We hear about stories in the news such as the hero dog from Afghanistan who foiled a suicide bomber’s attempts to blow up an American barracks, and was later adopted by an Army medic who had witnessed the dog’s bravery. The dog, whose name was Target, was flown to the U.S. to live with his new family in Arizona.

The happy ending was short-lived, however. Target escaped from their yard, was captured by the dog catcher, and euthanized by mistake before the family could reclaim him. Target had captured the hearts of millions and all around the world people who’d never met Target the dog cried for him.

For every dog story that makes front page news, there are dog stories which live only in the hearts and minds of those directly involved. One such story broke my heart. The only reason I know of this story is because I personally know the dog owners and have been following their heartwrenching tale on Facebook.

It is the story of a fireman, his beloved wife and children, and their three dogs: Charlie, Maggie Bean and Doolie. I have never before witnessed such love in a family as this family shares. When you read their conversations on Facebook you can feel the love that fills their home and you cannot help but smile. Theirs is a family full of love, light, and heroism.

The fireman has saved the lives of countless people in his career. He has saved homes from burning to the ground. He saved a stranded woman from drowning during the floods of 2009. He is a quiet hero, known only to his friends and family but not the world at large.

Their story began on a happy note as many stories do. The fireman and his wife had gone to the beach for a few days vacation with hearts of love floating all around them, as always. They were celebrating their wedding anniversary. The horror began when they came home.

All three of their dogs had gotten loose while they were on vacation. Someone had been watching the dogs for them and the dogs ran out the door while under the care of the dog sitter. It’s hard enough to go away and leave your dogs behind especially for the fear of something like this happening.

No matter how hard we try to keep our dogs in, sometimes they get out. There are so many ways a dog can get out despite our best efforts to prevent it.

Many moons ago before my husband and I got married, I had taken my dog Gypsy Rose to spend a weekend with my not-yet husband. I didn’t know it when I let Gypsy Rose out into the fenced yard, but the gate was open. I let my dog out, she found the open gate and off she went to explore.

A half hour later when I went to let her back in, my dog Gypsy Rose was long gone. I went all up and down the street looking for her, to no avail. I called and called but there was no sign of her. I went to the next street over, walking down the street and calling out to her. Nothing. Not a sign.

Being close to a major road I was beginning to panic. There were so many directions she could have gone in and so many cars barreling down that big road that could hit her. I didn’t know which direction to look and I felt like I was searching for a needle in a haystack. Being on foot my progress was painfully slow and I wasn’t making any headway.

As I was walking back up the street a pickup truck pulled up next to me asking if I was looking for a dog. I said yes and described Gypsy Rose. They had found her wandering around and put her in their fenced backyard. I had walked right past their house never knowing that my dog was in their backyard. She was a quiet dog and hadn’t made a peep.

They gave me and Gypsy Rose a ride back to the house and Gypsy Rose went on to live with me until she passed away at fifteen years old. Thankfully our story had a happy ending. It could so easily have been otherwise. I had never let her run loose intentionally and yet she got out. It happens.

And so it happened to the fireman and his family. All three of their dogs got out together. Like me, they went searching for their dogs and at first they were reporting their dogs as being lost. They kept searching and they finally found all three dogs, but their dogs did not have the happy ending that Gypsy Rose did.

Their dog Maggie Bean had been hit by a car and left by the road to die. By the time the fireman found her, their beloved Maggie Bean was dead. Maggie Bean had been a gift for their first wedding anniversary and thus held a very special place in their hearts.

The second dog, Doolie, was fine. Doolie’s feathers were a bit ruffled but otherwise fine. Doolie had escaped the wheels of oncoming traffic.

The third dog, Charlie, had also been hit by a car and left to die, presumably the same car that had killed Maggie Bean. Or perhaps Charlie had stayed close to the dying Maggie Bean to protect her and was hit by a different car. We will never know exactly what happened to the fireman’s dogs on that fateful night.

