Just an Old Goat

We lost Alice yesterday.

She went down about a week ago- not on her side or in pain or even in distress, just with her legs under her like a big dog and decided she didn't want to get up again.

And if a 150 pound goat tells you she's fine right where she is, you just move the food and water and tuck a sleeping bag around her old bones.

Alice and Trixie were our 2nd attempt at goats down here in Texas. The first 2- China and Marigold- were run down and killed by dogs who dug under the fence one winter day while we were at work.

It took me 2 years to get Ward to agree to try again.

Goats are very personable.

So we got Alice and Trixie. Trixie died of bloat about 5 years ago.

Alice had a set of triplets every year...and raised them all. Usually one is smaller, weaker, and gets pushed out of the way by siblings and has to be bottle fed. Alice made sure everyone played nice.

One year Alice had her triplets in an ice storm- outside even though the barn was right...there. They all died. I thought we were going to lose Alice as well. She stopped eating, hung her head and just gave up.

About a week later, we had 2 other births- one nanny had triplets and decided she just wanted two. The other had twins and decided she just wanted one.

I took the two virtual orphans over to Alice and set them down beside her. Her head came up. She sniffed the babies. She licked the babies. And she started eating.

Alice was easy to milk and loved people- She posed with Alec for many photos and with sunglasses on for t-shirts advertising the little store I used to own-"Grinning Goat Gifts".

When Alice went down I tucked a sleeping bag around her- she was pretty moth-eaten and missing some of her hair, but I know how she feels- I'm old, too. I sat by her side and looked up "life span of Nubian Goats" on my phone.
8-10 years
8-12 years
10-12 years
Alice was 13 going on 14.

So we moved the water dish and food, kept her daughter Lucy in with her for company (Lucy is 11) and made sure she was always tucked in and brought her the kitchen scraps- apple peelings, bread heels, carrots...She ate them all.

She never cried out, never ground her teeth and never seemed distraught.

She just slowed down till she stopped.

I'll miss you, Alice- but can see you in your daughters Lucy and Becca and your son Lazarus- Alec's pet.

Till we meet again, old friend-

When we took our official portraits for work, I let my staff choose who I posed with- overwhelmingly they said "a duck and a goat". I'm so glad I chose Alice.

So the Season Turns Once Again and Another Friend Is Shed Like an Autumn Leaf

"Mom- you're really not going to do what you said, are you?"

My daughter looked at me imploringly.

I'd just crawled out from under the house, where I had found her old cat. He'd pushed out the screen window and gained his 'freedom'- which only lasted a few hours before neighborhood dogs chased him under the house and killed him. Oliver was grossly overweight, had no front claws and only one eye- he'd lost the other one to cancer years before. He had a fierce disposition, but he was all bluff and bluff only saves you some of the time.

This disposition was what her comment was about. For years we said when he died, we were gonna have Oliver stuffed with a noisemaker inside, so every time you touched him it would make his signature noise- sort of a dismissive hiss/growl/meow. The noise he made anytime anyone touched him but never accompanied by biting or scratching. It was fun (in an odd way) to gently poke him repeatedly to get different rhythms with the same...monotone...noise.

Of course we didn't do it.

Shortly after we buried Oliver under the giant oak tree and placed a little cement kitty statue over him the kids and I were at the Vet clinic I worked for when someone brought in a litter of kittens. One was yellow and white, just like Oliver had been, with the exact same markings right down to the strange white spot on his back. The only difference was this kitten was fluffy and Oliver had been slick.

Erika named him Oswald.

Oz had a much more social nature than Oliver. Perhaps it was the loss of the eye to cancer, perhaps it was having grown up when we had a mess of big dogs he had to keep in line, perhaps it was some sort of toxin from the green permanent marker that my son Dave (5 years Erika's junior) colored all Oliver's white fur with because he thought the cat would look better Green Bay gold/green. Who knows?

But Oswald was a kinder, gentler cat all around.

