Hello All,
Terra is still missing. I have not been quite sure what I wanted to say about Winston and Jenny so I kept putting off posting. I’m not sure the info below is what I want to say but it will have to do.
Claudia – yep, I’ve had some fun experiences chasing after my dogs. Normally I go in the opposite direction while calling them. This usually works but I’m sure some folks who see me doing this are shocked, thinking I am not trying to get my dog under control. Or the other thing that I’ll bet could get people chuckling is my male dog is named Sunshine.
I can be out there at night or on a rainy day calling for him – “Sunshine, Sunshine…” People probably think I’m nuts calling for the sun at night. Or maybe I don’t like rain.
I think things are getting better here even though Terra is still missing. Sadly, Winston, the wirehaired dog (photo in previous post above) is no longer with us. He was very dog aggressive towards a female dog that I brought home from the county animal shelter, initially to just foster. I couldn’t stand seeing her in the pen at the animal shelter. I have now adopted her. Name is Jenny. I believe I posted a link to some photos of her in another post, probably not on this thread. When I first saw Jenny at the animal shelter, I thought she was Terra. Then I noticed that she was black (lighting was low) and her tail, ears and white chest blaze were different. Back to Winston, I noticed that he was aggressive with other female dogs that we came in contact with. He seemed to be ok with male dogs and was buddies with Sunshine. Winston was all over my friend’s elderly (13 years) female beagle when she was visiting. No attacks but he was really dominating her. If she had been younger, she probably would have put him in his place. Winston’s medical history from the Char-Meck Animal Control also said he was “…*possibly* dog aggressive…” as he growled at a dog on the floor when he was on the exam table. It appeared to me to just be female dogs. Crazy. So did he have a paw in making Terra run away? Or would he have attacked Terra if she came home? I can’t help but wonder on these. Terra didn’t like it when Winston would come near me but otherwise they didn’t fight or anything. Winston was adopted on 6/19/08, I last saw Terra on 6/24/08.
Anyway, on to Jenny.
Jenny is still a puppy. I think about 10 months. She has very short hair but is not a German or a pointer. She is supposed to be a lab/hound mix. She is in the "chew on everything in sight" stage right now. She also has terrible separation anxiety. Recently she got into a brand new bag of Sunshine’s dog food and ate 3 pounds. Her new nickname is Miss Piggy. Other than wanting to chew on everything and tear stuff up when I leave, she is fairly well behaved. She has my old dog Moon’s Kong to chew, a Huck ball, an Orka ball and a hard Nylabone to chew. She is pretty good at getting dog biscuits out of Kong. I put ½ of a small biscuit into Orka ball and she still has not gotten it out. It drives her crazy – good! Sunshine and her have encountered a few deer up on the mountain lately and have gone wild chasing after the deer. However, they are back in short order, not like Terra who would be gone for hours.
Jenny likes to go in the water. She was just in the river the other day while snow flakes were coming down. I have never owned a dog that likes to go in the water so this should make Jenny a fun dog. Well, maybe not in the winter or when it is muddy outside….
She eats apples and pears – we have trees that she finds them under. I think she is in love with Sunshine although I think she really annoys him at times. She likes to play fight with him, even if he is just laying down being lazy. Poor guy, I told him it was my revenge for when he would harass me.
Now my priorities are to work with Jenny until she gets older. I do really want Terra to come back somehow, anytime, the sooner the better. Probably in fall 2009 I will start looking for a gsp dog. I’d really like to get one in the 3 to 5 year range but may go all out and get a puppy. Puppies are a lot of work (Jenny is reminding me of this) but they are just so lovable and have a clean slate for training and behavioral problems. A new gsp dog would need to have lots of liver and be a female, just like Terra. I’d probably name her Terra II.
More Terra speculation: The deer hunters shot a bear on my land during deer archery season – with a bow, they didn’t even have a gun. Bear (gun) season was also in at the time. Terra took off on 6/24/2008. This is the middle of black raspberry season here. I have a bunch of black raspberries and Mr Bear has been down to raid them in the past. I wonder if Sunshine and Terra took off after Mr Bear that fateful evening in June. I don’t think Mr Bear would attack Terra unless she had him cornered but he could have taken her on a long chase. But you would think the dogs would have barked up a storm chasing a bear. Hmmm…..
Here are some photos.
Above - Sunshine and Winston hard at work on me to get them dog biscuits. Terra used to lay on the floor with Sunshine just like Winston is doing in the photo. That is why I took it – Winston was reminding me of Terra.
Above - This is Jenny, sitting in the riverbed of the French Broad River, right at the mouth of Big Pine Creek. Not much water. This normally would be underwater except for the terrible drought.
Links for more photos and info:
On a side note, they got 2 horses and a pig in at the county animal shelter. I think it was an animal cruelty case. Anyway, I had an apple tree that was loaded with apples. I took lots of them in for the pig and the horses. The pig has been adopted out but the horses are still there. I stop by and feed the horses some apples. I did ride some very tame horses when I was a kid but otherwise don’t know much about them. It has been fun feeding them apples. They really like them. |