Roxy with her purple soccer ball in the backyard (July 2005)
In a not-so-subtle segue from last week’s post, I continue the story of Roxy‘s addiction to paper products (new or used – she wasn’t a discerning Rottweiler). She favored paper towels (usually snatching them from the trash as soon as you turned your back), but excelled at sneaking a tissue from a Kleenex box on an end table if she thought you weren’t looking. For the longest time, we couldn’t figure out why we kept running out of tissues so fast, especially when it wasn’t even cold or allergy season. We learned to keep the tissue boxes and rolls and cans up out of her reach, just like you would for a human toddler (but with more dangerous household items). Otherwise, Roxy considered every tissue box (and trash can) her own personal snack dispenser.
I waited until almost noon before taking Apollo on our weekly extra long Sunday walk. Since I woke up in the middle of the night to watch some of the meteor shower, I slept a couple of hours past when I normally wake up. With a brisk north wind blowing in clouds, I also delayed the walk in the vain hope the temperature would rise. I wiled away the morning recording the first two races of the F1 2012 season to DVD and reading a couple of books. I wrote a couple of short blog posts as well. Once Terry woke up, I left with Apollo, leaning into the stiff northwest wind. I needed to reinforce Apollo’s training, so I placed the pinch collar on him. I could immediately tell the difference. Apollo did not want to pull me along, since he inflicted the pinch on himself when he did.
When we reached Nina Street, I noticed a different type of blooming flower growing along a fence. I took a picture, even though the wind ruffled the blooms continuously:
Apollo and I continued northwest towards the highway and West Mary Street. I planned an hour long walk, meaning I would continue until a half hour had elapsed and then turn around and retrace my steps.
Apollo says Hi!
We didn’t wait long for the signal to change and were on our way west after safely traversing the highway. I saw a couple of other walkers on the other side of the street, but so far no other dogs. Apollo didn’t seem very interested in the grass or light posts or fire hydrants, perhaps because he didn’t like tugging on the leash and causing the collar to pinch him.
We walked past the first apartment complex, where the American flag flapped stiffly in the wind (see first photo above). We continued past the second under-construction apartment complex and approached the relatively new Lansing Elementary School. Just as we were passing the school, I heard and saw lower flying jet aircraft just to the north of our position. These planes were flying under the clouds, and circling around in formation. I immediately realized they were military aircraft, probably rehearsing for a flyover of the Kansas Speedway and the NASCAR race to take place this afternoon. I tried repeatedly to snap photos of them with my cell phone as I continued walking towards my chosen turnaround point: Bittersweet Street.
We crossed Mary Street, mostly to give Apollo new sights and smells to investigate. A man and his dog, which seemed to be a smaller younger version of Apollo, continued west on Mary Street, but not without the two dogs trying desperately to meet each other. I finally got Apollo headed east, although he whined about not meeting a new dog friend for a few seconds. I continued my efforts to photograph the jets, finally catching them as we neared the highway.
I learned (later) via friends on Facebook, that these were A10 Warthogs and they did, in fact, flyover the Kansas Speedway.
Apollo and I safely crossed the highway and returned home. We walked for an hour, despite the wind and the Warthogs.
Training a Rottweiler can challenge your patience. Roxy’s downfall came with keeping her out of the trash can. We bought several different types of cans, none of which kept her from her goal. We mentioned our frustration to our family dog trainer. She suggested we put a mouse trap on top of the trash when we leave the house or go to bed. We eagerly tried this suggestion.
Terry placed the mouse trap gingerly on top of the trash in a nearly full trash can. We left the lid off. I happened to be in the kitchen, probably making some bread. I heard Roxy nudging at the trash, but didn’t look over my shoulder. I didn’t hear the snap of a mouse trap either. A few minutes later, I did hear loud crunching sounds from the great room. I went in to find Roxy gripping the mouse trap between her front paws and chewing it to pieces. I stood there in shock, just shaking my head. I made Roxy stop masticating the poor mouse trap and hollered for Terry to come up from the band room. He busted out laughing the minute he realized what she had done. He gathered up the remaining pieces of the mutilated mouse trap and placed them in a quart-sized Ziplock bag.
