Posted inDogs

Serena and I slow-mo in Portland’s Strut Your Mutt

Two Mutt Struts in a row! Serena and I rule! We got last. Again. Perfect. Last month our twelve and a half year old Shepherd/Lab mix and me succeeded in our plan to bring up the rear in Salem's WillaMutt Strut. Yesterday, without even trying, we seemingly achieved the same result in Portland's Strut Your Mutt. Laurel, my wife, signed us up because we adopted our younger dog, Zu Zu, from the Family Dogs New Life Shelter up Portland way, and she wanted to be part of the shelter's fund-raising team. Here's Laurel with old dog and young dog soon…
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Posted inDogs Salem

My dog and I are dead last in the WillaMutt Strut. As planned.

We did it! Serena and I finished just where we wanted to in the Willamette Humane Society's 1.5K (.9 mile) WillaMutt Strut Fun Walk last Saturday in Salem's Riverfront Park.  Last.  Serena is twelve and a half years old. That's something like 87 in dog years. So Serena has slowed down. A lot. My wife took our younger dog, Zu Zu, on the 5K walk. I was pretty sure Serena couldn't handle three-plus miles in August heat.  Hence, my plan was to let Serena do her usual walking thing -- which should guarantee that we'd end up in a distinctive…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Zu Zu, our new dog, wears flowers in her hair

Finally, an almost-summer-feeling Oregon afternoon. Laurel, me, and our two canine dog pack went for a walk around the neighborhood lake.  A big patch of wildflowers caught my eye. Also, Laurel's.  While I was getting out my iPhone and snapping some shots of the flowers, she was adorning Zu Zu with some daisies. Of course, dog photography being what it is, as soon as we tried to pose Zu Zu she shook violently, then laid down on her back. Which messed up her flower arrangement. Still, it brought back memories of the 60's to see our new dog with flowers…
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Posted inDogs

Treats got me trained at the Willamette Humane Society

Annie Ingersoll is an excellent dog trainer. Also, an excellent human trainer. Yesterday I had my behavior nicely controlled by Annie after only a few minutes of her "Introduction to Dog Training" class. At first, Annie had the several dozen people who'd come to the one hour class briefly introduce themselves: their name, name of their dog, breed and age of dog, whether it had come from the Willamette Humane Society. Then she walked over to a whiteboard with a marker in hand and said, "Aside from food, water, and shelter, what other needs do dogs have?" People started throwing…
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Posted inDogs

We give Keizer Rapids Dog Park “two paws up”

Our dogs seemed to really like their visit to the Keizer Rapids Dog Park this afternoon. It was the first time my wife and I had been there. Impressive. Just as Salem (Oregon) is the dowdy little sister to much more glamorous Portland, so is Keizer usually viewed by Salemites as even more lackluster than our aptly nicknamed So-lame. Well, not when it comes to dog parks.  My wife and I are pretty sure that Salem doesn't have any fenced dog parks. Keizer Rapids is fenced-- a big plus, especially for dog-owners like us. Recently we got a young dog who…
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Posted inDogs

Our dog cloned herself! Astonishing.

How did our dog do it? My wife and I knew that Serena, our 12-year old Shepherd/Lab mix, is super intelligent.  But cloning herself... and somehow hiding the experiment from us until a full-grown almost perfect copy was ready to be revealed... astonishing! This explains all those UPS deliveries from medical supply companies that I thought my wife had ordered for some reason, which mysteriously came to be transported to our "dog room" with teeth marks evident in the cardboard boxes, and the lab equipment I just found hidden behind Serena's dog crate. Well, we're happy Serena was able to…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Dog adoption update: Oh, no, we’ve got a dingo!

It's Day 2 of our dog adoption saga. Reality is setting in. Pooka is doing fine. Much more relaxed and well-behaved than we expected (aside from just trying to eat a leaf from a houseplant).  However... I'm convinced that the rescue shelter was wrong when they billed her as a Shepherd/Lab mix. Pooka clearly is a dingo! Well, maybe "clearly" is too confident a conclusion.   Check out the evidence, though. This is a dingo.       And this is Pooka, our new dog. A still shot doesn't do credit to her dingoness, since as she skitters around the…
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Posted inDogs Home life

We adopt a dog. Lovingly, likingly, happily.

My wife, Laurel, is a dog "LOVER." I'm a dog "lover": lower case; hold the boldface.  That's why I'm waiting for her to come home with a dog we've adopted from a rescue shelter in Gig Harbor, Washington. Gig Harbor. A three hour, thirty-eight minute drive from our south Salem, Oregon home according to Google Maps. Which is about two and a half hours more than I was willing to journey to look at another potential family animal companion after our previous long-distance excursion to a Florence dog shelter ended pet-less. "This is crazy," Laurel said, as we were returning…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Wanted: dog just like ours, but much younger

My wife wants to get another dog, even though our current canine companion, Serena, is still very much alive at the age of twelve -- though admittedly slowing down. (But isn't that to be expected given that she's 80+ in dog years?) Recently Serena helped me survive the Great Salem Snow-pocalypse of 2012, so I feel a lot of loyalty toward her. Plus, I believe in the adage that worked great during my child (singular)-raising years: don't allow you and your spouse to be out-numbered. One little child, two large parents. That's a fair fight. Yet even then the kid…
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Posted inDogs

Most boring You Tube video ever? Not to chipmunks.

Everyone wants to be known for something. I'm hoping that my new You Tube video, "Dog stalking chipmunk," will become anti-viral. (see video below, after these explanatory remarks) Meaning, anyone with an adorable cat can make a You Tube production that will garner millions of views. To be exact, 4,502,374 (until you click on "adorable cat" and add to the count). But it takes a special dog, and owner, to make a five minute video that, depending on your sensibilities, is either (1) the most boring ever, or (2) a Zen-like exploration of the dynamics of motionlessness. Immediately after uploading…
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Posted inDogs

Do dogs try to cover, or spread, their poop?

