Third day

Now she wags her tail when I come in the house. And she's coming out of her crate every now and again, usually to follow me around the house. And today, I got my first licks on my hand.
And this morning, as I was sitting on the couch getting ready for work, she walked over and climbed up to sit next to me, casual as you please.

Day 2

She's doing better this morning. Got her out of the crate--with effort--and took her outside, and as soon as she does her dog business she turns and runs back to the house, up the stairs, down the hall and back to her crate. It's clearly her safe space. Belle is curious and a little maternal and Murph couldn't care less. But he did let her drink her fill from the water bowl as he stood patiently waiting. Good boy.

Belle is starting to warm up, but she still comes to me for attention and validation a lot more than usual. She's not quite sure yet but she's trying.

She's eating and drinking now, and I got the first tail wag from her when I came in from work today, but she's still not coming out of that crate.

That's OK. We've got time.

And I'm leaning towards "Angel".

Introducing...

Well hell...I don't know what to call her yet. But she's here now as a foster and maybe longer.

Poor girl had a run of bad luck up in Caddo Parish and she needs some healing space and loving.

Obviously, I sympathize. I know what she's going through all too well and understand what she's probably going to need and want. She's got other medical problems too, but we're taking it day by day right now. So far Murphy and Belle aren't messing with her but I don't think it's dawned on them that she's going to be here for a while yet. And that's good, because they just took the leg last Friday and she's on some heavy meds and just wants to sleep right now. I get that.

She doesn't know it yet but she's gonna be ok.

Right now though, she just needs rest. And a name. Something Louisiana-themed perhaps. Any thoughts?

She's here.

So I went to the vet to pick her up, Only to be told that the doctor needed to talk to me.

Turns out that she's positive for both Heartworm and Lyme. It's fixable, but it won't be cheap.

Yeah, I could have just told the pound "Thanks, but no thanks" and they'd have taken her back, but the odds of someone else coming along and adopting her with those problems are virtually non-existent, and she's so sweet.

"Fine," I told the vet. "Whatever it takes."

She's now on meds for the Lyme, and we'll go back in a couple of weeks for the other treatment.

But she's a sweet dog. And cute. And I'm a:

Anyway...here she is.

She rides well, but then again, she's still loopy from the anesthetic. And in the house, she and Murphy have had no issues whatsoever. Hopefully that continues once she shakes off her drug-induced haze.

Today's the day

She's at the vet now, getting ready for her new home.

But first, I had to stop by the pound and give her a bath, because after a few weeks in dog jail (and wherever she'd been before that), she was filthy. But the wonderful animal control people graciously allowed me to come in and wash her up before her vet visit (spaying, shots, etc.) and even helped.

Here she is, getting all clean.

She was a sweetie, though. She let me bathe her without too much objection, especially when I switched from the cold hose to buckets of warm water. Still, that doesn't mean that she was terribly happy.

Little does she know that her life's totally changing today. For the better.

Someone got a name for Christmas

Any dog can get squeaky toys and rawhide chews from Santa. But this one...he wanted a name. So henceforth, the Dog Who Resisted Being Named shall now be known as: Audie Murphy, or "Murphy" for short.

Like his distinguished namesake, he's intelligent and resourceful, but also calm, cool and quiet. He stands tall and responds decisively when challenged, but he also has a touch of roguishness about him at times that only adds to his charm. Even though he started out with a bad hand early in life, he's clearly a diamond in the rough that I expect great things from.


So Murphy it is.

T'was the night before Christmas...

Uh-oh... I hear something up on the roof.Could it be...?!

A Christmas PSA

Have mercy on the reindeer and put out some diet cookies...that guy in red gets fatter every year!

Anticipation...

Boss left his sock drawer open. If one stocking is good...Ima gonna get me some swag this year!

Schitzo Dog

All day long, I move around the house and the dog follows me. From room to room, upstairs to the basement and back, wherever I go, the dog is always two steps away. When I sit, he lays down. If I get up, he gets up. This dog is my shadow and if I even make brief eye contact with him, he comes even closer for a petting.

Of course this changes when we get outside. He did quite well on his leash today, but as we got home, just ten feet from the door, he spied one of the neighbors' infernal free-range cats and dammit, he pulled the leash out of my hand.

I should be holding tighter, I know, but I'm still used to an older, milder Shepherd who didn't pull crap like that without telegraphing it by freezing in place for a second before attempting to bolt. This one? He just jumps, and he jumps quick. And today he proved that action beats reaction when he lunged and pulled the leash from my hand.

