I was out today running errands. I drove about 20 mile south to pick up my kennel license as today was the last day to buy it w/o it costing double. I get a kennel license for two reasons - a) its cheaper than individually registering each dog at $13… The kennel is $65 b) it covers any rescue, foster or boarder i have at my house. ANYWAYS…

I drove right past my house and headed 15 miles north to go to Petsmart to get dog food and Tea at the Anderson’s. As I am in the turn lane to pull into Anderson’s I get a call from my husband. He makes a little small talk, but I knew something was wrong. He then asks me how my progress is going and when I will be home… he says the boys are gone. He is driving around looking for them. My son left the door open and out they went. He had been looking for them for about 45 minutes before he called me. So I immediately do an illegal U turn and race home. I am panicking - we live on a busy state route and the people drive really fast!

When I am about a mile away hubby calls me and has visual contact with them. They had crossed the busy road and were in a corn field running around and barking at something. I get there and they see me and come running to me straight away. I was sooo relieved they were safe. So mad they had gotten out. I cant believe what a close call that was. They were gone for over an hour.

As I am brushing the burs out of them I am angry they have the burs, but then I realize at least I have them to brush the burs out of and I just cant be mad.

I haven’t been so scared for a long time.

We are so excited!!! We got our first award tonight! Tatum Tot Spice chose the Thundering Herd as a Thinking Blog! How cool is that… Since this is our first award we want to make sure we do it right. First I have to name five bloggers that make me think, too! I think about lots of my blogging friends so this is the easy part.Then this is what I have to do.. and you too, for me giving you the award!

1. You must write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think. (really think!)
2. Acknowledge and link to this post.
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote. – We are sooo proud!
4. And per Tatum Tot Spice - Tell your humans to fork over the treats!

The five blogs that make me think are Moxie’s Blog, because she is so pretty and philosophical. She has the best adventures and it makes me think of warm weather! Boomer and Bosco’s and their agility and herding adventures make me think about doing agility with Hera. The Bassets of Norway make me think of the snow and my basset parties… Tina is so nice and I think about her and her brode a lot. The newest addition to my blog roll.. Ayla the Newfie! Her adventures make me think about newfies and my trip to Scotland. I want a newfie one day. And Finally Ruffdogs HQ, Asha, Elliot and Bean run my favorite forum. I spend a lot of time there and adore their human Emma.

So there you have it! My five! They are quite worthy recipients.

My son found this cartoon in the newspaper today. I about died! Its soo funny! I don’t normally read comics, but this one is soo clever. The cartoon is MARVIN by Tom Anderson… you can find more of his work here. Yesterday’s was pretty funny too!

I love Saint Bernard stuff.. Saints aren’t as popular as they once were and there aren’t as many toys, prints or comics about them anymore. I blame this on the movie Cujo! I can’t tell you how many times I have had someone make a comment like “he wont eat me will he” or “oh look! Its Cujo” — good grief! They act like I have a 50 cal machine gun at the end of the leash. But that is a whole other rant.

I am a BAD, BAD mommy! I have neglected my brushing and grooming duties of the boys. Their pants are all tangly and have some mats. Poor babies! I brushed and groomed and trimmed Brutie for 3 hours the other night and started working on Rufus.. He wasnt impressed and not in the mood to be brushed. I think all he wanted was to lay in my lap and have me massage his face.. I think I am going to work on Rufus’s pants today. I have all the mats out of his pants but want to give him a real good work over with the generic furminator… That thing is AMAZING! I could stuff a mattress with all the hair it pulls off of those two!

Its too cold to play outside. It is 8:22am and 3°F right now. No, I did not make a typo… it IS 3°F! The house is freezing despite the blazing fire in the wood burning stove. The dogs are all huddled around it as we speak.

Since Eris was doggie thing of the day, I was absolutely inundated with email today and yesterday. I cruised around on a ton of Dogster pages that were sent to me. One of the dogs had a widget on the side of his page called the “peculiar title” so I checked it out. You put in your dogs name and sex and it generates a crazy “title” for it.. Here is the site if you want to get a “title” for your own dog - http://www.masquerademaskarts.com/memes/peculiartitle.php

And the names it generated for my pack - they are quite clever and funny.. especially Rufus and Eris’s

Grand Duke Brutus the Woebegone of Bampton Underhoop
Very Lord Rufus the Sublunary of Bumswick by the Hole
Her Most Serene Highness Lady Eris the Mad of Happy Bottomshire
Imperial Majesty Zeus the Perplexed of Deepest Throcking
Grand Duke Apollo the Intractable of Melbury Bubblewick
Her Eminence the Very Viscountess Hera the Laconic of Fiddlers Green

Today is another of the pack’s birthday. Apollo is now 4 just like Brutus and Rufus. My little peanut is getting older…. I tried to find some party hats for them today. I went to 3 stores and came up empty handed… How does the grocery and a Hallmark store NOT have party hats?!

