With the sad news this week that BillinGlendale had lost his beloved Nikki this week, just a few months after losing his other pup, Conni, I asked Bill if he would be willing to share more about his beloved girls with us.
Nikki Crosses the Rainbow Bridge, by BillinGlendale
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My cocker spaniel Nikki passed away late Sunday night.
Nikki was the sweetest and happiest dog that I’ve ever known. She was always happy and wagging her tail. After the last of our previous pack passed on (a Shih tzu, the other dog was a cocker), we waited several months before starting a new pack. My wife found a private breeder that was selling cockers in West Covina so we made an appointment to visit.
The breeder was an elderly lady and she called the remaining puppy freckles since she had tan and white spots on her nose. We took the puppy home that night and named her Nikki. Conni came to live with us a few weeks later. Nikki loved toys and a good bone. She was really smart and had a great sense of curiosity (I said when she was a puppy that she was more curious than the President). She loved her doggie bed and that’s where she took her last breath.
The photos at the link below show Nikki throughout her life, starting as a puppy in 2007 and ending with the last two photos I took of her this time last year. Both girls stopped eating their regular meals last fall (I think there was a problem with their food) and Nikki developed glaucoma. We though we’d found some food that she liked the past few weeks but she ate her last meal Friday morning and developed digestive discomfort Saturday. Sunday night, she was gone.
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Conni Crosses the Rainbow Bridge, by BillinGlendale
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My Yorkshire Terrier/Pomeraniian mix passed away in late February.
Conni came to live with us when Nikki (the cocker) was about 3 months old and had been with us for about a month. A friend of madame knew someone that couldn’t keep her dog (this same friend provided half of our previous pack in a similar fashion) and we went over to pick up this black ball of fur named Blanco. We renamed her Conni (no ‘e’) since Blanco didn’t seem fitting for a dog with black fur and no ‘e’ to match Nikki.
Conni must have not been in a multi dog household because she wanted to eat in a more leisurely fashion, not realizing that if she left food, it would be eaten by an always hungry Cocker Spaniel.
I used to walk my pack along the local main drag where we lived in the community we lived in in North Glendale, the comments I’d get about Conni from adults was “What kind of dog is that?” and from children “Toto!”.
Conni hated trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles. If any of these would pass her, she’d start barking until they went away.
Conni would wander off sometimes…early one morning, I was still awake and noticed that Conni wasn’t around. I looked everywhere for her: in the back of the house, out in the yard out front, and even outside the gate. It was about 3am and I’m calling for the little girl. I went out back for about the third time and heard the jingle of the bells on her collar. The landlord had folk doing work under the house and left the access open and Conni decided to explore. I put a Tile tracker on her collar after that.
Conni didn’t seem to get the concept that going to bed at night meant going to sleep. When we’d go to bed, Nikki likes to get under the covers and sleep, until she gets hot and then sticks her head out and finally sleeps on top of the covers. Conni saw it as party time, would wander around and eventually want to get down and go out (we’d already just gone out before bedtime). I’d lay there sleepless until I heard her come back in the doggie door. Then she’d want me to help her back into bed.
Conni was queen of the pack, and let Nikki know her place.
Conni and Nikki were loved.
Click the links for the wonderful photo galleries and more about Nikki and Conni.
I have grown fond of Harley through Albatrossity’s photos and stories over the past few years, even holding my breath in the fall when Harley arrived a bit later than usual. Today, Albatrossity has a Harley update for us.
I hope you’ll take a minute to read the Albatrossity post from almost exactly a year ago, which provides an interesting perspective as we were heading into the realities of the pandemic.
What follows is an update on Harley from Albatrossity:
Lots of jackals have cats, dogs, ducks, rabbits, or some other pet. I don’t (for lots of reasons), but I do have a nice hawk in the neighborhood who has been my wintertime companion for the past 8 winters now. His given name is Harley (my kids gave it to him), and he is a dark-morph Red-tailed Hawk of the Harlan’s subspecies, Buteo jamaciensis harlani. I wrote a bit about him here last March, at the onset of the pandemic.
