Memories of Where The Red Fern Grows

Daisy decided to emulate Coco while I was writing so I decided since I don’t have pictures of him, she’ll illustrate today’s story.

I thought I’d share about a dog today that unfortunately I don’t think we ever took pictures of.

In Tahlequah right now, they have the Red Fern Festival going. I don’t know if I’m going to make it into town this year to be able to go.

That said, it was the film Where the Red Fern Grows that had kick-started my love of hounds. I was about 6 years old the first time I saw that movie.
By the time I was 7 years old, I was determined that I was going to own a redbone. My parents knew a redbone was really not a good match for me. I had just lost a dog when I was 7, and my parents told me that if I wanted a hound, they would get me a beagle. At that point in time, I didn’t realize what wonderful dogs beagles are and held fast in my desire for a coonhound.

My Dad decided that he was going to pick up a dog for me at the Fayetteville Animal Shelter on his way back to Mexico. At the shelter, he spotted a little red hound pup that the worker assured him was a beagle cross and would not get bigger than 40 lbs.

So, puppy came home with dad, and my siblings and I named him Coco. Not because of the hot chocolate, but because where we grew up, that word meant a lump on the head. If you don’t know, Coonhounds tend to have a bump on the back of their head. Yup, he was not a beagle mix.

He was also not going to remain at 40 pounds full-grown.  Coco grew to be around 80-85 lbs. Hindsight being 20/20 I have to agree with my parents that we were not a good fit for a coonhound.  That said,  Coco was the coolest,  and  the  orneriest dog I think we’ve had. 
That dog fished! Not only did he fish, but he retrieved the fish back to you that he dived to catch. That was  the  cool part.

The ornery side of him dug Volkswagen sized caves under my mother’s laundry line whereupon Mom would suddenly disappear in a cloud of dust when the ceiling of the cave collapsed while she was hanging laundry. Mom and Coco didn’t like each other…..for some strange reason.

At one point,  I  concluded he was too much dog for a 7 year old  little girl and  gave him to my older brother.  They adored each other. Don’t get me wrong.  I  fiercely loved Coco, but I felt like I was too little to manage all his energy.

Sadly, like I said at the beginning of this little write up, I  don’t think we ever took pictures of Coco. I don’t think my parents had  been raised taking pictures of their pets. Only family members. So it’s a miracle that we had pictures of any of my childhood pets.
That would account for why you see so many pictures of animals appearing on my Facebook page. I learned that sometimes pictures and memories are all that remain over the  years of your pets, and unfortunately, they don’t live as long as we do.

Unfortunately,  much like Old Dan and Little Ann, Coco had a sad ending.  There was  a Pepsi truck driver who really wanted that dog, and  he  kept trying to buy him from my brother. My brother absolutely wouldn’t sell him. So, one day when my brother had the dog walking in town on a leash  on the sidewalk,  the Pepsi truck driver drove up. He saw the dog and spoke to my brother about buying him again.  He got another refusal and ran Coco over with his truck. He then proceeded to chase my brother home, threatening to run him over as well. 
Coco died about the time my brother and father got there from our house.

Dad took my brother to the Pepsi company to tell them what happened,  but unfortunately because we were living in Mexico at the time,  the company wouldn’t do anything about their worker, and we didn’t have the legal rights to sue them over the  death of our dog and the terrorizing of a young boy.

I have to admit that it certainly left me with a grudge against the Pepsi company and to this day, I  won’t touch their products.

That said,  I have a life long love of hounds, and  after Coco my family got our first beagle who caused me to fall in love with beagles in particular.  I did learn through owning Coco that Coonhounds really should have homes that can give them lots of  exercise and mental stimulation. The lack of those two things were the root of what we chalked up as him being ornery.

If you read Where the  Red Fern Grows,  and think you want a coonhound,  please really do your research.  Like myself,  unless you lead an incredibly active lifestyle,  and  have a lot of patience,  chances are,  you would be better suited with  a beagle like Daisy.

Until next time,

Emily

Life after surgery with a puppy

One of the major worries I have had when I  found out I needed major abdominal surgery was, “What about Daisy?” She’s only 8 months old,  and is in the  rootin’, tootin’ cavortin’, snortin’ puppy stage. The chaos canine stage.

Not an ideal time for 8 weeks off training.  So, what do I do? Well,  thankfully,  I have wonderful family,  and friends plus some amazing contacts. There are several people willing to take turns walking her. Chewy.com has been a lifesaver with bones. A friend lent me a plethora of dog puzzles.

