Post #30: Living off the Land

Henry was always good about supplementing his diet.  It seemed as though Henry figured out a new supplemental plan for every season. 

During the Summer, Henry would feast on Locusts.  He learned how to sniff them out while they were still under the ground.  Then he would dig them up and have a little snack.  I think his favorite locusts, though were those that made the mistake of stopping too close to the ground to shed their outer shell.  You know, they say texture really enhances one’s dining pleasure.  I think Henry enjoyed the extra “crunch” of biting into the locust’s crispy outer shell.

In the Fall and Winter, Henry would eat the acorns that fell from our giant live oak trees.  The trees were huge, ancient, and their canopies pretty much covered our entire back yard.  I’ve learned that the acorns from a live oak tree are bitter.  One taste was all it took to convince me to leave the acorns to the squirrels.  Henry, however, seemed to like them.  Maybe I would have enjoyed the flavor more if I had eaten the shell along with the bitter nut.

 

One Fall afternoon Wife took Henry to the vet for a routine checkup.  They had a new vet in the clinic who was not familiar with us or with Henry.  She chided Wife for letting him get overweight.  He was only one or two pounds over his ideal weight, and was by no means obese.  Wife told her that we didn’t know where he had gained the extra weight.  The mulberries were no longer in season.  It might be the acorns.  No, we never fed him table scraps.  Yes, we were giving him the recommended amount of dog food.  The vet didn’t believe Wife, but let it drop.

I got home from work the same time Wife got home from the vet.  As we walked Henry from Wife’s car to the gate we talked about what the vet had said.  I thought it was probably the bumper crop of acorns that our trees had produced.  Wife wasn’t so sure.

We got to the gate.  I bent over and unleashed Henry as Wife opened the backyard gate.  Henry took off like a streak of black lightening.  Before I could even stand upright to see what was happening, Henry was on the far side of the backyard, munching down on the bird he had just caught.

Wife and I looked at each other and laughed.  Now we knew how he was gaining weight.  Apparently the first two bird catches were not just a lucky accident.

Henry’s favorite time of the year for snack food was the Spring.  Our neighbor had a mulberry tree that hung large branches over our backyard.  The tree’s limbs would be heavy with ripe mulberries.  The berries would drop into our backyard by the truckload.  Both PD and Henry would feast on the berries.  But Henry was the one who would gain weight.  Wife referred to him as having “porked out” on the berries.  We discussed whether eating mulberries would be a problem for our dog’s weight.  Our vet assured us that dogs couldn’t get fat on eating mulberries.  I believed that the vet was wrong!

We were especially worried about Henry’s weight because of his back.  We knew that even a few ounces on a small dog put excessive weight on the long back.

I decided that I needed to fence Henry out to keep him from eating too many mulberries.  I started off just using assorted lumber and cinder blocks that we had around the house.  I fenced off that portion of the yard where most of the mulberries fell.  I didn’t fence off the entire area, since I felt like a few mulberries would be OK for him.  I just fenced off the area where the biggest piles lay.

Wife and I couldn’t see the area I had blocked off from the kitchen, since there was a small shed in backyard that blocked our view.  I went outside later in the afternoon to see how things were going with my fence.  Henry had managed to knockdown some of the boards and got in.

I chased him out, added a few more boards and some more bricks.

Those got knocked over, too.

Sigh!  Time to get serious.  So, my next stop was the local Tractor Supply store to see what they might have in the way of inexpensive and temporary fencing.

I found three foot high green wire fencing and fencing stakes.  I bought what I thought I would need and brought it all home.

I pounded in the stakes.  The wooden fence separating us from our neighbor made one side, and our little shed made a second side.  So I ran stakes from the fence to the shed on two sides.  Then I stretched the wire fencing from one stake to the next until my mulberries were secure.

The next day I came home from work and I found Henry calmly eating mulberries under the tree inside the fence.  He had figured out how to squeeze between the wooden back yard fence and the first metal stake.  I wasn’t sure that he could get back out, though.  Since the days were getting warmer, I was concerned with Henry having access to water.

I spent the rest of the afternoon securing all of the gaps that I could find.  I left for work the next day certain that there would be no more holes for Henry to squeeze through.

