Tag Archives: Dogs

A Dog Who Crosses His Legs

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Well, I did ten more pages today, not writing from scratch but working through a sort of dump document, where I took elements from several different drafts of the Prologue (as in, entirely different scenarios) and cobbled them together with only the vaguest consideration of how the pieces might fit together. Now I’m going through and giving it all much closer consideration. It’s kind of slow going and… after all the problems I have with my hands already, can you believe that last night, just after I started working I started developing a pain on the outer edge of my right wrist?  Hmph. I’ve never had that pain before.

Another distraction. Too bad. I have a wrist brace. And Advil.

And since this is another very brief post I will show a picture of Quigley. He cracks me up the way when we go out into the yard in the morning, and I’m hanging out the clothes, he’ll do a round of the premises, then plop himself down in the grass not far from me and immediately cross his front legs. Almost always. Thus:

A Quick Trip to Las Vegas

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Colorado River Bridge almost completed

Last Saturday we piled into the Jeep with Quigley and headed up to Las Vegas, a seven hour drive that turned into eight hours, arriving barely in time for the wedding reception of my husband’s niece. That went from 4 to about 8 or so. We had a good time, got to talk to another of his nieces we hadn’t seen in years and who we had not expected to be there. Afterward we walked Quigley around a mostly deserted city park where we discovered a sign on an empty dog run informing us that it is illegal in Clark County, Nevada, to own or harbor a non-spayed or -neutered dog. On pain of a big fine and possible imprisonment.

Whoa! For years Stu and I have decried the trend toward mandatory spay and neuter laws that is rising in this country. One more erosion of our freedoms that, like so many things, punishes the law-abiding for what the law breaking commit. Quigley is our seventh male dog. None of them were neutered. Of them, only Bear sired any pups and that was deliberate. He was papered, and sprang from champion bloodlines as does Quigley. We have never let our dogs run about, scaring the neighbors, getting into the trash, getting into fights with other dogs, running amok in the cactus… or making puppies with whatever random bitch in heat they might encounter.  Yet there are those who do not think we should have the right to make the decision ourselves about whether our pet is to be neutered… because other people don’t control their animals. 

And the creepy part? In Las Vegas it’s okay for prostitutes to hawk their services in newspaper like directories freely available on the street, and even for prostitutes to walk about pretty blatantly… but you better not have a dog that’s not been spayed or neutered…

Anyway, I’ll step back from that soapbox and go on. We left the park hurriedly, and returned to our hotel room, eager to leave the state as quickly as we could… which was fairly early the next morning…  (Had to get back in time for LOST, you know.  😉 )

One of the fun parts of the trip was seeing the new bridge that’s being built to bypass Hoover Dam.  I’d seen pictures of it in progress, the two arms reaching out from their respective cliff walls with a space still in the middle. (If you’re interested you can see photos here, including one from space of the canyon before contruction began) Last weekend, we saw that the two sides had been joined and the bridge now spans the gap. It’s still not open, and is obviously still under construction, but it will certainly make getting to Las Vegas faster if you don’t have to creep across the dam in bumper to bumper traffic on the winding, two-lane road that is constantly being crossed by the mass of pedestrians that bustle along either side. Nor be stopped at the security checkpoints on either side of the dam while federal officers peer into your vehicle. (Are they afraid someone will try to blow up the dam? We didn’t know)

Another fun part of the trip, besides stopping at Subway, was Quigley. See how relaxed he was in his bed at the back of the Jeep?

Quigley relaxed in the car

Sometimes he’d get up and come forward to rest his head on my shoulder. Then when he got tired of that he would back up into his bed and lie down again. Reminded me of a crab returning to its shell…

New Things

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I’ve taught Quigley how to take something into his mouth and hold it long enough for me to take his picture! Isn’t he cute?

Yes, I know I’ve not posted for almost eleven days now. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, having so much to process and do that I’ve not hardly been able to think. My brain has felt empty, fragmented, blitzed. I’ve had no words to offer the world, no words, at least that would make any sense.  In fact, today in my journal I wrote that I felt like a character pulled out of a story. Someone with no back story, no objective, no narrative of events in which to fit, just a character doing things that seem to have lost all relation to each other. Then, a couple of hours later I read almost that exact description in a book I’ve been reading called The Introvert Advantage,  part of their description of an introvert who is suffering from an “energy crisis” as a result of not having “enough downtime.”

