Tuesday’s Show and Tail… Field Pups

It’s time "Tuesday’s Show & Tail" time again! Angela, over at West Virginia Treasures, has been hosting this special time for several months, and it is always a lot of fun to see all the interesting posts of the people who join in! This is the 39th week that Angela has hosted this meme to share about past or present pets, animal friends we’ve known, or interesting stories about animals. If you’d like to join, here is the link to the Guidelines.

Today, I thought that I would tell you one of the stories from the Unity Thrift and Outreach files. My sister and a few other people work together, volunteering their time to help save lost, abandoned, neglected and abused dogs in and around the Taft, CA area.

Last year, they received a call that there was a pack of dogs that people had let loose in the hills on one side of the town. There were several big dogs running the in pack, including one that looked like a Mastiff, and another that looked, at least mostly, like a Shar-Pei.

One looked to be mostly Rottweiler and another looked a lot like a Bernese Mountain Dog. They were told that the Animal Control officers would be going out to shoot these dogs if they could find them, but that someone thought that there were puppies up in a den on the hill. My sister and her friends searched for them and finally found them, pulling several pups that were approximately 6-8 weeks old out of the hole.

They took them in and fostered them with some of their volunteers. My sister took care of one of them that she named Smoochie. They were taken to the vet for their puppy shots, and after several weeks of socialization and care, they were taken to some No-Kill Dog Rescues on the coast where they all found wonderful homes.

My sister has kept in touch with the people who took “Smoochie” and he is well loved and cared for.

The Animal Control officers weren’t able to find all of the wild parents and U.T. & O recently had to rescue another litter from out there.

A couple of these pups were taken to another Animal Rescue where they were able to get surgery done on one of the pups that had inverted eyelids (A common problem with Shar-pei’s from what we understand).

They were adopted out shortly afterward to good homes. These rescues do home inspections before they will adopt out, and then they do follow-up inspections as well.

I really respect the dedication of people who do this kind of work, going out day and night at times to help save some of God’s creatures that need help.  These pups all have happy stories because of them.

Our Sweet Little Weasel...

Hurray! Time for another "Tuesday’s Show & Tail." This meme is hosted every week by Angela over at West Virginia Treasures, and it is always a lot of fun to see all the interesting posts of the people who join in! It is a meme to share about past or present pets or furry friends we’ve known. If you’d like to join, here is the link to the Guidelines.


This week, I thought I’d share a few words about a little dog we had for several years. We called her Weasel because she was a little Chihuahua/Doxie that was a light cream color with dark points on her nose, and tail, and she always sat up like a little weasel. My son, J., found her when we were walking home from his school when he was in the 2nd or 3rd grade.

The school was on the outside edge of town and we would walk through the edge of the hills behind the houses for several blocks until we came to our street and then down to our house, about 4 blocks down from the hills.

One day, as we walked, this tiny pup (probably about 5-6 months old and really skinny) crawled out from under a bush on her little belly. She wiggled and wagged her little tail, still crawling, and just begged us with her little eyes to “please love me… I’m hungry and scared and need someone to love me…”

All my sons have been very compassionate about animals, but J. more than any of the others, and he was hooked from the minute he laid eyes on her. No WAY was I leaving that little thing, so I told him that he could have her. He took care of her and fed her up, and she was his, heart and soul for the 5 or 6 years that she was with us.


She ended up contracting Valley Fever (this area is bad for that for all of us who live here in this lower part of the San Joaquin Valley) and her little lungs filled with the fungus. We had to make that most difficult of all decisions for our sweet little Weasel. We still miss her when ever we think of her, but were blessed with the love we shared during her short little life.

Another "Show and Tail" Post

Time for another "Tuesdays' Show & Tail" hosted by Angela over at West Virginia Treasures! It is a meme to share about past or present pets or furry friends we’ve known. If you’d like to join, HERE is the link to the Guidelines.

Today, I thought I’d tell you about the first doggy love of my life. My Mom told me that I was only a few months old when my dad came home with a little, almost dead Chihuahua/Doxie puppy. It was covered with lice and fleas and several of its littermates had already died. They got the little thing cleaned up and de-bugged, cleared up it’s mange and gave her the name Bootsie because she was a dark honey color with four white boots and a white tip on her tail. (She's the pup between us)

They said she took to me right from the first and would lay with me gently for hours. Many is the night that I would fall asleep rubbing her soft, silky ear between my fingers. Bootsie, and Lena and Gonie (my two invisible friends) were my constant companions for the first 4 or 5 years of my life until my sister got old enough to play with, and then Bootsie was still always there.

This was over 50 years ago and it wasn’t horrible to have puppies, so Bootsie had a lot of them. That’s where I learned how to help birth them- though she seldom needed any kind of help, and mostly we just watched.

Bootsie was a born “MOTHER!” She raised puppies, and kittens and even a little duck! It was so funny because ducks tend to follow their mother’s while puppies don’t. That first day, she’d pick up the little thing and take it to her nest under the house (she always hid her puppies after a few days… probably to give them peace from us kids) and it would follow her back out, so she’d pick it up again and take it back… That went on for several hours until she finally gave up and brought all the pups out into a box Mama put in the washroom.

