Family, gardening, home, pets, Uncategorized

Animal Helpers

23 Comments

Luna, our grey cat, gets very excited whenever I change the sheets. She leaps onto the mattress and starts clawing at one of the corners, as you can see in the header  photo, and then jumps on the sheets and blankets as I try to flatten and adjust them.  You can see the excitement  in her face in the photo. Sometimes she lets me cover her completely  with the sheets and blankets,  leaving a distinct,  cat-shaped bump in the newly made bed.  She also helps Husband as he packs and unpacks his Rez suitcase, rubbing all his clothes and sitting in his suitcase. She is such a help!

Our terriers were great supervisors, always so curious about what we were doing and wanting to be part of the action.  When we would dig in the garden, they would dig along side us, sometimes digging up what we had just planted. So helpful!

How have your animals helped you?

23 thoughts on “Animal Helpers”

  2. Hi Kids-
    Every morning I got two dogs following me around the kitchen. At least Humphrey, 100 lbs, he just lays in one place. Although he surprised me when I tripped over him today; didn’t hear him come in here. Allie, the little Queen, she’s right at my feet all morning until I finally scold her to back off. They’re waiting for me to give them some sliced ham from the fridge. They help pick up crumbs off the floor.
    Bailey rides in the tractor with me when ever I’m out. And Both Bailey and Humphrey expect to ride in the truck with me if I head that direction. I think they’re helping me.

    They do both chase the deer away that gather down around the barn. Although Humphrey knows, from inside the house, if I get excited and call him, he can’t even see them, he just knows. Bailey stands in the door watching them but she won’t go chase them away until Humphrey comes out. Trying to encourage Bailey to chase them away on her own.
    And those dang deer; they lay and wait for me. They’ll hear me call the chickens, they’ll hear the auger run and they know supper is ready. The other day I put corn out, called the ducks, walked to the chicken coop and got eggs, walked to the house and there was 5 deer down there eating. Chase them away. Come in the house, wash up, walk to the kitchen and out there window I see 4 more deer down there eating. Cripes! It’s a full time job keeping the deer away.
    But I do have 5 pheasants that come down to eat in the mornings. And a lot of crows. They’ve figured it out too.

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  3. My career as an outdoor writer began when I purchased my first hunting dog, a peppery springer spaniel we named Brandy. The research I did before choosing her led me to write articles about hunting dogs. One thing led to another, which led to a career.

    Brandy and I were equally ignorant when we began hunting pheasants. Even when Brandy wasn’t able to flush a pheasant close enough that I could shoot it she could tell me how a bird we were pursuing had eluded us. When I began believing her, I began understanding pheasants. I eventually wrote four books about them, basically passing along the knowledge Brandy had taught me. I should have given her equal authorial credit, for she taught me everything I later claimed to know.

    That is the obvious way Brandy helped me. I don’t know how to talk about the other ways, such as showing me how courage and effort can compensate for a lack of ability. I’m still trying to process those lessons.

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  4. Rise and Help Your Human, Baboons,

    When I still sewed most of my own clothing, I had a cat named “Felini” who”helped” by crawling under the tissue paper patterns, then would just crouch there “being under.” He loved that and so disrupted my process that I had to kennel him to cut out the pieces of cloth.

    My dog, Lucky, is so protective (and perhaps this is driven by jealousy) of Lou and I. At the dog park she is on alert and No Other Dog Is Allowed Near My Person. It appears she is guarding us from danger, but it gets pretty obnoxious. Earlier this week we went to the DP and she had a suitor. The suitor was a clueless, adorable male Bassett Hound named Tuco. His owners were laughing about his cluelessness, because they obtained him thinking they would breed him, but he could never figure out what to do. I believe they said, “He is not very bright.” But now he tries to romance at the DP and still cannot figure it out. Lucky got pretty irritated with this guy, and snapped at him several times. The owners leashed him after his second attempt. I told them they should rename him “Harvey Weinstein” which got a laugh.

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  5. Well, there was that stretch when son Joel was living at home and helping us control the squirrel population in the Back 40 – he would wound one he saw in the big tree, and Charlie the Cat would be underneath to finish the job. They were a team…
    This might not be the kind of “help” you were anticipating, though, Renee. : )

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  7. We had a springer named Yoyo who enjoyed retrieving. I had need of retrieving because the woman who delivered our morning paper had a weak arm. She would pause in the street in front of our St Paul home, step out and throw a folded paper. It usually hit somewhere in the snowy hill in the front lawn. I had to go out to find and fetch it from wherever it landed. Since I live in sock feet in winter, this was a real nuisance.

    One morning I opened the storm door and told Yoyo, “Get the paper!” He didn’t know what a paper was, so this was confusing. The only times we asked him to retrieve something it was an object he had seen us throw. I asked again. Yoyo ventured out and began looking for . . . something. When he discovered the paper, he grabbed it and returned very proud of himself. After that success, we had a delightful ritual. I’d open the door and tell Yoyo to get the paper. Dogs are born wanting to help.

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  9. I’ve been waiting for more baboon stories to jog my memory. I can’t really think of a whole lotta helpful things that my animals have done for me. There is a very stereo typical “Guinevere keeps the end of the bed warm in the winter”. And then there’s a very general “they eat everything that I drop on the floor so I never have to scootch down and wipe it up”. I’m having a lot of trouble thinking of anything more helpful than that.

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  10. I’ve told the raccoon story before, right? The one that bit me? In the crotch? And how the dogs helped?
    There. Animals helping.

    I don’t like raccoons.

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  11. I wish I could remember the song that Dale and Jim Ed used to play on the morning show about the dog named Harry. Was it John Hartford? He talked about how Harry would chew on stuff and had helped him get rid of a lot of stuff he had lying around.

    Searches on google and YouTube come up empty on this one. Maybe it’s just a figment of my imagination.

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