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turkeys

Won’t You Be My Neighbour

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I dunno about you, but my neighbours are SUPER nosy.  They’re always staring at me.

Sometimes they bring some friends to lay around staring at me too.

It’s rude.

Also, some of my neighbours have kids.  They’re super loud.  How can tiny kids have such big lungs?!

Tasty, tasty kids …

The stupid turkey insisted on sitting and hatching outside of the poultry pen, and still refuses to bring her kids inside the pen.  The property is pretty thoroughly fenced now (the perimeter, not my yard, which remains unfenced.  *grumble*) so I am not worried about predators except for the ones that live in my rv with me.  Because there are some certain skinny dogs and some terriorists that would eat those babies in a nanosecond.  Yesterday I found the baby turkeys INSIDE the x-penned area I have for the dogs.  The dogs were, fortunately, inside … except for Maisie, who was thinking up turkey recipes before she made her move.  I shooed them out while fending off a hoard of hungry canines, but I don’t anticipate this ending well, necessarily, until I can convince mama turkey to join the community and stop living off grid.

I’m also not unconcerned about the cats eating the poults … this giant tin tube gets REAL hot when the weather is warm, so I have taken to leaving the door open so the dogs can come in and go out at will, rather than us all crammed inside here breathing and sweating on one another.  That means I can’t keep my cats in, so for the first time in their lives, they are being indoor/outdoor cats.  I was particularly worried about Donut, because on other occasions when she has escaped whatever house I was living in, she wouldn’t ever come back inside and I’d have to live trap her.  But now she seems to have settled into the idea that it won’t be her only taste of freedom and she will happily come back inside in the evening when I tap the tin of wet cat food with the fork.  She even lets me pet her when she’s outside, which is amazing.  But if you recall from my time in the penthouse apartment in the West End, she was known as The Serial Killer Tinker Nuts, who caught and killed birds on the rooftop deck with sociopathic glee.  I would not put it past her to eat a turkey poult or two if she can sneak them away from Mama Turkey.

Cyrus is the one that’s killin’ me though.  He wanders much further afield than ‘Nutz does; she stays mostly close to home, but Cyrus goes to visit the neighbours (including the cattle and buffalo) on a regular basis.  He seems to stay away from the road, but coyotes live in them-there grasses, so I worry about him all the time.  But what I don’t worry about is feeding him, because every morning our routine goes like this:  I let everyone out into the xpen area to hang out while I go feed and water the poultry, and the cats wander off to do cat things … then I take the dogs out in small groups to potty, then I feed them breakfast and I sit down with my cup of coffee at the dining room table.  And every morning by that time, Cyrus has caught himself a fat, tasty field mouse and I watch him come ambling across the parking lot with the mouse in the mouth, so he can eat it under the rv.  If he catches something he does not like the taste of (such as shrews, or moles) he simply leaves them under the rv for safe keeping.  If he catches more than he can eat, he does the same thing, and then Addy eats it.  Blech.  So much deworming in everyone’s future.

The air quality here is really bad right now, because once again our province is on fire.  It’s been unreasonably hot this summer, again, which I’m starting to think is our new normal – pre-Apocalyptic :(  It’s all smokey and hazy outside, and I am reluctant to run the dogs in it, so I’m glad we went to our Super Secret Swimming Hole a few days ago when the sky was blue and you could see the sun.

Fae, otoh, was not impressed that I suggested she should swim to retrieve the ball if she wanted a cookie, no matter what the weather was like.

A few weeks ago, I photographed a dock diving event, which was awesome … it looked like a lot of fun for the dogs!  There’s some rumour that a dock diving pool might be unveiled ’round these parts soon, and I still think I’ve found a use for Peetie, finally, as while she sucks at pretty much everything, she is really enthusiastic about diving into the water.

…although ….

Crazy Miss Maisie would also make a hella dock diver I think.  I keep trying to shove into the faces of dog dock enthusiasts, but no luck yet.

I actually find her quite pleasant to live with – she’s developed a nice off switch, and she’s pretty easy going in the house, and will amuse herself if nobody else wants to play with her.  Although yesterday I made Winter drop a not-quite-hatched turkey egg he purloined from Off Grid Mama’s abandoned nest and she scarfed it up, maggots and all, and ran away LIKE HER ASS WAS ON FIRE, munching it down the whole time.  Can you bleach the inside of a puppy?  SO GROSS.  So clearly we need to work on “hey, how about you give me the ball of maggots in exchange for this hot dog?” or similar.

Anyway, she’s not difficult to have around, and she mostly listens pretty well, and she doesn’t run away all the time, a la Silly.  Who, by the way, is doing really well in Belize in his new home!  His human recently sent me this:

“My friend and I went to a dog show in the capital city just for fun. Decided to take Hero, Titan and Silly. They asked us if we wanted to enter into it when we were walking around with them. Figured why not? Silly ended up taking first place in obedience and the obstacle course!! I was so scared he was going to get ADD with the obedience cause there was so much activity but he did absolutely amazing ☺️ Not in the country even a week and he’s charming everyone ❤️❤️ so proud of him.“

So how much awesome is that??  I do miss his full body contact hugs though, he was greatly affectionate … but he’s landed himself a pretty cushy life. I’m a bit jealous … I would like to live in Belize, I’m pretty sure.

But back to the beach!  Spring got a cookie for hopping on and off these pilings, because it amused me, and then she wouldn’t stop doing it.  She knows an easy gig when she’s landed one!

She makes me laugh all the time, she is such a ridiculous little dog.

