Soft Serve

A friend of ours once described A as a dipped ice cream cone, with soft serve on the inside and a hard chocolate shell on the outside. Basically, A tries to come across as strong and unaffected by the world. However, A is very much affected by the world. The world is unkind and cruel to the many people and animals A tries so hard to fight for.

I noticed while I was gone the last couple of days, A was at it again: trying to put out the image that without my presence, Azure’s life was in danger of an early termination. Anyone who knows A realizes these are idle threats, stemming from the frustration of cleaning up the “Taj-Mah” crate 2 days in a row (Azure had left steaming piles of evidence that the chili she knocked off the counter and ate maybe didn’t set to well in her stomach – or possibly the Shrimp Jambalaya was the culprit – hard to say). Or maybe it was Azure’s barking in the middle of the night, or her insistence on jumping in and out of the bed, that seemed to put A on the edge.

Just for the record I have been home for 24hours and all is as I left it . . .

Buffer

Although I never for a minute take K’s presence in my life for granted, it is on the intermittent occasions when she spends significant amounts of time away from the Farm, as in overnight trips to nether-regions of the state, when I realize there are specific functions K performs that I may take for granted.

Not the obvious ones, like cleaning up dog regurgitation.

No, things like providing a buffer between me and her precious Azure. So I do not clobber Azure with my bare hands when she insists on jumping up to investigate the contents of the kitchen counter, toaster over, stove top, or sink.

When she uses the bed I am using for repose as a trampoline/springboard combination for a 1 a.m. routine.

When she plunks down for an intense toy destruction session right where I am headed with the vacuum.

When she insists on barking because I won’t let her into the goat pasture, because other cars dare use the road we live on, because someone has a bone she wants to sample, or just because her existence needs affirming. When she dumps over the dog toy box for the exclusive sport of stringing its entire contents across the living room, which inevitably results in me stepping on things like nylabones, partially consumed cow hooves, or soggy, eviscerated fleecy toys.

When she constantly “bumps” my arm as I am trying to use the computer or put a loaded spoon in my mouth.

Hopefully, our buffer will be home soon. At least before the ground thaws.

Field Tripping with Azure

There is a terrible irony in the notion that our Deaf dog, Azure, seems to suffer from chronic ear infections.

My sister has had sinus problems all her life, even after her tonsils and adenoids were removed and tubes were put in her ears. I myself suffer from a serious combination of selective hearing and earwax overproduction, which led to routine “treatments” through my childhood. My childhood ear de-waxing regimen was a special form of torture concocted by my mother, which included such sterile and highly medical implements as a hand towel, baby oil, warm water, a recycled “booger sucker,” and a bobby pin, all treated with isopropyl rubbing alcohol.

Because of my heightened awareness around ear canal issues, I have a special sympathy for Azure’s ongoing issues with her ears. Across the past couple of weeks, we have plowed through a dosing of Amoxicillin, cleverly disguised in anything necessary to get her to take it. When K was dispatched to Dr. Kevin on another canine health matter, we asked for another round of something stronger. Dr. Kevin instructed K that if all was not better after this round, we would need to bring Azure in to have her knocked out and get her ears flushed out.

When Azure continued to shake her head and scratch at her ear after the last dosing of Doxycycline ran out, we decided to take her in to Dr. Kevin to apply his version of ear de-waxing, hopefully without the bobby pins. Always looking for the bright side of life, K and I agreed that while Dr. Kevin had her unconscious, we would take full advantage of the opportunity to trim her nails and do any dental work that seemed appropriate or necessary.

Leashed and loaded, Azure and I headed out for a date with the Doc. The very short ride was unremarkable except for one lunge Azure made across the front seat to defend me from the tractor-trailer carrying an oversized piece of heavy equipment in the oncoming traffic lane, from which we all emerged alive. We arrived early and after practicing making eye contact and sitting on command in the front seat of the Jeep, exited the vehicle to walk off our nerves a bit.

As it turns out, we should have started walking our nerves off at about 3 a.m. No amount of sniffing, of practicing our sitting, of being reminded in sign “Me” + “Boss,” dampened Azure’s high-spirits or desire to engage in such entertaining activities as: jumping up into the window of the Beauty Parlor adjoining Dr. Kevin’s office; jumping up into the windows of parked cars containing other canines awaiting the arrival of Dr. Kevin; and, jumping out into the field by Dr. Kevin’s office to take me on a doggy doo-doo sampling tour.

When he looked mildly surprised to see me with Azure in tow, I reminded Dr. Kevin that he had admonished K about bringing Azure in for an ear de-briding if the last round of antibiotics didn’t work.

For being the guy who is in large part responsible for her continued existence on the earth, Azure doesn’t like Dr. Kevin much. She wasn’t having him so much as touch her head, much less look in her ears. When he dared try to look at her from across the service counter, she retorted with a snarl and a growl. She didn’t want his pets. She didn’t want to be in a small room with him. She darn sure didn’t want the lovely shot full of magic wellness potion he had to offer her.

In the end, Azure didn’t get knocked out and de-brided. What she did get is held tightly in place using her leash and the handrail of a bench for leverage. Dr. Kevin got to work on practicing some snazzy dance moves. I got my hand bashed against something. The syringe and needle got to administer a shot of Dr. Kevin’s magic elixir with the needle at a 90 degree angle. The woman standing in the waiting room with her extraordinarily tranquil boxer got to see quite a production.

The good news is, Azure continued to funnel her ire at Dr. Kevin. After the ordeal was over, she curled up against me, happily followed me to the Jeep without any interest in the windows of adjoining businesses or vehicles, and insisted that I console her with constant petting for the car ride back to the Farm. As we stepped out of Dr. Kevin’s office, it began to rain lightly.

For the record, Azure hasn’t completely overcome her hatred of windshield wipers.

For photographic proof, witness the “before” photo of the Jeep dashboard:

And the dashboard after Azure’s sojourn to the Vet:

Painful Lessons

When the dogs are hurt, we load them into the back of the Jeep and take them either to our regular Vet, or to the 24-hour clinic where he works part-time. When the goats are hurt, the process is basically the same.

Hindsight being 20/20 and all, we should have asked ourselves, “So what happens if the horse is hurt?”

The short answer is, we load him into the back of the Jeep and take him to the Vet. In this case, because of our regular Vet’s unavailability, we take him to a large animal Vet who seems to be completely nonplussed by the presence of a horse in the back of a Jeep and who is totally prepared to perform minor surgical procedures in the back of said Jeep.

The first trick: getting the horse into the back of the Jeep. Begin by layering tarps and sheets across the folded-down rear cargo area. As it turns out, this is the easy part. With horse haltered and on a lead, attempt to convince him that the feed in the dish you are holding is sooooo yummy and sooooo enticing, he would like to crawl up into a metal box to eat it. When simple enticements do not work, offer him the accommodation of a telescoping dog ramp which he politely declines. Attempt to lift said horse into the rear of the Jeep. Abandon this effort when hatch-door comes to horse’s rescue and hits horse-hoister on the top of the head. Try the concessionary move of placing horse’s front hooves onto rear bumper of the Jeep for the pleasure of observing the ruts caused by horse’s rear legs as he backs out of the situation.

Eventually, he was coaxed into the rear of the Jeep after the vehicle had been backed up to the trailer deck portion at the top of the wheelchair ramp. By placing granules of grain on the ramp, a la Hansel and Gretel, and suggesting with gentle tugs on his lead that he follow them, using the aforementioned telescoping ramp untelescoped as a threshold, sitting on the speaker box at the side of the cargo area in the Jeep, and coaxing him far enough into the vehicle to be able to close the hatch.

