Some Puppy!

After our recent loss of Tabasco and Scooter, our farm was left without a canine. Dogs are essential to a working farm, whether for protection of the property or for herding livestock. Scooter’s loss, in particular, hit us hard in both departments. Suddenly, we had no dog watching the property while we were away from home. Suddenly, if the sheep or goats got out, we were on our own in trying to round them back up. Suddenly, there was no deterrent to predators which might visit our property by night.

Replacing a dog like Scooter isn’t easy, and I’m not confident we’ll find his equal. But we learned an important lesson with him: it’s best to start with a young puppy. Scooter was only about eight weeks old when we got him, and he was acclimated from that very early age to the whole environment and expectations of our farm. Ideally, we could find a border collie puppy to take his place…and we will continue looking for one. But, in the meantime, we need a dog of some sort to get to work.

Our solution was to scout the local humane society’s animal shelter. Fortunately, about a week ago, we found a promising prospect: a litter of German Shepherd mix puppies was available. They went fast, and we managed to get the last one. His name is Wilbur, and his is indeed…Some Puppy!

I’d almost forgotten how much fun little puppies can be; it’s been nearly four years since we got Scooter. He’s bright, inquisitive, and a quick learner. He enjoys tagging along as I do chores, and is eager to please. Best of all, he’s small enough so the other livestock (even the barn cats) are able to teach him his place and ensure he doesn’t turn predator. He may have some bird or hunting dog in his mongrel mix, but at this early age I think we can break him of any inclination he may have to attack the chickens or ducks.

I’d also forgotten how much trouble little puppies can be, especially before they’re housebroken. And how much they chew on everything. And get into everything. He spends his days in my office with me (and his nights in a crate in my office), and the building is unfortunately starting to smell like it. Hopefully we’ll get him big enough soon to be able to spend his nights in the barn, and by next spring to be patrolling the property at night.

And we’ll make sure we get the front of the property fenced tightly enough so he doesn’t meet the same fate that Scooter did.

Beyond My Limit

Today, I did something I never wanted to do...and was certain I would never bring myself to do: personally put my beloved dog out of her suffering. Over the years, I've had to put down injured or sick cats, goats, lambs, and birds. It was never pleasant, but I'd never hesitated. But all that time, dogs remained for me a line I couldn't cross. Especially a companion like Tabasco.

As regular readers know, we'd had Tabasco for nearly four years. We got her as a stray when we lived in Illinois; she showed up at the local rural animal shelter on the same day our Collie was hit by a car. Our vet happened to run the shelter (it was a really small county), and someone there knew we were looking for a new farm dog. Tabasco, it turned out, was a perfect fit. She was on the older side, and wasn't terribly large, but had plenty of spunk and energy. She had a wonderful temperament, was good with our kids, loved retrieving tennis balls, enjoyed riding around in cars, and made herself a fierce defender of our property (she was a determined enough "alpha" to stand up even to our Great Pyrenees...not to mention any intruders who might show up unannounced). She had long legs and a long narrow muzzle, and loved spending hours digging her way into field mouse dens. (Mrs. Yeoman Farmer didn't like it so much when these digs were in the middle of the lawn.)

As Tabasco got older, she increasingly spent her days with me in my office building. She'd go out to relieve herself, but grew less interested in everything else. She slept on my office couch each night, and was my constant companion by day as I worked. I found it particularly heartening when I'd return to the office after a few hours away...and find her curled up on my desk chair. She'd look up with her big eyes, thump her curly tail, and seem to be assuring me that she'd taken good care of my special place.

The first big turning point was last November, when we were gone for several weeks adopting Yeoman Farm Baby. Tabasco developed a hacking cough, bad enough that the family watching our farm mentioned it regularly over the phone. I took her to the vet once we'd returned, and x-rays confirmed a case of pneumonia. We gave her a course of antibiotics, which took care of the worst symptoms, but Tabasco was never the same. She seldom went out at all, or didn't seem interested in much of anything but eating and sleeping and watching me work. At the time, I chalked this up to the cold winter. But even when the spring thaw came, she never again tried to chase a tennis ball or tag along for chores. The kids would take her to the barn at milking time, but that was more about getting free squirts of milk than anything else.

Then came the bloat. As detailed in another post, her bloat got so bad about a month ago that I took her to the vet...who took another x-ray, and delivered the grim diagnosis: tumors all over her lungs. Technically, pulmonary edema, and possibly lung cancer. At her age, there wasn't much of anything we could do. The vet gave some medications to drain her fluid and open her airway, but there was never any question of Tabasco making a recovery. The medication was all about buying time so we could say goodbye.

