Tripper demonstrates how everything in the world will stick to his coat.  He's the long coated, handsome fellow that we sheared for the summer, makes it a little easier to keep him from from foxtails, hay bits & pieces and other stuff he manages to get into!








Ruby, on the other hand, is far more civilized.  She is demonstrating the size differential between a standard bale of hay and one of those giant ones.

The dogs prefer the traditional size bales so they can stand on them.

We still have another 12 tons, or so, of hay to get in before fall, so who knows what size we'll be getting.  Well whatever size the farmer has, of course!

Happy Tails is ultra fenced, which enables dogs to run freely within their confined areas.  We sit on 20 acres which is fenced with 5' no climb horse fences and gates right to the ground.  Then pastures are divided with cross fencing, stud areas with 6' no climb fence and stronger gates.  Dogs enjoy Chainlink fences which many can gnaw right through. 

Not a single dog has ever escaped the property.    Before we had this secure fencing, it was a nightmare....even with us standing with them during potty breaks or chores, if that nose would catch a whiff of something interesting, all obedience would be forgotten and off they'd run.  Sometimes we'd take off on foot, jump in a car or on an ATV or horse to give chase....even then, the pooches with their 4 x 4 paws could go places quicker than we could and we'd often find them full of porcupine quills.

It would be much worse.  It's legal to shoot dogs that are molesting livestock.

We could finally breath easier with secure fencing are require it of our adopters.

Humongous Bales of Hay!

These are seriously large bales of hay!  The photo shows just  2 bales, each weighing a massive 1,800 lbs, give or take.

Now, we've had big bales before, but not THIS big.  But when you need hay at an inconvenient time, you take what you can get.

We had an exceptionally wet Spring and the hay crop was later than normal and not nearly as bountiful.  Now there's more hay becoming available but a few weeks ago, there wasn't any, anywhere..

This huge bales were way too heavy for our small 12' trailer, they fit nicely but popped the tire on the way home.  Small towns are nice, Les Schwab was there in minutes then came quickly back with another tire so we could get the 15 miles home!

These babies are not easy to work with each flake is 4' x 4' square and a couple of inches thick, so they're hard to manage.  Ruby sits at my feet wondering why they're so huge!

Farm Dogs and Foxtails

Nothing better than dogs wandering around helping with the chores or simply getting messy with me.

Ruby is wearing Christmas bells as a training aid to help her stop "exercising" our guest cats.  She can be quite sneaky but with the bells announcing her arrival cats have an opportunity to get out of her way.   Doesn't take very long and cats associate her with the bell sound and start staying clear of her.

Didn't take Ruby very long and she'd figured out that cats are going to go scooting every time they see her coming, so why bother trying to exercise them?   Easy training for me, automatically works for them.

Tripper, the long coated boy has a great looking coat that needs  brushing every day, and even that isn't enough when it's hot and all of that grass starts popping up, drying and getting those lovely little fox tails.

Fortunately, against good sense I prefer to work in flip flops and since I don't have socks touching the fox tails, I can just easily shape them out as I walk.  Not so easy with dogs, even short haired ones.

Tripper can finish her chores and he looks like a pin cushion there are so many fox tails ticking into every part of him.  He has a very thick undercoat and those things could literally escape me and work their way down under his long coat, into his thick coat and begin to embed themselves.  A real good way to get a healthy vet bill if those are left unattended.

So our bonding/grooming ritual is before coming inside the house, each dog has to stand for inspection and fox tail grooming.  A brush won't get them all, so I use a small tooth grooming comb and work against the coats.....It's amazing how unseen fox tails always pop up so I can get them out.  The dogs love the attention and I save money on vet bills!

We are very much hands on with all of our dogs and are always feeling for any irregularities, ticks, fox tails etc.  No fleas here, so we're lucky.  However we do get some nasty spiders and plenty of wasps that could sting.