The second trick: getting the horse in the back of the Jeep to the Veterinary Clinic without some type of major damage to the horse, the Jeep, or me.

K has this funny thing about negative inferences. She says that you shouldn’t say what you don’t want someone to do, because they will automatically envision themselves doing it and then it will happen. My poor buddy Val, came to appreciate this lesson quite painfully one time when she admonished a hammer-swinging K, “Don’t hit my thumb.”

So the whole car ride to the Vet, I am telling myself, “don’t visualize what you don’t want to happen.” And my mind keeps responding with unhelpful suggestions like, “Oh yeah, like him kicking out all the windows?”

I would like to take this opportunity to thank every last person who, when told of K’s intention to acquire a miniature horse, responded by asking me if he bites. Because at some point in time thanks to the sense of humor of either Bill the horse or the cosmos, Bill’s lead rope got caught around my headrest and held his head right over my right ear and shoulder, which on the one hand was a relief since I could then abandon the image of him kicking me in the back of the head as I was driving, in exchange for the visual image of him taking a big old bite out of my shoulder.

While the cosmos were busy playing tricks on me, here is another sad twist: having loaded Bill into the back of the Jeep and having started to make my very tense-but-I-am-trying-to-put-good-energy-out-there-so-Bill-will-not-feed-off-of-my-energy-and-kick-or-bite drive to the Vet, I passed by Steve and Carolyn’s house, where Steve had arrived home just a few minutes previously. His red pickup truck sat, gleaming and utilitarian in their front drive. Had I know this was his early day at work, we would have placed a XXL kennel in the back of his pickup and transported Bill to the Vet thusly. Inertia being what it was, I put my unbitten shoulder to the wheel and pressed on with the wheels already having been set in motion.

We made it to the Vet without incident.

Bill needed stitches in his eyelid, which was accomplished in the back of the Jeep by a very flexible and very nice Vet. In order to perform the procedure, the Vet gave Bill a mild sedative, which made me feel much more secure about making the trip home. Much to all three of our surprise, I was able to hold Bill’s head steady and help with the suturing.

I profusely thanked the Vet, gathered up the antibiotic and ointment for continued care, happily paid for our services, and returned to the Jeep to chauffer Bill home.

The sedative was working nicely. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that shot must have contained a Veterinary form of ecstasy. Thanks to the sedative and whatever elixir was contained therein, I learned today that it is possible to drive a standard transmission vehicle with the head of a drooling, loving, bleeding horse resting on your right shoulder, upper arm, and inner elbow.

When we arrived home, convincing Bill to use the ramp to exit the vehicle was no more successful than using it to encourage his entrée. With Bill’s sedative offering a calming affect for us all, I was able to fashion a different approach for Bill’s extrication from my Jeep. I backed the Jeep up to a low-lying area so the bumper was just a few inches off the ground, and convinced Bill he could make the 4-inch leap with a smattering of pixie dust and a tug on the lead.

And herein lies the most valuable lesson from today’s escapade, as I return home greatly relieved and probably more in love with a horse than I had ever anticipated being, I am awestruck by these magnificent MisFit Farm creatures who offer breathtaking everyday reminders that we can do things we never before thought were within our capacity, no matter how foolhardy they may be.

Emmett & Trinity's Everlasting Love

We were having dinner with an old acquaintance recently. Notwithstanding her confessed efforts to try to keep K and me from continued attempts at dating several years ago, she observed with some degree of astonishment, “My goodness! The two of you are perfect for each other. You belong together.” I think we would agree, most days. As I found Emmett and Trinity piled atop each other on the loveseat after an afternoon of outdoor playing, the theme of belonging together surfaced again.

Her penchant for eating livestock aside, Trinity is gregarious and welcoming to all visitors here at MisFit Farm. Perhaps it is the amount of time Emmett has spent here, or perhaps it is some type of karmic connection, but Trinity and Emmett’s bond appears to be something a little more extraordinary than her run-of-the-mill friendliness. Aside from the copious amounts of time they spend using one another as pillows, Trinity and Emmett are voted the two most likely to disappear on adventures in the woods. If the two of them were second-grade classmates, they would form a formidable dodgeball duo. The snarkiness occasionally demonstrated by their housemates, present company included, rolls right off their collective back. Unlike the others, their food dishes are completely interchangeable. This, truly, will be an everlasting love.



In the not-so-distant past, we were admonished by our friend and the instigator of the Dane-surplus here at MisFit Farm that “[Emmett] wasn’t ever really leaving the Farm, was he?”

Hmmm, I guess not.

If I Had a Pony

Steve and Carolyn, our neighbors and co-conspirators in most things ridiculous or dangerous, brought their granddaughter down to visit MisFit Farm’s newest addition. As documented in the attached video, both Janda and the horse did well, notwithstanding Janda’s sincere disappointment that we would not allow her to ride him.

I was all for plopping her on his back, instructing her to hold on tight and seeing what would happen, but apparently that type of empiricism is discouraged in parenting these days.



So we all had to be contented with petting him, and petting him, and petting him some more. He did try to offer a small concession by rolling around a little, but it wasn’t anything compared to the fun he had when allowed to roam free at his home of origin.

The goats were initially horrified. They ran like crazy when we brought him into the pasture and barn. Well, all except the two fainter boys, who took to this new outsider like a myopic third-grader takes to the new kid in class, especially when the new kid outweighs the class bully by a good 100 pounds.

The dogs are fascinated but too stupid to understand that the traditional dog salutation will likely result in traumatic brain injury when he responds to a friendly, inquisitive butt-sniffing with a kick to the head. We have allowed the dogs to come into the pasture, but are closely supervising all canine/equine interactions.

We are still considering naming options. I like the name Bill, and I think K. is fond of Frodo. Neither of us is so committed to our chosen name that we would melt into a puddle of despair, should the preferred name not be selected. Which probably means his name is Frodo. Why I don’t learn to quit resisting is something I will never understand.

All I Want for Christmas. . .

So, the Hallmark “2007 Pony for Christmas” ornament looks like this:

















The pony K received for Christmas in 2007, amazingly, looks like this:














Well, actually, he isn’t a “pony.” He is a fully grown miniature horse. We don’t have an exact measurement on him, but I estimate him at about five hands tall. As we noted to a friend earlier, he is smaller than a “real” Dane, but larger than a “faux” Dane. Realistically, he is about the height of a Laborador Retriever, but with about 100 extra pounds.

To answer the question everyone seems to have: no, he doesn’t bite. At least not yet. Give us a week.

So far, here is what he DOES do: Wear a halter. Walk on a lead. Allow his hooves to be handled. Romp in the snow.
Engage in a concerted butt-scratching.Receive copious pettings. Try to tolerate being brushed. Dispense nuzzles. Eat hay, sweet feed, and his first-ever apple nugget treats.

His name? Well, we are working on that one.

Happy Ho Ho Holidays from MisFit Farm

It snowed yesterday. It was a snow like I remember from my childhood, an unrelenting, dumping, blowing snow that piled on rooftops and drifted into banks. I shoveled the front deck and steps at about 8:00 yesterday evening, and woke to another inch and a dusting this morning. Most communities didn’t even send out snowplows until well after dark. We awoke this morning to find their handiwork evidenced in a 3-foot high pile spanning the end of our drive.

Among the many good fortunes routinely visited upon us are these most recent blessings: safe travels in adverse weather; plenty of Dane-blankets to keep us warm; and, continuous power and light through the storms.

So, for all the well-wishers out there who have sent messages of concern about the bad weather, here is videographic proof that all is well with the krewe here at MisFit Farm.

Sea-food

I may go down in the annals of snobbery for this one, but I couldn’t resist.