The fireman found Charlie severely injured and immediately took him to the vet. They’ve been trying to save his life ever since. All through the Thanksgiving holiday they battled for Charlie’s life and it looks like their Christmas will be filled with the fear of losing Charlie as well.

It’s been touch and go for their dog Charlie who is struggling with his many injuries. His face and eyesocket were injured. His legs and hip were injured. This fireman and his family lost one dog and are now facing the holidays with the battle to save the life of their other dog.

It is heartbreaking to read their tale of loss and their battle to bring Charlie back to health. Charlie has good days and bad days, and he’ll make progress forward only to lose ground and fall backward again.

During a recent backslide the fireman’s wife was beside herself with anguish. She said, “My Charlie is not doing well and I just don’t think I can handle the loss of another dog. He’s not eating, not moving, and we had to carry him to the vet. He hasn’t been the same since the accident. He just keeps getting worse.”

It broke my heart to hear her anguish. Her friends all rallied around her with attempts at comforting words but truly there is no comfort when you are battling to save a life. The vet said that Charlie was full of infection and put him on more antibiotics.

They’ve been struggling for words to answer the questions of their children. With one dog gone the kids have been asking about Charlie and their fireman father has no answer. A home that had been so full of love and light and laughter was now full of sadness and death. This family had lost one dog and was battling valiantly not to lose another, and Charlie began his fight for life traveling back and forth from his home to the vet.

I looked through the photos they’d posted of their three dogs. It showed a life of love with the dogs in the center of it right up there next to the kids. I saw a dog lying on the couch next to his daddy, dogs swimming in the lake, dogs playing fetch with sticks, and even a dog in the bathtub for a bath. These were not backyard dogs ignored by their owners or left to roam loose. These dogs were beloved family members who lived indoors with their family.

The bottomless pit of grief worsened for this valiant family when the vet discovered a horrific deed while he was working to restore this beloved dog back to health. The vet found a BB lodged in the dog. No one knows when the horrible deed occurred or who had done it. No one knows whether it was done as the dog laid dying in the road after being hit by a car, or whether it had been done an hour or week or months before.

This family who was battling to save the life of their dog had to live with the horrible knowledge that someone had shot the dog with a BB gun. What would go through your mind? Did the driver of the car who’d hit the dog attempt to finish the job with a BB gun? Did a later passerby attempt to euthanize the dog rather than calling a vet or animal control?

Or had a neighbor shot the dog long before the accident that brought the dirty deed into the light? The question would always hang heavy on your mind. You’d never be able to look at any of your neighbors the same again. This couple whose home had always been full of love and laughter would now look at their neighbors and wonder: Did one of them shoot the dog? I know I would.

Here is a fireman, a hero who saves lives, protects property, and risks his life for others, having to live with the knowledge that someone shot his dog with a BB gun while he was out saving lives. He has to live with the knowledge that while he and his brethren risk their lives to pull people out of burning buildings, someone left his dogs to die by the side of the road.

No one who loves their dogs as a family member deserves to live through the horror of losing a dog and battling for the life of another. After a several week battle to save Charlie’s life, they finally had to let go. Charlie was not able to recover from his injuries. They lost two of their three dogs just as they were supposed to be celebrating their wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The next time you see an injured dog, or worse, hit a dog with your car even if accidentally, consider the family behind the dog before you drive away and leave the dog to die.

Do not assume that the dog was just a stray wandering loose. Do not assume that the owner was lax in his ownership and allowed the dog to run loose. Stop and help the dog, give the dog a chance at life — his daddy may be the man who saves your life someday.

Tags: dog, dog by the side of the road, dog died, dog got hit by a car, dog got loose, dog got out, dog hit by a car, dog left by the road, dog left to die, dog shot with a BB gun, dogs, dogs got loose, dogs got out, fireman, fireman's dog, fireman's dog dies, fireman's dogs, firemen, firemen's dog, firemen's dogs, hero, hero dog, heroes

Category: Dog Tails of Adventure

Our Catahoula Leopard Dog is a cheap date. She recently turned one year old and we’ve had her since she was a puppy, so we’ve been through the puppy chewing phase with her. Whereas our other dog needed heavy duty rawhides to keep her teeth busy, and they never kept her teeth busy long enough, our Catahoula pup has never needed a rawhide to chew on. She prefers pine cones and pine straw that she finds in our backyard. Pine straws are needles from long-needled pine trees that are commonly bought in bales and used as garden mulch.

