Category Archives: Dogs

Scaredy dog

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This first image is from a walk a few days ago. A neighbor stopped for a little socially-distant conversation, and while we talked, the dogs wrestled. When it ended and I was ready to continue, Sam was on his back. He stood up right under Zoe. I’m not sure she noticed.

This gives you idea of her size. She’s a big dog, even bigger than her 80 pounds might indicate.

Sunday afternoon we drove to a store on the other side of town to try to find some cat food and dog treats that our nearer store hasn’t had. As usual, Zoe wanted to come with us, so we let her ride in the back of the car. We fold the seat down and put a pad on it. She rides back there pretty well. She never makes a fuss. She seems to really like riding. Every time we get ready to leave, she starts getting excited and goes to the door. If we let her out, she runs immediately to the car door.

It was a cool, cloudy day, and we lowered the back windows a little so she cold stick her nose out, so there was no problem with leaving her in the car while we went in. When we came back out of the store and I remotely opened the tailgate of the car, something had spooked her. Before we left the parking lot, she had climbed into the front and was in Leah’s lap.

Zoe’s nails are too long and sharp. Her elbows are pretty sharp, too, especially when she puts her weight into it. I won’t be surprised if Leah has some bruises from this. Zoe stayed in Leah’s lap the whole way home. She doesn’t really fit.

She panted and shivered the whole way home. Once out of the car, she returned to her normal self. It was not behavior I expected from this big old dog.

It will be interesting to see if she is as eager to ride in the car the next time.

What color is this

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I have been making leashes for the dogs out of a long piece of rope I got at one of our local building supply companies. The dogs started out with store-bought leashes, but Zoe bites at hers, and she chewed it so much that I finally threw it away. I can make a lot of leashes from a fairly cheap length of rope instead of having to buy a new leash every month or so.

I made a short leash for Sam and about a five-foot leash for Zoe. Then I made a longer addition for Zoe’s so I could let her run in the front yard with Sam. The total length for Zoe’s is about 12 to 14 feet, which is long enough that she can get up to a good speed by the time she stretches the leash to its full length. And she did that Monday afternoon. She was going so fast I had to release the leash or have my arm dislocated. She kept going full speed into the woods and disappeared with Sam following.

This was the fifth time they have run away. The first time they did it they came home after dark and sat around in the garage until I happened to look. The next time Sam was gone a full day and Zoe was gone four days. The third time a neighbor caught Zoe and called us. The fourth time, which was only about a week ago, a couple living at the bottom of the mountain caught them and called. This was the fifth time. This time I posted on Facebook. They disappeared at about 2:15 or so. Eventually they were spotted a couple of miles away, and then more than four miles away, but by the time I got to the places where they were sighted, they were gone.

They finally came home at about 10:30. Sam had rolled in something nasty and smelly, so I had to bathe him before I could let him in the house. Zoe was wet and a little smelly, but I didn’t want to undertake as big a job as washing her would be that late in the evening. She got her bath today, Tuesday.

The thing I found most interesting (not the thing I found most infuriating) in this case was the eyewitness accounts of the people who responded to my post on Facebook. One man who saw them in his yard said the big one was dragging an orange leash. A woman who saw them later in the day said the big one was trailing a bright red line. This is the rope I use for their leashes.

And this is the stub of Zoe’s leash, the only part she brought back home. It looks kind of like a fishing lure.

What color would you call this? I call it blue because to my eye it’s mostly blue. The red/orange is eye-catching, maybe even more so in bright sunlight, but I was surprised when they talked about a red or orange leash.

The top photo shows the knot I use to make the hand loop. It’s called a bowline loop. Boy Scouts and sailors probably know this one, but it was new to me. I found it when searching for knot-tying instructions. Since this is a nautical knot, you might expect “bow” to be pronounced like the bow of a ship, but in the case of this knot, it’s actually pronounced like bow in “bow and arrow.” It has the advantage of not slipping, so the loop doesn’t close up on your hand when the dog pulls on it. The knot I used to attach the clip is called a clip knot, which seems appropriate.

I could probably tie another bowline loop without looking at the instructions, which means it’s a pretty simple knot. I would have to look up the clip knot, although it’s also a simple knot.

