As I explained above, I don’t like rainy days. I especially dislike thunderstorms, but even drizzly, gray days like today are a serious bummer for all of us. I don’t like getting my feet wiped with a towel, but at least I’m cooperative. When Doug says, “Give me a foot” I lift a foreleg so he can wipe it off with a towel. Then he asks for the other foreleg, and I give it to him. I make him lift the hind feet, but I try not to fight him: he’s going to win anyway.

Blondie has a different technique: she struggles. She fusses and refuses to cooperate and it can take quite a while to get her cleaned up. Especially since she likes to tromp through the mud. I avoid mud, stay to the grassy areas: my feet may get wet but I rarely get muddy.

Lancelot has a style all his own. When Doug picks up Lance’s first foot, he just flops over on his side, saying, “Here they are, all four of them, do what you will. I’m just happy to be able to come inside.” He’s a funny one, Lance is.

Cochise and Blondie were adopted years ago and are full time members of our family who live in our home. They are very good dogs. So good that we give them toys and chewies to occupy them when they are inside (and not sleeping). Blondie has a whole basket of them on the fireplace hearth. Cochise is welcome to make selections from it as well when he wants to but generally, he’s not too interested in anything he can’t eat. Blondie likes to chew, so we refer to it as Blondie’s toy basket.

When padawan learner dogs get enough Good Dog points, they begin coming into our house for visits. Then for over-nights. Then for whole weekends. If they do well, they are invited to move in and stay until their turn comes on the Rolling Rescue bus.

Lupa is our most recent house guest. She did very well and progressed quickly. Her only issue is that she likes to take all of the chewie toys out of the basket, one by one, and carry them to her blanket to chew them. All of them: leaving nothing for Blondie. Blondie is kind and patient (and we sneak one or two back for her when Lupa returns to the basket).

Marie decided to buy Lupa a chewie toy all her own. Maybe she would not be so fixated on Blondie’s toys if she had one of her own to keep in her crate or bring out and chew on her blanket.

Of course, that initiated … issues.

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We all occasionally hear stories about dogs that do amazing things to get help when their owner or a family member is in a serious fix. The TV series, Lassie, was filled with such rescues. So much so that “Timmy fell down the well” has become a colloquialism and occasional gag. But real-life instances do occur and are no joke. Here is one such story:

Cochise Calls Me Out to Get Help

It was a crisp but sunny November day. Blondie and Cochise were out in the fenced play yard. Cochise, being our Chief of Homeland Security often barks at something or other: wandering animals, loud cars, the horrible school bus monster. The UPS truck sends him into a frenzy, I have no idea why. I heard him barking but there was something different: the tone was not his normal “I’m going to get you” bark, it was more of an “Alert, alert” bark. And he was out back of the house, not over in the yard. I went to the bedroom to see what he was barking at. Maybe it was a deer in the woods or a turkey; both were plentiful that year.

I parted the curtains, expecting to see him barking up the mountain slope toward the woods that start about 50 feet behind the house. Instead he was facing the window, looking squarely at ME as he barked. The look in his eyes matched the tone of his bark… something was wrong. He had come to get help. I rushed out the back door. Cochise was peeking around the corner. When he saw me he turned and ran.

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A couple of days ago Blondie found and exploited a weakness in the new fence.  An oversight on the part of the installers combined with a steep downhill slope outside the fence created a place that Blondie could squeeze under the mesh and go A.W.O.L.

I saw her do it and went and told HairyFace.  We went looking for her with the truck.  We found her too.  Hairy opened the door and called, “Blondie!  Want to go for a ride?”  That always gets her, she loves riding.  And she started for the truck, then stopped and gave him a look: “Noooooo, this is a trick.  You’re going to take me home.  I’m not falling for it this time.”  And she ran off into the woods.  Nothing to do now but wait.

HairyFace found and fixed the place in the fence where she got out.

Eventually Blondie got tired and came home.

Now, when Hairy lets Blondie outside he watches her closely to see if there are any other places that interest her.  Our first run of each day is always before dawn.  Unlike us, Hairy can’t see well in the dark, especially when clouds hide the moon.  So he dug out one of the lights NiceLady bought for Drakes farewell party and clipped it to Blondie’s collar so he can see where she is and if she’s spending a lot of time in one place.

That works well and it makes Blondie feel special, with her little light winking and sparkling all around her feet.  I think I’ll start calling her ‘Tinkerbell’.

Me?  I have no desire to run away from home.  I know when I’ve got it good. Besides one troublesome child per family is enough.

(Are you reading this Hairy?  Since I never show up on the A.W.O.L. list, do I get extra treats?)

Video: Tinkerbell goes AWOL no more.

We all had a good play time this morning. I was running with The Boys: that made HairyFace happy. He wants me to do more running.

It’s part of my job to be Playground Monitor, so when they’d start getting too rowdy I’d come galloping by, practically side-swiping them, and get them to chase me. And they would. The three of us would run like a little freight train all over the place until one of them (usually Drake) got tired and lost interest. Then we’d all wander around panting for a while.

Smokey always got stoked up again first. That boy has tons of energy! Sometimes Drake would go lean against Hairy’s legs and say “Save me from him, I’m tired!” One time Drake and Smokey ganged up on me and wore me out so I had to go to HairyFace for salvation. That made him laugh, but he shooed them away.

I’m big and I’m powerful, and I’m faster than any of them, but I run out of steam sometimes. Because I came down with a thyroid condition, it’s been a long time since I’ve had the desire to run. Now that I’m on medication I feel much better and am ready to resume my duties. But I’m overweight. Running will take care of that.

Yesterday was not such a nice day as today. It was a windy day, but we managed to have some fun. anyway:

We had SO much fun in the new play yard.  I walked out into the yard.  Then I realized … there was no leash!  I took off like a shot and went steaming down the hill.  I thought I was free to bolt off into the woods. Imagine my surprise when this silver meshy thing was in my way! But it’s OK: we have so much room to run now that it’s almost as much fun as breaking loose and running off.

Cochise got sick over the winter.  He’s been going to see his doctor through the summer. He hasn’t been feeling well enough to run much. But now he’s better. He ran and ran in that wide open space.

Then we went inside for dinner. After dinner the big lug went to bed and CRASHED. He’s so tired. Don’t tell him, but so am I, but I prefer to stay close to Doug & Marie, I’ll crash when they go to bed too.

Marie and I are highly involved in the care and rehabilitation of rescue dogs. We foster for local animal shelters and rescues.

Cochise was our very first foster dog. We fell in love with him (who could say ‘no’ to that face?), and could not let him go. The Shelter calls this “foster failure”. It is failure because while it is a win for the dog (who gets a home), and a win for us personally (who get a great dog) it does diminish our foster care capacity by one, thus making us that much less useful or effective to the shelter and their foster care program. Although, in Cochise’s case, he more than makes up for that reduction by being a superb mentor and interpreter to the foster dogs.

One of the things that caused us to fall in love with Cochise is that he is a talking dog. Yes, that’s right; a talking dog. He does not speak English (French nor Spanish either, for that matter), but he is quite clear in expressing himself, and once we learned to listen to him, we communicate with each other quite well. We do not speak his language — when we try he does that head tilt thing then glares at us — but we don’t need to: he has learned enough of our words that he understands us well. In fact sometimes I think he can read my mind because I don’t need to even SAY the word “bath” and he’s trying to disappear somewhere.

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