The Red Dog Inn

We’re loving pet owners. We’ve been known to share our couches and beds with our pets. We certainly share our time and treasure with them. But what about our food?  I know I’m guilty of sharing a piece of chicken, a bit of burger, maybe even a piece of mango with Lula, Butters and now Sofie.

But are there foods we should avoid sharing with our beloved hounds? YOU BET!

The ASPCA is kind enough to post a list of things to NOT feed our pets. You can find the comprehensive list here, but for your convenience, and my memory, here’s a quick list.

WHAT NOT TO FEED YOUR PET:

• ALCOHOL
• AVOCADO
• BONES
• CAFFEINE
• CHIVES
• CHOCOLATE (Here’s what happened when Butters went on a chocolate bender. )
• COFFEE
• EGGS (Raw)
• GARLIC
• GRAPES
• GRAVY (My addition!)
• MACADAMIA NUTS
• MEAT (Raw/Undercooked)**
• ONION
• RAISINS
• SALT
• SPOILED FOOD (my addition!)
• XYLITOL
• YEAST DOUGH** I know some breeders swear by a raw diet, but for the purposes of us mere mortals and because I’m representing someone else’s list, I’m going to leave RAW and UNDERCOOKED meat on the list of foods NOT to feed your pet.  Besides, it’s not very sanitary. Think about it: Raw chicken on your floor? YECH!

Part of the reason Miss Sofie is with me is because there was literally NO ROOM AT THE RESCUE.   Sadly, this is true for many rescues.

Talk with your vet. In almost all cases, your vet will advise you to spay or neuter your pet.  It’ll be less expensive to keep your pet, too. In some counties it costs $100 to license an intact pet but only $25 to license a neutered pet.  And if your pet runs away, it costs less to spring a neutered pet than an intact one.

More importantly, you can rest assured that your pet won’t contribute to the over population of pets.

I’ll never forget this one day on the beach when a woman told me she wanted to breed her English Mastiff bitch to another English Mastiff and had hoped that there would be an “accidental” breeding at the beach because “she wanted her sons to witness the birth.” I suggested that she take them to the Maternity Ward a few miles away and ask if one of the women would mind having additional people present to witness the birth.  Why settle for the miracle of canine birth when you can see the real thing!?   I didn’t get more graphic, but I think she understood that I thought she was a raving idiot!

First, a professional breeder carefully selects pairings. (Unless their idiot house guest thinks a rickety old baby gate is sufficient to keep a dog away from a bitch in heat.)   Second, if you bought the dog for under $5000, you probably don’t have “breeding quality”, but “pet quality”. It’s not something the breeder chose to keep. The dog should probably be altered.

But, like Dennis Miller on a rant, I’ve digressed.  Here’s what I want you to see. Look at these numbers posted by ONE shelter in Los Angeles and decide for yourself.

Sofie’s favorite place to sleep isn’t on the couch. It isn’t on my bed. It’s right behind me! She is a world-class spooner.

She’s comfortable here. And she’s starting to find her place here at the RED DOG INN. Lula is setting boundaries with Sofie. Butters likes to play with her as she tears around the yard. I just wish I was allowed to sit in my chair without a canine bolster.

First off, Sofie is a rambunctious, curious youngster with MAD destruction skills.  She’s unstuffed a toy, mangled a lawn ornament (Sorry, mom. Did I mention your “granddaughter” did it?) , picked green strawberries and chewed a rubber boot. I feel when I get home the other dogs are more relieved to see me than happy to see me.

But there’s something about 9 p.m.  For the last 2 nights, right at 9 p.m. Sofie starts whimpering and crying and is desperate to be right next to me.  Being near doesn’t count. It has to be right ON me, preferably with the chair back on one side and me on the other.  Oh well, whatever floats her boat.

