Emma didn't have any, but Ryder had one behind one of his ears as a result of us not getting around to finishing up his grooming the last time. The first thing I do is bring him somewhere with good lighting, but that is because I have horrible eyesight, haha! I choose to do it outside and have the dog lay down on his side. You can sit on your dog or straddle him if he tries to get up but hopefully he will simply lie there and enjoy having you give him so much attention. :) If your dog really does give you a hard time though, you may want to get the help of another to hold him still. It is important that he remains very still as you don't want to cut him by accident...or yourself.
My girls went camping over this long weekend and left their golden retrievers in mine and the boy's care. Wanting to be good dog sitters, we took them for a walk yesterday morning. We didn't even get to the end of the driveway and we had to turn back for bug spray. Completely dowsed from head to toe, we headed down the road but the repellent held no relief. The bugs were relentless. I (almost) wish winter would just come already. Deciding the day would be a good day for dog grooming as well, I brushed down my old dog, Dakota. Never before has she looked so old. She has more gray hair now than I can ever recall. When I was done with her I brushed Emma and Ryder all over, paying in particular attention behind their ears. If you have a long haired dog, you probably know what I'm talking about. Long hairded animals tend to grow mats, and the area behind their ears is especiallly prone to this. Not sure why, but you have to keep up on grooming golden retrievers so that they don't form because if neglected long enough they will literally form to the skin. You can take them to a groomers and have them removed but it is not difficult to do yourself. Emma didn't have any, but Ryder had one behind one of his ears as a result of us not getting around to finishing up his grooming the last time. The first thing I do is bring him somewhere with good lighting, but that is because I have horrible eyesight, haha! I choose to do it outside and have the dog lay down on his side. You can sit on your dog or straddle him if he tries to get up but hopefully he will simply lie there and enjoy having you give him so much attention. :) If your dog really does give you a hard time though, you may want to get the help of another to hold him still. It is important that he remains very still as you don't want to cut him by accident...or yourself. Here is a photo of Ryder's mat. Taking a pair of scissors, slide the blade in behind a strand of hair between the mat and the skin. I use grooming scissors with a blade that is not too sharp as I don't fancy cutting myself but not too dull neither. I never ever cut the hair. I simply slide the blade back and forth as if I were sawing until the hair cuts free. And always have the blade facing away from the dog. Depending on the size of mat, it should only take about fifteen minutes. Take your time, cut small strands to avoid nipping your dog's skin and before you know it the mat will come away freely and your pooch will have a matless patch behind his ear, albeit with a little less hair.
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We brought the horses in from the field today in preparation for the ferrier's visit, and only then did we realize what a sorry state they were all in. They were all nice and plump and healthy, but their manes and tails were covered in burs and the walls of their hooves were so badly damaged. We gave them all a good brushing so they looked half decent for the ferrier. Actually, we do it for them. They like to look nice for the ferrier. Who wouldn't when your ferrier looks like this. Never mind they are all boys. You should see how they drool over him when he's giving them a pedicure. And yes, I do realize how lucky I am to have a ferrier who looks like this. Alas, if only I were twenty years younger, twenty pounds lighter and twenty-something years less married. I guess I'll leave him to the youngin's whom the oldest continually found excuses to wander into the barn to admire his backside. They aren't the only ones to enjoy his visits. These two were more than happy to clean up after him. The kitten wasn't eating hoof droppings (at least I don't think so), she is just so nosy and wants to make sure she isn't missing out on some delicious delicacy.
That would be Emma's native american name if she had one. Retrievers are bred to retrieve, but Emma would rather befriend the little ducks. And they enjoy her in the pond just as much. Maybe because there she is in their own turf...and moves considerably slower.
The storm we had the other day brought in directly behind it a heat wave. The worse of it was yesterday when the day time high was 33 degrees, breaking the record of 31 degrees for June 8. I felt bad for the animals and ensured I went around checking on them and making sure all watering containers were full. When I was refilling the horses water trough, Cowboy came over to me. Being black I figured the heat and blistering sun must have been extremely uncomfortable for him. So without thought, I lifted the hose and started spraying him. I figured he'd turn and bolt, as did Chase, but he stood there basking in the cool spray. Even when the water struck his nose, he didn't so much as turn away. Aww, that feels good! Then he went and rolled in some dirt covering himself with a nice cooling layer of mud. Ryder and Emma spent the entire day in the pond. They do everything in unison. While the kids kept cool wrestling in the kiddie pool.
