Freckle & Ceilidh’s Blog

Never thought of a mango–or more correctly, HALF a mango–as scary? I have. This morning we went for coffee with friends at little cafe in the neighbourhood. I’d taken Freckle and Ceilidh for a walk before we left, woofed down some cereal and fruit and off we went. When we left, both Ceilidh and Freckle were settled in their beds.

We were happily visiting over coffee … catching up on life … and then it hit me. The image of half a mango … a smallish, half-eaten mango … sitting on the counter near the sink! Oh my gawd! I gulped … and realized that as scary as the half-eaten mango was… it was probably too late now. One of the other three at the table was well into a story (was it a workplace saga or a pet saga? Can’t quite remember.) and so I waited before I blurted out that I’d have to run home now. You see, Freckle absolutely LOVES mango … and when Freckle stands up on her back legs, she’s quite tall! Tall enough to scoop things off the top of the kitchen counter with her arms. This we learned a few weeks ago when we came home to discover new and fun things to do with cherry tomatoes (SEE STORY BELOW).

Our friend finished her story and I said nonchalantly to Mary Doug … “Did you eat the rest of the mango by any chance?”

She looked at me as if I’d lost it. “What?”

I said, “Did you eat the half mango that was on the kitchen counter before we left?”

Her eyes got big as she realized what it was that I was thinking. “Noooooooo….. what mango?” Our friends looked at us quizzically (they’re both cat people) and began to pack up. They’ve known us for long enough to know that the look on our faces meant “dog emergency!”

As we approached our apartment, we peered in the window and saw Freckle snoozing peacefully on the couch. No sign of mango juice on her chops … no gasping as one might expect if a mango pit got stuck partway down her throat. Once inside, we checked and there it was–the scary half mango–sitting equally peacefully on the counter. Whew! Another disaster averted! I’d had visions of Freckle taking that half mango into her mouth and it sliding gracefully down, pit and all–possibly choking her to death … or perhaps only lodging in her intestines somewhere to be retrieved by a $10,000 surgery! Just another relaxing Sunday morning in the neighbourhood…

[photos by Mary Doug]

Have you ever wondered what to do with cherry tomatoes? You know how you can buy three of the red mesh bags filled with 18-20 cherry tomatoes for $5. A few weeks ago, I’d picked up some fresh fruit and veggies (including the great cherry tomato deal). I’d unpacked them and left them on the counter while we went out for an hour or so. A while later, we arrived home and opened the front door to the most amazing sight! There were cherry tomatoes … say 60 or so … ALL OVER THE FLOOR! They were absolutely beautiful! Arranged in such a carefree manner … some partially mashed and some in pristine condition as if they’d just been plucked from the vine. And … artistically tossed into the middle were the red mesh bags all torn open to facilitate the escape of the tomatoes.

I bent down and picked up a handful. I held them in front of Freckle who was standing at the door looking a wee bit less than her usual enthusiastic and wiggly self. You could almost hear her thinking, “Hmmm… it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I said, “Freckle, what is this?” pushing the handful of tomatoes in front of her. She gave me a very serious look with big brown eyes. I think I heard her say, “Wow. Where did those come from?” … but I”m not sure. In an attempt to make light of the situation, Freckle began to bat a few tomatoes around again as Mary Doug and I started to clean them up. That idea was met with a stern “FRECKLE!” She stopped immediately and looked terribly remorseful again.

So, we collected all visible tomatoes and put aside the ones that survived unscathed. By this time we were able to laugh at the thought of our livingroom and dining room filled with cherry tomatoes. We scrubbed off the streaks of dirt on the edge of the counter where it was evident that Freckle had leaned in to pull the mesh bags down and vowed that we must be cautious about what we left within reach in future. Never a dull moment!

The next day, I found tomato seeds splashed across the TV screen. Two days later, we found Freckle and Ceilidh trying to retrieve something from under a cabinet. Yep … it was a cherry tomato–one of the pristine ones. A week after that, Freckle found another tomato in the corner of the dining room. And just a few days ago (several weeks after the tomato fiasco), I found yet another cherry tomato while vacuuming! What would we do without these creatures?

So just how DOES a Boxer star dress? I know that this is a question that’s kept me awake many nights. And now we know. Granted, we had to work pretty hard to get this shot of Freckle in her baseball cap. Everytime we’d get the perfect angle (read: get the silly thing to sit on her head before she whipped her head around and sent her lovely cap flying!), the lighting would change … or someone would walk past and shift her attention.