When we started the massive renovation of the old house, the cats did what they sometimes do- they showed their displeasure by peeing on and in...everything but their cat box. I showed MY displeasure by unceremoniously dumping them all out on the front porch and closing the door behind them. Guess they showed ME.

One disappeared.

One died of old-age liver failure about 10 years later.

Oz lived on.

He was the best mouser I've ever had. He had been declawed in the front but could run into a tipped feed sack and come out a split second later with TWO mice in his mouth- their tails drooping out either side like rodent-hair mustaches (Mouse-tashes?) We started to worry about him at the old house because he'd lay in the sunny spot...in the middle of the road. More of a driveway and no local traffic, but still he was old and slow and mostly deaf and slept REALLY soundly...

When we moved to the new house we set him up in the barn in a big cage for him to get his bearings for a week or so before letting him loose.

He hung around the barn for a while, then one day was on this side of the creek, sitting on the woodpile staring at the house- "You thought I wouldn't find this? You bastards."

He moved onto the porch.

He had safe sunny spots here- and he enjoyed them without worry from any traffic save dogs and chickens and the occasional squirrel.

He'd wander down the steep creek bank and lap at the creek, on his haunches like a tiger- already thin from age his tail still pluming out behind him. Then he'd just sit there- looking very content and regal even as threadbare as he was.

A King in pauper's cloak, he surveyed his Kingdom and saw that It Was Good.

He sat on the table out on the porch, peer into the open window and announce his obvious and immediate hunger...100 times a day. Not Oliver's crabby rebuke, but a demand for action all the same.

The last few months he'd traveled to the creek less and less and finally stopped going at all.

We started checking under the cars before leaving, to be sure he wasn't asleep under there when we backed out. Sometimes he'd have to be helped up onto the table because he'd miss the first try onto the chair and wasn't up for a second try.

The last time we went to Houston, he wasn't on the porch when we got home.

We looked. We searched. Nothing.

A few days later we suspected he'd crawled up under the bridge and died there.

I shinnied down the steep creek bank and peered up under the bridge- nothing. Where the bridge meets the bank on either side there are maybe a dozen planks "on land" and there's a small space there that can't be seen from above, the sides or below.

This morning I took a flashlight and got on my hands and knees on the bridge. Shining the light between the boards, there it was.

Tawny gold and white fur.

There wasn't much of him- he'd never been a bulky cat and age had eroded most of what was there- he'd become fur and bones and dignified gold eyes and the ever-present-and-persistent feline hunger.

And he made the choice to make his slow unsteady way from the porch to lie down for his final sleep where he could see the creek that welcomed him as a Wild Thing, a Feline, the King.

So there he will stay.

Rest well, Oz.

I will always and forever see your reflection in the water.

Wendy- A REAL Texas Miracle

Whenever we go on vacation the most stressful and time consuming part is farm care- we've got a truly daunting amount of critters to care for. We've always had the good fortune to have friends, family, co-workers, neighbors or a combination of all those willing to pitch in and "do time" down on the Dixon Homestead.

This year our farm sitter was Ashley, who works for me. Ashley's knowledgeable and sensible and I had no qualms whatsoever leaving our cast of demanding and spoiled characters in her care. We went through The List of everyone's schedules, care and feeding and we left after the breakfast feeding Day One of vacation.

At lunchtime I got a text from Ashley.

"I know we covered all the animals and their care, but I don't remember and don't see anything on the list about the beagle".

That's easy.

We don't HAVE a beagle.

Not so fast, Dixon...

Apparently, when Ashley got to the farm a mere *four hours* after we left, she was met in the yard by a purebred friendly beagle who was eager to welcome her and walked the yard AND THE HOUSE like she'd been born here.

Oh.

And she was pregnant.

"FINE. Feed the damn beagle and IF she's still there when I get home I'll figure something out."

On our entire trip, I informed the boys "We do not need another dog. I'll find a home for her because we DO NOT NEED ANOTHER DOG".

By the time we got home, Joe was home from his summer trip too and his calm but firm opinion on the matter was "I can't stand that dog- all she does is whine and bark all the damn time and she's always underfoot".