That evening I saw the same familiar site.  Henry grazing on fallen mulberries inside the fence.  I searched the fence for gaps or knocked down stakes.  There were none.  What I found, however, was a nice hole dug under the fence. 

So far Henry had shown me that he could go over the fence, through the fence, and under the fence.

Henry won!

The fence came down.  I decided to trust the vet and quit worrying about mulberries.

Post # 29: The Back!

When you adopt a dachshund you learn that their long backs are their weak point.  Henry was a young, athletic dog.  He caught possums and birds.  He would fly off the couch to confront any new sound that might threaten the household.  And we worried about the toll our stairs, steps, and his flights onto and off of the couch would take on his back.

For my part, I built ramps.  We had a ramp for every couch in the house and for our bed. 

 

I had a series of ramps built so our dachshunds could come into and go out of the house without jumping or climbing steps.

A small ramp led from the mudroom up to the doggy door in the wall.  Another short ramp led from the doggy door in the wall to the backyard porch.  And then a rather long ramp carried the dogs from the porch to the backyard lawn, four feet below the porch.  We put a fence and a gate around the porch so PD and Henry wouldn’t be tempted to take the steps.  I put a lattice fence along either side of the long ramp so they would not be tempted to jump off when they were only half way down.

Still, dogs don’t always make the best decisions.  Henry took one of his flying leaps off of the couch one evening and hurt himself.  He didn’t let us know he was hurt until later.  Not until he had aggravated his back by going down the front steps.

Henry was hurt bad.  We were scared.  He never cried, he just wouldn’t/couldn’t use his hind legs.  We took Henry to our vet and had him checked out.  Henry was given some pain medication and we took him home.  Henry did the mandatory crate and rest routine.  He got better.

And then, Henry hurt his back again.  Henry had no feeling in his back legs.  He was walking on his “knuckles.”  We went back to the vet.  The vet told us that there was a place in San Antonio that could do the back surgery on Henry.  We were also told that there were more failures than successes with back surgery.  Our vet was also not in favor of putting Henry in a wheelchair.  He reminded us that dogs in a wheelchair needed a lot of help with bodily functions/elimination.  He suggested we keep Henry crated for a couple of more days and that we watch him. 

So we did.

 

The next day, Henry seemed a little better.  And then he got worse.  I called the vet.  It was time to try surgery.  I got the name and phone number of the hospital that did back surgery on dogs and gave them a call.  We were at the hospital three hours later.

The new vet examined Henry and determined that he would be a good candidate for the surgery.  We left him in their hands.  It was a long, sad drive home.  But at least we had hope.

We returned a few days later to pick him up.

Poor Henry.  They had shaved off a large patch of hair down his back, and he had a lot of staples over his spine.  One of our friends had put their dachshund through the same procedure.  She had described her dachshund as looking like a football after the surgery.  She was right.  With the bare skin and staples, he really did look like a live football.  Henry was so glad to see us, and we were equally happy to see him.  It didn’t matter what he looked like.

 

We were warned that Henry might not get back the full function in his rear legs.  We watched Henry over the next few months as he got better.  He was wobbly at first.  Sometimes it looked like he was trying to walk sideways.  And standing on three legs to pee was a challenge.

But Henry got stronger and he regained his footing.

I knew Henry had made a good recovery when he caught his next bird.

 

Post #28 Fearful Henry

I started a game of fetch with PD before Henry came into our family.  We played with a Rubber Chicken, rather than a ball or stick.  I’d throw “Chicken” and PD would run after it and bring it back.  … Or not.  

Sometimes, PD thought it was only fair to sit and wait for me to walk over to him, and then throw Chicken back across to where we started.  I was never sure which rules we were going to play by, but PD always knew.  The fun part of “Chicken” was that we could play in the house, or we could go outside and play in the yard.  We could even play in our travel trailer, if we happened to be going somewhere.

The first time Henry saw me throw Chicken was the first time I began to wonder if Henry had been hit in his previous home.  Henry cowed and walked as far away from me as he could when I raised my arm to throw Chicken.  This little game that brought so much joy to PD instilled fear and dread in Henry.  We learned of other things that scared Henry as well.

