Category: Culture

Mid-week story

Too good to wait until the week-end!

(And a big thanks to Dan Gomez for sending it my way.)

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Went Fishing, Caught 4 Deer

A once in the history of mankind kind of thing. The Best Day Of Fishing Ever!

Some fishing stories are a little hard to believe but this guy has pictures to prove his story. Like me, you will heard of salmon jumping into boats, but never anything quite like this…

Tom Satre told the Sitka Gazette that he was out with a charter group on his 62-foot fishing vessel when four juvenile black-tailed deer swam directly toward his boat.

Once the deer reached the boat, the four began to circle the boat, looking directly at us. We could tell right away that the young bucks were distressed. I opened up my back gate and we helped the typically skittish and absolutely wild animals onto the boat. In all my years fishing, I’ve never seen anything quite like it! Once on board, they collapsed with exhaustion, shivering.

This is a picture I took of the rescued bucks on the back of my boat, the Alaska Quest. We headed for Taku Harbour. Once we reached the dock, the first buck that we had pulled from the water hopped onto the dock, looked back as if to say ‘thank you’ and disappeared into the forest. After a bit of prodding and assistance, two more followed, but the smallest deer needed a little more help.

a_sf003 — This is me carrying the little guy.

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My daughter, Anna, and son, Tim, helped the last buck to its feet. We didn’t know how long they had been in the icy waters or if there had been others who did not survive. My daughter later told me that the experience was something that she would never forget, and I suspect the deer felt the same way as well!”

“Kindness is the language the blind can see and the deaf can hear.” – Mark Twain

Story dated October, 2010

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I have no idea if it is a true story, although the photographs suggest it is, but so what! Any reminder of how precious our wild life is will always be welcomed on Learning from Dogs!

Picture parade thirty-four

Pieces of wisdom.

After the run of eye-wateringly beautiful pictures of dogs and small children, the third and final set being a week ago, I was gently panicking as to how to follow that up. Then dear friend, Bob Derham, came to the rescue, the first seven of which are offered today.

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Sometimes one just has to wonder ….

…. about the most peculiar species of all: man!

A number of essays and items from a variety of sources have passed my screen in recent times that ….. well, you complete the sentence! Let me illustrate; in no particular order.

I have long been a follower of the writings of George Monbiot. Those who haven’t come across Mr. Monbiot before can avail themselves of his background and dip into his articles, many of which underscore my proposition that we really are a peculiar race. For example, just three days ago George Monbiot published an article under the title of The Benefits Claimants the Government Loves. It highlights one mad aspect of UK Policy.

Corrupt, irrational, destructive, counter-productive: this scarcely begins to describe our farming policy.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 4th March 2014

Just as mad cow disease exposed us to horrors – feeding cattle on the carcasses of infected cattle – previously hidden in plain sight, so the recent floods have lifted the lid on the equally irrational treatment of the land. Just as BSE exposed dangerous levels of collusion between government and industry, so the floods have begun to expose similar cases of complicity and corruption. But we’ve heard so far just a fraction of the story.

You really do need to read the article in full to get your arms around the terrible state of affairs of the UK benefits scandal. But try this:

As a result of these multiple failures by the government, even Farmers’ Weekly warns that “British soils are reaching crisis point” (16). Last week a farmer sent me photos of his neighbours’ fields, where “the soil is so eroded it is like a rockery. I have the adjoining field … my soil is now at least 20 cm deeper than his.” In the catchment of the River Tamar in Devon, one study suggests, soil is being lost at the rate of five tonnes per hectare per year (17).

I could go on. I could describe the complete absence of enforceable regulations on the phosphates farmers spread on their fields, which cause eutrophication (blooms of algae which end up suffocating much of the freshwater ecosystem) when they run into the rivers. I could discuss the poorly-regulated use of metaldehyde, a pesticide that is impossible to remove from drinking water (18). I could expand on the way in which governments all over Europe have – while imposing a temporary ban for flowering crops – permitted the use of neonicotinoid insecticides for all other purposes, without any idea of what their impact might be on animals in the soil and the rivers into which they wash. The research so far suggests it is devastating, but they were licensed before any such investigation was conducted (19).

