Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Wanna be Pup Pals?

We've found this web site, www.dogster.com, where every dog can have his own web page.

It's one of the top web sites for pet lovers -- and yes, there's a companion www.catster.com for our feline friends.

The site has a number of fun features, including the ability to vote on your favorite dogs (called "give some paw"), applaud a dog's web page ("give this dog a bone") and "save" favorite pages for later reference ("corral" this dog).

My favorite feature is the ability to invite another dog to be "pup pals." It's just funny to see how many folks are willing to put your dog's picture on their web page, and vice versa. You get an e-mail invitation from the dog, and if you agree, you just click a link and the "pup pal" automatically pops up on your page.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

What does this say?



What does it say about you when you have your dog's portrait painted?

A happy ending, but...

Lindsey and I have had numerous comments about the "Lucy in disguise" story.

Everyone thinks it's an incredibly funny tale.

But today, Lindsey and I had a series of "what ifs."

We recalled Tanya, the obedience judge, saying this week: "Congratulations, dog owners. You are already in an elite class. Only 5% of dog owners seek obedience or any training for their dogs."

What if ... your dog runs outside. You see a car coming. What do you do?

With an obedience-trained dog, you yell the dog's name, followed by a strong "COME!"

Obedience training not only helps us all get along better... it can save a dog's life. That's a very small investment in time, money and energy.

Our dogs are part of our family. They're definitely worth that investment. How about yours?

Friday, July 22, 2005

Karma from dog heaven


Our home computer displays a slide show that pulls from a stored photo file. This morning, as I was getting dressed for work, it locked up on a picture of a very content Shetland sheepdog sunning in the back yard.

That was Kazbah, originally Lindsey's dog, but certainly a dog who became a big part of my life as Lindsey, Anne and I started our lives together.

I'm still misty-eyed when I think about him, although I'm sure I'll catch up with him on the other side of the rainbow and he'll be stealing manna sandwiches off our heavenly table.

Here's the original Kaz and Gumbo story from my News-Star archives, published 2/8/2004.

Kaz gave his best despite age’s toll

It seemed like a long time since Kazbah had stolen a sandwich from the kitchen table, sneaked out of the back yard to stroll the neighborhood or jumped on the back of the sofa to greet us in the afternoon.

In his youth, our Shetland sheepdog was the ultimate protector, patrolling the yard one last time every night before bedtime to make sure we were safe. He herded raccoons, armadillos and stray cats out of the yard, and always placed himself between us and strangers.

He was confident and smart, loved going to Mr. Robert, the groomer, and grew so large people actually thought he was a collie.

His eyes eventually clouded, and we could tell he was growing deaf. He no longer came when called, but responded to a loud clap. We joked that he could only hear the sound of the bread wrapper in the mornings when we made toast.

He turned 15 in December. He slept a lot his last few months, going outside briefly only a couple of times a day. A walk around the block left him breathless. His appetite drifted away. We nicknamed him "Speed Bump," because you’d just have to step over wherever he lay.

We expected to come home any day and find that Kazbah had drifted off in his sleep.

He finally could not get up anymore without help, and although he never complained, we knew he was hurting. We spent a painful two weeks talking over quality of life with our vet. We all finally decided it was time.

Kaz was too big to bury in our yard, so we chose to have him cremated. We considered scattering his ashes at Cormier’s, his favorite spot to escape to during crawfish season, but thought better of it when we considered the health implications. So Kazbah, our loving companion and family member, returned home in a tasteful, sealed urn from Best Friends Crematory.

The loss left a crater in our hearts, an ache that even weeks later brings tears to our eyes. I still look for him every morning, asleep on his round rug next to my bed, until I awaken enough to remember he’s gone.

But we are certain our faithful old Kaz is still looking out for us.

My husband Lindsey and I held a wake for Kaz, remembering his good days and all of the joy he brought to our lives. We told stories and laughed until we cried again.

"We really need to get another dog," Lindsey said. "When we’re ready, of course."

