Every Saturday morning, Blondie and I accompany HairyFace on the weekly trash run to the Convenience Center to dispose of recyclables and household rubbish. It’s something we always look forward to and get excited about. Volt has not been able to go with us because there is only so much room inside the little extended cab S10 pickup that Hairy uses to haul trash (and dogs). NiceLady tries to distract him with a treat and attention as we load up and pull out, but Volt often cries and bays his disappointment. When we get back, he meets Hairy at the door and prances around, “My turn, my turn, take me for a ride now.” Sometimes Hairy has business in town and will take Volt with him as he heads that direction.
There is a buffer zone between our “yard” and the tree line above the yard. HairyFace calls that buffer zone ‘Copperhead Country’ because he is more likely to encounter Copperheads (and other snakes) here than anywhere else; other than up in the virgin forest. This area is sloping, has a few scattered trees, the ground is covered with dead leaves (Copperheads like dead leaves because their coloring provides the perfect camouflage), and fallen branches. The ground is littered with big rocks, boulders and outcroppings. All make a great playground for snakes.
One afternoon HairyFace announced that he was headed up into Copperhead Country to do some bush-whacking. That’s like weed whacking, but includes saplings and honeysuckle vines along with large weeds. I told him he needed to stay as far away from snakes as possible. I was once bitten, repeatedly, by a Copperhead and spend a day in the doggy hospital and many weeks of recovery. It’s not fun, it is best to just stay away from them!
NiceLady bought us an outdoor dog bed called a Coolaroo. It’s kind of like a miniature trampoline except without the springs. We all like it.
This morning HairyFace went out to exercise Jasper. Jasper is a foster dog who is here for Behavior Modification: he was pretty wild. He’s doing better. He has been a total jerk toward Blondie Bear, though. She invites him to play, but he just wants to mount her. He has been neutered, but I guess old habits die hard for some. Blondie tells him off and gives him the cold shoulder for the rest of that session. As usual, Blondie went with HairyFace to work with Jasper … she keeps hoping …
Jasper REALLY wanted to come out and play.
HairyFace puts Jasper on a tether. Sometimes the other end of the tether is fastened to a tree, at least while Hairy has to focus on cleaning out the pen and getting him fresh water. When its play time, Hairy holds the loose end and they can walk around the yard together: it’s now a 20 foot leash and Jasper has some freedom to bound and run. If Blondie is in the house (or if Jasper does not know Blondie is in the yard because she’s hiding) Hairy lets Jasper drag the tether around behind him. Jasper can easily scale our 5 foot perimeter fence, but while he’s dragging the tether he “thinks” he’s dragging something around that would keep him grounded.
Today, when HairyFace finished cleaning the pen, he found Jasper on the Coolaroo with Blondie.
Blondie seemed to be okay with that too. That’s a first!
Since they were getting along so well, Hairy decided to proceed with a yard clean-up. When that was done he went to see if Jasper was interested in playing ball or going for a walk. But jasper had sniffed out Hairy’s treat hiding place atop the lumber pile and was doing his best to climb up and snatch the cookie. He could not be dissuaded and got rowdy when Hairy tried to redirect him into playing ball, so Hairy put him back in his pen and gave him the cookie.
Then he let Volt and me out.
Jasper and I don’t have any issues. I don’t play with him because I don’t like rough-n-tumble play. I like to run. So HairyFace keeps me inside while Jasper comes out to play. But I can walk past his pen or stop by to say hello and there is no friction between us.
Not so with Jasper and Volt. Volt is fine. Volt will stand up to Jasper if Jas gets mouthy, but he never initiates a disagreement. He does, however, come around in hopes of stealing some of Jasper’s food if he’s outside when Hairy feeds Jasper. So Jasper has flagged Volt as a threat and gets nasty any time Volt comes near. So we make sure they remain separated.
I took up position on the Coolaroo. I am The Big Dog, that is my right.
Blondie and Volt lined up to wait their turn.
