Jack said I had to upload a photo with Cheney and Orion so viewers could see how much smaller Cheney is compared to Orion. I think Orion was blinking from the flash during this photo. I decided to go with it anyway, since it is very difficult to keep two terrier type dogs sitting at the same time. I tried to photograph Cheney next to a soft drink can, but Cheney was deeply suspicious of it.
Category: Background
Cheney
Cheney is a very small, three year old Rat Terrier with Issues who was adopted by my friend when he was about one and a half years old. A couple of months ago, my friend was bemoaning the fact that she would never go on vacation again because she wouldn’t ask a critter sitter to take care of Cheney. My friend is our backup for whoever takes care of our critters when we travel, so I told her he could come stay here. He is also Orion’s best friend, at least when Orion is visiting his house.
Since we were worried about how Cheney would get on, she brought him out for several trial runs. The first time he was worried, but at least not catatonic. (If Cheney was a person, I would say he had some sort of severe anxiety disorder.) During the second, longer trial a few days ago when my friend left for a few hours, he was still worried but actually showed signs of interacting with me, the environment and the other dogs. So yesterday I went to pick up Cheney so he could stay for a few days.
It is going quite well. Yesterday, I was gating dogs into various groups inside the house so they wouldn’t be in a critical mass while they adjusted. I also put Cheney in his crate a few times when he seemed overloaded. After the first few hours, Lody, the old Collie, decided he could be safely ignored. Lightning, the Sheltie, seems to like him. Lily seems to like him. And Orion thinks it is terrific, though I’ve had to put Rion in time out when he gets too boisterous for the other dogs.
Gate
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
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.
Lilium
Birthday Flowers
Chives
I love chives. I love the way they look, and I love the fact that they are apparently indestructible, even in Colorado. They are cheerful volunteers, but I don’t find them as invasive as mint.
