What Would Your Life Be Like If You Were a Dog or a Bird?

[Edwin]

My big doggie, Scooby, is happy and contented in his back yard. It is about 50 feet by 30 feet or so, and so he can get excited and run hard and fast, and he does sometimes. I brought him in the house a few days ago because I took his fence lose at the corner when I was working on the house wall, and he was surprisingly descent in the house, except when I came in the house, and he got all excited thinking we were going for a walk. He actually escaped from the house, and I was worried for a short time, but he came right back, so I was happy about that! Anyway he has a nice house back there, and he is a cold weather dog, so he is happy to be outside. When we are gone we just make sure he has been fed and has enough water, and he is fine. He dug him a hole, so that he can be cool when it is hot outside.

The other doggie, Rand, we take with us just about everywhere we go, and we leave him at our youngest daughter's house when we need to be gone all day, and he is fine there. She has 2 doggies, a border collie, and a little doggie just like the Royal family in England have. Well, the little doggie bites Rand in the face, playing of course, but Rand does not like it, so he rolls his eyes and growls. He never hurts dogs or humans, so growling is all he does, but he sound vicious. The other doggie goes into the protective mode, and starts barking at him. Then he runs over and sits by his food, so that Rand will not eat it, but Rand will not eat when he is away from home! I'm sure he would if he were gone long enough to get hungry, but for just a day, he will not eat until he gets home!

The other morning our youngest daughter was sleeping, and Wally the Amazon Crown bird flew down off his high home on top the freezer. The border collie went after him. Wally the bird literally ran into our daughter's bedroom yelling help in a man's voice. It tickled our daughter and made us laugh to hear about it, but also we are thankful that nothing bad happened. Our daughter is trying to figure out how to protect Wally so the doggie doesn't harm him while no one is looking.

[Edwin]

We have our two doggies, and they are very good, loving doggies! The doggie, Rand, who is in and out of the house all the time was so excited and happy when he saw me come home yesterday after being gone all day, that he was just beside himself! He needs protection from the cold, so we allow him in the house as much as he wants, and he is very reliable, and will not damage anything or do anything that he shouldn't. He is just a wonderful doggie. The outside doggie, Scooby is a Great Swiss Mountain Dog, and he is about half the size of a small horse, well, a little smaller than that, but not much! He has problems with the heat in the summer, and he dug himself a cellar so that he could get down under the ground and cool off! He has no trouble with the cold because he is from a cold climate country in the mountains. I had him outside with no heat, and he was fine, but last winter I got to feeling sorry for him because of extremely low temperatures and wind, so my youngest daughter and I hooked up a light to heat his house when it is the coldest, and then he can read his books all night as well! He is a wonderful and loving doggie. He loves us so much that he kisses us contantly. If you bend over he will kiss you on your cheeks! He hangs out with you while you are in his yard, and he is a lover!

Since I am building my block wall around our house, while building the wall in his yard I have been bringing him in the house, because it would be impossible to work out there with him wanting to kiss all the time, and I am afraid that he would want to run under the house with the skirting pulled off, and I don't want him under the house, because there is one place he could fall 12 feet into my cellar, and I don't want him to get hurt. He loves to come in the house! The picture of him that I have here was from the first year we had him. He was sitting at my feet, and he took a notion that he wanted to sit on my lap, so he jumped in my lap and sat there for a while!

Anyway he has developed a desire to be in the house. Last night he came in thinking he was invited, but he was mistaken. Then we had a hard time getting him out of the house. He has a mind of his own, and when he sits down braces himself and looks at you, you might as well give up, because he is heavy, and stronger than you can imagine! We finally lured him to the door with his food dish half full of his food. He knew it was a trick at that point, and he was not going to go outside. By this time Carol ws on the porch landing about 4 feet above the ground level. I forced him out of the house, and he didn't mean to, but he knocked Carol off the porch. She landed below on her side, and I went down to help her get up, worrying about how she might be hurt! Luckily she didn't seem to be hurt, although her hip was sore! This moring when she woke up she called for me, as we don't sleep together, not my choice, and I'm not happy about that one, but that is another long story! Anywya she coudlln't walk on her foot, so I wrapped it for her, and she was able to hobble around with it with the help of a cane. Evidently when she fell she fell on that ankle, and bruised a bone or sprained her ankle, slightly. She went ahead and went to the guild, and she is better tonight, so she is going to be okay! And Scooby and I are both sorry that we pushed her off the porch!