Smoke was another fear that Henry had.  The first time we started a backyard barbecue, Henry ran into the house and hid under the covers on the couch.  We took the dogs with us when we went camping.  Our normal routine was to walk the dogs around the park several times a day.  I learned that I had to steer clear of campfires and barbecues.  Henry would cower, shiver, or just stop and refuse to move once he caught the scent of smoke.  This fear lasted for several years.  We eventually were able to get Henry used to the campfire smoke.  Henry was able to walk past other campers grilling hamburgers or just burning wood without a problem.

Cats. 

Oh, Henry would act brave when he smelled and then spotted a cat.  He would bark his deepest manliest bark at the cat.  His hair would raise up in a ridge down his back, and then he would charge.  All would go as planned as long as the cat retreated from his back yard.  Or, in the case where I was walking the dogs, as long as I was able to firmly grasp the leash in my hand. 

The first time was late one evening, and I was standing in the front yard, waiting for PD and Henry to take care of their business.  Before the first instance of getting free from my leash, I did my best to protect the local cats from Henry.

Henry and PD both noticed the cat, and Henry started his deep ferocious barking routine.  Then he rushed the cat, and caught me off guard.  Henry managed to pull the leash out of my hand.

Henry raced across the street barking loudly and viciously in hot pursuit of the cat.  The cat retreated to a row of bushes by the neighbor’s house, and then turned.  The cat decided he did not want to run anymore.  He arched his back, puffed out his fur and hissed, swiping his paw at Henry.

Henry’s deep ferocious bark turned into a high pitched girly squeal as he turned around and raced back to the safety of his own yard.  He yelped and squealed all the way home, managing to run even faster in retreat than he did for the attack.  Henry really was a brave dog when possums and skunks were involved.  But cats?  Not so much.

I did my best to protect Henry from cats after that.

Post #27: Skunked!

I was in the kitchen late one evening, putting some things away when Henry streaked through the room like his tail was on fire.

Our house is arranged such that one can stand on the back porch and look out into the back yard.  Coming in from the porch, you would enter the back door into a mud room, which in turn opens into the kitchen. 

On the other side of the kitchen is a doorway that opens into the dining room, and another door that opens onto the stairwell and hallway.  The dining room is between the Study, on the left, and the living room on the right.  From the living room you can go back down the aforementioned hallway and turn either right back into the kitchen, or left into the master suite, complete with a bedroom, bathroom, dressing area, and walk-in closet.

Henry visited every one of these rooms during this particular journey through our house.  And he managed this tour in less than a minute on this summer evening.  Henry not only visited these rooms, but he managed to jump on every sofa, loveseat and chair that these rooms contained.

I had heard some barking earlier, followed by a high pitched squeal just moments before I saw the black streak flash through the kitchen.  I had time to turn and watch Henry leave the dining room and enter the study before I got slammed.

It hit me like a wall of odor.  Henry had just been skunked!  And it was powerful.  It felt like a physical force pressing me back against the kitchen cabinet.

“Stop him! Stop him!” I screamed at Wife.  Of course she had no idea why I was yelling, or what I was yelling about.

Henry had jumped up onto the love seat where Wife and I spent most of our time in the evening, watching television.  He rolled on his back and did his best to wipe the skunk off of him.

By the time the odor wall hit Wife, he had already rocketed into the living room.  He jumped onto one chair, then the next, and then the couch, desperately trying to find something that would get the smell off of him.

Wife and I were in hot pursuit.  Yelling at Henry, yelling at each other, not sure we really wanted to pick up this skunky dog.  We just wanted the smell to go away.  We wanted to turn back the clock for five minutes, and call Henry inside.  We wanted Henry to go out onto the porch.  We didn’t want Henry spreading his scent all over the house.

We were just two steps behind him when he headed for the bedroom.  He rolled on the rug, then headed back for our walk – in closet!  The good news?  This is where we were at last able to corner Henry.  The bad news?  This is where all of our clothes were hanging!

