellent point of view.
These people are true friends, loyal, understanding, and caring. Please take a moment if you can and see what you've been missing if you aren't following them already.

Now if you received an award do what you will with it. It's my first day of my "weekend" too wet to mow and the couch and the bichon are calling my name!

Lemonade Award

I've won the lemonade stand award from SquirrelQueen on her blog The Road To Here! Thanks SquirrelQueen, not only is she my friend, she is very creative (check out the name!) and she takes beautiful photos, sometimes of mundane things that she makes simply gorgeous.

The way I understand it this award is for those who make lemonade when life hands them lemons, this idea pleases me greatly. Digressing a little bit here I'm a half empty glass type of person, if you knew me in person you would say I was bubbly, I'm not sure I like that word? But that's what people say, I cultivate this because often things do turn out for the best. Even when things happen that don't look like blessings they are blessings in disguise. I can't tell you how many major accidents I've been right ahead of because I had a nagging feeling to get going or how many times I or loved ones have been delayed and thus possibly avoided a catastrophe. It's hard to remember sometimes when life is handing you lemons but things do have a way of working out and handing you new possibilities and opportunities in the process. The two biggest examples that come to me immediately I will tell now, you can't stop me. Or you can skip to my nominees if you want.

My oldest daughter always wanted a career in business, and her dream was to work in New York City, in the WTC exactly. She was starting college in 1993 (stop doing math I was a YOUNG mother!), injured her eye @ her job, had to quit college, met and eventually married a local boy (which she said she'd never live in the country or have ANYTHING to do with farming or outdoors?). Now she's a school nurse with four children partly because of one accident that was a catastrophe @ the time and turned out to be a huge blessing. The second example happened in 2000 or 1999, my husband had trucks, many trucks, due to not being able to find drivers, fuel and prices going up eventually we only had two. This seemed like a decline but when my father fell and broke his hip in January of 2000 I was able to stay @ home and take care of my father for most of the year which was a blessing (we did have to put him in the nursing home permanently in November of 2000 and he passed away in January of 2001 but he had many other complications, diabetes, crippled, and Alzheimer's). If we had had a big business @ the time I would have never have been able to care for him or even arrange for his care for the time I did. I'm blabbering on here but I will always be so grateful to my husband for his patience and understanding during that time. I will never forget the phone call when I told my husband that the doctor said my father had Alzheimer's and would need 24/7 care from now on. I asked my husband what we were going to DO and he instantly replied I guess we'll have to move in with your father and you'll have to take care of him. I'd been traveling with my husband before that so it was a big change much less living with another person, especially one who has Alzheimer's etc.


The basic guidelines are:

1) Put the award logo on your blog.

2) Nominate at least 10 bloggers (more or less, whatever number is good for you), that have a positive attitude.

3) Be sure to list and link your nominees within your post.

4) Let them know they have received this award by leaving a comment on their blog.

I'm sorry I'm not going to do 10 bloggers. In the interest of my dentists appointment, the dirty clothes waiting to go in the washer, the clean clothes waiting to be folded, the dishwasher, the lawn, ...... well you get the idea. I give the award to those below but also to all of my followers. If you don't know how to go to their blogs just click on their picture to the right here under followers and it expand and give you a list of their blogs, you may have to scroll a bit. I've found many interesting blogs that way, maybe that's why the laundry isn't done and the lawn isn't mowed? LOL

So here are my nominees:

Squirrel Queen and her blog Through Squirrel Eyes
MzzLily and her blog becoming an author...my journey
chicamom85 and her blog Sassy Sasha The Lovable Shih Tzu
AL and her blog Burnt Chicken Republic
Crystal Jigsaw and her blog Crystal Jigsaw
Rae and her blog Weather Vane
Checkers and his blog Checkers The Peek A Poo although I suspect with Checkers and Sasha's blog they have some help with the typing as they don't have thumbs exactly?

Once again, thank you Squirrel Queen, I am honored.

