WHAT I DID IN TEXAS

On Sunday, we left Austin early in the morning, and after we drove for hours and hours, we finally got home to Kansas City.  It is about 734 miles from our house to Aunt Cheryl's house, and it takes us 13 or 14 hours to drive all that way.  We could get there faster if we didn't keep having to stop and pee.  Also, the day we first drove down there, we got in some very slow traffic because people were doing construction stuff on the road.  When we came back, nobody was working on the road because it was a Sunday.  So now we know that it's better to drive to Austin on a Sunday.

Here I am standing in Aunt Cheryl's back yard.

The only bad thing that happened to us on the way home was we had a flat tire.  And it wasn't just a tire that went a little bit flat.  It was a tire that got shredded and mashed and torn apart.  Mom called it a "major tire malfunction."

Anyway, we had to stop driving because of our tire malfunction, and Mom called the nice people at AAA.  They said they could send somebody out in 45 minutes or maybe sooner.  But then, just when we were getting ready to wait for 45 minutes, these two men in a big, black pickup stopped, and they asked if they could help us.  Mom said it would be great if they could change our tire, so that's what they did. Dorrie and I had to wait in the front seat while this happened because our crate and a bunch of other stuff got unloaded out of the car so that the spare tire could come out of its hiding place.  Then everything got loaded up again, including us, and we drove the rest of the way home, which wasn't really very far.

I spent a lot of time sleeping in Texas.

But now I'm going to tell you about some of the stuff I did at Aunt Cheryl's house, which was mostly the same stuff that Dorrie also did.  Aunt Cheryl has a really huge, ginormous yard with tons of shrubs and flowers and weird stuff in it.  A lot more plants got put in since we were there the last time, plus the bamboo got taken out.  Gabe and I and Hank used to like to run around through the bamboo, so it was kind of sad that it was gone.  But bamboo is not a native Texas plant, and it is what is called "invasive," so that is why Aunt Cheryl got rid of it.  Now she is just trying to have mostly native plants.

When we first arrived in Austin, it was after dark because we got stuck in a lot of slow traffic on the way through Fort Worth.  Then Mom got lost trying to find Aunt Cheryl's house, so we had to call and ask Uncle Art how to get there.  Finally we ended up at the right house, but it was very dark, and the yard was very big, so we didn't go exploring until the next morning.  In my next blog entry, I will tell you more about Aunt Cheryl's yard.

Here's Dorrie looking goofy.

Dorrie and I both liked to be out in the yard, except that it was really hot out there.  Inside, it was cold because of the air-conditioning, so when we first went outside, it felt good to be warm again.  But then we got hot, so we went back inside where we could be cool.

I wish this collection had some basenjis in it,
instead of mostly Airedales.

Mom and Aunt Cheryl were gone a long time every day, so Dorrie and I slept a lot.  Mom put us in crates so that we wouldn't get into any trouble.  I only had a rug and some newspapers for bedding, but Dorrie got to have a real dog bed.  Mom said I couldn't have a bed because I would just tear it up and eat the pieces, and then I would have to have expensive surgery again.

Mom spent her time in dark rooms, trying to stay awake during lectures.

While the cactus and succulent convention was happening, Dorrie and I had to stay in our crates for hours and hours.  But this nice man named Uncle Juan would come a couple of times during the day and let us out to potty.  Uncle Juan is the person who helps Aunt Cheryl do all the yard work.  He talked to us in Spanish, and he said we were very good girls.

I have excellent pillow-shredding skills

One night, Mom went upstairs to watch a movie with Aunt Cheryl, and I was feeling kind of bored and stressed, so I tore up a feather pillow.  Mom was shocked when she came back downstairs and saw what I had done.  Then she had to go tell Aunt Cheryl that she had been foolish enough to leave me alone with a pillow.  Luckily, Aunt Cheryl has a sense of humor, and she understands basenjis.  She helped Mom clean up all the feathers.  This was hard to do because feathers fly, like birds, which is where they come from.  But if you suck them up with a vacuum cleaner, that sort of works.

The problem with feathers is that they stick to you.