It was a nice morning and I had every intention of being here for a good long time. It’s going to rain later, and Hairy was working hard to get all his gardening, mowing, and trimming done before the rain moved in. So if we were going to be cooped up inside later, I wanted to lounge in the fresh air for a bit.
Volt was getting pretty insistent about getting a turn too. He wasn’t rude, just asking, “Cochise, when do I get a turn? I’d really like to have a turn too.” But he kept after me: kinda pesky-like, you know?
It was about time for my morning bowel movement So I decided to give the Coolaroo over to Volt and went off to search out the perfect place to do my business.
HairyFace was working in the garden. Blondie decided to go watch him. When she got there she spotted a pair of butterflies doing some sort of areal dance (or perhaps battling one another, with butterflies it’s hard to tell). For a good while they were just inches the other side of the fence and Blondie stood and watched, mesmerized.
By the time Hairy noticed all this and got out his camera, the performance was about over … and it started to sprinkle.
Blondie decided to take shelter in the barn. A few sprinkles don’t bother her much, but it felt like it could become more, so she was playing it safe. I went up on the back porch and started calling Hairy to come let me in. I do NOT like sprinkles. Volt came with me. HairyFace did not: he kept working even though it was sprinkling.
I kept calling – getting more insistent. Volt left.
May I join you, Blondie?
Turns out he joined Blondie in the barn. At least it was dry in there. They watched as Hairy performed his mystical ministrations with snippers and zip ties.
When Hairy finished up in the garden he came up to the house.
Blondie stayed out in the barn. The sprinkles stopped after a few minutes and Blondie went out on patrol.
Things had barely gotten wet so HairyFace went back out to do his mowing. Volt and I elected to stay indoors and guard the house against thieves and fiends. Someone has to do it!
Blondie took up position on the Coolaroo and supervised Hairy’s yard work. Jasper got excited by the mower and began running vertical laps in his pen (it’s amazing how he can do that!), and Hairy spent a few hours tending to the lawn.
He got all the mowing and trimming done (at least what he planned to do today, there is always more) and got Jasper out again for his afternoon play session … but he was all revved up and that was not going well, so he went back in quickly.
Then it started raining for real, so HairyFace and Blondie joined Volt and me in the house. I’m guessing no one will be lounging on the Coolaroo this evening. Oh, well … there’s always tomorrow.
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Pretty much all night. It was a gentle rain, nothing damaging, nothing scary: no thunder or lightning or high winds. Just a nice, gentle soaking. HairyFace says that’s a good thing: it helps the vegetable garden, and the grass, and NiceLady’s flowers. That may be … but it also makes everything all wet.
Just after dawn the rain stopped and HairyFace took Jasper’s breakfast to him.
The mists were rising. Jasper was curled up in his igloo, snug as a bug. He poked his head out as HairyFace approached, Hairy caught him napping. When he saw Hairy he stretched and came to the door of his pen to get his dish. He ate and went back to his igloo. The roof offers some protection from rain, the igloo offers more.
As HairyFace came in, Volt went outside and took care of his business. Blondie and I discussed the situation.
If we all go outside to take care of our needs and come back, we all get a small chew stick before breakfast. That would be good: we like “sticks”. But because it’s wet outside, it also means that HairyFace will accost us with a towel when we come back in. We don’t like having our paws dried. We decided to pass on the sticks and just stay put for a while. Maybe it will dry out.
Volt got a small treat, but not a stick. That disappointed him, but it was still more than we got, so he was kind of smug about that.
After breakfast, it started raining again. We missed the window of opportunity. I could hold it for a while, Blondie Bear was getting antsy.
We were all in the den with Hairy. He was doing that button-pushing thing that he does on the fold-up picture box he has. He calls it a lap-top. Whatever that is, he seems fascinated with it, because he spends a lot of time tapping on the button thingies.
Blondie went to the window several times. It was open a crack and she could tell it was still raining just a little. She whimpered, “I need to ‘go’ Cochise…”
“Then go out and go.”
“But it’s raining.”
“Yep, it is.”
“You’re horrible.”
She went and laid down again next to Hairy.
