Our dogs play a pretty important role around here. In addition to just being great dogs and our fur babies that we love, they keep the the property and any livestock we have safe. There’s 5 of them, and they all weigh around 100 pounds each. No predator, and no trespasser in their right mind wants any part of of that much dog. They also keep the deer, elk, range cows, wild pigs, and pretty much any other animal that would destroy our fruit trees and gardens away.
These dogs are great with people or other dogs that we introduce to them.
Anything that crosses our fence line uninvited-let’s just say it goes poorly for uninvited guests. 😬
The dogs have another important job-they protect the cats.
And let me tell you-the cats are a vital part of this remote property. Without them we are literally overrun by rodents that destroy seemingly everything. Seriously.
Keeping the four legged property caretakers healthy is a very important part of our program, and as such, even ranch critters need to see the vet occasionally for shots and a check up.
Now, because we can’t get a vet to come out here, we have to take the critters to the vet-and that can be a really entertaining endeavor.
And so it was a few weeks ago we made an appointment for all 5 of the mutts to go see the vet at the same time. We don’t own a school bus or large van, so this takes two vehicles. Denise would take three of the dogs in her Outback-Stella( AKA the crazy polar bear bitch-she’s the mama dog and boss of the outfit), Bernie ( so named because he resembled a Saint Bernard as a pup), and Minnie (short for mini-me, because she looks a lot like her dad, Bosco). I would take two in her F-350-Bosco( papa dog), and Hulk( Hulk’s a girl dog, BTW, and is so named because she was born green). In case I didn’t explain it before, our dog family really is a dog family-Bosco and Stella are the parents and the other three are their kids. For any of you that have followed some of @wash11 adventures, Gus and Maggie are also Bosco and Stella’s kids.
Anyway, in order to get dogs loaded up in the truck, I first had to clean out the back seat to make room for them. I got some unsolicited help with that.
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This is Slick, so named because she has short hair unlike her twin brother that has really long hair. She’s one of our chief rodent killers and a door ninja. Any time a door gets opened around this place, it’s likely she will appear as if by magic out of nowhere and dart inside. Doesn’t matter what the door is-car, truck, house, RV, storage container-she’s in. In typical cat fashion, she’d like you to look at her butthole here. 😄😄
After shooing her out, it was time to load up dogs and hit the road for town.
Here’s Bosco and Hulk in the foreground loaded up in the dually.
Here’s Bernie trying to tell Denise how to drive. His version includes a lot of ear and head scratching. 😄😄 If the picture makes his head look a lot bigger than hers-it’s because it is. Bernie has a huge head!😄😄
Here’s Bernie and Minnie trying to share the same back window. This gets a lot of looks and laughs going through town. 😄😄
Well, no trip of ours would be complete without some sort of misadventure, and this simple trip to the vet would unfortunately not disappoint.
About the time we hit town, the dually broke a heater hose fitting and puked all its coolant out. 🙄
I got it pulled over in a gas station parking lot to assess the issue and see if I could fix it.
But in the meantime, we had the additional problem of how the hell to get all these mutts to the vet minus one vehicle and one person.
Luckily, Amy just happened to be in town and was able to come to our rescue and take Bosco and Hulk to the vet with Denise while I patched the truck back together.
Lucky for me there’s a Harbor Freight about a block away, so I jogged there and got some hose pincher-offers and 4 gallons of coolant. I put the clamps on the heater hoses, poured in the coolant, and made my way to the nearest auto parts store to buy a bunch of parts.
Just another fun filled day!
After procuring a new heater core, a gaggle of hoses, and any other part I could think of that we might need ( spoiler alert-I didn’t get enough parts!😄😄🙄),
I headed to the vet’s office to catch up with Denise and Amy and help them wrangle mutts.
After an hour or so in an exam room whose air conditioning system was in no way able to deal with the heat, humidity and smell that 500 plus pounds of dog puts off, we were done and on our way back home.
Once we got home, I turned the truck and pile of parts over to @monkeyswrench -who just happened to be at our place working on our skid steer-for him to work his magic on.
It had been quite the long day, and by the time it was over, both Hulk and I needed some relaxing couch time!!