The key is that a busy puppy is a happy puppy. I  absolutely cannot strain my abdomen.  But I  don’t have to between trick training,  and  dog puzzles.  She has learned to use a wobble board in the  last few days, and  she figured out three different types of dogs puzzles.  Currently she’s conquered level four puzzles.  She’s brilliant! Daisy on the level four puzzle

But that wasn’t new. By the time she was 15 weeks old, little girl tracked down a deer that was shot, and  then lost in the woods. No one else could find it.  Daisy did in 15 minutes.

After I heal, we will be doing some scent work classes, and hopefully competing in agility and scent work. 

Random share, but this is something else she’s missing while I heal. Daisy having fun with milking before my surgery

Hopefully we will be back to adventures by the beginning of June.

Until next time,

Emily

A New Page

Hi all,

I decided since we are no longer doing Homesteadingedu, and Facebook rolled out Meta Ai which I hate, I would share posts here on this blog about my horse Captain and my dog Daisy.

So a little introduction is probably necessary and I completely understand if you decide to no longer follow this blog now that I am sharing about my horse and dog adventures here.

Without further ado, an introduction to who these animals are.

Captain is GK Strengthandhonor,  and he is an American Quarter Horse who was born in Oklahoma in 2016. I bought him in utero as my dream horse after 21 years in the saddle on other horses.

In 2018, we faced an awful fight for his life due to a brain eating potozoa called EPM. A lot of people thought he should be destroyed.  He wasn’t giving up so neither was I.

He was finally cured in 2020, but was left with neurological damage that made it questionable whether he would ever be safe as a riding horse. I had a terrible accident on him that required surgery on me to fix damages in 2020.

I chose to send him out to  Shoops horse training in Inola Oklahoma while I recovered. They were successful at helping him become a trust worthy mount. In 2023, we placed 5th in the  5D with Sooner Barrel Racing Association.

This year is  a year of  learning,  and  healing. He still has a lot to learn,  and I just had major abdominal surgery. So it will be June before we are allowed to ride again.

McLaughlin’s Darling Daisy was born in August of 2023. She came home on October 16th, just 6 days after my dear Pixie passed suddenly of kidney failure.  Daisy has been a tremendous blessing to me,  and we are currently working towards our Canine Good Citizen, and  our trick dog novice.  After I’m healed from surgery,  we will be taking a Star Puppy class, and  I  will  blog about that.

I decided to blog about the adventures Captain and Daisy and myself have because I had been using Instagram and Facebook to share their journeys. Instagram became very toxic,  and then Facebook rolled out AI with no way to  opt out.

So, blogging it will be. I hope you all enjoy hearing about our dog and horse training journeys.

Until next time,

Emily

Daisy,  the beagle

Captain running barrels this past year.

Doing a little training with Daisy,  and a nice side picture of her.  WordPress changed how to insert pictures so bear with me while I re figure out formatting.

Chicken killer, or untrained?

One of my favourite hobbies is dog training and the study thereof. I love studying dog psychology in particular. This comes in handy on the homestead because we keep livestock guardian dogs as well as a couple of pet dogs and a guard dog.

Something that drives me a little crazy though, is that I frequently run a cross people who claim that once a dog has tasted blood, it will be a killer for life and therefore, if a livestock guardian dog kills an animal, it will never be any good.

Earlier this year, we chose to get a cat for our farm. When we were still in the process of introducing it to the livestock guardian dogs, the cat escaped one early morning and got out with the dogs. Two out of three left Tux the cat strictly alone. Unfortunately, the oldest of our dogs who is 5 years old, had it ingrained in him that any cats that showed up on the farm were to be done away with. Tux was no exception despite the fact that we had begun the process of introducing him to the dogs. It was heart breaking. Guerrero caught up with the cat, and killed him in a single bite. We never had a chance to catch Tux before Ger did.

We didn’t get rid of Ger though. Instead, we chose to bring home a little younger kitten the next time and made a specific point of calling Ger over when we had the kitten with us. We made a point of telling him and showing him that the kitten was our cat and we liked that cat for 4 or 5 days. By the end of that time, the dog understood. Our new barn cat, Patch, sometimes sleeps on Ger now, and often Ger allows Patch to eat from his dish. He is the dog pictured at the top of this blog post.