After that, Mom made Dorrie and me stay in our crates whenever she went upstairs for very long.  Well, except one time she was doing her email upstairs, and I tore up the bag that Mom got at the convention.  But Mom didn't really care about the bag because every time she goes to a convention, she gets another bag.

Mom didn't really want this bag anyway.

I was going to stop writing there, but Mom said I should also admit that I wet the bed a couple of nights.  I didn't mean to do this.  The pee just somehow came out of me while I was sleeping.  It's very embarrassing when this happens.  Anyway, Mom thinks I have a urinary tract infection, so she took some of my pee over to Dr. Patricia's office yesterday.

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WE ARE GOING TO TEXAS!

Guess what!  Mom and I and Dorrie got up really early this morning, and pretty soon we will get in the car and start driving to Austin, Texas.  If you have been reading my blog for a while, you will know that we have gone to Austin before, and that it's the place where Aunt Cheryl lives.  My boyfriend, Hank the basenji, used to live there, too, but he had to go to the Rainbow Bridge.  This is the first time I will be in Austin without Hank there, and I feel sad about that.

But here is some good news:  Aunt Cheryl got a new dog not too long ago.  He is not a basenji, but instead, he is an airedale.  Aunt Cheryl does lots of airedale rescue, and so she meets a whole bunch of airedales.  And now she adopted this one, and his name is Sully.  He's pretty young, like maybe three years old, but I don't remember for sure.  Anyway, he was kept out in somebody's yard on a chain, so he had chain wounds around his neck when he was rescued, plus also he was really thin.  But even after all that, Sully turned out to be a really friendly, super-nice boy.  Or at least that's what Aunt Cheryl says.

The worst thing about Sully is that he has heartworms, so he is getting treated for those.  And when you are getting treated for heartworms, you have to stay very calm and quiet.  You're not supposed to run and play, no matter how much you want to, because if a clump of dead heartworms gets into your lungs, it can kill you right away.

So Aunt Cheryl told Mom that Dorrie and I may not get to meet Sully because she doesn't want him to get excited and try to play with us.  But I think Mom will be allowed to meet him, and she can take some pictures and tell us all about him.

But anyway, getting back to our trip, the reason we are going to Austin is not just to visit Aunt Cheryl, even though that's always fun to do. We are also going there because the Cactus and Succulent Society of America is having a convention, and Mom is attending it.  And so is Aunt Cheryl.  Dorrie and I are not going to the convention because (1) dogs are not allowed there, and (2) we think it would be boring.  So the two of us girls will just stay at Aunt Cheryl's house and take a nap while the convention is happening.

While we are gone, our foster kittens will stay at other foster homes.  And our kitty siblings went to Dr. Patricia's clinic for boarding.  Mel went there, too, because Mom thought he was too old for traveling so far.  So it's just the three of us girls who are going to Austin.  We're going to try to drive all the way there today, and all the way back on June 23.  Dorrie was kind of nervous when Mom started packing everything last night, but I told her about Aunt Cheryl's house and that she would have a good time there.  I'm not sure if she believed me or not, but she'll see after we get to Austin.

I think my blog will probably be on vacation during the time I'm in Austin.  If I happen to decide to write something, I will, but sometimes a girl just needs to take a break!

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I AM DORRIE! by Dorrie, the Chihuahua

Hi!  My name is Dorrie, and I am a Chihuahua.   I started my life in Dodge City, Kansas, or someplace around there.  Dodge City is kind of famous because it was on the Santa Fe Trail, and also it was a big cow town.  Also there were a couple of guys named Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson who used to live there.  Maybe you have heard of them.    Dodge City is in the southwest part of Kansas, about two-thirds of the way to Colorado, if you are going west from Missouri.  You can get to Dodge City from I-70 by taking the WaKeeney exit and then going south on highway 283.  If you find yourself in Oklahoma, that means you have gone too far.

In Dodge City, I ended up with a group called Pets Miracle Rescue.  I can't really tell you how I got there.  I might have been a stray or I might have been an owner surrender.  Probably I wasn't in a puppy mill because I had already been spayed when I got to the rescue group.  Also, my new mom is thinking that I got debarked because I haven't really barked since I've been at her house.  Mostly I just go "Boof! Boof!" if I'm excited.  I can also whimper and whine and make a really good screeching noise if I need to!

