Tater Tales

Everybody Needs a Buddy

It appears that Tater Tot is not the only one in our house who sleeps with a stuffed animal.

 

Last But Not Least...

Meet Hatchie. 

   

Hatchie River Moonshine is the name my husband came up with.  Sometimes we call him Hatchie, and sometimes we call him Hatch.  Or Big Hatch.   He's one of Pearl's eight puppies, and he's the one we originally decided to keep.  For whatever reason, I got it into my head that if Pearl had yellows in her litter, I wanted the lightest one.  Well, I got him.  Of course, we ended up with his brother, Duke, too. 

I love Hatchie.  I think he's beautiful, and his fur is so soft that just petting him soothes the soul.  He's very much like Pearl -- muscular, solid, and a water-loving lab if ever there were one.  (Duke couldn't care less about staying in the water.  Bless it.) He's also a little, um....well.....peculiar.  While Duke is laid back (to the extreme), Hatch is the opposite.  He's a little nervous.  And he doesn't really want to have much to do with a certain 2 1/2 -year-old who lives here.  He's not one of those labs who will let children pull on him and lay all over him.  

Poor Hatch.  Tater Tot has practically traumatized him, and whenever he sees the little tike running toward him, Hatchie runs for cover. To get away from Tater Tot, Hatchie has learned to climb behind whomever is sitting on the sofa and seek refuge out of reach from the little fellow's hands.  

See?  It's like he's a 75-pound cat or something. Sometimes he hides under my desk.

   

Bless his heart.  It hasn't always been this way.  When Tater Tot was a baby, he would let him sit right next to him, and Hatchie would stay as still as a statue.

   

But as Tater Tot got older and discovered those ears, Hatchie decided that having the protruding parts of his body pulled was not the way he wanted to spend the next few years, so he turned the boy over to his very sweet but slightly dim-witted brother.  Duke and Tater Tot have been best buddies ever since. Now, don't let me give the impression that Hatchie doesn't love Tater Tot.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  He sleeps at Tater Tot's door.  Oh, he does his fair share of roaming throughout the night, but he always returns to stand guard. When Tater Tot cries, Hatchie almost always gets to him first, followed by Pearl, of course.  If Tater Tot cries when he wakes from his nap, Hatchie comes to me to make sure I've heard him.  And he'll stay right with us until everything is all better.  He just doesn't move in close enough to be attacked touched by Tater Tot's little hands. 

And when strangers come to the door?  Well, Hatch and Duke have a system worked out.  Duke stays at the door and barks endlessly, blocking the visitor's entrance.  And Hatchie?  He goes immediately to Tater Tot and sits (0r follows him around if Tater Tot is one the move).  He doesn't bark or growl.  But if you watch him you'll see that every muscle is tense, and he is always between the stranger and the toddler.   My husband and I joke that Duke is the bouncer and Hatch is the bodyguard.  

Once we tell the dogs that everything is okay, they settle down and go about their business. I think that once Tater Tot grows out of thinking that the dogs exist purely for his entertainment, he and Hatchie will be great friends.  We're working on teaching Tater Tot to be gentle with the dogs and to show them love.  And last night, Hatchie stayed still long enough for Tater Tot to pet him softly for a few minutes, followed by a hug.  

In all honesty, I don't know that I want to have four dogs at the same time and in the house EVER AGAIN, but I wouldn't trade our herd for anything.  They all have their quirks, and Lord knows they shed enough hair daily to stuff a twin mattress.  But it's true that a dog's love is unconditional.  They're always happy to see us.  They don't have temper tantrums, and they don't tell us "NO!" 83 times a day.  They're loyal and they protect our home and our family without fail.  All they ask in return is a tummy rub every now and then. And maybe a bone to chew on.  

(I didn't mention Zeus in here because, well, he doesn't have much to do with any of the other dogs.  If you missed the post about the old dog, here's a link).

Three Down, One to Go

This weekend we took down all of our Christmas decorations, much to the horror of Tater Tot, who declared that he "wuvs Cwismas" and wanted everything to stay just like it was.  It was quite a traumatic experience until we turned on the TV and Thomas and Friends happened to be on.  At that point, life was good again and his interest in what we were doing fell by the wayside.   

The hubs bought some new dog grooming tools, shampoo, and conditioner on Saturday and has decided that 2009 is the year that all four dogs become accustomed to regular brushing and the occasional bath.  We spent a good hour outside on the deck brushing the angels.  I'd be willing to bet that we had enough hair to re-stuff our sofa and a couple of chairs.  It was ridiculous. 

