Penny Sanford Porcelains

Laura has been Missing Over 100 Hours!!!

We returned Saturday afternoon from driving all the gravel roads in and around the farm, looking for Lara.  It is too wet to take anything but a tractor on the hunting roads or timber roads on the farm.

We've driven so many miles looking for Lara since she disappeared earlier this week.

Lara is one of the rescued Puppy Mill Westies that came to live with us September 2, 2007. 

As we pulled back into the parking area in front of the house, I saw little white fuzzy faces hopping up and down behind the screen at the front door. They were so happy to see Unc and me return.

Instinctively, I counted tails as I walked in the house.  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. S....  No number six. No Laura. The pain swelled over me afresh and leaked out of my eyes.

Lord, I am trusting YOU to take care of little Laura and hopefully bring her back home.

Was it Tuesday or Wednesday of this week that Mackie and Laura apparently slipped out the door under the feet of someone who was focused on something else, who did not see little white dogs bursting out into the adventure of the green playground? Someone who would not automatically remember that little white dogs cannot be left outside of a fence without supervision. 

To keep the lines of communication with God open with the goal of Him bringing Laura back to us, I have had to quickly forgive the one who unknowingly let two of my babies run away. If any anger starts to gurgle deep inside me over this, I have to stop and choose to forgive...and go back to trusting God to turn this excruciating drama into something good.

Gordon and I know the escape was absolutely an accident, a factor of age, and not because that person did not care about these little rescued Westies.  These little dogs are deeply loved by all four humans on this farm.

I can hardly remember the first 30 horrible hours that crawled by after we discovered two missing fur babies. Unc and Gordon covered the whole farm in separate vehicles. They stopped at the neighbors, the nearest one half a mile away.  We called everyone for whom we have caught and returned a dog over the previous decades. Those would be people who would be a bit more motivate to look for two little white terriers running free.

Thirty hours after we first missed Mackie and Laura, the big English Shepherds started barking in the long hall of the farmhouse. Unc looked out the front door to see if someone had driven up, and one little white streak of fur zoomed through his feet and into the safety of the house.

Mackie had come home.

Gordon brought him down to the studio to me, and we hugged him together, while I sobbed in relief, and Mackie licked away my flowing tears.  I was praying and thanking God the whole time we checked Mackie and picked off ticks and doctored the bite marks and scratches.

Lara would surely be close behind Mackie.  We checked outside and called throughout the night. No Lara. No one of our farm friends or neighbors have seen any little white dog.

It is now Saturday evening.  Twice this week, we have heard barking in the distance, but when we reach those dogs, they have been either strays or in the case this afternoon, a trio of "coon dogs" that had strayed onto our farm.

It has been 100 hours since we discovered Laura missing.

I honestly do not see how parents of human children survive when a child goes missing. 

Maybe I project onto these little dogs the relationship I would have with a child of our own. Gordon and I know we will be facing the last decades of our lives without the infusion of life that children and grandchildren provide.

Maybe the 45 year old hormones that are playing hide-and-seek inside me are causing me to "lose it"...not be able to contain or control my emotions. Insomnia, a physical ache like the flu, cluster headaches, migraine and stress combined.

Images of Laura injured, Lara with a rope around her neck, Lara bitten by a snake, Laura run over, Laura in pain from ___________ just fill in the blank, and I have pictured it. 

Mackie had been in a fight with some creature with teeth. His wide collar blocked one tooth, but there was a deep puncture from the other tooth about the area of his carotid artery.

Thankfully, we had not given Mackie a shaved-back Westie cut this spring, so his very thick hair protected him for the rest of the bites that obviously gave the attacker a mouth full of hair and limited contact with Mackie's skin.

I've been praying almost constantly for God to bring Laura back home. During the tears and prayers, God has been leading me to pray instead, "I trust you, Lord, to take care of Lara".

In my Baptist/Presbyterian upbringing, I believe God created Lara. Lara and everything else I claim as my own really belongs to God. God brought Laura and the other rescued Westies into our lives to tremendously bless us. So it is God's prerogative to move Lara to another place.

For reasons I cannot understand, God allowed the circumstances that let Laura and Mackie to escape.
God brought Mackie back home. Now God is allowing Lara to be separated from us.

