Burdock Grrrrrrrrr!!!

Hi,

Lucas sure hates burdock. If his coat is long they get into his fur and he just hates it. He'll stop and rip them out. He is feet sensitive, so he can't walk if there are any near his feet. Has to get them all out.

The fields around here are loaded with them

Dog Walker

What they really think!!

Hi,
I looked at my dogs (when Tiny was still with us) one day and then took a picture. I swear to you I could hear them talking and this is what they said. They were waiting for me to take them for their walk. I didn't realize Tiny was so nasty : ) I had this on my desktop for quite a while, but then realized the Grand kids would be coming over and I didn't want to have to 'splain what B I T C H meant. Anyways I thought this was cute.

Dog Walker

Lucas, the Dude

Hi,
I have a picture of Lucas on the wall at work along with lots of other pictures of customers. A customer late Saturday night was looking at the pictures and noticed Lucas and said I almost forgot to take my pizza with me. So I came up with this idea for the front counter. 50% of customers forget to take their left overs home with them. About 1 % will come back for them.
So 49% of all left overs get tossed. Lucas does not like that. He is a great lover of pizza. He is just starting to nibble at his "diet dog food". He does get people food, but not a lot. With all the scare about the wet food, I am glad he has only been eating the dry stuff. When Tiny was alive they would get the wet stuff. Beautiful day today. Same tomorrow.

The Dog Walker

Smells so good!!!!

Hi,
Lucas found a real good pile of whatever to rub in. Its usually a dead animal. I didn't get close enough to see what it was. He had a rough nite last night with the storm. Luckily it didn't last too long. He really has a rough time with thunder and lightening. He'll sit in the middle of the room and watch the windows and just shake.
Some dogs will jump through windows or chew their way through doors. Luckily he is not that bad. The wind blew really good about 3:00 am.
He was just fine this morning.

The Dog Walker

Great People Herders I have known

Hi,
I was putting together all the pictures I have of my children to put on a disk for them for Christmas. I am starting early. I have a lot of pictures : ) I ran across two people that changed our families life. Without them I do not know where we would all be now.
Both were Doctors. One a pediatric cardiologist and the other a pediatrician. One old, one young. Both completely dedicated to their profession. A "calling" we used to say.
My youngest son was born with a heart defect. There were no ultra-sounds back then. No signs, no warnings until the birth. The young Doctor heard the problem. A murmur. Medicine is prescribed. Worried we go home with our baby. The young Doctor sets up an appointment with the old Doctor. An appointment is set and kept and another is set. There is a problem to be looked further into. A crisis, the baby is breathing funny. His tiny chest heaving with each breath. Something is wrong. To the young doctor we go. The baby is in heart failure. The young Doctor isn't sure why. The appointment with the old Doctor is moved up. A five hour drive in the U.P. of Michigan. The baby cries most of the way. Everyone is exhausted. The other two children are almost crying too. They know something is wrong, but not what. The baby is put in hospital right away. A nice hospital with nice nurses. It is July 3rd. The examination will take place on July 5Th. Everyone says go and rest. We will be staying by my Mothers just a few miles away. Rest, yes that is what is needed.
For us all. Waking the next morning, I can not, not go to the hospital. I am compelled, I am exhausted and running on empty and I must go to the hospital. Now. My husband and I go. The baby is crying softly in his crib. He is a long ways from the nurses' station. I pick him up and hold him and still he cries. Then he is silent. No sound. No breath. Silent, like death. I scream, and start running with my dying baby. Years later, I think what if I would not have gone up to the hospital when I did. I know the answer, I would have went no matter what. My husband wants to know what is wrong, he can't see that the baby is not breathing. I am screaming and running to the nurses. They grasp the situation quickly, The baby is taken from me and I collapse. The old Doctor is called, he is on his tractor enjoying the day. It is a beautiful 4th of July. He comes as fast as he can. Tractor left in the field. My baby died three times that day and each time the old Doctor and his staff revived him. His assistant was found by the state police and brought to the hospital in a State Patrol Car. They did the test that they were going to do tomorrow, now. An artery in the heart is blocked they tell. Be prepared for the worst. My husband calls the young doctor. He says we will air-evac him to wherever the old Doctor thinks is the best place for him. Rochester, Mn. St Mary's Pediatric. Best Doctors for this kind of problem. Back in the early 70's this was a BIG deal. Heart surgery. The baby is only slightly stabilized. The next day the old Doctor and I go by ambulance to the airfield. We are being flown to Rochester, Mn. I hold the baby and he is quiet and breathing heavy. The old Doctor and I look at each other and I don't know who is more scared. There is nothing in the ambulance to revive him, should he take a turn for the worst. He doesn't and off we go to Rochester, Mn. The surgery and recovery are uneventful.
The baby was born with a narrowed aortic valve. It took minutes to repair, but without it he would have died by this time. The old Doctor is very happy. The young Doctor has one more miracle to perform. Get me and the baby back to the base, without having to take the bus. He tells the Top Brass that the baby would not do well at all on the bus, so they send a med-evac plane to pick me (they were not going to ) and the baby up and take us home.
Dr Ziegler was the old Doctor. He has since passed away, but we were in touch for years. A true people herder. A person who cares about the herd. A Shepard.
The young Doctor, Dr Lehocky went into his own crisis when his young wife died unexpectedly. He survived and went on to become a wonderful people herder. He herds the lambs whose lives are disrupted by illness. It is his "calling" and his herd is grateful. A Shepard.