Alligator Loose In Morgan County!

Picture is from The National Geographic.

The big news about this is it's Morgan County Missouri, not Morgan County Alabama. Link here and amusing comments to boot! Seems the missing alligator can survive, he/she just can't breed in the unlikely case he/she finds another alligator. The missing gator wasn't 3 miles from a very large freshwater lake, The Lake Of The Ozarks, I think somewhere I read there's more shoreline on it than California has on the Pacific but that's counting all the coves and creeks up quite a ways, maybe it's Lake of The Ozarks and Truman Lake combined which would be quite plausible.

Evidently it was a pet and was stolen or let loose or something. A local festival was going on not 2 miles from where the Alligator was, the festival is called the Pigeon Swap and is actually in a field that's on top of a huge cave. I kid you not. This is also like 2 miles from my daughters house. No alligator sightings were reported @ the Pigeon Swap and that's not a line you'll hear every day. (the pigeon swap is a giant flea market/street fair type atmosphere, it's great if you like to walk and buy animals or anything handmade or anything actually).

The reason I was reminded of said alligator is a relative emailed me and suggested we needed to put the dogs in the house, she had heard of the alligator from the authorities in the next county? I actually hadn't thought of it. Said Alligator is 10 miles away as the crow flies, granted it's a sparsely populated 10 miles but I would think he would head south to the lakes. When she emailed me I had just come back from fishing @ the little pond with my grandsons and left them down there (grandsons finished mowing the "other" part of the lawn today and weedeated! Thanks Zach and Marcus! So grandma went fishing with them). It's not far from the house but it did give me the willies the authorities thought it could come this far? I guess living in Mississippi not far from the coast with all the displaced alligators and baby ones bobbing up investigating my fishing line made me more blase about alligators than the average Missourian? I did see something in the pond but I'm pretty sure it was a turtle.

I told my husband when he called about the alligator on the loose, I'd forgot to tell him before. Husband being in down South where there really are alligators thought I was full of bull hockey till I explained the story, I had to repeat the line twice that there was an alligator on the loose up here, he thought the phone was messing up. I just hope they find the gator and he doesn't cause too much of a stir. Or appear on my doorstep anytime.

Postscript: Go to this link for another look @ the missing gator and also a gator that was actually caught in a park lake in Sherman TX, granted TX is south but Sherman is north of Dallas. I believe there is one that lives in DeQueen AR also. Do not ask me how I know this. One was sighted in Indiana also, you start looking for gators where they shouldn't be and egads they are everywhere!

I Have No Louisiana Pictures, Or Why To Keep Training Your Dog On A Leash

Ok, I went down to see my husband, he's got his truck in Louisiana working construction. What does this have to do with animals you ask? Well Mugsey the Labrador Retriever and Dispatch the Bichon Frise went with me. Dispatch doesn't ride well, he still thinks he should be on my lap. Once we had 700 miles of whining, this wasn't that bad, it was only like 650 miles. Just kidding, he was quiet some of the time.

So I take off in the middle of the night headed for Louisiana alone with two dogs. I tried to take a nap after work but no dice so I finally got up about 11 and left about midnight. The first bathroom break was North of Springfield MO. The gas station attendant was trying to make friends with Mugsey, and he got a big deep WHOOF for his troubles, after that I wasn't so worried about traveling alone with the two "boys". Little did the attendant know Dispatch would gnaw his leg off if he'd gotten too much closer to the car. OK, I'm kidding but Dispatch said he would have. Mugsey slept and slept, Dispatch paced and panted, he was better if he could touch me but I sort of like to be turned mostly toward the steering wheel when going down the road.
So I don't remember much except thinking I really hoped the dogs didn't get sick going down 65 highway in Northern Arkansas so I took it sort of easy, it was getting close to daybreak when we stopped North of Conway, then I could call people because they were actually awake and life got easier. If you are from Arkansas pardon me but they don't believe in too many speed limit signs or signs announcing which road you are on, it's sort of a guessing game. I guessed right except for one time they said 167 turned the next left and they really meant it except it looked like a construction road going into a cow pasture, it was only there was more highway . The only wrong turn I took till I got to where my husband was, then I took another wrong turn and played slow motion chicken with a semi but that comes later (he won, I decided to delicately back up and go in the RIGHT way?). So it's early morning, every time we've stopped I've tried to get the dogs to go potty. Remember Mugsey the WHOOF dog? Well he acts like he's never been close to people or vehicles before every time we stop @ a gas station for gas and potty breaks. The lab acts like I perhaps beat him also, imagine, slink slink tail down, I'm insisting he wears a leash because he's not as well trained as Dispatch who has on a leash too. The lab has been to town many many times lately but for some reason traveling with mama in the car makes him more fearful than traveling with Daddy in the pickup. It's that leash thing mama insists he wears, it is a connection with the devil he's pretty sure I think?

