Author Archives: loriwhitwam

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About loriwhitwam

Lori spent her early years reading books in a tree in northern West Virginia. The 1980s and 90s found her and her husband moving around the Midwest, mainly because it was easier to move than clean the apartment. After seventeen frigid years in Minnesota, she fled to coastal North Carolina in 2013. She will never leave, and if you try to make her, she will hurt you.

Rescuing the Rescued Poodle

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Oliver the Wonder Poodle has been with us almost a year. On his gotcha-versary, expect a lengthy post about everything he’s taught me about poodles in that time. But one very amusing thing happened around six weeks after he arrived and opened my eyes to the ingenuity, curiosity, and unflappable nature of the breed. He was five and a half months old and a bit over thirty pounds at the time, and too smart and intrepid for his own good.

My mornings follow a very structured routine, because I am Not A Morning Person, and varying from the expected process results in chaos and throws me off for the rest of the day. Things must not happen out of order, and nothing requiring independent thought can take place until I’ve been up at least an hour. If I ever experience an early morning house fire, I’m doomed.

Having two puppies made this a challenge, but we were doing pretty well. They wake me up every morning–really heckkin’ early–all happy and wiggly and adorable, they get breakfast, I get coffee, and everybody is set.

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I know this is dim and grainy, but I did warn you they wake me up early. This is what I see every morning when I open my eyes. Not a bad way to start the day.

One particular morning in early April, I took the dogs out then popped back inside to unload the dishwasher and let them run off some puppy mania. A few minutes later, I noticed Mozzie at the sliding door. He had on his “worried ears,” and his eyebrows clearly communicated “you’re not going to like this, but I swear I had nothing to do with it.”

I looked for Oliver, but no Oliver was to be found. I put my shoes back on and clomped down the deck steps into the yard, but still didn’t see a poodle puppy. Mozzie decided to be helpful–because he’s a golden and that’s what they do–and pointed out a hole under the lattice surrounding the deck.

Aha.

Investigation quickly revealed the wayward poodle under the enclosed deck. For reasons known only to him, Oliver had dug under the lattice, wriggled under the deck, and now couldn’t get out because the angle of the hole was wrong.

Thankfully, he wasn’t upset about it. If he’d been freaking out, I’d have had to go all mama-dog and rip off the lattice and probably die of splinter poisoning. But Oliver knew he wasn’t in immediate danger, and I had everything under control. Poodles have a lot of incredible abilities, but mind-reading isn’t one of them. This was fortunate, because if he knew what I was thinking just then, he’d have been a lot more concerned.

He sat there looking at me, confident and unperturbed. I, however, was fairly perturbed. I hadn’t had coffee yet, and I avoid physical exertion at all times, but it was evident I would have to dig the little monster out of there before my coffee-drinking could resume.

I located the garden rake, which would have to do, because while I was sure we owned a shovel, it was probably in the shed, which was padlocked. I had a key to this, of course, but figuring out which one it was would require more mental dexterity than I have before coffee.

Rake in hand, I set about deepening the hole and extending the angle back under the deck so Oliver could crawl out.

Dig, dig, dig. Scoop, scoop, scoop. Pause to catch my breath and look at the unrepentant poodle sitting there smiling at me through the lattice-holes.

Oliver occasionally attempted to help, but didn’t seem to be very effective. I was calling bullshit on the whole thing, because he got under there in the first place, and those paws looked pretty capable, but all he could do was scratch around, occasionally nibble at the dirt, and stick his naughty-but-adorable head out.

Mozzie mostly paced nervously and wandered over from time to time to assess my progress and make sure nobody was in trouble. He’d done his “come quick, Timmy fell down the well” part, which was apparently as involved as he planned to be in the whole matter.

Finally, I was sweaty and my back was cramping, I had dirt embedded in my knees and under my nails, and I probably had spiders in my hair, but Oliver managed to squirm out under the lattice. I immediately dropped a log in the hole to prevent further incidents. Mozzie was ecstatic, because his buddy was available for chasing again and I had stopped scowling and muttering.

Having puppies was not on my to-do list before I got these two. I’d been declaring emphatically for the past ten years that my puppy-wrangling days were behind me. I could not have been more wrong. Despite the house training and crazy antics, these two goobers have brightened my world and made my life a lot more interesting.

I just prefer it if they save the interesting stuff for after I’ve had coffee.

Knowing What You Don’t Know

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On this date ten years ago, I posted this on Fermented Fur. At the time, I managed a holistic veterinary clinic, to give you a little context. I do need to ask Rachel about “the toilet and the sacrificial pen,” because I have no idea what that was all about.

Sometimes I realize all over again that I’m the smartest uneducated person I know. I just know stuff, but I don’t know how I know it. You know?

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Yeah, so, anyway, I had a brain-deadening day at work. We had a planning meeting first thing in the morning. (Translation: Me and all three doctors sitting around for forty-five minutes trying to figure out creative new forms of torture to reinforce with our employees the consequences of not doing their damned jobs.) This was followed by a marketing meeting in which Dr. Vet-Friend One and I worked out a plan for our next “program launch,” including educational material, logistics, staff training, blah blah blah, resulting in a 74.9 % increase in my workload.

Eventually it became lunchish, and at 12:45 I clocked out so I could write my daily blog for you, my discerning, loyal readers! Six minutes later, my intercom interrupted my musings about the glory of the golden retriever and my fervent wish to have a tail. Seemed I was going to need to cover the front desk so my poor, overworked receptionist could get a break. We were short-staffed because one of our techs has a litter of bulldog puppies at home, and apparently you have to hand-feed them because mama bulldogs will smush them (not on purpose, probably), so she had to go home and tend to the little fuzzies.