On a weekly basis, we receive, gratis, a circular from a local grocer. On a weekly basis, I perfunctorily flip through the circular admiring the pre-processed food products offered by the local grocer.

I laughed out loud at this one and immediately reached for the digital camera.

On our next vacation, we are making arrangements to visit the sea where we will find catfish and pre-breaded, processed fish sticks. But first, I must research what type of bait is used to catch these yummy breaded fish portions.

It is hard to see, but at the fold, the IGA has combined the best of all possible worlds into the seafood delicacy of breaded catfish nuggets. I just can't get enough of those fresh seafood catfish nuggets.

Oh and by the way, gigantic, stocking-hat-wearing penguins are indigenous to the sea where these wonderful products all reside.

Be-deviled by Eggs

K thinks I am obsessed with eggs. The jubilation that accompanied the first two has been repeated, time and again, as production has increased and we have come to the place where we are collecting between 3 – 6 eggs every day. At an average rate of 4 eggs a day, we accumulate a dozen roughly every three days. I cook an egg breakfast for the dogs every Saturday, which uses generally six eggs, resulting in a weekly egg credit of 22. That’s almost two dozen. Using a Monday – Sunday week, that is usually a full two dozen by the time I hop into my car and head off to work each Monday.

Jubilation is slowing being replaced by the discomfort associated with bounties undeserved and product without any available outlet.

Not one to believe in wasting anything, I have been researching egg recipes. This great guy I work with has told me stories about his mother, who keeps chickens, and her miraculous feats of egg-incorporation. As a creative, articulate, socially responsible retiree, she seemed to be an incredible woman before; as the number of full and filling egg cartons begins to populate our fridge, her stature is ever mounting in my mind. I am seriously considering offering to pay for self-publication if she will compile a cookbook for all-egg recipes.

I made a pound cake this evening. K watched in awe as I dumped sugar into a bowl of softened butter and beat it to a fluffy consistency. I am not inclined to bake. I ascribe to the notion that carbohydrates are a zero-sum game. I choose mine wisely, mostly in a liquid form. She asked at some point, “what inspired you to try to make a pound cake?” I think it was my response that has touched off concern. The pound cake I made was from a recipe procured from the American Egg Association Website, Plantation Pound Cake. It contains lemon, which K’s mom loves. So my response was, “I thought I would give it a try to see if it might be something your mom was into." I tried to add under my breath, "And it uses 4 eggs.”

At the time, she was peering over my shoulder, scrutinizing the other recipes I had copied from the Website. “Oasis Eggs? Cabbage? Green onions?” she queried. My response, “Well, it looked interesting. It also has crabmeat and uses six eggs.”

She doesn’t think I noticed, but I saw the look of chagrin and concern.

More Holiday Observations

I don’t get out much. K, she works “in the community,” so her exposure to people, contemporary developments, retail, and other things, is greater than mine. I have an office job, where I spend the great amount of my time in close proximity to my desk, which accounts for a great amount of my life, at least 40 hours a week, usually more. While I do the family grocery shopping, I attack that process with the same aggression and surgical precision I apply to most all other things in my life. I don’t browse – I map out the layout of the store, organize my list accordingly, and do not deviate. I don’t window shop – I use the Internet, precisely because I can do it whenever I want, or at my desk, if necessary. I read about “real life.” I hear about it on NPR. I listen to its music. However, I choose not to interact with it very much.

So imagine my surprise, or alternatively, my consternation, at being plopped down into the middle of a local Best Buy store Sunday afternoon. Where I discovered the real-life fun of virtual guitar playing, known commonly as Guitar Hero ©. Rock on!

Aside from the fact that I had to wait patiently in line for the under 13 crowd to relinquish their grimy hold on the guitar at one of the playstations to the rear of the store, I have to admit that I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

And it wasn’t just the time spent with guitar in hand.

As I walked into the store past the computer section, I noticed one of the game centers, where there were two young men with long, frizzy hair and flannel shirts commandeering the guitar/drum/karaoke station. These guys were at the station when I arrived, held court in it the entirety of my visit, and were still firmly ensconced when I left the store. These guys were a riot – grunge circa 1992, likely owners of every single album Pearl Jam ever put out (with strong opinions on what the “true” greatest hits should have been), lifesize posters of Cobain adorning their bedrooms, with the last car in Topeka, Kansas to use regular gasoline parked in the Best Buy lot. These guys air-riffed, drummed and wailed their hearts out, as if the rest of the population: Best Buy, 50,000 were not sharing their space. I tried to organize people to stand on the other side of the machine and jump up and down with their hands in the “I love you” formation, crowd-swim, or hold up lighters, but the real Topeka is just as boring as I remembered it.

Holiday Gift Idea

Because we are shameless promoters of all things we perceive as good in this world, we bring to you this evening a wonderful holiday gift idea: The 18-month Great Dane Rescue of the Ozark calendar. http://www.lulu.com/content/266829

It is hard to believe, but we have nearly used up the last 18-month calendar purchased from the GDRO, which means that it has been over a year and a half since we fell down the “Dane hole.” I cannot think of a more delightful way to mark time.

Should any of you find yourselves wondering, “How in the world will I cover that very large hole in my wall/door/ceiling (perhaps a hole caused by the intrusion of a small plane or a cannonball)?” Or, “How can I ensure that on the first day of every month, I get to flip over a page and go, aaaawwwww?” Or, “How can I complete all my holiday shopping from the comfort of my own home?” The GDRO calendar is just the ticket. The calendar is large enough that people who drive Shriner cars home have replaced entire garage doors with it. With a full 18-months’ Dane delights, it has the added feature of offering insulation when displayed on an exterior wall.

Ours arrived in the mail yesterday; it offers a variety of delightful, laugh-out-loud photos, tearful moments, and plenty of “aaaawwwww’s.” This year’s calendar features MisFit Farm’s resident mayhem-maker, Azure; the archetypical alpha-dog, Apollo; the consummate camera-pleaser, Nadia; the sire of a goodly number of the Danes bred in SW Missouri, Chief, along with a few others who left this mortal coil to wait for the rest of us at what is referred to by those more inclined toward Hallmark-described events as “the rainbow bridge.”

We highly recommend the GDRO calendar for holiday giving, because while not everyone has Danes, everyone does have days. Or, you could always give the REAL gift that keeps giving and ADOPT A GREAT DANE - GDRO has plenty of lovable babies in need of loving homes.

Azure's Campaign of Annoyance

What do you do when you are sitting miserably at home, lamenting the lackluster performance of your alma matter in possibly the most over-hyped college football game to visit the Midwest in recent memory? Why, share the joy by offering up the vicarious experience of life with Azure.



As observed in a previous post, Trinity is the world's greatest big sister.

As is obvious from the beginning of this clip, Emmett is the world's loudest drinker.

Azure is . . . Azure.

Just do as she says and no one gets hurt, o.k.?

Rescue

Lest anyone think we are anything more than the garden-variety goobers with poor boundaries we are, the Grande Dame of the Great Danes, KK, sent along these photos to offer comparison/contrast to the recent video of our Mercy-girl:



Our friend, Fred, says he would like to meet every SOB who’s ever dumped a dog. I think these photos help illustrate the reasons for his anger.

To be clear: The Great Dane Rescue of the Ozarks saved Mercy. They were the ones who were brave enough to walk into a bad situation and walk out with a dog it hurts to look at. They were the ones who taught her to walk. They took her for x-rays, shots, spay and vet consults. They fed her. They loved her. They helped restore her trust in humans.

And then, they did the most amazing thing: they loved her enough and trusted us enough to release her to become a member of our family.

We never met the Mercy from these photos. Thank goodness there was someone else there to meet this Mercy, and nurture her along to the Mercy we met and fell in love with.

