The "He" is a "She"

Hmmm, I guess I've been pretty busy! "Elvis" went in for his first vet appointment this past week. December 30, 2011. I never really paid much attention to this kitten when he first appeared. We played, fed and watered him but I guess we didn't REALLY get to "know" him. Turns out Elvis is really Elvi, or maybe Elvina? *~* I figured it out the day of the appointment. She's only been with us since September.

Our newest member! Not entirely by choice!

This little beggar of a kitten showed up just before it got really cold. I called the neighbours and no one said it was theirs (or they didn't want to admit it!). We already have three cats and certainly didn't need a fourth. I asked our neighbour across the road, if they wanted him in their barn. I mean, he is very sweet and cuddly but we don't need four cats. The ones we already have were hissing and swatting at him and the dogs kept chasing him. Talk about rejection from everyone. Anyway, the neighbour said he'd take him. So, to fool the cat, I drove him down our road and back again, then handed him off to the neighbour while I stayed in the vehicle then made a quick getaway. Not quick enough! 

The cat came back the very next day! 

(I bet you sung that sentence didn't you :-)

I didn't want to take the cat to the Animal Protection League as I knew they already had many cats without homes - so, I put up a poster in our school and yes, I was going for emotional manipulation of the children. 

Here's the poster.

It still didn't work. No one phoned! By now my eldest son, was calling the cat Elvis. 

*~*

I guess we have four cats.

Meet Elvis, our newest addition!

Yup! Christmas is coming!

Friday I got busy and wrapped some Christmas presents. I was in a bit of a rush and was wrapping in warp speed to be able to make an appointment.  All nicely wrapped, I popped the gifts I'd wrapped under the tree and got ready and left for my appointment. Two hours later I got a call, on my cell, from my son; "When are you coming home?". I could tell by his tone of voice something was definitely not good. "What happened?", I asked. "Hope ripped into some of the presents and she ate a whole bunch of chocolates".
Nine of the boxes I wrapped were Toffifee, the small 15 piece packages - I thought it'd be nice to give one to each family member for Christmas *~*. I asked my son to take the dog outside for a bit then leave her in the laundry room until I got home. I didn't know how much she'd eaten and whether she'd be sick or not. When I arrived home I discovered out of the nine boxes of Toffifee she had eaten 4 whole boxes - that's 60 pieces and she had also ripped into and ate a tray of cherries cordial chocolate which amounted to another 6 pieces. All in all I knew that wasn't likely a toxic level of chocolate but it wasn't good for her to have all that sugar in her either. (Strangely enough she was not climbing the drapes on a sugar high). I called the vet and their recommendation was to give her a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting!?? I didn't know you could ingest that stuff? So I grabbed my old children's liquid medication syringe and force fed her the hydrogen peroxide. The vet said we may have to wait about 20 min. for it to work so my husband and I watched her (she was outside), from the kitchen window.  Not even ten minutes later she emptied her stomach and an awful lot of chocolate was evacuated including the whole hazelnuts from the middle of each Toffifee. :-P I never even thought this dog could smell chocolate through plastic cellophane, cardboard and wrapping paper. I guess until Christmas is over she'll have to camp out in the laundry room when I need to go out. There are definitely some drawbacks to dog ownership! Ho, Ho, Ho!

Portrait of a DOG

Gracie, the day of her rescue

It has been a year ago today, December 1, 2010. Gracie was one of 24 Shepherds seized from a farm near where we live. She had been living with the other Shepherds in deplorable conditions. The rescuers found her hiding in a burrow she had dug out of the piled manure they all lived on.  She was 37 pounds worth of skin and bones, had bite marks on her ears and nose and was terrified of people. I have kept somewhat up-to-date on the page marked "Gracie" but I wanted to celebrate her one year anniversary of her emancipation here.

It has not been smooth sailing but it has been a slow and constant climb up from neglect and lack of socialization. 

