Here is somewhere to hangout to avoid (or take a break from) all the madness.
First I’m reposting the troublesome photos from this weekend. From Ms. Deranged in AZ , Lottie (Mrs. Tufts above) and Mouse (She Who Must Be Fed) below.
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realbtl sends along a few of his rescues over the years:
I’ve been rescuing dogs most of my 71 years so I thought you (and all the pet freaks on b-j) might like a quick recent history.
Sinead the German Shorthair Pointer (you’d have to ask my late wife why a GSP has an Irish name). At about 5 she was lost/abandoned in Glacier NP backcountry, found with dead pups in her and barely alive. When I first got her I had to carry her up even 3 step. Turned out to be somewhat aloof but very happy here running loose on my 5 acres in Montana. Shown here with Chloe the purebred English Lab. Chloe was about 7 when my friend the breeder’s pack got into a dominance tussle and Chloe was beaten up.
After Sinead passed I got Sioux who came from a N. Dakota pound with a sister via a rescue person I know in far Eastern MT. About 6 and while given a small amount of attention had been in a kennel all her life. She didn’t understand going in and out of doors which made the 550 mile 1 night trip home interesting. She didn’t know how to be a dog (seeking scritches etc) but Chloe taught her well. Turned out I was the first person she bonded with and she was one of the best dogs I’ve had.
After Chloe came Jada, another purebred Wiem from the same rescue/breeder. Jada was bred to be a show dog and between this (not being raised a pet) and her unfortunate personality quirks. she showed up a mess. A show dog who doesn’t like people and hates to be touched by strangers doesn’t really work. It took me about 3 months to be able to pet her and she was known as the poltergeist as you would only see her out of the corner of your eye. Again Sioux helped Jada become a real dog. Now 5 years later she is about 95% normal dog around me and my stepson and settling in nicely as #1 dog.
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TaMara again. Here are some cute ducks and their toddler that cheered me up so I thought I shared. Google was no help finding the photographer If you find it, I’ll add it.
Some fun news in Colorado. Grey wolves are back.
“This is a historic sighting…I am honored to welcome our canine friends back to Colorado after their long absence… It’s important that Coloradans understand that the gray wolf is under the protection of the Endangered Species Act."
–Colorado Governor Jared Polis https://t.co/d9pZ2SvwLR— Brenna Forester (@BrennaRForester) January 23, 2020
And lastly, I recently purchased a stunning Art Deco dresser from a neighbor on NextDoor (the facebook of your ‘hood). I’ll try and get a decent photo of it and share. Whenever there is a community alert (police, fire or city letting us know of something important) and I end up on the site, I stop over to the For Sale items. That’s how I found the dresser. Luckily I was first in line for the dresser, because he had a lot of interest.
Yesterday, a traffic alert had me on the site when I found this:
Honest to DOG, that was in the For Sale items. I think I’ll pass.
Thanks to everyone sharing their fun stuff with me.
Respite open thread
TaMara (HFG)
test comment. Fingers crossed all is well.
ruemara
If the doll is haunted, why would anyone want it?
Dorothy A. Winsor
It’s snowing to beat the band. I’m thinking I should find a place to write in my building rather than trying to drive to the library or B&N.
kindness
Do ducks like the rain? Wild ones don’t seem to care. Not sure about pampered ones though.
Kristine
Posts like these are going to help me get through the year.
Snowing lightly here in far NE Illinois–about an inch so far. It’s supposed to turn to rain for a time tomorrow, which should make everything nice and schlucky.
My pup Gaby loves the snow. We took a walk this morning–we average 2 to 3 miles most mornings–and she had to stop and roll several times. She also eats it. According to a couple of DNA tests, she’s mostly husky, but she looks all terrier. A 40-lb Benji.
TaMara (HFG)
@kindness: Oh, my gosh, ducks LOVE the rain. It’s so much fun to watch mine in a good rainstorm.
Patricia Kayden
Lol!!
NotMax
Speaking of dogs, The Voice of Bugle Ann on TCM at 5 o’clock Eastern time today. More than a few here may remember reading the McKinley Kantor book during their more spry years.
TaMara (HFG)
@ruemara: I think it was supposed to be a joke. But who knows. LOL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I am two-thirds of the way through editing Underway and then it goes to the editor. I can see the light…
oatler.
