Designer Dog Blog for gusmi

I read about a dog once who flunked out of Paws with a Cause because he was ball intensive....well, Ziggy, my doxle,  is definitely Cat intensive.  He remembers everywhere he ever saw or smelled a cat and has to revisit each sighting on our walks.  It's funny we saw Foghorn Leghorn, a pet rooster, today by his porch and Ziggy had no use for that chicken, ignoring his completely;  yet he reared up on his back paws (being a doxle, his front paws are a long ways from his back ones) and squealed his off tone beagle howl at the sight of a black cat's tail further on down the trail.  I believe that he thinks squirrels are little cats and deers and cows are big ones!

We had a tiger cat who tried to adopt us when we moved to Tennessee..my husband named her "Lunch" because that is what she would have been if Freya, our rottweiller mix,  had gotten to her....Lunch knew the dogs were the reason she couldn't move in so she would sit just out of sight and stick out one ear or a tail tip just to agitate the dogs.  Lunch had a "snack pack" of kittens and we had to do something...there was a lack of "no kill" cat sanctuaries in any of the three states we border.  Finally, my husband called a vet just at the right time and a lady had just lost her cat...she adopted Lunch and the entire snack pack!   Anyway Ziggy is definitely cat intensive...don't know what he'd do to a cat if he caught one (probably turn tail and run).  Freya, on the other hand, would pursue her prey.  So our dogs alert us to any creature resembling a cat within a mile from our house (Don't know why they equate the mail lady and garbage man with a cat)....Funny how such intensity is inborn!

I taught special education for 36.8 years and shared the children of many others, never had children of my own (don't understand how teachers can stretch between their own kids and those of others and do justice to anyone..I gave my all to each of my students)...for that time, I had beta fishes (the Colon Bowell line #1-9) because I lived in a condo which forbid dogs.  When my husband passed, I remarried, retired, and moved to Texas.   Now I was able to own dogs. First we got Toby, an older beagle found in the middle of a highway. I showered Toby with attention but he died of cancer and I was heartbroken.  Then we decided to adopt from hound rescue and Ziggy the Doxle became ours. (We fell in love with his big smile and quirky personality...  we had to wait an extra month because Ziggy swallowed a pinecone and had to have surgery to remove it)   Freya, the Rotweiller/coon hound, was my husband's son's dog and ended up with us too.  Our family was now complete.

All of us moved to the mountains of Tennessee a year ago. The dogs absolutely love the mountains and trails.   Ziggy and Freya are my children...my husband says I was dog deprived for years.  All the mother love I invested in my students is invested now in my puppies.  They are probably two of the happiest, most loved dogs around.  I pray every morning that God keeps my little family together for as long as He sees as possible.  I love my husband, I love my dogs and I love my little corner of paradise in Cumberland Gap TN.  I guess I'm the poster child for a satisfied retirement!