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mad teeth

I, TWooie, Do Solemnly Swear

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That I will beat up The Food Lady’s landlord’s dog again at the first opportunity to do so.

Naughty TWooie!!  My landlord has a very sweet and amiable yellow Lab named Mia.  Sometimes Mia comes along when the landlord visits to do repairs or whatever.  Last week he and Mia stopped by to bring the pressure washer to try and clean up the DOGAWFUL MESS a turkey made when she got on my porch and managed to open a can of white ceiling paint, knock it over, and then tread through it all over the porch.  Although TWooie has been doing *surprisingly* well on our hikes and hasn’t objected to any of the client dogs who come along, he has a different view of dogs on HIS turf, and he Does Not Want Mia on his lawn.  He was actually doing okay – some growling and air snapping at her from a respectable and safe distance behind my knees – but when Mia and the landlord went to leave through the gate, TWooie must have figured all his bluff and noise had worked, because he went in for the hair pull (in a previous life, TWooie was an 11 year old girl) and Mia objected, and the dog fight was on!

As neither of them really had their heart in it (after all, TWooie is 98% posturing and only 2% malice) nobody got hurt, but it was quite the epic battle.  We* (*I) felt bad, so we* (*I) went to the doggie bakery and bought Mia a little heart shaped cake that said “sorry” on it to give to Mia when we got back from our hike.  And it was very easy to give to Mia, since she and the landlord were once again on our lawn doing stuff when we returned, so I assume the landlord wasn’t too upset about the whole thing.

But can we talk for a moment about my turkey with superturkey strength?  How does a turkey open a can of paint?  And WHY?  I really don’t get turkeys.  I have two lady turkeys right now sitting on a dozen eggs between them, but will they nest inside the barn?  No no, they must lay their eggs and sit on them outside, behind the barn, under some old dead blackberry thornies, where they are guaranteed to get pissed on when the weather is bad, all night long.  Last night I went out in the pitch black and downpour with a piece of plywood and made them a shelter so they didn’t drown.  And then at first light they promptly abandon their eggs to run around squawking and eating all day.  I don’t have high hopes for those eggs hatching.

But I do have high hopes for the ones in my incubator hatching!  They are due in one week, and I candled them two days ago and found 13 turkey embryos bouncing around in their shells like teenage gymnasts.  Very exciting stuff!

I spent last weekend, about 10 hours a day, painting.  I painted until my arms felt like they were going to fall off, and I could no longer feel my hands.  I took care of the hideous, no good, very bad psychedelic room, which required two coats of primer and two coats of paint (and I swear, in the right light, I can STILL see the outlines of the hideous pattern!).  But now it’s done, as is the dog room (kinda).

 

The dog room needed a new floor, so I bought and and laid lino against pee errors (also known around here as “Gemma, Piper and Addy piss wherever they want to”) and painted, and installed new baseboards.

And psychedelic room is now a nice relaxing shade of pale blue-grey, and not an assault on the visual and aesthetic senses!

I also painted my bedroom, and I still don’t care if you hate pink or not; I like it, and I like how it turned out.  Especially as the bedroom used to be a horrible colour that looked like a cross between pea soup and cat vomit.

As I had repainted the bathroom a couple of weekends before that:

This leaves me with just three rooms to go; living room, office and kitchen.  Starting to see the light at the end of the renovation tunnel!  The living room will be an aubergine shade, if I can find a paint store that carries it and/or can replicate it:

and will also need white baseboards installed.  The kitchen is going to be a nice shade of apple green, and I haven’t decided what do with my office yet.  It also needs flooring, as it’s just subfloor at the moment (don’t ask me why, I really could not tell you the mysteries of Which Rooms Deserved Real Floors And Which Did Not according to the previous tenant).  I also picked up an extremely inexpensive table and chairs for the dining room.  The table top needs to be refinished, so that’s also on my list of things to do.

But as I say, I took this weekend off from painting.  Although it is sunny today, and I am itching to start fencing, because a couple days ago we arrived home to find two cows in the yard.  I did not see them initially.  This may seem weird to you, that I would not notice cattle on my lawn, and I admit it’s weird to me too, but that’s what happened.  And I let the dogs out of the van, and they DID see the cows, and exactly what you think would happen when dogs see cows for the first time happened, and it was CHAOS.  So I really need to make sure that cows and goats are one side of the fence and my acorn-brained dogs are on the other at all times.  Because Fae thinks she can *take* a longhorn cow protecting her 500lb calf, and I don’t think that’s how I want Fae to depart this mortal coil.