By the time we went to bed that night, I had finished all of the laundry.  That's right!  ALL of it!  So I decided that Sunday's big chore would be to bathe the dogs, and I volunteered to do it all.  Tater Daddy's back is already horrible shape, so I told him that it was nooooooo problem for me to bathe and dry all four dogs.  "My back is in great shape!" I announced.   I started with Zeus because he's old and I figured he'd give me the least trouble.  Tater Daddy had gotten a special bottle of shampoo for him plus a bottle of shampoo for the others AND a conditioner for all of them.  

Getting Zeus into the tub wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, and he stood there like a good ol' mama's boy while I wet his coat down.  This part takes the longest, because Labs have two oily coats, and water just drips off of them.  I squirted a big blob of shampoo onto his coat and started to rub it into a good lather, but guess what?  No lather.  Tater Daddy had mistakenly picked up the conditioner, not the shampoo, of this particular brand.  I didn't have the heart to make Zeus stand any longer than he had to, so his coat just got conditioned.  He didn't care as long as I spent a  lot of time drying him off. 

Hatch was up next.  I swear that dog has put on a ton of weight!  He's got to be pushing 80 pounds.  Getting him into the tub was like trying to corral a buffalo by hand.  He had no intention of getting in, and he fought like a champion.  After a few minutes, though, I managed to shove him into the tub and jump in there with him to keep him from climbing out. I got him good and wet, poured on the shampoo and started washing.  He stayed really still, so I thought maybe he actually liked having a bath and would actually obey my command to "Stay or never sleep in the house again."  But in dog years, he's a teenager and you know how teenage boys can be.  Rebellious.  I reached for the shower hose and Hatch hurled himself out of the tub.  The bathroom door was closed, so he had no where to go to do what he really wanted to.  Which was, of course, to shake the shampoo out of his fur. He stood in that small bathroom and shook and shook until everything from the floor to about 3 feet up was covered in suds.  

You know what's harder than getting a buffalo into a tub?  Getting a SOAPY buffalo into a tub.  I'll admit that I used some mighty unladylike words as I slipped and slid around that bathroom trying to hold onto that slick canine/water buffalo.  And the crazy thing is that he's normally the ONE dog that obeys commands.  At any rate, once back in the tub I made sure that he couldn't escape again and I finished the job. Like Zeus, he waited until he was out of the tub to do his shaking.  By this time, the floor was covered in water, soap, and dog hair.  And my back was starting to hurt, but I was determined to finish what I'd started. 

Duke was number three in the lineup.  What a sweet dog.  Dumb, but sweet.  He not only ran to the bathroom when I called his name, but he got into the tub without so much as a pause.  He stood patiently while I washed and conditioned his coat, and he only tried to get out once.  When he put a paw up onto the side of the tub and I said, "No, Duke!" he just put it back down as if to say, "Oh, right.  Okay."   Once finished, he climbed out of the tub and shook his thick, saggy coat.  For whatever reason, Duke's coat holds more water than the other dogs' coats, and drying him off takes an eternity.  I was running out of steam, so I grabbed the hairdryer.  Would you believe that that big oaf of a dog sat there and let me use the blow dryer on him for a few minutes?  Have I mentioned how much I LOVE Duke? 

After bathing three big dogs, my back was aching and the bathroom was a wreck.  I decided to call it a night, take something for my back and hope not to walk around like an old lady with a touch of the rheumatism for too long.  

Pearl could wait a day or so for her beauty appointment. Bless her heart.  After cleaning up the bathroom and getting it put back together, I opened the door and there she sat.  Ready.  Hoping for a little one-on-one attention. Sweet baby girl.  She'll get it.  

That is, once I can stand up straight again.

King of the Labs

For the last little while I've been sitting on the couch with Zeus, watching Tater Tot play with the trains that Santa brought.  It's like having our own little reality show, because there's nothing like watching a 2-year-old's imagination at work. As I was rubbing and scratching on this old brown dog, it occurred to me that I've never really introduced you to Zeus.    

  Big Zeus.  Mama's Sweet Angel.  Chocolate Thunder.  Take your pick.  He answers to all those names. I suppose one reason I've never written about him is that I don't even know where to begin.  He's been with us since about seven months after we married, and he'll be 14 on his next birthday.  In dog candles, that's 98. 

When we married, my husband had a dog who was about two-and-a-half.  She was a yellow lab/golden retriever mix named Belle, and even though she and I got along fine, she was most definitely my husband's dog.  After a few months I decided that I needed a dog of my own.  And since Belle was, um, a little rambunctious, we thought it might be a good idea for her to have a playmate. 

