Maizy True

This is the re-homing photo of Maizy. I chose another dog. I couldn't imagine loving such a "scruffy" dog! I wrote paragraphs about my lifestyle, feeding habits, trips to the beach and dog park and the owner of that dog simply replied, "No."   No explanation; just no. And I kept returning to Maizy. I wrote her pawrents on March 6 and heard nothing. I kept thinking I didn't deserve a dog. They called on March 8th. I was running laps with my boys at school and my aide answered my phone. Spying the mean principal on the yard, he ducked into a bush and told the caller all about me and just how lucky their dog would be with me! When the coast was clear, he came running, holding out my phone. "It's the DOG!!"

She wanted me to come that night. I had a root canal at 3:30! As the dentist was drilling and drilling, all I could think about was that puppy! The dentist took so long! It was after 6. I called...it was still a 75 minute drive. They said come! We met at a church; their church. Maizy leapt out of the car and into my arms!  She was hyper / crazy / insane. I was thinking it was lack of exercise but the people at the church knew her. "Do you want her?" "YES!" 

I followed them home and fed her supper. They showed me how she was trained to potty behind the bushes. I put her in the car and she jumped out and took off down the street. The neighbors all knew her and helped me catch her.  She was nervous...but she didn't seem scared. 

She got on the bed but she didn't sleep the first night. The next day, we hit the park and breakfast at Mabel's favorite spot. She jumped on the sofa next to me and looked around and smiled.  She hasn't stopped smiling. 

She reminds me of the Mabel Lou so much! Only she lets me rub her belly and she does not argue! But so smart and so fast! She's had an argument with one of the skunks that come in the yard 3 times... and never been sprayed! Mind you, that skunk has attempted to spray ME for simply walking nearby!

We've had several vet visits, including the first one above. Maizy had DEEP ears and gets infections. I can tell when it's coming on and can often avoid a vet trip with a good cleaning. But she is TERRIFIED of the vet's office. Not the vet though. 

Maizy has a wicked good sense of humor and loves game play. She is honestly the happiest dog I've ever known! 

She's a hunter! I found evidence of her playing with her prey on my bedroom floor, my bed and in the yard! She's brought me a mouse she killed in the yard! And she's gotten a few critters at the creek....but she leaves the ground squirrels alone. We really need to discuss that.

She is also the only dog I've ever had that pays attention to the tv! She barks at any and every dog on television and many other animals! It's exhausting. The other day I really wanted to watch The One and Only Ivan and to my surprise, she simply watched it. NO barking! 

She loves the creek. She explores but doesn't disappear on me. She did take off after three coyotes when I got her. I dashed into the creek right after her and she managed to get back across the creek without me seeing her. I found myself knee-deep in the river, slipping on mossy rocks with her looking at me like I'm nuts! She's has not run off since. 

This is her "I'm so patient waiting furEVER for momma to get ready" pose. 

Like all my dogs, she LOVES coffee!  She's not always patient when waiting for the dregs of my cup. 

When we are hiking in the wilds, she is most often found walking right next to me. Not in front; never behind. It's annoying when the trail is narrow. But I do love that she stays so close. As with Macy Blue, "Find a good mom!" will bring her right to me! 

She was a little terrified of the river until her pals showed her what to do. Now, she just adores the water. I really love how this just runs through the generations of our hiking pack. I still remember when we met baby Aria, the rott. Mabel Lou just looked after her and showed her how to dip in the water. Aria taught Macy and Maizy. And Maizy was trying to teach Aria's little sister Roux the other day! 

She's SUPER  fast. During the Pandemic, we do a long walk each morning. Some days we go to a little park near the house and I let her off leash on the tiny patch of green grass. She runs zoomies while I stretch. 

Maizy True loves the ocean. This was her second visit. She was a little put off by the creek that "moves at you!" But she adored it before the trip was over. 

 

She has lots of her friends but this girl is her absolute bestie. Bella is half Chihuahua and half German shepherd! They will play NON-stop if we don't give them a time out! Maizy actually sprained her tail from wagging it too much when Bella came over! Poor Bella has gone home limping from their antics!  They make each other SO happy, so we try to get them together a few times a week. 

She is so joyful, I feel so very blessed to have her! 

Maizy True Stats: 

DoB: 12/26/2018

Gotcha Day: 3/08/2019

DNA: 64% Golden Retriever / 12% Husky / 12% Poodle / 12% Berger Blanc Suisse

Best trick: holding her paws "just so" to put on her sports bra

Best unwanted trick: Closing the middle console in the jeep so she can work her way into the front seat.

Edibles: Anything mom is eating... except fruit and medicine "treats"

Toys: Loves anything she can tear up! 

