My sister Devon and her husband are on the way to the beach to meet my parents, brother, and other sister, so that means I get to sit her foster pup for a few days. You all saw a picture of her the other day, but here it is again:
She dropped her off this morning, and let me tell you, this may be the sweetest dog this side of Lily. She was rescued from Mississippi, and suffered horrible malnutrition, so much so that her brother died. She had rickets, so her legs didn’t form correctly, so she’s as bowlegged as a cartoon cowboy, and she is only 19lbs and the vet thinks she is almost 85-90% grown. At any rate, I can not tell you what a lover she is. She is also my new shadow- everywhere I go she follows me so close that if I stop short she runs into me.
We took a ride to Kroger:
I got her a 4 piece chicken nuggets because I like to spoil Devon’s dogs, and she loved them. At any rate, she is just an angel. She has the softest coat I have ever felt, and loves to snuggle. She slept with the other dogs with no problem, and she and Lily are sitting on my lap right now as I write this.
She is also so delicate when you give her treats and she love to rub noses and I have been administering long belly rubs and she drools on my arm when I do it.
If someone needs a Christmas miracle, holler, because if I did not have three i would totally adopt this dog. She’s a Lily, which as dar as I am concerned is the highest compliment you can give.
scuffletuffle
She is a cutie…would love to take her but finances are tight right now and for the near future. Hope she gets lucky with a jackel…
schrodingers_cat
She looks sweet.
trollhattan
Aww sweet, and a merry Dogmas to all.
We took our little man up to the BIL’s yesterday and luckily he and their ginormous German shepherd puppeh hit it off and ran each other ragged. First truly social dog they’ve owned in decades, whew!
Litlebritdifrnt
Give it up Cole, they will take her away from you out of your cold dead hands. Admit it.
jacy
Who says three is a magic number? If you don’t listen to the universe, it’s liable to wallop you upside the head for not paying attention.
Yutsano
@Litlebritdifrnt: That would make Thanksgiving awkward…
(I was thinking the exact same thing!)
Silent no more
I rarely comment, but lurk multiple times a day. Some days BJ is what keeps me going. Taking this opportunity to see if anyone would be interested in meeting up while I’m in Virginia, Jan 11-15? I would love to spend a little snarling time with jackals.
LAO
What a little honey! I wish I had the space for more than one little monster. Didn’t someone just buy his first house? With plenty of space for doggos? I haven’t been around much, maybe I’m mis-remembering.
HinTN
OT, but in the way of being pet related, the 2018 calendar is up at Cafepress (hooray) but the page ain’t working (I has a sad). I have contacted them and they say they have to contact the page owner and to please give them until Friday. Oofda…
Foster pup is adorbs.
Around these parts, the tree is coming down.
Happy Boxing Day, jackals.
Schlemazel
She looks like a mini version of my daughters pup which was taken from a fighting breeder in Alabama. Sweetheart of a doggie, a big, dumb, slobbering ball of love.
HinTN
@Litlebritdifrnt: You know it! :^)
LAO
@HinTN:
Sincere question — is it common to take down your christmas tree the day after christmas? On my way to work this am, I passed 4 discarded trees on the street. It surprised me, I don’t remember this from years past.
Barbara
@Silent no more: whereabouts in Virginia?
trollhattan
@LAO:
Pretty good sign of a family flying off to some post-Christmas vacation spot.
Our kid pitches a fit when I take ours down on New Year, fire hazard notwithstanding.
LAO
@trollhattan: That makes sense. Thanks. It just seemed so early to me.
HinTN
@LAO:
Not really for me, the Twelve Days of Christmas until the feast of the Epiphany and all that, but what Mrs H wants she usually gets.
My guess is that what with the holidays being on Monday it’s easier just to get ‘er done.
HinTN
@trollhattan:
My SIL’s mom hated to take down the tree. One year the thing had shed every needle it had to give and her hubby, a professor at the local Whiskepalian seminary, finally asserted that they were so far beyond the season of Advent that he could “no longer liturgically justify this tree.”