I carried Henry out onto the front porch, and closed him off from the rest of the house.  Then we opened the door, ran the air conditioner, turned on ceiling fans and exhaust fans, and opened any windows that weren’t painted shut.

 

It was already 11:00 when Henry first blew through the house.  We really didn’t want to stay up washing the dog, but we also didn’t want to leave poor Henry out on the front porch all night.  So, I hit the computer looking for a magic anti-skunk solution.  The word on the internet was that tomato sauce and ketchup don’t really work.  The magic formula I found involved hydrogen peroxide (quart), Baking Soda (1/4 cup), and 1 – 2 teaspoons of liquid soap.  Mix, rub on stinky dog, wait 15 minutes, rinse, repeat.

We had hydrogen peroxide, but not a quart of it.  So our first task was to run to the local grocery store which, thankfully, was open all night.

We washed poor Henry three times, and he still smelled like skunk.

The next morning we put our skunky dog in the bathtub and washed him with a dog shampoo we’d had for years.  He smelled much better.  The skunk smell was still faintly on him, but there was a great improvement.

The next time Henry met the tail end of a skunk, yes, there was a next time … we went straight to the dog shampoo.  It only took two applications, and it worked much better than the secret formula given above.

Henry didn’t learn to stay away from skunks.  But we learned how to deal with him when he forgot his lesson.

Oh, our clothes?  Wife and I smelled a little skunky for about six months, but the smell eventually left.  It was always interesting reaching in and pulling something out we hadn’t worn in a while.  Memories of that warm summer evening returned, along with the faint odor of skunk.

 

 

Post #26: Henry the Hunter

Henry was a really athletic dog.  He was quick, intelligent, and agile.  Henry surprised us one day when we were in Arizona visiting my Dad. 

 

Both PD and Henry were in my Dad’s back yard.  The humans were out in the back yard, too.  Dad’s house was just two blocks from undeveloped brushy Arizona desert.  His back yard had a nice view of Mount Graham rising up and dominating the skyline.  We stood under the shade of his trees, visiting about trivial things and enjoying the view. 

There was plenty of wildlife in the area, including birds.  One little brown bird came swooping down into the back yard.  He was trying to score something for food or perhaps some twig for its nest.

A black streak shot from the left.  My stepmother exclaimed “Oh my!”

I looked, and Henry had snatched the bird out of the air in mid-flight.  I was shocked!  I had never seen Henry move that fast, and I certainly would never have expected a dog with such short legs capable of catching a bird.

And then, I realized that Henry intended to eat his catch.  Raw bird meat, bones, and feathers were not on Henry’s meal plan.  At least not the meal plan Wife and I had mapped out for him. 

I tried to act calm as I walked over to Henry.  “Drop it!” I commanded.

I was both surprised and relieved when Henry set the bird down.  I picked up the bird and inspected it.  It was badly injured, but not yet dead.  I carried the bird over to the trash bin, and quickly dispatched it, putting the poor bird out of its misery with a quick twist of its neck.

This was only the first of many critters that Henry would successfully catch, or at least attack.

Henry’s next catch happened several months later, in our own back yard.  As I said, Henry was not only quick, he was bright.  He learned from his previous experience.

Wife had been looking out the window into our back yard.  She spotted Henry just as he snatched a large black grackle out of the air.  It seems he was perfecting his technique.  Grackles are large black birds, and were frequent visitors to our back yard.  I had seen both of our dogs take off after the big birds, scattering them up into the trees, but this was the first time one of the dogs actually caught one of the birds.

Wife began shouting at Henry and calling my name, telling me to hurry.  We went outside, and there was Henry, with his prize on the ground.

I was beginning to think the capture of the bird in my Dad’s back yard wasn’t a fluke, after all.  This dog could move!

When Henry looked up and saw us, he scooped up the bird in his mouth.  I think he remembered from the last time that he caught a bird that I was likely to take his prize away from him.  As I approached, I told Henry “Drop it!”

And he did.

But, then, recalling the last time I told him to drop a bird that he had caught, he picked up the bird again.  Henry did not want to lose his hard earned reward.  So he snatched up that big black bird.  The bird went in head first, with its feet dangling out on either side of his mouth.