That prompted a discussion of what the right dog might be, and we went online to look at pets available for adoption from the Ouachita Parish Animal Shelter and the Humane Society. We couldn’t agree on a breed, we just knew we didn’t want a really big dog or a really small dog.

We checked The News-Star’s classified ads. Nothing jumped out at us. So we pulled out a book and started looking at the photos of hundreds of different types of dogs.

"I had a border collie when I was a little girl," I said. "Other than Kaz, that was the best dog I ever had."

"Those are great dogs," Lindsey said.

So we went online again and started searching for border collies. We were reading about the breed when the telephone rang.

It was my daughter, Anne, calling from Baton Rouge. A death in our family a few months ago was causing a niece and nephew to have to find two adult dogs and a litter of puppies a new home.

"I just thought y’all might want to consider taking one of the puppies," Anne said.

"What kind are they?" I asked.

"Border collies," she replied.

She sent pictures, and within days we adopted a 5-month-old male puppy whose freckled face and warm eyes mesmerized us.

He has a black stripe on the top of his head that looks like a Mohawk. We almost named him "Mo," but thought that sounded too much like "no." We looked up "spot" and "freckles" in French, and didn’t like that.

Somehow we hit upon Gumbo, and that just seemed to fit his personality. He’s an energetic mess of ingredients that, with love and training, will turn out to be somebody good for all of us.

We still miss Kaz very much, and no one will ever replace the fond memories we have of the time he shared with us. But we think he had a paw in what has happened since in our lives.

Gumbo is keeping us pretty busy, and I think that’s exactly what was meant to be.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Hey, Gumbo, I'm getting tutored!!!


My favorite Gary Larsen "Far Side" cartoon features a dog hanging out of a car window, proudly proclaming to another dog:

"Guess what! I'm going to the vet's to get tutored!!!"

Gumbo, who we believe communicates many other things to Roux, evidently failed to warn her. (He had already suffered the double indignity of being neutered and humiliated because of the size of his no-longer-useful-except-for-elimination penis.)

So she goes prancing into the vet's, all wiggly butted, just like it's old home week, looking like she does in the photo here.

The following evening when we picked her up, shaved from her ribcage to her rear haunches, we could barely find the puncture wound that signaled the end of any possibility of puppy mothering. She was also none the worse for wear, except that she was a little hesitant about jumping on the bed during our morning game of ball tossing.

Lindsey and I believe there are plenty of good dogs in this world, and we don't need to add to the number, since we're not particularly interested in "Running a Kennel for Fun and Profit."

I mean, who wants to sacrifice a good pair of drawers to put panties on a dog in heat?

Friday, July 15, 2005

The lifesaving blog, blog, blog

I've discovered my daughter Anne is a talented writer and storyteller (you can read some of her comments posted on this blog....) But Lindsey REALLY pulled me out of the editor's special purgatory this week.

Several of our top editors were out for various reasons, and I found myself being a hands-on newspaper editor, the managing editor, the editorial page editor and the newsroom assistant all on the same day.

I needed an emergency column for the newspaper Thursday night, and I still had four editorials to write. I told Lindsey I was going to let him be my guest columnist this week with his "Lucy" story, but he didn't want to do that. He generously allowed me to rewrite it and use the story of his pre-dawn stroll. (Well, he HAD told it to me before he wrote it...)

It was a real lifesaver. I managed to slam everything out in the time it took Lindsey to take Roux to agility class.

My good friend and mentor Wiley Hilburn taught me that journaling is invaluable to writers for ideas, capturing emotions and recalling significant detail. But I've never had the self-discipline to do it before. For a person who hangs around words all day, writing in your "off" time seems too much like work.

For some reason this weblog stuff is a little easier to handle -- you can journal in a minute and when you're in a pinch, there might actually be something to use in the REAL job.

It took years, but I'm sold now. After this week, I really believe in the value of journaling!

Monday, July 11, 2005

Hurricane Lucy hits our town

We expected massive thunderstorms. But we didn't get a drop of rain from Hurricane Dennis.