Addy did the piling-jumping once, but even for cookies, it paled in comparison to the satisfaction she apparently gets from digging up wet sand.  She’ll do it for two solid hours.  I love this little skinny thing beyond measure, but I really don’t think there is a lot going on upstairs in tiny-head land.

Then there’s Wootie, who is very very deaf now (whether that’s physiological or willful, only he knows) but can still hear me well enough to give me this look when I tell him I’m going to steal his Wootie Stick and chuck it in the water.

But you can’t really blame him, because his poor nekkid tail looks absolutely ridiculous when he swims.  Like a little, sad, hairless rudder.  I’m surprised he doesn’t sink; I always thought it was his Flamoyance(tm) that kept him buoyant.

And Deafter, who loves to swim…

… but also suffers some “someone might steal my ball” anxiety and spends a lot of beach time hunched over his hockey ball protectively in the sand.

He’s so handsome no matter what he does, even when his stupid tongue is hanging out.  And he’s my go-to posing dog for test shots, from sunset OCF to lavender.  He’s the best.  And he’s going to be – this will BLOW YOUR MIND – nine years old in four days.  NINE!!!!

Love my big guy so much :)

(feeling old yet??)

 

2018

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2018 – just like 2017, only with more rain, and less sleep.

Ugh.

If it could just. stop. raining for like a few days, I would be ever so … much drier.  I know I live in The Rainiest Place On Earth and everything, and have for pretty much all my life, but I’M SICK TO DEATH OF IT.    In October we had two whole days with no rain.  In November, three whole days.  In December it snowed, just to break up the monotony of rain, and now in January it has rained 20 out of 28 days so far.  But that’s only because everything was frozen for the first week of January and it was too cold to rain.

DOUBLE UGH.

Near constant rain means nothing is ever *quite* dry, including the ends of the sleeves on my coats (which I have to switch out sometimes twice a day because apparently “waterproof” is just a suggestion, not a fact) and the collars and/or hoods of the sweatshirts I’m wearing, and my ever rotating gang of shoes and boots that live pretty much permanently up against the heater with the sincere hope they will dry out before I have to rotate back to them again.  Plus there’s soaking wet dog and the never ending cycle of dog laundry of wipin’- towels and wet dog blankets and let us not ever not remember the peed-on dog beds, because tiny dogs with tiny bladders that go on strike as soon as the sky starts spitting at them.  You can never get totally warm when the damp permeates everything like this.  Dear Mother Nature, please turn the faucet off!

There are no good photo opportunities in the grey and rain either.  Even when I get a rare afternoon off from the streaming skies and bring the camera out, it’s still grey and dreary and darkish and I am totally demotivated by the photos I do manage to take.  That makes blogging kinda difficult, unless I start posting reruns.

Right now the dogs are all asking to go out for a run and I don’t wanna go! Well, Addy isn’t asking…she’s in my shirt (making typing difficult) and doesn’t wanna go outside as much as I don’t.

But I have to go, because while adult dogs can coexist tolerably in the house without exercise for a day or two, this cannot.

THAT eats my furniture when he’s bored.  And staying inside is boring, even when we play games of tug and clicker.  At this exact moment he is laying with his head on Dexter’s thigh and I can see that he is eyeballing Dexter’s tail which is wiggling in his sleep, and thinking of biting it.  Which means we gotta go out before there is bloodshed.  BRB

Annnnnd, we’re back!

It’s the Year Of The Dog so I suppose it was only fitting that everyone get puppies and leave me seething in a green fit of jealousy.

Ann got a puppy.

This is Fever, she’s a border collie X whippet and is itty bitty!!  And so flippin’ cute.


And The Sadist got a puppy.

She’s an Aussie with a tail.  She’s basically just a carbon copy of Niko.  Also itty bitty … and also flippin’ cute!

And this is Dorothy’s Sonic, who is not a puppy, but he’s super adorable.

And what did I get?

THIS.

He is not itty bitty.  He is 26lbs at 16 weeks old(!!!)  He is extremely Silly, so that’s how he got his name.


A person bought Silly as a smaller puppy and decided he was a “monster” and tried to make his breeder refund her money.  When that didn’t happen, a friend of a friend heard about him and was so horrified by the lack of like the person had for the puppy that she bought him from her and then surrendered him to me.  Other than his gargantuan size, he is definitely not a monster!  But he is kinda crazy, so it’s fitting he ended up with my oddball crew.

(The breeder is aware – and pleased – that I have him and has even invited me to come meet his parents.  Please don’t send me messages about contacting the breeder)


He’s a pretty smart dude – pretty well housebroken, fairly well mannered for the most part (though he does like to put paws on my counter and snarf up everything that comes within reach of his pointy face) and he isn’t even all that whacky in the house.  He has already adjusted to our routine – get up and go outside for about half an hour, have breakfast and then nap until we go hiking in the early afternoon.  He does tend toward a bout of craziness about 9pm when he thunders and gallumps around the house throwing toys in every direction, but that’s pretty normal puppy stuff.

He figured out very quickly that TWooie is mostly all bark and very little bite and TWooie figured out pretty quickly that even as a clumsy-limbed, legs all akimbo wherever he goes, adolescent Silly can out-maneuver TWooie the butterball, so he has given up trying to pull out clumps of Silly hair altogether.

Nobody else seems to mind Silly at all, except poor Mini Mama, who seems to lack the ability to convince him of her intent to kill him when he pounces on her.  I mean, even Addy and Fae clued him into that right away, but somehow Mini Mama can’t quite drive the point home, so we’re working on that.  She is such a nice dog.  I am forever confused about how she still isn’t adopted.

