Doggie Pix!
Sep. 16th, 2018 03:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneFifteen doggie pix, to be precise. Well, fifteen pix of three dogs.
My wife is allergic to dogs. Thus, all of her dogs have been poodles, specifically, purebred standard poodles. When we met online, she was still on her first, Daniel. Sadly, he was rather old and not doing well. He was having trouble eating and maintaining weight. He did not last long after we met. She quickly acquired Celeste from Arizona Poodle Rescue, who has been our source for all of our poodles since. They are an excellent resource for rescue dogs and all of their dogs are spayed or neutered and are chipped. They aren't cheap, but the dogs are healthy and it's a good cause.
ANYWAY, Celeste was given to APR by a breeder. She was a breed dog, AKC papered, but her mate died and afterwards she became rather cantankerous with the other dogs and the breeder just didn't want to put up with that and gave her up. Celeste, or as more properly known by her AKC name, Princess Dark Star, or Princess, was rapidly renamed. We will not own a dog named Princess.
Celeste was as black as the night, a very nice dog but didn't care much for little kids. She liked to wander around the neighborhood when it came to taking care of biological needs: she'd go to the front door and bark, we'd let her out, when she returned she'd bark and we'd let her back in. Worked pretty well.
She passed in late April of 2012, I don't remember exactly when we acquired her, but it was before we married, which was 2005, and we met 18 months before then, so it had to be in '04.
We wanted to have some time off without a dog before getting our next, and it worked well because we did a 7,000 mile, 7 week drive that year: up to Colorado, across to Maine, down to DC, back across and up to Milwaukee, back home via Chicago, Omaha, and Denver. Absolutely awesome trip.
And we acquired Dante, as seen here!
Two things about the photos. First, all are Click To Embiggen. Second, some, I don't know why, are not correctly rotated. If you click to embiggen 'em, they are correctly oriented. I have no idea what's up with them. *sigh*
EDIT: Turns out they were rotating in preview, but not when I posted. EXCEPT FOR ONE. Weird. I think I'll open a ticket, but I'll also try some CSS. Also provided correct attribution to three photos.
The story and photos continue under the cut. All photos by me, except where noted.
Dante was, as previously stated, also acquired from Arizona Poodle Rescue shortly after we came back from our 7,000 mile trip, probably in July. In Phoenix. My wife's favorite time of the year to go to Phoenix.[/s] I don't recall if he's AKC registered, but he is a purebred standard poodle, and his original name was Puppy. We WILL NOT own a dog named Puppy. Dante is an excellent boy, and MAN, can he bark! I have a decibel meter app for my iPhone, no telling how accurate it is, and according to it, when he's in the yard and barking at a right angle to me, he can do 95 decibels!
And now the story takes a sad note, but not something happening to Dante. Jump to 2016.
Meet Rupert:
(Photo by Terry)
Rupert is a completely awesome Blue Tick Hound, rescued by my friends in Omaha, Terry and Deb, from a horrible situation which I will not dive in to. I knew Terry and Deb from Phoenix. He had a condo in the same complex as mine, Deb was married to his best friend. Best friend died of cancer, she went in to a bad spiral and disappeared. Terry got a job with Mutual of Omaha and moved to said city. Deb reappeared at her mother's in Illinois and was pulling herself together. Terry started driving back and forth on the weekend and eventually they ended up engaged. I was Best Man at their wedding, if I recall correctly, that was on a Saturday, on Sunday we packed her in to a moving van and station wagon, and Monday drove her back to Omaha.
Deb has always had problems. Her dad was diagnosed schizophrenic, she inherited it. I don't know what all her problems were, but she had a lot. And she worked on them pretty diligently.
Terry is a cat person, has been as long as I knew them. I don't know the exact circumstances of them rescuing Rupert, but he became Deb's dog. Terry's house is within walking distance of his work, and Deb was effectively a housewife. She cooked, worked on art projects, worked on therapy, played with the dogs and cats, Terry came home for lunch, etc.
