Tag Archives: Dogs

Annie, Day Two

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As new real puppies joined the family, I installed a gate to keep less experienced little feet off the dome, but inevitably, guests or Pasiano would leave the gate on the stairs up to the casita whose terrace adjoined the dome.

Click on Photos to Enlarge

It is very difficult trying to manage three different groups  of animals: Coco and Morrie and Zoe, the cats and Annie. I  let Annie sleep with me because she cries if I am not within reach,  then this morning let other dogs in to my bedroom and they jumped up on bed with us and  were too frisky because they were hungry and wanted to be fed and she got scared so I had to put Coco and Zoe and Morrie out to feed them, then took Annie out front hoping she would pee but cats came in so I put cat food out and picked her up so she wouldn’t eat it, brought her in to the kitchen to feed her and afterwards took her for a walk which was a real adventure.

When we came in, I came into the bedroom to get my computer and the other doggies were at the south screen door to my room. Annie ran over to touch noses so I cracked the screen a bit to let her out . The others were gentler so she ran away to play with them, but five or ten minutes later she was crying at the screen and they were jumping about her.  I let her in and noticed wet footprints on the terrace and her legs and feet were sopping . Evidently she either stepped on the hot tub cover and then withdrew before sinking all the way in or stepped down one step into the pool, but if so more of her would be wet. At any rate, she is now sleeping by my side. It is tricky getting her acquainted with her new complicated environment.  While I had her out front, Coco was up on roof over the front door watching .Yolanda had left the outside gate to the upstairs open and the dogs can run up the stairs, jump up on the low wall and run over the top of the doggie domain (room I built on just for the dogs) and get onto the dome and run all the way around the roof of the house.  Only Coco does this at present, but the others can get up on the dome over my bedroom. See photo above as proof. I always keep the gate to the stairs closed for this reason.

No, I won’t Annie out on the back terrace around the pool unless I am near, but she has to learn about the pool. Yesterday the other dogs kept getting between her and water when she was near the pool. Diego and Morrie did this with Zoe, too.  Slowly, she will learn not to enter into the pool and  they will get used to each other. They are all very curious and not violent. Yesterday when I was in the hammock, Annie  kept checking up on me, then would run away to play with them. It  made me so happy, She has a babysitter this afternoon as I’m going to lunch at my friend Brad’s house and then out to an art show of my friend Isidro. Moms need to have some social life away from the kids!  Really does feel a bit like dealing with a newborn. This was not as much of a problem with any of the other puppies, but none seemed as damaged as Annie does. I think she is doing pretty well for as terrorized as she was just two days ago!

Note: that big dog on the roof is actually a statue of Frida. Her ashes are inside of it. Just had to put her up there in her favorite place where she spent most of every day surveying the neighborhood. This was pre-gate when she had full access.

What would you do?

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What would you do if you saw this puppy frantically rushing back and forth on an access road to a busy highway?  What I did was watch it in my rear vision mirror, then back up a block to try to  get it to come to me. Instead it ran under my car, crying and yipping loudly all the time. A man on a motorcycle stopped to help. Then a woman came out of a nearby place with her young son and a blanket in her arms to wrap the puppy in when and if we caught it. We finally did and I put it in the cooler I had brought along to take frozen food home in. I took the ice bags out and propped the lid open with one. The woman said it had been hit by a car, so I drove it immediately to the vet who Xrayed it, gave it shots and a bath. (The ice chest was covered in dirt from the puppy, who was filthy.) The tests showed parasites and malnutrition but no broken bones, so it was conjecture on the part of the woman who had helped me that it had been hit by a car. Long story short, “it” is a “she” and after a night at the vets, this sweetie was released to my arms. That is her being held by one of the vet’s assistants she had already bonded to. Once in the car, she insisted on nestling into one of my arms and settling on my lap where she still is now that we are home. Her sisters and brother are crying at the door, wanting to meet her, but for now we are just going to bond and get her accustomed to this new place.  What do you think? Do I have another dog? I’ll take votes. I promised a friend I’d advertise for a home for her, but you know how it goes.  Never met a dog or kitty I couldn’t bond to during a ride home!!!

For Wednesday Quotes #163: The Inspiring World of Animals

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Getting Acquainted
I give up trying to instill any order in this post. Another duck sneaked in.
Neighbors snapped this photo, then called to advise me that Frida had visitors.

Click on photos to enlarge.

Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.”–George Eliot

For Wednesday Quotes #163–The inspiring world of animals.

Happy Leap Year! Feb 29, 2024

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Take a leap…..

In honor of leap day. Click on photos to enlarge.

Walnut Brown

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Click on Photos to enlarge.

Trying to meet this challenge made me realize how little brown there is in my world–let alone walnut brown! I had to search through thousands of photos to find these photos that could be classified in the category of “walnut brown.”

