Feathered Friends

When I was seven years old I talked my Mom into getting me a bird. I picked a bright blue budgie and called him Cherry. He was a sweet little fellow that rode around on my shoulder and loved molasses cookies. He gave kisses and yelled when anyone tried to use the telephone. Those were the days before cordless phones, so we were stuck in one place and he knew it. I would watch him for hours and laugh at his antics. Every summer when I went to visit my Aunt in the countryside along the Susquehanna River, Cherry's cage and my dog would share the back seat with me. Cherry died when I was seventeen.

In sixth grade I traded my ant farm to a boy for a pigeon with an injured wing. I felt he was mistreating it. I brought it home from school and he or she stayed in the yard all day and in the basement at night. About a week later my Uncle came home with another pigeon that had been injured. The two birds spent their days together and once their injuries healed, they left together.

When I moved back to New York from Myrtle Beach I stayed with my Aunt, Uncle and cousins for awhile. I was enjoying my unemployment and hanging around in the country. About that time my Uncle received a permit from the State to raise Mallard ducks and sell their eggs. He came home with six little Mallard ducklings. Of course, we named them and hand fed them and made pets of them. I donated Libby's old dog house to put alongside the pond for them to sleep in. Unfortunately, none of us liked eating duck eggs, so that never really worked out.

We had one pair of ducks that was monogamous. The female laid a clutch, tended her eggs, hatched them out and led her ducklings to the pond to swim. The other ducks would find a nest, lay eggs, then lose interest and wander off leaving the eggs. They would sometimes lay an egg in the driveway and try to roll it to the nest, leaving it cracked and broken. They just weren't cut out for motherhood.

We borrowed an incubator from the school, a book on raising ducks from the library and decided to take over the hatching job. Because I was home all day, I volunteered to be in charge. I gathered eggs in the morning and stored them in the cellar till there were enough to fill the incubator. Once they were in the incubator they had to be cooled once a day for a certain period of time and twice a day they had to be turned and sprayed with water. We candled them to find which ones were fertile.

We kept the incubator in the library and one day to amuse myself while cooling the eggs, I started playing the piano. I noticed that on certain notes the eggs wiggled. That evening I showed off my new trick to my cousins. After that I would occasionally make the eggs dance while waiting.

My family went on vacation leaving me at home with the three dogs, Libby; my cousin's beagle, Boogle; and my uncle's St. Bernard, Brandy; and all the eggs . On the fourth morning I noticed a couple of the eggs were pipped. Later that day I could glimpse a tiny duckbill poking out. That night the first three ducklings struggled out of their shells, wet and exhausted. They remained in the incubator until they were dry, then I put them in the brooder under a heat lamp. The next morning they were fluffy and brown and hungry. While checking on the rest of the eggs, I watched one that was cracked fly apart and a very large duckling stepped out. I named him Killer and he went on to become the leader of our flock.



Ducklings hatched from an incubator don't have the benefit of the water proofing oils secreted by their mother. They can only swim for a few minutes before they start to sink. We would set up a kiddie wading pool in the yard with a ramp for the ducklings to walk up into the water. Then we'd have to watch them closely and lift them out when they started taking on too much water. We also had to teach them to fly. We would get about twenty people together and stand in two lines facing each other about six feet apart. We would hand a grown duck to the people in one line and they would toss the duck to the person in the other line. The idea was to get the ducks to flap their wings and fly. The ducks had other ideas. Some would float to the ground and take off running. We would have to round them up and start again. This made for a lot of exercise for the humans and a lot of laughter. All but one duck learned to fly.

We incubated and hatched out three sets of ducklings in all. We were up to our necks in ducks by then, so we stopped. Each year we would lose a few when the wild ducks migrated. Some of ours would join them. We did sell a few and the rest lived out the lives at the pond, and in the swimming pool if anyone left the gate open.

I told Rob about Cherry and for my birthday he surprised me with a little blue budgie. It was about two weeks after Lucy came to live with us and as she had been named for the Peanuts cartoon character, we decided to call him Schroeder. He was easy to finger train, but I soon noticed that he was a little too attached to me. He would try to mate with my hand. To solve the problem Rob brought home a blue female budgie.