We heard about some friends from home whose dog had had a litter of puppies, and there was one chocolate male left.  I'm not going to lie to you when I tell you that it was love at first sight. These people kept their Labs outside (Horrors!), so Zeus was a little brown ball of dirt and fleas, and he rode home with us on the floorboard of the Jeep, snuggled between my feet.  We got him home, gave him a bath, and introduced him to Belle.  She immediately became a mama dog.  She loved him, and he loved her.  For the next seven years, they were inseparable.  Zeus has never been quite the same since Belle died.  Some people say that dogs don't remember other dogs.  But I'm here to tell you that when Belle died, she took a little bit of Zeus's spark with her.   Here's a picture of the the two of them.

   

Here's a picture of Zeus as a puppy.  We'd taken him to a park with a dog pond.  Check out his huge ears!  The yellow dog walking away from the camera is Belle.

   

I had never raised a big dog from a puppy.  With Zeus, I was in heaven.  He was my own personal teddy bear, and we were perfectly happy to snuggle up on the couch together.  We still are.   

Zeus has his own set of peculiarities.  He's afraid of the vacuum cleaner.  Now that he's old and moving around isn't as easy as it once was, he either stays in his chair or goes into the next room when I vacuum.  But when he was younger, he hid from it. The flashlight used to send him into an absolute fit.  Bless his heart.  He'd chase that light and try to catch it until he was nearly dead on his feet.  

Our first house was in the first phase of a new development, and ours was the last house on the street for several years.  Everything to the east of us was an undeveloped field, and Zeus and Belle would frequently get away from us to explore the vast wilderness.  Nine times out of ten, we could get them to come right back to us by getting our huge flashlight and waving it around.  Zeus would follow it home and chase it right through the front door. 

One of his best tricks was catching dog bones.  We'd put the small dog biscuits on his nose and he would throw them up and catch them.  Then he learned  to just barely move his head and catch them as the slid off.  The deal was that he kept getting treats as long as he caught them, but when he dropped one to the floor, that was it.  His record was 14.  His eyesight is now so poor that he can't do his trick.  But let's be real.  He doesn't have to work for anything anymore.  He gets plenty of treats just for being Zeus. 

My husband is hot-natured, and as much as he loves our dogs, he just can't stand having them snuggled right up next to him for a long time because he gets so hot.  Granted, Pearl is like a walking radiator, and Hatch and Duke are as good as electric blankets set on HIGH.  I like to snuggle with all of them, but after a while, even I sometimes get a little uncomfortable. But Zeus?  I've never once had to move or move him away from me because he's too hot.  I swear, I could sit with that dog right next to me all day -- outside on the hottest day in July -- and never be uncomfortable.  My husband says it's because Zeus adjusts his body temperature to match mine.  He may be right. Several years ago, I had a minor surgical procedure and when my husband brought me home and put me to bed I could NOT get warm.  After putting several blankets on me, he went off to find more.  By the time he came back with an armload of them, including an electric blanket he'd pulled out of the storage bag, I was perfectly warm.  Zeus, without being called, had climbed up onto the bed and gently laid down as close as he could get to me, his head tucked under my chin.  I don't know how to describe it other than to say what my husband said, which was, "It looks like you're wearing Zeus."  I fell asleep and woke up about four hours later.  Zeus was still there, and I was still warm.  He didn't move until I did.  Have I mentioned how much I love this dog? 

Like I said, Zeus will be 14 this spring.  For the most part, he's pretty healthy and I've convinced myself that he's going to live 14 or 40 more years.  His typical day consists of sleeping, being loved on, eating a couple of dog biscuits, roaming around the yard if he feels like it, and waiting for supper.  He has his pick of where to lounge, and the rest of us work around him.  As my husband says, he's earned the right to pick his throne. 

 After all, he is King of the Labs.

 

Happy Birthday, Boys!

Duke and Hatch turned 3-years-old yesterday, and as those two big yellow thugs lumbered around the house eating their extra treats, I couldn't help but remember the night their mother, our very own Pearl, made us grandparents to eight puppies.  

That Sunday, September 11, 2005, our sweet little black lab had been showing all the signs of being ready to whelp, and we'd been watching her like hawks ALL day.  Well, I'd been watching her and Tater Daddy had been watching me and asking, "Is she ready?  Is it time?  What should we do?"  I had been assigned the task of finding out all about What to Expect When Your Dog is Expecting, while my husband's job was to....hmmm....that's strange.  I don't think he had one.   Anyway, by late afternoon and no puppies, we were a little anxious.  We'd hoped she would have the puppies over the weekend so we'd be there in case anything went wrong.  

