Wuf...you bastarde`.

Wasn't expecting an Old Yeller moment this morning.

Hey man, you know what V said during the ESPY's.

I just helped ya get at least 2/3 out of the way early today is all.

Thanks Wuf

Awesome post. I had to put my best friend to sleep just before Christmas and it was the roughest thing I have ever had to do. The kids weren't that upset about it, neither was the dog. They just kind of accept things as that's the way it is. It was the adults who had the hard time with it.

Concur, absolutely awesome post. Typing by touch, suddenly can't see the keyboard, hope this is legible

Thank you Wuf. We all need to be reminded to be grateful for the simple things every now and then....and that children can have profound insights far beyond what us "Adults" would expect.

Had to make that 'final trip to the vet' with my best friend years ago; his very worthy successor is now 11 and this story reminds that he can't live forever...

I will respond....but am "cooking right" now and have no intention of spilling pasta on myself!

F*** you, too Stick. Just got back from watchin' my kid play 2, and she's in a mini slump.

I was just about to ask Wuf if I might hi-jack the thread with a dog story. Irish Wolfhounds, alter ego, John Steinbeck,Travels with Charley story, that Wuf initially blew me away with this morning, just by bringing up an Irish Wolfhound.



This is a dog thread. The sidecar thread that the site has been missing for a while.

If I write the story, it'll be longer than Adventuroo's coming to life missives.

^go for it Cdog, I love your stories (as well as adventuroo's). Nice to have a little dog discussion once in awhile.

Hijack away 'Dog. I would of course welcome any story you deem worthy, wolfhound-related or no.

But yeah, wolfhounds rock. Never had one in my "personal pack", but that's mostly just bcuz my personal pack always consisted of misfits and/or those who had been deemed unworthy by others and needed a break from a human.

Fortunately, the wolfhound folks for whatever it's worth, always seemed to fall into that category of "responsible owners". I did have the pleasure of working with a few wolfhound breeders and their "kids" over the years though, and never met one that wasn't a gentle giant wrapped around a seemingly old soul. Great breed of dog, IHMO.

I want to hear the story Cowdog. As long as it isn't too Ole Yellerish. I still remember when I was a kid, my parents told me not to watch HBO in the back room at my grandparents house...that was when only "rich" people had it. Of course I did turn it on immediately, and it was Ole Yeller. I was about 8 years old. I tried telling them afterwards that I didn't watch HBO like they said but couldn't get through 2 words without breaking down in a crying wreck. Of course they're not stupid and knew I was back there an hour and a half and listened in the hall and heard what it was (as opposed to the movies they so dreaded may have been on that may have shown a breast or something). They said "you didn't watch ole yeller did you?" I told them that I did. My dad then informed me that it was the only movie he's ever cried to.

Cliff Huxtable references Old Yeller...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0bjunGYs1g

Where the Red Fern Grows. I was only about 10 but it's still the only movie I ever cried at.

Almost did over Secondhand Lions but toughed it out.

Well I guess I'm just the big blubberer around here then. I don't take in a lot of flicks that would be considered traditional cryers, but yet still find myself "moved" as it were more often that I'd maybe care to admit (and more often than I used to be, actually), and not always because of sorrow or whatever.

In fact, the one that still gets me even to this day in a good way is "Field of Dreams". Always had a good relationship with my own Pops (despite me pulling some pretty stupid shit in my life at times) and yet the ol' "Dad? You wanna have a catch?" line get's me every freaking time.

"Pasta"...LOL!!! Glad you're paying attention. I still cringe at that story..Worse than all of the "caught it in the zipper stories" forever! You surpassed my culinary mishap the night I grabbed the cast iron frying pan from the oven(while making cornbread) without a pot holder. Then the night I "exploded" a pyrex dish that I'd left on an electric burner.

Men are meant to kill, smoke, and Q meat, not do it in the kitchen...But we do and sometimes we "hurt ourselves"!

Shall I recount the story of my first dog? A white female Eskimo Spitz, named "Snowball". She ranks as my favorite, particularly with interweb security questions. Born in the mid 40's and raised in the 50's when times were different, we didn't have modern sewerage. We had septic tanks...Actually I still do, but if you're familiar with those, there are "things you don't flush in a septic tank"...Primarily you limit and food products, cooking grease, animal fats, etc. which tend to clog up the pipes and drainfields.