If God loved those little Westies enough to allow us to get them out of that horrible puppy mill, then He still loves Lara enough to protect her now.

All five Westies were on the bed with me for several hours this evening. Charlotte has returned to her "job" of sleeping with either Mama or Unc, and the four Westies that stay with Gordon and me in the studio have stayed glued to the bed as Gordon watches the NFL Draft and basketball playoffs.

It is very possible that Lara is out having a Westie good time sniffing after rabbit and other wildlife. There is plenty of water in a number of ponds on the farm, and Lara has more than sufficient natural instinct to catch something to eat.

Lara may have spent the majority of her life in a small cage on a concrete slab, but in the past seven months, she and Mackie have been on a Mission to patrol the back yard and keep it safe from invading frogs and birds and rabbits and such. The terrier instinct is strong in Lara and Mackie.

She was wearing a wide pink collar with black polka dots when she disappeared. If someone has picked her up, they will surely know she is accustomed to pampering...just by the collar...don't you think?

Lara had pulled off her rabies tag and identification tag recently, and I had not gotten the stronger S-shaped rings to re-attach the tags.  You can imagine how I am blaming myself for that procrastination.

Please join me in praying for God to protect Lara and return her to us. If not, I am praying that God places her with a home where she will be loved more, even, than she was loved here.

This hurts so much I can hardly breathe.

Mackie vs Mower!

That's OUR Vickie: 33 Westies Rescued

I'm so proud of Vickie Claflin!  Here she is as part of three large Westie rescues from Puppy Mills! Thirty-three little West Highland Terrier dogs were rescued!

A total of 33 little white dogs will no longer live in abhorrent conditions, being bred as often as possible, used up to make money for a human who does not care about their comfort or emotions or little personalities.

Vickie moved from Maryland to Louisiana a couple of years back.  She was the Westie Rescue volunteer who fostered Annie and Rebel. Then she fostered Mackie.

I thank Vickie in my heart several times a day as I love and receive love from Annie and Mackie.

More here and here

Vickie moved back to Maryland last year, and we have missed her terribly. We still stay in touch via the Internet.

I was just so thrilled to see Vicki's picture and read of her involvement in the rescue of these 33 precious little dogs!  She is wearing a LSU sweatshirt in the pictures.

Vickie especially hated to part with Mackie. He had been with her family long enough to work his charms on every one of them! 

Well, Vickie, Mackie jumps up on the bed each morning to snuggle next to me, leading up to licking my face to wake me up.  We have other snuggle and kiss sessions throughout the day.

He is the one of our brood of six Westies who is the most active. Stealth Westie. Warp Speed Westie. Ninja Westie. You'd never know he had spent his entire life (before rescue) in an apartment.

Yesterday, Gordon took some video of Mackie circling the riding lawn mower, barking at it and trying to herd it. You will be seeing it soon on this blog.

These two photos are from Sunday afternoon on the meadows between the house and the public gravel road.

Vickie, THANK YOU and the other volunteers with Maryland Westie Rescue for this heroic rescue effort.

Boing Boing! cont...

Hmmnnn... Strange goings-on with this particular post.

Gordon was trying to upload the little video in all the bad weather yesterday and last night, to no avail. My text was uploading fine.  This morning it is the reverse.  Rosalie (the cat) may have cast a spell on that particular post. She probably wants more "face time" on the blog!

Anyway, here is the text:

After posting the still captures (yesterday's post) of Mackie jumping up against this walnut tree outside our abode, many of you asked about seeing the whole video.  Oops!

I then realized I had never asked Gordon to post the original video of Annie and Mackie (and Daisy) barking at Rosalie who was safely perched high in the tree.

As I was watching this video for the one-gazillionth time, all the Westies started going crazy looking for whatever it was they were hearing Annie bark about on the video. 

Mackie even jumped up on top of me to see how I managed to hide Annie inside the laptop.  He is still standing guard on this laptop just in case something scurries out of it! 

Here is a different video clip with more of the Westies.

How can one ever stay blue with these little Teddy Bear/Court Jesters around?

Oh, and the English Shepherd with a sitting appearance in the video?  That is Daisy. She has since died.  I still need to post about her and the blessing she was to our family.

Boing Boing!

