Post-rain dog pics

After so many rainy days, we (dogs included) were overjoyed to be able to spend a little time outside this Beautiful Saturday.

Here are Andy and Buster, soaking up a few rays.

Andy (100 lbs.) and Matilda (35 lbs.) standing in the mud pit we like to refer to as “the back yard.”

This is Buster’s senior pic, under the old oak tree. I directed him to look thoughtful, like he was daydreaming about his future. He actually looks like he’s zoning out a little.

Same location, Matilda’s senior pic.

And here are our 2 big boys, Andy and Blue ...

... standing on the peak of a big old upside down satellite dish we haven’t quite gotten around to hauling away yet. (OK, how many of you out there remember when satellite TV dishes were 6 feet in diameter?)

And here’s our Sophie, hanging back on the porch. “Hmmm ... do I really feel like getting my feet muddy?”

And finally -- because she definitely does not like to get her feet muddy -- here’s our Trixie, chill-axin’ in her favorite chair in the den.

Blessed are the peacemakers ...

I know, I know, it's been over two weeks since my last post. Hey, man, I've been busy!

Pictured above is Ryan, aka Max, a sweeter-than-honey 70-lb. Greyhound / Great Dane cross. You're not going to believe this, but a week ago Saturday night Ryan showed up at our back door looking very hungry. I put some food out for him, then a while later I saw him still out in the front yard, and remembering that it was supposed to get below freezing that night and the next, I couldn't stand to leave him out there, so Paul and I invited him in and he made himself right at home. We didn't know his name then, so we started calling him Max.

Even though he didn't have a collar we could tell right away that he had to have been someone's pet, because he was so gentle and sweet natured, plus he had been neutered. All the other dogs were already nestled in their beds (Buster, Matilda, Blue and Sophie in the breakfast nook and Trixie and Henry in the living room) so we made a bed for Max in our room by throwing an old blanket over the love seat. (When we took him to the vet on Tuesday, all the techs were laughing about the new Schmidt dog. They said it's like we have a big flashing sign that says Welcome, Stray Dogs).

By Sunday afternoon we had discovered Max knew Sit, Stay, Shake, Lie Down and Ball. He knew how to play fetch with a tennis ball, he ignored the cats, and whenever we would offer him a treat he would take it ever so gently from our fingers. What a great dog! I knew we had to try to find his owners, because surely they were missing him terribly.

One by one we let the other dogs except Henry out to meet Max, and he integrated perfectly into the pack. But here's where the story gets complicated, so bear with me.

Now. About Henry.

One morning several months ago, Henry all of a sudden, out of the blue, took an intense dislike to Buster. I mean, one second everyone is getting along fine, and the next Henry attacks Buster in a fury. We were flabbergasted, and it surprised Buster, for sure. Then Matilda came to Buster's aid and Trixie started barking her head off and it was just a whole chaotic thing.


We finally got Buster and Henry apart and into separate quarters with no bloodshed, thank goodness. But ever since then Henry would only tolerate Trixie and Matilda, but since Matilda and Buster can hardly stand to be apart from each other, Trixie has been Henry's only canine company (whenever she's not out playing with the others).

So for the last few months, we've kept Henry apart from the Buster family, letting the two factions take turns spending time out in the yard. Occasionally we would try re-integrating Henry back into the pack, but he wasn't one bit tolerant. And now he was even starting to get willful with us, not wanting to stick to the rules. Even growling at us. NOT acceptable.

And now that the weather is getting nicer, I said to Paul that it sure would be nice if everyone could just spend all day outside together. It would make things so much easier. Plus I hated that we had to keep room doors shut all the time to make sure Henry and Buster didn't see each other. It was getting so bad that we even laughingly talked about calling the Dog Whisperer to help us get things back to normal.

Then along came Max, the gentle giant.


As I was saying, Max quickly became part of our happy little pack, including Trixie. Everyone wrestling and playing chase, racing around the yard, taking naps together in a big pile. Everyone but Henry.

