13 posts tagged “animals”
I read this story in the newspaper yesterday and had to pass it on:
MURRAY, Utah (AP) — A thief remains at large after pulling off a daring heist — in the pet food aisle.
Surveillance video at a supermarket in this Salt Lake City suburb caught a dog shoplifting, KSL-TV reported Wednesday.
The video showed the dog walking in the front door of Smith's Food & Drug in Murray, and heading straight to Aisle 16, the pet food aisle, where it grabbed a bone worth $2.79.
The thief wasn't even perturbed by a face-to-face confrontation with store manager Roger Adamson.
"I looked at him. I said 'Drop it!'" Adamson said. "He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he ran for the door and away he went, right out the front door."
Information from: KSL-TV, http://www.ksl.com/
I got up early this morning to review my Sunday School lesson and as I was sitting in the computer room I heard a low "Mmmmmm" sound. I thought it was the cell phone on vibrate, but it didn't happen again so I ignored it. About ten minutes later I heard it again. This time, I got up and looked for my wife's cell, but when I found it there were no missed calls.
I sat back down and started to read some more when the dog started barking. I jumped up and opened the front door, quietly telling him to get out of the house before he woke everyone up. As I closed the front door and turned around I found the source of the weird sound. Staring at me through the glass panes of the back door was a large, red cow.
I made it to the back door and looked out to find a total of three cows on the back porch and at least five more in the back yard. I flung the door open to run them off the porch and promptly stepped my bare foot into a large, wet cow patty. The cows stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do until I reached over and picked up a mop that my wife had leaned against the back wall to dry.
Like a ninja on the war path I started running at the cows who immediately turned and ran into the yard. I must have looked ridiculous chasing around after them while wearing my palm tree sleeping shorts and a t-shirt, screaming like a banshee and swinging the mop over my head. To top it off, as I was going after them, I was trying to run and drag my foot through the grass in an attempt to scrape off the cow crap.
In my heightened adrenaline state I managed to get all of the cows back into my parent's field (my nephew had left the gate open ) and then I went back to our house to survey the damage. Cows are clumsy creatures and they will knock anything over that is standing up. Every potted plant that was on the back porch was sitting on its side and there was cow manure everywhere. If I didn't know better, I would think they all purposefully waited until they got in my back yard to do their business.
Needless to say, my nephew got to bring his shovel over to remove the odorous gifts. Then, I broke out the pressure washer and gave the back porch a good cleaning.
Animals - I just love them (not!)
Read more of my animal stories below:
And still a few more that include...
Cutting open a dead cow.
Wrestling a crazy sheep.
Carrying two goats to the market in the front of the truck.
Participating in an old fashioned rat killling.
Okay, I'll admit, the title is a little strange, but I can explain it...
I dropped off my wife and son at the airport this morning and, since I don't have a cell phone, I kept my wife's phone so they will be able to contact me when they get back to the airport next week. Well, after they went through the security checkpoint, I was sitting in the main terminal area, waiting to make sure their plane got off on time, when the phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and started talking, and then noticed a couple of people looking at me strangely. It occurred to me at that point that I was sitting in a crowded airport with a pink cell phone up to my ear. I'm not one of those guys who sweats out testerone, but I do have some manly pride and it was slightly humiliating. I finished the conversation as quickly as possible and put the phone back in my pocket, hoping that it wouldn't ring again.
Later on this afternoon, when I got back home, I got the medicine ready to doctor a horse. It seems one of our horses has a hoof fungus that is starting to eat away the "frog" (if you don't know what a horse's "frog" is then good for you, it means that you probably do not have horses - try to keep it that way). My wife is the horse person, and I have mentioned time and time again that me and horses do not get along, but I promised her that I would put the medicine on.
I went out there with determination, telling myself that it was not a big deal and that I could do it. I brought him in the back yard, put some feed out for him and commenced to pick up his front hoof so that I could clean it and apply the medicine. One problem - he wouldn't raise his leg. My wife had showed me how to pinch a certain part of the leg and lift it up, but he refused. I tried a number of times without success before finally calling my sister-in-law who is also a horse person and lives next door. Unfortunately, she was headed out the door and wasn't going to be back for a couple of hours.