The cat made a hasty exit over a fence, and the dog stopped for a few seconds about ten feet ahead of me, but then as I approached to get him back, he realized that he was free. Free. FREE!!! Free Dog! And off he trotted at a cavalier pace suggesting that he wasn't in any particular hurry but just off for a jaunt into the woods. Naturally my attempts to recall him were unsuccessful. I was alternately repaid with haughty glances, the K-9 equivalent of a smirk, or else I was ignored altogether even though I know damned good and well that he could hear me.

Now if there's anything worse than the helpless feeling of knowing that your dog is loose and roaming around where literally anything can happen to him, it's the knowledge that all of your neighbors can hear you calling your dumbass dog over and over again, until finally they all know that your supposedly loyal hound is disrespecting the hell out of you.

So for the next forty-five minutes, I coax and cajole and silently rage as this dog trots round and round my house, and my neighbor's houses, always staying in sight but well out of reach. He goes up a steep, snow-covered hill to the street behind mine, so I drive up there to get him and as soon as he sees me, he runs back down to the house again. What fun! Then he goes to the cat people's house and goofs around in their yard for a while. I can't get near him of course, because in the snow-covered rough terrain of the woods, he's ten times faster than me. It's like a dump truck trying to catch a Porsche on a race track--not gonna happen. A couple of neighbors try to lure him, but he's not having any of that. He just frolicks back and forth, and runs around people's houses, having a ball as the sun goes down. Hell, what do I do when it gets dark and I can't see him any more? I hate this dog. I'm about ready to go back in the house and find his receipt when suddenly I get an idea.

"Bye, dog," I yell as I walk down the street away from him. It works--he's following. He's staying at a distance, but he's following. OK. Hopefully I can work this.

I stop. He stops. I sit down. He bounds off. I get up and start walking again. He runs after me but stops every time I look, dropping into that ready crouch that dogs seem to equate to "On your mark...get set..." I keep walking, doing my best not to look. I listen for him instead. And it works...sort of. I hear his collar and claws on the road, but before I can react, he blasts past me like a Phantom jet not a foot away from my leg. I try to stomp on the leash but just miss it. DAMN YOU! He's fucking with me big time, now. He runs into another neighbor's yard and disappears around back of their house. well screw him--I'm not following him. I wait. Sure enough, after a minute, his curiosity gets the better of him and he peeks out from around the corner of the house. So I turn and walk away from him again, this time up the driveway of the neighbor across the street. He trots after me again, passing me just out of grab range, but then he pauses at the base of the steps to their front porch. If he goes up there, I'll have him trapped. If he doesn't, we're back to square #1 again. He stands there, looking at me. I try the command that I've been using to get him up into my truck: "UP!"
And nice as you please, he goes up the steps onto the railed porch. I've got him.

I get hold of his leash, and I smile and praise him and hand him a treat from my pocket. I'm pissed, but this isn't the time to punish, lest he equate getting caught with an ass-whupping. I'll never get him back again if he makes that connection. So I take him home and bring him in the house, and to be quite frank, I don't want to see this dog for a while. But what does he do? Yep, as soon as we're back inside, it's Velcro-dog again. He resumes his old role as my shadow like we've always been Best Friends Forever.
Jekyll and Hyde have got nothing on this dog, let me tell you.

Now I want an electric collar. One with a remote control. It doesn't have to buzz, or shock him or do anything like that. No, I just want one that will blow his head clean off the next time I call him and he just gives me that mocking look as he trots off. That'll teach him.

I swear I'm gonna trade this dog for a goldfish, then I'm gonna flush the goldfish.

Finally! The new gun arrives

It's not at my house yet, but at last it's at my dealer's business, waiting for the final transfer to me. This is the long-awaited replacement for the Browning 1919A4 medium machine gun that I sold back in September. The Form 3 transfer tp my dealer was an absolute nightmare that took months instead of weeks but it's over with now and the gun is here...all twenty-three pounds of it. I just got back from visiting it. And here it is: My new M60 General Purpose Machine Gun.





Now while I wait for the M60-haters to pile on, let me say that I will miss the Browning, but this is undeniably a step up. Now I have a gun that can be carried and operated by one man and his dog instead of requiring a crew like the Browning did. No more lugging tripods--this one has a bipod and can even be shoulder-fired or hip-fired. And it's a ton lighter. Also, once it's in my hands, I plan to send it out to the nice folks at US Ordnance for an upgrade to the current M60E4/MK43 specification, thus curing most of the design problems that these older guns have.