We didn’t do the hard part. The brave people who really rescue dogs and who provide safe haven for rescued dogs at great personal cost, do the hard part. We got the easy part, take home a sweet, loving creature, adjust to a silly walk and small idiosyncrasies, and build a family around her.

**For the part of us that is enraged by these photos, they are instructive and inspirational for this:

1. This is the work of puppy mills. Spay and neuter, and encourage everyone you meet to have their animals spayed and neutered. Don’t patronize businesses that sell animals or are associated with puppy mill operations.

2. Support local rescues, no-kill shelters, spay and neuter programs, or any other program that encourages responsible pet ownership and supports the brave people who refuse to just sit by idly while harm befalls other creatures. And if you are in the market for a worthy charity where your donation is tax deductible, the Great Dane Rescue of the Ozarks fits the bill perfectly. Just this week, they rescued two more desperate babies with parvo and idiopathic seizure disorders, so I bet they can use the help.

The Wood Song

The first time my secretary and her sons met Mercy, her four-year-old rushed to his babysitter's house the next day to regale her with the story of “the dog that walks sideways.” For a four-year-old, he does a mean imitation of Mercy’s crazy gait, with her back driver-side leg swinging out, and the little twisting she does at changes of terrain or tempo. I am sure the humor was completely lost on his day care provider.

While to some, her sit-and-spin routine may be the type of tragedy to cry over, for us it has become almost humdrum, not really anything of note except to exhort her to “pull herself back up,” and check the area for any needed applications of triple antibiotic ointment upon return to the trailer. That said, she really is a remarkable creature for her amazing spirit and because of her plucky willingness to keep pulling herself up notwithstanding her crazy back end that sometimes just does not want to mind its manners.

The key to Mercy’s longevity has not been so much anything we can take credit for – we don’t hand-prepare highly specialized diets, we don’t have any magic elixir to help her get around, we don’t place her in a pool for physical therapy. Her “therapies” such as they are, consist of primarily being given run of the trailer and right of first refusal for the couch, the bed, and the kibble dishes; we give her daily vitamins and supplements, pets and pats and massages, farm fresh eggs on the weekends, playmates, and ample opportunities to walk, run, romp and spin.

We could have chosen an easier path. There are plenty of perfectly healthy Danes available for adoption. But Mercy has provided us with a living, breathing celebration and a powerful reminder that, “we’ll make it fine if the weather holds, but if the weather holds, we’ll have missed the point.”

DR Emmett

We have previously told of the new “implement” here at the Farm, our turbo-charged weed eater, the DR. I spent a weekend working with it and its different sharp attachments, emerging with only a small nick on my thumb, a completely cleared island in the pond, and several new “paths” cut around the property.

We were quite pleased with the results. We may have paid a little too much attention to the device, however. It appears as though someone has been left with the mistaken impression that hacking down weeds and spinning around are features we look for in all objects of our affection.

If Wishes Were Houses, We Wouldn't Live in a Trailer

I bought the property now known as MisFit Farm over three years ago, wholly intending to build a house on it. In the meantime, there was a trailer on the property, which for the likes of Coffee-dog and me was quite all right. A few months ago, one of the Dane rescue people, desperate to find a placement for a foster baby, asked, “aren’t you done building your house yet?!?!”

“The house” has taken on a number of iterations. I have been encouraged to build a sod house, an A-frame, a berm home, a kit home, a straw bale home, just about everything except a toilet home. Before I realized the joys of mass animal care, I had entertained the notion of a total do-it-myself home building project. When K joined me in the planning phases, we spent hours poring over home design books and floorplans. We made lists of “must-haves,” “like-to-haves,” and “absolutely not’s.” We thought we had decided upon the perfect design. Then came the Danes. And not just Danes. Danes with disabilities.

The summer before last, I was sharing some bonding time with my mother in a brief car ride. She confided in me that she had a terrible fear that in ten years, I would still be living in this trailer, only I would have ten dogs living here with me. I encouraged her to find other more important things to worry about like ice caps melting, world hunger or genocide. Shortly after this conversation, the dog count hit five, and a mere year later, we have crossed the halfway mark on the “feared number of dogs” count to bring our total to five-plus-one-more. I certainly hope the alternative fears my mother agreed to take on have gone better. We may have to call her off the whole ice caps melting thing lest Kansas become the new Galveston.

Always ones to look upon the brighter side of life and in an effort to not appear lazy, indecisive or unmotivated, we believe that this additional time has provided us with an opportunity to reconsider how we (meaning both bi-peds and the dogs) will live in a house. Thanks to this additional time, we have come to appreciate what a complete inconvenience the presence of things like hallways would be in our home. We have had time to think through the design of a “dog room,” plumbing configurations, appropriate furniture and doorway placements, home entry strategies, safety features and storage needs.

As you can clearly see, the planning process and what will hopefully soon be our final descent into the actual event of homebuilding has taken quite a bit out of my already truncated attention span. So we hope all will bear with us as we are perhaps a bit less frequent in our posting. Once the house is completed, we promise to throw a big virtual party for all to join.

In any event, one of these days very soon, we will have the perfect home for our not-so-perfect krewe. Hopefully before MisFit Farm becomes beachfront property.

Love Seat Redux

I assume that the Shriners and/or the “clown car” are a universally recognized emblem. An emblem of what, I am not certain. Like a magician pulling miles of scarves from a hat, the Shriners or the clowns emerge, one after the other, wearing funny hats, or wigs or makeup, some wearing shoes that alone would fill up the back seat of a Honda Civic.

But the “clown car” has some magical property a ‘la Hermoine Granger’s clutch from The Deathly Hallows – jangling around in the untold depths are bucket seats, family photos, and probably the very same circus tent that houses scores of clown car aficionados.

As it turns out, the love seat in the trailer contains the same magic elixir that allows not just one oversized dog to inhabit it; the love seat is not even mollified by the presence of two Danes, a feat so oft-repeated it doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. But three: now there is a feat worthy of the awe and attentions of people who haven’t received the memo about the obsolescence of fez hats.

Or, at least it merits a photo.

There is one person in the Dane rescue group who labors under the delusion that there is something that could be done to stop the Dane infestation of a household’s furnishings. As for us, we have just given up and started saving for our next couch.

Love Seat

When selecting furniture for the trailer, I didn’t have any notion that we would someday call upon it to accommodate multiple large dogs. I haven’t ever been one to be fussy about things like pets on the furniture, which is a good thing, since the Danes aren’t too interested in reposing upon anything other than the furniture. How animals from checkered and caged existences come so quickly to a place where they feel entitled to have the right of first refusal for the couch is a bit of a mystery to me.


Yesterday, I was trying to teach my three-year-old niece to re-direct her one-year-old brother, instead of shouting at him and pushing him when he encroached upon her play area. Today, as I watch the dogs vie for the “couch” and look across a mass of un-occupied dog beds, I am awash in the irony of a naïve belief that undesirable behavior can quickly be supplanted by the availability of a reasonable alternative.


Unlike my three-year-old niece, we HAVE learned a little something about sharing.

In retrospect, I don’t know that I could have chosen a better piece of furniture than something called a love seat for our cozy little place in the country.

This Is Serious

As previously documented, the goats have been a delightful group of pets, but not so very uniformly reliable as lawn mowers. Of course, just in time for Fall and Winter, they have grazed down their pasture and the island in the pond, thereby necessitating the purchase of hay to supplement graze as the weather turns cold. And, just in time for Winter, I bought a new “toy” to help the goats with their chores.