Wittle Apollo Peanut

What a Cutie

NOW

Happy Birthday Big Boy

I woke up this morning and there was a note in my email from Dogster…. Eris has been chosen as today’s Dog Diary of the Day…. Wow… what an honor.  Her diary doesn’t say anything other than directing people here.  They must have liked what they saw when they got here though :).

Eris sure has had a posh life lately.  To go from a throw away to princess, who’da thunk it!  I am quite proud of my fatty girl.  She loves life and lives it to the fullest after her start as an Amish puppy mill breeding dog.  I still remember how sad and pathetic she was when she first came to me.  Didnt know how to play with the other dogs or with toys…. Look at her today!

Yesterday I watched an episode of “Animal Precinct” on Animal Planet and I just cant seem to get it out of my mind.  This particular episode had a Siamese cat that had been tossed against a wall or something by his mentally ill owner and had shattered one of its legs.  The other story on the episode was of two litter mate - male, Saint Bernards that are beyond emaciated and living in a filthy basement.  The neglected pair is rescued and and treated on the show.  They both make remarkable recoveries and are adopted out.

There were so many things about this episode that made me sad.  First their horrid living conditions.  I just dont understand how someone can neglect a big dog.  Its not like they “forget” they are there or “don’t see them” - Saints are people dogs.  They need their people!  If I locked my two in the basement for more than an hour they would be knocking on the door and woofing at me wanting to know when I was coming down there with them, coming to bring them treats or if they could come back up with me.

Secondly, they were not adopted together.  This pains me the most because my B and R are a set of liter mates.  They were together until coming to me at 19 months old.  They were so connected and very dependent on each other.  I had to make the decision whether to separate them and adopt them out or keep them together and ultimately take them on myself.  I know it is a tall order to expect someone to adopt 2 giant dogs together at once, but there are people out there that will do it.  I wish the show would have contacted a rescue to take them on.  In fact, I know the lady that runs the Saint Rescue in Conn.  She would have been more than happy to take them on to keep them together.

The show made me so sad that I actually had tears in my eyes and had to give my big lunks big hugs and kisses.

Happy 4th Birthday to Brutus and Rufus! I can’t believe my big boys are 4 years old now.  Time continues to march on and the sands continue to fall.  I love my boys so much.  Celebrating their birthday is so bittersweet.  It should be a day of excitement and happiness, but it just reminds me of their mortality and how little time I have left with them.  Saints don’t live much longer than 8-10 years.  The thought of being with out them is too much to bare.

I had alot of problems getting my art photos to show up from the move so I thought I would re post them for my new viewers and for the regulars that may not have been able to see them. Enjoy.

Some of my friend’s dogs

Apparently we had a huge wind storm here last night. I slept right through it it seems with the help of some cold medicine. I am sooo sick today! My son conveniently missed the bus to school again as well so I had to get up and drive 20 miles to take him there. It is still really dark out and notice nothing amis until I turn on my head lights. A GIANT tree has blown over and on to my fence. The front is crushed and will need to be replaced. I hope I can keep the dogs from getting out until it gets fixed. My hubby is still out of town too - this is just the most inconvenient time ever!

Car vs. Deer

We were up very late last night watching the college football national championship game on tv (don’t ask - our team did NOT win) so I let my son sleep in an extra hour before school. I set my alarm to give him an extra 2 hours, but the dogs started barking up a storm at about 7:15am. I didnt think a whole lot about it and just told them to knock it off.. but at that point I was awake.

As we were pulling down the drive (my driveway is really long and tree lined so you cant see the road) I see a red car sitting there. It is totally smashed up and some guy is walking around it. He is blocking my way out so I am forced to talk to him. He says he hit a deer and it has stumbled off into my stream and is laying there dying. UGGG! I am sooo upset - First because the thing is still alive and suffering and second because I have NO idea how I am going to dispose of this thing. Ohio stopped picking up road kill several years ago because it was costing them too much money, so they just drive by and dump a bunch of lye soap on it to aid in the decomposition process. But this thing is IN the water! Now from past experience, getting things out of the water (I drove my tractor into the stream when i first moved in and had no idea how to drive a tractor - dont ask), its 5 feet deep and difficult at best. My husband is out of town too.. so this is just the worst time for something like this to happen.