Then someone’s car alarm went off. That got all of us revved up enough that we forgot all about the wetness and went outside to bark at the noise. It was barely raining then and we all stayed out to do what needed doing.
Volt went back first. It was about lunch time and he didn’t want to risk missing that.
Normally at lunch we each get a large dog cookie. But because we’re trying to fatten Volt up a bit, HairyFace gives him ½ cup of kibble for lunch instead. So he got that for Volt and put him in his room (crate) to eat.
I heard the kibbles being dished up and came in. I rushed past HairyFace as soon as he opened the door. He did not come after me with a towel. He did close the doors to the carpeted rooms, and gave me my cookie while I sat on a dog bed in the living room. My paws were clean, just wet.
Blondie was wandering around out in the yard. She often takes her lunch outside because she prefers to be outside on nice days. This time she wasn’t wandering because it was a nice day, but because she didn’t want to face having her paws dried: it tickles. HairyFace took her cookie outside and handed it too her, “Here ya go, girl, you may eat outside if you prefer.”
Blondie took the cookie and galloped up the pathway toward the back door. HairyFace laughed and followed. When he caught up to her, she was standing at the back door with her cookie sticking out the front of her mouth like a brown tongue, huffing, “Eat outside? Are you nuts? It’s WET out here.”
Hairy opened the door and she bolted through before he could grab her to dry her paws.
She took the other picture box watching room dog bed and hid behind the rolly-foot-chair while she ate. She continued to peek out at Hairy, sure he could not see her, wary for the approach of a towel. No towel came.
Eventually we all relaxed again and continued our rainy day activities. Mostly that involves sleeping while HairyFace makes soft tap-tap-tap-tap sounds on his button thingie. It’s kind of soothing, really. He says it helps him earn dog treat money. If that’s what he’s doing, I say he should keep at it and it’s much easier to sleep through than vacuuming or lawn mowing. Not that he’d be doing any lawn mowing on a rainy day like this, but vacuuming could be a threat. It’s better that he just sits there tap-tap-taping.
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On most Saturdays, HairyFace makes a trash run to the local convenience center – that’s a place where trash dumpsters hang-out. Blondie and I always go with him. That’s a law! Or it should be. Volt always wants to go along, but there’s just not enough room for three big dogs (and Hairy) inside our truck, so he gets left at home with NiceLady.
But, today: after the trash run, teh Peoples left US at home and took Volt on a truck ride all his own. And it wasn’t even to a vet appointment!
Our Peoples are into NASCAR racing. They used to go away and watch a race live once in a while, but we convinced them that they need to stay here with us and watch it on the picture box instead.
We like racing nights too – because on racing nights we get special chew treats after dinner. But once the chewies are gone, we tend to settle in and nap through the race. But this time was kind of special. Let me explain.
This race was at the track at Bristol, which is the NASCAR track closest to our home. Our Peoples have actually been to the track at least twice, but not when a race was running. So that makes the race interesting, but what was more is that Carl Edwards, one of our favorite drivers, did well in practice and qualifying. This could be a great day for him.
HairyFace recorded the race elsewhere and we watched it that evening on DVD. As the race got under way we had our dinner and treats. Volt and Blondie were pretty excited about the race, so they did their yard watching from inside the house so they would not miss any action on either front. Only once did anything require direct intervention (meaning we went outside to bark at it) and that trip was kept short.
Volt is new to NASCAR racing and doesn’t pull for any driver in particular, so he’s what we call a casual fan, just enjoying the racing action. This is easier to do if HairyFace keeps the sound down a bit. Roaring engines can be annoying to those of us with super-sensitive ears.
Blondie was happy about Carl leading the race, so she stayed alert and smiling. She’d like to see him win a race again because he does something unique to celebrate when he does.
Volt stayed pretty mellow except when Kyle Bush crashed out. Kyle didn’t get hurt or anything – that would be bad, we don’t want anyone to get hurt – but Wylie Kylie is not a NASCAR favorite in this house. So the report of that crash got Volt’s attention up and tail wagging. once they moved beyond that incident he settled back into casual monitoring mode.
