Recently in Dogs Category

When our male Shih Tzu puppy, Griffin--pushing nine weeks--met up with a female puppy of the Cavachon family--half Bichon Frise and half King Charles Spaniel--love was in the air. It was cuteness overload.

The female's heart was racing. The owners said it was the first dog she had seen her size.

You just had to be there.

Walking on the Center Harbor Woods trails, where a couple of years ago when it first opened I had an unpleasant encounter with a mother bear and her cub, I had another one, a nuisance/aggressive coyote.

I saw it around 7 am near a small stream . My golden retriever, Ruby, went off on the scent, going the wrong way, while I saw the coyote up close and personal. The corpulent chocolate lab, Beau, who's a lot smarter, was on the hunt. But I able to restrain him with a voice command.

I called "Booby," my nickname for Ruby, the voluptuous dumb blonde, and she came back. But shockingly to me, never having experienced anything like this in all my thousands of hours dog walking in the woods, the large coyote didn't hightail it, began barking, and even followed at an uncomfortably close distance.

Coyote harassment on the trail!

That's cute.

At the private beach on a lake north of Winni where I have deeded access, our little association has been caught up with the issue of dogs at the beach. I'm a dog person. Big time.

Barkley, the black Labrador retriever, a breed I'm partial to having a neighbor's chocolate lab over here about eight to ten hours a day (at least), lays the wood to socialism.

Hey, it's your choice, Henry Hazlitt or Barley. Either way socialism sucks.

It's a heart-felt blog, well written, definitely worth a look here. I'm going to be making The Adventures of Tom & Atticus regular reading. "When ambition ends, happiness begins." ~ Thomas Merton


Tom writes:

A hike is a walk in the woods that turns into a meditation, then a prayer, and finally a song. It's rhythmic. It's your heart, breath and the sound of your feet. It's simple. It's a return to basics and a return to innocence. It's finding yourself alone in the woods and seeing the streams, rocks, trees and wildlife and recognizing all of it as wondrous - and then realizing you recognize the same thing in yourself. That's why I hike.

Is it any wonder he's written a book that will likely be worth the purchasing? I can see Tom Hanks doing it as a movie. It'd make a tun of money at little cost to make. For the record I climbed Red Hill today with dogs Beau and Ruby, and two of my sons Matthew and Charles. It was a great day.

Doug hit one out of the park with this entry at GraniteGrok in 2008 about a suspicious and disturbing incident in Bristol, NH.

NH must consider doing what Maryland does with that state's recent passage of SB 447 in response to the summary execution of the Labrador retrievers: require detailed statements by all SWAT organizations every six months to the governor's office of crime control and prevention. As I currently understand it, Maryland is the first state in the union to have this level of oversight.

These paramilitary units need oversight. It's common sense. Their ability to inflict death, destruction, turmoil, and psychological terror is unprecedented. Second only to the KGB IRS. And I doubt the latter does the 3:43 am wake-up by the muzzles of M-4 carbines by men in combat gear. Some bullies grow up to be police officers and are too cowardly to face the enemy in real combat with the Army or Marines. It's much easier to take on civilians, even though they sometimes reach for a gun. In that case it's legit to riddle their bodies with bullets. After the dogs, presumably.

LONG, LONG OVERDUE, PEOPLE. Meanwhile, you can join the Facebook page of the mayor of the small town in Maryland who suffered the hideous execution of his dogs because of a botched SWAT raid. It's so easy for the testosterone-laden authorities to rain devastation on hearth and home and the peace in a way that lasts forever. I'm sorry for Cheye Calvo. What he had to endure is completely unacceptable in the United States. And it could happen to you.

We miss you, Duchess! The greatest dog I've ever had the privilege of knowing. You were a tremendous gift.

People like this deserve to be horsewhipped.

[W]hen I see a story like this, I don't want to hear about a "plea bargain." I don't want to hear about "parole." I don't want to hear about "what a good mother she is."

I'd rather hear about to which part of the Gates of Hell she'll be chained.

From the NY Daily News:

A heartless Queens woman was arrested for crippling her 11-month-old English bulldog after witnesses caught her on video beating the pooch with a shovel, officials said.

The young bulldog, named Spike, had been abused repeatedly over the past few months.

During his short life, Spike has sustained a hip fracture, a broken leg, three broken teeth and injuries to his ears, according to ASPCA Assistant Director Joseph Pentangelo.

The pup, which is being treated at the ASPCA hospital, is also virtually blind in his right eye.

ASPCA investigators were called to Aguilar's house on Feb. 24 after witnesses reported hearing a dog crying.

One of the witnesses used a camera phone to tape the abuse, also capturing Spike's howls of pain. Aguilar is seen throwing Spike to the ground and then slamming him with a snow shovel.

[The ASPCA] discovered her husband had taken the dog to veterinarians 12 times in the past seven months for treatment.

If you get a pet, and you have no intention of treating it with kindness and getting any self-fulfillment out of it, then, WHY. GET. A. PET?

The story also includes the video of Spike being beaten by his owner.

I could not bring myself to watch it.

The thought of anyone abusing any of the feline members of this household makes me want to reach for the Mossberg 930 12-gauge Autoloader.

Reading about Zuzu made me think of her. Duchess died in March, and lent an air of dignity and regal bearing to the family. My eyes get watery even now. Her loss after twelve years was--and continues to be--deeply felt.

2009 will be a year of remembrance for me.

Petting animals has a way of providing happiness. But dogs esp., by requiring our taking them out into the fresh air, bring additional happiness that exercise and the connection with nature bring.

Today with the brutal winds and frigid air was an exception, though.

FOUR IN 2009

Thursday night our cat Sweet Pea was ailing in a terminal way. She's had kidney failure diagnosed a year ago. The sweet tough bird--so ugly she was fascinating to look at, her bug-out eyes made her look as though she were severely under the influence of some pernicious drug--lasted this long. The fetching wife and I bought her before the brood began arriving, shortly after our marriage in 1997.

Her brother, Willow, died suddenly, without warning five years ago. The other animal we had, before the children, died in the spring. Duchess, the regal and highly intelligent golden retriever, was a devastating loss for me when she passed away at home on March 11. I'm the dog person; my wife loves the cats.

We also lost a bunny, Eeyore, whom I sometimes would cuddle with when watching Michigan State football games.  I think stroking him reduced my stress, which that program amply dishes out.

And my mother-in-law who also lives with us--breaking my Rule 13: to live at least one hour's drive from a mother-in-law--lost her nearly twenty-year-old persian cat, Delilah.

Four animals in 2009, as my wife said during our special Friday night family dinner. No more, she said. I agree. Luckily we still have the gecko, the large fish tank, the two turtles, the three cats, and the two dogs (well, one's the neighbor's but he lives here during the day and tries to avoid leaving at night). The menagerie continues. And the fetching wife is on the internet prowl at local humane societies for another feline addition.