I said, "If you can just tell me how to lift his feet I can do the rest."
She said, "I can send Linz down if you want, she knows how to do that."
"Are you sure she can do it?" I asked.
"Of course, she does it all the time. Would it be okay with you if she came down?"
Now, the thing to remember here is that Linz is only 12 years old. Rather hesitantly, I responded with, "That's fine with me. I don't mind if a little girl comes down and shows me how to handle a 1,200 pound horse."
So, Linz came down and showed my how to pick up the horses feet (she did it rather easily too). She even cleaned and applied the medicine to two of the hoofs. She probably would have done all four, but I made her let me do the last two. If I've got to put this stuff on every day until my wife gets back next week, I need to learn how to do it myself. But she does love horses... hmmm.
At one point in time, we had about thirty goats. Over the years, that has dwindled down to just one. Her name is Padme' (after the Star Wars character - there was another one named Anakin). My brother has three female goats and, since they are herding animals, Padme' has been in his field with them for the past year.
Long story short - my brother borrowed a billy so that he could have some baby goats and over the past few weeks we've had a bunch of new goats born. The last to give birth was Padme' who did so yesterday morning. Now, where there used to be four goats there are thirteen! Goats often give birth to twins and sometimes they birth triplets. Padme' had a set of twins, a male and female. They are a little different from the goats she normally has because their heads are tri-colored. I like goats when they are small. Unfortunately, they have a tendency to grow up.
What exactly does this say about my character? Am I less of a human being because I don’t love animals? Am I less of a Christian because of it? After all, God did give man dominion over the animals and instructions to look after them. I can honestly say that I have thought about these things and wondered if there is something wrong with me. I’ve gone so far as to try and “make myself” love animals. From that I was able to conclude that you can’t make yourself love anything. You might get used to it, or learn to tolerate it, but it’s a different thing altogether to love something.
Of all the animals that we have owned, I can say the only one I have ever come close to loving is our poodle, Dusty. We got him over eleven years ago and there have definitely been times that he has aggravated me.
I remember going away one weekend and taking him to a friend’s house. He was completely housebroken and had never done his business on the floor, but as soon as we walked into their home, he made a beeline for a corner of the living room, cocked his leg and let it fly before any of us had a chance to stop him (I don’t know how we would have stopped him anyway. Just how do you stop a dog in mid stream?). They were gracious about it, having dogs of their own, but I was embarrassed beyond belief.
There have been many other things, like the time he jumped on top of the dinner table after we all rushed outside because of an emergency and ate an entire platter of hamburgers that had just come off the grill.
Yet, despite those incidents (and many more), I do feel something for the curly little guy. I wouldn’t call it love though; maybe affinity is a better word. Sometimes my family has mistaken it for love. In fact, every once in a while, one if them will say something like, “You do love Dusty! I knew it!” A good example of this was just the other night after dinner. I opened up the refrigerator and saw a small container of beef tips left over from a previous night’s dinner. I was going to take it for my lunch one day, but changed my mind. Anyway, I decided to give it to Dusty, so I placed the container in the microwave to get the chill off. My wife walked by, heard the microwave running and said, “What’s in the microwave?”
I answered nonchalantly, “Nothing.”
“Really, what’s in the microwave?”
About that time the timer went off, so I said, “Can you take that out and give it to Dusty?”
She did a double take, opened up the microwave and then looked back at me with a surprised look on her face. I just shrugged my shoulders and continued what I was doing, but I heard her chuckle behind my back. Who knows, there might be an animal lover deep inside of me yet… but I seriously doubt it.
What do you do when your pig isn’t putting on weight? I’m sure this is a question that most people have not pondered, but it was a question that came up a few years back when the pigs we were raising for the youth fair suddenly stopped gaining weight. This is a big deal because they have to weigh a certain amount by show time or you cannot enter them in the fair. So, I started asking other parents what they did in this situation.
One man told me about a sure fire way to make a pig put on weight, “Put him on a high carb high protein diet.”
“And what does that include?” I asked.
His answer was short and simple, “Beer and dog food.”
He went on to explain that I needed to buy a bag of high protein dog food and pour the beer over it. He said that he had done it when his child’s pig was not gaining weight and it helped tremendously. I was at a point where I was desperate, so I was willing to try anything.
