Keeping the Litter Safe

About two days before Our younger Great Pyrenees bitch, Molly, whelped her litter, she became territorial around the kibble trough—uncharacteristically growling when either Luther or Heidi moved to join her at the trough. On the day her pups were born, after she and the litter had been settled into a spacious stall, our adult Pyr, Heidi, spent much of the day in a far corner of the stall doing what she does best—guarding. However, when Molly’s attention strayed from her litter far enough to notice Heidi, the new mom would bark, growl, and snarl most inhospitably. My words about Aunt Heidi helping floated off in the air, unheard. By mid-afternoon, had taken to attacking and Heidi was finally driven from the stall. Thereafter, Molly would growl and bark anytime a dog came into her field of vision.

With the communal feed trough located in its usual place under the run-in overhang at the back of the barn, Molly could see her former buddies coming to feed and would do all she could to discourage them. The snarling, growling, barking, and attacking was effecting—and while she wasn’t drawing blood, she was most definitely getting her message across: Stay away from my puppies!

As a human too long separated from canine companionship, it took me a good week to realize that this protective attitude was so intense because newborn pups are wholly defenseless. Eyes closed, limbs loose, they move about by squirming along on their stomachs. Only within the past couple of days have Molly’s pups begun to employ their legs in the service of movement. Wobbly pups push up in attempts to stand, bobble a moment, then fall—rolling softly over on their well-fed rounded bodies. Sleeping pups may flex their legs, tucking up a haunch or a foreleg.

When Heidi’s pups were whelped beneath the prize white oak and sassafras boards, the snarling barking Heidi who had appeared when Lucy’s filly Janet entered the world reappeared in force. Unlike Molly, Heidi did not distinguish dogs from other threats—goats, horses, and people were included in her list of beings to chase off. Indeed, I had to make a cattle-panel-cage around the front of her chosen lair to give her any peace. When she saw that no one could enter her guarded space easily, she relented enough that we could bring workers onto the back acres so long as they remained hyperaware of Heidi’s whereabouts and strove to stay out of her line of sight.

Then a few days back I happened to be heading towards the barn just when Heidi came bounding out of her enclosure—up over the piled planks and down, a puppy in her mouth. At first I thought she was moving her litter to another area—perhaps one less busy than the driveway turnaround.Shortly, though, I realized the pup she carried was dead—probably having succumbed to the heat plaguing us that week. She took her pup away from the litter, ducked down beneath of mound of hewn logs, popped up to check her litter and my whereabouts, then promptly dispatched the dead pup.

Appalled at this turn of events, I thought of Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer prize winning novel Beloved, and her character Seth who protected her crawling-already baby from the threat of capture and enslavement by taking the girl into the woodshed and killing her (I think she sliced the baby’s throat or chopped off her head). This behavior made perfect sense to the escaped slave mother, as did Heidi’s devouring her pup from nose to tail. Shocked and shaken, I stood by as Heidi’s witness, gradually understanding that by swallowing the pup’s remains she provided no lure for coyotes or vultures and thus protected the remainder of her litter.

I’m glad to say that both Heidi and Molly have returned to watching the flock from time to time. They spend much time ensconced with their litters, yes, but now come out for fresh air and companionship on occasion, and will even go far enough to trail the goats down to the stream in front for a time—before herding their caprine charges back uphill to me, and enabling themselves to return to their litters.

Once the pups were a couple of days old and Heidi had begun to leave her chosen lair, she again became affectionate. She often allows me to stand with her and rub her ears and neck and back, and to pull ticks on occasion. Sometimes she returns to her old dancing self, not wanting to be touched but willing to sniff at my hand before retreating out of reach, but such occurrences are less and less frequent. Heidi the momma bitch is finally a loving trusting dog, at least with me alone. It’s gratifying to experience this shift in her behavior—and to think it only took her five months to achieve!

Perhaps her trust was helped along by my trust of her. If she went down front, or even wandered off of the farm, I trusted her to use good sense and to return unharmed. During those days and nights when she and Luther took to slipping under the perimeter fence with regularity, I never tried to catch her (yet always chased down Luther) but simply waited for her to return and request a gate be opened for her reentry. Now over the past two days, I’ve grabbed at her twice as she slipped through an open gate, but as soon as she turned her head and I realized which dog I had grabbed, I released her—trusting that she’d not be gone long, knowing she would return to her litter in short order. Although I had feared that by grabbing at her coat I might be eroding our bond of trust, it hasn’t happened. She has seemed to realize that I was just grabbing at “dog” and to understand that I’d release her as soon as I saw she was “Heidi.”

