Our Dogs! Head of Ranch Security!

Shadow with our neighbor's dog, Hope. Good buddies.


Shadow and PugPug in the snow!

Shadow with the boys!

Charlie with his dog, PugPug!

So - I've promised a post about our dogs... and today seems like as good as any to post about them. Now, I am NOT a dog person - strictly a cat person! However, I'm wise enough to realize the value of cohabiting with as large of a dog as we can come by! Our first large dog was named Ta-Tonka, Big Ta-Tonka, as in "Dances With Wolves." We shortened his name to Tonka. He was my gentle giant. We got him from the Lab Rescue and only had him for 22 mos. He was geriatric to begin with and died of lung cancer. Broke my heart. He taught me that dogs can be great animals and that they all don't have to smell, jump, lick, and drool! OK - so none of the other dogs we have can live up to his moral ethics!

So, I went back to the Lab Rescue to a Meet n Greet Park Day. Needless to say, a huge yellow lab can bundling out of an SUV. I knew right away he was going to be mine! I rushed over to him and walked him and told them I'd take him! He has a lame name... it's not highly original, but it has a different meaning... his name is Shadow. Basically, it's due to the fact, that wherever I go, even on days when there is no sun, I cast a 'Shadow'. And if I ever stop short, I get a cold nose up the rear... that's not endearing! But he loves me. (not as much as Tonka did... but he still worships the ground I walk on!) Shadow is about 125# of pure shedding material! He's got to have some Akita mix to him, as well. His latest obsession is also not endearing! He seems to get pure delight of chasing skunks... and then wearing their scent for the following month! No - tomato juice does not nix the smell - especially when we're talking a 125# mass of fur with several layers of thus said fur! When we got him, he was 2 - he didn't know how to fetch or catch food mid-air or eat 'gently' from his master's hand! But, he's perfected all of it now! He also loves to swim in our pond and then walk out looking like the swamp monster with mud and gunk clung to his fur... again, not endearing! And where would we be without the gas! Oh my... one of the names we immediately tho't of was "Gas-imus." His are stealth! (ie... silent, but deadly!) Anyway - he does his thing. He scares off the would-be sales ppl by his shear size! gotta love that!

And then there's Pug! We moved to our new state and Charlie wanted a pug. We told our realtor, who also wore the hat of the head of the local humane society. Low and behold, the following week she called us with a Pug in the kennels! So, we go pick up this creature and he's smelly and graying around the face and just so ugly that he's cute. We're told that he has kennel cough... but really - it's a collapsible trachea! go figure! Evidently with short nose breeds with smushed in faces this type of occurrence is not uncommon... and we just got lucky to get the guy who has this! Now, he's smelly, he farts, he moans, he snores and shakes the windows, he whines, he cries, he can't get off the couch by himself in the mornings, and he hacks! If he exercises (ie... walks to the pond with us and back), this will ignite his tracheal problems! He sounds like a cat coughing up a hairball. It's pathetic. These attacks last at least 2 weeks. not endearing! Oh... and he does this 'licking the air' thingy! At random points thru-out the day he'll be laying there licking the air - reminds me of a snake smelling the air... who knows. Originally his name was Smoosh... but now it's just PugPug! He's a big hit with our guests... as he thinks he should be a lapdog! (I don't think anything that stinks that bad should be near any one's lap!)

That gives the summation of our 2 dogs! I'll have to post about Baby, our cat... he thinks he's one of the dogs!