CHRISTMAS STUFF

Well......it's all over. My son has gone back to Tennessee. Nigel can relax now. He spent three days under the dining room table, in his crate, or in a corner of my room. He is, for reasons we honestly do not comprehend, terrified of my son.
Llewis was better, Cooper barked a lot. Conley.....oh well Conley....anyone with hands who can give a belly rub or scratch an ear is bound to be a permanent friend. This really confused all the houndage.

Llewis and Nigel could not BELIEVE that Conley was sucking up--  oh well ok, being friendly with-- my son, Christopher. Cooper was not sure why Conley wasn't barking. Conley, for his part, was not sure why everyone was hiding, barking or running away. "This man," he seemed to be saying, "is DANGEROUS??"

I know Christmas is over because I don't want anymore turkey. The Hounds, of course, are more than happy to help get rid of it.

Meanwhile the vicious, not-to-be-trusted son makes an attempt to chew the throat of an obviously terrified Conley.Conley also enjoyed showing everyone on Christmas day how he could walk on his hind legs across the whole living room, all for the the promise of a biscuit.
Fortunately, my son's attempt to Vampire-ize Conley was foiled by Conley attempting to lick my son to death.

Here is Poor Conley, struggling to escape from the unwelcome attentions of Christopher, while the others crouched in the background, waiting with bated breath the outcome of this tussle.

Luckily, Conley prevailed. Offering his belly for rubs seems to have appeased the Terrible One. Giving in to a moment of pre-Christmas Holiday Spirit, Christopher rubbed a belly. He has since been admitted to the Conley Hall of Human Fame and Friendship.

I still have no clue why the others are so nervous when Christopher is here. God knows, WE like him well enough!!

WE WISH YOU

                                    We wish you a very merry

                                    Happy, silly, fun and funny

                                        noisy, full of ahroos

                                           typically basset
(and other breeds-- Christmas and New Year. May the Force be with you.

The Szatons.
Nigel, Llewis, Conley Cooper Mom and Dad

CHRISTMAS EVE DAY

bY cONLEY

Dis a very stressfull time for we here at da Hound Home.
Da MomPerson seem ta fink sumwon comin. Nigel all werked up worryan dat it da twolegger boy wif da deep voice an da hairy face. Nigel reely reeely reeeeely skeered ob he. Not sure why. 2-legger nebber done nuffin to him. But Nigel he runrunrunaway. MomPerson mebbe gonna gib him sumfin to cahhm he nervs.

It bin a busy day heer. MomPerson cleenin and sxcrbbin an cookin an I bin heppin, bin rite dere hepin. An DadPerson he heppin two. We too we bin heppin lots.

We keepin da cleen furnsnitshure cleen dis way sittin on da floor. She usin dat vakhume fing beke behin da tb enyways when we doing dis: DPerson an me we stayin outta da way, see we heppin.

Later she sended we ousside. It were snowin. When she leddus in agin affer she finish da vaxsume, I neerly froze ta deth. She bee sorry tomorraw mornin finding me liddel Cnly all froze ta deth unner da tree. (We got no tree enyways.) DIs whut she done to me:

She fink dis gone meke up for tossin we out inna snow. Yeah waiddel dey sitz downna dinner tomoro, BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

eEnyways I not da onliest won whut hepping. Here Mr. Cooper sir he hepping too:

He asleep case you fink MPerson done dat on porpose.
Well Liddel Cnly all tuckered out from heppin MomPerson geddin reddy for whatebber ohkayshun dis is.
Merry Holidays to ebberbuddy, be warm, be safe, be lovin.

(Dis Livin, it is.)
Love frum Conley an Llewis an Nigel an Cooper.

BIG BIRDS

One of the things I learned when I was working for Doc is that some people are Bird People and some are not.
I am not.
I am frankly terrified of handling all birds.
I am afraid I am going to kill the little ones.  Hold them incorrectly and break a neck, squash a head, break a tiny leg. And those little beaks, those tiny little beaks...they HURT.
One of the Veterinarians, Dr.Frank Wilder, was a Bird Person. He had a Scarlet Macaw named Dodie.
Dodie was big.
Dodie was smart, she was beautiful, and she was cranky. She adored Frank and no one else. Frank clipped her wings and then would set her in the oak trees outside.
Every now and then Dodie would get bored and get down from the tree and take off. She couldn't fly, but she could hike.
If you have never seen a huge red bird stomping down the middle of a 4 lane highway you have missed a real sight. Traffic would pile up behind her, thank God.
Eventually someone would rush in, breathless, and say
"There's a huge red bird walking down the middle of Western Avenue!!!"

(Photo from Google Images)

Now, Frank was our surgeon, so as often as not he was gloved in when word came that Dodie had made a break for it. As senior kennel person, senior Tech, etc etc., and also as the one person who, as afraid as I was of Dodie,  had reached a kind of grudging truce with her, I was usually summoned to go get the Bird out of Harm's Way.

Armed with a broomstick, I would follow the honking and stopped traffic down the highway until I came to Dodie, stumping along on her ineffective legs, waddling toward--the bar? (There was a bar down there.....)