The next time we saw our dog trainer (at church the following Sunday), we delivered the pieces of the mouse trap to her and asked for a different idea for keeping Roxy out of the trash. She and her husband had a good laugh, even mentioning that perhaps the abused trap should be framed as she’d never before had a Rottweiler bypass this preventative measure.
Every news channel, federal state, county and municipal government agency hammered home dire predictions for extremely severe thunderstorms (with large hail and multiple straight-line tornadoes) for this weekend. Any plans I might have had for the weekend quickly hinged upon the Weather Channel’s coverage of said storms and any weather map I could lay my eyes on (whether it be on TWC or via my Nook Color or my cell phone or my laptop). I didn’t even change clothes when I got home from work on Friday before I finished mowing most of the back yard and the side yard.
Saturday morning, I woke up early (nothing new there) and gauged the likelihood of storms to be slight for the next hour or so. I decided to take Apollo on a Saturday morning walk, instead of waiting for our normal Sunday morning window. We left the house under grey skies and damp yards and pavement. I didn’t plan to venture far away from home, in case of a sudden change in the weather. We walked by some flowering trees and shrubs, which I tried to capture with my cell phone’s camera:
As you can tell from the first photo above, Apollo doesn’t miss an opportunity to stop and smell flowers or grass or shrubs or trees … anything really. It can sometimes be frustrating, especially if I’m trying to actually get a workout. This Saturday morning, though, I preferred to stroll along at a leisurely pace and let Apollo sniff to his heart’s content.
He waited patiently for the light to change before we crossed K-7/US-73 and proceeded west on Mary Street for a block or so. I turned north on a ‘new’ street (which I don’t know the name of) walking towards West Kay Street. Another walker with two large dogs (I think they were a Newfoundland and a Border Collie) crossed Mary Street and followed us. Apollo lost all interest in heading north. He wanted to make friends with the two dogs behind us. I didn’t feel like wrestling with him and he wasn’t wearing the pinch collar that I could have used to ensure his obedient and gentlemanly behavior. So I turned back east on the deteriorating section of West Kay Street abandoned when the new street was constructed. I walked halfway up the hill back towards the highway, then turned around to make sure the other walker and his dogs continued on east.
Before walking back down the hill, I took a photo of West Kay Street, including the house we rented back in 1996-7 before we found and bought the house we now live in. Back then, West Kay Street sported a large wooded hill (now flattened and grass covered in the left side of the photo to the right) and several houses, all of which have been demolished or moved, save for the ones on the north side of the street.
Apollo and I retraced our steps and returned home before eight o’clock. A few hours later, Terry woke up and he showed me some of the dogs he’s been looking at to adopt or rescue. One of the first ones he showed me was a female Boxer named Butterscotch who just happened to be living in a foster home up on Post (aka Ft. Leavenworth). Terry called the foster home and arranged to meet Butterscotch mid-afternoon. I cleaned out the car, not knowing the current requirements for gaining access to Ft. Leavenworth. I can’t remember the last time I went up on Post (years most likely). We stopped at the Leavenworth Animal Shelter on the way north, which should have been open (the sign clearly stated they were open on the Second Saturday of every month until 4:00 pm) but the doors were securely locked. Terry and I got back in the car and continued north to the Ft. Leavenworth main security checkpoint gate.
We handed our driver’s licenses to the guard and he asked where we were going on Post. We didn’t know so we had to call the foster family again and get an address. Once he wrote the address down on his clipboard, he handed back our IDs and waved us through. That didn’t take long at all. I thought I’d have to get out of the car and open all the doors and hoods and wait for them to inspect it inside, outside and underneath.
Butterscotch
We stayed on the phone with the foster family for directions to their home. We arrived and met Butterscotch (shown at right). She took to me immediately (why do I attract any and all canines?). She was excited to see us and seemed to have a very sweet disposition. She was a bit skittish towards Terry and submissive to both of us. She is small (well, smaller than a Rottweiler), weighing about fifty pounds. She recently had puppies, but had also been spayed within the last week. She had all of her shots and she was already microchipped. Terry and I got down on the floor and got to know her better for a few minutes. I really liked her. I also felt confident that I would be able to pick her up, should she ever be unable to walk on her own.