Silent no more
@Barbara: I will be in Staunton, but happy to travel a bit.
Yutsano
@Silent no more: Send an e-mail to Anne Laurie with details. She could throw up a post about it and see where it goes from there.
I need to do the same thing actually. Back in Seattle January 20-23rd. And this time I WILL go to the right place!
raven
@HinTN: Since we were in Virginia for Christmas and are going to the Rose Bowl Friday, no tree this year!
Betty Cracker
Keep her!
Mnemosyne
Trying to decide if having a 15-pound cat napping on my shin is good or bad for my injured knee. Isn’t a cat’s purring supposed to be at the optimal frequency for healing or something like that?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Betty Cracker: You and me both girl! Great minds think alike:)
Fair Economist
@LAO:
Common, no, but not freakish. My dad was compelled to put all the Christmas decorations away the day after Christmas. As a committed procrastinator, I hated having to help, but he just couldn’t stand having work waiting for him to do.
Butch
I used to have four until last year when we lost Barley to old age and Bucky to some unknown illness at 10. Four is no problem; if you can afford it and have room, why not?
gammyjill
Cole, obviously Devon had a certain outcome in mind when she – supposedly innocently – asked you to “look after the foster”. Just keep the damndog – you know you want to. And where’s the cat?
The Moar You Know
My dream job has become a stay-at-home dog dad. Sadly, we must keep a roof over our heads, so we only have the one.
I would adopt every dog in the world if I could. The way most of them are treated by people is proof of our species’ utter barbarism.
raven
@The Moar You Know: I’ve worked from home for 13 years now, these tow have never known anything else. One way I’m able to justify leaving them for 6 days is that I know the sleep almost all the time!
Steve in the ATL
@Silent no more: is this part of your annual tribute to Woodrow Wilson?
Patricia Kayden
She’s so sweet. Hate to know that her brother died under such awful circumstances. Humans can be so cruel sometimes.
Chris
Ahhhh…I want her. We lost our sweet Sophie over the summer and all three of us are still so sad and lost. She was our second JRT (I know, we’re gluttons for punishment) or to be specific Parson Russell Terriors…taller, longer legs and leaner than Rosie. I wouldn’t know the first thing about the logistics of trying to adopt from afar (we live in Southern California).
NotMax
@raven
All part of the cunning plan to rest up sufficiently for the giant doggie toga party they’ll hold in the house along with all the other neighborhood mutts while you’re away.
:)
jeffreyw
@Mnemosyne:
That’s just purrpaganda!
StringOnAStick
@Mnemosyne: The Nature program on felines said that the purr frequency helps heal broken bones but they didn’t mention ligaments. Close enough I suspect though.
rikyrah
Absolutely beautiful. I hope that she finds a home.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@gammyjill:
Steve? He’s plotting Cole’s demise as usual.
MazeDancer
@jacy:
Exactly. You have to keep this dog, John Cole. This is not telling you what to do. At all. This is simply mirroring back what you are telling yourself to do. Four is a great number.
The other three dogs seem to think four is excellent as well. She is already in your heart. Listen to yourself. You are speaking about her same as you did for Lily and Rosie. She knows you’re her guy. Bliss. She’s young, your lineage of sweet and wonderful dogs continues.
NotMax
Tempting as it may be, you don’t need another dog.
If she’s that super sweet, allow her to make someone else’s (who may be more in need of it) life richer.
MomSense
Look at the expression on her face in that second photo. She loves you, John. It’s hard to find a dog like Lily so this would be an incredibly good thing to happen to you a second time.
sheila in nc
@LAO: Back when we lived in Maryland, tree went up mid-December and came down on Epiphany or thereabouts. Upon moving to NC and experiencing our first Christmas there, the first thing we noticed about tree season was that it started earlier and ended earlier. People around here get their trees up Thanksgiving weekend, for pete’s sake, so no wonder they are ready to give it the heave ho as soon as its work is done.
The Moar You Know
Cole:
If these folks can do four dogs (actually looks like it’s five now!) you can.
