Lesson on How to Treat a SQUIRREL!

Tonight, I thought that I would show you the proper way to treat one of the nasty renegade ground squirrels if you catch one. I will have to use my squeaky Birthday squirrel in place of a real one, unfortunately.

First you should grab it and shake it so that it doesn’t get a chance to turn and bite you… Be very careful and ready to let go and take another hold… Use both paws if necessary!

Once you have knocked it out, take a short breather, but be vigilant! Give it a little pinch, and if you feel it start to move again, grab and shake quickly to rattle its little brains around inside of its head… This is a GOOD place for “shaken squirrel syndrome!"

If it starts to scoot away, grab it quickly and give it a couple more chomps! Remember to use your paws to hold it if necessary.

Under no circumstances should you let someone take the squirrel from you until you are sure that it has been neutralized!

Be very careful that it doesn’t act dead and suddenly take off across the room. Be ALERT! Should this happen chase and grab it immediately and give it several more strong shakes!

You have to be very thorough… shake and chew until the squeaky… uh, I mean squirrel bones are completely crunched.

You have to show any other squirrels that may be watching that you mean BUSINESS! This is what they will get if they fool with YOU!

Now, go on out and catch yourself a squirrel!!!

Sixth of Sixth Challenge

Grammy just remembered that we had a Sixth of Sixth Challenge… One of those things where you are supposed to look into your animal pics folder and choose the sixth folder and then the sixth picture in the folder… or something like that… and then tell about it.


Grammy is getting quite old and forgets things. This was a week or so ago and she apparently didn’t put it down anywhere about who it was that challenged us. She had a few ideas but when she tried to find it in our anipals blogs, she couldn’t. WE ARE SO SORRY!!! And apologize profusely, for her forgetfulness…. Bad, Grammy… BAD Grammy! Maybe we should get out the spray bottle…


Anyway, here is the picture that we came up with. It is a picture of BG and me when we were about 10 months old, laying on the couch. Note the gangly, adolescent-ness of us… Snicker… BG still hadn’t grown into his ears, and as I look closely, I guess I hadn’t either.

We look a bit different now, as you can see!

I’m sorry that I have been kind of dumpy lately. Just don’t seem to have a lot of energy. I think it is probably because of the high temperatures around here. We have had a horrible heat wave. I just feel weird! Some days I’m really hungry, and others I just don’t want to eat anything (unless it’s some really good meat or something from a people plate, of course)



Dad’s been really mean to me and won’t give me my cheese on my dinner lately because he thinks I might have been getting to much and got concentrated?… He’s always told me that I am “concentrated cuteness,” before, though, and still gave me my cheese! Maybe he said “con’s tent pated”… but that still doesn’t make any sense. AND… he has been following me around and not giving me any privacy when I need to go outside.


Normally, he has a weak stomach and throws up if he sees poop or anything else nasty smelling. I tell you… I’m really starting to worry about HIM! He’s hovering over me like a nervous Nelly!

P.S. We loved the sweet Thank You card that our friend, Sasha sent us!

A Bit More About Country Corgi Critters

First, we wanted to answer a few of the comments we got on our last post about the Tarantula Hawks. Mom hates spiders, too, but isn’t totally arachnophobic (like her brother-in-law who goes into a fetal position at the site of more than one spider of any kind). She only dances if one gets on her. The tarantulas around here aren’t particularly poisonous unless you happen to have an allergic reaction.

One of Mom’s crazy sons likes them and will pick them up and play with them (She thinks that's NUTS!!!) She will have one taken off the property or at least to a wood pile usually. The one we took pics of was almost frozen and almost dead when we found it last November. She set it out in the sun & took pics, but it never came around… She thought it had probably been ‘seeded” with a T. Hawk, so she put the body in a jar with a lid so that she would have it to show her grandson.

We don’t like those big spiders and they don’t like us. If we see one, it will usually rear up and looks like it is shouting really nasty bad words at us in “spider language.” We tend to leave them alone, and we don’t see them at all except during the late fall, and maybe only one or two around here every year or two… It is more on the roads while driving that we will see several.

Mom says we’ve never had one IN the house, though that one came close, being on the wall just outside the back door of the patio. We HAVE had snakes, scorpions and centipedes (which have a painful sting) come into the house.

The T. Hawks aren’t aggressive and won’t chase you like the Yellow Jackets. Mom doesn’t like ANY kind of wasp or bee, so she ducks a lot if there are some around, but isn’t really afraid of them… just doesn’t want them in her hair.

It’s the Brown Recluse Spiders that are really dangerous around here! The Black Widows, and Brown Widow Spiders can also make you kind of sick feeling for a while unless you are allergic and THAT can be a problem. Mom says, Praise God, she isn’t allergic because she’s been bitten by Black Widows a few times.

These three kinds of nasty spiders are smaller and hide in dark places. They will get you if you don’t carry a light and check any dark place you need to put your hand into… like when feeding horses at night.

