Posts Tagged ‘dog’
Horses Easier
My first day of solo Asher duty was not a pretty one. He got the better of me more than I’d like to admit. It seemed to start well with his perfect off-leash companionship on the morning walk through the woods to the barn. I emptied over 2.5 inches of water from our rain gauges on the way.
Asher waited patiently in the barn for me to finish feeding horses and cleaning up manure. I got him to stay with me on the way back to the house for both of our breakfasts. I confined him to his crate in the house while I mowed down by the road and then let him out with me while I mowed around the barn.
He took advantage of my being fully occupied to find manure out in the hay field and completely smeared his orange vest as well as his body, face to feet. I tried to wash him off despite his vehement objection to the process and ended up feeling like the smeared horse shit just went from him to my soaking wet pants and shirt.
That stink just sticks to everything it touches. I couldn’t wait to get out of my clothes and thoroughly scrub with soap in the hope of clearing that stench out of my nose. Well, Asher’s collar still stinks so the smell just lingers.
In my clean clothes after the shower, I was hoping to avoid contact with the dog for the rest of the night. He took that as a sign he needed to up his antics to get me to give him a hug. First, he got into the bathroom trash and shredded used tissues.
I took him outside where he could chase thrown balls. When he tired of that exercise, I offered to head back inside where he would have the choice of many dog toys. He didn’t want to come in with me so I sat outside with him. He found a stick to play with. Next, he grabbed the Jolly Ball that was in the yard.
He would pause to chew acorns or think about digging into the mole tunnels in the grass. Then he disappeared for a while.
What else could he find to coax me into a wrestling match? Well, there’s always the landscape pond that Cyndie resorted to fencing off to keep him out of it.
He came running into the front yard with the pump intake filter in his mouth and proceeded to shred it before my eyes. When I tried to negotiate an alternative chew option, he knew the game was on.
“Keep away! My favorite game,” Asher says to himself.
All I wanted was to be clean and dry and all Asher wanted was for me to get wet and stinky again.
I went around back and saw he had flattened the netting that was supposed to keep him out of the pond. He figured out how mad I was getting and decided it was time to bolt out of sight. I don’t know where he went but assumed it likely would have something to do with getting dirty or stinky or both.
Honestly, I was prepared to leave him outside all night at that point.
Taking care of the horses is so much easier than watching Asher. He finally returned just before dark and I avoided checking too close before ushering him to his overnight crate so I could be done with him for the day.
Only two more days until Cyndie gets home. I wonder how dirty he can get in that amount of time.
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One Solution
There is one easy solution for me to get a break from any more close encounters of the slithery kind at home. Pack up my things and get out of Dodge, as the saying goes.
But where would I go?
We left Asher at home and skedaddled to the lake where conditions were perfect for floating under the afternoon sun.
The poor pup got as anxious as ever over the obvious signs of our impending departure. While I was finishing up tending to horses down at the barn, Cyndie brought Asher up to the house for his breakfast. My mostly-packed bag was on the floor in our bedroom and Asher helped himself to a box in one of the end pockets that contained a pair of my eyeglasses.
When I stepped into the house, I commented that it seemed strangely quiet. Cyndie told me Asher was on a time-out. I noticed she was holding my glasses and a long-nosed plier. She could work on them all day long but after a pair of eyeglasses have been chomped on by a dog, they will never be the same.
My spare pair made the trip to the lake with me.
I drove up on my own and Cyndie came later with her mom. On Monday, I will head back to take over for our animal sitter, Anna, and Cyndie will stay for a few days to help host a gathering of Marie’s friends.
I’m going to enjoy this break from dog duty to the fullest because when I get home it will be all me and only me in charge of keeping the pooch safely occupied.
I wonder if I can teach him to hunt snakes.
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Asher Stung
We were having a good time working in the backyard yesterday morning while Asher romped around nearby off-leash, periodically coming over to “help” by digging ferociously. Just like the horses stomping their feet to shake off biting flies, Asher frequently swings around and chomps at flies when they are bothering his butt.
When he made that gyration with amped-up energy to both his left and right yesterday, it caught my attention. There wasn’t anything visible to bite but he reacted as if the problem wasn’t going away. He then sat down hard for a second before twisting around and lifting his leg to bite the inside of his thigh.
That’s when I saw it. The classic yellow and black of a stinging insect was the target of his bite. I guessed that poor Asher was getting stung by a bee. He seemed to cope with it pretty well, although he stayed down for an extended period and licked that spot.