It was so funny to watch when the puppies would nurse, because the duckling would pick up a teat and sort of gently pull on it and open and shut it’s little beak on it like ducks do when they are grooming each other. At least THAT was a “puppy” she didn’t have to give up, and for many years, whenever they saw each other (when Bootsie would go outside into the back yard or chicken yard (later) they would go up to each other and Bootsie would lick the duck’s face and “Peep-Peep” would do little ducky kisses up and down Bootsie’s back. We have 8mm movie pics of that. This is a picture of my grandma, parents, sisters and me. I'm holding Bootsie and my sister is holding our new puppy, Petunia.

I had that precious little friend for the first eleven years of my life, and she was a very special part of it because I was kind of a shy, quiet little girl… always heavy… and, especially during those last years of her life (my pre-adolescent years) she was always there for me, loving me throughout everything… the kid’s teasing, my Dad’s heart attacks, etc.

I was heart broken, of course, when she took the "Rainbow Bridge," and what is so interesting is that I had never heard of the Rainbow Bridge until only a couple of years ago, but the night she died, when I thought I would too, and I wanted to follow her so badly, I dreamed of walking with her in a wooded area.

We came to an old bridge that crossed a river that was far below and there were mists raising off of it. It was night and the moon was shining so full. When we got there, Bootsie started to cross it and I tried to go with her, but she turned around and looked me in the eyes and I knew that she was telling me that I had to stay, and she had to go... I watched her finish crossing, and when she got to the angel on the other side, she turned again, to say good-bye, and then they went off into the woods on that side. That dream is still so very clear in my mind...

Get R Done Friday…

Monica, over at Expressly Corgi, has been doing a Meme called “Git R Done Fridays,” and I decided to join the fun this week with this post on our Corgi Christmas Tree. This is her button for this Meme. Her idea was to host a meme devoted to procrastinators everywhere, to inspire and assist in getting ideas and projects finished by Friday and that’s definitely ME! If you are interested, you can go HERE for the rules so that you can join us!


As I mentioned in my last post, the Corgis bring a lot of fun and laughter into our lives, and when I got some really cute gifts from Angela at West Virginia Treasures that looked like they would make some great tree ornaments, I decided that we WOULD put up a tree this year, and we used the snowflakes and beautiful red stocking/lacey boot that Angela sent. I also learned that my grandson, Little Bear – my nickname for him since he was born-- who was 6 this year, is getting to come and stay with us for a couple of days just after Christmas, and I know he’d love to see a tree.

Anyway, we decided to take pictures of all of our corgis in their Christmas hats, make a couple of pics of each, print them, laminate them and then cut them out and hang them for ornaments.

Robert took a picture of Dott saying, “Please, Please” and photo shopped wings on it.

Then he put two of those pics together, back to back, and added a halo between the pieces for a “Corgi Angel” tree topper. Didn’t it come out cute!!!?

This is a little 3 foot tree with fiber optic lights at the ends of the pine needles that twinkle with different colored lights (which don’t show up well in the pics) and we think it came out looking GREAT!

I’ve learned an awful lot about God’s love and about the way I should love Him from the animals that I’ve had in my life, and I thank Him for the Joy that all these little sweet faces bring. He sent His son, Jesus, to be born in a manger around animals, and I believe that He loved them too, and gave them to us… to people… to learn about love and caring for others. I am not putting them up to make them above the regular “Christian” reminders, but AS a reminder to me of true love that I should show to the things God has given me, and of the way that they give unconditional love… the way I should love God.

Puppies and Rainbows…

I have had so much fun watching Dott’s puppies as they play and learn over the past few weeks. Sure, they take a lot of work, too, but the joy they have brought into my life has made it well worth it.

Ok… so I take pleasure in some of the simple things in life, but letting God take care of my cares, and taking time to smell the roses or watch the Corgis play, makes life so much more satisfying than stressing about things that “may” happen, or things that I can’t do anything about anyway.


That is what is so wonderful about Corgi Country. It is a haven away from traffic, noise, and other sources of stress. I can always turn off the TV and listen to music or even just listen to the birds sing, or the horses munch on their hay. Doing what the Bible says in Matthew 6:34 has become my main philosophy of life I think… At least since I’ve tried to follow it this past year, and it has worked well for me! Essentially, it says to take one day at a time and don’t worry about tomorrow.

After all, I don’t even know if I will be here tomorrow (freak car accident, stray bullet, meteor coming through the ceiling, etc.), and if I’ve taken care of the important things between myself and God, then THAT isn’t a problem, so I need to just do what I need to do each day to keep things in running order.

I need to be careful not to add the world’s problems to my shoulders by feeding my brain depressing stuff I can’t do a thing about anyway… that doesn’t mean not to do my part, like voting intelligently according to my principles, but so many times I sit there and watch T.V. shows that just put junk into my head. Computer people say, “Garbage In, Garbage Out,” when talking about programming a computer, and some of those principles apply to what I allow to go into my brain.


Each day, I try to make an effort to feed my brain good things… things that bring joy and peace, and cut back on things that bring me down. This has been shown, by numerous studies, to lengthen a person’s life, by lowering blood pressure, and the levels of stress hormones in the body that tears it down over time… I try to take a walk with a loved one, or a dog (same thing actually) and really LOOK around. I look at the paintings God has created for me in the sky... I try to look at the rainbows in the diamonds of dew on the leaves, grass or a spider’s web. I watch a comedy or read a funny or uplifting book. I try to feed my brain good things!

I’m taking steps toward a more peaceful way of living each day, and trying to make it my way of life…