In Memorium

June was not a good month for old friends. We lost two in the past few weeks, and they will be missed.

Molly G was a blonde mix, about 20 pounds. She was a hard puller and always wore a harness. We were warned early on that Molly had attitude, and while we were always careful when working with her, she never gave us a bit of trouble.

She always came with her own bed, a little plaid and tan mat, and her own food. The instructions were to feed a tiny bit in the morning and a cup in the afternoon. Well, my staff had trouble interpreting the meaning of 'tiny bit' and often Molly would get a half cup or more. It's an easy mistake to make; when you feed lots of big dogs a half cup looks tiny. I had to find a way to make sure they were careful so I made her official feeding instructions to read: "Nine pieces of food in the morning".  This seemed to work as I would see them counting nine pieces of kibble into a bowl.

I like to make up little things for some of the guests and I used to call Molly-olly-oxen-free when I let her in from outside.


Baxter P was a Shiba inu, which is a Japanese dog that looks like a tiny Akita. He had black, black eyes like a shark, and I was told he was a super jumper. He was.

He also was a non-stop shedder. We were instructed to bathe him after most every visit, and we would brush and brush him, yielding enough fur to assemble a whole other dog. After he left, pieces of Baxter floated in the corners for days.

When he first started staying with us, he was an NCI: no-come-in dog. Which means that we would open the back door to his stall, and he would go out, but he would not come back in. We had to go get him. So we would always put him in one of several places that are close to a people door and it worked out fine. Then one day, all of a sudden he came in, and he never stopped coming in after that. I think he decided he'd tormented us enough.

Baxter was 15 and Molly was 17. Fare thee well my friends.