Getting the dog food was easy; it was the beer that had me in a quandary. You see, I do not drink. Not only that, I teach a high school Bible study class. I needed the beer for my “concoction” but I didn’t feel comfortable walking into a store and buying it. The way things work for me, one of my high school students would walk into the store just as I was buying a twelve pack of beer. That wouldn’t do a lot for my testimony as a Christian and their teacher. I can see me now trying to explain, “It’s for the pig… really!!” How many teenage boys are going to buy that line?
Anyway, I decided that in order to purchase the beer I was going to have to go somewhere where I might not be recognized. So, I made a trip to a grocery store on the far side of town. I walked down the aisles and found the beer section. I looked around nervously and picked up the packs of beer, trying to read the labels to find out which one had the most carbs. However, they aren’t required to put that kind of information on beer cans, so I made a guess and picked up a 24 pack.
I walked up the aisles like a shoplifter who was doing it for the first time. I snuck up to the registers, constantly scanning the open aisles, praying that I wouldn’t see anyone that I knew. I managed to make it to the express lane successfully and, to my relief, there was only one person there. I placed the beer on the conveyor and waited impatiently, fully expecting to get caught by someone I knew any moment.
Thankfully, I managed to get out of the store without being noticed (as far as I know). Unfortunately, it was all to no avail because it didn’t work for us. It turns out our pigs had a disease called Rhinitis that was causing the weight problems. We didn’t get to show them anyway, but I did learn something – I don’t like buying beer… but pigs sure do like it.
It was a nice day and we decided to take a family walk down our dirt lane. The lane runs beside a 30 acre tract of land where a local farmer keeps his cows. We were walking beside the cattle field when we noticed a cow on the verge of giving birth. She was standing up and we watched as the delivery took place. Like a sack of potatoes, the calf came out and plopped to the ground. After that, the mother walked away as if nothing had happened. Normally, the mother cow cleans the calf off and then gently urges it to stand up, but this one didn't. Left where it was, on the ground and still in the birth sac, the calf would soon die.
My wife, knowledgeable in animal birth from our own experiences with goats, saw the calf was in danger right away. On the other hand, I was standing there dumb and happy, totally oblivious when she startled me with, "We've got to get it out of the sac!"
From the panic in her voice I knew something was wrong and I listened as she quickly explained the danger. She wanted to go out into the field, but there were a few obstacles in our path and, as often seems to be the case in times of animal emergencies, the job fell on me.
I climbed the cattle fence, crawled through the barbed wire fence and gently stepped through the underbrush and briars until finally making it to the fallen calf. The fact that I was wearing shorts and was barefooted made it just a tad difficult (and painful). After finally getting there, she yelled instructions to me from the fence line.
First, I had to break the sac open and clean around its mouth and nose. I swept my fingers inside of the mouth to clean out anything that might be blocking the airway. I won't go into detail other than to say it was slimy and disgusting. After that, the calf was not breathing.
Next, I picked it up by the legs and swung it back and forth, trying to clear out its lungs and force it to start breathing. That didn't work either.
Finally, my wife yelled out, "You have to give it mouth to mouth!"
To which I responded, "What??!!"
"You have to get some air into its lungs!"
It was at this point that I regretted suggesting a walk down the lane. I really had no desire to put my mouth on the mouth of a calf that still had fresh afterbirth all over it. I yelled back, "And how am I supposed to do that?"
"Cup your hands together, put them over its nose and blow!"
That didn't sound quite so disgusting, but it still wasn't something that I wanted to do, but the cries and pleas from my family on the fenceline convinced me that that I had didn't have a choice. I cupped my hands, placed them into position and started blowing. To my surprise, it worked. It wasn't long before the calf was breathing and moving around. About this time the mother strolled over as if to say, "Thanks for doing the dirty work, but I'll take it from here," so I backed away and she started taking care of her baby.
When everything seemed to be clear, I tip-toed back through the briars and underbrush, crawled through the barbed wire fence and then over the cattle fence to my excited family where I received a hero's welcome (just call me Mouth to Mouth Calf Resuscitation Man). After basking in my fifteen minutes of fame, however, I went home, brushed my teeth and took a long, hot shower.