If appointments hadn’t run late in the morning, I’d have still have had someone to listen for the phone while the receptionist went to stave off hypoglycemia. This was all fine. I did reception work all my adult life and am more than capable (and damned good at it, even though I hate it with a white-hot passion). What was not fine was that I didn’t learn of this situation until about three minutes before I had to go up there. I need time to prepare, plan, figure out when I will get to take my own break, and get stuff ready to take up there with me to work on. Or find a way out of it altogether. It was another hour before I got to take my own shortened break and hammer out my blog so I could get back to my lengthy to-do list.

Wow, this wasn’t supposed to be a work rant. In fact, I seem to recall saying in my Forbidden Topics blog that I wouldn’t discuss work. I should probably listen to myself more often. But not today.

I got home, and my lovely honey-bunny had dinner ready, and the dogs were already fed. The day was looking up (what was left of it). We settled in on our respective couches. He sits on the nice leather one, and I sit on the furry dog-friendly love seat known as the Sofur. My choice. I like to be where I can have canine company. I’m currently debating whether I need to cover the slip cover with a slip cover, because it’s getting totally gross, but it’s such a pain to get it off to wash it, and even more of a pain to get back on. Wrestling, tugging, stuffing, cramming, straps, buckles, safety pins, bleeding fingers, etc. Maybe we should just get a new love seat. Okay, worry about that later.

A story preview came on the TV, some bit that was going to be on the news later, about some people who threw their baby out the window of a burning building to save its life. The conversation that followed perfectly illustrated the gaps in my formal education.

Me: I wonder if there was someone down there to catch the baby. Or a net or something.

Tom: There had to be. Otherwise, wouldn’t they have just jumped out, too?

Me: Why would they jump out? (Picturing a pulverized parent, topped with a pair of intact arms clutching a very confused baby)

Tom: Couldn’t they just jump, then right before they hit the ground, toss the baby up in the air?

(I thought he was kidding, but now I’m pretty sure he wasn’t. Or maybe he really just wanted to test my science trivia knowledge.)

Me: What? No. It doesn’t work that way.

Tom: Why not?

Me: (Mentally flipping through notes from every science class I ever took, which apparently was at least one too few) I don’t know. It just doesn’t.

Tom: Yes, it does. It has to.

This troubles me, because it certainly seems as if it should work that way. I mean, there you are, a couple of feet from impact, but if you toss the baby in the air, wouldn’t that reverse its momentum, thereby either negating or lessening impending smushage? Acceleration of 32 feet per second per second. I remember that, but have no idea how it applies to this situation. Yet I know that it does not, in fact, work this way, though I have no evidence, no facts to cite, no ammunition with which to arm my argument.

Me: No, it doesn’t. Call The Boy. (The Boy is a science nerd, and totally knows everything about such things)

No move is made to call The Boy. We suspect he will think we are both idiots, and we will hear his eyes rolling from 25 miles away.

Me: (Thinking of an episode of Myth Busters) No, seriously, I know it doesn’t work that way. It’s like in an elevator when it’s crashing. You can’t just jump up right before it hits the bottom of the shaft. It doesn’t work. Otherwise nobody would ever die in elevator crashes.

At this point, I’m wondering if the same argument could be applied to plane crashes, because people clearly die in plane crashes all the time. I’m not sure there are all that many elevator crashes. I’m frustrated, because this is one of those things I know, but don’t know how I know it. It sure seems that if you toss the baby up right before you hit the ground, the baby wouldn’t hit the ground at terminal velocity. But I know there’s a clear scientific principle that explains why the baby would still end up a 10-pound maraca. Maybe if I hadn’t exhausted my daily allotment of brain function at work, I’d be able to figure this out.

About here is where the conversation fizzled out. I was thinking, “This is absurd. I can’t believe we’re having this discussion. Am I really this stupid? Why don’t I know this? This conversation reminds me of Rachel and Ryan and the toilet and the sacrificial pen. (Don’t ask.) Could be a good blog, though.”

I wandered over to my overworked laptop, which still hadn’t fully cooled down from giving its all today at work. I Googled “jump up before elevator crashes” and got a whole bunch of very detailed, informative hits, none of which I fully understood. There were calculations and formulas and such.

There was talk about how if the elevator is falling at 60 mph, you can’t jump up from a standing start at enough velocity to make any difference. And if you don’t time it perfectly, you will quickly regain any tiny fraction of momentum you lost by jumping.

One site said the best bet would be to get on top of another passenger, so they could cushion your fall. Preferably a person with a high body fat content. This sounded like a good plan to me, since I am quite brittle. They also pointed out that more people die falling down stairs each year (Yep. Stairs are treacherous, especially when the stair-user is tanked.) so we should all stop worrying about elevators.

By this time, I completely forgot what this had to do with babies and burning buildings. Frankly, I no longer care. I’m just annoyed that I, a semi-intelligent 43-year-old person, can’t organize simple facts about something that should be easy to explain. I’m still halfway tempted to call The Boy.

My plan is to avoid elevators which might be about to fall. I also suggest staying out of burning buildings, and if that is unavoidable, it’s probably better to throw your baby toward a dumpster or bush or waiting good Samaritan than to jump while holding the baby and try to calculate your velocity and how hard to throw the baby at which precise instant so it doesn’t end up looking like Flat Stanley. I am also in favor of avoiding stairs, given my recent troubles in that area. The earth is our mother, and we should endeavor to remain in close contact with her at all times.

However, I do have to get on a plane next week to go to Las Vegas. If it begins to crash, I will not attempt to save myself by jumping upward at the penultimate moment. Instead, I will decide that sobriety is highly overrated, and I will commandeer the drinky cart and consume as many of those teeny tiny bottles of liquor as possible before impact. If I’m going to be reduced to a fine grind or a smoldering hunk of charcoal, I’d rather be in the middle of an alcohol-induced blackout at the time.

