Ginger's Puppies

When Ginger first arrived here with distended teats, we assumed that she had been nursing puppies. Mr. P. took her to the local animal hospital for a check-up and shots, and scheduled her to be spayed 2 weeks later.

Yesterday she was spayed. When the procedure was done, someone at the hospital called to let us know she was OK, and to tell us that Ginger had been pregnant still and that her puppies were aborted.

I can't imagine how Dr. D. failed to notice her pregnancy during her first exam. Her teats were still distended. When Patch was pregnant enough for her teats to distend, the vet was able to palpate her puppies. So I have to ask if Dr. D. didn't bother doing that because he was lazy or uninterested or what on earth. I don't like him anyway so it's hard for me to be objective about this.

A different vet (Dr. M.) did the surgery yesterday, and I can't really blame him for the abortion. Dr. D. would've put nothing about a pregnancy he didn't notice in Ginger's file, so I suppose when Dr. M. opened her up and saw the puppies, he assumed we had decided to abort them rather than calling us to ask what we wanted to do.

We certainly don't need another litter of puppies to care for and adopt out, but if we had known that Ginger was still pregnant, we wouldn't have decided to terminate the pregnancy.

Cheez Ballz!

Santy Paws brought Polly a huge jar of cheese balls for Christmas. When he presented it to her, her curly tail wagged so fast that we thought she might take off like a helicopter.

As you can see in this photo, Polly is already on the verge of obesity (she takes after her mother). Our vet says this is a common tendency in pugs. I have a hard time understanding how a little dog with such a big personality, who is so very, very busy in her roles as Ear Hygienist, Beard Inspector, Hall Monitor, Dining Supervisor and Traffic Management Director, would not be burning at least as many calories as she takes in. I worried a bit that the cheese balls would add to her girth.

As it turns out, Polly has little opportunity to overindulge in cheese balls because the instant my hand moves towards the jar, all the dogs come running. Cheese balls rain down from heaven and are gobbled up the instant they hit the floor. Then everybody licks the floor for 3-4 minutes. With all that competition, Polly's lucky to get a single cheese ball to savor.

The new living room

Our living room used to look like the rec room at an insane asylum. An ancient television set, a hodge podge of 2nd or 3rd-hand chairs, and a hodge podge of "residents".

Now it looks more like a bedroom at a frat house the morning after a beer bash.

Welcome, Ginger!

     We seem to have acquired a new stray dog, a pit bull with enlarged teats who must’ve been nursing a litter fairly recently. Don’t know where the puppies are, which is just as well. I hate to think of what may have befallen them. Ginger is hungrier for affection than for food, but she definitely needs to eat on a regular basis instead of scrounging, poor girl.

 

 

     She wears a collar and can't understand why we won't let her inside, so she must have been someone’s pet at some point, and an indoor dog at least part of the time.

     She’s a very “bully” pit bull and far too big to qualify as a 9 Dogs Howling Indoor Dog (though Polly could probably give her a run for her money), but she’s determined to come inside nonetheless. She lies on the welcome mat on the porch or stands with her paws on the windowsill looking inside. The day she arrived here, the rest of the dogs spent 4 hours barking and screaming and running back and forth because of Ginger. I finally shut the blinds in the living room so they can’t see if Ginger’s on the porch. Which gives the living room all the warmth and charm of a funeral parlor. 

     Mr. P. had a wonderful, sweet pit bull, Peach Pit, when we were first married, so we’re OK with pit bulls. But…in this part of the world, they tend to be bred as fighters rather than pets, so we have to be careful with Ginger. Pits are often well-behaved with their humans but badly-behaved with other dogs. Ginger gets along with the cats OK, which is in her favor, but I haven’t seen her interact with Blackie yet. Poor Blackie was attacked by a neighbor’s German shepherd last weekend and has a wound on a front leg from that. And it’s time for Babe’s annual check-up and shots. And we need to get Ginger spayed. Ugh. Dog rescue is a mighty expensive proposition.

 

The Legend of 9 Dogs Howling

It’s not just a legend. 9 Dogs Howling is a real place, located in the countryside of west Tennessee, where Jean and Mr. P. run an unfunded animal rescue ranch. It’s a free, all-love, no-kill, home-based shelter for the many unwanted animals discarded in rural ditches by people who are cruel, careless, or fool themselves into thinking that small puppies and kittens (often unweaned) can survive even one day of hunger, thirst, injury, disease, coyotes and birds of prey.

Here’s the story of how it all began.

Once upon a time we had one small, pure-bred dog: a fawn French bulldog, Georgie. Then a co-worker of Mr. P’s sold us a 9-month-old black pug his family didn’t want any more. They’d been keeping her caged 24 hours a day. We named her Polly. Those two spoiled dogs had a small, fenced-in yard beside our house, which sits on a 4.5 acre plot in the middle of farm country. Our neighbors grow soybeans, corn, milo, winter wheat, and cotton; some of them keep cattle or goats. In our early days here, as transplanted Yankees, we thought we had arrived in heaven. We enjoyed watching deer stealing fruit from our orchard, foxes playing on the hillside, bunnies hopping through our strawberry patch. Mr. P. planted a big vegetable garden, more fruit trees, berry bushes, wildflowers in our meadow, and two asparagus patches.

Then the critters began to arrive, and we began to joke that neighborhood “pee-mail” was promoting our home as an animal refuge. A week after adopting Patch we learned she was pregnant. When her 4 pups arrived, we couldn’t bring ourselves to part with them. Later Blackie arrived and delivered a litter of 11 puppies under our storage shed. Another neighborhood dog brought us one of her puppies. At the same time, kittens appeared, liked what they saw here, and stayed. Possum was pregnant when she arrived; we still have one of her kittens, Licorice. We’ve found homes for some of the critters; others have disappeared or perished from injuries (fights with wild animals, collision with cars and trucks); and some have found a permanent home here. At one time we had 21 dogs and 12 cats. At the moment we have 10 dogs and 3 cats.

Every newcomer gets a veterinary check-up, treatment for any disease or injury they bring with them, and spaying or neutering. The cats and any very large dogs (what we call Outdoor Dogs) have crates and blankets in our garage. Large dogs have crates, food & water bowls in an insulated 8x10 shed with access to the enlarged fenced-in yard, and also spend time with us indoors; medium and small dogs sleep indoors and also spend time in the fenced-in yard. All but the outdoor dogs get heartworm and flea medication, annual checkups and treatment for any illness or injury at a nearby animal hospital. New dogs who behave aggressively with the others indoors get reassigned to the garage, but most of the time, it’s one big happy family (or in canine terms, a pack).

I’m giving it to you straight when I say we didn’t take in all those abandoned critters because we’re high-minded animal philanthropists. We did it because we love animals and just can’t say no to them. The only animal shelter in our area has a troubled history, with reports of animal neglect, so until a better public facility is established, we’ll go on doing our best to take care of the dogs and cats who show up on our property looking for love and care.

Doggy Day Care

Sometimes a house is not just a home.

Sometimes it's a doggy day care center.

Patch waits her turn

Alicia's biggest fan is Patch. Here she's seen waiting for Alicia to get tired of Sadie and return to hugging the Best Dog.