I am externally restrained from playing with fire and sharp objects. The first Christmas I was living here at the Farm, I asked my mother to buy me a chain saw. She begged me to let her just give me the money and I could purchase it myself, so she wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of having purchased the implement that eventually severs my arm or some other part from the trunk of my body. She made up for her pessimistic attitude the next Spring when she kindly came out to watch over the smoldering embers of the two acres I accidentally set on fire while cleaning up the property and multi-tasking.

Imagine the mixture of horror and delight as I was reading through the owner’s manual for my new toy, and happened across this:


What to say beyond, “ouch”?!

The good neighbors and I were touring the property a few weekends ago and admiring the overgrowth when I told them I had ordered this industrial strength push-trimmer, but I couldn’t remember the name. We bandied about several versions of what I thought the name was when Steve remembered that it is a “D-R.” As what may turn out to be a terrible instance of foreshadowing, he proudly announced that he remembered the name because it was D-R like Doctor.

I may need to order a second Blue Cross/Blue Shield card for K to keep in her purse. I have a feeling it will be difficult to retrieve mine from my wallet if my finger looks like that. Have no fear, safety goggles were included.

Just say "yolk"

These are our first two eggs.



These are our first two eggs on toast.

Any questions?

Not at the Farm

O.k. - this has absolutely nothing to do with the Farm or funny stories about the krewe. I momentarily entertained the notion of attempting to create a gossamer connection via the first question asked here, which is something akin to: An animal with three letters in its name.

But that would be intellectually dishonest, wouldn't it? And I expressly save intellectual dishonestly for the fourth Wednesday of each month, which is not today.

So suffice it to say: I have watched this several times and laugh my ear off every viewing.

Part of it is the nostalgia of the program - I remember watching Family Feud with my mother for a brief period after my sister was born and my mom did the whole stay-at-home thing. Television then was incredible. We had Family Feud, The Dating Game AND The Gong Show. We had Ryan's Hope, Emergency One and Mary Hartman. People like Raquel Welch, Lena Horne and John Denver visited Sesame Street. We were rescued by Spiderman, The Bionic Woman, The Ten Million Dollar Man, and Charlie's Angels. Last but not least, Saturday Night Live was awesome then.

I would happily bet $100.00 that no one in America laughs at Survivor, The Biggest Loser, The Great Race, Big Brother, or almost any other show like we can laugh at this:



** ahem, jumping down off soapbox now **

She Stands Accused

Or maybe Azure has just surrendered to the authorities. Not likely.

One of the people involved in Azure’s many travels spoke to me by telephone after we had brought her to the fold of MisFit Farm. Among Azure’s many transgressions while in the caller’s company, this particular person seemed to be particularly troubled by an episode where Azure “tore all the covers off the bed.” Throughout our phone conversation, the caller returned to this event repeatedly. Sure, she broke through the glass in the French doors. O.k., maybe she tried to eat the cat. And perhaps Azure used the household furniture like catwalks. The caller impressed upon me this Most important observation: she tore all the covers off the bed.

For all the behaviors we have been able to correct in Azure, tearing all the covers off the bed is one that has escaped correction. Perhaps the caller knew more about this particular behavior as a harbinger of terrible things to come. Perhaps the caller had an unnatural attachment to her bedding. Perhaps it was just the so-called straw that broke her back.

As for us, we generally just keep the bedroom door shut. On occasion, we are less vigilant, and a crack in the door quickly becomes an opening for Azure to quell her insatiable desire to tear all the covers off the bed.

I can’t help loving it when I find Azure sprawled out like this, even when she has torn all the covers off the bed. It looks, for a small moment in time like Azure has surrendered, whether she has surrendered to the pure joy of a good back scratch, the jubilation of another successful bed defiling, or the scintillating pleasure of having breached the baby gates to settle herself into exactly the place she ought not to be.

4 feet x 4 feet x 4 Danes

Storms rolled through the area last night beginning around midnight, and are prepared to settle in and stay for what looks to be at least the rest of our Saturday.

The Laboradors, notwithstanding centuries of breeding as hunting dogs, are deathly afraid of loud noises. Loud noises in the nature of fireworks and most relevant to our present situation, thunder, send the Labs into a frenzy.

So last night went a little something like this:

9:00 p.m. To bed for an out-loud chapter from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
10:20 p.m. Phone call from frantic aunt in search of runaway uncle
12:43 p.m. Phone call from frantic aunt having found runaway uncle. Faint thunder is beginning in the distance. I am awake enough after the frantic aunt phone call to get up and medicate the neurotic dogs.
4:00 a.m. Full blown storms. Effectiveness of medication called into question. Attempt to continue repose in a supine position is abandoned. Dogs are sheparded out of the bedroom so someone can get some semblance of rest.

I spent the rest of the morning attempting to sneak back to bed, sleep in a chair, sleep in the loveseat and accomplish something – anything.

Admittedly, the storms were pretty intense. Lighting was heavy, even into the late morning. I nearly completed one of the books I have been reading, “Dog Spelled Backwards,” as consolation and by way of reminder of the abiding love I have for the krewe. I disinfected dog dishes, dusted, made a special breakfast for the dogs laced with more medication for the ones who needed it, and at some point in time, noticed the four-dog pile up at my feet.

I am not a fearful human. That said, I live in mortal fear that the Labs will pass their neuroses on to the Danes. I cannot imagine anything more terrifying than the combination of insane anxiety and destructive ability that could be wrapped into a tidy package in the Danes.

When I counted off the floor tiles in the photo and calculated the known width of the ghastly carpet they were spread across, it appears as though they actually have squeezed themselves into less than 16 square feet, but 4x4x4 makes for a dramatic equation.

I maintain that the building of a total house is completely unnecessary. All we really need is the 16 square feet immediately surrounding me.

An Anniversary and An Obstacle

Time with the krewe seems to slip right through our fingers. I looked at the calendar earlier this week and was astounded to see the 22nd of October approaching.

The 22nd of October marks our un-official one-year anniversary with Azure. After I had deposited her in Northern Missouri on October 20th and turned my car toward home with much relief, it never once occurred to me that I had not seen the last of this little dervish.

Azure’s story is not just her own. It is also the story of her counterpart on the fated dane-train ride to the north, and it has grown to be the story of love and friendship across the miles.


Folks who are familiar with the story know that, a mere 36 hours after I deposited Azure at her Friday night stop on the Dane Train, she returned to us, and her angelic counterpart, Ava, left us to take her place with this forever family. The exchange of leads was tearful on both ends. As the two vehicles departed that roadside drop-off point, one headed north, and the other pointed south, both cars were filled with regret and misgiving.


For nearly a year now, Ava in her northern home and Azure here at the farm each have learned their way through their worlds. Azure has fallen into her routines and has found the structure she needs to make her life stable and sane. Ava has won over the complete allegiance of her “brother,” and made significant inroads with the family cat. By email and through the blogs, we have shared in the growth of our respective families. We had the greatest opportunity to spend time with Ava’s mother at a conference earlier this summer, and an affinity we had developed through the dogs was able to gain traction of its own, personally and professionally.

I cannot explain how it felt to receive the message that suddenly, without explanation, Ava lost the remainder of her residual eyesight a few days ago. Notwithstanding brave pronouncements about life with disability, the notion of moving from Ava’s shadowed world into total darkness was a disconcerting thought. Ava’s mommy had made the statement one time that, when we met in that parking lot in Northern Missouri to trade out dogs, she could tell that Azure would be able to find what she needed with us. Azure does indeed demand a firmer hand, probably a skill set more suited to handling by someone like me instead of the creative, ebullient, loving, sensitive types of people who are inclined to become sign language interpreters.

