Lap Time

I had a long, troublesome day on campus.  The students were fine, it was the technology that was frustrating as was trying to get lessons pulled together in a meaningful way that the students could access.

PD was getting older, and had recently had problems with his back.  He had just come back from the vet's office with a good report.

From my journal on December 1, 2014:
"I sit here with PD on my lap.  This is an old ritual that goes back 10 years.  I think it is probably as comforting to me as it is to him.  Not just the ritual, but the essential reliability of knowing that there is this time together and this (in)activity that we share.  My lap is always here and always available to him.  His silent companionship and gentle warmth on my legs is a constant for me.  Those evenings or times that he chooses my lap over Kathy's is always a joy.  To be worthy of his close companionship is to know that someone sees you as special."

Once again, PD reminded me that physical contact and unconditional love are more important than PowerPoint presentations to students, grading papers, and going to work.

Post # 45: Rabbits!

Wife has started raising a Spring/Summer garden in our backyard. She worried about the dogs getting into her garden the first year that she planted.  So I put a small fence around her little plot.

The vegetables grew and produced an abundance of produce.  But, it was difficult to step over the fence.  She worried about snakes. And she worried that everything was crowded.

The second year saw a larger garden plot with fewer plants and no fence.  This was also the year of the heavy rains and some flooding in May and June.  The garden didn’t do very well with that much water.

This was also the year that PD decided he liked squash plants.   Not the squash vegetable.  Just the plant itself, the stalk.  Over a period of a month, PD ripped out one plant after the other.  He would tug on the plant, pulling it out by its roots.  Then, PD would drag the plant out of the garden and settle down for a luscious meal of Squash Plant.

Wife and I had been worried about rabbits, not dogs.

It turns out that we were right to worry about rabbits, too.

Twice I had come home and spotted a rabbit in our back yard.  I quickly alerted Wife and had her seal off the back door.  Neither one of us wanted to watch our dogs tear up a rabbit.  We had chicken wire along the back fence to deep our dogs in the yard and other critters out.  Apparently the fence only worked on our dogs. 

I knew that the rabbit had figured out a way to breach the chicken wire.  But I also figured there would only be one or two ways in and out of that fence.  I was worried that in its panic to get away from the dogs, the rabbit would get trapped and we’d have a slaughter.

In each instance I was able to go into the back yard without the dogs, and herd the rabbit back to whatever hole it had dug or chewed to get in.

One evening, Wife and I were sitting on the porch enjoying our freshly mowed lawn.  Frank started barking at something I couldn’t see.  Wife had a better view and told me it was a rabbit.

I walked over and started “shushing” Frank.

It was just a poor baby rabbit.  The little guy was all hunkered down, trying to be still.  Despite his best effort at looking like a rock, he was trembling. 

I was able to pick up Frank.  We called PD, who obediently followed us into the house.  We closed off the dogs and I went back outside.

The bunny had hopped over to the brick border around a tree.  He sat there with his face to the wall.  I guess he thought he was hiding.  Wife was watching from the window.  He was so small.  She said that he just kind of fell over onto his side on uneven ground.

We just knew that his momma had to be nearby somewhere.  So we kept the doggy door shut and waited a couple of hours.

Two hours later, and he was still in our back yard.  Still in danger.

I scooped him up, carried him to the fence and put him gently on the other side.  That should take care him, right?

That evening just before bed time, we let the dogs out to take care of business.  And they did.  And for Frank, taking care of business included discovering that the bunny had come back into our yard.

Frank started his barking at the bunny.  He was a little afraid of it, since he had no idea what this critter was.  I walked over to get Frank but he kept avoiding me.  Then, the bunny turned around and lunged at Frank.  This little tiny thing decided he was tired of Frank’s noise.  So he lunged, not just hopped, but an aggressive lunge.  Frank backed off and into my waiting hands.

We left the little rabbit alone in the yard and locked the dogs inside for the night.  Surely, by morning the rabbit’s momma will have found him and escorted him home.

The next morning, I did a quick walk around the backyard, looking for the little rabbit.  I saw nothing, so we let the dogs out of the house.  It wasn’t long before we heard Frank barking.  What I couldn’t see, Frank managed to sniff out.  That little bunny was still in the back yard.

Back in the house went the dogs.  I scooped up the little fella and placed him in a small cage.  Then I went back into the house and got on the computer to do a bit of research.  My granddaughter had raised a rabbit for 4-H just a few months ago.  I was wondering if this rabbit might be turned into a pet for her.

