Keeshond therapy dog

Here's a story about a rescued Keeshond who is now a therapy dog.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/05/18/3288920/new-life-for-unwanted-dog-helps.html

We keep thinking Bosley would make a great therapy dog if we ever took the time to send him through the training. He's a natural. You should see him at Village Creek Bible Camp. He wants to visit with each and every child there.

Pawprint

I opened a letter from our vet's office while at the post office while talking with my fellow dog-lover and friend Deb the Postmistress, and when I took this from the envelope, we both burst into tears. It's a print from Bo's paw, taken after his death.

They meant it kindly, but it was just a shock. I wasn't expecting it. I'm glad to have it, but it was hard to see it nonetheless. They took it after I left the vet's office that day. Hard to think about them taking it after he was dead.

Cute haircut, obscured by cat

I wanted to take a picture of Lil Miss A's adorable new haircut (she got about 6 inches cut off), but she insisted on holding bad Beckham during the pictures, and he did not cooperate at ALL.

Cute Kitty Story

Yesterday I was transcribing a report on a very sick little baby, one of those that grabs your heart and runs it through a clothes wringer, the ones where you just have to stop and pray for the patient before going on. At some point I murmured to myself, "Oh, Baby," as the story unfolded. And I heard Beckham coming from somewhere in the house saying, "Mrow? Mrow?" He came in the office. "Mrow?" Jumped on my lap. "Mrow?" Looked earnestly into my face. "Mrow?" I didn't realize he associated "baby" with himself, but evidently he does.

I also would not have guessed he could be bothered to come check out why I called him, as normally he doesn't think it's worth his while.

Chicken Walker of the North Woods

With apologies to Lynn Rogers of Bear Walker fame, here are my Girls enjoying a sunny, unseasonably summery late May day in the yard.

That's a who-me expression if ever I saw one. As in, "I would NEVER tear up Daddy's hosta bed. No way, no how."

 And here's my favorite, sweet little Eowyn. Eowyn raised all the rest of the birds, though none of them are from her eggs. She's gentle, cuddly and cute. She also crows.  She's getting kind of old and her hormones are out of whack, and besides, SOMEBODY'S got to be the rooster, right? I think she still lays an egg now and then, but it's been a long time since she went broody, and she crows, though not very well.

Mole holes? Nope - pocket gophers.

I thought the bazillion holes in our lawn were from moles, but then I spotted one of the culprits, and he's a pocket gopher. He was absolutely adorable! K wanted to catch him and make him into a pet. He's just a little bit bigger than a field mouse, but with this big head, and so round.

I am still not crazy about the holes but he's too adorable to trap or poison. Look at that fuzzy head. *smooch*

Bo vs. the Coyotes

SCENE: Our house, 1:00 a.m.

COYOTES:  Yip yip yip! Arooooooo! Yip!

BO:  BARK BARK BARK! BARK BARK BARKBARKBARKBARKBARBARRRGGGRRRRR! BARK!

As proof that Bo is very scary, we offer the fact that there are no coyotes in town this morning. I'm sure they are cowering in fear down in the wetlands, thanks to the nocturnal efforts of Bo. Thanks heaps, Bo.

Jayne, The Cat They Call Jayne

Funny little bird

Two Mighty Hunters

You may not think they look very vicious, but these guys are mighty mouse hunters. Mouse, singular.

Beckham raced through the nativity scene Tuesday, sending porcelain figures flying. He is in disgrace. But he and Briggs ACTUALLY CAUGHT A MOUSE this morning. So they are partially redeemed. It's not a house mouse, it looks like a field mouse, and they caught it way off guard or they could never have nailed it. I still don't know how they managed it. They were sniffing at the bottom of the kitchen door, and then I opened the door to put something on the porch and the mouse must have run in when I did, because when I came back in again, they had him and were slinging him back and forth across the kitchen floor with their paws like a hockey puck. They have no front claws, either of them. I felt bad for the mouse.

Baby Bunnies

Master K was working on one of his mowing jobs here in town when he mowed right over a rabbit's nest and scared himself badly until he realized that all the baby rabbits were okay. It was close, though; they were outgrowing the nest and their little ears were awfully close to the blades, and if they hadn't been being good little bunnies and obeying their mama and holding very, very still, it would have been tragic. There are three bunnies in the photos, though they are very well camouflaged. That's K's hand in the second photo so you can get some scale.

The lady whose lawn it was wanted K to take the bunnies somewhere (anywhere) else, but I wouldn't let him make pets out of them, and we decided to just pray for them and leave them there.

And on a lighter note:

A bird report.

Last night I heard my first whippoorwill. It was late at night, Barry and I were lying wide awake in bed thinking about teenaged drivers, deductibles, funerals averted, and such, when we heard this weird call. Barry said, "I haven't heard a whippoorwill since I lived in Pennsylvania." I said, "That's a whippoorwill?" He put on quite a concert for us, calling over and over. Or maybe he thought it was singing. Barry says he has never seen one, only heard them.

My dad called yesterday afternoon to say that they had a wild turkey show up in their yard in suburban Roseville, Minnesota!

And The Grackle Family are dealing with teenager issues. I can so relate. Teenaged Grackles are just as big as their parents, yet they still follow them around, whining in cracking teenager voices to be fed. The dad gets tired of it and pecks them on the head every once in a while, but the mother patiently stuffs food down these giant throats all the time. Poor thing. In our family, Barry is the food-stuffer and I am the one who wants to bite the children's heads off.

* Note: These are just bird pictures I pulled off the web. I didn't take them myself.

Meet Sassy!