And now, maybe more than ever, Ava needs the security, creativity, encouragement, patience and support of the people who are the perfect-made-to-order-just-right family for her. As I gaze upon our crazy little dervish, Azure, and picture her springing up from her chair and into action, butt tucked under her and ears laid flat back as she bursts into a full-bore run, and I think of Ava leaning bravely against her mommy, teeth chattering as they step into the darkness together, I am filled with an overwhelming sense that we are all exactly where we belong.

Doggy Door

Here at the trailer, we sport the largest doggy door in the history of the world. It was installed before we began Great Dane rescue, after we had taken in a dog under threat of euthanasia. He was a black lab named Checota, a sweet, amazing lug of a dog, who was one of the most fetching-est dogs I ever met. Checota was jet-black. K. purchased this fabulous glow-in-the-dark ball for us, and when I would take him into the front yard every evening for our workout, the ball was all you could see in the wonderful, peaceful, amazing darkness we enjoy here. I would toss it across the yard and he would come streaking out of the darkness to gather the ball up in his mouth mid-bounce, and come bounding across the yard like an ecstasied “goth” at a Rave. Next to a heavy-bag recommended by a former therapist, that ball, dog, and exercise is some of the most therapeutic time I have spent in my life.

After Checota was gone, the doggy door remained, and it has come in handy as our pack has grown. Unfortunately for us, the pack’s idea of the doggy door’s utility and our ideas about its purpose have occasionally diverged.

As the largest doggy door in production, it measures roughly 15” x 20”. Even at that size, it was nearly too small for our former foster boy, Alistair. The krewe, however, seems to eschew the notion of “too small.”

Among the luxurious accommodations offered here at MisFit Farm is the omnipresence of oversized dog beds. Our average dog bed runs about 40” x 30”. Looking at them strewn across the living room floor, K. remarked the other day that it looked like we had a harem living here.

The krewe seems to be in agreement with K’s assessment and are committed to the deconstruction of this decorating motif, so they have taken to pulling the oversized dog beds out through the oversized dog door into the yard.

As I pulled into the driveway one evening last week, Trinity was majestically perched atop one of the beds out in the yard. Another bed was laying at the opening of a bunker the dogs have trenched out on the west edge of their yard.

Their spatial reasoning must be magnificent. I once endeavored to move a queen-sized mattress with hinges up a very narrow stair well to a second-story bedroom. I had to employ the use of ratchets and pullies. They don’t even have thumbs (thank the heavens).


On occasion we will come home to find a bed wedged in the doggy door. I strongly suspect, however, that this is the case only because we came home too soon and they abandoned the endeavor in favor of gang-rushing the front door to greet us and show off their handiwork.

On the other hand, I came home this evening to find this three-bed pile-up. I summarily decided that after the demise of our current stash of beds, we will upgrade to twin or crib-sized mattresses. Surely those won't fit, with or without hinges or thumbs.

Puppy Kisses

I know conventional wisdom tells us that dog kisses are gross, but at MisFit Farm, we accept them as part of our charm. Kisses are just another delight for the inhabitants of MisFit Farm, and just as our barks are completely distinct, so is our style of kisses.

Skeeter is the queen kisser. Skeeter actually likes it best if you kiss her on her snout. She will offer it up to you to receive kisses; if you do a good enough job, she will return the favor with licks to the chin, cheek, and sometimes hand.

Azure is a committed chin-licker. She prefers to climb up onto your lap with her front legs and offer firm, not-too-wet, concise licks on the chin. I refer to the process with Azure as “tenderizing.”

Emmett isn’t a licker so much. He has this funny way of putting his face right up next to yours and holding it so close, you can feel him breathing on you. Then quickly, he “bumps” his nose and mouth into you. Our neighbor, Steve, finds the whole process hilarious. Steve recounts, "Out of nowhere, a huge blocky head appears, and you are expecting the sloppiest kiss ever in the world." Instead, as long as Emmett hasn’t recently taken a dip in the water bucket (otherwise referred to as a drink), you just get a little love bump. K made the comment the other day that actually, this is probably what it feels like to Emmett when we give him kisses.

Mercy has a similar style of kissing, only she pushes her soft, wrinkly mouth and floppy lips up against the object of her affection. She is also inclined to offer a regimen of “flea biting” behavior as a special sort of flourish for her kisses.

Coffee is the exception to the rule. Among Coffee’s many personality quirks, public displays of affection cannot be counted. Given the rigors of medication regimens, he will hardly eat food out of my hand, always wary of an unsuspected pill. On occasion, however, he will give my hand a little lick, when for some unfathomable reason he is overcome with affection.

I am almost embarrassed to report the number of times Trinity has provided me with the unexpected delight of some in-the-mouth tongue action. Trinity freely offers her affection at the slightest provocation. When she is allowed into the bed, she always expresses her appreciation by offering lots of kisses and flea-bites to the cheek, chin, or any other available part (cover up, kids!). When she is feeling a need to be close and I am feeling a need to wash dishes, she will spread herself out on the kitchen floor with her head on my foot and offer my ankle intermittent kisses.

My sister and I took my nephew to the park one time when he was just under a year old. On our way home from the park, as an homage to a childhood family ritual, Lisa and I took C to Dairy Queen. He was young enough we decided going inside the DQ would be best in the interest of avoiding ice cream carnage across the back seat of my car. It wasn’t until we were inside that we realized C hadn’t ever really had ice cream before. So we decided it would be best to cut his teeth on a hot fudge sundae.

As we had expected, he loved it. He was so enthusiastic about his new treat, he was grinning and grabbing my arm to deliver hugs and kisses to my upper arm all the way back to the car. That is what Trinity kisses are like: an excitement and an acknowledgement of a love so overwhelming, it just seeps out as little kisses – a toe as you walk by, a hand that has fallen off the side of the bed, an open mouth asking K what she would like for dinner, or an elbow on a walk under a sky brilliant with stars.

Skunked

K is, for the most part, pretty unflappable. Not much really seems to get to her. Whether she is called upon to provide communication in extraordinarily intimate settings or required to wipe up cold dog vomit, she maintains a generally calm, staid, pleasant demeanor. She does not engage in an excess of emotive displays. She does not raise her voice in elation or crumple to the floor in sadness. With one reliable exception, she is not in the least inclined to dramatics.

Shortly after moving back to Kansas, while K, Skeeter and Susie were living with K’s parents, Skeeter became frantic about being let outside one crisp Fall evening. K took her to the back door, obligingly opened it, and when Skeeter shot out the door, K stepped out behind her, straight into the oncoming spray of a skunk.

K tried every product and every home remedy known to humankind to rid herself and Skeeter of the skunk odor. Hours, days and gallons of water were devoted to the dissolution of the powerful odor. When she showed up for an all-day engagement several days after the close encounter of the skunk kind, the other interpreter, eyes watering, demanded that K leave the assignment at once. K swears that to this day, there are remote corners of her mother’s basement where she can still smell the vestiges of her skunk attack.

A by-product of this experience is that the smell of a skunk can send K into absolute conniptions, a response that unfailingly reduces me to laughter, and reminds me of my own fond memory, a band my step-father played in, the Shyster Mountain Boys, and their rendition of my sister’s only favorite song they played. This isn’t them, but these guys are nearly as goofy as the Shyster Mountain Boys were in their heyday:

Deer Season

The air has begun to turn crisp here in Kansas, an early harbinger of the advent of the Fall season. In Kansas, Fall can last three days or three months, depending on the vagaries of El Nino, the hole in the Ozone layer, population trends or any of a variety of indiscernables. Although how brisk or how brutal the changing seasons will be in Kansas is totally unpredictable, deer season is not.

Aside from the crispness in the air, we know we are moving toward deer season when the sounds of shotgun reports echo through the valley, Wal-Mart becomes inundated with camoflauge and it is time once again to insult Mercy’s panache by outfitting her with a hunter-orange collar.