Or maybe I could find a shelter for the rabbit.  It was plain this baby’s momma just didn’t care.  And he didn’t seem to be very bright.  I learned that baby rabbits’ nests often loo

k like the piles of grass we had all over our yard after mowing.  So maybe he just got turned around.

I also learned that it is very hard for a young bunny to survive as pets.  They are much more hardy than you expect, and usually do quite well on their own.  Better, in fact than they do when people try to make them pets.

So, I pulled out my folding ladder and climbed over into our neighbor’s property with the cage.  I walked a bit into their property, and behind some brush and released the rabbit back into the wild.

We’ve not seen any rabbits since then.  I don’t know whether he survived, if he found his nest or his momma.  But in Wife’s imagination, he made it back home safely and is still out there in the brush romping around with his brothers, sisters, momma, and daddy.

Of course, Wife isn’t really all that naïve.  She pointed out to me that her google search revealed that rabbits are food for everything else.  “Why do they have to make them so cute?” she asks. 

Maybe rabbits could look a little more like possums?

POST #44: ZOOMIES

When we lived in Aransas Pass and both PD and Henry were young, Wife and I would often sit outside in the evenings.  We would enjoy the sea breeze and the cool shade of our Live Oak trees. 

PD and Henry were full of youthful energy.  They would often entertain us by chasing each other around the yard.  PD would chase Henry around the shed, under the lawn chairs and around the trees.  We’d watch and laugh when Henry would sometimes take a break in the game.  Henry would gain distance from PD and then stop once he was out of PD’s sight.  Then he’d sit in the grass and watch PD continue to run around the course, thinking Henry was just ahead of him.  When he got tired of watching PD run by him self, Henry would take off in the opposite direction.  The two would cross paths at a high rate of speed, barely missing each other, like the Blue Angels with their thrilling in-air stunts.

Sometimes the two of them would come crashing into one of the chairs as they misjudged the turn.  Or Henry would broad-side PD and send PD rolling through the grass.

Wife and I just saw this as an interactive game of chase and enjoyed the show.

When Frank came along, PD was already too old to play chase.  But Frank was young and full of joyful exuberance.  He wanted to play and needed to release his pent up energy.  Wife and I had become busier in our lives and spent less time walking the dogs, or even sitting out in the back yard.

What’s a young, high-energy dachshund supposed to do when surrounded by a bunch of “old fogies?” 

The answer is “Zoomies!”  I have to thank the Dachshund-Talk forum for giving me a name for this phenomenon.  Without them, I would have never known what to call it.  Zoomies describes the action perfectly.

They started when we were still living in the old house in Aransas Pass.  Every evening around meal time, we would hear the clatter of toe nails on hardwood as Frank would jump off the love seat in the TV room.  We’d look up in time to see a brown and white streak flying past the kitchen door toward the living room.  Then Frank would come racing back and making a hard left turn into the kitchen.  

With the hardwood floor, he would almost always overshoot the mark, sliding past the door as his paws scrambled to make purchase, and sometimes slamming into the door frame.  Then Frank would zoom through the kitchen, into the mud room, out the doggy door, back into the mud room, and back through the kitchen.  He’d then hang a left, go back into the TV room, fly onto the loveseat, jump off, and start the whole course all over.

Frank did this with his tail wagging, and a look of joy on his face.  Usually two or three trips around the house like this, and then the Zoomies stopped, just as suddenly as they began.  He walked calmly into the kitchen and get a drink of water as if nothing unusual had happened.

Frank continued to run his Zoomies in our little patio home and he still has them in our new home.  We have a bit more of the floor covered with carpeting, and he seems thankful for that.  The paths he invents have altered a bit to accommodate the shape of the house and then number of rooms available to him.  But the behavior and the pure joy we see in him has not.

I love Zoomies!

Frank's Zoomies

If none of the videos or links above work, copy and paste on this link:

https://youtu.be/Yq7CX7Wryc0

Post #43: Moles in the yard

PD has established his dominance over Frank, and Frank pretty much accepts his place in the pecking order.  While it is sad for us to watch Frank’s insecurity around PD there have not been anymore major fights between the two.

Frank enjoys our backyard and he usually takes advantage of the ramps we have around the house. But, he still manages to surprise us by flying on to chairs, tables, and even the bed.

