A Portrait

                                                      

Or as Cory the photographer said, " an overly proper portrait of a completely improper dog."

Too right. When I opened Cory's email, herself was, at the moment, relaxing on the dining table in the sun, working on her tan.

Cory is a friend of many years.  He has some amazing photos available for viewing on Flickr and on Instagram.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sodiumbenzoate

and follow @corybarlowphoto on Instagram
For a selection of Cory's photographic endeavors.

Early Morning with Jenny

                                                                                    

I probably wouldn't crawl out of a warm bed before sunup to go out and appreciate the dawn in below freezing weather if it weren't for Jenny. But she needs to attend to business, so out we go.

And what a gift, to enjoy the day's dawning and the pastel sky etched with dark branches!

Jenny seems appreciative too.

Three Dog Day

                                                                           

                                                                                       

Standoff

                                                                               

Corycat here, taking a long-overdue stand. This smelly hound has run wild long enough, stealing food, howling, acting like she owns the place. 

Well. I find her bed very comfortable, and, like a tree planted by the river, I shall not be moved. No matter how hard she stares at me.

Oh, she's being all casual now, giving me a chance to leave quietly.  Nope, not leaving. Sorry, Jennykins. You can just sit there and watch me enjoy this very comfy bed. . . 

Editorial update: I (The Woman) removed Corycat bodily and put her on my bed so Jenny could rest up after a lot of howling. Corycat and Angeline always sleep on my bed. This bold annexation was a first for Corycat, and Jenny didn't do anything but wait for me to deal with the situation. 

Animal politics.

Discipline in the Home is the Linchpin of Order

 

Report from Dog World

                                                                                

    Wednesday night, 9:30. Jenny has not returned. She and Otter went off on a toot after supper and she's not back. I text Claui to ask if Otter's come back. Yes, she says, and they can hear Jenny howling. 

I go to the porch and holler for her. A second text arrives. Claui says they are smelling a skunk. 

Great.

I holler some more and pretty soon, here comes Jenny, muddy and smelling pretty strongly of skunk.

It's now 10 pm and John is in bed asleep. I'd like to bathe the stinky critter but it's a two-person job. And it's not the worst case of skunking--probably a glancing blow. I remove her collar and wipe off the mud then Jenny and I and the cats (who are muttering something about Dogs! What can you expect?) turn in for the night. 

Thursday, 1 am: Who knew that a strong smell would make it hard to sleep? I consider (briefly) trying to take Jenny (who is sound asleep on my bed, as are the cats) to the porch and attempt a bath but give it up as a bad idea.

Thursday, 2 am: Ditto

Thursday, 3 am: Ditto

Thursday, 7:30 am: We all get up, some more rested than others, and I release Jenny to the out of doors so I can have my coffee and gain strength for the ordeal ahead.  

Thursday, 9 am: Jenny is back and I have gathered my supplies. One quart hydrogen peroxide, 1/3 cup baking soda, and 2 teaspoons dish detergent. This is a tried-and-true mixture that will abate, if not remove entirely, the skunk smell.  You apply the mixture freely, letting it soak to the skin then wait five minutes before rinsing it off. Then follow with dog shampoo.

Well.

John holds the leash and I apply the mixture. You would think it was battery acid (I am using my bare hands, so I know it isn't.) Jenny leaps and twists, but we manage to get her thoroughly soaked. 

Then the five-minute wait as Jenny uses her best hound eyes to ask why we are tormenting her. 

I have the hose with a shower attachment on it for the rinse. It should have been easy, but Jenny turns into a bucking bronco. We all get a bit wet. John gets scratched. 

When she is rinsed, I make an executive decision--forget the dog shampoo--and we release her to go get dry--which, of course she wants to do in the house. We chase her back outside and use the towels that were standing by to dry Jenny dog to mop up the floor.

Thursday, 2 pm: We all take a nap.

                                                                         

Jenny on Watch

Her nose tasting the scents in the air...

Soon she'll patrol the boundaries, keeping us safe from lions and tigers and bears. And moles and chipmunks as well.

It's a tough job but, so far, her vigilance has kept us safe. 

 

A Challenge

Yikes! Trying to paint a likeness of an animal I actually know is a bitch. (Oops, didn't intend that pun.) As I launched into the preliminary sketch, taken from a photo, I realized the difficulty of the pose-- a side view would have been easier. Still, this is how one learns.