I took her to work and had them give her a rabies shot and guess how far along she was...pretty far.

She had this weird habit of screaming non-stop every time she was touched but she didn't shy away or act aggressive. It WAS annoying and more than a little creepy.

She ravenously ate everything she could grab but again, never aggressively.

I sat on the porch petting her velvety ears but not making eye contact with those milk chocolate brown eyes- not out of guilt or dislike, but because she seemed to scream...less if you didn't make eye contact.

After a long while I got up and went inside.

"Her name is Wendy", I announced to the boys, and they knew That Was That.

Joe's mom went into the hospital up in Oklahoma and I went with him to help them through the hospital/doctor/home health care maze that I know so well and hate so much.

Wendy was pregnant when I left on a Thursday and not pregnant when I got home on Saturday. Just as I'd predicted whenever Joe said how much he didn't like her, she had the pups under his house.

Six puppies of unknown fatherhood- 3 black with white tips and 3 yellow with white tips. She was an excellent mother and now even MORE hungry than before. Because of the extreme heat of the summer and the fact that our house doesn't have air conditioning but Joe's cabin does, under Joe's house was actually the coolest spot on the place.

After a few weeks the puppies started venturing out and we started feeding them mushed up kibble. By "we" I mean "Alec", who became willing Keeper of the Tail-Wagging Horde.

Wendy patrols our property end to end and back and forth, sounding off with the signature Beagle Bugle if anything's amiss (to her thinking). If she's really upset, she'll barrel back to the house and circle it once, twice, thrice baying all the time. It took me a while to figure out that beagles never work alone- she's summoning a pack that isn't here, but instinct compels her all the same.

If her alarm reaches a particular level of urgency the 100 pound+ Great Pyrenees lifts her jowly head from the porch and lumbers off to see what's up. They make a cartoonish pair of guardians, but I feel safe knowing they're our Homeland Security.

Last Saturday night both dogs were frantic just past Joe's place- something was NOT RIGHT in the woods by the neighbors' pond. Alec went over there multiple times (garbed in his usual boxer shorts...period) with a flashlight and saw nothing but called the dogs back.

Joe looked with his high powered flashlight and the neighbors looked with their spotlight. Nothing.

Each time Alec came back he counted puppies- 6 puppies each time.

Finally whatever it was left, or the dogs plumb wore out and it was quiet.

Next morning Alec came to me over at the barn. "Mom- we're missing 2 puppies".

His puppies. Stoic, serious Alec, Keeper of the Tail-Wagging Horde- now smaller by a third- was still obviously crushed and sick with sadness.

We looked. We searched all the places the puppies play and sleep and hide. Nothing.

I was more than a little sick myself, remembering that very day all the puppies had followed Wendy to the edge of the woods, near the pond. Secretly, I had Joe go check the pond for puppies who'd maybe gotten stuck in the mud, or wandered in too far...Nothing.

I'd been waiting for the weather to break at least enough for the thermometer to read below 100 and Sunday it did- we snagged all four pups and set them up in a pen in Alec's room. I'd been toying with putting them down by the barn- moving some goats around to give them a stall and attached paddock to run in, but the thought that something was out there that eats...puppies was not conducive to making that any sort of a good idea.

So Alec tried not to think of the grisly ending of the puppies- the 2 shyest of the litter, we figured when "whatever" pounced, they froze instead of ran.

Black Saturday.

Imprisonment Sunday.

Monday.

Tuesday.

Wednesday.

Wednesday night after feeding we were in the dining room and heard a puppy. Now all our windows are open and the house is odd shaped and the ceilings are vaulted and everything seems to bounce off the trees outside but still...

...it didn't seem to be coming from INside.

Alec bolted out the door and returned a few seconds later

with a puppy.

The smallest of the litter, hungry and a little dusty, but tail wagging to beat the band, Wendy next to her, smiling.

Alec fed her and reunited her with her siblings and she settled down for a long nap.

