The Memorial Day Pool Party

Posted on: May 27, 2019 by: Doug

Some time ago we bought a small pool for a foster who loved to cool off by sitting in water… her water bowl if nothing else was available!

Since it’s a warm holiday today I decided to pull that pool out of storage and see if any of our current fosters would like to avail themselves of a refreshing dip.

As you can see, so far only Lenny is interested in swimming, but the others may come around before he heads for Wisconsin next Saturday.

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Foster Dog Notes for May 27, 2019

Posted on: May 27, 2019 by: Doug

Little has changed in the past week.

Rocky

Rocky is doing better at leash walking, he is now consistently able to walk a full circumnavigation of the play yard without needing serious coaxing. He does tend to watch my hands and the treat bag all the time. But that’s okay.

Rocky is still keeping his kennel clean, preferring to poop in the yard. He will be transferring to another Steele Away Home foster for formal housebreaking early in June; once her foster dog has gone out on the rescue run.

Blaze

Blaze has lead the charge in munching down my berry bushes. I grow blueberries, blackberries, Boysenberries, black raspberries, and red raspberries. These grow in a berry patch in the play yard and have gone mostly unmolested by the dogs until now. Blaze decided that the ripe red raspberries were a refreshing snack, then he started on the others, and now is chewing on the unripe blueberries. Rocky and Sable are following his example. This is rather distressing since they are eating the bushes as well as the berries. These doggoes seem to think they’re GOATS!

Buddy Beagle Goes To the Drive-Through Cookie Store

Posted on: May 24, 2019 by: Doug

Blondie Bear and Callie get to go for a truck ride every week when I make the trash run. Lennon has been out with me a couple of times recently. But it’s been a while since Buddy got to go for a truck ride with me. It’s time he did. And I’m going to his favorite place!

I do carry bottled water and a small dish in the truck so a rider-dog can have a drink on a longer ride or a hot day. Today wasn’t especially hot and the ride wasn’t but about 30 minutes all total, so I didn’t look for a place to pull off and break out the drinking gear, we just went home. Buddy was fine with that, especially since he got to let the other dogs smell his cookie breath and be jealous!

Foster dog notes for May 18th, 2019

Posted on: May 18, 2019 by: Doug Comments: 1 Comment

Lennon has been accepted by Lucky Dog Rescue in Wisconsin. He will be leaving us on June 1st. I got a preview of how that’s going to go over yesterday: I took Lennon on a trash run. When we got back, he decided to stay in the yard while I went inside. Blondie and Josephine mistook the situation:

Sable

Our wild child is learning self-control, and that when she does control herself (not jumping up on me and grabbing at my arms or hands with her teeth) she gets petted and belly rubs. When she gets demanding, she does not. If she insists on being demanding, she goes back to her kennel and that play time is over. She’s got a ways to go, but she’s learning.

Cutting the Cost of Heartworm Prevention

Posted on: May 18, 2019 by: Doug Comments: 3 Comments

Originally published in a magazine July 14, 2015

Heartworms are a serious threat to dogs. The heartworm larvae are carried and transmitted by mosquitoes: mosquitoes are everywhere, even in our home at times. Keeping your dog from being bitten by a mosquito is almost impossible, therefore heartworm prevention is important to keep the heartworm larvae from developing in your dog’s blood stream.

Heartworm prevention medications can be pricey since they need to be given every month, year round. One very popular brand is Heartguard: a chewable treat for your dog. It is reliable and well liked by veterinarians and dogs alike. Pet Armor is the same formula but is less expensive. If that is still too much for your budget, there is another option.

The Pop-up Thunderstorm

Posted on: May 17, 2019 by: Doug Comments: 2 Comments

We had a pop-up thunderstorm roll in this morning as we were getting our day started. It gave advance notice in the form of continuous, distant thunder so I dashed out to feed The Brown Dog Gang and let them run in the yard to relieve themselves before it arrived. Lennon and Blondie went with me to help. The rain started just as we were finishing up and getting them back into their kennels.

Blondie trotted up toward the house with her ears down on the sides of her head (her Yoda face) muttering, “It’s raining, it’s raining, I don’t like the rain. I need to be inside.”