In addition, laws were different then...Ever heard the term "slopping the hogs"? Well, where do you think "slop" came from...Buckets of those things that you didn't send into your septic tank...There was a fellow who'd come by once or twice a week to pick up the bucket of slop.....that he fed to his hogs along with some corn....

Back to Snowball....she liked to chase cars so she'd chase the newspaper guy(which delivered twice a week)..He was a younger guy on bicycle and actually I inherited his paper route several years later when he decided to retire and chase high school girls. Snowball thought it might be fun to chase the "slop guy" too in his car...Cept she got "under the tire one day" and got injured. Not dead, but injured! Result was I ended up with a 3 legged Spitz who couldn't run very fast afterwards cause she had to have a front leg amputated.

If that wasn't bad enough, when she got really old and it was time to go, instead of euthanasia at the local vet, my Mom and Dad asked my neighbor across the street if he'd take "Snowball for a walk". Danged WWII Marine took Snowball for a walk and she never returned...Marine killed my 3 legged first pet!

For years, I tortured him because of that! And he always tried to make it up to me..He was a conductor on the train that regularly ran from my hometown through Raleigh. $2.93 for a one way ticket to "Rawleigh". Most of the times, he'd take my ticket, look at it, hand it back to me with a smile and I could use it again the next week.

I think Snowball must have forgave him because of that...I'm sure he was "quick and accurate" with the gun shot..

Yep. I'm a sucker for dog stories.

American radio icon Paul Harvey, used to close his commentaries with the famous line, “ And that, is the rest of the story.” Wuf’s dog post prompts me to tell… the rest of the story.

It was recently revealed how the Internet moniker “Cowdog” came to be. It was indeed imparted by a teammate down in Spartanburg, during my short stay in the minors. As it is in baseball, everyone has a nickname, and that became mine.

After being informed by Howie Bedell and Lee Elia that services were no longer needed, I returned to Raleigh, where no one called me Cowdog. I had planned on coolin’ my jets for a few days or so, until another club picked me up. Ha…Montreal showed some interest, but reneged within a few hours, the Dodgers proposed that I pay my way to Vero for a rookie league audition ( what? ) I decided on option B, going back to school part time, thinking that something may still develop in time for the following Spring Training.

Well…part and parcel to returning to school meant that I needed to find some work that would accommodate class schedules. I found it at a small animal veterinary hospital/boarding kennel, close to campus, and the house. One of the vets was a former Wolfpacker, knew who I was, my plans…perfect setup.

At any rate, by winter, Spring Training was not looking good. In fact, by the end of January, it was dead. Caput, fini, over. “ They” had apparently soured on me, and I them.
So…finish school it was.

At about the same time that baseball had come to a bitter end, a client of the hospital had brought a litter of crossbred, golden retriever/ redbone hound mistakes in for shots, and adoption leads. Now these were some pretty cool lookin’ mutts, and we all did manage to help the client find good homes for 7 of the 8 pups. All except the little male runt that had the burgeoning coat of a retriever and body of a hound, that is.

I had notions for this little guy, but how the hell could I responsibly commit? The Wolfpack Doc had the answer. “Bring him in with you, leave him here, and take him home.” It sounded good, but what about cost? Doc was offended at the idea of cost.
And so it was that “Cowboy” became the beneficiary of some pretty high class vet care, and a boatload of attention, paying only in blood, when he got old enough, as the official hospital donor. It was a good trade.

Now, Cowboy had begun to exhibit some interesting skills while spending his days in the comfortable outdoor boarding runs. Like the time he showed up, out of the blue, inside the lab when he was supposed to be outside in the run. OK, he had learned how to flip the U latch on the kennel gate. And he had learned how to pull a door handle on the out swinging, back entrance door to the hospital from the boarding runs. Pretty neat trick, but that just meant it was time to make sure a spring-loaded gate clip was actually engaged, like we did for the rest of the canine guests.

A few weeks later, it happened again. We figured that I’d gotten lazy and forgot to clip the latch, but I didn’t think so. Then, one day as I was giving a dog a tick dip, I looked out the window and saw “that dog “, as Cowboy was rapidly becoming known as, out in the common run area, meticulously meddling with the latch of a boarded female dog. I called for help on the poor tick dip hound, and as a coworker took over, we both saw in amazement, the female get busted from jail.

