Calling All Dog Lovers

Thanks everybody--you're all really sweet. Babs--my dogs mean everything to me. I just can't help it. Nothing infuriates me more than people abandoning kids or dogs. I cannot fathom it. I would defend my dogs with my life and they'd do the same for me.

Karen--Otis went to the vet this week for the first time since the cancer tumor was taken. So far so good. But you know how these things go. I am so hoping it's the last we hear about the cancer but I am anything but naive about cancer at this point in my life, having lost virtually all my family to cancer.

Here's a story about how fiercely I'll protect my dogs:

I was fossil hunting a couple of months ago way out in the country in Dripping Springs. I look for fossils on the side of the road because road crews cut through rock and expose fossils in certain areas--and the areas on the side of the road are public domain--they belong to the state so anybody can hunt on them. This particular day I took Otis, Ellie and Noodle Doodle with me and they were their usual perfectly well behaved selves. You just have to know them. Otis sticks so close to me that I was actually having to move him out the way to see the ground! There are no leash laws out in the country, by the way.

Anyhow--I get people all the time who come by and want to know what I'm doing and I totally understand that--and I am always super polite (if you off one person in these country areas they all talk and tell each other). All of the people, once they see I'm a good guy just snooping around for fossils, like me and think what I'm doing is cool and at this point I've been practically adopted by several country families. Well on this one particular day, a jackass showed up in a car. He pulled up and said that the property across the fence was his, and he had goats, and didn't want my dogs chasing his goats. I immediately tried to put him at ease by telling him I'm TOTALLY respectful of peoples' property--and that I would never let my dogs cross the fence, and even told him they were afraid of cows and goats, which is true (recall the video of otis and Ellie running from the cow in that quarry video--they aren't exactly rampaging killing machines). I expected that to be that.

He just glared at me and said "They better not get on my F'ing property." I said "I won't--I am totally respectful." I looked down and Noodles, Ellie and Otis were all lined up in a row at my side, wagging their little tails, obviously wanting this guy to pet them.

The guy started to drive away and even though I didn't like his attitude I was glad I was polite and didn't get in an argument with him. Well he drove maybe 20 yards away, put his car in reverse and came back. This time he told me "I will shoot those little F'ers."

I lost it. You guys probably don't know what I look like but I am a big guy and haven't lost a fight since the 4th grade. I got in that fat slob's face and told him that he could threaten ME all day long but you point a gun at my dogs and we will have a SERIOUS problem! He started to say something obnoxious about having a GUN ON HIM and I just saw red--I was telling him to get outta the car and be a MAN and fight me without his gun--and then I realized something. There was a little kid, no more than six, in his back seat. I could not believe this idiot would threaten people in front of a kid and for the sake of the kid, I calmed myself down immediately. I was in disbelief!! I just said something to the effect that he needed to leave now--because I did not want to make a scene in front of a kid.

He left. Lesson to be learned: You do NOT threaten my dogs. EVER. Just thinking about that incident makes me see red.

 

And that's why I'm proud to be your dog.

 

Bob C

About your dog's cancer...My friend Jilly had a black lab who contracted a very bad case of skin cancer when she was only two years old. She did some serious research and they considered taking her to Colorado for chemo treatments but after visiting the animal hospital/clinic in CO Springs they decided that the chemo treatment would be too harsh for her.

Instead, they started her on a regimen of herbs mixed with lean hamburger meat and some other stuff every day. They also treated her with acupuncture. She lived to be 12 years old and was strong and active until the skin cancer came raging in and spread to other places in her last few months of life...

So the baby, Raven, was not cured by these methods but did indeed live a long, happy life with her cancer at least controlled...Have you checked into the herbal route?

Good luck with what ever you are doing Bob....I know just how important these animal children of our are to us and how they trust us to do the best for them....What we get in return is unconditional love....Good for the soul eh?

Never knew a dog lover that I didn't like!
Voyager

 

Voyager you are not the first person to tell me feeding a dog with cancer hamburger seems to help

 

Hey Driver

I'm dog-sitting a little fluff dog like the ones you have! We have friends in from out of town and they brought along a 4 month old Schnauzer (sp)--and she couldn't be any cuter

 

For Driver!!!

Hey Driver this vid is for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZU8bW9Aytw

 

Interesting- my now 8-year-old Black Lab did the same kind of thing to me when she was a young pup. For maybe her first year. I used to get so fed up, I'd leave the room, leaving her to watch TV with my husband. Yet- she'd lay at the foot of the closed door and cry for me.
I realized she was "seeing" me as her mom or littermate- and pups will mouth their moms and littermates. She grew out of it- just stopped like your dog. She's been a great dog ever since also.

 

quote=BobC;178368]Hey Driver this vid is for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZU8bW9Aytw[/quote]

Hi Bob,

I believe you! I believe you! You are a big guy! Glad you counted ten when you saw the little boy in the car.

 

omg

what kind of life that poor kid lives! A violent dad like that, and threatening to shoot dogs. I can only imagine the fear that little boy lives with.

 

Bob

Thanks for the video. What a little cutie she is!

Annabel, my holy terror wirehair Jack Russell, takes exception to your calling her a little fluff dog. She wants you to know that at Charm School (obedience class) last Thursday night, she was herding ALL of the big dogs during free play. Everyone was laughing at her because she was being such a B***ch Queen! Any time dogs would get into any kind of tumble play she would run over barking furiously and bite them on their heels! She had them all under her control, even a German Shepard and a Pit Bull mix! Everyone was laughing out loud at her.. One very aggressively wild dog was running around everywhere, but every time she would see Annabel she would roll over on her back and play dead! It was a Fabulous Victory for the short-legged Annabel.

 

Bobc, just checking in on Otis. How is he doing these days? He's still in my thoughts and prayers.

 

Hey Karen--thanks for asking. So far so good. Otis has been really slowing down these days, but it's been over 100 degrees every day for weeks now so it's hard to say what's causing the slow down. He is 10 YO which is getting up there for a Lab. All five dogs, with the exception of goofy Noodles, are around the same age so I guess I'm gonna have to steel myself for the fact that when one goes, the rest will be going as well in a short time. I love my little friends so much.

 

Driver--I might have called that little pup a fluff dog--but she was running around barking at all the big dogs and not taking any crap. Remember fluff rhymes with tough.

 

Otis

I found two more lumps on my beloved black lab Otis. I am taking him to the vet at 5. Please pray it is not more cancer.

 

thank you. I am dreading this vet visit

 

Prayers going out to you and Otis Bob!!!

 

My beloved Black Lab died last Tuesday. Suddenly and unexpectedly. She was in perfect health. My husband fed her her usual kibble and took her for her usual walk around 2:30 in the afternoon. She ate something in the street before he could stop her (as all dogs do sometimes) but nothing seemed odd. She did throw up (not unusual after that). But around 9 pm she pooped in a bedroom (normal-looking poop) which she NEVER did. Then she began to pant. She felt cool to the touch (symptoms of shock) so we took her to the emergency vet but she died before we got there, about 10 minutes after we got her in the car. We are having toxicology tests run, but the vet said we may never know what killed her.
Chocolate can do this to a dog that quickly, but we'd have smelled it when she ate it. But the house she ate something in front of belongs to 2 college boys whose father died this winter. They have been partying there all summer. We are thinking drugs that someone may have dropped in the front yard.
I can't tell you how stunned and devastated we are. She was 7.
This was my second Lab. My first died at age 10.
I don't know if I can go through it again.

 

DeeDee, my heart goes out to you. I am so sorry you lost your precious dog.

Bob, I am praying for Otis.