Frank has filled out nicely. He is no longer the skeleton he once was. However, he can no longer fly as high or as far as he once did. Still, he does pretty good.

Frank has learned to ask for attention when he wants it. And, he can be really persistent. He will work his muzzle under our hands and then onto top of his head. It doesn’t take long to figure out that Frank has a pair of ears that need to be massaged or chest that needs to be rubbed.

Frank also does his best to earn his keep as a house dog.

When we first moved to our new house, we had mole trails all over our back and front yards. Frank decided that it is his job to hunt them down. I’m pretty good at catching gophers. I know what to look for in a gopher hole, and how to set a gopher trap.  But I’m not so good at catching moles.

On the other hand, Frank has never caught one, either. But that hasn’t stopped him from trying. He is probably one of the most enthusiastic mole hunters that you have ever seen. He spends hours in the backyard digging trenches. I’ll look out the window and see his butt in the air and dirt flying. He’ll dig for a bit, and then he will grab a grass runner and pull and shake and pull some more until that grass runner has come loose. Then Frank will stick his nose in as deep into the earth as he can. Once he has the scent firmly in his nostrils, he will pull his head out, snort, and start digging the trench again. Frank has been at this for about two years.

He’s never caught a thing.

We have a few cats in our neighborhood. Frank and PD will chase them out of the backyard when they see them back there. I don’t mind the cats. I won’t feed them, but I don’t chase them away.  And I try to be careful about not running over any cats when I pull out of the driveway. Unlike the experience we had on 11^th St., we’ve not yet killed any cats in our new home.

There is a large yellow cat that likes to sleep under my truck. I think he’s watched Frank’s futile attempts at catching moles. Sometimes I see him lying in the brush behind our property staring into our yard.  I’m not sure, but he may be smiling while he is watching Frank dig trenches.

Watching Frank’s enthusiastic attempts to catch the moles motivated me into action. I’d done a bit of research and I couldn’t really see that they’re doing a lot of harm. They weren’t killing the grass. In fact, they were probably eating the cinch bugs dining on the roots of my grass.

Sometimes it is a little disconcerting to walk across the lawn and then suddenly sink lower than expected when I step on one of their trails. But that doesn’t happen too often. I’m actually more annoyed by stepping into one of the trenches Frank has dug than I am by stepping onto one of the mole trails.

I have read stories about moles damaging foundations and driveways, but I’m not sure that those stories are true. Most of these stories came from internet sites trying to sell the latest and greatest gadgets for killing moles.  Still, I felt I should do my part to help Frank’s “stamp out the moles” campaign. So I went online, and did some research.

I bought some Super-duper, Extra Large, Guaranteed to Work Mole Traps. I carefully read the instructions, bought some flags to help me carry out those instructions, and set out the next day to mark all of the trails that were crisscrossing our backyard. I’d walk a bit, and when my foot sank down I took a close look at the ground, and if it looked like there might be a mole trail under that grass I’d stick a little red flag into the ground next to where I just stepped.

The idea is that moles do not like to have their active trails shut down. If you step on one and crush the tunnel the mole will come back over overnight and reopen the tunnel.  If you look at the trail the next day, and the trail has been repaired, then you know that you have found an active trail, and that is where you want to set your trap.

By the time I finished, I had about 20 places marked off in our backyard. The next day I went out and selected four spots that I thought might have been reopened. Then I set my traps.

After about a week of hunting down trails and setting traps, I finally got one mole.  I noticed the yellow cat watching me.  Yes, that was definitely a smile.

I was setting traps in the back yard, in the front yard, and in the flower bed.  Only one mole.

One morning, sometime after I’d caught my one and only mole, but before I’d given up, I opened the garage door to go get our newspaper.  There it was.  Just outside the garage door.  The gift from our yellow cat:  a dead mole.

There haven’t been any others. The cat didn’t need to bring us any others.  He just wanted me to know that he could do it.  And he could do it anytime he wanted.

I haven’t had the heart to tell Frank.

And I’ve not bothered to set out any more mole traps.

Post #41: PD’s Third Miracle

PD’s third encounter with near death was also his closest call.  PD was eight years old.  Wife and I were trying to live in two places in two cities.  I had closed my private practice in Rockport and began a full-time position as faculty at the University of Houston – Victoria.  I would stay in Victoria for three or four days a week, and then would stay in Aransas Pass for three or four days.

