This is a work in progress. I hope to finish each of the stories that I just have listed ideas on and on the dogs that only have a name listed, as time permits and add in some photographs of my furry and feathered friends.
For
All the Dogs I’ve Loved Before...Stories About My Best Friends Through the
Years
I’m not famous, no one in my family is famous and none of these dogs are famous. I’m a dog lover born and raised. I come from a family that adores dogs. We love not only our own dogs, but love to hear and read about other peoples’ dogs (and other pets for that matter). Most of my family has read (more than once) James Herriott’s beloved stories as well as about anything else we could get our hands on about dogs. The “D” in our encyclopedias was probably the most worn, as my brother, sister and I would pour for hours over the pictures of all the different breeds.
Since I was the baby of my family, there are many pets that came before the ones I want to share stories about, but I’ll leave those for other family members’ reminisces. This is a book about the animals that have come and, sadly, gone in my life. We miss them so desperately when they’re gone and, yet, if they didn’t go, there would be so many lost opportunities to come to know and love other animals.
We were a military (Air Force) family and many of our dogs came to us from people that were unable to keep them, for whatever reason. In the pages that follow, only Kernel Korn, E-Chop, Barney and Honey were acquired as puppies, the rest came to us as adult dogs although some were very young.
What a tremendous gift from God these wonderful creatures are!
Freda
Was a very plump black dachshund (or maybe a dachshund mix), who came into our lives just before hers was about to be ended. We lived in “K Part” of base housing on Shepherd Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas.
One of the very rare times my sister, Judi, and I were left in the care of a babysitter (our older brother, Jerry), our parents had stopped at a place to buy eggs on the way home from wherever they’d been and there was Freda in all her chubbiness. Mom adored her and the chicken farmer explained he was getting ready to shoot her—Mom and Dad were horrified—turns out that the reason she was so hefty was from the killing and subsequent consumption of a good many of his chickens. So, they came home with fresh eggs and fat Freda.
As the baby (around four years old), I spent lots of time with Freda and we became fast friends, even to the point of sharing just about everything. What she ate, I ate. What I ate, she ate. When she was at her bowl of dry food—yuck—I was right there with her crunching on the very same stuff. When I had a popsicle—yes—there was Freda on the other side of it, licking away.
Freda and I never minded sharing with each other. Poor Mom, it always grossed her out, but the only time we ever got in trouble for it was when we found a lollipop someone else had dropped on the sidewalk and started sharing that. She must have seen us from the kitchen window and came out to ask where I’d gotten the candy. I proudly told her that my good fortune was just lying on the sidewalk—”Unwrapped?”, she queried rather sternly. “Yep,” from me. Well, Freda just lost out on the rest of the lollipop. I got the added bonus of having my mouth washed out with soap. Needless to say, I have since steered clear of other peoples’ leftovers.
Freda loved attention and, rather than trying to run off the mailman, milkman and even bus drivers, she absolutely demanded that each of them officially greet and pet her. She would plop her fat bottom down in the middle of the street and managed to do it just so they couldn’t get those big vehicles around her. As soon as they stopped, got out and petted her, she would go back up in the yard and let them pass. We saw her stop the bus more than once with a whole busload of passengers—all just howling with laughter (people weren’t in as big a hurry then)—until the driver got out to pet her.
Around the time I turned six, my Dad received orders to go to Taiwan and we ended up going in the fall of 1963. Freda was already an older dog and my parents did not want her to have to go through the trauma of being quarantined for several weeks, so we weren’t able to take her with us.
We were devastated to leave our little friend behind, but she was well-known and loved in the base housing neighborhood we lived in. We ended up leaving her with good military friends, the Newberrys, who let us know a year or so after we were overseas that Freda wasn’t with us any more.
It was so sad to hear about my little friend but, in the meantime, being dog lovers, my parents had found us some four-legged friends in Taiwan.
Kernel Korn
Since we were a military family, Mom thought our dog should have a name and rank, but didn’t want to insult anyone, especially since Dad was an enlisted man, so, rather than “Colonel Corn”, she went with Kernel Korn–also a cute play on words.
The Kernel’s story, alas, is a very short one. I don’t know if we even had pictures of him and, in fact, don’t even know for sure what type of dog he was. I’m thinking “Heinz 57,” but not sure. Mom brought this yellow, sweet, wiggly puppy home and it wasn’t long before he was a very sick boy.
When she took him to the veterinarian, it wasn’t like now, where you make an appointment just like with “people doctors,” but everyone just showed up at the base’s clinic and got in line before the office opened and it was first come, first served. Since it was early in the morning, before a lot of the men had to be at work on base, the men had brought their pets for whatever reason and Mom was about the only lady in the line. Well, Kernel was very young and, even though he wasn’t feeling well, decided that he wanted to be down playing with all those other dogs, so she was having a hard time keeping him still in her arms and hanging on to him.
She’d get him still and he’d start trying to wiggle free again. She’d try to quietly correct him with a tough “Kernel!” What she hadn’t noticed was that three of the men in line were Colonels. So, every time she’d say “Kernel!”, one of the men would politely turn to her and say, “Yes, ma’am?” So she had to explain the dog’s name several times in line, but they all ended up having a good laugh.
Sadly, Kernel didn’t make it, as, unbeknownst to us, he had distemper already when they brought himhome and the treatments weren’t successful.
So, they brought home...
E-Chop
A beautiful German Shepherd pup. This time, Mom decided that she would go with a civilian name and wanted something that reflected something of the culture with which we were surrounded on this beautiful, semi-tropical island of Taiwan. As I recall (this happened when I was around seven years old, so please bear with my—what may be inaccurate—childhood memory), “chops” were bids on things, places to live in particular. So, if you had the “e” chop on a place, you had the first bid on a place (e being one in Chinese).
We lived in a small compound of six American houses, surrounded by rice paddies, near the little village of Tien Mou, outside of Taipei. There were two houses when we first moved there and four more were subsequently built so we enjoyed both American and Asian neighbors. The two original houses were surrounded by six-foot concrete-block walls. As far as E-Chop was concerned the walls were non-existent. He could clear those walls without even so much as touching one foot to it—from a sitting position right in front of it—didn’t even need a running start.
He was amazingly smart and learned how to let himself out, so we had to be certain that the doors were locked at all times. Instead of knobs, we had the doors with handles that you push down and then push on the door and he picked up on that right away. When he was in the yard alone, he had to be on a rope or else he would leave. People didn’t know as much about neutering dogs in those days, which is the best way to keep a dog from wanting to roam, of course.
E-chop was not quite 18 months old when we learned Dad’s tour of duty would soon be over and we would be heading back for the States. Mom couldn’t find any friends that wanted a dog, so she began to look for alternatives as we did not want him to have to be flown and then quarantined. She found out the Chinese Army was looking for dogs to train for the Military Police to use and he met their guidelines. The day she took him to them, was very sad for us, of course, but he had to go before he actually turned 18 months or he wouldn’t be accepted. He was such a beautiful dog, the young men in the unit were arguing over who would get to train him.
We missed him dreadfully, but were glad that he had a good home. I’m sure he served with distinction; he was a great dog!
Sloopy
was a sweet little black female dachshund. She was beautifully marked, with the coveted bell-shaped marking on her little behind, and a pedigree out the ears.