For the first few days I kept the new bird in my office to make sure she was healthy before exposing her to Schroeder. The first day I checked on her in the afternoon and she had made a mess of my desk. She had thrown seeds all over, grabbed a corner of a piece of paper and ripped it up and pooped on my desk. I called her a little vandal and the name stuck. Rob hadn't noticed that she had a deformed leg, but it didn't seem to bother her. She was also a little wheezy at times, but she lived up to her name. I gave her a strawberry one day, then had to go out. When I returned I checked on her. She was all red, so was the perch and several areas on the wall. We repainted the wall, but it always had a reddish tint.

One day while living in Maryland there was an ice storm. I looked out the window and saw a mockingbird puffed up in the tree exposed to the wind and rain. I put some raisins on the doorstep and she flew down and ate them. I started putting raisins out every day and put a few in the wreath on the door. She would eat the raisins, then sit in the wreath the rest of the day. Soon I started putting raisins on the back deck and as soon as she saw me, she'd fly over and get them. She eventually started taking them from my hand.




I called her Squawk because of the sound they make in the winter. Their lovely voice doesn't come in until mating season. In the yard she would do a little dance, stomping her feet and flapping her wings to startle the bugs, then eat them. One day she did her bug dance for me on the deck to get a raisin.



Squawk honored me by bringing her chicks to our deck each summer. She would leave them there while she did her various errands and she would teach them how to pick up and eat raisins.



We also had a ruby throated hummingbird take up residence in a stunted maple tree in our back yard. He was a guard bird chasing other bigger birds away from the deck. He yelled at us whenever we got too close to his feeder and he followed Bentley all over the yard hovering just above his head. Boo never knew he was there but they made a comical pair. We called the little guy Squeak.



One day as we were leaving the house we noticed some neighborhood boys looking at something in the grass. They left it there and I was curious. It was a baby robin, newly hatched. I had no idea where the nest was so I took it home. We hung a basket in the trumpet vine on the deck and started feeding the little guy raw hamburg. We held a tiny spoon of water for him to sip from. I didn't expect him to make it through the night, but he did and we kept feeding him every fifteen minutes all day, switching from hamburg to puppy food soaked in water with cuttle bone scraped on it. He thrived. Soon he was getting feathers and hopping around the yard. Rob named him Cheep Cheep and he would come when we called. We bought mealy worms and grubs for him and he grew to adulthood in the basket on the deck.





One day Cheep Cheep learned to fly and we said goodbye and tossed him into the air. He flew out of the yard, circled around and flew right back to the deck. This might be a problem. For a week we tried to get him to leave home, but he wouldn't leave. Finally, I called a bird rehabilitator who agreed to take him and help him learn to live in the wild. A couple weeks later she called and it had been a success. Cheep Cheep was gone.

We were visiting our vet's office one day and there was a cute grey cockatiel in the waiting area. He was very friendly and jumped on Rob's shoulder. We asked about him and it seems he had belonged to an old man with several cats. The bird had learned to call the cats and the old man wanted to get rid of him. He was going to turn him loose. The doctor traded him shots for his cats for the bird. She asked if we wanted him and we took him home. His name was Buddy and he was about eight years old. He spoke in a funny little voice and was a real character. At Christmas Rob brought home a female cockatiel to be Buddy's friend. We called her Holly.

Holly laid eggs, lots of eggs and Buddy loved them. He sat on those eggs for eighteen hours a day. They never hatched because Buddy had lived alone so long he didn't know what to do with a lady bird. Holly didn't care, she just laid more eggs.

Rob came home one night with a pair of green budgies. I called them Peridot (Peri) and Broccoli (Broc). They joined Schroeder and Vandal.