This and “we rate dogs” are the only two justifications for Twitter’s existence.
raven
Boy who fell into frozen pond chasing his dog rescued half-hour later
woodrowfan
Wish we could take a 4th.
Miss Bianca
Aww, JC, what MomSense said @39: look at her in that second photo! She loves you already! And you love her!
Not saying you should keep her, mind…just preparing to smile when/if you announce it as a fait accompli.
WaterGirl
@raven: glad the dog is okay, but we apparently don’t know about the kid.
WaterGirl
Cole, you love her, she loves you, i call that a match made in heaven. We can’t always choose when love finds us, but we have to grab it when it shows up.
Pogonip
Merry Christmas, Cole!
We have a legend in Christendom that animals can talk on Christmas Eve. This dog said, “That guy sounds nice. I think I’ll adopt him when I go over there.”
And you wouldn’t walk to make a liar out of such a nice dog.
MoxieM
What a sweetie pie. If Twintkletoes-McMurphyface wasn’t an 8 y.o. brat (75 % Gt Pyr, 25% Pyr, Lab, GSD mix according to the gods of doggy DNA…), anyways she’s kind of a mean old brat to sweet young doggies… or I would be sorely tempted.
Kirk
The longer its up the drier it gets, thus the greater the fire hazard.
Me, I use an artificial tree so when it goes up and down is up to her.
Greenergood
@LAO: Ha! I remember in the early 1980s living in NYC going out roaming with my pal for a Xmas tree the night before Xmas eve – because rich people chucked out their trees before they went off on their skiing vacays (can’t have those pesky needles littering the floors) – got a beautiful tree just off 14th street on 23rd December – and only needed to add the lights and deccies – they’d left the tinsel and garlands. Can’t imagine it’s any different now – trickle-down Christmas trees … thx Signor Trump, and Happy Holidays to you too
Schlemazel
to all of you goading JC into keeping the doggie:
“Don’t rush a miracle man.
You rush a miracle man you get a lousy miracle”
John – don’t do it, 3 is already a houseful. No fair you hoggin em all.
I find it interesting that the humane people in MN have to ship dogs in. Daughters came all the way from Alabama (no bango on any knees though). The folks here in Hennepin County ‘complain’ they can’t get enough dogs in to meet demand. Cats OTOH, well lets just say they do not fair as well and leave it at that.
Schlemazel
@raven:
Man, half an hour, that can’t be good. He deserves better for paling around with the pup.
TaMara (HFG)
@Chris: If you got lost in the shuffle – tweet at Cole, he’s more likely to see it. We seem to have become experts at transport here – as long as Devon’s rescue group allows remote placement (seems we ran into that issue with Ginger a while back).
https://twitter.com/Johngcole
Greenergood
@LAO: This drives me nuts. We never put up our tree until Christmas Eve,or maybe one day before. Here in Scotland, people think it’s bad luck to leave your tree up after Twelfth NIght (Epiphany) so after then we leave the tree up and lights on, but close the curtains at night. Meanwhile, some of these people who say you can’t keep your tree up after Epiphany have had their tree up since the end of November!! So a little uneven there … Latent paganism has its drawbacks … Happy
Boxing Day …
raven
@Schlemazel: Here’s a cool sign from up on the Blue Ridge Parkway about “The Great Valley” that extends from New York to Alabama.
lamh36
Alright…who’s watching #KennedyCenterHonors tonight? Tonight on CBS!
Kennedy Center Honors 2017: How to watch online and on TV, start time and pre-show https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kennedy-center-honors-2017-how-to-watch-on-cbs/
Sab
@Greenergood: Wow! My mother always delayed putting the tree up until Christmas Eve, and was adamant about getting it down by Twelfth Night because of bad luck.
We are Midwesterners, but her grandmother was a Canadian descended from Highland Scots.
eclare
@lamh36: I’ll have it on, mainly to see LL. That is going to be weird, like when it honored Led Zeppelin a few years ago. I remember Obama singing along..;..sigh. And Lenny Kravitz, wow.
NotMax
@Greenergood
Yes, Virginia, there’s a web site.
Ugly Christmas Trees
And then there’s this, from Rome.
