Bye, Bye 13; Hello, Double Seven!

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.” ~ Mark Twain

Opal Hound, our first foster,
now happily adopted in New York

Could it be that AnniePie, Beano and I are only two months into fostering rescue dogs for transport down the Road to Forever? I'd hardly believe it after three dogs, but the record of blog posts since we first brought Opal home tells the story in no uncertain terms.

One fact that is not at all hard to believe; fostering is the best thing we did in all of 2013. We've been "empty nesters" scarcely more than 24 hours now--Fenway, an adolescent male border collie and our third foster, boarded the Dog Runner yesterday afternoon--and we're feeling the "hole" left in our household. Even after vacuuming the bedroom carpet to get out maybe 85% of the dark black hair Fen left behind!

Annie: With the leaving of each dog, I have experienced different emotions. I have fallen in love with each one and letting them go has been so difficult, but each parting has been such a contrast. 

We will be taking a bit of break. The next transport from Wichita Falls is not scheduled until Jan 30. We will be using the off time to get the house back into shape and to select the right dog for us and for Beano.

Charlie Beagle, our 2nd, also happily adopted.

As we've mentioned before in these posts, Beano, our 4-year-old male beagle/Boston terrier mix, has some rather strong possessiveness issues around food, treats and toys. Being an "only" dog since birth (until two months ago), he also has a strong sense of ranking as top dog around our house.

Opal, an American coon hound, challenged him only slightly in that Opal was totally laid back and willing to let Beano have his way. Oh, they had a brush up over food that raised our concern somewhat, but they resolved their differences on their own the next day.

Often all Beano needs is time to sulk and pout in his crate. Of course, we never "send" him there when squabbles erupt; he takes to his den on his own.

Annie: Opal was such a dear, sweet girl. Several days before she boarded the transport, I began missing her. I cried and cried when we brought her to the Walmart parking lot to say goodbye. I knew she would get an excellent home in New York. I  just didn't want her to go. Fortunately, Opal got her forever home almost right away.

Charlie Beagle, our 2nd foster, was a good fit. Charlie not only had an easy going manner, like Opal, he also was nearer Beano's size. These guys actually enjoyed one another's companionship.

Annie: Charlie is also a big love, but we had issues about occupied space. Charlie loved taking over my warm spot on the bed  - and he was darn near impossible for me to move. Stubborn and oh, so sweet. He has perfected the 'sad-eye' look and I am a total pushover. With Charlie, I was worried about how long it would be before he got adopted. I wanted him to get a forever home as quickly as possible. I was thrilled to pieces when we got a photo of Charlie and his new parents!

Fenway, now in transit to Helping Hounds.

Then came Fenway, a nine-months-old male border collie, who needs nothing quite so much as he needs a full time job! That goes with his breed.

There was not a thing wrong with Fenway that a 5-acre pasture would not have cured. True to his breed, Fen was 40 pounds of perpetual motion confined by a hard spell of winter weather inside a house much too small for his near boundless energy.

Fenway was a challenge for us all and a particular challenge for Beano who, on the whole, spent much more time in his crate than he did when we had Opal and Charlie. Fen's constant activity wore on Beano. Rarely in the last few days of Fenway's stay was Beano willing to play.

Annie: Fenway is a big, goofy, lovable kid. He always has a smile on his face and I believe, his only aim in life is to please. We had him the longest - almost the entire month of December. I can't think of him without tearing up ... I love this dog. Jim had to work the afternoon the transport was leaving, so one of the other foster parents picked Fen up from our house. I had been crying on and off since the previous evening, so it was probably for the best I wasn't going to actually see him loaded up and taking off. Fenway needs lots of room and would love some cooperative animals to herd (our cats just weren't up for it!). Until we get news of Fenway, I'll be worrying like a mom who has sent her first born off to college. 

As much as we loved Fenway and his exuberant personality, it became clear that dogs much larger than Beano are not a good mix.

Each dog that comes through our home teaches us a little bit more. While it may feel to us like we've been fostering forever, we are still very much newbies with much more to learn.

Here's looking forward to a great 2014 and many more super dogs helped along the Road to Forever!

Dogs Don't Do Christmas

Dogs don't do Christmas, you see,
All dogs know is "NOW!"
Dogs couldn't care less about a Christmas tree, 'cause
It's just one more place he's not allowed to pee.
And chocolate and nuts and Aunt Jude's fruitcake
Just poison his system, for goodness sake!

Dogs don't do Christmas, you know,
It's just not in their cards.
Warm beds and good kibble are all dogs' want.
Oh yeah, and a good romp across the yard.
And some kind hand to scratch that spot
Where a dog's tail starts and his reach stops!

Dogs don't do Christmas, y'all;
Special days are not their thing.
Our customs just confirm to dogs
What foolishness humans bring.
For dogs, love is eternal. What more is there to say?
Love your dog. That's all he asks. And it will be Christmas every day!

Third Foster a Charming Handful

He's 42 pounds of unbridled, uncollared, seemingly limitless energy, and he wants nothing more than to share all that hyper-kinetic activity with anyone and everyone who comes within sight. Other dogs, cats, people, mourning doves. Doesn't matter. This nine-month-old border collie has room in his heart and games for all!   