And I am deeply grateful for that. When we were at the vet last month, he wasn't sure Tabasco would make it through the weekend. The news was such a shock, I broke down right there in the examining room. And then...the medications gave us five more weeks. Tabasco's bloat was dramatically reduced within a matter of days, and for the next three or four more weeks she seemed almost normal. Slow, subdued, uninterested in strenuous activity, urinating all the time --- but stable and able to get around. I treasured every time I walked through my office door and she looked up and thumped her tail. We gave her all the meat scraps and dog treats she would take, and told her over and over what a great great dog she was.

Then came the last week. Suddenly, she had a lot of trouble getting to her feet. Especially on the slick floor of my office. I told her that was okay; I'd help her get up. I wondered if it was a side effect of the steroids, or just her disease running its course. She'd have good days and bad days, but the general trajectory was downward. She went from having trouble getting up, to having trouble walking around. Her joints seemed stiff, and her hind quarters didn't want to follow her front quarters.

Then, a few days ago, she couldn't keep herself in a squatting position long enough to relieve herself. Or a standing position long enough to drink from her bucket. I'd hold her at the bucket so she could drink, but then she'd flop down on the grass. She seemed to like the fresh air, so I'd leave her out. And because she couldn't get to her feet on my office floor, I'd leave her out at night as long as it wasn't raining.

I sensed we'd reached a turning point, and began thinking more seriously about taking her in for the vet to put her down. I was certain I couldn't do it myself. I'm a dog person to the core, and Tabasco was my constant companion. Every fiber of my being revolted at the idea of inflicting harm on her body from my own hand. It'd taken four weeks just to get comfortable with the idea of cradling her in a blanket as I allowed a vet to put her to sleep. Tabasco was a survivor, and a fighter. As long as she was physically able to keep going and seemed to have the spirit to fight, I resolved to let her do it. I prayed she'd die on her own, but knowing her...I knew she wouldn't.

I wondered how I'd know when Tabasco couldn't go on, and I'd have to make The Call. She wasn't well at all yesterday, and I started to think Monday would be It. I began thinking about how I could squeeze a vet visit into my crazily busy schedule. I grilled a big batch of lamb steaks for dinner, and made sure Tabasco got every bone and every scrap. Even though she couldn't move to get anything, she seemed to be having the time of her life as we fed them to her.

Then, this morning when I came to her, I knew it was time. I couldn't make her wait till the vet opened on Monday. As absolutely revolting as it was to think about putting her down myself, a perfectly clear realization came to me: it was even more revolting to think about making her suffer a single additional day like this. And I couldn't make her do it. I cared about her too much. I cared about her so much, I knew in my core that I had to end this. Now.

How did I know? And how did I do it? Some of you may be uncomfortable with the details, but I think they need to be shared. For that reason, the details will be after the jump. Continue reading only if you want to.

(I don't know why the "Jump Break" doesn't work, so I'm inserting the following manual break instead.)

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Tabasco's inability to stand on her feet, or to squat to defecate, was the core of the problem. I didn't mind carrying her around, or holding her as she drank. The issue became hygiene, and it was a lot worse than I'd thought. Bottom line: flies started to love her. By Saturday afternoon, they were all over her rear end. Saturday night, I got a look at what they were doing to her: her orifices were crawling with fly larvae. I hosed her down, and that brought some relief. Her spirits, despite everything, seemed to remain high.

Then, this morning, the larvae were back with a vengeance. And she smelled absolutely horrible. And Tabasco's spirit was gone. I sat her on her tail in my lap, put on a latex glove, and used peroxide to clean her up as best I could. But as much as I cleaned, the larvae kept coming. And, despite the early hour, the adult flies were already swooping in to lay more eggs. I knew there was no way whatsoever we could let her go a full additional day in this condition. Not in this heat. Not in this humidity.

It was time.

I went in the house and advised Mrs. Yeoman Farmer as to the situation. She agreed there was really no other option. It'd be cruel in the extreme to make Tabasco linger for another 26 hours while we waited for the vet to open, and we certainly couldn't call a vet to the farm on a Sunday morning to administer an "emergency" euthanasia.

We broke it to the kids, who took it surprisingly well. I think the five weeks of preparation helped a lot with that. Homeschooled Farm Girl got choked up, brought me a fabric flower that she'd been saving, and asked if I would bury it with Tabasco. Despite the huge lump in my own throat, I assured her I would.

