The Turkey Chaser strikes again!

I finally had the opportunity and presence of mind to get my phone ready to videotape Todd chase turkeys.  I was about to go outside and put away some firewood when I saw two of them at the back of the garden and another half-dozen in the back left corner of the backyard.

I apologize ahead of time for the fact that you can't really see the turkeys fly away.  If there's a zoom on this thing, I didn't know where it was when I needed it.  As the camera pans to the left, you can see one of them start to take flight but there's at least 6 more ahead of him flying towards the trees on the left.  The dark background of the trees is why you can't see them, but some are a good 20 feet off the ground flying all the way to the trees at the back of the field.

He loves to chase them, as long as he knows it's okay and he'll stop when you tell him to if necessary.  But as you can see in this clip, he doesn't have to see them to chase them.  He takes off around the right side of the garden when the turkeys are elsewhere.  And he wasn't as aggressive in his pursuit this time as usual, and you'll see why at the end of the clip.  Hope you enjoy this nonetheless.

A Day of Sightseeing

Shel and I had originally planned on going sightseeing on Saturday, since the weather report was great for the whole weekend; but then the weather report seemed to show Saturday might be iffy, we were missing my cousin's daughter's graduation party and we could use a day to chill first.  So we decided we would do our sightseeing on Sunday and that decision was rewarded with perfect weather -- in Maine that means sunny, in the high 70s and very little humidity.
We wanted to get out and enjoy the outdoors and also be able to take our furry, four-legged friend with us.  So we chose to go to Fort Knox, Maine, to look around the fort and also for me to ride up to the observation tower of the new Penobscot Narrows cable stay bridge near Bucksport.

Observation deck at the top of one of the towers holding up the new bridge

Todd and me at the entrance to Fort Knox

The photos taken from the tower were taken by yours truly, the rest were taken by Shel, who got tired of taking photos.  So I have none to share with you from the second half of our trip, which was to take her around some of the cute coastal towns I'd been working in lately, show her some of the great views of Penobscot Bay and visit Holbrook Island Sanctuary, a small state park in Brooksville, ME.  I do agree though, how many photos of the beautiful coast of Maine can you share without getting boring.
All three of us had a very good time, one of the highlights being to grab lunch at a little seasonal stand called Bagaduce Lunch, which is located on the town line between Penobscot and Brooksville, overlooking an inlet of Penobscot Bay that becomes a little river separating the two towns.  I do wish we had snapped a shot there.  I had the obligatory and expensive (10 bucks) lobster roll and Shel had the haddock sandwich, which was basically a whole haddock between two buns.  Great stuff!
If you would like to see the remainder of the photos we took and I encourage you to do so, you can see them at the following link.  They include photos I took from the observation tower and those that Shel took of the fort and the area around the bridge, including this one:

Old and new bridges, looking from Fort Knox toward Verona Island

Oh, the Maine Park Service has this little booklet that's free that has a page for every state park, where you can add your attendance stamp.  We crossed off two this day and plan on trying to visit many of the others.  Maybe we'll share more photos later.  Please let me know in the comments if you cannot access the rest of the photos.  They're at Facebook but my account is open.  You should be able to see them.

The (mis)Adventures of Todd

Intro:

Hopefully you're well acquainted with our little friend because knowing him adds so much to the stories. If not, suffice to say the moniker I've given him of "criminally cute" very much applies. Great dog...couldn't ask for a better temperament or obedience.

It does also add to the stories if you know I didn't want this dog. When we got him over three years ago, I didn't want a dog at all but certainly not a small dog. I'm glad I was wrong.

I'm not as graceful as I look:

We have our little morning routine -- I get up and make a cup of coffee; he comes running downstairs and waits for me to take him out to do his business. One morning a couple of weeks ago I was up around 6:00 and I was trying to be quiet so that he wouldn't come down (it's not so much the coming down; it's the going back up afterwards and waking Shel). He must have been asleep until just before I turned the knob to the basement door because, as I turned the knob, I heard him jump off the bed upstairs and come running -- faster than usual. I heard his nails on the hallway hardwood as he was navigating the 90 degree turn out of the bedroom to the staircase and it was shortly after that I heard a horrible sound. Somehow in his haste not to miss me going out he lost control quite near the top of the stairs and crashed all the way down. It was a sickening sound. By the time I realized what had happened and started toward the bottom of the stairs, he was halfway to me in the kitchen, walking almost sideways and then falling over and struggling back up.