I headed outside and from behind I heard, “ That damn Cowdog!”
Did he just say Cowdog…I’m thinkin’? Cowdog? I felt pretty sure that’s what he said, rounding up the lady from the tramp. After putting both dogs away, I asked my workmate what he said as I was running out the door. He replied, “ Hey man, I didn’t mean to cuss Cowboy, it was just so wild…”

“ No. What did you call him? “

“ I think I said, damn Cowdog.” Yep. An alter ego had just been born. From that day forward, the real Cowdog, not Cowboy, ruled the dog world, and a combination padlock adorned his kennel latch.

‘Bout the time The Cowdog turned a year and a half, we ( he and I ) moved from our place, just off the State Fairgrounds, to a cool little farmhouse around McNair horse stables off from Tryon Rd. I also moved on for more money, leaving the hospital behind, and joining our own Mr.Greywolf’s construction company.

Cowdog loved the range, and of course acquired a myriad of new tricks, such as…scaling 8-foot high fences, turning doorknobs to let himself out, but never closing the door behind him. He was even featured in one of the commercials that I had begun acting for. I was The Raleigh Times official paperboy in a big campaign they had running, and Cowdog was the friendly neighborhood mutt on my route. We did three of those spots, but he got cut out in two of ‘em. I never let him live it down.

Right before Greywolf fired me for dalliances untold, and following an evening of party dalliances untold, I returned to the farm with a party favor on my right arm. No, not a tattoo. Cowdog wasn’t there to greet us, which was not necessarily uncommon. Hey…I whistled. Somewhere in the wee hours, the phone rang. I extricated myself from the lovely next to me and picked up the phone.

The voice asked me if I knew where Cowdog was. I paused. It was my former neighbor over by the fairgrounds on the other end.

“ Our dog is havin’ pups right now, and your dog has been sittin’ on our porch for the last couple hours. “ I held the phone and tried to do the math. Months x Miles x Hrs. x How in the f….? I quit calculating, and was on my way to pick him up, lovely in tow.

There was more later on in California, following our 4 month Singer Sowing machine travel across all those places that I played ball in, but never really saw. Things like him being picked up by the Costa Mesa police one night, and hangin’ out with the peeps at the dog pokey til they got ahold of me. Remember, there were no cell phones back then, and that damn dog knew doorknobs.

One time, I got one of those calls from the Costa Mesa pound tellin’ me they had Cowdog for the second time. Cripes, we’d only been in town for a month. Embarrassed, I asked them where they found him this time.

“Uh…we didn’t find him. He’s just here. He found us.”

Cowdog found my future wife on the beaches of SoCal. Cowdog defended our toddler son from a rattlesnake at our home in the canyon. Cowdog was a piece of work. Cowdog bit it at age 12, done in by a stray foxtail that was missed and killed his liver.

Oh shit…Wuf’s Irish Wolfhounds, the whole freakin’ reason for this ramble.

I told ya that I took a long trip across the country. Just me, that dog, and a Dodge van. We visited old teammates and new lands. I liked to backpack in some of those new lands, and sometimes, my travelin’ companion was just not allowed into the backcountry. That meant that I had to board him from time to time. One of those times was in the Tetons. I’d planned a 3-day stint to the peaks on a little glacier lake called Amphitheater Lake, 9,000 plus feet in the sky, bear country.

The first thing I did when hitting Jackson Hole, was find the Yellow Pages. That’s what we did back then. Google was something ya did with your eyes. Anyway, there was only one boarding kennel that appeared both convenient and reputable. Nice spread in the phonebook, references, and they even bred “ Renowned” …Irish Wolfhounds. AKC champs, man. The Cowdog and I were there in 10 minutes after I put the phonebook down.

This place was spectacular as far as motels went, let alone dog ones. Awesome kennel with onboard vets, large runs, views of the mountains… hell, I woulda stayed there. 25 bucks a night for this was no problem, in fact a steal.

I got a mini tour, saw where they’d harbor Cowdog, got some glimpses of the prize Wolfhounds, six females and a couple bigga boys, and made the decision back at the counter. I gave the folks Cowdog’s medical docs, every phone number available to a travelin’ man, my itinerary for the back country stay, paid up front, and…and with strong language, THE padlock.

I spent 3 indescribable days in the rarified air of the Tetons, got off the mountain ahead of an August hailstorm, and went to pick up my dog.