I never thought this sentence would come out of my mouth/off my fingertips, but thank doG for Peetie.  She is endlessly tolerant of Silly and will play with him as often and for as long as he wants to wrassle or chase or tug.  She keeps him entertained when I cannot.


Because I’m fairly busy.  I’m also boarding these little ladies until the middle of February, while their parents are off having fun in the SUNSHINE of Costa Rica.  Usually I quite like their parents, but as I sit here with the ends of my hair dripping rain down into my sweatshirt, not so much.  Fortunately, Kita and Lupa are the nicest and easiest dogs ever, I am always happy to have them to visit.

You’re probably thinking “hey, that looks like sunshine in that photo and you keep complaining about non stop rain!”  Well don’t be fooled, I made the sunshine in post.  That’s how bad I wanted sunshine.

I made it up in this one too.

Silly is even respectful of Piper (but she has Mad Teeth(tm) so he doesn’t have a lot of say in the matter) and doesn’t ever knock her over or otherwise make her life difficult.  Which is a good thing, because her life is difficult enough :(  She is not bouncing back this time like she did last time and is still having a great deal of difficulty walking.  We’re at three weeks now since she lost her back end, for the most part and she’s just not really improving.  It’s frustrating to not know what the problem is too, at least for me.  For her it must just be frustrating because her back end gives out on her after a few moments of standing or walking, and she has a definite problem with circling to the left … sometimes she just circles endlessly to the left.  I make sure she gets at least a small amount of exercise by walking around the acreage with us in the mornings, but more often than not I end up carrying her because she will end up laying down in the mud somewhere and when I try to herd her back to the house, she wanders off to the left and falls down again :(

Her cognitive function also seems impaired, but it’s kind of a chicken or egg thing and I can’t really tell if her cognitive decline is a result of her physical decline or the other way ’round.  She gets stuck in weird places at odd hours of the night, like in a corner of the bedroom where she wouldn’t normally go at 3AM, and wakes me up crying for help.  Sometimes she wakes me up 3 or 4 times a night, which is really messing with MY cognitive function in the daytime hours, because I can’t get a solid night’s sleep.  Sometimes she gets stuck because she slips on the laminate or lino … the other day I came home and found her asleep on a pee pad in the dog room presumably because she couldn’t get to her feet on the slippery surface.  I tried confining her to xpen and that stressed her out so much I couldn’t do it again.

I *think* we are managing her pain well enough – it’s hard to say of course, but she isn’t groaning as much as she was and she isn’t all hunched over either.  She is still continent, though it’s difficult for her to squat to eliminate, but she only pees herself when she gets stuck somewhere and I can’t get there fast enough (like when I’m, you know, asleep).  And show her a hockey ball and her eyes light up and she’s after it like a … well, maybe not like a *shot*, and more like a three legged hamster on a whiskey bender, but still she wants to play.  And oddly, she will join a game of tug with the Flying Squirrel and stay on her feet no matter which way Peetie whips her all around.  It’s the craziest thing.

But I want her to get better, because I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing waiting (hoping) for her to get better or not.  I mean, this can’t be much of a life for her, fiercely independent as she is.  Whenever I have to pick her up (which is fairly often, given the frequency with which she falls down) and she doesn’t fight me as I carry her, my heart breaks a little, because she HATES being carried.  It’s like she knows how vulnerable and helpless she is.  I am afraid to make a decision because what if I make it a day too soon and she would have spontaneously recovered like she did last time?  But how long do I wait?

These are the questions that would keep me up a night, if I weren’t so freakin’ tired from being awoken several times a night.  As awful as it was to lose Tweed so suddenly, I had no other choices to make with him – he had a very terminal cancer.  Even Gemma went from fine to unable to breathe overnight, and she was suffering, so I had no other choice to make.  But this I think is worse … especially with her bloodwork being so great and radiographs being so damn useless.

*sigh*

In other news …

Dexter.  “Hiding” behind one blade of grass.  Some things really don’t ever change.

Mr. Woo, best poser ever (now that Tweed no longer holds the title).  This was the beach on a very foggy day, and I am so pleased with how it turned out!

Fae can give him a run for his money though.

Even the turkeys are excellent posers!  Like father, like son … Terrence and Philip.

It’s so tempting to keep this puppy, guys, even though it would be the stupidest thing ever for me to do, given what’s going on with me right now … but so tempting, because he is SO RIDICULOUS.

However, he is going to be pretty huge.  I’m not sure he’ll fit in my lifestyle (ie, where am I going to put him in the dog hiking van??)

But that FACE!  LOL

 

 

Dashing Through The Snow …

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This is the kind of snow I like!  Sure it’s cold and stuff, but it snowed one big-enough dump to make the world fluffy and pretty, but the roads remain clear and driveable.  My landlord plowed my driveway so I can get up and down it, and the dogs have fun in it*, but it has not trapped me on my property.  All good things!

(*Addy doesn’t have quite as much fun in it.  Yesterday I took everyone out and she complained mightily that despite a sweater AND a winter coat, it was intolerably cold and she was miserable.  So I put her back in the house with a chewy which made her happy for a while, but then she decided that everyone was having fun without her and she was intolerably lonely, so she yapped and howled her little head off until I went inside, redressed her and brought her back outside.  Lather, rinse and repeat.  I love my little fair-weather diva, even if she does turn her nose up at warm clothing, and then turns into a ridgeback when she goes without it.  I have no idea how she manages this with no hair!)