Later, Cyndie caught him standing in the pond so maybe he was looking for added relief from some cool water. We contemplated ways to help him but he wasn’t demonstrating any further signs of need and we had no ideas for any tolerable ways we could effectively soothe his immediate pain.
No other issues arose throughout the day beyond Asher getting a little too hot waiting for us to finish tending to the labyrinth for the day. I was mowing and Cyndie was pulling weeds.
When I finished, I invited Asher to tag along with me as I climbed the backyard hill to return the mower to the shop garage and head inside to cool off. He seemed thoroughly happy with my plan.
After he cooled off enough to stop panting, he and I played some “soccer” in the house with one of his squeaky Kong balls. Then he conked out for a respectable nap.
At bedtime, he loaded into his crate and went down without a peep. Apparently, he has gotten over whatever was stressing him out the night before.
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Days Two
Family who slept over Saturday night were treated to a second day of the events of Hays Days, starting with a breakfast of baked double-berry French toast and a perfectly spicy egg bake.
Asher made sure everyone received a warm greeting to start “Days” two.
If they had tented overnight, weather conditions would have allowed them to pack a dry tent in the morning but not if they waited too long. We finally received a small amount of precipitation and I’m not going to complain because a little is better than none at all.
We received just under a half-inch of rain out of a mid-day shower.
Indoor activities included plenty of cutting and pasting for collage projects, then some delicious pasta-making, and ultimately, fabric painting.
It has been confirmed for me once again that an overnight stay increases the connection among relatives at family events dramatically more than just a one-day visit.
I’m not sure what it does for pets. Asher had endless opportunities for human interaction yet he began behaving as if he wasn’t getting enough. What started as one isolated incident of picking up a tossed sock and trotting off with it eventually became a never-ending routine of grabbing a shoe or a shirt or a bag of dice, anything in reach that he seemed to understand wasn’t one of his toys.
At first, I wrote it off as him being out of sorts due to so many new people occupying his living space but after everyone had departed yesterday evening, Asher twice absconded with one of my slippers. At bedtime, after we put him in his crate, he uncharacteristically whined and whined until I finally came out of our bedroom to sit near him and watch Lionel Messi playing for Inter Miami on AppleTV on my laptop.
Asher quieted down immediately. I think he likes Messi.
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Lots Done
Sometimes I don’t accomplish very much by the end of a day. Other times –I don’t know why– I find myself checking off one thing after another on my list of tasks deserving attention. Yesterday was one of those days when Cyndie and I got a lot done, due in no small part to Asher being off to an all-day “Fit-Dog” session with a canine coach.
Cyndie kicked off the day by putting up a simple fence around my manure compost piles, hoping to dissuade Asher from rolling in them.
Before we started anything else, we decided to give the horses time to come inside the barn again to receive a snack in the stalls. Despite it requiring extra effort to convince Swings to come back out, we agreed it was another successful session. Once they were back outside, they moved out to the hay field which enabled us to close gates behind them so we could put fresh lime screenings under the overhang.
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The horses got a little testy about being locked out of the paddock while we worked and took out their frustration by racing around, which was a treat for us to watch. It looks like Mix is unsure of what to think about the changes we were making.
While I had the tractor in the paddock, I mowed some weeds on one end and then used the bucket to drag washed-out lime screenings back up to fill the area I was doing by hand the day before.
From there, it was just a few gate openings and closings and I was free to mow the back pasture.
Keeping the momentum going, I slipped out the back gate when I was done and made a pass up and down the drainage ditch along our southern border.
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On my way back to the garage, I took a couple of passes with the loader bucket along the gravel drive in front of the hay shed to see if that would be an easy way to tear out the massive weed infestation. Earlier, while moving loads of lime screenings into the paddock, I had forgotten to lift the bucket high enough to clear the ground on the way out one time and it carved off a layer of turf. That revealed a nice-looking patch of the fresh gravel that was underneath which inspired me to try doing that intentionally on the rest of the loop.
The results were promising but if I’m going to clean up the gravel, I might as well put the back-blade on and use that for the purpose it is intended.
With energy to spare, I decided to hop on the zero-turn after parking the diesel and made my way into the round pen to mow down the growth in there.
Almost as good as a putting green, and with sand traps to boot.
We got a lot done yesterday and it sounded like Asher had a good play date at his “Fit-Dog” session. I’d say that qualifies as a double bonus of accomplishments.