Her intelligence brings to mind The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which if readers here have not yet experienced I highly recommend. The human-canine bond of understanding and trust is exemplified by this tale like no other I’ve experienced (and believe me, as a child I often reread Big Red, Sounder, and the like).

As these dogs continue to educate me, my respect for them deepens and my affection for each as an individual grows. Although ours are not house dogs by any stretch of the imagination, I still ask myself: how did I ever survive a decade without dogs in my daily life?

Innundated with Dogs

We’ve been inundated with a down pouring of dogs this week. On Monday, June 15th (the day after Grandpa Hoitt’s birthday) Molly whelped eight squealing little pups—three male, all badger colored; five female, four badger and one white. Pups squealed to be fed and squealed louder to get Momma off of them. The good folks at Windy Meadow Farm in Ohio had warned us that these Great Pyrenees bitches have a tendency to sit or lie on, and crush, new pups. At the time I had imagined having the leisure to spend hours with a new momma dog, perhaps even setting up a cot beside her to be available through the night. Reality provided no such liberty on my part.

Molly’s pups were whelped in what was the barn’s office, a damp, musty, carpeted little room filled with piles of potentially-lethal objects: tool boxes, metal shelving, a bit of exercise equipment. I spent an hour or two that morning relocating her to a spacious, airy, and safe box stall. Heidi supervised as I lined the stall floor with flattened cardboard boxes, a layer of waste hay, and a topping of fresh, clean straw. She observed me stealing away with one pup after another, moving Molly’s new litter to the opposite end of the barn. When she came closer to supervise, Molly came out growling and barking, protecting her offspring from their doting Aunt Heidi. Yelling at Molly didn’t disabuse her of the notion that Heidi posed a threat, but Heidi seemed to understand both Molly’s message (it was difficult to miss) and mine. That Heidi is one smart dog.

Six days later, this morning, Molly is comfortable leaving her seven pups (one died the day she was born, likely inadvertently smothered by Mommadog) to come out for water, social contact, and a change of scenery. Eyes still closed, the pups squirm about the stall, slithering to new sleeping spots with regularity. Molly still barks half-heartedly at dogs approaching her pups, but I suspect Luther has actually been in to see them, and even BullyBob the goat popped into the stall one time to see what all the fuss was about (and to examine the kibble in Molly’s dish) and emerged unscathed.

Yesterday I prepared a nesting place for Heidi in the barn’s corridor, far from Molly’s view, in the shaded safety of the building, with various flimsy barriers to hem pups in and discourage goats from investigating. This morning I found Heidi firmly ensconced in one of the dogs’ chosen shelters: beneath a tarp-covered collection of prized white oak and sassafras boards filling the island of the driveway’s turnaround. Her ferocious barking when Luther or Molly trotted by alerted me to her motherhood status. Standing halfway across the gravel drive, I witnessed Heidi ministering to two dirt-blackened pups. The dogs have created cooling dugouts beneath various caches of boards, spots where the shaded earth helps keep them cool on these scorching-hot days. The particular dugout Heidi chose for whelping offers a central location fairly close to the barn, but the complete absence of tree-shade above the boards offers the brand-new pups ample opportunity to cook before noon.

Although Heidi has been quite affectionate towards me this week, allowing herself to be petted and rubbed at length on numerous occasions each day, with her fiercely-protective attitude, I was not eager to try moving her pups right away. But I was already dripping with sweat, having been outdoors nearly five minutes, and did not see how the pups could stay cool enough to live through the day let alone longer, so I found the next-best solution. Beside the storage trailer was a pile of Styrofoam insulation leftover from the shop-in-progress’s slab; I piled sheets of Styrofoam atop Heidi’s cave until I thought she had at least a chance of being shielded from the heat. All the while I talked to Heidi, explaining to her what caused the noises beside and behind her, and overhead. She let me work with only the occasional warning bark to keep my distance. We topped the stacked Styrofoam sheets with a large tarpaulin (we seem to have a few around here), weighted that down with wood, and left Heidi to finish whelping in peace.

Later I returned to find two puppies tumbling down the dirt embankment at the front of their new home. Straw backed by a log work to temporarily hem them in. Heidi also allowed me to refresh her water and place kibble inside her area. I saw four pups, and later a fifth. Hopefully she and her new pups will do fine in her chosen location.