There is just one set of rules which are effective and widely deployed: those which enforce the destruction of the natural world. Buried in the cross-compliance regulations is a measure called GAEC 12 (20). This insists that, to receive their money, farmers must prevent “unwanted vegetation” from growing on their land. (The rest of us call it wildlife habitat). Even if their land is producing nothing, they must cut, graze or spray it with herbicides to get their money. Unlike soil erosion, compaction and pollution, breaches of this rule are easy to detect and enforce: if the inspectors see trees returning to the land, the subsidy can be cut off altogether.

Perhaps a clue to the extreme unfairness of who is in receipt of UK benefits can be explained by the fact expressed by George Monbiot above, “The biggest 174 landowners in England take £120m between them.”

With that in mind, let’s move on. Move on to a recent essay from Patrice Ayme: WAR MAKES HISTORY! To say it makes disturbing reading is, trust me, an understatement. But in the context of the UK’s rich landowners, as George Monbiot explained above, try this closing extract from Patrice’s essay:

We are a deeply equalitarian species. Out of equality rises our superior cultural performance. Plutocracy, the rule of the Dark Side, denies giving, love, and the equality which make us possible. Thus plutocracy is a denial of our species. Only an anger great enough to destroy it, will save us, and the biosphere. And there is hope: greed is neither as natural, nor as strong as anger.

It’s time to get angry against dictator Putin. Angry now is better than very sorry tomorrow.

War makes history. Of this we must think, if we want to make history better.

Patrice Aymé

Frankly, my own knowledge of these ‘dark forces’, of the influence of money and power, is practically zero. But the more that one looks at the madness of so many aspects of mankind’s existence, the more one thinks the truth, as Patrice writes it, is the real truth. Indeed, here’s how Patrice opens his essay:

WAR MAKES HISTORY

HERE WE GO AGAIN

The earlier unjustifiable, unprovoked fascism, greedy plutocracy, imperial overstretch, murderous paranoia and other aspects of the Dark Side get smashed, the better.

Such is the most basic lesson of the 1930s.

For the millions of us that live relatively comfortable lives, it’s easy to read this stuff, nod sagely, and wonder if the heating needs to be left on this coming night. But, pardon the pun, wake-up calls as to the approaching nightmares (sorry!) are not hard to find.

Try this from an interview with Elizabeth Kolbert, as recently published on Grist:

In “The Sixth Extinction,” Elizabeth Kolbert reports from the frontlines of a dying world

By Grist staff

University of Montana

The New Yorker writer and acclaimed author Elizabeth Kolbert has a penchant for depressing topics. Her 2006 book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, helped push climate change into the mainstream (with bonus points for not mincing words in the title).

Now that climate change is safely keeping most of us up at night, Kolbert turned her pen to another big bummer: the sixth extinction. We’re currently losing species at a rate of 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than unassisted nature wiping out the occasional newt. While humans weren’t responsible for the last five mass extinctions, our fingerprints are all over this one. Yep: We collectively have the force of an asteroid when it comes to erasing species (high five, guys!) and for the most part, our response has been classic Urkel.

That interview concludes:

Q. You also write about some efforts to save species. Could you share some of those?

A. I happened to go to the San Diego Zoo, where they have a very impressive conservation program. I was there to see something called the “frozen zoo.” It’s just a bunch of vats of liquid nitrogen with cell lines from, in many cases, highly endangered animals and, in one case, an animal that doesn’t exist anymore, a Hawaiian bird. The idea is pretty much what it sounds like: You have these cell lines, you’re going to keep them alive forever, and eventually people are going to figure out how to resurrect some of these species. Or maybe if you don’t want to go quite that sci-fi, we’ll take the cell lines, we’ll do a DNA analysis, we’ll try to figure out why this population is having trouble.

They took me to see this bird named Kinohi, one of the last Hawaiian crows. He’s “reluctant to part with his genetic material,” let’s put it that way. He had been taken from this breeding facility on Maui to San Diego, and he is ministered to by a PhD physiologist who is trying to, let’s say, pleasure this bird, so that he will give up some sperm, so she can artificially inseminate a bird back in Maui. When I visited he had not yet, you know, come through. She was literally preparing to try again — I don’t know if it has ever worked, I should call her.