We told the foster family we would sleep on a decision to adopt her. I am torn. I think she would make a wonderful addition to our family, but I worry that Apollo will bully her. I really wish there were some way for him to meet her. I wonder if we could foster her for a few days as a test? We’ve never had such a ‘small’ dog … not since Nugget back in the 80s, who was Terry’s mother’s small dog. By the time I met Nugget, she was nearly blind and mostly deaf.
I think Terry still has his heart set on a female Rottweiler. He just can’t seem to find one in the Kansas City metro area. I’m not sure I want another extra large dog. I am torn. Perhaps another night of sleep will help me make up my mind.
Oh, and about those storms. We experienced nothing but wind and barely any rain. I never her any thunder or saw any lightning. Now, mid-afternoon on Sunday, the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. A beautiful spring day to wrap up an otherwise gloomy weekend.
I called Roxy a Ditz-Weiler almost from the moment I met her. Our previous Rottweiler had been a typical grouchy, large and aggressive male. More than ten years had elapsed since then and I worried about dealing with a temperamental canine and equally excitable adolescents. I shouldn’t have worried.
Roxy took to all of us as quickly as we took to her. She didn’t know what to think of our cuddles and hugging in the beginning, but eventually she craved the affection almost as much as she craved food. She learned quickly, especially if a treat appeared as a reward for a job well done. Roxy even learned how to speak on command (not easily taught to Rottweilers) and how to track (search and find or follow a path laid down by Rachelle in a field).
Roxy met me at the door each evening, usually with her toy clenched eagerly in her mouth, wiggling her nubbin of a cropped tail so much her back legs would dance and skitter around.
For Terry, Roxy preferred to jump up in his lap while he relaxed in his recliner, sometimes with a warning and sometimes not. Roxy never understood that ninety-five pounds does not a lap dog make.
I asked my husband and kids to suggest some of their fond memories of Ditzy Roxy and I’ll share them here:
There was the time Roxy got locked in the basement storage room. A dog that clearly knows how to bark, but yet she was quiet as a mouse the entire time we searched for her, inside and outside the house. For a couple of hours we roamed the neighborhood and drafted friends to drive and walk the streets. Rachelle finally found her in the basement about the time we’d given up hope.
One year we had several giant fifteen gallon plastic planter pots in the back yard, leftover from growing tomatoes. Roxy would play with the pots (this was before we rescued Apollo). She would throw them all over the yard, chase them, pick them up and shake them. Sometimes the pots would end up over her head and she would just keep running around the back yard, growling and shaking her head, until the pot fell off and she would start all over again.
The real icing on the cake (or rather the mud in this case) occurred in May of 2007. We received quite a bit of rain, which resulted in our sump pump running frequently. The pump is located in the basement, in the same storage room where Roxy had gotten lost in. The pipe exits the foundation in the northwest corner, still within the fenced in back yard. Whenever the pump would kick on, if Roxy happened to be outside, she would run to the pipe, and start barking at it. On the day we took the photo below, she had not only barked at the pipe, but dug down around it and even managed to disconnect the pipe in the ground from the pipe in the foundation. The result of her misadventure is clearly visible below.
Muddy Roxy (May 2007)
So why did I nickname her a Ditz-Weiler? Simply because she really should have been a blonde. Roxy trusted us implicitly and enthusiastically. Being a family of practical jokers, we could not always resist the temptation to pull one over on our gullible Rottie (see my previous post on Derek taunting Roxy). And she rarely pouted, forgiving us instantly, showering us with her affection (and sometimes her slobber) unstintingly.
Soon after I returned home from work Tuesday evening, Terry suggested that we take Apollo to the dog park. I briefly thought of just taking Apollo for a walk around the neighborhood, but my legs kept shaking from the first workout I’d done in nearly a week. I capitulated and led Apollo out to the car on the long leather leash. We arrived at the dog park a bit after seven o’clock. We only saw four other dogs in the ‘large dogs’ side of the park. As I took Apollo off his leash, he loped over to two dogs, one of which was leashed, to make some new friends. Those two were on the way home, so that left only two other dogs to meet and greet.
