Can I Keep It?

And On the Next Episode of Hoarders...

Hud and I spent the gorgeous Sunday afternoon doing an event called Paws for a Cause at the Shops of Saddlecreek.  There were pet bakers, pet stores, pet accupuncturists, pet photographers, pet painters and of course, the rescue groups.

We were immediately to the right of the Greyhound Rescue Group.  Only they're aren't really rescues, more of a second chance group. 

All of these beauties were there with their parents.  The greyhounds are not well socialized when they are up for adoption.  They've spent a lot of time alone in a pen waiting to go to work, instead of romping in backyards with twelve year old boys.  The group brings only the adopted ones to show how they blossom when they get to know people.

Good Dog Rescue was there as well.  Oh! The small funny faces!

This little girl had me at hello.  But I resisted the temptation.

They told me this was the laziest terrier in the country.  He wouldn't even get up for dinner if he was napping.

You know, as the Furry Godmother, people love to talk to me about their animal friends.  And there were some real stories yesterday.  Tales of the worst and the best in people.

This is Gus, a six month old St. Bernard puppy.  He was ginormous.  And fluffy as a chick.  And sweet as candy.  And spent four months locked in a wooden crate in a garage.  An unwanted birthday gift, ignored and treated so badly, when Sam got him, he couldn't walk.  He crawled on his belly to her.

But she has nursed him back to health.  He seems to bear no scars from his ordeal.

Unlike Honeysuckle.

She was found after someone set her on fire.  She had been bred, but probably failed to produce winning fighters.  The pups probably all inherited her gentle nature. That's her girlfriend, Feather, being fed a cookie by their mom from Three Dog Bakery. 

I had run up to the restroom and on my return, I spotted a new pen at the Good Dog Rescue.  It was so much larger than the others. 

And then I saw his face.

I asked the young attractive woman why she had my dog in a cage. 

Kristi took him out and I fell like a rock.  All the discussions swirled around my brain.  Four dogs is plenty.  We'll wait until Carmen is gone.  No. More. Male. Dogs.  I told Kristi that I would send my husband up to meet him.  Explained about Carmen.  Tried to talk myself out of it.

Kristi pleaded her case.  Someone she knew had owned Ace and had to move.  She could not take him with her.  ( I hope it wasn't that, "Arizona doesn't take dogs" excuse the Humane Society gets all the time.)  So Kristi, who fosters for Good Dog, told her that she would take him and find him a good home. She had him for a while, though now and she was two weeks from delivering her second child.  She was desperate to find that place.  She felt guilty because he was so very loving and they had been trying not to bond with him. 

I wandered back to my booth, wondering how I could get Hud to agree with all the wrongheadedness of it.

I told him that the dog was a Catahoula/Shepard mix.

He jumped up and said, "Well, let's have a look at him then..."

I waited, biting my lip.  Wringing my hands.  Waited. Minutes passed and out of the corner of my eye, I see Hud, walking with Ace back to me. 

"We need to change his name.  I'm calling him Boudreaux."

So it is official.  We are animal hoarders.

He fit in seamlessly.  Zali has only groused a few times to push his weight around.  Bou was cool with that. After the initial alarmed barking by Simone, accepts him.  Zoe took to him right off and shared a toy with Bou. Carmen finds him fascinating. The only things we're working on are the cat and the birds.  Boudreaux simply does not understand have wild animals in the house.  Aida is not amused.

But I am!  He's already revealed some of the quirky bits of his personality.  He likes music. It makes him do the RCA dog head.  Loves to watch TV to the point of needing to tell him to sit down when he finds some particular piece of dialogue riveting.  And himself.  He could spend hours watching himself in the mirror.

He was only agitated for an hour or two.  Then he jumped down fromthe ottoman Zoe shared with him.  Nosed through the toy basket until he found the perfect one. Then he hopped back up.  Settled in beside Zoe again and squeaked peacefully.

Welcome home, Boudreaux. We're all glad you're here.