Anyway, in Dodge City, I got all my shots and I also got my teeth cleaned.  Then Pets Miracle handed me over to a group called New Beginnings.  They brought me and some other little dogs to Kansas City.  In Dodge City, it's hard to find adopters for all the dogs that need homes because there aren't enough people living there, so that's why we came to Kansas City.

I may be little, but I cast a long shadow!

Nobody knows how old I am, exactly.  On Petfinder and on Mom's adoption contract, it says I am 5 years old.  But on the paperwork that Mom got from Pets Miracle Rescue, it says I am 4 in one place and 7 in another.  I guess it doesn't matter too much, and a real lady doesn't tell her age anyway!

Mom says I fit in well here because I like to sleep a lot.  My new doggy siblings, Mel and Piper, are also into sleeping, and so are the cats.  A couple of nights ago, I got to meet the foster kittens when they came out of their room.  I wasn't sure what to think of them.  Usually cats are bigger than I am, but these cats were smaller!  I whimpered and whined and danced around while pawing at Mom's leg.  Mom said I should be nice to the kittens, and she watched me like a hawk.  She said a dog killed a kitten here before, and she didn't want that sad thing to happen again.  So I didn't kill any kittens or even chase them, but maybe I will some other time.  I've chased squirrels in the yard, and that was fun, so I know that I like chasing things.

Yesterday Mom and I got to do something very special and adventurous together.  We got up early, and we went to this event called Dog-n-Jog.  There were lots and lots of people and dogs there.  The purpose of it was to raise a whole bunch of money for the Humane Society of Greater Kansas City, which is where Mom is a volunteer.  I know this is a good cause, but I thought Dog-n-Jog was kind of scary because there was so much noise and so many people and dogs.

Mom took me around and introduced me to a bunch of her friends.  They all said I was really cute -- which is true, of course -- and several of them wanted to hold me.  So Mom kept handing me over to perfect strangers.  Mom hopes all this handling will make me more social and less shy, but she may be totally wrong about that.

Anyway, we went on the one-mile walk, and at first Mom carried me because there were too many big dogs that might have decided to eat me.  Or some big person might have stepped on me and squashed me like a bug.  But after a while, things cleared out, and Mom had me do some of the walking myself.  This was right after she mentioned that other small dogs were walking and not being carried.  Mom pointed out a tiny Yorkie as an example.  So I walked for a while, and when I got tired or scared, Mom picked me up again.

When we were at Dog-n-Jog, Mom ran into her hair stylist, Doug, and his partner, Mike.  They had their two shih-tzus with them, and the two dogs got to ride in a special stroller thingy!  I also saw some Chihuahuas riding in one of these strollers later.  I came home and told Piper about it, and we agree that Mom should buy us one of them.  Then we could go for all kinds of long walks without getting tired at all!

There was a costume contest at Dog-n-Jog, but Mom did not make me enter it, thankfully.  We saw a lot of people with dogs in costumes, including this man with a beard who had two Pomeranians.  At least we think they were Pomeranians.  It was kind of hard to tell.

One thing that happened at Dog-n-Jog was that I got something called a microchip.  Mom forgot to have Dr. Vodraska put one in me, so when she found out that the Humane Society was doing it at Dog-n-Jog, she was very happy.  What she didn't tell me was that getting a microchip hurts because the chip is almost as big as a Chihuahua, and they use a really big needle to put it in.  So I shrieked when they stuck me, but after a while, it stopped hurting, and now I am all identified.

Another thing that happened was that we got our picture taken by a fancy photographer.  Someday we will get this photo sent to us by email, but since I wanted to put a photo of Mom and me in this blog entry, Mom asked one of her friends to take a picture of us.  As you can see, I am looking a little bashful and demur.  This is the way I look when I am nervous, so I looked this way pretty much the whole time we were there.

I was really glad when we finally left, and on the way home, I could hardly keep my eyes open in the car.  Thank goodness I didn't have anything else on my calendar yesterday, because I really needed to get rested up!