I bought her an adorable little turtleneck sweater at the feed store, because it was only $10 and because it was long enough to cover her bum and the neck flips up to cover her throat. I thought she would appreciate the warmth.  Instead I just walked past the bedroom and found her naked under my covers (heated blanket is still on!) and her turtleneck in a tiny heap on the floor.  I don’t know why she is so allergic to clothes.

But she is not allergic to COOKIES, which is convenient for me, because I did a fun little session with my doggies where I put one in a sit stay and then threw a cookie at them so I could capture the moment before and during the leap for the cookie.


There were a lot of photobombs until everyone figured out they’d each get a turn.  But some of them turned out awesome!

I like this one of Wootie; I even caught his curly orange locks in motion just as he was preparing to “leap.” His actual leap was more of a faceplant, but the pre-leap was pretty adorable!

I didn’t get any of his brother, because he would sit and watch the cookie land, then haul his fat arse out of the snow and saunter over to consume it as his leisure.  TWooie does not believe in wasting perfectly good energy.

Winter was adorably frantic.  The one uppy ear is his anxiety tell.   WHATIFTHECOOKIEDISAPPEARSOHMYGODOHMYGODWHEREDIDITGO?WHYWOULDYOUTHROWACOOKIEAWAY???

And then the mad scramble to get the cookie before the snowmonsters gobbled it up.

Springaling looks like a fox pouncing on a hare in a nature documentary.
(Yes her nails are recently trimmed.  No, after all these years, I can’t get them any shorter than this!  She has the world’s longest quicks)

Fae won the whole day though.  As if her obsessive tracking of the cookie’s arc through the air wasn’t adorable enough …

… the “Meercat” pose that preceded it was KILLER cute!

She may be a rotten, spoiled, hateful little beast, but man is she ever cute.  I went to my parents’ for Christmas dinner and when I came back home, Fae practically turned herself inside out with glee.  She kept trying to scale my body to get at my face so she could lick it, but when I picked her up she was so excited she would thrash around and hurl herself to the floor.  I was afraid we were going to end up in the Animal ER if she kept that up, so I eventually just sat on the floor so she could reach my face.  Unfortunately, I sat in Piper pee, because old dogs and continence aren’t always super good pals.  Merry Christmas to me!

Speaking of cute … a friend of mine is fostering 7 border collie X whippet puppies and asked if I could get some photos of them.  So brought the entire pile of the little suckers over on the weekend and I got to indulge in some serious puppy lovin’s!

Look at these impish little faces!  Also, look how lovely my landlord’s chicken barn door is for photos!

Also, look how they mob poor Addypants!

Addy’s not stupid though … she indulged in her favourite activity for a while (puppy humping – she channels Puppy Uncle Tweed sometimes) and then her second favourite activity, which is running away from puppies who cannot catch her speedy little self, and then she’d had enough of being mauled by puppies and she led them straight into a pack of Terrifying Turkeys which stopped them in their tracks so she could make her escape.

Our goal was to get individual shots of them and composite them altogether for a group photo.  I wish I had photographed them inside, because it was a bright sunny late afternoon and the sun and shadows change so quickly while wrangling recalcitrant 8 week old puppies that it didn’t turn out awesome, technically.  There is just no consistent shade on the property for this kind of shot at that time of day.  Not my best work, but still really flippin’ cute.

ALSO super cute … Mini Momz!  Why on earth has she not been adopted yet?  She is such a wonderful little dog.  When I woke up this morning she was spooning me, with her head sharing my pillow and her body under the covers with me.  She is SO MUCH LOVEBUG.  She can also convince ANYONE to play – even TWooie!  Even FAE, who has finally caved to her charms and has a good wrassle with her every afternoon.  I just don’t understand how everybody could not want her.  If I could, I would just keep her all for myself.


This guy is pretty cute too, although I am a little tired of virtually every photo I take of him being this Crazy Face.  He used to be such a charming poser when he was a pup … now in his middle age he is like that crazy uncle that makes rabbit ears with his fingers in every family photo.

Although he mostly behaved himself for our group Christmas photo.

And here’s Peetie.  I still have nothing good to say about Peetie.  The passing months don’t make her any less annoying, and there were no Christmas miracles that turned her into a pleasant-to-live-with dog.  At least she is consistent.

Now Christmas is over.  Living alone sometimes sucks because I didn’t get anything for Christmas as my dogs are lazy freeloaders without any spending money.  Got a little tired of seeing all the fabulous cameras and lenses and gear that people in my photo groups got from their families for Christmas, so now I’m staying away from facebook for a bit until I get over my snit about it.  Because inside me there is a 9 year old girl who really, really likes unwrapping presents.  What did you all get for Christmas this year?  I hope it was awesome!

Terrence got another pardon, so he thinks Christmas is fabulous :)

I’m Nuts, You’re Nuts

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We’re all nuts for walnuts!

Addy plays with exactly 4 things – water spray, dirt tossed in her direction, a tiny little stuffed sheep I find hidden around the house in various places when she is finished playing with it, and walnuts.

I don’t really understand the appeal.  I mean, it’s not like they can *eat* the walnuts … the walnuts are in their shell, wrapped in this weirdly aromatic / fragrant green husk, and all the dogs do is throw them around and/or guard them from other dogs.  But for some reason, they are the best toys going on the farm.  Very popular with dogs under 15lbs.  I need to find a way to market this.

