meet Rosie

TJ has connived her way into another dog to run around the house. Here is Rosie. She is a cream Shar Pei. Dusty is intrigued. Lacey is indifferent.

cause and effect

funniest thing ..

Dusty, the 70 pound boxer is lying on our water bed. He is sleeping so soundly. Tammy is reading and I am watching part of a Bond mini marathon on one of the channels. Dusty rolls over and falls off the bed. As he is falling and flailing, his foot hits the pulled shade covering one of the Windows by the bed. It is one of the old style pull down shade types, and when he hits it, it pulls and rolls back up all the way and flap flap flaps.

Lacey, the six pound mini doxie, hears all the commotion. comes out from under the covers, yapping. Dusty, freshly waken, startled already by the shade flapping, hears Lacey raising six kinds of cain, takes off out of the bedroom in dead run. Tammy and I are stunned for a second or two, and then proceed to laugh until we almost cry.

Dusty comes back a minute later and climbs up on the bed, with this sheepish embarrassed look on his face (if dogs can look embarrassed.) He does his HOHO thing (half on/half off,) and looks at us like, "you didnt see that, did you?"

Meanwhile, we are still laughing.

Better

Dusty is better. He is less lethargic. He is much more Dusty. He has, however, started checking out his 'area'.

It is interesting, in that the Vet made an incision in the shaft, ahead of the testicles, and removed them, leaving the sack. Kyle was looking at it. It looked like he still had something back there. I told him that the Vet left the sack for Dusty, just in case he was going to the store to get doggie biscuits, he would have a little sack to carry them in. All he needs is a zipper put in and he can use it like we do a fanny pack. I can see it now, Dusty keeps all his important papers (I don't know what papers are important to dogs,) and loose items in.

Anyway, he is better. we will begin re-introducing him and Rocky this evening and tomorrow. We will see if this 'attitude adjustment' surgery worked.

Recovery

Dusty is home after his hard day at the Vet. Dusty lost his testicles today. His overly aggressive behavior was their down- fall. He was fine when we left the Vet's office. There were other dogs in the outer office and he was raring to see them. Since getting home, however, he has become rather lethargic. He staggers around and sleeps.

Here he is curled up in the chair. The missing articles no longer get in his way. He raises his eyes if you call his name. that's the best he can do, for now.

Tammy thought he might be cold as a side effect of the anesthesia and pain killers. She covered him up in the chair. Talk about a spoiled pooch.

I told Kyle (son) and Caleb (daughter's bf) that I wanted the removed testicles in a jar, so whenever they give me grief, I can shake the jar to remind them about what happened to the last guy that ticked me off.

oh yeah .. doggie update

here is the update on the dogs ..

As you last heard, we had taken in a third boxer on a foster type arrangement. Samson is a 5 yr old boxer. His owners were moving and needed to find a place for their two dogs. we found a home for one, but not for the 120 pound boxer. He came in with us for a while (5 weeks).

Samson was a great gentle giant. He was no trouble. the trouble was with Dusty and Rocky, our other boxers. Here is the run down.

We got Rocky in September last year for my 50th birthday. My birthday is October 4 (for those of you that need a shopping reminder.) At that time we only had Lacy (dog-wise) a 4 yr old Mini doxie (a bat-eared stretched out wiener rat .. Sorry to Trish and any other mini doxie owners.) Lacy adopted Rocky even though he was bigger than her coming in the door. Still, he was a pup, and accepted this hierarchy.

A couple months later, a guy in Louisville inherited a boxer, much the same way we did Samson, and asked if we wanted Dusty. We took him. There was no problem. Dusty accepted the role of alpha male and Rocky submitted cheerfully. All was well in animal kingdom-ville.

Enter Samson. Rocky submitted, no problem. Dusty - not so much. He and Sam tolerated each other for the most part. Dusty yielded when he had too. The problem was Rocky. His submission extended to both dogs. This set up a hierarchy problem. It manifested itself mostly by Dusty and Rocky getting into fierce scraps. We would have to pull them apart.

We found a home for Samson. We hoped that would fix the other problem. No such luck. Rocky and Dusty still got into melees. We decided we had to get rid of Dusty. We were afraid for Cloe. Dusty has never been aggressive toward any human. However, he is blinded to what he is doing when he and Rocky get into it. If Cloe is in their path, she will get hurt.

We put an ad on Craigslist. We specified that dusty had to go to a single pet home. He doesn't do well with other male dogs and doesn't do well with cats either. We had a slew of responses. Mostly from people that cannot read. How hard is it to understand "Single pet home" ?

We even managed to give him away once. They called us the next day. He got after their cat. Duh, told ya he didn't like them.

So, anyway, Dusty is back with us. We keep the dog separated for the time being. Dusty has an aggression adjusting appointment on October 8th. Yes, he is going in for a sac snip, a testicle tuck, a de-nutting, the eunuch maker. This should curb his testosterone fueled aggression. We shall see.

For now, we work around them being in different areas of the house. One stays upstairs and the other downstairs. We swap them out at irregular intervals. Ten more days.

the week

It has been a week.

I have had better. I have had worse.

I took the truck for estimates and filed the police report. The local estimate was just under $2000. My agent gave me the bad news. They were mistaken in their earlier conversation with me. The deductible is $500. So, through no fault of my own, I am going to be out $500.

Tuesday and Wednesday were basically eventless. Well, not exactly. I have been building shelves for the garage and attempting to clean out some of the boxes that have been stored there since we moved in almost two years ago. I did manage to clean out several boxes and create some good piles of trash to be dragged to the curb by the boy. However, one of the things I did find was something I have been searching for. I found 6 of 10 chapters of "Seeds". For those that don't know, 'Seeds' is a novel I started many years ago. I am now in the process of typing the chapters I have found and storing them on hard drives and jump drives.


The kids started school on Thursday. So, the house is peaceful during the day.


Today, Kyle missed his bus. When the bus got here and no Kyle got off, we were worried. We did figure, since Chella didn't get off either, that she was bringing him with her. One call from her squelched that idea. Her ride drove back to the school and they found Kyle, sitting and talking to his friends. He hadn't bothered to call or let us know anything. "Bad Kyle"

Tammy was reading him the riot act. Sierra was here. She said, "I am glad I moved out."

I looked at her and said, "You moved out?!?!?!?" LOL .. she is here more than she is home.

Oh yeah, we now have over 250 pounds of boxer. A friend was moving and had to find homes for her two dogs. She called us. We found a home for the 11 yr old Lab mix. We told her we would take Sampson until we found him a home. We remembered Sampson. When we had Malcolm, Sampson came to visit (3 yrs ago) and He was about Malcolm's size (80 pounds.)

Well, Sampson came on Thursday. He is 110 to 120 pounds. (pictures will follow) He is HUGE !!!! At 75 to 80 pounds, Dusty looks small next to him. With all three, Rocky @ 70ish pounds, Dusty @ 80ish pounds, and Sampson @ 110ish pounds, that gives us over 250 pounds of boxer.

Tammy took Sampson with her last night on a midnight errand. She took him in the Mustang. He filled that front seat. She said that he rides great. She felt extremely safe. He is a great dog. He is well behaved. It did take a few lessons for all three to learn to get along. They are doing much better now. Rocky has a high pitched bark (he is just one year old this week.) Sampson has a deep earthquake growl and bark.

All that, and watching the Olympics, is my week. Yours ?

the new boy, Dusty, and Rocky

Simpson's Rockwell

Introducing "Rockwell"

We call him "Rocky"

Born August 8, 2007 ... He became ours on September 22, 2007