Savingdogs-Saving the chickens

[pinkfox]

the speckled sussex i have to say are one of my favorites too...we have one in our flock and shes just absolutly beautiful...i also adore the EES
right now i plan to have a flock of EE's, Speckled sussex and Salmon Favrolles, and mabe a couple of marans.

 

[savingdogs]

Kewlona, a beautiful place. I love it there, would love to return for another visit. She married a Canook, eh?

 

[Farmfresh]

Glad you had a nice time.

 

[savingdogs]

pinkfox, that sounds like a beautiful egg color assortment! I'd like to add some marans because most of my egg colors are rather pale, having a real dark one would be awesome. How are your sussex as layers? Mine haven't started yet, but they sure have gone from being average-looking kinda chickens to being so beautiful. So many different color feathers in one bird. They can fly well is about the only thing I don't especially care for, but so can my EEs so that doesn't really matter, just more wings to clip.

We had a great visit with family, the new deck is gorgeous and the assembled group interesting, and I think the birthday girl felt honored. We had lovely weather, good food and couldn't ask for more. We had fun meeting the little relative we had not met, our great-niece, her mother wasn't there but it SEEMED like she was, this one is the spittin' image of her mom at the same age (six). I told my great-niece about our goats and farm and she wanted to go home with US and had a little pout that she didn't get to. I think she had a little cousin-crush on Trouble, and she and hubby were having fun together too, I'd actually like to have that child come for a visit. I told her "next time." My sister took her to some sort of goat petting zoo in Canada? and she really fell in love with goats. Her mom has been studying to be a lawyer so she hasn't really had time to keep pets, so of course that is what her daughter wants more than ANYTHING in the WORLD. So my house sounded pretty cool I guess. My assorted family are all doing well, but it was especially nice to see my sister looking so normal, she has been recovering from a stroke a little over a year ago now, and she seems 100 percent back to normal and eating normal too, so that really made me happy to see, my sister is probably my favorite relative outside of my children. She has been a very very good friend my entire life as well as a great big sister, I could not ever ask for more, she has always been awesome and my best friend. Everyone should have a big sis like her.

I have to mention one thing from my brother's wonderful remodel of his backyard. He had an older patio that they covered over partly with deck. However they left the cement on 1/2, but with the beautiful new wood, it looked a little dingy and had some stains and cracks (not bad, but still). So they bought a special paint, it gives it a slip-free surface and could be made in any paint color they wanted, so theirs is kind of a sandstone shade. It totally transformed the old patio! It looked 100 percent new and they had to do a demo for everyone how they applied this stuff, it took a day to accomplish but WOW! If anyone has an old cement patio and can't afford a new deck, this special paint stuff they had was like a make-over in a can. It was just called "patio resurfacing paint". He had before and after pictures that were While I love his new deck, for my money I would have just painted the whole thing, that paint was so nice. The house is kind of a dusky brown so the sandstone painted cement really popped next to the deck. It is so nice that someone in the family has such a wonderful home for entertaining and enjoys it!

And the milking-three-times today worked AWESOME!

 

[savingdogs]

The Story of Bindi Jo

Bindi Jo is a dog I mention a lot but I've never told her real story before. While we were fostering for the first all-breed rescue, we fostered for ridgeback rescue at the same time. We especially chose mixes of ridgeback and something at that time, because we would evaluate their "ridgebackness" and decide if they had enough in them to satisfy the folks who really wanted a ridgeback, and because so many dogs are mistaken for them, many times we would find they were more easily adopted through the group that catered to folks looking for just a nice dog of any breed. I should take a moment to explain a ridgeback ridge. They are NOT when the dog's hair is standing up. Here is a good picture:
http://images.search.yahoo.com/imag...i=11o0klce8&sigb=13cepk4f7&.crumb=/jlfCb3fWyw
Holy cow, what a long link, but that is a great picture of one. This is a permanent change in the hair on the middle of the back, nothing like when a dog raises its hackles. But people who have never seen one often think their dog has a ridge. And then to further complicate the matter, some ridgebacks are born without ridges (like my foster Henry), those are harder to determine ridgebackness.