Twenty minutes later we were in the dining room and heard a puppy.

Alec was out the door faster than the speed of light and returned a few seconds later

with the other puppy.

While Alec literally reveled in a pile of 100% accounted for puppies I sat on the porch and stroked Wendy's velvet ears. I can look her in the eyes now while petting her- she's seemed to beat back whatever devils made her crazy. I apologized for snatching her babies, told her that she was the BEST mother in the world, but now we'd keep her puppies safe and she could relax. Her eyes softened, melted, understood.

She sighed and wagged her tail.

Where the HELL were the puppies???

We'll never know. Best I can guess is that whenever they all scattered out from under the house those 2- the shyest 2- were so scared, so physically and mentally petrified that it took several days of Wendy nursing them, tending them, guarding them, before they felt brave enough to follow her back home.

And they came one at a time, meaning they were in two separate hiding places.

Four nights somewhere away from the houses, in the woods where the coyotes howl in packs of more than a dozen, bobcats saunter, hawks and owls peer down and the occasional cougar strolls through with only their 25 pound floppy-eared mother between them and becoming part of the food chain.

Rick Perry be damned. We know the REAL Texas Miracle.

Her name is Wendy.

The Perfect Dog

"Please? She's really no trouble- she's the perfect dog".

That's what our son Jordan told me when he asked if we could take Kate- the last pet he had to place before leaving on an extended trip to India. I was skeptical.

Kate was a border collie- known barkers, and she was elderly with seizure issues.

On the one hand, we're full-up with critters. Horse, sheep, goats, dogs, cat, poultry of all varieties, and more guinea pigs than you can shake a carrot at.

On the other hand, once you pass 100, does one more really matter?

So Kate came home to us.

Alec immediately fell in love, being my child who unwaveringly falls in love with the old, the odd, the infirm- guaranteeing him a lifetime of constant broken-heartedness.

At first, Kate didn't notice since she camped out on the rug in front of the door Jordan had left through...waiting for him to come back for her.

After about a week, she deigned to move into Alec's room since it was right next to the front hall and she could still sleep with her nose pointed towards the magical door that would bring her master home to her.

After about 2 weeks, she decided that while she loved Jordan, she'd never been able to sleep on one bed (ours) all day, and another bed (Alec's) all night with only the interference of breakfast and dinner in between.

Being a realist, Kate shifted alliances.

Jordan had told us "She's the perfect dog- I've never even heard her bark". What we found out was that Jordan's other dog, Sissy, had never LET Kate bark. One day the UPS truck rumbled past our bedroom window and without thinking, Kate's head came up and a sudden "Woof!" came out.

Instantly she flattened on the bed, waiting for the Wrath of Sissy...but Sissy wasn't there. She glanced at me sideways, hesitant, cautious.

"GOOD DOG, KATE! S'KIT 'EM, KATE!" I told her.

And at age 10+, Kate started barking at stuff. Not incessantly or constantly, just when there was something to bark at, something that made it worth her while, for she appreciated every single unrestricted vocalization, and was not about to have it taken away.

One "woof", a satisfied tail wag and smiling eyes. Then back to sleep.

When Jordan came home, Alec informed him that Kate was HIS dog now.

Our old house didn't have air conditioning, and summers were cooler under the tree in the shade, so Kate camped out in the summertime and came in by the fire in the wintertime. She barked at the UPS truck, doted on her Boy, and held a tense truce with the ducks.

Once we moved to the new house, she stopped barking- way off the road there was nothing to bark at, and she had her dog bed inside and her own covered porch outside, and it was enough. She'd grown too arthritic to jump up onto the bed anymore, so Alec started sleeping on the loveseat in his study- to be as close to Kate on her bed as possible. The boy had 3 places to sleep- top bunk, bottom bunk and perch mattress, and he'd sleep on the sofa with his stork-legs gangling up over the arms...but within petting distance at his fingertips. He said even the bottom bunk was too high for her to see him without lifting her head.