He and I have made it through that summer and another winter. He is free to fly elsewhere, I am not. Although I have had both shots of the Moderna vaccine, travel by airplane will probably not be happening for a while, since much of the rest of the world remains unvaccinated and still threatened by the coronavirus. I suspect Harley, however, will head home within a week or so, and I will have to wait until next fall to greet him again. His summer home is somewhere in Alaska or Canada, almost certainly, and calling him with some urgency right now. His mate is probably also on her way home.
I, for one, will miss him here in his winter home. So here are some shots from this last winter to help me remember him until we meet again.
Near Manhattan KSMarch 29, 2020
Here’s a shot of him, with a nice snake snack, from about the time when he was last seen here in March 2020, before he headed north for the summer.
Something Fabulous shares her kitties and their story with us.
There is something to be said, another time perhaps, about a feminist critique of pet ownership: Why is it “Cat Lady,” never “Cat Dude”? Why is there no similar snide pejorative about dog people? How many cats do you need, actually, before you get the title? Briefly, the answers are:
society still frowns less on men being single and childless;
it is much easier, logistically, to hoard, say, 45 cats than dogs in an apartment; and:
3 cats
So, here I am, a formerly proudly dog-only person, and my two cats: Meet Milo and Gigi.
Milo and his brother Oliver had just been returned to the rescue where I volunteer. Oliver, a tabby, was friendly and flirty, literally put his paw out between the bars of the cage to pet me. And when I sat down and opened the door, he came right out and sat on my lap. I was Chosen.
But he was a bonded pair with his very handsome but extremely shy brother Milo. And I had not been in the market for one cat, let alone two. So I went home to think about it, to talk with my landlady about making an exception to the no-pets lease, see if this could be a thing.
Two mornings later, the director of the rescue called me in tears. Oliver had died in his cage overnight. Ultimately the vet looked at his records and noted he’d had a chronic kidney disease and decided he’d likely died of it, exacerbated by all the changes and stress he’d gone through.
I took Milo home that day. Landlady, schmandlady.
Later, our director told me how black cats, shy cats especially, are the hardest to place. She was sure Oliver hung on long enough to find Milo his new home. I, who never cry, and don’t believe in spiritual hoo-ha; wept and wept.
We went on happily for a few years. I would occasionally foster a kitten or 2 (or 4). Keep ‘em in the bathtub, train ‘em up, and send them on their way.
About 4 years ago, Milo became diabetic. My Sweet Pootea! So sweet, we joke, he got The Sugar. But! We got on a regimen of testing, insulin, special foods, carried on. All was well!
We continued to get older. And started needing more supplemental help & support. But we carry on, one day at a time, learning new things all along the way.
Then around Mother’s Day last year, I thought I had lost him. Called the emergency final-home-visit vet to see about appointments on the holiday weekend, as he was fading so fast. Wrapped him snugly in a warm bath towel and laid him on my chest to sleep. Our last night together, I thought…
…And he woke at 4 am, shook himself all over, stretched and walked to the foot of the bed, where I’d put a dish of his favorite food, and started to eat. Nothing to see here, move along.
[Note: also a loyal BJ Lurker]
And so here we are now: 17, and not doing so great. And yet: doing great! He keeps pulling out another of the nine lives cards. Always a little skinnier, a little frailer than the time before, but on we go. These last few days, though, that pace has accelerated, noticeably.
We are lucky, I know, to have whatever time we have left. In my head I keep making analogies to my dad, which I realize is a little strange, but nonetheless works for me: he was a tenacious old goat with many many health challenges, but still defied all medical predictions for years, and somehow lived to be 86. I remember making a Facebook post at the time we put our dad in hospice, something like, “We don’t know exactly how the road will go from here, or how long we will be on it, but we are on that road.” And I feel something similar here, with Milo: every day is a challenge, and has some annoyances, and is a gift.
This last year has sucked so much. But fortunately, my extreme unemployment has also meant that I had all the time in the world to micro-manage his blood sugar readings, his food intake, all that. And in my extreme isolation and home-bound-ness, they have been there for me, and each other.