We never did bother to watch the story about the baby and the burning building. I’m assuming it turned out fine, because the commentators didn’t use the word “tragedy” eighteen times in the preview. If it had been even remotely tragic, they’d have said it. A lot.

The real tragedy is that I can’t explain why tossing the baby in the air just before you hit the ground wouldn’t help.

But the most important thing of all is that we were not talking about it being a puppy in the burning building, because that would have freaked me out. What kind of puppy? How old? What’s his name? How high up was he? Who caught him? Was he scared? Was he hurt? Is he okay? Did he have smoke inhalation?

Of course if it had been a dog, he would have alerted his family before the fire got out of control, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.

 

The Joys of Sofa-Slug Marathons

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Prior to 2010, I didn’t watch a lot of television. But then I started working at home, and that Christmas our son and daughter-in-law gave us a Roku and subscription to Netflix, and I discovered what I’d been missing.

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I’d always said I didn’t have the attention span to deal with hour-long programs, especially after a day at work dealing with Others, opting instead for a few favorite sitcoms. But it was becoming harder and harder to identify the “comedy” part in newer shows, and I was bored. There were so many shows others had been watching for years, and while I was late to the party, I now had the time and technology to catch up. And because I never do anything in moderation, I learned to binge-watch before binge-watching was even a thing.

I caught up on Grey’s Anatomy, Firefly, Buffy, Angel, House, Lost, Supernatural, Mad Men…all the things I’d avoided before.

For a long time, I tried to get Tom interested in what I was watching, but it eventually became clear we don’t like the same things. At all. Sure, there are a few series we watch together. We’ve watched things like The Blacklist, The Following, Revenge, Ozark, Animal Kingdom, The Last Ship, and the perennial favorite, The Big Bang Theory.

If you consider the shows I just mentioned, you’ll notice they have one thing in common. They’re all real-world scenarios, with nary a vampire, werewolf, or demon to be found.

What do I watch? I’d estimate 90% of my viewing choices involve something paranormal, supernatural, or fantasy-related. Supernatural, Buffy, The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, The Magicians, Travelers, Wynonna Earp, iZombie, The Walking Dead, Z Nation, Glitch, The Shannara Chronicles, The 100, Game of Thrones, Lost Girl, Bitten… See what I mean? One recent exception is Stranger Things, which I did get Tom to watch. Oh, also The Walking Dead, and I have no idea why this merits an exception in his mind, but he likes it enough that we went to Walker Stalker Con in Atlanta in 2016 and had a blast.

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So many popular shows depict war, gruesome crimes, corrupt politicians, terrorism, corporate greed, broken families, and other distressing things. Yeah, I get enough of that on the evening news.

But take these things and put them in an alternate reality, either in a future time, on another planet or dimension, or in a version of our world where skinwalkers, vampires, demons, or magic exist, and I can deal with it. My brain understands that this isn’t reality, and I can enjoy the chaos without the stress.

I’ve never watched any of those CSI or Law & Order shows. And I have a very firm “no reality TV, for any reason, ever, don’t even go there” policy. There’s enough conflict in real life, and I don’t need to add on idiots manufacturing drama for the sake of their fifteen minutes of fame to the mix.

As a result, Tom and I watch very little TV together. Plus, he’s a football fan, and that takes up most of his viewing time about eight months out of the year–or at least that’s how long I think football season is. Maybe it’s nine.

Unless it’s football, Tom is a terrible binge-watcher. I, however, could easily sweep the medals in the Binge-Watching Olympics. If there’s a marathon being broadcast, I’m in. With Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, I can (and do) make my own marathons. Once I hit my daily editing goal for work, I can get serious and break out the yarn and current binge-in-progress.

I wish my TiVo would try a little harder, though. It’s like it doesn’t know me at all. After a mere three or four hours, a window pops up and asks something ridiculous like, “Are you still there?” Same for Netflix, if I let it automatically run through several episodes of a series. “Are you still watching?”

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Look, if I wanted you to stop doing what you’re doing, I would’ve said so. If I want you to do something else, I’ll let you know. Stop asking. Stop judging! I realize I’ve watched eleven consecutive episodes of Buffy. That’s the whole reason you exist, streaming video, so stop trying to shame me into cleaning the kitchen. I know what you’re up to. Now, please get back to work. Spike is going to kiss Buffy, and time’s a-wastin’.

Also, we leave the television on for the dogs on the rare occasions I leave the house. If we’re out for an evening, TiVo times out after about four hours, leaving the Direwolves able to hear every sound in the neighborhood, increasing the chances of reactive bark-attacks and possible window damage.

Seriously, streaming video was made for someone like me with my obsessive tendencies and sincere desire not to go anywhere in search of entertainment. For someone who swore she didn’t have the patience to watch an hour-long program, I sure turned out to be very, very wrong.

A Long Time Ago, In A High School Far, Far Away

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I have a two-fer for you today! February 4 is a very significant day in the canon of Tom and Lori Lore, and ten years ago I commemorated it on Fermented Fur. The following is that recycled (upcycled? repurposed?) post, somewhat edited to include current timeline and removing some of the over-sharing parts because apparently at some point in the last ten years I developed a semi-functional filter.

Today marks the 36th anniversary of when Tom asked me out for our first date. (Pause for applause.)

Where: Our small Catholic high school in northern West Virginia

When: February 4, 1982

Who: Two 17-year-olds, one a junior (me), one a senior (Tom)

Why: Hormones or Fate…maybe both

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Bishop Donahue High School, where it all began. Sadly, BDHS closed at the end of the 2016-2017 school year.