Anyway, since the photo studio room was painted, I was eager to try it out.  So yesterday I limited myself to just a couple of errands (I took garbage to the dump, since we don’t have garbage pick up out here in the middle of nowhere, and I picked up two lady ducks for my new Pekin drake Howard – Howard was a stray duck rescued by a friend who then passed him on to me.  And apparently ducks are racist, because my India Runners staunchly refused to make friends with Howard, and Howard was sad.  But I found a nearby duck farmer who provided me with two Lady Howards, so now he has his own little harem and everyone is happy again) and then I rigged up holders for my backdrops, set up my lights, and gave the studio a test run!

(for those of you who saw the original of this on Facebook yesterday – yes, Photoshop and I fixed “Winter’s Wonderland” that was advertising its presence very PINKLY!)

I’m lucky that the vast majority of my dogs like being photographed in studio and fall all over themselves volunteering to be the model.

Even Addy, who basically does NOTHING I ask her to do, ever, likes posing for the camera.  I suspect it’s just a combination of her loving being the center of attention, and cookies.  But whatever her motivation, she is simply adorable to photograph under studio lights.

Look at her adorable face!

And see all those tiny little white hairs sticking up on top of her head?  They are “sticking up” because the rest of the top of her head is bald!  Totally naked!  She suffers from Dilute Colour Alopecia, so she loses patches of her blue hairs on random spots on her body.  Usually it grows back in with coat change, but this time her head remains bald.  So when photographing Addy, it’s all about angles.  Otherwise, her naked head is very obvious.  See?  (btw, this is her checking to see if Wootie ate her modeling paycheque and if there’s any chance of getting it back before it slides down his gullet.  Wootie, OTOH, just views this as an opportunity to make out with a hot, slender woman  … even if she is balding).

Head shots are kinda my favourite, and I think Fae Fae won the session with this one:

It’s those big, big, round brown eyes and the wispy ears combination that does it, I think.

Although Dexter can give her a run for her money when it comes to, erm, “unique” head shots.

I messed with Piper’s photo a little too much in post, but I’m sharing it anyway because her expression kills me.  It’s so classically  Old “Who Am I?  What’s Happening?  Yay Anyway!” Dog.

She’s doing pretty good, my old lady dog is.  She has more cognitive issues than Tweed did at her age, but I kind of expected that because she was always a “live hard” kind of dog, whereas Tweed was a lot more laid back.  She is mostly deaf now, and I have to really keep an eye on her during hikes because it’s easy for her to march off in the wrong direction – she is very determined, and if I lose sight of her she can’t hear me calling her.  She has trouble with some of the paths if they are steep, or there are logs in her way, so she will head off to find a way around the obstacles, which sometimes leads to her just going somewhere else altogether, and then me running all over the forest trying to find her!  Sometimes, when she thinks she has had enough, she will simply turn around and start matching back in the direction of the car.  She’s tough as nails, bad knees and all.

And Wootie.  How can anyone not love The Woo?  I still can’t believe he’s almost 12.  He is such a perpetual puppy.

Whereas TWooie is just a perpetual weirdo.

And Peetie remains a perpetual PEST.  I have never had such an irritating dog.  Miss “No Drive” has no off switch and frequently has to be put in her crate to give everyone some down time, otherwise she’s hitting napping dogs with rope toys to make them mad, or bothering the cats, or standing on the arm of my chair and barking in my ear.  I don’t know what I did to transform her so completely, but I wish I could undo it!!

However, I will give her this – yesterday afternoon the landlord’s goats were grazing in the field right behind my yard, so I couldn’t take the dogs out to play ( I could only imagine the Cow Scenario played out again, but this time X 35) so instead I took them out for short walks two at a time to property meet the horses next door through the fence.  There was only one in the paddock, and he really wants to meet my dogs.  But Every Single One of my dogs was an asshole to the horse – Mad Teeth(tm), growling, lunging and barking … except Peetie, who was super keen to make friends and poked her head through the page wire and sniffed noses with the horse and licked his nostrils.

She’s very friendly, so I haven’t throttled her with my bare hands.  Yet.

So anyway, now I have a fully functioning in-house studio and I can start taking clients!  It’s super exciting, I have dreamed of this opportunity for a long time :)

Now it’s time to get out there and start working on the fence while the good weather holds, and prevent the Great Goat Slaughter of 2017.  Also, I want to get the fencing up so I can rearrange the poultry’s living quarters, so I can then bring MY goats home.  GOATS!  Also so excited :)

And *Poof* – Like Magic, It Was Gone

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The snow that is.  It got warm, started raining and overnight, inches and inches of snow has vanished, like it was never here.