Me? Meh! Noisy cars driving in circles … I’d rather nap. If I could chase them, that would be different.
As the evening wore on, Volt drifted off to sleep. Blondie was fighting hard to stay awake and see her hero win a race. It has been a while.
.
She did come back out when the race was over to watch Carl do his thing.
Then she went right back to bed and waited for HairyFace, Marie, and Volt to button up and get ready for bed.
Volt is still taking Prednisone so to get through the night he has to go outside and make like a firetruck before he settles in to sleep. The Peoples close up the house while he’s outside. Sometimes Blondie goes out with him, because she likes being outside in the dark. But not tonight:
When Volt came in and went to bed we got our bedtime cookies (for settling into our proper beds and getting ready to sleep). Hairy and Lady sat in bed and read for a while, then it was lights out.
It was a good Sunday. We had beautiful weather. We got to spend more time with NiceLady than on weekdays. We got racing treats, and Carl won a race. We could all drift off to sleep, content.
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Jasper got out of his pen and ran off. He was gone about 4 hours. HairyFace went out to track him down (on foot). That was doomed to failure, but Jasper did get returned safely. This story has a happy ending, let’s state that right up front.
Hairy wasn’t sure how he got out, but knew he didn’t tunnel out and the door was still securely latched so he didn’t jimmy that. But he can do this:
So we suspected he managed to get up and squeeze through the mesh HairyFace created with cabling across the gable ends of the dog pen roof. We were warned that Jasper was an acrobat and HairyFace took precautions. Just not enough precautions, apparently.
Hunting Jasper
When HairyFace was getting ready to go look for Jasper, Volt was exceptionally excited, “Take me with you, Hairy, take me with you. I’m a hound, I’ll track him for you!” If he could be sure Volt wouldn’t drag him through the woods, hot on the trail of some rabbit or groundhog, he’d have done it. But in the end he decided to search alone, much to Volt’s chagrin.
I told Hairy that Jasper was last seen heading up the old mountain road. This winds its way up to the peak of Piney Mountain, but it is unlikely he stayed on the road. There are many dogs who live at houses between the old dirt road and Piney Mountain Road. Jasper, being a gregarious fellow, would probably go introduce himself. But he started here anyway.
He got to the point where the dirt road makes a sharp bend to swing around and head back the other way as it climbs when he heard a group of dogs “discussing” something in a fairly unfriendly manner. They were (of course) down by the hard road. HairyFace could have gone straight down through the woods, (I would have) but that’s a great way for a peoples to break an ankle, get snake bit, or attacked by a bear. Maybe (if you’re having a really bad day) all three. So he hustled back to our shop driveway, down to the hard road, then on down to where he thought the ruckus had been. By the time he got there (he is NOT the track star he was 45 years ago) all was quiet and there was no sign of Jasper. At this point there is little he could do without a helicopter.
While we waited to see if he’d come back for dinner, Blondie pined away. I wasn’t sure if it was because Jasper ran off or because she didn’t get to go with him. Volt and I kept watch from up by the workshop. Hairy set about alerting local friends and asking them to keep an eye out for Jasper.
When it started to sprinkle, Volt and I came in. Blondie dislikes the rain, but she chose to sit out on the wall, watching the woods, until the sprinkle turned into a rain, then she too came in. I guess that answered the question of why she was upset.
Not too long after, Jasper returned: seeking shelter and a meal, I suspect. HairyFace’s Mom spotted him out in the yard between our houses, called him, he came eagerly (hoping to be invited into her house), and she snagged him by the collar and started hollering for Hairy (although that’s not what she calls him). She managed to hang onto him until Hairy got there. Not bad for an 80 year old Peoples in a wheelchair!
HairyFace returned him to his pen, where he looked properly remorseful. Yeah, like we’re going to buy that!
HairyFace rigged a tether to keep him “grounded” until he and NiceLady could work out some other means of keeping him inside the pen.
HairyFace tended to his wounds: nothing too serious, and stayed with him a while, then brought his dinner.
