A Tale of Two Sally's

 This is a photo of two Sally's.  There's a story to go with them so sit back and read a little.

When I first met Paige she was living in a house with some, what I would describe as, unsavory characters.  You know the kind.  An artist, a fellow theatre worker and worst of all, a guy that worked at William Sonoma. Trouble to be sure.  Also living there was a sweet lab named Chloe.  She was a good dog and over time I heard how she had adopted her Sally toy as the one thing she would not destroy.  I guess some dogs latch onto one thing in particular that gives them comfort and won't harm that thing all the while terminating any other toy that comes down the pike.  So somehow, Sally survived.

Fast forward to the time that Chloe was no longer around and I noticed that Sally would soon be homeless.  For whatever reason I took her with me when Paige and I moved into our first home.  I don't really know what it was about Sally that made me bring her along in all the following years, all of our different homes and finally to the cabin that we live in now, but as time went on each time I saw Sally I figured it would be a nice bridge to the past to give her to the dog that someday I would like to have.

So here we are today.  It turns out that we have a dog.  She has her moments of  being a 'good puppy' and I dug out Sally from the depths of the garage to see just how our puppy would react.  Cautiously I gave Ladi the Sally toy and told her to be gentile. The last thing I wanted was for our dog to disrespect the memory of Chloe and go tearing up a 20+ year old toy I have been carrying around for her.  Puppy teeth are sharp so I gave her time with Sally on a limited basis.  She liked Sally and between the two of us we kept her safe.

I come home the other day and Paige tells me that she has found some dog toys online from the Peanuts Gang.  She orders them and to my surprise they are exactly the same toys!  Now Ladi has the whole gang to play with.  Currently she seems to enjoy Lucy the most and Paige has wisely kept Linus from her.  Linus looks a little scared to be mauled by puppy teeth anyway.  I took this picture of two Sally's, form roughly 25 years apart, and hope that Chloe is happy and Ladi will find her favorite to play with for a long time.

GBCH

She's ok I Guess.

 

Well another week has passed and the puppy continues to grow and find new ways to both impress and aggravate me.  This is the 12 1/2 pound picture. I look at this as a terrific chance to build my upper body strength due to all the times I have to lift her out of danger, out of an area she does not belong or just up into the truck.  As she grows the workout gets harder. You may notice the dirty paws. This is from her digging a hole next to the pine tree. See, impressive digging skills, bad application. I hope my arms are jacked by the time I need to lift her out of the 8 foot deep hole.

She spent some time with June Bug thanks to Monica bringing her over for a play date and was mostly concerned with trying to bite her in the mouth. June, not Monica. Monica was great at keeping June from biting back but I was all for it. Puppy needs to know her place right? Good dog.

This was also the second trip to the V-E-T. Vaccine shots, kennel cough goop and the ole' thermometer a 'la Navin Johnson.  Through it all she was quite composed and calm.  Even during today's thunderstorm she was not concerned about certain death or the end of the world. Impressive right?

Our puppy obedience classes start in 2 weeks but even now we have 'come here's and 'sit' (complete with a hand signal) down pat. Again impressive.

This is also the week she bit me in earnest from trying to get a food wrapper out of her mouth, runs away from me as I attempt to get her to bed, continues to eat the pinecones behind the fence that no longer is over jumping height, refuses to stop eating the strawberries and generally tests my patience and sleep patterns. Not a bad trade off I guess.

Stay tuned for more updates

GBCH

Birdy? Or Stone Cold Killer?

 As the training continues I have come across two possible directions for the newest member of the H7HT. The first is 'Is this dog a demon sent to kill me?' or the second, 'Is she just waiting for the birds to come?'

Last week as we played in the yard a small batch of razor sharp teeth jumped up and bit me through the lip. It was unprovoked.  I never made any commentary about her lineage or spoke up about her less than perfect bathroom skills.  Heck, I was only trying to play ball and then this happens.  Now at work people look at me like I have a good old case of Herpes.  Even though one of my youthful co-workers thinks I should be proud that a guy my age could 'pull the talent' for herpes, I would rather not get that look.  I call foul.

Speaking of Fowl....

This week we had a day off and were playing in the house, trying not to fall victim to the aforementioned bathroom skills, and it turns out that the Cabin housekeeping skills are not as perfect as I thought.  Ladi was scrounging around under our living room chair and pulled out a duck wing I thought was long gone.  See, I used to snap off a wing for our Little Kitty.  She was birdy AF too she certainly enjoyed playing with a wing or two in her youth.  I just figured that my broom or vacuum would have found the wing in the 6 or so months since then.  Well, after the wing was found it was on.  Ladi was like Fred G after he shot his first bird.  Jumping around and showing off her prize like she invented ducks and how to find one.  It took me all of 2 seconds to realize I had to stop this before it got out of control.  The wing now sits in the garage, waiting for the time when it will come in handy for duck training.  We have to crawl before we can run after all.