None of us knows where the road is going, but sooner or later we are all on that road. At least we can be on it, together.
The one with the bowtie is Khush, and the other one without the collar is Lava. They are named after the twin sons of Sri Rama, the hero of the Ramayana and his queen Sita. Of course, I’m named after Sri Rama, so it makes sense that my fur children would have those names. :-)
TaMara here – I sure hope Lava is reading Balloon-Juice and is of age to drink! I usually adopt whatever cat decides to choose me, but I really do miss my black panthers and I’m hoping maybe one will adopt me next.
I get emails!
SiubhanDuinne sent this along when I post about Obama’s book. I loved it. We will revisit the book in early December after everyone who was fighting over copies has a chance to read theirs. I’m four chapters in (I only listen in the car, because otherwise I get distracted and miss the good stuff) and I’m really enjoying it. I like the campaign and policy wonk stuff!
And Evap made election night goodies and sent me photos. I had planned to post them the day Biden was declared the winner, but things have been a bit hectic around that. Now that the GSA has finally acknowledged what we’ve known since Nov 4, I’m sharing.
I think that catches you up on everything everyone has sent me (I do have one more political cartoon, but it needs a “darker” post for that).
Bixby and I had a moment yesterday – he pulled me off my feet on a walk! And then dragged me. In the six years we’ve been together that’s the third time he’s done that. We are all fine, but it does mean a few weeks of retraining since our trust bond has been broken. You don’t walk 280 lbs of dogs without training and trust. :-( I’m trying not to be cranky with him…but…
I have a friend who is about all of 5′ and her mastiff did the same thing to her about a week ago. I think the pandemic/shutdowns are making everyone edgy and the dogs a little reactive. But still no excuse.
We’ve got two katz with character. They’re a balm for our souls and challenging – but we keep improving our relationship every day, mostly linearly.
Last year we lost three kitties. Mr. Furr Beast, cutest long haired black and white unit with huge white whiskers and a white holy grail on his chest. We had him for almost 20 years. Oscar, a striped cat was young and came down with a mysterious ailment the day after Christmas. It was a traumatic six hours at the emergency vet with a terrified cat. The $2,000 – $7,000 estimate for treatment was out of reach. And we had lost a tiny orange rescue named Miss Peach to traffic. We think our boy cats scared her off the property. Each one left a different hole in our hearts.
Enter two more. My partner Mike has a house on the other side of Beacon Hill that he leases. Across the street is a greenbelt that shelters some homeless and a feral cat colony. They’re neutered, mostly, and spend lots if their day at Mike’s house. A new addition was a 6 pound grey striped kitten who was probably destined to be coyote food since he was much smaller than any of the other cats. He also would rub against Mike’s leg on Mike’s daily feeding trip. So we brought Ba Boo, or Babu (or Doodlebug , Monkeyboy) to our house. After a month of being invisible then sheltering in the top of the cat tree he began to trust us and wants luxury-pets, food, napping on his sofa, food, and running around the garden like a nut.
Meet Babu:
Scary Kitty! (probably not)
Number two was the grand orange Wobbles. He has some issue with his hind legs. At the rental house he was terrorized by the other cats so he was moved into the house. He marked the tenants beds but was mostly lethargic and dreaded going outside. So in he moved for the obligatory two weeks under the bed. And there was the little, lovely but a terror, Babu. This little grey one would run into Wobbles and knock him off balance. There was hissing and growling that slowly became wrassling and chasing around then napping on the bed together.
And here’s Wobbles!
Sweet, Sleepy Boy
This summer we let them out for the day in the garden. When we sit outside in the evening they come around and then take turns venturing into our mostly housebound elderly neighbors yards like lions stalking prey on the savannah. The last few weeks they’ve proudly dashed into the house talking noisily. The grasshoppers they’re talking to have not fared well. They’ve also delivered larger furry prey but it’s only been once so far and luckily they didn’t seem to know to eat it,
Babu and Wobbles Having A Chat
Long Day
Babu is warn out from trying to identify all the birds.