And I would say

"Get on the stick, Dodie: let's go home."

And 9 times out of 10, she would. But. Now came the tricky part: keeping space between Dodie's very formidable beak and my hands.

(Photo borrowed from Google images)

This is the skull of a Scarlet Macaw like Dodie. Please note the outstanding feature of this, aside from the large eyes, is the very large, strong, and pointy beak. These are birds that crack nuts to eat in the Jungle. Dodie would have thought nothing of cracking my thumb and was ornery enough to do it. Maybe. I never let her get close enough.

Dodie also had a perverse sense of humor, something I came to learn many of the big, strong birds share. It may well be that, well aware of my fear, she took full advantage of it just for fun.

Once on the broomstick, the dance began. As I walked back to the clinic, Dodie would inch down the broomstick toward my sweaty hand. When she was about 2/3rds of the way down, toward my hand, I would switch ends.

Now she went the other way, headed once again for my hands. And I would switch.  She was a real character. She had Presence.

*************

One time Doc and I made a housecall for an ailing Cockatoo. Not the little Cockatiels, oh no. This was a huge, white, Sulfur-Crested Cockatoo. The kind "Beretta" had in the TV series if you are 100 years old and remember Robert Blake before he was accused of shooting his wife.

Monty was beautiful. I do not remember why we were there but the Maid was there and she hated Monty because when he was loose he would run along the floor and bite her ankles. Nipped. A real bite would have hamstrung her.

So I got the towel out in which to hold Monty and following Doc's directions to the letter managed to get Monty out of his huge cage. He, of course, made a lunge for my hand and I, of course, let go.

(Photo from Google images)

The Maid, the only smart one of us, ran screaming from the room. Holding the towel (And noting it's total inadequacy as a barrier between that beak and my hand) I chased Monty around the room. Monty then chased me. Doc chased Monty. Monty chased Doc. You get the idea.

Eventually, Doc cornered him and working pretty much on his own got the injection into Monty who seemed pretty damn healthy to me.

******

Thus endeth my personal experience with large birds. After that, I politely bowed out when the Big Birds came in.

I have always kind of wanted an African Grey Parrot, however. Too late: it would outlive me by many years.

(Photo borrowed from Google Images)

MEET SOPHIE

A couple of years ago or so, my two friends in Iowa, Susie and Linda, decided to get up very early in the morning and drive to southwestern Iowa and watch Prairie Chickens. (They are always doing stuff like this.) So they did.
On the way down, Linda discussed that maybe she was ready to get another dog, that Holly, her beloved Sheltie had been gone quite awhile, and maybe she was thinking it was time for another dog. They saw the chickens. It was barely dawn so they started home.
Susie and Linda are fun to travel with because they take the paths less taken. So rather than return via interstate, they stuck to county roads, doing bird-spotting as they went, watching tons of Meadowlarks. (It was April or thereabouts.)
As they drove they came to a deserted farm with three turkey vultures roosting on the roof. Susie stopped to get a photo, but two of the birds flew away. Thinking she could get the remaining bird to turn his head, Linda whistled.
From out of the brush flew a little dog: a puppy. Black, brown, white, waggy, wiggly, happy happy happy, bouncey bouncey happy puppy.
Linda said something like, Oh my God, what do we do now?
And Susie said "Well, I know what YOU'RE going to do now."

And so after stopping at a couple of farmhouses on the way where no one was home, they took the puppy home, and by 10 in the morning, Linda had a dog.
And so, This is Sophie:

This is what you usually see when you see Sophie.
Movement.
Sophie rarely stops.
She is self-winding, self-starting, self-propelling and selfless.
Sophie loves almost everyone.
Sophie loves toys.
Sophie loves to run.
Sophie is exceedingly fast and very very agile.
She is a bit scarey that way. At least Cooper, who has met her and thought for a moment that he  might be able to play with her as she whizzed around him like a dervish.
He gave up.

This is Sophie, too. We have had many debates about what she is. I say the face and tail are Basenji. The whole package except the personality is pretty Basenji-ish to me, but she in no way resembles the Basenjis I have known as far as her
temperament and preferences for people and other dogs are concerned.
Oh.
Yes. And she plays with Susie's cats, altho there is some question as to just how much fun the cats are having.

And here is Sophie with her typical expression: a BIG SMILE. I have never in my entire life known a dog as happy as Sophie. And I have known an awful lot of dogs.
Sophie makes me laugh everytime I see her. She makes everyone smile. Sophie is the original Dr. Feelgood.
Linda is incredibly lucky. And so is Sophie.

Happiest Holidays to the Happiest Dog I have ever known.

SNOWSTORM

The very major snowstorm/blizzard which just hammered the plains and midwest seems to have slid by my house with barely a nod in our direction. We got a little snow. We got a little wind. The temp has been going UP since I got up about 6 this morning, expecting the worst and finding nothing even faintly remarkable for this time of year.

So, we went out to play. Even Cooper seemed to enjoy it a bit. This used to be his favorite time of year but without that front leg I think he has some trouble getting around in the snow. It's slick-- he knows he can fall. He is cautious. Nevertheless he did a perimeter check and then came back to where I was standing with the camera. He still looks as dangerous as ever, black on white.