And certainly over the last three weeks or so my downtime has been severely limited and/or compromised. I thought of 2 Corinthians 4 and how there’ll be times we will be afflicted, perplexed, persecuted and struck down. One of those words — I think it’s “perplexed” — means to lack resources, at least temporarily. Like the resource of internal energy, and the time to be able to process everything so you can actually think straight…

But, since I see that it’s almost time for me to take my mother to get her shot, I’ll have to save my elaboration for another day (and notice I didn’t say “tomorrow” since I have no idea what the rest of today will bring, much less tomorrow).  I do, however, have a new Jeep, and it is without question an upgrade!  I love it:

A Very Strange Day

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Yesterday was a very strange day. It started at 8:00am with me going to the hospital for what was supposed to have been a D & C because an ultrasound had shown a thickened uterine lining. That’s the stuff that at my age is not supposed to be thickening and could be cancer. But it turned out to be only a fibroid the size of a nickel that the surgeon removed. (I’m so glad I refused to allow myself to worry about speculations in the negative realm!) Because it turned out to be something different than they expected, they had to shuffle around their equipment and the operation took longer than planned, which is why I think my throat hurt this time, when it hasn’t before and why I had more symptoms from the anesthesia than previously. Anyway, though we got home around 3 instead of 1, overall it went well.

Upon returning home we checked the answering service where we discovered a call from my editor informing me that The Enclave is among the nominees in the Visionary category for the 2010 Christy Awards!  Whoa! That was a pleasant and very unexpected surprise. I’d pretty much written off the prospect of having any books nominated again. But how weird to have the call come in the same day I’d been in the hospital. The last time I had to go in for surgery (for my arm) was the day my agent was going to meet with BHP regarding what were then my future books, so how weird to have book events and hospital events coincide again.

But if it doesn’t seem like two momentous events like that should be happening on the same day, how about three?

About two hours later my husband left with Quigley to walk around the park. He was going to bring home dinner on the way back. I went to sleep, during which time the phone rang. I heard the answering machine go off, and then a man’s voice, but it was no one I recognized so I went back to sleep. A little later, Stu and Quigley came home so I got up to meet them. Stu did not have dinner with him. “I’m sorry,” he said, and I’m thinking this has to do with dinner so it took me a few moments to catch up to what he really said: “We were in an accident and I’m afraid your car is totaled.”

Yes, that’s what he said. My car being the official dog-toting car, that’s the one he took to the park. As he was crossing one of the side streets, en route to the park (where the speed limit is 30 mph and people usually drive slower than that), he was broadsided on the passenger side by an oncoming car he never saw till it hit. The Jeep was flipped all the way over to the driver’s side and spun around to face in the opposite direction from where it was originally headed. The windshield was demolished, but neither Stu, nor Quigley, who was traveling free in the back of the car, nor the driver of the other car were injured.  The police officers who investigated said that was really surprising because usually in accidents of this sort there were serious injuries. 

God at work. My car was towed away and I’ll never see it again (I really liked that car) and I thought how swiftly things can be taken. My next thought was that it could as easily have been Stu or Quigley, and I was sooo grateful that it was not. Grateful that they were not harmed in the slightest. We forget so easily how much God works in our lives, how we have not one thing apart from His consent and power, how every single moment is truly in His hands. We forget how little we have control over. In fact, though it may seem otherwise, in the end I think  the only thing we really have control over is our volition…

Oh, and the phone call I mentioned that I didn’t answer? It was one of the police officers calling at Stu’s request to say there was an accident, and that Stu was okay. That was great, except that he said nothing about Quigley, who, traveling without a seat belt or crate or anything, was the one I’d have most expected to be seriously hurt. So I’m glad I was too out of it to answer the phone. Yet another of God’s small mercies.

But definitely a very strange day.

Downtime

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Well, I’ve been really tired today, manifested by the fact that I couldn’t make myself do anything and didn’t really even try. I’ve been thinking about things, sort of, and noticing the way my thoughts are so fragmented. I have so many things to remember to do, to deal with, to finish, to start… I’ve gotten so that I don’t even want to hear any music, just silence. I think it’s a form of overload. Drowning in details.

I did make Orange Cranberry scones this morning. 🙂  And did some Bible Study. Talked to a friend, made a card, pulled some weeds, renewed a library book… walked Quigley. Watched 24… Whoo! That is really taking some weird turns. I couldn’t believe that President Taylor went over the dark side. Lost her brain, as my husband commented.  But wasn’t that scene cool where Logan’s on one side plying her with all these self-serving reasons why she should go against her better judgement to pursue the peace process and Ethan’s on the other trying to get her to see the light? Logan is such a snake!