And then two years ago in the middle of the night she died. Nothing wrong with her medically. Autopsy later ruled cause of death as a toxic drug interaction. Terry had been complaining for years that she was over-medicated. And it finally killed her.
And the worst thing is that she was really making progress with her problems. Rupert was helping, she was happy. And then she was dead.
It just flat-out wrecked Terry. It took me a few days to arrange things for me to drive up there, and it's a two day drive from here. I stayed about 10 days, after his sister and the others had left. I wanted to stay longer, but we both had to get back to work, and she'd been cremated and had her memorial service at the church and there wasn't much left to do.
Naturally, Fate had to kick Terry a few more times while he was down. Pretty much simultaneously, his dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer massively spread through his body. His parents are in their 90s and live in a small town about 90 minutes east of the Phoenix metro area. Conveniently Terry's sister and B-I-L live in Mesa (east Phoenix), and Mutual of Omaha has offices with IT positions in Phoenix, so he was able to transfer to Phoenix and stay with his sister.
Which left what to do with Rupert.
Sister didn't have much of a back yard, if any, and couldn't take the dog. So we volunteered. It was agreed to be temporary but with dibs as us for a permanent placement. Terry drops off Rupert, and Rupert and Dante get together like a proverbial house on fire, which we that is a phrase representing two things that get along well, I don't know. How about hot fudge and ice cream? That works for me. They're romping and wrestling and having tremendous fun, all the proverbial live long day.
Meanwhile Terry is living with his sister in Mesa, working in Phoenix, and driving out every weekend spending time with his parents and doing things around the house.
Eventually Terry is able to arrange for his brother to take care of Rupert. Said brother lives on the far west side of town near Luke Air Force Base. So we lose Rupert after having had him for a few months, and Dante is once again sole king of all he surveys and our affections.
Things seem to be going pretty well for Terry, his dad is doing remarkably well: they've discovered that the cancer responds to a drug used to help the prostate! So while it's not in remission and it's inoperable, he's not really suffering from it and it's not spreading further. Can't ask for a much better result.
Time jump to June 2017. My wife gets a bonus and decides she wants another dog. I wasn't too keen on the idea, but it was her bonus and I will not say her nay. As it happened, Arizona Poodle Rescue had a bit of a problem. They had helped law enforcement shut down an absolutely terrible puppy mill operation, and in doing so, incurred a few tens of thousands of dollars in vet bills. They were looking for donations or adoptions, anything, to help out. She found that they had a young black male poodle available: Charlie. And she fell in love. So we drove to Phoenix.
Here's Dante looking out the back window of my Subaru, seeing his lone dog status disappear:
Russet was driving and I just happened to notice that the seat back height was perfect for him to rest his head while standing and watch the scenery. With the exception of Daniel, all of our dogs are wonderful travelers: they might be a little problematic initially or at Border Patrol check points or in deer/elk areas, but for the most part they're quiet and no problem. And as I've said many times, I always try to have my Lumix in my pocket when I leave the house. I absolutely love these two images, they're just quintessential 'good boy' Dante. And that was probably the last time that he had the back seat to himself.
We get to Phoenix, and it is a scorcher, even for Phoenix. When we go out to meet Charlie at a pet store in Scottsdale, I pull up directly in front of the store so Russet and Dante don't have to go across the hot asphalt to get in. Russet finds Charlie and his foster parent and immediately falls in love. Charlie and Dante seem to play well together. Obviously it's a done deal.
This is Charlie (in front) and Dante in the pet store, taken with my iPhone, IIRC. I have to admit that I did really like Charlie's haircut. He hasn't looked that good since. :-)
Charlie, or as the AKC knows him, Desert Oasis Charlie Brown - I kid you not - has an amazing pedigree. And if he had a spirit animal, it would be Tigger. He's a definite poinger. He also isn't much of a barker, but he is picking that up. He also is of nigh boundless energy: more on the energy and barking later....
