Dirty Dog

It's officially Red's least favorite time of the year...bath time! After finding a ::shudder: tick on him the other day, I deemed it time to give him a good scrubbing before I put his monthly flea and tick protection on.

Hey, can't we talk about this...just put the spray hose down!

::glances longingly at the door to freedom::

Are you sure we can't talk about this?

You are dead to me.

Just you wait, I will get my stink back!!

Jealousy. I haz it!

A certain someone doesn't like not being the center of attention! Haha!

Sophie + Kitty Grass = Funny!!

So the last time I was at my local pet supply store I picked up this nifty and quite lovely kitty grass container that I can sit on my kitchen table for the kittehs. The neat thing about it is that it comes with 4 different types of grass: oats, wheat, barley, and rye. It has proven to be a big hit amongst my crew!

Itty Bitty wasted no time diving right in...

Cotton was not so graceful, lol...but the whole smushed face thing surely didn't help his situation! Haha!

 

He was still able to get his nom on though!

They were a little peeved when they thought the grass was not organic though...

Madame, this grass is NOT organic!

Cotton was quite relieved to find out it was in fact, 100% organic!

Ahhhh, all is right in the world...

Then Sophie stumbled upon the new kitty grass and being the little diva that she is, she informed me that I needed to feed her some grass by hand! Of course, she had her preferences too...she didn't like the wheat, barley, or rye grass, but loved the oats!

Hmmm, what's this? Kitty grass you say...

Well, I guess I could give it a try...

You know, this is quite good!

Keep it coming food lady!

What do I look like, a little waif?! Bigger pieces I say!

Must have more nommage!!!

Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom...

Mmmmm, is nom nom so nom nom good!

If there ever was a face of total and complete happiness, I believe this would be it.

Oreo Cows!

One thing I love to do when I am over near Fearrington Village is to stop and see the Belted Galloway cows, or as some like to call them, the oreo cows! So after Red and I had walked around their pond and moved past his fear of the scary stone sheep, I thought we would head over to see the cows, since Red had never seen them other than from the window of the car.

As we approached the cows, Red got pretty excited, sniffing the air and picking up the lovely aroma of cow poo.

This big guy was in a field by himself, and came right up to the fence in order to check Red and I out.

It was then as the cow approached the fence, getting closer to us that Red realized the massive size difference between himself and the cows, and the fear set in! Haha! He made Red pretty nervous, as he was curious about Red as well, and I think Red just didn't know what to make of him! LOL

With his tail tucked and ears down, Red slowly inched closer to the cow...

Please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me...

I am a pancake, just be a pancake, if I make myself as flat as possible the cow will not eat me! Oh I want to sniff you so bad...Hello Nice Mr. Cow, I come in peace!

::big happy sigh of relief:: Nice cow did not eat me!

Once Red's curiosity with the nice cow was settled, we walked over to the adjacent field where there was a whole herd of cows and a lone donkey. As I understand it there are 3 donkeys who call Fearrington home, who are there to make visitors smile and to provide protection from predators for the cows. I don't quite know what type of predators or how a donkey protects the cows, but this is what I was told.

As Red and I approached the fence, the donkey made a bee line straight for us, clearly wanting to make sure we were not some shady characters there to do any cownapping, haha!

Donkey: Identification please, and state the purpose for your visit!

Well I was just curious if you might have any spare cow caca laying around I might have? I heard from The Mafiosos that it is an amazingly tasty delicacy, and I wanted to give it a try.

 

Oh, I think I see some right there...if you could just nudge it over here to me I would be so grateful!

I so wish I had captured what happened next, because it was so hysterically funny! Right as Red got brave enough to lean his head over the railing, the donkey blew a giant sneeze right at Red, and Red was so startled by it that he basically levitated straight up into the air and landed about a foot back from the fence! Hahaha!

The donkey then turned and left Red with this amazing view as his parting gift, haha!

Poor Red, he never did get to try any caca...

And in the category of 'Pretending to be Killed by a Harmless Medical Proceure,' the winner is...

After some procrastination on my part it was time for Red's annual heartworm test, and with the snake bites as a motivator I took Red in to the see the vet on Monday. After a quick look at Red's nose area, since he seemed to be tender there, it was decided to put him on a round of antibiotics just to be on the safe side since he got bitten so many times. Red was excited because it meant twice daily spoon fulls of peanut butter to conceal the pills in!

Now for the fun part of the visit! Red has built somewhat of a reputation at the vet's for being, just a wee bit overly dramatic. Thankfully he doesn't have an aggressive bone in his body, but even the smallest attempt at being restrained sends him into a panic attack. We've tried the less is more approach and also the opposite, and even the anxiety meds approach, but it all really comes down to wrangling him till he gives in.

Sometimes we luck out, but Monday was not one of those days. After his best impression of a bucking bronco when we attempted to draw blood from his back leg, we gave up and moved to the front leg. The vet took his leg in her hand and readied the needle in the other and prepared to slide the needle under his skin when Red started yelping and crying and literally flailing around like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

The vet, vet tech, and I all just got silent and then the vet goes, "But Red I didn't even touch you with the needle yet!" And I swear to you, Red stopped flailing around, looked down at his arm which had no needle in it and stopped. Hahahahahahahahaha! It was as if he could understand the vet and totally realized that he had been busted totally faking being in pain! Ha ha! We all just died laughing and right after that he let her stick him and draw his blood. I'm thinking that he was feeling a little embarrassed! Haha!

Don't listen to her! It was a big ginormous needle and it hurt really really badly! I'm telling you the truth, I swear!!!

