Comings and Goings

In other news, we note the inevitable changes in the pack over the last two years.

January 2023 started with this adorable puppy, who went to a great home, where he is now called "Snorro", international dog of mystery!

After that brief but rewarding event there was a string of deaths...

2010 - 2023-01-11: Stella had to be put down, with a mouth full of cancer and swollen organs. She was an independent spirit in need of some assistance when we met her, and was really good company.

2013 - 2023-02-08: Roxy died of cancer peacefully here at home. She went in to the vet's the same day Stella had to be put down and was diagnosed, we were giving her meds to fight it. We don't know how old she was (nor Stella), they both came to us full-grown and in crisis, were cured of heartworm and lived with us for many years. We loved them and miss them.

2015 - 2023-02-22: June had to be put down, another mouth full of inoperable cancer, like Stella. She could've gone on for a few months in her drooling, grouchy old age but we decided it was enough suffering. I cannot express how hard this was... miss my running buddy (she's the one on the right, with her sister, Zoila, who is still with us).

2014 - 2023-12-06: Cancer claimed sweet kitty Cali, the most affable of Sugar's kittens.

2009 - 2023-12-09: Three days after Cali, loud, joyful Maggie had to be put down. She hadn't been able to get up on her own for several days, was blind and had lost enthusiasm for everything. We miss her dearly.

2009 - 2023-12-26: Goodbye to our sweet, serious Jack. Some dogs gray gracefully, others sprout silly eyebrows. Love him.

2011 - 2024-04-05: Four months into the new year we lost Daisy. Just a few weeks before we could feel she was slowing down, but she still had her little light and she never stopped letting it shine. One evening in March I remember walking to the kitchen and having her just appear besides me, so joyful to accompany me, and I thought: "Remember this. It's an honor that she's so proud and happy to be with you." So it was.

2014 - 2024-05-30: Another of Sugar's kittens died (how we'll always think of them even though it's been a decade), this time Falafel. Like Cali he had some kind of cancer and had to have one ear removed a year ago, but he gave it a good run afterwards and outlived expectations. He's buried next to Cali, out by the Jeep. Post-op Falafel catching some rays on the roof:

2009 - 2024-06-07: Elewah finally had to be put down, she couldn't get up and had been through a string of bad nights. She was with us 15 years, and was probably 2 years old when we met, so that's a long run for a dog. We miss her, will always miss her.

2009 (Lily), 2016 (Perl) - 2024-06-15: A doubly sad day: both Perl and Lily went to the vet in bad shape and neither came back. Perl always had problems, we used to say she was made of spare parts; her sister, Ruby, is still fine, but Perl's kidneys finally crashed and there was nothing to be done. Lily had long been suffering with some urinary ailment which was finally dianosed as an inoperable tumor in her bladder. Left is young Perl, right is Lily.

2024-06: Somewhere during the month of June, an errant pregnant dog we now call Nell made her appearance and unceremoniously produced 10 pups, out in the shelter we have arranged for the Jeep/Street dogs. Two died early on, leaving eight, four of which found homes around their 8th week. The remainig four are still with us, still looking for good homes.

2010 - 2024-07-24: Monkey had to be put down. I am not strong enough to write down what the last few months have been like, how important Monkey was to us both, I just can't.

2011 - 2024-09-14: Our buddy Steve McQueen died peacefully in the night. He had not been doing well for a few days. He was good looking, not so much with the smarts, kinda skittish but a sweetie and he loved his siblings, two of whom still remain with us after all these years.

2011 - 2024-10-17: Had just "finished" this post last night and then Linda took a turn for the worse, was all of a sudden very weak and listless and just died next to Roni a few minutes ago. She was an amazing, awesome presence who could fill a room with her razzle dazzle. She was 13.

the knockaround girls

Rosie, Rocky and JoJo are growing like Spring weeds. 
This shot is from March and they're noticeably larger now.