Charlie and Dante at my parent's house after he joined our family:
Charlie at our house: he's quite a fan of hauling this pillow around. And as previously stated, a shoe fetishist, mostly for my wife's shoes.
We had Charlie for not much more than a month or so when Fate decides it's not done with Terry and Rupert: time for another kick: his brother dies. He was in his 60s and had lived a hard life of unrelenting partying and had basically fried his liver and kidneys, a rapid-onset cancer did him in fast. He lived pretty much alone and what family he had didn't want or couldn't care for Rupert, so back he came to Cloudcroft.
Here's a couple of shots that I made at White Sands. Terry hadn't been there in a long time, and neither of us had gotten to do a long photo shoot in quite a while. It also was a chance to let Rupert off his leash and let him run. He had a huge amount of fun, and when he got too hot, he ran away back towards the car. When we got back to my car, he was lying in the shade, waiting for us.
Rupert is a bit of a challenge to my wife's allergies, but he is a lovely dog in temperament and gorgeous in appearance, she takes an allergy pill now and again and things seem OK. We always got compliments on the poodles when we took them out, now that we have Rupert it's always gushing over the hound.
I took this at my parent's house that winter after pulling the blanket over him and seeing him sit up, pity I didn't notice that I lacked focus lock.
Now when we travel, we're too big with three dogs to use my Crosstrek. Two poodles, no problem. But throwing in Rupert, that's over 170 pounds of dogs and they just don't fit in the back seat well. My wife's Outback, on the other hand, now becomes valuable for being oversized. We didn't appreciate them overinflating the body when we bought it 8 years ago, little did we know then how our family would grow!
When we leave Phoenix to return home, this is what the car's way back looks like. The small suitcase contains only my medical supplies including my infusion equipment, then my backpack for my laptop and some of my camera gear, and finally the ice chest full of Trader Joe's and other place's goodies. The gym-type bag in the foreground is stuffed full of board games.
And this is what the back seat is with the dogs loaded in. Cooler in the right footwell, usually Russet's computer bag and leashes in the left, sometimes some munchies in the middle.
Here we have Dante and Rupert sharing some nap time on the couch. Sometimes it's Rupert and Charlie, or Rupert and Dante. On occasion it's all three.
And here we have the ever popular "The woman is asleep, the man is up, let's take over the bed!" Charlie and Dante on the bed, Russet under the comforter. Shot this yesterday morning.
And FINALLY, three dogs connected to a bicycle! Well, the shadows of three dogs connected to a bicycle.
Russet took this at White Sands, she liked the shadow effect. And I quite agree. I think, from left to right, that's Charlie, Dante, Russet, and Rupert. I'm unsure about the first two, quite certain about the last two.
(photo by Russet)
So I lied. This is photo #16. I couldn't find it in my stash, Russet had it on her phone and she woke up while I was writing everything else for this post. This is the two dog configuration of the previous photo that she used when we temporarily had Rupert and before we got Charlie. This was probably Fall '16 as Dante definitely has his winter coat, but there's no snow on the ground, so I'd guess November. I don't remember how much snow we got that year or when. This was shot at the parking lot at Apache Point Observatory from near the main entrance. The building directly behind her is the machine shop, to the left is an office block, behind the photographer (which is a co-worker, not me) is the admin/operations building that has the control rooms for all of the telescopes. The 3.5 meter telescope is directly physically connected to this building via an arcade. The other three domes would be to the right of the camera.
The current configuration of the bike we have a fairly hard rubber tie down (it has some give) about 2' long with a carabiner clip on each end. Normally Charlie is in-board to Russet and the Walkie Dog is attached to his harness and the carabiner is then also attached to both Dante's and Charlie's harnesses.
And I have no idea how this image ended up inverted. If you click on it to zoom it, it displays correctly. *SIGH* I found some CSS that'll fix it, I'm going to bed and will mess with the code tomorrow to see if I can make it display correctly.