One afternoon a bird flew into the sliding door onto the deck. It wasn't hurt and flew away again. About ten minutes later another bird hit the door. I had learned at the zoo to tape newspaper on the door so birds wouldn't fly into the glass, so I did. I also closed the drapes. About ten minutes later it happened again. I looked out to see a robin standing on the deck looking in the door. It flew off but came back ten minutes later and hit the glass again. This continued all afternoon and the dogs and I were all nervous wrecks when Rob came home. I told him what was happening, then it happened again. Rob opened the door, walked onto the deck and called Cheep Cheep. The bird flew to him. Cheep Cheep had found his way home after two years.

When we left Maryland we took the four budgies and two cockatiels with us. Our neighbor took charge of Cheep Cheep and Squawk. They continued to hang around her yard and eat raisins for the rest of their lives. She still feeds their descendants.

In Missouri, Vandal died. She had always been fragile. We found a breeder who had hand raised baby budgies. We got a small blue bird from her. I don't know how she raised these birds, but shortly after introducing her to the others, Schroeder died very suddenly. Then Broc and Peri died. Now we had only the new bird. We got two more birds, a yellow one named Buckley and a white one named Cloud. The blue bird was very small so we put her in a smaller cage and found an adorable small green bird named Bean to live with her. That was a mistake. The blue bird killed Bean. We saw her finish him off. We began to think that she was responsible for killing the other birds. She lived out her life in solitary confinement. Buckley lived about five years.



Buddy died at the age of twenty five. He was a happy friendly little character till the end. I miss him. We still have Holly and Cloud. They live in the kitchen and watch the dogs with great interest. They love to yell when I'm on the phone.



I have a great respect for birds. Their lives are not easy. Hatching is hard work. I watched ducklings struggle to be born and not all of them made it. Sometimes it was just too hard and they didn't have the strength to break the egg. Imagine having to build your home using just your beak, living outside in the elements with little or no shelter, having to hunt for food everyday for yourself and your chicks, and teaching your chicks to fly. I don't think I'd make it as a bird.

2001

It started out like a normal year.


The summer before we had gone to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and enjoyed the beautiful weather, warm sunny days and cool nights. We saw lots of elk and got close up and personal with a moose. He was a full grown bull moose that had been orphaned as a baby. The people at the lodge raised him and he hung around greeting tourists. This time he had his mate and young with him, but they kept their distance.



My Mom taught me to knit when I was five years old. I found myself with lots of yarn leftover from various projects. Sometimes there's enough to make another project, but if not, I make blankets for a local animal shelter. The dogs don't mind strange color combinations and it uses up the odds and ends. They can be made in any size. Lots of times the little dogs get a blanket, but the big boys would like something to make into a comfy nest, so I try to make nice roomy blankets for them, too. Here are a few ready for delivery.




One day in July my neighbor called. She was getting ready for a party and a Golden Retriever and her pup showed up in her yard. The mother dog was obviously sick. She appeared to be weak from starvation, but the pup was in good condition. I went over to help and the pup ran up to me. As soon as the mother saw that we were taking care of her pup, she ran off, possibly to die. We looked around the neighborhood, but never saw her again.

The pup was about three months old and part German Shepard from his appearance. He was too thin, and covered with fleas, but over all in pretty good shape. We took him to our yard, fed him, treated him for fleas, then took him to our Vet. We checked for a microchip or tatoo, but there was none. We started him on his vaccines and wormed him. We checked with neighbors and the local shelter, but nobody seemed to be looking for him. They may have been dropped off.



We called him Winston and he was a sweet pup. That is not a halo in the picture, just a well placed chew toy. He fit right into the household. Monty accepted him and Morgan thought it was great to have another playmate. Bentley didn't really care anymore and Lucy was annoyed that we would bring another big dog into the house. She would like to have someone smaller than she to boss around.



My Aunt and Uncle had lost their dog in the spring. He was a very old Border Collie and they were without a dog for the first time in many years. I thought Winston might be the perfect dog for them. We would foster him until October, then they would come for a weekend and if they all liked each other, he would go live with them.

Morgan was growing fast but would level out around 36 pounds. She could sure grow hair, and it had a twisty curl that made it very hard to brush. We had her groomed, but for a dog that liked to play in the water and roll in the dirt, it wasn't a practical hairdo.