PD began acting strangely on one Sunday in Aransas Pass.  He was depressed, not moving much, and looked like he was in pain.  This was too soon after Henry went down, and we were still very much worried about dachshund back injuries.  Our first thought was that PD had hurt his back.  Our regular vet was closed and not available. 

I drove PD to the veterinary hospital in Corpus Christi.  I expressed my concerns about PD’s back to the person who did the intake.  The tech took X-rays, the vet looked at them and said she could see some places where he had inflammation of his disc.  She gave PD a shot for his pain.  PD and I left the hospital with a bottle of pain medication, advice to keep him in a crate, and instructions on when to give him his medicine. 

I was supposed to be in Victoria on Monday, and Wife and the dogs were coming with me.  So, we crated PD, packed our things, and headed north.

PD did not get better.  PD continued to be lethargic.  He threw up a couple of times.  He refused to eat.  That was a really big thing.  PD has always been food motivated.  So, any time he refuses to eat, we know something is really wrong.  He also refused to drink.

Wife forced his pain medicine down him, and he threw it right back up.  We decided not to force him to take it again.  By late evening, PD had not had anything to drink.  I took him to his water dish, but he just looked at it.  Then I put some water on my finger and rubbed it around his lips.  That triggered a gagging reflex.  PD was warm and seemed to have a fever.  It was late Sunday evening, and we had no vet resources in Victoria.  We decided to wait it out, and hope that PD would be better in the morning.

He wasn’t.                                                                                                                     

Wife was headed to Temple to spend some time with our grandchildren, but we both knew we needed to get PD back to our vet in Rockport.  

I put PD in the car and drove south to Rockport, while Wife headed north to Temple.  Both of us with prayers for the safety of the other, and for PD to get well.

The vet examined PD and ran some blood tests.  He told me to leave PD with him so they could start him on an IV and get some fluids in him.  He was dehydrated and in pain.  The vet wanted to wait for the lab results and check some other things.  I left and went back to Victoria without PD.  When the vet called, the news was bad.

PD had pancreatitis.  His body was digesting itself.  His liver had shut down.  His kidneys had shut down.  The vet wasn’t sure that PD would live.  He told us that on paper, PD was already a dead dog.

The vet withheld all food and water.  Any food or water consumed by mouth would trigger an enzyme action against his organs.  This is why PD was vomiting and gagged when I forced him to put water in his mouth.  This enzyme action was the means in which his body was digesting itself.  Any fluids or nutrition that PD got would have to be through his IV.

PD stayed at the vet’s for several days.  We spoke to the vet every day.  At first we got encouraging news.  He seemed to be getting better.  But then, PD seemed to be getting worse.  The vet asked us to come and talk to him about taking PD home.  The vet didn’t think that there was anything else he could do for PD.

Wife and I drove to Rockport, to the vet’s office.  We went into the examination room and waited while the vet told us about what he had done for PD.  He told us that PD wasn’t “out of the woods, yet.”

The tech walked in carrying PD.  He saw us and began to wag his tail.  The tech put him on the examining table, and PD was all over us with kisses and tail wags.

The vet smiled and said that was the best he had seen PD act since he had arrived.  He knew that he had done the right thing to get us to come and get him.

PD is now on a low-fat diet, and has not had any further problems with his pancreas.  He is 11 years old now, and is losing some of his eye sight.  He is often in pain because of his back, but Wife does a great job of managing his pain.

As he gets older, he accumulates symptoms that slow us all down.  We do not know how many more years we will have with PD.  We are simply grateful for all of the years that we have had.  We count each day that PD is with us as one more blessing.

Post # 39: Memorial Day Tributes

Frank had a chance to settle in and begin to feel like he was home once we got back from our Mother’s day camping trip.  One of PD’s favorite games was “chicken.”  We had a rubber chicken that I would throw in the back yard, and PD would fetch the chicken.  Sometimes he would bring it back to me.  Sometimes he would sit down at the far end of the yard with chicken and look at me expectantly.  I think Wife taught him the “sit, wait!” part of the game in order to encourage me to get more exercise.  I would walk over to PD pick up Chicken and throw it to another part of the yard.

PD was very possessive of Chicken.  When Frank tried to play, there would be raising of hackles and growling.  So, Frank learned to play with Bone.  I would throw chicken first to get PD going in one direction, and then I’d throw a squeaky Bone in another direction.  Frank would run off to the other side of the yard.

