Taz' behavior when I arrived home yesterday wasn't as bad as it was the day before. He did cut up for a few minutes, but he calmed down much more quickly yesterday that he had the day before.
Today I shall continue the story of how I came to have all of these animals by introducing you to Oscar. Below is a birds-eye view of my property taken from Yahoo Maps:
I've made a rough outline of my place in black, and as you can see I am in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by woods. You can see the two willow oak trees in the yard in front of my house.
Over the past few years I have found several litters of puppies in the woods, and how they got there who can tell? One of those puppies I found by himself, and he is the only one of those that I have found who is still with me. The rest I delivered safely to our local shelter.
I knew from the beginning that Oscar would not be a good candidate for adoption at the local shelter: he is a large breed dog and he is black. For some reason, that kind of dog doesn't get adopted as readily. Oscar had another problem: he was all over eaten up with mange. I treat dogs for mange by giving them about a half cc of Ivomec (Ivermectin) each day for up to two weeks. That will do it (ivermectin is toxic to a collie).
In the beginning, Oscar was in a bad way, and I actually contracted the mange from him. He and I both were in quarantine for several days while we recovered. I can testify personally to the extreme discomfort of having mange. I would bathe Oscar in the kitchen sink, dry him off, and sprinkle him with Gold Bond powder to lessen the itch (I did the same for myself). He did suffer so those first few days!
Eventually, Oscar recovered from his bout of the mange (as did I, thankfully), and today Oscar is a big, healthy, vibrant, and happy boy. See for yourself:
This is one of my favorite pictures of Oscar, running with his pals, Fred and Sam. I love to see that smile on his face:
Oscar is a gentle soul, as you can see from this picture of him with Thumper the cat:
Before I erected the fence in the front yard I let the dogs run free. After all, I live in the country. Even so, I still would have a dog come up missing now and then, and there is a road in front of my house. Then one day I stepped out my front door to find Oscar lying at the door all covered in blood. He had been shot with a shot gun. He survived that one okay, but I knew then that even in the country it is not a good idea to let your dogs run loose. So up the fence went, and now running around outside is safe for all of my animals.
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