@ruemara:
“Hi, my name is Tina and I don’t like you very much,”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@TaMara (HFG): Go you!
I’m trying to write a short story to give away as swag to people who pre-order THE WYSMAN from my publisher. I find short stories really hard to write. There’s a guy in my writing group who is awesome and he read last night. Now the few fragments I have drafted look cliched and pathetic. Thank god for editing!
?BillinGlendaleCA
That doll reminds me of the Santa doll my aunt gave me when I was two. I still have it and haul it out every year, freaks the kid out
ETA: I put a lot of vignetting on that shot to make it more creepy.
mrmoshpotato
Ah creepy dolls. Might watch Tourist Trap tonight.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
“The roe of Santa tonight will be be played by Sydney Greenstreet.”
:)
ziggy
@TaMa
a (HFG):
We need video! Chickens hate rain, mine are screaming for me to turn it off.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: What evil spirit lurkes within?
NotMax
@NotMax
*grumble grumble*
role, not roe
mrmoshpotato
@ziggy: “We’re The Screaming Chickens, and we’re gonna rock your socks off!”
oatler.
How about “The Doll” from the first season of Night Gallery?
bemused
Love the pet threads. I’d be bonkers by now if we didn’t have four hilarious, snuggly pets and grandkids who all have vastly superior character over trump and GOP.
bemused
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yikes!
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: “Mr. Spade, have you any conception of how much money can be got for that black bird?”
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Rut roh!
mrmoshpotato
@oatler.: Hugo from Dead of Night?
stinger
Interested in realbtl saying that he’s had rescues who “didn’t know how to be a dog” and being “a real dog”. That’s just how I describe my rescue Yorkie, Josie, who’d come from a puppy mill and, although she had a name and not just a number, really didn’t know how to live in a house or be with a human who wasn’t touching her only to see if she was in heat or how many pups she might be carrying. After 3 1/2 years, she noticeably turned a corner and started coming to me for pets and scritches (instead of shrinking away or briefly tolerating them). Over the next several months, she kept becoming more like a real dog — the Velveteen Yorkie.
Although it took months instead of a moment, I liken it to Helen Keller and “wa-wa”. She realized that she could communicate with a human!
trollhattan
Aww, realbtl has some fine rescues but seriously, Sinead? Our current doggie is a GSP and a fine gentleman, but not for somebody who wants a fuzzy piece of furniture. They have energy that needs releasing, damnit! Ours loves meeting other dogs and represents my first dog with this talent. It makes walkies far less stressful and opens our world to dog parks.
Also love Weimaraners. Noble beasts. The ones I’ve met are sociable enough but very attached to their particular human, so not your new bestest friend.
Toddler and ducks shot is Hallmark-worthy. Very nicely composed and exposed, and also awwwwww.
aliasofwestgate
I need help, but feel that I screwed it up a few days ago posting with little sleep and horrible anxiety.
ruemara
Already a shite day due to a horrible interview for a position I really had high hopes for. It’s insane how you’re supposed to know every technical aspect of a field because institutions have made positions into a 1 person does it all job. 15 minutes to ask me questions about audio noise reduction processing for a producer position. good god. change the fucking cords, swap out the mic, make sure you’re on the right frequency and other than that – hire an AUDIO SPECIALIST.
brantl
@Patricia Kayden: That could be the only righteous pyramid scheme I have ever heard of.
trollhattan
re. the Colorado wolves. Great news and I guarantee a rancher backlash the match of the one greeting a SINGLE WOLF that had the temerity to enter far NE California. Per the ranchers, essentially every steer dropped dead of fright at the very news. Now there’s an intermittently present pack established in the region and the poaching, er, totally random shootings have commenced.
Y’all have been alerted.
In other critter news, mountain lions are not impressed with you two-legs.
Yutsano
Wuff tweet was shared. Many wuff furries are happy.
@ziggy: Chickens HATE being wet! My mom’s hens actually know the exact line of bushes from the henhouse to the main house to get as minimally damp as possible. And don’t even get them started on snow.