We had settled in base housing in San Antonio, Texas, as my Dad was stationed at Kelly AFB after returning to the States from Taiwan. Sloopy was given to us by another family who loved her but couldn’t housebreak her.
Unfortunately, she went back not long after we had her, because even Mom couldn’t train her and she’d trained lots of dogs. So, we were dogless for a while until we got the wonderful blessing of...
Bronco
is one of our dogs that could easily fill his own book. He was wonderful, smart and sweet. He was a massively-built Boxer, with a neck as big around as a dinner plate. He was fawn, with a coal black mask and two white diamonds on his chest and just beautiful. He came to us from another military family who had brought him home from Spain. They received orders to go back overseas and did not want to subject him to quarantine again. So Mom brought him home.
They had told her that he loved bread and to help him through the emotional trauma of coming into a new “pack”, she would try to give him bread. He would take it from her and then walk around the house very stressed and would finally politely give it back to her. After a couple of days of this, Mom found out the former owners hadn’t left and was able to ask about it. Turns out, Bronco had been trained to always take any piece of food to a rug; he wasn’t allowed to eat it anywhere else. So he would take the bread from Mom and go in search of a rug (we were living in base housing at Kelly AFB and there were hardwood floors throughout). From that moment on, no matter where we lived, he had a rug where he could eat his bread as soon as we arrived at the new place.
He loved to go “bye bye in the car” so much that we had to start spelling around him. (Eventually, though, he caught on to that, too.) I don’t know why, but it was our custom that Dad, all us kids and the dog would get settled in the car while Mom would lock up the house. She would almost always be the last one in. Bronco was always irritated by whoever was the last one in (for holding up his ride, we guessed) and he would nip whoever that happened to be on the ear and let them know they were late. Poor Mom.
Like most Boxers, he worked very hard to communicate with us. He was definitely a talker and, as only Boxer-lovers know, would moan, wiggle and carry on trying to make himself understood. One Sunday afternoon we were all in the family room, reading the newspaper and basically being lazy, Bronco decided it was time for his walk. He kept going over to Dad; he started out just wiggling real hard and looking hopeful. When that didn’t work, he added the moaning noises. Dad was going to take him, but wanted to see how silly he would get first. After wiggling and moaning several times, he decided he just wasn’t getting through to Dad. He walked over to where his leash was hanging, pulled it off the doorknob, laid it in Dad’s lap and then went to the front door. Needless to say, he had his walk right away. From then on, he’d just get the leash and bring it to his designated walker.
He always liked to hold his end of the leash in his mouth and often went on entire walks without even having the leash clipped to his collar–he was so excited, that he just held it in his mouth. Other times, though, we forgot to make sure he was attached and he ran off after a squirrel or another dog. Even though a male, he never got into fights unless he was provoked and would play with other male dogs as long as they didn’t growl at him.
If he was miffed at us for whatever reason, he had no trouble in letting us know. He would let out these huge sighs. Sometimes, he’d actually go off into another room to get away from us and cool off. He’d stomp off down the hall and lay down (usually in Jerry’s room) and we would hear him let out one annoyed sigh after another. Finally he’d fall asleep and then, about a half hour later, we were usually back in his good graces and he’d join us again.
His best communicative effort, though, was to get us out of the house for a trip to Dairy Queen. Anyone raising a family knows that money is usually tight, so Mom had been saving pennies for the longest time, wanting to buy a painting at one of the Starving Artists Shows that came through from time to time. One Sunday afternoon (our typical day for a DQ outing), while Mom and Dad read the paper, Judi and I were counting and rolling the carefully-saved pennies. Bronco had already had a walk that day and, as it got a bit later in the afternoon, he decided it was time to head for DQ...
This time, he was going to Mom with the wiggling and moaning routine and she’d tell him, “just wait, we’ll go pretty soon.” We were almost done rolling the pennies and had a huge stack sitting on the floor between us. Bronco decided enough was enough and it was time. He walked over and picked up about six rolls of pennies in his huge mouth, deposited them in Mom’s lap and went to the front door. Almost like he was saying, “All right, Mom, here’s the cash. I want my ice cream.” Naturally, we didn’t wait another minute but all headed for the van laughing like crazy.
We had a new Dodge van that had the motor that came up between the two front seats and Mom put a heavy shag carpet on it since that was where Bronco decided he would ride. When we got to DQ, Judi and I would go and buy three medium ice cream cones and bring them back to the van. We’d get back in the back and eat ours, but would give Bronco’s cone to Mom. She would hold his cone and he would sit up very straight and dignified while he licked it—she’d turn the cone to keep drips to a minimum.
Since Boxers have a drooling problem, we always kept a towel in the car. Every once in a while, Bronco would stop licking, turn his face to Mom and she would wipe his mouth so that he wouldn’t be gross. Just about every one in the Dairy Queen would be pointing and watching this huge dog eat his ice cream cone and get his face wiped now and again!
Boxers are real hams and Bronco was no exception. He loved to be on stage. He loved the attention and would even stop eating if he sensed he didn’t have everyone’s attention. He’d look around in the store window and, when he was sure he had an audience again, he’d start to eat his cone again.
Mom always wore White Shoulders perfume and Boxers seem to love good perfumes. It took us a long time to figure out why, but he would sometimes go up to Mom, bury his face in her stomach and just sniff and sniff and rub his face and head on her belly. She finally realized that he only did that if she had happened to drip the perfume on her belly. He just loved her and was so protective of her.
We moved away from base housing and out into the suburbs into a nice new subdivision called Rolling Ridge—probably around 1968. We had a daybed in the den and one day, near Fall, I came home after school and whenever Mom would go near that daybed, Bronco would have a fit and get between her and the daybed. His eyes would get real big and he would get very stressed if she seemed as though she was headed near it. Now, he would let me get close to it though. Finally, we decided we’d better look under there to see what was going on. We didn’t have a flashlight handy, but I could see a small lump of something under there and, when I reached out to touch it, it felt furry. Yuck, a little dead mouse.
As soon as Dad arrived home, Bronco ran to him and insisted that Dad come with him to take care of this invader immediately–that it was going to do great harm to Mom! He barely let Dad get out of his uniform and into his “civvies”—just demanding that he get to the den and protect Mom. As soon as Dad got rid of the mouse and we cleaned the area, he was fine.
Mom was a homemaker and, in those days, there were still door-to-door salesmen. We don’t recall what this poor fellow was selling but, for some reason, Mom wanted to hear about the product so she let him in. With Bronco around, she never had to be nervous and the world was a somewhat nicer place then anyway. Well, finally, the guy started giving her the hard sell pitch and she wasn’t interested. They were sitting across from one another with a small distance between them.
When she’d had enough of his pitch and decided it was time to go (Mom smoked then), she picked up her cigarette lighter and “accidentally” dropped it on the floor. Naturally, being a gentleman, the guy reached down quickly to pick it up for her and, of course, his hand and arm were only inches from her foot. Bronco had been lying between them and, as soon as his hand was on her lighter, Bronco had his big mouth around the poor guy’s wrist—not biting, just around it—he immediately broke into a sweat and said rather nervously, “What should I do?” As she reached for Bronco’s collar, she said softly, “Very slowly, pick up your case, go quietly out the front door, and never come back here again.” Again, rather nervously, he said, “Yes ma’am,” and left.