Angeline's front-on picture is easier--except for the difficulty of getting a deep enough black. And then there's the faux-Oriental rug in the background, just for fun. The blue bar in front is the top of the toy chest. That, at least, presented no problems.

 

Oh, Jenny!

 

Day of Rest

                                                                     

Subscribe Here!

 

Coryat calls your attention to the newly restored subscription widget in the top of the righthand column. (Which is different from the old one but evidently all that Blogger offers now.) Several folks have told me they were no longer receiving the daily posts via email.

I haven't a clue why this happened, but I've put the widget back.

Bob says it's easy to do. He gets all his favorite blogs via email.

Shiny, the captain of the goldfish, is encouraging his gang to sign up.

Jenny is asking John to sign her up.

And the ever-reclusive Angeline, is totally uninterested.

Kitteh Has Some Thoughts

Really!

Talk about disgusting.

This... this filthy beast has tracked mud (I hope it's just mud) on the bed and is lying there, oblivious to decency. And The Woman does nothing.

Well, I, for one, am not putting up with it.

Told you. Cory. The Woman lets that beast ride roughshod over common decorum and simple hygiene. What can you expect from a creature that runs around the mountain howling like a banshee? Pathetic, I call it.
                                                                                    

What's All the Fuss?

 After being gone since Saturday afternoon, after I had alerted friends and neighbors, after I'd spent two restless nights listening out for her and thinking of all the things that could happen to a little dog in the woods --tree fall, copperhead, bear, bobcat, cave-in-- after I'd told John that I'd pretty much given up hope, after all this and more, Jenny waltzed in the front door yesterday around 1o in the morning. 

She was just fine. A little hungry but then she always is. Some ticks on her but then there always are. 

Unrepentant. 

And how happy I am to have her back--with thanks to all who were concerned.

One concerned FB friend told me about a beagle she once had that went missing for two weeks before returning on her own and said that Jenny might well do the same. "From your lips to God's ears," I told her, feeling just a little less forlorn. And maybe 15 minutes later, I heard Jenny at the front door. 

Poor Starving Jenny

I thought she was getting a drink of water . . .

Jenny is actually fishing for waterweed/elodea.

And she is eating it. It's probably full of vitamins. And she's been doing this routinely now with no stomach upsets. We do feed her twice a day . . . plus snacks.

 

Round Up the Usual Suspect

A few days ago, John brought home Publix Cuban sandwiches for our lunch. What a treat!  I cranked up the oven to 4oo and laid the sandwiches open on a pizza pan so the bread would toast and the Swiss cheese melt.  Knowing it would take five or so minutes to get the oven up to speed, I left the pan and open sandwiches on the countertop and went into the dining room to continue futzing with the watercolor I was working on.

When I returned to the kitchen, I was puzzled to see a knife on the floor. I'd left it on the counter, ready to spread the mustard on the toasted sandwiches. 

But where were the sandwiches? Had I absent mindedly put them in already? Without the pan? I checked the oven. Nope.

They were flat gone.  G.O.N.E.  No crumbs, nothing out of order but the knife on the floor.

JENNY! I shrieked, and a slightly (but only slightly) abashed little hound tiptoed in from the living room.

My fault. She has the reach of a young giraffe, and she has taken stuff from the counter or table before. Generally, I shove things way back out of her reach. 

Disappointed doesn't cover the gloom of having a pimento cheese sandwich when your mouth is all watered up for a Cuban. 

I remain in awe of her ability to consume so much, so quickly and quietly. The Cuban is a big sandwich. And she ate two. 

She spent the afternoon outside but as far as I could tell, suffered no ill effects from her hurried meal. 

In an unrelated incident, on Thursday night the usual suspect went out after supper and didn't return. We got a call around nine from Justin, looking for Otter. Aha! the girls are off on a toot! we said to ourselves.

Justin came up the road, calling for Otter--who returned soon after. But no Jenny. 

That bad girl stayed gone till five in the morning when John heard her at the door and let her in. She hopped up on the bed and, after a brief hello as I made sure she wasn't bringing ticks with her, she curled up and went to sleep. 

I'd love to know what she was doing all that time. We didn't hear her howling as she often does; she wasn't dirty or briar covered as she sometimes is.

It's a mystery and she's not talking.

 

Critters

Jenny and Otter

The always elusive Angeline

Corycat practicing her disdainful look on Otter