29 June, 2010

This is the kind of thing that only happens to me, canine edition

This morning I was rolling happily along to work on a four-lane divided highway where the speed limit is 55mph and most people do 65, when the car a ways ahead of me slammed on its brakes, turned on its hazard lights, and then swerved. Around a dog. A freakin ginormous yellow dog who was standing smack in the middle of the right-hand northbound lane, watching the car swerving around him and the more cars approaching with a “My, how interesting this is” look on his face.

There is a saying I have at times like this, brief and to the point, which encapsulates a whole complex range of feelings and covers the concept that my day is about to get more complicated because whatever else happens, I am going to have to get an animal out of the situation it is in and into a better one. That saying is “Well, shit.”

So I stopped my car and noticed with deep gratitude that a good ol’ boy in a big battered pickup truck had pulled into the left-hand lane and stopped, blocking traffic there. I made a silent apology to the commuter traffic backing up behind me, and I briefly considered the three ways this situation could go:
1) the dog could be fearful, in which case I needed to step out in front of that pickup truck and try to approach him from as far to the left as I could get, so that if he ran it would be towards the woods beside the road and not towards the southbound lanes of traffic;
2) the dog could be aggressive, in which case I needed to step out in front of that pickup truck and stay as far away as I could while attempting to head him toward the woods, with the distinct possibility that I might wind up scrambling into the bed of the truck to get away from the dog;
3) the dog could be friendly, in which case I could get him in the car, enlisting the help of other motorists as necessary since they probably wanted me and the good ol’ boy to stop blocking the road.

Having briefly run these scenarios, with the dog still standing there watching my car with a relaxed and alert expression, I got out and stepped out in front of the pickup truck, trying to watch the dog without looking tense, and said “Hey, buddy! You wanna go for a ride?”

Oh boy did he want to go for a ride. He came right to me, which is when I noticed that while his back and sides were clean, his underside, legs, and face looked like he’d been playing in mud puddles and also that while he was wearing a collar for an underground fence, it didn’t have any damn tags on it, and when I opened the back of my car he jumped right in. I made apologetic and grateful faces at the traffic behind me, slammed the back of the car, jumped in myself, and started down the road with this ENORMOUS yellow Lab, a hundred pounds easy, trying to stick his tongue in my ear. I effectively discouraged that behavior, and he rested his huge head on my shoulder. His huge, muddy head. On my shoulder, which was wearing a white shirt. Jesus wept.

Then my passenger decided he didn’t want to ride in back, he wanted to ride in the passenger seat, so there I was driving down the road trying to hold a hundred pound dog in the back of my car with one arm while he leaned progressively more and more weight on it. I finally barked “BACK!” and he jumped back in the back of the car and looked so despondent that I told him it was OK, I wasn’t really mad, at which point he came back up and stuck his tongue in my ear. Again. And so it went for the last few miles to my office, where I left him in the car (thankfully it was heavily overcast and 70 degrees, so he was safe enough for a few minutes) and ran upstairs to look up Animal Control’s information, which is where I found out that 1) they didn’t open until 1000 and 2) they don’t take animals from out-of-county people anyway.

Well, shit.

Meanwhile, I looked out my window at my car to see that my huge, wet, muddy, and hairy[1] passenger had moved to the driver’s seat. Argh. I looked up veterinarians in the area and tried them, thinking they could hold onto him (and might even recognize him) but none of them were open. Sigh. So I made one last desperate gamble and called my co-worker Matt. Matt likes dogs. Matt also lives in the county we work in. I didn’t get him on his cell phone but five minutes later he pulled into the parking lot and I said “OMG HELP.” and pointed at the dog.

Long, dramatic story made short, Matt took the dog, called the sheriff’s office, got someone to meet him at Animal Control, and dropped the big goofball off with them, where hopefully he will be reunited with his family, who will get a better fence. Later that morning I called both vet clinics and asked them to put notices up about him, then posted a Found Dog notice with the local rescue group. I’ve given him the best shot I could manage, with an assist from Matt (I bought him lunch to say thank you). Fingers crossed.

