Photo spree

 Once again I had some fun taking pics on the spur of the moment.

I found these stacked cups interesting.

Attempting self portraits did not go very well.

Dogs got in my way a couple of times.

My current poop scooper set up.

Light on curtains.

Utensils in the sink.

Condensation on the container I'm using to sprout African Violet cuttings.

Sunset in the hood after a storm front went through midday.

Other photos will be shared on my druidry blog.

Dog Photos

A few indoors. Boo sleeps under the corner desk only when Pooka out and is wanting to be petted. So this is Boo's jealous position. If I won't let her interfere with Pooka being petted, then she will try to be as close as possible--as a matter of principle--or something.

This is one of Ginger's dead dog poses that she's so fond of over the last year or so.

Here she is making a long stretch to play footsies. Usually if she's laying at my feet, which is rare these days, she has to have one foot on my foot and for some reason can't just leave it there but has to keep nudging my foot with hers. In this moment, I lingered too long within reach and she couldn't resist making contact.

Took my phone out with me while cleaning the dog year and got some decent dog pics. And miracle of miracles, Zippy will actually sit still for a picture outside. Alas, outside Boo always wants to be too close for pics.

Dogs: Arrival of a big dog without inhibitions

Because of his size and his just having had surgery, I took the animal control officer's offer to bring him to me instead of me picking him up at the vet. The downside of this is that he did not arrive until about 7pm. However, it was clearly necessary when he couldn't get up the few steps onto my porch so the man had to pick him up. He had weighed in at the vet at 79 pounds despite being thin.

Unfortunately, he also smelled like a foul barnyard. I don't know if the vet had kept him out at the barn (I suspect not) or if the animal control guy had been hauling hogs in his kennels, but he not only stunk but had stinky stuff on him. I would have gotten out the baby wipes and started rubbing him down right away except that he was completely loopy from the anesthesia. He immediately fell in love with Ginger. And he didn't get over it for about a week. She did not feel the same way and so I kept them largely separated for a couple of weeks. He was crazed for water, which I couldn't give him until the next morning. This is how I learned that he could easily get up into the dirty dishes in the sink. So it was a tense night except when he was flopped down on the floor, which was thankfully a lot of the time.

I didn't initially get a crate for him, hoping he might be like Jesse, a dog who had spent all of her life outside but behaved perfectly (with the exception of wanting to dive through the window at people on the porch) inside. This was not to be the case. For one, he is still very much a puppy. They say you can't skip developmental phases, whether dog or human. This dog was big enough to consider the couch a potential toy. And of course anything I provided as a toy--or were already my dogs' toys--he showed little interest in. So I was forced to get a crate. Because they are cheaper, I got the metal grate kind rather than the plastic form kind. I figured I could cover it with sheets or blankets like I do Ginger's crate. It was a nice theory. Two unfortunate things happened. One, the crate wasn't very well made. He was out of it the first night. He clearly enjoys problem-solving. As I reinforced it with what I had available (the clips on a tie-out line and gator clips), he observed the set-up closely. He was able to get the gator clips off but not to entirely get out of the crate despite bowing both the crate door and the frame of the door. Also, he was somehow able to get ahold of the drop cloth and sheet I had draped over the crate and pull them into the crate. He also was somehow pushing the bottom tray halfway out the front of the crate. So I would come home to the blankets, etc, pushed to the back of the crate and him on what little of the tray was still in the crate huddling as if to say, "see, this isn't working."

At least I was keeping him in the crate. I figured out how to keep the tray in the crate with a latch. I bought more clips and clasps to put around the door. I refrained from any further covering of the crate. And eventually he got used to it. I'd put some toys in it that my other dogs were always wanting to sneak in and steal when it was unoccupied so I've had to keep it closed whether he's in it or not. He'd never shown much reluctance to go in and now goes right in without a problem. But there has still been the issue of getting him to go out the back door, which will be another blog.