The morning of September 11, 2001, Rob left for work around 6AM. I decided to go back to bed. The phone woke me. It was our friend in Boston calling to tell me to turn on the television, New York was under attack. I tuned in just in time to see the second plane fly into the World Trade Center. I tried to call Rob, but he was in class and had his phone turned off. A friend that I had worked with in Syracuse now lived in Manhattan and worked in the World Trade Center. Two of Rob's cousins were NYC police.

Then a plane hit the Pentagon. Our next door neighbor and friend in Maryland worked in the Pentagon. I kept trying Rob, but no answer. Then a plane went down in Western Pennsylvania, not far from where we had lived when we were first married. I was scared, worried about our friends and I wanted my husband home. I kept dialing, but no answer. I called my family in New York to make sure everyone was accounted for. They were all safe, but I couldn't get through to Rob's family in the city.Finally, Rob called. They had made an announcement in school and he had gone to the office and was watching the news. He agreed to come right home.

It took us days to find out if our family and friends were safe. They all were. We received many wonderful e-mails from people around the world who knew we were from New York and wanted to share our grief. I've kept them in a book.

Bentley was getting worse. He struggled to get up and down and if I saw him trying, I'd give him a hand. He couldn't do steps without help and when walking in the yard he would fall. He never complained and would just try to get up again. We walked very slowly with him and kept the younger dogs away so they wouldn't knock him over. His tail wagged constantly, even though he must have been in terrible pain most of the time. He still had a good appetite and was interested in what was going on around him. We would harness him in the car so he didn't fall and take him out for an ice cream cone, one of his favorite things.

October came and the weekend with my Aunt and Uncle was coming up. I realized I didn't want to part with Winston. I was prepared to keep him, but when I saw how pleased my Aunt was with him and how well he accepted them, I let him go. It was over a year before I saw Winston again. We were visiting them and I was sitting on the sofa when they let him in from the back yard. He vaulted over the back of the sofa into my lap and covered me with doggy kisses. I guess he remembered me. I think he was thanking me for giving him this opportunity for a good life. Winston spends the winter in Myrtle Beach, the summer here in Missouri on a goat farm and the autumn in New York visiting the rest of my family. It's a good life. I see him each summer when he comes here for a goat show. He still resembles a German Shepard in the face, but he has the long coat of a Golden Retriever. He's a very handsome fellow.



Boo continued to get worse. By the middle of November, he needed help standing up. When he wanted to get up I would lift him to his feet and walk with him wherever he needed to go. He couldn't do stairs at all and I carried him up and downstairs. He began to have accidents in the house because it took him so long to stand and walk to the door. Bentley had always had a great deal of dignity and it was so sad to see his struggle to move around.

Outside Bentley could manage only a few steps, then his legs would give way and he would fall. He always tried to get back up, even though he needed help. Then, on December 17, he wanted to go out. I carried him down the steps and stood him on the lawn. He took three steps and fell, but this time he didn't try to get back up. He looked at me and whimpered. I knew what it meant. The tail had stopped wagging and he made no attempt to stand, he began to moan, the first time he had ever complained. I carried him inside and called the Vet.

We put pillows in the back of the car and laid Boo on them, then we drove to the ice cream shop and bought him a chocolate cone with nuts and sprinkles. We sat in the Vet's parking lot and held the cone while he devoured it. Then we walked into the clinic. Our Vet came to meet us at the door and offered to carry Boo in, but he wanted to walk, so we all walked very slowly into the exam room. Rob couldn't stand it and left the room, but I told Boo how much I loved him ad held him while the Doctor administered the injection. Then the Doctor cut off a lock of Boo's curly hair for me, I went to the car and cried all the way home. My heart was broken.

Morgan

One January afternoon a friend stopped by for coffee. Rob told us about his appointment the night before and mentioned that the family had puppies. He said the mother dog was a Shih-Tsu and the father was a black lab. There were four pups that looked like black labs and one with long light hair. The woman had advertised them and had no responses, so she was taking them to a shelter over the weekend. He said the pups were in a doghouse outside and she had to drag them out for him to see. Our friend asked if we were taking one and Rob told her that we were at our limit of three. Soon he left for an interview.