(photo by Gordon, Apache Point Sloan astronomer)
The Walkie Dog is a metal cylinder with a loop on one end that you can attach a bungie with a carabiner to the dog, the other end attaches to a bracket that is permanently mounted to the bike seat post. The coupler is like an air compressor attachment, if you're familiar with that. VERY easy to put on and off. Russet has no problem dealing with all three dogs by herself. We've had to replace one Walkie Dog in the course of about three years when the internal bungie broke. We tried repairs and were partially successful, but long-term it just didn't hold up.
I mentioned talking later about Charlie barking and power. Rupert is the youngest of the three at about 3 y/o, Dante is the old man at a bit over 7, Charlie is somewhere inbetween. And he's a dynamo. Keep in mind that when she's up here, most of the trails are at between 9-10,000'. They're all working pretty hard, and sometimes Dante and even Rupert might be dragging a bit when she turns around and starts heading back to the car. She'll start exhorting with "Come on!" and Charlie takes off like a bolt! It is really something, he never seems to be lacking for energy.
When we got Charlie, he would join my parent's chihouligans (99% of all chihuahuas are insane and should be used for field goal practice) at barking at the doorbell, but we (A) don't have a doorbell up here, and (B) pretty much never get anyone knocking on the door, so he didn't bark much when we got him. Then Rupert returned, and he didn't know the history between Rupert and Dante. Charlie and Dante didn't play much together, Charlie just didn't understand the concept of roughhousing with other dogs, and when he sees Dante and Rupert at play, he thinks they're fighting and wants to play sheriff and bark at them and get them to stop. Now he's beginning to figure out that when Dante, with or without Rupert, starts barking and running out to and through the dog door in to the back yard, there might be something interesting out there. But he's afraid of running down the steps - he's a bit of a coward, especially at night. Or he doesn't like the back yard, it's got dog poop in it. So he'll bark. But it's kind of tentative, he's not really putting his all in to it, which I'm kind of thankful for. We'll see how it develops over time.
So those are our boys. In 50 words or less. ;-)
My wife is allergic to dogs. Thus, all of her dogs have been poodles, specifically, purebred standard poodles. When we met online, she was still on her first, Daniel. Sadly, he was rather old and not doing well. He was having trouble eating and maintaining weight. He did not last long after we met. She quickly acquired Celeste from Arizona Poodle Rescue, who has been our source for all of our poodles since. They are an excellent resource for rescue dogs and all of their dogs are spayed or neutered and are chipped. They aren't cheap, but the dogs are healthy and it's a good cause.
ANYWAY, Celeste was given to APR by a breeder. She was a breed dog, AKC papered, but her mate died and afterwards she became rather cantankerous with the other dogs and the breeder just didn't want to put up with that and gave her up. Celeste, or as more properly known by her AKC name, Princess Dark Star, or Princess, was rapidly renamed. We will not own a dog named Princess.
Celeste was as black as the night, a very nice dog but didn't care much for little kids. She liked to wander around the neighborhood when it came to taking care of biological needs: she'd go to the front door and bark, we'd let her out, when she returned she'd bark and we'd let her back in. Worked pretty well.
She passed in late April of 2012, I don't remember exactly when we acquired her, but it was before we married, which was 2005, and we met 18 months before then, so it had to be in '04.
We wanted to have some time off without a dog before getting our next, and it worked well because we did a 7,000 mile, 7 week drive that year: up to Colorado, across to Maine, down to DC, back across and up to Milwaukee, back home via Chicago, Omaha, and Denver. Absolutely awesome trip.
And we acquired Dante, as seen here!
Two things about the photos. First, all are Click To Embiggen. Second, some, I don't know why, are not correctly rotated. If you click to embiggen 'em, they are correctly oriented. I have no idea what's up with them. *sigh*
EDIT: Turns out they were rotating in preview, but not when I posted. EXCEPT FOR ONE. Weird. I think I'll open a ticket, but I'll also try some CSS. Also provided correct attribution to three photos.