.
And from playing. Playing is hard!
And from being a goofball, apparently.
Wobbles hind legs still wobble but he leaps around and over short fences. He’s gotten muscly in a well fed way and has become guard cat / temple lion / greeter in the drive, while is growing into the purring lovebug role. They’ve made isolation bearable. It’s four personalities in the house instead of just the two of us. Our every other week socially distanced garden visits don’t seem as far apart as they would without our two furry characters. And we have fond memories of our previous three instead of empty places in our hearts.
Wobbles: Can’t you see I’m trying to rest?
Sleepy kitty loves his dad.
Oops, I forgot: Babu has a “Scorpion Tail” There’s a picture of it. I’ve attached another where he’s using it as a prehensile / opposable to grasp my hand. Cute.
It all started with a lovely comment Ozark posted in a Balloon Juice thread on July 5, which prompted me to drop him a line.
Hey Ozark,
Beautiful post this morning!
It reminded me that I have been wanting to ask you if you’d be interested in putting something together about the Woofmeister for the Furry Friends feature.
I would love to know more about the Woofmeister!
Pictures and stories. :-)
WaterGirl
So of course Ozark wrote back with the loveliest of stories. Make yourself comfortable, and settle in for this treat from OzarkHillbilly.
*****
Tales of The Woofmeister, Miss Kitty, and Percy
by OzarkHillbilly
By the time we bought the Hillbilly Haven, my wife and I had been wanting a dog for quite some time.
While I worked on the place trying to make it habitable before the landlords kicked us out of our house in Bourbon, we talked about the various breeds. A fellow carpenter had some red heeler pups but one look at their traits on the internet and we decided they would not be a good fit for Baby Girl (our 2 y/o granddaughter). Some years before I had had a white Lab (Willie Maybe, the Say Hey Dog) who was one of the sweetest, gentlest, most patient dogs I’d ever known and had traveled all over the Ozarks with me and the boys. The wife had seen his pictures with the boys and heard the stories and the more we talked of him the more we were sure we wanted a Lab. We started looking to see what we could find. HALO is the local animal rescue group and their website had 2 possibles. One was a Lab mix that was being fostered and the other was a full Lab at the Sullivan pound that HALO had an arrangement with.
The following Monday morning I called the Sullivan cop shop and talked with the animal control officer. He said he could meet me at the pound at 10 o’clock. As was my want, I got there about 15 mins early. He showed up about 10 mins later and we went in. He went back to the cage to let the dog out so we could get acquainted, opened the gate and WHOOOOSH! 80 lbs of black fur and determined bone, sinew, and muscle flashed past and out the still open door at the speed of light. We thought he was making a dash for freedom but no, he had stopped behind a sign (where he could have a little privacy, doncha you know) and for at least the next 10 mins he peed and pooped like he’d been holding it all weekend, which wasn’t far off the truth. As we looked at the spotless cage, the ACO told me he had last been there to give the animals their weekend feed at noon on Saturday.
I thought, “I want this dog.”
So once he had finally finished his business, we were introduced. He leaned hard against me and was very amenable to the liberal pettins and scritchins I was giving so I said, “OK, we’ll take him.” and hoped I wouldn’t be sorry.
In the pickup on the drive home I began to have second thoughts. He was in my lap and refused to get out of it. Driving with an 80 lb lap dog on our narrow, crooked, and steep roads is not for the faint of heart. At that point I was thinking “Static” might be the perfect name for him. (the vet estimated he was 1-2 y/o so he had a little more growing to do)
When the wife got home we discussed names. As I recall it was a very short conversation. When our granddaughter was just starting to talk, she would point at a dog and in a voice so soft you could barely hear her say, “Woof.” And so it was Woofie. After a while I kind of felt he needed something a little more dignified for when mingling in polite society and appended the “meister” on.