(This post would be more effective if I had photos taken after the snow melted, but it’s raining and I don’t wanna take my camera out there)

It’s hard to imagine that just a few days ago it still looked like this!

The only thing that has still not melted is my driveway, which remains not only an ice rink, but a wet EXTRA slippery ice rink.  Apparently the expression “it gets worse before it gets better” was invented specifically to describe trying to drive out of said extra slippery ice driveway, which was the silly thing I attempted yesterday before giving up, sliding backward into my spot and deciding I didn’t *really* need to go out after all.  I’m hopeful that another day of rain will make it navigable.

Addy is completely skeptical of the sudden change in weather.  She starts shivering before we go outside in anticipation of this:

And then is pleasantly surprised when there is no snow to be found and it’s a balmy 11 degrees.  But then is pissed off that everywhere in the grass that is springing back to life after being smooshed down for a month and a half, is a puddle lurking right at Addy-belly height.  It’s hard to be a tiny dog sometimes.

The other dogs don’t seem to care either way.  As long as they have a ball, the collies don’t care if it’s a monsoon, typhoon, hurricane or sandstorm.

It’s mine, you can’t have it.

These two just want cookies.

I would also like cookies pleaz kthnx.

… and nobody knows what this dog wants.

And this dog just wants to cosplay Snoopy.

(These two just kill me, the are SO FREAKIN’ ADORABLE!)

I actually miss the snow.  Despite complaining about it for like 6 weeks, I guess I had forgotten how much I hate mud.  I was spoiled by not having to wipe paws and bellies every time the dogs come in from outside for so long!

Stop wiping my feet, or I’ll kill you.

 If only the snow wasn’t so cold … and if my landlord would have sanded or plowed the driveway, the snow coulda just hung around until it was 25 degrees outside.

Also, I will miss taking photos like this:

I’m sorry I said that thing about my feet and murder.  Please love me.

(I taught Winter to stand up on his hind legs and turn his back to me rather than putting his paws on me when he wants cookies or pets, that way he doesn’t get reboundy terrier mud feet prints all over my clothes.  This is my view of that trick.)

Winter’s creepy!

You’re all creepy.

(says the turkey with a tiny penis on its forehead)

So Wootubers … I am looking to partner with other creative types to create some sellable items that combine my artistry and yours.  I partnered a few years ago with Claudine of Laughing Dingo Studios for a limited edition Woo print if you recall, and it was quite a hit and very successful.  I would like to do this again, or something similar, or work with an artist wherein we could combine our services for a fee – ie, I take the photos, client chooses a photo(s) to be turned into a painting, sculpture or similar, at a discounted rate for the client for combining the services.  It will build up both our portfolios while earning us both some dineros and also offer people a unique blend of services!  Are any of my Wootube friends interested in partnering for something like this?  Any Wootubers interested in purchasing such a service?  Food Lady needs to make some dog food money while building up her business (and thank you all for the many many shares, please feel free to keep sharing and recommending my business!).  I have a couple of interviews coming up for part time jobs to keep us all in kibble and potato chips in the meantime, but I have this funny catch-22 where if I am employed full time I can’t walk my clients’ dogs, but if I don’t walk dogs full time I can’t … you know, afford to live.  Got any other brilliant ideas for me?

Judgey Spring will judge you if you don’t!

Well, That Was Awkward

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Happy 2017!

I got stuck on a hill coming home from the grocery store today.  On New years Eve my party plans were ruined when it decided to dump another almost-foot of snow on us out here in the sticks.  Seriously – I live in a temperate rainforest FOR A REASON.  Why does it keep snowing?  So I got snowed in with the dogs.  After it snowed, rather than getting warm and washing the snow away as per usual, the temperature instead dropped.  Right now it claims to be 1 degree outside, but we have an arctic outflow that with windchill makes it like -10.  So all that snow FROZE and for reasons known only to city officials, snow plows and salters use our neighbourhood to go salt and plow other neighbourhoods, but do nothing to ours en route.  As such, the one road leading in and out to the main routes (and it has a big hilly dip in the middle of it) is basically inches and inches of solid ice.  I’ve been snowed/iced in since the 30th and desperately needed groceries so today I risked the road to go run errands.  I made it out onto the main route and was literally shaking by the time I got there, it was so harrowing.  But coming home was worse – as I turned onto our street from the main road, a car coming up the intersection couldn’t stop on the ice and plowed into another car driving down the main road.  I stopped to see if they needed help, but it was a low impact collision and everyone was cool (though annoyed AF, obviously).  I then made my treacherous way down the hilly dip but part way back up the other side I started to slide backward … and slide, and slide … thankfully there was nobody behind me and I eventually came to rest on the side of the road (but not IN the ditch, thankfully, as I was basically in someone’s driveway).