Click To Play

After posting the still captures (yesterday's post) of Mackie jumping up against this walnut tree outside our abode, many of you asked about seeing the whole video.  Oops!

I then realized I had never asked Gordon to post the original video of Annie and Mackie (and Daisy) barking at Rosalie who was safely perched high in the tree.

As I was watching this video for the one-gazillionth time, all the Westies started going crazy looking for whatever it was they were hearing Annie bark about on the video. 

Mackie even jumped up on top of me to see how I managed to hide Annie inside the laptop.  He is still standing guard on this laptop just in case something scurries out of it! 

Here is a different video clip with more of the Westies.

How can one ever stay blue with these little Teddy Bear/Court Jesters around?

Oh, and the English Shepherd with a sitting appearance in the video?  That is Daisy. She has since died.  I still need to post about her and the blessing she was to our family.

Annie's Paw-dicure

For two days, Annie has been accompanying me to help Unc set out some magnolia trees and other trees.

She has been allowed to sniff and explore new territory to her heart's content for several hours yesterday and today.

She rolled in the dirt and some free- range substances yesterday, so there was a bath last night, followed by a mini- trim and a good inspection and treatment on her paws.

It works for me and especially our Westies to use one of those heavy-duty nail files one sees when one has sculptured nails applied.

Therefore, we don't accidentally cut into the quick of Annie's nail, and it allows me to give the nail a dull, rounded shape.  Granted, it took a few short trials before the latest rescues understood the file was a good thing... not something scary or painful.

As you can see, Annie goes to sleep during the process.  In the 18 months we have been blessed with Annie, I am just now getting her nails into proper healthy condition. At first, they cracked and split terribly from previous malnutrition, I suspect.

This afternoon was another great adventure for Annie. This was the third outing this month for just Annie. I'm trying to get her past her fear of being taken off by a vehicle and left with strangers in a strange place.

First she and her aged, feeble brother were dumped in a kill shelter. Then she was rescued, and she fell in love with her rescue family (Pat and Henry). Then she was transferred to a Westie Rescue foster home where she was just beginning to settle in when she was transferred to her Forever Home here on the farm.

I wish you could have seen her open, trusting, happy, content little face during these three trips.

She really gets it now, and I enjoy being able to have her along if a short task takes us away from the farm.

Yes, there is a story worthy of telling behind the little angel tombstone, and yes, we made sure Annie did all of her business before we entered the little cemetery at Shiloh Baptist Church in rural Montgomery County, Mississippi.

La La La La La La La Lara, La La La Lara

Just after 5 am. Rough morning for little Westie hips. After a quick trip outside, Lillibeth is back on her magic blanket, and Annie is absorbing warmth against my back.

Who was that 40's movie actress with the flamboyant fruit laden hat?  I can hear her now in one of those movies, intoning a nasal ditty with Spanish or Portuguese lyrics. I think she was from Brazil. The song I am hearing in my head was one of her signature songs. Fruit basket on her head, bared midriff.  Some sort of hand instrument... clackity things in each hand.

Gee, am I ever showing my myopic Southern WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) orientation!

This was way before Charo. Famous actress in that Hollywood wave of fascination with all things South American.  Wait.  Here it is. Carmen Miranda. Interesting facts here. Now, what was the name of that song?

Well, anyway, it is now Lara's song.

Each dog has his/her own song in which I can sing his/her name as often as possible. I sing it when I am alone with that dog, so it is something special between the two of us. It does not take long for a rescue dog to respond with a relaxed, blinky-eyed face to the first few notes. Pavlov's research applied to special loving attention instead of food.

Little Miss Lara has not been pictured as much on the blog since she came to live with us.  She, like the other seven rescues from that dreadful puppy mill, had to grow out her stained hair... stained with years of neglect and disgusting living conditions.

Then she developed a skin issue that caused the hair on 2/3 of her sweet little body to fall out. The hair is back, and the hair around her face has grown out long enough to look like a true Westie.  Lara knows she is looking F-I-N-E.

Tuesday I bathed her and gave her a trim, but before we could snap some pictures of Mama's favorite lap buddy, she had reverted to her true terrier breeding, digging after a mole in the back yard.

We don't have any neighbors way out here in the country, so there are no manicured lawns next to us for comparison. Thus, dogs digging after moles do not bother us. They are doing what comes naturally.

