Mason and I walk our four dogs twice a day, which means driving to Springfield once in the am and once in the pm. In the last quarter-mile of our ride, we pass a small pink house that we ignored for years. For one thing, they didn’t have any animals. For another, it’s a beat-down home with a muddy, junk-filled backyard. The only remarkable feature is its color, a dingy pink but pink nonetheless.
Read MoreGary wagged his finger, motioning for me to follow him down the creek bank. He was missing a few teeth, stood at least six-foot tall and scrawny. He wore a camouflage baseball hat and blue jeans. It was right in the thick of summer, so the lush foliage completely veiled the creek’s edges. I was walking three dogs, but I still wasn’t following him down that bank.
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The hardest part of loving my dogs is leaving them, and because of my job I’m on the road 120 days a year. Luckily, I have an incredible house sitter who is both trustworthy and affordable. That’s not the problem. The problem is I miss them from the moment I drag my suitcase out the front door until the moment I return. When I finally realized leaving them wouldn’t ever feel okay, I developed several coping mechanisms that help get me through both days and nights. I’ve even discovered the ultimate antidote, the one quick fix that completely erases my homesickness.
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The pronged collar – a chain with a set of links pointing toward the neck – gets a lot of negative publicity because it can hurt a dog when used incorrectly. I often hear people condemn this device without ever having used it, meaning their ideas are based completely on opinion. For Mason and I, this tool has helped us save the lives of several fear aggressive dogs.
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I drove down South Main Street, one the poorest sections of Springfield on a steaming hot Saturday night. The local news said the temperature felt like 100 degrees, even at 7 PM. I was on my way to Jamie’s house with a dose of Capstar, a short-term flea pesticide, for a two-month-old mutt I’m planning on fostering. I’d never met Jamie before and I wasn’t happy about meeting her on Saturday. All I knew about her was an incident of animal neglect. But she had a puppy that needed a home, and as everybody knows, I’m a sucker for puppies.
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When I was in Vermont, I learned that Katherine Peacock, a Farnival contributor, lost her soul mate Holly a.k.a. Super Hero Holly. Katherine means the world to me because she’s the person that taught me how to be a pacl leader. And Katherine learned the necessity of leading a pack because of her dog Holly. In a six- degrees-of-separation kind-of-way, Holly’s one of the germinating seeds for the Farnival.
Read MoreIn case you are just tuning in, a few months ago, I interviewed dog behaviorist Todd Langston. His interview provided so many pearls of wisdom about canine behavior that I decided to turn his advice into multiple posts called Lessons from Langston. To catch up, click here.
Read MoreThe Vermont Humane Society and I can’t coordinate our schedules; I have tons of classes and because of limited funds, the society is only open for a few hours on certain days. Since that little plan to satisfy my dog cravings failed, I’ve been jonesing for some canine love pretty bad.
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“If I walk into your house, I communicate to your dog and what I’m going to communicate to them is that I expect respect.”
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B. Lou Lou is a homeless dog in the ICHBA network that isn’t living at the Farnival. She’s staying with another foster family. All we know about her history is that someone dumped her off at the door of the Southside Pharmacy in Springfield this winter.
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It was early afternoon on Friday, a warm sunny day. Besides a rare logging truck, the traffic on our rural road was light, the house quiet. I had opened every window to let in the fresh spring air. A soft breeze blew through the bedroom as I swept the forever-shedding dog hair into piles on the hardwood floors. Outside, I heard a boatload of birds twittering back and forth. Their songs were animated and cheerful.
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I’m so excited. Time again for a Friends of the Farnival feature. I found our new amiga on Instagram. I am terrible at posting updates on social media, but I admit one of my vices is exploring IG. I troll animal accounts like a stalker. I like to call it research. One day a few months ago, I ran across my current obsession, Lucy Roo, and I’ve been devoted ever since. If a few days pass without a Lucy post, I get anxious. Even my husband is obsessed with her. We can’t help it. That four-pound dog is one of the happiest creatures we’ve ever seen…even though she only has two legs.
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Yesterday, I was walking three dogs on the Springfield Greenway and ran into an associate that works for animal control. I asked her if she was looking for a dog, but she said no that she was looking for a snake. At the time, I thought it was weird that anyone would call animal control about a snake at the greenway because the trail runs along the Sulphur Fork Creek, and we see snakes all the time. Thanks to Smokey Barn News a.k.a Robertson County’s TMZ, I found out later that animal control was searching for a Burmese Python named Lestat.
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Hi y’all. You’ve met Danita Fowler, the author of this story, on the blog before. Click here for more about Danita a.k.a. the puppy goddess. I personally met Danita last year, soon after I lost my own soulmate, Miss Annie Daisy. When I heard Danita’s story about Belle, it comforted me in such a strange, sad, and wonderful way that I asked her if she wanted to write about Belle for the Farnival. Putting her feelings about Belle into words was hard for Danita, but her efforts were worth it. Please enjoy this heartbreaking story of unconditional love.
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I met Whistler, some sort of wire-haired adorableness, last summer on the Springfield Greenway. Whistler was less than two-years old, weighed about 15 pounds, and walked with a frisky prance.
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Remember Cannon? The cutest blind puppy on the planet? At eight weeks, he now weighs a “whopping five pounds.” Danita has discovered that he’s more deaf than blind. He runs into things, but he follows the broom when she’s sweeping the floors. Unfortunately, he can’t hear a thing, not even kids banging pots and pans.
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Did I mention that the cutest blind puppy on the planet is 2 pounds?
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Hi y’all. I’m so sorry I’ve haven’t been posting. I have a deadline that’s kicking my butt. For some reason, I’m having a tough time with this assignment. I’ll be back to blogging next week…once I finish banging my head against the wall
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Please welcome the Farnival’s newest contributor: Honora Gabriel. After reading Honora’s story about Big Jim, I wrote to her: “I’m bawling my eyes out. You didn’t warn me. Beautiful.”
Read MoreOne of the reasons I love puppies so much is because they seem perpetually happy. They could be battling a dandelion stem or chewing up a stick and their tails wag like they discovered a goldmine. For puppies, the simple things are treasures.
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