Happy Barkday to Moi

Yeah it's my barkday! Nothing too special... Mom's SO busy. Work and school and dealing with my Granny's flooded house and a wedding in the family and taxes schmaxes blah blah blah.... She did clean off the porch sofa and let me have a good sunbake today while she worked. She told me no new toys until she's "caught up..." what ever that means! But she did bake a lasagna and a lemon cake and I got some. Then we took a nice nap together. That's quality time, you know!  But when we got up, it got fun!

We dashed over to Auntie Rottrover's and jumped in the Otto Mobile with Osa and went to our favorite Sunday hike. It's on the back side of our mountain up in the National Forest. Nobody is ever there...but there were some "bee people" there today. More on that in a minute.

First, we got to roam a bit. Can you see me??? I WAY ahead of Osa! Isn't it gorgeous there??

Just as we got to our favorite swimmie hole, we ran into all these big trucks. The local bee peeps were having to re-do the trails a bit because they washed out in all our rains. They were doing this to get their hives way back in the forest. I was quite happy cause they made my swimmie hole deeper!

After swims, I got to run...

And Osa Bear ran and ran...

Then we needed snacks so we grazed a bit...

And Mom took pictures of flowers so we waited and waited and waited...

Then we went back to Osa's and found Otto out back showing off his circus skills to the new neighbors. We put him in the car and went to our local favorite spot by the river and went for a hike with him too! We got to hike for four hours!!!

I'm home now and ready for bed. All in all, my 6th was pretty darn nice!!!

Still Beating

I hope no one faints with me posting twice in two days.We have no one to hike with on Saturdays so I've been adding Mr. Bart for extra protection. He's a Senior citizen now but he still disappears at times ... to do "Bart stuff." I went back to the upper river as it's been really hot and Bart and Macy have both been suffering on the mountain trail.

I marveled at the dried mud the waters had overflowed it's banks.

Macy and Bart had both slipped further downstream...it was too overgrown for me to follow...when I found myself face to face with three huge pitt bulls. At first I thought they belonged to the homeless guy who lives nearby...but his are smaller and bark well before they get near people or strange dogs. Finally their owner showed up. After telling me they were friendly, he noticed my leashes and the foursome took off toward my car. Macy and Bart showed up as soon as the big dogs were gone. Wanting to kill some time, I hiked up my pants and just ran into the river. 

It was just so strange to stand in a spot you know but realize the ground is not where you remember it being. It was obvious I had a much higher vantage point. I went up to where the hill had washed out and check it out:

As I mucked about trying to find my bearings, I noticed Macy had decided to take a trail nap.

Only she was chewing on the leg bone of some critter... ewwwww!

I decided to find that clump of bamboo and work from there. I just kept staring down stream, squatting to try and get my vantage point right. I just couldn't imagine that boulder washing away...

Then suddenly, I realized I was standing on it!

It didn't wash away.. it's just been buried! Here's another shot from up in the air...those are our leashes for size reference.

It's been a weird month since David's funeral...I've called Macy "Mabel" more in the last month than I have in a year and 7 months prior. I'm sure that losing my friend has amplified Mabel's loss for me in some ways.

But I love knowing that our boulder is still there! Maybe it's not mine to linger over any more. Maybe it will be someone else's favorite spot someday when the waters come and reveal it again.

Gone in a Heartbeat

Tonight, I found myself (and Macy Blue) in the upper river bed. This was one of Mabel's favorite spots, especially in the years the creek didn't make it all the way down to our favorite playground. This was a lovely swimmie hole that hugged the base of the mountain before curving Southwest.  This photo by the Rottrover was taken there shortly after Otto joined her pack:

I've written of this spot before... I especially loved the giant car sized boulder that was sometimes in the middle of the stream and often beside it, depending on the flow. I could hang out on it and Mabel would do her thing, check on me and explore some more. Since she passed, I find myself sitting there and it feels like she's just around the bend or having a swim. I know it's silly, but it's like she still there.

Mabel was my scenic lover... she never climbed a mountain that she didn't check out the view. On hikes, she would lie down and look around. It wasn't to rest...she was taking it all in. She would look at me as if to say, "Wow! Look where we are! Isn't it pretty?"

If anything, that dog taught to appreciate the beauty of the world! And being near her favorite swimmie hole, on a boulder I shared many a nap with her just allowed me to feel like my girl is still part of my life.

But...tonight, it was gone.

I haven't been there since our last good rain several weeks ago.  I was shocked when my path there was strewn with dead limbs. The rising waters had knocked dead, water starved shrubs over and they had become entangled in living brush. I had to climb and clamor to stay on my path.

Then Macy dove in the river for a swim...just upstream from Mabel's favorite spot. I noticed the stream got murky and lots of rocks just beyond where Macy was swimming. And suddenly, the stream was jutting South. The path I usually walk was completely underwater. I turned and followed the stream.

The soft sandy banks and deep swimming hole were gone... you can't even tell where the stream was (blue arrow in the photo below) if you don't know what to look for! And that magical car size boulder? Gone.