The not so great people herder.

Butch 1994-2001

Hi,
Butch was our first Springer. My youngest son bought him for $50.00 from someone that we now know would be called a backyard breeder. Springers were the rage with the teenagers at the time. Hunting was a lifestyle that most young men were very into in our community. He was adorable. My son trained him to hunt birds and Butch was not too bad at it. They went out to South Dakota several times hunting. Butch never strayed too far. Both Butch and my son would come back looking like they had been out on the town for a week. Butch would sleep for 3 days straight and walk around like an old man for a couple more days, but he loved it. Then my son got married and priorities change. Butch became our dog. He was not particularly fond of children, cats or other dogs. He would fetch anything for you and would run notes back and forth in the house for us. True to his backyard breeding he developed cancer of the anal gland. The cancer wrapped itself around one of his blood vessels and in doing so, it burst. With the cancer wrapped around it, Butch did not bleed too death, which is what would have happened if the cancer was not sealing the blood vessel. He had surgery and did fine for another two years. My husband is an EMT so he could administer all the drugs needed. In August of 2001, cancer again struck. More surgery, but this time Butch was not getting better. His kidneys shut down, which was another problem from the backyard breeding.
Hardest day of my husband's life was to take Butch to the Vet. Butch went to the rainbow bridge and is swimming in cool water and laying in green grass. His two favorite things.

The Dog Walker

Yep, Its Snowing

Hi,
I am on vacation, so I have a little more time to blog. I have a counter on this blog now and if I have figured it out correctly, there have been 5 hits to this site, other than the ones I have done myself. Hope whoever has seen this has liked it.
Lucas is having a play date with his bud, Raven. They run inside and outside just like 5 year olds.
The sidewalk you see is what Lucas feels he must protect. No other dog is allowed to walk on it without Lucas warning them that the sidewalk is his. There used to be a man that would walk by the window every few days and bark back at Lucas. To say the least Lucas did not find it amusing.

The Dog Walker

I see Dumb People

Hi,

Now "dumb" people are everywhere and occasionally, well maybe more than occasionally, we all could have that word plastered on our foreheads. There is more than 1 degree of "dumb". Its like the movie, "Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest".

Most "dumb" is understandable. Some dumb is not. Like the lady who called for a delivery, and was out of range. She said she had just moved up here from Illinois and she could not understand how we lived up here. No one delivered to her. She said we were very dumb. I thought to myself, of course, "Well, geez, we get in our car and go get it". A concept that shouldn't be too foreign to her, as I have lived in the Chicago area and can tell you, you cannot walk anywhere. We lived near the airport and the shopping would have been great if it didn't take all afternoon to get to the malls. The traffic was horrendous. To go 10 miles down the road would take 40 minutes. Then there was a lady that called for a delivery, but wouldn't give her address, because we should know it. Or the man that would order every Friday night and everytime we got there he was sound asleep. We finally worked it out that the delivery person would drop off the food on the porch, where he would leave the money. He was always very nice and always left a great tip, but we have no way of knowing if he ever got his food or if the raccoons did. He never said. And then there was the man who was partying a little too much, got the munchies and came in picked up what we thought was his (turned out to be someone else's) food, went to his car and fell alseep. We called the police as it was really cold out and they drove him home. This was many, many years ago, I don't know what their policy is now. The best ones are the people who order, come to pick it up and have no clue as to what was ordered or who would have ordered it. It happens when company comes to town and they offer to go pick up the food. The best was the lady that ordered a delivery, but came in the store to pick it up. We are all scrambling to find her food and the carry out line is getting three deep.