In any event, we got one of those calls, there was a dog in a shelter about four hours north that was "ridgeback mix" and needed to be moved, she had been with a second dog and when the second dog got adopted, she was not "doing well" in the shelter, needed a foster home. That how shelter folk describe it when the dog is going nuts being caged. They described her as "dobie and ridgeback".... Hah! Now that we have had a real dobie-back (Murphy) we know she is not that.

This was when we had already gotten the diagnosis that Sheena was terminal, she had both osteosarcoma and advanced arthritis, she was essentially on hospice and Hubby cried, literally, every day. It was one of the worst times for him I can remember. He and Sheena had a relationship you seldom see, and Sheena was a type of dog you seldom see. About the only dog you guys could relate it to would possibly be OFS's Ti, she understood sentences. But Hubby and Sheena were literally joined at the hip and she was dying despite being our "million dollar dog". We knew there would never, ever, be another dog like her. Their COULD not be another dog like her, our emotions would not take it.

We had just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, and because we were planning on moving to the mountains, Hubby had just replaced my old van with a beautiful little subaru outback, it was a sweet one in white with all the bells and whistles that come on cars, and I had picked out the color myself and then he surprised me by actually getting it (still miss that car, it got wrecked). We were dying to take it on its first long distance trip and equipped it with one of those dog-guards that keeps them back in the back-back part of the vehicle. It was sweet. Little did we know the dog has to ride on Hubby's hip or has a spaz.

So on a bright sunshiny day, we take a drive through the country to go pick up a dog named "Cujo" from a shelter in Shelton. That should have been an omen. Or perhaps the yipping, whining, shaking mess of a dog that drooled and yipped and cried the whole way home (we figured out now that she thinks my husband is getting away from her if he is in the front of the car and she in the back) *SD whispers in Kai's ear, who is listening to this story "She is crazy" and makes a circle in the air next to her ear to indicate mixed-up brains.

The shelter was a beautiful place staffed by volunteers and after a tour, Hubby and I have forevermore wanted to create a place just like that, if we ever won the lotto. It had been a house on a big lot, and the house was used for all the volunteer activities and kennels had been built encircling the property. They finally brought us out the "ridgeback mix" named Cujo, who was bucking and straining at the leash, trying to get to......Hubby, who she loved at first sight. I am tolerated.

She is a 40-pound dog (ridgebacks are usually between 80-100) and she is black and tan.....like a rottie, or a MIN PIN!) But there on her back is a perfect ridgeback ridge, and the shape of her head has that distinct shape. While we'd like to have her DNA tested to find out the other half, 1/2 of this dog is ridgeback, we debate and joke about the other half. It can't be dobie! Lately I've been telling Hubby rat terrier. But the dog saw Hubby and the rest was history. We could just not call a dog Cujo, so we kept the "Jo" and added Bindi, after Steve Ervin's daughter. So anyhow, we get this dog home and she is a certified nut case, 100 percent.

Now, you must imagine we have had quite a few dogs fall in love with us....why did Bindi Jo's love make a difference? Well, it was partly the history that came with her. We were told that she and a smaller dog were discovered running wild and skinny by neighbors, so they investigated the house of her owner, and he apparently had died some time earlier and the dogs were starving, but she stayed with the body. Her owner was found to have died of cancer. So Bindi and Hubby seemed like a pair, cancer, that horrible disease, robbed them of their beloveds and made them a little crazy at the same time.