But as much as these nuts love their walnuts, their attention span for them is extremely short, so I’ve taken to stalking them with my camera, hoping to catch them in the act, because it’s pretty hit or miss if I try to entice them with a walnut.  Maybe I’m just picking the wrong walnuts because I don’t understand the system.  But I was doing this exact thing (stalking Fae, who had a walnut) and because of that I missed ADDY GETTING INTO A FIST FIGHT WITH THE ROOSTER OVER A DEAD MOLE.  I cannot tell you how upset I am that I missed photographing this, because no matter how funny you *think* it sounds, I guarantee you it was a million times more hilarious to actually see it.  She was boxing him like she was a kangaroo, and he was flying at her sideways, feet first, like a feathery little ninja.  But they were in the shade, and I was shooting in full sun, so by the time I turned around and adjusted my settings, the fight was over and Addy was running away with the mole.  I’m so disappointed.

Wootie was not though, because he ended up stealing the mole.  Wootie does not eat moles, but he does like to possess them and bury them somewhere so nobody else can have them (like, his version of a walnut I guess). So I waited until he’d buried the mole in a pile of mushroom manure, then I hid behind a tree and screamed “I’M GONNA GET THE WOOTIE MOLE!” and he lost his tiny little walnut sized brain and started freaking out, trying to figure out where the disembodied voice of mole-theft-threats was coming from, and that’s how I got this picture.

And this is him about 10 minutes later … now he’s at the other end of the orchard, so quite far from his hidden mole, but he’s still worried someone is going to find it.

I love the orchard and all it has to offer when taking photos, but I wish it was carpeted with something other than dead leaves and grass.  Of course, with the summer we had, everything is dead grass, everywhere, all the time.  This is what the entire goat pasture looks like.

But the front yard – oh my!  Though from a landscaping perspective it would probably be considered an eyesore, it has very lovely Fall colours going on that are awesome when the sun shines through the leaves and plants (aka weeds).

But if there is dirt *anywhere* Alfie will find it, and he will drool in it, and then he will lay in the soothing droolmud he has created.  I’m sure his mom thinks I’m just chucking mud at him for entertainment when she comes to visit him.

His little sister Betty came to stay with me for a week earlier this month.  They are HILARIOUS when they play.  Actually, Alfie is just hilarious when he plays no matter who he’s playing with.  He thought he was playing with Peetie the other day, which was so charming because Peetie didn’t realize they were playing (she was waiting for me to throw the ball) and he was bouncing all around her and play bowing and he had no idea she wasn’t actually in the same game as him.  But Betty knows what’s what and he grabs her by the … well basically the whole body, because she’s the size of his mouth, and he pins her down for a minute, then he lets her go and she takes off like a bullet while he lopes along eagerly after her.  It’s pretty hilarious.

While my personal preference is for pointy dogs (I mean, I do have Addy, the pointiest of pointy dogs) there’s no denying Betty takes a pretty picture!  Here she is modeling my new tiny, dog sized divan that a friend salvaged for me from a movie set.

My cat Cyrus also takes a nice picture.  Here HE is, modeling the tiny dog sized chair I bought off Craigslist.  New, tiny, animal sized furniture is my latest obsession.  Cyrus looks shocked, but he actually really enjoys hanging out in front of the studio lights.  Because he’s weird.  But he’s a cat, and cats are weird, so that makes sense.

Here’s Dexter looking mildly perplexed, which is is pretty much his Life Motto summed up in one word (“Huh?”) since the deafness set in.  But he’s still having fun … mostly because he doesn’t know how to do anything else.

And then there’s my awesome girlie, who is doing so SO much better than I thought possible!  Those of you who follow us on Facebook know that about two weeks ago she was on one of our client hikes when she lost the ability to use her hind end shortly after we started our outing.  I ended up carrying her in a fireman lift her for the remainder of the walk because it was too hot to leave her in the car, and I had playing clients that needed their exercise.  It was pretty sad to watch her trying to get around without the use of her hind legs, and I was not looking forward to the news from the vet.

It turns out that she suffered an FCE (a fibrocartilaginous embolism, which is basically a blockage in a blood vessel in the spinal cord).  This is basically diagnosed by ruling out other things, and there’s nothing you can really do for it other than physical therapy.  Lots of dogs have partial to full recovery beginning in about 2-6 weeks after the event.  Piper, because she is ornery, has decided she will have 100% recovery and it also that it would start within 3 days of developing the FCE.  Within 48 hours she was getting around again and here we are two weeks later and she is walking – even running, sorta! – around like nothing happened at all.  She only has difficulty at one end of the living room because it’s laminate and it slopes, so sometimes she falls down, but she has learned to avoid this by walking on dog beds and the area rug (which SOMEONE *coughADDYcough*) keeps peeing on that I put down in front of the sofa.  She is one TOUGH cookie, this dog!!  She is going to be 15 in about two months and she is determined she is going to be in shape to party when that day comes.

I just admire her tenacity so much.  She has a ton of heart, this little dog.  Looks like we’ll have to get Mia to make us another cake with bacon rosettes for Piper’s birthday!

There are no photos of the Wondertwins, because they are never anywhere to be found!!  Turns out out little squirrel friend from the last blog entry has about … ummm … 77 squirrel friends.  And all of them are partying with the walnuts in the orchards – the one beside me and the one by my landlord’s house – so Spring and Winter spend all their free time hunting squirrels.  I’m not sure how they actually get any exercise, because as far as I can tell they just pick a spot in an orchard and stand motionless staring up into the trees for upwards of 45 minutes at a stretch.  They seem to be waiting for the squirrels to forget they are there, and come down to the ground where they will be available for eating, but the squirrels, though stupid, are not THAT stupid. And yet the terriers are TIRED when they come inside after all that being motionless.  Maybe their necks are sore from staring up.