Henry began to run around the yard, the bird’s legs flopping around.  Wife said he looked like he had a “Fu-Manchu” moustache.

I retrieved the sternest voice I could muster, considering the comical site in front of me … black dachshund running around the yard with the legs of a black bird dangling out from either side of his mouth … and ordered Henry to drop the bird.

He stopped.  He dropped the bird.  And he watched me.  I walked over to Henry to retrieve the dead bird.  Henry let me get within three steps, and then he reached down and picked up the bird again.

Before I could order Henry to “Drop It” again, he took a big gulp, and swallowed the bird whole!

I still have no idea how he managed to get that whole bird down his throat in one swallow.  Nor do I know what happened to the remains of that Grackle.  I watched the back yard for days, looking for droppings with feathers, bones, or maybe even a whole bird carcass.  Nothing.  As far as I can tell, Henry managed to digest that bird like he did his dog food.  There was nothing in the yard to indicate that any part of the bird was vomited back up, or did not get fully digested.

I didn’t even find the feet.

 

Post #25: Emotional Connections

Dogs are pretty amazing at picking up on our emotions.  I did not really believe that they could read us as well as they do.  I learned otherwise during a trip Wife and I took one year to Kerrville, Texas.

We had decided to visit Kerrville one year as a weekend getaway.  Kerrville is located in the Texas hill country and a lot of folk like to go to visit and drive on the narrow winding roads through the hills.  I had a friend that lived in Kerrville, and thought it would be nice to meet him during our trip.  I had met in an online forum, and had not actually met him face to face, so the trip would be a good opportunity to cement our connection.

We had dragged our Fifth-wheel behind us and stayed at a nice little park on the Guadalupe River.  We did a little bit of sight-seeing and some shopping, and I was able to meet my friend at a restaurant.  He invited us out to his house later to show off his workshop.  My friend was a contractor, so I knew that anything he built would have been well-built.  We agreed to stop by his home on our way out of town.

 

With our time off from work over, we hitched up the Fifth-wheel and the dogs, and headed to my friend’s house.  The friend lived in a nice community of homes built among the hills outside of Kerrville.  His house was at the foot of a very steep hill with homes perched along the hillside like bird’s nests.  My friend came out to greet us, and suggested that I drive up and around on the narrow road so that my truck and trailer would be facing the right direction when it was time to leave.

We started up the hill, admiring the beautiful homes.  And I was admiring my Ford F250’s diesel engine as it pulled the Fifth-wheel up the slope.  There is nothing like feeling the power of your diesel taking on a challenge like this one.  Slowly, gently, up and up we went.  Then the road turned to the right and we were on pretty level ground, although pretty high up. 

There were a couple of roads that intersected with the one we were on, but my friend had made a sweeping gesture with his hand, suggesting that we just stay on one road all the way around.  Still, I was a little uncertain.  Should I have turned back there?  What about this next one?  We passed the last intersection with some doubt, and were about to follow the road as it turned to the right again, when we saw a sign that said “Dead End.”  What?!

The next thing we saw was the road in front of us dropping down into … nothing?  Looking ahead, I saw another road rising up from the valley, but it was way off to the left of the road I was on.  I was not sure if that was the same road I was on, or if both roads dead-ended into a creek, and they were different and unconnected.  The sign we just passed had said this was a dead end!

As we started down, I was very anxious, worried that I would have to back my truck and trailer up a steep grade on a narrow road for quite a distance.  Wife was feeling the same anxiety, as we both began to second guess my decision to not turn at the last intersection.

As we started down that steep road, our anxiety must have crossed some kind of threshold.  Our normally quiet, peaceful dogs sat up and began crying.  They sang, they howled, and they barked loudly.  We moved slowly down the hill facing the unknown with our choir singing their loudest.  This was not at all helpful, and I’m sure each of us was reinforcing the anxiety of the other, bringing us all too quite a high state of fear!  Further down into the abyss we went, but not quietly.

When we drove down far enough, I could see that our road did indeed bend to the left and proceed up the other side of the hill.

Like magic, the cab of the truck became quiet.  Everyone was happy, cheerful, and relieved.  The dogs settled back down onto their laps, laying their heads down like nothing had ever happened. 

