The book I read all in one day is The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein (also a major motion picture, which I did not see). There seems to be an entire genre of books written from the viewpoint of dogs, these days. In fact, here’s a list of them from Amazon, and you will see it includes a book by a human with “dog” in their name.
As for this book, it’s both about racing and being a very intelligent dog observing a life. Like A Dog’s Purpose, this one posits that dogs are put on earth to protect or care for a family. When they are done, they go away and come back as something else. For our book’s dog, named Enzo, he is convinced he will come back next as a human, and he’ll know so much stuff, especially about racing cars.
I can see how this book became a “major motion picture,” because the people in it are not quite as complex as the inhabitants of the last few books I’ve read. The race-car driver dad is just plain good, with just a hint of temptation to be bad. The lawyers are just plain lawyers.
In my previous post, I talked about going on a walk with Kathleen (who will be here for the next year or so, getting our Hearts Homes and Hands business going) around the ranch for a long time and getting no “exercise credit” for it on my watch. While annoying, there are darned good reasons we didn’t just trek briskly around the property. Plus the dogs got stinky.
Kathleen is ready for checking out the nature!
It finally cooled off enough to go for a nice exploration of the woods, which is just not easy to do in the summer. The dogs were pretty thrilled at the prospect, and engaged all their sniffers.
We’re ready to sniff!
I hadn’t had a chance to show Kathleen what’s in the woods (mainly a lot of cedar elm and coral berry), so she had fun discovering the little stream (or where it would be if it rained more), then as we moved on, we saw the gate to nowhere, and other bottomland landmarks.
I just got home from another fun Milam Touch of Love event, the Blessing of the Animals, which is a yearly celebration at many Episcopal churches in the US. Today the one in Cameron was at All Saints Episcopal, a church attended by a lot of my friends. They’d invited MTOL this year, and we really appreciated it.
Fifi is very friendly.
Our group brought two sweet dogs looking for homes, Henry and Fifi. The kittens Jean S. is fostering were also there, and darn, they are cute.
This sweet dog is all scarred, but so well trained and sweet, you’d never know she’d had a hard past.
I brought Vlassic along, as an example of the dogs that are dumped out in the country, which shows the need for helping animals out here. I was really proud of how well he behaved. He played a lot with Henry, who was thrilled to have a friend to play with, though he eventually wore V. out.
We have not had any dog issues since night before last. In fact, last night I sat on the back porch and watched the three younger dogs running and playing with toys for nearly an hour. Vlassic was happy as he’s ever been.
But then, last night, he was sleeping directly in front of my face, still reeking of dead mouse, so I got up and took care of some needs. When I came back, he was gone, and he never came back to bed. I found him outside in the morning. This is the first time in the over a year that I’ve had him when he didn’t sleep on me (or Lee or Anita).
I’ll just take over your bed.
That made me sad. But this morning, he was so glad to see me that he kept jumping into my hand as I tried to pet him. So, I bent down to give him some loving. Suddenly, I was off the ground. Alfred had ALSO wanted some loving, so he came between my legs. I laughed and laughed, all by myself.
There’s still at least some water. No floods here.
Penney, Carlton, and Harvey have been swimming in the pond lately. It’s quite low, but still over Penney’s head, as she discovered yesterday. Vlassic still prefers his pool. At least it got rid of some of the mouse smell.
I like stinking. I’m a dog.
We’ve been having a bit of trouble with Carlton running off to visit the calves, still. He just loves them. The cows don’t mind much, so, we’ll just keep working on him coming when called from far away.
I love cows and tug of war.
We sure enjoy these guys, even when they are challenging. Life it better with all their antics!
It looks like our newest canine companion, Penney, will be needing some training or something. She continues to poop and pee in our bathroom every night that I’m there. We have three theories: one is I’m taking up her space in the bed, and another is she’s afraid to go downstairs in the dark. A third possibility is that she’s showing irritation that Vlassic’s in the room.
Carlton the weather dog points out that it still has not rained,
Poor Little Vlassic
Penney seems to have it in for him, at least when he’s trying to do his favorite thing, which is snuggle up with me or Lee. She believes SHE is the resident snuggler. We have been working with her on this, but as you can see from Vlassic’s head, we aren’t always successful.
Ow. Also I have an owie on my tummy from last week. Save me!
Now, they are fine outdoors, and run and play very happily.
Vlassic now spends his time at the ranch either outside on the porch, or upstairs in the bedroom.
And that’s a problem when night comes, because everybody wants to be on top of the bed. Harvey likes to sleep where he isn’t touching anybody, and growls if they try. Carlton is either next to me or in the dog bed. Vlassic is usually glued to me, while Penney glues herself to Lee.
I would like to know how I never realized how much brown hair is on the back of Vlassic’s legs. I swear, I look at him all the time. Cute little butt swirls, though.
But last night, Penney apparently wanted to be next to me, and went after Vlassic for being there instead. Much screaming, peeing on my dang bed, and growling occurred. I had to spend the rest of the night downstairs with a shaking (but relatively unhurt) dachshund.
I’m glad we know dog trainers.