I’d recently broken up with a guy I’d been dating for a few months. Going out with him at all had been a stupendously bad idea, but my first real heartbreak had happened in September, and I was clearly not thinking straight. My mom hated him, and my mom never hated anybody.

Basically, The Creep (my mother’s pet name for him) was just the most recent in a long series of examples of my bad judgment. Something about that last experience finally began to penetrate my thick teenage skull, and it dawned on me that I needed to look at who I actually liked, not whoever was currently available on the high school “most eligible guys” list. You’d think something like that should be obvious, but very little is obvious when you’re a teenage girl.

I was odd in high school. Still am, but in a more specific way. While I got along with nearly everybody (except girls a year or two older than I was, who all hated me for some reason), I wasn’t particularly popular in a “prom queen” sort of way, due to the fact that I didn’t like to go out and socialize with everyone on the weekends. I guess you could say I was pretty, smart, and popular, but not the prettiest, smartest, or most popular.

Everybody liked Tom. He was every guy’s buddy, every girl’s “sweet guy friend,” a good athlete, and just insane enough to always be the one doing something goofy to bolster team spirit. (Ah, the genius of a tether ball with eye holes cut out and worn on one’s head at a pep rally!)

I’d been spending a fair amount of time hanging out with him and a small group of mutual friends at basketball games, mainly to heckle the officials and torment the visiting team. Then, after I’d finally split with The Creep, I was talking to some friends and said, “Hey, know who I’d really like to go out with?” Tom. This revelation was met with universal approval, and the wheels were set in motion.

Tom and two of his friends had taken to riding along on the girls’ volleyball bus, because his best friend’s girlfriend was on the team and he was insanely jealous. They served as the equipment guys and statisticians, to give them a legitimate reason to be there. My friend Suzy, who was also Tom’s friend and a volleyball player, told him on the bus one day that I wanted to go out with him. A typical high school conversation ensued.

“Lori wants you to ask her out.”

“Nuh-uh. You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m serious. She told me yesterday in algebra.”

“She wouldn’t go out with me.”

“Yes, she would, you dumbass. Ask her!”

“You’re just messing with me.”

And so on.

Finally, Suzy persuaded him that she wouldn’t jerk him around about something as critical as asking a girl out for the first time. Suzy was a very determined girl, and Tom never really stood a chance. Plus, he totally wanted to ask me out.

But it’s never really that simple, is it? Such a momentous occasion requires just the right setting. Namely, he needed me to not be in the middle of a group of girls between classes so he could ask me. He tells me this took a few days. At long last, I was alone, and a very nervous boy approached. He asked me to go to the Valentine’s dance, which was scheduled for February 13. I said (and this is an exact quote), “Sure. We’ll have fun.” He agonized for days over that? He’s just so damned cute!

I don’t think most people knew what to make of our couplehood. On the surface, we seemed like a very odd match. He was so friendly, outgoing, popular, everybody’s friend. I was quieter, had had several questionable boyfriends, was a bit of an outsider (one of the bathroom smokers, actually), and often overlooked by the guys, or despised by jealous older girls who didn’t bother to get to know me.

We went out on an unofficial date that weekend, after a basketball game. We went to Pizza Inn, despite the fact that I’d already been out for pizza before the game. When you’re a teenager, there is no such thing as too much pizza.

The next basketball game after that, we held hands, and I wore his letterman’s jacket. How adorable is that?

I mentioned this was a small Catholic high school. We had fewer than 200 students, which resulted in not enough tickets being sold for the Valentine’s dance, and it was canceled. My new sweetie announced that we were still going out, and he named a very nice (for the area) restaurant. I was a little freaked. That was kind of a lot of pressure for a first date. Plus, we would be double dating with his best friend and his girlfriend.

The night arrived. I wore light brown pleated dress pants, a brown and cream plaid short-sleeve blouse, and a cream-colored corduroy blazer. I also burgled my mom’s diamond cluster ring to wear. I have no idea what he wore. It was 1982, and February, so I’m thinking something velour, shirt-wise.

They picked me up, and he presented me with a large stuffed Smurf (which I still have), and a funny but perhaps slightly inappropriate card (which I also still have). There might have also been a bottle of illegally-purchased Riunite wine, but if that happened–and I’m neither confirming nor denying–one can assume it did not survive the evening.

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This is what a 36-year-old Smurf looks like. He needs a bath, but I’m afraid he’d disintegrate. Also, he’s probably stuffed with asbestos dipped in lead paint.

The evening was an odd one. The nice restaurant, in a hillbilly-like attempt at culture, had a belly dancer performing, dancing and gyrating and finger-cymbal-ringing among the tables. I am not even joking. This, naturally, led to our date-partners having a huge fight. Tom and I, however, got along great. Our evening ended with some very fun smooching on my couch.

His female friends didn’t know what he saw in me. His male friends figured they knew what he saw in me, but most were smart enough not to say so out loud. But what nobody really understood was that although we might have appeared mismatched, there was something between us that was beyond high school comprehension.

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Seriously, how adorable were we?

I knew I’d found something special. I’m glad I was at the right point in my evolution to see that, before someone else snatched him up. Here was this adorable guy, pretty blond feathered hair, sparkly blue eyes, and yummy muscles. He was sweet, kind, and funny, and liked by everyone he met. He treated me like a princess, spoiled me rotten, and he had the cutest bouncy strut when he was walking along, holding my hand. After dating guys who never stopped keeping one eye open for someone higher up on the high school popularity food chain, he saw only me.

And that was the beginning. The next weekend, I got his class key and class ring. We went to the prom. He went on vacation with my family that summer. This was followed by a pre-engagement ring that Christmas, and a wedding ring the next September.