The story and photos continue under the cut. All photos by me, except where noted.
Dante was, as previously stated, also acquired from Arizona Poodle Rescue shortly after we came back from our 7,000 mile trip, probably in July. In Phoenix. My wife's favorite time of the year to go to Phoenix.[/s] I don't recall if he's AKC registered, but he is a purebred standard poodle, and his original name was Puppy. We WILL NOT own a dog named Puppy. Dante is an excellent boy, and MAN, can he bark! I have a decibel meter app for my iPhone, no telling how accurate it is, and according to it, when he's in the yard and barking at a right angle to me, he can do 95 decibels!
And now the story takes a sad note, but not something happening to Dante. Jump to 2016.
Meet Rupert:
(Photo by Terry)
Rupert is a completely awesome Blue Tick Hound, rescued by my friends in Omaha, Terry and Deb, from a horrible situation which I will not dive in to. I knew Terry and Deb from Phoenix. He had a condo in the same complex as mine, Deb was married to his best friend. Best friend died of cancer, she went in to a bad spiral and disappeared. Terry got a job with Mutual of Omaha and moved to said city. Deb reappeared at her mother's in Illinois and was pulling herself together. Terry started driving back and forth on the weekend and eventually they ended up engaged. I was Best Man at their wedding, if I recall correctly, that was on a Saturday, on Sunday we packed her in to a moving van and station wagon, and Monday drove her back to Omaha.
Deb has always had problems. Her dad was diagnosed schizophrenic, she inherited it. I don't know what all her problems were, but she had a lot. And she worked on them pretty diligently.
Terry is a cat person, has been as long as I knew them. I don't know the exact circumstances of them rescuing Rupert, but he became Deb's dog. Terry's house is within walking distance of his work, and Deb was effectively a housewife. She cooked, worked on art projects, worked on therapy, played with the dogs and cats, Terry came home for lunch, etc.
And then two years ago in the middle of the night she died. Nothing wrong with her medically. Autopsy later ruled cause of death as a toxic drug interaction. Terry had been complaining for years that she was over-medicated. And it finally killed her.
And the worst thing is that she was really making progress with her problems. Rupert was helping, she was happy. And then she was dead.
It just flat-out wrecked Terry. It took me a few days to arrange things for me to drive up there, and it's a two day drive from here. I stayed about 10 days, after his sister and the others had left. I wanted to stay longer, but we both had to get back to work, and she'd been cremated and had her memorial service at the church and there wasn't much left to do.
Naturally, Fate had to kick Terry a few more times while he was down. Pretty much simultaneously, his dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer massively spread through his body. His parents are in their 90s and live in a small town about 90 minutes east of the Phoenix metro area. Conveniently Terry's sister and B-I-L live in Mesa (east Phoenix), and Mutual of Omaha has offices with IT positions in Phoenix, so he was able to transfer to Phoenix and stay with his sister.
Which left what to do with Rupert.
Sister didn't have much of a back yard, if any, and couldn't take the dog. So we volunteered. It was agreed to be temporary but with dibs as us for a permanent placement. Terry drops off Rupert, and Rupert and Dante get together like a proverbial house on fire, which we that is a phrase representing two things that get along well, I don't know. How about hot fudge and ice cream? That works for me. They're romping and wrestling and having tremendous fun, all the proverbial live long day.
Meanwhile Terry is living with his sister in Mesa, working in Phoenix, and driving out every weekend spending time with his parents and doing things around the house.
Eventually Terry is able to arrange for his brother to take care of Rupert. Said brother lives on the far west side of town near Luke Air Force Base. So we lose Rupert after having had him for a few months, and Dante is once again sole king of all he surveys and our affections.
Things seem to be going pretty well for Terry, his dad is doing remarkably well: they've discovered that the cancer responds to a drug used to help the prostate! So while it's not in remission and it's inoperable, he's not really suffering from it and it's not spreading further. Can't ask for a much better result.