March Rose

Sean and Rocky with Daisy behind

Group shot from March with Rocky in the foreground

Ruby is a year old now and was 2x the size of JoJo last month

Silly Mo (and sisters) have been here 6 years

June is a crazy genius and will be turning 2 any day now (with her Gemini twin Zoila). Cookie is only 2ish but has already been a big sister many times

A whole lot of happy dogs in my way! 
Sometimes you have to do parkour to get around this place

An especially cute lineup at the gate:
Perl, Monkey, Shirley, Bette and Murci

JoJo on the beach this month in her new collar

Rocky (blue) and Rosie (red) evening wrestle

Cookie and Elewah enjoy another beautiful morning

We're looking for a larger piece of land where we can build to accommodate our peculiar lifestyle. It would be great to have help during that transition; to that end we'll be posting on Helpx again soon. If interested, contact me.

new kids on the block

We've been gloomy but the weather has been beautiful.
Sean, Rufus, Cookie and Linda.

Our little Cookie is nearly grown and needs to be spayed soon.
She and Amber are just about the same size.

She's got an inch or 2 on our old friend Henry.
He had a few more teeth removed recently and is feeling fine.

Cookie and Linda remain great pals and sparing partners.
Cookie has reach but Linda has a better ground game.

Elewah is surprisingly tolerant of the pup. 
Maybe she notices a resemblance?
Elewah, Daisy, Cookie and Mega.

Pretty Xmul keeps an eye on the cats' evening shenanigans.

So many sweet faces at the gate! 
They all want to know where I'm going.

This is a view from the other side of our gate.
I'm headed to that farthest tree, on the left side of the road.

One of the local strays had puppies and they're in a burrow there, under some tree roots.
Sean once saw four but I've only seen two. This striped angel...

and this little cutie.

The smaller brown girl is the Mom and is obviously still nursing. I think the other dog is her offspring from a previous litter. They both hang out under vehicles parked at the neighbor's place. They are too skittish for us to get near (we've been trying).

We're concerned that the burrow will flood when we get a hard rain so we built a little storm shelter next to/above it. It's a big plastic garbage can that I split in half lengthwise, weighted down with an old rubber kitchen mat and some limbs. Their burrow is to the left in this picture and the camouflaged shelter is in the center.

We aren't sure how much we can do for these girls. We can't raise every dog we find but we dread having even more fertile dogs living nearby -for their sake and ours*. The adult females will be pregnant again in no time and if these 2 survive 6 months, that will be 4 fertile females nearby! That will mean unending noise, an influx of males and an avalanche of puppies. Shit. We had the stray that lives around the army base just north of us sterilized a couple of years ago, and that has worked out great! We would do the same for these girls if we could lay hands on them. 
There is a small window of time while we have access to the young ones. I think they are around 3 weeks old, maybe a little younger. Soon they will be too skittish. It rained last night and today they were still crammed in the damp burrow that they've practically outgrown. We'd be happy to foster them if there were homes for them to go to once they've been socialized and inoculated. If anyone is interested, get in touch!
This is the only time I've spotted one out of the burrow.

* We are both well aware that a likely scenario involves us on our knees, at night, in the middle of a downpour, pulling puppies out of a flooded burrow and bringing them home in our pockets.

June bugs.

May brought kittens, June brought flies.  June is a bitch.
Momma Sugar and Cali, the day we met. 

Sugar was living at a beach shack next door with her kittens.

Here are all 4 of the little devils.  I like cats, but not what they do to the birds!  
At least these 4 won't be having kittens.  

Sugar checks out the view from the roof.

Sugar and Maldi have a tentative peace.  
She's already proven herself to be a good mouser!  












Daisy and pals play with their new toys, thanks to Lisa and Tim!

Xmul prefers Mo to toys.  Happy dogs at sunset.

Lovely Xmul.

Not so much lovely as loved.  
Ziggy naps. 

These orange insects were standing motionless on a new shoot of our nopal.  They caught my eye because it looked like a bloom, but nopal doesn't have orange flowers.  They were so still that I touched them, thinking it was some kind of fungus.  I'll update when I identify the species. 
Identified as assassin bugs by Amanda. Thanks!

  
The dogs do their best impression of ants.  
Hey!  No dogs allowed on the tabl.... ah, forget it. 

Elewah and Sean.

Her darling daughter Lily, and a napping Frankie.

Blue leads Zoot, Amber, and gang.
Siblings Zoot and Amber have not wanted to go out for months!  So odd.

















Finally, success -we convinced/tricked them, and
Amber couldn't be happier! 

Zoot also seems to have forgotten what all the fuss was about.
Zasu, Zoot, Rita, Monkey and Tito head home.

















A good representation of Ginger -doing her own thing.