Tail?Talk
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[I believe I've finally figured out the difference between how we raise our animals and the way everyone else raises theirs. We treat our animals as if they are people while others are satisfied with dogs that are dogs. Our dogs line up in front of me after we eat dinner and eat their treats off the fork. I've found it saves fingertips and everyone knows when it's their turn (and don't you dare get out of order because anyone that thinks animals can't count doesn't hand feed treats). Our first white Shepherd, Wolffie, was never satisfied doing things the way normal dogs did and if I said it once I said it a thousand times, he didn't know he was a dog. He was a king shepherd and when he stood on his hind legs he would look my husband in the eye and yet he hid behind me whenever the vet walked in the room.
In Wolffie's world if he couldn't see you then you couldn't see him, which was impossible at 112 pounds of pure white fluff. He was the most magnificent animal I've ever encountered, and I'm not alone in my assessment of his beauty, and his sheer size could stop the most hardened criminal in his tracks because the timbre of that shepherd bark in no way belied the fact that inside that body was the biggest weenie that ever walked the face of the earth. But Wolffie was a love monkey like no other. His body hugs left you feeling as if you had been touched by God. You just knew you were in the presence of one of God's special creatures whenever he was in the room, and I was blessed to have him in my life for seven years. It is a blessing I am especially grateful for and will never forget. Wolffie liked to sit on his haunches with his front legs on the table while we ate dinner, just like he was one of us.
When he went outside if we weren't at the door to let him back in he didn't bark like most dogs, he would knock on the door. He would lift his paw so it hit the door with a force hard enough to sound like a knock, and he did it in succession, fast enough that you really couldn't tell who was at the door except the back yard was fenced and no one was going to climb in with the white king shepherd and knock on our back door, so I always knew who came a knocking. Over the years, even though Wolffie crossed the rainbow bridge in 2004, our other bubs understood this was a very effective way of getting back into the house so they continued the habit of knocking to get in. Even our cats have learned how to knock, although their little paws are not nearly as effective at getting the point across so they've learned that if you pull at the weather stripping the noise that makes will get us up out of our chairs and to the door in almost record time, much faster than knocking ever did. But I digress. This past weekend we found that the talents bestowed on our animals by Wolffie's ingenuity continues to serve them well. My husband's niece, her husband and their almost year old shelter puppy Mya visited over the weekend. Saturday morning while Tim was showing the kids how he feeds the farm animals in the barn two of our dogs must have kicked up a deer because when they walked out of the barn our dogs were nowhere to be found. Now I am not an early riser on a good day and after a week of cleaning the house so company won't see how we really live I'm still sound asleep inside, toasty warm and oblivious to the missing canines. After an hour of searching and no sight of them Tim woke me up and told me the news. I immediately contacted the shelter in case they were notified of any sightings, and I put the information out on FidoFinder.com.
FidoFinder.com is a website where you can register your animals, add their photos, and if they go missing you can add an alert. The more information you have out there early the better the chance you have of finding your pet, and I can't stress this enough, tell everyone you know, especially your neighbors because they will probably be instrumental in getting your love monkeys back. While I worked inside Tim told our neighbors about the dogs, then he went by car and by 4-wheeler everywhere he could think of to find them. It was getting later and later, and by now three hours had passed, when the phone rang. It was a neighbor from up the road and she said she had our dogs. Now remember, we live out in the middle of nowhere on a 1-1/2 lane chat road. She was sitting at her kitchen table when she heard a knock at her door. Odd, she thought, since she didn't hear any one drive up their lane. When she opened her door imagine her surprise to see Action Jackson and Zoeybean sitting on her back porch, looking up her. Since she has dogs of her own she put them in her garage and called another neighbor that Tim had notified immediately of the wayward pair, who in turn put her in contact with us. And just like that all was well again. So just remember, when you're making preparations so your animals are protected should they get lost, it could be those inconsequential little mannerisms like learning to knock on the door that will be their saving grace in an emergency. And don't worry about treating your animals like people rather than animals. It could be they use those skills in ways and at times you couldn't imagine in your wildest dreams. You just have to trust that when you live with love it all works out in the long run. And never forget, it is only through you that the Randolph County Humane Society continues to save lives, one by one.
March 13th is St. Patty's for Pets, the annual Randolph County Humane Society fundraiser at the Sparta VFW. Don't miss out on your chance to bid on a gift certificate for a very special ½ hour personal reading with the world famous pet psychic, Sonya Fitzpatrick of Animal Planet television fame, and all the other wonderful items that will be available only if you attend that evening for a wonderful evening of fun! Call the shelter for details at 618-443-3363 and to make reservations.