Remembering Bremo

Old dogs are a blessing.  If you've got old dogs it means that you've been fortunate to have shared many years together.  It also means you've got nice, well-behaved dogs who are fully adjusted to your household's routine.  Puppies and young dogs may be active, energetic, and keep you on your toes, but old dogs are good dogs and there's nothing like having a young one around to make your appreciate them all the more.  It was with much sorrow then that we said goodbye to Bremo last weekend. 


He has had a diagnosis of liver cancer for quite some time and we all knew it would eventually catch up to him.  He has also had a progressive loss of control of his back legs, presumably due to degenerative myelopathy, which has limited his movement.  It was probably a race between the two diseases as to which would claim him and it appears to have been a virtual tie.  He got to where he couldn't get up, which I attribute to the DM, but also developed breathing problems, which made me think that the cancer had finally spread.  In any event, it was clear from the look on his face Saturday evening that the time had come and the ice storm that was threatened for Sunday made me decide that we couldn't wait any longer. 


Bremo was born here, one of a litter of ten pups delivered by Maggie, our first foster dog.  I sort of helped with the delivery, although with Maggie and me it was a case of the blind leading the blind.  Like his mother, Bremo was definitely part Rottweiler and he embodied all the rottie personality that we love around here.  His brindle markings, build, and long legs make me think that his father must have been at least part Great Dane, and Maggie was known to have a fondness for big male dogs. 


I believe that Bremo was 12 going on 13, a good old age for a 100 pound dog.  He had remarkably few health problems over his life and zero personality problems.  He was the chubbiest of the litter of puppies and always made sure he took every opportunity to eat even though Maggie wasn't overly fond of nursing.  Bremo maintained his gusto for food throughout his life, even up to the morning of his final day.  It's debatable whether he loved food or petting more, but he never passed up an opportunity for either.  He had a Rottweiler's fondness for physical contact as all visitors to our home immediately discovered. 


Bremo and Cabell were together for many years and only had one disagreement, predictably over food, because Bremo would do the Rottweiler rush on another dog's food bowl if given the opportunity.  He's the reason that everyone in our household learned to keep their head in the bowl eating rapidly until it was empty.  Bremo was very much a homebody, I don't think he ever wandered off the property, and he had no real interest in going places.  He liked to stay near the last known source of food, which was always at home.  Up until the last six months or so I always fed Bremo and Cabell outdoors in the dog yard and each dog would go to his designated feeding location.  When all the bowls were empty, Bremo would gather them up and arrange them in a row or an arc around him, ready to claim them all if they were to become full again.  He was so food motivated that we probably could have trained him to do anything, but we never taught him anything other than "sit."  We didn't need to, Bremo had no behavioral problems and he just always fit in, which seems to be the special genius of the rottie breed. 


We are now without a Rottweiler in the household and Cabell is without his long time companion.  Our home and hearts have a rottie-sized hole in them.  We miss him but I'm grateful to have had him for so long and to have had him happy and healthy for so long. 

Max moves in

Part of my motivation in wanting to keep fewer foster dogs was my intention to give them more time, attention, and training, particularly house training.  A dog is much more adoptable if we can say that it has lived indoors, is house-trained, crate-trained, and generally well mannered.  I brought Anna indoors because it was obvious that she had been a house dog and I wanted to be able to tell potential adopters how she was indoors.  With the number of resident dogs that we have, there is a limit on how many fosters I can accommodate indoors and generally that limit is one.  But after Anna got adopted, Max moved up a notch and he moved indoors today.

The choice of Max over Ochie or Franklin was based on the fact that Ochie and Franklin are easily managed outdoors while Max is driving me crazy.  Although the Prozac has helped a lot, when I am outdoors and doing anything that doesn't involve him, he is frantic and he still goes into his scream and spin routine.  I just want to kill him.  So I brought him inside where he's with me.  He does act as though he's been indoors.  The stairs were new to him but after one trip down with me holding his collar he mastered the task and now does it on his own.

Maya immediately asserted herself as hall monitor, supervisor, and she who must be reckoned with, but that's good, Max needs that.  He settled into a crate nicely, although the real test will be if he will stay in there at night and when left alone during the day.

To further cement our bond, while exercising his body and mind, I took him on a fast hike today, over 5.5 miles on muddy trails, which we both enjoyed.  He spotted a couple deer and I saw an owl.  We both should sleep well tonight.  Hopefully this will settle him down, allay his anxiety, and improve his adoption prospects.  That's the only way I'm going to get rid of him.

Icy night

Maya and Franklin

It's not terribly cold, just at or below freezing, and thankfully the wind isn't blowing.  The precipitation falling is turning to ice on surfaces though, so it's not exactly pleasant outside and everyone spent the day hunkered down, staying dry and warm. 