Thirty-six years ago today. Wow. We’ll celebrate our 35th anniversary this September. Has it always been easy? Hell, no. I am still an idiot, and he is still the strong, wonderful man who pulls me through it and reminds me what I should be, and what we are together.

For a stupid 17-year-old, I sure did one thing totally right.

 

Rescues and Purebreds and Breeders…Oh, My!

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I love dogs–all dogs. From the tiniest, yappiest, nippiest fluff-nuggets to the behemoths who weigh well into triple digits, poop like Clydesdales, and need their own couch. Or your couch. You can sit on the floor, puny human.

Tom and I got our first dog, a buff cocker spaniel we named Porsche, in 1988. She was followed in 1989 by Flash, a buff and white cocker, and Cricket, a black cocker, in 1991. Mozzie and Oliver are dogs number 13 and 14, respectively. Of those 14 dogs, twelve were purebred.

Cockers

Wait…what? How can I support rescue and still have purebred dogs, you ask?

I can, and I do, and I don’t have to justify myself to anyone about it. But I will explain.

All those years ago, I’d never heard of a puppy mill. Those cocker spaniels all came from Petland stores in the Indianapolis area. Hey, they had “papers!” The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval of the dog world, right? Nope. That’s a big ol’ nopeasaurus. My poor cockerpack was a grab-bag of genetic issues, and thus my education began.

In 1994, I got my first golden retriever and the canine love of my life, Ripley. From a backyard breeder. I’d learned not to buy from pet stores, but hadn’t quite figured things out completely. Ripley had bilateral hip surgery at six months old, because his dysplasia was so bad he could already barely walk. Lesson learned.

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My poor puppy! But we had 12 wonderful, active, happy years after this.

From then on, dogs #5-12 (and #14) were all rescues, through  rescue groups and one private adoption. At times, we had as many as seven dogs, which sounds slightly less clinically insane when you remember I worked in veterinary clinics, was on the board of the regional golden retriever rescue group, was active in the county kennel club and Pyr rescue, and founded a chapter of Therapy Dogs International. Honestly, it’s a miracle I didn’t have twenty-seven, so you should really be congratulating me on my superhuman restraint.

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Sprocket, our first RAGOM rescue boy

But all but two of those dogs were still purebred.  Undocumented, unregistered, but they were all golden retrievers, one Great Pyrenees, and now one standard poodle, with two exceptions.

As I said, I love all dogs, from their boopable snoots to their long-waggy or stubby-wiggly tails and the bottoms of their so-cute paws. I’m aware anyone can walk into any shelter in any community and walk out with a wonderful canine companion the same day. I get it, and I encourage people to do so. But you also have to do some homework so you  have some idea what you’re getting. For example, if you live in a community where you can’t have a fence, and houses are close together, you should probably stay away from scent hounds, because they will follow their noses into the next county and sing the song of their people at ear-shattering volume whenever the spirit moves them.

The thing is, with mixes, you don’t always know what you’re getting, and there’s no reliable way to tell. I have very specific things I need in a dog for him to fit into my life and my pack with minimal conflict for all involved, and I have a much better chance of achieving this if I select breeds whose primary temperament and behaviors match these criteria. I’m sometimes criticized for this, but believe me, purebred dogs need rescue too.

You can’t look at the puppy in the shelter and be sure what he’s made of. He could be a mix of any number of breeds, and you can’t know–unless you have a crystal ball, and if you do, can I please borrow it?–which traits of any of those breeds will manifest. He might look 90% like one of his primary breeds, but his temperament might be 90% like another part of his genetic makeup, and they might be wildly different from what you’d expect.

Let’s look at my two mix-boys as examples.

One day, Tom called me and said, “You’ll never guess what I’m looking at.” Well, no, given that vague non-question, I couldn’t. Turned out the answer was “a golden retriever/Great Pyrenees mix.” Who, coincidentally, needed a new home. And that’s when we adopted Gulliver.

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Now, the mistake people might make is thinking a golden/Pyr mix is essentially a gorgeous, extra-fluffy golden retriever. No doubt about it, Gulliver was breathtaking. Just look at this face.

Gullyface

But Gulliver’s personality was 100% Pyr. He was sweet and loving, but reserved. We thought he needed a Pyrish friend, and soon Ozark joined the family.

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Ozark was a Lab/Pyr mix, and his temperament was 75% retriever and 25% Pyr, while he looked like an extra-fluffy Lab or golden.

If you take retrievers (Lab or golden) and Pyrs, you have four possible options, in varying degrees.

  • Looks like Pyr, acts like retriever
  • Looks like Pyr, acts like Pyr
  • Looks like retriever, acts like Pyr
  • Looks like retriever, acts like retriever

Gully looked like a Pyr-shaped golden and acted like a Pyr. He guarded and patrolled the yard and barked at perceived threats, real or imagined. He could lie in the snow for hours, but wouldn’t dampen one puppy-tootsie in our pool. If you threw a ball, he looked at you like “what the hell is wrong with you, throwing that thing when I’m busy monitoring the perimeter?”

Ozark had a very Lab-like appearance, though fluffier, and his outgoing, interactive personality was retriever through and through. He loved all people, like a Lab. He also adored puppies and kitties, which he would take care of, play with gently, and guard, like a Pyr. Unlike a Lab, he did not fetch and would sooner die than get in the pool.

At least Pyrs and retrievers aren’t terribly incompatible when you smush all that DNA into one dog. Gully and Ozark were fabulous dogs, and fit in well with our pack.

Dogpack

Nope, I did’t have a problem! Seven dogs. On the couch are Seko, Sprocket, Flash, Me, Cricket (she’s black, look for the tongue) and Ripley. On the floor are Gulliver and Ozark. I think this was January 2002.

