It was a couple of nights before Tinker got his HW treatment. NiceLady was looking for Tinker. He was not in his usual spot in the hallway. She checked the snuggle beds in the bedroom, she checked in the den, she checked the futon beds in the picture box watching room, she checked the blankets around the eating table.
No Tinker.
She turned on a lamp … there he was! Too well camouflaged to see in the semi-dark.
In our house we have a “no dogs on the people furniture” rule. It’s only fair: they have a sofa, a chair and a bed. We have like 6 snuggle beds and an assortment of blankets scattered around the house.
But earlier that evening Tinker had been playing with the squeakasaurus:
We hit our high temp for the day (38°) at 5:30 a.m. – it’s gonna be THAT kind of day today. But it IS December, so we have to expect a few of those now and then. The weather guessers are saying that tomorrow night we could get down in the teens, so I’m going to spend some time shutting off outside water and draining hoses. Then we have to find a way to pack 6 large dogs into our small house for a night or two to ride out the cold snap.
For those who don’t know, Marie and I are engaged in canine rescue and fostering. We have fenced in a large (1/3 acre) play yard and have two 10’ x 10’ pens with roofs, pea gravel floors and igloo style dog houses. We have adopted two of our foster dogs, Blondie Bear and Cochise, who serve as mentors to the other foster dogs. At the moment we have another 4 fosters ranging from 50-ish pounds to around 80 pounds. The two biggest fosters (80 lbs: Gator and Vega) are residing in the outdoor kennels. Tinker is a full-fledged house dog, Jasmine is in training and doing well. Our latest addition is Vega.
This is a foster dog diary post. Updates will be added to the end of this post rather than posted as a myriad of individual posts. That keeps all updates on Gator in one place and in chronological order.
The last update was posted: March 28, 2017 (photo gallery)
Being a Staffie, Gator needs a lot of attention and affection. He is happy to give the same, as well. He apparently wasn’t getting that where he was living and be broke out of his fencing and went adventuring.
NOTE: This post is about one of our foster dogs. This is an experiment. I’ll open up with introduction info, then as new information and adventures become available I will ADD THAT TO THE END OF THIS POST rather than putting up new posts for each adventure. The goal is to keep all of the pertinent info on this dog in one place and in chronological order. That is advantageous to rescues or potential adoptive families who come to learn about this dog. Each time I add new info I’ll change the date below so you know if it’s worth scrolling down to look for new info. Thanks!
Date last updated: Jan 4, 2017
Jasmine is a Chocolate (Lab) Husky with blue-grey eyes and gorgeous, exotic coloring. She is full of personality and affectionate, but at the same time so skittish of people we have to be very careful around her. Loud noises spook her. Sudden movements spook her. Reaching out to her spooks her.
She is friendly and open with all the other dogs and likes to play. It’s just people she’s scared of.
Jasmine’s Background
All we know of her is that she was owned by a young woman (local) who either joined the military or was in the military and was assigned to an 8 year tour of duty in Japan, and Jasmine could not go with her.
This is a foster dog diary post. Here we’ve collected glimpses of Tinker’s life with us in one place to show what you could expect if you adopt Tinker.
Last updated: February 3, 2017
Tinker Steele is a Golden Retriever / Husky mix. He is around 7 years old and weighs 75 pounds. He gets along well with all our dogs and everyone he’s met. He is fully house broken, knows his basic commands, and is affectionate, but rarely demanding. He’s not fond of high activity. Oh, and … he LOVES squeaker toys.
Jasper and Blondie are sitting together, enjoying a pleasant July afternoon at the cabin.
Talking, relaxing and being friends.Jasper begins whispering sweet nothings in Blondie’s ear. Blondie does not rebuff him.Feeling bold, Jasper sneaks a quick lick on the jaw.Surprised by the move, Blondie simply blushes … and smiles. Self-satisfied, Jasper acts nonchalant.
They sit quietly for a while, then Jasper decides to show her how dogly he is by trotting off to patrol the fences and be sure their play space is secure. Blondie just smiles: Jasper can be sweet when he wants to.
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What do you do when you have a hoofie: you love hoofies.
You want to chew the hoofie.
You’ve been told NO hoofie chewing on the carpet.
The carpeted room is the only cool room (window AC) in the house.
You like laying on carpet.
You want to be in the cool air.
But you also want to chew the hoofie … . . What to do, what to do?
.
.
Clever girl!
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A while back, Nicelady bought us a Coolaroo. That’s an outside dog bed: one that can be left out in the weather because there is no padding to get wet just a trampoline-like hammock supported by a steel frame that allows air to flow under. We all love it! Jasper loves it too and spends a good part of his play time clowning around on it.
Lining up for our turns on the Coolaroo
Jasper has proven (mostly) non-destructive and NiceLady decided, since it’s getting hot, Jasper should have a Coolaroo in his pen to keep him comfy between play times. So she made that happen.
One of the great things about dogs is the way the dogs welcome us home. It’s always a celebration. It makes us feel great to know someone is so happy to see us again — even though we may have been gone only an hour.
I cannot speak about goats, horses, cows, sheep, pigs, lemurs, guinea pigs, rabbits, or ducks – I’ve never had those as pets. I had cats once, and for the most part their reaction to our return was, “Oh, were you gone? When are you going to feed me?”
When the dogs welcome us home, it is always with enthusiastic glee.
Even though it is Christmas day, HairyFace returned to his habit of getting up at 4:00 AM and studying. He has been forgoing that so Roger would not get all riled up, thrash about in his crate and wake up the whole household. Roger has been calming down, so we thought we’d give it a try today. I always get up when HairyFace does. Well, almost always.
Roger did VERY well! He did wake and stand up as we came down the hall, but when HairyFace bypassed his crate with just a “Good morning, Roger!” he laid back down and napped some more. He stayed quiet until NiceLady and Blondie joined us and HairyFace started breakfast: poached eggs, ham and fried taters – from our garden. Yumm! I like all those things.
HairyFace and NiceLady always give us Christmas gifts. This year HairyFace decided to wrap them so we could join in the fun of opening presents. We found that a little … confusing.
After a while of chewing hoofies, Blondie and I swapped: just to make sure what she got wasn’t better than mine and what I got wasn’t better than hers. Once we were satisfied as to the overall equity of our gifts we swapped back.
Roger worked on his steadily for a quite a while, then had to take a break to let his jaws cool off. He napped for a bit, went outside with NiceLady for a relief break, then went back to chewing.
When I got tired of chewing, I decided to go be a Christmas gift, now that there is room under the tree. We’ll skip that wrapping paper though, if you don’t mind!
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In our house we have a “no dogs on the people furniture” rule. It’s only fair: they have a sofa, a chair and a bed. We have like 6 snuggle beds and an assortment of blankets scattered around the house.