Some people get a shiny knight on a white horse to their rescue.  I got a farmer in a tractor from the farm two doors down from me.  He towed me over the crest of the hill and I inched my way the remaining two blocks home at 7 KM/H in first gear.  My teeth have finally stopped chattering and I have managed to scrub the frozen tears off my cheeks.  It was so scary.

I am going to miss my neighbourhood so very much, they are such good people here :(

The plus side of the snow is that the dogs really enjoy it* though they seem a bit mystified about where it keeps coming from.

(*Addy exempted from above statement)

Here’s Wootie enjoying the icesnow pack from the 30th:

And here’s Wootie wondering what the f*ck happened to the earth after the second dump on the 1st.

Here’s Spring levitating over the icy ground from before New Year’s (notice “greenery” clearly visible in background):

And here she is bounding through the snowdrifts on New Year’s Day (notice nothing visible in background except more snow):

Look!  You can see the ground!  You can also see a bad TWooie hunting on the neighbour’s property.

Now – nothing but Winter in the snow.

Speaking of Winter … this is the face of a dog in the midst of an existential crisis that only a man could experience.

Namely, Peetie is in season right now and has decided that Winter is her chosen mate. Winter The Giant Penis (interpret as you wish) is neutered, but that doesn’t stop him from thinking impure thoughts.  He does not like Peetie, as he finds her (as we all do) annoying and persistently pesty, but he is also a horndog – which means he growls at her when she butt-flirts with him and then he furiously humps her, and then he’s angry at both her and himself for what he’s done.  Wash, rinse and repeat several times a day.

I hate myself.  Moar sexy times pleaze.

His self loathing may come from two places;

1) Dexter was her Numero Uno choice.  Dexter obliged.  The naughty dogs started to tie, Peetie lost her nerve and started crying, Dexter ran away and is now terrified of Peetie.

HELP ME, I’M CONFUSED!

2) Peetie is a slut, and is flirting with everyone and everything that will engage her and if Winter won’t get it done, she figures someone else will.  I caught Wootie giving her sexy ears this morning and doing a little tap dance for her (which reaffirms my belief that Wootie is not, in fact, a dog, but rather a species of exotic bird).  But most amazingly, she has charmed TWooie into thinking he might have a shot at some sweet, ermm, lady bits.

I thought TWooie was asexual, so this has been entertaining.  He is practically doing cartwheels to get her attention.

Who am I becoming?

Meanwhile, this tiny dog (in her coyote vest for safety, and sweater for warmth) is enjoying the snow endlessly.

Because the snow has flattened a lot of the scrub on the property, visibility is a helluva lot better, so she is allowed to explore more places as I can see there are no carnivorous dangers lurking unseen behind bushes.

The other tiny dog is a miserable shivering collection of bone and skin and wishing she had never left sunny California for this freezing cold god awful climate.  She is not wearing her coyote vest because I can’t put her in my jacket when she’s wearing it, and she spends 99.981% of our walks in my coat.  She basically leave the comfort of my clothes long enough to poop (for which I am very grateful) . No amount of sweaters and body suits can keep her warm, poor thing.

This dog likes the snow so much that she goes out in it to “pee” late at night, then suddenly loses her hearing and refuses to hear me calling her to come back inside and I have to put on boots and a coat over my pajamas and go retrieve her.  Good thing I built a fence, or I might lose her forever!

I’m glad the dogs are having fun in said snow…

Because this weekend we are supposed to get another 25 cms of the freaking stuff (that’s 10 more inches to you Americans).  On top of the foot or so we already have.  That’s gonna be just FREAKING AWESOME.

NOT.

More snow?  Yay!

One year I bought snow tires for my van, and four weeks later somebody totaled my van, and it didn’t even snow that year.  It hasn’t seriously snowed since (just smatterings here and there that last for a day or two and then melt), and thus I haven’t gotten snow tires since.  I am deeply regretting not having them this year.  I’d pimp Peetie out for some!  This kind of weather is so unprecedented.