The yard, until the weekend, was beginning to show its "parched" spots from the relentless Louisiana summer heat and humidity.

Then, Lucy came for the weekend.

We anxiously anticipated how she would react to the new dog, Roux. Heck, what were we worried about? They instantly became a pack of friends, all running for the tennis ball and playing snarly face. Three was definitely not a crowd. It was a dog event.

But Lucy is a water dog, and she provided a show for everyone on Sunday afternoon when we set up the sprinkler. She adores the sprinkler, and delights in "talking to it" as she carries it and plays with it around the yard.

You have to hear Lucy to appreciate it, but her voice is somewhat higher than you'd expect from a big chocolate lab. In fact, her bark is so high-pitched and wimpy, we call her a "wuss."

Thirty minutes, and EVERYTHING, including the audience, was wet. The other dogs, Gumbo and Roux, watched in awe from a safe, dry spot in the yard.

Water dogs, they're definitely NOT.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Tick, tock, the BC clock

Pounce!

I opened my myopic eyes to a black nose.

Slurp!

A wet kiss followed.

It was still dark outside.

"Lay down, Roux," I said.

Jump!

She bounded onto the bed and laid down, leaning on my legs. I'm not sure how a gangly, teen-aged border collie can take on enough air to make herself weigh a ton, but Roux's got it down. She might even weigh two tons some mornings.

Seconds later, the alarm went off. Roux and Gumbo started their morning pace, waiting for the daily games to begin.

Pad, pad, pad on the carpet. Pad, pad, pad.

If they pace long enough, bouncing on and off the bed intermittently, someone (usually Lindsey) will eventually get up and let them out. We try to let the snooze alarm go off once, but the border collies usually won't let us.

Get up! Let us out! Get the ball!

They are creatures of routine. They know there's a time to play, time to work, time to rest. They know reading the newspaper also means throwing the ball. They know when we're going to work and that Lindsey always leaves before I do. They know that when I brush my teeth, I'm about to leave. They know we don't play ball when we come home for lunch.

But I've never thought of animals as having a concept of time, and I've never known a dog as intuitive as these two are. They watch our movements and activities and act or react accordingly.

How do they know what time it is?

When we figure that out, we may be able to solve our other problem: Teaching the border collies who now awake at 5 a.m. daily how to sleep late on the weekends.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Where every dog has a web page

If you scroll down through the posts, you'll see that Gumbo has his own web page. Now, we've discovered something pretty fun -- www.dogster.com -- where every dog can have his own web page.

Of course, there's the companion catster, but I'm scared to go there.

I always thought people were pet-obsessed like us. Now, it's confirmed.... there's a whole bunch of us loonies out there!

You can go there and search for Gumbo, Roux and Lucy-Go-Lucky. It didn't take long to get them online....

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Obsessive Dog-pulsive

Our household contains two adult humans. We have rescued two border collies and two cats. That probably says we're suckers, or to be kind, a couple of old softies. But we've really become obsessed with these border collies, and even the cats tolerate them pretty well. (See Natchez, above, sleeping with the Simon Baxter portrait of Gumbo.)

What did I just say? Dog portrait? Well, yes.... The dogs have a blog, a portrait, a web site, an email address, a Dogster.com page.... And Gumbo's spotted face adorned our Christmas card last year.

They go to agility and obedience classes, and occasionally get to go to Petco and pick out new toys to add to their bulging toy box. We've searched the world for "pet friendly" hotels so we can take them with us when we go on vacation.

We're empty nesters. Or, at least we WERE empty nesters....

Saturday, July 02, 2005

And they called it puppy love


This is Lucy, the chocolate lab, and Gumbo's first true love.

She currently resides in Paris, Texas, but frequently comes to visit. She's very bossy and has never met a drop of water she didn't like.

In fact, it's a good thing she's brown... she splashes through every mud puddle in the neighborhood.

She's an adventurer, and recently took a bathrobe-clad Lindsey on a pre-dawn journey into a neighbor's house. But I'll let him tell that story....

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