Before becoming "in the family way," Pearl was a little bitty thing by Labrador standards, weighing 55 pounds and gorgeous, if I do say so myself.  I can't lie.   All that to say, because of her pre-pregnancy size, we (the vet included) expected about four puppies, five at the most.  By her due date, Pearl was HUGE.  It was like she'd swallowed a VW Bug.  We both felt sorry for the miserable mama-to-be, but we knew she could handle it.  Okay, I knew she could do it.  I had read all of the material and knew this was normal and that those puppies were coming soon.  Tater Daddy, on the other hand, was in a panic.  Normally, he's the epitome of someone you want in an emergency -- level headed, sees the big picture, etc. I caught him rooting around in the linen closet and asked what he was doing.  "I'm looking for the heating pad."  Why?  Are you sore?  "No, it's for Pearl.  She looks so miserable that I thought this would make her feel better."  I'm not sure that boiling the puppies is going to make Pearl feel better.  "Bad idea?"  Well, your heart is in the right place.   

 Let me be very clear about this, folks.  Had I been waddling around pregnant with 8 Tater Tots swishing to-and-fro ON A SUNDAY......WHILE BIG BROTHER WAS ON......I couldn't have gotten a ride to the hospital from this man.  I'm not passing judgment.  I'm just stating a fact. 

So anyway, it was good and dark outside and the hubs convinced Pearl to go outside with him.  All of a sudden I heard him shouting for me to bring a towel and to HURRY!  Wouldn't you know it?  Pearl had her first puppy in the back yard.  I guess it kind of makes sense, though.  She probably felt like she needed to go to the bathroom and I'm sure Tater Daddy thought that's what she was doing. 

We got Pearl and her pup safely inside and she went to work on her, licking and cleaning and snuggling her close.  I grabbed a flashlight and searched the backyard for signs of more pups, even though I was pretty sure there weren't any.  All of my research told me that the first two or three puppies take a while and then labor really speeds up. When I got back in the house, the pup looked really good.  She was a little cold, so we put her in the box under the warming lamp for a few minutes and then gave her back to Pearl to see if she would nurse.  It turns out that nursing speeds up labor.  Woohoo! 

Pearl had most of the pups in our den, either on the floor or in one of the leather chairs.  Gross, I know.  Believe it or not, the only things ruined were towels.  By the third puppy, she had the whole Mama thing down!  She broke the sack, cleaned their noses first, and licked them until they were completely clean.  By the time Duke and Hatch (numbers 5 and 6) came, she was having the puppies so fast that there was no time for them to nurse after being cleaned off. 

Keep in mind that we were expecting five puppies at the most, so at six, we thought we were done.  My husband had wanted Pearl to have a yellow male SO badly, and she'd had two of them, so he was beside himself.  He was rubbing on Pearl and praising her and looking in the box at the two yellows, and you would have thought that Santa Claus had brought him a Red Rider BB Gun for Christmas! 

"Er, um, honey?  I hate to interrupt you, but here comes number seven."  By this time Pearl was just barely panting a couple of times and then a puppy would appear.  You know, like, So, this is not really all that hard.  Want another puppy?  Okay.  Here... Again, we both thought she was done.  Pearl may have thought she was done, too, because she got up and acted like she needed to go outside.  Again, out she went with Tater Daddy.  And again, I heard, "Honey!  Bring a towel and HURRY!" 

Dang if she didn't have another puppy!  Husband picked her up, I got the puppy, and in we came.  Same song, eighth verse!  The puppy was fine.  Pearl cleaned her up, and the little thing started to nurse.  We took the rest of them out and helped them find a spot at the table, so to speak.  

Ahhhhhhh. We couldn't believe it.  Pearl had delivered 8 healthy puppies in all three colors of the breed.  She had four black puppies (3 girls and a boy); two chocolate girls; and two yellow boys.  She was okay.  They were okay.  We were exhausted, but giddy. 

The other six puppies went to wonderful homes, and we think about them throughout the year, but especially on their birthday.  We get to see one of the chocolate puppies fairly often because our niece, Caroline, kept her.  (The litter's sire belongs to Tater Daddy's sister, Deanna, so she and Caroline got the pick of the litter.) 

 So, Happy Birthday, Duke and Hatch!   Here are some pictures from the weeks following their birth. Here they are at 10 days old.

   

If you look closely, you'll see all 8 are eating!  They're 10 days old in this picture, too.

   

"Sing...sing a song...sing out loud...sing out strong...."  Duke and a sister at 3 weeks old.

   

 Hatch and Duke's at 2 months.  They're still babies!

    

 Again, Happy Birthday, boys!