So far, absolutely nothing even close to resembling something affordable that is dog friendly has come up for rental possibilities, so I guess the silver lining is at least I’m not missing potential homes because I can’t get out to go see them?  (I’m reaching here).  The landlords’ realtor and the buyer’s realtor came up with a one-year lease rental option for all of us (landlord included) but when they approached the buyer, the buyer nixed it – doesn’t want any of us here.  So there is 100% no possibility of any of us staying past the end of February.  I’m trying not to panic.  Even though this place has caused me some serious grief over the years, I’m still going to miss my home a lot :(

I’ll be sad to leave it.  After all, it’s where I am going to bury Peetie’s body after I throttle her for pestering me to go outside to play in the icefridge world.

This photo is from December 12th.  That’s a long time for us to have snow!

Happy New Year, I guess.  (insert New Year’s equivalent of “bah Humbug” here)

A Holiday Carolling Mash Up

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On the first day of Christmas, The Food Lady gave to me ….

an apple.

And it’s great.  No really.

Dashing thru the snow, on three legs Winter goes …

Until he saw Woo’s apple and said “whoa, whoa, whoa.”

(If I could explain the superstition / ritual behind “Winter can only eat an apple whilst standing on three legs” I would.  But I can’t.)

Fae bells ring, are you listening …

Battle-collies are positioning …

It’s a beautiful night

For a borderjack fight ….

Eating apples in a Winter Wonderland

Do you Ear what I Ear?

Hark the penguins ball food umbrella snot cookie

(C’mon, Piper’s getting a bit old to remember lyrics)

T’was the night before Christmas

And the doggies were hopin’

That cuz I made them wear hats and posted it on the internet,

Tonight I’m sleeping with one eye open.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE :)

Let It Go, Let It Go, Let It Go

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Are you ready for a huge dump of snow …. photos?

I did promise on Monday that I would take some pictures in the snow before it melted, it snows so rarely here, so I took some time out from editing Christmas photos on Monday afternoon to go out and play in the snow with the doggies and the camera.  Good thing too, because IT DIDN’T MELT AND IT’S ALL STILL HERE.  And we’re getting another load tonight!  Gah.

It’s been hovering between -5C and -10C here even in the daytime, which is basically unheard of for the Lower Mainland.  My pipes froze, and I had no water for 5 of the last 7 days, which is no fun when it’s flippin’ cold in the house and out of the house and your dogs eat cold semi-frozen food.  But weirdly, though the world is frozen solid, there is a new FLOWING river that has appeared from under my house and meanders lazily through the yard and out the back gate (that’s going to be extra awesome when the world thaws out).  This is the ONLY thing about the cold that makes the ducks happy; everything else about it makes them sad quackers.  I had to go out and buy three bales of hay to spread out around their yard, as their feet were freezing and they couldn’t walk.

The dogs are loving the snow though!

Well … not ALL of the dogs.  Addy doesn’t enjoy the snow or the cold one tiny bit, no matter how many sweaters and coats she’s wearing.

Often she doesn’t last more than 5 minutes, and ends up back in the house chewing on lamb necks with Gemma “I don’t go outside” Old Lady Dog.  She has practically no hair, so you can’t really blame her for this aversion to sub zero temperatures.

Everyone else is quite a lot hairier, and therefore quite a lot happier.

They have really been having so much fun, even if we only last about 40 minutes before I can’t feel my toes and we need to come back inside (I was built for warmer climes).

It puts them all in a fantastically silly mood.  This makes Peetie, who is the world’s naughtiest dog but all the world’s most playful dog, beyond happy because just about anyone will play with her in the snowy weather.  She’s over the moon.

But although she is a free-for-all player-with-other-dogs-er, her heart belongs to Dexter, and his to her.  They are besties furever.  Every day they have an hour long game of Bitey Face after breakfast, and as I type, they are laying on the sofa together passing a chewy toy back and forth.  I’ve never seen Dexter make a friend he likes as much as The Peetie Pocket.  They’re in lurrrrve.

This is specially excellent for Dexter now, at this time in his life, because two weeks ago he ruptured his ACL.  (Which in retrospect, and ironically, probably has something to do with his BFF Peetie, who is an unapologetic heel-biter).  I have been trying to limit his exercise somewhat, but obviously have not been all that successful, especially in the snow.

But as he won’t be able to play agility again, it pleases me that he has another thing to amuse him (ie Peetie).  He, of course, has no idea that anything is wrong with him and a limp sure doesn’t hold him back.

I’m sick to death of torn cruciates :(

YOU’RE sick of torn cruciates?

I’m glad that I got to take these awesome snowy photos on this property though, because I will never have this opportunity again.

So let me explain.