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Continuing Progress
After lunch yesterday, Cyndie suggested we try giving the horses another opportunity to wander into the barn for the second day in a row. I think it was great timing and resulted in another good experience for all. Even the surprise leap of Asher suddenly popping his face over the half-door to observe didn’t disturb the horses lingering nearby.
The horses milled about calmly and eventually, each one stepped into a stall to nibble the snack we had placed out for them.
The longer the horses linger in the barn without incident the greater incentive we begin to feel to successfully end the exercise on a pleasant note. Ideally, that means letting them make their way back outside of their own accord. Too bad ideals happen less often than we seek.
Something I’ve witnessed with our horses is a very common behavior of ‘almost’ moving all the way through a gate or door when we invite them to and then pausing for [usually] an extended time to look around and take in all the available scenery, apparently undecided about whether or not they truly want to comply with our desires.
As we began to verbally encourage the horses to move back out into the fresh air while all was calm, Swings decided to turn around and take one more look around. I was able to pull the gates closed so the other three wouldn’t change their minds and go back in as well but that led to an imbalance that Mix and Light were unhappy about.
It took the added persuasion from Cyndie who’d stepped inside the barn to convince Swings to join the rest of the herd again. Maybe the anxious whinnying from the two horses outside would have done the trick but I suspect Swings likes having the others fret sometimes and was just fine taking her merry sweet time.
We are optimistic about the horses being fine going into the stalls for the vet appointment in a little over a week and intend to give them even more free time inside before that day arrives to improve the odds.
In another area of continued progress yesterday, Cyndie had Asher off-leash while moving around the property down to the labyrinth where she intended to do some weeding and he did well with it.
I was very happy to find the maple tree we transplanted to the center of the labyrinth was casting enough of a shadow that Asher was able to take refuge from the hot sunshine by pausing (however briefly) beneath it.
Asher also did his darnedest to help Cyndie with her weed-pulling.
Take that image of dirt digging and multiply it by seven or eight and you can imagine how much Cyndie was appreciating his “help.”
It’s progress, but is it good?
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Home Happy
I’m still thoroughly enjoying being home again but last night’s dinner of grilled pork chops left over from one of our fantastic meals up at the lake gave me a moment of hesitation as I mentally revisited the greatness of those days.
It’s a rough comparison since my day yesterday was spent sweating over pulling weeds, running the power trimmer, and mowing grass in the tropical heat wave of the hottest July on record. Who wouldn’t prefer to be back up at the lake?
Well, I’m pretty happy being able to sleep in our usual bed with the conveniences of a bedside table. I really like our shower. I’m spoiled by how much room there is, allowing for soaping up just beyond the spray of water. My regular routine of charging my phone and laptop works best with my home setup.
I like having the manure compost under daily control. Once every week or week and a half is just too much work all at once to get piles cooking efficiently again. Getting grass mowed before it gets too long is also a preference.
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After dinner, we walked the trash and recycle bins down to the road with Asher at our sides, making it back with time to spare before the first wave of thunderstorms arrived overhead. That weather came in with an ominous-looking cloud line and a dramatic burst of tree-bending wind.
The brief duration of the heavy downpour was a bit anti-climatic when that ended up being all that happened.
Not that I was looking for weather trouble. Quite the contrary. We already have the makings of a small canyon in the paddocks where draining rainfall has washed away the lime screenings into the main drainage swale. The battle against gravity and moving water is never ending in my quest to best manage runoff.
I’m afraid it’s time to extricate the back blade from the depths of the shop garage for attaching to the diesel tractor to scrape gravel back “upstream.” I was relatively successful the last time I tried doing that but the exercise remains on the fringe of skills I have acquired on the big tractor. It always feels like I am on the verge of making things a lot worse instead of better.
Regardless, we are home and that is making me as happy as it always does.
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Great Greeting
When you haven’t seen your dog for a week, it’s hard to contain your excitement when you arrive home and see his sweet face again. If we get too amped up, so will he, and that’s not a behavior we want to encourage.
It was lucky timing that Cyndie walked in the door in the middle of Asher eating his serving of dinner because that made for a perfect distraction. He stopped eating long enough to check on Cyndie and then got right back to finish his food.
No overexcited jumping involved.
After he finished eating there was plenty of time for Asher to say hello to Cyndie’s mom and lean up against me for a massive dose of scratching, but he was perfectly well-behaved throughout all the greetings to a degree that has us feeling really pleased.
We took him for a short walk in the heat to check on the horses and found things in satisfactory order and the herd calmly spread out around the fence under the overhang.