Fenway enjoys a moment in the sun.

We can't help but speculate that this combination of size and energy led to Fenway's being abandoned. 

I want to stress we only can speculate Fenway was abandoned. No one actually witnessed this beautiful dog being dumped. Yet Fenway's profile fits with why some four million dogs are abandoned in the U.S. each year. He is a royal handful with an appetite!

Fenway's known story only goes back a few months when he was picked up and held by animal control. After no one came to claim him, Fen was tagged for shelter placement by the Humane Society of Wichita County. As weeks passed with no one showing interest in adopting, Fen was selected for transport to Helping Hounds Dog Rescue in New York.

Within days of his scheduled departure date, Fenway came down with an upper respiratory infection. He had to be bumped from the Road to Forever.

Meds cleared his infection, and before he could be rescheduled for New York, Fen was adopted! Within two weeks, however, he was returned to the shelter as "not a good fit" with the adopting family.

Always alert for the next game!

Fenway certainly is true to breed:

The Border Collie is very intelligent and aware of its surroundings... able to be trained to a high degree. This is one of the hardest working dogs thriving on praise.... The Border Collie is highly energetic with great stamina. Provided they get sufficient activity to keep them occupied and ample exercise.... This breed can be sensitive and should be very well socialized as a puppy to prevent shyness.... These dogs are too intelligent to lie around the house all day with nothing to do. [dogbreedinfo.com]

In other words, all Fenway needs is his own flock of sheep and a five-acre patch!

The Beagle's Tale, Part 2

Old English Beagle

About the time of the Norman Conquest and the arrival in Britain of the Talbot hound that odd notes begin to appear regarding an All-English hunting hound known as the North Country Beagle. The written record, however, is scant in the extreme regarding the origin of this dog since this was before huntsmen and kennel masters began keeping detailed, written records concerning their breeding activities.

One minority school of thought contends that the North Country beagle was among the oldest of dogs known to man, originating in the British Isles and coming down through the ages from the Celts. Another majority school holds that the Northern was a smaller, faster off shoot of the Southern hound, also a descendant of the Talbots brought over by the Normans. Whichever way you choose to vote, the term beagle begins to appear in the literature in the 11th century.

Being an English minor as well as a journalist, of course, I can’t help but muse on the etymology of beagle. A quick check with ancestry.com on possible origins of the English sir name reveals it was either a variant of Beadle OR originally a nickname relating to the English hunting hound. However, we also find the old French term begueulle, meaning a noisy shouting person.

Whatever the origin, by the time of Henry IV and Elizabeth I, beagle was applied to any hound dog in England. The above mentioned royals both were particularly fond of a quite diminutive breed known as a pocket beagle. Rather than a novelty, huntsmen bred these pocket-sized hounds to go after game that had taken refuge in dense thickets and undergrowth where the larger dogs could not follow. Common practice was for the hunter to carry one or two of these pint-sized demons in his pocket or saddle bags until needed.

WARNING! The true old English pocket beagle went extinct well over 100 years ago! Today's so-called pocket, or teacup, beagles are relatively new breeding creations, often achieved by breeding litter runts. Such breeding is little more than abuse. These dogs display a whole host of abnormalities directly resulting from being bred to be small.

By the 1700s fox hunting was gaining in popularity, and some clever kennel master thought of breeding a North Country Beagle with a Foxhound. The result was a nearly "perfect" fox hunting hound and pretty near the dog we today know and love as the beagle.

Mere months before a young biologist embarked on a world-changing voyage aboard the

From the Journals of Charles Darwin

HMS Beagle, Reverend Phillip Honeywood  established a formal breeding program. His dogs were nearly pure white, smaller yet than the North Country and were known as Honeywood Beagles. One Thomas Johnson further refined the breed to devise rough-coat and smooth-coat varieties.

Beagle varieties abounded by the 1840s with four distinct types being the most popular. They were the medium beagle, the lapdog beagle, the fox beagle and the terrier beagle. Less than 50 years later, however, beagles were in danger of vanishing entirely from England as had their forerunner Southern and Northern hounds. Records for 1887 revealed only 18 packs of beagles remaining in the country.

The Beagle Club formed in 1890, and the first true standard for the beagle breed was written. A dozen years later 44 beagle packs were registered in Britain.

General Richard Rowett is credited with importing some exceptional beagles from England and breeding them in the United States about 1876. Rowett's beagles generally are credited as the first models for an American breed standard. That American beagle was formally recognized by the American Kennel Club in 1884.

Today the beagle rank 4th in popularity with Americans.

Our own Charlie Beagle, our 2nd foster on the Road to Forever, literally is somewhere along that road tonight as this is published. Good Lord willing and the snow doesn't get too deep in the Northeast, he and the rest of Dog Runner's charges will arrive in DeWitt, New York, some time Saturday.

God speed, Charlie!

