Dog stories
This is just way too good a story to remain buried on the forum.
Maren writes:
Has anyone sent Robin the Daily Puppy yet? For one thing, I think Killer there is a prime candidate to be featured, and for another…well, cripes, how could we not have sent her the Daily Puppy?!
Indeed. How COULD you all not have sent me the Daily Puppy? Click on that link, all the rest of you who went ‘ooooooh’ over the pupdate.
And on a related note (/threadjack
THREADJACK?
as they say on some blogs)…right now I have illegally stashed in my apartment
Oh, yaay, the blog branches out! We’re into guerilla peacefare!
one stray lab mix of the black pearl variety.
Someone–it might have been you, or someone else posting to the blog–has been telling me recently that black dogs are always adopted last, that black is the least favourite colour, that therefore more black dogs are put down than any other colour. I can’t deny all this animal-rescue experience out there but it is so not what I seem to see–I would have said black labs are the most common dog on the bits of the planet I have lived on longest–in Maine twenty years ago I would have said they were ahead by a hair or two, in Hampshire I would say they aren’t just the commonest breed but the majority of the entire canine population. There’s obviously some strange negative alchemy that goes on between all those people buying all those black lab puppies and all those other people going to shelters looking to adopt a dog. Black whippets, for example, are rare and desirable–maybe there’s some hidden psychology to the fact they’re called ‘blue’–and the people who get the most excited about Darkness get excited because of his colour (although he’s a shiny dark grey with white speckles, not true black).
One thing that the black pearl site mentions that I couldn’t agree with more is the complete horrible unacceptableness of the slang phrase ‘black dog’ for depression. I want to rescue all those black dogs so cruelly stigmatised and, I don’t know, tie pink ribbons around their necks and teach them a Busby Berkley routine so people will stop being so stupid. Dogs are mortal like us so they have faults–and they can be opportunistic and manipulative or bullying or generically spoilt or positively dangerous–but ultimately they are entirely dependent on us. And what we do with that responsibility can be pretty goddam awful.
Yes, I agree. But I don’t know how the people who pull the plug live with themselves. I mean that literally, not judgementally.
but they have a wonderful large facility, a high adoption rate, and they appear to be rolling in dough compared to my local shelters. Hopefully all this will give her at least a little more time than she would have had here. Anyway, if anyone here needs a new (or another!) dog and is within driving distance of Jackson, please consider giving this sweet and friendly adolescent female another chance at a good life. PM me for pictures, more info, whatever. She should be up on the shelter’s Petfinder list within a few days.
We’ll have chapter two in a minute. First I’m going to spin out the suspense a little. . . .
LRK writes:
Oh, he is just adorable! And what a lovely colour
He’s beginning to pale out. His mum is pale gold, so we’ll see what happens to him.
- also I think he’s starting to develop a personality; he’s not just a – any – puppy anymore…
I entirely agree. That was in fact exactly my reaction to seeing him this week. He’s become himself, not just Puppy, or even Cocker Spaniel Puppy.
Diane in MN writes:
“you never saw a puppy so invested in the awareness that he rules:”
Yes, you can see that this little guy has definite expectations about how the world should treat him, and cute as he is, he doesn’t look like he’ll be a pushover.
His pedigree is a dazzling read due to all the red-letter champions and I was again looking at him this week and wondering if he might in fact be a little bit extraordinary himself. Whether he has a suitable opportunity to express his extraordinariness is another question: he exists to make Daisy happy and to, um, enliven the rest of her family, and he’s already a complete success in that role. It’s a bit like my hellhounds: I suspect, guiltily, that they’d've made good working lurchers, and what they are is pets. But they’re much loved pets, and especially given the sheer number of domestic dogs there are in the world, that counts. Himself is also much loved, and will have a good life.
As I said here recently, once an English major, always an English major. Remember Dorothea in MIDDLEMARCH: she might have been great, but at least she was happy.
But how boring it would be if they didn’t have real personalities.
Indeed. Might as well have one of those battery operated twinkies that ‘dies’ if you don’t take care of it. I never could see the attraction of the tamagotchis: all the nuisance and none of the fun. I want something that wags its tail/whinnies/purrs. Although I guess tamagotchis are cheaper to feed. And the cleaning up after digestive distress is, I assume, virtual.