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FOSTER KITTEN UPDATE

First of all, I will tell you that we now have 8 foster kittens instead of just 5.  We got the 3 newest ones almost 2 weeks ago.  They are all boys, and their names are Andrew, James, and John.  Mom did not give them these names.  In fact, she thinks these names are sort of boring and they sound like they came right out of the Bible.  Which is why we have been calling these 3 kittens "the New Testament boys."  When Mom told this to Aunt Tania, Aunt Tania said the kittens got named by a lady who only works there on Sundays, helping clean the kennels, and this person is a good Catholic.  So she probably really did think up the names out of the Bible.

Andrew, John, and James

Anyway, Aunt Tania said the New Testament boys are 3 weeks older than our "A" kittens, but Mom finds this hard to believe.  She thinks they are maybe only 2 weeks older.  Or else they might have got off to a slow start in life.  Andrew is the tabby one, John is the bigger black one, and James is the smaller black one.

Within a day after Mom brought the new kittens home, they were playing and cuddling with our other kittens, and pretty soon Audra started letting them nurse, just as if they were her very own kittens.

Audra with Abra, John (or James), Alec, and Andrew

Mom has been trying to keep Audra out of the kitten room a lot of the time because Audra was getting thin and dehydrated, what with feeding all those kittens.  But Audra sits outside the door of the kitten room, and she makes all kinds of funny yowly cat noises.  It sounds like she is cussing somebody out instead of calling for her kittens.

John, Adair, Abra, Alec, and Andrew

We think Audra is trying to be in season again so she can make new kittens.  Of course, we don't want this to happen, which is why we hope Audra's milk will dry up soon so she can be spayed.  Sometimes Mom can't stand hearing Audra being so noisy outside the kitten room, and then Mom opens the door to let Audra go in there, just to shut her up.

Anderson, Abra, Andrew, and Adrian

It's really hard for 8 kittens to nurse when there are only 6 nipples.  Andrew and John are bigger and pushier than the others, so they usually get more than their share.  James is the runt of his litter, and he is so shy that we think he is not always getting enough food to eat.

Left side of Audra: Anderson, Abra, Adrian,
Right side: James (or John), Alec, Andrew, and John (or James).
Where is Adair?  Maybe in the litterbox?

Sometimes Audra wants to eat some of the kittens' food when she is in their room, so she does this while also nursing.  I think this is what they call "multi-tasking."

Alec, Abra, Andrew,
and more kittens on the other side of the Milk Bar.

On Friday night, Mom let the kittens out of their room for a little while so they could explore the house.  They didn't got very far because it was their first time, and they were kind of scared.  Next time, they will probably go farther.

Anderson and Alec explore the world.

And tomorrow the "A" kittens will turn 7 weeks old.  Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you some very good news, which is that Erica and Esmé got adopted yesterday!

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A LLAMA NAMED SCOOTER

There was this llama living in Florida, near Tallahassee, and his name was Scooter.  Last Friday Scooter decided he would like to see the world outside his pasture, so he broke the fence, and he went exploring.  On Friday night, Scooter's owner, Jack Conrad, saw that Scooter was gone, so he started looking everywhere for his llama.

But he couldn't find Scooter, so early Saturday morning, Mr. Conrad called the sheriff's office and they started helping him look.  Meanwhile, other people were calling to that they had seen a camel or an alpaca or some other strange animal wandering around.

The deputies gave Scooter a good chase, but Scooter did not want to be caught, so he ran fast, and he even jumped a 4-foot fence to get away.  Lt. Tony Drzewiecki said, "Scooter was running in the middle of the road, so he was going to cause an accident eventually."

Photo handout via AP

Finally, the deputies and police and everybody caught up with Scooter.  They got a lasso on him, but he did not want to go into the trailer that was there to take him home.  He used his 300-pound weight to resist his captors, and also he spat on at least one of them.  So the deputies had to use a taser on Scooter to subdue him.  After that, 6 men were able to pull and shove the llama into the trailer.  "I've been doing this for twenty years and this was the first llama I've ever had to chase," said Officer Drzewiecki.

Now Scooter is back at home with his owner, Mr. Conrad, who also has 3 other llamas.  Scooter likes to eat Triscuits, so he has been munching on those and acting like nothing happened.  Mr. Conrad will not have to pay a fine, but he has promised to make his fence stronger so that Scooter cannot get out again. This is good because now Scooter will stay at home where he is safe, but it also means he won't get to go exploring anymore.