New Dog thought it was great fun to pull the 100-round belts of M-60 ammo out of the ammo can a few minutes ago, but when I tried to drape one over him and explain that it'll be his job to carry at least one belt, he bolted out of the gun room and I haven't been able to figure out where he's hiding yet.

Oh well...we've got a few months to try to come to an understanding on this subject. BATFE is currently running about four months to process dealer-to-customer transfers so with any luck, I'll be taking final delivery of this one in April.

But in the meantime, I can still go visit it at my dealer's place any time I like. Yay.

Oh--There's the dog. Just had to look behind the bed in the guest bedroom.
Gotta hide better than that, pal. So...carry the ammo belt for TWO bacon strips?

If you give a dog a peanut...

So I'm having some peanuts for an after-dinner snack. Roasted in-the-shell peanuts. I'm eating them in my office and New Dog walks in.

N ow I have yet to give him any people food, and I don't plan to get him hooked on that vice like every other dog I've ever had has been. He watches me crack open shell after shell, and as usually happens, I drop a few on the floor every now and again.

New Dog does not beg from me--his manners are very good in this regard. He just lies on the floor and watches me without even trying to get a morsel.

Finally, I've had enough. I put the bag of peanuts on a small table behind me and I clean up the shells and such that have missed the bowl and fallen to the floor. For some reason, I put the peanut bits into New Dog's dish. Why not? It's just a couple of peanuts...what can it hurt?

I resume reading and typing, and a few minutes later, I hear crunching behind me. I don't pay it much mind at first, because this dog is always chomping on the bones that I've given him, but then I hear what sounds like cellophane. WTF? I turn around and New Dog is caught in the act reaching into the peanut bag for another mouthful of peanuts. And on the floor behind me is not a bone, but rather the broken, wet shells of a couple dozen or so peanuts that he's already helped himself to. I guess that he likes them now.


Aaarrrrrggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

New Dog--decidedly NOT helpful.

So I'm loading ammunition. I've got the wood stove going in the reloading shop and it's all nice and cozy and peaceful.

Enter New Dog, my velcro buddy who can't seem to stand to be more than ten feet away from me at any given time.

First he decides that he doesn't like or trust the brass tumbler. It's just sitting there on the floor, minding it's own business as it whirs away making old fired brass new and shiny again. Well New Dog seems to suspect it of subversion, because he keeps growling at it. I tell him to quit, and he barks at it defiantly then swats it with his paw a couple of times.
"I was talking to YOU," I tell New Dog.

He leave the tumbler along for a few minutes, and I've almost forgotten that he was in the shop when he walks through an area where I have several small boxes of brass in various stages of processing sitting on the floor. Does he step over or around any of these open boxes? Nope. He steps ON them and spills several of them, flipping brass cartridge cases all over the place and co-mingling them all nicely.

I gently chide him and set about picking the damned things up. Meanwhile, he goes over and re-engages his nemesis, the brass tumbler, again. "RrrrrrrrUFF! RUFF! RUFF!"

"LEAVE IT!"

Big sigh.

I go back to work, and shortly, I crush a casing with the press. I remove it from the shell holder and toss it across the room into a big tub that I have that is filled with damaged or rejected brass. Courtesy of the Browning machine gun and it's healthy appetite for berdan-primed brass, the tub's fairly full. Enter New Dog. He saw me toss the single .45 casing across the room and he ran over to the brass tub and began DIGGING for whatever treasure just landed in there. I hear the brass jingling and I look over to see him standing there with his two front paws in the tub raking through the brass. Naturally, there's now a sizable quantity of brass from that tub rolling around on the shop floor.

"GET OUT OF THERE!!!"

Somewhat chagrined but not done with the mischief-making yet, he scampers off as I grab the broom and dustpan to pick up the brass. A few moments later, he manages to find a large trash box filled with that stupid huge bubble wrap packing material that the folks at Midway USA use to pack tiny items snugly in very large boxes. This stuff consists of large green air packs about six inches long and 2-3 inches in diameter that are all connected in long chains. New Dog decided that these are the greatest toy ever and commences to pulling the long chains of of the box that I've put them all in and he starts jumping on them and biting them trying to pop every last bubble.

OK, this is kinda funny to watch, but then he begins to eat the plastic so I have to take it away from him and make sure that it's all picked up and put away somewhere out of his reach. And this takes a few minutes, because while there's just one me, there's lots of this bubble wrap (Thanks, Midway!) and he's prancing around the shop with chain after chain of the stuff, just having a great time popping it and doing his best to keep it away from me.