From her earliest days our Catahoula puppy would smuggle things in from outdoors, tucked inside her cheek like a hoarding hamster. You wouldn’t even realize she had smuggled something until she started chewing on it. Pine cones, pine straw, and rocks were commonly smuggled items. We immediately took the rocks away.

Her favorite dog chew was a piece of pine straw. I kid you not, one single piece of pine straw that had fallen from our long-needled pine tree could keep our Catahoula dog busy chewing for three straight days. Talk about a cheap date!

After the serious business of keeping our Australian Cattle Dog/Husky mix (Ausky) busy with dog chewies, and retraining her not to chew up our house, we were prepared to use the same techniques in training our Catahoula puppy. Our Ausky dog had come to us as a semi-adult shelter dog with a lot of problems. We were successful in retraining her to be able to have full run of the house even when we weren’t home, without worrying about dog chewing or potty in the house. We shared her story and how we retrained her in the book Bad Dog to Best Friend which is available on Amazon.com.

After adopting the Catahoula puppy, we studied up on the Catahoula Leopard Dog breed and according to everything we read, serious training was a must for the Catahoula breed, as well as being ready to deal with dog chewing issues. We were totally ready, but our Catahoula puppy didn’t follow the chewing regime that our Ausky dog had gone through. A single piece of pine straw and she was perfectly happy, trotting around like a man with a toothpick hanging out of his mouth. That’s exactly what she reminded us of, too. Just like a person who chews on toothpicks, our Catahoula dog chews on pine straw.

Pine cones were another big dog treat in her life, though we did not accommodate them as readily as the pine straw. Our Catahoula dog didn’t actually eat the pine cones, she simply chewed them into little pieces making quite a mess in a short period of time. Pine cones and pine straw were cheap treats that our yard had in abundance, and it was preferable to allowing her to ingest large quantities of rawhide which can harm your dog. If a dog gets too much rawhide in their belly it can swell up and block their intestines. Dogs can die from intestinal blockage and our Ausky dog had given us a few scares during her chewing phase, so it was a relief not to have to worry about such things.

We were lucky that we never had to worry about our Catahoula puppy actually swallowing the pine cones. If a dog swallows anything big and chunky it can cause choking or an intestinal blockage. Allowing your dog to chew on pine cones from outdoors could also tempt them to chew on decorative pine cones in your home that may have been treated with chemicals that are toxic to your dog.

In addition, dogs eating quantities of pine cones and pine needles from outdoors can cause other issues. One concerns toxins that you use in your yard such as fertilizers, weed killers and insecticides. As we rarely use these in the backyard where our dogs play, this is not an issue for us. Pine tree oils and saps, however, can be problematic.

According to the ASPCA, Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria heterophylla) can produce vomiting, depression, pale mucous membranes and a drop in body temperature in cats, and possibly similar problems in dogs (though their site is a bit fuzzy on whether the dog symptoms would be the same as the cat symptoms.) The Buddhist Pine (Podocarpus macrophylla), which is also known as a Japanese Yew or Southern Yew, can cause severe diarrhea and vomiting.

Oddly enough, the ASPCA recommends using shredded pine as a mulch rather than the HIGHLY toxic cocoa bean shells, which contain the chocolate ingredient that can kill a dog in high enough quantities. Instead of using cocoa shell mulch, they recommend “non-toxic alternatives” including shredded pine, cedar or hemlock bark. They do advise you to keep an eye on your dog near mulch of any kind, however.