They were spaced apart as if in an attempt to keep away from each other’s body heat. Their reaction to our return wasn’t so much a greeting as an acceptance of the realization their caregivers were changing back to the usual people.
When we stopped in Hayward to fill Marie’s car with gas before the drive home, Cyndie spontaneously hustled into our favorite pizza place right next door (Coop’s [though under new management]) and quickly grabbed a couple of frozen ones to go.
The pepperoni pizza dinner last night at home felt a little like we were still up at the lake, despite the lack of a lake.
Gee, but it’s great to be back home.
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Heat Remedies
Does anyone know when the climate crisis will become a crisis? I have no idea. Be careful to not fall down in places where the pavement is so hot it will burn flesh this week. I am very thankful we were able to spend the beginning of the week at the lake.
A breeze across the water is a wonderful gift of natural air conditioning. I spent a fair amount of time floating in the lake yesterday but I have no photos of those glorious hours. Cyndie sent me a picture from the pontoon cruise we took with some Wildwood folks and guests on Monday.
Her mom took a picture of Cyndie, Mike, Barb, and me on the deck with fancy appetizers before dinner yesterday.
I didn’t stop eating in time to offer my usual smile. Figs and Brie on toasted French bread slices. Can you blame me?
A week free of training Asher to behave has been a welcome respite. It was an unplanned bonus to have the weather be so hot the lake was the best place we could ask to be. I’m trying hard to hold a positive attitude about the fact we are leaving here today and heading home just as the heat is expected to max out for a couple of days.
I saw a headline last night that reported the seawater of South Florida was reaching hot-tub temperatures. I suspect the coral considers this a crisis already.
It won’t surprise me if Asher starts begging us to take him back up to the lake real soon. In the past, we filled a kiddie pool with water for Delilah when it got really hot but it’s not proving to be an attraction for Asher. We tried hard to coax him in there last week to wash off the fresh horse poop he smushed all over his vest and body. He chose to stand beside it instead.
Maybe today’s high temperatures will change his mind.
If not, I will probably end up being the one laying in it to experience a vague reminder of the big lake we’ve been enjoying up in Hayward for the past week.
It’s been a wonderful time but I won’t deny there’s also a part of me that will be happy to get back to my familiar routine, sweaty chores and all.
Our house has a great geothermal air conditioning feature that will be serving us well as our heat remedy in Beldenville.
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Different Showroom
On Wednesday, the asphalt crew showed up promptly to work on sealing the surface of our year-old driveway pavement. Since we wouldn’t want to drive on it for at least 24 hours, we moved both cars out of the garage. I parked mine down beside the barn and Cyndie put hers by the road, knowing she would be leaving right in the middle of the time they were working.
I hadn’t considered the fact she would be returning home with a car full of groceries. That wasn’t a big problem because we always have the ability to drive through our fields if need be. While the horses were up by the barn, I opened the hay field gate by the road, pulled inside the fence, and closed the gate behind me.
As I crested the hill in the middle of the field, I watched for a reaction from the horses to a car approaching in the middle of their grazing territory. For whatever possible reason, they were surprisingly unfazed. I had Cyndie open a paddock gate so I could drive right through and the horses didn’t even look at us.
That should have been it for the night. By early yesterday afternoon, we could drive the cars up to the house. However, stormy weather showed up. Threats of big wind and large hail loomed large. We pondered the situation while constantly updating weather radar images.
If we did nothing, we feared the one day both of our cars were parked outside would be the day it would hail something awful.
The best way to make sure it wouldn’t hail was to move both cars into the barn. I wish I knew what the horses thought of us turning the place into an automobile showroom for a day.
Of course, the move worked wonders. Not a single hailstone fell from the clouds while the cars were protected. It did, however, provide us with ease of mind as multiple waves of cloudbursts passed overhead throughout the evening.
On a completely unrelated note, we have recently given Asher several opportunities to be outside with us without tethering him to a leash, mostly without incident. He dashes away into the surrounding woods on occasion but returns soon enough.
“Mostly without incident” indicates there was one situation that I will call an ‘incident.’ While he was off on his own, Asher took unwelcome liberties with the freshest composting manure pile, rubbing his chest, the vest we make him wear outdoors, and his collar thoroughly in the stinkiest green horse shit dumped on the pile earlier that morning.
Seems to me he is making a statement that he wants to be a full-time outdoor dog.
I didn’t expect this would become one of the problems with wanting him to be able to roam untethered on our property.
Just yuck. Really, really yuck.
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Relative Something 