Category: dogs

Gate

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When we moved here, there was a small pen with privacy fencing for the previous owner’s dog, and a few strands of barb wire around what we now call the horse field. We had a larger dog pen built the first month we were here in December 1992. We didn’t get around to building the barn until the summer of 1996,  and fenced a little over two acres for the horse field in October 1996. In September of 2000, we fenced another two acres  for what we still call the new field, and also fenced an adjacent area to replace our previous dog run. The dog run shared a fence line with the new field.

About five minutes are the dog run and new field were finished, I realized we should have put a gate between the new field and the dog run, but could never convince Jack that it was a good idea. When I learned that Lily and Lightning were coming to live with us, I told Jack I wanted to put a gate in so I could take the dogs out to the new field to play fetch without having to put dogs on leads to get them there safely.

On our way to the restaurant Sunday, Jack spotted a place that sells Preifert gates. Preifert gates are lightweight and recommended for use around horses. Yesterday morning I called and asked the owner if he had anyone who could install a gate for me. The young man he recommended came by a few hours later to check things out, and then came back this morning and installed our new gate. I am very pleased. It only took nine years. (The four-foot gate to the horse field is to the left in this photo, and the new gate is the one on the right.)

Dog Daze

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Orion, the puppy, has seen his privileges increase a lot this past week, because he has mostly stopped trying to detach the rear legs from Lody, our elderly Collie. Considering how worried I was that she might hurt him when he joined our household, I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time protecting a sixty pound Collie from a puppy less than one fourth her mass. Increased privileges means he is spending most of the daylight hours in the house rather than in his pen.  When the weather is nice, we leave the door open between the house and the mudroom, and there is a dog door from the mudroom to the dog run.

I finally had to take all of the remaining plush toys and put them away. Lily, the Golden Retriever, kept stealing them and eviscerating them, producing a blizzard of plush toy guts.  Not only did I object to the destructiveness, I didn’t want any of the dogs to swallow the guts and risk an impaction. The latex toys and rope toys seem less prone to destruction, though they do keep ending up outside in the dog run.

Lily’s favorite activity is to retrieve tennis balls. While she is doing so, Orion follows her back and forth with a ball in his mouth, and Lightning, the Sheltie, tries to get the ball before Lily so he can play keep away. Lody just watches, apparently impressed by the useless expenditure of all that energy.

Dog Days

Lightning, the Sheltie, has snarled at Orion when he felt his personal space has been invaded, but otherwise ignored the puppy.  Now Lightning has found a more subtle way to torment Orion. He takes one of the puppy’s toys, and lays down with it where the puppy can see him.  Occasionally, he will mouth it, but he has no real interest in the toy, just in Orion’s reaction.  Orion, when he observes that Lightning has his toy, flings himself down about two feet away and starts vocalizing.  He makes a sound that combines the worst parts of a bark, whine, and yelp.  It is a very loud sound.  Lightning acts oblivious.  Orion will continue fussing until I call him away and put him in his exer-pen.  At that point, Lightning abandons the toy.

I’d feel sorrier for Orion except he torments Lody, the Collie, more than Lightning torments Orion.  Occasionally, she will play with Orion, but when she doesn’t want to play, he grabs hold of one of her hind legs and starts trying to remove it.  She gets a somewhat befuddled look on her face, and tries to shake him loose.  Since she is old and frail and looks totally pathetic, I call Orion off and put him in his exer-pen. 

The exer-pen also comes in hand when I am doing housework.  It is even harder to make a bed when a schnauzer puppy is helping than when a kitten is helping. 

With the return of afternoon thunderstorms, Lody’s storm anxiety has returned.  She paces when we get a thunderstorm, and also tries to occupy the same space as I do.  Although I appreciate that she views me as a refuge, a sixty pound Collie doesn’t fit. During storms, I gate her out of the room I am so she can’t suffocate me.  

We’re all about the dog gates and pens here these days.  I think my balance has improved with all the stepping over them that I have been doing. 

Good Hair Day

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So Orion’s beard is a bit mussed: remember what he looked like yesterday! The groomer reports that he was pretty good for his first haircut, and they even invited him back. The area that would have formed his “skirt” in a traditional schnauzer cut was too matted, so he is clipped short in two different lengths, with his legs and lower sides slightly longer than his back.  Next time, she will try to clip the legs even longer.  I like being able to see his eyes, for a change.