So, Sofie may be a good fit afterall. She was watching the NHL awards on my computer. Lula LOVES Hockey, so having another hockey fan, specifically DUCKS Fan, is a good thing. Lula’s FAVORITE player, Anaheim Ducks’ Corey Perry,  was awarded the Rocket Richard trophy and the Hart Trophy.  BAHROOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Lula has already told Sofie that Corey Perry is HERS, and Sofie has to pick someone else! Bobby Ryan?? Ryan Getzlaf? George Parros? Teemu?

Lula continues to itch. I put some Lamisil on her tonight.  I don’t know what this is, and neither do her vets! Why is this little girl itching so?

Butters has showed Sofie some of his classic mooching skills.   Lula is still not happy when Sofie gets in her face. So, I make sure to spend some one on one time with Lula and Butters. I love them to bits.

I’m beginning to think the veterans of The Red Dog Inn put  the youngling up to this.  About 9 pm the last two nights, Sofie has a bit of a meltdown, starts whining and looks to me for solace. She settles down when she is firmly ensconced behind me in my chair. She’s right there, spooning, using my hip as a pillow. (I know, I’m fluffy like a pillow, but this is ridiculous.)

As an apology to Lula and Butters, I took each of them on a separate walk this evening. I think they really enjoyed  time apart with me. They never asked to help raise a youngling, but they’re doing really well.  Lula’s having a hard time. Sofie really runs over her, but Lula holds her own. I LOVE THAT HOUND.

And, Sofie is eating and drinking like a champ. I know we’re urinating, and I’ve seen evidence of eliminating. Thankfully the pumpkin is working.

So, the puppy is sleeping behind me. I gotta move because my back hurts. My goal is to get to bed tonight, as opposed to tomorrow morning.  We’ll see who sleeps beside my bed tonight.

This is going to be a short post today, because I’m wiped out!
I fell asleep on the couch last night and woke at 0500 with Sofie at my feet, Butters behind the couch, and Lula left us for the other room.

I was getting worried that Sofie wasn’t eating and hadn’t drank in about 18 hours.  So I thought, let’s go for a quick walk. On our walk she tried to drink from the gutter. I thought — and remember I was a bit groggy — Maybe I need a gutter?

Sure enough, as soon as we walked in the house, she drank. She wasn’t too interested in food, but ate a couple kibble, particularly when she saw that Butters and Lula survived.

Tonight, she ate.

Butters and Lula are doing their best to school Sofie on proper manners. For instance, it’s NOT okay to kiss  them or jump on them when they are getting pets from Mom.

Question: Do I really have the guts to JUST foster or have I just adopted?  This is her 6th move. Is it fair to ask her to adjust again in her young life?  I don’t think so, but we’ll see.

I can see Lula has become a bit Obi Wan Kenobi to the youngling, Sofie.  Sofie came in, looked at MY chair and hopped up in it.  Since then, she’s been carefully selecting furniture to hop onto.

We have a bit of a Garfield-Odie-Nermal vibe going on here. Lula is definitely Garfield. Butters is Odie. (We’ll maybe the anti-Odie. He’s kinda apathetic toward Sofie. She is in his face, and he KNOWS he can’t bite her.) And Sofie is Nermal.

I do have a few concerns about health, but I:

1. am certain some are travel related. This girl had a 150+ mile car ride yesterday to a new place, with new friends, and well, I’m just not so sure it set well with her.
2. am in touch with the folks in the rescue who have handled thousands of dogs over their tenure.

And we had our first accident this morning.  I have broken out the Simple Green (thanks). One stain will be a real challenge for this product. I’ve reviewed it before here. It’s a good thing to have on hand if you have pets.  (And I like that they are a LOCAL company!) Knowing that I will have dogs for the foreseeable future, I think I’m going to need new floor coverings.  The wall-to-wall is so well… impractical.  I like the idea of those cool carpet tiles — The tile gets stained, you simply replace it! (So buy an additional box of tile for this!)  And I also like the idea of something like the look of a a wood floor (I DO live here, too you know. It can’t all be practical.)

But I digress… I talk about home design all week.

