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Blondie is Nurse on Duty

Escape artist Blondie
Blondie Bear

This is a guest post by my foster-sister Blondie-Bear.

~*~

NiceLady has been sick. I don’t know what’s wrong.  I know she feels bad.  And she falls over when she tries to walk.

nurse
Blondie is the Nurse on Duty

I’ve been taking care of her. HairyFace helps: he does the little things like bringing her food and giving her medicine and getting her to the bathroom.  I’m the one who stays by her bed, watching, and thinking good thoughts to help her get better. I’m her nurse.

This morning Lady got out of bed and walked to the bathroom by herself. Cochise and Hairy were in the kitchen. Cochise heard the toilet flush, jumped up, RAN to the bedroom and stood staring at her, wide eyed: “What are you DOING!? You’re not supposed to be up by yourself!”

Windy Play Day

Cochise talks about
Cochise tells the tale

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:

Doggie Tales: New Play Yard

Blondie 140907 Smiling-cropped
As told by Blondie Bear

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 crashedCochise 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.


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Cochise the Talking Dog

Cochise the talking dog
I’m Seeeick.

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.

Bye, Bye, Babes

Babes 140822One of our current foster dogs has gone out to seek her fortunes in the world.

Babes, a 48 pound cattle dog has been staying with us for treatment of heart worms, but she is fully recovered and healthy once again. Babes is bright, energetic and playful. But she also likes to curl up and be petted. She craves attention! When we would approach her pen she’d leap so high into the air that thought she must have wings! She had some jealousy issues when she first arrived, but we worked on that and she and her foster brother Smokey became the best of friends, so eager to play together that they were working on a tunnel under the wall that separated them.

This little gal loved playing Tug-O-Rope. But it was never about getting the rope away from us, for as soon as she’d “win” she’d prance around a little, but then run right back to say, “Again, again, lets play again.”

Babes was sent on a Rolling Rescue run from the Dr. Carol Hood Memorial Animal Shelter, who had fostered her out to us, to 11th Hour Animal Rescue in Rockaway New Jersey so she could participate in their largest adoption even of the year. Babes is so filled with personality, I’m sure she will be adopted quickly. She’d be a terrible apartment dog, but for anyone with a yard where she could run (and leap) and play, she’d be a perfect pet. She showed no tendency toward destructive (chewing) behavior. In fact she is one of the best we’ve hosted in that regard. She did like to bite on her ropey toy, but not in a way that tore it up, just mouthing it. Ropey toy’s don’t last long with most of these dogs, but Babes’ toy is still in great shape.

Below is a little video farewell to our Babesy girl.

TRUCK RIDE!

Cochise Mentor dogHairyFace made a trash run today, so Blondie and I got to go along. I rode shotgun (of course). Hairy won’t roll the window down enough for me to stick my head out, but he turns the vents up on high so I can get a good sniff of what we’re driving through. There’s always so much to see.

Blondie rides behind the seats. She gets an open wing window on each side and she can watch out the front and back as well as the sides, so don’t go feeling sorry for her: she likes the ride too.

At the end of our nice long truck ride we will be at this place called a Convenience Center. Hairy says they call it that because it makes it easy for peoples to dispose of their trash. I don’t know why you don’t just eat it: I would.

Anyway, when we get there Hairy gets out and takes some of the trash from the back of the truck and puts in this container, and some in that container and still more of it in that thing over there. He calls it RECYCLING. I have no idea what that means, but he seems to think it’s important. He’s pretty smart, for a Peoples, so if he thinks it’s important, then I say you should think it’s important too.

There’s always lots going on here. And sometimes one of the other peoples here will come over and scratch our heads (Blondie and I, not Hairy … that would be weird) and tell us what fine looking dogs we are. That’s one of the things I like best about our Saturday morning truck rides. Another thing is that it smells so GOOD here!