A picture taken with a cell phone, but reasonably good quality anyway. A white-clad arm is extended so that the hand at the end of it can scritch the cheek of a yellow lab, who is in the back of a Honda CRV. All that is visible of the dog is his head, which rests on the top of the tailgate, and its head is HUGE.

ETA: I am so upset about this. I was sure he was someone’s dog and they’d be looking for him, but here he is on PetFinder. He needs a person or people who will take him in, get him neutered, keep him off the road, and oh yeah get him chipped and put some tags on him. Fingers crossed that someone can help!

[1] OH MY GOD I WILL NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT ZILLEKINS AND HER SHEDDING AGAIN, SERIOUSLY. THIS DOG’S HAIR WAS TWO OR THREE TIMES AS LONG AS HERS AND HE WAS TRYING TO SHED ENOUGH OF IT TO REUPHOLSTER MY CAR. MY POOR, POOR CAR WHICH MAY NEVER BE THE SAME.

28 June, 2010

Monday Morning Happy: Jeremiah Swakhammer’s World Makes Sense Again

I’m queuing this up on Sunday night. I took Jeremiah out to his new home a little bit before 2000 as it had cooled off enough that it wouldn’t be too much of a shock to his system. He was so. adorable. Seriously. Of course there are pictures, what do you take me for? So here you go, to brighten up your Monday morning: a little bit of a happy as hell teeny turtle, who I may actually never see again now that he has a whole big world to bury himself in.

First, he took a little look around:
Jeremiah Swakhammer, a small Eastern Box turtle with a dark brown shell and striking yellow markings, sits with just his face peeking out of his shell, the rest of him boxed up. His head is mostly dark, but his beak is bright yellow and there are yellow spots on his head. His eyes are brown and dubious. Turtles are often dubious. He is sitting with the front of his plastron at the edge of an 18 inch saucer that you might put under a very large potted plant, which is filled with water.

Then, he got more confident about looking around:
Jeremiah's entire head and part of his neck are now out of his shell as he regards his new domain. His legs remain boxed up.

Then all of a sudden his legs popped out and *bloop!* he dove in to wash the stink of captivity away. At which point I realized that I had freakin forgotten to make him an exit ramp from rocks, and set about finding a bunch of them and opened his enclosure back up and made him an exit ramp.
Jeremiah Swakhammer is now in the saucer of water, just his face and the very top of his shell poking out. He looks much less dubious, but turtles never achieve a complete lack of dubiosity.

Having washed the stink of the indoors from his handsome self, he made use of the exit ramp:
Jeremiah Swakhammer sits on his exit ramp of rocks, regarding some bright pink petunias with a disapproving gaze. Turtles are often disapproving as well as dubious. The water has made the markings on his face and shell bright, bright gold.

And then he contemplated where to go next. This may actually be the last I see of him for a while, since he has a million billion places to hide in his new domain. But dang, he was one happy little turtle, seriously. I got kinda teary-eyed.
Jeremiah Swakhammer stands next to the bright pink petunias in his brilliant brown and gold shell, majestically contemplating the piles of dead leaves before him. He barely even bothers to be dubious, and is definitely not disapproving.

27 June, 2010

The Empire of Jeremiah Swakhammer

A heartwarming tale for your Sunday evening: Mr. Jeremiah Swakhammer’s new abode is complete. It took two days in temps with the heat index over 100F (roughly 38C), although at least we were working in a shaded area. The siting of Mr. Swakhammer’s mighty Empire was determined by 1) the morning sun 2) the shade during the hottest part of the day and 3) how far I can reach without getting out the Long Hose.

Speaking of hose, my friend C came over yesterday to help with laying the foundation, bringing with her Musket, who is 5 1/2 months old now (I am often sketchy on ages, this is the latest figure from C though so go with it). Is Musket fun? Oh my GOD is he fun. He loves to chase the water from a hose. LOOOOOVES it and if you spray it straight at his face he will be all “WHAAAAARGARBL” and snap at it and let you shoot it straight down his throat until he starts making weird gurgling noises and you have to stop so he can catch his breath. He is totally the perfect puppy, personable, curious, willing to give you his attention and work, energetic, handsome, and also belonging to C, who took him home with her at the end of the day so I didn’t have to deal with a waterlogged puppy. If you are looking for a working dog, and I mean here a dog who actually needs some work so he doesn’t decide to dismantle your house or something, look no further because seriously, he is a great puppy and is going to grow up to be a fantastic dog.

