{"id":5592,"date":"2022-05-29T07:37:01","date_gmt":"2022-05-29T11:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=5592"},"modified":"2023-06-11T11:48:22","modified_gmt":"2023-06-11T15:48:22","slug":"origin-stories-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2022\/05\/29\/origin-stories-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Origin Stories – Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is part two of a \u201cSunday Story\u201d.  There\u2019s no politics here, just stories about our \u201cpack\u201d of dogs here in Pataskala.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every heroic Marvel comics character has an \u201corigin story\u201d.  Some are so familiar, they are in inscribed in the national memory.  Superman arrived on earth as a baby, a refugee from the planet Krypton.  Peter Parker was a teenager bit by a radioactive spider.  Batman was the rich kid Bruce Wayne who lost his parents to criminal violence.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My wife Jenn and I have five dogs.  They are all \u201crescues\u201d, and while we don\u2019t have all the details, they each have their own \u201corigin story\u201d.  And those tales aren\u2019t just \u201cgood stories\u201d; their \u201corigins\u201d often explains their behavior later in life.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are their stories (\u201cChung-Chung\u201d from Law and Order<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lost Pet Recovery<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Last week\u2019s story<\/a> highlighted our older dogs, Buddy and Atticus.   Both of them were \u201crescues\u201d from the shelter, Buddy from Licking County and Atticus from Franklin.  About six months after we adopted Atticus, my wife Jennifer became involved in finding lost dogs.  It started locally, with a German Shepard that ran away from nearby Reynoldsburg in a storm.  Jenn was able to track the dog to the very busy intersection of Beecher Road and State Route 16.  She spent days and nights staking out a humane trap, sleeping in the truck in a parking lot and hoping to see and hear the trap door slam shut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A took more than a week, but Jenn traced the Shepard to his \u201csafe zone\u201d, and he finally went into the well-baited trap.  The next day the Shepard was reunited with his family.  It was during that process that she met Don Corsmeier from Lost Pet Recovery<\/a>,  <\/em>the leader of the volunteer group that works all over the Midwest to help owners get their dogs back.  Don is a \u201cmaster trapper\u201d, and \u201cLPR\u201d helps hundreds of owners each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rescues<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are lots of dogs.  Some are recovered for owners.  Some are rescued from bad situations, without any apparent owners.  For those dogs, LPR does all to find out where they came from.  But sometimes there just isn\u2019t an answer.  Maybe they are strays (like Buddy), maybe they were abandoned, or maybe there was no way to reconnect, like Atticus.  I\u2019m sitting at my desk now, typing this story.  Atticus is in his spot under the desk (Buddy is in his spot in the bathtub).  But on the couch are Louisiana and CeCe, and next to me is Keelie.  Those three were rescued without owners.  Once they came into our house (and into our bed), they had a home, and a pack, here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keelie<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Keelie was the first.  She was wandering in the grass on the exit ramp between I-75 and another major highway in Northern Kentucky.  Once she was safe, LPR needed some place to \u201cfoster\u201d her, while we searched for her owners.  But the search was futile, and Keelie stayed here while they looked.  Meanwhile, she fit into our \u201cpack\u201d from the first minute.  Atticus found a playmate, racing each other around our fenced-in backyard.  And old Buddy was perfectly happy to have a fellow young herding dog in the house.  When the word came back that we were unable to locate an owner, everyone in this house sighed with relief.  Keelie had a new home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is the \u201cmother\u201d of the pack.  But she\u2019s not all-accepting.  It takes a bit for Keelie to warm-up to new people.  And, not surprising consider her \u201corigin\u201d story, Keelie is deathly afraid of large trucks.  A walk on the street is great, until the garbage truck comes by.  Then Keelie can\u2019t stop shaking, almost frozen in fear.  She remembers those nights beside the busy Interstate, with the trucks roaring up the exit ramp, right beside her.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keelie must have had puppies in her prior life.  She is the caretaker dog to everyone in the house.  When Jenn or I get sick, Keelie is the first dog to try to comfort us.  When one of the other dogs gets \u201cin trouble\u201d, Keelie tries to intervene to keep them \u201csafe\u201d.  If there\u2019s an ear infection, she tries to fix it, a \u201cboo-boo\u201d from rough-housing, and she works to heal it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lou <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And her biggest project was our next rescue, Louisiana.  I\u2019ve told Lou\u2019s origin story in great detail in earlier posts<\/a>.  The short version:  LPR read about a year old (or so) puppy, left abandoned and broken in the parking lot of Louisiana State University in Baton, Rouge.  He had two broken legs and a dislocated hip, and heartworms as well.  