There's only so much of that a dog can stand, however, and Maya and Trooper were agitating to go out this evening.  Ochie and Franklin had been holed up all day as well and they were anxious to get out and run around the dog yard for a bit. 

I thought that with the fencing being coated in ice it wouldn't be very climbable and I stayed out there with them anyway, but asshole Franklin still took the opportunity to scramble over the fence and disappear for about an hour in the freezing drizzle.  Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but no one is out and about so I figured he was pretty safe.  He came back and was happy to get back inside the shed where it was warm and dry.

Ochie

Max

The Ochie blur

Franklin, back home

Ochie, eyes closed but relatively still

Anna's adoption day

I'm writing this on Sunday morning, happy that the scheduled adoption event in Gainesville was cancelled in advance.  Because it was, I went to Saturday's event in Purcellville instead, with Anna, Ochie, and Franklin.  I had several inquiries about Anna this week and we even made a stop on the way up to meet one family that was interested in her.  Some folks from Arlington who had been emailing me for the past week or so came out to meet her and they took her home.  They were excited to have her and she was happy to go with them.  She really needed to be an only dog, or at least to have less competition for the human connection than she had around here.  I think that will enable her to settle down and to gain some weight.
 

Ochie and Franklin had a great time.  They are both very sociable and really ate up all the attention.  All my pics of Ochie were blurred because he was constantly in motion.  Franklin settled down next to his handler and just enjoyed it all.








After Anna's adoption was completed I headed back home because it's a good 2.5 hour drive and we had plans for the evening.  Clay and I went into Charlottesville for pizza and christmas decorating at his mother's house.  Maya came along because I didn't want her to eat anything else while we were gone.

When we got back home I had a nice email from Anna's adopters and a couple of pictures.  She looks very happy.

Franklin, Anna, Sparky

I haven't had much going on this week.  I only worked Monday through Wednesday.  I've done some clean up mowing, but haven't been out on the trails until today.  The first part of the week was unseasonably warm, dry, and beautiful.  Today was wet but better than the next couple of days are forecasted to be.

I'm taking Franklin, Ochie, and Anna to an adoption event up in Purcellville, VA on Saturday, but I needed to get Franklin to the vet today to get his vaccines updated.  I haven't written much about Franklin.  He's a nice dog, part husky, ridgeback, and Am Staff, not a drop of shepherd blood in him according to the DNA test that was done.  He's good with other dogs but is kind of a solitary sort, doesn't really play with them.  He's hell on cats.  And he's a fence climber.  He stayed in the dog yard for several weeks, but he saw Maya climb out and he figured that he could do the same.  He comes back, but he stays away longer than she does even when they are out together.  One time he came back with a back cut on the back of a leg that I think he got when going over the fence.  He limped for a couple days, but I put him on antibiotics and pain killers and he went over the fence again.  The vet looked at it today and said it seemed to be healing nicely.  I'm now keeping him in a 10'x20' kennel and he hasn't climbed out.  Ochie is with him most of the time and they go into the shed with Max at night.  He was good at the vet today and tested negative for everything except a slight positive result for Erlichia.


I took Anna along to the vet to check her weight.  She had put on a couple pounds and was up to about 64 today.  She would be great at 70 but to get there I think she needs to be in a home of her own, where she's the only dog and can relax.  She is getting so possessive of me that Maya is going to kick her ass before long.

Anna had a better result on the scales than I did.  I haven't lost any since I was there two weeks ago, in spite of a lot of hiking and exercise.  Very discouraging.


When we got home I took Sparky out for a hike.  The rain had slowed or stopped and things were very wet but it wasn't bad.  We did about 4.5 miles in just over an hour.  He was very energetic and we moved along pretty fast today.  The bad weather kept everyone else at home, so we had the trails to ourselves, which we didn't mind.

We went to town this evening for a holiday party.
This is the lawn at UVA lit up in white lights for christmas.

Beer and boating

I put xmas lights on a magnolia,
very festive.

The new beer is a stout.

Five days off of work with absolutely no obligations has been really nice.  I've hiked a lot, done some yard work, we brewed up a new batch of beer, and today I did a canoe trip on the Rivanna.  Life is good.

Adding the hops



The Rivanna was beautiful today.




It's the darkest beer we've made to date.




I chased a pair of bald eagles down the river
for quite a while until they decided I wasn't
much of a threat and they let me just float past.

Two inches of rain last week had the river
running high. I paddled most of the time
and covered the 7 miles in less than 2 hours.




The water was still muddy, but the sky was blue



This was taken from too far off to be very clear,
but these two are so damn cute together.