I took a shovel to the pasture, and dug the deepest hole I could. When I came back to retrieve Tabasco, Homeschooled Farm Boy asked if he could go with me. I let him carry my (unloaded) pistol, while I cradled Tabasco in a blanket for the trek.

We set Tabasco in the bottom of the hole, and helped her curl up as comfortably as we could. HFB and I both said our last good-byes, and then I covered her head with an old dish towel before delivering the bullet that would end everything.

I'd actually given a lot of though to the type of round I wanted to use. A shotgun slug or .45 pistol or 7.62x54R rifle would be too big. I didn't want to blow her head off. A .22 or .380 might be too small and not do the job the first time. I settled on a 7.62x25 pistol; it's a relatively small but extremely powerful round that would be effective without overkill.

And it indeed was the perfect choice. One pop (which, I confess, I closed my eyes as I delivered), and it was over. No doubt, but no mess. HFB and I quickly covered Tabasco's body with rocks, and then filled the hole the rest of the way with dirt. We tamped it down, and then made our way back to the house with heavy hearts.

Strangely, my heart didn't remain heavy for long. Yes, I felt a sad pang the first time I entered my office and looked for Tabasco's thumping tail greeting that would never come again. But, at the same time, I felt oddly liberated. It was over. Mrs. Yeoman Farmer agreed: it was a relief to finally have resolution to the situation. Finally, we knew how it was going to end. Finally, we could move on.

I'm still surprised I found it within myself to pull that trigger, and I've sensed an odd change within myself today as I've reflected on it. I'm a stronger person now. I've confronted and overcome a challenge I ever even wanted to confront, let alone overcome. The other big challenges in life seem strangely less insurmountable today.

All that said, I have missed Tabasco today. Especially when I was de-boning the meat for lamb stew, and thinking about how much she would enjoy feasting on the scraps...before remembering.

But it's going to be okay. Scooter loved those scraps. And Tabasco...I'm just glad her suffering is over. And I'm grateful God gave me the strength to render that service.

Hanging in Here

Sorry for the slow posting of late; we are here, but buried under the summer's work on the farm. Add to it a slew of professional work (my business is opinion research, particularly political, which spikes during the summer and fall months of even-numbered years), and it's been hard to come up for air.

For those who are curious, Tabasco continues to hang in there as well. We got a refill on her medications; I think the vet was a little surprised to hear she stabilized, but gave us a month's worth of pills for her. We've kept on spoiling her rotten, letting her have first crack at the best dinner scraps. She's been acting very old and slow, but content and not in a lot of pain. So...for the time being we're going to keep appreciating every extra day we get to have her in our lives, even as we prepare ourselves for the day when it's clear we won't be able to let her keep going on.

My goal for the weekend is to butcher the six remaining Pekin ducks. Or maybe fewer, if Homeschooled Farm Girl prevails and convinces me to keep a one or two of the females.

"Why do you want us to keep one?" I asked her.

"Because I like them," she replied.

When you're a Daddy's Girl, that's usually enough to prevail.

Our Survivor

Thanks to all who have responded with sympathy at the recent news that our dog, Tabasco, is dying. She's been a wonderful companion, and I'm going to miss her terribly.

She's also a scrappy survivor. We don't know how long she survived on the streets as a stray before we got her; she was scrawny and starved when she showed up at the animal shelter four years ago, and the experience probably took a permanent toll on her body. But she held her own against Tessa, the Great Pyrenees we had at the time. Tessa was built like a polar bear, and outweighed Tabasco by orders of magnitude, and considered herself the farm's Alpha. But Tabasco never backed away from a confrontation, and wasn't afraid to snarl back. We ended up having to keep them physically separated.

So, it takes a lot to keep Tabasco down. And, remarkably --- with the help of the medications the vet gave --- she's even been clawing her way back from her most recent medical problems. The diuretic has led to a dramatic reduction of her bloating...to the point where she's now getting thirsty and drinking significantly more. I wasn't crazy about mopping up the big "piddle puddles" she left in my office overnight this weekend, but it was a whole lot better than seeing her about to explode from bloat. The steroid the vet prescribed has helped her breathing a lot; Tabasco is getting around much better. She still doesn't run, but her walking gait is a lot closer to what it had been months ago. She's more perky, more interested in what's going on around her, and no longer looking like she wants the whole thing to be over.

We don't want it to be over, either. As long as she's willing to keep going, we're willing to let her. X-rays don't lie, and I'm not kidding myself about Tabasco's long-term prognosis. But we're deeply grateful the vet has bought us some quality time to get used to the idea of letting her go. And to spoil her rotten with all the good stuff she likes to eat.