Then I would walk over to PD and pick up Chicken.  Frank learned from PD that he was supposed to wait with his toy.  So I’d have to walk over to Frank and pick up Bone.  Frank was still learning, and interested in making up his own rules.  So sometimes Pig turned into a game of “chase me.”  Once I had both Chicken and Bone in my possession, the games would start again.

Memorial Day arrived, and we honored our World War II veterans at church.  I thought about my father who had died recently and who served near the end of the war in the Philippines.  

George and William Hamilton

I thought about Wife's father and uncle, who also served.

Bill Allen

Don Allen

Bill, Gus (their father) and Don Allen

And I thought about my brother who died shortly after his services as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.

Kirby Hamilton

Kirby Hamilton

I spent the afternoon digging up memories of loved ones.

Frank spent the afternoon trying to dig up Henry.

Wife looked out the window and told me that Frank was digging up Henry’s grave.  I had buried Henry pretty deep, and so I wasn’t too worried.  Henry was probably three or three and a half feet down.

I casually went outside to see what Frank was doing.  All I could see of Frank was part of his butt and his tail.  He was about half-way down to Henry and digging fast!

I took Frank inside and filled in the hole.  I put a couple of cinder blocks and bricks on top of the soft dirt.  Then we let Frank back outside.

Wife and I have really fond memories of Henry, and we miss him a lot.  But we did not want to see Henry again!

Did I mention that Frank was persistent?

I pulled Frank out of the hole again, and put a large #2 wash tub over one end of the site, and placed the concrete bird bath over the middle.

Frank finally gave up on his Memorial Day tribute to Henry.

I feel bad for Henry, though.  One of his pleasures was keeping the birds out of our yard.  And now, all of the birds would be coming to splash and play right over his head.

Post #38: Mother’s Day and Blessings of Grandchildren

It was 6:30 in the evening.  It was a Sunday.  It was Mother’s Day.  And we were in a campground, far from home, locked out of our trailer.  We should be roasting wieners (not our dogs) and marshmallows over a fire by now.

Instead, I was on the phone, talking to an RV repairman, explaining that the lock to our fifth wheel was broken, and we couldn’t get in.

Amazingly, he agreed to come out that night to help us!  Who does that?  Only an awesomely kind man who likes to help people.

The repairman showed up with a 14 year old grandson in tow.  He looked at the door.  Yes, the lock was broken.  He attempted to take it off from the outside, but could not. 

Then he asked if we had a laundry shoot in our Fifth Wheel.  If you are not familiar with Fifth Wheels, then you may not know that they have a “basement.”  The front of the fifth wheel is raised up so that you can back the bed of your pickup under it.  This is where the king pin is, that attaches to the hitch in the bed of the pickup.  The space over the bed of the pickup is where an extra room (usually the bedroom and bathroom) is.  Since a bit of ramping is involved in the construction, there is space under part of the floor which is used for storage.  Since it sits below the room, it is called the basement.  Some Fifth Wheels have a hole under the bathroom sink that can be used as a laundry shoot.  It may sound big, but trust me, it is not. 

“Yes,” I told him, “we do have a laundry shoot.”  We walked around to the side of the trailer where the laundry shoot was, and I opened the door to the basement.  We took turns sticking our heads in and looking up.  It was a mighty small hole.  An adult could not crawl through that hole.

But, maybe a seven year old girl would fit?  We just happened to have one of those.  Kathy took the truck, drove down to Jason’s campsite and kidnapped the girls.  Jason and Melissa were still working on setting up camp, and didn’t know that we now had plans for their daughters.

We brought Allie, our seven year old granddaughter over and showed her the hole. Did she think she could crawl up there for us?  She was a little nervous about crawling up into the trailer.  It was starting to get dark.  But she agreed to do it.

The repairman told Allie what he wanted her to do:  Crawl through the laundry shoot, push open the cabinet door, crawl out into the bathroom, go out into the hall and down the stairs, and then turn the deadbolt lock and open the door.  Allie did as told.  But the lock still wouldn’t open.  I started thinking about finding a dog-friendly hotel again.

The repairman had another plan.

There are two emergency exits in a Fifth wheel.  These are windows that unlatch from the inside, and are big enough for an adult to crawl out of.  In our trailer, one is upstairs in the bedroom, and requires a significant drop to get out.  The other is in the dining area, and is closer to the ground.  The dining table sits in front of this window.