Around nine that night Rob called to say he was on his way home and asked casually if we had any puppy food. I had an idea of what was coming. A bit later he called to say he was around the corner and to meet him in the garage. I knew what was coming.

She was eight weeks old and not very pleased with either of us. She had spent her entire life in a doghouse and her only contact with humans was when someone put down a pan of food for the puppies. She was dirty and had a number of ticks attached. She was, however, delighted to meet Monty and he was just as happy with her. They were only eight months apart in age and were best friends from the minute they met. He lets her eat from his bowl and if he has something she wants, she'll take it right out of his mouth. No other dog or human can get away with that.



We had trouble coming up with a name for her. She reminded me of Wolf Blitzer somehow, but I didn't want to call her either of those names. Finally, over a bottle of wine we came up with Morgan and have since added Magoo. She is Legacy's Morgan Magoo.


Morgan has always been shy due to her lack of early socialization. She also suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. The most common symptom is her licking. She will lick anything, wall, furniture, the floor, the other dogs, us or herself and once she starts, she can't stop. She will lick herself until she licks the skin off and still won't stop. She sometimes has needed to wear protective gear to protect her from herself. Barking can be another problem. She will bark at something in the yard and she just won't stop, even when the offending cause has been removed. We have been able to keep the behavior under control with medication.


Morgan loves to sit in the window and watch for squirrels. She is a strong chewer and can destroy a stuffed toy in minutes. She is also a fierce competitor and if we throw a ball or a frisbee, she will beat the others to it. She loves to play in the water and although she was afraid of the car and would get sick while riding, she wants to go whenever we go and has taught herself to be a good rider.


In May Bentley became very sick. He was having trouble getting up and down by himself. It had become very difficult for him to climb stairs and we kept the stairways blocked so he wouldn't fall. He'd been taking medication for arthritis and pain for years and it finally caught up with him. he started vomiting blood and passing blood in his stool. Of course it was a Saturday afternoon when this all started and our vet clinic was closed. We called his vet at home and he turned around and drove back to town. Meanwhile, I sat under a tree with Boo and tried to keep him calm while I felt anything but calm. We thought we were going to lose him.


They were able to save Boo. They got the bleeding under control, but he could no longer take anything for his pain. We located an acupuncturist who agreed to help him. Since Bentley couldn't go into the office, he received his treatments in the back of the car and we would sit next to him and keep him company. This time it wasn't a canine acupuncturist and the treatments weren't as effective. His condition was also much worse by now, but it did offer him some relief from the pain.

Monty

One lovely April morning Rob left for work and I decided to sit on the porch and read for awhile. About twenty minutes later our car came down the hill. Rob pulled up in front of the house and stuck his head out the window. He told me he had stopped at Walmart to pick up some supplies and had gotten me a present. Great ! I love presents ! He said it was on the floor on the passenger side. I walked around the car, opened the door and there sat a little brown puppy.



Rob said a woman had seven pups in a shopping cart in the parking lot and was trying to give them away. He only stopped to look, but couldn't resist. She said the mom was a Chow Chow and the dad was a Doberman. Not a mix I would recommend. He told me he had asked for a female. I picked up the pup and told him if this was a female, she had a serious growth on her belly. It was definitely a boy and he hadn't checked. I didn't think Bentley would mind having another male in the house, so we took him in.



We named him after a movie we had just seen, The Full Monty. He was a cute little guy, but he didn't like being handled and really didn't like anyone touching his head. We soon found out why. Monty had big welts on his ears and would hide if a man came toward him. If either of us picked up a stick such as a mop, broom etc he would run and try to escape. He was terrified of loud noises. If he caught sight of a belt or leash he would panic. He had obviously been badly beaten. He was only six weeks old.