THE WOOFMEISTER – LOOK AT THAT FACE
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Woof was a snuggle bunny from the gitgo. He soon learned we were willing to share the couch and it didn’t take him long at all to become an inveterate lap Lab, knowing that every lap comes with generous belly scratchin’s and neck pettin’s. These days, if I want to sit on the couch I have to first pick up his head, hold it out of the way until I have sat, then when I let go I get 20#s of head flopping down on to my balls. One gets over the pain and besides, there is a belly in need of scratchin’s.
At first I tried to say “No dog on the bed!” (like any one was ever going to listen to me), but It wasn’t long before I was lucky to get a 6” strip of edge and maybe enough sheet to cover my feet. Maybe. If I was lucky.
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Like most Labs, he loves retrieving. We soon settled on frisbees and before long he was leaping and catching them in flight. Not a good idea for a dog as big as he and I had to be careful to keep the flight low enough that he wouldn’t need to jump or high enough that he wouldn’t even try. His favorite is a black rubber Kong, They are soft and floppy and he can pick it up and shake it as violently as he likes, just like he would a squirrel, if he ever caught one.
THE WOOFMEISTER OUT FOR A DRIVE
It’s flexibility however makes it difficult to throw. I picked up on the nuances pretty quickly and was soon throwing it down the utility easement from one pole to the next, a distance of about 60-70 yards. Others would have difficulty. It always came out of the hand wrong, wobbling thru the air like a wounded duck and unceremoniously flopping to the ground at the end of some pitiable flight. My wife’s throws are… Just sad. That is the best one can say. My sons would invariably try to muscle it thru the air and while it would go further it still flew with all the grace of a platypus. Poor Woof, he would walk the ten or 12 steps to the embarrassing end of some ignominious flight, pick up the frisbee, and ignoring whoever threw it, bring it back to me. He’d look up at me and say, “Please? S/He throws like a girl.”
These days, he’s grown old and arthritic and now has congestive heart disease. He still wants to chase it and gets very excited the first throw or 2 but then he has to catch his breath and it takes longer with each toss. These days I only throw it about 20 yards or so and never down or up a hill. I keep it on the level. Sometimes I’ll throw it and he will stop and look off in the direction of where it went and just stand there. One might think he has forgotten what he’s doing, but he hasn’t. I think he’s just trying to decide whether it’s worth the trouble of getting it or not. Once he’s had enough he’ll walk to a spot 20’ or so away from me and flop to the ground.
THE WOOFMEISTER
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I always wondered why such a sweet, loving, well behaved dog would be abandoned. Despite his clinginess and almost complete attachment to me, those seemed more like the insecurities of abandonment, as he showed no additional signs of abuse. Now he did get dumped at the height of the Great Recession but economic insecurities just didn’t feel right. I soon found the real issue, or at least this is the story I like to tell myself: He does not like water. At all. I mean if it is raining? Forget running around in it or splashing thru the puddles, he will go and hide behind the bed at the first hint of raindrops on the roof. He will hold a pee for hours if there is water falling from the sky. This is a fatal defect in a hunting Lab.
I think it was 4 years before I managed to coax him into a shallow creek and all he wanted was out.
THE WOOFMEISTER AND PERCY AND POSSIBLY MRS. OZARK
Eventually he did get to the point where he would follow me into the water, but sadly it was only because he felt it his sacred duty to rescue me from the enveloping waters. I’d have claw marks for a week after his attempts to drive me back to shore.
Once while at a creek front property belonging to a buddy of mine, we decided to go check out a nearby cave. We had no lights or anything it was just… Cavers, we gotta smell the darkness. Knowing Woof would insist on rescuing me, I had my wife leash him up, telling her to wait about 15 mins before freeing him, and off K and I went. We crossed the creek, leaving a very unhappy lap Lab behind. After the creek we had to wade thru a long, wide, waist deep, leach filled oxbow and then scramble up a low tick infested bluff line to the entrance of the cave. We went in. It was walking for the first 100’ or so, then it was stoop walking with a scramble over a low ledge here and another there. It is surprisingly hard to avoid hitting one’s helmetless head on the ceiling when navigating the twilight zone but we more or less managed to keep our skulls unscarred until we could no longer see our hands in front of our faces and decided we had reached the end of this little 3 hour tour. We sat back and relaxed for a few minutes, just enjoying the darkness and the damp moldy smell of cave. All of a sudden I had 100# of wet fur, claws and happy tongue lapping at my face.
