Farm Fresh Blog

I put dishes away this afternoon and found a tennis ball on the kitchen counter beside the clean dishes. I don't play tennis. It was a dog ball.  On the kitchen counter. Beside the clean dishes. (groan)

Also on the counter was an electronic dog collar. It was charging. Right beside the cell phone. And the loaf of bread. And the stack of canned dog food I had to buy because Ice has lost most of her teeth now and can't eat dry dog food.

Last night I went to bed and found a tennis ball underneath the covers. Then I found another one. The walls in this house are supposed to be white. The odd thing though is that about 21" from the floor, there is a muddy scum line in the hallway where muddy dogs rub against a white wall. This can be scrubbed off, but it magically appears again. I ask myself, "Do other people live this way??!!"

The white tile in the foyer is dappled with muddy pawprints and don't even get me started on the carpet. Around here, dog crates serve as pieces of furniture. Ikea should really look into that concept. It's a marketing idea whose time has come.

As if this is not proof enough that we live in a dog house, I give you more. Other Half and I have a Queen size bed. That bed must accomodate us, a Border Collie, a Labrador, and sometimes a Blue Heeler.

Except for the Livestock Guardian Dog, no one is a 100% "outside" dog because we believe they all need social time as part of a family. This means breaking everyone into "sub-packs" according to personality and juggling those packs. The packs vary according to weather and what job is currently required, but the 'dog house shuffle' goes something like this:

Trace picks on Dillon so they can't be alone together. Lily picks on Oli and Briar so she can't be alone with either of those dogs or she'll get her tiny arse whipped. Cowboy picks fights with Ranger, even through a fence, so they cannot be loose with each other or across a fence from each other. Cowboy and Ranger pick on Trace but don't fight, so they can be in the yard with him, but not in a dog run where he can't get away from them. Briar would eat Oli because a good LGD knows a predator when she sees one, and so if Briar is loose in the yard, Oli cannot be. And the list goes on . . .

I tell you all this because despite the fact that we live in a DOG HOUSE, we are getting another dog.  (crickets chirping)

Yes. (that was pretty much my thought too, except the crickets were hopping in and out of my opened mouth)

Other Half's newest police K9 partner, Oli, has just been medically retired.

The long and short of it is that she has a knee problem. There is little point in pinpointing the exact problem because she is not a good candidate for any kind of surgery or anything that involves crate rest. As far as the agency is concerned, it is not cost-effective to spend a lot of money to diagnose the problem, then fix the problem, only to have her re-injure it doing bite work. Their money is better spent in buying Other Half another dog.  Yeah. . . you see where this is going.

Don't get me wrong, I do want him to have another dog because his work is dangerous and he needs a K9 partner. I just feel better knowing that a dog is watching his back, but that means we will then have NINE DOGS! (9!!! 1 more than 8!)

And it will most likely be a male dog. Oh goody. Here are some possible candidates:

Handsome boys.  I am praying that this new dog is laid back like Zena, his last patrol dog. She was the epitomy of the perfect dog and I still miss her.

 It hurt to give her up, but she is this dear old lady's sunshine, and Zena deserved to be that for someone.

So what will happen to Oli? Well, don't panic, she's in no danger. She now belongs to us, but we're still looking into re-homing her because at our home, she is simply one dog among nine and like Zena, she deserves to have a home where she can be someone's "special" dog.

On the other hand, unlike Zena, Oli is also a very active Belgian Malinois as well as a former police dog. Homes who are qualified to handle that are few and far between. Thus, if we cannot find a suitable forever home for Oli, she will assume the new job as Dillon's Best Friend.

 "Wooo hooooo!"

Since her retirement, we are more concerned with her mental health than her physical health. If we confine her to rest the knee, she will simply spin off her excess energy, thus causing her to limp. If we leave her loose in the house with Dillon she richochets off furniture, plays tug of war, drags him across the room, is dragged by him across the room, and generally has a romping good time. And guess what. It doesn't bother her leg. They exercise each other, and she's happier than I've ever known her.
 
So although our first choice is to find a home for her where she can be special, the next best thing is to just let her be a normal (as normal as a malinois can be) dog here at home. Oli is tickled to death. Like Ferdinand the Bull in the Children's Book, Oli really didn't like being a police dog. She loves the "training" to be a police dog, but the actual work involves long hours of sitting in the back of a police car. B-O-R-I-N-G

And so for now, she will be Dillon's full time buddy, and as her limp improves, I guess I'll start jogging with her. She would actually be a perfect jogging companion for jogging through the ghetto, but then again, I don't live in the ghetto, and I don't really jog, (and when I do, I take my Border Collie,) so Oli's more likely to get exercised by bouncing off the furniture with the Labrador. But if I ever find myself jogging in the shady parts of The Big City, Oli is my go-to partner!

So stay tuned. Yes, I definitely live in a Children's Book.

"Old dog. New dog.

Red dog. Blue dog."