Bronco absolutely adored and idolized Dad. Someone at the office had given Dad a tall tin of hard candies. He always got up at 5:30 every morning and, while he read the newspaper and drank his coffee, Bronco would climb up and lay across his lap leaving his hind feet on the floor or beside him in the chair and have a piece of that hard candy. Morning was his time with Dad. I think they both equally enjoyed that quiet time together.
As I said, Bronco loved the car and always wanted to go and just loved long trips. We always traveled at night since Dad’s leave wouldn’t officially begin until just after midnight and he couldn’t leave town before 12:01 a.m. So, while we loaded the car and did things to get ready for the trip, Dad would sleep and get rested to drive. As soon as Bronco saw the suitcases, he’d get nervous and, if he was able to get out of the house, he would run and jump inside the open van and nothing could get him out. He once sat in that van for almost five hours waiting for us to leave for a trip to St. Louis to see our grandparents (my Mom’s folks). He absolutely was NOT going to be left behind!
My brother, Jerry, had joined the Army and, after a tour in Germany, was home for a good, long leave and we all headed to St. Louis from San Antonio. It was a lovely winter visit and there was snow, something Bronco had never seen. He just fell in love with it! There must have been four or five inches and us kids all built a snowman and started a snowball fight. Of course, Bronco joined in and Judi managed to pelt him with a few snowballs as he ran around us. When he had run to the other end of the yard, he stopped like he was catching his breath. While Judi went to making some more snowballs and wasn’t paying attention, Bronco came running at her full speed and just barely brushed her back and she went face down in the snow. He stopped, turned back to look at her and you could tell he was laughing—he was so funny.
Unfortunately, we got the added bonus of an ice storm just before we had to head back home. Well, with two military men in the car, we HAD to leave so they could report back to their respective bases by their deadlines. So we took off, with Mom and our grandparents looking very worried and Dad seriously concentrating on the driving.
We were somewhere in icy southern Missouri, when Dad stopped for coffee and a bite to eat at a little diner in the middle of nowhere with a parking lot that was solid ice. We all went in except for Jerry who said he’d take Bronco for a walk before joining us. So we went in, got seated and the show began!
It was still snowing and Bronco was full of energy and strong as an ox. Right out of the car, he dugs his big claws in and took off running on that ice—poor Jerry was flying along behind him, trying to keep his footing and not very successfully. They ran out of sight and, as they came back, Bronco was still running and Jerry was coming along behind him on his rear end—absolutely hilarious! Everyone in the diner was laughing out loud. Jerry was really embarrassed when he came in the diner but everyone inside laughed and clapped.
Since he was so strong and Judi and I were young and small, he was able to drag us about wherever he pleased. The weather is hot in Texas and folks had to do a lot of watering to keep their lawns looking nice. On the hottest days when Bronco would persuade one of us girls to walk him, he would invariably drag us through someone’s sprinkler! He was so big and tough looking (except to us–we thought he had a baby face), that he would scare people if they were out in their yard when he decided it was time to cool off.
My sister described one man down the street who was watering some flowers with the hose in hand. Bronco was hot and saw that water and wanted a drink (he loved to drink from a running hose). So, in his usual fashion, once he had made up his mind to do something, he took off at a dead run toward that man and his hose, with Judi barely hanging on to the other end of the leash. As they got closer, the man heard the commotion and turned around to look. He was terrified to see this huge dog barreling down on him (and he had no idea the dog just wanted a drink). Judi tried to tell the guy that Bronco was thirsty, but it was too late. By the time she got the words out, the guy had thrown the hose up in the air and run into his house!
He felt pretty silly when he looked out the window and saw Judi holding the hose for Bronco to drink out of. He came back out and they had a good laugh about it, but Bronco sent people running away more than once when he was just trying to cool off...
Judi and I spent our summers at the huge swimming pool that was built for our neighborhood. In addition to the Olympic-sized pool, there was also a good-sized wading pool for kids. Since we did not know the upside of neutering male dogs (to keep them from roaming and getting into fights), Bronco was always ready for any opportunity to get free and roam a bit–we had a huge fenced yard for him to play in, but he liked to broaden his horizons from time to time. Since he went almost everywhere with us in the car, he knew where the swimming pool was and that we spent a lot of time there.
It was a hot Texas summer day and Bronco managed to give Mom the slip at the front door and he headed straight down the street to the swimming pools for a quick dip to cool off! We saw him as he got close but couldn’t get out of the pool fast enough to stop him. He ran right past the lifeguard at the gate and went straight to the kids’ pool and jumped in! The little kids were all laughing at him, but their mothers jumped out and ran (leaving their children to fend for themselves).
It took Judi and I both to get him out of the pool because he still wanted to be in the water. So, we explained to the lifeguard that he wouldn’t leave without getting thoroughly wet. He agreed to let us take him in the changing room and turn on the shower for him. After he was wet, he went home with one or the other of us. We generally took turns walking him home as he’d made a beeline for the pool more than once!
One summer, a company (Hasbro, perhaps?) came out with a toy that connected to the hose, which I think was called a Water Wiggle. There was a silly face painted on the head and the water pressure from the hose caused it to rise up in the air and wiggle and dance all over the place, while spraying out water. Bronco thought it was something he was definitely going to have to catch, but when he’d get close enough, the Water Wiggle kept grabbing him and wrapping itself around him. It almost always stopped to where the sprayer was shooting water right into his face. It just infuriated him that, not only did this thing manage to catch him, but then squirted him, too! The audacity! A couple of times of that happening and, baby, it was on!
Judi and I were in bathing suits, of course, and playing with him in the yard. Mom and Dad were on the patio watching. After a good hour of losing battle after battle with it, he finally caught it by the head!! He was so proud of himself that he ran over to Mom with it in his mouth and tried to lay it in her lap. Needless to say, he hosed her down in the process. Dad had seen him coming and gotten off the patio in time, but Mom had to go in and change into dry clothes; he’d soaked her to the skin! After that, every time we played with it, if Mom came outside, Bronco would catch the Water Wiggle and bring it proudly to her. He couldn’t figure out why she’d run back in the house when she saw him coming with it!
Since it rarely went below freezing in San Antonio, Mom stored canned goods out on some shelves in the garage. Bronco’s canned food ( I think it was called “Pard”, with a German Shepherd on the front), was kept on a lower shelf. Mom only shopped at the Commissary once a month and so usually bought at least two cases of his food and we didn’t realize it right away, but Bronco kept an eye on his supply. He got a can in the morning and one at night and liked for us to put it out in the grass. The birds loved it, too, as they would clean up anything he left behind.
Every once in a while, we’d put his food out but he wouldn’t eat it (and wouldn’t let the birds have it). He would seem very stressed and sometimes two or three cans would be out there, but he would not even touch it, although he’d eat anything we’d feed him by hand. After this happened a couple of times, we saw that, as soon as Mom replenished the supply of cans, he would run out and eat all the food he’d been saving and then would do just fine until the number of cans dropped dangerously low! When she realized how much it upset him, she always tried to make sure it never got down to just a few cans.
He loved cheese and was a consummate actor. Like most dogs, Bronco would have done about anything we asked to get a piece of cheese. He would even fake being sick until he got it. He would walk around the house slowly, head hanging down, looking like he wasn’t feeling well. Of course, we’d all be worried and Mom would want to make sure he was eating and so we’d offer him cheese. Amazingly, that had as much curative power as penicillin would for strep—he was immediately cured and back to his old wiggly self. He’d just wanted a snack; wasn’t a thing wrong with him.