That was really, to me, emblematic of this crazy situation we find ourselves in. We’re incredibly smart, we’ve figured out how to freeze cell lines and quite possibly bring back extinct animals — we’re willing to pleasure crows. And yet, the Hawaiian Islands are called the extinction capital of the planet — it’s an absolutely devastated ecosystem. Many, many birds are extinct already; those that aren’t are just clinging to existence. Those forces are not changing and, in fact, things are getting worse. There used to be no mosquitoes in Hawaii; there are now mosquitoes. They carry avian malaria, and as the climate warms, avian malaria is moving up the slopes so that even these refugees species that are high on the mountains are increasingly not there. A lot of birds are in terrible trouble there.

All of these things are happening at once and, once again, they’re all true. People are devoting a lot of time and energy and love to trying to preserve these species, and meanwhile the world is increasingly screwed up. So that is how I end the book: They can both be true; it’s not one or the other.

Did you notice the reference to yet another example of mankind’s madness? “That was really, to me, emblematic of this crazy situation we find ourselves in. We’re incredibly smart, we’ve figured out how to freeze cell lines and quite possibly bring back extinct animals — we’re willing to pleasure crows. And yet, the Hawaiian Islands are called the extinction capital of the planet — it’s an absolutely devastated ecosystem.“

I believe inherently that the great majority of individuals are good people. Take Kevin Richardson for instance. Not for him money and power. Just a passion to save lions. Oh, and hugging them! Just watch, and be moved.

Don’t know how to close this? Maybe using a quotation from Ernest Hemingway:

The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

So in these broken times, let all the good people come out strong – stronger than those who are corrupt, irrational, destructive and counter-productive!

It is the ultimate time for hope and faith in the power of goodness!

The engine under the hood!

A reflection on WordPress that powers so many blogs.

All too often in life, it’s very easy to take things for granted. Such as the software that powers Learning from Dogs and so many other blogs right across the world, namely WordPress. What prompted this? Reading the February WordPress report.

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WordPress.com by the Numbers: The February Hot List

Ben Huberman, Editor at WordPress.com — **Ben Huberman**, Editor at WordPress.com

February was another eventful month at WordPress.com. Here’s the lowdown on what we’ve all been up to.

It might be the shortest month of the year, but that certainly didn’t stop WordPress.com users from making February another month to remember. Frigid weather, suspenseful curling matches, The Lego Movie: nothing could keep you away from your sites. Enjoy this winter tale of blogging success.

The blog’s the thing

We were joined this month by no fewer than 1,670,000 new sites and blogs — that’s almost three times the population of Wyoming. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Old bloggers or new, you set to work with zeal: you wrote nearly 40,000,000 posts this month (if each stood for an hour, it would be enough time to walk to the sun — and back). You made sure not to miss a beat by tapping away on your devices: 2,230,000 posts were published on iPhones and iPads, about a million on your Android devices, and nearly 200,000 came from the BlackBerry crowd.

A contribution to The Daily Post’s recent photo challenge, Threes, by rodocarda.

In case you were curious — we know you were! — you collectively wrote 9.4 billion words. That would roughly be the word count in Shakespeare’s collected plays — if the Bard had the stamina to write them 10,000 times.

As always, you weren’t exactly shy engaging with your fellow bloggers. You liked their posts 7,300,000 times, and left more than 48,000,000 comments.

Is that a widget that I see before me?

Your sidebars got some serious love this month, with 1,360,000 widgets added. The most popular ones? Text Widgets with 145,000, followed by 94,000 Image Widgets.

You also made your posts come alive, embedding 11,600,000 YouTube videos, 3,000,000 image galleries, and 265,000 SoundCloud tracks.

Now Is the Winter of Our Disco Tent

Yes, for those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere, February was cold (please don’t gloat, Floridians). Which might explain the 24,659 posts tagged with winter and the 942 with polar vortex. The daydreamers among us wrote 4,861 posts about the sun, and 416 about Barbados (rumor has it the piña coladas are better in the latter).