Visitors to the house were greeted with our spastic little housedogs Fizzgig and Smigeon and were always surprised to have to step over Kate sleeping at Alec's feet. The standard family joke was "This is Kate- she's very lifelike".

This last six months Kate started coughing- congestive heart failure. And she found it increasingly difficult to get up to go outside, so we only asked that of her twice daily. In all the time we had her, Kate pottied in the house exactly once- in the initial panic after Jordan left her.

Kate's seizures seemed to be stimulus-related, since things like thunder or gunshots were triggers- we were happy when the seizures became few and far between until we realized it was because she'd gone mostly deaf.

Kate demanded nothing and was grateful for everything- the closest she ever came to being pushy was a gentle "Please- just a bit more" nose under a hand that had stopped petting her.

Three times in the weeks before we left for vacation I'd gone to take Kate outside and thought she'd left us- she was sleeping that soundly and deafly, breathing ever so slightly Kate spent her life making no waves, ruffling no feathers.

When we left I told Kate and Oz (our 16 year old barn cat) the same thing I tell all our geriatric pets before we leave- "Don't die while we're gone".

But she did.

For the first time ever, one of our oldsters slipped quietly away while we were gone.

Alec is heartbroken- he's sure she'd died thinking we were never coming home, he feels guilty that he wasn't here to pet her while she left- we came home to No Kate but with no transition for his feelings- she was here when we left...now she's gone.

He has her collar and has hoarded as much shed fur as we could find outside in a baggie, but I'm afraid that it's going to take much longer for us to stop looking for her than the other old pets we've witnessed leaving...and yet.

Kate died as she lived- not making a fuss or racket, really no trouble at all.

We miss you, Kate- you were the perfect dog.

Five Pounds of Pure Heart

Ten years and ten months ago, almost to the day, I was driving to work on a Saturday morning. I was very proud of myself, since I was on time- a rarity- and had on makeup and shoes and everything. As I rounded a curve in the 2 lane road that runs alongside Lake Palestine on the right and forests of pine on the left (I loved my commute), I saw up ahead...something running back and forth across the road.

Rabbit? No- not hopping.

Cat? No- not slinkyish enough.

Dog? Crap. A tiny little dog.

Loose dogs are common in the country, but most of them have that "I know where I'm going" look about them. This one was frantic. Terrified. Abandoned. Every car that passed he'd run straight AT as though he was SURE "they" had come back for him- throwing him out of a moving vehicle had surely been a horrible mistake and they'dve realized by now he wasn't in the car with them.

Sighing with resignation I pulled over.

Brownish, matted, skinny, the little dog ran to within 5ft of me- just out of reach before realizing "YOU'RE NOT MY MOTHER" and circled the car, not knowing what to do. Each time he circled (at a dead run), he came just a few inches nearer, and I knew what I had to do.

I waited, kneeling.

This doesn't seem like such a big deal, but at the time I was roughly 27 months pregnant, so it wasn't nearly as comfortable as may seem.

Finally he came close enough to briefly put his tiny paws on my knee and I swooped him up- expecting to be shredded to bits by nasty little teeth.

But he didn't.

I got back into the car and he crawled up over my enormous belly,cuddled in under my chin and was asleep in seconds- happy to have had his fate decided for him.

Sounds like a real Hallmark moment, doesn't it? Except he was covered in mats and ticks and fleas and had been rolling in something long-dead on the lakefront.

I arrived at work...late (as usual)...and stinky (luckily a rare occurrence).

After applying clippers and alot of flea spray and soap, we found an old poodle- the Vets guessed him at about 10 years old. He was thin, and had "poodle teeth", but no heartworms.

So he came home with me. I called all the area Vets and placed an ad in the paper- clearly he'd been used to being in someone's lap all the time. Nothing.

All I can think is that his owner had to go to a home, or died, and whoever inherited him dumped him, threw him, tossed him out of a moving vehicle.

He told me his name was Tiny Ramon the Magnificent, Ramon for short- he abhorred "Tiny".