It should be said that he's done a wonderful job of healing from the neutering. He hardly fussed with the incision and the look of it never gave me concern. In the early days, he frequently laid as though he was still on the operating table, on his back with legs at full extension both fore and aft, much like the following picture but on his back. So it was easy to see that it was healing nicely.

Dogs: A new pack member

Yes, a new pack member, which makes me certifiably crazy and open to accusations of being irresponsible. But he's currently better fed than he was and is slowly becoming more adjusted to living with people so if I eventually have to find a new home for him, he has a much better chance of finding a good one and being accepted. I've worked out (or am in the process of working out) a lot of them.

I wasn't actively looking for a dog but I would see them thanks to friends' posts on facebook and because I am part of various re-homing facebook groups because I'd been trying to find a home for a cat I'd taken in. (Yay! Days after bringing in the new dog, Ollie finally found a home!) I eventually wanted to add another dog as a playmate for Zippy to help her expend her energy. She and Ginger would play for about 15-20 minutes shortly before bedtime, but that isn't enough for Zippy. And Ginger is getting old even though she is still in great shape. Sleeping is her favorite pasttime. So I was keeping my eye out for a medium-sized dog but not actively looking.

The dog I currently have was one of those posts shared by friends. He was on the Marshall County Animal Control group. It showed a picture of him curled and said he was a 2 yr old German Shepherd. In the picture he didn't look very big and had the coloring more of a Malinois. Another person commented, "nice Malinois." So I thought he might be of a more medium build than the typical shepherd even if he was a shepherd. So I decided to attempt to meet him.

It took more than one text/call to finally make an arrangement. He was not at a the usual vet facility but was being kept across from the Corrections building in my town and the animal control officer wanted to be present. I didn't ask questions but just showed up on a blustery, damp day. When I arrived others weren't around but I saw the dog in a large fenced area and he was a big guy, not what I was expecting. He wouldn't come up to me and paced at the far end of the fence. When the animal control officer arrived, even he had a bit of difficulty catching the dog. He said he'd known the dog all its life but that it had become shy for no known reason. He was actually only a year old. Though he let me fuss with him in all manner of ways but he never made overtures toward me. The man stepped away at one point and seemed quite pleased that the dog didn't try to follow him but stayed with me stroking his head. He stood the whole time just allowing people to do whatever they were going to do with him. He showed no aggression and once I did get a glance out of the corner of his eye. But that was it. Though I consider him a handsome dog, I can't say it was love at first site or touch. It was more that I realized that this was a dog I could probably work with and that there were few people who probably could. They would be a afraid of him or wouldn't do what was necessary to help him overcome his shyness. So I agreed to take him after neutering, which the animal control officer said he would arrange for the following week.

Since I lived fairly close to where he was being kept, I decided to go visit him the following day. The animal control officer had told me that he was bringing dogs that needed socializing to that facility so that prisoners could do the socializing. The people at the corrections facility were very accommodating during my visits. One of the men kept his two rottweilers there, a smaller but ornery older female and a large friendly puppy, not quite as old or as big as the shepherd but still a big dog. When this guy came out with his dogs, the shepherd would come up but he completely avoided me even if I brought treats. He clearly did not believe in the approval of people. To gain his trust, you needed the approval of dogs, of the pack. So I played with and even brushed the huge puppy, who happily ate up all of the attention. The older female was more reserved, and since she was top dog and I didn't have the approval of the top dog, the shepherd wouldn't come near me. The first day, he only paced at a distance, occasionally circling within 10 or 15 feet. That Sunday, I spent 2-3 hours with the dogs and only then did he start to relax. He wouldn't come up to me, but at one point, he laid down opposite of me and facing me. And he kept trying to sneak up closer to me from behind. He was getting that I wanted to get to know him but he was still too afraid. At one point he laid down flat out within about 10 feet of me as the girls napped. That's as close and relaxed as he got before he was introduced to my house in an anesthesia-drunken state the following Wednesday evening. More on that in a later post.