I finally gave up so we're back upstairs now. I'm typing and he's laying happily next to my chair with just one eye kept on the stairwell door in case that tumbler comes up wanting another piece of him.

Dogs...

Dog names

Still no luck picking that perfect name.
The suggestions thus far:

Alvin
Billy Jack
Blitzkrieg
Commanche
Dog
Gator
Jay
Kirby
Melvin
Muttley
Nixon
Phideaux
Ruger
Schultz
Shadow
Stalker
Steve

I'm at an impasse. And he's not helping.

Saturday

I took the dog out with me while I ran errands today. I also wanted to try walking him downtown where there was more people and traffic to distract him. Turns out he's quite well-behaved on leash and he doesn't try to pull out ahead of me. This is good. For a reward, I took him to the local tennis court (because it's fenced and he can't get away) and we played ball for a bit.
As you can see, he's still on his leash, just in case. And on the tennis court, he was a good fetcher. He always brought the ball right back to me and dropped it, and he didn't give me a lick of trouble. Of course he did slip and fall in a puddle and soaked himself, but that was just funny...at least it was when he did it.

Here he is, bringing the ball back. He's got this game down cold.

Afterwards, we drove back home. And here's where the goofiness started. I had to make a stop, and as soon as I got out of my truck, Mr. Wet Dog decided that he'd rather sit up in the front seat instead of waiting in the cargo area where he's supposed to be. So when I came back, I found a wet dog in MY seat. And someone learned a new command: GETINTHEBACKDAMMIT!

So we got back home, and I went around back to let him out the tailgate. When I opened it, however, he bum-rushed me and took off into the woods before I could snag him. And as usual, he totally ignored me as I called for him to come back.

He eventually went down to the road and trotted across to see the neighbor's dog (who was behaving so nicely behind his fence), and when he saw me coming he went next door to that neighbor and began to run around the next neighbor's house, looking back frequently to see if I was coming, of course.

Now I'm not falling for that. Not again. This time I just went up to the neighbor's dog and began petting him. Immediately this dog raced over to get in the mix as I'd figured that he would (because dogs--like women--are jealous creatures by nature), and I was able to grab his leash. I wound up taking a header in the wet, muddy grass when I dove for it, but I got a good grip on it as he darted off and I was rewarded with a loud "URK!" from him as he was suddenly brought up short.

On the way back up to the house, I decided that I might want to name him "Nixon", because this dog can be a real Dick.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday, I had to drive in to work for a bit. As so often happens, I wound up being delayed time and time again by drivers who were going just at or even below the posted speed limits, either on the two-land country roads that I have to traverse, or in the left lane of the highway when I got on that. In most cases, when I was finally able to pass (sometimes by crossing the double yellow line because the only alternative was to stay behind them for miles, poke along, and get to work late), I noticed that it was almost always SOME JACK-ASS WITH A CELL PHONE UP TO THEIR HEAD, obviously more interested in their conversation than they were in their driving or the time constraints of all of the people behind them. On the two-lane which I must use for twenty miles--the one that only has three short passing zones--it seemed more the rule than the exception to come up on a whole long line of cars all driving slow, everyone held back by the idiot at the head of the line who hadn't noticed or didn't care that there were two dozen cars on their back bumper while the closest car ahead of them had gone over the horizon a long time ago. And the ones on the highway? They always seem to park themselves behind some slow-mover in the right lane and just sit there, blocking everyone else who might want to actually use the passing lane for, you know...PASSING!

People like this need to be shot, or at least run into the ditch. When I get to be President, there will be a new law allowing for the sideswiping of anyone driving slow and talking on the phone. A simple declaration of "I needed to get somewhere but I couldn't get past that jack-ass on his/her phone..." will stand as an absolute defense against any criminal or civil claims that might be filed by said jack-ass. It's harsh, but oblivious cell-phone yakker/drivers have it coming and have for some time now.

Oh--and it did not escape my keen observation that most of these drivers were women. I'm just saying...

Today, New Dog--the Dog That Resists Being Named--and I stayed home and enjoyed the first snow-fall of the year. We were actually going to go to the dog park but the roads were all being shut down by people crashing. I stopped to help at one and it was--you guessed it--a young woman driver who had slid into the ditch and flipped her SUV up on it's side. When I got there, EMS had not arrived yet so I pulled over to make sure that she was ok. She was, and predictably, she was complaining that the roads were too slippery and now her new truck was wrecked because the county wasn't doing anything about it.