He was smarter than most dogs when it came to dealing with cats. There was a Siamese cat in the neighborhood who constantly would walk our neighbor’s privacy fence, hissing and spitting at him. One day it decide to attack him and jumped from the fence down onto the middle of his back. Most dogs would have started running or run in circles trying to bite at it, but not Bronco. As soon as that cat was on him, he dropped down and rolled over on it! He was so fast that he was able to get up and keep the cat pinned. He didn’t hurt it, just let it sweat for a minute or two and then let it go. Needless to say, the cat never bothered him again.
He loved to play Hide-n-Seek with Judi and I. During the summer, the pool was closed on Mondays and, in those days, kids still were given chores to do. So on Mondays, Mom would run errands for the week and Judi and I had the responsibility to clean the house. We got pretty good at it and usually had time for one or two rounds of Hide-n-Seek with Bronco. The daybed in the den was home. One of us would take a piece of Bronco’s rawhide with us and go to hide somewhere in the house. The other would count and hold onto Bronco and then let him go and the search would be on! The house wasn’t huge so it didn’t usually take him long to find us but sometimes we were able to beat him back to “home” and he seemed to understand that he didn’t win the round if we made it there before him, because sometimes, one of us would take him and hide with him and the other would seek. As soon as he was found, he’d run like the wind to get back “home” first and he almost always did.
Sadly, my Dad’s story comes to an end long before Bronco’s. Dad had retired from the Air Force and we were living in St. Louis. We found out he had lung cancer. Mom had fixed up a lovely old two-storey brick house with a wonderful front porch. When we would go out, we’d always come home and find Bronco inside the house on the bottom step of the staircase—his favorite place to watch from the window for us. After Dad died, he would sit there for hours, even when the rest of us were home with him—watching for Dad to come home. It was heartbreaking. I wish now that we had taken him to the funeral home so he would not have spent the rest of his years looking and waiting for Dad. He never completely gave up hope.
My folks loved music, and always had some kind or another going; country, classical, pop and lots of easy listening like Chet Atkins. So we grew up loving all kinds of music and so did Bronco! Dad had a big reel-to-reel tape recorder and would put on these huge tapes of easy listening music and I think it would run for about one hour each side. Bronco would lay down right beside a big floor speaker and snooze.
After we found out Dad was sick and he was home from chemotherapy, Mom had gone to run some errands one afternoon. Judi and I were in the living with Dad and we were reading–just some quiet time together and, for some reason, we hadn’t put on any music. We looked up and there was Bronco over in front of that big tape recorder just studying it for all he was worth. So someone whispered, “hey, look at Bronco. Let’s see what he’s going to do!”
Finally, after several minutes of intense study, he let out a big sigh, walked over to one of the floor speakers and began to scratch the front of it. “I know there’s music in there somewhere,” he seemed to be telling us. Well that brought Dad out of his chair fast, but laughing, so he went over and fed the tape through and got things going. After watching Dad at the tape machine, Bronco went back over to the speaker, laid down next to it, put one ear right on the speaker, closed his eyes, sighed and never moved a muscle until the tape ended.
My folks had bought me a guitar when I turned 13. When we moved to St. Louis and got settled in, I began to take lessons. Bronco would very patiently sit with me during my practice sessions. After a while, I got to where I could actually play some melodies and chords and he started to enjoy some of what he was hearing. One evening as I was practicing, Bronco was laying on the bed behind me and I stopped playing to read some music theory information before trying to practice something new. After several minutes had gone by, I got one of the big Bronco sighs and he poked me a couple of times in the arm.
Well, that didn’t get me playing again so he was getting irritated and sighed another big sigh. A few more minutes and pokes and he’d waited as long as he was going to...he stood up and reached over and began to scratch the strings! “Play, you fool!”
Judi was in high school. She was so beautiful and she dated a lot. She began dating a young man who was in the Air Force, a fellow named Eddie, and they would sit out on the front porch for hours, holding hands and stealing a kiss or two. Mom didn’t worry as Bronco was an outstanding chaperone for his girl! One night, though, he decided it was getting too late–he’d had enough and wanted to go in to bed. So he took Eddie’s pant leg in his mouth and led him down to the gate. “Good night, Eddie!”
Not long after that, Mom sold the house and we moved into a townhouse nearer to our grandparents’ house. Jerry was stationed in Texas, so it was Mom, Judi, Bronco and me. We had neighbors in the same building and the husband was a doctor in the Army reserves. One day, about the time Dad used to get home, the neighbor came home in his dress uniform. Bronco saw him and thought it was Dad. Mom said it was all she could do to keep him from going through the picture window and, when he realized it wasn’t Dad, he was so sad. She said that was one of the saddest things she’d ever seen.
These scientists that say that animals don’t love—they’re crazy.
Bronco had a problem that is common to Boxers. They apparently have a very delicate digestive system and are prone to passing gas. Oh my, was it dreadful at times. In his later years, it became so bad that he would get up and leave the room and, all of a sudden for us, it was “oh no, he’s done it again!” But he would be long gone and we’d all be running for air freshener.
Judi married Steve in 1973 and Mom rented a small house for the two of us even closer to my grandparents while I was finishing high school. Bronco was not neutered and loved to break away at every opportunity and run around the neighborhood. It didn’t happen too often but, one day, he got away as Mom was leaving for work (I was already at school) and she finally just had to go and hope he’d get home soon and she left the gate to the back yard open so he could get water.
Well, he was out having himself a grand old time and that day the dogcatcher was around and was after him! Judi happened to be coming over to pick something up and saw him a few houses from home, with his head stuck in a big bush–he was hiding! He seemed to figure that if he couldn’t see the dogcatcher, then the dogcatcher couldn’t see him either (we used to cut him some slack when he was the one hiding during our Hide-n-Seek games in Texas). Then, she saw the dogcatcher about to get the drop on him, so she slowed the car down, opened the car door and called him. Naturally, he ran and jumped in her car and she drove up to Mom’s and pulled in the drive and put him in the house.
Well the dogcatcher drove up behind her and started to give her some grief (I think he’d been trying to catch Bronco on more than one occasion and he always gave shim the slip.) He threatened to write her a ticket and she told him, “look, he’s not my dog–I don’t even live here. Eventually, he gave up and went on about his business elsewhere.
I continued to play my guitar and managed to have a small repertoire of folk songs that I like to sing and could play the chords to accompany myself. I loved to sit out on the covered patio of the little house in St. Ann and play and sing a bit. Of course, Bronco was with me. One evening I had gone through the dozen or so songs that I knew by heart and, since I didn’t have any music books out there with me, I just sat for a while, enjoying the birds’ songs. Well, Bronco, being the music lover that he was, wasn’t having any of that quiet time! He came over to me, looking at me and then the guitar and giving his big sighs, “I want more music!”
So, I started over singing one I had already sung. He was so rude (but very funny). He let out a big sigh and walked over to the back door to be let in the house–no repeats for him! In the future, I would bring out a big music book with me, in case I ran out of songs with which to serenade him.
Poor guy started getting big, ugly tumors on his sides. Mom had several of them removed but, eventually, he had to be put to sleep. I believe he lived to be about 11 or 12, which is old for a big dog.
