We’re adopting an abuse rescue. His names is Hank and he’s a 3-5 year old Basset Hound, looks almost litter-identical to our current hound dog, except he’s smaller because he’s been so goddamn malnourished his whole life. He comes from a house with two occupants, sixty-nine Basset hounds and no food or clean water for them. He couldn’t walk when they rescued the dogs. His life has sucked. I saw him at Steve Plunkett’s dog festival and texted my wife: “This is Hank and we are adopting him”. He just walks ups to anybody, nuzzles in and goes to sleep. Unlike our current Basset Hound, who is almost four years old and still a lunatic. What goes through this dog’s mind? “Well, it 4:10 AM. Time to lie directly on top of his face full body weight.”
After recovering from Kennel cough and only being back at day care for 2 days, Ruca went into her first heat. I had scheduled the appt for her delicate procedure for Sept 21st. Yeah, didn't make it. Four weeks later it is over and she is back at daycare. That was a long four weeks. The good news is from what I've read it is good for them to go through a cycle, there won't be another for 6 months. She will be fixed before that happens. I love my dog more than any human in my life (other that the SO) but, god damn that was a lot of mommy and puppy time.
We adopted Hank the Basset, I pick him up tomorrow morning. But he comes with a little “quirk” I wasn’t informed of until very recently: “So....ummm....he barks at black people.” ...now some people start either laughing, gasping or rolling their eyes. When they hear that. I roll my eyes, because I know that actually not unusual for a dog. My friend had a dog that went berserk whenever it crossed paths with darker-skinned people. It embarrassed him, too “Dude, I swear he’s done that since he was a puppy. I have no CLUE why!” ..In the meantime, I have to figure out how to deal with this racist hound on the fly.
The neighbour's cat still isn't sure what to think of our new addition to the family... Here's Lilly, the new girl: And Rusty, the neighbour's cat:
The SO took off for hunting on Sunday. He'll be gone a week. In typical shegirl luck, I noticed Ruca had a little bump near her left eye. I note to watch it AND the football game. We move to almost half time, the dog has more than one bump, she's got hives. So, as OT is starting I am loading her in the car for the vet. She was stung by a bee and had an allergic reaction. Two shots, and a vet bill later she is fine. She's on OTC Benadryl for 10-12 days. And, her regular vet appt is Wednesday for vaccines and the 1 year check up. Fucking kids! Warning to all dog owners, the bees are bad this year according to the vet. Keep an eye on them. No trip to the vet is a fun one.
I don't think I posted our newest pets: They're noisy as hell, especially when hungry or they want attention, but they're awesome otherwise.
There is a PARVO outbreak near me now. Contracted at one of two local dog parks. Thank goodness we don't take her to ANY dog park for exactly such reasons. 8 dogs have already died, which is just fucking terrible. Ruca had a vet appt next week for updating her vaccines, I moved it to tomorrow.
Just a PSA for my pet loving idiots: Due to the Florida ban on greyhound racing, thousands of dogs will need to be rehomed to avoid mass authanization. The ban is set to take place by 2020. Please consider adopting one of these dogs of you are near the area and looking for a new companion. Greyhounds have wonderful temperaments and the couple of families I know who adopted retired animals got amazing family pets out of the deal.
With burst speeds of 40mph and need for frequent naps, it might be awhile til they can make it to Canadia.
Wanna bet? In other news, I made a cat viewing stand for my cats. I have a low-level window that I leave open a bit (special cat door in sliding glass window has been ordered) and the cats come and go as they please. It's under a fairly substantial overhang for the house, so is pretty sheltered from the elements. There's just not much room on the small brick sill, and it's cold. (Did I mention that Winter Is Coming?) So I fixed that last night... Made a fancy 3-part cat viewing platform. 1 section is astroturf (to help keep the mud on the outside as they come in/out), the middle one is a scratch pad, and the end one is an insulated cushion. Basically made a simple tray out of a piece of old rough-sawn pine I had in the garage... re-sawed it on the band saw, glued it up, stained it, then put some spar varnish on it for weather-proofing. Mission accomplished.
But in all seriousness, here are the links from the social media post. I am sure they are shippable if you are willing to adopt. There will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 animals that need new homes. Spoiler UPDATE: Find a Greyhound adoption agency near you here: https://www.ngagreyhounds.com/Adopt Check out more of this girl and her retired life here: https://www.instagram.com/shugthegreyt/ Learn more about whether a retired racer is a good fit for your home here: http://www.adopt-a-greyhound.org/…/things_to_know_before_yo… The numbers came from this article: http://www.espn.com/…/florida-vote-fatal-blow-us-greyhound-… If you can't adopt, consider donating to greyhound adoption agencies like this one where Shug is from, Project Racing Home: https://getagrey.com/
One of my old bosses adopted two race greyhounds. She brought them in one day and she let them run down the cubicles. They were the happiest dogs I ever saw. Ive kind of wanted one ever since.
It was brad nailer and glue for the sake of speed... and it could have been made by Sam Maloof himself and they'd still judge it, find it lacking, and use it in a decidedly British "oh, if I have to" manner.
My sister rescued a racing greyhound and it was a great dog. Sweat and calm 95% of the time with huge burst of energy the other 5%.
Guys there were big dramas here at Christmas. Each dog got a large (for him) rawhide bone from Santa. This very quickly turned into an OCD spiral for Rodney, who realized he was unable to eat all of them in one go and had to therefore bury them all. He took to obsessively burying them in all the beds, couches, blankets and any other soft area he could find. He buried so many bone pieces that he rubbed his nose raw and it bled all over the bed. Finally, he made a fatal flaw: