2025, Family, home, pets, Travel, Uncategorized

Two Damn Dogs

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This post title comes from tim, who commented that having one dog makes it your boon companion, but having one more dog means you have “two damn dogs”.

We picked up our second dog, a 12 week old female Cesky Terrier, from her breeder last week Thursday in Kansas City. Our 4 year old male Cesky is from the same breeder. He is located in Oklahoma City, but was at a dog show in KC, so we met him there. I had never been in Kansas City or at a dog show before. We met the breeder back in the grooming area where there were dogs of every size and breed. It was quite fun. He is a very responsible breeder, and the two top Ceskys at the Westminster dog show this year were his. He also breeds Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers.

We drove to KC on Wednesday and drove back to Luverne on Thursday. Mitzi, the new puppy, was a good traveller. We also transported a year old Cesky girl named Secret to Luverne to get her to a Manitoba woman who is a dog trainer and Junior Dog handler trainer. The woman had been at Mayo for hand surgery and met us in Luverne Friday morning. We picked up our Cesky boy, Kyrill, from the boarding kennel on Friday morning as well. Our main goal in getting another dog was to provide him with more socialization and activity. It has been working like a charm. He is 30 lbs and she is 3 lbs but they race, chase, and tumble. They love playing indoors and outdoors. They steal each other’s toys and chews. She is a sweet but spicy little thing who doesn’t seem to mind him running her over. She puts herself at a distance from him and then charges into him. He doesn’t seem to mind. They exhaust one another in the best way.

We are sort of crate training her. I mean “sort of” because she sleeps with me and Kyrill in the guest room so I can let her out in the night when she stirs to go potty every three hours or so. Wednesday night she made it six hours before I I had to take her outside. Kyrill isn’t too sure he likes her next to him in bed with us, but she snuggles by me out of his space. I predict in a month they will snuggle together.

Having a puppy in the house is like having a new baby in the house, and we are pretty tired. She is so sweet and is going to be as much of a soul mate as Kyrill is. I am really glad we have two dogs. We don’t just have two terriers. We are dog people now.

Ever been to Kansas City or at an animal show? Tell about your favorite/troublesome dogs.

48 thoughts on “Two Damn Dogs”

  1. We semi accidentally got a puppy for our then 2-year-old mixed breed dog Ernie. This after being told by another rescue agency that we were too old to raise a puppy.

    We were 75 at the time. It turns out they were kind of right. We did exactly the same thing you did. Little Bruno turned out not to be as easily house trained as Ernie was. I was up in the middle of the night a lot.

    Bruno came out of a 7 lb Chihuahua. He is now 25 lb. We think the dam backed up to a Staffordshire terrier.

    He’s a real sweetheart. He and Ernie are the best of friends. I wouldn’t have it any differently.

    They’re also a handful. Linda has doubts from time to time.

    But she still takes Bruno over to her side at nap time.

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  2. Was in Kansas City once when I was in high school. I was not especially impressed, but am told they have great BBQ.

    As a serious cat person, I fear I don’t have great dog stories either, but as a serious urban walker, I do have to say I LIKE other people’s dogs. We tried fostering a dog once years ago and that is how we learned we are CAT people.

    For those “keeping score” the s&h and his gf have a cat, which pleases me a great deal.

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  3. I’ve only driven BY Kansas City on the freeway.

    I haven’t had dogs, and I believe we really missed the boat on that one. I see people and their relationship with their pups, and I would have loved that.

    I do have some favorite dogs, though – our next-door neighbors have Odin (maybe a husky/German shepherd mix) and Chiga (white retriever mix?). Since their driveway is right outside south side of our house, I get to watch them as they load up the dogs in the truck for work (small engine repair business). And we have dog-sat on occasion…

    I think these dogs have the greatest life, but they are getting old. I will be really sad when they go.