[Edwin]

Our big doggie, Scooby, while we were gone walked right out of his yard over the drifted snow which was up to the top of the fence. The snow is about that deep again, and I was concerned about whether he had walked out again, so I cracked the door and called him. He came out of his house and to the door, and then I felt badly that I had caused him come out of his warm house, so I gave him a treat. Then I thought to myself that I shouldn't have given him a treat after he came out of his warm house, because maybe he would wait for another treat out in the cold, but I don't think he did. When it is cold and the wind is blowing he likes his warm house! Smart doggie! Rand doesn't want to stay outside very long either when the wind is blowing, but then he can't take the cold like Scooby can, so we let him in the house as soon as he wants back in. Even though Scooby can take the cold, I feel sorry for him, and I don't want him to feel cold. He has a well built house, that our youngest daughter built for him, and she did a great job of building it also. We have a heat lamp that she helped me put in it last winter when it was very cold and the wind was blowing, so his house is warm, and then he has a number of blankets in there as well. He is almost human!

[Smiley]

A great way to keep a dog warm in a doghouse is to put a thick piece of Styrofoam on the floor.This keeps the floor from sucking the warmth out of the dog. A chunck of the hard strofoam is great to sit on if you are ice fishing or even attending an outdoor hockey game. Works like magic!

[Edwin]

Thanks, Smiley for the suggestion! That sounds good, and I will bet that Scooby will love that suggestion as well after he sits on it for a while! I will need tosee if I can find some.

Well, the snow is drifted completely over the top of Scooby's fence in two places, and about a foot above the fence in one place. I am safe for now because he is staying in his house with the wind blowing and the snow drifting he is not going to go outside to check to see if he can walk out of his yard. When the wind stops blowing it will be a different situation, and then he will no doubt appear at our front door! When that happens I will need to shovel snow away from his fence, but the way it is now, I am going to stay inside where it is warm also!

Within about an hour or so I will need to shovel snow away from the chicken's house as it is drifted clear over the top. That means that they are not feeling the wind at all, but then they need to be taken care of, fed and watered, so shoveling will be necessary for them even if they are okay. Then have a heat lamp and it is a small area, so their water will still be liquid, and I know they still have feed, but we need to see about them anyway!

[Edwin]

Well, Scooby's fence drifted completely under the snow. It finally got warm enough and the wind died down enough that Scooby realized that he could just walk out of his yard on top the snow! He showed up at the front of the house, so I went and called him at the back door, and he came right in. Then I had no choice; I had to go out and dig the snow to the ground all the way around his fence. I got my exercise anyway. Scooby ate a little chicken feed while he was in the house, but I don't know if he will lay any eggs or not. I think probably not!

[Edwin]

I had Rand, our medium size doggie out with our big doggie Scooby for a while this afternoon, until Rand wanted to come back inside the house. It was fun for me to watch them play! They would chase each other, and run up on top of the tall snow banks from drifted snow, and then they would run back down and around the trench that I dug next to the fence. Then they would stop on the other side of the fence from the Banti chickens, look all around, and then away they would go again, and the chase was on. It was really a lot of fun watching them have such a good time!

[Edwin]

This is one of those times when Rand came over to the piano, and pushed my hand up off the piano keyboard. He wanted me to play with him. I was still trying to play, so he put his head on my knee, telling me that he loved me! How can I refuse him after that, well, I can't! So I got 2 of his tennis balls, and started throwing them for him to catch. He catches almost every time, and he is good at it. Then I kick the balls, and he chases them. It is kind of funny because there are 2 of them, and he can only control one at a time, but he tries to control both of them. He will hold one in his mouth, and put the other between his front legs so that I can't get at it, and that is the whole idea with him is to keep his balls away from me! Sometimes when I go to kick one of them, he puts a front paw on the ball, and then sometimes he puts a front paw on my foot so that I can't kick the ball. If he has one ball, and I kick the other he carried the one in his mouth until he gets to the other ball, and then he drops that ball, and picks up the other one. He is pretty smart actually.

Scooby likes toys also. One time when I was getting ready to walk him he picked up one of our granddaughter's slippers as he was going out the front door. So I found an old slipper and gave it to him. He carried it around in his mouth a lot, and finally he destroyed it, but there is still a piece of it in his yard. He chewed his tennis ball up until he destroyed that also, but he loves to pick up things and carry them in his mouth. The doggies are pretty funny!