I asked Spring if she would maybe stop squirrel hunting and pose for a photo and she gave me this face, which can only be interpreted as her “fuck you” face.

What a sweet thing she is.

And here’s a turkey face.  Literally.  This is one of my juveniles from this Spring and he’s going to rival his dad in the handsome department (not evident from this photo, I know).  I now have 7 turkeys, so next year the ones I hatch will be sold for eatin’.  Although if this feller keeps hopping the fence, running across the road and eating my neighbour’s berries, I might eat him and start fresh next year.  I had no idea turkeys were such a pain in the ass!  They get into more trouble than my goats and that’s saying something!

Have You Ever

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wanted to be friends with someone real, real bad, for reasons you can’t even really articulate, but everything you do or say seems to cause a greater rift between you and them and you have no earthly idea how to close that massive chasm of simultaneous hope and dread?

Spring is experiencing this existential crisis right now with the goats.

She keeps making overtures to Harvey, Bonky, Nibbles and Moe (AKA “The Firm”) but always, somehow, she makes a misstep and the fragile tendershoots of friendship crumble to dust beneath her pawtips and like The Phoenix rising from the ashes, the cycle begins anew.

To be honest, I don’t know if she wants to meet them or MEAT them … and I don’t think they know either, which is probably why after she makes some friendly bum-and-nose-sniffing overtures, the terrier wailing begins, The Firm gets panicky and the chaos ensues.  She’s gonna get the daylights headbutted right out of her if she doesn’t figure it out.

(Not to worry, goat-field time is always supervised because I don’t want her to get ruined by litigious goats).

She’d probably have better luck making friends with the squirrel that likes to taunt my dogs from the walnut orchard.  I like the squirrel; it exercises my dogs for me every day.  It has this nifty little path from the orchard on the one side, across the power lines in the front yard and into the pear and apple trees in the goat field and it leads the dogs on a merry chase back and forth, chattering away while it harvests walnuts.

Climbing the trees to make “friends” with the squirrel is not as successful as it sounds, actually.

This tree climbing dog does not want to befriend the squirrel, it wants to murder the squirrel, for the squirrel is stealing walnuts.  Fae, like a feudal lord, believes that all the bounty in her forests belong to her, and that harvesting any of it by lowly fluffy tailed serfs is punishable by death.  Preferably beheading.

For though there be thousands of walnuts with which to play, and to make weird faces at …

… Fae is hunting for That Elusive Magical Walnut, the Special Walnut, the Walnut That Will Change Her Life.  The power of the walnuts can be found in their bland uniformity, that they are indistinguishable, one from the next, so the Special Walnut could be hidden anywhere, amongst any of its nutty comrades, and therefore, All Walnuts Are Precious.

If you ask me, *Fae* is the “Special Walnut” around here.  This is her face when she is guarding *A* walnut from everything.

When it comes to friendships some creatures are simply antisocial.  My blue turkey hen, for example, has a serious hate-on for my small dogs.  She will take any opportunity to chase them around the yard (also good, free exercise, IMO).  But lately Peetie has decided to become the champion of small dogs pursued by rabid turkeys and has taken to bodyguarding The Littles so they can in turn guard walnuts in peace.

This turkey has only herself to blame.  I had no idea Peetie was a superhero, but at least we’ve finally found a use for her!

(She doesn’t want me to tell you that right now she is sporting a pair of boy-cut lady’s underpants with a hole cut out for her tail, and a belly band wrapped around her waist to keep it in place, because she is in season and Winter wants to “help her out” in the worst way and we are trying to foil his efforts)

Addy, friend to everything except ducks and newborn poultry, is currently making woo (not Woo) with the water droplets from the dog pool, as tossed by the Food Lady with the help of the Chuck it.  I’m going to have to recruit a friend to help me though, because my camera/lens combo is way too heavy to manipulate with one hand/arm – especially my chronically injured elbow arm – and it’s nearly impossible to get photos of her doing her water ballet as she chases the airborne droplets.  I did manage to snap a couple:

This one pleases me.  She wears the same expression I imagine I do when someone offers me pie.

But when it comes to friendship, nobody holds a candle to these two.  They look like a buddy-comedy pilot advertisement.

And then there is Gemma.  Who refuses to make friends with the Grim Reaper.  Do you guys realize that Gemma has outlived her PROGNOSIS VERY POOR diagnosis by THREE AND A HALF FREAKING YEARS???  She is the most ornery creature on the planet.  She guards her life force harder than Fae guards a walnut.

After a brief (read: exhausted) hiatus I’ve embarked on another home improvement streak.  In part this involved installing baseboards in my living room, rather than leaving them artfully leaned up against the wall in a precarious and bendy fashion in the kitchen.  I first had to scrub the daylights out of the entire living room, because a) this house is old and therefore slanty and b) Gemma likes to leave pee bombs strewn randomly around the house, often in the wee hours of the morning when my pee-radar is off duty (and dreaming of clean floors) which then meander fore and aft around the floor like lazy midwestern rivers of piss, pooling in corners and leaving trails of cold urine for my unsuspecting feet to slosh through when I get out of bed.  Although I spend a pathetically inordinate amount of time wiping up pee trails, some of them are sneaky and escape my notice.  So the entire living room had surprise old dried puddles of pee under sofas and collecting around the bottoms of my curtains.  I took everything out, washed it all, scrubbed the floors and walls and installed the fresh white (and slightly bendy) baseboards.  And when I finally sat down in a sweaty pool of Food Lady to admire my handiwork, I realized that all I had effectively accomplished was to supply Gemma with a 6 inch tall bulls-eye at which to aim her piss efforts.