Around this time last year, me and my whole team of excellent, dedicated animal shelter workers were removed from our jobs, as many of you know.  It took me several months of decompressing to realize what a horrible, depressing effect that job had on me because of the horrible things I saw and the horrible people I dealt with day in and day out; my team was great, but management was poisonous, and the public was nearly as bad.  I now know that I don’t want to do this kind of work anymore; that after nearly 6 years of seeing people do terrible things to animals (and to other people) I don’t want that sort of negativity to be my bread and butter.  But I really didn’t, and don’t, know what I *want* to do.  I job hunted throughout the spring and summer and explored several industries through countless interviews and still couldn’t find something that spoke to me.  I had kind of resigned myself to taking just whatever to pay the bills (which was proving difficult enough to find in and of itself, because the job market here sucks and the payscales are pretty terrible), when I realized I’d miscalculated my unemployment benefits end-date, and ran out of money.  This happened at roughly the same time as my landlords put the farm, my home, up for sale and were feeling really positive that it was going to sell quickly.  What this turned into was an accumulation of awfulness – losing my job, losing Little Man, losing my home – and I really just fell out of the bottom of a spiraling hole of terribleness.  I couldn’t be positive, I couldn’t really see my way out of how sad I was about everything.  (And of course, cockroaches love the dark, and take advantage of this sort of environment to try and make you feel worse and post stupid, vile crap on your blog in a bullying attempt to rally everyone else to be nasty right along with them.  And that cockroach should be ashamed of herself).

I’ve always had very little patience or empathy for people who give up their pets because they’re ‘moving.’  “I’d live in my car with my dogs before I’d give them up” – I’ve said, you’ve said it probably, we’ve all heard it said.  And I believed it too.  But when I thought I was going to be broke and homeless I realized what a selfish thing it was for me to do to my dogs, to be unable to give them any kind of stability or life, living in my van while I couch surfed.  And I thought the best thing to do for my dogs, who are my family, and my life, was to find them homes better able to give them the kind of lives it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to give them any longer.  I felt I owed them that.  And that’s why I began the painful process of finding them new homes.

Then I was lucky and blessed enough to get some help from some friends, which got me through a scary financial time (and thank you to those wonderful people) and miraculously, I got a job.  It didn’t pay great, and I wasn’t at all interested in the industry or the position itself, but I needed something to climb out of the dark place; a buffer between me and the worst of the bad.  And the job turned out to be so awful and demeaning and boring – by the third day, when my alarm went off in the morning, I began to cry.  I just imagined the rest of my life stretching out into an awful, endless landscape of getting up before dawn to commute to a place where the entire staff was miserable and unhappy, spend the majority of my waking hours in that depressing place doing the world’s most mindless and boring job, and being condescended to by a woman half my age, and coming home to my dogs too tired and heartsick to appreciate them, and I couldn’t bear it.  It did not pull me out of the dark place, it sucked me right back in.

I decided I needed to make a change in my life, to do something every day that I enjoyed, and to work for myself.  I quite the job.  I took out a loan from a friend, to outfit myself as a commercial dogwalker.  After all, who else has more experience at walking 10 dogs at a time other than me? ;-)  The loan provided the money to build and host the website (please tell your friends in my area!), the business logo (by Canid Design, highly recommend her!), the business license/registration and aluminum crates in my van (and though I love that literally _none_ of you asked, there’s the explanation for that particular accusation) for the safest means of travelling with other people’s dogs, because I take that responsibility seriously.  I was excited to get started, the plan being that I would work hard for the next several years, do two group walks a day (each with half of my dogs and half of client dogs) leaving my evenings free of canine obligations to finish my university degree online.  And take it from there.  The farm wasn’t selling.  I was jazzed, I was motivated, and in the meantime, I was doing what I love most in the world, taking and editing photos of other people’s dogs (for Christmas!).  And because these last few paragraphs have been kind of depressing, here are some holiday photos to cheer us all up.

And then Dexter tore his cruciate, and I don’t have the money to fix that, and I was sorta bummed about it because he’s so young and active, but I’ve been through this before, and had some ideas about some photos shoots I want to do and sell prints and thought maybe I could eventually raise the money to fix it.  And then it snowed and my pipes froze, and Peetie ate the cord for my brand new Christmas gift of a heating blanket and the battery on my van died and had to be replaced to the tune of $300.00  … and my landlords told me that they sold the farm, the new owners don’t plan to rent out the houses, and I have to find somewhere to live by the end of February :(

I admit my relationship with the farm has changed somewhat since the incident with the coyote.  I’m a bit scared of the property now, and it’s no longer quite the paradise it used to be for me.  The magical river that has appeared in my yard, the frozen pipes, the curtains frozen to my window in the morning … I’m tired of sleeping in a bunk bed and wish for a real bedroom, some closets to store things, a gate that shuts properly.  But for all that, this has been my home for 7 years.  When I moved here they told me they would never sell their farm, it’s been in their family for generations.  It’s their home.  It’s my home.  I’m losing my home.