I stood there in shock. It felt like I was losing Mabel again. I had to do a post mortem on the stream.

I realized the "little hill" ( Red arrow - about 40 feet tall) was not a smaller mountain as I had always assumed but just a cut out. The large gully that comes off the actual mountain had previously  been turning the water to the west. But the water washed away a large chunk of the hill in the last storm, pushing straight through and throwing tons of boulders, sand and mountain debris to the left and right of the opening (hence the blockage where Macy was swimming).

Here's a close up of the hole blown in that hillside:

Our boulder was somewhere in the area where the red arrow below is pointing.

And just like that, our river is totally different.. and my girl's favorite spot, the place I feel so close to her, is gone.

I know she's not there and yet just a few weeks ago, I got the strangest feeling that she is OK.

My hiking buddy had a memorial at the creek. It was NOT one of those funerals that brings you closure. It was jacked up and just WRONG. The hikers were the only ones early. His girlfriend and pup were on time... and the rest of the family was late. We started spreading his ashes after 30 minutes of waiting for the younger daughters (grownass women) to show up...both were waiting on their boyfriends. (Gee, if he can't show up for your father's funeral on time...maybe you should pick better men??? Just sayin...) There was much infighting and just nastiness ... I've been to some doozy of funerals...Southern family dramas but...this took the cake.

Spreading his ashes was fraught with drama and all the fighting had me tense and nervous. I decided to take Macy and hike downstream for a nice long hike...it was a beautiful day and the fighting family was headed to their cars in the other direction. As we dropped into the valley where the river starts is slow descent over lots of boulders...making beautiful water music, my calm was returning. I just wanted to remember my friend as he was there in that spot. Happy!

About this time, I became aware of two women hiking with three dogs across the river. I was wary as Macy can get a bit skittish when outnumbered by lots of strange dogs.  I couldn't tell you two of the dogs' names but the third...was a naughty girl they couldn't keep track of... MABEL!

MAY BULLLL!! MaBEL! MABEL MABEL MABEL.... they called her name a hundred times... no exaggeration... the whole time I was hiking they were across from me looking for Mabel. Only when I got to the swimming hole where we would stop and chat as the dogs swam did I get a break from the verbal barrage of Mabels!

And I had to laugh. How many times had I stood there screaming that very name at the top of my lungs? How many times had my friend said to me, "Don't worry, she's OK. She'll find us." ??

Here I was looking for some relief from my grief over losing my friend and I'm reminded of my beloved dog...a dog he loved so much. It felt like my friend was telling me he had found that Rainbow Bridge and my girl was there to greet him. 

It felt like he  was somehow letting me know... "Don't worry about your girl. She's with me!"

I haven't heard or seen those women since...

But today as I was lost in thought of how we, and the places we love, are here and gone in a heartbeat, I had to remind myself, it's the love that remains. 

Macy the Blue

I promised myself that before I put up one more review, I would do the Macy update that... has been in my head for months - and months.  It's so hard to get enthused about this blog... Mabel was so damn colorful and something happened almost every single day. She was an entertainment riot!  Macy...is not. She's barely a dog!

Most of the time I don't even know she's there. She doesn't complain. Unless I'm in the kitchen, she's often not in the same room with me. (Funny, she just slipped into the office...) Her affections are few and far between...making me relish each and every one.

Macy the Badass

Macy got skunked back in March. While the chunk of flesh missing from her nose is obvious in this photo, the other damage is not.

There was a long streak cut across the other side of her nose and under her chin. And the primary smell zone (if you can call it that when you take a direct hit) was on the left side of her neck.  I'm pretty certain this means Miss Blue picked that skunk up! I thought Mabel Lou was badass... but Miss Macy has her beat....

Add in the time I rounded a bend on a mountain trail and found her PLAYING with a giant rattler! Yes, I marched her behind back for round two of rattlesnake training. Badass. Dumbass...I'm still not certain what I'm dealing with here.

Just 'cause I Let You Stand on My Tail...

Macy is constantly described as "stoic." Her vet, the rattlesnake trainers, friends, strangers use this term. Macy does not register emotion the way my previous dogs have. She limps with such a bob and weave that everyone who sees her will ask me what I'm doing hiking her. Yet on the mountain, she races with barely a limp! And she begs to go. It's the only time of day she gets excited. She doesn't get this excited over FOOD!


I knew when I picked Macy that I would have a problem with the height differential between the oh-so-super-model-tall Mabel and less than 1/2 her size Macy. I've nearly gone arse over teacups several times. But twice recently, I thought I was standing on the rubber mats in the shop only to find I was standing on Macy! Her tail once and her paw another time!

Neither time she made no effort to move, cry out or even let me know I was hurting her! Each time, as I realized it, I looked at her to find her staring at me, wide-eyed...but nothing else!