This adorable little kitten was adopted by our neighbors Mark and Kathleen after they found her, dehydrated and overheated, in Mark's automotive garage last week. She bounced back with fluids and love, and has settled into her loving new home. She purrs pretty much every moment she is awake!



While I was taking pictures of Miss Sassy I also sneaked pictures of these lovely lilies in their yard.

Tiger cub!

Britta went to a friend's house the other night and then called to see if she could please bring home an adorable baby kitten she had fallen love with. I said no. No. NO. NOOOOO.

The next day she went up to the Onalaska (Wisconsin) mall where there was a display of exotic animals from a shelter that rescues former exotic pets that become too much for their owners and are surrendered. She was not sure what organization it was, though when I mentioned Tippi Hendren's name, she thought that sounded familiar. Anyway, she donated $25 and received the privilege of actually playing with and cuddling a week-old tiger cub for a few minutes!

She tried to talk them into letting her take Sasha home, but to no avail.

The other arms in the pictures are Britta's friend Melissa and the trainer/handler.

They call me a Grackle because I say GRAAAK!! all the time

This little feller fell out of the nest a few days early. I thought he was all alone out in the back yard. He stood quietly still for a picture, until I crossed some invisible line and got just a bit too close, at which point he hollered "GRAAAAAK!" and his parents appeared out of nowhere to chase me away.

He cannot fly yet. His parents are both fluttering around him and caring for him. Their strategy appears to be to stuff him so full of food that he grows really fast and learns to fly early. It seems to be working. He has lasted at least 24 hours out there now on the ground.

I hope you will admire my fortitude...

... and not hate me for my lack of pity.

Yesterday when I went to pick up the mail, Animal Lover Rita stopped me on the street and asked if I wanted a kitten. I steeled myself instantly. Sure enough, it was a very, very sad tale: While out on one of her power walks, Animal Lover Rita had heard pitiful meowing coming from a wood pile. She called and searched but could not find the meower. The next day, she heard it again, and asked the owner of the woodpile if she could search it, and finally found a tiny, tiny kitten abandoned and trapped behind the pile. She took it to her daughter's house and they tried feeding it milk with an eye dropper, since it was too tiny to lap milk, and then then called a vet tech friend of theirs who told them it needed cat milk replacer, not cow's milk, or it would get scour and die.

Animal Lover Rita is just about at her wit's end over this little mite. I'm so glad she didn't have it with her; if I had seen it, that probably would have been the end of my resolve. But I am not volunteering to eye dropper feed a tiny, starving kitten. Is that terrible?

Yellow-Headed Blackbird

One of these guys was busily attacking a grackle in the yard just now.

Bird Watching

I have temporarily moved my work computer to next to the window of my office, where I can look out on the ponds, which have been discovered big time by birds this year. I keep seeing gorgeous birds that look unfamiliar to me, only to learn that they are the 3rd most common bird in the area, or something. Oh well, I still enjoy them.

Here's an example. Barry and I spotted a gorgeous little brownish bird with a striking black and white striped cap.  He was busily eating our grass seed from the bare spot we are trying to get greened up again (from the geothermal wells).  Turns out he's so common, most birders don't even bother to write him down. But he was charming. Except for the grass seed part.

A few days ago we saw a pair of these:  They are rose-breasted grosbeaks. Again, I got all excited, even though it turns out they are dime-a-dozen birds.

Our ponds are attracting so much spring bird life that I am getting quite an education in birdie sex. It's pretty steamy out there at times. I had to laugh when I saw what I thought was some kind of smallish pigeon, doing a dance; turns out it was just a grackle, puffed up so huge that he was at least twice the size as the lady grackle he was dancing for! She was less impressed than I was. The male robins are still fighting like little roosters, all claws and flapping feathers.  There's a pair of mourning doves who are quite mellow in comparison. Everybody likes to take birdbaths where the waterfall comes down over the rocks and they can splash without danger of getting in too deep.

A hawk discovered our little birdie Eden a few days ago and murdered one of the birds. I didn't see which one it was, but the hawk sat right down on the grass next to the pond and tore it to shreds. I raced out there and it flew away with most of the bird, leaving a few parts. I was afraid the hawk would be back, seeing as the pickings were so easy here, but he hasn't returned that I have seen. I know hawks have to eat, too, but not MY birds, if you please! I tried to identify the hawk but could not find anything that looked just like it. It was mostly brown, with lighter colors underneath but not white, just sort of buff. I was mostly looking at the victim rather than the culprit, so I am not probably describing him (or her) right.

I am obviously no birder, and I know what a robin is, and that's about the extent of my bird identification skills. But I have found that if you put "brown bird with black and white striped head" into Google, within a couple of hits you will ID your bird. Pretty neat.

Bo: A bargain at twice the price

I just figured out what Bo costs us in dog food. We order it in 33-pound sacks from dogfooddirect.com. We're on a schedule of a sack of Eagle Pack Premium Adult Formula about every 4 months, making Bo's food costs a mere 34 cents a day.

What a bargain! Where else can you get that much love and loyalty for such a great price?

Gary, a fine guinea pig

I just put Gary to sleep. She was a wonderful pet and very sweet. She lived longer than most guinea pigs and was loved very much by all of us for her sweetness, her calm temperament, her funny ways, her energy, her friendliness. Gary had been slowing down quite a bit over the past few weeks and then got much worse last night. I debated most of the morning on letting her linger and finally decided that I needed to have the guts to love her to the end of her little life, and I put her to sleep with ether. She just went to sleep and will not wake up.

I'm thankful for sweet pets. It never seems fair that they live such short lives compared to our own.