So now I have this bichon that potties on command but THEN he takes his leash in his teeth and walks on his hind legs to me after pottying and scraping the grass thoroughly like a little bull while I'm pleading with the slinking fearful labrador to PLEASE go potty. So I put the show off bichon back in the car and take the lab for a walk by himself, nothing, no pottying from the lab, plus he looks like I've stolen him from his true master, the only time he wags his tail is when he's getting BACK in the car after not pottying again.

We get to where my husband is working construction in Louisiana, well where our camper is, husband has taken part of the day off but wants me to come out to the staging area so I do. That's where I play chicken with the big truck, it seems you go in on the left and not the right, I finally get on the right road after dodging all these HUGE car swallowing mud puddles, I see no other cars, just pickups and semis, then I get back in the parking lot where husband is. You have to remember the bichon is talking this whole time, harrr huh harr huh which really adds to my concentration. There are definitely holes that would rip the tires right off my car and a 4 inch jog isn't anything for a semi but for a low wanna be sports car it's quite a jump. So we finally get to husband and I just let the dogs go, then I take them to the grass without leashes so they can go potty and they do. So I'm walking back watching the lab so he doesn't get muddy because everywhere there's a hole there's MUD, Louisiana MUD, and the bichon is gaily trotting along behind like he usually does and plop, the bichon sort of disappears. He's in a hole between two logs in the parking lot, in the mud, the stinking mud. So he jumps out and immediately wants picked up and gets mud all over me, there are people around I'm meeting and shaking hands while trying to wipe most of the mud off of the bichon before he distributes it on me and the other people who he's SO very glad to see. And I'm fielding the usual, is it a poodle questions about the bichon and why is Mugsey named Mugsey?

So that was pretty much our adventure except the lab still acts like I've been abusing him when I put him on the leash and the bichon acts like he owns the world, I've given up putting the bichon on a leash because he never goes anywhere but right beside me and it's embarrassing when he holds the leash in his mouth and follows me on his hind feet, I'm not kidding but naturally I didn't have the camera anytime he did it. Also the bichon did sleep on the way home past Little Rock, he snuck in the front seat and faced away from me, that way I couldn't see him? You do know if a dog can't see you you can't see them didn't you? We were also going through Little Rock right after that Military Recruiter got shot, traffic was backing up, I did hear more about it on the news, poor poor man.

We get home today and I'm talking to my husband and all the cats and dogs are frolicking on the lawn and I see a big red cat in the log cabin, we have two light red cats, they are both in the grass frolicking with their friend the bichon. So I go over there and take a picture (with my new phone), seems I've acquired another cat while I was gone?

It seems I can't transfer pictures from my new phone to my ancient (4 year old) desktop without an act of congress (or I figure out what I'm missing besides brains) so pictures of the cat will have to wait because it disappeared when I went to get the real camera.

Postscript: More than one way to skin a cat (pardon the pun), sent the picture to my daughters phone who had GOOD internet service on her phone so then she sent it to my email!! See I told you there was a kitty in the log cabin? Thanks Sis!!