Once we arrived back at our friend’s house, facing the right direction, I asked about the “Dead End” sign.  “Oh yeah,” he replied “they just put that sign up there to keep kids from hot-rodding through the neighborhood.”

 

Post #24: Traveling With Dogs

Henry and PD got along well.  We never saw any aggression between the dogs.  And Henry did his job.  He taught PD a few things about doggy manners.  Henry was always respectful of us. 

When we brought Henry home at three months old, Henry was smaller than 6 month old PD.  But, by the time Henry reached 6 months, it was obvious that we had a full-sized dachshund, not a miniature. 

With two dogs, we could not travel as easily as before.  To stay current in my field, I attended a lot of workshops.  We had taken PD with us to a hotel when Wife decided to join me at a workshop in a distant city.  PD did fine, and we were good tenants in the hotel.  We took PD down and out to the little postage sized green space the hotel had for regular walks.  There were no “accidents” in the room. 

Leaving PD in the room in his crate by himself was a little scary, though.  We could readily see that two dogs in a hotel room would be difficult to manage.  

Our solution was to buy a travel trailer.  We found a used trailer in a local lot and took it out for a test drive.

The dogs really enjoyed the experience.  While we were on the road PD and Henry would take turns sitting in my lap, then sitting in Wife’s lap.  They expressed their creativity by producing “nose art” on the side windows of the truck as we traveled down the road.

Sometimes they would bark out the windows to scare away people or animals walking down the streets.  Apparently the barking worked, since we were never attacked by street people or animals while pulling our trailer.  Sometimes the two would spend their time just watching the scenery go by.  But most of the time, they just napped on our laps.

Every once in a while we would watch as their heads would rise up off our laps in unison.  They would begin to sniff the air, and then put their faces directly in the path of the air flowing out of the vents.  Their noses would twitch as they strove to catch every nuance of the scents that were being directed into the cab of the truck.  Something interesting was outside nearby.  Sometimes it was cattle, or it could be horses.  Most likely, it was some dead animal flattened by the traffic.  The dogs usually knew when something was coming near long before the people in the truck did.

Once in the campground, we enjoyed our time walking our dogs around the RV parks.  PD was little and cute, and he was always the one to get the most attention.  He was also the one who did not trust children.  Kids would come up and ask if they could pet PD.  We advised that they pet Henry, instead.  Henry loved kids, and loved the attention he got from them.  PD, however, would prefer that children just leave him alone.  He would allow an adult to pet him, but the result was usually a wet shoe, since PD was a submissive pee-er.

One thing that Henry did not like about RV parks was people cooking outdoors.  The smell of smoke cowed him for the first couple of years when we traveled.  I would notice that Henry would suddenly stop in his tracks and refuse to go forward.  Then I’d realize that I could smell someone barbecuing nearby.  I was eventually able to get him to walk with me past the smoking barbecue. 

After about a year with our pull-behind trailer, Wife and I decided it was time to invest in a new Fifth Wheel.  The new trailer was fabulous.  PD and Henry really enjoyed their new set of wheels.

The Fifth Wheel was also a bit higher off the ground.  Since the whole purpose of the trailer was to be able to take our dogs with us, I needed to find an easy way to get the dogs in and out of the trailer.  Larger dogs can just bound up the steps.  But when you are born with silly little legs that let your chest drag in 1 1/2” high grass, steps can be a bit of a challenge.  So I bought a board that they can use as a ramp.  Now lumber can be slippery when damp, so I had to modify the board.  I added outdoor carpeting to let the little guys gain traction.

And if I’ve got a ramp to help them get into the trailer, why not a ramp to let them up on the couch while Wife and I are out site-seeing every day.  I think I went a little “ramp – crazy.”  Because the idea of a ramp in the trailer soon grew into ramps in the house. 

In between road trips, I started building ramps.  We had ramps to help them get on couches, a ramp for the bed, and of course, a really long ramp to let them go outside from the house.  We lived in a house on pier and beams, and the house was about five foot off the ground.

And ramps are a good thing, if you happen to be a dachshund.  But that's another story.