Fall is making a brief appearance this weekend here in North Texas. The wind is HOWLING today and I have a suspicion that we may lose more of the roof off the old barn. Owning property with outbuildings is not always glamorous. The fox hunting season is kicking off soon and we will be celebrating the beginning of the season this weekend. I’m SO excited!
Onward to updates from around the farm over the past week or two.
One of the last toads of the season. This guy/gal was in the dog water bowl and I thought he was too cute!
I have been nagging and nagging Boot City to finish the road gate as part of our pets-in-traffic prevention program and he FINALLY got it done! I LOVE it! It is the fanciest gate ever! The frame is 8″x2″ and the whole thing is 14′ wide so is very stout and yet very modern. The hinges he used are super heavy duty so it opens and closes smoothly and evenly even though it weighs more than 500lb. The automatic opener still needs to be installed, but I’m fine with the manual open and close for now.
THE gate!
These days it is very difficult to get a photo of the muppies that isn’t blurry! We let them in the house in the mornings and evenings and they play and play and play! Animal and Annie Sue went to the vet yesterday and they were 30lb and 25lb respectively. They will be BIG dogs!
Muppy play time.
We have a handy man/contractor doing some updates to the house right now and his first project was to replace the door from the breezeway to the garage. The door was in poor shape when we bought the house, but was made tremendously worse by the dog pack we have had during the past few years. Jessie did the door in and the entire bottom half was missing! The new door is metal so no worries about it getting giant holes in it, just scratches.
The new man door from the breezeway to the garage.
This past Saturday was a BIG day for the muppy family! Of the 11 puppies 5 will stay in Texas and 6 will go to New York to get adopted. The New York crew will stay in Texas until they are old enough to get spayed/neutered and finish all their puppy shots. The local puppies can be adopted earlier, with conditions requiring regular vet visits. Well, this past Saturday four of the muppies went to an adoption event and I’m so pleased to tell you that all four were adopted within a couple hours!
On their way to Dogtopia! This photo was before they ALL got carsick and threw up.
The rescue group had done a few posts advertising a puppy adoption event so people were able to submit adoption applications in advance and speed up the process on the day of the event.
Denise was the first muppy to be adopted. She will be an only dog and will have a new little girl to be her best friend.
Denise
Betty Lou was Boot City’s favorite muppy so it was hard for him to let her go, but she was adopted by a delightful older couple who already have one smaller dog.
Beautiful brindle Betty Lou
Rizzo was VERY popular with his adorably scruffy face and extra calm demeanor. He was adopted by a super fun family and will get to go on lots of adventures! His adoptors have already contacted me and requested baby pics.
Rizzo. Who could resist this face?!
Last, but certainly not least, to leave the building was Camilla. She went home with a young couple to be their first pet together.
Camilla and Pablo snuggles.
It is always a little big hard to let the foster dogs go, but it is so satisfying to know that we helped these puppies have the best start to life they could. Definitely much better than if they had been born on the side of a busy road, which would have been their fate had a good Samaritan not picked up Jessie and July. My hope is that their adoptors will keep in touch, but there is satisfaction in knowing they went to good homes.
Holy smokes, it’s September already! How did that happen?!
The past few days have been so emotional for me. I watch my Facebook feed to see countless posts of the devastation in the Houston area from Hurricane Harvey. My heart is warmed and my faith in humanity is restored to see SO many people stepping up to help people and animals in need. We will be taking in some shelter dogs a as a temporary stop on their trips out of Texas to make room for Harvey evacuee pets. My Facebook feed is also full of posts of the devastation from fires in my home state of Montana. Over 500,000 acres have burned this summer. Farmers and ranchers are losing their livestock and livelihood to these fires. At the end of the post I’ll include links to organizations I feel have the best direct impact on those in need in Texas and Montana.
Onto more uplifting pics of cute animals!
Pablo meets a Muppy!
When I was riding on Tuesday night I got a bug in my eyeball and it has looked like this since Tuesday night! It looks much worse than it feels.
Mama Jessie has decided it is time for the muppies to enter their next step in their path to adult muppiness and is refusing to nurse or clean up after them. I totally get the nursing part since they have teeth now, but now I have to clean up all the poo!
There are few things as cute as 11 muppies charging at you every time they see you! They bark, and growl, and play , and do all the cute puppy things!
