Warm weather is here and fun with the dogs in the summertime. We let the dogs loose every day in the fenced in yard. We have a lot of dirt and grass eaters and they get their fill. I have no lawn any longer but that is OK. It IS a dog yard after all!
We did have a great sadness. Topaz, 10 years old, died a week ago. I was in route from my trip back east and he died over night. He had been fighting an autoimmune disease called pemphigus for a couple of years but we didn't expect his death this suddenly. It was a very sad time for us. He was by far the sweetest dog in my whole yard. He once was the demo dog at a dog sled demonstration at our museum for 2nd graders. Over a dozen kids harnessed and unharnessed him and he just stood and wagged his tail. At the end he layed down and 6 little boys were laying on top of him. We will greatly miss him.
I swore that I wouldn't take on any more dogs. We have 29 and that is a big number to deal with them all on a personal basis. We have 10 house dogs and giving everyone the needed time and attention is difficult with so many. But I stopped by our shelter yesterday and there was animal control bringing in several dead dogs. Some crazy guy let all his dogs loose, went off his meds and stopped feeding them. The dead ones were nothing but bones. I cried when I saw them. How people can do this to animals is beyond my comprehension, but then again, I don't understand mental illness and I guess this guy is pretty bad. At any rate, all of the dogs were signed over to be euthanized. The guy had already shot quite a few of them and others were dead of starvation. Well, there was one male chained up in a back room at the shelter. This poor dog just looked so defeated. No joy at all in his life. I figure him to be about 8 months old. I sat with him for awhile and there seemed to be nothing there.....no response...no fear...no aggression....just blankness. But then there was some noise in another room and he picked up his ears and looked at me. The animal control officer said they were going to euthanize him right then.....well, I took him and he is now hooked outside the dog yard at the garage. Many of the dogs had diarrhea and they didn't know if any of the dogs had parvo or something worse. So to protect my other dogs we decided to separate him to start with. It was a bit funny though.....when I got home I came in and got Don and said "I need your help." He looked at me and I told him that I brought home another dog. He just gave me a big hug with that accepting grin of "it's OK" and we moved the dog house up to his spot.
He is very very thin. A cream colored dog that once he is healthy should be a fairly big dog. Maybe 55-60 pounds. He wouldn't eat anything. Don got him to take a few very small hot dog pieces. But he ignored the food. I gave him a soup bone and he did gnaw on that all night, but once again ate nothing this morning.
I stopped after work and bought some hamburger and cooked with up with some white rice. He is chowing that right down in small doses. He stays tucked in his dog house though and I haven't seen him come out at all. I know he does, but I haven't seen it!! He will soon understand how lucky he is and although I know it will take a lot of time for him to trust us, he will come around. It must have been a horrible first 8 months of his new life to be surrounded by death and starvation.
He doesn't have a name yet and although he isn't an SCL dog, we will probably try to find a home for him in the future. He comes from good bloodlines from what we can figure out and has a nice build. He doesn't have his dew claws which is a plus for distance mushing. He just needs a lot of TLC right now and that we are willing to give.
I have to thank Don for dealing with my passions in life in the dog world. Not too many guys could put up with this many dogs especially having 10 of them in the house...of course, 3 of the house dogs are his!!