Our first meeting

I will never forget our first meeting. Looking down on her in the pen was heartbreaking. She was so small and emaciated. Because of her longer guard hairs you couldn't see the boniness of her body but you could feel each vertebrae, each rib, hip bones and collar bones. She ran around and around the pen trying to avoid us but there was no where to hide. I asked if I could go in and I walked in and sat down with my back against the wall and just waited. She paced and did everything in her power to get as far from me as she could. I just waited and eventually she was curious enough to smell me, then let me touch her head and stroke her back. My hand could feel every vertebrae down her spine and she'd flinch when I'd touch her. I wanted to cry. I knew we had to take her home and care for her. She came home on December 6 and we installed her directly into the outside doghouse set up with a heat lamp. She stayed outside in the doghouse; firstly, to make sure she wasn't carrying any contagious diseases and secondly, we weren't sure how she'd respond to a loud, bustling household. She seemed to appreciate being in the doghouse and would run inside whenever anyone approached. I spent hours inside the doghouse, (it's big!), petting, brushing, trimming nails, cleaning ears, talking. I was allowed to do whatever I needed to do to her for her care and she laid stone still, hardly moving. She rarely even looked directly at me but always laid in the corner of the doghouse, probably hoping I'd go away quickly and not torture her. She was so thin, when I sat quietly, you could hear her heart beating from three feet away. 

It took three baths to finally clear away all the hard manure caked in her fur especially around her neck and down her tail, but the smell did not improve until summer when she went swimming regularly. She had health problems in the beginning and has come through them all. She was spayed as a requirement for us to adopt her as no one was sure whether these dogs had been line bred nor how healthy, psychologically, the pups would be and most importantly, none of these dogs were physically well enough to carry healthy pups. When we got Gracie we were told she was approximately 18 months old  but just watching her I knew she was probably only 8 months old. When she was taken in to be spayed the vet agreed she was likely 7-9 months old due to her immature uterus and it was evident she had not had a heat yet.

Gracie's first introduction to Hope, our Golden Retriever/Lab did not go very well which was my fault. Gracie was in her doghouse and Hope just "popped in" to say Hi! Gracie made the strangest sounds I've ever heard so I quickly hauled Hope out and kept them apart until the next day. I had been walking Hope and had her on a leash,  as we approached the doghouse Gracie came out and Hope and she were able to meet properly and they hit it off immediately. Hope became a therapy dog for Gracie. They played and wrestled and ran together. If I needed Gracie to come out of her doghouse I just brought Hope with me and Gracie would come right out to her. Without Hope, we had to drag her out of the doghouse which wasn't very good at breaking down the walls of mistrust.

Gracie's health is good now. She is still under her ideal weight at 52 pounds but she is shiny-coated and can run like the wind. She loves to fetch and play tug-o-war with Hope. She will be playful with me, at times, and will wag her tail sometimes. I have finally got a kiss on the cheek, this past Friday, November 25, 2011, when I was giving her a bath. :-)  She is learning "sit" and "stay" and has gotten fairly proficient at it. She is very wary of strangers and still barks and bristles at the boys but they are no longer feeling threatened by her and her barking is getting less ferocious. She has finally made eye contact without fear. I have officially started to train her and when we go to the pasture for time together she will make direct eye contact and wait with anticipation, instead of cowering fear, for what I will ask of her. She is not a perfect dog and we still struggle with housebreaking issues and her barking at people and not coming when she should but when I look back at her progress I keep the hope that she will continue to "become".

When we first brought her in the house to live, last February, she would hide in the dark corner of the bathroom, by the toilet, or in the portable kennel in the laundry room or any dark corner, and stay there for hours unless we took her out to go to the bathroom. Now she follows me all over the house, never hides in the bathroom. We took down the kennel because she wasn't hiding in it anymore and she will join us in the family room, when we watch a movie, and is presently laying, on her side, sleeping under the computer desk while I type this. I'm not sure she will ever be a happy, relaxed, friendly Shepherd with everyone, but she is healthy, loved and safe and we work forward continually.