He became my lap-warmer, and although he loved all people and never offered to bite anyone at anytime for any reason, woe to the dog or cat- no matter the size- that tried to come near me while he was in his spot on my lap. In the over ten years we had together, only one dog was allowed to share my lap with him- Oliva the mini dachshund who was another rescue even older than he was.

He would play fetch for hours.

I've never had a manicure and haven't been to a beauty shop for a professional haircut in almost 20 years. Ramon had a standing appointment every 6 weeks at Aunt Weegi's Poodle Salon- "For the poodle who really cares".

He was so cold-sensitive he'd seek out a sunny spot to lay in in the middle of July- in the winters he would crawl under the covers and curl up on my feet.

Several years ago he was diagnosed in heart failure and had to be on lasix periodically to keep his lungs clear.

About a month ago, Ramon had a stroke. I thought "This is IT".

But he rallied.

Blind in one eye, walking with a wobble, he still did the Happydance at breakfast and dinner times. So I lifted him up onto and off of the bed, and sat with him while he ate.

Last night he woke me up coughing, so I gave him some lasix.

This morning he could barely walk, and didn't want breakfast. I'm not entirely certain he could see me at all anymore.

It seemed that all his internal switches were turning off, one by one.

He spent the morning in my lap while I did my computer stuff, as usual.

He watched me fold laundry curled up on his pillow, and I promised him I'd spend the afternoon holding him.

I went to take a shower, and ten minutes later when I came out, the last switch had quietly turned off and he was gone.

Guessed at ten when I found him, he warmed my lap and my heart for almost eleven years, which made Ramon...older than dirt.

For years it was a family joke that at the End of Times all that would be left would be cockroaches, and Tiny Ramon- their King.

Right now I do feel as though it's the End of Times- my heart breaks and I wonder how I can sit without him in my lap, come home without him dancing at the door, sleep without him firmly snuggled against me.

Right now, I don't know.

Take Your Pill, Johnny- Mommy's Taking Fluffy to the Therapist...

I've had animals all my life. I love them, feed them, care for them, and consider them valuable members of my family. Not HUMAN members, but family all the same.

And lately I've noticed the huge influx of TV shows, books, all-around experts out there giving advice on how to relate to our animal friends. From the Horse Whisperer to pet psychics to Caesar the dog therapist, we're told that there are No Bad Dogs, No Bad Horses, No Bad Animals of any kind.

If an animal misbehaves, WE need to figure out if what we are asking it to do or conform to is appropriate for that species. If it is, WE need to change the environment or our way of communication with that animal so the behavior is changed without force or coercion. If we are expecting something from that creature that it's not mentally or physically equipped to do, then WE need to change/lower our standards of what to expect from our owner/pet relationship with that critter.

If anyone suggested that we use chemical intervention to get the animal to behave the way we'd like them to, there would be screams of Animal Cruelty and we'd be accused of treating another living soul as mere property and decoration to be bent and formed according to our own narrow desires.

However

We currently have entire school populations of children who line up at the nurses' office every day to take their Ritalin.

I'm not saying there aren't children who really need what Ritalin's got. There are.

I contend, though, that the great majority of children we currently medicate into intellectual submission could be better served if we looked at the same things the Horse Whisperer does.

Are their lives arranged to give them plenty of free time?- and that's NOT time in front of a screen of some sort. Children, like puppies, need alot of time to just run their little legs off, dig holes and smell the earth, feel the sun on their fur, stuff that has nothing to to with organized sports or staying clean.

Are they challenged at school?- or are they tossed in the mix and told to sit still and wait their turn all day long? On the one hand, our TV culture has given us children who flat can't concentrate longer than one commercial break to the next. On the other hand, 1 teacher to 20 students cannot possibly give the luxury of alot of one on one time, or time to delve into any subject too deeply. Is that a natural, fulfilling environment for our children? or are they so fragmented by the many other pupils and the school schedule that they're simultaneously bored silly and distracted beyond concentration?


What kind of a Society do we have when we take our pets' mental health more seriously than our children's?