We will probably post more about these nasty critters some other time. Mom just wanted you all to know that she thinks the rattlesnakes around here are a MUCH worse threat to us, but she prays for us a lot about the nasty critters in this area, and is glad that we have been really smart about pointing the nasty things out to her … Well, DUH! We ARE Corgis!!!

When we see a nasty, we bark our “ALERT!” bark and bounce back and forth at it, staying out of reach, until she comes and takes care of the problem appropriately! Auntie Sadie is the one that taught us that. Border Collies are really smart too, I guess… Auntie Sadie sure is!

Also, about the Road Runners… Mom’s not crazy about those either as they are mean to other birds and animals. They eat eggs, kill chicks and other small birds as well as lizards. We will post more on them later sometime, too.

Sorry Dott hasn’t wanted to take her turn at posting lately. She started eating like a HORSE instead of her usual “bird like” appetite a few weeks ago, and then, suddenly, she seems to have lost a lot of her appetite and is kind of dumpy and sleeping a lot more. She does get out and run when we do go out, but she doesn’t seem to be able to “fly” like she used to when she jumps up on things.

Mom is watching her closely and she doesn’t really seem to be showing any signs of sickness, but she is acting differently, and so we are still wondering about the possible “Puppy” thing…

Tarantula Hawks

BG here: When we did our blog on horehound plants and the nasty burrs they produce, we mentioned Tarantula Hawks. We had a few people that asked us what they are, so we decided to write this blog to let you know about them. I talked with Mom about it and she gave me a lot of interesting info to pass on.

We get tons of these huge wasps around here all summer long! Whenever you water anything, a bunch of them will show up, and they drown all the time in our doggy swimming pool and in the horse water barrels. Here are a bunch on the roof of the grain room.

My grandma, Mist, was very allergic to them. She bit one when she was only about a year old and Mom noticed about 5-10 minutes later, that she was rubbing all over the ground and when she looked closely at her, she found that she was breaking out in hives all over her belly, and probably all over the rest of her body and her face was getting very swollen. The vet she called, told her to give her benadryl as soon as possible, 25 mg. per 15 lbs., and repeat every 4-6 hours if symptoms returned. That was about 2 pills for Mist, and the swelling went down after about 10-15 minutes. Mom had to repeat that for about 24 hours every 6 hours. Grandma Mist got over it, but she stayed away from those wasps after that.

So far, Auntie Sadie has a tendency to chase them whenever she sees them. I guess she isn’t allergic because I know she’s caught them several times and spits them out real quick, shaking her head. I tend to leave them alone unless they fly right beside me.

Mom told us that a tarantula hawk is a wasp that hunts tarantulas to feed its babies. They are some the biggest wasps around and can grow up to 2 inches long. They are kind of pretty because they have a shiny, almost blue-black body, and dark, red-orange wings. They have long legs, with hooked claws on the ends for grabbing and fighting with the big spiders.

Wikipedia says that “the stinger of a female tarantula hawk can be up to 1/3 inch (7 mm) long, and delivers a sting which is rated among the most painful in the insect world.” I know they hurt like the dickens!!!!

During the fall around here, usually October, we will see the big tarantulas walking all over the place… sometimes, several in one day on the roads. (The one in this picture was found on the wall by the door of our back patio.) That is when the male tarantulas are out looking for a mate. They don’t eat when they are doing this and get really skinny, so the tarantula hawks would rather find a fat old female, and will look for them in their burrows, grab ‘em, and sting them to paralyze them.

They take the spider to their nest and lay an egg IN the spider, and then cover the hole. The baby, when it hatches, sucks the juices of the spider and then eats it while it is still alive, from the inside out… Lovely, huh! When they are grown, they come out of the husk of the spider and fly away.

We found out from Wikipedia that one of the only things that will eat them are those mean, ugly Road Runner Birds we get around here. The wasps will also, get themselves drunk on fermented fruit sometimes… so drunk that they can’t even fly for a while! They must be a pretty thirsty bug to do that and to drown themselves, by the bunches, in whatever water they can find.

I know that when our water is running and Mom goes out to bathe the horses or us, she usually will spray down an area away from where ever she is going to bathe us first, to draw the wasps there, so they aren’t flying all around us as she works.

Oceano, Part 2

NOTE From OC’s Mom: Thank you, everyone, for your sweet comments. Yes, I AM a bit stiff across my shoulders and neck because I caught myself on my hands against the back of the couch so my face didn’t hit the wooden part of the back, but, Praise God, I didn’t jerk my lower back where the other problems are. Also, we went out this morning and the “mystery critter” had apparently tried to crawl in using an old wooden pallet that was leaning on the fence. We could see the claw marks and the skid marks it left on the ground when it took off!

Ok, Mom… It’s MY blog! Let’s see, where were we? Oh, Yeah… While we were sitting there relaxing, Dad started played with us, and giving us treats. Mom was watching us and the kites that were flying behind us. Here is BG giving Dad kisses…

Then, after a while, Dott said it was TOO COLD (and I think she was also missing Robert) and she begged to go and lay in the truck cab.

