Posted on 06/14/2011 4:07:12 PM PDT by Niuhuru
Lola was beautiful and very lucky to have found you.
I’m so very sorry for your loss.
:(
Odin is the only dog I’ve actually bought.
The other 4 [3 Ibizan Hounds, 1 Portuguese Podengo Medio] are rescues from horrid lives.
Jack, an Ibizan, passed away in April from kidney failure at 14.
He’d had Lyme disease when we got him and didn’t know it until he was about 4.
With very aggressive treatment, he made it another 9 years and was always irrationally happy until the very last day of his life.
[actually, that’s how I knew something serious was wrong with him...that morning he was ~not~ bouncing off the walls with his usual manic joyfulness]
His sister Izzy died election day morning, 2008.
Talk about a double kick in the teeth.
I went down to get some early morning sun on the beach one morning when he was around two. The ole lug loved everyone and we joked that if a robber came into the house, our pup would happily give him to the china. So I did not have him there for protection, rather because he loved the beach.
However, that myth was broken quickly when a man on the beach stopped in front of my blanket and stood there staring at me rather aggressively. My dog growled (that is when I opened my eyes and saw the fool standing there) and the dog launched after him and chased him down the beach! He came back to my call for him...otherwise there would have been a dead pervert on the beach that morning. To all other strangers he acted like he knew them all his life.
And sent me another in July of 2009.
Shortly before we discovered that hubby needed a 3x bypass, Odin came into my life.
I think he was sent here “just in case”.
I’ve had lots of Dobes in 37 years but only 3 “extremely special” ones.
The first two involved the stress of the uncle and Odin involved the fear of being left alone in the world, without dear hubby.
My other Dobes I had were here because they needed a safe home but they weren’t sent because I was in desperate need of them...more like the other way around.
Some of them led horror story lives prior to coming here.
No matter what agonies and betrayals they’d suffered, *none* of them ever became anything less than incredibly good and loving pets.
Dogs see stuff we don’t.
A few months ago, we took Odin along to our doctor’s appt. so the doc could see how much he’d grown.
While hubby was getting his check-up, I was out in the parking lot, working on his obedience training.
I was not really paying attention to anything but him and suddenly, I could feel the rumblings of growl reverberating through my left leg, where he pressed against me at heel.
He kept shoving himself in *front* of me instead of walking alongside, “herding” me back toward the rear door of the doc’s office.
I looked up and a tall, old, well dressed man was coming towards us.
I told Odin “Friend” which means he is to ‘go off duty’ and be chummy to a stranger.
He didn’t buy it for one NY second.
As the guy got closer, the growls got louder until the old man stopped out of leash-reach and said “Boy. He sure doesn’t like me, does he?”
I apologized profusely because I couldn’t understand why he’d act this way.
He is so very *rarely* ‘unfriendly’ to anyone.
When hubby came out, I was pretty miffed at Odin and told hubby what had happened and said “It was just some old tall skinny man who looked perfectly fine, to me.”
My blood ran cold when hubby asked “And what does your uncle look like now, to ~other~ people who don’t ~know~ him?”
Then I felt guilty for chastising Odin.
Who knows *what* he sensed about the guy?
I mean, I was a lone woman wandering around a deserted parking lot in a place with abandoned warehouses all around, with no one else to see whatever could’ve happened.
I should go check the sex offender registry for that area but I’m about half afraid to.
My golden was a terrible retriever. You would throw the stick or ball he’d happily run after it and drop it at your feet. Do it again and he would cooperate again. Do it again and he would look at me like I was stupid! “what is wrong with you? Why do you keep throwing the stick if you just want it back again?”
He did play soccer, though. He could keep the ball away from the young kids and I had to keep him away from soccer fields when games were going on...that is another story... He retrieved the kids on their raft in the pool. He pulled them with a rope attached to the raft and pulled the raft, with them on it or sometimes dumped off, out of the water.
I loved that dog and I miss him.
Yes, they do sense what we don’t. Now you know.