Of course, winter is always coming for Game of Thrones fans, who, as loyal as direwolves, wrote 1,553 posts about a show that isn’t starting until April.

A contribution to The Daily Post’s recent photo challenge, Treasure, by theweeklyminute.

February was dominated by talk of Sochi (10,587 posts) and the Olympics (16,283). For some unfathomable reason, more bloggers published about hockey (a stunning 77,218 posts) than about curling (1,117). Then again, more posts were written about Lego (1,972) than about curling, probably because it’s harder to blog while vigorously brushing ice.

We can’t omit what’s possibly the most anticipated stat of all: in February, dogs (10,060 posts) still beat cats (5,729).

What else kept us warm last month? Laughter — 24,720 posts were added to the humor topic. Unsurprisingly, the month that gave us Valentine’s (6,988 posts) let itself be swept off its feet by love, with 103,147 posts. Please note that this is an odd number — isn’t it ironic? (Alanis Morissette: 40 posts.)

What feats we did last month

February was a hectic month behind the scenes, too, with Automatticians — including four new ones — working hard to make WordPress.com the best it can be (if that sounds like fun, join us!).

We redesigned our sharing and reblogging functions for a smoother, more streamlined look. We added two more blogging ebooks to our collection. And we just introduced ecommerce plugins to our WordPress.com Business users, making it possible, for the first time, to turn your sites into complete online storefronts.

Singl, one of ten new themes added in February.

Finally, if you’re looking to update the look of your site, there’s no better time to try out some of our new themes. In the past month we introduced ten themes (four of them free!) to our Theme Showcase. Take a look at Axon,Mayer, Tuned Balloon, Yumblog, Lens, Hexa, Singl, MH Magazine, Circa, and Quadra — you won’t regret it.

Spring Equinox is right around the corner — we can’t wait to see what you accomplish this month!

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Now if all that isn’t amazing then take a look at the number of people who, like me, are ‘followers’ of WordPress.

You are following this blog

You are following this blog, along with 14,195,761 other amazing people

Gob-smacking is the term that comes to mind!

What we really have to learn from dogs!

And many more of Nature’s creatures besides.

The answer? Unconditional love. (11 words.)

OK, that’s it for today’s post! 😉

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Those that know this blog know that posts of just eleven words coming from yours truly are as rare as hen’s teeth. So stay with me!

The number of LfD followers has just passed 900. To say that I am amazed, grateful and humbled still feels like an inadequate response. Thank you: to everyone of you.

One of those new followers left a recent comment that said, ” I love this blog, dedicated to dogs ..” It struck me that as the number of new followers has increased significantly in recent times that it wouldn’t do any harm to return to the principles behind Learning from Dogs.

For it’s not a blog about dogs per se but about the qualities that we, as in mankind, have to learn from dogs.

The starting point is truth; as in what is truth? Such a straightforward question of just three words requires many more words, indeed a book, to answer. A little over two years ago, I published a post called The evolution of the domestic dog, that included the following:

Way back in 2007 I was working with a good friend of mine, Jon, who lives in SW England. Anyway, Jon spoke of the philosophies of Dr. David Hawkins. David Hawkins has written a number of books including Truth vs Falsehood: How to Tell the Difference which I read a few years ago and found very convincing.

Dr David Hawkins of Veritas Publishing, Sedona, Arizona.

Here’s how Amazon describes the book,

The exploration into the truth of man’s activities is unique, intriguing, and provocative. From a new perspective, one quickly grasps the levels of truth expressed by the media, the arts, writers, painters, architecture, movies, TV, politics, and war, as well as academia and the greatest thinkers and philosophies through the ages and up to present-day science and advanced theories of the nature of the universe. Most importantly, the ego and its structure are revealed to facilitate the understanding of religious and spiritual truths expressed by the mystics and enlightened sages over the centuries. It becomes apparent why the human mind, unaided, has been intrinsically incapable of discerning truth from falsehood. A simple test is described that, in seconds, can solve riddles that have been irresolvable by mankind for centuries. This book delivers far more than it promises.