We celebrate Gracies birthday on June 21 as that's the day we were officially granted the right to be her adopted family. She is no longer referred to as #19 at the vet's office and her file is in our family file with the rest of our furry family members. 

Happy Anniversary Gracie!

Gracie, giving me her full attention. One year later.

Mid September Swim

I took the dogs for a walk yesterday. Beautiful fall day, sunny, 12 degrees. I took the Chuck it ball and the frisbee for the dogs to play in the pasture. Excellent toys for both dogs and they love the competition of running together for them. I just have to remember to get them back before we head home as the path to the pasture leads right along the river. Yesterday I was so enjoying the walk - lost in thought - I forgot to get the frisbee back from the dogs and off they went for a dip in the river. Too late I realized my mistake. The place the dogs always head for is down a beaver trail, along a steep embankment. The river is shallow - no more than knee deep for me. From the pathway I can see the dogs frolicking in the water up to their bellies and as the sand settles I can see exactly where the red frisbee has sunk to the bottom and is laying in the sand! Hope is very smart and knew it was there - somewhere - but from her perspective she could not see it. Now I had two choices: nearly kill myself trying to get down the steep, muddy, hawthorn infested descent or kiss the frisbee good bye and chock it up to experience. Well, I may have been willing to leave it if I couldn't actually see it laying on the bottom, glowing red, taunting me in the shallow water. It was driving me rather nuts to see it and not be able to get it. So I made my decision and went for it. Running shoes, jeans and all I slid down the muddy embankment grabbing grasses and trying to avoid the hawthorns. I tried to step into the river but sank up to my calf in river bottom mud. So now one runner and pant leg was soaking wet and I stood on the shore contemplating my next move... give up and climb back up... or jump into the centre of the river, where it was sandy, and hope I landed on my feet and not my face. Both dogs were delirious with excitement and jumping with soggy, muddy paws and bodies all over me nearly pushing me into the river ready or not. So I took the plunge and jumped to the middle... thankfully landing on my feet but now definitely wet from the thighs down. I waded to the opposite shore; which was beachy and open, located the frisbee and waded back in to grab it, of course getting the sleeve of my hoody wet up to my elbow. Now that I had the frisbee back in my possession the dogs were thrilled and wanted to go again. Humph!!!!

View from the top!

I was now half wet, muddy, not really very cold but on the wrong side of the river from home. I waded back across the river and managed to find a lower, more gradual, climb to the top but that meant traipsing through thistle, rose bushes, more hawthorns, and all kinds of fluffy seed plants that wanted to attach themselves to my sodden legs and sleeve. I was quite the picture when I got home. We have a carpenter at our place adding a veranda onto our house. I had told him I was going for a walk in case the kids got home before I did. He was the first person I saw when I got back (of course!!!!). He took one look and asked if I fell in the river *~*. At least I could save some dignity and admit I purposely chose to get wet  to retrieve the frisbee, hoping that that admission made me look BRAVE and adventurous instead of stupid and clutzy. Somehow I don't think it made me look better. The kids were already home from school as my half hour walked turned into more than an hour.
So, end of story, all turned out well. I got the frisbee back and had the adventure of doing something out of character for a mom my age :-). Here's the $10 million dollar question: How come it was O.K. for me to do it (and actually rather fun! ;-) but I would have flipped out and been mad if one of my boys had  done the same thing- coming home all wet and muddy and doing something SOooooo dangerous? Neither of the boys asked me that question...  they knew better - I probably would have flipped out on them! :-)