The rescue that had him in Louisiana couldn\u2019t afford to fix him, and he was slated for euthanasia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His story struck the LPR crew, and three of them, including Jenn,  jumped in a truck, drove to Baton Rouge, and brought Lou back.  The folks at Ohio State Vet Hospital put him back together, relocating his hip and putting a plate in one leg.  The other leg healed on its own.  And then Lou needed a place and time to recover.  After all of this, it shouldn\u2019t surprise you that Jenn\u2019s office was \u201cthe perfect\u201d place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Pack<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We had every intention of just \u201cfostering\u201d Lou.  But his rehab went from October to February.  And then another three months were required of heartworm treatment.  By the time all of that was over, Lou was \u201cin the pack\u201d, fast friends with Keelie, competitive ally of Atticus, and always respectful of Buddy.  By summer, his rehabilitation went from short walks around the front yard, to chasing and running with Keelie and Atticus in the back.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lou is fixated on the squirrels that share the trees in back.  The squirrels are smart, they sit in the high branches and taunt him, as he shows his full recovery by leaping up at them.  But he can\u2019t catch them, and a ground to air truce persists in our little domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lou is a talker.  When he wants something, he has a nasal whine to let you know.  And when he really is annoyed, he has the \u201cpterodactyl\u201d noise that grabs everyone\u2019s attention.  He\u2019s been through a lot, and it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise that visits to the vet are always traumatic.  All those smells, all those noises, are only reminders of pain for him.  So we have to drug him up before we go, leading to \u201cStoner Lou\u201d, a flashback to the months of drugs while he recovered from surgery.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Lou is also a lover, a snuggler who will walk up, drop his forehead, and place his head in your lap.  He loves the attention, and makes sure he gets his share.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four dogs \u2013 that was certainly enough \u2013 we thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CeCe<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But then Don rescued CeCe, a young pup, from a rain filled drain pipe over near Dayton.  LPR was unable to locate an owner, and we placed her with a family with lots of young children.  It might have been a perfect fit, but CeCe was just as wild as the three and five year old\u2019s. Reasonably, that was too much, and Jenn and I volunteered to go pick her up and take care of her for a couple of weeks \u2013 until another foster was found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was May, a year ago.  While LPR searched for a perfect fit, I think they knew that CeCe was already in one.  And while Jenn and I resisted the idea of a fifth dog, \u201cBaby Yoda CeCe puppy\u201d (she looks a lot like the Star Wars character) grew on us, and on the rest of the pack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glasses<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Keelie found someone to mother.  Lou had a snuggle buddy, and a lower leg chewing tormentor as well.  Atticus had one more playmate, and Buddy, well, CeCe respects his elder status.  CeCe is a puppy.  She loves to chew glasses:  reading glasses, sun glasses, and Jenn and my prescription glasses.  There isn\u2019t an earpiece in the house without some chew marks.  We\u2019ve learned to make sure that all eyewear are safely out of puppy reach.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But she\u2019s selective.  She gathers loose shoes on her \u201cbed\u201d in the family room, more of a collection than damage.  And when she got my wallet, she left the leather and the credit cards alone.  She carefully extracted all of the cash and chewed it into small pieces.  I got to use the phrase at a concession stand that didn\u2019t take credit cards:  \u201c But my dog ate my cash!!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s a snuggler as well.  In the middle of the night we often find her pressed up against one of us, sliding under the blanket, looking to stay warm.  And when she needs to go out, we often find out by a careful lick in the ear.  But when there\u2019s thunder, she\u2019s even closer.  In fact they all are:  memories of nights out alone, searching for shelter from the storms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five Dog Nights<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Five dogs can be a chore.  It\u2019s ten meals a day, twenty paws to clean when it rains, always one who needs to go out in the middle of the night.  Setting up vet visits can be high order scheduling (and financing).  And it\u2019s difficult for Jenn and I to travel.  They \u201cpack\u201d can do a full day at home, some in crates and some not, but that\u2019s about as far as we go.  We did get away last month for a weekend thanks to our son and his girlfriend, but that was our first time in over two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s always joy and excitement when we come home.  There\u2019s the surprise \u201csnuggle\u201d in the middle of the day and the happy racing in the backyard on a sunny summer afternoon. And there\u2019s the quiet calm, even in the storm, in our king sized bed when everyone\u2019s found their place.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s the story of our five dog pack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sunday Story Series<\/h5>\n\n\n\n