Ollie
Was Judi and Steve’s Border Collie and he was smart as a fox and not always nice. Since he wasn’t my dog, I can’t tell his whole story–only the Fullers could do his story justice, but he was the dog that they had before their kids and he lived until their youngest was about four. I got to keep him fairly often when they were out of town and was just about as devastated as they were when his time came.
Peanut
an adorable apricot poodle, who Mom brought home as a puppy. He was full of so much energy that he was a little apricot blur most of the day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a puppy go non-stop like he did all the time. He really didnt' slow down much as an adult dog.
Barney registered as “Fuller’s Barney Google”
What a sweetie he was! Of course, I’ve yet to meet a Boxer that wasn’t, but Barney was the sweetest.
I watched the newspaper ads and went out to see the litter. When the man came in with an armload of adorable baby Boxers, my heart melted. Little bitty Barney and I made eye contact and he was the only one with a full black mask. When I picked him up, he snuggled up against me and I knew he was the one. At first Judi wasn’t happy because she really had wanted a female, but he was able to win her over in the first couple of minutes. In fact, while he was tiny, she would hold him and rock him, just like she did her kids when they were babies (once a mommy, always a mommy I guess).
I brought him home, snuggled down in a laundry basket full of soft towels. I tend to be a bit of a “Type A” personality and was rather vocal from time to time in critiquing the drivers with whom I shared the road. Forgetting that the little fellow was in the car, I started hollering at someone that cut me off and continued to for a few minutes after.
--stories of the hiccups, star of his class, spider/bowl/ball, the singin’ bunnies/wiggle walk, Bogey, the birds–showing off his toys, the Giggle Bunny,
walking Danny on the leash
Honey (also known as the HoneyBear)
“We’re very sorry,” the veterinarian and his assistant said almost simultaneously. It seemed that morning when I sat stroking her head in the living room that the thirteen years and twelve days she had lived had passed in the blink of an eye—unbelievable how it flew by¼
She was born Friday, August 13, 1992 in the evening and the day in September finally came when I could bring her home. I had known about her for a while as she was coming from the horse farm of a friend my sister, Judi, worked with. They had a young male Yellow Labrador Retriever and a young female Collie (with a bit of Border Collie, but she looked full Collie), who managed to get together before they were able to have her spayed. The predictable result was an adorable litter of three pups—two males, and Honey. She was a pretty little fuzzy pup with mostly yellow fur, but white feet, chest and a bit of black on her back and in her tail.
She should have stayed another two to three weeks with her dog mom and littermates, but it’s a long story why I brought her home just after being weaned and a hair over five weeks old. There’s no point in bogging down in details when there are so many wonderful stories to tell of her but, I did pay in many sleepless nights for bringing her home when she was too young! Leave puppies with their moms until they are eight weeks old—better for the dogs and you—there’s a lot of critical information they still need from their dog moms, even after they’re weaned. Eight weeks old is probably ideal.
After meeting Denise’s family and other dogs and horses, I put Honey in a laundry basket on the seat beside me and headed for “Dogtown” (St. Louis City or County natives, will be familiar with Dogtown), just inside the city limits where I rented a little house on Nashville that had a huge mostly-fenced yard.
Our first stop was PetSmart to pick up a few supplies and then on to the house. I already had a crate for her to sleep in—a large one, since she came from big dogs, but we needed food, a collar and leash. Being a “single mother”, PetSmart became one of our chief places for socialization and Honey looked forward to going there as often as possible. Sometimes we didn’t even buy anything, just roamed the whole store letting her meet other dogs and people. She loved to “go shopping” so PetSmart and Turtle Park were two of her favorite places–even when she was old, she’d still get excited if she heard us say either.
When we got home, poor little Honey was scared and lonesome for her mom and brothers. I called my sister, who brought over their five-year-old Boxer, Barney. (Barney had spent many weekends of his life with me, “Auntie Karen”, as my sister and brother-in-law were busy raising three kids at that time. So, during the week, he was with his “Mom and Dad” (Judi and Steve) and their kids, then he week-ended with Auntie Karen.)
So, anxious to see her new niece, “Auntie Ru” (Judi) came over with Barney. Boxers are sometimes aggressive with other dogs and since he considered my house to be his second home, we knew he’d defend it vigorously and would attack first and sniff later. So when they arrived, Judi walked Barney on a leash down to the corner and I brought Honey to him on a leash. Well, he was livid when he first sighted her but, as soon as he gave her a sniff and realized she was female, he was enamored of her little fuzzy self.
When she saw him, she was thrilled to see another dog and ran as hard as she could to get to him but, she wasn’t expecting that Boxer mug and when she got her first close up of his face, it visibly startled her and she actually jumped back, but she was so happy that he was there, though, that the surprise at his face didn’t last long and she was enamored of him, too. So began a life-long friendship.
Judi had to get back home and couldn’t stay, so she left Barney with us and headed home. We all three went in the house and sat down on the living room floor in a circle and that’s when Honey learned her name. I patted my chest and said, “I’m Auntie Karen.” I pointed to Barney and said “This is cousin Barney.” Then I pointed to her and said, “You’re Honey.” Then I went through it one more time and she knew her name from that point on.
That first night was especially rough on Barney and I. Especially since Honey had been raised outside, I knew she would be safest if she was crate trained and so I set things up for her inside and, at bed time, put her in there but had the crate so she could see me. Well, Barney hopped up on my bed and I turned out the light and the screaming from the crate began. I talked to her and Barney went and laid by the door of the crate, but she wasn’t having any of it—she was lonely, not sleepy and nobody else was going to sleep either!
I brought her to bed with us but that didn’t work either because she wouldn’t stay on the bed. I couldn’t let her run free—not only was she not housebroken, she was very interested in chewing on electrical cords. That began a couple months of not much sleep for me! She would scream most of the night as though she was being beaten and I would be exhausted and look like I’d been beaten at work the next day! Since she was able to rest almost all day, she had plenty of energy to stay up most of the night! I made sure she had plenty of playtime and short periods of exercise (going for short walks), but it wasn’t enough to wear her out so she’d sleep through the night.
I’m a great believer in crate training, provided you can be there to let a dog out on a regular basis. Dogs should not be left for hours on end, with no one to let them out, even if they have the run of the house. I worked about three miles from home and came home for lunch every day. While Honey was a puppy, up until she was about six months old, she would be in her crate when I went to work. Since this was the first puppy I had ever trained, I didn’t know what to do for ‘separation anxiety.’ She liked her crate, but when I would close the front door to go to work, she would start to yelp and scream–sounded like she was being tortured.
That was one of the first things I asked about when we went to puppy kindergarten at Judy Strickland’s dog school in Kirkwood. I thoroughly recommend that you take your puppy through this training and then work with them each day, for a total of 30 minutes a day on the things they learn each week. If you have never trained a dog, it is excellent training for YOU and a great way to socialize puppies. I faithfully worked with Honey for ten minutes morning, at lunch and in the evening and she was a wonderful, well-adjusted, polite pet. Everyone enjoyed having her around because she was so well-behaved with a small investment of time and treats each day. If you live in the St. Louis area, it will be well worth your while to take your dogs to Judy Strickland’s school. I was privileged to actually be in one of Judy’s classes, but had to take one make up class with another instructor who really knew her way around dogs as well.