We met one set of neighbors. They LOVE her. She wouldn’t even take a chicken strip from Jan.  We’ll she’ll get it! They all laughed when I said, “Sofie’s a foster.”  I’m screwed, aren’t I?

I’ll call Dawn in a bit to see if she can offer insight into helping little girl eat something. She’s been drinking a bit. And romps with Lula on Lizard Hunting Safaris in the yard.

Today, I think we will take our first walk on leash. It’s one thing she “gets”.

Hi! It’s me, Butters! If you haven’t heard yet, my mom brought home a dog. It’s a girl! Dude, I’m surrounded!!! I am thinkin’ about asking the guy next door if he wants to go have a beer and talk sports or somethin’!

About 20 minutes after getting home I got a text from Kirsten, my sister in law’s niece, asking to come over to see the new puppy. Kirsten practically grew up here! She’s lived through Freddie, Woody, Gracie and Finley. (We never had only one dog for very long.)

The lobbying effort to make this foster an adoption kicks into high gear!

As we’re sitting here… we start calling her “Sophie” or “Sofi” or “Sofie”.

I posted on Facebook, and Julia writes, “Use Sofie. It has some gravitas.”

Then I thought, “Hey, Sofia Vergara! That’s why I like that spelling.” So, Ms. Vergara, I hope you don’t mind, but we’re borrowing.

AND WE SHALL CALL HER SOFIE!

Now… what breeds make up Sofie?

Say hello to Sofie!

We picked up the dogs at a place in Pasadena called The Hat, which in my humble SoCal opinion, makes an AWESOME pastrami sandwich!  Go there! Eat there. A word of advice… a small order of fries can FEED a family of 4!!! So we ate — and watched the dogs, and had people ask us about the dogs. In retrospect, I’m really glad some people got to see firsthand what rescue organizations do to save dogs and hear a bit about shelters.

Don’t get me wrong. Shelters do impossibly hard work, but they’re not going to nurture an animal like it would be nurtured in a home. They simply don’t have time or manpower. Essentially, shelters exist to keep animals in a safe place until someone adopts them.  Shelters are doing more than what they were originally put in place to do.  Shelters were there to evaluate animals that were victims of abuse & temporarily hold animals that somehow got out of their yards. They were never intended for people to surrender their pets when it didn’t work out, the owner got lazy and couldn’t keep up with their commitment, or the pet made the mistake of growing old. (Sometimes, people suck!)

Just before leaving, Julia shouts out, “What’s her name?”  I hadn’t a clue!

I was listening to my iPod on the way home, when the King of Cool, Dean Martin, began singing, “Somewhere There’s A Someone For Everyone.” I almost cried when the lyric, “somewhere, there’s a someone for me” was crooned through the speakers. Here, in the back of my car, not knowing where she was going, or what would happen to her when she got there, was an 11-month-old puppy, who’d spent the last month of her life in a shelter and because I stepped up and saw her photo, escaped death.

The parallels between rescuing a canine life and rescuing a soul wasn’t wasted on me.

So, the name will probably be Latin… Good bye, Toffee.   Hello… ??? Oh well, if I don’t have a name by Monday, I’m calling Armando!

We drove up and I let Butters and Lula meet the youngling in the front yard, where we meet a lot of dogs. Butters isn’t fooled. “Why is mom carrying a leash with a NEW dog attached to it?” Lula is cool until the youngling makes her way into the GARAGE.  Then Lula barks at her. I mean, that’s where the KIBBLE stash is kept!  And that’s IMPORTANT!!!

Lula is looking at me I’ve LOST MY EVER LOVIN’ MIND when I let the youngling enter the backyard.  If Butters had a cell phone, he’d be calling his Auntie Tracy to tattle on me.

The youngling is very puppy-like.  She’s up in Butters’ face, kissing him. He IS cute. And then she follows Lula everywhere. The lines of heirarchy are being established among the pack and they’re all cuing off of me.  No one is too upset, so let’s see how this works. For now, it’s looking good.