The Big Jump

 I've waited fourteen year to have a roof outside our bedroom window so that I could clean the picture windows on the outside. No one was getting me on an extension ladder - two floors up - so I've waited.  That doesn't mean they haven't been washed in fourteen years but not for quite a while and not by me. So this summer we have built a covered wraparound veranda. I have a beautiful sloped roof and I was waiting in anticipation of the day they shingled it to get out there and wash the windows. I got all my equipment ready and out on the roof, tied myself around the waist and the other end around the casement window (I know - I'm a wimp!) and climbed out on the roof. Then sat down. The tilt on the roof, which looked like nothing when I stood inside, in my safe bedroom, was making me sweat actually being on it. I inched my way across the roof on my butt, kind of like the crab walk we did in phys. ed. in school and realized that there was no way I was going to be able to stand up and turn my back on the slope with nothing to hang on to. Landen, my 8 year old comes to the window to ask if he could watch T.V. "No", I said, "I want you to read a book for a while". Humph! The kid could have gone anywhere in the house to read but instead he installed himself on the rattan stool in the corner of the bedroom, by the open window. I'm still struggling to figure out how to turn and clean the window without falling to my death. Ben, my 12 year old, comes to the window to ask me something... don't even know what it was I was so nervous. I told him not to talk to me until I came in again (if I came in again *~*). I tried many things to try and wash those windows... grabbing the window frame, getting on my knees which still left me too short to reach the top, everything I tried did not accomplish the desired outcome of getting those windows cleaned. Because I was on my bum, or knees, the water from the window was, of course, pouring down the roof underneath me. Finally I gave up, and in frustration moved my soaking wet behind, inch by inch, back to the open window. When I noticed Landen sitting there I said, "Child, with all the places you could have gone to read in this house why would you chose to sit right there?" I was testy by now, more mad with myself for not being brave enough to throw caution to the wind (no pun intended) and wash those windows. Landen said he just felt like being there. Guess what book he chose to read? "The Big Jump". That amused me and I sat on the roof laughing like an idiot - pants all wet, tied to the open window. I crawled back in the bedroom and stood there looking at the roof I had waited fourteen years for knowing I had been defeated by it's slope. All day I was mad at myself. I had to go out and when I came home I looked at that roof again and decided to conquer it! This time I stayed on my feet and side stepped over to the window then turned sideways and washed those two windows!!!! I still couldn't look at them face on but at least I could reach the top. It is not the best job I've ever done but I was quite thrilled to have accomplished the goal. I'm still scared but now I know I can do it. It definitely gives me a huge appreciation for roofers.

Almost a sad tail!

Well, I can't believe I haven't added anything here since May! Summer is busy usually - this year has been no exception.
Last week we woke up to a sick, lethargic dog. Hope didn't want to eat (first clue something was terribly wrong - she is a pig who swallows everything and anything offered without even tasting or chewing usually), she was bleary eyed, didn't want to come when called (second major clue as Hope LOVES attention!). She wasn't panting with tongue hanging out but was making rapid shallow puffing noises so we took a trip to the vet. O.K. I was seriously expecting we were going to lose her that day and was on the verge of tears most of the day (I love that dog! :'} ). The vet checked her out and did blood work and he still wasn't totally sure but figures she has some kind of lung infection. We brought her home with a course of antibiotics to take. I didn't sleep well that night and got up to check on her. She normally sleeps with Landen but she chose to sleep in the office. At 4 a.m. I got up to check on her somewhat expecting to find she had died. She hadn't... but she wasn't "well" either. By morning she was pretty chipper and in many ways like her healthy self. She is still on antibiotics and seems "normal" but my gut is telling me something still isn't quite right.
Gracie is well and much healthier than she was in December when we got her. Her main issue is that she has taken a "dislike" to Ben & Landen and barks and bristles at them more often than not. She seems fine with everyone else, even strangers. I know the boys have never done any harm to her but as boys they run around and make weird noises plus they don't always smell really good *~* but we can't figure out why she wants to eat them! She hasn't snapped at them but she will bark and growl. I don't know what to think. We may not be able to keep her. I went to camp for a week and all four of my guys were here at home and she seemed to be fine. When I came home she went back to barking again. Jealousy? Protective? It is a mystery to us. We are working on it!