Well, if you've ever been around an animal that's had a head injury like I have, you wouldn't have liked what you saw. I won't describe it in any detail but I was scared and worried as he progressively got worse for a minute or two. Not wanting to wake Shel yet and still unsure how bad he was, and knowing he'd have to relieve himself, I thought it best to carry him down the basement steps and outside. By the time I got him down there and set him down outside he'd improved greatly and continued to improve as he wobbled down the hill in the backyard, did his business and then trotted back up looking for his treat.

It's pretty obvious he had a mild concussion but it took a couple of agonizing minutes to know that's all it was. It's amazing he didn't break anything. Once that night he did something that made me think he was sore but that's it. This is a dog that almost never barks. Once in a while he'll get himself worked up over something and hyperventilate for a bit. He did that night and let out a little yip, which told me his ribs were probably sore. Other than that, he's as good as ever.

I like Vaseline:

Last Friday night Shel and I are in the living room, and we noticed that Todd wasn't with us, which is unusual...he likes people, A LOT. But he'll do that on occasion. If he's tired, he'll go upstairs to bed or if all his toys are upstairs, he'll go up on the bed and chew on them. Very rarely though is he doing something he shouldn't. Shel went upstairs for something and then I heard her talking to Todd in this very disappointed and surprised tone. So I went up to see what was going on. He had gotten into her overnight bag and found a little plastic travel jar of Vaseline, gotten the cover off and ate its contents. Shel said it had been pretty much full.

Well, what do you do if your dog has eaten a couple ounces of Vaseline? Wait (and forget), which is why the story gets funnier.

Interlude to the story is that Shel's not the disciplinarian and, despite the fact I take care of him, I'm chopped liver if he'd have to choose between us. So later that night after Shel went to bed, I was surprised to notice him lying on the floor at the foot of the stairs. I thought he'd gone up with her. I asked him why he wasn't with momma and he just had this sad look on his face. I carried him up and put him on the bed between us, and he inches over to Shel with his ears down as permissive as you could ever be, waiting for affirmation that she wasn't still mad at him. It was just hysterical to see after such a mild scolding but "she's all that" to that dog.

So the next day we have to go to Lexie and Natalie's first birthday party, and we thought it'd just be too crowded to take him with us. Shel had left a couple hours before I did to help set up the party. Just before I'm about to leave and put him in his crate, I sent him down the hill in the backyard hoping he had some business to do (of course forgetting what he'd eaten the night before). You don't want the details but suffice to say I looked down to see if he was done and there were two large brown puddles in the snow and his whole skirt was covered.

So here I am: All dressed to go to my grand daughters' birthday party and I have a dog whose whole backside is covered in muck. I'd need a shower myself after dealing with him. I figured: Since the crate's in the basement and he's likely not done, put him in there like is and deal with it when I get back.

Of course I got home before Shel (whose dog is this again?) and had to go deal with what I expected to be a huge mess. Well, he had made any more mess at all. Apparently he'd gotten it all out in one big shot. (sorry) But his backside was still a mess from before. So I send him out to run in the snow and make sure he didn't have to potty, then carried him up to the kitchen and put him in the sink to rinse him off with the hose. Hot water spraying on his butt only helped soften things up but he was far from clean. If you know yours truly, you know nothing really grosses me out and I have my grandfather's pragmatism. What do you do if you have a long-haired dog whose ass hair is full of shit? (Actually, my grandfather would've left him outside) Why, run the water through it with one hand and massage the shitty fur with the other, right? It's at this point that the reality of what he ate truly sinks in. It's like running your hands through an oil slick...no amount of plain water and massaging is going to do the trick. So there I am with this dog in the kitchen sink shampooing his ass.

Side note that's only occurring to me now: What if we hadn't made the decision to leave him and what if he hadn't done what he did WHEN he did but I took him with me IN MY CAR instead.

Great dog, couldn't ask for better but he has his moments.