Happy July 4th and Happy Birthday Turbo

Turbo power lounging on his 12th birthday.

Today Turbo is 12 years old. Turbo is not a Lab or a Pug but a “Kiss Bull”. We rescued him from our local shelter when he was 5 months old. He has been a wonderful companion, earned his CGC and TDI (Therapy Dog) certifications and did visits to a nursing home in his younger days. He has helped raise litters of Lab puppies including doing the “clean up”, letting them tug on his ears and gently playing with them. Sadly, Turbo has cancer and we are just going one day at a time with him now. Acupuncture and pain meds have helped his quality of life — he still wags his tail, eats well, carries his favorite jolly ball around and gives his great kisses but the tumors are growing and the clock is ticking. We know this is his last birthday on earth with us and he has gotten treats on and off all day. I told him from now on every day is his birthday.

Updates on the BB Farm

Obviously we’ve been busy since I haven’t found time to post! (see our news and brags page for some of what we’ve been up to) The WI weather has not been optimal this spring/summer. We have been inundated by rain and there are still roads closed due to flooding/bridges out, etc. — great reason for owning a GPS as sometimes you come upon barricades and have no idea which way to go to get where you are going!

We had a lot of tree damage here and a bit of water in the basement on the worst day which had 6 storms one right after another and two funnel clouds out by our place. Thanks to some wonderful friends we finally got all the downed branches cleaned up, chopped up and off the lawn and fences. Kent almost has the fences mended as well. As we say, “never a dull moment” out here.

Til next time…….

Messengers from beyond

 I have come to believe that when a being leaves our earth they leave
an energy behind or visit us in some way that sometimes we are lucky enough to feel. 

Years ago we fostered a wonderful elderly pug named Max after his owner passed away and the owner’s elderly friend could no longer care for him.  Max was already about 12 years old so we knew we would have him  for the rest of his days on earth as no one would want to adopt a dog of that age.  He was a dignified, sweet Pug who remained a bit aloof from our other dogs.  After we had Max about 6 weeks he became ill and was diagnosed with pneumonia.  Despite treatment he did not improve and on an x-ray was diagnosed with a tumor around his heart.  We sadly let Max go.  We knew it was time for him to go find his real owner — we had only had him on loan until he was ready to go.  That afternoon after he left this earth I took one of my Labs tracking.  As I pulled into the parking lot where my track was laid it began raining.  “Great” I thought, “just how my day is going”…….and then I looked up at the sky and this beautiful rainbow suddenly appeared.   I realized it was Max saying good-bye and telling me he was reunited with his precious owner.  Through my tears I also felt a sense of peace.

 Then when Lily suddenly died 2 years ago,  the next a.m. I went outside and 7 sand hill cranes suddenly landed on the hillside near our house.  We had never seen sand hlls there although we’ve heard them on occasion in the woods about a half mile away.  They have never landed on that hillside since.  I feel they were sent by Lily to check up on me.  Everytime I hear a sand hill crane now I feel Lily has been here to check on me and send me her love. 

 Fast forward to March 16th, 2008.  As I wrote previously my good friend, Karen, passed away that day.  Sunday a.m. when I got up the first thought I had was of Karen as I knew she wasn’t doing well and her time to leave was near.  It was a spring-like day so after I let my horses out I just stood in the sun watching them and thinking about her and her family.  A huge flock of geese flew over and then I heard sand hill cranes and knew in my heart she was gone.  The next day,  I was walking back to work by Hilldale Mall in Madison when 2 sand hill cranes flew over (I have two co-workers as witnesses).  Very unusual to hear sand hills in the city and this has never happened there before — I believe it was Karen’s energy in the area making sure her family is okay.

Missing special friends

Two days ago a friend of mine passed away from cancer. It is such a nasty disease — it seems to always win in the end…….I first met Karen about 18 years ago when I was showing my Lab, Reilly, in obedience and she was showing her Flat-coated Retriever Sadie in the same classes. I believe we first started talking on an out of sight stay and kept running into each other at obedience trials. Both our dogs and us became friends. In fact Reilly became madly in love with Sadie (he was neutered so no danger of “Flatadors” there). When they were together they ran around and played but he also flirted with her. She was the only dog he ever flirted with his entire life although when he met her daughter he tried to flirt with her until he realized it wasn’t Sadie!