Speaking of dogs

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Our new dog Zoe is very vocal. She makes a lot of fierce noises when she and Sam play. I shot this a few days ago on one of our regular walks. Listen for the snap from Sam biting at her.

She also tries to talk to us. I have tried several times to get a good recording but she seems kind of camera shy. I couldn’t get my phone ready fast enough to get her best vocalizations. These were the best I could do.

Did you noticed the disgusted grunt she made after she sniffed my feet, just before lying down?

Lessons, learned and not learned

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I have been taking the dogs out into our front yard for a post-lunch play session for quite a while now. Ever since the great dog escape I have been putting Zoe on a long leash and letting Sam run free. That has worked pretty well. Sam can run around and escape from Zoe’s attacks, and then come back for more punishment.

A few days ago when I took them for their morning walk, Zoe was so full of energy that she could hardly contain herself. She desperately wanted to run. So Thursday afternoon, I decided to put Sam on a long leash and let Zoe run free. I expected her to run in big circles around the yard, but she didn’t. Instead, she ran about 30 feet away, and then turned to stalk Sam. That went on for a while. And then Zoe walked down to the bottom of the grassy part of the yard and into the woods.

I called her. I yelled for her. She ignored me and continued into the woods.

If this had happened 35 years ago, back when I had knees and could run on them, I would have chased her. These days, all I can do is walk at a determined pace, which is not enough to keep up. But I had Sam, I thought, and Sam could find her.

So I took Sam down through the narrow band of trees at the front of the yard to the street. Based on the direction Zoe had been walking, I planned to take Sam to Fouche Gap Road and head her off. But when I got there, Sam continued across the road towards the other end of Lavender Trail. I figured Sam knew what he was doing, and was following Zoe. So I let him go. We went up the steep grade towards the dead end, where I had found all the shotgun shells a few days earlier. I tried to jog a little, which demonstrated, if I needed it, that 30 minutes on the stepper is not an eight-mile run.

When we got to the top, my phone rang. A neighbor up the road in the opposite direction had caught Zoe. So, Sam was faking it.

When I managed to get back home, I drove up to our neighbor’s house and retrieved Zoe. She seemed glad to see me and hopped right into the car.

It’s clear that Zoe did not learn her lesson from when she disappeared for four days. However, I have learned my lesson: I cannot let Zoe off the leash. That’s a disappointment. I had hoped to have a normal dog, like all of my other dogs except Zeke, who could be trusted not to run away.

Sam’s problem

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On Tuesday afternoon I was working at my desk with both dogs lying behind me when I heard a loud commotion. I thought they were play-fighting, but when I looked back I realized that Sam was having a seizure.

He was on his side with his rear legs drawn up, he was shivering, and his upper body was swaying from side to side. His eyes were so dilated that his pale blue irises were just a thin rim about the black of his pupils.

Sam had a seizure about a year earlier one night while we were in bed. It looked pretty much the same. This time I immediately took him to the vet. He couldn’t walk, so I had to carry him to the truck. He has always had problems with car sickness, so I wasn’t surprised that he vomited. When I got to the vet’s he jumped out of the truck and was able to walk in. They saw him pretty quickly.

He was a little shaky, but seemed to be over the seizure. The vet looked at her records and saw that he had actually had two previous seizures. The first was in 2018. The second was about a year later. This one was about eight months later. She said it was probably a form of epilepsy, and that we should monitor him, and if the seizures came less than a month apart, she would put him on medication.

And then he had another seizure in the vet’s office.

She gave him a valium, which didn’t really calm him much. So she gave him an injection, which calmed him immediately.

Phenobarbital is the most common treatment for epileptic seizures in dogs. The vet said the hope is that it will keep the seizures to no more than once a month. I hate to think of poor Sam going through a seizure like this that often. It’s a hard thing to watch, knowing that you can’t do anything for him. I assume it’s worse for him to actually go through it.

On Wednesday he seemed completely normal. I took him and Zoe out into the front yard for their regular after-lunch play period. He chased around, rolled on the ground, and chewed on Zoe’s cheeks just as he always has. He seems no worse for the experience.