Here’s the description of the book on David Hawkin’s website,

Reveals a breakthrough in documenting a new era of human knowledge. Only in the last decade has a science of Truth emerged that, for the first time in human history, enables the discernment of truth from falsehood. Presented are discoveries of an enormous amount of crucial and significant information of great importance to mankind, along with calibrations of historical events, cultures, spiritual leaders, media, and more.

A science of consciousness developed which revealed that degrees of truth reflect concordant calibratable levels of consciousness on a scale of 1 to 1,000. When this verifiable test of truth was applied to multiple aspects of society (movies, art, politics, music, sociology, religion, scientific theories, spirituality, philosophy, everyday Americana, and all the countries of the world), the results were startling.

Trust me, I am (slowly) getting to the point!

Dr. Hawkins created a ‘map’ of those calibrated levels of consciousness, see details of that map here. Also, it wasn’t too difficult to find a plain B&W version on the Web, reproduced below.

Map of Consciousness, copyright Dr. David Hawkins

As you can see when you study the map, the boundary between ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’ is the calibrated level of 200, the blue line in the above described as ‘The beginning of integrity’.

Anyway, back to Jon. When I used to visit him, I always had Pharaoh with me and he would settle down behind my chair and let the human talk just flow over him, happy at some dog level to be included.

One day Jon was talking about the different levels of consciousness and looked over at Pharaoh asleep on the floor and said, “Do you that dogs are integrous!” I responded that I didn’t know that, please tell me more.

Jon continued, “Yes, dogs have been calibrated as having a level of consciousness in the zone of 205 to 210.”

So dogs, horses, cats and many other warm-blooded species of animals are fundamentally integrous creatures. Creatures that display the qualities of unconditional love, trust, courage, integrity and forgiveness. Just see where those emotions appear on David Hawkin’s ‘map’ above. However of all those animals, dogs have been man’s longest companion by far, perhaps all the way back to neolithic times.

So what gets written about Learning from Dogs is what we, as in society, have to learn from dogs. Because the time for mankind to place integrity, as in integrity of thought, word and deed, at the highest pinnacle of our domain is fast running out.

Going to close with a photograph taken yesterday afternoon here at home in Oregon, showing a pair of geese that are giving every indication of using our ‘island’ in our so-called pond as their base for having their goslings!

Some content on this page was disabled on August 23, 2017 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Susan Hawkins. You can learn more about the DMCA here:

https://wordpress.com/support/copyright-and-the-dmca/

A short story – The Kiss.

The power of the short story.

Funny how things run at times!

Back on the 20th, just six days ago, I published a post under the title of Oregon wolves, and book writing! Frankly, it was a bit of a hotch-potch of a post but it did include a reference to Melinda Roth’s book Mestengo, that Jean adored and I was finding delightful before ‘circumstances’ caused me to put the book to one side. For ‘circumstances’ read an email from the said Melinda. That, in turn, was the result of a comment that Melinda left on that post, namely:

Just read and re-read your draft of Chapter 23. Extraordinary. I hope you’re not going to leave us hanging… (sending you a private email to further make my point).The draft of Chapter 23 is good, good stuff. I found myself totally caught up without even knowing what came before.

It would be wrong for me to share the whole of that email without Melinda’s prior permission but I am comfortable in revealing this:

Another book you might consider (not that you have time if you’re going to get this book finished) is “Writing for Story” by Jon Franklin:

This a a very quick read, and I highly recommend it. There are a million books out there about writing, but this one gets straight to the point in a business-like manner and gives THE best advice about how to structure a non-fiction (or fiction) book. The author has won two Pulitzer prizes and uses his two winning pieces as examples – line by line – of how he structures a story.

This book is my bible. One day I was a ho-hum journalist writing mediocre stories. Then I read this book and the first story I wrote afterwards – following his guidelines – became a finalist for the Penn/Faulkner award. I don’t credit myself for this: I credit Jon Franklin and his book.

