Lilies: Brenda aka langbr need a new best friend part 2, 1 by langbr

langbr wrote:
Shadow has hip dysplasia also, Starr. Some days it's worse than others. She sleeps on the floor next to our bed and she has a climb up the stairs that some evenings takes her a good 3-5 minutes to climb.

Mendy & Cici - my labs were true wanderers in the lab tradition. Noses to the ground they'd follow a smell wherever it led them. Sunshine & Shadow were infamous runaways.

In the old days, we'd get home from work and see the dogs were gone from the backyard. We'd head to the answering machine and sure enough there would be anywhere from 2 to 10 messages of people calling to say they saw our dogs. Usually these were accented by a 2-minute oration of how wonderful and friendly they are and what beautiful dogs there are. We could basically map the phone calls (everyone gave addresses & tel #'s) and see the wanderlust path those 2 took all over our side of town. Sometimes it was a riot to listen to the calls. The animal control people started picking them up and by the third time we had to bail them out it was costing us $250 to get them released. (Our town increases the fines each time the same dog is picked up)

The last straw was when some sweet old lady called to say she saw them that day and the animal control people were picking them up and the animal control person told her (the lady), "That these dogs need to be put down because they are always roaming." That lady's message was so indignant and she said, "You just CAN'T let them put those two loveable, friendly dogs down!". Needless to say at $250 bail and the info that animal control was threatening to put them to sleep, we found a way to contain them inside the house. Sure changed them a lot then because they LOVED being outdoors.

Maybe mine were atypical because there were two of them feeding each other's mischievious side. But seriously, 10 was about where they both startled to settle down. As for their tearing things up and chewing on things, that was over around 3 or 4 for both.

Here's my beloved Sunshine.