A dozen puppies. As my mother used to exclaim, “Heavens to Betsy!”

One Quiet Country Weekend

This entry is created to showcase various photos from a delightfully ordinary weekend.

Haying the field across the street began with cutting on Friday. All day long the tractor labored around the field, cutting swath after swath of hay. I was impressed with the amount of work that goes into a single bale of hay. Throughout the weekend trucks pulling flatbed trailers hauling the different equipment needed for the job passed regularly along the highway.
On Saturday it was teddered... ...and baled. Late that afternoon we enjoyed watching a hot-air balloon floating over the newly-hayed field.

On Friday while I collected sifted soil from underneath the protective tarp down front, the Leo-BullyBob tag team wandered over to stupervise for a bit. Each day lately I’ve tied the boys in pairs: the fainters, Joshua and Whiskey; and the dwarfs, BullyBob and Leo. They hustle down from their night enclosure to meet me at the gate, then spend the days browsing the front acres. This system works far better for me than tying them out, and I think they prefer it as well.

As usual the girl goats headed into the woods, closely minded by Heidi and Molly. (Luther spent the entire weekend in timeout in the home pasture because he and Heidi keep slipping out to wander. This started when I had the fence off mid-week because the equipment to pump the cement from the truck into the workshop-in-progress’s foundation snapped a wire as it entered our fenced area. Unfortunately, though, turning the fence back on again was not enough to contain the dogs. Indeed one evening’s late barking and clucking alerted me to problems and I went out to find Luther acting silly and Heidi with a bloody paw and a dead Buff Orpington pullet at her feet. Now the poultry are again being locked in safely at night, after many weeks of 24/7 free-ranging.)

Saturday brought another few bouts of neck-wrestling between the alpaca boys.
Shawn mixed it up first with Romeo and later with Hamilton. During their fights they often bite at one another’s feet and/or genitals. (Our operations manager discourages them from the latter practice, facetiously claiming that they’re trying to “cut into our profits.”) As sweet and gentle as alpacas first appear, they are very athletic animals—probably the fittest on the farm.
The photos attest to their quick maneuvers while wrestling, quicker than the photographer’s reflexes or the camera shutter’s speed.

Finally, Sunday afternoon brought territorial battles over the truck's bed. Although we often use it for hauling wood, hay, fencing, and the like, the chickens thought it would make a good nesting site. It took several attempts to convince them to look elsewhere.

Lucy's New Best Friend: Dr. Kinslow

[Photos: Top: May 7th, Lucy looks haggard; Middle: June 3rd, Janet displays pink skin; Bottom: June 7th, Lucy's condition improved]

On Friday morning, May 22, Miss Lissamy Lucy made a new best friend: our local large animal veterinarian, Dr. Kinslow. When I had bedded all down for the evening on Thursday, an extremely hot and humid day, I noticed that little Janet was behaving sluggishly and choosing to lie in filth, and that the “rain rot” bare patched around her joints seemed swollen. After sunup I called the Kinslow Clinic (where we had taken April when she had pneumonia) and finally made the acquaintance of the much-lauded man himself.

Within the hour, Dr. Kinslow and his assistant were in our pasture, making a house call. I immediately took to the straight-talking gentleman, a self-described redneck—yet another in a line of rednecks I’ve come to cherish since moving here. I greatly appreciate that he speaks directly, without sugar-coating his words for his clients. (A trait valued by his repeat clients, if not those who’ve been, to paraphrase his words, chased away.) After considering the horses, our pasture (what little there is of it just now), and my answers to his questions his diagnosis was a photosensitivity resulting from Lucy’s ingestion of wild buttercups while on the front acres, passed along to little Janet through her milk. This sun sensitivity was compounded by some bacteria the gals had picked up.

Treatment involved intramuscular injections of the Pfizer ceftiofur sodium broad-spectrum antibiotic Naxcel for the filly beginning immediately and continuing daily for ten days. (The ten days quickly turned into five when I allowed the little glass vial to slip from my grasp and crash on the stones outside the pasture’s upper gate creating a spiderweb of cracks around the container. Only Dr. Kinslow’s quick thinking saved the remaining five doses from the rapidly-draining little vial.) Additionally, Janet was to be bathed every few days with the chlorhexidine disinfectant shampoo Novalsan and to have her exposed skin smeared daily with a Novalsan cream salve.