Sleepy!
Future Branch Manager
Denise is much smaller than all the others, but she is the feistiest!!
Y’all. The muppies are growing SO fast! They are eating mushy food. They can walk without tumbling over as much. They are VERY chatty!
Ready to RUN! They burst out the door whenever it opens now that they have their land legs.
They are transitioning to real dog food and water.
Gladys is one of my favorites. She is easy to tell apart from her siblings because her face is mostly white. Pics are fuzzy because puppies don’t stay still for long!
I *think* this is Kermit. He looks like he is going to have wiry hair like his Mum.
Sleep. Eat. Play. Repeat. This is the life of a muppy!
Happy FriYAY all! Casey and I are headed west to a Stock Horse of Texas show. This will be my first horse show in western tack in about 15 years! Hopefully all goes well and we get some ribbons and some interest in buying Casey.
This week has been delightfully less eventful than weeks past. Still lots of prescription meds in the cabinets for various animals, but most seem to be on the mend.
Catfish and Mickey snuggles before Mickey had his surgery. Catfish is always sweet with the little dogs, even though he can’t see them.
We got nearly an inch of rain this week and the temps have been amazingly cool. The forecast for the next 10 days has the highs in the low 90s and high 80s, which is remarkable for Texas in August! I’ll take it! Sterling got the all clear last weekend for turnout (with a quiet buddy) and walk/trot rides. It has been nice to be back in the tack for some easy hill walking.
Sterling also enjoys the rain. Why is it that the horse that is closest to the color white is the one that most feels the need to roll in mud? None of the brown horses have this dirty habit.
The muppies are continuing to eat and grow,eat and grow, and eat and grow. The puppy timelines say their eyes should be open by now, but they are taking their time and appear to be enjoying their eat and grow schedule. Very few workouts for these muppies so far. I’ll probably be eating my words a week from now!
Muppy pile!
Harriet is almost done with her post-heartworm-treatment meds and is ready for YOU to adopt her! She is so wonderful and will be an amazing doggo for someone.
Harriet found/made her very own doggy canopy bed. This is her new favorite place to sleep.
Most everyone here knows that I foster dogs. I follow a few rescue pages on Facebook and occasionally something piques my interest. One of those pages is Sighthounds Worldwide Needing Homes. Because of the Beerhounds and our Whippet, Boot City and I are slightly obsessed with sighthounds. A couple weeks ago a person in Texas found what looked to be two Irish Wolfhound mixes on the side of the road. They were there two consecutive days so she succumbed to the tug on her heartstrings and picked them up. Both are young dogs and one was clearly a pregnant female. She kept the younger male and placed the female into a temporary foster home.
I, of course, was watching all of this unfold on the Facebook group and couldn’t help but throw my hat in the ring as a potential long-term foster for the mama dog. I have friends who want sighthounds after being around our dogs so I thought for sure I could find a few puppies homes. The mama dog is called Jesse and she whelped ELEVEN puppies a few days after being picked up off the side of the road. Perfect timing! She stayed with her temporary foster mom for the first week and once I was approved by the rescue group, I picked up the whole family.
Mama Jesse and her muppies!
Jesse seriously looks like a muppet, in the cutest possible way! She isn’t as large as a typical Irish Wolfhound so is most likely a mix. She also has a bob tail, which is not at all typical of a wolfhound. I have an inclination to think she may be a Wolfhound crossed with a Schnauzer. Regardless of her breed she is a FANTASTIC mom and is a super sweet dog. She is protective of her litter, but happily goes outside and plays with my other dogs. She seems to be feeding all eleven of the monsters with no issue with milk supply. I pull out the smallest puppies a couple times a day to give them time to nurse without competition from the bigger puppies. There are two that are nearly twice the size of the smallest puppies!
Sweet, sleepy muppies.
All of the puppers have some white. Two are brindle, but most are some version of tan with white. It will be fun to watch them grow and change and try to guess their breed cross. Some have half a tail, one has a bob tail and the rest have long tails. None have their eyes open yet, but they are already quite a lot more mobile than they were even a few days ago.
The feeding frenzies are getting crazier and crazier. She is sweet and patient with her little furry family!
If you are interested in adopting a muppy, please let me know! There will be an adoption fee and you must be approved by the rescue group sponsoring their care.