Jon Franklin’s book arrived last Monday and I’m already half-way through reading it. Wow, what a fantastic book. Because it sets out the power of the art of the short story, or more accurately, the power of the narrative non-fiction story. From page 23:

Then, in the ’60s, Truman Capote, a novelist, short-story writer, and playwright, performed a literary experiment that opened the way for a new kind of literature. Capote recognized and accepted the public’s growing interest in nonfiction but objected to the genre’s traditional dry style. What would happen, he asked, if a true story were told in the form of a novel.

If you go to Jon’s website, there’s a link to one of his short stories, Mrs. Kelly’s Monster, that is in the book. Do read it. Trust me, you will be impressed, enthralled and inspired.

So the logic and power of Jon’s argument slammed me full in the face. And, if you will forgive me, offered some comfort to this tyro author struggling with his first book; a nonfictional book. Because this approach of nonfiction drama resonated with me. For way back in the late 60s I had worked as a freelance journalist for a Finnish magazine, KotiPosti, writing about Finns all across Australia (long story in itself!) and much more by luck than anything else, had written stories in the style of a ‘true story told in the form of a novel.’

Moving on over 40 years, to when Jean and I were living in Payson, Arizona, we both attended a creative writing class held at the local college. One of my stories that came out of that class was published not so long ago on Learning from Dogs: Messages from the Night.

Which is all a long preamble to say that one of the many, many things that Jean and I share includes ‘putting pen to paper’ – story writing.

The following short story was also written by Jean when we were attending that writing course in Payson. Enjoy. I know you will.

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The Kiss

by

Jean Handover

She sat at the end of the bar. Her misery was palpable. An invisible shroud that hunched her shoulders and bent her head over the glass of wine. She peered into the pale liquid like it were a pool to drown in.

She was pretty in a faded way. Trying hard; skirt a little too short, blouse a little too low and blood red lipstick. Dark for a pinched mouth. A slim body the way I liked it! All around were drunken revellers whilst she remained in a bubble. I wanted to take her in my arms and crush her to my body and burst that bubble.

Hoisting my beer, I ambled to the stool beside her. She didn’t stir. Seemed unaware of my presence. I looked at our reflections in the mirror opposite. Then at Rose the barmaid. Rose of the buzzcut and tattoos. The tattoo on her neck. Then a small voice, “Why would anyone have lips tattooed on their neck?”

“Guess that’s where Rose likes to be kissed,” I said, taking a gulp of my beer and casting a glance in her direction.

“Yeah, that is a nice place for a kiss.”

She turned and a small smile twitched her lips. “I shouldn’t have come here. I’m not used to this scene,” she said.

“How long have you been divorced?” I asked.

“How can you tell I’m divorced?” she replied.

“Your ring finger has a wide indent.”

She fanned her fingers and looked. “Dead giveaway, isn’t it,” she wanely replied.

“What happened?” I asked.

“He came home one night and said he’d found someone else!”

“Younger woman?” I asked.

“No worse, a younger man!”

“Oops!” I said.

She swivelled in the stool and faced the crowd. The shroud was slipping perceptively. I finished my beer and beckoned for Rose to bring us another round. The divorcee was prettier that I thought at first. Her hand pushed a lock of hair behind an ear and trailed down her neck, then smoothing her skirt rested on a rounded knee. A fluid sensuous motion. I wanted to touch that hand.

“Oh God, no,” she gasped. Eyes large and face suddenly flushed. “It’s him with the boyfriend. They’ve just come in.”

“Don’t worry, Babe. Let’s just walk right past and get out of here.”

I took her hand and as we strolled past the two men I gently leaned over and kissed her on the neck. On the same place as Rose’s tattoo.

My lips lingered and with my arm around her waist, we drifted out into the night.

“That felt so good, what’s your name?” I asked.

“Elizabeth. What’s yours?” she asked.

“Melissa.”

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Meet the dogs – Casey

On to dog number five.

If you are new to this series then Ruby’s story of last week will link you to all the dogs written about so far. Today, here is Jean’s account of how Casey became part of the family.

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Casey

Every Friday, the Payson Roundup newspaper would devote a full page to the Humane Society, displaying some of the cats and dogs they had for adoption. I would read about each animal and quietly wish I could bring them all home.

