Raising a family of dogs

2008-02-07T21:01:00.000-05:00

Well the puppies are now 9 months old and they have formed a for real live pack. But now before you go thinking that I now have this dangerous hunting dog pack here you have to know that they may be a pack but that is in pecking order only. My wife and I are the leaders so we get swarmed by seven dogs every time we come in from any and I do mean any trip outside the house. This includes taking out the garbage cans.If I didn't have the knowledge that these dogs came from the same two parents I would not believe it. They range in weight from 14 pounds to 70 pounds and the 14 pounder is the meanest of the bunch when they get rowdy. Barney is the monster but his name says it all he is just Barney big, easy going, not a care in the world as long as he gets four cookies to one for everyone else. It gets very loud here if a dog barks on TV or heaven forbid a door bell rings. We spend the next three minutes telling them it was on TV so we end up missing what we were watching in the first place.Barney and Suzie also have the mistaken idea that they are parrots and without warning you will find yourself with a fifty or seventy pound dog perched on your shoulder. It is entertaining around here as long as you don't have a headache or are not trying to walk down the hallway when they decide that a rampage through the house is in order. I have been trying in vain to get them to sit long enough to take a picture of this motley crew but it is worse than having little children, you can almost hear them saying "SHE TOUCHED ME! DON'T TOUCH ME!". Then the rampage starts and I dive for cover laughing.

The Little Bee Saga --(answert to the comment from Pam and Mac)

2007-10-15T10:33:00.000-04:00

This article is in answer to a comment left by Pam.

You have requested more on those little Yellow Jacket look-a-likes with a sting like a sledge hammer and all that I can tell you is that what I have found out makes no sense. First of all I am not an entomologist so to say that I have a 100% accurate identification would be a stretch. What I did find out is that all of the Yellow Jacket variations keep their stinger so to me that eliminated the Yellow Jacket mutations. They are also all larger and the mutations are larger still.
Then I found some pictures of a nasty little bee that was called a Coo Coo bee. Yes like the clock. The name is local and the bee is the right size and it loses its stinger when it attacks. It is extremely Territorial and attacks in large numbers when it decides you have gotten too close. And the pain of the sting is were it got its name, it is very painful and enduring for several days. Luckily the hives only support twenty to around seventy five bees so it's not a large cloud that comes at you. The problem is that the bee I just described as fitting the little monster that was in our wall comes from the swamps in Florida, so what the heck is it doing in Cincinnati, Ohio much less Northbend, Washington. No state or local agency that I contacted had any desire to investigate the bees and I killed the hive that had taken up residence in my home but they are still here because I see them out in the yard. They seem to be killing off the honey bees. That is speculation on my part based on the observation that where you see these little guys you will not find any honey bees at all.
I do feel sorry for you since you found out what the sting feels like to a human, however I am glad that it didn't send you into shock or worse. That was my real concern when my dog was stung she almost had a seizure. The only thing that helped was a paste made of baking soda and water. Very old mothers remedy for bee sting. Oh and getting the stinger out of course. Those things kept pumping poison for 10 minutes.
I wish that the information was more scientific but the scientist have more important things to worry about apparently than a little bee that is invading the ecology from some swamp in Florida. If you have them in your home spray them after the sun goes down with Raid Hornet Killer. But beware they will come out as soon you start spraying and it does not kill them on contact and they will not be happy. I plugged the hole and the survivors just chewed a new hole. It took three times to finally get rid of them.

More on Beware This Little Bee

2007-08-28T09:11:00.001-04:00

This is the nasty little bee that I have been trying to identify. As you can see it looks like a miniature Yellow Jacket. That seems to be ware the similarity ends however. Yellow Jackets can sting you a lot of times because they keep their stingers. They also go wild for mountain dew and you can just about clean a whole nest out with a 2 liter bottle with just enough mountain dew in the bottle to drown the bees.

This little bee is different in that it loses its' stinger when it stings and the mountain dew traps don't attract them at all. They do like what comes out of the rear end of the dogs however, and the garbage cans if they smell bad enough. I have also seen them all over some poor leftover that the cat killed. So I guess that you would have to say these bees are scavengers and meat lovers rather than necture lovers.

