The Thongster

Oh, Trickster. How he loves unlaundered panties. His real human came over for dinner. She informed us that Trickster had been coughing, throwing up and had diarrhoea. Poor little guy kept us up all night, too. I then had a phone call from Don later in the day asking me if I had a pair of blue cotton thong panties. Ah, no, I do not and I would think you would know that.

It turns out that is what our little pumpkinhead finally threw up in an agonizing-looking contortion of hacking. Please, keep those panties well-away from your panty-loving dogs. This could have been serious but we're lucky it finally worked its way out. And even better, they were all in one piece.

Those panties did not go to waste, however. It seems they were quite expensive and nothing a little laundering wouldn't fix. Like any thrifty owner of expensive thong panties, they are now back in use.

Our heroic dogs caught a baby bunny. We think Zeetz thought it was a squeaky toy because that's what the poor little thing was doing. Her mouth had to be opened to have her drop the baby. It hopped away worse for wear.

Case in Point

Zeetie, in her fear of them, is extremely defensive when new dogs are around. Case in point. She was carting past a house when a dog in a truck with an open window started some wicked barking. On a leash walk, Zeetie would have lunged and barked in defence. But, because of the restriction of the harness and cart, she immediately bolted away, tail glued between her back legs. Poor Zeetz was heaving as I stopped her. It'll take some work but we'll get there.

I received Max' vaccination papers. They have a birth date for him of April 6, 2008. They work that out by the date he comes into the shelter and what they guess his age is. And, we decided to adopt him on April 6, 2011. What a strange coincidence.

Max is just wonderful and Zeetie loves him. He is faster than Zeetz even with three legs. I tried another company k-9orthotics but they, too, are unable to do anything for Max due to the level of amputation. The only thing anyone can do is when he starts to have problems due to the strain on his body, they can make a brace for the good leg to give him some support. In the meantime, our little Monkey Max whips around like a whirlwind, and is faster than Zeetie.

Five Cubic Yards

It's ironic. I just ordered five yards of topsoil yet five yards of top soil, amongst other things, is what went down the bathtub drain. We groomed, bathed and groomed the three sweeties. We were going to go to the Glebe dog wash but at $5.00 for six minutes, we decided to put up with a dirty tub.

I just love seeing Zeetie so, so white, and Mackey lost his brown tinge so he is a lovely, shiney black now. Trickster is very fluffy and mostly, they all smell unlike dogs for the moment. Then, we went walking at the cottage in the rain. Isn't that what you do with freshly bathed dogs?

While walking down the cottage road, a family who had met Max on our previous visit asked if he had been adopted. They then said they had gone to our cottage on our previous visit with Max but couldn't find us. Apparently, their son had decided he wanted to adopt Max. I have a photo of them with Max and you could see how gentle they were with him. They really liked him. I guess some things aren't meant to be. I feel so lucky to have the little guy.

It's not always easy getting a group photo.

Out at the farm, there was some dumb squirrel. He was running around in the middle of the field...mmmm. Mackey and Zeetz worked as a team and Zeetz killed him. Zeetz' recall level isn't that high yet so I didn't have much say.

This is Ziti

This is Ziti. This is her story:

This little girl was found wandering the roads of Tennessee at about six months old in September 2010. The caring souls who found her took her to the local veterinarian. From there, she was taken into foster care by Cher who bathed the mange away and gave her a wonderful start to a second chance in life. She was soon listed on the National Great Pyrenees Rescue site.

My friends, Maryanne and Sue, have been involved with rescues of their own and wanted to start fostering. There has been much discussion about bringing Pyrs up from the States because of heartworm but many feel that if it means saving a life then so be it. Heartworm is already here. We brought up Ziti, Marsha, Tristan and Isolde which in turn makes room for more discarded dogs in the already-full rescues in the States.

Maryanne and Sue were able to bring these dogs into their homes and give them the new beginning in life that they needed. It is far from an easy task bringing dogs with issues into your home. It takes much patience from all family members to help these dogs and I have extreme admiration for those who do foster. I see the toll it takes on Sue and Maryanne but they continue their work because they see how these dogs blossom. These dogs are then ready to move onto their forever homes.

It had been a struggle at times for me to decide to bring another rescue into our home. I had been to Sue's and hung out with her and her six dogs on several occasions and got to know Ziti. I liked her and she was pretty cute even if she was a bit of a scrapper.

She loves her stuffed toys and likes to play in the yard and it's even better if you go play with her although she can entertain herself. She loves to hang out with us. She is now nine months old.

Trickster's tail wagged a lot on first meeting. He soon wasn't so sure he wanted this puppy bothering him as she taunted him with her toys and rubbed against him in hopes he would play with her. As the day went on, he became more tolerant of her and perhaps thought she was just a crazy puppy.

Today, I have applied to adopt our little Zeets.