The dermatological issue addressed, Dr. Kinslow turned his attention to general fitness and diet. Lucy had yet to recover from birthing Janet two weeks earlier, attested to by her prominent hips and ribs. Probably the worst of the few remaining bales of the prior year’s hay—very dry and brittle by now—filled the pasture hayrack; Dr. Kinslow allowed that I could continue feeding that hay for bulk but that Lucy needed a daily flake of good alfalfa hay as well as 10 – 12 lbs. of the Mare & Foal textured feed I could get at Edward’s Feeds. In fact, by using Edward’s Feeds I could obtain coordinated nutrition for all of our animals because the good doctor works closely in concert with Timmy & Randy at Edward’s.

When asked if I could save money by buying medicines through Edward’s as well (after all, TSC and the Farmer’s Co-op carry medicines), the good doctor explained why I ought to buy medicines directly through him: each purchase I make through his clinic is noted on the record of the particular animal to be treated, providing him with a complete record of treatments whenever I might have a health question about any of the animals. How logical! Why had I never made that connection before?

When we discussed worming schedules for all of the animals, I was pleased that the good doctor preferred to worm based on the results of fecal inspections rather than on a calendar-based schedule. This will actually treat the condition without allowing parasites to build up a resistance to any wormer. I liked that I was encouraged to drop by the clinic any time with questions and concerns, and to get to know the staff well. However, I also foresaw a rising vet bill if I were to have the clinic run fecals on all of our animals (even spot-checking the goat herd). When I asked about being trained to run the fecals myself (after all I used to run fecals for small animals at the El Camino Veterinary Clinic in Palo Alto some thirty years ago), I was told that I’d have to get a microscope. Duh! (I know we have at least one somewhere around here, still packed of course.) We finally reached a level of agreement when I said that I would run tests in concert with the clinic’s tests until it was obvious that I could achieve the same results (although I’m not convinced that the good doctor believed I might actually be educable).

After the housecall, Lucy and Janet were relegated to the barn on sunny days for about a week. Eventually I managed to move Lucy and Janet across the driveway into the most heavily-treed pasture. There I place their food deep in the shade and replenish the hay any time I see them soaking in the sun

The farm is long overdue for building a good relationship with a veterinarian. That we managed to find a practice “just around the corner” (about 8 miles away, in town) that treats camelids as well as equines, canines, and caprines is quite a stroke of good luck. Since the good doctor’s visit, Miss Lissamy Lucy has regained most of the weight she lost and little Miss Janet has lost her rough scabby coat. The smooth skin she now sports ought to be recovered with fresh hair within about four weeks.

And, oh!, I almost forgot: the world’s most awesome neighbors were even amenable to managing the filly’s care so that we might get away that weekend! (Indeed, Tony is a champion shot-giver—far better than I, the wimp, am—-and Theresa is so gentle with the filly that Janet trusts her easily.)

As usual, two of my assignments from the good vet have yet to be completed: (1) to gather & deliver fecal samples from each of the dogs, horses & alpacas, and a representative sample from the goats, and (2) to learn about coccydiosis for the good of our goats and alpacas. Even so, I have remained fairly busy with farm management chores and have accomplished several other tasks since then. Most notably, every animal's diet has improved with the on-site blended feeds from Edward's Feed Mill & Hatchery. The textured Mare & Foal feed looks good enough that I've considered trying it for breakfast and the dogs try to get to it when they can. Dr. Kinslow had stated that feeding the pelletized composite feeds I had been using are a prescription for choking; Lucy, especially, likes her diet since the doctor's visit.

Gals on the Lam: Sweet Stella and Millicent Houdini

Stella and Millie didn’t show up for dinner on Friday night. I had seen them enough from my office window while I worked during the day to know that they were getting along well now that they shared the front pasture. And they had been standing at their self-appointed post by the gate—the easiest location for food delivery—in the late afternoon when Whiskey and Joshua were ready to go up to the barn for the night. But after we had shared an early dinner with our neighbor Theresa (who makes wonderful company and is so easy to be with), I went out as the shadows were getting long. By the time everyone else had been corralled, fed and watered, and bedded down for the night it was plain to me that our sweet spotted saddle horses were among the missing.