Emotions Are Not Her Forte

 Often when I have Macy out in public, people will tell me she looks sad. While she does have a worried look on her face... and her crooked eyebrows and ginormous jowls add to the perceived sadness, to me she often registers no emotion at all. Except...

The Big Boom Booms!!

The 4th of July was interesting. Terrifying for MB and blissful for me! Last year, Macy had been here barely a month. So instead of going up the hill to hang in the RottRover's front yard with creek buddies, I stayed home and swam and watched the local fireworks from the pool. Macy seemed fine.

I have no recollection of New Year's except I had the Swine Flu... I'm certain I took copious drugs and went to bed.  But this 4th... I went up the mountain to visit friends. I left Macy with the doggy door access but in the house, windows closed, a/c on and televisions in several rooms tuned to an easy listening station.

I returned home to a terrified pup. Shaking, drooling... and oh-so-affectionate!  This is the first year since I've lived in this house that the fireworks didn't start mid June. I heard the first one around 4 pm on the 3rd! But they have continued off and on. And some part of me is grateful!

Not only does she seek me out for comfort, I get cuddles and kisses and she'll nibble and play growl during the quiet times! And...she even slept with me the night of the 4th! ALL NIGHT LONG!  Happy mommy!

Play School

I read an article in Bark magazine about how beneficial play is to the relationship of dog / human (bonding/ sense of fairness / trust / shared joy) . Great. Whaddaydo when the dog doesn't know HOW to play?  Well, I'm a teacher and I'm not about allow lack of understanding in a subject stand in the way.

So, I've been giving Macy play lessons almost daily. I pick up one of her toys and race outside with it. I toss it in the air and catch it and run some more.  I roll in the grass. I pick it up and run in the house and repeat inside. And she's slowly joining me. There are days she clearly wants her toy all to herself. And I give her that. But there are days, she wants to engage me. She picked up her toy, glanced at me out of the corner of her eye and darted outside. I followed. We played.

And...the first few days we played... I got unsolicited cuddles on the sofa! Even better, it seems to carry over to how she interacts with the other dogs in the pack... Look at her chasing Wizard up there! She often got the toy that day!!

The Dog I Need

It's said you don't get the dog you want. You get the one you need. I've avoided most human relationships because I'm certain I'll be unappreciated at best and mistreated at worst. Macy seems to feel the same way about humans and not much better about most dogs. It's been thrilling to watch her choose to interact with dogs hiking or at the dog park. Recently, a stranger offered to pet her and she walked to her and stood there, getting pets and love! I just about cried!

I hear myself telling Macy, "Love doesn't have to hurt! There is someone who sees how wonderful and special you are!" And I hope it's sinking in for both of us!

Her Final Walk

I took both my girls for a walk yesterday.

It occurred to me that we may not have any more rain.  At Mabel's actual funeral, her hidey hole swimming spot was dry. So was the waterfalls. While we have some water, I had to get my girl out there. I wanted her to be in her favorite spots in the creek...and it was just time. 

And Macy Blue loves being at the creek as much as her big sister! Having her along for the walk made this task much less sad.

We placed a pinch of Mabel in the hidey hole spot. I leaned in for a shot downstream. You can see why she loved it so.

Then we went down to the waterfall swimming spot and dropped a generous handful there.

I stood in the spot where all the dogs would shake to dry off and tell their humans how happy they were, and I dug a hole with the heel of my shoe and buried a bit of her there. I can't think of a single soul who was ever unhappy in that spot. Mabel never was...

I went around to my favorite sitting rock. It's deep water in the front but you can climb on from dry land in the back. You've seen many photos from this spot. I've watched many  happy dogs swim from this spot.

Dropped a pinch of her there too, in the shallow waters on the back of the rock. Mabel used to stand on her hind legs and check on me there. 

The water music is especially nice in this spot. It's no wonder we both loved it so.

I placed a few pinches in the spot that connects the Darkside with the same old place (We call it "the sop") . Mabel was always fascinated by the fact that her two favorite hikes somehow met in the middle. She loved it when we could run into friends who were having a completely different hike and yet they could all swim together.

She would often wander up the hill on the opposite shore just to see if any friends were coming along.

Next, we went to Dirty Creek, Mabel's favorite spot as a pup. This place had water during the funeral but it would've made the hike too strenuous for the older members of our pack. I placed some of her under the leaning tree. When she was a pup and I could barely walk, I would sit on a rock nearby and just let her roam around here for hours. When I was in a wheelchair and couldn't walk at all, I would park nearby and let her out of the car. She would return half an hour later, wet and happy. 

What was left was dumped further downstream, under the mulberry trees. Mabel would lie down here and just take it all in. 

She was my dreamer, my vista seeker, my wanderer, my love and my friend. She's in all of her favorite places now. But she's always in my heart.