A Waggin Tails Dog Park Sunset
We wondered around the back half of the park, strolling leisurely through the trees and watching the sun slowly sink in the west. As we continued on towards the southwest corner of the park, I remembered an article I read recently that stated I should be able to see Venus during daylight hours this week. I placed my right hand between my eyes and the sun and looked up away and to the left. For the first few minutes, I could not see Venus. But I kept trying and eventually, I found it, shining brightly more than thirty or forty degrees away from the sun, with the sun still about five degrees above the western horizon. You can estimate degrees while observing astronomical objects by using the width of your fist from top to bottom held at arm’s length, which equals about 10 degrees.
I tried to take a photo of Venus and the setting sun with my cell phone camera, but upon review, I can’t find Venus in the shot I took. I’m not entirely convinced I succeeded in getting both the planet and our sun in the same field of view. My reading glasses were in my purse in the car, so I took a leap of faith and prayed I succeeded when I clicked the shutter (or whatever virtual equivalent my cell phone camera sports). Here’s the photo, but I can’t find Venus in it:
Venus should have been in the upper left hand corner of this photo.
I tried to direct Terry to spotting Venus, but his prescription sunglasses were too dark and too out-of-date to be of much help. I sent a Tweet from my phone as soon as I found Venus and spent the next few minutes enjoying the view.
We wondered back east along the fence and met up with the other two dogs. A squirrel taunted them from a few feet away on the other side of the fence. One of the dogs, some sort of hunting breed, kept barking at the squirrel, who ignored all the dogs.
The sun began setting and we herded Apollo towards the gate. The dog park is only open from sunrise to sunset so our brief play time rapidly came to an end. We made sure Apollo got a good drink of water before loading him back into the car and returning home.
Until we found the Tuffie Toys web site, the typical life expectancy of any dog toy we purchased at a regular retailer amounted to perhaps ten minutes. Roxy had a particular fascination for brown hedgehogs. She usually managed to rip open the stuffing and find the squeaker within a few minutes of receiving the new toy from us. The duck shown in the photo at right did not last much longer than the ravaged hedgehogs.
Since we were dog toys about as often as we bought dog treats (like rawhide chews, dog biscuits, Beggin’ Strips, etc.), Terry and I thought we should approach this problem from a different angle. Eventually, we found the Mega Ring via some Googling and we bought one to try.
But first, let me give you some information on the Mega Series from Tuffie Toys so you can understand why we thought these dog toys would be the best fit for Roxy:
The Mega series toys are by far our toughest and most durable dog toys. These interactive dog toys are tough high quality pet toys that are lots of fun and will provide hours of play for you & your pet.
MEGA CONSTRUCTION: Seven Rows of Stitching. Each toy’s seven layers of material are sewn together with two rows of linear stitching and two rows of cross stitching. The four rows of stitching are protected with an industrial grade luggage material that is sewn 3 more times. Seven Layers of Material. Three layers of 600 Denier industrial grade material, three layers of plastic coating and finally one layer of soft fleece. All seven layers are rolled together and then sewn with a one inch cross pattern to prevent layer separation. Protective Webbing. Additional industrial grade luggage material is sewn around the outside edge with three rows of stitching to cover and protect the first four rows of stitching. Squeaker Safety Pockets. Each Squeaker is safe and quiet because they are sewn into a nylon safety pocket beneath seven layers of material.
When Terry and I found this site, the home page displayed a tiger playing with one of the Mega Rings. Tuffie Toys proudly proclaimed their dog toys were tiger tested. Currently, they display the Mega Rings gripped firmly in a Rottweiler’s jaws. And I can confirm, these dog toys are nearly indestructible. We still have the last two we bought, and they are at least three or four years old. The only thing that has given out (eventually in all of the ones we bought) was the squeaker.
Apollo would tease Roxy to no end. He would pick up one of the rings, sneak around behind her through the kitchen, and taunt her with it until she tore off after him. They would play tug-of-war in the middle of the great room, loud enough that if Terry and I were watching television, we would mute and pause the show we were watching until they wore themselves out. Apollo could only get the ring out of Roxy’s deathgrip if he cheated. He would bit her ankles, hocks, neck, ears, anything he could to get her to release her jaws just long enough to snatch it up and run off with it. Roxy would then chase after Apollo, latch on to the ring again and give her shoulders a shake, easily twisting it from Apollo’s weaker jaws. If Apollo really tried to pull it from her grip, Roxy would drop down on all fours and become so much dead determined stubborn Rottweiler weight and there was nothing Apollo could do at that point. So he would let go and walk off (to a neutral corner). Roxy would spend the next few minutes, cleaning her toy.