Stay tuned for more Ladi news and to see whether

or not I need some antibiotics to get rid of my new case of herpes.

GBCH

Water Dog, And Other Adventures.

Ladi and I went again to the water today.  Actually 'The Water' is more like 'The little End of the Stream' that empties out from the bottom of Government Gulch and makes some small pools and some shallow running water spots.  It is the best area I have to introduce her to the water.  I wish we lived at the beach or had a big house on the lake , but we can't all be like Uncle Dick.  So instead we do the best we can which in our case means the stream.  We have been a couple times before and every time she is a little more ready to jump in with all four.  The first time I brought some tennis balls and a chair and sat in the stream and talked her in.  She was a little tentative at first but soon was wading in and splashing around.  As we were sitting there I saw something dark red under the water and I reached in and pulled out a pair of Smith ski goggles from under the water. Instant favorite. Forgot about all the tennis balls floating around and she decided that whatever these stinky muddy things that came from the bottom of the streambed was the best thing ever.  I used that to get her almost all the way in but she's not quite ready.

This week was the first week back to work as well. Of course we have been together 24/7 and I knew that the biggest hurdle would be how she behaved at work while I was doing things like, well, working.  As nervous as I was that she would cry and whine for 10 hours I was very pleasantly surprised to find that she settled right into the routine.  The few times I have left her alone in the bedroom kennel and closed the door she went crazy and led my neighbor Rosie to ask if she was ok.  I know that we will have to address this separation anxiety but as long as she can see that she's not alone she is fine.  I guess growing up with 12 brothers and sisters, 2 mothers, another dog and 2 humans then being displaced to a new home has it's issues.  We continue to work on this.

Time to work on that so off we go.  Stay tuned for more and also realize that the 2022 hunting season is just around the corner!

GBCH.

Well There It Is!

The Majestic Ladi

 Hello everyone and welcome the newest member of the H7HT.  This is Ladi, pronounced Laa-Dee for those that might think I named my dog 'Lady' like the silly people at the Vet.  More on that later.

Last Sunday I took a road trip through the central Idaho and Oregon to the town of Cove.  There I met the nice folks at Forest Cove Tollers and left with this little bundle of puppiness. About 45 seconds into our trip she pooped in her kennel in the back seat of my truck, welcome to the family.  After a qiuck stop to clean up we were back on the road.  It's a long trip and I was expecting a lot of whining and some barking to accompany me for the next 5 hours, heck, the man who sold me the pup even gave me a set of earplugs to go with.  Turns out although there was some general noise made on her part she was mostly a 'good dog' for the majority of the ride.  We stopped a couple times along the way for breaks but basically the trip was easy-peasey.  A good start.

She slept mostly through the night and only required one late night trip outside, something which most people said would be impossible.  When we woke up for good and I carried her outside for play time and as we were leaving the back door a familiar sound came over us.  There were a V of geese flying right over my house.  I never see geese this early and this particular V was literally right over my house.  If it was in-season you could have taken a shot.  I looked up in wonder and decided on the spot that this was a great omen. Ladi, for her part, was looking around to see where the sound came from but she did not look up so I have nobody to confirm this event.

Chilling at the Vet. Arrrgh.

We played in the makeshift playpen I made for most of the day.  Ladi did a lot of napping and I finally had the time to read the book I have been working on all summer.  Later in the afternoon I switched out the lawn chair I was uncomfortably sitting on to one of those 3 part folding loungers and when I sat down the thing collapsed. In the process I fell onto the little girls front leg and she let out a yelp that I hope to never hear again.  Off to the Vet we went.  She was a trooper the whole time and everyone at the office commented on how gentile and pretty she was, even if they tried to call her Lady twice.  Short story is that there was no damage but some swelling and good judgment on the side of caution got her a shiny little leg wrap for a couple days. My prognosis was not as good as I decided then and there that I am a terrible person and a bad parent. I broke my dog within 24 hours of delivery.

Can you spare a treat for a cripple?

The bandage comes off soon and in the meantime we have been out and about meeting people and getting tons of sympathy in the process, the puppy, not me.  Actually every dog owner I met told me of some similar story or about how trips to the Vet for random emergencies are a regular part of the experience.  I still feel like a turd for hurting her but the good news is there is no permanent damage and Ladi does not seem to hold it against me, she does hate the bandage though.

Today Clider and June Bug stopped by to have a meet and greet and both of the girls got along great.  By great I mean they pretty much didn't care about each other.  June wanted to play ball and Ladi was more interested in what was behind the hot tub but at the very least Clider and I had a nice chat.  We seldom see each other in the summertime and he is off on a 2 week work trip but we have made a plan to have the future duck blind buddies get together again soon.  Later today we go and meet the crew at Galena Ridge and maybe, just maybe, if we are lucky go play on some real live golf course turf.  Probably not though. Stay tuned for more adventures.

GBCH