I was going to post about how to sex a duck, but am putting that blog subject off until tomorrow as I wanted to share an incident at the farm that happened the other night instead. But first, I need to tell you that our german shepherd, Dakota, was hit by a car a few days ago. Now before you think the worse, let me assure you she is fine. Remarkably, unbelievably, truly a miracle fine. She is approximately 11-12 years old (she was a stray we adopted so never knew her exact age) and is definitely showing her age. We are fully aware that her days are numbered and are prepared for that. So when I was down by the road gardening the flowerbeds at the end of our driveway and heard the familiar tire squeal, thump and cry of a dog, I figured her day had arrived. When I spun around and saw the rear wheels rise up and back down onto the road after driving over my dog, my memory flashed back 13 years ago when we lost a dog to the exact same way. But then unbelievably, Dakota simply got up, shot the vehicle an angry glare and walked off. Then mad as heck, she chased down the very next car. I couldn't believe it. So for her own safety, we tied her up to a shaded tree behind the barn. That is where the incident begins. Because Dakota was tied up at the back of the barn, she was not able to do her duty of guarding the property. She is constantly barking. Admittedly, it drives us crazy. What we sometimes forget to appreciate is all the critters who wonder over from the animal sanctuary across the road and who are scared off our property because of that bark. Which explained the sight of a raccoon down by the drive shed. It was the first wild animal we spotted at the farm (not counting the dead raccoon stuck in our pasture fence). And I knew it was here because Dakota was not there to scare her away. We ignored the raccoon as it couldn't harm anything near the driveshed and at supper when I went out to feed the animals, I heard Dakota barking like mad from behind the barn. I knew she had spotted the raccoon and was going ballistic because she couldn't chase after it. So I untied her and the moment I did, she shot off in the direction of the driveshed sniffing the ground like she was a police dog hunting down the narcotics. I'd never ever seen her do this in the 10 years we've owned her. It was impressive admittedly. She suddenly veered back to the barn sniffing the ground like mad. I was right behind her sure we'd find the raccoon in the barn. Dakota went wild in the barn sniffing, even going up on her hind legs to smell the air above her, but there was no sign of the racccoon. I sighed with relief, doubled checked my ducklings were okay and no raccoon had them for dinner, then left the barn, shutting the door behind me in case she decided to come back. About ten minutes later, my oldest headed out to the barn, opened the barn doors then suddenly slammed them shut. I happened to see this from my window so went out to see what was wrong. The raccoon was in the barn, feasting on cat food...right next to my lovely ducklings. I couldn't believe it. I had checked ever single corner of that barn. There had been no raccoon. Then as I entered the barn, Dakota who was right on my heel, came charging in after the raccoon. The damn thing didn't run away as I had thought. Raccoons are fighters. She stood her ground and took on Dakota. A nasty fight ensued. I took a single photo, but was too preoccupied with the fight so it didn't come out very clear. Admittedly, I was terrified. I had heard that raccoons can be nasty little buggers, but I had no idea they were fearless and would challenge a german shepherd. Me and daughter grabbed some sticks and began banging the posts, cages, anything that would make a loud noice and try and scare it out of the barn and off our dog, but it refused to go. When it finally did run, it was to up here. (This explained why I hadn't seen it earlier, I was looking on the ground not overhead. Dakota, however, had known the scent had ended above as you recall I mentioned she began sniffing the air. We again began hollering and making loud noices trying to scare it down and out, but it just would not go. Now the reason I'm telling you this, is not to give you a lesson on how to remove a raccoon from your barn because I have no idea, but to warn you how difficult it is. We spent an hour trying to remove the critter. I hosed it down, through rocks and cans of cat food at it, jabbed it with a pitch fork and a wooden stake (it was 8 feet long so no worries I got that close) but still it refused to leave. I didn't know what to do. If I had a shotgun I would have seriously considered shooting it cause I figured that was the only way it was leaving my barn. We eventually were able to move it toward the front of the barn and the exit, but he only found something else to climb up. (The wooden stake is below him, it's the yellow looking pole). We were able to knock him off the ladder and with the help of the pitchfork and Dakota, finally maneuvered him outside. As soon as we did, we shut the barn down and closed my ducklings and baby bunnies safely inside. Dakota kept close to the raccoon (behind her hiding behind the tree) as if she was personally escorting it off the farm. But since we had gotten it out of the barn, I didn't care so much where it went. I figured it would saunter on back down to the woods now that it no longer had it's food source. I