Furry Buddies

Animals have always been a big part of my life. Whenever possible, I have always had at least one dog and a couple of cats. Studies have shown that pets can be great for relieving stress, and I tend to think that is true. That is as good an excuse as there is for keeping pets, but I know that stress or not, I would still have pets. I just like them.

Mom used to tell a story on me and my habit of dragging home animals. When we lived on the west end of Willmar, I was about 7 years old. Mom said that she watched me one summer day, walking up the street, dragging a huge collie dog with a rope tied around his neck. She said that the dog weighed more than I did, and he didn't seem overjoyed to be making this journey. But after a struggle, we arrived at our house, and of course I told Mom that he had followed me home, and could I keep him. She said that she thought the owner would probably want him back, and made me take him back to the yard about two blocks down where I had stolen him.

When we moved to the farm, I went to Sunnyside School, about a mile and a half away from home. On warm fall days Mom would let me walk to school. No, there wasn't knee-deep snow, and no, it wasn't uphill both ways. I just enjoyed walking to school. On one of these walks, when I was about halfway to school, I saw in the roadway ditch a small, black and white kitten. I have never been able to resist a kitten, so I went to pick it up, thinking that I would find a way to keep it and take it home after school. When I got close, the kitten turned its back to me, raised its tail and sprayed. Yup...baby skunk. When I walked into school, my teacher, Mrs. Ekdahl, called Mom and said it might be a good idea to come get me, as the smell of skunk was overwhelming. She said this through tears of laughter. Mom wasn't too pleased, however, and my clothes got buried out in the woods, and I spent the rest of the day in the bathtub, trying to get the skunk smell off me. It was a couple of days before I could return to school.

We now have Buster, who is a Bichon Frise-Shih Tzu cross. Starla, my employer, called one day and said she had just the dog for us. Seems his owner was moving and wasn't going to take Buster with him, so he needed a home. He has been with us for about three years now. He is really a good dog, and is very laid-back. To the point of seeming unconscious now and then. Nothing upsets him. He is the perfect couch spud. Likes animal documentaries on PBS.

Mike walks Buster all over town. Everybody knows Buster. Mike says if he doesn't take Buster with him when he goes somewhere, someone is sure to ask him where Buster is. I was walking Buster a few blocks from home last summer, and a guy I didn't know in a pickup stopped, rolled down the window of the truck, and said, "Buster, aren't you quite a ways from home?"

He loves to lay in our living room windowsill and watch the world go by. The neighbors joke about the "doggie in the window." One of the neighbors hadn't seen Buster in the window for a couple of days, and stopped me to ask if Buster was sick. I said, "No, just too lazy to jump up to the windowsill."

We thought that he was just a mutt. The product of an accidental mating of his parents. But then we started to see more of his breed at the grooming shop where I work. The owners of these dogs were talking about their "designer dogs." So I looked on the Internet, and found that we had ourselves a "designer dog." His breed is called a Shichon, better known as a Teddy Bear dog. Puppies are selling for between $600 and $1500. We haven't told Buster. It would just go to his head.

http://www.4shared.com/file/40242885/71516cf0/9_Mar_2008.html

And then there is Rose. She is a Yorkshire Terrier, better known as a Yorkie. I got her from a breeder that Starla knows. This breeder was looking for a good home for a dog that she wasn't going to use for breeding any more. Rose had a calcium deficiency problem when she had her last litter of puppies. The condition only shows up in pregnant female dogs, so she couldn't have any more puppies, as it could be fatal. So she came to live with us.

Rose is a challenge. She had spent the first three years of her life pretty much isolated from other dogs and people. She only knew the lady who fed her and cleaned her kennel. So we set about socializing her. She goes with Mike and Buster for walks, although she is not happy with this, she will do it most times. Other times she goes, but Mike has to carry her part way, as she will stop and refuse to go any further. The traffic noises or crowds of people will scare her sometimes.

At first she would not go to anyone except Mike or me. But now she will let people that we know pet her. For Rose, this is a huge step forward. She had never seen a doggie toy, and now will chase a ball or haul around her favorite little stuffed animal.

Our landlord had come to our apartment one evening to fix something or other. Rose tried to bite him in the ankle. I had to explain to her that if you are going to bite someone, please chose someone other than the landlord. Fortunately, Steve has a good sense of humor. On later visits, she tried the same thing, but we discovered that all she wanted to do was grab onto his pant leg and play.

Rose and Buster are now best buddies. Perhaps I should rephrase that. Buster puts up with Rose's antics. She will bark and growl and sound ferocious...or at least as ferocious as a ten pound dog can sound. She tugs on his ears, grabs his beard and pulls, or runs circles around him trying to get him to play. They will chase each other from one end of the apartment to the other. When Buster has had enough of her, he just puts her on her back on the floor and covers her with a paw and lets her squirm for a while before letting her up.

Yorkies are known to be an intelligent breed of dog. Therefore, they are also a pain in the whatever. They are easily taught to do something, like go outside to do their business, but will do so only if they feel like it. We discovered that she is a reasonably intelligent dog one afternoon when Mike took her with him to a convenience store a couple of blocks west of home. He slipped the end of her leash over one of those tall containers for dropping cigarette butts into, and went inside just long enough to buy a gallon of milk. When he came out, he found that she had pulled the container over and slipped the leash off of it. She was gone. A guy across the street saw Mike frantically looking for her and calling her. He told Mike that she had headed north...across four lanes of traffic, run down the block and turned east. Mike took off after her. Another lady at the end of the block told Mike that Rose was heading east and had turned the corner back south again. He thanked her, saying that if he lost that dog, his wife was gonna kill him. A couple of other people entered the chase, but they couldn't find her. They lost her when she crossed the highway again. When Mike arrived home, she was sitting by the back door of our building, waiting to be let in. Now granted, crossing a busy four-lane highway was not the smartest thing she ever did - twice! But she found her way home. I was impressed. And grateful that I didn't have to murder Mike for losing my dog.

Bottom line is, I love animals. They love you no matter what. And they make me laugh.