More on her adventures in kindergarten later, but they told me that her problem was separation anxiety and to get a hollow marrow bone and put either canned dog food or peanut butter in each end of it and give it to her just before I would leave. She fell in love with peanut butter and from the first day that she got her “work bone,” I never heard another yelp out of her when I left. In fact, she would anticipate my leaving so that she would have that great treat. Even though I left food and water in her crate, she never touched it unless I was home, but she always enjoyed her work bone.
Even once she had the run of the house and until we moved to Ohio, she got a work bone whenever I would leave her and she was so intent on getting that peanut butter out of the bone that she rarely even noticed my leaving.
Barney continued to be her buddy and was so patient with her when she was a baby. She would do horrible things to him but he would always be so gentle with her. She would grab onto his face and almost run to the other side of the room with it in her mouth and he wouldn’t even growl at her. The only time he did growl was when she got a little too close to his testicles with those sharp milk teeth and he let her know verbally, in no uncertain terms, that THAT certainly wasn’t going to be allowed.
I didn’t realize when I brought her home that she still had fleas, because Denise said she had bathed her, but, just after that one night, both she and Barney were scratching like crazy and I knew the house was going to be infested, too, if I didn’t take quick action. So, I called Judi, but she had something going and couldn’t come and help, so Steve and my niece, Jenny, drove over to help me combat the invaders.
Each dog got a flea bath–Steve did Barney in the tub and I did Honey in the kitchen sink while Jenny ran the vacuum slowly and thoroughly throughout the house. (Thankfully there were only two rooms with carpeting, so it didn’t take long to clean it up! Then we took the bag out to the trash as soon as she was done.
I had never given a dog a flea bath and didn’t realize that as I soon as I put the little gal in the water that all the fleas just traveled up to her head. She was so upset from the bath that she just exhausted her little self and when I pulled her out of the sink and was holding her wrapped in a towel, I noticed all the activity still going on, on her little head. There must have been 100 fleas on her tiny head. So, while Steve held her and she was sound asleep, I soaped up her little head with the flea soap and managed to get it all rinsed. I guess when she woke, she just thought it was a bad dream but she sure never did like to have a bath.
Honey really got the best of both breeds in looks, intelligence and disposition. Sometimes female dogs might seem to get better billing in intelligence than their male counterparts, but I don’t really believe they’re smarter. They do pay more attention and seem to be more intent on trying to understand us and communicate back. Most male dogs are more interested in being active and as long as they can get you to keep throwing the Frisbee, could care less about communicating. They’re definitely as smart, it just shows up in different ways. Most of my dogs have been males and they tend to be a bit more stubborn. Even when they know just what you are saying, they have no intention of doing anything other than what THEY want to do.
A good example of this, when Honey was a pup, Barney had a rawhide bone that she desperately wanted and he was enjoying tremendously keeping it away from her. Finally, you could almost see the wheels turning in her head, she decided to use feminine wiles on him. She went up to him, turned around and stuck her little girl parts right in his face. Naturally, he was intensely interested in things of that nature, so he turned loose of the bone to get a good sniff. As soon as he did, she snatched the bone and ran off, almost laughing audibly!
Oh, he was furious! Barney only fell for that once but, since Honey was a puppy, she tried to use it on him several times–took her a while to realize that he wasn’t falling for it any more.
Throwing up on way to vet’s office, but dragging me in there when she arrived. Had to take different routes
Tilting head when she didn’t understand what I was saying
Men with beards or hats
Talkin’ toys on TV
The magic leash
Puppy kindergarten was a lot of fun. Even though I had gone with Judi when she was training Barney, I was not confident enough in my ability to train this darling little furball without guidance. In addition to the good training, the atmosphere for socializing pups with strangers and strange dogs was wonderful. Even though she was one of the prettiest dogs in the class, everyone sort of looked down their noses for a moment when they found out she was a “half-breed”—every other puppy was full bred and looked expensive (Kirkwood is a nice area of St. Louis, so people there can afford fancy dogs.)
After her opening remarks and once we had gone through the group introducing ourselves and our puppies, Judy began to pull out all these objects and spreading them in a circle about the room. It was the puppy obstacle course and was designed to get the puppies used to walking on all different types of surfaces, so that they wouldn’t be nervous when walking outside and encountering something new.
She put out things like a large piece of cardboard, a window screen, a cookie sheet, etc., and just happened to put a large cushion on the floor right across from Honey. Her eyes immediately brightened and she got up, climbed onto the cushion, laid down and crossed her legs. Needless to say, everyone was laughing hard and I was trying to quietly call her back. Just before I got her to come back to me, Judy turned around to see what everyone was laughing about and, of course, she laughed, too.
Because I worked so faithfully with her, she did great in the class but, as all dogs do, she had one week where rebellion and refusal reared its ugly head and she refused to do the “down” command, even though she knew just what was wanted. We happened to be at a makeup class (and I can’t remember the name of the instructor, but she was good), because I’d had to work late on Honey’s regular class night. We were going through the things they’d learned so far before going on to new lessons and Honey just refused to go down.
I didn’t know what to do, but the instructor had no sooner said that it was critical to never let a dog ignore a down command, when Honey wouldn’t do it. So I asked her and she came over and said that I should give her the command once more and if she wouldn’t go down, grab her collar and quickly pull her collar to the floor and hold her like that until she obeyed, even if it took several minutes. Well, Honey was sensitive enough that I don’t think I had to hold her like that for more than ten seconds before she cooperated and she never did it again, but that information really stood me in good stead with Cupcake (whose story comes later), a big male yellow Lab, who was a very big boy when he decided he wasn’t going to do what he was told. More about that later.
The pretty HoneyBear came through graduation with flying colors and even earned one big cookie for her efforts!
One of the good things we learned from puppy school was how to teach the dog to let you know when they need to go out. Some dogs will communicate that on their own, others need to be taught. Honey needed to be taught and I decided after the cute stories from school, to teach her the system of ringing bells when she needed to go outside. She was already familiar with words “outside,” “go potty,” and the like and would do her duty when I took her out, but would not ask to go outside. So I bought a couple of huge sleighbells and put them on a long ribbon and put that on the doorknob. It was long enough that she wouldn’t have to jump or stand up to slap them with her paw, but just reach out.
So, for a couple of weeks, every time I took her out, we would go to the door together and I would take her little paw, slap the bells and say “outside, go potty, outside” and then we’d go outside. I didn’t think I would ever get through to her even though she usually caught on to things very fast. After a couple of weeks, on a Friday afternoon, I came home from work in the early afternoon, because I was sick. I think I was even starting to get a low fever. So I went through the bell routine, took her out and then came in and went to bed.
I had just about fallen asleep when, all of a sudden, I heard the bells ringing!!! I jumped up out of bed (with head pounding and feeling yucky) and yelled, “good girl, Honey, ring the bells, go outside!” Well, needless to say, she really liked that. She wanted me to be up and outside with her and so I did not get any rest until bedtime, because whenever I tried to lay down again, she’d ring the bells. Then I had to work on teaching her that she couldn’t do that non-stop, but as a signal to go potty and she learned that fairly well.