Have you come up with a nom de blog for the ankle-biter yet?
I started calling him Michelangelo because he’s such a . . . piece of work. And ‘Mike’ will suit him very well, because he’s such a little thug.
My little guy had a growth spurt last week when he got rid of the last of his puppy teeth. He’s now 65 pounds and about 27 inches at the shoulder. If he were a biter, he’d be a thigh-biter by now. Gosh, they grow fast.
Wait a minute, how old is he?? I feel as if you only brought him home a month or two before Mike’s arrival. I thought a big dog like a Great Dane grows up slowly. And, news note: there’s a Vast Hound of the Baskervilles Type Beast that we see the shadow of (and hear the thunderous bellow of) as we pass by on our walks–he’s on a route that we use a lot, but up a stair and behind an evergreen hedge, and from the size of the shadow I hope he does not get loose.* I had a better glimpse of him today, and I think he’s a Dane. Stay tuned.
“But the hellhounds also know they rule, in their slightly-less-likely-to-cause-blood-loss*** way. They are very interested in the smell of the ankle-biter on me, but this obviously causes them no distress of mind or loss of confidence whatsoever.”
The Alpha Bitch is seriously interested in Where We’ve Been when we come home with other dogs on our clothes, with a clear message that we went somewhere that might have been fun and made her stay home. This puts her nose out of joint. Distress of mind and loss of confidence don’t occupy large areas of her mental map.
The hellhounds are much better at my going off and leaving them than I am. (Granted they aren’t preoccupied with the state of their digestion. At least I don’t think they are. It’s one of dogkind’s attractions, that they so live in the minute.) They usually come out of the kitchen crate and watch me putting my shoes on by the door and those little eager, interested faces . . . aaaaaugh . . . I am such a wet. But when I come home smelling of Other Dog they merely get engrossed in whatever my hands and trouser-legs are telling them and then it’s on to the next thing: okay, you’re home, great, what are we going to do now?
Susan in Athens writes:
He looks like great fun on a “return to mummy” basis.
YES. EXACTLY. I am reeeeally enjoying someone else going through puppyhood. He’s adorable . . . and I don’t want one!!!!!! Not to mention that I have two two-and-a-quarter-year-old puppies of my own. They were out doing four-dimensional somersaults in midair this afternoon–the cold weather winds them up–and I was shouting, when are you going to grow up! You can see Chaos, who is always the wind-ier, the madder, the more frenetically perpetually in motion of the two, occasionally trying to remember that if he does x (again) the hellgoddess will yell at him (again) . . . but mostly the hellgoddess yells at him again. Sigh.
Dentist from R’lyeh**’s assistant, by the way, is busy holding out against a springer puppy. Her partner wants one. She does not. She does not want any puppies. I enjoyed tormenting her with tales of Michelangelo *** a fortnight ago . . . and again last week . . . and again tomorrow, since Dentist from R’lyeh is insisting I keep to schedule despite the toothache. † I like watching her face close down and screw up. Rather like a person with toothache. Us dental victims have to get our fun anywhere we can find it.
So. Chapter two:
Maren continues:
“Yeah, I’ll take her. She seems real sweet and she rode nice in the truck. I got a dog at home, and my wife likes ‘em too. Do you want my email so you can check on her?”
So it was a choice between an uncertain future at the shelter and a firm offer of a home. Needless to say she rode off in the tow truck (with my car, which I’ll have to go pick up when it’s fixed), and I got in the rental car and came home to Lola. My mom called the shelter again and they said it was obviously meant to be, as they just got several more lab mixes in today and this one would have been just another face in the crowd.
Southdowner wrote in response to this last:
After all the experiences like that over here I’d guess she probably had a male cream shih tzu
. . . And in defense of confused older women everywhere I want to point out that someone who has lost her dog is very likely crazy with misery and any FOUND poster is going to be worth a call just because she so desperately wants it to be her dog, whatever the description states. I’m glad she got her Dalmatian back.
* * *
* Unless Sherlock Holmes wants to start coming on our walks.
** Who, as well as an Olympic-prospect event horse, has two dogs: a black lab bitch. And a Great Dane.
*** In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo. –Sorry.
† He seems to think what he’s going to do will make it better not worse. Why don’t I feel calm and reassured?
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