Time jump to June 2017. My wife gets a bonus and decides she wants another dog. I wasn't too keen on the idea, but it was her bonus and I will not say her nay. As it happened, Arizona Poodle Rescue had a bit of a problem. They had helped law enforcement shut down an absolutely terrible puppy mill operation, and in doing so, incurred a few tens of thousands of dollars in vet bills. They were looking for donations or adoptions, anything, to help out. She found that they had a young black male poodle available: Charlie. And she fell in love. So we drove to Phoenix.
Here's Dante looking out the back window of my Subaru, seeing his lone dog status disappear:
Russet was driving and I just happened to notice that the seat back height was perfect for him to rest his head while standing and watch the scenery. With the exception of Daniel, all of our dogs are wonderful travelers: they might be a little problematic initially or at Border Patrol check points or in deer/elk areas, but for the most part they're quiet and no problem. And as I've said many times, I always try to have my Lumix in my pocket when I leave the house. I absolutely love these two images, they're just quintessential 'good boy' Dante. And that was probably the last time that he had the back seat to himself.
We get to Phoenix, and it is a scorcher, even for Phoenix. When we go out to meet Charlie at a pet store in Scottsdale, I pull up directly in front of the store so Russet and Dante don't have to go across the hot asphalt to get in. Russet finds Charlie and his foster parent and immediately falls in love. Charlie and Dante seem to play well together. Obviously it's a done deal.
This is Charlie (in front) and Dante in the pet store, taken with my iPhone, IIRC. I have to admit that I did really like Charlie's haircut. He hasn't looked that good since. :-)
Charlie, or as the AKC knows him, Desert Oasis Charlie Brown - I kid you not - has an amazing pedigree. And if he had a spirit animal, it would be Tigger. He's a definite poinger. He also isn't much of a barker, but he is picking that up. He also is of nigh boundless energy: more on the energy and barking later....
Charlie and Dante at my parent's house after he joined our family:
Charlie at our house: he's quite a fan of hauling this pillow around. And as previously stated, a shoe fetishist, mostly for my wife's shoes.
We had Charlie for not much more than a month or so when Fate decides it's not done with Terry and Rupert: time for another kick: his brother dies. He was in his 60s and had lived a hard life of unrelenting partying and had basically fried his liver and kidneys, a rapid-onset cancer did him in fast. He lived pretty much alone and what family he had didn't want or couldn't care for Rupert, so back he came to Cloudcroft.
Here's a couple of shots that I made at White Sands. Terry hadn't been there in a long time, and neither of us had gotten to do a long photo shoot in quite a while. It also was a chance to let Rupert off his leash and let him run. He had a huge amount of fun, and when he got too hot, he ran away back towards the car. When we got back to my car, he was lying in the shade, waiting for us.
Rupert is a bit of a challenge to my wife's allergies, but he is a lovely dog in temperament and gorgeous in appearance, she takes an allergy pill now and again and things seem OK. We always got compliments on the poodles when we took them out, now that we have Rupert it's always gushing over the hound.
I took this at my parent's house that winter after pulling the blanket over him and seeing him sit up, pity I didn't notice that I lacked focus lock.
Now when we travel, we're too big with three dogs to use my Crosstrek. Two poodles, no problem. But throwing in Rupert, that's over 170 pounds of dogs and they just don't fit in the back seat well. My wife's Outback, on the other hand, now becomes valuable for being oversized. We didn't appreciate them overinflating the body when we bought it 8 years ago, little did we know then how our family would grow!
When we leave Phoenix to return home, this is what the car's way back looks like. The small suitcase contains only my medical supplies including my infusion equipment, then my backpack for my laptop and some of my camera gear, and finally the ice chest full of Trader Joe's and other place's goodies. The gym-type bag in the foreground is stuffed full of board games.
And this is what the back seat is with the dogs loaded in. Cooler in the right footwell, usually Russet's computer bag and leashes in the left, sometimes some munchies in the middle.