I’m trying really hard to maintain my happy vibe, but it’s awfully, awfully hard.  I feel a bit like there’s something horrible or just shitty with my name on it lurking around every corner just waiting to pound on every upwardly mobile step I manage to make.  Now I’m wondering where the hell I’m going to live with 10 dogs, in a place that has a housing crisis of epic proportions, that is affordable, when I have no job to recommend me.  How do I build a business in this area if I end up having to move hours away just to find affordable small acreage that will take my dogs?  What if I can’t find anywhere to go?  What’s going to happen to me and my dogs?  How did I get here, and how do I find my way out?

I could use some words of inspiration, or hope or hell, just plain old kindness. right about now.  I’m feeling kinda blue :(  And if I can have a Christmas wish granted this year, while it would be smart to wish for a new home for me and the dogs, I’m more tempted to wish that people stop being assholes.  At the risk of sounding trite, you really never know how difficult something is for someone else, and you never really know when that difficulty could be your difficulty.  I *never* thought I’d be in this position.  Try not being an asshole – this does not apply to 99.99% of the people who read my silly dog blog, but the reminder never hurts.

I hope the rest of you have a Merry Christmas.  And if anyone has a brilliant idea about where I could live and keep my family together, please PLEASE share it with me.  I would be ever so grateful.

Why Hello There!

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Long time no blog

So October has been, like, the wettest one on record or something, with the most consecutive days of rain EVER.  This is not conducive to photo taking, because my camera is made of sugar and will melt in all that wet stuff.  But yesterday afternoon the sun made a brief appearance for a few crisp Autumn hours and we made the most of it with a long meandering property walk, camera in hand.

Wootie and Autumn were made for one another- their colours are more than complimentary, even if His Orangeness has a tendency to disappear into the foliage from time to time.

His brother is just as bad, because he looks like Autumn leaves AND shadows all mixed together.  He’s vanished more than I see him on our walks.  Of course, he’s mostly slogging through ditches and getting all tangled up in the poky bushes while chasing invisible critters, which is the main reason I don’t see much of him.

He’s Wootie’s shadow anyway.

He’s also a bad influence, because when TWooie smells something delicious (real or imagined) he gets VERY excited and animated and starts racing around in circles barking the most excited bark in the world.  It gets everyone else all excited too, and when he takes off, a certain percentage of BADDOGS are certain to follow him wherever he may go.  His latest protege is none other than Her Royal Pestiness, Peetie “Pocket Collie Rocket” who becomes completely deaf when she is in the presences of The Instigator.

Hears Nothing.

She doesn’t even know what she’s chasing!!  (Of course, I’m not sure TWooie does either, to be honest).  But she’s all “Peace.  Out” and gone and if I stop screeching her name in vain long enough, I can hear the dulcet and metronomic tones of TWooieBarking fading into the distance of the acreage while Peetie crashes gracelessly in hot pursuit.  Yesterday she came back so covered in mud I thought I’d acquired yet another dog (I did not photograph that mess).

Winter goes with them too.  There’s no photograph of that, because HE WASN’T THERE.  The three of them are like a crime syndicate, immune to the laws of man and beast and, you know, hearing.  So very naughty.  There’s many an afternoon where I have stomped back to the house grumbling obscenities under my breath, and half wishing the buggers never come back home, but they always make a surprise reappearance right before I am about to shut the door in all of their grimy little faces.

Addy really REALLY wants to go with them.  She tries so hard.  But they don’t let her, because she’s a nerd in a geeky sweater.

Often they wear their coyote vests, but sometimes they are too wet to put on again after our last outing, at least for Addy, who is a delicate flower.  She doesn’t like wearing “clothes” at the best of times, and she especially doesn’t like wearing damp clothes.  And woe to the person who tried to put both a sweater AND a coyote vest on The Pants.  She becomes immobilized, like that little kid in the snowsuit in A Christmas Story.

But our friend Keryn of Farm Fairy Fibre has knitted Addy a neckwarmer to keep her vital bits nice and toasty without subjecting her to a full body geeky sweater.

neckwarmer

Although I personally think she looks adorable in her bright coloured shirt :)

Maybe I should put one on Peetie, so I could at least spot her as she vanishes over the horizon in pursuit of TWoo.