Saying Goodbye

That recent post about calling the vet, and calculating how much an animal is "worth" in vet bills, has now become highly relevant for us.

We have two farm dogs. Scooter the Border Collie gets most of the coverage here on the blog, because he's such a useful worker. He's young and very healthy, and loves nothing more than running with the livestock.

But there's also Tabasco. She got more posts in the past, but has since gotten old and much less active. She's largely been a companion, and spends her days and nights in my office. It's hard to ask for a better pet than she has been.

The problem is, she's been getting up there in years. Just how far, we don't know. We got her nearly four years ago (seems much longer, though); she showed up at the local animal shelter the exact same day our collie was killed by a car, and we welcomed her as an addition to our Illinois farm. The vet estimated her to be at least six years old, but no one knew for sure. Anyway, late last fall she developed pneumonia. The vet x-rayed her lungs, identified it, and gave me some antibiotics to treat it.

She seemed fine. Then, over the last couple of months, she's been getting increasingly slow and stiff. And then her belly began bloating. At first we thought that was a good thing; her days as a stray had left her very scrawny and bony, and it was nice to see her fill out a bit. But in recent days, the bloat has gotten so bad she's had trouble breathing.

I was finally able to get her in to the vet today, and Tabasco looked so bad they let us cut to the front of the line even without an appointment. The vet x-rayed her lungs again, and put the image next to the one from December. Not only was the pneumonia back, but there was something worse: lots of nasty-looking growths and masses in her lungs. Those had been invisibly microscopic in the December x-rays, but were now sizable. She's got a full-blown case of lung cancer, and it came upon her very fast.

Bottom line: at her age (and this vet estimates Tabasco is actually closer to 12-14 years old), there is nothing we can do to treat the cancer. And nothing we could've done, no matter when this had been diagnosed. Declining further treatment, in my mind, is a question of accepting the inevitible and not trying to prolong an animal's suffering. He gave her a shot of steroids (to clear her airway), and a diuretic (to drain the fluid that's been pooling behind her heart), and gave me a ten day supply of pills that'll keep doing the same. The vet totally understood that the whole family needs some time to say goodbye, and to get used to the idea of not having her with us. He cautioned that she may not even survive the weekend. But if she makes the ten days, we should call and decide what to do next.

I never thought I'd break down at a vet's office. After all, we lose animals all the time. I've personally put down any number of animals. But this was completely different. I managed to avoid totally sobbing until Tabasco and I were back at our car. I'm a dog person. And Tabasco is my companion dog. I'm going to miss her a lot.

In the meantime, I've had to let her out about a half dozen times to urinate --- which is good. Hopefully she'll get that fluid drained. And she's already getting around a little better. We're going to spoil her rotten for the next ten days, giving her all the choice stuff from our table. Scooter...he's just going to have to wait.

There's a novel I recently finished reading. It's called The Art of Racing in the Rain. (Although I enjoyed the story, there are a number of reasons why I can't recommend it.) Anyway, if you happen to have read the book, you'll understand why a certain phrase has been in my mind since beginning the drive home from the vet:

Two barks means faster!

Now, From the Dog

We spend a lot of time following politics in our family, and spent most nights of both conventions eating dinner in my office as we watched the proceedings. And it's been interesting to see the sorts of things the kids have been absorbing.

To preface this story: long-time readers know we have two farm dogs. Scooter is a mostly-black border collie mix, while Tabasco is an Australian Red Healer mix. Both dogs spend a lot of time in my office while I'm working.

A couple of evenings ago, I was typing away at my computer. Homeschooled Farm Girl (HFG), age 9, was sitting with both dogs on the couch across the room. Holding Tabasco in her lap, and moving Tabasco's muzzle up and down as if the dog was talking, HFG began to extemporize a television commercial:

Everybody should vote for John McCain. Scooter was going to vote for Barack Obama, because he's black. But I convinced him he should vote for John McCain. I'm Tabasco, and I approved this message.

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing, but HFG still doesn't understand what's so funny. And that in itself, I must say, makes it even funnier.

The Not So Good Shepherd

Managing sheep, particularly when out watching them graze, is wonderful fodder for prayer about the "Good Shepherd." Just a couple of weeks ago, after bringing the sheep in to the fold from the pasture, we seemed a few lambs short. I took Homeschooled Farm Girl and Scooter the Amazing Wonderdog back out in the high weeds for a second look --- and located the lambs which had become disoriented and left behind.