Wait, what, you wanted to hear about the Empire of Jeremiah Swakhammer? Right. I have pictures! Please forgive me if my alt tags aren’t up to their usual snuff, I am kind of incoherent after two days in the heat. Also I got no pics yesterday of the laying of the foundation, so, y’know, you’ll just have to suck it up and we’ll start with the building of the walls:
Four two inch by ten inch by ten foot boards rest in a square on a foundation of red twelve inch by twelve inch pavers. A man in a white t-shirt and khaki shorts straddles one of the boards in the background, he holds a hammer in his right hand. A section of four inch by four inch lumber, cut to twenty inches high, stands upright at the corner of the board opposite the man. In the middle of the square, amid mounded dirt, sit plants in pots. The area is dappled with sunlight but mostly in shade from the tall oak trees around it.

While my friend Rod was building the walls, I was in there digging holes for plants, placing hides and a small pool, and then shoveling leaf litter in that I stole from other parts of the property, the idea being to give Jeremiah Swakhammer the kind of forest floor environment he is used to:
The walls of the pen have now been constructed, so they are twice as high as in the last picture. In the center of the pen, a piece of one inch by four inch lumber runs straight down the middle, supported at both ends and in the middle by more pieces of four by four. In fact, Rod is placing the middle piece of four by four in this picture, taking care to avoid the plants, pool, and hides that have now been placed around the enclosure. The floor is no longer mounded dirt, but covered in a thin layer of straw that is barely visible in places through the thicker layer of dead oak leaves that have been been spread throughout.

I sacrificed a couple pieces of firewood to make a hide, and added a large rock and then chunks of turf that had been removed during the laying of the foundation:
A view into Hide One. A wedge-shaped piece of firewood whose length is indeterminate from this picture, sits to the right. Propped up on it at one end and resting on the ground on the other is another wedge-shaped piece of firewood. The interior is dark, but from this angle you CAN kinda tell that the back is topped with turf. Petunias with pink flowers on them are planted in front of it.

Yet another piece of firewood sacrificed to make a hide. You can also see the Feeding Rock. That’s a Hosta on the left and the cantaloupe vine on the right.
A section of oak log, not too huge, rests on the ground, except you can kinda tell that there is a space dug out underneath it in case a turtle would like to hide there. To the left of the log are the green leaves of a hosta, to the right of the logs a brave little cantaloupe vine puts out a yellow flower. Behind the log is a square grey tile of slate to be used for offerings of food.

Finally, here it is all done and closed up so as to thwart Raccoons and other predators who might wish to make a snack of turtle:
A view of turtletopia with the top closed. The top is two five foot by ten foot frames, which have strong hardware cloth attached to the underneath. They are hinged, and on the left side in this picture you can see a handle on each so they can be opened more easily.

Anyhoo, Mr. Swakhammer will move into his new digs either later tonight or early tomorrow before I leave for work, when it’s cool out and he can explore a little bit and discover the hides and the pool and stuff. At some point, probably after I bring him in for the winter and the plants have died (although hostas at least are perennials! If they live…) I will add about 6″ of topsoil to the whole thing for better plant-growing conditions. I think this will work out for now, though, as long as I keep it watered and the plants don’t die. Speaking of keeping it watered, I think we’re about to get a thunderstorm. Well, the sky has gone dark and it just thundered, anyway, which was met by barking from Ms. Tink. When Big Sky Dog growls, you must respond to the challenge, lest Big Sky Dog think a territory is undefended, you know.

The Epic Turtle Palace

We got the foundation laid yesterday, and all the wood for the sides cut to length, and soaked the dirt down but good in preparation for planting today. I didn’t feel like dealing with 50 cubic feet of dirt right at the moment so there’s no new topsoil, but will be stealing bits of forest floor (complete with bugs) to make the place homier for little Jeremiah Swakhammer. I also got him a strawberry plant and sweet basil and a cantaloupe vine, plus some hastas (we’ll see if they take). And I have weed seeds left over from my attempts to grow a garden for Clover the Departed that I will be planting out there, as well!