Also, Dogs Like Stinky Things
Lee reports that Alfred came home Wednesday night with a very large spine of something. He loved it. It smelled very bad. Thankfully, it’s mostly gone now.
Penney explores the milkweed, looking for remnants of the spine.
Then, today, while Vlassic was in the office staying safe from Penney, he jumped in Mandi’s lap, causing her to react in horror. He’d found a very dead and stinky mouse. I guess that means our mouse removal campaign is working. But wow, is it smelly in the kitchen area, and so is he. We washed him, but not well enough.
This morning I waved goodbye to Eva and Joe, found out what was going on with the rest of the family, and realized I was gloriously alone for a while. Lee and Kathleen are still in west Texas, Mandi has other issues, we canceled Sunday dinner due to stress and confusion, so no visitors today. Alone.
Part 1
Of course, being me, I felt compelled to write up stuff for work blogs and volunteering blogs. And I’m late on my LLL newsletter, so I worked on that.
Mmm. Football.
After 5 hours of writing, I’ve declared I deserve some recharge time. No one can keep going and going forever.
I’m taking a day off from thinking about complicated issues and hard stuff, at least for the most part. I did do some brainstorming this afternoon with my friend Martha as a result of our spiritual life crises. That was good for us both!
I’m relaxing, too, says Vlassic.
It’s been a bit more relaxing than usual around here, so we’ve been hanging out with our precious canines. I’m relieved to say that they are all getting along really well. The worst behavior issue is that Vlassic has been avoiding the family room ever since Penney arrived and lashed out at him when he wanted to share a lap with her.
Vlassic is actually touching Penney. Harvey’s just watching the young ones tussle.
I think that’s getting better, though, because they have all been in my den on the couch playing away (I had intended to take a nap, but instead I took pictures of the smaller dogs all playing together indoors).
Sorry to leave y’all hanging yesterday after my big discourse on organized religion yesterday. I do have a good excuse: we had no internet or phone service most of the day, so while I wrote a lot about things I did, they got lost uploading.
My colleagues and I visited an animal shelter in Bryan yesterday. Too bad that post is gone.
I’ll get to all that eventually. No internet is just a minor woe! And I was actually too busy doing stuff to write about it.
Cathy and I being shocked that it cooled off just before game time and it was pleasant!
It was darned good to get back to high school football again, though. Cathy and I sat in our usual seats with our usual neighbors and got through a typical up and down Cameron Yoe game. They let the other team run back and forth with impunity a few times, but settled in, and we got to see some beautiful passes and runs.
Also, the band was really good for their first time marching their show. The poor other band stood there and read from their music. The drum majors didn’t even conduct. I guess it’s a rebuilding year for them.
The directions sign is rather reflective. I think you can see me and the Baptist Church better than the sign.
Today I spent all morning making signs so people can find our offices and events, because we’ve had some trouble. The Hermit Haus Redevelopment blog spells that out. I also helped a little with baby shower prep at the office.
Extremely cute baby shower decor by Melissa.
But, I have some peachy new nails that match the ginger dog nicely, and I’m happy to report Vlassic’s lump is a lot smaller.
Penney nicely offsets my orange-to-yellow sparkling nails. Yes, they glow.
Last Thing
I’d like to sincerely thank those of you who’ve posted insightful and supportive comments here or on Facebook for the past few days. I feel less alone. I guess all the people I pissed off defriended me, so all I have left are supportive people who are willing to discuss things without name-calling. I’m happy with that!
This is the second Saturday in a row that I’ve spent at least part of the day volunteering for Milam Touch of Love. Today we were at an event at Tractor Supply in Rockdale, where we were invited to bring materials and dogs that are adoptable.
Our booth after the doggies arrived.
Since the event was in Rockdale, we invited the Rockdale Pound folks to bring some dogs. I got there first and set up the table, along with the really helpful manager at Tractor Supply. Our banner looked really good, and we made the whole setup look inviting.
Something’s up with Vlassic! He’s happy as he can be, running around like normal, and eating all his food. But, he’s developed a big lump on his shoulder. It doesn’t seem to hurt, but you can’t miss it.
See my lump?
We’ve been trying to figure out what it is going on with him. I had a couple of ideas:
It’s where he got that rattlesnake vaccine and yelped so much. Could he have some kind of reaction or issue related to that?
Did he hurt his shoulder and have swelling related to that (Mandi’s dachshund had that happen to her, and it healed on its own.)
Is it a tumor (fatty or otherwise?)
Could it be a cyst?
Another view. It’s hard to photograph things on a black dog.
One of the articles I read mentioned that swelling could occur after an insect bite. Maybe the shot gave a similar reaction? Why, look what I found on an article about pros and cons of the rattlesnake vaccine for dogs:
Finally, the vaccine may be reactive and can cause sterile abscesses at the site of injection, and this is more likely in small breeds (as are most all vaccine reactions in my experience).
Okay, this is sounding really plausible. And if it’s sterile, it will go away. The plan, then, is to wait a few days and see if it gets larger or smaller. In the meantime, Vlassic gets to be called “Lumpy.”
The Hermits' Rest 