Scooter back at home.  Tallahassee Democrat

One thing that the article about capturing Scooter said was that he had to be shot with a laser gun because "llamas don't respond to voice commands."  I thought this was kind of a strange thing to say because people in the Andes have been using llamas for years as pack animals, and you would think the llamas have learned at least a few commands.

On the same page with the Scooter article, I found a link to a story about keeping llamas as pets, and this story talked about a UK couple, Tim and Terri Crowfoot, who have seven llamas.  These llamas are named David, Dillon, Thomas, Oscar, Toby, Mary, and Ann.  They have learned lots of the same tricks that dogs do.  For example, they can fetch, sit, roll over, shake, pull carts, and jump through hoops.  The Crowfoots said, "The llamas can now do everything your average dog can do, and more."  Well, I refuse to believe that llamas are smarter than dogs, but in order to learn all those tricks, they would have to respond to voice commands.

A llama being trained.

The problem with Scooter was just that he had never been taught any voice commands, and not that llamas in general don't respond to them.  In my opinion, Scooter needs to go to some obedience classes, and the first thing he needs to learn is "Come!"

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PHOBIAS

Phobia is a word that comes from the Greek word Phóbos, which means "fear" or "morbid fear."  When psychologists talk about phobias, they mean a sort of anxiety or fear of an object or situation.  If you have a phobia like this, you do everything you can to avoid whatever you're afraid of.  Sometimes it makes sense to do this, like for instance if you are afraid of falling off the edge of a cliff and so you stay away from the edges of cliffs.  But sometimes you might be afraid of something that most people don't think is scary at all.

People have phobias and so do dogs.  Some of the most common phobias that people have are fear of heights, fear of small spaces, and fear of going out of the house.  Dogs might have a fear of storms, fear of people wearing uniforms, or fear of being in a crate.

When I started looking on the internet for types of phobias, I found this really cool website, and it's called The Phobia List.  The man who put this list together is not a doctor, and he says he does not know how to cure anybody of their phobias.  Instead, he is a person who is interested in words.  Every phobia on his very long list has actually been published somewhere in a reference book or medical paper.  Which means he is not just making these phobias up, even if some of them seem pretty weird.

Anyway, since there are so many interesting phobias on the list, I decided that today I would just to tell you some of the ones that start with "A."  Another day I will do phobias with another letter.  Oh, and the man who made the phobia list said that he thinks since the word phobia comes from Greek, the type of phobia should also be in Greek and not in Latin, like some people have done when they were making names for phobias.  I am not a scholar of language, but this makes sense to me, because if you go around mixing two languages together, you may end up having them fight with each other!


ABLUTOPHOBIA -- fear of washing or bathing*

AGRIZOOPHOBIA -- fear of wild animals


AGYROPHOBIA -- fear of streets or crossing the street


AILUROPHOBIA -- fear of cats

ALBUMINUROPHOBIA -- fear of kidney disease


ALLIUMPHOBIA -- fear of garlic

ALLODOXAPHOBIA -- fear of opinions


ANGLOPHOBIA -- fear of England or English culture

ANTHROPHOBIA -- fear of flowers


APOTEMNOPHOBIA -- fear of persons with amputations


ARACHIBUTYROPHOBIA -- fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth

AULOPHOBIA -- fear of flutes

AURORAPHOBIA -- fear of the Northern Lights

*I will just say that I have this phobia myself, and I don't see anything wrong with it.  In fact, I am proud to say that I both fear and hate getting a bath!

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A DIFFERENT NEW DOGGY SISTER!

We have had a very confusing life here during the last week or so, and that happened because Mom has been trying to find the perfect doggy sister or brother to suit all of us.  Meaning all of us dogs, the cats, and even Mom herself.

So first we had Agnes, like I told you in my entry on May 25, but Mom was not happy with Agnes.  This was not the fault of Agnes, because she was a nice girl, and she couldn't help it that she came from a puppymill and didn't have any social skills.  Agnes went to see Dr. Vodraska, and Mom pointed out some strange places on the bottoms of Agnes's back feet.  One foot had sort of a callous on one of the toe pads, and the other foot had a swollen lumpy thing between the toe pads and the foot pad.