Within a couple weeks Monty was showing worrisome signs of aggression. He would protect his food by growling and snapping at the other dogs. Working with our Vet we started dealing with the problem right away. I would sit on the floor and feed Monty his food one piece at a time and he had to earn each piece. He learned to sit and lie down immediately on command. I handled his head, ears, feet and tail daily. I opened his mouth and rubbed his teeth. he didn't like it, but if he wanted to eat or go outside or play with his toys, he had to comply. Soon I could touch his head any time I wanted and he would even allow me to take objects out of his mouth. I was still the only one who could.


At three months of age Monty developed a hematoma in one ear. Because of the escalating aggression, we decided to have him neutered at the same time the ear was operated on. He has turned into a wonderful dog who now allows Rob to pet him and even has three non-family women friends who he will let pet him. He guards everything, people, other dogs, toys. Belonging to two breeds that were specifically bred to guard, he takes it very seriously. He seldom lets his guard down to play, the exception is with puppies. Monty loves puppies. He will lie on his back and let them crawl all over him. He even lets them bite his face and ears. He has never been aggressive with a puppy.



Around Thanksgiving of 1999, Pylon became ill. She had been suffering with doggy senility since the move and we had to watch her closely as she would wander off and not know where she was. Now she was having trouble sleeping at night and would wander around the house. Sometimes we would hear her barking at night, she had gotten lost in the house and couldn't find her way back to the bedroom. She had always been an indifferent eater, but now she refused food completely. I would take her onto the porch and hand feed her, but she really didn't want it. She was diagnosed with cancer and we knew we didn't have much time left with her.



On December 2, I was trying to feed her when she put her head in my lap and gave a half sigh-half whimper. I knew what she was telling me. The next day we drove her to the park and sat under a tree with her remembering the fun times we'd had together. We drove to the Vet's office and I held her while he injected her. She was gone. Rob and I had come to terms with her loss in the previous days, but we didn't consider how Bentley would react. It was heartbreaking to see him looking for her in all her favorite places, then curling up in her spot on the sofa. We were back to our limit of three dogs.

Westward Ho

We had been living in a townhouse in Maryland for ten years. We wanted more room and a bigger yard for the dogs, so we started looking at houses. We hadn't found the right one yet, when the phone rang one afternoon and Rob received a very nice job offer. He interviewed, liked the people and we decided to take it and move. To Missouri!!. I had sworn I would never live in tornado alley and here I was moving to it's hub. The new Company gave us three days to find a house. Armed with a number of selections from the internet, we met our new realtor and started looking at houses in
Missouri.

The first day we didn't find anything we could agree on. The second day we found one that was a compromise. It wasn't really what either of us wanted, but it would do. We went to lunch to write up an offer, but during lunch I saw a picture of a house for sale nearby and we decided to see it before making an offer on the other one.


The minute I walked in the front door I was in love with the house and Rob quickly indicated that he felt the same way. It had large rooms, high ceilings, four levels, a porch with a wrap around deck and a very big yard for the dogs. It was on a private street and surrounded by woods and farm land. The only thing missing was a fireplace. We made an offer and it was accepted. We flew back to Maryland to start packing.


We left Maryland on January 2. We didn't know that we were driving into a major snow and ice storm. The Isuzu Trooper was loaded with the three dogs, six birds and a giant 25 year old Christmas cactus. Of course, the Trooper decided to die a slow death. We were afraid to turn the engine off, it might not start up again. Needless to say it made us both a bit tense. The first night we found a small motel that accepted pets and we all piled in to sleep.


In the morning the Trooper started up, but wouldn't go over 50 mph. The second night the storm was really bad. We saw lots of vehicles off the road. We tried not to think about our moving van somewhere on this same road. The snow was turning to ice and roads were closing down around us. Finally we had to stop, but there was only one hotel in the town left with a vacancy and they didn't take pets. We took the room. Rob drove the Trooper around to the back of the motel and I went in the room and opened the window. He handed the dogs, birds and plant to me through the window. We turned Animal Planet up loud on the TV and spent the night. Good thing the dogs had good bladders. In the morning I handed the pets back out the window and off we went.