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Rain, Rain, Go Away …

Cochise does not like rain
Cochise tells the tale

Some dogs like to play in water and even in the rain. Others do not. Blondie’s yellow Labrador side sometimes entices her to go walking in a light rain, but most of the time her Pit Bull side overrules that and she prefers to stay on the porch, in the dry, and watch from there. I am an American Bulldog. I dislike getting wet. I don’t even like getting my feet wet after a rain has stopped. But that’s partly because when I go back inside the house HairyFace will clean the mud off my feet with a towel. I don’t like that: it tickles.

I like being able to run outside anytime I need to bark at something. I like laying on the stone slabs of the porch steps in the warm sunshine. I can’t do that in the rain. Even though I have a home where I can stay dry and safe when it rains, rain keeps me from doing what I want, so I don’t like the rain.

Zadie

Dolly and Zadie in Workshop

The Dogtor is in

I let the dogs out that morning. They each barked once or twice and Boots (who lived down the road) came streaking joyfully across the yard from the old dirt mountain road, dodging his way through the garden boxes. The three of them started wrestling around like they always did. The three of them were buddies and constant play mates, but Boots and Zadie were best friends. I went back inside to fix breakfast. It was Wednesday; my day to fix scrambled eggs and bacon.

Dolly came in after a bit, but not Zadie: she had gone off adventuring with Boots.

When it was time to sit down for breakfast, Marie went out and called Zadie several times, it was not like her to miss breakfast (or any other meal).

I took Marie to work so I could keep the truck for errands. Marie always handed out cookies when she left for work. Dolly always said, “Give mine to my ‘boy’ here and he’ll go put them on my bed in the office.” Zadie scarfed hers down and tried to snatch Dolly’s as well. If Boots was visiting he’d get some too. Today: no Boots, no Zadie. Dolly was miffed that I was leaving: that’s not the way it’s supposed to work. She was such a creature of habit!

Rescue Dog Becomes TV Star

Kingsley Profile PicOne of our recent foster dogs: Kingsley, wrote “home” to tell us of his latest adventure.

HI all … It’s me Kingsley and I had such an exciting day … About a week ago NBC called FOWA Rescue to ask if I wanted to have a part in an episode of their new series “Unraveled” … so of course they said yes. So my foster mom Diane and my friend Shirley were there to watch me perform … Everyone said I was a natural … and everyone on the set was so nice to me …. Watch for when it premieres in the fall on the Investigation Discovery channel … I am not going to give the story away but this is me and the actors who played my family …It was a great day … lots of treats and attention … Not to shabby for a heartworm positive black dog from the south … Don’t worry Jen , Brandy and Doug I am still the same sweet dog you knew when you saved me… and I am forever grateful you fought so hard to keep me alive …
Love and Licks – Kingsley

We knew him when

Kingsley came to us as a heartworm positive rescue dog from the Dr. Carol Hood Memorial Animal Shelter in Newport Tennessee for treatment of his condition and some behavioral training: he was excitable and unruly. He quickly became a favorite here because of his abundance of personality.

The Big Dog

The Dogtor is in

Most any social system will have a hierarchical order to things. Even in a small social system, someone is in charge – someone is the top dog. This is true of people, it is even more so of animals.

DollyDolly Dawg was a free range mountain dog since before we got here in December of 2001. Someone had tried to train her as a hunting dog, failed, and disposed of her by dumping her here on Piney Mountain. After we moved into our place we spotted her sitting in a clump of boulders sixty or seventy feet up the mountain slope from our home, watching us as we worked at getting settled. But she would not approach, and would slink off into the trees if we paid much attention to her.

So we began accidentally leaving a pie plate of kibbles out by the tree line. While our backs were turned we would hear ravenous crunching. With time, kibbles, and a great deal of patience we became friends. We christened her Dolly because of her eyes, she looked all made up and ready to go out: Dolled up: Dolly. Eventually she decided that we could stay and she would look after us.

We learned that Dolly was queen of the mountain, all other free range dogs deferred to her. Some came to play with her, to hunt with her, to lounge in the sun with her. She was a beneficent monarch.