Right around this time Sheena actually died. This was a very dark time for us, for Hubby especially, but there was little Bindi, insinuating her little nose into everything, tucking herself under my husband's arm, insisting on being taken with him whereever he went and she is so small, she can actually go. Sheena was so big and Bindi so small, it wasn't like she was trying to replace her, she was trying to comfort him, and fits where Sheena did not. To this day, despite being afraid of thunderstorms and fireworks and gunfire, Bindi Jo is fiercely protective, licks our wounds, and seems to know when anyone is sad or ill and comes to comfort them, knows when Hubby is feeling his epilepsy or me my Meniere's. She allows no harm to come to anyone, in her own weird little way. It I try to massage Hubby's NECK, she thinks I'm strangling him and tries to stop me. The dog is 100 percent devoted to Hubby, and even seems to know when he is on the way home, don't ask me how she knows. I can't let her out front at 4:00 or she will head off down the road, looking for him. And just like from the very beginning, I am tolerated. But she eventually pretty much filled the giant hole left in Hubby's heart left by Sheena and while Bindi Jo will never be larger than life to us, she still will always be 100 percent our dog.

 

[abifae]

I adore your dog stories

 

[dragonlaurel]

Awwwwwww We need a pic of her. She sounds great.

 

[savingdogs]

Awwwwwww We need a pic of her. She sounds great.

I'll add one when Hubby gets home, pics are on his computer, I have a great one of the two of them. There are thunderstorms going on right now, she is cowering and quivering between my feet as I type. Funny how "nice" I become when something is scary.

Since I cannot hear gunfire, I'm actually glad one of my dogs reacts this way. I wish she did not suffer but her reaction, and the fact that she has to be touching someone when she hears these things, puts me on guard during things like thunderstorms, fireworks, gunfire, etc., going on, when a deaf person would otherwise be clueless.

 

[Rhettsgreygal]

Awesome! What are they like fresh off the track? There are never greyhounds in rescue here except with the official greyhound group, they take care of them all. I did have one 1/2 greyhound, but she was like the lab half.

Miriam is the second greyhound we have fostered fresh off the track. Last year we fostered Eddie.

When we brought Eddie home, he acted like he was in a house forever. He came in, made himself right at home and took all of Dixie's toys off the couch. Eddie is a big boy at 90lbs. We had to keep the counters clear, garbage cans, recycle bins and litter boxes behind closed doors or baby gates. He helped himself to a plate of bacon and have left us a reminder of him with the painters tape that is now wrapped around our tv remote. It took two of us to get him in my Cobalt. He has trained his human very well, as he still will not jump into vehicles. His dad is over 6 feet tall, so it's not a problem for him to lift Eddie into his SUV.

We picked Miriam up near the Wisconsin Dells. Both the DOT and AAA lied. According to AAA and the exit information sign along the highway, there was suppose to be a gas station at our exit where we would pick up Miriam from her 3rd stop on her journey north. There was no gas station to be found. As much as I suggested that we move to a less traveled side road to make the transfer, her transporter just let her jump out of the back of her car:/. She almost backed out of her leash because she was afraid. Roy had to carry her back to our car. Luckily she weighs barely 55lbs. She is much more stressed than Eddie was, but not a whole lot more stressed than Dixie was when we adopted her (but Dixie was a broken leg dog and she rejected the hardware in her leg and developed a bone infection, which was incredibly stressful for her). She is slowly learning to come in the house when Dixie comes in. Miriam has not done any counter-surfing or tried to sample litterbox snacks. She walks fairly well on a leash. I just took Dixie and Miriam for a walk around a path we have mowed around the middle of our property. We kicked up a bunch of ducks (I think, the sun was in my eyes) that were in a sheltered wet spot in the field. We have had close to 5" of rain in the past week. This weekend I will try to take her to Hub City Days (old cars, old tractors, craft show, and a run) and see how she does in public. Since she will be living in an apartment, she will have to learn how to deal with everyday traffic noises. Unfortunately, I do not know if she knows how to do stairs. Many greyhounds have to learn how to do stairs since they have only known kennels for the majority of their life. One thing on Miriam's side is that at many tracks, crates are stacked two high and the females live in the upper crates and generally are expected to jump in. This seems to give them the confidence to do stairs. We don't have stairs that I would want to train her on and we have never had to train a greyhound to do stairs in the past.

 

[savingdogs]

It seems like the biggest challenge would be how they are not socialized. . And regarding the volunteer, sometimes you have to remember that people some folks who dive in and help have no experience with dogs whatsoever, so you never know what folks will be like!