 

For CMMC: Walnut Brown

“Pull Up A Chair” For Wordless Wednesday, Dec 20, 2023

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For Wordless Wednesday

Sleeping with Dogs (For Last on the Card)

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Click on Photos to Enlarge

Can you find three dogs in this jumble of sheets and pillows? Barely room for one human to join them and it takes a bit of pushing and relocating. Now it is 6:30 a.m. and soon they’ll all be off like a shot for a walk with Oscar. It’s the first day of the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe, so we’ve all been up since 6 when the cohetes (bottle rockets) started going off. The actual celebration is Dec. 9-12, but San Juan Cosala likes to stretch the occasion out from Dec. 1-12.

There will be shrines set up in front of buildings all over town.  Yolanda will switch my candles to a position in front of the Virgin statue on my divider between the dining room and kitchen and “native sons”—men who have gone to work in the States—will send money for huge displays of flowers in the church. On the 12th, the 92-year-old statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe will be paraded through the streets and there will be a huge procession with many of the people being led blindfolded behind her statue. In former years, many would crawl on their knees in the procession, but I’m not sure if this happens now. Always a celebration being held somewhere in surrounding villages.

Ajijic is still celebrating the San Andreas Festival, with booths and carnival rides being set up all over town. Earlier, San Juan celebrated for San Juan, then Day of the Dead, now the Virgin, then Xmas. In Jan., Tres Reyes and February Candlemas, then Carnival leading up to lent and depictions of the crucifixion. I’ll stop there as I could go on month-by-month throughout the year.

Oscar just arrived and the dogs are off like a shot, my body being no big obstruction—they all just ran over or leaped over.  Coco always returns for one brief cuddle as Oscar puts the leashes on the others, then bounds out a second time when it is her turn. I’ll know they are home when I hear their food dishes rattling as he doles out their breakfast. It is 6:54. So go mornings on M-W-F in this house.

 

For Bushboy’s Last on the Card prompt

Animal Tracks, for Cee’s Which Way Challenge, Nov 17, 2023

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Uphill
Or down.
On the level.
Or pn the road. This way and that.
Cock
On the wing,
On the dive,
or high steppin’
Where we going, Mom?
Every creature is looking for the next place to go.
Clearly, this is the way.

Click on photos to enlarge.

For Cee’s Which Way: Animals prompt.

Candid Canines

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I just can’t resist a good pup shot!

The indignity!!!
Growls
I give up trying to instill any order in this post. Another duck sneaked in.
The End.

Everybody Knows IV: The Drunken Dog

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Months ago, I published what I thought was a series of 5 of these tales, but when I decided I’d collect them all today to submit as one piece to the Ojo del Lago, a local paper, I discovered that I never did publish number IV on my blog, so here it is:

The Drunken Dog

     As in any small town, there were those in San Juan who liked their drink more than their lives and those men were known to congregate under a pier that extended over the beach out to the lake. How those men earned their keep, no one knew, for they did not work but spent the day drinking under the pier. Perhaps their families supported them, or perhaps they earned money by nefarious means or begged for it In town, but most days, they could be found from sunup to sundown under the pier, and sometimes they lit a fire and remained there far into the night.
     Most of the men in town, however, were hard workers, earning their keep by construction work or road work or toiling in the raspberry fields or other farms or as gardeners or repairmen.  All of these professions were given a break midday for comida. There were a number of small stores in the town that sold beer by the bottle, and during the rest period for comida, as well as on their way home from work, men would gather on benches or lean against walls or scrawl on the ground nearby  for a beer as well as for talk of the day.
     There were many stray dogs in the town. Some were thin and almost starving, but they survived by raiding unsecure garbage cans or shredding garbage bags left in the streets for collection. These dogs were seen to be nuisances and sometimes cruel people would throw hot grease at them, burning scabs into their flesh beneath their clotted hair. But others , because of their personalities and winning ways, were fed by certain people or by scraps from restaurants or butchers. One such dog became a favorite of townspeople. Children would feed him the edges of their tortillas and restaurants would set out the remains of meals on their back doorsteps when he made his daily visits.
     Unfortunately, he also became a favorite of the men of the town on breaks, who would feed him beer. He quickly became as fond of it as they were, and they would pour it in their hands or into a cup as his demands became more and more insistent.  Finally, he became known as the drunken dog and as though he knew his place, he ceased his daily rounds and went  to live with the human members of his sort under the bridge.

     Disclaimer; Although certain details have been added by me to flesh out the story, its general  subject, i.e. the drunken dog and men under the pier, is as true as stories handed down by word of mouth tend to be. The fact that I have written them down does not make them any truer but simply spreads their audience. Whether they are legend or fabrication or truth is a mystery shared increasingly by tales told on the internet, which adds  to their fame if not their veracity. 

 

In case you didn’t read the others and want to, here are links to the other four stories:

Everybody Knows I: ‘The Night the Vet Died” for One-liner Wednesday

Everybody Knows II: The Caguama

Everybody Knows III: The Martyr Dog

Everybody Knows V: The Day that Death Came to Town