And why is Freckle a star? Well, let me count the ways… but the reason that led to this photo shoot is that she has become a star in her dog training class! [Never mind that many of the other parents are saying the same about their dogs.] Freckle has been held up as the model–”Watch how Freckle does it.” Or “Freckle’s got it. Watch her.” And usually at least once each class: “Well done, Freckle!” from her extraordinarily talented trainer, Shannon.

Those of you who know Boxers know just how momentous Freckle’s stardom is. Of course, a fair bit of credit must go to Mary Doug who spends hours and hours working with Freckle. To watch them make their way down the street, it looks like freestyle dance (without the music–unless you hum along). Overall, I think the two of them have done a terrific job! Congratulations Freckle! And congratulations Mary Doug on getting this shot of the girl with her cap on her head.

No, I mean to be able to smell as well as a dog? It was a rainy day yesterday and I was watching Freckle and Ceilidh curled up asleep in Freckle’s bed. Freckle was dreaming and her nose was doing a wild two-step. Obviously something in her dream was really smelly.

According to veterinarian and author, Bruce Fogle, humans have only about 65 square inches of nasal membrane—what you need to enjoy smelling a rose—and dogs have about 900 square inches. When I look at Ceilidh’s Pug nose, I have a really hard time believing that … but what do I know? I have heard that dogs with longer noses have a better sense of smell. But if that was the case, why would really long-snouted dogs like Afghan Hounds be called “sight hounds?”

I’ve also read that the fact that dogs have wet noses all the time allows them to trap scent in the mucus on their noses and inside their nasal passages. All of this must be helpful when Ceilidh stops for 20 minutes to sniff every dripping leaf on the corner shrub each morning. Apparently, when dogs sniff urine left by neighbour dogs, they can collect a lot of information. Guess they don’t call it “pee-mail” for nothing! They can tell whether the “author” was male, female, neutered/unneutered, friend or stranger. They can tell their social standing in the dog community and even the dog’s mood at the time of marking!

UBC psychologist and canine behaviour expert, Stanley Coren, explains dogs’ sense of smell as similar to the human ability to see multi-layers. He gives the example of looking at a bed with a quilt and pillows, and a book and a pair of glasses all piled on. We can see each of these individual parts of the scene. Similarly, dogs are able to identify different elements that make up the stench that we’d call trash—rotten fish, old French fries, tartar sauce with mold, rancid cashews, etc. There’s a lot of media these days too about whether dogs can smell cancer in humans. Some reports say that dogs can detect cancer by sniffing a person’s breath!

I can’t imagine what it must be like to have such a keen sense. Talk about overload… must be a real burden! No wonder dogs sleep so much. Just tryin’ to get away from the smells of everyday life.

  Freckle was recently interviewed for a little known rag called wild life! She didn’t want me to post this but finally agreed when I told her that it might help other dogs in similar situations. Freckle required that the publishers of wild life! alter her picture so that folks on the street wouldn’t recognize her.

INTERVIEWER: How long has the bullying been going on?

FRECKLE: ….. [silence]

INTERVIEWER: It’s OK to talk about it you know … it’s not a sign of weakness…

FRECKLE:  [heaves a long shuddering sigh and swallows several times. Begins in a shaky voice] …. Um… this is really hard to talk about … you know?

INTERVIEWER: I understand. Bullying is a horrible experience. But you know many other Boxers have been victims as well. Felines are just like that … the bigger and tougher the dog, the bigger kick they get out of it!

FRECKLE: [another sigh…almost sobbing sound] Really? I’ve been feeling so alone… and so vulnerable, you know? Looking out our patio window is a big part of my day and to be afraid that … that … Marmalade will be there … sneering at me with her whiskers and ears slicked back. I never know when she’ll appear from around the corner or from behind the planter. The next thing I know – there she is standing on her hind legs peering into the window – knowing full well that I’ll be there and helpless!

INTERVIEWER: I know …the uncertainty is very difficult …

FRECKLE: My moms go out and chase her away you know … and that’s embarrassing in itself … but she comes BACK and is even more smug!

INTERVIEWER: And so you find that Marmalade is more difficult to cope with than the influx of skunks and raccoons that has occurred recently?

FRECKLE: Oh yes! It’s all about the attitude, you know? It’s all about the attitude!

INTERVIEWER: Uh hmmmm…..

FRECKLE: I could cope with Marmalade if she wasn’t so damn smug! And she taunts me! That’s the thing, isn’t it!

INTERVIEWER: What will you do?

FRECKLE: Well … I’m currently in negotiation with the second floor neighbour cat who also hates Marmalade. The cat upstairs can’t go out… you know? And so he’s really ticked off too. At the moment we’re considering balancing buckets (well, soup tins, really) of water in strategic places which can be tipped at opportune moments.