Yellow Jackets are scavengers themselves as anyone who has ever gone to a park and tried to throw away the picinic garbage can tell you but they will never pass up something sweet even if it kills them.

The normal Yellow Jacket is 5/8 inch to 1 inch long. As you can see from the picture these guys are real lucky if they can make it to 3/8 inch long and that may be pushing it since that's a dime that it's next to and they are 1/2 inch accross.

The Cincinnati Zoo gave me a couple of phone numbers to call to try and identify these little monsters and I struck out totally. The only answer I got from them was they have no idea what kind of bee that it was but if it caused that kind of reaction in a dog you sure don't want a child getting stung by one.

DUH NO KIDDING YOU THINK!!!

Personally I almost dropped the phone when the Phd of Entomology made that statement to me.

But he did give me some other choices that I am researching now. They were call local exterminators to see if they have run into them and maybe identified them.

That proved to be pointless because all they said was they could come out and kill them but there would be a hazard fee because of the sting risk. I told them thanks but no thanks I can kill them that's not the point.

The other is more disturbing and I have not downloaded it yet it is a university conference site for identifying the mutations that are occurring in the bees here in the US.

I will write more when I have more information and maybe an answer or two but for now if you see a bee that looks like a baby yellow jacket give it a very wide berth.

Beware of this little bee

2007-08-26T15:05:00.000-04:00

This year we have a bee buzzing around that I have never seen before. It looks like a small yellow jacket but unlike the yellow jacket this bee loses its' stinger when it stings. The reason I am writing this is that one stung my dog. Now a dog can take about ten times the amount of pain that a human can before they cry out. This dog of mine has been stung several times this year by honeybees and makes no sound at all she just eats the offending bee and goes on with her day. This little bee however had her screaming for 5 minutes and unable to move her leg for about 15 minutes. She also showed the signs of going into shock, very fast heart rate, ragged shallow breathing and her legs went cold. A paste of baking soda on the sting seemed to help a lot and after twenty minutes she was ok and starting to move her leg again. After half an hour she was walking but not putting any pressure on the stung foot. All problems except the swelling have gone after eight hours.She weighs around 40 pounds and like I said she is not alergic to bee stings in the least so that only means that this little bee packs one heck of a powerful sting. I would hate to see one of these little bee sting a small child, the reaction I saw in my dog makes me think these things could send a child to the emergency room in a hurry so beware.
I sent the picture to the Cincinnati Zoo and asked them to please identify the bee. As a further note these guys eat wood and although I don't know what the nest looks like, they built one in the wall of my house by eating away the wood trim under the eve. I have sprayed the opening with wasp and hornet poison to try and kill them as well as plugging the hole with caulk so we will see if I got rid of them or they just open another hole somewhere.

Spoiled Puppies!!!!!!

2007-08-24T19:07:00.000-04:00

Well we are the proud owners of five of the most spoiled rotten puppies that has ever been born. Now I do take credit for that condition or rather the responsibility although I have had help from my loving wife. They are now using a new intimidation tactic on each other. They will run at a fairly fast pace at their intended target and at the last minute jump up raise their head and ram the poor unwary victim with their chest. I have no idea were they came up with this little game but I have not yet been able to catch it on tape. It happens so fast and everyone of them do this little trick. They knock the poor brother or sister for a loop but when they tried it on their dad and mom they just bounced off and decided they didn't want to do that again. Mostly because dad was not very happy at all and would not let them play for about 30 minutes. Mom just nailed them to the ground for about ten seconds.

Puppies have made it to 18 weeks!

2007-08-21T10:44:00.000-04:00

Well the puppies continue to grow and fight, chew, dig, and generally cause chaos in whatever area they decide to congregate for more than 5 seconds. If they are in a room longer than a minute or two this is the result.

It has gotten so bad that I have had to put a computer at the kitchen table because they were going insane and destroying the house if I went up to the office upstairs to do anything. The big problem is that I never liked the laptops so it's a tower sitting beside the kitchen table for now.