I was particularly taken with one dog that had appeared several times in this Friday page. His name was Casey and he was a six-year-old Pit Bull mix. Unfortunately, at home (we were then living in Payson, AZ) we were ‘maxed out’ with a total of 14 dogs in three different sections of our house. We just couldn’t take Casey.

I had volunteered to be a dog-walker at the Humane Society dog shelter. But after two sessions walking dogs, I just couldn’t look at these sad little faces without breaking down in tears. I switched my efforts to working at the Society’s Thrift Store. That was great fun and, at least, it felt as though I was still helping the animals. Nonetheless, I was very impressed with the animal shelter. They did their utmost to re-home the animals in their care.

Ruby’s ‘pack’ here at home included Phoebe and Tess, rescue dogs from Mexico. Recently, Phoebe had died with leukaemia and Tess with bone cancer leaving Ruby on her own. Ruby was a dog that didn’t mix at all well with the other dogs, as was explained in last week’s post.

The next Friday, the Payson Roundup showed the Society’s ‘lonely hearts club’, highlighting animals that had been in care for a long time. The first dog shown was Casey. I telephone Chandra, the lady responsible for adoptions, and asked if Paul and I could bring Ruby to the shelter to find a companion for her. When we were at the shelter, Chandra asked us if we had anything against Pit Bulls. Of course we didn’t. Ruby was introduced to Casey and, as they say, the rest was history. Casey and Ruby right from the start were just wonderful together.

Subsequently, I learned from Chandra that Casey had been in care for over a year and, had we not taken him home, his days were numbered at the shelter. There were many cheers and tears when I signed the adoption paper for Casey.

Casey now lives in the kitchen group here in Oregon: Paloma, Ruby, Lilly and Casey. As with all our dogs, Casey is so happy to have our 14 acres to play in. He is also the sweetest natured of dogs and will try to climb on to your lap at the first opportunity. I have always been a great advocate of Pit Bulls and Pit Bull mixes and have never come across a mean one.

Thus, if you are in the position to adopt a dog, please consider Pit Bulls and Pit Bull mixes for the Pit Bull is a much-maligned breed.

Casey demonstrating a dog's focussing skills! — Casey demonstrating a dog’s focussing skills!

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Meet dog number six next week.

Meet the dogs – Ruby.

Ruby – the fourth dog for you to meet.

Firstly, there was Paloma and then Lilly. Last week, it was Jean’s story about how she found Dhalia. Today, Jean recounts how Ruby came in to the family.

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Ruby

My house in Mexico was on the beach. There was a door in the wall of the rear courtyard that lead almost directly on to the sand. Most mornings I would rise before dawn to run two or three dogs together along the shore. It was a good arrangement for all of us!

Next door to my house was a duplex that had been rented out to a family that lived in Hermosillo; the capital of the State of Sonora. Every month or so this family would visit for a long weekend. This family, unfortunately, had an autistic daughter who, when not supervised, would open my front gate that led on to the dusty road so she could come in to play with my cats that lived in the front area of my house. That was fine by me when the daughter was in a calm mood but frequently she had screaming fits that would send both my cats and dogs into a state of frenzy. In addition, the family owned a Chihuahua dog that the daughter often carried as if it were a doll.

One month, the family arrived ‘sans Chihuahua‘ with the news that it had died; adding that their daughter was bereft at the loss.

The following day the mother knocked on my door. She explained that they had acquired a new puppy but that it was not eating. What could they do? Would I help?

Of course I went with them to have a look. Sure enough, they had a small puppy, probably no more that three weeks old. “It’s a Chihuahua”, they said. I replied, “Firstly, it’s not a Chihuahua and secondly, it’s far too young to be without it’s mother – you must take the puppy back to the mother”.

Despite much pleading, I could not convince the family to do this. So I did the next best thing and went back home to get replacement milk formula and a tiny feeding bottle. I showed the family how to feed the little puppy and also how to massage its tummy to help it go to the toilet. I was more than a little concerned, to say the least. I just couldn’t see the family going to the effort of feeding the puppy every couple of hours or so; essential to ensuring the tiny dog survived.