INTERVIEWER: Uh huh ….

FRECKLE: We’ll see … we’re still in the planning stages. I’ll keep you posted.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you Freckle for sharing your feelings about this very difficult experience.

FRECKLE: [Sighs heavily…]

Well, we did it … er, Mary Doug did it I should say. She caught Freckle laughing on camera! And the  photo below is Freckle smiling - not necessarily a precursor to laughing–but lovely all the same.

Poor Freckle! There’s never a dull moment at our house. Last Wednesday, we noticed that she was flapping her ears… shaking her head. This behaviour continued and seemed to be getting worse. We took a long look into her ears but all seemed to be in order–from what we could see. In fact, they are the cleanest, smoothest, least allergy-ridden ears of any of our Boxers! But there was still something wrong.

Thursday morning … more flapping. Mary Doug made an appointment to see our vet and off we went with Ceilidh in her stroller and Freckle flapping all the way to the clinic. Dr. Janet said she’d better have a look inside and approached Freckle’s head. Freckle rolled her big brown eyes up at her and began to tense. By the time Dr. Janet was about 18 inches away from her ear, she let loose an ear-splitting yodel and jumped away.

Hmmm…. Dr. Janet said. She began to approach Freckle again but this time Freckle was prepared and bolted for the door … which was closed. Dr. Janet nodded and said “I think we’re going to have to sedate her in order to look in there.”

An hour later, we came back to pick Freckle up and were handed a glass tube with three scary-looking seeds in it. These were from Freckle’s ear … and obviously were causing a lot of distress. They were “spear grass seeds” they told us.

Freckle came out to meet us… a little woozy but happy to go home. Now we have two glass tubes on our mantle—one with Ceilidh’s tooth and one with Freckle’s spear grass seeds. I love souvenirs!

So … we’ve had to put drops into Freckle’s ear for a week. Ha! In someone’s dreams!! Mary Doug and I have had to feed her half a cow in order to distract her and hog-tie her to boot! Well, I exaggerate … but it hasn’t been easy!

We’ve been pondering just how to keep the spear grass incident from repeating and we’ve come up with the hat. We’ve got one of these babies on order from Amazon—believe it or not! Who knew? We hope it will fit her OK … but the attractive little flaps will cover her ears to prevent those nasty spear grass seeds from gaining entry. AND, this particular hat even has a small LED light on the top of it. Ah Freckle … you’re SO lucky to have found us!

Ask any Boxer owner and they’ll tell you—Boxers are clowns! They love to make people laugh and they’re good at it. They can be downright goofy and the harder you laugh, the goofier they get.

All of our dogs have also smiled. Our first Boxer, Bridget, would loll on her back and look up at us with an enormous smile on her face. And Ceilidh… if you rub her tummy or scratch her neck, she’ll lean back with a big smile on her face… lips curled up in a “U” shape just like a smiling human. But it was only a few days ago that the sound we’ve always called “happy pant”—the panting sound that all three of our Boxers have made when they greet us in the morning or when we come home—is really the sound of them laughing. Who knew?

The other day I was mulling over a blog post idea and decided to Google “laughing dog” just for the heck of it. Guess what? Dogs laugh!! I’m not sure how I missed this, but in 2001, an animal behaviourist in the US named Patricia Simonet, discovered that dogs actually laugh! If you don’t know what you’re looking for, a dog’s laugh sounds like they’re panting, according to Simonet. When they recorded dogs laughing while playing in a park and analyzed the recordings, Simonet and her team discovered that the panting/laughing sound consists of a much broader range of frequencies than regular panting from exertion.

In an article by Bill Roberson called “Have You Heard the One about the Laughing Dogs?” you can listen to 42 second clip of a dog laughing.

Still unconvinced? In 2005 in a dog shelter in Spokane, WA, staff played a recording of dogs laughing over a loudspeaker to the din of 15 barking shelter dogs. Within 60 seconds, every single dog stopped barking! According to Simonet, the sound of dogs laughing has a soothing effect on other dogs.

After I read these articles and listened to the clip of a dog laughing, I was laughing myself! I ran into the other room and said to Mary Doug, “I have incredible news! You know how all these years we’ve been listening to “happy pant?” She looked at me with an odd look on her face. “Uh huh…..” But once I explained, she was laughing too.

There is so much still to learn about the creatures we invite into our homes and hearts. Somehow, knowing that Freckle is laughing every morning when she does “happy pant” makes me extraordinarily happy. It’s like listening to anyone laugh … it’s hard not to join in.

We’re working on a photo… but so far, Freckle laughs so hard that all we get is blur! See what I mean? 