Karen gave a lot back to the sport of obedience and taught some wonderful classes at our kennel club including a much in demand “attention” class. She also got involved in tracking, hunt tests and agility and she and I traveled to some events together. Even when her cancer reoccurred she remained cheerful and optimistic. In fact I still thought she would beat this round of cancer but realized about 2 weeks ago it wasn’t going to happen. On Friday, after a rally obedience trial, a little voice in my head said to call her house and see how she was doing. I spoke with her daughter who was here helping care for her and realized time was short. Fortunately they said I could come visit.

Even though I realized she was dying it wasn’t easy to see her in so much pain. I won’t go into all the details of our visit but I learned something by going — if you have a friend who is terminally ill, go see them NOW. Tell them what their friendship means to you, if you love them tell them so, give them a hug, say your good byes. You will be glad you did. I know I am.

On top of that, today is the 2 year anniversary of my precious Lily’s unexpected death. They say time heals everything but apparently in some cases it takes much more time than others. There isn’t a day I don’t think of her at least once. Her photos, leash and collar and ashes are right by me here on my desk. I just haven’t been able to move them yet. Her daughters Sprout and Sprite are here as a reminder of her but they aren’t her or much like her. I have a tribute to Lily on my web page and a link to a story about her here: www.dunnsmarshlabs.com/lasttunnel.html

So today I am missing my friend, Karen and my precious gift from God, Lily. I love you both and will never forget either of you.

It’s a New Year!

No time to post lately — I’ll try to write a bit more often. 

Erica and I went to Florida to spend Christmas with my family down there.  Kent joined us in time for the holiday after a challenging trip down.  We had the best weather we’ve ever had when down there at Christmas time.  70s/80s and sunny every day, most days involved some beach time.  It was very hard to come home although I did miss all of the animals alot.

Having both of us travel at the same time was a logistics challenge since we had to make sure all dogs, cats and equines had someone to care for them.  So Summer went to visit her co-owner/breeder,  Jazz and Cori joined Zamboni at my field trainer’s and Marley went to visit a friend’s boarding kennel.  We then had a housesitter here for the rest of the dogs, cats and equines.  She was great and Kent’s comment on arriving home (he came home 3 days ahead of us) was that everyone was very calm.

Since I’ve been back we’ve run the gamut of weather possibilities for Wisconsin in January and beyond…….snow and fog, snow and high winds (gust of 40 mph), high winds with cold temps under zero, a sunny 30 degree day, 54 degrees, dense fog for several days (and a 100 car pileup on the interstate near us), a thunderstorm with hail (drove to work in that one yesterday) and tornados about 40 miles away yesterday. 

If I could pick up the farm and move the whole thing along with all animals to a milder climate I would do it in a minute!

What a weekend!

I just had 4 days of agility trials in Milwaukee.  That means I was up just as early or earlier than if I was at work.  The trials, nicknamed “Hounds”, are held at an indoor soccer arena and are huge with 450 to 500 dogs entered each day.  It is not uncommon to go home ribbonless from an event like this so we were fortunate that yesterday Cori qualified in a very tough Excellent Jumpers class and came home with a 4th place.  There were 340 dogs in her class with 31 running at her jump height level and only 4 of the 31 qualifyng so we were quite pleased.   The people running the trials kept track of the number of “nq’s” (non qualifying runs) for each day and less than 1/3 of dogs running qualified.  Yesterday out of 940 runs there were 655 non-qualifying ones.

 The trials are well organized and for 4 days it is like living in a different world with many top canine athletes and their handlers/trainers there competing.  The shopping is good there, too.  I will say that I think the novice level courses now are getting very tough, especially for first time competitors and are more on the equivalent of what the open classes used to be like.  I saw very tight spaces and many “traps” on the courses, something that you usually wouldn’t see in novice until the past year or so. The beginning of the novice course yesterday was the exact same beginning as the excellent one the day before (same judge) except a broad jump was in place instead of a triple.   I am concerned that many of the first timers are not prepared to run that complexity of course and may become discouraged.   Since we need newcomers to the sport to keep the sport going perhaps AKC needs to revisit the complexity of the novice courses.  Okay, off my soap box…..tomorrow is a work day.  And as a t-shirt at the trial said: “A bad day at an agility trial is better than a good day at work”.