So I then installed a small xpen in my office, where Gemma spends 99.92% of her time sleeping, and in that Gemma is now confined at all times.  She hasn’t really noticed, because as I say, she spends almost all her time sleeping, with brief forays into wakefulness to eat anything you put in front of her nose (which is the only one of her senses that actually function now) and to pee on my floor.  But *I* feel bad about it, because what kind of life is life in an xpen 24/7?  Thus I have now made a point of making her come outside with us for at least 10 minutes a day so she can experience a different environment … kind of like a prison warden.  And like a prisoner, Gemma spends her allotted exercise time shuffling around in a big circle because she can neither hear nor see and let’s face it, Gemma never liked being outside anyway.

I sometimes really do think she is going to outlast everyone.  Including me.

The other task I accomplished was to fence the poultry off from the rest of the yard, for so very many reasons.  There’s the reason where I am tired of tracking bird shit into the house on the bottom of my shoes.  The reason where I am sometimes inadvertently terrified by the sight of 50 damn farm birds standing on my porch screaming at me to bring them more food, because they are voracious and insatiable velociraptors who KNOW the bird food lives in the kitchen.  The reason where twice in one week Addy jumped out of my truck on our return home from a hike and killed a baby bird, and the one where Winter killed a duck and stashed it under my house and has been pulling out disgusting gooey rotting duck bits to snack on for the last couple of weeks.  But mostly I did it because Old Lady Dog Piper has developed a phobia of the poultry in her senile years, and is scared to go outside if they are milling around.

I feel like, having reached the ripe old age of almost-15, Piper deserves to go outside to relieve herself (are you listening Gemma?  No wait, of course you’re not, you’re deaf) without creeping around in terror of turkeys and other assorted poultry.  So I spent another hot, sweaty weekend pounding metal posts and putting up fencing so that the borders between Chickens and Dogs are safeguarded.  A wall, if you will.

She is so much happier now!

And on the topic of aging … in three days, Dexter is going to be EIGHT YEARS OLD.  Eight insane, powered-by-adrenaline, years old.

Piper barely looks like she has aged a day, but Dexter is half her age and twice as grey.  With his giant bushy Einstein eyebrows and everything.  And still batshit crazy (why is that expression even a thing?  What’s so crazy about batshit?  Someone enlighten me.)

Still love him though. He will get something delicious for his birthday celebration.  Although what he should really get is a vibrating collar so I can teach him not to vanish whilst we are out hiking.  I’ve had a few scares with him recently – he must go far, far away to poop (this is a family trait, weird as it is – but what about Dexter and his family is NOT weird??) and then sometimes he has no idea where we are when he’s finished taking care of business.  He can hear certain pitches, but can hear almost nothing at a distance.  Between him and Piper, I feel like I spend half my life screaming their names at the top of my lungs in a variety of pitches – kind of like a poor man’s Pentatonix – as I try to find the perfect harmonizing that reverberates properly in their broken ear canals!

Anyhoo, this had been a snippet of life in Turkey Territory with my band of Very Special Walnuts.  Now back to photographing other people’s dogs for the rest of the month.  But here’s a photo of TWooie being extraordinarily happy, because he chased the squirrel and found some goat poopies to roll in, and because despite the fact that he is an evil little shit, I love the butterball and I love when he looks happy.

 

“But I’m an Italian Greyhound!”

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“And I’m deathly allergic to water!”

… unless it’s in the wading pool.  And you had your face in it and then someone cycled by so you had to yodel at them and make water droplets fly everywhere.

Or The Food Lady dumped the water out of the duck pool to refill it with clean water, and the water made mud, and you felt it necessary to put on Mud Boots.

Or The Food Lady put goldfish in the duck pond for the ducks and chickens, and you hopped in there and caught all the goldfish yourself, because you’re just that much of a jerk.

Believe nothing Addy says!  It’s all lies, damnable lies!

(I’m also not boring, never you mind what she says to the contrary!)

Don’t believe Fae either.  I am NOT mean, just because I made her pose on the swing.  And made her look like she has no neck (now you now why I don’t photograph people!).

“Mean.”

It’s SO HOT this weekend, finally!  It’s so hot that we go out to play in like 20 minute increments, and then come back inside where it’s nice and cool.  Otherwise, some dogs are prone to stealing the fetch toy and hiding in the grass with it instead of bringing it back to be thrown again.

Even games of tug-o-war were on the lackluster side today.

(And is it considered anti-social if you play tug with a blackberry plant rather than another dog?  Wootie is asking for a friend.)

I haven’t taken too many photos this week, because my arms and shoulders hurt.  Last weekend I photographed the ASC of BC trial for two days, and then spent basically all my free time before and after my jobs editing them.  It’s a lot of work!  For some reason I got the idea in my head to work out what I make hourly, on average, from event photo sales when I factor in shooting time and editing time, and let’s just say I don’t recommend that particular activity, as it’s very depressing.  Don’t get me wrong; I do a healthy amount of photo sales from events like this, and I enjoy doing it, but it just doesn’t really offer the kind of fiscal reward that people seem to assume it does.  I recently joined a photo group on facebook and there are these CRAZY talented photographers on there (not dog photographers) and when discussions of pricing come up, I find myself kinda wishing I had gotten into wedding photography or baby photography instead.  Also, they are CRAZY talented, did I mention that?  Harumph.  It makes me feel old and sore and broke.