"No, honey," I replied. "You wrecked your own truck because you were driving too fast." (And probably on your phone, I thought privately.) "Notice how none of these other people are going into the ditch?" I could also still make out her skid marks in the snow, and she'd fish-tailed several times before hitting the ditch. She'd clearly had some speed on. Idiot.

When the Sheriff's Deputy arrived (and commenced to writing her a ticket for Operating Too Fast for Conditions), I left and went back home. It wasn't worth driving half way across the county in this weather with more people like that one on the roads.

Back at the house, I lit the fire up in the stove and Dog and I lay down to take naps--him on his dog bed and me on the couch. So nice.
Afterwards, I thought that a walk might be in order so I began putting my shoes on. Dog came up beside me and whined a bit, and when I ignored him, he reached over and took his leash off of the arm of the chair that it was on and turned to me with it in his mouth. I laughed and took it from him, setting it on the couch next to me only to have him pick the end of it back up and set it on my lap. WTF?! Where did he ever learn that? Smart dog.

So we went walking, and as we did so, we encountered the UPS man making a delivery to one of the neighbors.
"He's not going to bite me, is he?" asked the UPS man as we walked up.
"I hope not," I replied. "This is a new dog."
The UPS man tentatively gave this one a pet, and told me that he'd been worried for a moment because he thought it was Lagniappe.
"Aw, Lagniappe liked you," I told him, after explaining that Lagniappe was gone.
"That's not the impression I got from him," he said. "Every time I ever went over there when you weren't around, I thought that he was going to bust out that window and kill me."
"Seriously?" I asked, laughing.
"Yeah," he said. "Didn't you ever wonder why I always left your packages down on your driveway instead of up on your porch? That dog always scared the hell out of me."

Good job, Lagniappe. You were a damn good dog.

This new one's got some big paw-prints to try to step into.

Perhaps I should name him "Dammit".

On second thought, no. I mean, he's already demonstrated that he won't respond to that.

This morning, I took him out into the fenced dog area of the yard. He was on his leash, and he did just fine, although he saw a couple of the cats nearby and he clearly wanted to chase them when they ran. The problem came when I took him back into the house. I fell victim to an old habit that I'd gotten into with Lagniappe, and without thinking, I reached down and unhooked his collar BEFORE we were all the way back in the house. No dim bulb, this dog--he realized what I'd done before I did and like a black flash, he was off. He backed up about ten feet, looked at me, then began to dash and caper around the yard like a Dervish.

"Come!" I commanded to no avail. He wasn't coming back. I went after him and tried to get him to back, but he was free for the first time since coming here and he was going to play. He'd run right up to me, lower his head to the ground, wag his tail, and wait for me to grab at him, at which point he'd bolt off, run a half circle around me just out of my reach, and do it again. "Come here, Dammit!"

But the result was always the same: He'd get within a few feet and pause, but dart away like a rocket as soon as I started to move.

OK, cute but aggravating...and I have someplace to be this morning. But I can't get close enough to grab him, nor can I lure him close to me by holding something out to him, or just sitting on the ground, pretending to ignore him. Even when I walked away from him, he'd follow, but never all the way back into the house. He wasn't leaving, but he wasn't coming in, either. "Come here, Dammit!"

Wow, that dog's fast. And agile. And still free. Aaarrrggghhhhh......

I't my own fault. The foster warned me about him. She gave three instructions: Never let him get wet, never feed him after midnight, and never let him get off-leash outside. And here, on Day #2, I'd already screwed up.

I'll spare you all the details, but it took twenty minutes, help from a neighbor, and a ruse to lure him into the neighbor's shed. He's back now. And now that we're back in the house, he wants to be best buddies again.

And how do you stay mad at a face like this?


Actually it's not that hard today. Grrrrrrr.....

He's here.

He came today, hopefully to stay.

This is the new dog, a 2 year-old German Shepherd.He's not a replacement for Lagniappe--he could never be that. He's a different dog altogether. This one is a purebred shepherd who has been in a kennel or foster care for much of his young life. He needs a permanent home. I need a permanent dog. Perhaps this'll work.

He's sad now. His foster family just drove away. Here he is, looking out the window, no doubt hoping that they'll come back. Surely there's been a mistake and they'll return when they realize that they've forgotten him.

"They ARE coming back...aren't they?"


Cry, cry, cry...Pace, pace, pace...

It's ok, pal. Just settle in. It's you and me now, and your days of not having a home to call your own are over.

So what'll we call you?