Looking at your post, Roberta, you had a dog named Timber???
My uncle had a dog named Timber, which made Timber my cousin (that's how I think of him). Loved dat dawg. Don't know if you'll relate to this. Many, many years ago when cigarettes were still advertised on TV, there was a Salem commercial. A young couple was walking through a green field while a gorgeous red-colored golden retriever was romping in the grass. The dog was Timmy.
Sorry to hear that things are not good with your beloved Pacco. Wish there was something I could do or say to help. You're in my thoughts, kid.
Roberta wrote:My uncle had a dog named Timber, which made Timber my cousin (that's how I think of him).
That reminds me of my daughter: when she was in Kindergarten, she
told the teacher of her "brother" Max who is our dog.
Roberta wrote:Many, many years ago when cigarettes were still advertised on TV, there was a Salem commercial. A young couple was walking through a green field while a gorgeous red-colored golden retriever was romping in the grass. The dog was Timmy.
went looking for a pic of Timmy... no dice.
i did find a small blurb
(here) on the commercial --
Quote:Some guy and his wife out in the country with their dog.
I tried to find it too, Reg. Got as far as you did. C'est la vie.
CALVERT, Md. - Toby, a 2-year-old golden retriever, saw his owner choking on a piece of fruit and began jumping up and down on the woman's chest. The dog's owner believes the dog was trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver and saved her life.
Debbie Parkhurst, 45, of Calvert told the Cecil Whig newspaper she was eating an apple at her home Friday when a piece lodged in her throat. She attempted to perform the Heimlich maneuver on herself but it didn't work. After she began beating on her chest, she said Toby noticed and got involved.
"The next think I know, Toby's up on his hind feet and he's got his front paws on my shoulders," she recalled. "He pushed me to the ground, and once I was on my back, he began jumping up and down on my chest."
REST OF STORY
We've just inherited a third dog.
For some time now, I've resisted the urge to adopt various shelter dogs because I knew one would come along I couldn't turn away.
Ellie was almost one a couple of years ago. She came into the shelter with an extremely withdrawn personality. People who didn't know her very well thought her tail might be paralyzed, she held it so low and motionless.
And it may have been, the way things turned out. She looked a lot like our older dog -- an odd mix of heeler, German shepherd, and possibly husky, from the look of things and where he came from (Forks, near the remote tip of the Olympic peninsula of Washington, deep in res country, where all of these breeds are relatively common and virtually never spayed or neutered) -- -- -- so I spent several hours each day over several days trying to get her to come out of her shell. Eventually I got her to accept pets and treats, respond to commands and even wag her tail a little bit.
She was clearly peripherally blind, however, and didn't see the stuff in the middle very well. She also took treats overzealously and clumsily -- like a kitten or puppy with an underdeveloped cerebellum. At one point she accidentally bit a shelter employee offering her a treat who didn't know about her problems. It was only a small scratch, but when Ellie had a seizure a couple of days later she had to be euthanized as a rabies suspect (the only way to obtain a definitive diagnosis is by examining large sections of the brain). It turned out not to be rabies, but she likely had some sort of progressive neurological problem and was probably on her way out anyway.
So that was a near miss. I couldn't have turned Ellie away.
And now there's Sneakers. (That's close enough to her original name, which she didn't appear to recognize when we took her in.) She belonged to an acquaintance of my wife, who works long hours, has a two-year-old, and whose husband (the dog's "person") recently left.
The dog has not been taken care of. She's a 7-year-old Dalmatian mix and is probably about 20-30 pounds overweight. Dangerously fat. All that happened with her at her last home for some time was feeding huge amounts of low-quality dog food and low-quality table scraps, sitting out in the (treeless, flat, suburban tract-house) yard for hours at a stretch, and being yelled at for peeing on the carpet (which, it became clear, she couldn't help).
When we took her in, she didn't respond to her name or to any other sound. The missus thought she might be deaf, but she clearly responded (albeit subtly) to loud noises. Our 2 dogs took pretty well to her, since she made no attempt to be anything but quietly submissive. Which may, of course, have been the major part of her un-animated-ness.
She also drank a lot of water and peed a lot (really, a lot), which made me worry that she might have diabetes, Cushing's disease, chronic kidney disease, or some combination thereof.
I've taken her to the park with the other two dogs a few times, worked with her on name recognition and responsiveness, fed her proper amounts of good food, and given her lots of massage and idle chatter.
And she's really starting to show a personality now. She follows our younger dog (the troublemaker, and about at her level of intelligence and respect for authority -- low -- as Sneakers) around the house, looks for food on the counters with her. She comes when called (though sometimes she needs encouragement, like when she's dug herself into the comforter at the corner of the couch). She doesn't pee nearly as much, which makes me hope that the previous massive amounts were due to her diet, which must have required enormous urinary secretion (electrolytes, protein metabolism by-products, glucose).
Turns out she's actually a pretty cool dog, and looks like she might be a little hellion when she's down to a reasonable weight and her metabolism is normalized.
Our older dog goes in for a big dentistry and perhaps surgical bout on Monday. Poor guy's gone off his feed, but he still wants to disembowel anyone in a lab coat. Can't say I blame him, given what he's been through at the hands of labcoat folk. He doesn't know that he'd have been dead three times over without them.
Almost feel like I should have put this over on the post-timber timber thread. Ah, well, here 'tis.
Reading this, felt like watching animal precinct.
You'll be greatly rewarded for doing all this, patiodog - we vouch for
a window seat in heaven for you, and Sneakers will reward you with her loyalty and unconditional love.
You're a good boy!
hey Dawg, I appreciate your posting this. We often hear about abuse in the form of not enough food. Never thought about overfeeding as another kind of mistreatment.
I'm glad that Sneakers has found a good home.
Well, that won't be fully fixed for months. Meantime, it's just a little positive attention, which she's not really used to.
She's great with little kids, though. She seems to really like them. Hopefully we'll be able to place her with a family with little kids instead of bigger dogs, who she's not really used to running with.
Roberta wrote:hey Dawg, I appreciate your posting this. We often hear about abuse in the form of not enough food. Never thought about overfeeding as another kind of mistreatment.
Our little Cleo, who was abused through neglect, had as her only comfort that they put out just as much food as she wanted to eat. Now, she gets a measured diet, so much food and no more (although occasional and sporadic treates) twice a day. She has gotten in shape, lost weight and gotten good muscle tone thanks to daily exercise. She could hardly get up the stairs when she first came to the house, now she runs up the stairs, and will take a running jump up onto the bed from about four of five feet away. She is a much happier and healthier dog.
Some people, who don't really mean to be cruel, don't take the time to walk their dogs or play with them or show them physical affection. So they compensate with lots of food and table scraps. The only downside of Cleo's relationship with food is that she'll steal if she can (although she's not the accomplished thief that Mr. Bailey is), and she eats poop if you don't keep an eye on her. When i walked her yesterday, she found a piece of bar-b-cue chicken (and knew she was "bad," she dropped it as soon as she saw that i was watching her), an entire doughnut, and half an orange rind. When i walk her, i have to keep an eye on her, because she treats it as a hunting trip.
I like to read it when you talk about your dogs.
They're good people.
Better people than most of the people i know.
so i was minding my business today, when this puppy got all up in my face.
i put up my dukes and said, "dawg, you just better get out my face, if you know what's good for you."
but the pup was in a playful mood, yipping and yelping at me.
i had no choice but to skedaddle, post-haste...