I remain on the fence, somewhat, about Peetie.  That sounds awful and more ominous than I mean for it to.  She has many lovely qualities; she has a rock solid temperament when it comes to people and is happy to meet anyone, anywhere, anytime.  She is also wonderful when meeting other dogs – like every golden retriever in the history of golden retrievers, her first instinct is to invite them to play with her.  She has excellent bounce back, she likes to learn (now) and she’s pretty much perpetually happy.  She’s generous…she’ll give you the last Chuck-It Ball in the world if you ask for it.

But.

She. is. INSANE.  I know I’ve waxed about this already, but she never stops.  The only way to get her to stop (stop moving, stop bothering the cats, stop bothering the other dogs, stop eating THE ARMS OF MY CHAIRS, all fabric everywhere etc) is to give her a bone to chew on.  And this is where Peetie’s generosity ends.  Because she’s a stone cold asshole when it comes to bones and she’ll fight you (if you’re a dog) if you so much as look at her precious chunk of herbivore.  So when I leave for work in the morning, it’s not like I can leave her a bone to amuse herself with, because I’d come home to beaten up and pissed off dogs after work.  Thus do my armchairs and various fabrics suffer from her freedom/boredom.  And I’m not crating her for 10 hours a day and at bed time to – I don’t want to have that argument again, and I’m not judging anyone else for what they do, but *I* am not comfortable crating any dog that much in a day.

But.

She’s an endless source of amusement for Dexter, because she speaks his language (crazy).

She has stopped puking in the car (hurray!).  She’s a beautiful jumper and likes to work at agility … not that I have enough time to work with her as much as I’d like.  She’s funny!  I dunno.  And who else would want to live with her?  If *I* find her too much, I can’t imagine what someone else would make of her!  I think the trick is to make it through her adolescence, whereupon she will recover some her sanity (assuming I survive that long) and be a lovely adult dog.  But OMG what if she doesn’t?  What if she’s always insane?

You know, like somedog I know.

Actually, Dexter has become quite lovely to live with in his middle age.  Except for the whole hate-on-the-TWoo thing, but otherwise he’s pretty chill at home and he’s a lot more fun to play agility with now.  Not, like, in competition, but just for fun.  And of course, he is the most handsome border collie in the world.

Mostly.

And then there’s DoDo, who is still with me.  I had lots of promising interest in her, but it’s all fizzled out for one reason or another.  I got a lot of interest from people who want her as a companion for this big standard poodles, but DoDo doesn’t much care for big dogs.  Dexter is pretty much her size cut off, and even he’s a bit much for her sometimes, like the time he TKO’d her by accident.  She really needs a playmate her own size-ish.

Help me find a home for her by continuing to spread the word!  She’s a nice little thing, but she deserves a poodle home … and a break from Peetie.

Here’s a pretty sunlit Fall photo of my beautiful old lady dog, because I loves me some Piper.

And also, although this is a dog blog, I cannot resist sharing a photo of my turkeys.  I LOVE my turkeys.  My turkeys HATE me.  I am forever picking them up and hugging them, which I have on good authority that turkeys do not enjoy.  But I can’t help it.  They make the funniest noises and their heads are so soft and fuzzy.  So much for them being Christmas dinners.  However, now that they’ve grown up a bit, it looks like I have three hens and a tom, which is perfect for making MORE turkeys, which I can then in turn sell for Christmas dinners.

What’s the most awesome about this tom turkey is that so far, he rarely displays so that he looks like the turkey you drew in elementary school by tracing your hand.  Mostly he just looks like a larger hen.  But there are two occasions on which he puffs all up:  1) when DoDo is chasing him or his hens and 2) when my friend Michelle comes over.  Other people come over and he ignores them.  but when Michelle comes to visit, he gets all puffy and struts around gobbling.  We don’t know if its because he really doesn’t like her … or if he REALLY “likes” her.

Also, before you go, keep this in mind; I believe I have secured a really awesome location for Christmas themed photo shoots this year; I’ll have it nailed down by the end of the week.  I’m not doing characters-in-costume drop-in sessions this year, I’m offering individualized, studio portraiture style Christmas-themed sessions with simple but elegant sets and the option of a photoshopped background.  Stay tuned – I am really excited to try something different this year.  Sessions will happen on various weekends throughout the month of November and December :)  Be sure to check out my Big Air Photography page on Facebook to stay in the loop!