Mother Nature's Baaacckkk!

Lordy, lordy.  Winter hasn't arrived yet but it sure feels like it.  The wind has started again - up to 52 mph sez the weather folks.  Tomorrow night it's supposed to drop to 22 degrees.  When Phoebe and I went for our walk, her ears were blown straight back and I could hardly stay upright. 

The wind started last night and hasn't let up yet.  No wonder there's so few trees here - how the ones that are here stay put is a puzzle.   Perhaps their roots go down to China.  All through the night the wind galed and the vents rattled.  It's sure good to be "snug as a bug in a rug",  I'll say.  The dessert tonight was one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen.  I guess all this blowing clears the air, and there's nothing to block the vistas here. 

Little Quigley went to a home!  We have a new young pharmacist here on a loan repayment.  She just arrived a couple of months ago, her husband is being deployed overseas somewhere and she wants, and needs, a companion.  Match made in Heaven.  I do wonder a bit...my other neighbor and I were taking the dogs for a walk in the wind and willows and we invited her..."too cold" she says.  Hmmmm, this is October 26th.....

Meanwhile we now have rescue mission #5.  By "we" I mean my neighbor, Johari, and I.  I rather sucked her into this volunteer mission and she's been great.  Anyway, we thought this new pup might be of the litter that two of the others we found came from...but now I wonder.  Kind of wondering if she might be pregnant...  She showed up at the house behind me where Max the white fluffy dog, a Great Pyr, lives.  Max seemed to be watching out for her.  Maybe he's the papa...  We asked the neighbors and, no, wasn't their dog. 

I got worried when I didn't see the new pup greeting us last night or this morning so I asked my neighbor and partner in crime to see if she could round her up, feed her and put her in my garage.  Johari is not currently working, another advantage for me with her as a partner.  I was worried the dog killer, I mean catcher, would get her.  Anyway, now we have her - she was on her own for 4-5 days and she's looking a little too "plump" for the typical starving res dog. 

The plan, I think, is to call the two shelters in Sioux Falls and transport her this week-end.  Unless we luck out and find her a home...but being pregnant, if she is, might make this more challenging.  Well, we do what we can.

Don't have her picture yet, it's hard to get pictures when the gales are blowing everyone off their feet. 

Well, this is all for now.  Gotta love this terrain - everyone should have a stint in South Dakota - it's so hard to describe but it's beautiful and wild, particularly when Mother Nature is ranting and raving!

Signing off from...the little house on the res.

Rescue Mission Number Four

Four you ask?  What happened to one, two and three??? 

OK, so I’m behind in my blog postings…  So I’ll start with #4, and most recent.

By way of background, you may remember I’ve mentioned the “wild dogs” on the reservation.  These are ownerless dogs, some of whom may be injured, unfriendly because of being on their own for some time, or recently on their own.  In fairness to my reservation friends, rumor has it some of these dogs are brought out here and left; others I am sure are left when owners have lost their housing, had to move, or otherwise could not/would not care for them.

Enter this animal lover onto reservation land…

October 10^th two boys were biking down our street with this feisty little black dog running along with them.  I didn’t think much about it but a little later they were back, this time with two dogs in tow, the black and now a tan – both mangy, matted messes.  The boys stopped to talk and I asked about the black one.  Our postal worker had told me about a small black dog that seemed to be on its own, and very fast (which she was/is).  They were going to check around and see if someone claimed her, if not get her to me.  I was pretty sure this was the same little dog – maybe 4-5 pounds, likely a shih tzu from the looks of her.

The tan one, a little bigger, I had seen a couple weeks before at the store.  He was skittish and wouldn’t come although I tossed some treats out for him.  He disappeared into the cornfield and the first I saw of him again was this day.

The boys put the black one in my crate and she stayed around the first time I let her out.  I always feed them which usually secures that they will stay around if they’re homeless.  And she, and he, stayed.  The boys came back, and we put her back in the crate so she wouldn’t follow when they left.  This time when I let her out, she took off, with the little tan one in hot pursuit.