The foundation is 12″ x 12″ pavers, the actual enclosure will sit on them to keep Jeremiah from digging out. Hopefully. If he does tunnel over a foot to get out, well, I’m not going to stop him because that’s a hell of a tunnel for a little box turtle to dig. The sides are 2″ x 10″ x 10′ lumber, stacked two high and anchored on chunks of 4″ x 4″ at the corners, the lid will be two 5′ x 10′ sections because I’d like to be able to lift it, made with 1″ x 4″. There’s latches to keep the coons, possums, and other turtle predators out.

I would have pics for you but discovered when I went out this morning to take them that my camera’s battery was dead, so I petted Noodlehead instead.

Confidential to whoever got here googling “where can i buy an eastern box turtle in virginia”: you can’t. It is illegal to import eastern box turtles to, export eastern box turtles from, and sell eastern box turtles within the state of Virginia. Your best bet is to check out The Mid-Atlantic Turtle and Tortoise Society, who may have a rescue EBT that you can adopt. If you do find someone selling them, please contact The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to report them.

25 June, 2010

Big things are afoot.

Tomorrow, not only do I get to go get massaged, but a working party is forming in the afternoon to build Turtletopia, the future home of one Jeremiah Swakhammer the Eastern Box Turtle. His appetite in captivity has slacked off, which means I must move him outside post-haste. My friend C will be coming, bringing with her Musket the Helpful!Puppy, and a co-worker who has actual experience building things from scratch when the only instructions are “Um. It should be 10′ x 10′ and we’ll have to put down 12″ x 12″ pavers first so he can’t dig out, and also there will have to be a cover to keep raccoons and cats and dogs from getting him.”

There will be constructing, and also laying down of dirt, and some planting, as Eastern Box Turtles in this area are creatures of the forest floor and the forests here are all jungly second-growth swaths of wilderness. So we will attempt to recreate that in a 10′ x 10′ area that is close enough to the pump for me to water it. And hopefully Jeremiah Swakhammer’s appetite will resume, and all will be well.

24 June, 2010

I’m still here!

I’ve just been horribly busy the past few days in the life that does not involve the internet.

But I have big news! Zille has been living crate-free since last Friday, and she has been a perfect angel. Today I even forgot to close the bathroom door to protect its precious contents of shoes and dirty clothes, but they were untouched when I returned. How good a dog is she?

I also ordered Roo a “JUST ROO IT” England footsoccerball shirt in anticipation of the US losing its game 3 of the World Cup, but lo! We are still in the tournament. Roo will root for England anyway, because none of the US players share his name.

In other exciting news, the Best Mother Ever will be here next Wednesday, and then next Friday evening I depart for a week in England with my fiance and get to meet my future in-laws (including Tansy the Calico Cat), see Stonehenge, visit my friend Liz Blackdog, and then head off to London for a couple days of sight-seeing before I finally return, exhausted but grateful to be home, to the welcoming arms of the Usual Suspects and the Best Mother Ever, who will probably be pretty exhausted herself after eight days alone with them. If we’re lucky, she’ll keep a diary like she has the past couple times she’s kept them and give me permission to publish excerpts. If you think I’m hilarious, you’ll love my mother. No pressure, Mom!

20 June, 2010

Summer time and the livin’s easy

Well, for dogs anyway. Yesterday I grabbed the girldogs and went down to visit C at Blackthorn Kennel again, to help set up new digs for her chickens and coincidentally attempt to tire out my Shedder by treating her to a family reunion. I wasn’t going to take Tink originally because she occasionally finds outings like this stressful, but as she watched me leash up Zille her head and ears and tail drooped, and drooped, and drooped, yet there was a hopeful little light in her eyes and the barest pleading wag to her tail. There are many things I can withstand, but not Tink using her best and most heart-wrenching tactics to ask “But don’t I get to go, too?” Beowulf briefly considered asking to come along, but I offered him a frozen turkey neck and a frozen chunk of rabbit, and he was all “Screw you guys, I has food that is also a chewie toy!” and didn’t even walk us to the door. He is sometimes problematic with other dogs, whereas Zille is the most submissive dog EVER and Tink just declines to get into anything that even looks like a conflict.