Tenar Arha
World’s Smallest Sheepdog Inca (on Twitter) had her puppies
https://twitter.com/wsheepdog/status/1219127091175792640?s=21
& there’s more puppy goodness in that TL
dnfree
My daughter had a rescue parakeet that she described as not knowing how to parakeet. In a cold spell it flew onto a relative’s tennis racket at a park. They brought it home but couldn’t keep it because they had a cat. My daughter took it in because she had a parakeet and an empty cage. The poor bird just huddled in the cage. The toys were scary and it didn’t know which bits of the food were safe to eat. It made no sound. Gradually it became socialized by the other parakeet and learned to chatter and play with toys. It still doesn’t trust people though.
she did check lost pet sites but didn’t find anything. Who knows how long it had been on its own in northern Illinois? It couldn’t have been more than a few months because of our weather.
trollhattan
@dnfree:
Friends in the Sierra Nevada foothills had a budgie appear in their garage. It was banded but no neighbors were missing one (houses are dispersed on big, wooded lots). They brought home a cage and he flew right to it, clearly thankful to be back “home” in a familiar setting. He proved to be a happy pet for five or more years before passing on to budgie heaven.
aliasofwestgate
Said anxiety is being caused by an eviction order. My roommates are now gone, the lockout is tomorrow I have about half the money I need. Been denied by DHS. United Way has yet to return my call. I have no car, and it’s the winter in Michigan. So yeah.
Jay Noble
“Madder than a wet hen”
Som sayings have a solid basis in reality.
Amir Khalid
I’m waiting up for the Wolverhampton Wanderers-Liverpool match. As a midweek Premier League fixture, it’s an 8pm kickoff at Molineux Stadium — 4am here. (Grumble.) Wolves are known to be a tough side to play, but Liverpool have already won the reverse fixture and are expected to win again. If we do win, our lead goes back to 16 points over Manchester City with a match in hand — that is, Man City have 14 matches left, while we have 15 — and will be incrementally harder to overcome. Fingers crossed. YNWA.
dnfree
@trollhattan: amazingly, the same daughter had a parakeet in high school that escaped and she actually got it back, which never happens. We put an ad in the paper (this being close to 30 years ago) and a few days later someone answered. It had flown several miles away and was clinging desperately to the outside mirror of a pickup truck. The people who found him kept birds, but they saw the ad and returned him. He was glad to see her, and his cage, but given the opportunity he would probably have escaped again. Seemed like an instinct.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Sadly, big cats do have to be euthanized once they attack a human, because when they figure out how much easier we are to take down than a deer, they’ll do it again and again.
We’re only at the “top” of the food chain because we have guns. Take away that advantage and there are a whole lot of large predators willing to demonstrate that we’re actually around the middle of the food chain.
trollhattan
@dnfree:
Amazing, since that basically never happens!
Our kid has one and while we appreciate the value of wing-clipping we’ve been too reticent or lazy to do it with Paco. So if he ever gets out he’s completely mobile.
And we also have the aforementioned bird dog, so there’s that complication. He only points for so long.
Mnemosyne
@aliasofwestgate:
You should email one of the front pagers. If your story checks out, they can set up a fundraiser for you.
dnfree
@trollhattan: our family parakeets don’t have clipped wings because they love to fly so much. It seems cruel, though understandable. There are a lot of bird droppings to clean up.
She and another daughter also have litter-trained rabbits that have the run of the house.
chris
Just in from a short walk with the boys, Steve and Bert. Short walk because short legs aren’t good in the snow.
I will lead.
Maybe not. It’s easier to walk in the big tracks.
Christ, what an asshole!
Danton
@trollhattan: One evening this past July, just at dusk, I heard at least two wolves while camping/fly fishing in the San Juan Mountains about 20 miles north of the New Mexico state line. They were very definitely NOT coyotes. Friends in the San Luis Valley told me there have been sightings of them, too.
Roger Moore
@dnfree:
I’ve had some dealings with two escaped parrots. One was an orange winged Amazon that a coworker found in her back yard and adopted. She was pretty sure it had been abused by its previous human, since it was not friendly. It got along OK with her but distrusted other humans until the day it died- which was over 20 years later. The other was a hand-raised juvenile African Grey we found at work. It escaped from its human, but it was very happy to be found by anyone who would feed it and give it attention. We were able to get in touch with and return it to the person who had raised it.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Not really. There used to be lions in southern Europe and brown bears throughout the continent. They were extirpated from most (bears) or all (lions) of their range long before the invention of guns. Bows and spears are less efficient than guns, but teams of humans armed with them and able to depend on horses and hunting dogs were more than capable of dealing with big, nasty predators.
noname
@chris: What exactly is going on in that last pic? How did poor kitty end up there? Especially after being so brave and blazing a trail ?
chris
@noname: Steve found a place to sit with no snow under that tiny tree. Bert’s just being Bert. They are BFFs and wrestle several times a day.