But every shepherding story doesn't have such a happy ending. Regular blog readers know we had a bumper crop of lambs born this year; the eight ewes had 16 live births. Tabasco, our occasionally hyperactive Red Healer, killed one of those lambs when it was a week old, but we hadn't had any other deaths.

Alas, that record was not to stand. With this many lambs, we were due for some kind of disappointment. A few days ago, I noticed that the youngest and smallest lamb was beginning to act a bit lethargic and to hang back from the rest of the flock. I immediately administered an apple cider vinegar drench, which is a nice overall tonic. He would still get up and walk just fine, but I quickly discovered the root of his lethargy problem: he was getting crowded out at the hay feeders. And he was a little too small to reach the drinking water in the stock tank once the level had gone down --- and ditto for the mineral in the mineral bucket.

Over the next couple of days, I kept close tabs on him and tried to make sure he got better nutrition...but the damage had apparently been done. Once a lamb gets beyond a certain point, it's sometimes difficult to get their health built back up again to where they can hold their own with the flock. Saturday afternoon, he was still making an effort to eat --- but by Saturday night it was clear he wasn't going to make it. He'd crawled into a corner, put his head down, and begun breathing heavily.

As the rest of the flock enjoyed a late evening snack of hay, I took the little lamb in my arms and sat down to comfort him. I'd seen this more times than I care to count, and knew he was now in the death spiral. I talked soothingly to him, rubbed his back and stomach, and tried to find a position that would let him breathe a little easier. Most of all, I told him I was sorry I couldn't have done more for him.

But I couldn't bear to put a bullet in his head. I save that action for the most severely injured livestock. For a sick lamb, I hold out hope to the very end that he might get a good night's sleep, or that his immune system will kick in, or that he'll find a hidden reserve. So I made him comfortable in his corner of the barn, locked everything up, and called it a night.

Not surprisingly, Sunday morning, he was exactly where I'd left him. As the rest of the flock got busy eating, I found an old paper feed bag and managed to slide his stiffened body into it for disposal. (With the heat this week, I didn't want to just throw the body into the trash can without something around it to help contain the smell. And I certainly didn't want to leave his body in the hedgerow, where it might attract predators like the fox I'd just spooked off.)

In a thoroughly melancholy frame of mind, I went about the rest of my morning chores. It always bothers me when I can't save one of our animals, especially one as innocent as a little lamb. I suppose I ought to be used to it by now, but it still gets to me. And that gave me an awful lot to think about for the whole rest of the day.

Culler Dog

I think tragedy is always most painful when it's most unexpected.

This evening, Homeschooled Farm Boy (HFB) and I were out tending the sheep, and we had Tabasco (the Red Healer / Australian Shepherd mix) with us. Scooter the Amazing Wonderdog was also there. For whatever reason, Tabasco got extremely agitated about the nine lambs running around in the sheep area, and was barking at them like crazy. Scooter, for his part, simply stuck his face through the fence and tried to make sure any adventurous lambs didn't try to slip out of the pen.

HFB and I finished the chores, and went outside to work on the fence for Mrs Yeoman Farmer's new garden. Scooter came with us, and helped chase chickens away from the newly-plowed beds. Tabasco disappeared from our radar, which is not atypical for her.

Ten minutes or so later, I needed a particular tool. I walked toward the garage, and momentarily got a good line of sight into the sheep area. Tabasco had gotten in (she's like a rat - able to squeeze through impossibly tight holes) and was doing something to one of the lambs. I shouted at her, ran and hurdled the gate, and then discovered...the lamb in question was DEAD. She'd apparently shaken it to death, as it was like a rag doll in my arms. I jostled and jostled it, but there was no response.

Needless to say, I beat the living daylights out of Tabasco as I shook the lamb in her face. She did seem cowed and submissive (by her standards, anyhow) after that, and crept along to my office. What stuns me is how out of character this is for her; I've never seen her kill anything but mice and rats before this. She somehow thought the lambs were predators or intruders --- while Scooter instinctively realized they are livestock to protect and herd.

Obviously, I spent much of the evening in a funk. But as I explained to HFB, if we could've picked one lamb to kill early---this would've been the one. She was a triplet female, and was by far the smallest we had. She was barely gaining weight; definitely the runt of the litter. In a year when all the lambs are inbred (and so we'll be butchering everything), she would've yielded much less meat than any other. And with her eliminated, her two remaining brothers will get a bigger share of the milk. Thank God this didn't happen to a lamb that was the only offspring; the ewe would've simply dried up.

So, we'll be keeping a much tighter leash on Tabasco and keeping her away from the livestock. She's the best companion animal we've ever had, and I love having her around. I just wish she was half as good with animals as she is with people.

