You Have How Many Dogs?

Moe, Burton, Bethy

You read it correctly.  Eight.  As in two below ten, four plus four, you need two hands to count them.  All of our dogs are adopted/rescued.  We specialize in spotted dogs right now, although our past history shows mixed breeds, australian shepherds, labs and golden retrievers.

I've had dogs all my life, but not in mass quantities.  Right now we share our lives with the following dogs:  Daisy, an English Setter/Border Collie mix whom we adopted from Another Chance for English Setters (ACES) Rescue in 2003 at the age of 1.5.  At the time she joined Ollie, our Golden Retriever, and Ike, our Chocolate Lab.  Ike is still with us.  Ollie passed away in 2006 from cancer, so prevalent in the golden breed.  Daisy is a very calm, motherly type dog, who takes all puppies under her wing and plays with any dog she meets. She travels well, and has accompanied me on various trips to visit with friends across the U.S.

Bethy, an English Setter/Brittany (our best guess) mix adopted from ACES in 2005 at the age of 4 months.  The cutest puppy, Bethy is a rabble rouser.  She instigates barking activities, constantly watches for squirrels and turkeys, and loves to play with stuffy toys.

Moe, an English Field Setter, he also came from ACES as a foster dog in 2006.  We picked him up in Massachusetts at the same time we were picking up a horse for a client, and fell in love with him on the way home.  He was a pudgy puppy of about 4 months at the time, and we failed fostering within 24 hours.

At this point we had five dogs.  We were very happy there.  Losing Ollie in October of 2006 was quite a shocker, and it took us a while to get over that loss. It was sudden.  One day he was here and the next he was gone. So it wasn't until September of 2007 that we adopted Burton from ACES.  Burton was about 5 months old and he was our first deaf dog.  Burton is a very lovable soul, who continues to be very much a puppy at heart.  He is loud.  He actually screams when he is excited.  And he can never be found without his bright orange chuck-it ball, a ball we found after much experimentation and destroyed balls, to last very long and to be totally loved and squishily chewed and protected by Burton.



Daisy

 Now back to five dogs, we lived quite nicely at this number until May of 2009, when through a series of connected events, we spotted a deaf Border Collie on line at Sweet B Border Collie Rescue, Glen Highland Farm, NY.  We actually went to the farm to see another dog.  We took along Burton, Bethy and Moe, our three rambunctious crew members, and figured whomever they got along with would be the best choice.  Turns out it was Piper, the 6 month old deaf dog we spotted on line, and since we had experience with a deaf dog, we became his new family.  Piper herds our two cats, Harry and Gus, makes sure our fence perimeter is clear, and drives every dog to play play play as much as possible.

This was it.  We drew the line in the sand.  No more than six.  We have a 7 acre farm, and a large area fenced in for our dogs.  We have a large house, and our kids are grown and living on their own.  Six is a perfect number.  All of our dogs are well behaved, except that they get a bit excited when visitors come, well house trained, and respond to our cues and commands well, especially our deafies.

Piper

In 2010, I became interested in the good work of Ohio English Setter Rescue (OESR) and started following their activities.  There was a group of dogs in deplorable conditions over a very hot summer in Kentucky.  OESR needed help in fostering of this group, so we took in Winston, an older dog who had been kept in a kennel as a hunting dog, had left hip issues (arthritis), hearing loss (from the gun shots) and some vision loss in his right eye.  He came to us in July of 2010 and we decided he should stay for a few reasons.  First, he has some issues (discussed above) that might not make him as adoptable, plus he needed medication for his arthritis which is somewhat expensive.  Second, he loves my husband and built a bond with him in a matter of a few short weeks.  Third, we are losing our Chocolate Lab, Ikey, to cancer.  He is in hospice care with us right now, and we haven't really ever adopted an older dog.  Winston seemed to need us, and we responded.

So that makes seven.


Ike

 Danny came to us in January of 2011.  He is an OESR foster dog that was being fostered in New Jersey, but his foster home did not quite know how to deal with his issues, which include extreme fearfulness and fearful behaviors.  Since I live in Pennsylvania, I agreed to take Danny in and work with him.  He has a Facebook page which documents his issues and our work with him, hoping to help out other folks who are experiencing the same issues with their dogs.  Danny is making slow, but good, progress.  He is approximately 2 years old and a lovely full-breed English Setter.

Eight.



Winston, Danny

What is the hardest thing about having eight dogs?  Vacuuming.  Really.
Otherwise, having eight is like having three.  Food costs are a bit higher, so are vet costs.  Obvioiusly it costs more to buy Front Line Plus and Heartgard (Interceptor for Piper).  But there are no major heartburn activities associated with having eight dogs who are all housetrained and get along well together.

I've chosen a unique way to sign off the blog.  It's because English Setters are Roo-ers.  They either rooooo or aaarrrroooo.  Turns out so are Border Collies.  Piper has a very long and loud rrrrrrooooooo as well, especially when he is excited.  Roo, in dog language is very much (I believe) like Aloha in Hawaii.  It means various things.  For me, it will serve as, that is enough for today.  And it is....

Arroooooo