Christmas tree varieties of pines contain pine sap and oils that can cause gastrointestinal irritation and affect the nervous system if ingested in large enough quantities. In addition, the needles (presumably of the short-needled variety though they did not specify) can cause damage to the soft tissues of the mouth and gastrointestinal tract.

As our Catahoula dog doesn’t actually ingest the pine cones or the pine straw, I do allow her to chew on them, though pine cones are not allowed in the house. Ever since I banned her from bringing pine cones indoors she has lost interest in them. The pine straw, however, remains a favorite treat for our dog to chew on and considering the dangers of some of the alternatives, we’re more than happy to allow the pine straw.

Dog humor on t-shirts, hats, coffee mugs and beer mugs, tote bags,
posters and more! Our Catahoula Leopard Dog and our Australian Cattle Dog/Husky mix are both featured on a wide variety of gift items.

Tags: catahoula, catahoula dog, catahoula leopard dog, catahoula leopard dog puppy, catahoula leopard puppy, catahoula puppy, dog, dog chewing, dog chews on pine cones, dog chews on pine needles, dog chews on pine straw, dog eating pine needles, dog eating pine straw, dog eats a pine cone, dog eats pine cones, dog eats pine needles, dog eats pine straw, dog smuggles a pine cone, dog smuggles pine cones, dogs, dogs chewing, dogs eating a pine cone, dogs eating pine cones, toxic to dogs

Category: Dog Tails of Adventure

Dogs can bite you, body slam you, claw at you, or lick you silly but did you know that a dog can punch you in the nose and give you a nosebleed? I didn’t, until yesterday. I’d already learned about that lovely little dog trick called the Body Slam but the Sucker Punch was a new one on me.

The first time our dog Dakota body slammed me, I went down so hard I was sure that bones had been broken. Thankfully they hadn’t but it hurt like hell just the same. I didn’t know what a body slam was before adopting Dakota, who is half Australian Cattle Dog.

We were outdoors where Dakota could run off all that Australian Cattle Dog energy and she loves to run at full speed around our big fenced yard, doing figure eights around the trees and playing the Chicken Game with me.

The Chicken Game is where your dog runs straight at you, veering off at the last possible second before body slamming into you. That time however, she didn’t veer off and she slammed straight into my knees at full speed. A 65 pound dog slamming into you at top speed can really knock you for a loop. We both went flying and when I hit the ground, I didn’t get up for a long time.

The Body Slam incident taught me to stay close to trees when Dakota started playing the Chicken Game. Dogs usually veer off if a tree is involved. Australian Cattle Dogs are known for the Body Slam, a factoid I learned the hard way.

It had been a long time since Dakota had hurt me like that so I was totally unprepared for the events that unfolded yesterday. We were in the backyard and Dakota was laying down. I was kneeled down leaning over her when suddenly she decided to jump up without warning.

I’m not sure what Dakota’s original intent was but she literally exploded upwards, slamming me square in the nose with the back of her head. I must have let out quite a holler because she stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me, not sure what to do next.

She hit me so hard with the knobby bone on the back of her head that I was absolutely positive she’d broken my nose. I could feel liquid gushing from my nostrils and when I reached up to touch my nose, sure enough my hand came back covered with blood.

I can’t fathom how this dog managed to sucker punch me in the nose with the back of her head, but somehow she did and it hurt like bloody hell. Thankfully my nose was not broken but I was dizzy a bit out of it for the rest of the day.

Dakota was a semi-adult shelter dog who was the Queen of Bad Behavior and the Master of Dirty Tricks. Bad Dog to Best Friend takes you from Dakota’s awful beginnings to her amazing transformation.

Bad Dog to Best Friend: The Book The Transformation of Dakota Available in Paperback & Kindle

Tags: australian cattle dog, bloody nose, body slam, body slams, broken nose, chicken game, dog, dog bite, dog bites, dog body slam, dog body slams, dog figure eights, dog games, dogs, punch me in the nose, punch you in the nose, punched in the nose, sucker punch

Category: Dog Tails of Adventure