Dogs.

[Larry Caldwell]

Hi Larry. Sorry to hear about Ella having a tough time. Go fund me is an excellent idea. I am in. You guys are a damn good retired old couple. Looks like a good start. I hope everyone can help if even just a little. Best wishes, Hope Ella does well. Larry

Thanks. I really don't want to carry a credit card balance. It looks like we'll be eating a lot of beans this winter. I thought I had a comfortable cushion for the April 15 tax bill, but the whole wad went to the dog.

Ella is semi-famous, since she started life with John Simpkins in the ghost town of Andrews, Oregon. He's a well known artist, and Oregon Art Beat did a show on him titled "Desert Mystic." He's Buddhist. He went to Hawaii and left Ella with friends and two yappy little dogs. She stressed out and went into an Addison's crisis. She nearly died. John decided she needed to be closer to vet care.

Enter Roz, a friend of my wife. The two of them walked home together through the Columbus Day Storm in 1962. They're still friends. My wife wanted a poodle, so Roz put us in touch. It was no contest. We live in dog heaven, so we got beautiful, intelligent, standard poodle. We've had her for two years. She's big and rangy and intelligent, and is never on lead. I started her on truffles last fall and winter, so this will be her second season.

Ella decided I am her person. My wife gets a poodle if I'm not around.

This mess may be my fault. I didn't mow everywhere last spring. Instead, I left patches of ground to go to seed. If one of those seeds was a foxtail, that may be where she sucked it. Next year to heck with the wildlife, all dog height vegetation is going to go.

The fundraiser is up to $3216, which is giving me some breathing room. I maybe able to afford kechup on the beans.

 

[check]

As many of you know - I live way out in the Scablands of NE WA state. I've had rescue dogs, dogs dropped along side the road and left, pure breed dogs from local breeders.

Generally speaking - the larger dogs present a larger problem/concern. They tend to not back down from a confrontation with coyotes or a porcupine. I've lost dogs in both situations. I even had a pair of Blue Healers that hunted, killed and partially ate coyotes. That was always a late night - "joy".

So now - it's a brown Cocker Spaniel - Brownie. He stays inside the house and only goes out when I go out. He listens to me when I tell him to "come". I can see coyotes - long before he does. Brownie is a "nose dragger". My last Cocker lived 17 years - that's my goal for Brownie.

View attachment 718315

Almost looks like a chocolate lion!

 

[Larry Caldwell]

What breed is this? It must be the neigbor's dog, since it was coming out of his driveway.

 

[Alan W.]

Have had dogs since I was in diapers. Assorted breeds and sizes. Only been bit by two dogs Ive owned and they were both black chihuahuas that were possessed by satan himself.
This is the girl I have now. Found her at Mom n Dads next to the mailbox one rainy day. I thought it was a piece of paper trash wadded up next to it. She was little. Checked around and no one was missing a dog. Still dont know how she got there.

Shes 9 years old. Shadows me from daylight till dark unless the wife is home then she sits on the back porch moochin food.
The lady that picks up our garbage gives her treats. When she hears her truck coming down the road she will run to meet her.

 

[Alan W.]

Heres 3 of my sorta adopted dogs. They belong to my parents neighbor.
I keep dog treats in all of our vehicles because if they see me pull in they come running.
Left to right.
Bosco
Kara
Millie

 

[JasperFrank]

On a visit one time to my brother's place, which he had bought a new boat, docked at a community dock, I had never been to before. I had brought my dog, after traveling cross country. This dog had never been there before. I had never been there before. We were to go out on my brother's boat and do some fishing in the bay. There are three finger piers, and his boat is at the end of one of these. Dog jumps out suddenly as The Brother opens the car door and the dog runs off. I'm thinking, "Great a lost dog, in a new place we have to deal with." But that isn't what the dog did. It immediately went up the correct central pier and then ran up and down the various slots of the boats and we lost sight of him. So we finally walk out to the boat, and in my brother's boat was my dog, waiting steadfast, looking at us, with an expression that he had got it right with certainty. I have never underestimated the intelligence of dogs after that.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Never underestimate a dog's scenting ability. Humans are blind by comparison.

 

[JasperFrank]

I have often wondered if i should explore this as an experiment since I had no opportunity to have created/placed a personal scent to the boat, or on the boat for the dog to follow. This raises a few rather crazy questions. This dog, Henry, was very familiar that when you go to a pier/dock, you are going to a boat: That part isn't too hard to figure. Henry loved going out on the boat. What is hard to figure, is how he knew which new boat was the right one. I had never been on this particular boat or walked on any of these piers. Somehow the dog had done one of two things, or possibly both. It had somehow associated the scent of my brother and his two children, as some sort of different scent, to follow to the boat, or there is some sort of commonality between my scent and the scent of my closest blood relatives, or some combination of the two? Or maybe my brother had just gone fishing and left the most recent fish scent trail the dog could have picked up in the car? The brother fished more than just about anyone else in the community. I'm leaning to a theory that dogs can know if someone is directly related, just by scent. I'm not directly related to anyone on the PNW. So at home, this dog would be distant, and slightly hostile to any guest. How ever, when I first brought the dog to my brother's house, it was immediately friendly with everyone, especially the children. Never seen him act that way before. I think it knew these were relatives,.. to be treated differently than strangers. .

 

[Jstpssng]

Never underestimate a dog's scenting ability. Humans are blind by comparison.

They take SAR dogs out in boats to find drowning victims. Someplace I've also read about taking them onto Civil War battlefields and finding human remains. There was a case a couple decades ago where a child was kidnapped and they bought a bloodhound in, who traced the car she was in to a freeway. They then stopped at every offramp until the dog told them which one the car used; then they let him out on lead again. Sadly it was a hot day and they had to pull the dog off the trail. They later found the child's remains not far from where they had stopped the dog. A bloodhound is the only breed of dog whose nose is so selective that it can be used in a court of law.

 

[Dftodd]

Never underestimate a dog's scenting ability. Humans are blind by comparison.

We just sold our house and moved. About 3 nights in at the new house, our shepherd started sniffing at the TV stand and alerted to the drawer.

I finally went over and opened it up and let her rummage through it. Well she kept alerting to the back of the drawer.

So.... I removed the drawer and shined a flash light up in the cavity.

One of her balls was wedged in the frame.

We can't fill a Xmas stocking with new toys for her.

She will park her bottom under the stocking and and wine and cry. Then start yipping at you to give her the toys. I actually removed her from the house the next year, wife filled the stocking along with the kids stockings. Then I brought her in an hour or so later with the same results. She went right to the stocking and alerted on it. Then got increasingly demanding