Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

MONDAY JULY 5 2004

NOON UPDATE

Fireworks ended about 11:00 o'clock last night

     The worst of the explosions occurred at a little before five o'clock yesterday afternoon. Two gigantic blasts about five minutes apart sounded so close to us they seemed like direct hits on our shelter. We all thought one of our nearby neighbors had detonated a couple of two-thousand-pound bombs. The windows rattled, the dishes in the cupboards shook, and our ears rang for a few moments. Whatever these explosions were they weren't regular fireworks. (Additionally, throughout the night the sounds of fully automatic small arms fire could be heard mixed in with the firecrackers and fireworks. Some of these rural folks just love to get out their illegal weapons on the 4th of July.)

     At the sound of the first blast all the dogs except for Jackie, Laura, Sally and Alice ran into their shelters and on into their dog houses within. These four most terrified dogs proceeded to try to tear their kennel fences down. Sally and Alice were quieted first by strong no's and then by soft, gentle, reassuring words, but Laura and Jackie went totally crazy and had to be brought inside immediately. Later in the evening when the real (or regular) fireworks started up, Alice also had to be brought in.

     So, in addition to the regular hospital dogs (Toby, Blackie, Foxy, Katie, Misty and Julie) we had Jackie and Laura inside and then later on Alice. Needless to say we had a full house, and it would have been very difficult squeezing more dogs in. These three terrified babies sure appreciated having been brought inside during the "bombardment." They stayed very quiet in their small inside kennels until the "air raid" was over. Then sometime after midnight, after the skies had remained quiet for more than an hour, Randy Hopkins, our overnight man, put the "visitors" back out in their outside kennels, where they remained the rest of the night--all except Jackie, who had been the most frantic trying to dig out of her kennel at the beginning of the "bombardment." Randy said that he decided to keep Jackie in all night and that she was very glad to get this extra consideration.

     Thank goodness there won't be any more fireworks till next Christmas and New Year's. (How did our legislators get duped into allowing fireworks to be exploded on Christmas, anyway? Does anyone really think that Jesus would appreciate this sort of a "tribute"?)

The newly rescued Black Lab, whom the crew has named "Indy" (short for "Independence Day"), is doing okay and will go to the vet tomorrow

     Both of our vet clinics are closed today we found out by trying to call them first thing this morning, so this fella, who's got very goopy eyes, will have to wait till tomorrow for his new arrivals checkup and his neuter surgery. I talked with Indy for quite a while yesterday afternoon, and he's a very sweet fellow, as are all the Labs I've ever met.

Speaking of Labs, we recently received another email from Jana about Blind Chubs and Sister Cassie (including photos)

Hi Erin,

I have some pictures to show you. It's very hard for us to get all five dogs in one picture, but yesterday while the dogs were sitting for treats (baby carrots), I was able to snap a few photos. Chubs is so funny because he is the first one to sit, and he sits so hard and fast and swings that head up. Chubs is the one with the purple collar. Let me know if Chubs and Cassie look any different.

Jana