Conley and Llewis were out. Nigel had at this point refused to budge from his spot on the floor. We have radiant heat-- the pipes run through the concrete slab on which the house is built. The pipes are starting to break and we do have places where water dribbles up through cracks in the cement slab. But it means the floors are very warm. The tile in the bathroom gets so hot I cannot stand on it in my bare feet. So you can imagine how the dogs love it. They drag the beds to spots over the pipes. At night, this can be really tricky in the dark.
 Then Conley found a ball. It rained yesterday and so the ball was frozen, but he tried to play with it anyway.

He proceeded to roll it around and try to pick it up. When it is squeezed it makes the sound of a roaring crowd and an announcer type voice yells about a home run. The dogs love it, especially Cooper.



But it wasn't a very co-operative toy.
And besides, Conley found out a bitter truth about little boys, frozen objects, and warm, wet tongues.

                   I do not think there is any mistaking that look.
Eventually, as usual, everything devolved into wrassling and thrashing around in the snow. Nigel wanted back in, but Llewis and Conley stuck it out a few more minutes.

And then it was over. Playtime ended. Too cold, too wet, and besides  Cooper had gotten tired of watching and began to try to referee. Since it was early in the morning, I shushed him, and after a moment of watching, he came in, too.

And everyone is asleep now, on the couch, on the beds dragged over the pipes in the floor. Outside it is still snowing just a bit but nothing important, and the temperature, as I wrote this, dropped one degree.

Hope everyone who got zapped is warm and safe.
It's winter.

PAST LIVES

We have had a series of animals since we moved to Park Forest. When my daughter was about three she developed an overwhelming need to have a kitty. Any cat loose in the neighborhood was fair game, and I would look out the window to see my child dragging some unfortunate cat, usually by the neck, towards the house. It really is a wonder she never got sliced: the cats seemed to understand somehow that she was harmless, but pesty.

But I knew DH would not want a cat. So I did what any normal Mother would do. I scoured the papers until I found an ad for free kittens. (Please, this was in 1973 or 74.) I called. Two tabbys ( short haired) one long haired black and white. I knew I did NOT want a long haired cat. A friend drove us over. Sitting beneath a bush, scowling like an owl, was a tiny fuzzball of black and white. The shorthairs were tumbling over each other and here was was tiny ball of resentful fur. We took him home. We named him Ambulance.

Here is Ambulance, my very happy daughter, my son and yes, that's me.
When John came home from work that day I sent his darling little three-year old out to the car with the news "Daddy! We got a kitten!" What could he say? NO?  Not likely.

Ambulance lived to be 17. He was the greatest cat ever. I still miss him. He was an indoor outdoor cat and grew up eventually accepting dogs, children and other cats. He instilled in me a lasting respect for felines and  a devotion to long-haired kitties.

When this was taken he was getting along in years and had renal failure. We had to decide whether to keep him inside and feed him food he hated, or let him be.

We let him be, and one day a neighbor who I will never forgive (he had a collar and Identification) took off his collar and called the Humane society. I think, I believe, that they put him to sleep because he was old and obviously in end=stage renal failure. They said they did not, but when I got there to pick him up he was on a heating pad but dead, as if they had tried to warm him up. I know that sounds really paranoid, but we had had to do the same thing for some owners who were coming to view their deceased pet in a few hours. Keeping the pet warm kept it pliable and lifelike. I'm not stupid, and I was furious.

This is Warf, and Me. Warf was our very first Basset hound. And I really did look like that.
He was from a very reputable show breeder. He eventually turned into one of THE most vicious dogs I have ever known. He was so bad I wanted to euthanize him, but John would not hear of it.
He lived to be twelve, biting the hands that fed him. I never knew why. We were very inexperienced but I don't believe we were mean.
We never understood him. One minute he was fine and the next he was after you. And he was serious.

Sometimes we could even play a little bit with him. He and Ambulance got along just fine. Then, I got Quiller, my first Belgian Sheepdog and then, my daughter moved in with her  Keeshond, Kailey. Amazingly, everyone got along just fine.

Eventually, we added Arsenal and Beemr to the mix. Ambulance put up with Arsenal, the only shorthaired cat we ever had, but after Ambulance died, we got Beemr. She was a woebegone little long-haired tabby kitten at the clinic (which is where Arsenal came from.)







Kailey the Keeshond moved out: Warf died and we got Walker. We never talk about Walker. He only lived a couple of years and died a horrible death from Lymphoma.

He was a beautiful puppy and had  the best temperament of any dog I have ever know. Quiller was diagnosed in August with Chondrosarcoma and had a third of his jaw removed. Walker was diagnosed in November with Lymphoma and died a week later. Quiller lived another two year.

Someplace in there we got Mitchell. Quiller passed away and we got Cooper. Arsenal and Beemr died within about three months of each other: Beemr of cancer and Ars had a stroke.

And then we got Zelda.

And now we have her two sons, Nigel and Llewis, and Conley and Cooper.

No more cats right now.

That's it.