Whispy day

Today is beautiful, even if it is a bit windy. My Whispy's want to be outside, so do Dibbs and Molly. Sparky and Junior would rather play ball in the house. The wind still makes them shiver.

I am cheap - I don't use my dryer unless I absolutely have to. With the sun and the wind, today is a perfect clothes on the line day. So, I have done two and a half tons of laundry and taken them out to dry. This sounds easy enough, but the reality is a bit different. The washer beeps, I take the clothes out and load it anew. Climb over the divider, take Molly to her run. Now Tippy, Tylor and Lissa are at the divider and barking and jumping. From inside the house answering barks can be heard. Open the divider, open the door - out they go. Now go back in the house and round up those who should go but don't want to. Sheria needs her leash to be convinced. Daisy and Sparky get carried. Junior has to be lifted off the bed or couch and then chased. Joy has to be woke up and carried out. When I put her down, I keep my hands on her for a minute, making sure she'll not fall over. She has gotten so frail over the last year.

One more trip in the house for the clothesbasket and we are ready - off to the clothesline we go.

The Whispy's in the lead - excitement up ahead! There is a loose plastic roof that is waving in the breeze - "Boy, I haven't seen that before - there is something moving!" Tylor is barking and growling and stomping her frontfeet on the ground. Like a little blond groundhog - how cute can you be? Tippy, in typical bossbitch manner, charges right up to the piece of plastic, ready to defend her daughter if need be. She hasn't made a sound yet. Once there, she decides that Tylor is a whimp and turns around to go look for better fun. "That mean woman fixed all the holes in the fence yesterday, I can't get in there now. Let's see, should I go dig under the birdfeeder or under the tarp?" She decides on the birdfeeder and soon is mighty busy. Dirt is flying and I get concerned that she will get under the fence. But so far, we are safe.

In the meantime, a car passes by the fence on the driveway. Everybody but Tippy is racing along the fence to make the most of this barking opportunity. Tylor is in the lead - she is faster then most of mine. Sheria kind of hangs back, she is too snooty to actually compete with anybody. The car passes and the dogs are looking for something else to bark at. And wouldn't you know it, obligingly a turkey vulture appears in the sky. Rather close to our house. The barking starts. Even Tippy stops digging for a minute, she doesn't get to see too many of these big birds. They run around the yard, in whatever direction the bird decides to fly. He finally has enough and leaves. Sometimes I think the birds do that on purpose. They fly just low enough to get the dogs attention and then circle around the yard a while to see what the dogs will do. Well, the dogs go nuts, that's what they do.

By now, the clothes are on the line and we can go back in the house. That means everybody gets a treat. My Whispy's are greedy little piglets, they push themselves in front of the other dogs and jump and just can't wait. Sparky only has three teeth left, so I have to break his treats in lots of little pieces. He races to the stack of clean underpads I keep in the bedroom - one has to be prepared, you know. There, on his throne, he patiently waits for me. I stumble over dogbodies on my way to give him his treat and on the way back. Next is Daisy. Her treats don't need to be as small, but she only has molars left and so I do break her treats up and throw them into her crate. Next - everybody else. Tylor is like Daisy - a stomach on four legs. She will take her treat, swallow it hole and try for another. "Oh no no no, no you don't!" Sheria is in the living room, she does not push and shove, she knows I will get to her.

By the time I have concocted something that Joy will drink, the blaming washer beeps again.......

The Whispy dogs are here

The Whispy dogs are Yorkie mixes. They are adorable and have been coming to my house for "vacation" for over 7 years. They are part of my pack - no matter how long they haven't been here. I named them Whispy dogs because of the layer of rough hair that covers them sparsely. Their names are Tippy and Tylor. Tippy is Tylors Mom. Tylor is at least twice as big as Tippy but doesn't have half Tippy's personality. They are all around Terriers, They hunt, they dig, Tippy is the one that will find the hole in the fence. Tippy is what I call a bossbitch. She lifts one leg to pee, she marks, she doesn't take crap from anybody. Tippy comes in my house, jumps on my bed and tells my dogs they are not allowed up there anymore. We have had a few go arounds about that, but I can't seem to win this one. Tippy weighs maybe 14 lbs. My Molly is 50 lbs easy. Molly doesn't take crap from anybody either. So, when they met, we very nearly had a dogfight. Since then, Molly has to be separated when the Whispy's come to stay. Molly must stay on the backporch (yes, heated and cooled). I have to take her out into the big run and close the gate before I can let the rest of them out in the yard. She isn't offended and walks right in, always wagging her tail.

The other day it was beautiful outside and I took the opportunity to cut styrofoam to line shipping boxes with. I had my back turned to the yard. When I turned around to get something, I nearly had a heartattack. There was Tippy, pretty as you please, walking around in Molly's run. Molly was just laying there. Not even looking at her. I ran in there, grabbed Tippy and ran back out. 10 minutes later, she was back in there! So, in the house we went. I spent the next hour fixing holes in the fence, I had not even known existed! Gotta love a Terrier!

Murder!

My desk is in front of the window - looking out on the frontporch. Today, I was working on the computer and for a good 30 minutes I heared
waugh...waugh...waugh...waugh...on and on. No change in tone, the same break in between, just waugh. So I looked out the window, I saw no dog. Mind you, it was snowing at the time. I went to the other window, still no dog. Still it went on - waugh...waugh. It was Scooters voice but I could not see her. "She is in the doghouse, barking her butt off!" is what I thought. Trying to ascertain that, I leaned over the desk and really looked out. There, between the two doghouses, was a dead squirrel. It had no tail. Scooter, the little witchbitch, was in the doghouse, telling her much bigger sisters to keep their paws off her prize. So, I put my boots and coat on, got some treats and went to retrieve the poor thing. She came out of the house like a shot, got her squirrel and took off with it. It took some doing to get her to lay it down and accept a treat in it's stead. As I bent to pick it up, I could now see that she had eaten the legs off it as well. It's eyes were closed and those sharp incisors were visible. I don't feel bad for the squirrel, it had a good life and a swift death.

I am one of those people who feed all things around them. Squirrels included. In the fall I collected black walnuts and since the first deep snow, I have been laying out a handful of them every day. Of course, the squirrels help themselves to all the sunflower seeds they can get away from the birds. So, this little guy was fat - for a squirrel. He must have gotten complacent if the girls were able to catch him. Or maybe he was sick. Or just careless. Carelessness doesn't pay for squirrel.

This isn't the first time they got one.

One year there was one that would sit up on the lowest branch of the oak and chatter at them. It would throw little sticks and in the fall acorns at them. The three dogs would go nuts under that tree. Dancing on their hindlegs, trying to jump up to the branch and trying their darndest to climb up the trunk. The little squirrel was having a blast directing the movement of the three big dogs under it.

I would go out to be with the girls and it would chatter at me. "You better watch your step, they always get them in the end!" I would call up to it. And they did. One morning, I found it's little body beside the tree. Not as eaten up as today's, but dead none the less.

The girls will tolerate me hurting them. I give them shots, I clip their nails, I do many things they do not understand but I deem necessary. Some things involve pain. None of them have ever bared their teeth at me or growled in my direction. They roll over on their backs and want their tummies rubbed.

Yet, left to their own devises, they are wild things. Their instinct is to hunt and and then to kill.

So, my frontyard - enter at your own risk!

Stay well and warm.