I planned to check up how things were going the following day. But didn’t need to. For when opening my front door I found the puppy left on my doorstep. Not even left in a box. The family had returned to Hermosillo.

That little three-week-old puppy is now Ruby; an eight-year-old 80 lbs Shar-Pei mix. After a few weeks of investigation I tracked down Ruby’s mother. She had had 13 pups and was unable to feed them all.

Ruby suffers from skin problems as do many Shar-Peis. Ruby clearly missed out on the mother-puppy relationship; so important for the development of social skills. Accordingly, she is a bit scatty when playing with the other dogs, frequently bowling them over in her enthusiasm. Luckily the other dogs seem to realise that she is missed out as a young puppy and are very forgiving.

After such a shaky start I didn’t even try to find her a home. With countless puppy feeds in the middle of too many nights, I had bonded too deeply.

The family returned to the duplex a couple of months later with a new Chihuahua in tow. I confronted them about Ruby. Their answer was that they had given the puppy to a couple on the beach and it was they who had left the puppy on my front door-step.

Yeah! And the moon is made of green cheese!

Ruby in our kitchen area - picture taken yesterday. — Ruby in our kitchen area – picture taken yesterday.

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Another week next week – another dog to meet!

The lone Ranger.

The story of a horse.

You will recall that yesterday I very briefly mentioned our trip to visit Strawberry Mountain Mustangs, our meeting with Darla and the outcome. Namely, that subject to an adoption agreement being signed and approved we hope to be able to adopt Ranger.

Here is Ranger’s story.

Ranger is believed to be a quarter-horse (a quarter thoroughbred, as I now have learnt) that earlier on in his life was a roping and barrel-racing horse. Ranger is a little over 15 hands.

He has been abused in the past. Evidenced by the scars of previous ill-fitting saddles and from being wary of having his ears touched.

Originally Ranger came to Strawberry Mountain because he was found abandoned and starving in an Oregon forest. After he became a settled horse at Strawberry, he was adopted out to a family. But after some months of being ridden he threw his riders by spinning so quickly they came off.

He came back to Darla and eventually was adopted out to a different home. But after some months with his next owners, the habit of spinning riders off his back resurfaced.

Back he came to Darla but his age, he is about 15 years-old, and not being a secure riding horse were against him. Darla was unhopeful that he would ever be found a home.

Hallo, my name's Jean. Will you come and live with us, Ranger? — Hallo, my name’s Jean. Will you come and live with us, Ranger?

But in our case, I don’t know how to ride and Jean is not interested in riding Ranger. His age is a bonus because it reduces the odds of Ranger outliving Jean and me. So Ranger seemed like a perfect match.

Jean and Ranger getting to know each other.

So that’s where we are just now. As we progress in getting our fencing done and our adoption approved (fingers crossed) then there will be more to report. We have come a long way from wild mustangs but this truly feels like the most sensible way to help given that our experience and facilities are not sufficient for us to handle a rescued Mustang.

P.S. the comments and the ‘Likes’ to yesterday’s post were wonderful. Both Jean and I are touched beyond measure.

Lost your heart to a horse!

Apologies for the brevity of today’s post.

Yesterday, Sunday, Jean and I went North in Oregon to visit Strawberry Mountain Mustangs to explore the pros and cons of adopting a horse previously rescued by Darla, of Strawberry Mountain. It was a long day and by the time I sat down in front of the PC it was already past 5pm.

So for today going to offer you two pictures from our inspiring time with Darla and all her magnificent horses, most of whom have backgrounds that would make one weep.

Tomorrow, I will write more fully about what we are discovering when it comes to adopting a horse.

Trust me, a horse with its tongue in your ear is very ticklish!

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Ranger, the 15-year-old horse we hope to adopt.

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Went Fishing, Caught 4 Deer

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WAR MAKES HISTORY

In “The Sixth Extinction,” Elizabeth Kolbert reports from the frontlines of a dying world

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WordPress.com by the Numbers: The February Hot List

The blog’s the thing

Is that a widget that I see before me?

Now Is the Winter of Our Disco Tent

What feats we did last month

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The Kiss

by

Jean Handover

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Casey

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Ruby

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