Agnes

Dr. V said that the lumpy thing was kind of like a pimple, and it was caused by the hair follicles being all clogged up.  So she squeezed some of the plugs out of the follicles, and that was supposed to let the lump drain.  If it fills back up again, the only way to fix it would be surgery.  Dr. V prescribed some antibiotics to help it heal up.  The other foot might have a corn under the callous, but Dr. V wasn't sure.

It turned out that all of Agnes's canine teeth had their tips cut off, so they wouldn't be so sharp.  We also think she had been de-barked, which is why she never barked, except a couple of times she made sort of a coughing sound.  These are the kinds of bad things people do to dogs in puppymills.

We had Agnes here three nights, and she started sleeping on Mom's bed, but Mom always had to carry her up and down the stairs plus lift her on and off the bed.  Since Agnes was kind of plump and weighed almost 12 pounds, Mom's back started to get sore.  Also, Agnes kept peeing in the house, and not even on the pee pad Mom put down for her, which is what the foster mom said Agnes would pee on.  And when Agnes went out in the yard, she would sometimes run around a whole bunch, like grass was the best thing ever.  And sometimes she even peed out there.  But other times she just stood around like grass was the scariest thing ever, and she didn't want to move from where she was.

Dustin

So finally, Mom called up Ginnie, the woman with New Beginnings Dog Rescue, and told her she had made a big mistake in trying to adopt Agnes.  Ginnie did not seem very happy until Mom said she might be interested in one of their other dogs, who was a papillon mix named Dustin.  Then Ginnie said if Mom wanted to try Dustin instead of Agnes, that would be great.

Dustin was only 3 years old, and he had lots of energy.  He was very friendly, and he loved to go for walks, and he pottied in the yard (except for marking in the house a few times), and he was all the things that Mom wanted in a dog.  So Mom was happy, and we dogs didn't really care, as long as Dustin didn't pester us to play with him.  At night, Dustin slept in bed with Mom, and everything was great, and Mom thought we would be keeping Dustin.

But then Dustin started chasing the cats, and he did this all the time, especially with Jason and Latifa.  Chloe and Charlie just avoided Dustin by staying up on high furniture or in the cat room.  They didn't sleep with Mom anymore, and in fact, we hardly ever saw any of the cats.  Or if we did, Dustin went tearing off after one of them.  And if he cornered it, he would start barking at it.  Dustin would even jump out of bed in the middle of the night to chase cats, because that's how much he liked to do it.

Well, Mom decided this was not a good way for the cats to have to live, so she called Ginnie again and said she would have to return Dustin, too.  Mom thought Ginnie would just give her check back, and that would be the end of it.  But Ginnie said maybe Mom should try a chihuahua they had who was named Razzy, which was short for Raspberry.

Dorrie (who used to be Razzy)

So Mom agreed to try Razzy, who is 5 years old and weighs 7 pounds.  This is exactly the same as what Dustin weighed, but Razzy has short hair, so that makes her look smaller.  Anyway, we got Razzy on Thursday, and we have decided to adopt her.  Except we didn't like her name, so we had to find a new one for her.

Mom went through some long lists of names to try to find a good one, and she sent a couple of short lists to Aunt Cheryl, and finally Mom decided on Dorrie, which I agree is the most perfect name ever for my little chihuahua sister.  On Friday, Mom took Dorrie to PetSmart and bought her a harness and a little collar and a matching leash.  Oh, and also an ID tag.

Dorrie likes to sleep in bed with Mom, and she sleeps under the covers.  I have heard that some basenjis like to sleep under the bed covers with their people, but I never liked to sleep there.  Dorrie is very clever.  She can go up and down stairs all by herself, and she can jump on and off the bed by herself.  She has had a couple of accidents in the house, but mostly now she goes out and does her pottying in the yard, even if the grass is wet.  Mom says this should be an example for me, but I'm not sure what she means by that.

The cats don't mind having Dorrie around because she doesn't chase them or bark at them or anything like that.  And she doesn't pester Mel or me either.  And Mom likes her because she is a good lapdog and she is also pretty good at walking on a leash.  Plus she doesn't bite people -- or at least we don't think she does -- and that is always a good thing in a dog.

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