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  4. When my daughter was a competitive Scottish dancer we used to go to Kansas City annually for a regional competition. That’s how we discovered, to hark back to a previous day’s question, one of our favorite museums. The Steamboat Arabia Museum (probably not its exact name) is an exposition of the contents of a steamboat that sunk on the Missouri River in about 1854. The boat itself sunk in the mud, which gave it an anaerobic environment until it was discovered beneath a farm field (the river had shifted) in the late 20th century. What makes the museum distinctive is that everything on display is from the same exact time and the diversity of the array is amazing—everything homesteaders might need or desire. There are many hardware items like tools, some of which haven’t changed noticeably in 150 years, and door hardware, and also china and glassware and barrels of buttons and hats and footwear etc. There are even intact bottles of imported gin and brandy and jars of preserves.
    It appears the museum is slated to close in November 2026 with the intent to relocate to larger quarters. The quantity of goods on the steamboat was so large they have never been able to display much of it.

    Our first golden retriever, Teddy, came from several distinguished lines. His breeder encouraged us to try him out at a puppy performance trial. He came in fourth, There were four contestants. He was a goofy guy.

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    1. That reminds me of a former neighbor’s Portuguese water dog; a purebred that they paid a pretty penny for and for which they had ambitious goals.

      Faisca spent lots of time in classes of various kinds learning obedience and how to navigate obstacle courses, retrieve stuff and whatnot. Her first two years seemed to be a constant whirl of dog shows, training classes, and trials. She was spoken to mostly in commands.

      Unfortunately, Faisca’s heart wasn’t in it, she just wanted to cuddle and play, and she did poorly in the rankings. We (Hans and I) started calling her Fiasco – secretly – it seemed a lot more fitting. Whenever she was at our house we’d tell her “Fiasco, innovate.”

      At some point during her third year, it became clear that Faisca was never going to be a top dog in terms of breed standards, and she was spayed. She lived the rest of her life as a happy pet. She was a bit of a clutz, but sweet and gentle, and yes, goofy, too.

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  5. Visited KC thrice. Once years ago for business. Heard a fantastic jazz group at a no-name club. Second & third times were leisure trips. The BBQ is fantastic down there. Arthur Bryant’s place is legendary. That’s where I discovered burnt ends. Mmmmm!

    There’s some decent culture there too. We visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (very nice!); the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (Well worth your time if you’re a baseball fan); and the American Jazz Museum right next door. (Fantastic for this old jazzer!)

    Chris in Owatonna

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  6. We were on Main St in KC. We liked the area. There were rapid transit trolleys going past our hotel. Had a really good steak dinner, too. It wasn’t hard to navigate in town. The dog show was in “The Bottoms” in the old stock pavillion. I am glad we travelled last week and not this week.

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      1. We made a point of going to “Twelfth Street and Vine” back in 1969. It was the epitome of urban decay. I was driving but kept the car running while my passengers took a picture. The place must have been excellent back in 1952.

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  8. kc is a real city in a desert of small towns. kc mo and kc kansas resent each other even though an outsider cant see the difference. great jazz and bar b que. downtown feels genuine. calvin trillian the new yorker food critic came from kansas city and learned there that local food crafted by people who care is far superior to perkins, applebees, culvers, taco bell etc. kc ribs on brown paper on a family style table is better than freeway exit copies.
    i had a girl friend with a sister in topeka and topeka is like any 1930’s farm town 2 hrs from a big city. you go to town for entertainment. kc jazz was my highlight. different from memphis chicago or new orleans jazz.
    coast to coast hardware stores had 2000 members and they would have 4 trade shows regionaly twice a year. kansas city and portland were among my favorites. gambles our own fok mid states farm stores
    One year I had my dad drive me out to the airport at about 6 o’clock in the morning after a night of heavy snow and blowing winds and there were drifts across the highway on our way to the airport. We got to the airport and there were 50 mile an hour winds and our plane was full of furniture salesman heading to Kansas City for a tradeshow we were lined up getting ready for takeoff and they sprayed us down with a deicer. We went out onto the runway waiting for the winds to die down, but before they did the plain iced up again, so we had to go back into the hanger to be deiced once more and they set up a program where the pilot waited for the OK to takeoff and took off directly from the hanger down the runway and out we were one of the three planes to get out of Minneapolis that day got into Kansas City and found out that none of the hardware stores could get into the trade show so instead of the 500 people that we’re supposed to be in Kansas City there were about 20 stores that made it pretty funny there were a couple hundred salesman and 20 store owners. Another funny memory was the trip in the Volkswagen van where I had been going out to the West Coast and then decided to come back to Minneapolis and on the trip back to Minneapolis when I got to the tollway, I got on heading the wrong direction because I was used to heading west and the first exit wasn’t for about 50 miles so I made a U-turn in the do not turn area and got back to the toll way 3 miles later and the guy was very upset with me for not going to the next exit and turning around and I told him I just saved two hours and he thought about it and understood ………Kansas City memories