Commando and Patch

Right now, we have a couple of new dogs on the farm who will be with us until probably sometime next week. These two young girls are a 3 year old and an 8 month old. They have killed some birds on their last farm. We were told about them as the last place had given up hope on them and was going to have them destroyed. We are working with them, and their problem isn’t aggression. It’s playfulness. They aren’t trying to kill the birds.

We are seeing rapid improvements with the both of them and expect to have them re-homed by next week.

All that to say that any dog is likely to require training in the task that you want it to do. There is a fallacy among some of the livestock guardian dog people that they ought to guard without being trained. That is ridiculous! In all the years of working with dogs that I have, I have only ever heard of maybe two livestock guardian dogs who didn’t require training. However, I have raised and seen many dogs be trained into fine livestock guardian dogs with patience. As with many things, they do take work, but it is so worth it in the end.

If you are interested in doing some reading on dog psychology, I would recommend the book Decoding your dog

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/decoding-your-dog-american-college-of-veterinary-behaviorists/1118930964?ean=9780544334601&st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_Core+Shopping+Books_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP62465

When homesteadingedu.com launches, we will have a more in depth course on how we train our livestock guardian dogs.

Sassy the 8th month old who has a strong urge to please, once she understands what you want.

Chyenne, the 3 year old who just can’t get enough of being told that she’s really a good dog who makes some mistakes sometimes. She like Sassy is eager to please and is learning fast!

Arabian Jasmine

As the fall has started setting in and the temperatures have been dropping on the farm, I have started thinking about teas that I like again. During the winter, I try to keep a collection of varieties around to help warm me up when I come in from working with the animals.

One of my favorite teas is Jasmine. I first started paying attention to that one when my sister found the idea for the dog waterer for her boxer, Penny who is Baran’s sister. When Keli got the things she needed together to do a dog waterer, she chose Jasmine as the plant to plant around the water dish.

A few months after she had shown me what she had done, I flew to the state of Washington to visit my brother and sister in law. I had always been more of a fruit tea person than a dark tea or herb tea person. But, when I was in Washington, I was introduced to Jasmine tea and loved it.

When I returned to the homestead, I started doing some research on the herb because I wanted to grow it. It can be used as an indoor plant like my sister is doing, but it needs to have it’s roots lightly covered. It’s supposed to also be good for moisturising skin. I found several really good articles on the plant as I was investigating, and I probably will grow it eventually once I have more shelving in my home. I’ve recently moved and my house isn’t quite ready to put the whole quantity of herbs that I want to grow in there. I’m still researching and dreaming. Here are a few of the articles I found on Arabian Jasmine:

http://www.naturalremedies.org/jasmin/

http://floridata.com/Plants/Oleaceae/Jasminum%20sambac/982

Making a basil dog waterer

After my last post, I had people wanting specific instructions on how I was going to make my dog waterer. I didn’t have time to make it before my last post because of farm related busyness that made it so that while I was researching what I wanted to do, I hadn’t had time to do it yet. So, here is how I made this, now that I finally found time to make this waterer.

First, get a pot and a water dish that fits nicely inside your planting pot with room to spare around the sides. Keep in mind how big or small your dog is when choosing the height of your planting pot.

Partially block the drainage hole in your pot with rocks or pebbles to prevent dirt from escaping too badly.

Partially fill your planting pot with potting soil. Keep in mind that the bowl will have to still fit in the pot once it has been planted.

Next, add compost soil or dirt from your garden or yard. This adds a few more vitamins to the pot for your plant.

In my case, the plant I picked, as mentioned in my last post, was basil. There are three ways to plant basil. The first, obviously is from seed. Second, is transplanting. That is what I chose to do. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures from the transplanting. Make sure that your roots are covered over if you use basil. The third method is to essentially create cuttings from basil from the store. If you get some stems that are 4-6 inches long and make sure you have a fresh cut on the bottom of the stem. Stick them in water like a bouquet and keep them in a sunny window. They will root in about a week.

My sister made Baran’s sister a similar waterer, but she used Arabian Jasmine. Any herb that isn’t poisonous to dogs and can be grown in a pot can work. You’ll want to check before you start your project so that you know how deep to plant your chosen herb.

Once the waterer is finished, your dog will quickly figure out how to access the water dish, and you will have fresh herbs year round that your dog is helping you keep watered.

The finished dog waterer with potted basil.

Pixie, the rat terrier, has figured out my dog waterer and is getting a drink from between the fragrant basil plants.