So Tink went. She got to stay in the house while C and I rearranged fence panels and installed chicken wire and other barriers and Zille played crazed Shedder games with the dogs she grew up with. I got to visit with the N litter again, and got barked at by the little red-collar dude, who is clearly going to be a vocal Puppy With Attitude. Their eyes are just starting to slit open, and their legs are supporting them for brief moments in time, but they can definitely creep more swiftly than you’d think.

Musket (brother to Macha, who has been mentioned here before) was Helpful!Puppy–he wanted to carry the wrench, he wanted to help hold up the piece of plywood, he wanted to know what you were doing so he could be involved, too. He is a hilarious, charming, and VERY ACTIVE puppy, who is in fact a perfect puppy as far as I am concerned: charming, winsome, and belonging to someone else. He will make someone one hell of a working dog some day, if you’re in the market for a thinky drivey sable boy then let me commend him to your attention. Definitely not a couch potato housepet dog, and you’d best be prepared to give him lots of constructive ways to channel his energy, but a real charmer and definitely wants to be involved in whatever you’re doing.

Nike was helpful, too. Well, sort of. Nike is QUEEN of sad pleading looks of “I am old dog. All I want in the world is for you to throw this ball in such a way that I may dramatically go and fetch it, without having to worry about these nasty young dogs taking it from me.” and also “I am old dog, and won’t you please gently stroke my head?” This meant the chicken coop construction was not without brief interruptions to gently toss Nike’s ball and gently stroke Nike’s head because, seriously. She’s had twelve years to practice puppy-dog eyes and she is GOOD at it.

You can see Nike and Musket both in the Illustrated Version of Will It Float?. Nike is the star, whereas Musket comes in at the third picture down, he’s the good lookin little sable boy nearest the camera.

The chickens had previously been living in a concrete dog run, and when they were finally installed in their new digs, which feature a tree for shade and a deep composty floor and bugs it took them maybe ten seconds to be all “OH HEY WE CAN BE REAL CHICKENS HERE” and start pecking and scratching and digging through the dirt and just, y’know, charmingly being chickens. I really want chickens. Ahem.

After chickens it was time to get in the pool, and we brought Tink out on a long line that let her come socialize with us and also wander off to the shade if she wanted. Zille got in the pool once, not very voluntarily. Tink went so far as to stand on the top step and get her front paws wet, she thought about stepping down to the second step but couldn’t find it (it’s hard for even seeing dogs to find that second step, let alone my little mostly-blind girl) and declined to go deeper but she did have herself a good time hanging out in the shade and occasionally coming over to check on us in the pool. She even got to be off-leash on the way back to the house and for once did not pull her “WHEEEEE NO LEASHES NO FENCES I AM FREEEEE” business but instead upon figuring out she was leashless trotted ahead of us back to the house and then stared back impatiently. “Why are you people being so slow?? Don’t you know the air conditioning is INSIDE??”

Zille spent most of pool time looking for a ball she could have, and a lot of pool time hanging out with Tink in the shade. Zille takes her duties as Seeing Eye Shedder very seriously. This left us with Flint the Loch Blackthorn Monster in the pool, with occasional huge cannonball dives by Nike, who WANTS THE BALL, while C and I just enjoyed the coolish water after our satisfying chicken-related labors.

After swimming, dogs got locked up in the house so we could go to dinner, and then finally I loaded tired girldogs back in the car and we rolled down the road back to the Manor of Mixed Blessings. The girls were so tired that they passed out in the car, got up long enough to come in the house, and then they kicked Beowulf off the futon and stretched out, butt to butt, and snored. At one point Beowulf approached to see if maybe there was room for a boydog there, and they warned him off in synch without ever actually opening their eyes. They did consent to get up for dinner but then it was right back to bed. I followed them after a shower, and then, MIRACLE OF MIRACLES, I got to sleep straight through until 0615. Even Roo did not wake me. What good critters I have.