Since we went to Judi and Steve’s house on a regular basis, I put up a duplicate set of bells on her back door and Barney decided he’d make use of the bells, too, but not because he wanted out. He used them to call someone to the kitchen to give him something to eat–they were dinner bells for Barney. At first, no one knew why he kept hitting them. They’d offer to let him out and he wouldn’t go. Finally, they realized when he wanted to eat, he’d ring the bells.
orange toys and digging holes
With Marnie saying “come here” after terrifying huge Hannah
Tearing up a box for Unca Steve
How she loved her peanut butter and toothpaste lemon ice
Birds and rabbits; gnoshing rabbit in LR
fetching the paper and unlearning fetching all the papers; apology to neighbors in Dogtown (and the Post-Dispatch) if I didn’t get Sunday papers returned to all the right houses
One evening I went over to Judi’s and, for some reason, it was just us gals. Steve wasn’t home and the kids were at friends’ houses. I had brought a bottle of wine–must have been warm weather because it was a bottle of chilled Chardonnay. I was sitting in a big, overstuffed chair in their living room and Judi was sort of reclining on the couch and was loosely holding her wine in hand, with her arm sort of dangled off the couch.
The glass was just at the perfect height for Honey (who loved to drink whatever I was drinking and especially loved wine and vodka–I would usually just dip my finger in it and let her lick the drop off). She came up to Judi’s glass, stuck her slender face in it slightly and began to drink. She finished it almost to the last drop. When she was done drinking, she looked up with a sweet expression on her pretty, dainty face, let out one of the biggest belches we’d ever heard, and then just walked away. We laughed ourselves silly and got Judi a clean glass.
The Fuller’s next-door neighbors were Navy folks and had an older female dog named Matey. All older dogs will put a pup in its place and, especially, a female. We discovered one evening what a drama queen Honey was–Matey had come over to play with the kids and, naturally, Honey thought she’d be the big dog (she was bigger than Matey, whose breed escapes me). I was in the house and all of a sudden her Honey hollering like she’d been attacked. Of course I ran outside and demanded to know who was hurting my baby.
The twins were having a hard time telling me what happened, because they were laughing so hard. Honey was still moaning and carrying on and ran to me crying. Honey had been bugging Matey who finally got a belly full of it and growled and barely nipped at Honey. Matey had not even touched her! Even in to her old age, when Honey heard Matey’s name, she would act indignant. As long as she lived next door to Judi, Honey wouldn’t even go outside if she saw Matey over in her own yard.
Back in Dogtown, she had some troubles with a big, friendly Yellow Lab, named Jake. He was also pretty smart. He was the only dog I ever knew that realized that you could jump a fence in TO a yard, not just make your escape by jumping out! I had met him a year or so before I even got Honey, as he roamed the neighborhood fairly freely. Once Honey was there, he was a regular visitor. We dubbed him, Jake the Toy Rustler and Cookie Thief. He would regularly jump into the yard to see what toys Honey had out and sniff out any cookies that she hadn’t eaten.
She always wanted to take more than one cookie at a time, but rarely ate them all and would hide them in the yard or on the sun porch. Since that door was propped open for Honey, Jake considered it an open invitation to himself as well!
After a few visits from neighbor Jake, Honey got to where she wanted to “sneak” her cookies outside. She would stand there until I had stuffed as many as six cookies into her dainty face and then wanted a small toy to disguise the cookies hidden there. She would go out the back door and part of the way down the sunporch steps, then stop and look back and forth several times. When she was convinced it was safe and that Jake was no where to be seen, she would drop the toy and cookies, then lay down, cross her dainty paws and munch on a few cookies. That ritual continued for as long as we lived in Dogtown.
She was fascinated by the television from when she was just a tiny, fuzzy pup. We would lay on the bed and she would actually watch the TV with me. Whenever a man with a beard would show up on the screen, she’d get very growly and narrow her eyes. She also would bark at men with beards in person and men in hats really sent her over the edge. Even once they took their hat off, she’d quit barking at them, but was very distrustful and wouldn’t get friendly with them.
When she had run of the house, I would leave the small TV on in the bedroom on the PBS station. She loved the Muppets® on Sesame Street. The first time she saw those stuffed toys “walking” around and “talking,” her eyes got huge and she looked at me with absolute wonder on her little face, almost as though she was thinking, “Wow, talking toys!”
Other times, as
she got older, she didn’t watch as much but, every night when she would hear
David Letterman’s theme music, she would come busting in the back door, run
into the living room, lay down and cross her legs and she always watched
through the monologue. I don’t know if
she liked his voice or that he made me laugh, but she came in if she was in
earshot to hear the music
start.
Going to work
Honey’s beloved Unca Jim
Cousin Sandy and the kitties and their butts
The grieving process:
The day I felt the growth on her side just left me full of dread, even though it was tiny and it would be years before it grew—I just sort of knew then that it was the beginning of the end. She was probably seven or eight years old before it showed up and she never paid any attention to it until her last summer. It didn’t look like anything serious and since it didn’t grow or change in appearance, or change her behavior in any way, I just kept an eye on it¼
About a year before she was gone, I started noticing that it was growing but, again, she never paid any attention to it and was as active as ever—never missed a meal, not in any pain and seemed she so happy. The feelings of dread would hit a bit more often when I would pet or groom her and notice that it was there.
A couple of months before the end, she was licking the growth quite a bit. I don’t know if it was painful or itchy or both. It looked like a big, pink mole at that time.
We all took our last “big walk” in June. By the time I got back in from St. Louis, it was too hot to go very far and I knew Honey wasn’t up to the big walk any more. We’d just go up the hill and back down or down the creek and back. I was reduced to tears pretty easily in those days knowing that her days were numbered.
I’ve sorely regretted not taking her back to St. Louis with me that June; the weather was cool enough for her to travel comfortably and she would have seen her beloved Turtle Park and all the people she grew up with and loved one more time. Maybe the end would have been easier for both of us there.
I had her killed on Thursday, August 25, 2005, at about 11:15 a.m. It was a gloriously beautiful day—warm, sunny, breezy, just enough clouds to make the deep blue sky interesting. It was the kind of day that we normally would have walked through the woods for hours; me and all the dogs. Instead, it was the end of the road that day for my beautiful, sweet HoneyBear.
I have mostly regretted the way her demise came about. Her veterinarian is terrific; obviously loves animals and was so gentle and loving when he euthanized old Beau for us. This didn’t go that smoothly. If I’d had any inkling how upset she would be during her last minutes, I would have paid whatever amount for him to come to our place instead of having her euthanized in his surgery.
The
Ohio Chapters
Shadow A Black Labrador who was the star of Jividen Hollow, as far as the Jividens were concerned. What a sweet, happy guy he is. He reminded me so much of Barney with the way he lived to play. He could wear you out throwing things for him. Even climbing the big hills around the Hollow, he was relentless in wanting to play.
Beau Sweet old Beau had been a regal beauty in his day. I have no idea what type of dog he was, but he was a big boy. Very old and arthritic when we moved to Ohio
Maggie Little chubby Maggie–a beagle and terrier mix–smart as a whip and fearless. Dragged home raccoon kits almost her size, along with an endless assortment of rodents. Don’t think there is a cat that would make as good a mouser as Maggie! She’s a little cuddle-bug. She never met a calorie she didn’t like. Little Party Gal. Her little face is getting so much white in it. We’re not even sure how old she is
Rocky oh this little fellow just captured our hearts. He had a truly rocky arrival at Jividen Hollow. The people that dumped him just tossed him out the window of their moving car and kept going. He had the sweetest hounddog bark and was so gentle, but full of fun, too.
Cupcake Jake aka Max This is another sweet guy that could fill a book. He is a big Yellow Labrador. Such a sweet and happy creature and absolutely gorgeous. Until I stole Cupcake, I had no idea that Labs smile.