Snoopy?

Remember those old Peanuts cartoons, where Snoopy perches on top of his dog house like a vulture?

I was just sitting here in my office, when Tabasco (our red healer mix) suddenly scrambled onto the back of the couch and assumed the same position, gazing intently out the window. The window in the background screwed up the lighting, but I couldn't resist snapping a photo anyway.

Never did figure out what she was so worked up about. But I love being able to work with dogs in my office.

Still Pyrless

Long time readers of the blog will remember the tragic story of Tessa, our Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog, that was hit by a car earlier this year. For those unfamiliar with these events, the four key posts are listed in chronological order in the right margin of the blog, under the heading "Goodbye to a Great Dog." Those were difficult days, particularly since we'd just lost our beloved Collie on the same stretch of roadway a few months earlier.

Our current dogs, Tabasco and Scooter, are excellent companion animals, very good at herding the sheep, and are wonderful "all around farm dogs." Every farm needs a Tabasco and/or a Scooter. But a farm with this many sheep and other livestock also needs a guardian dog...and neither Tabasco nor Scooter is quite big enough to put the fear of God into a pack of coyotes. We tried importing an adult Great Pyrenees male that another farm no longer needed, but that was a disaster from the get-go; he not only fought with our other dogs, but he wouldn't stay on the property. He'd regularly take off for hours at a time, trotting around miles of the surrounding countryside (and annoying other farmers to no end).

We needed a Great Pyrenees puppy, and those are surprisingly difficult to find. We ended up contacting a breeder in Michigan, near where Mrs. Yeoman Farmer's family is located. They were expecting a litter this summer, and we were among the first to get on their list. Unfortunately, we were the last family to actually get there and pick up their puppy. (More on that later.) We simply weren't able to make it up to MI until this coming weekend, and the breeder said that would be fine. We were all looking forward to a nice trip visiting family, capped off by getting our puppy on the way home.

Until last night, that is. I got a frantic, emotional email from the breeder; our puppy had been running around in the front yard, all was well, and then a visitor had gotten into a car to leave...and backed right over our puppy. She was extremely apologetic, promised to refund our money, and said they hoped to have another litter next summer. I could tell she was very upset by the whole thing; heck, those are emotions that our family has gotten to know pretty well over the last year. I assured her that it was partly our own fault for not getting the puppy sooner, and that we know these kinds of things happen when you're dealing with living creatures.

In fact, that's how Mrs Yeoman Farmer and I decided we should break it to the kids --- by analogy. We sell turkeys at Thanksgiving. Customers reserve these turkeys in advance, but are told we have only a limited number. If they want to absolutely guarantee they'll get a turkey, they need to come earlier rather than later. When there's just one turkey left to butcher, we've had all kinds of bad things happen: they've wandered into traffic, fallen to predators, or done other stupid turkey things. We're going to tell the kids that in this case, we had a reservation for a puppy - but we were the last to actually get their puppy, and "something happened" to that puppy before we could pick her up. (We don't think the kids, particularly Artistic Girl, are in any frame of mind to process details about yet another car flattening yet another dog.)

In talking with Mrs Yeoman Farmer, I did manage one bit of gallows humor to break the obvious distress we were all feeling. "Hey," I told her, "we're now managing to get our dogs hit by cars before we even bring them home."

I laughed, and she laughed. But we're still going to be remaining Pyrless for the foreseeable future.

Just Plain Busted

Sometimes, unlike the situation with the busted pipe I recently blogged about, it's just plain impossible to turn a lemon into lemonade.

We have several grape vines growing right behind the house, along a fence that subdivides the property. As these vines are so close to the house, I've been able to give them lots of attention the last few years. They've gotten plenty of water, and I've been able to protect them from Japanese Beetles. They're far and away the healthiest vines on the property, because they've been close enough to get so much care.

Until this morning, when I went out to do the chores and discovered one of them had been utterly destroyed. It was only six feet from the back door, and our dog Scooter always sleeps at the foot of it. At first glance, it looked okay...just a little wilted.

But something was wasn't quite right, so I took a closer look. The roots had been totally dug up, and the two stalks of the vine were snapped. Even quite a bit of the bark had been stripped off --- almost like a deer or goat had attacked it. But a deer or goat would've devoured the leaves first; and besides, all the goats were secure. And deer never come this close to the house. And since when has a deer or goat dug up a vine from the roots?

I couldn't prove it was Scooter, but I was highly suspicious. It also could've been Tabasco, who's always digging up everything on the trail of mouse and rat nests. Between Tabasco's digging and Scooter's chewing, it could've been a team destruction effort.