By the time i got home from dropping off my son, the State Highway Patrol has shown up and the car has been loaded onto the flatbed tow truck - the thing is a write off (the front end is mangled, airbags deployed and windshield is shattered). The Statie has shot the deer to put it out of its misery and managed to get it out of the water and into the yard. A big cat sanctuary was even called and they picked up the carcass for the cats (Rescue One).  At least it didnt go to waste.

We had unseasonably warm weather today.  It was almost 70 degrees!  A week ago we had snow and single digit temps.  I was amazing!  Obviously all the snow has melted and it as you can imagine, the yard is a mud hole.  Thank goodness I bought some wellies yesterday, because they came in super handy for playtime today.  B and R and Hera all got in the pond today and swam!  I cant belive they got in… I bet the water was FREEZING!   Dogs sure are silly!

I have been meaning to post this update on my old foster Heidi (now Daffodil).  Her new owners LOVE her and are so happy with her.  She is still having a bit of separation anxiety from time to time but has settled in very well.  Attached is the picture they sent me and the little love note.  I am soo glad I held on to her as long as i did so she could find such a wonderful home!

“Hi - Daffy wanted to Thank you for taking care of her.  She is quite the character.  Still likes to “take” things especially paper products or just about anything if she can’t find that.  We think she is about 120 lbs now.  She is quite tall and lanky at the moment.  She can put her head on the counter–bad! with out jumping up.  We walk at least once a day and she is doing very well.  We also try to take her to the dog park or doggie day care about once a week so she can just be a dog with other dogs.  She comes home exhausted.  She will be 1 year on New Year’s Day– I told her that is when she has to start acting “grown up”.  Ha!”

Whoo Hoo!  I finally broke down and bought myself a pair of Wellington boots or “wellies” as they are called in the UK.  Growing up I always called them rubbers or galoshes.  I have wanted a pair for quite some time, but never really found any cute ones that were cheep and in my size.  Well today I was in the mood to spend money and I ran across the cutest pair that wont look horrible when covered in mud.

The dogs are going to be so happy that I can go out in the muddy yard to play with them now :)  I can just hose them off when we are done playing and they are ready to go for the next time.  We have so much mud in Ohio.  It is almost always wet from about November to June.  I have ruined more sneakers than I care to admit.  Now I will look stylin’ (lol) when I am throwing the tennis ball or just walking with the pack.

The dogs and I have braved the snow and cold over the past few days and have gotten some great photos of them. The weather warmed up a little yesterday and then quite a bit today. Most of the snow has now melted and we have icky mud everywhere that they are tracking in the house. There’s got to be some fantastic gadget on the market that cleans off the mud from their paws with minimal work from me… If not, I need to invent something.. lol One of the bad things about Ohio is it is a VERY WET state most of the year. Alas, there’s always plenty of mud for them to track through the house.

Enjoy some of the pictures we took the other day. For some reason the zoom lens I have takes really dark pictures… I guess I need to look into spending some money on a flash.

I called the shelter the other day (cant believe I forgot to post this) - the owners of the dog claimed him.  The owner had left his truck running at the gas station (in a rural area) when he went into pay and someone hopped in and stole it - taking the dog and leaving  him and his  daughter stranded. The family came into the shelter with 2 small girls who were absolutely thrilled to find him. They were from the county south of here and the only reason they went to this shelter was because the truck was found by the police, stripped and burned out in Franklin County.  His name is Quincy, he is 7 months old and home with his people safe and sound!

They were told the story of how I had caught Quincy and that I had offered to foster him.  The family was so thankful that they left a note of thanks for me with the shelter just in case I called back in to check on him.  I am so relieved for him.

Here’s Quincy in my car

The Thundering Herd wishes you a happy new year!

It is freezing cold and snowing. The dogs didnt even want to go outside. They finally went out to do their buisness after some serious coaxing. They came in looking like snowmen! It is really coming down. It is supposed to continue through tomorrow so I dont think we will get out much tomorrow. Thursday should be nice so we can get out and take some pictures

Maybe we’ll sit down and make up the doggie new year resolutions…