Despite her attempts to look completely annoyed and utterly unimpressed by our concern that she would be mistaken for a deer by some near-sighted, Southern-Comfort-soaked hunter in the early morning mists, we know that deep, deep down inside, Mercy really does appreciate our care and attention.

Compendium of Inappropriate Chew Toys

The dogs are not always perfect, but few are. On occassion, they will direct destructive tendencies toward less-than-appropriate chewables. Thankfully, we own very little material objects of value. There have been a couple of books destroyed, which are of course sacraments in the home of this recovering English major. CDs, DVD's, PS2 games and VHS tapes have fared well. Various paper products, including the most recent Lawrence phone book have met their pulper somewhat earlier than anticipated. Shoes have largely been the chosen object of destruction, mine in particular.

In response to my proposal to invest in a new pair of Doc Martens for the krewe's chewing pleasure, my friend, Fred, supplied the following:

"Along with Doc Martens, here is an addendum to the list of alternative dog chew toys.

Claw hammers
7 ¼ inch Skil Saw cases
Formaldehyde-treated deck timbers
Live ducks
Countless leather work gloves
Hundred-pound karate kicking bags
Electric fence insulators
Each other
Select Comfort mattress pillow-top
Pioneer VSX-515 audio/video multi-channel stereo remote control units
Live pet bunny rabbits
Holy scriptures left open on the floor
Condenser microphones
Assorted outdoor furniture
Happy Meal prizes
Lawn sprinklers
Garden hoses
Live 110-volt electrical cords
Beautiful blooming rose bushes (thorns and all)
Bicycle seats
Bicycle pedals
Lawn mower starter ropes
Empty beer cans
Full beer cans
Gasoline cans
Oil funnels
Grease rags
Prescription sunglasses
And probably wining lottery tickets (I wouldn’t know.)"

This list is empirically developed. I myself have been witness to some of the destruction to which Fred refers. Unbelievably, this is the work of five or six dogs through the years, at least half of whom fall firmly within the category of "drop kick" or "ankle biter" dogs.

See, don't we feel better now?

Happy Tails to You

K mentioned tonight that I should update folks on the status of Emmett’s tail, particularly given its softer chosen target as documented in our “Economy” post.

As we left the story last, we were in the process of trying an under-the-belly sling to restrain our happy boy’s jubilant tail. K’s brother, the Vet, recommended affixing the tail to Emmett’s rear leg, a trick apparently employed by people who raise and treat Greyhounds. Both systems met with advantages and disadvantages of their own, or perhaps my execution was weak.

Suffice it to say that I was not getting the results I desired within the timeframe I desired.

So, with the family mantra of “better living through chemicals” dancing on my lips, I loaded Emmett into the Jeep one sunny Saturday morning to implore our Vet to give us a jump start with some antibiotics.

A word about our Vet: oh, forget it. I couldn’t possibly proffer up just a word.

A common remedy employed by our Vet is a cocktail shot, cocktail being a word I believe is very near and dear to his heart. The cocktail is usually some combination of antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and steroid. Whatever the cocktail is, experience has made us believers.

Having worked with hematomas, abrasions, skin infections, ear infections, allergies and any of a variety of other ailments that have led us to his doorstep, Emmett was dispatched to the good doctor’s office for a dosing of the cocktail.

Imagine my dismay when the good doctor’s first comment was, “Oh boy, I may have to take that off.”

Never one to exercise an expansive sense of bedside manner, Doc didn’t look up as I responded, “The idea behind this visit is to leave with MORE than we came with.”

“Well,” he responded to Emmett, “we’ll start with a shot and have your mommy give you some pills.” He finally looked at me and said, “If this isn’t a lot better in the next week, I will have to take it.”

Devastated but determined, I returned home, pills in hand, resolved to the salvation of Emmett’s tail. I purchased the entire available supply of Pet-Wrap from the local PetCo, a spray bottle of Bitter Apple, and re-committed myself to our tail-wrapping regimen, bolstered by our week’s supply of antibiotics.

The week came and went, and we did, in fact, make marked improvement. The happy tail remains attached to the happy torso. K feels confident that we have turned a corner. It has been another full week without blood splatter, and healing seems to be occurring, or maybe just scarring. We are certainly not completely out of the woods yet, but feel confident that additional damage will be manageable. Emmett, for one, looks hopeful.

Lessons on Economy

Another very important lesson the dogs have taught us is about economy. Aside from the obvious: buy kibble in bulk and have it palletized and drop-shipped, they have taught us about the value of using all available resources.

Take our feet for example. Up until the krewe joined us, we were completely wasting the top parts of them. Sure, we got a lot of mileage from the bottom parts as they carried us from place to place. On occasion, the sides of our feet were used for kicking, pushing, or holding something in place. One time, I did use the top of my foot to “lever” a door into place as I was sliding it onto its hinges. Other than these few, isolated incidents, feet were pretty much all about the bottom.

Not any more.

Now, the tops of feet are routinely used as cushions, springboards, stepping stones, levers, belly scratchers and headrests.

Our legs serve as supports to hold not only our trunks upright, but also the trunks of dogs. They work as tunnels. They offer blockades for safe passage. And sometimes, as evidenced by this:

They make excellent whipping posts.

In a world where many things are taken for granted, the krewe reminds us again of the gross under-utilization and lack of imagination and innovation inherent to our dulled and bi-pedaled existence.

PoiDog Pondering

By the way, by reference to an earlier post about my abysmal laundering abilities and the song by PoiDog Pondering with the line:

you should wear with pride/
the scars on your skin/
they're a map of the adventures/
and the places you've been

They have disabled the embedded link, but here is the video version from youtube delivered the old fashioned way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrr9eFHKdKM

I (heart) my Wife

Although it is not self-evident by the state of affairs on the pair of jeans I wore to work today, I have a desk job.

Now, if we had human children and they came home from school wearing a previously clean-off-the-hanger pair of pants that returned home looking like this, I imagine I would launch into a strenuous cross-examination a little something like this:

A: Are these the same pants you left the house in this morning?

A: When you embarked the school bus this morning, did it in fact drive you and
deposit you at the schoolhouse door?

A: Were you required to perform automotive maintenance to earn passage on said school bus?

A: Did I miss the Perry/Lecompton running of the bulls event?

A: Are we preparing for the science fair project where you test the empirical
effectiveness of stain remover products?

A: Was this the day your class took a field trip to the Mammoth tar pits in western Colorado?

A: Did you feel that your mother was requiring job security?

Thankfully, K just gives me that sweet, dimpled smile and pulls some magic
remedy off of the shelf to have me cleaned up and looking presentable in two shakes of a goat's tail.

An Open Letter to the Purveyors of Dog Toys

We imagine you enjoy a challenge. If you didn’t, you would have chosen an easier product for production and distribution. Something like: soufflés.

We, like you, enjoy a challenge. We own dogs. Not just any dogs. Big dogs. And some not-so-big dogs, but all dogs with “issues.” Some of our dogs have orthopedic issues, some have sensory issues, and one, in particular, has the ostensible issue that she herself enjoys challenges.

The challenge of a “tough toy” is one she is always willing to rise to meet. So far, she has been the undefeated winner. The challenge, it seems, is a timed one for her. The challenge, rather than “is this toy really indestructible?” is framed as “how quickly can I destroy a toy labeled as ‘indestructible’?”

We spend significant amounts of time and money seeking out toys purporting to be indestructible, tough, durable, everlasting and perfect-for-aggressive-chewers. As demonstrated below, most have met with a most untimely demise.