checked Dakota over and remarkably, she didn't have so much as a scratch on her. I couldn't believe it yet again. She had just come out of a nasty fight with a raccoon and didn't have a mark on her. Two days and two incidents and the dog walks away harmless. My daughter says she is immortal. I, however, know the power of 3's. You are given two warnings and then it is the 3rd that matters. I'll be keeping a close watch on her. As for the raccoon, she wasn't done exploring our property. We went into the house but noticed it shortly afterwards walking around our backyard. Since all my critters were safely locked away in the barn, we simply watched with interest from the back window...until we spotted May, our barn cat that just had her litter a few days ago. We had prepared a bed for her and the kittens in the woodshed but she had rejected and had taken the kittens to some unknown location. My daughter wanted to track them down, but I figured we'd see them again when they were big enough to follow mom to our back door for food. Anyway, May's back suddenly arched, then in a bolt she fled to a pile of logs lying beneath a pine tree. We knew then where the unknown location was. Hubby grabbed a thick stick to ward off the raccoon while daughter went and fetched the kittens. We brought them into the house and placed them back in the bed we had prepared. It didn't take much persuading May to follow. We set up a kitty litter next to the bed in the front room where it is nice and quiet, and she and babies have been there ever since. May has always been very nervous and skitterish around us, but she's really coming along quickly and learning to trust us. We did notice one at least kitty is missing. It was one of the little black ones. Of course we were disappointed but relieved the others have survived and that no raccoon was having them for dinner.
This post will be all about the dog. Ryder, that is in particular. While it is true Emma is my favorite, I do love Ryder and appreciate many things about him. He's loyal, curious, sweet and probably the most intelligent of all our dogs. However, he is also the most active. He operates on one speed only. Go. And for an old slow going woman like myself, I like my dogs the same way. And altough Emma is only six months older than Ryder, she acts more like an old granny dog. That's why we get along so well. So until Ryder gets older and starts to slow down some, I'll just sit on the pasture hill and watch him burn off energy. Oh well, at least I know he's happy.
It was a beautiful day today to play outdoors with the animals and snap photos. Dakota, our german shepherd loves to chase the horses in the pasture but they all pretty much ignore her, except for Duke the mini. He's petrified of Dakota and runs circles around the farm (as seen in the background). September watches safely from his perch. Or maybe not so safe. Meanwhile, from the front of the house we heard splashing. Don't they realize there is still snow on the ground and we're still wearing winter coats?? I'm participating in the Farm Friiend Friday again over at Verde Farms website. http://www.verdefarm.com/
Well sort of. Since I'm planning on buying chickens farely soon, I thought it best to start filling my house with appropriate chicken decor. On to a different story, guess who we found in the pond today?
A lovely start to the day when greeted by dear Emma in the window. Not so lovely...the pond is no longer thawed.
I wake every morning at the break of dawn thanks to the hundreds of birds visiting our property from the forest across the road. I don't mind though, otherwise I'd miss this view out my window. Or this view. This beautiful spring morning was especially loud with the sounds of the forest. I wouldn't want to miss it for the world. My husband also gets up early and as usual, the first thing he does is check on the pond. He's very anxious for it to melt. While still in his jammies, he started breaking the ice hoping to spot the koi. He wasn't disappointed. He spotted some swimming through the broken ice which was a relief because yesterday the only fish we spotted were two dead ones floating at the surface.
One thing we need to keep a watchful eye out for is our golden retrievers. They are natural lovers of water and swim whenever given the chance. Even in below temperature water. Throughout winter, they had walked freely across the frozen pond so didn't think anything of it this morning when Emma wandered out to the pond. And being the merdog that she is, when a huge section broke away and began to sink beneath her, she didn't think anything of it. But we called her off nevertheless. Not a good idea to think it's their very own swimming hole. After she got off, our german shepherd, Dakota, wandered unto the floating ice. However, she is much heavier than Emma and the ice broke beneath her. She slipped off and slid beneath the remaining ice shield over the pond trapping her between two huge chunks of ice. She's not the greatest swimmer as it is and the pond is something like four feet deep, so she began to panic. I began to panic as she was too far out for me. My husband came to the rescue and like a miracle reached far over the ice, grabbed her by the collar and pulled her out. Now you'd think she'd stay clear of the pond after that, but just as soon as she shook herself off, she headed back on the ice, refusing to let it beat her. |