Luckily once this was all over Red was back to his silly happy self boucing around the vet's office looking for the office kitty to give a few friendly nose pokes to! On our way home I decided to take a detour to a little community called Fearrington Village, to stop and take Red for a walk around their cute little community.

 We quickly came upon a very scary site...something that sends shivers down any dogs spine...stone sheep sculptures. Yes, my dog was afraid of the stone sheep.

Red quickly went into bad guy woofing mode...

Danger! Danger! There is a scary herd of grey sheep ahead! Run away, run away!

For a dog willing to take a snake head on, Red is quite the wuss when it comes to encounters with unfamiliar things, haha! Red made it clear he needed some time to think about the scary sheep before we could approach them, so we went around the pond and stopped at the small creek.

Once we made it back around to the sheep, Red had moved into a more curious frame of mind in regards to the sheep, so after some circling and reassurement that the sheep would not in fact eat him, he moved in to give them a good sniffing.

Hmmm...you guys are some shady looking sheep, and I don't trust you one bit!

 

 Never underestimate the power of yummy duck treats...one whiff of those and Red threw his caution to the wind and hopped atop one of the sheep!

::yawn:: These sheep aren't even real, why didn't you tell me this from the beginning!

I look good from up here!

We should visit these sheepies more often, they make great lookout towers!

Once he realized the herd of sheep couldn't eat him he had a blast taking in all the sights and smells. When we finished visiting the sheep and walking around the pond, we headed over to visit the Belted Galloway cows and the guard donkey, which I will post about tomorrow!

**Thanks to PiedmontAnimalAlliance for the post title and for always having the best captions!**

Snake Bite

Red and I had quite the eventful Sunday afternoon.

Red was on the screen porch and started whining like he normally does when he sees a squirrel, so thinking nothing of it, I let him out. He ran straight to the back of the yard into the bushes we have along the fence line. As I stood watching I heard him start growling, which is out of character for him if it were just a squirrel and then like a shot of lightning, a snake shot out of the bushes towards the fence with Red right behind it. Let me just say they don't call them Black Racers for nothing! Ha Ha!

It started shooting up and down the fence line, obviously looking for a way out, and trying to hurl itself over the fence when it couldn't find a way out. When it couldn't get out, it turned to defend itself.

Red went right after it, and cornered it against the fence lunging, barking, growling, and trying to bite it. Once the shock of what I was seeing wore off I just ran into the backyard, barefoot and still in my pajamas,  just screaming my head off telling Red no and trying to call him off, but he was too focused on the snake to even hear me. My mom heard me and came running onto the porch and threw a broom out to me. By this point I could see the snake striking Red in the face and I just was desperate to separate them.

I was able to use the broom as a shield, as the snake was very unhappy at this point, all coiled up and striking at any movement. Once I was able to grab a hold of Red's collar he dropped to the ground and went onto his back, which scared the crap out of me. With the snake all coiled up and staring right at us, all I could think was this snake is going to launch itself right as us both as I'm trying to get Red to stand back up. He wouldn't get up, so while still holding the snake back with the broom I just grabbed Red's two front feet and drug him to the middle of the yard. I guess he was so determined not to leave the snake, that he did the back flop in a effort to keep me from dragging him away. Red doesn't take kindly to what we like to call "perimeter breaches" by certain animals coming into his backyard. Apparently this snake was not on the guest list, and Red wasn't going to leave it alone without putting up a fight! Ha!

Once we were a safe distance I just lifted him up and threw him over my shoulder and ran inside with him. He had blood all over his snout, teeth, and chin. Once I was able to clean him up I was able to see that he only had about three bites, two above his nose and one on the chin. I ran back outside and took a picture of the snake because I thought if I needed to take him to the vet I could show them what kind it was, since I am not well versed in identifying snakes. After a call in to the emergency vet, it was decided that it was a Black Racer, a non-poisonous snake, and all I needed to do was flush out the bites with some warm water and to keep an eye out for any swelling.

I was so relieved is wasn't a more dangerous snake, but Red sure didn't think things through when he picked out one of the most aggressive non-poisonous snakes out there to tangle with! Cornering a Black Racer is a very bad idea. They do not take kindly to that sort of treatment! Ha!

But holy crap, I hope I never encounter anything like that again because I'm not sure my heart could take it.

For the curious out there I will share some of the pictures of our lovely visitor...

And here is one I took a little while after the bite, where you can see the small amount of swelling across the bridge of his nose, and you can see two of the fang marks from one of the bites.

Red was really working the sympathy angle yesterday, and made it very clear that the only way he could move past the trauma of his encounter with the snake was lots and lots of cookies! Haha!

This of course led to the cookie coma!

Road Trip!

If there is one thing that Red loves, it's car rides! Every time I even make a move for the door to the garage, Red is right there, tail wagging, just hoping we're headed out to the car, even if it's just to run some errands.

Car rides mean one thing though...doggles! Having dealt with a foreign debris incident with Red's eye, I have a good excuse to throw a pair of doggles on Red when he wants to hang his head out the window to feel the breeze and sniff the air, but it doesn't hurt that he looks quite cute in them too! Haha!

So I went out back and asked him if he wanted to ride with me to visit the "shrimp guy" to pick up some fresh shrimp...

Ohhh! Road trip!

I can ride shotgun right?

Let's blow this popsicle stand!

Doggles locked and loaded!

Alright, I'm driving! Hop in the passenger side Ma!

Hahaha! I don't think so buddy!

Thats alright, this means I can give my full attention to sniffing the wonderous smells outside!

Mmmmm, shrimp! Since you were so nice and took me with you Ma, I think I will share my shrimps with you!