“Damn it dog!”
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Anyone who has ever had a Labrador knows that their tails are forces of nature. They can take a coffee table from cluttered to clear in 1.2 seconds. Percy is just tall enough that if he is standing/sitting behind Woof the tail whacks him hard about the face. I half expect him to just slump to the floor unconscious one of these days. One time when she was 3 or so, Baby Girl got caught in that spot.
Wap whappity wapwap… “Stop it Woof!!” her arms up trying to protect her face. Wapwap whappitywhappity wapwapwap…
She marched around in front of him, grabbed his jaws in a two handed grip and got 2 inches nose to nose and said, “I said stop it Woof!” with a very stern air of command. He just looked at her. And wagged his tail.
THE WOOFMEISTER
My wife says his tail is a perfect Daddy meter. If I come into a room his tail will thump. Just once. The closer I get to him, the more it thumps. By the time I bend over to give him a rub it is going like Buddy Rich on the Tonight Show with Carson.
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Miss Kitty arrived a few months after Woof and he didn’t have any issues adjusting to her presence, beyond the usual teen aged “Oh boy, a friend to play with!!!” that she set him straight on right quick. After a week or so they pretty much just ignored each other. The only exception being, if Woof is getting a treat, by gawd she’d better get one too!
THE WOOFMEISTER AND PERCY
Percy’s arrival was a different story. There was no aggression, it was just that all of Woof’s insecurities came back to the fore and Percy’s insecurities just reinforced them. I can’t pet one without petting the other. If I go to the toilet and forget to latch the door, they both come in for butt scratchins (idle hands are the Devil’s playground). If I sit down on the couch there is an immediate competition for the “Daddy spot,” the spot next to me where they can have physical contact. One would think that a 100# Lab would beat the 50# mutt every time, but one would be wrong. It starts with Woof’s head in my lap. Percy jumps up behind him and lays down with his head on Woof’s butt and his eyes firmly fixed on the point of contact between Woof and I. He is waiting and time is on his side. But it’s not easy. Woofie has big feet and he sometimes uses them to push Percy off. But Percy is nothing if not persistent. He perseveres. And watches.
THE WOOFMEISTER AND PERCY
Eventually Woof rolls a little bit onto his back for the belly scritchens. As they proceed he stretches out and a curl will develop in his back and a 3 or 4 inch diameter hole will appear between us and…. Percy pounces. A third on Woof’s head, a third on my lap with the final third weaseling it’s way in between us. Woof will surrender at that point, get up and flop down onto the floor.
One night not too long ago, after one of these dramas had played itself out, Woof got up and went to the door. Turned his head and as per usual looked at me. “Yeah yeah, give me a minute.” I disentangled myself from Percy on the couch, got up and went to the door. Percy followed. I opened the door. Percy went out. Woof turned around, went over to the couch and jumped up on it.
First Anniversary of the Balloon Juice Rescue of Orville and Wilbur
by Jenny Howard
I’ve lived with cats my entire life. After my “last” two were gone, I wanted to try the non-pet life. Like Molly Ivins: don’t even keep a plant so you can just walk out the door and not worry about when you’ll be back. That lasted a few months before I accepted that I was kidding myself. I assumed that the cat(s) would find me.
Last August a pet bleg was posted on Balloon-Juice for a couple of senior boys, Orville and Wilbur. I read it and hoped they would find a good home. But when it was still there the next day I started thinking, “Maybe they found you.” Contact was made, arrangements arranged, and two days later I was on the road with my daughter-in-law (best dil ever!) to pick up the boys in St. Louis. I owe huge thanks to Robin, their original mom and serial rescuer.
The boys were cautious and took their time accepting me as their person though they started their training right away. All surfaces are theirs, all doors should be open, the usual cat rules. No, the winter bedding will not be packed away but will be placed in good napping areas. No, we do not want the door to the catio closed but, if you must, at least open on demand.