So, back to the attempt to photograph Lara. Wednesday, I tried again. Sparkling, snowy white Lara and I headed to the front yard with camera in the other hand.  I was determined to get some pictures of Lara in the daffodils.

HA! Those Westie ears picked up the sound of a mole digging deep in the earth, and away she went, digging with all the fury stored from the years she lived on a concrete slab in the puppy mill.

Sunny came over one time to offer a hand at catching that mole, and Lara told her quickly that it was HER mole. SHE heard if first, and SHE was going to dig it out all by herself! (read that with an indignant, spoiled child tone, "it's MINE"!)

That's Lara in the first picture, with red sandy soil covering her mouth and face and chest and feet. So much for that bath. At least she is living large on the farm. *LOL*

Elvis is in the second picture, tip-toeing through the daffodils. He has been washed, but I have not finished trimming that squirming little boy. He is such a snuggling sweetie.

Aaaah, 5:51 a.m. The birds have just begun their morning improv. Such exquisite music!

I'm going to bring this to a stopping point and close the computer before hubby wakes up and starts talking about where he can find ink cartridges at the best price! I'm too content and filled with spring fever to think about ink cartridges and timber cutters and prescription drug prices.  *giggle*

Time to roll back over (like Sunny) and catch a little more delicious sleep!

Oh, and the fate of the mole? He escaped unseen and untouched to give a good dig/chase another day!

Hip Therapy, Westie Style

Where do hip Westies go for a little hip therapy on a cold, rainy afternoon in Mississippi?

Why, Mama and Daddy's bed and the extra long heating pad purchased just for the fur kids.

Oh wait, I probably should not have admitted that.

I think we got this particular extra-long heating pad a good while back when I sweet-talked Gordon into driving all the way to a big Walmart (25 miles) to get an extra big heating pad for my back. 

Yeah, it helped the back, but I was thinking ahead to little white dogs stretching out full length on a cozy heating pad.

Lillibeth is on the left. Annie is on the right. They stayed like this for well over an hour.  Amazing therapy for human fur-moms as well!

My Heart is Being Ripped Apart

Early this morning, my beloved Daddles took her last breaths in my arms. It was sudden, un- expected, and my heart is breaking.

It was about 2 a.m.  Daddles had not shown any signs of illness lately that we felt needed a veterinarian's attention.

You may remember that Daddles was one of the eight puppy mill rescues from the first of September, 2007. In the five months she has blessed our lives, she had recovered from eye surgery, numerous rounds of demodex, and other ailments.  She had become strong and playful and confident and "fluffy". 

Daddles and I had a special bond that I have had only once before with a pet...with Delta (an English Shepherd that died Christmas 2006 at age 15).

If Daddles were only four to six years old, as we had been told by the puppy mill owner, then I was expecting to love and be loved by Daddles for at least the next decade.

Mid last week, she started breathing fast when something startled her, but her breathing would return to normal within a few minutes.  I researched that symptom online and found that dogs can develop that nervous habit, something like hyperventilation, so I just tried to give her security and loving and time.

We have a tried- and- tested herbal anxiety medicine that we've used for well over a decade. That seemed to help her when I felt activity around the farm triggered a stressed breathing episode.

After all, I had been gone for a number of days when Mama was in the hospital, and the dogs felt the stress from Gordon and Unc. There were any number of reasons she might have developed a new manifestation of anxiety. Her years in the puppy mill were hard and tortuous.

You may remember that Daddles was the extra dog put in the van that had a feces- coated eye injury. Our wonderful vet immediately performed surgery to repair what was a deep injury ulcer on her eyeball, possibly caused by the high-pressure water hose baths they were given in the puppy mill. She was such a trooper about wearing her Elizabethan collar to protect that eye while it healed.

The stress of the eye injury, the rescue and the surgery triggered outbreaks of demodex, a mite that lives in the hair follicles of all dogs like a different kind of mite lives on humans. When a dog's immune system is compromised, the population of demodex mites can grow uncontrollably, causing an itchy, oozy, awful outbreak.

Well Daddles' first outbreak was from the base of her skull to her tail and down to every knee joint.  It was horren- dous. We cut what little hair she had re-grown so that the skin could heal more quickly and so that our natural treatments could prevent secondary infections that often occur... like staph, etc.

