Category Archives: Dogs

Great horn, dog

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I saw this prize at the edge of the road when I was walking the dogs Thursday morning and couldn’t figure out what it was for a while.

Eventually it dawned on me that it was a goat horn. It was confirmed when I saw the partial goat leg nearby.

Sam was fascinated. He picked it up and walked the rest of the way down to our turnaround, and then most of the way back up. He eventually dropped it and Zeke picked it for a while. Then he dropped it and Sam picked it up again. I let him keep it until we reached the house, then I made him drop it (good dog, Sam!).

I was going to leave it in the driveway, thinking maybe it would eventually turn into a good chew toy, but the dogs were obsessed with it and tried to get to it every time we went outside. I had to put it in the trash.

Goats are not native to this area, but there are two that have been roaming for a while. A neighbor got them to try to keep the kudzu at bay at his house. He tied them with a rope and, of course, they chewed through their ropes and escaped. People on the Facebook group around here post occasionally about seeing them. The last I heard they were living on Rocky Mountain, which divides Big Texas Valley from Little Texas Valley, and upon the peak of which is an artificial lake impounded as part of a pump-storage electrical power generating plant. It’s probably a good place for them.

That leaves only the question of where the deceased goat whose partial remains we found came from. And what happened to the rest of the body?

Here’s a quick note on horns that everyone probably already knows. Horns, found on members of the bovids, have a keratin sheath and remain on the animal for life unless forcefully removed. They are (generally) not branched, except for the pronghorn.  Both male and female bovids grow horns. Antlers, found on members of the deer family (cervids), have a bony structure and are grown and shed every year. They are also typically branched. It seems that reindeer are the only species in which females as well as males have antlers.

That’s just age sneaking up on you*

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We have had Zeke for a little over 12 years. He was fully grown when we decided to keep him, so he might be 13 years old, or even older now.

Zeke’s coat used to be completely brown over his right eye. It’s nearly all white now.

Zeke and Sam usually stay in our bedroom, lying on their bed next to the south-facing window. If I happen to open something like a package of crackers, or a bread wrapper, they know immediately and come trotting into the kitchen. Or at least they used to. Now it’s usually just Sam. If I go back to the bedroom to get Zeke and stand next to the bed to call him, his head jerks up and he looks around with a startled expression. When I call them to go out, Sam comes but Zeke often doesn’t. We have to call loudly and repeatedly.

Even when Zeke lies on the dog bed in the living room he seems to have a little trouble hearing me call him.

He still roughhouses with Sam on our walks. He makes his two-mile walk with no problem. You would never know that he’s an old dog from his behavior. Except that he’s getting hard of hearing.

Dogs, like most animals, tend to hide weaknesses. I wonder what other old age ailments he might be hiding.

*Apologies to Bonnie Rait

Dog discipline

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Dogs use their mouths for a lot of things — eating, drinking, cooling themselves, vocalizing, defending themselves, killing prey. They also use their mouths for discipline. Mama dogs move their pups around by picking them up with their mouths, and if a pup is doing something mama doesn’t like, mama will apply a little mouth discipline to straighten things out.

My own dogs have used mouth discipline. Once years ago I had to leave my dog Jesse with my parents when I was traveling. They fed her outside. A little neighbor girl had come over, as the neighborhood kids often did, and got a little too close to Jesse while she was eating. Jesse was not food aggressive around us, but apparently she didn’t want a stranger fiddling with her food. The report to me was that she had bitten the little girl in the face. Although I didn’t see what actually happened, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a bite. A dog will open its mouth, bare its teeth, and push its mouth towards another dog as a form of warning. They don’t close their jaws on the other dog, so to me it’s not actually a bite. I think that’s what happened with the little girl. Jesse pushed her fangs towards the girl and, unfortunately, made contact. It’s a distinction I wouldn’t expect a parent to make, but it’s a significant distinction to me. The little girl bled some, but was fine in the end. I think she even visited Jesse again after that.