This particular vine didn't have a lot of fruit clusters on it, but it was the principle of the thing: I'd planted this vine, watered it, weeded it, pruned it, and cultivated it for years. It was beautiful, and it was thriving.

Sitting with the sheep later this morning, I had the chance to reflect on the vine and what the incident might be trying to say. On a farm, this kind of thing happens all the time: you spend months or years caring for some living thing (be it an animal, a bush, or a crop), but it's a living thing. You go to bed and everything's fine...and come out the next morning and it's dead. We've had more than one beautiful ram drop dead from bloat or parasites. Sometimes there is a dead hen in the chicken house in the morning; no sign of struggle or predation...it just died in the night. In the blink of an eye, we've lost two different dogs to collisions with cars. I came home one afternoon and surprised a hawk devouring one of our ducks in the driveway. Our first mother goose sat on a nest for weeks, and her eggs were nearly ready to hatch, when I came out one morning to discover coyotes had torn her to pieces like a feather pillow.

I could continue this this list, but you get the picture: to have a farm is to have a constant education in the virtue of detachment. As you toil and "husband" your livestock and produce, you must never succumb to the temptation of admiring that handiwork and thinking it was all your own invincible doing. Because it can all be taken away overnight. This is something I was largely insulated from when I lived in the city, as I think is the case for most city-dwellers. But the things of this earth, even the ones that you've worked so hard to care for (and perhaps especially those things) really are passing away. And that's a good thing to reflect on. We sure get plenty of chances to do so on the farm.

And now I've got to take these grape branches and feed them to the goats.

Unbelievable

Tabasco lives!

The crazy dog dissappeared Monday night, as the blizzard was moving in. We hadn't seen her since, and had long ago given her up for dead.

Turns out, she'd somehow managed to climb into an old (non-functioning) station wagon that's parked on the property. I use the car to store empty chicken feed bags. On Monday night, I'd opened that car up to get some bags to burn in the woodstove during the blizzard. Aparently, Tabasco jumped into the car when I had my back turned. I never saw it happen.

Several times over the last few days, I've thought I heard her barking. But it sounded far off, and like it could've been a neighbor's dog. And this was usually at night. I chalked it up to my imagination playing tricks.

Then, this afternoon, I happened to be out in the driveway when she did it again. I couldn't believe my eyes...or ears. I let her out, and she tore all around the property like nothing had happened. She was hungry, and thirsty, and had definitely lost some weight, but was very much alive. I have no idea how she survived for four days in such bitter cold (it was ten below last night). But I've long stopped trying to figure this crazy dog out. I'm just glad she's back.

Snowed In

The frigid temps have relented just a bit --- or at least the winds have died down. I can handle the cold air temperature; it's the prairie wind that is the real killer. As the temperature rose today, the snow started to come down.

Scooter is still trying to figure the snow out. It's the first significant accumulation he's experienced, and it's that dry fluffy stuff. He's spent the better part of the day romping around in it. Reminds me of when I was a kid.

Speaking of kids, note the blue plastic kiddie wading pool (foreground of photo above) that's basically buried in snow. In the spring/summer/fall, the ducks use that for swimming and bathing.

This is the view looking north from outside my office. Just like being back in their native Iceland for these guys:

Tabasco, Part 2

After getting Tabasco back last night, we kept her in the house overnight last night. She curled up on the couch in my office for most of the day today. In the afternoon, I took her with me when I went to the feed store. It was wonderful having her perched on the passenger seat of the van, driving out to Gibson City and back.

And then, as I was putting the feed into metal containers in the chicken house, I lost sight of her. When I finished the chores, I whistled and called --- but there was no response. She was gone, again. I walked the hedgerow before the sun went down, whistling and calling. I drove a whole mile radius around our property, on the country roads, but no sign of her.

Here it is, past 9pm, and she's still not back. We're starting to wonder if, perhaps, she wasn't spayed when we got her. The vet thought she probably had been "fixed," but wasn't certain. I'm wondering if she's gone into heat, and is roaming the countryside looking for a mate. If so, I'm just glad she's wearing her tags---but I sure hope she makes it home before the coyotes find her.

UPDATE: Late Wednesday morning, she showed up at my office door as if nothing had happened. She was soaking wet, and had cockle burrs in her fur. She seemed chastened. My wife and kids were excited that Tabasco had returned, but my wife and I took this opportunity to re-emphasize to the kids that we can't be too attached to Tabasco going forward.

Home!

