all things must pass

It's been a weird few days for me. About a week ago, Nimitz a 10 year old, essentially orphaned, 10 year old Ridgeback came to Sweet Spot Farm for a little reprieve. He spent the last few years living with his owner, who had declined significantly health wise. When she died, there were four dogs and two cats in the home- the cats were more or less feral, while 3:4 dogs were beyond aggressive and not placed for adoption. Ironically, Nimitz was the owners dog that she had since puppy hood. When she died, he had no place to go and a neighbor kindly reached out to try to find a place for him.

So he went to a kennel for a few days- the kennel had indoor/outdoor runs, icy cold concrete and no bedding for a bag of bones that was emaciated. His stress was off the charts and when I met him he was wild eyed, panting and actively pulling away from me.

While we were seeing what the next move was - we thought moving him to the farm was our best shot at stress relief and something close to a normal life. We worked through anxiety howling and a little redecorating, GI blow outs, tape worms and maybe his first ever rib bone.

After 11 days at the Farm, I watched him stretch in the country sun, sniff the air and get as many butt scratches in as possible. However, with increasing medical complications and no place to go, his interim owner decided that the most humane thing to do was to euthanize him. I agreed.

Knowing the impending "doom", I was reminded of the heaviness of decisions like this. He spent the last of his days, snoozing on a dog bed, trotting around the pasture, even running a little agility.

He left he farm around 4pm today.

As the hours wore on I kept thinking, "is it NOW? this minute? Did "it" just happen? I wondered if the little ping of awareness I felt was somehow his way of letting me know he was at peace? Or if it was just the story I was telling myself.

Who knows.

That guy left his mark on my heart.

times are a changin'

You can always tell when there is a little jockeying going on between dogs. It may seem subtle at first, but last night and again today, it was beyond noticeable.

Here's the deal. Sweets will guard items from dogs- she'll growl and stiffen which is usually effective in getting dogs to back off and that's that. That has almost always worked with her little brother Tater.

However, last night, Tater brazenly walked within striking distance of his bitchy, bone chewing sister. I was sitting between the dogs on the couch when Tater stepped over my lap and began to sniff her face/bone. I noticed his ballsy attempt to, push the envelope so to say. I asked him to "off", be backed away and that was that.

Today, the rawhides are distributed. Tater not only is eying up his sister's rawhide in addition to his. I also watched him chew near his sister and growl/warn when she looked at him. Quite a role reversal, as Tater is usually deferring. For the time being I'm playing the role of regulator and manager...Stay tuned.

well, that's a new one

I saw a streak of "something" running down the road. It just started to rain in this neck of the woods and the two free range beagles were hi-tailing it home. They ran past the house, and made a hard right down their driveway (and apparently to some dry place). This explains how things worked when nobody had fences (well, and a lot more litters, I'm sure)