THEN, sometime Monday afternoon, on Max's 2nd day with us, I accidently left the door open when I went out into the yard and Henry comes racing out, teeth bared, barking his head off, heading toward Buster. Well, Max wasn't going to have that. Like lightning he was all over Henry, pinning him down on his back, baring his teeth, snarling and barking furiously in Henry's face. Henry didn't know what hit him. He was like, what the heck??!!! He ran back in the house with his tail between his legs, and Max let him run away and became the gentle giant again. It all happened so fast, I was just standing there with my mouth open. I went into the house to see if Henry was ok, and he was just sitting in the hall, staring at the back door.

A few hours later he acted like he wanted to go out again, so I put him on a leash and went out with him. He started to growl at Buster, but Max trotted over and growled at Henry and he immediately backed down. Then after a few minutes everyone relaxed and I let Henry off the leash. He just stood there with his tail down and one by one all the others came to him, wagging their tails and tentatively touching noses to Henry. Very gradually Henry's tail unwound and he started sniffing around the yard, ignoring all the other dogs.

After this, Henry was a changed dog. He didn't go after the other dogs any more, he was relaxed, and he was even humbly obedient with Paul and me. Amazing.

Over the next few days we talked about how to go about trying to find Max's owners. We decided that on the following Monday (today) we'd put an ad in the paper for week. And put flyers up at the veterinarians and shelters. And even though he's a great dog, we said if we can't find his owners we'll try to find him a good home, because we just can't have seven dogs. Nope. Six is the limit.

Well, Saturday afternoon while my parents were visiting, we heard a knock at the back door. It turned to be one of our down-the-road neighbors, Chris, who had helped us rescue Buster and Matilda last year. He said, "Hi! One of our dogs has been missing since last Saturday, and I think he's in your back yard!" Boy was I glad to see him!

Chris was on his motorcycle, so he went home to get his truck and 12-year-old son, and they were back within 5 minutes. We found out Max's name is really Ryan, and he was as happy to see his owners as they were to see him. It was a great reunion. So we said a fond good-bye to Max/Ryan after having him as a member of our family for one week.

Afterwards, I wondered if Henry would remain the same with Max/Ryan gone.

And so far, so good. Henry still humbly gives Buster a wide berth when they're out in the yard together, and Buster is very relaxed with Henry around. Henry and Trixie still get to come inside to sleep, but during the day they get to spend most of the time outside in the beautiful spring weather with all the others. Our household is one big happy, peaceful family once again.

Thanks to Max. I mean Ryan.

The Ballad of Buster and Matilda

Bayou Road on a February Aftenoon © 2009 Karen Mathison Schmidt
5 x 7 • acrylic on Gessobord
gloss varnish for protection and easy cleaning • sold unframed
SOLD • private collection, North Attleboro, Massachusetts

This painting shows the road which runs along a small bayou about a half mile from our house where we first met our redbone coonhounds, Buster and Matilda.



They were abandoned pups then (we figured a few months old), living down in the rushes beside the bayou. We and some neighbors up and down the road took turns feeding them; my husband and I offered to take them in if someone could help us catch them (no easy task, since they wouldn't let anyone come near at first).

Almost every day I would walk our doggie ambassadors, Trixie and Henry, down to the bayou to visit them, and gradually we became friends, although the pups still wouldn’t let us humans get too close. Trixie told them all about how wonderful it was living at our house – two squares a day, various treats and toys, warm, dry beds, occasional TV time, lots of petting, a huge yard, all the squirrels you can chase, fun and games, etc., but Buster and Matilda were hard sells. We dropped off a couple of brochures extolling the virtues of luxury canine living at Chez Schmidt, and they promised they would look them over. Finally, several months later (and with the assistance of Farmer Bob down the road) they arrived at our house and quickly became full-fledged members of the clan. Almost immediately after that Matilda surprised us with 3 more big puppies, one of which was adopted by our house painter, leaving us with a grand total of six beautiful happy hounds.


Well, technically, as Trixie would be quick to point out, five hounds and a border collie mix. Fortunately, we have lots of room and lots of love to give. And rest assured that we have ... um ... taken steps to make sure that we won’t be blessed with any more puppies.

Here are a few photos:


Here's Buster, lounging on the back steps on a sunny afternoon. I think he's planning to write his memoirs.



Matilda's forehead wrinkles make her look like she's really concentrating hard all the time. Like she's trying to calculate the number of seconds until suppertime.



