HoundBlog

I swear! Sometimes I think these dratted dogs are at least half human and trying to take over the world!

Of course, the world might be a better place if dogs WERE running it! We humans sure seem to have screwed it up royally.

Anyway, back to my story….

You may (or may not) know we have Chris’ Golden Retriever, Nala and her half-Labrador son, Jewels (NO! I did NOT name this dog!). Well, they are getting up in years – I figure Nala is 12 or so and Jewels is 10. At any rate, they’ve been outside dogs since they came to live here (temporarily he swore) 9 years ago. They were confined to a 10’x20′ chain link pen that housed them quite comfortably until a few months ago. They have developed a deep seated fear of thunderstorms which seems to be a common thing among my older dogs as they age, so when one blew up, they broke through the gate and went somewhere to hide. We then put them in a smaller pen that had rubber matting and they seemed happy with that for awhile, but we’ve had some humdinger storms lately and they eventually were driven to break out of that one as well.

Since they are both altered, we decided to just let them be yard dogs. They never go further than the creek and are totally useless as watch dogs, so didn’t think it would be a big deal. They don’t bother any of the other dogs — it’s actually rather comical to watch them when one is growling at them — he or she will hold it’s head up way high and looks away from the threatening dog as if to say “I can’t see you and if I can’t see you, we will get along just fine {whistling}” It works too as absolutely no one challenges them

On super hot days, I would let them into the then dog room to spend the day in air conditioned comfort — they are after all, over 100lbs each, and Nala has a thick coat, so I was trying to be nice to the big lumps. Ok, so now I’ve opened Pandora’s box when it comes to these two. Now they know the house is a MUCH nicer place to be in than “just” outdoors and especially way nicer than in any old pen!

We have a fairly large section fenced off the back of the house for the house dogs to use for play and potty and they have a dog door to come and go as they please. Since Nala and Jewels have learned to fear no fence (much less respect the boundaries of one), they figured out there was a place where the fence isn’t stretched super tight; a place they can ooch underneath and into the back yard. That made the dog door a breeze to conquer, so now I have two smelly behemoths coming and going at will. At least they didn’t dig a hole under the fence…

Guess it will be bath time for them tonight.

Ugh! Just thinking about manhandling one of those monsters into the bathtub makes me tired.

Love to all,

Margaret