:)
Schlemazel
@raven:
Interesting, the sort of place I would like t find & explore. Thanks.
Did you know that the ‘Natchez trace” is a path that native Americans followed for centuries & early settlers used it?
eclare
@eclare: Lenny Kravitz Whole Lotta Love
El Caganer
Last word from John Cole: “Readers, I adopted her. “
debbie
Happily, I saw no Scrooges who had tossed their tree to the curb. I’m sure this is because today was the pick-up day and no one had the balls to tear down their tree on Christmas night. Hopefully, they’ll keep them up until the weekend at least.
NotMax
@El Caganer
Odds on her being named Ivanka currently at 99,000:1.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@El Caganer: With Thurston it was a picture of a dog collar and tag with the title “Failed Foster”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie:
That’s because all the balls were on the tree.
trollhattan
@Sab:
Mom grew up in a very traditional German Lutheran home where the tree was revealed to the kids on returning from Christmas eve services. I suspect the effect on the kids was magical–how the parents pulled it off will always be a mystery.
lamh36
@eclare: At least we won’t have to look at Chump and Melanoma since they declined the invite…than Gawd
raven
@Schlemazel: I did but I had forgotten.
geg6
@Chris:
Well, I adopted my Koda from a bleg here on BJ and the jackals managed to get her to me here in PA from Santa Monica. The jackals are generous if it means a happy ending for a pet.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: When our kids were small, we went and picked out a Christmas tree at the farm in October, but then it was delivered and decorated by angels, not on Christmas Eve, but shortly before. The mystery was maintained for quite some time.
Tazj
@trollhattan: My parents liked to put the tree up on Christmas Eve when the kids were asleep because that’s the way their parents did it. My grandparents would tell them Santa Claus did it, and they both thought it was more magical to do it that way. I had older parents. It seems like a tremendous amount of work to do in one night, put up the tree and lay out the presents, plus you miss seeing the tree before Christmas. I have enough trouble putting out the presents for my own kids. We kids eventually badgered them into putting one up earlier.
Whoever takes in that sweet little dog will be very lucky, she’s quite the looker to boot. That picture of her in the sweater looks like the perfect Holiday card.
debbie
@Tazj:
You left out the two hours of the father stomping around and swearing while assembling all the toys. At least that was the tradition in my home when I was a kid.
debit
I hope this sweet girl finds a home soon. As always, if funds are needed for transport I’m in. Still paying it forward for Walter.
J R in WV
@Chris:
Our friends next door have a JRT, according to them that stands for Jack Russell Terrorist. He’s a little uncontrolled, out-of-control, whatever.
Tazj
@debbie: That’s true, especially when there was a tricycle or bicycle involved.
rikyrah
That second picture, Cole. The way that she is looking at you.
She’s home.
rikyrah
@Chris:
If you mean it, this place will find the route to get her from WV to CA. Just contact Cole.
IvankaThrowUp (AKA RedDirtGirl)
Oh, how I wish I could have that puppy in my life!
SWMBO
Speaking as an expert foster fail, we currently have 7 dogs. We had Pixie and she went a little crazy when Gromit died. We then adopted 3 brothers from the same litter. A woman up the street adopted the last sister from that litter. The parents had another litter a year later and the woman up the street adopted a younger sister. The lady up the street “went off her meds” and left the dogs with her boyfriend who gave the sisters to me. We took my mom’s dog when she went on oxygen because he kept getting tangled in her tubing. And that’s how we wound up with 7. We took the sisters thinking we would rehome them. Nope. Foster fail.
If this dog is like Lily, you’ll break your own heart if you give her up. Follow your heart.
debit
I totally get the desire to see this sweet puppy get a guaranteed loving forever home, but maybe we should assume John knows his capacity for another pet.
SiubhanDuinne
@HinTN:
Not to be confused with the Rum’n Catholics.
SiubhanDuinne
@debit:
Maybe we shouldn’t.
debit
@SiubhanDuinne: Hey, if she wins his heart and he changes his mind, I’ll be the first one to cheer.