While Marie fixed breakfast, Buddy Beagle cowered in his bunker. He still barked at the thunder — until we had a close lightning strike with it’s BIG boomer that rattled the house and the power blinked. Then Buddy admitted defeat and was quiet: curled up in the back of his crate until the storm passed.

Josie hid too. In her own way. She tried to wiggle in behind the chair, but it had been pushed back to make more room for crates. She often goes and hides under my desk, but this morning she preferred to be where the Peoples were, so she made do with this corner.

Silent Nights

Posted on: May 15, 2019 by: Doug Comments: 1 Comment

When our current gang of foster dogs arrived, the nights were not silent. Definitely not silent! Rocky and Blaze were vocal day and night. They barked at anything they could see or hear moving around, they barked at other dogs on the mountain, even quite distant dogs, who were barking at something or just being conversational.

Their first few nights here were exhausting for I had to keep going outside to sit near their kennel to convince them to not bark — and awake our neighbors. Thank God it was spring, and warm enough I didn’t freeze out there!

After a few nights they caught on and were far less vocal at night. And that trend has only improved since.

Making and Installing Top Netting

Posted on: May 7, 2019 by: Doug

Today I’m making up and installing top nets on kennels #1 and #2. Kennel #3 is already done, but because I was up against a deadline (inbound dog) I rushed that one and it’s not done as neatly as these are coming out. But it does serve the purpose of keeping (escape artist) Sable in her kennel. She has been up standing on top of her dog house to get a closer look at that net, but she hasn’t found a weakness yet

To keep things from falling apart should a weld break while I’m installing the net, I secure the end strands of wire. When I cut the fencing, I cut down the middle between vertical strands so I have tails to work with. Most of these I just fold over to hold things together, but the two at the end corners, I wrap around tightly to hold that joint together if that weld fails.

With two 10 foot runs of fencing cut and ends wrapped, I lay them side by side. Each run of fencing is 4 feet high (wide) so together they just cover the 8 foot wide kennels.

I stitch the runs of fencing together with 3/8″ hog rings. I install one every third juncture, and I install them diagonally – alternating directions of the diagonals so as a whole, the sheet of fencing is locked together and the two pieces cannot slide past one another.

Grave Digger

Posted on: May 2, 2019 by: Doug

Today I continued my task of digging a grave. A grave for a snake. A big snake: the infamous Drainaconda! But I wasn’t working alone, oh no, I had plenty of “help”.

We didn’t all show up at one time. My crew straggled in one or two at a time, beginning with Callie and Lennon, who wandered over to see what I was doing as I was setting things up and positioning the wagon for dirt hauling.

When I started digging, Sable stood and watched me for the longest time! I’m not sure if she was impressed by my digging prowess or amazed by the mess I was making.

Breaking Brotherly Bonds

Posted on: May 1, 2019 by: Doug Comments: 1 Comment

Blaze and Rocky are bonded siblings: two of 6 puppies that were surrendered with their mother to Animal Control. The others were all taken away as they were adopted, leaving just these two, clinging to each other for moral support in a scary environment.

When I pulled them from Newport Animal Control, Blaze (the bigger one) tended to cower behind his brother, who would bark fiercely at anyone who stopped at their kennel door. They were so unruly they had to be carried out to my truck because they would NOT walk on a leash.

Since coming to Piney Mountain Foster they have remained quite close, but not so fearful. They’d still sleep in a pile, and they love to play together in our big yard. But Rocky has been nowhere near as protective, and Blaze has started to develop a will of his own.

For example, The wind brought down a good sized Y shaped stick from one of the trees. Blaze found it and declared it his most favorite thing in the world. He’d run around waving it, and lie in the grass gently chewing on it. Rocky came over and grabbed hold of it, intending to take it away. Blaze was having none of that! They growled at each other threateningly and had a tug-of-war. Blaze is a quiet fellow, Rocky tends to yap. So Blaze waited until Rocky yapped at his brother to demand the stick and Blaze jerked it from Rocky’s mouth and ran off with it. I’m sure he was laughing! He’s quiet, but he’s not dumb.