Pet Stories V

Well, I think this will be the last post on pets.....(unless I can think of more stories)....

Christmas:
Fritz and Shilo always had a 'stocking' hung up with ours at Christmas time. After a couple of years, Fritz figured out the stocking. When I hung them up, he would start checking them, to see when they got filled. He would literally guard the stockings. On Christmas morning, there he would be, right under his stocking waiting. We would put the stockings on the floor and he would empty his quickly. I don't think Shilo ever really caught on to the stockings, she would just follow Fritz's lead...Of course we would have to make sure Shilo got her stocking contents, and not Fritz!

The Dog House:
After we had gotten Shilo, Dave decided the dog's needed a 'Dog House'. We found a really nice, expensive, kit of redwood that had gingerbread trim; so one weekend Dave spent the day putting it together. It took a long time, but once it was finished, it looked great. Dave was proud of his work and the dogs seemed to have fun, going in and out of it....About a week later we were awakened about 3am by this loud banging noise in the backyard. We couldn't figure out what it was, so we got up and looked out the window.

There was Fritz with a section of the roof in his mouth, swinging it around and banging it into a tree. We yelled at him to stop it. In the morning we got up and went to see what exactly Fritz had done. Well, all of the trim was chewed into dozens of 2 and 3 inch pieces. The roof was off and only one wall was left standing. We couldn't believe our eyes. Dave was so angry, he said the dogs could just sleep on the ground. We cleaned up the wood pieces, and that was that....

Until my In-Laws came to visit. Dad, just couldn't stand that the dogs didn't have a dog house, so while we were at work one day, he went to the building center and bought supplies. He built a dog house out of cinder blocks, so that Fritz couldn't destroy it....That worked! But Dave was still pretty angry with Fritz....

Dog Toys and chewies:
The dogs had lots of toys and chewies. Their favorite were those rawhide squares that they could chew on for hours (or days). Fritz was terrible about chewies. He would sit close to Shilo and watch her chew on hers; while he sat on his..After a few minutes he would get up and run over to one of us. Jumping about and wagging that stump of a tail he had. All the while glancing at Shilo. Of course Shilo would run over to see what we were giving Fritz. As soon as Shilo came over, Fritz would dart back over to where Shilo had left her chewie, grab it and then lay down on his. This way he had 2 and Shilo had none.

Fritz would do this all the time. When we would take the dogs on a trip, we would always have a pillow and blanket for the dogs to lay on, and give them each a bone or chewie. It never failed, after a bit, Shilo could be seen pawing at Fritz. The first time we saw this, we told her to lie back down. She would for a minute or two, but then would be right back at bugging Fritz. We discovered that Fritz would watch for Shilo to leave her chewie alone, grab it and then lay on top of it, while chewing on his own chewie...Talk about 'children not playing together well'....Like I have said....Fritz was smart.......Shilo was loyal....

When we both lost our jobs one year; Dave got a job offer in Florida, but it was hard finding a place to rent that would accept pets. Dave finally found a place, but they would only allow one dog. We decided to keep Shilo because she wasn't as active as Fritz was. I refused to take Fritz to a shelter because he was a good dog and I was afraid he would be put down if they couldn't find someone to adopt him. I talked with our vet and made a deal. She would help me find a family for Fritz, or Fritz was going to be put down, in my arms.

Thankfully, the vet found a family on a ranch who had a handicapped daughter and 2 other German Shorthair Pointers. Fritz and the little girl took to each other immediately; Fritz and the other dogs got along well too. I called the family after about 2 weeks to make sure all was well with Fritz. They told me that they were very happy with Fritz, he was extremely protective of their daughter and felt she was safe with him around. I can only hope he had a long happy life.

Shilo was 13 when she had to be put to sleep. She lived a long happy life I think and I still miss her.