[Edwin]

Scooby getting out of his yard is getting to be a regular thing this winter. He is a big enough doggie, he could get out anytime if he really wanted to, but we take really good care of him, and he has a large enough yard so that he has lots of space. I fed him a little more today as I think he is getting hungry because of the very extreme winter air temperatures and wind. The amount I feed him, he gets over fed eventually, and all of a sudden he won't eat his food that I give him, so then I just wait to feed him until he eats most of it, so I know that I am feeding him enough on a regular basis, but I think the extreme cold has made him hungry. He is a cold weather doggie, but I do have a very nice house for him that our youngest daughter built a number of years ago. She weather cocked it so the wind would not come in. I have a heat lamp in it and blankets, so it is really nice for him. When this big house was down town at our daughter's other place where she used to live, she had a boxer dog that she really loved, and the kids loved that dog also. For some unknown reason that dog died in that house. After that dog died in that house, Scooby would not go inside it anymore. I moved that house up here, all I could do to tip it, place it on the tailgate of my pickup truck, and slide it in; it is majorly heavy. Anyway even after I moved that house here in the early summer, Scooby still would not go in that house. Evidently he remembered that boxer dying in that house. When I unloaded it, and set it up on blocks he went inside one time, and came back out, and never went in again until winter came, it got very cold, and the wind blew hard, then he started staying in that house to try to not be so cold.

Anyway last winter he got out one time, when the wind drifted the snow completely over the top of the fence, and then he just walked out of his yard. I dug the snow away from the inside of the fence and that kept him inside the rest of that winter until this winter began. We had a lot of wind and snow driftin in December, and he got out once while we were gone, and our daughter who lives here near us dug his fence out on the inside, and that kept him in a little longer until his fence driftedd under again. I dug it out again on the inside. Then he put his front paws on the snow bank and the other side of the fence as the snow was as high as the fence, and he hopped right out! So, I dug the outside of the fence out, and that was a terribly hard job, from 2 p.m., until 9:30 p.m.! Today I was just getting ready to eat my mid day meal, second time this has happened to me!, and I looked out, and he was in the trench on the outside of his yard fence! I was in disbelief, because I thought I had him securely inside our yard! I called him, but he wanted to go on an adventure trip, so he would look back at me when I called him, and keep right on going where he wanted to go. That is the difference between Scooby and Rand. Rand will come any time I call him no matter what he is doing, but Scooby will do what he wants until he is finished. I was horrified because he went over to the kids' house to check things out there, and they don't want him out of his yard for fear of what he will do to smaller animals. There fear is unfounded because he will not hurt any animal. He went to check the goats out, but didn't bother them. He went over to check the horses out, but didn't bother them. When he was good an ready he came back to me and walked inside our house. I went out and dug snow for a coupole of hours, and pulled his fence up that the weight of the drifted snow had bent down, making it shorter and loser, so now on the inside his 4 foot trench is dug all the way to the ground,and his fence is taller again, so I don't think he will get out until the wind drifts the snow over his fence again, and then I will have more snow shoveling to do. This is like the guy that Sir Michael said God told him to push on the big rock that would not move. I feel like I am pushing on a big rock that will not move, but you can't believe how strong I am getting!

[Edwin]

I had so much trouble keeping my doggie, Scooby in his yard, but I love that doggie, so I didn't mind. It was just a little frustating to see him being able to get out more easily, and wanting to get out as well, because of him getting into the habit of getting out. With these animals their learned behaviors sometimes makes our lives difficult. All you have to do to teach a cow to crawl through a fence is let the wires get a little loose. You tighten them up a little, and and she still goes through, and every time you tighten the fence wires a little she keeps going through because she learns that she can, and after that you can hardly keep that cow in the fence.

Well I went the extra mile and strung another wire over the top of the other, and I even strung 2 wires over where the banti chicken house is just so he wouldn't be tempted to try to get out. Last Sunday I took him down the hill to our youngest daughter's house, and we put him in the yard with her horse. He is almost half as big as that horse, not really, but he is a giant doggie. My daughter and I both lifted him over the fence, and it was all we could do to lift him, he is so heavy. I didn't want to leave him, but we were planning to go visit our daughter and our grandson last week, but we didn't do it, and I missed Scooby terribly. But we didn't know. Carol ended up not feeling well enough to go, so we didn't. I was going to bring Scooby home with us today, but Carol talked like she might want to go visit our daughter and grandson this next week, so she talked me into leaving Scooby there this next week as well. He and the horse hang out with each and they are good friends, all except for when the horse, Dude, sniffed Scooby's food, and then Scooby barked at Dude, and our daughter said it was pretty funny. Our daughter has a little dog that crawls through the fence and plays with Scooby. Scooby also goes into a chicken house there a number of years ago, that has a heat lamp in it, and so he is fine spending some of his time in the warm chicken house. He is happy, and they are all enjoying him down there, but I miss him. I will probably bring him home one week from today, the Lord willing.