Anyway, obviously I don’t have any significant musings to share, so I’ll share a couple of pics instead. Here is Jethro, Quigley’s younger brother. I think he’s six or seven weeks old here.

Isn’t he cute?  I love the long ears, the wrinkly face, the big paws.

Here’s a shot of him and another of his littermates, also Quig’s sibling:

The above photo shows the breeder’s place in Litchfield Park. This is the same field where we first met Quigley and his littermates — all of whom were completely obsessed with chewing shoelaces. I just love the pups when they’re at this stage. At least, I love the way they look. Soooo cute. The needle teeth and scalpel claws I could do without.

(No, we’re not getting another pup — Heaven Forbid! — one of Stu’s friends is. We sent him pics of Quigley as an adult and he contracted the breeder about a pup. He’s been sending us regular photo updates.)

Another Speck

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Some of you may recall that two years ago in April, when Quigley was about 4 months old, he had a speck blown into his eye that required eye surgery and two weeks of recovery wearing an e-collar. (Which disintegrated the morning of the last day he had to wear it.)

Well, it’s April again, and it has been very, very windy. Sunday Stu and I were discussing whether the way Quigley was sort of closing his left eye while he watched us eat, and pretended to doze, meant anything. Monday evening, as I was preparing to go out for our walk, the light was just right as Quig came up to me and I saw a bump on his cornea with a little blood vessel-looking thing snaking out to it. Later, Stu examined him with a strong light and said it looked like some sort of reddish covering.

So this morning I called the Vet Specialists, with visions of surgery, a two-week recovery, and an e-collar dancing in my head. I took him in at 9:15 and… as usual, my speculations were wrong. I don’t know why I bother with speculations. They are ALWAYS wrong. Anyway, I sat in a chair in the corner of the examining room and held him with the help of two veterinary technicians while the doctor numbed his cornea, turned out the lights and examined his eyes. Quig was pretty good about letting her do it, too. Eventually she determined that the speck of plant matter had probably been in there for over ten days. Thankfully it had not penetrated his cornea and she was able to brush it away with one of those little paper spears. After the administration of a few more drops and a treat for Quigley, we were on our way.

We brought home a bag of three different types of eye-drops that we’re to continue administering multiple times a day. After he got home, before the numbing wore off, I went out and bought a new e-collar in case he started rubbing his eye later on when the numbness wore off. Well, day’s end is here and he’s not rubbed it once that I’ve seen.

I love it. Nothing is ever what I expect it to be, it seems. And God knows that so well. Forget about expectations, He seems to be saying to me. And just trust me for however it’s going to turn out.

Redbone Pirate

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This is not Quigley, but he looks a lot like Quigley (Well, they’re the same breed — Quigley doesn’t have all that white on his chest and has a handsomer face).  A friend of ours, who is also a hound enthusiast and an animal talent agent (and dog trainer) sent it awhile back and I got such a kick out of it I knew I wanted to share it on the blog some day. Quigley would never allow all that stuff on him for even as long as it took to take the picture and that parrot would only get near enough for him to grab it and run! 

Anyway,  Bear used to wear a bandana for his movie star tricks, so today I tried one on Q. Last night I put it on myself and he went bananas. Had to jump up to try to pull it off me (though gently — he’s getting much better). Then I put it on him — around his head and told him to “Leave it” which is a command he knows. He did leave it — more or less — long enough for me to show Stu. Then he tore it off himself and ran away. This morning I tried again, but put it around his neck this time and told him to leave it (treat in hand) and he tolerated it for our entire trick session.

Progress.

Back from SoCal

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Navy jet 2croppedLast Thursday we left for our second “vacation” of the summer, this time to Southern California, first to see our son and his fiancee in San Diego then to all drive up to Long Beach to visit with my 88 year old stepmother.

Prior to leaving there were all manner of distractions and diversions, which impacted our ability to plan. One of those was that while in Utah we had all gotten spider bites. Mine was first to appear on the Sunday we left Moab, a three-inch diameter, very sharply edged swelling on my thigh, with a dime-sized red spot at the center. I put Vitamin E on it for a couple of days and it subsided.

Stu’s appeared two days later, same presentation except that his was on his calf and did not go away but got all red and began spreading up the side of his leg. He had to go to the dermatologist to get some steroid cream to put on it, which cleared it right up.