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  9. I have been to Kansas City twice, both times in 1971, when wasband and I stopped in for a short visit with our former neighbors from Cheyenne. We were on our way from Carbondale to go camping in the Grand Tetons. We also stopped in a couple of weeks later on our way back to Carbondale. We spent an afternoon exploring the downtown area, but honestly, I don’t remember much.

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  10. The crate in the header photo is now Mitzi’s, but it was Kyrill’s when he was being crate trained. He followed her in there for old time’s sake, I think.

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  11. My current favorite dog is Pfeifer who belongs to one of our neighbors. Pfeifer is a short-haired white and tan mutt, we’re guessing part pit bull, with a sturdy build. We dog sit for her with some regularity and she is such a calm, and gentle dog, a real delight to have around. Even Martha, our rather surly and cantankerous old cat, likes her. Well, “likes her” may be a bit of an exaggeration, but she’s completely unfazed by Pfeifer’s presence.

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  13. i worked with a guy for a month but it was just before the westminister dog show snd thats where his brain was. he was so immersed he couldnt function. there are guys who it tales years to figure oout its not gonna work. this guy took a month.
    dogs are kind of an era in your life. nala is still kicking in my 3rd phase. my first was a lab/basset looked like a small lab with short legs big feet long ears and a tail that stuck straight up in the air. had her age 16 to 31/32. the the pure basset who was a great dog but if every moment is looking at you to see what where ehen how much food you were going to give her that limits the desire for interaction so we got zeke the white wolf dog to temper the situation. zeke was great but died from heartworm and paws (basset) right behind her. vinny and nala followed and at 13 thats about a wrap. vinny was great and nala will be finishing her tour soon but is doing well. 16-71 in 3 dog eras.
    dogs are not like grandchildren where they are fine but its good that they go home. dogs are ment to be plugged into your soul. other peoples dogs are fine but often i need to go home, i have been lucky in my dog relationships. it occurs to me that the reason is that dogs are so genuine. no pretense. no bs they are who they are. you kind of pick one that calls out to you and then you learn each other. dogs figure out what will be tolerated, what is the path to mutual bliss and how to settle into an ongoing agreement in a shared life. i can settle into with folks but a partner has so many expectations requests and frustrations to work around.
    what was the book with the dog as the narrator and something about racing in the rain. good movie. better book.
    something about dogs isnt there

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  14. Our Mitzi is like most female terriers, in that she is much bossier than our male terrier. We noticed this with the two female Welsh Terriers and the female Fox Terrier we had. It is best to have a male and female terrier together, not two females, as the females get really aggressive with one another. Male terriers are clowns.

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  15. The AI products using dogs and cats is insane and irritating. I subscribe to Dodo as to stories about animal rescue but get dozens of fakes in return.
    I saw a cat show in Moorhead, Minnesota decades ago. Touching the cats was forbidden. It confirmed my choice to only adopt strays or sheltered animals.
    Even The Birds I have now are considered rescued from Pet Smart as I took all four available.
    Whew! I’ll take a breath now.
    With training, I have no doubt that any of the mutts I’ve owned could have pranced the Westminister hall in glorious fashion.

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    1. I attended a cat show back in 1994 in connection with the St. Paul Winter Carnival. It is, or was – don’t know if it is still an ongoing thing – an annual event. Cat shows, or dog shows, have never really been of interest to me, so I had never been to one before, but a young woman who was living with us at the time, asked me to go with her, so I went.