Tyson the playground Monitor

2007-08-15T13:29:00.000-04:00

Tyson is the father of the puppies and this video shows him breaking up the puppies when their play become a little to rough. The vet told me that this had never been reported in domestic dogs before. That was the reason that I decided to keep a record of the puppies and parents as they grew up. Yes as of right now we plan to keep all seven dogs, they each have such a different personality that it is still hard to think they are all brothers and sisters of the same litter.
He seems to play mainly the police role although I have seen him playing very gently with Barnie and Suzie. Its kind of a tug of war but all he does is stay in one spot and let them pull on whatever toy he brings to them.

Continuation of Raising a family of dogs

2007-08-06T12:12:00.001-04:00

The first two weeks with puppies is rather uneventfull other than putting them in a basket to bring them downstairs in the morning and back upstairs at night. This causes the mom to go spastic counting her babies, we think she may be even more frantic because one died shortly after birth. However other than this and of course they are so small and cute but they don't have their eyes open yet and all they really do is eat make a mess which thankfully mom cleans up and sleep. Oh and CRY.... They sound like baby babies not puppies.

Sometime during the third week their eyes began to open and they started to know when their mother had left them and now they sound like puppies on steriods. The smallest one has the loudest mouth I have ever heard.

They are also trying to walk around the box that serves as the bed and pen to keep them from harm. By week five all but the smallest have figured out how to escape from the box so they leave and the smallest starts to scream at the top of her lungs till you get her out.

Also as fate would have it mom has not been cleaning up after them for several weeks and I have been given that unhappy task most of the time. Now however they are not confined to a box but able to destroy an entire room. They also have needles that are called teeth and an intense interest in toes so shoes must be worn at all times or your feet will be springing leaks from little tiny holes.

Carpet cleaning becomes a high priority over the next 4 weeks as house breaking progresses at a snails pace. They have the idea of what you want them to do its just that hey when they are playing hard its just too late by the time the signal hits their brain. Also if you have more than one puppy don't waste your money on the house breaking pads, all they are to a group of puppies is the best four way tug of war and shredding party you can imagine.

Also this is when these guys start doubling their size literally every week. That is all but the smallest.

They are now 16 weeks old they have had their shots developed most of the personality that they will be known for and caused enough damage that the house will never be the same.

2007-08-03T14:32:00.000-04:00

This was and accident that should not have been able to happen.

At least that's what I told myself when I got the phone call from my wife informing me that our miniature doby/beagle mix had successfully mated our two and a half times taller female mix of unknown and highly speculated origins. Those origins are even more speculative now that we have five living puppies to look at of which no two are the same, or for that fact even close. They are now three months old and range in weight from 9 pounds to 25 pounds. The giant is the third born and he looks like a basset hound to me. we named him Barnie cause that name just fits him to a tee.
The baby, well the little 9 pound pup, we named Skeeter because she was from the start the one that you could never keep in one place for long and size does not matter she has a temper to top even her mother so I have my hands full with her.
Then we have Molly who looks more like a long nosed boxer. She has a very nice looking reddish brown almost fawn coat and only stops playing to eat sleep and be loved on.
Toby is a mixed up little guy brownish gray with a face that tried to look like a doby but I'm not sure it got there but I love just the same. He is the reserved one of the litter. Don't know why all families have to have that one member that hangs back from the rest but that's Toby.
Suzie is last but not least she is her mother made over with the only exception that she has a red spot on her rear end that started out black then faded to brown now its red. Chya has spots on her skin but her fur never darkened enough. Anyway back to Suzie the best way to describe her is if she is awake she is hell on four legs. If she is not playing with one of the other puppies she's fighting with four of them and their mother.
Funny thing is that as I watch this and get ready to get the garden hose out and break up the fun I see the Daddy Tyson walking over head down not making a sound but when he got to the fight I heard him make one kind of half/bark half/grawl he never snapped at them or even got into the middle of the fight but it stopped and they flopped on their backs around him like he had shot them with a million volts.
I asked the vet about what I had been seeing and he told me that they did not know what dog family behavior was because no one has ever reported one. So hopefully this will be of interest to someone besides just me.
Oh and no these dogs are not going to get to grow up wild sorry they will have to be house broke and obedience trained just like mommy and daddy were.
And they Love Good And Plenty Candy.