When I entered the doors, I could tell that they weren’t the same smiley people that I met 3 days before. The receptionist kinda gave it away when she scurried away from the front desk. Seconds later, the chief poobahness greeted me across the counter with a receipt before she uttered a word. I looked at it, and it wasn’t a receipt at all. It was a freakin’ bill. It was a freakin’ $ 500 bill, itemized. Six depo provera shots, 2 hrs.vet charges…and no Cowdog front and center as I’m reading this.

Hey, I wasn’t stupid, at least back then. I just looked at her and said, “Where’s my dog?”

“ We’ll bring him up as soon as you make arrangements for payment on the final bill.”

I just said, “ You guys didn’t believe me when I gave ya the padlock, did ya? Just bring him up.”

“Sir, I’m quite serious about this bill, the animals that your dog released and was found with are priceless.”

“ So’s mine lady. May I borrow your phone? I’d like to make a call. Do you know the local cop’s number off hand?”

That worked. Cowdog’s waggin’ ass tail was with me in a heartbeat. “ Where’s my padlock?” They went through some motions and obfuscations, and I just told ‘em never mind, and waved as me and that dog hit the door to the van.

“ Sir”, someone yelled from the front door. “We will pursue this bill. We have your information.”

Loading us in the van, sheepishly laughing my ass off, wondering what an Irish Wolfhound/Cowdog cross mighta looked like, I returned, “ Fine. So sue him.”

^wow, what a great read. You were truly blessed to have shared time with such a boon companion. Sounds like he was Cowdog in spirit as well as name. Thanks for sharing.

Well, well. The plot thickens. A full six pack of canine amazons. The kid had both ambition and...errrr, stamina.

I would make a wisecrack re: like father like son or some such, but this is a family place after all.

Thanks for sharing (that's what she said....)

Well, well, well. Fortunately for you, that Cowdog definitely had skills of the biped variety as well

I feel I must return the "wolf howl worthy" admiration.

CD, you really need to be writing books for money rather than our "free entertainment"..

^seriously.

That makes my story of my only venture into AKC dog breeding not even worth mentioning. But, I once owned the dumbest Old English Sheepdog that ever graced the face of the planet. He never could figure out sex with a female in heat!

^Is that sheepdog code for something else?

Lol...I could only wish..When we moved from Eastern NC, I honestly cried giving my German Shepherd away, but it was a pure thrill to get rid of that Sheepdog!. Sucker had all sorts of champions in his background, but he couldn't figure out what to do with a female. Took him to the vet(who I'd talked to about stud fees) and he even put the two of them in a pen next to an experienced St. Bernard for two weeks and both of the sheep dogs were too stupid to pay attention!

He was not gay, just freakin' dumb!

Speaking of gay dogs, when I first got my female lab mutt mix she was a couple of months old. I took her out to the coast and these 2 neighborhood dogs who are always around but I don't think belong to anybody started coming around trying to get up on her. I let them know immediately that I'd whoop their damn ass if they got near my new dog with that kind of crap. They were so stupid that even though I was around they kept trying to show off for her. They started wrestle style playing and humping each other to try to show dominance. Then the loser would fight him off and when he caught him not paying attention run up and start humping him. We were laughing the whole time and I still find it funny that 2 dogs were humping each other to try to show who gets the girl.

'Stick...PM. The dumb dogs are on their first or second reincarnations. Maybe a stint or two as a cat would move 'em back up.

I dread what the next phase has in line for me.

I'm coming back as a frog hoping some beautiful princess will come looking for me! Either that or a lesbian!

^
That'd be my luck...eh?

Thanks for the stories ...

I had a female rotty once who wasn't exactly gay, but she was a bit of a dominatrix I suppose. I'd had a retriever mix for a few years at the time (yep Cowdog, same one), when this beautiful female rotty ended up needing a home due to her current owner at that time making the mistake of getting engaged to marry a gal who the dog didn't exactly care for. As it turned out, the dog was a good judge of character and always was for the years she was with me as well...but that's another story.

Anyway, this dog was beautiful and I'd known her since she was six weeks old, so I took her in immediately. For about the next six or so months I spent much time breaking her of bad habits, and some aggressive tendencies, including the penchant for mounting and thrusting on the retriever, who was a male.

Poor guy would just look at me as if so say "Well...you gonna do something about this or what?" Wasn't much else he could do since she outweighed him by about 20ish pounds, all muscle, and he was more a lover than a fighter anyway.

If they had a safe word I never did figure out what it was. Neither did he I suppose.