It's not just cats; I'm convinced that some dogs have nine lives, too. We have three dogs here on the farm: Tessa, the Great Pyrenees livestock guardian; Scooter, the Australian Shepherd/Border Collie puppy; and Tabasco, the Red Healer. Tessa and Scooter are content to hang out with the livestock; Tabasco's preference is clearly for human companionship. Her coming to join us seemed like Divine Providence: she showed up at the local animal shelter on the same day (September 12th of last year) our beloved Collie, Cassie, was struck and killed by a car. We let it be known that we were looking for a replacement, and a few days later got a call from the animal shelter that they might have a good match for us.

Tabasco and I hit it off in the foyer of the animal shelter. She was scrawny and half-starved, but there was something about her sad eyes, and her whole demeanor, that told me she was the companion dog our family had been looking for. I drove her home in my convertible, her perched on the passenger seat, and I knew we were buddies already.

Back at the farm, without any training, she immediately went to work herding the sheep and other animals. She also proved herself a remarkable "mouser". She had an real knack for sniffing out field mouse nests, digging them up, and then destroying the mice. Although she and Tessa had a few fights, she held her own and seemed to accept her position as "beta dog."

Soon, Tabasco was following me to my office each morning, and loyally curling up on my couch as I worked. When I'd get in the car or truck to go somewhere, she'd jump in and go along as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I grew to love her companionship.

And then, last November, I went to New York City for five days to work as an Election Analyst for CNN. Two days after I'd left, Tabasco disappeared. My wife and the kids were worried sick, and so was I. My wife began researching the Red Healer breed, hoping for some clue as to what Tabasco might have done. It turns out, Red Healers are fiercely loyal to a single family --- and often to a single individual within that family. There was no doubt as to who that person was in our family, and no doubt that she'd left to go look for me. As I walked the streets of New York, I imagined Tabasco coming around a corner with a "there you are, I finally found you!" look on her face.

Miraciously, on election day, Tabasco turned up at a farm a few miles away. My wife and kids retrieved her, and locked her up until I returned. We were all overjoyed. Lesson learned, we put her in a kennel when we went out of town for Christmas.

And then, this morning, without warning, she went AWOL again. At 7:50, I'd driven into town. Both she and Tessa had chased me down the driveway and into the street, but broke off after 50 feet or so. When I returned at 8:45, Tessa greeted me --- but there was no sign of Tabasco. I drove to the neighbor's farm, but she wasn't there. I drove up and down our road, to no avail. All day, I whistled and called for her. I drove all over the country, whistling and calling. No Tabasco. My heart sank. Where could she have possibly gone? Why hadn't I let her ride to town with me?

This evening, as we started saying the Rosary as a family, each of the kids offered a single intention: For Tabasco. Usually, each of them has a slew of intentions; that each of them was thinking only of the dog was almost enough to make me choke up. My wife, for her part, promised St. Anthony that if he could find Tabasco, she'd have nine Masses said in his honor. That's how much this dog had come to mean to all of us. Seeing the kids' pure and simple faith, I wondered how God could not come through for them.

Before dinner, I got out a high powered flashlight and walked a great distance up and down the hedgerow behind our property, calling and hollering. I feared perhaps she'd gotten tangled up in the underbrush, and hadn't been able to free herself. No response. I called and whistled and whistled and called, but at last went into the house. We sat down to dinner, but no one felt much like eating.

And then, after dinner, our oldest son started shouting from upstairs: He saw her through a window! I didn't believe it, but ran to the back door and threw it open. And, sure enough, there she was.

The family all made a huge fuss over her. We fed her two cans of tuna, and all the goat milk she wanted. "Don't let her out of your sight!" my wife said. Once the excitement subsided, and Tabasco had curled up on the kitchen floor, we all gathered in a semicircle and recited the "Te Deum," a traditional prayer of thanksgiving.

One of the kids asked if we could simply keep Tabasco in the house all the time from now on. No, my wife and I reminded them, every animal around here has a job to do. We don't have any animals that are purely pets, and Tabasco is no exception. She digs up mouse and rat nests, she helps herd the sheep, and she barks at predators. We'll keep a closer eye on her in the future, but she can't be a full time house dog.



This incident was a good lesson in detachment. Farm life has been very healthy for our kids, because it's taught them the distinction between animals and people. We need to take care of our animals, and our animals can be good companions, but at the end of the day we must remember that they are not people and shouldn't be confused with human beings. Until she disappeared, I'm not sure we realized just how attached we'd grown to her. Going forward, we'll have to work all the harder to keep all our animals in the proper perspective.