The repairman asked Allie to crawl on top of the table, and described for her how to release the latches.  Allie did this promptly.

By this time, Jason and Melissa had arrived to find out what we were doing with their daughters.  And, it was time for dinner.  Of course, no dinner could be made.  Hot dogs and S’mores were supposed to be on the menu.  No dinner could be made until we could get into the trailer.

Now the window was open, but it was too high for old men like myself or the repairman to crawl through.  And then there was that dining table that had to be crawled across.

Fortunately, we had a 14 year old boy nearby, the repairman’s grandson.  We called him into action.  We boosted the young teen up through the window with a pocket full of tools.  He was able to disassemble the lock with his grandfather’s guidance.  At last, the door was open.

Kathy prepared dinner while the repairman installed a new deadbolt.

Allie was glad to be free of that trailer, which had quickly become dark.  Rachel (our four year old granddaughter) insisted that she be allowed to crawl through the laundry shoot.  With lights turned on, the girls made a game of going into and out of the trailer using their own private entrance.    

There is a follow-up to this story.

Three years later, Kathy and I stayed in an RV park in San Marcos, about an hour south of the other campground.  The water heater quit on us during this stay.  Not a big emergency, but an inconvenience.  Like all inconveniences, this one happened on a Sunday, when the usual places are closed.  I had noticed earlier that an RV repairman lived in one of the RV’s across the road from us, in the same park.  He had his name and phone number on the side of his truck.  I called his number and explained the problem.  I told him we would be OK until Monday, but I’d like to be put on his service call list.  The man came over right away, anyway.  How nice that I was able to find someone willing to work on a Sunday.  I thanked him profusely. 

I made small talk with him while he was making the repair.  I commented on how grateful we were that he was willing to come over and take care of this for us on a Sunday.  Then I launched into my story about getting locked out several years earlier, and how fortunate we were to find someone willing to work on Mother’s day.  He said the lock problem must happen a lot.  And then he began telling the rest of my story back to me!  We figured out that he was the same guy who helped me before. 

You meet a lot of nice people when you travel.

And sometimes, you get to meet the same nice person twice.

Post #37: Frank's First Trip with his New Pack!

It is probably not a good idea to take a new dog and start to travel with him before he has had a chance to settle into the routine of your home.  However, Mother’s Day was coming up and we had planned a trip to go camping with our Fifth Wheel at Canyon Lake before we met Frank.  Our oldest son and his family would meet us at the campground.  Since our son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters were involved, we couldn’t just cancel the trip.

So, just a couple of days after Frank arrived, we loaded up the Fifth Wheel and took off for Canyon Lake.

Fortunately, Frank is a very good traveler.  He took his cue from PD, and settled onto Wife’s lap for the ride.  The trip was uneventful and we arrived at the campground in good spirits.  We pulled into a nice shady spot and set up camp.  

I don’t think Frank knew what to make of our trip or the trailer.  After we got the RV set up, we walked the dogs, and then went inside the trailer.  Frank was extremely nervous, and started showing some “billy goat” tendencies.  He jumped up on a chair, and from the chair he jumped on to the kitchen cabinet.  He walked up and down the cabinet a while, then jumped down onto the chair, across to another chair, on the floor, onto the couch and then up onto the table.  I knew that he had managed to climb our baby gate at home, but I had no idea he was such a jumper! 

I would have been amazed, if I hadn’t been so afraid that Frank would hurt himself.  We couldn’t stand losing another dog to a ruptured disc so soon after Henry.

We decided we had better put Frank in a crate.  Frank was not happy about the crate.  After all, crates were what dogs lived in when they lived in that noisy, lonely animal shelter.  He didn’t want to go back to the shelter.  We put him in, anyway.  It was sad for him, and sad for us, but at least Frank was safe.  And so was our trailer.

Son1 and his family arrived a short time later.

Wife and I got Frank out of the crate, locked up the trailer and took the dogs on a walk around the campground.We watched Son1 and Daughter In Law start the procedure of setting up their tents, then visited some with our granddaughters.

Wife took the girls and walked them back to the fifth wheel so that they could use the facilities.  I waited a bit with the dogs, watching the tent construction.  And then I started back for the RV, too.

When I got to our trailer, I found a frustrated wife and two anxious girls.  Wife’s key would not work on the deadbolt.  I tried my key, confident that Wife just wasn’t doing something right (guy attitude!).