I didn’t see them until a couple of hours later when the little tan one was back.  He stayed right at my house, went with us for our evening walk, played with all the neighborhood dogs and slept on my porch all night.  He was so dirty and stinky I could hardly stand to be near him.  Here he is in his “glory”:

Please excuse the lousy photography...one of these days I'm getting a new camera...meanwhile the cell phone has to do.  Yes, I know, the shadow is the camera's fault...

The next day was Columbus Day – one of the cool things about working for the government, I get banker days!   My neighbor helped me entice him into the crate, we loaded it into my car and I drove him to the vet (windows cracked open) for a stay and flea bath, haircut, bath, shots.  A few days later he was picked up, “naked” but clean.  Here’s “Sir Quigley” as I dubbed him.

They said Quigley was a Lhasa Apso, 13.5 pounds, one year old.  Quigley seems to like being a house dog just fine.  He and Phoebe chase each other in the house, unless they are fighting over food.  He has one of those tiny tennis balls and loves to chase it along with other toys.  He finds the cats quite fun to chase as well.  He has some trouble knowing about outside as the toilet, hence his make-shift “belly band” for in the house.  We are working on that.  He doesn’t like sleeping in the kitchen at night and definitely would like to join Phoebe and I in the bed – ha!  Not going to happen, Sir Quigley.

It is my hope that Quigley finds a good “forever home”.  He’s definitely a little lover dog and will fit right in.

Stay tuned for more “Rescue Missions”…this is all for now from “the little house on the res…”

Combo shopping

I was downtown Pierre the other week.  Downtown Pierre is a real metropolis…it’s a block long.  On both sides!!!

There I have found a cute little coffee shop, as in cappuccino coffee, called Pier 347.  No, there’s no pier…and it’s a couple blocks from the river, so maybe that counts.  On my treks “to town” to do my shopping, for groceries, and get my nails done (of course…there’s only so much roughing it I’m willing to do), I usually stop in for food, drink and some reading.

I had a certificate I wanted to get framed, and thought perhaps there would be a frame place somewhere downtown.  Nope.  But there was a scrapbook store, so I thought I’d ask there.  Nope.  But there is a framing store across the street I was told – inside the bookstore.  Of course…  So now there is not only the pharmacy/coffee shop/dry cleaner-pick-up store; but also the bookstore/frame shop next to Pier 347 which isn’t on a pier.  Sometimes it does feel like I’m in Oz.

Toto's Red Slippers

OK, Toto didn’t wear the slippers, Dorothy did.  And she wore them in Oz, by way of Kansas, not by way of South Dakota.  And Toto was tan, not white, and a boy, not a girl, as in Phoebe the Westie.  And Dorothy was a young girl, not a less-than-young woman…  But aside from all this, it’s a perfect analogy.

In South Dakota there are bunches of these stickers that grow in the grasses.  And they are killer stickers, I will say.  They even hurt to try to touch to pull out.  And they are definitely worse here on the res…which is basically country.  No manicured lawns, no sidewalks.  So not only does Phoebe not appreciate the rough streets we walk on, but she definitely doesn’t like the stickers…nor do I for that matter.   She tries sometimes to get them out and ends up with them embedded in her mustache…

After nearly six months of this, the light bulb finally went off – why not get her some boots?   She used to wear them in Madison, WI, to ward off the sub-zero temperatures and the salt they use to melt the snow – a real paw irritant.  But they were little balloon like boots that she hardly felt…

I got on-line and started a search.  Whatdya know – I guess a lot of hunting dogs actually wear boots too!  So here’s Phoebe in her little red, and silver, boots:

She was pretty hysterical at first, trying to hold all four feet off the ground at once.  But she seems to like them now and is no longer afraid to go in the grass when we walk to the post office, or to go on our regular walks.  Problem solved! 

The winds are starting to return now that it’s cooling off again.  And on the rare occasions the winds blew in the summer, they were of no help.  It’s like blowing the heat from a fire at you when it’s 100 degrees out.   Can hardly wait for these winds to be blowing in the dead of winter…