There are a couple of stories in that last sentence...yes, I stole Cupcake from a neighbor, but had no idea for about seven or eight months that I had stolen him! He showed up one winter day and, of course, I adored him and had no idea that Jim had been trying to run him off (since we’d taken in Rocky, he really didn’t want another dog to feed).
I couldn’t believe that someone would dump a dog like him, although I could see he had trouble with his hips even though he was a young dog. I figured that maybe somebody dumped him because they didn’t want to deal with a dog with bad hips. He wasn’t lame, but you could tell from the way he moved and laid down that something wasn’t right so I figured that was the reason he was dumped.
The reality was that he’d been roaming the hills–unneutered males are especially prone to roaming–and he found our place. He had a collar but no tags and we didn’t know of neighbors that had a Lab, so we didn’t call anyone. I checked the newspaper ads in case he was listed, but there was nothing there. Since he was young and unneutered, he was a bit aggressive with the other dogs (mostly at mealtimes) but, for the most part, he was pretty friendly with all of us. He just LOVED to eat and didn’t mind using his size to get what he wanted.
He decided right off the bat that he was going to have Rocky’s doghouse. It was too big for Rocky, so I had stuffed a big old comforter in there so he could get in there and stay nice and warm. Cupcake liked that house but couldn’t get in it because of the comforter. I looked out the window to the front porch and saw him dragging that comforter out of the house and then moving in and making himself quite comfortable...so comfortable in fact that he would lay on his back in there with his head hanging out the door upside down! He really is a big silly clown.
Rusty–we could have called him “Sarge” and it would have fit him perfectly. He was just as sweet and lovable as he can be, but always carried himself sort of at attention. He is part hound dog of some kind and the rest is anyone’s guess. Of course, he’s called Rusty because he’s red. Sometimes he has this squeaky little whine that he does and I realized he squeaks because he’s Rusty! Groan, bad joke...
He finally started using the doggie door on the front porch over a year after it was installed. We don’t know why he wouldn’t use it. He is a fearless hunter, but would always stand out on the steps in front of it and squeak or, if everyone else answered Jim’s whistle to go for a walk, poor little guy would be pacing the front porch like mad and squeaking like crazy! It happened after we’d been out of town for a few days and we’ve conjectured that loneliness, probably along with a fierce thunderstorm or two, may have driven the fear of the door out of him.
I’d gently pushed him through it a number of times and would hold it slightly open for him other times so that he would get used to how it felt, but he just wouldn’t use it on his own.
Wile E.–poor little scrawny, scared and starved guy came into our lives about two months before my sweet HoneyBear was history. He was terrified of us and so skinny that the sides his waist almost touched on the inside. The other dogs would leave him a bit of food and when I realized that, I began to leave extra food out for him, but he was terrified and would not come near it if he saw us. I discovered that he was living under our little yard barn, so that’s where I’d put his food when I fed the other dogs.
It was my intention to take him to the pound when I could finally get him to trust me, but we had to wonder if he was a truly wild animal or if he’d been abandoned. Since he would sneak and slink around, I thought of the cartoon character, Wile E. Coyote and so we began to call him Wile E. He finally got to where he would stay around when I was outside, but he was afraid to come to me.
He was especially afraid of Jim, so we figured that men especially had not been too kind to him. One day, Jim fed the dogs for whatever reason and he also took a bowl of dry food over to the yard barn for Wile E. After that, Wile E. became a lot more trusting of us.
Of course, that presented a new problem with our dogs–jealous puppies! Giving him food was one thing but now I was trying to give him my attention, too?! Oddly enough, Rusty (the last stray we had taken in and kept) was the troublemaker and the most jealous of all.
One day I finally got Wile E. to start to come to me. He was creeping very slowly over to me, as he was still pretty scared when, like a bolt of lightening, Rusty ran to Wile E. and knocked him down. Wile E. just stayed on his back showing Rusty his belly and, even though I hollered at Rusty, he still continued to growl at Wile E. for a bit.
The day finally came when I got to pet him (Rusty wasn’t around) and he has stayed as close to me as possible ever since. On walks up the hill, more than once I’ve accidentally kicked him in the face because he was following so closely on my heels. He’s learned to keep enough distance now so he doesn’t get hurt.
He always remained pretty much a “nervous Norvis” when he first met anyone new–being a bit more leery of men, but he seemed to know that people that come to visit us just want to pet him.
The
chickens or ‘how I fowled up my life’
Gus, Christine, Betty, Mildred, Hortense, Lewis & Clark
I’d been doing some research on line and found that, while hens can lay eggs without benefit of a rooster, they are happier, naturally, to have a rooster around. So I called Juanita and asked if she would sell me a rooster only and she was VERY happy to do so as they had an abundance of them.
The evening came and the Oneys gave us the girls and we brought home the rooster from Juanita after dark. The girls were already fast asleep in the coop and the rooster was pretty sleepy when we put him inside.
So I excitedly fell asleep anticipating the first crow and it happened about 3:30 in the morning. The first one was very tentative and so soft I almost wasn’t sure I had heard it. When he realized a few minutes later that it wasn’t being challenged by another rooster, he really let fly with a huge crow! I’m not an early riser, but I got up early to go see the birds and, there were all seven of them, crowded at the window waiting to be let out!
Bosco Bear
So one day, after John moved to Texas and was unable to take Bosco
How he came to live in Ohio and the trip to Ohio
The Rock Collection
Turtle by mistake?
Jake
Lucky
Hobo
Maggie, Too
Rufus
Our first cat…Yada Yada
The Last Word
¼do I have any advice? Make sure that you are as committed to a pet as you would be to any member of your family. If you can’t love, feed, exercise and pay plenty of attention to a pet, don’t get one, no matter how cute you think it may be. If you can’t care for an animal for its lifetime, then don’t bring it home.
If you can’t keep a pet, for any reason, and can’t find him or her a home, DON’T DUMP THEM IN THE COUNTRY or some other place unfamiliar to them, take them to the pound. Many dog pounds are visited regularly by dog rescues and will find a home but, even they don’t, euthanasia is much kinder than an animal roaming around lost, scared, maybe getting shot or hit by a car or starving to death. Domesticated animals but, especially, house pets do not know how to feed themselves and untold numbers of them do starve to death. Country people can only afford to feed so many dogs and the rest have to be shot or taken to the pound.
Keep in mind that you’re dealing with a sweet creature that has the mentality of a two or three-year-old child. While that’s a great deal of intelligence, you wouldn’t drop a child that young off and expect them to be able to care for themselves. Dumping a pet is like taking a very young child and dropping them off in the wilderness of a foreign country–even if they would happen on someone who could help them, they wouldn’t understand or speak the language. People in the country regularly shoot at stray dogs to run them off and many of them end up injured.
Another piece of advice is to spay or neuter your animals. If you are not schooled in animal husbandry, you have no business breeding dogs or any other animal and it is the height of irresponsibility to allow endless litters of dogs and cats to be born, that will have to end up being killed.
Be kind enough to your animals to euthanize them before their suffering becomes great. There are millions of healthy animals around that need good homes and it is cruel to prolong an animal in a suffering state.
Finally, TALK to your dogs (or any pets you have), sing to your dogs, interact with them as much as you can, play with them, be silly with them and love, love, LOVE them.