There are no pictures, C and I were too busy cooling down in the pool. Ah, well. It was still a fantastic day, and the girls are STILL sleeping it off this morning.

In non-dog-related news, my fiance Daniel’s visa paperwork has made it to the London Embassy, which sent him another big pile of paperwork to fill out. We’re currently assembling the required supporting documents so he can send the stuff back and it’s not inconceivable he will have his visa sometime in August! Very exciting, because it means we will probably be able to get married early this fall! At which point, not only will I be able to treat you to the finest in the hilarity of living with a pack of quadrupeds who outnumber me seven to one, but also the finest in the hilarity of a nice British man moving to backwoods Virginia. Woot!

18 June, 2010

My baby girl is getting all grown up.

It’s hard to remember, looking at Zille, that she is the youngest member of the household by a good three years, having just turned two about three weeks ago. It’s also hard to remember that she just came to me last September, because she fitted into the house so well it seems like she’s always been here. It wasn’t really luck, but rather the graciousness of my friend C at Blackthorn Kennel[1]. It is an incredibly handy thing, when you are looking to add a third dog, to have a friend who knows you and has watched you interact with your dogs, and how your dogs interact with other dogs, and who also knows her dogs really well, and thus when you say to her “I need an Emergency Backup Dog, hiking trips, for the sharing of. Sable preferred but no good dog is a bad color.” she can come back to you with “Boy do I have the dog for you.”[2] And lo, she was correct and after a meeting to make sure that Zille and Tink would get along (Beowulf is pretty much good with new dogs of all types so I wasn’t as worried about him) I brought Zillekins home with me.

Less than 48 hours later she was hospitalized with what turned out to be a partial intestinal obstruction that required surgery to remove. But I already knew at that point that she was my dog.

So anyway, we’ve had adventures since then and done some training and today as I was getting ready to leave for work I decided it was time to take the last great leap of faith in my dog, and leave her out of her crate. So I did, and got home late because of what amounted to the commute from hell[3], and braced myself for disappointment before walking in the door to discover that Zille had been good as gold, all day.

Well, she and Tink did destuff an old comforter, but they’d started the project last night and I didn’t have the heart to take it away from them. The point is, no new destruction occurred. They probably slept all day while I was at work worrying.

What good dogs I have.

[1] Her blog “Throw the Ball!” is right over there under blogroll, while the official kennel website is under resources, Good Shedders, for the finding of.

[2] Actually, I had been pondering the insanity of raising a puppy, and what C really said was “Would you take Kari and socialize her for a couple weeks?” Oh, she is devious. C, not Zille, whose puppy name was Karisma. Zillekins doesn’t have a devious bone in her body.

[3] Not because of traffic, but because of two accidents roughly 45 miles apart, each one with a fatality.

17 June, 2010

Surreal Moments in Rural Living

This evening I was standing on my front porch talking to Isaac, the neighbor who mows my indifferently maintained lawn in return for cold hard cash, when two horses broke out of the woods at the back of my property, one bay and one grey, and ran all the way across the Manor grounds, crossed the road, and disappeared down the side street right across the road from me. They were pursued by two gentlemen in tattered jeans, cowboy boots, and t-shirts that the fashion industry would call “distressed” who were carrying halters, lead ropes, and buckets of grain.

Thirty minutes later, they came back through, walking on the road, but this time the horses were wearing halters and were secured by leadropes. The buckets were no longer in evidence.

More surreality via my friend C at Blackthorn Kennel: Bigfoot apparently lives in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.

15 June, 2010

Another Chelonian Wiktory

Jeremiah Swakhammer the Eastern Box Turtle has eaten! Huzzah! This is a momentous occasion because wild-caught turtles are often so stressed by the switch to captivity that they refuse to eat. I left him a dozen crickets, a strawberry, and a blackberry and lo! The blackberry has been consumed. The strawberry remains unmolested which is odd as turtles are supposed to love red food but hey, I’ll take what I can get.

Tomorrow I shall perhaps try a bit of banana and an earthworm or two if I can remember to go to the local bait shop.

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