Wednesday, August 19, 2009

laid up

I hurt my back this weekend, or rather an old problem sort of flared up.  It’s taking a long time to get to the point when I can do strengthening exercises (the lack of which lately is probably the main reason it reminded me of itself) to keep it at bay because I’ve been busy in the shop this week and can’t just lay around being useless.  Or else I have a pinched nerve.  It feels like that some too.  Really, though, I was being so careful lugging those 4” x 4”s and pavers and slabs of stone around.


Out at the country house, my neighbor to the east is gone much of the time for long periods.  He’s an exotic welder and he’s been working in Africa this year.  He has had two dogs that stayed in the fenced part of his yard while he is gone but sometime during this year, one of them died and the other disappeared.  We don’t know if he knows about the disappeared dog.  The dog got out and we saw it run by and that was the last we saw of it.  This would usually be of no consequence to me except when Montreal’s dog was in the yard, it kept Jimmy’s dogs out of it.


I mentioned in one of my previous posts that Mama Dog is alive and has a new litter.  They’ve been under Jimmy’s house across the road until the last couple of weeks when she has brought the pups out.  The dog pack now consists of Leo (the alpha male), Mama Dog, another adult yellow dog which I guess is Big Puppy.  Little Puppy hasn’t been seen for months.  There are three more, I think, left over from the litter at the beginning of this year.  And now 6 new puppies.  That’s two litters this year.


Now that Mama Dog has moved the puppies out, she seems to have moved them into Montreal’s fenced yard.  When he was gone last spring, the pack moved into his front yard since the dead dog was decaying under the trailer, their usual hangout in Montreal’s big side yard.  Weekend before last I saw them all back there behind Montreal’s house and shooed them out.  This past weekend it looked like they had moved in to stay.  I was not liking that one bit.  I’m pretty sure Montreal wouldn’t want Jimmy’s dogs taking up in his back yard but besides that, I didn’t want them taking up in his backyard.  Because the next step over is MY yard.  And I definitely don’t want them in my yard.  They run like the devil back to Jimmy’s when you throw fire crackers.  And two short pieces of 2” x 4” slammed together works well too.


Well, last Friday, I decided that I was going to shore up the fence and gates so that those dogs couldn’t get back in.  First I ran the dogs out except the puppies went under the house.  I snuck up on them later when they were all cuddled up in a puppy pile in a place they couldn’t easily get away from me (except for one that was under the house) and I dropped the puppies over the fence.  But before I did that, I plugged all the holes and squeeze-through places.


The puppies were not happy.  They kept trying to find a way to squeeze back in.  I guess the last one managed to squeeze out somewhere because I kept my eye on the yard, I didn’t want to trap one of the poor things, and I never saw it.  Mama Dog didn’t seem too concerned either.  Well, I guess I’ll find out Thursday or Friday how well my fence shoring held, if they managed to get back in Montreal’s backyard or not.

15 comments:

  1. I'd like to see you lighting those fire crackers and throwing them, Ellen.

    Hope you get to feeling better soon.

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  2. Hope you feel better soon - tke care!

    Those dogs must be quite interestin - but who takes care of them?

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  3. hello ellen, what a complex doggy world you're managing! it's amazing to me that dogs and cats will band together and set up territories that are sometimes compromised for fun or whatever else comes to mind!!! i hope your body heals up soon for you. steven

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  4. I don't like the sound of throwing firecrackers at them. I guess you're not a dog lover then Ellen?

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  5. Oh no Ayak, I love dogs but these dogs run loose, their responsible human does not make any attempt to get Mama Dog fixed and he lets her have litter after litter and lets them roam unrestrained. They are half wild, chasing cars and people. Only Leo is 'owned'. I don't want to hurt them, just frighten them so they will stay out of my yard. If I were to do nothing, they would make themselves at home, terrorize my cat, get into my garage and I have no interest in being attacked by a pack of dogs. I want them to know that I am Alpha.

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  6. Take care of that pinched nerve.... no more lifting for you! Not even puppies. I am assuming there is no animal control in the area and who feeds these dogs? I hate to see animals being neglected.

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  7. I'm assuming Jimmy feeds them but they also supplement their diet with whatever they can catch or scrounge. They've dug into my compost pile more than once. And like you Kathy, I'm in the county so, no, no animal control. Not to mention that Jimmy works for the sheriff, a deputy I guess since he has a patrol car.

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  8. Take care. I use Therma Care to heat up and relax my back. Hot or cold compresses help.

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  9. Thanks for the explanation Ellen. Now I understand. Of course living in Turkey we have more than our fair share of stray dogs...so I understand the problem.

    The trouble is...no-one "owns" the dogs here so no-one takes responsibility. I've toughened up a bit. I realise that in my culture we are perhaps too soft. However it hasn't stopped me taking in a stray pup 7 years ago and another a couple of months ago. But you can't help them all. Mass neutering is really the only answer.

    And by the way get well soon!

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  10. Awww ... how sad that you have to run the puppies out.

    Sadder, though is that your back is out. Hope you're soon on the mend!

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  11. Well, I didn't really turn them out into the cold hard world. All they need do was go back across the road to where they are supposed to live. I know I would not like to come home from being gone for several months and find a pack of 6 grown dogs and 6 puppies had taken up residence in my fenced back yard.

    Thanks for all the well wishes. It is improving, would improve faster if I would lay down when it got tired.

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  12. Aw. poor back. I'm sorry to hear you are hurting!

    Um...I am not understanding someone who goes away for months and leaves his dogs in the yard?

    As for the other dogs, when I lived in Texas, I noticed that people let their dogs roam loose much more than they do up here.

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  13. So sorry to hear about your back, Ellen. Take it easy and feel better, soon!

    That's a shame about the dogs and pups, with no animal control to call. Good luck!

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  14. I'm sorry you're hurting, Ellen. Back pain is no picnic. Neither are homeless dogs. It's a shame they're allowed to go uncared for that way. I'd be inclined to catch the pups and take them to whichever town does have a no kill shelter.. if they're old enough to be separated from Mom, that is.

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