No more hair loss than a regular Golden, but he was more yellow than a full blood Golden. He was a great dog but developed cancer when he was about 12 and had to put him down.
Ever since that day, if he acts like he doesn’t want somebody too close to me, I pay attention.
I didn’t “teach” him any such thing but of his own accord, he puts himself against me, between me and facing the whomever he deems ‘untrustworthy’.
We had one really creepy and disturbing thing happen in a PetSmart lot just recently.
Odin had just gotten his shots and was going to the “toy store” to shop for his “emotional trauma” consolation prizes. [;D]
As we arrived, we saw a really scroungy young guy -harassing- a man and his small son for money.
When the guy finally, loudly said no and tried to unlock his car door whilst protecting his son, the guy started to lunge at him, cussing up a storm and hubby yelled “HEY [expletive deleted]!” at the guy.
Instead of taking off, the guy started rushing towards hubby.
I’d just gotten Odin out of his seat belt harness and he leaped out of the truck, pitching a fit and the guy skidded to a halt and then took off running down through the lot.
WTH was up with *that*?
We have our share of panhandlers in the WalMart strip mall but I’d never seen any ‘unsuccessful’ ones try and attack anybody, before.
[I got the distinct impression he was *not* frantic for *food* money]
The more they get away with begging, the more aggressive the get about it. People are feeling sorry for homeless people and are giving them money again and soon they think they have it coming to them. It is better to take care of the shelters and soup kitchens.
That is great that you had your pup there to chat with the fellow. Gooooood doggie. I have not had the heart to get another golden after him. I should do it.
I went through the same thing when my Wonder Dobe died.
I got an English Cocker Spaniel from some guy because I just couldn’t bear to even ~look~ at Dobes for a while.
They’re not a good apartment dog so he went back to the guy and the guy decided he’d just keep him and spend more time with him instead of giving up on him, again.
Deacon was a great dog but life in an apartment was not fair to him.
Not long after that, I got my first rescue Dobe.
He was being advertised as “Free” on a supermarket bulletin board.
His “owner” said he was stupid and couldn’t learn anything.
Within 3 weeks, he knew every trick in the book and was a *wonderful* dog.
In the meantime, we moved to a place with a yard and I found a Dobe wandering the streets in winter time.
He was scrawny, spooky and scared.
I brought him home and named him Fagan after the Oliver Twist character.
After that, it was not uncommon for me to have 3-5 of them running around the house at one time.
[we’d moved to a Mission style house in the country]
Most of them, I nursed back to health and ‘rehabbed’ into socially responsible citizens and then gave them to friends and family.
Several of them, who needed ‘special understanding’, I kept for myself.
All of them were wonderful dogs and people got really bummed out when I accidentally stumbled into Ibizan Hound rescue in 1990 and didn’t have the usual “stock of great Dobes on hand” any more...:)
Out here in the country, *most* of our panhandlers are truly down on their luck through no fault of their own and actually want to come do odd jobs for you in exchange for food or money.
~That~ maniac was definitely an exception to the rule.
I never saw him again [but I *still* watch] so I think maybe the city cops got wind of him.
Dogs know. Even my little 38 pound Lab has put herself between me and something or somebody she deemed a threat. And when she goes into “protection mode” she’s more fearsome than you would expect.
They know a good owner when they see one! :-D
I also at one point had an interesting online news article about a family in Berlin who found themselves confronted by a gun weilding burglar. Their pet got loose , attacked the burglar, and sent him running in terror from their house.
Their pet was a norway rat. He got out of his cage and leapt onto the burgalr's shoulder, startling the man and sending him fleeing into the night.
The rat was unharmed.
I have rats.
You mess with Alice and Betty at your own peril....:D
I know how they can be.
Hubby’s friend has two labs [chocolate and black] and when those harpies fly off the front porch as you come up the lane, it’s like the hounds of hell are coming for you.
And then they recognize me as ‘that person who shared Filet-O-Fish sandwiches with us’ and I get out and pet them....:))
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