betchaboots's Blog

      My husband decided to get some hogs to raise. Neither of us knew anything about raising hogs but he assured me 

that  there was "nothing to it."  He buys the hogs one sow and two boars.  Now to my way of thinking there is something

wrong with this set up but  its his project so I keep my mouth shut.

       One of the boars  was a big white hog with long  slightly curled tusks, named Arnie. Every morning I'd come home

from work and Arnie would meet me at my truck like a dog ,grunting and squealing with those tusks of his shining.So the

whole neighborhood got awakened by my horn blaring and me screaming for Ronnie to do something with his pig.

         Eventually Arnie and I got to be great friends despite his tusks.He followed me everywhere and even the dogs liked

Arnie.  

        My Mother decided to visit one day.and being the dutiful daughter I gave Arnie extra treats and put him in the pig pen

thinking that all is well. She arrives and no Arnie in sight. After she had been there for about an hour she decides to go

outside while I finished washing dishes. Now my Mother at the time was pretty much a health nut and big into exercise

so I thought nothing about it as she went jogging around the house, so I just kept washing dishes, the second trip

she made she was running around the house and I remember thinking," WOW she is in GREAT shape for her age", on

her third lap she was screaming and I looked out just in time to see Arnie's curly tail as he was trotting behind her.

        For a moment I didn't know what to do,chase the pig, try to get in between them, or tackle Mother for I knew she wasn't going to stop and I didn't have any idea how to stop a hog.  I got Arnie's treats but he wasn't interested so when

Mother came by the steps, I grabbed her and pulled her up on them.

         When Mother caught her breath the first thing she said was," I love you dearly, but right now I have a good mind

to kill you and tell the good Lord you died"!!!. Arnie was standing at the steps grunting looking up at Mother with adoring 

eyes,tusks pearly white,his curly tail wiggling and all I could think of to say was," Mom, isn't he cute?"

      We have this fantastic Rottweiler named Ugo. Super smart dog and I had purchased some dog training videos and

really working with him. One thing Ugo LOVES to do is fetch.  Now Rottweilers are notorious herd dogs. The Romans bred

to herd and gaurd their livestock as they went around conqouring the world. I just knew Ugo would be a great asset for our farm so when two of our bulls got out of the pasture I thought this was a great opportunity for Ugo to prove himself.

        Ronnie at first wasn't too keen on the idea. After he had chased these stupid animals for miles without any success

he relented to give Ugo a try.  Ugo did great., my heart was filled with pride,visions of winning scores of AKC herding championships were dancing in my head when all of the sudden I looked and the bulls were running towards me

as Ugo was bringing them directly to me instead of through the open gate.

     "Gee !" Haw" I yelled,oops that's for plowing horses, "Turn Em",Heck that ain't right, I couldn't remember the right

words !!!

     Ronnie screamed,"RUN " !!!  That did it. Here we go me in the lead,bulls in the middle,Ugo herding behind barking

and Ronnie laughing. Finally somehow I managed to leap over the fence before the bulls went through yet again.

         Ugo was so proud of himself he had "fetched" the bulls to his person.  That ended my dog training right there. 

   Early  spring last year my son Justin and I went to pick a Rottweiler I had bought from our dear friend Mr. Burns. When we arrived it started raining -just our luck.  Here we had driven 75 miles to pick this dog up and we were determined not to come back without him. What's a few muddy paws we reasoned, the truck seats are leather ,easy to clean,not a problem.

    When we get to the kennel where our dog Baron was we soon realized we were in trouble. They had just had a heavy rain there and where  are the dogs? Out playing in it.They looked like pigs. Mud was ankle deep on us and you couldn't even tell the six dogs in the kennel were Rotts. Justin,nudges me and says,"Go on in ,you know which dog is Baron".Yea right.

Saying a prayer I step into the ankle deep mud. Sure enough Baron comes bounding over  puts his paws on my shoulders and gives me a slobbery kiss just like he did the first time I met him. So what's a few muddy paw prints on a white T-shirt?  Just about that time  Justin lets out a loud whistle and here comes the other five !!! I now have mud from head to toe,can't see out of my glasses,trip over my own two feet and have 9 month old Rottweilers stepping all over me.

Mr.Burns is at the kennel by this time and comes to my aid while Justin is just cracking up. The delimma now thanks to Justin is keeping the other pups in while I once again locate Baron and get him out. Finding Baron wasn't hard,but now Justin has to get in with us to help keep the other dogs back. We thought we had the other dogs calmed down when two of them decided it would be great fun to tackle Justin. Down he goes in the mud. My turn to laugh. We finally get Justin and Baron out of the muck and we three are so muddy Mr.Burns has to hose us down with the outside water hose. By this time we are cold,soaking wet and a little less muddy.

     As we are getting ready to leave,Mr.Burns says,"Wait, I have a suprise for you."  Here comes with ANOTHER Rotti that he wanted to give me that had been injured the summer before. As we are standing there talking about Magnus,he eyes a huge mudhole and plows through spraying mud and water everywhere. We get him hosed off as best we can and then load up in my F-250. 

       On the way home Justin and I remembered we haven't had a bite to eat all day and were starving but we can't go in anywhere to eat covered in mud and dog slobbers so we pull in at a drive through. When the cashier starts to hand us our burgers (by this time its raining AGAIN), Magnus lets out a big friendly "WOOF" she screams and drops our sack of burgers in a pot hole. GREAT !!!  She offered to fix us some more burgers but by this time we are just too tired and miserable to wait so Justin retrieves the burger sack from the pot hole and we drive on.

     Thirty miles from the house Baron decides to get car sick.(Thank you Mr.Burns for feeding Baron breakfast), about five more miles down the road Magnus has a bout of diarrhea. Now we are driving down the road with the air conditoner on, all the truck windows open freezing to death and speeding.

    Finally we get home,my  back truck seat is a stinking mess, mud all inside the truck. I looed at Justin and said very calmly," I'll give forty bucks to clean my truck.". Justin replies," I'll take twenty and you bathe dogs."

    Owlie  this is for you. Hope you enjoy it. May God bless you always my dear friend! Hope I didn't disappoint you.

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      Its hard to lose a beloved pet. To us animal lovers they aren't pets their family.

   We never knew Peanut or his owner,but the murder of this poor puppy will be forever etched in our memories. A friend of mine has started a website for a memorial for those of us who have lost our best friends. 

     The website is www.littlepawsmemorialgardens.com  if you would like to pay tribute to a dog you have lost. I'm going to do this for Peanut's owner and I think its a great thing.  The cost is $5.00.Its the last thing we can do for our beloved pets.

    Thank you George for this wonderful site and for caring.

 I just want to thank everyone for supporting Peanut's owner. We did good,over 87,000 names were on that petition when the petition was closed. We may never hear the results of that trial but one thing for sure we DID make someone take notice and we DID show our support for Peanut's grieving owner. WE MADE A DIFFERENCE.

     Thank you for being the special people that you are and may God bless you and keep you safe.