Doggie Heaven Hotel

Canine Cowgirl

Skipper

“Don’t worry about putting Skipper on a leash. He doesn’t need one. He’s great off leash.”

Those were the last words Skipper’s owner spoke to me before leaving Skipper at Doggie Heaven.

Here’s what he should have said, “Skipper’s great off leash but if you let him off the leash, good luck getting him back on.”

Or.

“Just remember if you let Skipper off leash, you’re going to look like a complete and utter nincompoop chasing him around with an empty leash in your hand.”
 
Yeah, I took this lovely high-energy pup for a run with Moondoggie. We’d run about three miles up hill from town to the lake. I decided to let MD and Skipper have a nice romp together down by the lake so I slipped the leash off Skipper’s neck and they tore happily into the water after some mud hens. Oh what joy and frolic. What fun to watch those two dogs cavort on this wonderful sunny 70-degree winter day.

After a few minutes, it was time to go. We had been gone for almost an hour and we still had a mile to go. I called MD. She was at my side in a moment. I leashed her up and looked around for Skipper.


Skipper was facing me about fifteen feet away, staring intently into my eyes. Now I don’t pretend to read dog’s minds or profess I know why they do what they do, but at that moment I could swear Skipper, looking at the leash in my hand and then back at the lake covered in waterfowl, was trying to tell me something.

Yes I was almost sure of it. I think his exact words, if he could speak, might have gone something like this—“Really? I don’t think so. How ‘bout you take that leash and…”

Or something to that effect.

So I spent the next several minutes chasing him around with an empty leash looking like a complete and utter nincompoop. At one point I turned the leash into a lasso of some ilk, and, as he raced by me, I threw it around his neck.

Well yippee-ki-ay, if it didn’t go perfectly over his head, and land perfectly around his neck.

I was feeling quite proud of myself for the nanosecond before the end of the leash flipped up and around my right ring finger, breaking it and the nail on my middle finger.

I don’t know why but I was more concerned with my broken fingernail than my broken finger.


Damn, two weeks until my next nail appointment. Like someone is going to notice the chip on the corner of the nail when the finger next door is in giant metal splint.

Oh vanity, thy name is Canine Cowgirl.

Moondoggie Diaries

It can be very frustrating, being a dog, especially when your mom starts a blog about dogs.

I mean what does she know anyhow.

The problem is she has so many things going on she doesn't have time to write and when she writes, her writing cuts into "our time" which mean no excercise, which means grumpy Moondoggie. So I decided it was in "our" best interest that I lend a paw. 

The problem for me is my thumbs—I don’t have any. So I secretly found this other human who was willing to write this column for me, let’s just call her Rachael. Rachael and I have been friends for a long time. Sometimes I need a human to talk to, because they can give me insight into my own human.

I call my human “mom”. I get a lot of slack for this from my friends, but I do it out of respect. She thinks of herself as my mom so I just go with it. Besides I don’t really care what other dogs think. I don’t really like dogs. I have a couple of really close friends but that’s about it.

Most dogs are lazy and they eat too much. I know I sound judgmental, but, you see, It’s in my blood. I’m a herding dog. I believe in working hard and playing hard. I believe in lots of exercise and eating only when you need to.

I consider myself lucky. My mom found me in that place some refer to as the pound. The humans in the pound told my mom that I was  “unadoptable.” To this day that really makes me angry. Hey, yeah, I got a little grumpy with some of the humans, but come on, let’s look at the facts.

I was lost. I was minding my own business trying to find my way. When some pycho in a weird uniform and a pole with a noose at the end trys to put it around my neck. Oh Good Dog, what would YOU do? Step up, loop the noose around your own neck and jump in the back of the truck with all the other mongrels and their feces?

Yeah, I might have had a bad attitude.

On top of the whole noose thing, I was taken to this pound place and put in a cage. Me. In a cage! Don’t they know I have a job? Well all that is behind me. Now my job is to help my mom with her silly “Dog” blog.

Thank Dog my mom busted me out and took me to her house.

She was supposed to help me to feel better about myself and then when I felt better I could be adopted by another family. It took me a while but I finally started to feel better. My mom started to like me, so I took a little longer in my “rehabilitation” and sure enough, when it came time, she couldn’t give me up.

Humans are such pushovers.

The Black Puddle Has Gone Home.

It never fails, when I board dogs for an extended amount of time, or even for a short amount of time, I grow attached.

I make them part of my pack.

 
The bromance of Shadow and Willie

I feed them, walk them, play with them, brush them, and train them. No begging, no human food, no getting up on furniture, lots of exercise, I take them for car rides and doggie field trips. They become my children in a way. Except for the fact I don’t get the dreaded weekly phone calls from their school principal.

Then I give them back to their rightful owners. Sad face. Off they go happily—never looking back until the next time their owners go on vacation.

I recently boarded my friend’s dog, Shadow.

I have known Shadow since he was a puppy and this is the first time he has been away from his family for an extended amount of time. I watched him for 23 days.



Shadow is a large, sweet, calm, loveable big chunk of black lab. Shadow and I already had a great bond and he did great at my house. He learned the house rules in a couple of days and from then on it was a pure love fest.

We gave Shadow the nickname The Black Puddle because all you had to do was pet him once or even just look at him sideways and he would collapse into a boneless black puddle of love.

The only thing that could get him standing again was the promise of food or a walk.           

We didn’t want to see Shadow go, so when it came time to give him back, my older son and I devised a plan. We decided to tell his owners that he had disappeared and that all we could find was this hairy crocodile. We promised to call them should Shadow show up.




I don’t understand why, but they didn’t buy it.

Until next time, Shadow.

Dog Walk Dog

Sometimes things can get very busy and chaotic around Doggie Heaven Hotel.

During the holidays I had five to six dogs a day on average.

I had two boys and a husband and a bird to take care of also. My driveway was torn up and it rained most of the time. It was raining and It Was Christmas.

I can’t always walk every single dog that I need to. Some times I have to ask for a little help. Who better to ask than an expert on walking dogs, someone I have already trained—My friend Shadow.

Shadow has been staying with us while his people are in India.

Here he is walking his friend Sadie.

Holiday Guests

Here are a few photos of the guests that visited Doggie Heaven Hotel over the holidays

During the first half of the holidays I was considering changing the name of Doggie Heaven Hotel to Chigiy's House of Labs.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, (I mean) Happy Birthday Moondoggie!

It was two years ago today that I took in a two-year-old foster foundling.

Her name was Ribbon, a border collie and cattle dog mix.

At the time she was considered unadoptable. She needed someone to work with her, someone to help her overcome her fear of, well, basically everything and everybody.

She was my first foster dog and, as of now, my last because my family and I fell in love with this timid, beautiful, athletic, intelligent girl. Then, when our long-time family dog, Mr. Wizard, died a few days after she arrived, there was no way we were going to give up this new member of our family.

The name Ribbon was given to her at the Humane Society, no doubt picked from a batch of Christmas names made up on the spot. I’m sure there were probably dogs taken in by the Humane Society with labels like Ornament, Wrapping Paper, Candy Cane, and Scotch Tape.

We changed Ribbon’s name to Moondoggie.

And hopefully Scotch Tape had his name changed, too.