I worry about less-compatible mixes. In golden rescue, for example, we saw a lot of golden/chow mixes, and it’s hard to imagine two breeds with more different temperaments and personalities. (Side note…why do we refer to dogs as having a “personality?” Does that imply they’re persons? If it does, we should apologize and find a new word immediately, because most people suck, while dogs are made of awesome. Doggonality? Puppernality? I’m open to suggestions.)

If you get that cute little golden-chow mix puppy, who looks like a super-plushy golden, thinking this will be your new “play fetch at the beach” buddy, you might both be very frustrated and disappointed if he ends up having the chow personality. (Puppernatility? I’m still working on this part…) He will not fetch that Frisbee, and if you try to make him go in the water, he will explain to you–possibly with his teeth–why that is not happening.

If he looks like a chow but has the golden “I love all humans, and I know they all love me, so I must bound up to them to facilitate the exchange of our mutual love” outlook on life, you might have a lot of people whose lives flash before their eyes when they think they’re about to be attacked by a breed of dog that typically doesn’t come running at you unless he means business and has decided he does not like you.

It’s all really confusing for everyone involved.

That’s why I tend to stick with breeds I know. I understand how Pyrs and goldens work, and now I also know how standard poodles work. (Hint: They Are Always Watching. He will let you know what he thinks of things later, as soon as he develops a foolproof strategy. Don’t argue. He’s probably right.)

Mozzie (#13) came from a breeder, and Oliver (#14) is a true urgent-case rescue through a humane society, though both are purebred. I have Mozzie’s limited AKC registration, met his parents and two of his littermates, and I am comfortable with the environment in which he was bred and raised. I know who Oliver’s parents are, though I never bothered to track down his papers because a) he’d been through several homes prior to our finding him, and b) papers don’t mean anything unless you want to compete in AKC events such as conformation or obedience, or breed them, and those things are not happening.

Oliver’s parents, Earnest and Lady Girl

When we got Mozzie, I actually got some thin-lipped, silent disapproval because he wasn’t a rescue. Know what? I’ve spent the last 20+ years as a dedicated rescue volunteer and supporter, and if I find myself dogless for the first time in 30 years and come across a puppy and decide he’s what I need, I can certainly buy a damned puppy, regardless of what anyone thinks. Do I need to say that again, louder, for those in the back? No? Good.

There’s no one “right” way to find your perfect dog. He might be waiting in a shelter or a rescue group, or there might be a breeder with a dog who is meant to be yours. The only caveat is I’ll never consider buying from a pet store, or from what I call greed-breeders. They churn out puppies as fast as the poor mama-dog’s uterus will allow, or they produce some trendy designer mixed breed and try to convince you it’s so special you should pay $1000-$2500 or more for the privilege of owning one…and in some cases both. Yeah, stay away from those assholes.

Other than that, do your own thing. Go to a shelter. Apply through an all-breed or breed-specific rescue group. Find a breeder whose head isn’t packed full of straw and illusions of fat bags with dollar signs on them. Know what you want, know what you need, know what you can handle, know what characteristics you can expect from the breed(s) involved, and find your new canine friend.

All that matters is love, and dogs are overflowing with the stuff and more than happy to share.

Just Being Neighborly

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Unless you’re lucky enough to live deep in the forest, in a converted missile silo, or on an island somewhere, neighbors are a fact of life. Social convention suggests we’re supposed to be…neighborly. But for those of us with social anxiety, a strong preference for hermiting, and a dedicated aversion to anyone encroaching on our territory, “neighborly” has a somewhat different definition.

We lived in our house in Minnesota for 17 years. In that time, I spoke to a few neighbors a handful of times, in instances of extreme necessity. Once, Sprocket escaped the yard, and a neighbor returned him. Another time, a neighbor’s dog went walkabout, and I pointed out where I saw him. And I once spoke to Next Door Neighbor West to apologize for Brody barking him deaf while he worked in his back yard. Turned out he didn’t mind; he just barked back. That was nice. Brody made a friend.

So, basically, I talked to neighbors about dogs.

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No. Just…NO.

Four years ago this week, we moved into this house. I quickly learned southern neighbors are…different. Before we got our fence installed (which is six-foot privacy fence on the front and right side, where there are people, and four-foot chain link on the two woodsy sides), the guy across the street and one house up stopped over to say hello while we were out on the back deck. After a bit, he announced he had to pee and proceeded down to the trees at the back of our yard to do exactly that.

In our yard.

I went in the house and did not go back out.

We’re the last house on a dead end road, so we have nice, quiet neighbors on one side, a rental house directly across from us, and the yard-urinator next to that. I have no idea who else lives on the street. I’m not interested.

The most interaction I’ve had to date was with the quiet couple next door. Two years ago, I was on the deck and Darwin-big-paw was observing me and managed to knock the pole into the sliding door track. I had no phone, all windows and doors were locked, the gates were also locked, and I had a pot of chili on the stove. Oh, and Tom was in Jacksonville, 40 minutes away. So I had no choice but to haul my aging, sedentary ass over the chain link part of the fence into the woods, trek through the neighbors’ side yard, knock on their door, and ask to use their phone to call Tom.

Yeah, that was fun. Anyway…

We’ve been really lucky with the rental so far. When we got here, a nice single woman in her 30s with an older, well-behaved dog lived there. When she moved, it was occupied by two young Marines. They were polite, kept to themselves, looked great mowing the yard, and were well-armed, which was comforting since I’m often home alone. But they moved in the fall, and the house has been vacant.

Now, someone has moved in, and I’m not exactly sure what to make of it. I originally noticed a woman and either two teen boys or one teen boy and a husband. The older-seeming of the males always had a hat on, so I couldn’t get a read on him. But either situation seemed unlikely to inconvenience me in any significant way.

