To continue the narrative I started in the last blog about the dogs that were part of my family. After Fidora passed, my wife and daughters brought home our next dog, Ginger. She was a 6-month-old Australian Shepherd mix they got from a family. Apparently, she was too much for them to handle. We probably should have known she misbehaved because she jumped up on the girls when they went to get her. Her behavior problems persisted after they brought her home. Ginger would run out the door whenever it opened if we weren’t paying attention. She would also get out of the yard when she could. One day, she got out and wandered off. We looked for her and called for her but couldn’t find her. Eventually, we went to the local Humane Society to see if they had picked her up as a stray. While we were at the reception desk waiting with the noise of the dogs barking in the rear, my youngest daughter got scared and went to put her arms around my leg. Unfortunately, leg she grabbed the leg wearing blue jeans and cowboy boots only it was not mine, but another man’s leg. He was very kind and understanding, but it makes a fun family story. When we went back to look at the dogs, I wasn’t sure we would recognize her. She was a normal-looking black dog among a lot of other dogs. But I didn’t need to worry about that, because she recognized us, and we took her back home.
When she was around two years old, she still ran out the door at every opportunity, which resulted in this free puppy becoming our most expensive dog. One day the kids were going out, and she ran out into the street in front of an on-coming car that hit her. We rushed her to the vet where they took x-rays and examined her. Fortunately, she didn’t have any internal injuries, but her shattered front leg would not heal correctly without expensive surgery. The vet gave us the option of the surgery, or he could put her down. Because she was still a young dog and the kids loved her, we decided on the surgery. The vet reconstructed her leg using pins and screws. She spent a few days at the vet’s clinic before she came home. Then she spent weeks under limited mobility conditions to allow her leg time to heal if it would. We set up a temporary enclosure in our garage to prevent her from moving around too much. The kids spent a lot of time praying for her healing and eventually she recovered full use of her leg. After that, she didn’t run out the door anymore, and she hated going to the vet. I had to carry or drag her into his office.
Ginger was the one dog that ended up being my wife’s dog. They would walk the floodway daily where she could run off-leash with no cars around. She had a real love, or hatred, for skunks. Like porcupines, dogs don’t seem to learn that you don’t mess with skunks. I don’t know if it just makes them mad or what, but it seems like once a dog encounters a skunk or porcupine, they must get back at them. The good thing about skunks is they don’t have quills. Of course, the stench is difficult to eliminate. Because we live near the floodway and skunks are common around our neighborhood, she didn’t need to be out of the yard to encounter one. We could let her out in the backyard in the evening and she might find one. When she did, she ran straight into the house after getting sprayed. Ugh!
When I would wrestle with the kids by getting on the floor putting a blanket over me, Ginger would attack the blanket that I was under. It was a madhouse when we played, with the kids laughing and screaming, the dog barking and attacking the blanket, and me growling like a monster. Fun memories like these, and even the hard memories, help bring a family closer together.
Ginger’s passing was probably the least traumatic of all our dogs. I let her out into the backyard one afternoon, and later, when I went out to check on her, I found her lying on the deck. She was dead and passed as the result of a heart attack or something similar, though we did not think it necessary to do an autopsy. With all the difficulties we had with her behavior, you would think we would have learned that dogs need training. Unfortunately, we didn’t, which leads us to our next dog, Toby the Wonder Dog.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you like my blog, please sign up using the pop-up box to receive notifications when new blogs are posted. Leave a comment if you like. I will respond to legitimate comments, not spam or ads.