It was a couple of days before they were able to go into Newport to buy the supplies they thought HairyFace would need to fortify Jasper’s pen. As he prepared for this work, Hairy was in the yard when we heard Jasper’s frantic “I want to come with you” barking and the chain-link singing as he hurled himself roof-ward. Then something made Hairy turn around and look …
There was Jasper, extruding himself through THE ROOF above the door of the pen!
Hairy rushed back and pushed on Jasper’s chest with one hand (trying to keep him from climbing all the way out – which failed) and unfastening bungees with the other (not as easy as it sounds, even when you have fingers). When the corner of the tarp came loose, Jasper fell back into his pen: and the immediate emergency was over.
Hairy’s theory was that this gap between tarpaulin and frame rails offered just enough hope that The Amazing Jasper made like Spiderman up the pen door and managed to stick his head through the gap. Once he found that the bungees stretch (thus so does that gap he was in) it was just a matter of determination.
Instead of fastening the piece of hardware cloth (metal mesh) across the gable end, HairyFace and NiceLady hung it under the tarp and wired it securely to the frame poles.
For the past couple of days, Jasper has been running up the door and bonking into the mesh, which now prevents his utilizing that particular escape route again. But there are others, and it’s just a matter of time before he finds them. To block them all will require a major re-design of the dog pens. Until then, maybe we need a ball & chain made from a 5’ tether epoxied into a bowling ball – or have him fitted with a harness that can be filled with lead shot to double his weight. But if he wore that for very long and we ever took it off, he’d be jumping over the moon.
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It has been unseasonably chilly recently. HairyFace says it’s because there aren’t enough degrees outside. I’m not sure what degrees are; maybe they’re like gnats. When it’s going to rain there are a lot of gnats and they swarm around our eyes and fly up our noses. But if Hairy wants more degrees, so it will be warm, then degrees must be less bothersome than gnats.
This evening NiceLady built us a fire in the fireplace. That makes the picture box watching room nice and warm. Volt is so skinny and has such short fur he has no insulation against cold. Volt should come lie in front of the fire. But there is stuff going an around the house that Volt want’s to keep an eye on. Lady also ran a blanket through the hot-box for him, but he wasn’t willing to lay down on it. He had a different idea. NiceLady said, “Well, it works for horses!”
As you can see, he did eventually settle in and fall asleep in front of the fire.
Hopefully those degree bugs will start arriving and drive away the cold weather. Volt will be more comfortable when it’s not so cold.
Volt is a good fellow and one of the few that I let go on patrol with me. He runs along, but doesn’t get in my way. Except for when I get all lathered up about a delivery being made at Hairys Mom’s house and I start leaping onto the fence to be my most scary self. Then Volt stands up and pushes me off the fence, saying, “Don’t DO that Cochise, Hairy doesn’t like it. That’s why he installed those extra wires on top of the fence.”
That annoys me a bit, but most of the time he’s my Big-Dog Back-up:
Volt is a good fella to have around.
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That big buzzy beetle like thing has been flying around our house again this morning. We hear it almost all the time and see it frequently. It doesn’t get very close most of the time, so I don’t bark at it, but I watch it closely. It MAY turn out to be like that Scoobus Monster. Maybe you’ve seen them around you too: big yellow beasts that come snorting through and eat children in the morning them spit them back out in the afternoon – so gross!
One time the buzzy beetle thing came through just above our trees and I barked at it then. HairyFace told me that it’s not a monster, and it’s actually doing good things. I should think of it like a truck that people drive around in the air.
“Oh! A truck, like in truck rides? I like truck rides! Do you think I could have a ride in that flying truck?”
“Noooo, buddy, I don’t think they’d allow that. Besides, they are really busy up there trying to chase away all that stinky smoke that was making our eyes and lungs sore, remember?” Yeah, I did remember. I didn’t like that at all. “Well, there are lots and lots of Peoples on the ground fighting a BIG fire …”
“You mean like we have in the fireplace? I like fires, they make me warm and toasty.”