Here's Buster inviting Blue to put his entire head in his mouth. It looks like Blue is about to pass out from Buster's breath. Or maybe he's trying to guess what Buster had for lunch.

NOTE: this picture was taken some time back. Nowadays Blue is almost twice as big as Buster. Well, maybe not twice as big, but pretty darn big. And still growing.



And here are Buster and ’Tilda playing with Blue and Sophie, while Trixie makes sure nobody wanders too far from the pack.

She loves her job.



And here's Buster trying to convince me that, no, I did not just give him a treat, and I should probably go ahead and give him one now.



We just got through watching the AKC/Eukanuba Dog Show, and now Matilda goes around practicing her show dog stance.



Here Buster and Mailda make sure the cows in the pasture don't get too close to OUR yard.

Anyway, today's painting is a picture of the old bayou, which Buster has said he doesn't miss at all, and ’Tilda says she would never wish to go back to.


Nope, not for all the chew bones in the world.

And to wind things up, here are some details of the painting:

Sophie!

Sophie ©2008 by Karen Mathison Schmidt
6 x 6 • acrylic on Gessobord
SOLD • private collection, Poway, California

Here's our Sophie, in all her fauve-a-listic splendor! I didn't intend at the beginning for this painting to be so fauve-ish (i.e. wildly colorful), but somewhere along the line the subject started to demand it. She's just so ... well ... enthusiastic! I know, I know, what puppy isn't?

Here are some progress photos:

First, I sketched her in blue colored pencil, then went over my pencil sketch with ivory black. I love this preliminary sketching ... seeing what I can do with different line weights and washes:



Next, I blocked in some color glazes:



Usually at this point I go ahead get the eyes to an almost finished state, because once you get the eyes right, that's 78-93% of the battle of making a good portrait. I just made that statistic up, but it seems true for me!



Next, adding more color detail and developing the highlights and textures ... and emphasizing the outlines in a few places, just to add a little interest:




Here are some close details of the finished painting:


I love Sophie's eyes ... they're so dark that they look black most of the time. I had fun trying to hold her still long enough to see those little color flecks in them!





And now for some photos of our actual subject!



All together now - aaawwwww!

And here are some from before she grew into her Dumbo ears:




Mmmmmm ... I think this must be a Yum Yum tree!

Look what happened last summer!

Aaaagh! How can so much time go by so fast? And again it's almost 2 weeks since my last post.

Anyway, just wanted to catch you up on a major happening that occurred during my vacation from blogging a while back ...

PUPPIES!

Our Matilda had her puppies and instead of many puppies, as we were predicting from her belly size, she had 3 huge ones. Two male, one female. They are very fast becoming out and out dawgs, but here are some old pictures:


Here’s Sophie.



Just look at these little guys, the folds of skin, the floppy ears ... I love em! The one on the left is Blue - named by one of the vet techs who work for our veterinarian - because he has the most awesomely beautiful blue eyes.

The one on the right is Jack, who used to be known as Micky because of his rolls upon rolls of skin, reminding us of the Michelin Man. This is one of the last pictures I have of him, because shortly after this he went to his new home with our painter, Charlie, and his wife. Charlie used to raise beagles, and he and his wife recently lost a 14-year-old Pomeranian, but Charlie says he's always wanted a hound dog his whole life, so they adopted this little guy, and their granddaughter promptly named him Jack. A very fitting name, I think.


Here’s Blue again. Doing what he does best: following a scent. We have no idea where his color came from. Maybe he has a Weimeraner somewhere in his bloodline.



And here are some even older pics:


I love this one. That’s Sophie up by Matilda’s head, Blue in the middle grabbing a snack, and Jack napping under Mom’s hind legs.



After 2 or 3 weeks, Matilda would give me this look, like, ”Now tell me again, how long do I have to keep this up?”

Don't worry Matilda. When this is all over we’ll take you for a little operation so you won’t have to do this again ... you can spend the rest of your life playing. And eating. And sleeping. And treeing squirrels and raccoons. And playing some more.

And now for some more recent photos:


Psssst ... hey, it’s the paparazzi again ...



CHEESE!