On another occasion, Hugo, one of my doberman pinschers, and I were visiting a friend who had a mean and nasty dalmation. Hugo was interested in playing, but the dalmation only wanted to bite. The other dog kept biting and biting; Hugo kept trying to play. Eventually, Hugo had enough. He clamped down on the dalmation’s muzzle and held him for a few seconds. Then he let him go and tried to resume playing. Hugo couldn’t have said “Stop that!” any more clearly if he had said the actual words. It was just like a parent calming a rowdy child, only human parents don’t often use their teeth for that. In this case, the dalmation ended up with some small scars on its muzzle. He didn’t have any interest in playing or biting after that.

As I have said before, Zeke and Sam are best friends. They lie together at night and Sam follows Zeke around everywhere. On almost every walk, they roughhouse and play-fight. Sam is young and rambunctious; he dances around and dives in to bite Zeke on the cheek or back leg, his favorite target. Zeke generally just bites Sam on the neck. When they’re done, I don’t like to touch their heads because they are both usually wet with slobber. Even with all of that, there is usually no problem. Occasionally, however, Sam gets a little too rough. When that happens, Zeke yelps and runs after him. A few days ago Sam must have hurt Zeke more than the occasional hard bite. Zeke yelped, as usual, chased Sam, as usual, then pinned him to the pavement and held Sam’s muzzle in his jaws. That wasn’t usual. In this case, Zeke didn’t bite, and Sam didn’t get any scars. But Zeke’s meaning was clear.

Zeke held Sam for about three seconds, them let him go. They resumed their play almost immediately.

Leg up

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Dogs are pretty relaxed about how they end up lying down on each other. We were interviewing a potential pet sitter a couple of days ago, and Zeke and Sam came out to see her. After some petting all around, they settled in on one of their beds in the living room.

Zeke missed the bed almost entirely.

That’s my sock foot up against Sam’s back. He likes personal contact.

This pet sitter seems like a winner.

Frolicking adolescent armadillos

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I have written about our relatively recently arrived armadillos before. They have made themselves at home here in northwest Georgia in the last few years. We never saw armadillos when I was growing up here. The animal they remind me of the most is the possum. They both seem slow and a little dense, which I think accounts for the most noticeable sign of their presence here — dead armadillos in the road.

There are other signs of the armadillo’s presence, the most significant of which is the holes they dig while looking for food. I used to see holes in our old yard, and I see them along Fouche Gap Road when I walk the dogs.

The most noticeable sign of their actual presence, as opposed to their former presence, is the sounds they make while rooting around in the undergrowth. I sometimes hear squirrels and deer, but their noises are distinctly different from the armadillo, mainly because armadillos seem to show no fear of humans or dogs. Squirrels and deer run; armadillos keep rooting around, apparently oblivious to everything around them.

Zeke, Sam and I happened to notice some armadillo noises a few days ago when we walked down Flouche Gap Road into Texas Valley. We couldn’t see anything, but the dogs were very interested. I was pretty sure it was an armadillo because whatever it was just kept on making noise.

A few days later we saw them in the same place. That set the dogs off, of course. Here they are homing in on one of them.

The armadillo is almost hidden just above the white stripe at the edge of the road, right where Sam’s ears are pointed. I couldn’t get a better shot while keeping the dogs under control.

Zeke has a history with adolescent armadillos. I posted about that episode four years ago almost to the day. In that case, Zeke managed to break away from me and quickly dispatch one. The armadillo’s fearless behavior is consistent with the reason given for their spread into the southeastern US, that is, they have no natural predators here. Except for Zeke.

Wikipedia says that our armadillos, the nine-banded variety, usually have four offspring. (Wayne, whose used to comment here occasionally and whose blog Niches I still miss, also said they usually have four offspring.) When we saw the young armadillos four years ago, there were two. I am pretty sure there were two this time as well. These acted like the unfortunate one of four years ago; they showed absolutely no fear of me or the dogs. Like those of four years ago, these were frolicking around like puppies. Fortunately for them, Zeke has gotten old enough that he didn’t break his collar to get to them.