While the rest of us were sitting there relaxing, Dad started played with BG and me again, and had us do tricks for him. Here’s BG doing a “high 5,” only over Dad’s shoulder.

He had a lot of jerky, and we loved having him play with us, since he is often to tired to do very much of that with the hot weather sapping his strength at work every day.

We also did a lot of dog watching… We’re the “dog watchers”, we’re the “dog watchers”…. watching dog’s walk by… my, oh, my… Here comes one now… (Sung to Girl Watchers)

And another one…

And a crazy, nut job one that chased the waves, biting at them. I think he even planned to go out and catch some of those pellet cans!

The sand was really nice to roll around in, too.

The only bad thing was that the water kept chasing us! Dad said that it was the highest tide that he had ever seen when we first got there, (? Isn’t that some kind of soap I’ve seen on a TV commercial? Maybe that’s why there are so many suds in the water!) so he had only parked about 20 feet from the water. He ended up having to move the truck back 3 TIMES!!! LOOK… it almost got my Tailless Tushy wet!

We really hated to leave, but had to get back so that Robert could use the truck to haul more water for the cooler to go most of the night. We left the beach and Mom and Dad went to a place they like in Pismo and got fish and chips. We had to stay in the truck, but Dad brought us some of the fish after they ate… Yummy! Then we drove home in that nice air-conditioned truck. We had a really wonderful, COOL, road trip and day at the beach. Hope your day was as nice!

Mom’s Bad Day…

Mom hasn't had a good day today, so I've stayed pretty close to her all day. She thinks she ate something bad over the weekend, and had bad stomach cramps last night and this morning. I stayed beside her in the bed until she got up.

She started feeling better this afternoon and was able to keep down some Melaleuca tea and some whole grain toast. I lay beside her chair all afternoon until she went for a short time to the pool to do her walking. She didn't stay long, but the pool is closing in a couple of weeks and she didn't want to miss one of her last chances to walk even if she wasn't feeling totally up to par.

Then, a few minutes ago, she was walking, tripped on a throw-rug and fell down! We were all so worried! Sadie, BG and I rushed over to her to be sure that she was ok. Luckily, she fell onto the couch on her face, and doesn't seem to be hurt.

She stayed really still for a few minutes. She says she was doing a mental check to see if anything hurt (like her back mostly). She slowly turned around with great difficulty because she was in an awkward position at first, and came face to face with three very anxious looking faces. Sadie touched her with her nose on the knee, and looked into her eyes, then sat down and watched her.

BG had run over, too, and got up beside her on her left side and touched her with his nose on her thigh, and then looked into her eyes and stayed watching her.

I heaved myself up and hobbled over (I get pretty stiff at night) and licked her right calf and then laid my head on it, and looked her in the eye to be sure she was ok. I was so worried! She looked at me and got all teary eyed, and told me not to worry, she just loves me so much and was sorry she scared me enough to make me get up.

Several years ago, she had fallen outside late one evening when one of the horses stepped on her shoe and tripped her. THAT time, she had fallen on the metal grain bucket she was carrying and cracked a rib. I barked and barked to keep the horses away from her and to call for help (she asked me too). Finally, Robert came out and helped her up.

She was off work for a week, and was all bruised. She said, back then, that I was her hero for calling for help, and keeping me safe since the horses were anxious to eat and she couldn't move from where the grain had spilled and might have gotten stepped on.

Anyway, she might be a bit stiff tomorrow, but seems to be ok for now. I'm so glad the couch was there to catch most of her and break her fall. I love her so much, and she loves me, too! She petted me for several minutes while she checked herself out, before she wiggled around to where she could get up. (It's late, and everyone else had gone to bed.)

Oh, dear! While I was putting the stuff about her fall down, we all heard a HORRIBLE RUCKUS outside just outside of the front yard it sounded like! Sounded almost like a dog fight and then a horrible squally screamy sound and a big THUD! BG and I were inside with Mom, but Sadie wasn't anywhere.

Mom rushed in and got the flashlight, calling for Sadie all the time. She shone it outside the front door toward the front yard and found Sadie up against the corner of the fence by the wall looking out toward the front of the yard. She didn't want to come out, so Mom got the gun and went out the back yard and around the side to the front, slowly flashing the light all around. Sadie met them about half way around, but Mom went the rest of the way to check things out.

When BG came back (I couldn't move fast enough to go all the way with them) he said they didn't see anything, but Mom says she figures either a Bobcat or coyote had tried to get in and hit the hotwire we have on the fence for these kind of emergencies. She thinks Sadie was fussing at whatever it was and saw it hit the wire, which she knows is hot from experience, and it scared her so she stayed clear until she knew Mom was coming around. Mom did a quick check of the horses, and then we came in. I had gotten out into the back yard. Goodness! What a NIGHT!!

P.S. We'll finish our ocean post the next time....