When I told my wife that today's blog topic was dog poop, she said, "You're lucky that this is all you have to worry about." Since at the time she was vacuuming the kitchen floor while I was perched at the counter with my laptop, sipping a cup of coffee and using Google to delve into the depths of dog poop behavior, I have a feeling that her comment had an ironic quality to it.I'm unapologetic, though. Human civilization advances by exploring the natural world. And few things are more natural than pooping. My interest in this question began a…
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Posted inDogs

Video of dogs playing: what the world needs now

There's a lot going on in the world at the moment. Russia and Georgia are going at it. Afghanistan and Pakistan are their usually messy selves. Economic indicators are looking worse. So it wasn't hard for me to decide on my blog post subject tonight: Dogs playing! A few days ago the family pet, Serena, had an unexpected play date. A Golden Retriver'ish dog came to visit while we were at our cabin in Camp Sherman, Oregon. I grabbed my Flip Video camera when I saw that Serena and her new friend hit it off instantly. Sometimes it takes a…
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Posted inDogs

The Amazing Dog Hair Net Seed in Ear Preventer

I want to say, "Order now! Call the toll-free number within the next 30 minutes and we'll send you three, yes three, Amazing Dog Hair Net Seed in Ear Preventers for the price of one." Except…we don't have a toll-free number. And this afternoon I paid $1.95 for a package of three hair nets at the Sisters, Oregon drug store. So since Laurel and I would be re-selling them over late night cable TV for, say, $19.95 (plus shipping), you're better off buying them on your own if you want a more or less workable way of keeping seeds out…
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Posted inDogs

Watch out for dog psychic hotline

Wanted to share some recent correspondence with the Oregon Humane Society, just in case anyone else shares a home with a malcontent dog. TO: Humane Society Dog Psychic Hotline CoordinatorFROM: BrianRE: Complaint received from our family pet, Serena This is in response to your recent letter expressing concern about the reported "starvation" of our dog. As you can imagine, I was more than a little surprised to learn that the Humane Society operates a Dog Psychic Hotline. However, this is Oregon. Guess I should have seen this bit of woo-woo coming. (Except, I'm not psychic.) At first I was deeply…
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Posted inDogs Salem

Images of 2006 Salem Dog Parade

Once again this year I guaranteed a loss for Serena in the Best Costume category by simply tying a bandana around her neck and heading off to yesterday's Salem Dog Parade. I’d considered entering the dog/human look-alike contest, but couldn’t decide whether to dye my hair blonde or Serena’s fur gray. But this couple looked muy adorable even with different colored coiffures. T-shirts and micro-skirts were, as always, popular on larger dogs. Next year we’re going to dress Serena up properly, I almost promise. If I was an Oregon State fan, I’d caption this photo “A dog of an Oregon…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Aside from Lyme disease and a drug reaction, we’re doing fine

For the first time, the dog and I are on our own at our Camp Sherman cabin. Laurel is off at a family reunion in Kentucky. So Serena and I are keeping things interesting by getting Lyme disease (me) and a Xanax drug reaction (dog). Or so I've diagnosed. Hey, I’m looking at the bright side: it’s blogging material. I was planning to write about how Lars Larson, the bozo conservative talk show host, thinks that the Surgeon General’s report on the dire health effects of second-hand smoke is a bunch of crap, because Lars took a glance at it…
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Posted inDogs Entertainment

Listening attentively to the dog whisperer

We’ve become big fans of Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer. The Dish Network should be a fan too, because my wife upgraded our subscription to America’s Top 180 just so we could get the National Geographic Channel, home of Milan’s weekly program. It was worth buying sixty more channels to be able to watch the Dog Whisperer, though. I’ve warmed up to him more slowly than my wife, but now on Friday evenings I’m right there with her on the television room couch. Laurel’s interest in the Dog Whisperer was strong right from the start because she’s become a dog…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Dogs Home life

HinesLand happenings, 2/2/06

Surely nobody is more interested in what’s happening with us than, well, us. And we know it, because we’re the happenings that are happening. For the rest of you, here’s some reflected HinesLand headlines. Straight talk about cougars. A few days ago Laurel dashed out a letter to the Statesman-Journal editor about the newspaper’s biased cougar coverage. Lo and behold, it was published immediately. Perhaps her truthiness struck a nerve. A few days earlier David Cox made equal good sense on a similar subject: let’s leave wildlife alone; after all, they’re wild. Ridiculous reaction to Muhammad cartoons. Over on my…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Dog kissing: the slobbery truth

Who says the passion has to go when people are in their mid 50s? Why, every evening around midnight there are two bodies entwined on the rug in our family room. The kissing is noisy and uninhibited; the pillow talk sweet and sentimental. “Who’s got the cutest little tummy in the whole world? You!...Who’s my special sweetums? You!” I never get tired of hearing my wife coo these words, which are regularly interrupted by the sound of lips enthusiastically pressing against soft flesh. This raw display of affection usually takes place while I’m brushing my teeth in a nearby bathroom.…
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Posted inDogs Science

Animal instinct

Yesterday some neighbors were treated, if that’s the right word, to a display of our dog’s kinky sexual behavior. Well, probably “kinky” isn’t the right word either. It was just instinctual sexual behavior. Heck, leave out “sexual” too, because it seems that female dogs who hump other dogs (male or female) are motivated by a desire for dominance, not sex. Regardless, it still was disconcerting to be talking to a man and his pre-teen daughter while our dog and their yellow Lab calmly sniffed each other at first, then to look down and see that Serena had mounted Ginger and…
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