 

 

 

Social Climbers

Mozelle and Floyd recently redecorated their home.  Floyd would do anything for Mozelle.  He sings to her, brings her bits of food.  Preens her pretty green feathers. 

I have to keep reminding him that she's just not that into you.

So Floyd has been saving up and finally could afford to get her the ladder she always wanted.

She'll sit there for hours as Floyd chatters on about her fair beauty.  I can hear her muttering under her breath for him to shut. up.  I mean, I get it.  He chorttles, brrrrs, whistles and coos from the moment he awakens, 'til the last bit of sun slides past the treeline.

When you answer the phone in my office, you can hear him in the background.  People will ask where we are that there are so many birds around.  Hud and I have taken to saying, "Birds?  What birds?  What are you talking about?" to confused silence on the other end.

Mozelle barely speaks.  Oh, she'll purr a bit as she sits on my finger.  But that is all.  She'll turn her head and eye me as if to say, "What about it?  Can I get out of here for a minute?  The cat said she'd like to show me around the house."

But I will put her back.  And Aida will chase their shadows on the wooden floors as Floyd chases Mozelle about their house.

Escape

I TOLD YOU SO!

Yesterday, as I was cleaning the Budgies cage, Mozelle flew out, fluttered across the room, into the bathroom, where she perched on the curtain rod.  She looked relieved.  I shut the bathroom doors and repeated the mantra, "Up. Up.  Up."  It's the only command she understands.  It's her instruction to get up on my finger.  She wasn't having it.  "Noooooo!", she cried as I approached her, "I don't wanna' go back!  You can't make me!"

And then she flew into the mirror.  Whack!  Sliiiiiiiddddeee...  I scooped her up out of the sink.  She tried to nip me but gave up, quickly resigned to a life of gift twigs and nuzzling from Nerd Boy Pretty Boy Floyd.  I set her in the clean cage.  She lighted on my finger.  I moved her to a perch.  She flew back to my finger.  Now, normally it is a struggle to get her to come and see me, but ever since the Great Escape of 2010, She won't leave me alone.  Mozelle has been so needy these last twenty four hours that it borders on clingy.

We guess we all need reassurance sometimes.

This is little Oliver.  He lives in South Carolina.  He needs love.

 

Take a clue, Mozelle and Floyd.  This boy knows how to get what he wants.

*More pictures of Oliver snorgling his mom at www.zooborns.typepad.com *

Things and Stuff

I was very relieved to find the ghosts swimming tranquilly around in the front fountain this morning.  The heater we place in the fountain to warm the waters and keep it from freezing both fish and cement, broke.  The fountain was a solid block of ice straight to the bottom.  Banquo and Casper spent over a week trapped in the bowels of a deep freeze.  I had written about my youthful memories of a friend's fish pond earlier as a gris gris  to secure their well being.  It worked!  This morning, the ice had melted and both of their white bodies glided smoothly though the murky water.  It was a poultice for my soul.

This week, I have been immersed in a shipment of clay.  I have whiled away my hours painting goofy Easter chickens on ceramic.  After firing, they will set upon the most delightful metal chicken feet.  I have giggled for hours.  The Pappies and the Budgies think I have lost my mind.

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The budgies have been driving me crazy all week with the chortling and sashaying that has gone on in that cage.  Pretty Boy Floyd has become quite smitten with Mozelle.  Who could blame him with her flashy blue cheeks and Catawba worm colored plumage?  She's a looker that one.  He brings her the stripped millet twigs.  He preens her.  He sings her chirpy songs of love and desire.

She couldn't be bothered.  It's like I have condemned her to a life long blind date with the nerdiest bird on the planet.  "Really?  Another twig, Floyd?  You shouldn't have.  I only have these forty-two hundred you gave me last week."  (eye roll)

Sometimes, when she's sitting on my finger, I can see her looking around for an escape route. She's definitely not looking for love in any of the wrong or right places. The bird is frigid, I tell you.

Frigid.

I wonder what it would take to warm her soul?