Every three or so weeks, she had an outbreak of demodex, for which we used salt water baths and tea tree essential oil and lavender essential oil and very diluted oregano essential oil (in her salt water baths).

Our main emphasis was on building her immune system.  We had made such progress in the five wonderful months she blessed our lives that her last little episode of demodex was confined to two dime-sized crusty spots on her back.  REAL tangible progress! 

I had delayed on having her teeth cleaned by the vet because that requires a full round of antibiotics, and I felt she needed her immune system to be stronger before we zapped her with more antibiotics.  Her teeth were the worst of the eight puppy mill rescues. 

They were kept in a small cage, fed the cheapest food available, given inexpensive cow medicine for heartworm and adult demodex, hosed down with a high-pressure hose instead of being bathed. From Daddles' feces- covered injured eye, I can deduce the cages were not regularly cleaned and the dogs were not given even minimum veterinary care. 

PLEASE look up "puppy mill" on the Internet and educate yourself. I had no idea the torturous conditions that exist to feed the voracious American appetite for cute puppies. So many of the puppy mill dogs have health and behavioral problems that result in the dogs being surrendered to kill shelters.

Adult dogs with demodex outbreaks should never, never be bred.  Our veterinarian told us that when he spayed Daddles, he could tell she had had so many litters of puppies, probably a litter every time she could be bred. That is twice a year for dogs.  My precious Daddles had been used as a baby-making factory by that horrible puppy mill...her health literally used up to put money in someone's pocket.

Last night, I was sewing on a new original quilt design in my little sewing corner. Usually I am propped up on the bed, against a mountain of pillows, working on porcelain, with Daddles draped across a pillow behind my neck.

But I was following a creative burst, unaware that my precious Daddles was in danger. 

Earlier yesterday, Gordon and I gave Mackie and Lillibeth a swim in the big (deep) cast iron bath tub in the farmhouse because they are experiencing an episode of extra hip pain from genetic hip dysplasia, another condition propagated by puppy mills. 

As I sewed, Mackie came into the room several times, trying to get my attention.  I thought he was asking me to come back to bed so that he could snuggle against my warm body as if it were a heating pad. He has been doing that a lot during this episode of hip pain, and I was proud to see that he wanted to move around more. Now I see that he was braving the pain in his hips to tell me that Daddles needed me.

Annie came in often to check on me, giving body language that I now understand meant that I needed to come to the bedroom and see Daddles. That is what Mackie was also trying to tell me.  I was too dumb to understand.

When I did come to bed, about 11 pm, Gordon and I noticed how hard Daddles was breathing and how hard her heart was beating.  She held her head up with a clenched mouth (not panting), and she could not lie down.  She had to stand or sit in order to breathe.

We called our vet by 11:30 pm, and he was out of town. His answering machine gave the emergency number for the Mississippi State University Veterinary School of Medicine which we called. There were several phone calls back and forth with the Vet School on-call students who consulted with the on-duty veterinarian.

Meanwhile, Gordon and I researched the symptoms online while trying to remain calm and comforting for Daddles.  Annie, despite her jealously of Daddles, curled up next to her...something she has only done once before when her "big brother" Rebel died Christmas Day, 2006.

We were getting dressed to take Daddles to Starkville, an hour's drive from the farm when she got noticeably weaker. Her respiration was over 200 breaths per minute, and her heart rate was over 100 beats per minute. She could not stand up.  I had to prop her up against me so that she could keep her head higher and hopefully breath more easily.

Her gums had become pale, whitish and cold.  She was not getting enough oxygen. By now, it was 1 am, and Unc came down to look at her. He is always a steady voice with his 82 years of valuable experience with animals on the farm. He took one look and said she was on her way out...that she would not make the trip to Starkville.

I did not want to put my baby through any stress that would make breathing any more difficult.  For the next hour, I held her in my arms in a position that would give her the most comfort. At first, there was recognition in her eyes and she made eye contact with me and blink when she heard the familiar phrases of love that I often said to her.

Then her one good eye became vacant...then dilated, her heartbeat slowed rapidly and her breathing became so shallow that I was not sure she was even breathing. She slumped against me, and I had to hold her head up. She was as limp as a rag doll as her heart beat faded away.

