Wildlife sighting

Rare sighting of Canis lupus tripodia in the wild.

Mountain time

A "hike" (very short one) we took back in June near Tollgate, Oregon. Elevation about 5200 ft




There was an incredible amount of elk poop in that meadow.

One-Dog Filthy-Dog

I never considered Zelda particularly dainty until Sammy joined out family for comparison.

I swear: take two dogs of similar genetics, size, and love of the outdoors on a walk where they run through the same mud, sniff the same dead animals, and wade the same creeks, and one returns to the vehicle with muddy paws while the other is filthy from nose to tail and stinks of death as well and has lost her collar and has half the forest's weight of sticks and burs in her fur.

Guess which is which.

Dogs and Babies

Everyone in this house is full of skepticism.

I allow limited interaction, but always when it's dog --> baby, never baby --> dog. Both dogs dislike when even adults touch them while they're sleeping, so that's something I'm going to watch like a hawk as baby becomes mobile.

Zelda isn't terribly interested. It's Sammy who follows me and baby from room to room, laying down within three feet whenever we pause. If baby is within reach, she creeps towards her and if not corrected would snuffle and lick and nuzzle her endlessly.

This is how my dogs pay rent

Have a jolly holiday, everyone.

Sammy goes crazy for body spray

What's the allure? She gets more excited about this stuff than she does about dead fish.

It's too hot to play fetch

It's 103 outside today. Time for a couples rounds of Warblegarble!





Zelda prefers to hang back, while Sammy likes to be as close to the action as possible. We usually play this game until she vomits.




(Video two has BONUS! Confused Foster Puppy footage.)

Nom nom

On a recent walk in the field near the apartments, I spotted a flash of iridescent green amid the dead cheatgrass.









It was a chunk of what used to be a bird, feathers with a bit of skin and bone attached. I bent down and took a few photographs, planning on picking it up to try to identify the species. Within seconds, Sammie swooped in centimeters from my lens and snatched the delicious morsel and ran a few yards away. She crunched it down like it was the best thing she'd ever tasted, all the while giving me the paranoid "OMG-mom's-gonna-take-it-away-any-second" glances that dogs are so good at.













So. Can anyone use these two photographs to identify the species of bird my dog just ate?

It's Zelda's self-assigned mission to make sure no one but her plays with any toys, ever. Poor Sammy won't even look at a toy if Zelda is nearby. If you try to give one to her, she'll actually run away from it.

But it's exhausting being the Fun Police. And when the Fun Police put themselves to bed, the puppies can finally do this:



(PS, my living room isn't usually that messy. We were in the process of rearranging furniture)

From a hike we took last month

Juvenile bald eagle:











Pouncy dog:

Updates on Sammy

1) House training is going slowly. It's my fault. The last time I house trained a puppy, we had a sliding glass door to a fenced yard. Contrast the second it takes to slide open a door, with being in a second story apartment where going out to potty involves putting on shoes, coat and leash. I don't know how permanent city-dwellers do it. It doesn't help that I'm spoiled by Zelda the Perfect Angel.



2) I keep doing this thing where I forget that Sammy is missing a limb. I mean, I always know intellectually. But sometimes I'll be watching her play or run or just stand still and I'll be almost startled, 'Whoa, this dog of mine only has three legs! Weird.'



3) I called her former owner and got a little more information about where she came from. She is a bona fide ranch dog of the type that I keep running into around here (and that I plan to do more writing about later). They're working dogs, mostly used with cattle. When asked what breed they are, the owners say "border collie". When asked what they are, the owners say "cowdog". They don't go to trials or shows, so they are never registered with any breed registry. In fact when I asked the rancher if Sammy's parents or grandparents were registered anywhere, he laughed a little and said, "oh no, I don't have show dogs. She's a homegrown working dog".

This is what I know of her pedigree: both parents and at least all four grandparents were working cowdogs. Her dam lives on a neighboring ranch and Sammy's previous owner has owned Sammy's sire since he was a puppy. He apparently is an aggressive, hard-eyed dog who is especially good at heading the cattle and holding them away from the timber when they're at open-range summer pasture in the mountains.

It's really too bad Sammy won't be a real working dog like her relatives. Though I'm sure if she had to choose between being a dead collie and being a condo* collie, she'd choose the latter.

*though if all goes well, we'll only be in this apartment for another year or two.

The Saga of the Nummy Feather

Sammy 10 days post surgery

She's healing up well. No trouble adjusting to three legs.

Certain things are inevitable

It was fifteen minutes to closing time. Dr. M had been in the surgery room for 2 hours trying to set pins in the puppy's leg. It wasn't going well. An external fixator is difficult enough to set when the dog is an adult with a clean break. This was neither. Really, the owner should have taken the slightly more expensive option and taken her to a specialist to have the bones plated, but it was too late for that now.

He tried one more time to screw a pin in the tiny space of unbroken bone below the elbow joint. There was a soft but ominous crunching sound. Dr. M set down his tools, took off his gloves and left the room. I glanced at S, who had been monitoring the puppy throughout the surgery. I had just come into the room a few minutes ago to check out the surgery. All the end-of-day chores were finished a few minutes ahead of schedule and I was curious. "He going to call the owner?" I asked.

"Yep."

Dr. M returned in a few moments. "They want to euthanize."

S nodded and left to draw up the Euthasol.

"Why don't they just amputate?" I asked. "I've met quite a few perfectly happy three-legged dogs."

"So have I." He said, "in fact I even knew a three-legged working ranch dog. But this owner said he couldn't bear the sight of a crippled dog. He also said he's afraid the other dogs will pick on it."

S returned with a syringe filled with pink death, and a small body bag. She went to the end of the table and lifted the surgery drape to find the puppy's IV line. A soft, black nose appeared. Spotted around the edges, rounded in that way that 3-month-old puppy features are. Eyes shut, slow breaths fogging the tube. S started to insert the needle into the port. "Wait." I said, and turned to Dr. M. "How much would it cost to amputate?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Probably around a thousand, all told. Why? You thinking of buying yourself a dog?"

I bit my lip and looked at the spotted nose. "Yeah. Let's do it. Tom said he wanted a puppy anyway."

Dr. M grinned, "I'll call up the owner again."

An hour, eleven hundred dollars, and a bottle of Rimadyl later, and I've got myself a puppy.

I've known for a while that Tom and I would end up with another border collie. They're the kind of breed that becomes addictive. I never imagined the circumstances, though.

I gave Tom the honor of naming her. He chose "Samus", named for star character of the Metroid video game series (third most popular Nintendo franchise after Zelda, btw). In Metroid, Samus has a bionic laser canon instead instead of one of her arms.

We'll wait until Sammy is full grown before we fit her with her own laser canon. Those things are expensive. For now, she'll have to make do with her Border Collie Puppy Control Stare Of Cuteness(tm).