I take my privacy and the tranquility of my domain seriously. Yard-urinator-guy has a lot of grown kids, grandkids, a whole big family that often congregates in the covered gathering area by his house. They’re loud and boisterous, but in a happy way, so as long as the festivities conclude at a reasonable hour, I’m fine.

But these new people…I’m not sure about. I usually only see one vehicle, but after a couple of days I noticed (shudder) children. Like teacup humans up to maybe 4-5 years old. I’m not sure, exactly. I’m not a kid person. These small people seem to come and go, so now I wonder if the woman does some kind of (shudder again) home daycare, either as an income source or for family.

This would not be acceptable for a lot of reasons. Kids make me very, very twitchy. Adults, once you make your boundaries clear, tend to leave you alone. (Pee in my yard, I put up a fence, problem solved.) Kids don’t do that. Plus, they run around outside, yelling and laughing and doing other kid-type things. Yeah, I know, kids have to play. They were inside, but Mom kicked them out because they were making her insane, and now she’s hit the Xanax bottle, the hidden Twinkie stash, and possibly has vodka in a coffee cup. So the kids are outside.

neighbors

I’m totally the Dad-bear on the left

I can ignore them. My family room (AKA “my spot”) is in the back of the house. But the Direwolves, not so much. If there are kids riding bikes or playing games or running around, I’m going to be dealing with a lot of barking. And doG forbid the kids take an interest in the dogs, because then I’ll have them sneaking through the woods to the chain link or peeking under the gates in the privacy fence so they can see the doggies.

Yeah, I’m that neighbor. The creepy old lady who looks through the blinds and takes random surveillance photos to text to Tom to get his take on the latest developments. I was going to post a couple of these photos here, but it occurred to me this might be crossing some sort of socially-acceptable–and possibly legal–line. I don’t know. I’m not good at this.

So, eventually, Tom will be outside and see them and go over to talk and see what they’re like. This is his primary neighbor-related duty. People like him. I make people uncomfortable, which is only fair, since they make me even more uncomfortable.

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Oliver and Mozzie occasionally assist with the surveillance

Today, I saw a little purple plastic ride-on car thing in their driveway. This implies outdoor child-related activities. I do not like this. I’m imagining a swing set, maybe a bouncy-house, perhaps even a wading pool, and this is not good. For me.

The good news is I have not yet observed any dogs. My worst fear is someone will move in with several unruly, troublesome, roam-at-large dogs. Nobody else on the street has a fence. A house with resident outside or uncontained dogs would be awful. Mozzie and Oliver would be glued to the front windows, barking themselves into a spit-slinging frenzy. At-large dogs could be exploring our fence, digging under gates, or going to the woods side chain link and harassing my dogs. At which point I shall lose my mind.

For now, it’s a waiting game. I check the situation whenever I pass through the front of the house, but it’s been chilly, so I don’t yet have enough information.

But just in case, anybody know how to build a moat?

Let’s Meet Mozziver

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I view people without dogs with either pity or suspicion, depending on whether their doglessness is because they love dogs but due to circumstances beyond their control can’t have any, or because they simply don’t like dogs. The former is tolerable because it can someday be remedied. The latter…does not compute, and I don’t think I know how to even have a conversation with those people

The week between when our beloved Great Pyrenees, Brody, died in November 2016 and when we found Mozzie and brought him home was the only time I’ve been dogless in my adult life. It was surreal beyond description, and I hope I never experience such emptiness again.

Since Mozzie and Oliver will be the stars of this show, as well as the brains of the operation, I thought we should talk about how they came to be here. As of right now, Mozzie–a golden retriever–is 17.5 months old, and Oliver–a standard poodle–is 15.5 months old.

To set the stage, in 2016 we had two dogs. Darwin was an 11-12 year old golden retriever, and Brody was an 11 year old Great Pyrenees. They were dogs number 11 and 12 in our lifelong pack. Darwin was our sixth golden (the fifth adopted through RAGOM in Minnesota), and Brody was our first Pyr, though we’d had two Pyr mixes in the past.

brodar

Darwin and Brody

2016 turned out to be a catastrophically shitty year. Darwin was diagnosed with cancer in June, and lived only six more days. Despite being rescued at age 3 in a horribly neglected and emaciated condition, he was the happiest, bounciest, sunniest, orneriest dog in the history of ever, and losing him was crushing.

Brody had been declining for a long time, with more and more trouble with his back legs, and the day before Thanksgiving, we knew it was time. He could no longer stand or walk on his own, and at 100 pounds, we were limited in our ability to help him.

Suck X 1 million.

A few years earlier, I’d consulted the crystal ball and thought this might happen one day, and we tried to adopt a third dog, but Brody and Darwin vetoed this notion very adamantly. So I knew there would be a time I had zero dogs, though my canine-obsessed mind had trouble comprehending this.

Then it happened, my brain imploded, and things went a little crazy. The local golden rescue wasn’t getting in any young adult males (I’d applied and was stalking their page on an almost hourly basis), and neither was lab rescue. I’d toyed with the idea of a smaller breed dog, maybe a corgi or small lab mix or a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, but not having had a golden since Darwin died, it soon became evident I needed a golden in my life.

Then I saw an ad. A family had three puppies left over from a litter. They’d been supposed to go to new homes in October, but the area experienced severe flooding around then, and some puppy families backed out due to dealing with their own flood situations or being unable to reach the puppies. They were 3.5 months old, past the usual adoption age…and I had to see them.

Long story short, I found Mozzie. I had not wanted a puppy. I swore up and down, loudly, that I did not want a puppy.

Turned out I did.