Well, my key didn’t work, either.  I pushed, pulled, and lifted.  I couldn’t get the door open.  Wife left with the girls in search of the park’s restroom.  After taking care of the necessities, Wife took the girls back to their parents while I tried to figure out how to break into the trailer.

I called the office.  This was a Sunday afternoon, around 4:00 p.m.  And it was Mother’s Day!  No one answered the phone.  I used the search function on my phone to hunt down locksmiths in the area.  I found a locksmith referral site and found that the nearest locksmith was about two hours away.  I called anyway.  No answer. 

I was beginning to think that we may have to find a dog-friendly hotel nearby, and wait until Monday to get help.

Then I spotted one of the park workers driving by on a golf cart, and flagged him down.  He gave me the name of an RV repairman that he knew, and who did work in the park.  By this time, it was 6:30 in the evening.  I was pretty sure that the repairman would ask us to wait until Monday, but maybe at least he would come early enough that the entire trip wouldn’t be wasted.

Was the trip a bust?  I’ll elaborate next week when I write about how I learned some of the little known blessings of grandchildren.

Post #35: Frank

After losing Henry, we had decided to be a one-dog family.  That discussion did not last long.  PD became just as demanding of our time and attention as he had been before Henry.  I began looking at dachshund rescues online, and soon had Kathy looking at them, too.  I started showing cute, adorable dachshund puppies to Kathy.  She insisted that we not jump into a second dog.  I sort of agreed and quit pulling up pictures of dogs that needed homes.

During this time, I had been teaching in Victoria for about a year.  We had bought a small house in Victoria, and I continued to commute from Aransas Pass.  I spent a few days a week in Victoria, and a few days a week in Aransas Pass.

I tried to be strong, honest!  I could see that getting a second dog would be more of a burden for Kathy, than me.  If Kathy didn’t want another dog, we would just deal with PD’s demanding ways.

The funny thing is, I had kind of stopped looking online for rescue dogs.  So it came as a real surprise when Kathy emailed me a link to a dachshund that was in Victoria’s Adopt-A-Pet rescue center.  I was in Victoria at the time.  Kathy had actually asked me to look at the picture of a young dachshund in need of a home!  And he was nearby.

He was a beautiful, but sad looking guy.  This was the first time I had ever seen a Piebald Dachshund.  I’d heard about dapples, double dapples, and brindles.  But, I’d never heard of a Piebald.  This little guy was a miniature dachshund who was supposed to be about two years old.  He was brown and white.  Or is that red and white?  His whole head was brown.  The rest of him was white with large patches of brown.  His head looked over-sized, because the rest of his body was so small.  The shelter said that a man had found this dog wandering the streets.  It was obvious that he had been on his own for a while.  He was so malnourished.  The shelter had him for only a couple of weeks, and he had managed to put a little bit of weight back on.  But he still had a long way to go.

His eyes looked so sad.  You could tell he was lost and confused and needed a new home.  No wonder Kathy sent me the link.

I went to the shelter to see this dog.  The shelter workers were very kind and seemed to really care about the dogs.  But they were crowded.  The dog I had gone to see was in a wire cage stacked on top of two other cages with dogs.  The room was filled with loud barking.

The worker introduced me to “Frank.”  We got to go into the staff break room, where things were quieter.  I sat on the floor, and they placed Frank on the floor nearby.  I ignored him for a while, talking to the staff, to give Frank a chance to adjust to my presence.  He walked around the room a bit, and eventually became interested in me.

Frank sniffed me, and then climbed into my lap.  He was a very polite and respectful gentleman.  I fell in love with Frank right away.  But the decision was not just mine.  I had an out of town appointment that would take me away for a day.  I decided to use that as my cooling off period.

I called Kathy and gave her my impression of Frank.  We both agreed to think about adopting him over night.  I took care of my work and headed back home the next day.  Kathy and I talked some more about Frank.

We decided to bring him home!

I stopped at the Adopt-A-Pet center and completed the paperwork, paid the fees, and took possession of Frank.

“Why did you name him Frank?” I asked after the third time they told me I could change his name.  The worker looked a little sheepish as he explained “because he’s a wiener dog, and he looked like …”

“A frankfurter” I completed.  Well I’m not happy with the origins of his name, but after owning a Henry, Frank just seemed right.