My baby died in my arms, and that is as precious a gift as watching her heart open up to me to trust and love humans. Daddles and I were so emotionally connected that it was if God had sent her as a special gift to ease the ache of my baren womb.

She slept with her face buried in my hair or in my neck, softly breathing or snoring. I should have heard any early signs of respiratory distress or illness in the five months she brought sunshine into our lives.

I have not been able to write about Daisy's untimely death last month (one of our English Shepherds)...and now this.  I don't say goodbye to our pets easily. They are best friends and for me, substitutes for the human children that Gordon and I will never have.

It was a bit after 2 a.m. when Daddles' heart beat for the last time. I'm 45 years old...a country girl...and I've been present at the death of humans and animals and pets. While not immune to death and loss, at least I know how to handle it emotionally.

I'm not handling Daddle's death well. This was SO sudden and SO unexpected.  I've examined every symptom I can remember, and there just were no warning signs that Gordon or I would have recognized.

Dear, dear Dr. Duncan called this morning around 6 am when he called to check his messages.  Gordon told him the symptoms, and he agreed that medical intervention would not have made a difference, assuming we could have gotten her to the vet school in time. We have such respect for a vet who shows that level of commitment and concern for his four-legged patients and his two-legged customers.

Gordon buried Daddles this morning, on the hillside east of Grandma's house. She is buried just east of Daisy's grave. We will be planting flowering trees on their graves soon.  The trees marking the graves of Molly (rescued Westie), Rebel (rescued Westie) and Delta (English Shepherd) are growing nicely.

Then he took these pictures of Spring emerging on the farm for me to use with this post for Daddles.

We've planted enough trees on the side of that slope!  I don't want to plant any more trees over any more pet graves for a good long while!  Kelly , Belle and Sunny (all English Shepherds) are 14, 13 and 12 years old, respectively...so....

Next week is a busy, busy week, thankfully. I need to stay busy right now. I've had to learn over the years to go ahead and feel through the pain and not stuff it down.

Thank you for allowing me to let the pain flow out by writing and crying through this post. Please give your fur babies some extra love this week.

The four rescued Westies that stay here in the studio with Gordon and me have stayed glued to my side today.  Annie greets me at the top of the stairs when I come back from the bathroom (on the lower level of the studio).

That is where Daddles was always positioned, and she wagged her tail as if she had not seen me all day, smiling with her tongue hanging out, then waddling her Charlie Chaplin walk beside me back to our little living quarters.  She always wanted me to pick her up and put her on the bed, even though she was perfectly able to hop up the padded step stool onto the bed.

I will dearly miss that happy little face asking for an "air lift" onto the bed or onto the chair beside me.  I can still smell her scent on my pillows. She had bad breath because of her teeth...but she also had a smell like a vanilla wafer.  That is what her fur smelled like. That is what I can still smell.

It took almost a year to clean the nose print smudges that Molly left on the inside windows of the van. It is going to be hard to wash these pillowcases.

Afraid to Go To Sleep!

Ya know, it is not nice for hubby to break out the camera when wifey is happily snoring away. 

There I was... lost in one of my Alice in Wonderland Technicolor dreams, my trusty chenille Linus blanket pulled over my mouth and my other Linus blanket quilt on top of that. 

I normally don't wake up when the five little Westies walk all over me to get from one soft spot to another soft spot of the bed.

Apparently Mackie regressed to his Scottish Highland heritage and decided to climb on top of his mama.

I was completely unaware that he had settled in for a long winter's nap with his nose against my nose.

Hubby has now just told me (as he is reading over my shoulder as I write this) that I was actually snoring... peeling paint off the walls... as Mackie was sleeping on my face.

Maybe Mackie fell asleep while on guard against the monster that was making such threatening sounds from within me.

Now, I have no proof that I snore. The various fur kids have never told me that I snore, and I'm never awake to hear myself snoring... so conclusive proof has not been submitted, in my opinion. *hummph*

Gee, at least Gordon could have brushed some powder over my face before snapping these pictures! I've hidden the camera tonight.

Mackie was asleep on top of me when Gordon woke up, and the two of us slept nose to nose for a good while, Gordon says.

I love you too, Mackie.