Sassy on her way to her forever home in Vancouver, BC

In 2002, we adopted our first rescue boxer from Tracy Hon of Chico Boxer Rescue. Though many boxer rescue organizations don’t adopt their charges to people living outside their province/state or region for a variety of reasons, Tracy was willing to take a chance on us giving Sassy a loving home. A home visit was arranged through Boxer Rescue Canada, and once we were approved, we made arrangements to adopt this wonderful boxer girl. We drove the 7 hours down to Portland from Vancouver, BC, to meet up with Tracy and Sassy, who had driven the 10 hours from Chico, CA, to do the “hand-over” in person. Tracy was also meeting up with local boxer rescue workers to try to make more formal ties among them for dealing with the overflow of boxers needing homes from northern California to Washington in the Pacific Northwest.

Imagine our shock when we heard the horrific news last weekend, that Tracy had been attacked and severely mauled on June 7th by one of her rescue dogs – not a Boxer, but an American Bulldog-Bulldog cross. This woman, who has one of the biggest hearts you can imagine, has spent the last week in hospital, valiantly fighting for her life. Both her legs and one arm were shredded, her face was torn up, and her trachea was nearly severed.

The Boxer community and Tracy’s many friends world-wide have stepped up to the plate to help her out, both emotionally and financially. This wonderful woman is a self-employed American without any health or disability insurance, meaning she could be in serious debt for the rest of her life from the expensive hospital and specialist care she’s received, and the continued specialist and rehabilitation care she’s going to need for a long time to come.

The financial support organized by her friends in the Boxer community is of two kinds:

1. Direct donations to the Tracy Hon Medical Fund organized by Dr. Liz Grauer (Dr. Liz as she likes to be called), a veterinarian practicing in Vancouver, WA, and active in Boxer rescue. There’s information on Dr. Liz’s website at http://www.geocities.com/eagevsdoc/tracyhon.html on where to send a cheque and a button link to make donations by PayPal or credit card.
2. A raffle organized by the Boxer Rescue Foundation for a beautiful Danbury Mint Boxer Stained Glass Clock designed by Simon Mendez and donated by my Boxerdom friend Debbie Cauble. Direct link to the raffle page is http://azboxer.com/tracyhon.html. Your raffle tickets will be mailed to you in time for the draw on July 15^th

This show of support, kindness and outpouring of thoughts and prayers for someone most of us have never met and know only through the Internet is the kind of thing that keeps my faith in human beings alive in a time when pettiness and meanness seem to have become the norm.

(Good news update: Tracy is back home again as of June 15, 2007. Updates on Tracy can be read at Dr. Liz’s website at http://www.geocities.com/eagevsdoc/tracyhon.html.)

Shelley, Freckle-Lexi, Ceilidh and I wish Tracy a speedy recovery, and express a huge thank you to her for allowing us to adopt one of her cherished charges.

Posted by Mary-Doug aka boxerpug

Sassy, Shelley, and Ceilidh on the way from Portland to Vancouver, BC.


Sassy ever hopeful that one day she’ll catch a squirrel.

Ceilidh and Sassy at the community gardens.

Sassy with a favourite toy.

This post was suggested by Mary Doug. She is pretty much an expert in this area—having just the other day asked me if I’d seen her “water bowl!” I said, “Your what?” She just looked at me as if I was being far too picky and continued wandering around the apartment looking for her mug. Of course this isn’t the first time that Mary Doug has exhibited symptoms of this nature. Our first Boxer, Bridget, had cardiomyopathy—a common heart problem among Boxers. She was doing very well on Sotolol. One day, Mary Doug–in her early morning fog—inadvertently took Bridget’s heart medication instead of her own medication. As is usual when taking medication that you didn’t intend to take—she realized just as the pill slid down her throat! “Oh my gawd! I’ve just taken Bridget’s Sotolol!” She called the pharmacy in a panic and her regular pharmacist was on duty—and laughed and laughed! Fortunately, Mary Doug was not in danger of sprouting another heart or anything else.

As we were laughing about how our dogs are completely woven into our lives, we wondered if others had similar stories. How do you know when you’re spending too much time with your dog or dogs? [Not that we suggest you do anything BUT spend time with your dogs, of course!] But spending time with these creatures is definitely a source of funny stories! Visit the poll (on the right of your screen) and tell us what happens when you spend too much time with your dog. We’ll summarize in 2-3 weeks.

P.S. Of course it could always be worse … check out TamaraLyn Young’s blog. She lives in the Yukon with 24 dogs, 8 cats (and a husband). She has a post called “You know you spend too much time with your vet when…”