      My impression was that the people who show their cats have a pretty bizarre relationship to their animal. The amount of primping and pruning and fussing gave me pause. There were all kinds of breeds, and it was fun seeing live specimens of cats I had previously only seen photos of.

      Over the years I have had numerous both cats and dogs. I have had only one pure bred cat, a seal point Siamese; all the rest have been mostly short-haired house cats in an assortment of colors and patterns with an occasional long haired in the mix. They have all been great cats with distinct personalities, but I wouldn’t dream of taking them to a cat show. I’m not the type of person who holds birthday parties for their animals either.

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    2. nah
      westminister starts with the shape of their head length of their legs and the way their hips are connected. then its all business to stand perfectly still holding your back and head just so before they trot you around the ring. i did dog training and i get it. the dogs love the knowledge that they can do it perfectly but the premise is that the dogs love must submit to my commands and expectations. i suppose there are exceptions like the gold metal womans figure skater. she was enjoyable because she obviously loved it. i dont get that feeling with those show dogs

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  17. My Maggie is certainly the most challenging dog I’ve ever owned. I shouldn’t wish either of our lives away, but I can’t wait until the puppy stage is over. I have considered getting her another dog, but that’s not in the cards right now. If I did, I would try to rescue an larger, older dog so that she can see what “calm” means.

    She is growing up. She has nearly conquered potty training, but still has some pretty serious issues if I leave for a short while. She does not want to be left alone, ever, at all, even for a very short time. Another dog would help.

    She’s a typical puppy in a lot of ways: steals my socks and slippers, chews the corners of rugs, chases leaves that blow in the wind. And she’s doing really well in some ways: going to doggy daycare and totally rocking it, being an angel for grooming, and being very cooperative at the vet clinic. It’s the neediness that is really challenging for me. I simply can’t leave her alone.

    Maggie will be spayed on Tuesday. That’s a pretty big milestone, I think.

    Mitzi is adorable, Renee!

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  18. I had a great time yesterday when Jacque visited me. We went to the Ole Store for lunch (I know some of you have been to the Ole Store.) This is really the nicest group of people anywhere!

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  19. I never miss watching the Westminister dog shows.
    Those human escorts are very well trained but I never see the ladies wearing high heels. The spectacular women in Hollywood wore high heels in dancing and made the guys look good. Female trainers should make their dog, of any gender, look good.

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  21. OT – I love libraries! I saw this posted on FB.

    “Forgot to return that library book? No problem—just pay with a cat photo. The Worcester Public Library in Massachusetts has launched “March Meowness,” a brilliantly quirky initiative that lets patrons clear their overdue fines by submitting pictures or drawings of cats!
    What started as a creative way to remove financial barriers has become a community phenomenon, with over 400 accounts cleared in just five days. Whether you’re a cat owner or someone who just doodled a feline on a napkin, the library wants you back—no judgment, no fees, just whiskers.”

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  22. Among parakeet breeders are those who are working for unique coloration. Show birds. To me that is despicable. I can appreciate breeding a type of dog or a cat or even a horse. At least you can touch them.

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    1. do you find breeding dispicable in general? i love it in plants and im guessing it will be fun in ai when i start asking for a song that crosses jobim , bach and leonard bernstein

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  23. I know I’ve been to Kansas City, but I can’t think of anything at all that I remember about it. Every one of my dogs has had an amazing kind of personality. Scarlett my first Irish setter was naughty in such unique ways that it was almost charming. My second dog Sorcha, a small Samoyed, did not think that walking was a good idea when it could be running. I tried a gentle leader to get her to slow down and she would pull at it and gasp and flail around. I started walking her very early morning and later in the evening because most people thought I was torturing her. We got a collapsible kennel for Guinevere for travel— it just arrived today. We spent the whole day encouraging her to walk in and walk out and walk in and walk out. A lot of treats. We’ve got two weeks before she needs to be a seriously acclimatized to it.

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