The Beagle's Tale, Part 1

"For persevering chase and headlong leaps,

True beagle as the staunchest hound he keeps”

William Cowper, The Progress of Error (1782)

Can there be any doubt that the late American cartoonist Charles Shulz lived with beagles? Schulz's iconic comic strip may have been called Peanuts and may have featured that round-headed kid, but Snoopy and entire generations of fans knew who the strip really was about. From WWI Ace to Joe Cool, Snoopy epitomizes the All-American Beagle.

While the beagle has a solid claim to being an All-American dog--holding firmly to 4th place in popularity ranking the past several years according to the American Kennel Club--the ancestral hound that would be beagle is lost in the far distant mists of antiquity.

Greek grammarian Julius Pollux referenced dogs [Onomasticon circa 180 C.E.] being used as hunting companions as early as 1300 B.C.E. Xenophon, one of Socrates' students, also wrote about small hounds used to hunt rabbits and hares in the ancient world. 

Contemporary studies on the origins of dogs and domestication generally agree that proto dog, as yet unknown offsprings of the grey wolf and other wild canids, was the first animal to link up with prehistoric hunter-gatherer humans some time before the beginnings of agriculture and civilization. Until further scientific data is unearthed, it remains to be seen exactly who domesticated whom, dog or man.

From it prehistoric origins as a survival skill, hunting gradually evolved over thousands of years into sport. England’s landed gentry and nobility engaged in blood sports socially as early as the 14th century. Mounted on horses, these huntsmen employed large packs of large and small hounds and terriers to run down deer, fox, badger and hare. Additionally, these to the manor born Brits employed kennel masters whose task it was to selectively breed hounds specifically for the local hunt conditions, i.e., larger, swifter hounds where the countryside was more open; smaller, tenacious hounds where the woods and thickets were more dense.

Scent hounds

Selective breeding in scent hounds began in St. Hubert's monastery in Belgium during the Middle Ages. Celtic dogs from Gaul were used by the monks to develop a large-boned, medium-sized dog. Rather slow as a hunter, the St. Hubert Hound proved to be doggedly determined with a melodic voice and superior nose.

A direct ancestor of today’s Bloodhound, the St. Hubert spread throughout Europe to become a progenitor of several scent hound breeds, among them the Talbot Hound. 

Exactly how and when the Talbot came to the British Isles is not known with any degree of certainty. Prevailing legend and anecdotal history claims William the Conqueror brought the Talbot to England in the 11th century where it was bred with the Greyhound in an attempt to improve the dog's speed. This new hound mix was dubbed the Southern Hound, or so the story goes. 

Southern Hound

Snowed Under & Iced Over...NOT!

Dear Friends & Followers,

Just a few dozen lines to let everyone know that we have not been abducted by aliens, fallen off the edge of the Earth nor found religion and ran off to join the Tea Party cult (NOT EVEN A REMOTE POSSIBILITY!). We cannot blame our absence from this blog on the weather, either, since we are not iced in all that deeply--I mean, I did get up and make it to my day job by 7:05 this morning. Certainly we were not hit as hard as our friends down in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for which I hope we are truly thankful.

Charlie is great. Antibiotics knocked out his cough, and he has learned to tolerate spending the night in his crate, at least. Given time, I actually think he will come to appreciate having a cozy, enclosed space all his own. For now, however, he still prefers Annie's side of our bed. Last word we heard on Dog Runner, Charlie will be heading for New York Monday evening, barring any further delays due to weather and/or road conditions.

Beano is ... well ... tolerable, I suppose. He has been somewhat green, shall we say, these past several days. Seems he is jealous of Charlie in spite of our best efforts to engage both dogs equally.

The boys had a dust up over a rawhide chew a couple of days ago. Hackles were raised, teeth were bared, guttural growls were voiced. In the end, however, the only injuries sustained were to feelings. No physical harm was done to or by either party, and Beano immediately confined himself to his crate for the remainder of the evening, pouting.

Consequently all rawhide chews have been confiscated and hidden away. Charlie's will be packed with his other belongings, and Beano will get his back after Charlie has left the house. But the incident also has prompted Annie and I to reconsider and reevaluate just how we will continue to foster rescue dogs.

Annie: To be fair to Beano, he has always exhibited a jealous side, so his disdain of Charlie is really nothing new. He is very protective of his toys and food. Opal just ignored him, and, as she was larger, he pretty much (had to) let her have her way. Charlie, on the other hand, is his size (albeit not as heavy) and more laid back in disposition - Beano may consider him more of a threat. He does try to engage Charlie in play often - sometimes to Charlie's chagrin. They each have their moments. Again, I believe this is due to their similarities rather than differences.

Interestingly, he knows when he's pushed it too far. And I swear, he practices his scowl when we aren't home! I do find it amusing that he now knows when he needs confinement. He doesn't think twice, just goes directly to his crate and stares out until given the nod that he can rejoin us.

Meanwhile, I've been working on a blog post about beagles, and frankly, the research has taken longer than I expected. At least, that's my excuse for being absent since Saturday last and I'm sticking to it. Until next time, then, stay off the roads, keep your dogs close and share the blankets with someone you love!