I could not imagine where they might have gone. The fence around their pasture is intact, although flimsy in places, and the lot line along the neighbor’s hayfield is lined with not only old barb wire but also rusty field fence. Had the gate been open into Lucy’s pasture, the missing gals would surely have turned up for dinner. Now it was pitch black out and I was tired which meant I’m prone to stumbling and falling.

We have several very good flashlights around, somewhere. After a search I turned up one with an acceptable beam and headed out into the night. I was not eager to trek down the rocky hillside given the conditions, so I pulled the truck down the driveway and parked it in the far corner of the front acreage, with the high beams shining into the woods where I needed to search.

It didn’t take long to find where the mares had busted out. In a spot where the rusty border fencing had been pulled down long ago by a fallen tree, and where the high tensile fencing had never fully recovered after our winter logging fiasco, was a gap large enough for a horse to pass through. Beyond the lot line the grass was trodden into a path that deer likely use and our horses may have used.

A call to the neighbor who manages the field gained me permission to enter the Knowles property in the morning and provided a verbal description of the terrain where I might look. The conversation was quite reassuring to me, the newbie who knows little of the protocol for entering other’s property let alone for how to search for missing animals at night. Relieved that Jim said that I should wait until morning to look on the unfamiliar acres, I hung up my gear for the night. (Sleep did not come easily although I was weary, for I continued to think about the adventures our mares might be having.)

Come morning, as soon as I entered Lucy and Janet’s pasture to head down to the gate leading to the front pasture (from which the spotted horses had escaped) I saw Stella through the tree line. She was in the neighbor’s hayfield, as expected, and looking for me as well. Why she might be looking for her morning flake of hay eluded me because she was standing chest-deep in soon-to-be-mown fresh hay.

I took my time clearing the downed fence before pursuing the mares. Although they had wandered out over the rusted web of wire, I was not about to try to bring them back in over it. As it was, I was able to clear all but the heaviest top wire. It remained stretched across the path a bit about fetlock-height. Not two days earlier I had noticed the heavy wire-cutters I use for fences, considered that they were in an unusual location, and passed on by without moving them. They chose to refrain from reappearing that morning so the horses would simply have to step over the wire. (Later that day I borrowed a pair of bolt cutters from a neighbor to finish the job.)

Crossing into the hayfield, I located both mares not far along the fence line. Stella passed me, heading for home, but Millie allowed me to tie a halter on her. Together we walked back to the opening in companionable silence, then I removed the halter and crossed over the wire without the horses. Oddly enough, almost as soon as I shook the pans of grain I’d brought, both mares eagerly crossed back into their own pasture and settled to the task of eating.

Mending the break with just a couple of loose wires (that might be electrified if I had bothered to make that portion of fence hot), I smiled at the ease with which horses can be contained. They are much easier to manage than the adventuresome goats. After they had finished their grain, both mares cantered uphill to check for the flakes of hay they were due.

Mystery solved. End of story I thought, although I would be asking Jeff to extend the front perimeter fence all the way back along the old rusted wire now that the mares proved the work necessary.



Two days later, when two of Jeff’s brothers were here to help lay down the tubing for the radiant floor heating system going into the workshop-in-progress, I heard Jeff shout that we had a horse out. He had been leaving to cut hay after having dropped off Steve and Tommy, but when I got down to the gate I met him there—leading Millie using one of the halters I had left out on Saturday morning. Some way she had slipped through my poorly-mended fence; at least she had chosen to stay home this time.

Millie’s reward was a day on the grass within the round pen. She appeared less than wholly thrilled, though, as she paced about in the hot sun. In the late afternoon when I had time to investigate, I found that she had knocked down the lower wire and slipped out under the upper wire in her quest for improved grazing. I tightened up both wires without replacing any of the broken plastic braces designed to hold hot wire off of metal posts. Millie was glad to get back to her space with Stella that evening.

Not four days later, though, when I was finishing feeding the animals I again noticed the mares’ hay sitting untouched beside the fence. Irritated, I grabbed gloves and wire cutters and headed down the hill. Stella nickered at me when I got close. Again, a wire had been knocked down and the gals had slipped out under another wire. This time I simply held up the top wire. I did not even cross into the neighbor’s hayfield. The mares knew what to do and ducked under, came home, and hurried uphill to find their dinner.

I spider-webbed some twine between the top and bottom strands where they crossed the lot line. It is not much, but it may encourage the gals to stay at home until the fence goes up. After all, it’s prime haying season and the field next door will likely be cut and baled soon.

For now I’ll keep an eye out a bit more vigilantly.