At other times, Apollo would simply lay on the ring, hiding it from Roxy. The first few times he did this, we couldn’t figure out what had gotten into Roxy. She would start circling Apollo, who lay innocently with his head cradled on his front paws. Roxy would get more and more agitated, first whining then barking at Apollo. Terry and I laughed when we figured out what Apollo was doing, but scolded him for being so sneaky.
That fool would be me and the dog would be Apollo (shown at left). My back did not need to be walked (or pulled by a 90+ pound Rottweiler), but Apollo desperately needed the exercise. I woke up stiff and still sore, but not as bad as yesterday, during which I spent most of the afternoon and evening either in a recliner or in bed. I am eternally grateful to Terry for multiple applications of Icy Hot to the affected lower back area, which seems to have helped relieve the pain a bit. Once I’d had a few minutes (well, let’s be honest, more like two hours) to wake up, stretch and compose two blog posts, I had just settled down to continue reading an ebook on my Nook Color, when Apollo looked at me expectantly. I sighed, slipped on my jeans, tied on my walking shoes, slipped on my sunglasses, grabbed my cell phone and his leash and we headed out the door.
Lilacs
I decided to make this walk very short (especially compared to last Sunday’s hour and a quarter walk). I thought a tour of the local flora, especially the lilac bushes, would be perfect for a pleasant Sunday morning stroll. We walked in a slow loop from Olive, north along First Street, east along Nina Street, back south along Second Street, back west on Olive to First Terrace. Along the way we saw more lilace bushes, lots of tulips in a rainbow of different colors, some phlox and several flowering trees, including red buds and apple trees.
Click photo for entire album
Apollo only caused my back grief once. As we approached First Street Terrace eastbound on Nina Street, a guy was walking a Spitz or Husky, slightly smaller in size than Apollo. Naturally, Apollo wanted to meet this new canine friend, but my back just couldn’t deal with the added stress of restraining all of Apollo’s determined energy. I forced him to sit and held his collar with my right hand while keeping a firm grip on the shortened leash in my left. He whined for a couple of minutes, as did the other dog, while they continued moving westbound on Nina. Apollo behaved better than he did last Sunday, but still needs some work on his obedience training.
We made it back home in about a half an hour. Apollo got his exercise. I got to see some spring flowers. For the rest of the day, this April fool is doing nothing but reading.
Another Friday arrives, and another installment in my ‘Remembering Roxy’ blog post series. Last week I reminisced about one of Roxy‘s nicknames – Bear-Pig, which followed the inaugural post on Roxy’s talent for Circling the Wagons. This week I decided to focus on Roxy’s first trip to a dog park. If I remember correctly, this trip occurred before we rescued Apollo.
A friend of ours had suggested taking Roxy to the off-leash dog park at Shawnee Mission Park. This never occurred to us, being residents of Leavenworth County, more than twenty miles north of the park. We made a family outing out of it. Even though the park allowed dogs to roam leash-free, we kept Roxy leashed until we were certain she would behave around other dogs. She roamed free and played with many other mostly smaller dogs for a few minutes. Then we put her back on the leash and headed to the beach.
Roxy, and all of our previous Rottweilers, did not care for water or being wet. Yet Terry thought it would be a good idea to take her down to the beach, where we saw retrievers and labs and Newfoundlands cavorting in the water just off shore. The shoreline included several large, flat sandstone boulders. Terry led Roxy up onto one of them, hoping to entice her into a quick dip with the other dogs. Another dog snuck up behind Roxy, eagerly sniffing her nub of a tail, and accidentally (or intentionally depending on your perspective) goosed her. Roxy leaped forward landing four-square in the shallow water, almost taking Terry with her for a tumble. Terry managed to salvage his balance while Roxy just stood there, standing completely still, looking aggrieved and resigned to the fact that she was, indeed, now soaking wet.