Finally we arrived at the new house. Only one problem, the sellers had not moved out. There they were in the kitchen. We were cold, tired, hungry and worried about our moving van. We took the animals downstairs to what would become our office, closed them in and told the couple upstairs that we were going out to get something to eat. We said they should be gone when we returned. It was an interesting meal, would they be gone? They were, but it took them a couple more days to move all their stuff out.

The moving van arrived and the two men on it worked for two full days unloading it. The house is on a steep hill and the ice was building up quickly and the truck kept sliding down the hill. Once we had to get a tow truck to pull it back up the hill.




At last spring came and the dogs thought they were living at the park. They had grass, trees and squirrels to chase. What more could a dog want? We planted trees and flowers and my thoughts started turning to getting a puppy. I wasn't sure how Rob would feel about it. He had made it pretty clear that three was our limit.

Lucy

When Bentley was six years old, two events took place that changed his life. One was good and one was very bad. The first was bad. Bentley had always liked cats. He loved to visit our neighbor's house and groom her cat until the poor thing was covered with dog spit. The cat actually seemed to like it. One afternoon for some unknown reason, Bentley decided to chase the cat. This came as a surprise to everyone, especially the cat. Since she knew Boo and he had never chased her before, she didn't run. Boo ran toward her at his top speed and there was a tremendous collision. The cat, unhurt, ran up a tree. Boo came limping back to us. He limped for two days, then seemed to be better, so we put it out of our minds.

About two weeks after the great cat chase, Boo started limping again and it got worse very quickly. We thought it was his foot at first and our Vet checked, but found nothing. The limp kept getting worse, so we had his knee checked for a tear, nothing. Soon I began to think hip dysplasia. We had x-rays done and his hips were good. Still the limp was getting so bad that he needed help climbing stairs and over a few months time it became so bad that he would fall just walking across the room. He was on various drugs that offered some relief, but not enough.

Finally, our Vet referred us to a canine acupuncturist. She came to the house and observed his movement and thought acupuncture might help. I was a skeptic but I would try anything to help Boo. After the third treatment, he was able to climb stairs and could even run a little. We narrowed the problem down to a pinched nerve in his lower back. He had treatments once a month and loved them. I would put his bed on the living room floor. He would lie quietly while the doctor put the needles in, then he would go to sleep for the forty minute session. The doctor and I would sit on the floor beside him to keep him from rolling onto his back. He woke relaxed and feeling much better.

Rob went to Delaware one day to conduct an interview. When he returned home late that night, he had a big box containing a very little dog. Lucy was one of five puppies. Her mom was a Chihuahua and her dad was a Pomeranian. She was in pretty bad condition, starving and totally covered with fleas. She had a number of open sores, both from flea bites and from chewing on herself, something she does when she becomes stressed.



Bentley was delighted with his new puppy. He played with her very gently and the two went everywhere together. She was not quite so gentle with him. One of her favorite games was to grab his beard and let him drag her around the room. I put a stop to the game when I noticed his chin bleeding from her sharp little teeth. I started keeping his beard trimmed short.



Because Lucy had been starved as a puppy, she has always craved food. She actually got up to a weight of 28 pounds at one time. She began having back problems and we had to put her on a strict diet . She has maintained a healthy weight of 12 - 14 pounds for a number of years now, but it sure isn't voluntary. She will steal food if given the opportunity.

Lucy has taught me a great respect for little dogs. I have always loved big dogs and was a bit disappointed when Rob brought home such a little one, but I've observed her closely over the years and watched how she has to always be on the alert for danger. Imagine being only eight or ten inched tall and living in a world of giants, big dogs, big people. Lucy is always aware of where everyone is all times. She knows alternate routes around the house, under and behind furniture so that she doesn't get stepped on. It must be a tough way to live.



Lucy is thirteen years old now and suffers from severe liver disease. She has arthritis is her back and legs, but she runs with the big dogs most days. When a cookie is available, she pushes her way to the front of the pack and she is always ready for a ride.