BUT, despite my aching neck and arms, and copious consumption of liver-killing Advil, I had to break out my friend the camera on Friday because HAM.

HAM!!!!!!

Got Ham?  Auntie Fiona’s Got Ham.  Got ham.  Gotham.  Meet Fiona’s new puppy, Gotham!

Holy f*ckballs, is he ever cute!!  Ever see something so adorable that you kinda wanna pick it up and squeeze it until it explodes?  That’s what Gotham does to me, so Fiona says I’m not allowed to touch him until I get myself under control.  (Also, apparently talking to Fiona’s puppy and accidentally calling Fiona “Auntie” instead of “Mommy” means you’re about to steal him and she no longer trusts you.  Some people’s paranoia.)

Gotham is a purpose bred sport mix, designed to be fast, drivey, athletic and win all the Regionals that Fiona’s other dog Rogue has, up until now, won.

That’s because Fiona is mean and selfish, and it’s not fair that she wins all the Regionals.  I mean, we go to Regionals and we almost never win.  Spring is going this year.

“Oh hai, I’m Spring, and Ima poop in your Steeplechase.  Hee hee”

Considering we don’t have class to go to anymore, since the Sadist stopped teaching, I’m not exactly shooting for the moon with her this year as the only agility we do these days is chasing-squirrels agility, and it apparently does not require my input.  At all.

Incidentally, Spring is a dead ringer for Gotham’s mom, which is weird to see in photos.  And Gotham is really frickin’ adorable.  Have I mentioned that?

I am glad we found her a puppy.  She deserves a nice well adjusted dog, now that the Devil has called Tempus home to reign as his side.

BUT I AM JEALOUS AS F*CK.  She has Gotham and I have STUPID PEETIE.

“I heard that.”

Oh noes!  You heard that!  What are going to do, IRRITATE ME TO DEATH??

It’s not fair.  I want a puppy.

You know, I mean, besides the four puppies I currently have.  Because these puppies, while very very cute, and very very fat, are already obstinate little brats.  I TOLD them not to be born on the ASCBC trial weekend, and they did it anyway!  And then I tried to photograph them for you all today, because I keep promising to do that, and they wouldn’t all look at the camera at the same time.  Yeah yeah, their eyes aren’t open yet or anything, but that’s no excuse!  They wouldn’t even all face the camera at the same time!  They’re really, really disagreeable little shits.

Of course, they’re really f*cking cute little shits.

This was the best photo I managed to get and it took like 8 million tries and a full hour of turning puppies around only to have them crawl around in a circle and face the wall again by the time I got to my camera.  And to make matters more frustrating, I got the idea in my head to shoot with my 50mm, because my 70-200mm is so long that by the time I get far enough away from them to get the shot, they’d all wandered off (which is all kinds of amazing for gibbled peanut shaped rodents THAT CAN’T EVEN WALK).

I HATE my 50mm.  I know some photographers love theirs and they do amazing things with it, but I just cannot make friends with it.  And it’s like childbirth – once it’s over, you forget how bad it was.  So about once a year I bust out the 50mm with optimism and rainbows, and end the session with rage and tears.

Also, I was shooting on the floor, because I was afraid to put them on a little stage in case they fell off.  My knees and elbows are still angry at me.

I think I need an assistant the next time I try photographing them, to corral them while I shoot.  I tried to get individual photos of them, but they were too damn squirmy and only this little guy obliged me by slumbering on while I lifted him in the air.  Therefore, he is my now officially my favourite.

Mini Mama is a very good mama, if a tad overprotective.  Yesterday Corey and Ghillie came to visit and Corey held a baby, and Mini politely took it back from her and said “No, not you.  Only The Food Lady.”  And today when I brought the babies in studio, she said I was allowed to photograph them and mess with them all I want, but she was going to Sit Right Here In the Cat Litterbox and keep a close eye on my while I did.  Which I did not photograph, because the cat boxes need cleaning and I don’t want anyone judging me.  My self esteem is already fragile enough thanks to the 50mm, TYVM.

Mini Mama is very devoted to her puplets.  She comes outside about once a day to burn around the acreage at top speed for about 9 minutes, then she wants to go back inside to sit with them again.

Also, all of my dogs are terrified of her because if they poke their noses in the dog room she shoots out of the xpen like a shark and bites them.  And this morning she came into my bedroom and woke me up to let me know she had peed and pooped on the bathroom floor because I was a lazy slugabed who had the nerve to sleep in past 8AM.

I thought it might be kind of fun to having a naming contest for the puppies, and raise some money for the rescue in doing so (I am fostering Mini Mama and her boob parasites for another rescue organization).  Would you guys be into that?  I thought maybe people could pick a name and donate like $5.00 via paypal to put the name in the contest.  Then after a period of time, we could put all the entries to a vote and the 4 most popular names would win.  Would you guys be interested in doing that?  You can’t play if you name one Boaty McBoatface though.

There are two males and two females.  My favourite non-squirmy sable is a male, as is one of the black and tan ones.  The other black and tan one, and the one marked like mama are both females.

Part of me is really looking forward to them becoming something other than giant, colourful maggots and start interacting and being mobile and stuff.  And part of me is afraid of how much work 4 puppies are going to be.

Here’s a photo of Terrence and two of his wives.  People in the neighbourhood know Terrence BY NAME now and they greet him as they pass my yard, BY NAME.  Seriously, my turkey is more popular than me.  That’s actually why I offered to foster the litter of puppies; so I can one-up my turkey ;-)

I have some of his sons and daughters for sale, incidentally.  If you’re in the market for a turkey or two.