Whatsit

Once Mozzie (our 13th dog and 7th golden) had been with us a month or so, I knew the only thing that could keep up with a puppy was another puppy. It damned sure wasn’t a 50-something-year-old woman who spends most of her waking hours on the couch with her laptop.

mozziepretty

Don’t let the cute fool you. He was a 900-mile-an-hour puppy whirlwind two seconds later.

And the search began. Golden rescue again, lab rescue, hoping to find Mozzie a kind, confident big brother.

Once again, the universe laughed at me. I think it might have peed itself a little.

The morning of February 13, 2017, I awoke and began checking out rescue listings, as usual. There had to be a nice, calm big brother out there for our Mozzie. Then I saw a post from Colonial Capital Humane Society. They’d been asked to assist in re-homing an almost 4-month-old standard poodle puppy. He was already in his third or fourth home, and the people who had him wanted him gone.

I applied. I messaged. I was immediately approved, because seriously, who is a better qualified puppy-mom than me? Nobody, that’s who.

Oh, I did check with Tom first. We hadn’t discussed standard poodles only because we never imagined we’d find one in this area. Finding anything that isn’t a pit bull or some sort of hound is already hard enough. All my years in vet clinics, I’d known poodles. Also, a dear friend had one, and she also had a golden when she got him, and it was a great match. Tom’s uncle had a black male standard. We were sold.

But I wanted a day or two to prepare. I’d need another crate, had to get my brain prepared for a second puppy, when I had sworn I didn’t even want one puppy. Shows how much I know.

The hitch was if we wanted him, we had to take him immediately. The people who had him had informed CCHS that they were out of puppy food and weren’t buying any more. They had also posted online and were planning to hand this puppy, who they called Scarecrow because he was afraid of everything, to the first person who knocked on their door.

Thank doG, the CCHS volunteer we were working with was having none of that. She left work and charged over to the house, literally taking this puppy out of the hands of some random person who was more than likely planning on using him to make “doodles” that could be sold at a tidy profit.

meeting oliver

So, dog #14 turned out to be standard poodle #1. We named him Oliver, and let me tell you, that dog is not afraid of anything, even a little bit, unless it’s not being the center of attention. He and Mozzie became bestest buds, and I’ve never had a more bonded pair  of brothers, ever.

The only drawback is I’m outnumbered and outsmarted. Goldens are incredibly smart, learn anything quickly, and are eager to please. Poodles are strategists, their intelligence is off the charts, and they never miss anything. The two of them together could found a mid-size nation or destroy civilization, depending on their mood.

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Since I work at home, and leave the house only under duress or promises of dirty martinis, I’m with these two 24/7. They’re my entertainment, my sounding board, my “good morning snuggles alarm clock,” my bathroom monitors, and my security system. I don’t know what I’d do without them.

What about my theory of always having at least three dogs, so I never end up in the zero-dog situation again? I think I have to let that go, because I can barely keep up with these two, and they get along so well I don’t want to do anything to upset the biscuit wagon.

So, there you have it. Mozzie and Oliver. Mozziver. The Direwolves. Poodledactyl and Goldensaurus. My boys.

 

 

 

Starting Over

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Once upon a time, in 2000-a-long-time-ago, I had a blog called Fermented Fur. I had so much fun with that blog, finding the humor in things like sub-zero temperatures and blizzards and my nose freezing shut when I sniffed (we lived in Minnesota), my dogs and their attempts to drive me insane or perhaps kill me, my weird insecurities and idiosyncrasies, the monumental annoyances of Other People, and the ins and outs of managing a holistic veterinary practice.

But life got in the way, I got busy…and I started writing and editing books. Fast forward to now. We finally got tired of being frozen for eight months out of the year and escaped to coastal North Carolina in 2013. I wrote a couple more books, edited many more, and took a position as the Managing Editor for Limitless Publishing.

Parts of this are super awesome. I work from my World Headquarters and Petting Zoo, better known as the couch in my family room. Instead of migraine-inducing co-workers, I have the direwolves, Mozzie and Oliver, and you will soon know much more about them than you ever thought you wanted to know, should you dare to stick around. I have a nice view of the woods behind the house. No makeup, bra, or shoes required, copious amounts of golden retriever hair mandatory. The editing part is fantastic. The book writing has become less so.

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Mozzie and Oliver, editorial assistants and blog-helpers, collectively known as the Direwolves or #Mozziver

Being an author is everyone’s dream, right? Yeah…not so much. Writing is frightfully hard–and the writing is the easy part. Going through revisions, edits, formatting, cover design, proofreading, release day, all the parts of making a manuscript a book are orders of magnitude harder than the writing, and the never-ending marketing, promoting, networking, and pimping is monumentally worse. All this while being pressured, mostly by your own stupid, masochistic brain, to write more books.

I wasn’t happy anymore. I’ll never stop editing, because I really love taking a rough manuscript, making it shine, and helping the author achieve their dream. I’ll never stop writing, either, but damn do I hate being an author. Not the books themselves, but all the frustrating, endless work that comes along with the books.

When was I happy? When I was writing Fermented Fur.

So that’s what I’m going to do. Furmented Fur 2.0 has been christened Furwood Forest. I’ll get back into that warped, quirky, sometimes jaded, dog-infatuated part of my brain and see what’s rattling around up there. I’ll recycle some Classic Fermented Fur, because most of the people I know now weren’t around for version 1.0, so you’ll get to meet some of the old dog crew, like Sprocket, Ozark, Brody, and Darwin.

And that’s it. Adios to authoring, welcome back to blogging. Hope you’ll visit often! I’ll try to figure out how to do a “subscribe” option, but it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged and it’s all changed. Above all, comment! Comments make bloggers happy and keep us motivated to blog harder to amuse you. 🙂

Welcome to Furwood Forest, Home of the Direwolves.