Meanwhile Quigley had all sorts of bumps, some of them about the diameter of quarters. One on the front of his left shoulder particularly stood out and on the Monday before we were to leave, I was examining it and realized it was matted hair which fell out as I touched it leaving a swelling that, while much smaller than mine, looked very much like it, complete with the red spot at the center. Fearing it might do as Stu’s had done, we called the vet on Wednesday and got Q in. No problem, and we could use the same steroid on him that Stu used. But it took up a lot of time.

Anyway, work responsibilities did not allow us to leave for San Diego until about 4:45pm Thursday. Then after about an hour on the road, Quigley acted like he HAD to get out of the car and go to the bathroom, but once we stopped he just walked around and smelled things. We encountered  two border patrol stops, one of which took about half an hour to get through. We also drove through a massive cloud of flying insects (termites?) that nearly occluded our windshield and coated our grill with smashed insect bodies. And, being unfamiliar with the route, we almost ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere some time after midnight.

But we made it, checked in to the hotel which took pets and crashed. The next day my son and his fiancee took us to breakfast, then to Coronado Island for a walk and finally to the dog beach there which is situated right at the beginning of the  Naval base’s air field. Two Navy jets (I think they’re F-18’s) came in to land just as we were arriving, coming over us super close. I was going bananas (I love military aircraft) and my son caught a couple of photos with his phone for me. (since we forgot the camera)

As for the dog beach, Quigley found a friend, ran and played in the surf and was even caught from behind by a wave that dropped completely over him. I was alarmed, but he emerged unphased, intent on catching up to  his new (female) friend who had not been caught by the wave and was still running up the beach.

It was a fun day. Here’s another picture of the jet, complete with vapor trails from its wingtips:

Navy jet 1cropped

Back From Utah

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Q and MeLast Thursday we left for Moab, Utah to visit some of my husband’s relatives and celebrate his aunt’s 90th birthday. It was Quigley’s first road trip and he did splendidly!

We stayed in a condo in Moab, with a grassy area in the back were we could walk him around and that’s where this picture was taken.

We weren’t sure how well he’d travel and he was kind of restless at the beginning — we brought his crate but had it broken down for the trip up so he wasn’t confined. He got the idea pretty quickly.

Our first night we spent at a pet-friendly hotel in Flagstaff — his first time ever in any inside “home” but his own. He went around with his nose glued to the floor inch by inch. Made you wonder what was on it. 

Q down stairsNext day we drove through Monument Valley (pictures will come in subsequent posts) and on to Moab. The condo was wonderful. Almost too nice for our big dog and the fine, red dust/sand that got all over him every time he went for a walk or run anywhere not on the grass. (My husband took him every morning for several-mile runs). But it worked out fine.

It had stairs! Quigley’s first…Here’s a picture of him after  he’d learned to come down them in other than a controlled crash. He really liked the stairs and went up and down them on the slightest pretext.

Q checks vaseHe also had to check out the entire condo, all the floors, behind all the furniture, under the bed, in the bathrooms, in the closets… wherever he could fit and even where he couldn’t. He also checked out the vase on the mantle… Very carefully he jumped up and put his paws on the mantle to examine the object. He is such a hoot!

We were there for a couple of parties at different places as well as several sessions of visiting not too far away, so it worked out well for us to return regularly to the condo to let him out of the now-assembled crate we kept him in while we were away. We worried he might bay and fuss with us gone, but he didn’t. And we gave him lots of walks and time to just hang. He did really well —  though on our last day there (Sunday) he balked at getting in the crate when it came time for us to go to breakfast.

Fast food drive-thru windows were quite exciting for him. Why was this person suddenly hovering in the air before the driver’s window? With both windows open and food being handed over. The first time he nearly jumped out the window greeting the worker.  Then he decided he should bark.  But by the end he was handling it all with great aplomb. We were even able to eat our food in the car unmolested!

We spent the last night in the same hotel in Flagstaff we’d stayed in the first night and this time there were lots of dogs. We were in the room when one of them barked somewhere, also inside, and I heard a woman tell him “No!”  Whereupon Quigley had to bark and I told him  “No!”  The only other time he barked was when some women stopped in the hall outside to have a very loud conversation at midnight. Other than that, he was great.

Amazing. I kept marvelling at how well he did, given how hopeless it once seemed he’d ever be able to do anything like this.