A couple years ago, we had two medium-sized goats that I was planning to take to the local livestock market. I could have borrowed my brother’s truck and trailer, but since there were only two of them, I decided to use the S-10 pickup. I had a metal dog carrier that I used to transport goats. It was very convenient because I could take it apart and store it when not in use. It was easy to assemble. The sides would fit together and then sit inside of the bottom piece. It was just the right size for two medium-sized goats.
As fate would have it, the rain starting coming down about an hour before I was going to leave. I backed the truck under the garage, loaded up the goats and then used bungee cords to attach a blue tarp securely to the cage. I waited as long as I could, hoping the rain would slack up. It slowed down a little, but continued to come down in a slow drizzle.
It was obvious that the rain wasn’t going to stop, so I decided to head out. I pulled out of our driveway and onto the highway slowly. As I picked up speed, the tarp started flapping a little, but it held in place and the goats were protected from the rain. I continued traveling at a fairly slow rate of speed until I got to the interstate. The livestock market is pretty far away, so the interstate is the best route to take.
I drove up the on ramp, picking up speed as I went. There was a lot of traffic and the roads were wet. A semi trailer whizzed by, sending a spray of beadlets that covered the front and side windshield. I looked in the mirror and saw an opening so I gave it some gas and pulled into the traffic… 50…55…60. And then it happened! I swear it was all in slow motion. Just as the truck edged past sixty miles per hour, I happened to look in the rear view mirror and saw the tarp expand like a parachute, pulling the entire top portion of the dog cage into the air and over the top of the goats. It dawned on me at that precise moment that I had been so concerned with attaching the tarp to the cage, that I forgot to attach the cage to the truck.
I watched in horror as the cage floated out of the truck and onto the highway. One car quickly swerved to the center lane and then a full size pick up truck hit the cage head on. My hands tightened on the steering wheel and I started pulling to the side of the road, fully expecting cars to start crashing into one another at any moment. To my surprise, not a single car accident took place. In fact, no one even stopped. Even the guy in the pickup truck that had nailed the cage head on kept right on going. I didn’t have time to dwell on this though because almost as soon as I stopped the truck, the goats (who were still in the back of the truck at this point) jumped out and ran up a small embankment and then started feasting on the long, green grass.
I was afraid the goats would somehow wander out onto the interstate, so I headed up the embankment to catch them. Luckily, they were wearing collars so grabbing hold of them was pretty easy. My plan was to walk them back to the truck and put them inside the king cab. I know this sounds weird, but there were no other options. They couldn't ride in the bed of the truck. The goats were thoroughly enjoying their meal of virgin grass so they fought me all the way to the truck. I had one in each hand as I walked up to the passenger side of the vehicle. I somehow managed to pull up on the door handle while holding both of them at the same time. To my dismay, the passenger door was locked. I had pulled off the road as far as I could, but the driver's side was still dangerously close to the flow of oncoming traffic. I didn't want to risk trying to load goats on that side of the truck, so I reluctantly let them go and ran around to climb through the driver’s side and unlock the door. Of course as soon as I let go, the goats bolted back up the embankment to the grass.
After unlocking the door, I headed back up the embankment to try again. It was still drizzling rain and I was pretty wet by now. Since the goats were enjoying the grass so much, I decided to save myself a fight and load them one at the time. It wasn't exactly easy getting them behind the front seat and into the king cab, but I managed. I can't imagine what the people zipping by in their cars must have thought. If anyone even noticed, however, they certainly didn't stop to help. It still amazes me that no one stopped after the cage blew out of the truck.
There was no way to turn around and head home, so I decided to go ahead and finish what I had started. I pulled back on the interstate and headed for the livestock market. One of the goats stuck his head between the seats and started looking out the front window curiously. I looked over at him and started laughing. It seems that once again I had found myself in an amusing situation with animals. I distinctly remember a guy in a red sports car pulling up beside me and then doing a double take when he looked over and saw the goats in the cab with me.
When I finally arrived at the market, I pulled to an area where I could get the goats out without being noticed. I thought I had managed to get away unseen until I walked up to the holding area. The man checking them in said, “Now there’s a man who loves his goats; let’s them ride in the front seat with him.” I just smiled and checked in.