Views from the Peds world

I have two jobs as an RN — one in a pediatrics clinic, one in a hospital NICU.  Often I am the triage nurse at the clinic so I’m on the “front lines” taking phone calls, answering parents’ questions, etc.  We all get interesting phone calls and of course with HIPPA laws I can’t be too specific but I could write a book about some of the calls I and the other nurses get. 

For ex — This summer one of my co-workers answered a call from a parent who was on a family camping trip out west.  They called for a refill of their child’s antibiotics because a bear broke into their supplies and ate the child’s antibiotics!  That was a call we talked about for quite some time wondering how the bear liked the strawberry flavored medication, if it upset their stomach, etc.!  Yesterday I got a call from a parent asking if we could write an excuse so their child didn’t have to wear part of a school uniform.  Just when I thought I’d heard it all……I’m sure there are many more interesting calls to come. 

She Dances With Horses!

Tonight I was invited by a friend to attend a demo by a horse trainer who instructs using the
Parelli method, which is also known as “Natural Horsemanship”. The instructor, Farrah Green of Sioux Falls, SD, was able to control her horse on the ground via subtle body language cues and get him to do amazing things such as trot in sync with her, lay down on his side, sit up (which requires a huge amount of muscle control from the horse) all while playing with him. It was like watching them do a dance together they were so in sync with each other. She also rode him with only a hackamore (no bit in the mouth) and he was wonderfully responsive. A very cold night but worthwhile to see someone who can train a horse to this level with no force of any kind.

Thankful

It isn’t Thanksgiving yet but I have something important to be thankful for today.  Sixteen years ago today I had major back surgery.  It took me 9 months to recover and I still have pins and rods in my back BUT I can walk fine, I am not in pain and I can ride horses again!  Although the memories of the pain before surgery and the long recovery are tempered by 16 years I am very thankful to Dr. Zdeblick at the UW Hospital for his skill that day when he did my surgery.

The Great Escape

It’s not the first time they’ve played Houdini…….Saturday evening the mini donkeys decided the grass really was greener on the other side of the fence and found the perfect weak spot in the fence to go through.  Unfortunately the grass is indeed greener there as it is alfalfa hay, not good for donkeys on a diet. 

 When I went to call the girls in for the night instead of being met by the usual braying there was silence.  Not good……It was pitch black out and I didn’t have a flashlight with me.  I listened intently and finally heard the sounds of twigs snapping but no donkey hooves coming closer.  I walked out into the pasture and as I got close to the back fence I could make out Glo (Morning Glory) as she is mainly white.  I then realized all four donkeys were looking at me from the other side of the wire fence.   Of course they weren’t able to get back through it as that isn’t where the escape route was located.  I remembered earlier in the year noting that a portion of the wire fencing was looking pretty saggy so felt my way down the fence line until my hands only touched air instead of a line of fence.  Voila!  The escape hatch was found!  Fortunately when I called the girls they came along the fence line and I held down what was left of the wire for them to step over.  They were moving pretty slowly at that point.  Got them into their stall and Glo immediately laid down — not a good sign.  Got her up walking and her stomach was really bloated looking and she kicked at it a couple of times. 

You may have heard of “colic” — it can be life-threatening in horses and other livestock and she had the symptoms.  Of course it was 11 p.m. by then on a Saturday night.  Fortunately the clinic we use for the equines has a vet on call even on nights and weekends.  I called the clinic number and was patched into him.  The one on call happens to own a couple of donkeys himself which was helpful.  He told me the girls would be fine but it is like a kid who ate too much Halloween candy so they were going to have stomach aches for a while. 

 It was one of those nights where you don’t sleep well and I did check on them a couple of times.   A close call but fortunately but in the a.m. all four were on their feet and seemed okay.  Of course the hole in the fenceline is now patched and they’ve had to stay off pasture for a couple of days which they think is torture.

Just another day in the country at the Blue Barn Farm……..