We have been keeping an admittedly unscientific tally on toy performance. To date, here are the results:

Jolly kritters: 5 minutes, decapitation and then total annihilation
Jolly ball: 15 minutes, handle chewed off
Fat Cat: 25 minutes, ripped and de-stuffed
Combat/Bamboo: 3 minutes, ripped and de-stuffed
Fire Hose: 10 minutes, ripped and frayed
Tuff Toy tug: 45 minutes, torn nearly in half
Tuff Toy Alligator: 20 minutes, eviscerated

Now, we are intrigued with this possibility:

http://www.dog.com/itemdy00.asp?T1=312755

But at a whopping $75.00, we decided it would be more cost-effective to purchase a new pair of Doc Martens for our chewing pleasure (for the record, pieces and parts of the last pair of Doc Martens continue to circulate through the toy box, nearly six months after their initial assault), or perhaps something that would give chase.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it (after your most recent soufflé is done, of course), is to create a toy that can live up to its adjectives when given the true test of mettle, and that we pay less for than a weekly vet allowance. Our vet drives a nice car, but not that nice.

In any event, the human inhabitants at MisFit Farm thank you for the few, intermittent moments of peace you have been able to proffer up until now. The canines, on the other hand, want to know, “Is that all you’ve got?!?!?” If you have anything you would like to truly put to the test, please send it along and we will fastidiously report back. You can use the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, DHL or FedEx for delivery. They all know us.

Sincerely yours,

MisFit Farm

Camping with Dogs

Every year, my agency hosts a weekend campout. I “taught” Coffee to camp out early in our relationship, resulting in the ruination of only two tents before we got everything resolved. Last year when the rapid acquisition of canines began, K was out of town for the weekend campout, so I participated as a day camper and drove home to attend to dogs and chores in between.

This year, we camped. Lest anyone think we are completely out of our minds, we didn’t camp with all five plus one more of the dogs. Just three of them.

Now, a lot of the folks involved in the Dane rescue seem to camp, and they seem to take their dogs with them, even foster dogs. Were that I could claim to be this brave.

When I went for my day trip last year, I took Mercy and Trinity out for the evening. Mercy spent the entire time barking and drooling. Although usually I take this as evidence of a good time in humans; I think not so much for Mercy. So Mercy was out of contention for this year’s camping event.

I knew of some other dogs who would be attending the campout, and Skeeter doesn’t make a very good first impression. Early in our relationship, after K had met Coffee, and after I had met K’s mother and her two dogs, Susie (RIP - old gal) and Skeeter, we decided it would be good to try to introduce the kids. My parents divorced when I was about 10 years old, and I resolved the experience the way I resolve most experiences, by reading absolutely every book I could put my hands on about it. I cannot tell of the many travails and tragedies I read about in these tomes as they described the “blending” of post-divorce families. Let me just say that nothing I had read prepared me for what happened when I brought Coffee into K’s mom’s house and Skeeter went after him.

The end result was: K was clutching Skeeter by the collar and shaking, she was so mad. I was crying and holding an 80-pound male Laborador Coffee-dog. Although she has resolved her issues while at the Farm, Skeeter was not invited to the campout.

Azure. Azure has eaten industrial strength dog beds and chew toys. She could tear through a tent in about a millisecond. That lovely canvas fabric wouldn’t even represent an impediment.

So Coffee (of course), Trinity, and Emmett went camping with us. The campground is a great place – group camping that is relatively secluded with a good combination of cleared fields, high grass, trees, and tick nests. Suffice it to say, we tromped through them all.

The three we took were absolutely wonderful. After the first night, when every single person seemed to be consumed with the question, “You are going to sleep in that tent with all three of those dogs?” folks grew accustomed to having three oversized dogs prancing around the campsite.

Some, you might say, even loved having them there.

Mean Girls

While we are on the movie tangent, count the movie, “Mean Girls” among the many neither K nor I have seen.

In my mind, it is a acht-version of “Heathers,” or a vicious version of “Clueless” so having those as a frame of reference gives me all the information I need to save a potentially wasted 90 minutes of my life.

The reason this particular genre of movies comes to mind is that, like a version of Survivor located in a trailer with gourmet dog food, first aid kits, ample supplies of water and medications, we find strange alliances formed among the krewe.

The first strange bedfellow was the Coffee/Azure pairing. Coffee is bar-none the most mellow, least motivated dog in the history of the world. When he took a shine to Azure, we were stunned. That she seemed ok with his advances left us speechless. Although his love survives, Azure has moved on to form an alliance that may be even more bizarre.

While Mercy is, to bi-peds, quite a sweetheart, she is not so generous with her love for her krewe-mates. Although getting her to eat sometimes takes an act of Congress, heaven help any poor canine who wants to move across the living room in any proximity to her food dish. Mercy has a special animus for poor Skeeter, and will sometimes, just for sport, declare the living room off-limits for the poor old gal.

Azure is, well, Azure. ‘Nuff said.

Notwithstanding the fact that playing with Azure is the equivalent of trying to capture fireflies in a whirlwind, and Azure cruises food dishes like Mark Foley at a little league game, Mercy and Azure seem to have come to terms. Azure is allowed to freely eat from Mercy’s food dish. They play tug together. Mercy occasionally tries to entice Azure into a game of “toss the good cuz.” We caught them sharing a dog-bed over the weekend. Mercy will sometimes lose herself and provide Azure with a free flea-biting treatment.

Of course, in the same instance a playful game of bite-your-face-off can begin, it can spiral quickly into a snark-fest. Neither of them seems to be particularly daunted by a little snarkiness, so the love survives.

Games People Play (with Danes)

I was thrilled to learn of a game played by a Dane friend of ours. Her family has a merle Dane, and they play I-spy with the dappling on his coat. Not being artistically inclined, I have tried this game, and to date, the only thing I have located on our merle boy, Emmett’s, coat has been an upside down version of the little logo guy for the monster.com website.

I was thrilled to learn of this game, because it seemed to validate any of a variety of the games we find ourselves applying to our babies.

We started one such game the other morning, when for some reason, I asked K out of the blue, “If Azure were a character in a movie, what character would she be?”

Among our quirky differences, K and I don’t share a common background with, interest in or exposure to: movies. K’s tastes run toward Disney, mine toward Tarantino. K has a large part of her life where movies are almost altogether missing, which pre-dates the several years in mine where movies were missing, so there is an additional temporal disconnect that amplifies generational and personality differences.

By way of example, we saw a preview for the movie, “While You Were Sleeping” on a friend’s television the other day. K’s response was, “Aw, that was such a romantic movie.” Having actually seen this one on video, my response was, “Yipes that movie was creepy. Who wants some person who doesn’t know who you are to be duped into marrying you?!” Now, I know they don’t get married in the end, but I like my goofy clueless fiancées to be the Moonstruck version, not the Million Dollar Baby version.

The game, as it turns out, is actually quite fun and illuminating. Through it, we are able to learn about one another’s life experiences through movies, what we liked and what we didn’t like, what attracted us about different characters, and how we perceive the dogs. Of course no one character captures all aspects of any one of the dogs, so the conversation continues, pulling different aspects of different characters and movies into the dialogue, respectfully listening, offering counterpoints, and compiling lists that we sometimes forget as soon as they are completed.

So, here is an initial iteration of our list:

Christian Slater in True Romance. (Emmett)

Forrest Whittaker in The Crying Game. (Coffee)

Cher in Mask; actually, Cher in just about any role. (Mercy)

Goldie Hawn in Overboard; Diane Keaton in Something’s Gotta’ Give. (Skeeter)

Pipi Longstocking; Angelia Jolie in Girl, Interrupted; Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys (I was particularly pleased with the whole “Brangalina” angle with those last two selections). (Azure)

Lilo from Lilo and Stich. (Trinity)

Any guesses who selected which movies and characters?