We took Roxy back to the field above the lake and let her roam free for a few minutes, mostly in an effort to dry her coat. As the sun began to set, we returned to our car and made the drive home to Lansing, convinced we would return in the near future for more fun in the sun with an unfettered Roxy.
I decided Apollo and I needed some physical therapy to deal with an entire week of rain which prevented either of us from enjoying the newly arrived spring conditions. The last time we walked happened to be exactly one week ago. To make up for six sedentary days, I decided to traverse the entire sidewalk system of West Mary Street in Lansing.
We set out at a quarter to nine and headed west from home to First Terrace, where we crossed to the other side of the street and headed north towards Olive. We passed a flowering red bud tree (see photo at right). We continued north towards Nina, where we dog-legged back west to First Street, which parallels very closely with Main Street (aka as US-73/K-7). While on Nina, a small Benji-like dog attempted to intimidate Apollo from behind a chain link fence. We’ll revisit this canine curmudgeon on the return trip.
Apollo always does well waiting to cross the busy intersection at Mary and Main Street. We proceeded west along Mary street, staying on the north sidewalk. I only spied one other person walking their much smaller dog ahead of us, but they turned onto the Town Centre boulevard that connects the terminally undeveloped land between Mary Street and 4-H Road.
West Mary Street makes several sweeping curves through the wooded hills and creeks as it meanders between Main Street on the east and DeSoto Road on the west. We passed by a muddy construction site for some additional multi-family housing, within easy walking distance of the nearly new Lansing Elementary School (in the background in the photo above).
We passed one walker and were passed by four joggers on our jaunt westward along Mary Street. I saw my first cardinal of the year, but didn’t attempt to photograph it with my cell phone. I prefer to have my good digital camera with my telephoto lens attached to photograph birds. We finally arrived at the top of the long hill, where Mary Street dead ends against DeSoto Road at a quarter after nine. I finally achieved my goal of a minimum hour long walk, since the return trip would take at least thirty minutes. I took the following three photos while letting Apollo catch his breath and cool off (being a black dog means he absorbs all the sunshine and it’s accompanying heat) from the top of the hill.
West Mary Street Meets DeSoto RoadTop of the hill - northboundTop of the hill - eastbound
I crossed to the south sidewalk and Apollo decided he should become a hunting dog on the return trip down the hill. He foraged through the tall, wet grass, determined to pull me with him into the mud and the woods in search of deer. By the time we leveled off, his snout, paws, legs, underbelly and first third of the leather leash were soaked with dew. Several times he nearly pulled me off the sidewalk while sniffing and snuffling through the dew-drenched grass and soggy ground. I saw ample evidence of the presence of deer by the tracks they left in the mud. The wooded areas along West Mary Street team with them and I often see them emerge at dusk when Apollo and I venture out on sunset strolls.
I sighed with relief as we approached the construction site because the fence prevent Apollo from straying to far off course. The construction materials seemed to have other ideas about the fence though. The rest of our walk along Mary Street proceeded apace and without further forays into non-sidewalk environs.
We crossed back to the north sidewalk just before crossing the highway and continued back to Nina Street. Once again the Benji-like small dog charged the fence, snarling and barking and this time Apollo caught me completely off-guard. He lunged to meet and greet the dog at the fence. I temporarily suffered a wrenched left shoulder, elbow and thumb and had to scold Apollo for his un-gentleman-like behavior. I guess it’s time for some remedial obedience training with the large pinch collar instead of the small choke chain Apollo usually wears. My elbow didn’t stop aching until we crossed Olive and walked under another beautiful flowering red bud tree (see photo above).
We turned the corner east onto Fawn Valley and walked the half a block to our yard. Just one of the advantages of owning the southwest corner lot on Bambi Court. Apollo waited patiently on the porch for me to disentangle him from his leash (he set a record this walk, although I lost track of how many times) and open the door. He rushed to his water bowl and then collapsed for a nap under the table at my feet while I composed this blog post. I noted the time (ten o’clock) and took off my pedometer, which had recorded 7,695 steps (is that’s 15,390 for Apollo?) taken on our one hour and fifteen minute Sunday morning walk.