Animals. I don’t hate them, but I am not an animal lover. As it turns out, I married a woman who does love them and at least two of my kids inherited the same animal affections. This opposing view of animals has caused a lot of memorable events on my part. I already spoke of my cow caserean section, but there have been many other events worth mentioning.
I’ve helped doctor goats, pigs, horses, dogs, cats and rabbits. I’ve bottle-fed, cleaned after birth, cut umbilical cords, performed castrations and wiped butts. I’ve trimmed goat hooves until I thought my back would break from bending over and I’ve carried around more baby pigs than I even care to mention. One time, while I was trying to hold a pig for a shot of wormer, my wife accidentally poked me instead! At least I didn’t worry about having worms that year.
I distinctly remember the first year that my daughter raised a sheep for the youth fair. We were told to show up at the livestock pavilion and pick up our sheep there. Upon arrival, I saw 80 young lambs all running crazy in the same pen. One by one, the young people were allowed to go in and “catch” the one they wanted. If the kids were too small, a parent was allowed to go in. Being the dad, I was given the nod.
Our turn came, and I stepped inside. The numbers had thinned down, but there were still quite a few to choose from. My daughter showed me the one she wanted, and I took off after it with great determination. A few minutes later, after having been thrown to the ground a number of times, I realized that it wasn’t going to be as easy as I first thought. For some reason, my wife found the whole thing quite hilarious (I know this because I could hear her cries of laughter above the constant sounds of bleats, baas and thundering hoof beats). I somehow managed to grab hold of one, and was doing my best to get it to the gate, when I heard my daughter yell out that it wasn't the one she wanted. With an expression of disbelief on my face, I reluctantly let it go and made a bead for the one that she was pointing at. Try as I might, I just couldn’t catch the one that she wanted. In desperation, and feeling the pain of an unseen injury, I heroically dove into the scattering flock and finally managed to latch on to another one. With sweat pouring down my face, clothing covered with sheep droppings and smelling like a sheep myself, I yelled out, “This is the one you’re getting”, and then I fought and wrestled him the gate.
Yes, it was a memorable experience, but the worse thing about all of it was that I was actually on my lunch break, so I had to go back to work. Let’s just say that everyone was happy to let me work by myself that night.
Not long ago, I wrote about a goat that my daughter had named "Spider". This got me thinking about some of the other names that we have given animals over the past few years. This is what I was able to come up with:
Two more animals named after other animals; a horse named "Eagle” and a goat named "Buffy" (short for buffalo).
One cat named after a gourd; "Pumpkin".
Five goats named after states; "Montana”, "Virginia", "Arizona", "Kansas" and "Tex".
One goat named after a city; "Tucson".
One goat named after a brand of fruit; "Chiquita".
Three goats named after Star Wars characters; "Anakin", "Padme" and "Leah".
Various animals with people names; horse named "Molly", dog named "Delilah", dog named "Dusty", goat named "Scotty", pig named "Frederick", goat named "Alice", sheep named "Andrew", pig named "Daisy May" and a rabbit named "Benjamin" .
One schizophrenic Chihuahua named after an alcoholic beverage; "Brandy".
One disgusting cat named for its bad habit of leaving excrement in undesirable places; "Poopy Doo".
Three pigs named after television characters; "Elly May", "Tarzan" and "Jane".
One goat named after a cartoon character; "Bam Bam".
One rabbit named after a cookie; "Oreo".
One goat named after a season; "Autumn".
One goat named after a natural disaster; "Hurricane".
One pig named after a moon over Mars; "Triton".
Two pigs with western names; "Cowboy" and "Bronco".
One pig with a military ranking; "Sergeant".
A rabbit named after a glass jar; "Alabaster".
One horse named after a dignitary; "Chancellor".
Finally, two rabbits named after a candy "Sweet" and "Tart". What's funny about this is that the one named "Sweet" was seemingly demon possessed. He would attack anyone who put their hand in the cage. On the other hand, "Tart" was as sweet as could be. We obviously named them backwards.
I am sure that there were more, but after writing all of this down, I have come to one conclusion - WE HAVE HAD WAY TOO MANY ANIMALS!!