5 minutes into us looking, she lets us know it was a delivery, which is already on the road. The people behind her in line were ready to strangle her. I have learned to spot "dumb " people quite quickly, so I hope I have made their "dumbness" less and our job easier.

The People Herder

Pearly White Teeth, I has

Hi,
This is Lucas after eating Lasagna. There wasn't a lot of lasagna left. He is our pot and pan cleaner. You can see a little orange on him. He is a very neat and tidy dog and really dislikes being wet or too dirty. Although being smelly doesn't seem to bother him. He likes to look out the window next to you and fart. Then he will look at you as if to say, What?? He is especially sensitive about having wet feet. He cleans his feet quickly after coming in from outside. Still can't convince the husband that we need another dog. I found some really cute ones at Fluffy Dogs at a rescue place way South of here. We'll see. Time for our walk.

The Dog Walker

Trixie

Hi,

I finally got a picture of Trixie. She was out today and all by herself. Just sitting on her porch in the sun. She is so sweet and playful. Lucas used to really dislike her, but she is very submissive and once they got close to each other it was fine. She does not leave her yard. It is a corner house so she has streets on two sides and I have never seen her out of her yard.

The Dog Walker

Lucas, The First Years

Hi,
This is how Lucas looked when we first got him. He had been an outside dog and he wasn't neutered at that time.
He had been living with his rescue person for about three months, prior to us getting him. He had cherry eye and had an operation for it. Its an inner eye lid thing. It causes annoyance to the dog and looks nasty, but isn't life threatening. He was horrible the first three months. Whined, cried, and wouldn't let anyone sleep beyond 6:00am. First time out without a lease, he immediately ran next door and bit the large female dog on the head.
Wouldn't let go. My husband was so taken aback that it took him a little bit to make Lucas let go. I thought this dog is crazy. Took him back to the Vet and they couldn't find anything wrong and I should have put him in school, but could not find anyplace that could accommodate my work schedule. I started taking him for walks and we built a fence around the backyard. Both helped a little, but on the walks if he would see another dog he would start barking and acting like a psycho I took him once to a place on the lake just for dogs. I got pulled into the lake twice and he barked so much he was hoarse. They were glad to see me go. I kept taking him for walks and slowly, but surely he calmed down. I have resorted to a pinch collar. It works a little bit. He has made friends with most of his "doggy enemies" and actually seems to like cats. He doesn't mind children and especially likes them if they have food in their hands. The grand kids have learned how to handle him and he does well. The rescue person said he was a man's dog, but he's mine. I move, he moves. He has come to be much loved and I realize I will probably never be able to take him to a dog park, although maybe in another year when he is older. I love Springers, but they are a handful. Our last springer was not at all like Lucas, but he really didn't like children.
So Lucas you have found your forever home. And hopefully you will never look that sad again.

The Dog Walker

King of the Hill

Hi,

Snow appears to be over for awhile. I will try not to complain about the heat in the summer. Lucas had a good walk today. Lots of smells and lots of places to poop. He likes to poop on the lower branches of fir trees. He has a nice new hair cut. Looks spiffy, but smells like perfume which I don't care for. I like the doggy smell. He ran into one of his dog friends the other day. Trixie. She is the cutest little border collie mix I have ever seen. He likes Trixie, because she is very submissive. He is alpha all the way. I'm still trying to be Alpha with him. My husband is and he listens to him, but not me. He's been waking me up at 7:00 am again. Great when I have to go to work, not so great when I have a day off.

The Dog Walker