Here we have Dante and Rupert sharing some nap time on the couch. Sometimes it's Rupert and Charlie, or Rupert and Dante. On occasion it's all three.
And here we have the ever popular "The woman is asleep, the man is up, let's take over the bed!" Charlie and Dante on the bed, Russet under the comforter. Shot this yesterday morning.
And FINALLY, three dogs connected to a bicycle! Well, the shadows of three dogs connected to a bicycle.
Russet took this at White Sands, she liked the shadow effect. And I quite agree. I think, from left to right, that's Charlie, Dante, Russet, and Rupert. I'm unsure about the first two, quite certain about the last two.
(photo by Russet)
So I lied. This is photo #16. I couldn't find it in my stash, Russet had it on her phone and she woke up while I was writing everything else for this post. This is the two dog configuration of the previous photo that she used when we temporarily had Rupert and before we got Charlie. This was probably Fall '16 as Dante definitely has his winter coat, but there's no snow on the ground, so I'd guess November. I don't remember how much snow we got that year or when. This was shot at the parking lot at Apache Point Observatory from near the main entrance. The building directly behind her is the machine shop, to the left is an office block, behind the photographer (which is a co-worker, not me) is the admin/operations building that has the control rooms for all of the telescopes. The 3.5 meter telescope is directly physically connected to this building via an arcade. The other three domes would be to the right of the camera.
The current configuration of the bike we have a fairly hard rubber tie down (it has some give) about 2' long with a carabiner clip on each end. Normally Charlie is in-board to Russet and the Walkie Dog is attached to his harness and the carabiner is then also attached to both Dante's and Charlie's harnesses.
And I have no idea how this image ended up inverted. If you click on it to zoom it, it displays correctly. *SIGH* I found some CSS that'll fix it, I'm going to bed and will mess with the code tomorrow to see if I can make it display correctly.
(photo by Gordon, Apache Point Sloan astronomer)
The Walkie Dog is a metal cylinder with a loop on one end that you can attach a bungie with a carabiner to the dog, the other end attaches to a bracket that is permanently mounted to the bike seat post. The coupler is like an air compressor attachment, if you're familiar with that. VERY easy to put on and off. Russet has no problem dealing with all three dogs by herself. We've had to replace one Walkie Dog in the course of about three years when the internal bungie broke. We tried repairs and were partially successful, but long-term it just didn't hold up.
I mentioned talking later about Charlie barking and power. Rupert is the youngest of the three at about 3 y/o, Dante is the old man at a bit over 7, Charlie is somewhere inbetween. And he's a dynamo. Keep in mind that when she's up here, most of the trails are at between 9-10,000'. They're all working pretty hard, and sometimes Dante and even Rupert might be dragging a bit when she turns around and starts heading back to the car. She'll start exhorting with "Come on!" and Charlie takes off like a bolt! It is really something, he never seems to be lacking for energy.
When we got Charlie, he would join my parent's chihouligans (99% of all chihuahuas are insane and should be used for field goal practice) at barking at the doorbell, but we (A) don't have a doorbell up here, and (B) pretty much never get anyone knocking on the door, so he didn't bark much when we got him. Then Rupert returned, and he didn't know the history between Rupert and Dante. Charlie and Dante didn't play much together, Charlie just didn't understand the concept of roughhousing with other dogs, and when he sees Dante and Rupert at play, he thinks they're fighting and wants to play sheriff and bark at them and get them to stop. Now he's beginning to figure out that when Dante, with or without Rupert, starts barking and running out to and through the dog door in to the back yard, there might be something interesting out there. But he's afraid of running down the steps - he's a bit of a coward, especially at night. Or he doesn't like the back yard, it's got dog poop in it. So he'll bark. But it's kind of tentative, he's not really putting his all in to it, which I'm kind of thankful for. We'll see how it develops over time.
So those are our boys. In 50 words or less. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2018-09-17 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-17 03:56 am (UTC)Very good doggers! (mostly) :-)
no subject
Date: 2018-09-17 02:16 pm (UTC)