“No, not like a fireplace fire. That is small and we can control it. This is a very big fire, where the trees are burning for as far as you can see and it’s VERY hot.”
Nooo, I would not like that at all! Okay, I will not bark or be mean at the … what did he tell me … fire chopper? I will not be mean to it. If I do bark it will be to say, “Thank you to the buzzy beetle guys and all those brave peoples who are trying to keep the rest of us safe.
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Blondie is a gregarious gal and likes to break out and run off to play with vagrant dogs that wander through our realm. She uses any means possible: climbing, digging, leaping, wiggling, any means she can come up with. She has lead HairyFace on many (not so) merry chases as he tried to track her down and get her back where she belongs. Sometimes that worked, sometimes he had to give up, and sit and fret about her well-being until she decided to come home on her own.
Having the big (1/3 acre) fenced play yard has helped settle her wander-lust. At least now she has room to do some serious running. She likes to run! It’s funny when she does because she gets down low, with legs out wide. She can corner on a dime! And she’ll be grinning ear-to-ear as she zigs and zags around the yard or runs The Maze (Hairy’s garden boxes).
But the gorgeous spring weather seems to have ramped up that old wander-lust.
The neighbors across the road have several small dogs that stay in the house most of the time. When they need to “go” they just get turned loose to run where they please. Often, they please to come taunt us big dogs.
I get all territorial and fierce, especially if HairyFace is watching: gotta put on a good show as Guardian of the Realm. If he’s not paying attention I usually downgrade the alert to fall in with Blondie’s “come play, come play” invitation.
This morning one of them was over here singing, “Look at me, look at me, I can go anywhere I want! Too bad you’re locked up in there or we could go run the woods together!”
That was too much for Blondie and she began excavating a route under one of the gates where we like to lay in the sun. We’ve killed off all the grass there, so the digging is easier … and we’ve kinda started testing that route by surreptitiously removing some dirt under one end of the gate.
HairyFace caught her with her head under the gate and claws scratching away like a mole. He scolded her, then gathered up some tools and supplies to address the issue.
Blondie says, “Oh, sure: when I’m digging in the dirt it’s ‘Bad girl, Blondie. No digging, Blondie. Bad girl!’ But when YOU do it, it’s just FINE!”Of course what she’s really miffed about is not the scolding but the fact that Doug was digging in and pinning down a landscape timber under the gate to thwart any further excavation.“Oh, what might have been …”
HairyFace says he’s going to haul in more dirt to fill in the depression we’ve created in front of the gate. This was not so much an attempt at digging out as it was just scratching up the dirt to get a fresh surface to lay in. When we do that, because of the slope here, wind and rain carry the loose soil away and leave just the hard-pan clay. The more we scratch, the worse it gets.
hairy has thought about leveling it up, laying in poultry mesh, pinning that with landscape staples, planting grass seed, covering that with some good soil, covering that with straw, and hoping the whole lot doesn’t get washed away in the first hard rain.
The poultry mesh would stop us from digging: our claws would get snagged in the stuff.
HairyFace says that sounds like a good plan initially, but after a while that mesh will start to rust away. In time it will be gone, but for a while it will become fragmented, pointy, rusty metal just under the grass. If we dig there then, we may tear up our paws on that rusty wire. Not good!
NiceLady has suggested that they put down pavers in the area that’s all rain eroded, hard clay. HairyFace agrees that’s a good idea, but it will take a lot of pavers because they’d need to do the dog track we’ve worn into the dirt too.
I don’t like the those rocks, but I can walk the balance beam.
They could dig that out, lay in landscape timbers on either side and fill the space between with rock to make a path. That would be good. As long as they don’t use crushed limestone like they did on the path around the house: that hurts our paws. Pea gravel – like what’s in the dog pens is comfy, but washes away easily. Maybe a larger form: small river rock. Something smooth so it doesn’t hurt us, but heavy enough to stay put. That would work.
You’ll have to excuse me now: I have to go tell HairyFace about this idea. Maybe he’ll give me a cookie!
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