Forgot the short legs pic.
noname
@chris: Kitties always find a cozy spot. I love the shots of your wood walks especially when the four foots are included.
Miss Bianca
@mrmoshpotato: OK, that was an honest-to-God LOL!
@trollhattan: Oh, believe me, the anti-wolf propaganda has already started down here in CO. Including from a friend of mine who I honestly thought should know better, but who has probably been listening to too much rancher BS. However, since I hope to stay on her good side and buy one of her horses, I am biting my tongue when the subject comes up, and merely donating more money to our local wolf sanctuary.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@aliasofwestgate: Sorry for the insomnia, it sucks. SO does anxiety, I hope things get better. I think we all have those days, but they are worse for some…
trollhattan
@Danton:
ZOMG, were they Mexican wolves?!? Does ICE know?
That would truthfully be a very cool experience. I was 100% convinced that I would never encounter a mountain lion backpacking, until it finally happened about five years ago near the eastern border of Yosemite, well the hell off the trail. After he/she zipped past and into the brush, we saw tracks everywhere on the hike out.
Mind, I’ve long assumed I would occasionally be near one, but they would remain out of sight. Because lions.
A wolf encounter would be cool. Guess my best chances would be in Lassen Park or somewhere north and east of there.
“Werewolf?”
“There, wolf.”
J R in WV
@trollhattan:
Our older Lab Mix was ~9 months old when I brought her home from the shelter. Pre-adoption I had to take her out for a walk around the shelter, which is in a wooded spot on the edge of town.
She did not know what grass was, crouched down to smell it at the end of the sidewalk. We later figured out that she was a puppy for a little girl in an apartment, and once she grew up a little spent all her time in a crate.
Fortunately we had an older rescue who knew how to catch chipmunks and jump around on the boulders around the house, Happy quickly taught Alice now to be a country dog.
More recently we adopted two puppies from friends who have a goat dairy nearby. These 45 pound sleek black dogs were raised as farmyard dogs and had never been indoors. They did not know how to let us know they were home and wanted to be with us at first.
They were skeptical of Alice the white lab, and appeared to vanish into the woods for a week.
Now I have trouble keeping them off our bed in the early am, the boy will jump clear up onto me when it’s time to go outside, hours before I want to wake up. They look like black greyhounds, although they have nary a drop of ‘hound. 25% Great Pyrenees/25% lab mom was a country mutt that looked like an Austraiian cattle dog — the little girl prefers to stay outside, even when it’s damp and in the teens!
They learn fast, and chew newspapers and boxes into shreds, the house is a mess, but the dogs are all happy, which makes us happy.
J R in WV
@aliasofwestgate:
Perhaps you can set up a GoFundMe account, and let us know about it? I don’t know what is involved with that, but others have done it here so it can’t be too hard.
Take your time and write up your problems dispassionately, as much as you can anyway. Some history, some back story, etc.
Best of luck, these are hard times for many!
J R in WV
@trollhattan:
Friends way past us into the woods had a parrot type bird show up — they’re at the head of a hollow another hour into rural WV past us. Their daughter, who is a serious RN, either OR work or ER, I forget which, got a big cage and took the bird in.
No clue where he came from, bird seemed pretty glad to find someone to help out. They’ve had him for a year or more now. Go figure…
mvr
@trollhattan: I believe there is a referendum proposed for Colorado which would have the state bring back wolves. I have a cabin in Wyoming just north of the border and hope I’ll be seeing some wolves soon.
mvr
@trollhattan: My wife watched a mountain lion take down a fawn 50 feet in front of our cabin where she was sitting at 8AM one morning. When I came out it was trying to dispatch it. I went back inside to get my cellphone and take a pic at which point it saw me and tried to drag the fawn away. The fawn broke lose and escaped. I think I saw that same fawn a couple of weeks later so it seems to have survived. I have one somewhat shaky cellphone pic of the two of them and then two very blurry ones.
HeartlandLiberal
Little Boy with Duck, Jake Olson Studios, https://500px.com/jakeolsonstudios
images dot google is your friend, too.