The canine family, part 1

In addition to the chickens, we have three amazing canine kids! The oldest is Jake who turned 9 last month is our “first born”.  He goes by Jake, Knucklehead (mostly because he has a pronounced bone that sort if sticks up on the top of his head but sometimes he really acts like one), and The Yellow Dog.  He is a rescue dog we got at the tender age of about 6 weeks, as was the best guess of the shelter. Initially they thought he was boxer/shepherd mix, but through the spectacular availability of DNA testing, we determined he is a Beagle/Belgian Trevuren mix. So really it is a great thing we didn’t crop his tail as planned as he would look pretty silly!

Anyhoo, The Yellow Dog’s life has been eventful from the beginning. After we got his first shots, he hit his elbow on the front steps and needed to be crated for a week to let it heal.  That would have been really hard for said young puppy if it hadn’t been for the emergence of what is affectionately known as “puppy strangles”.  This is of course a very rare affliction better known as Juvenile Cellulitis.  His lymph nodes in his neck swelled (thus the strangle part if not treated) and he developed sores on his face, in his ears and on his parts, and was extremely lethargic. So, the crating was not an issue since he slept all the time. Treatment was big ole doses of steroids! Fun times! But as I am sure you can guess, he survived and fully recovered, albeit with a bare spot on his snout because when the lesions heal, they dry an itch, so lots of rubbing later, he has no fur on that spot!

All was well for quite a while and then he ended having his dew claws removed because he kept ripping them while joyously playing.  During next three years, Jake was lucky to have a playmate named Holly. Holly was our sweet rescued Boxer that we got about 5 months after Jake.  Holly was with us until August of 2009. She had a condition she was born with called Juvenile kidney dysplasia. Basically, her kidneys didn’t form completely so she had about 25% of a regular kidneys. She was on prescription meds and food and had quarterly checkups at UT and monthly checks at the vet.  Until the end, you would never know she was sick.  She was a happy doggie that made our lives full for that time and we still miss her.  We still say we have had the most expensive rescue dogs ever.  But, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

For the next three years The Yellow Dog had all of our attention (when he felt we deserved his presence).  We bought our current homestead in 2009.  Nothing was up here so we brought him up a couple of times to check it out.  We lived in a neighborhood and everyone knew Jake and loved him. We walked each evening and we were able to expose him to lots of people. He had fenced in yard and a dog door to come and go as he pleased.  He is a pretty spoiled kid.  In January of 2013 we brought home number 2, Abby. Abby became Knucklehead’s nemesis immediately.  All puppy through and through, Abby would simply not leave the old man alone.  At this point Jake was just about to turn 7 years old and wanted nothing to do with the new puppy….To be continued in Canine Family, part 2!