Fridays on the Farm. Convalescent leave… according to Ratchet…
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Ratchet… don’t fall for that cute face!
So, as many of you know a few months ago we retired Nala (8 year old long haired German Shepherd) from livestock guardian dog to pampered inside house dog. This left Fuzzy Bear (7 year old Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog) without a partner. In comes Ratchet… an amazing Great Pyrenees pup we got from some amazing friends up by Indianapolis.
He’s been here for a few months and has grown into a wonderful pup and perfect partner for Fuzzy Bear. As the weeks flew by we knew he was getting closer and closer to the time of the dreaded surgery… the neuter.
Surgery was done when he was just over 5 months old and a still happy puppy returned home in apparently no pain (pain meds given just in case). We thought we were in for a couple calm weeks of convalescent leave while he recovered inside. I mentioned this dog is accustomed to being out with the goats, chickens, rabbits, cats, horses, and Fuzzy Bear 24/7 right? Well, if I hadn’t mentioned it let me make it very clear now… this pup is not accustomed to the wonderful world of “inside.”
Soooo…. Let me take you on a tour of our convalescent time with Ratchet as he recovered from his neuter surgery.
- He taught himself to push the water cooler spout on… but not off.
- He learned to shred paper towel straight off the roll that was obviously offending him by his proximity to his kennel.
- He learned to eat drywall through his kennel because it too obviously offended him by its proximity to the kennel (the wall folks… the wall offended him so he ate holes in it)
- He learned to dump an entire water dish on the floor by grabbing the towel it sat upon an running.
- He found a fun game in grabbing my neighbor’s ball of yarn that she was CURRENTLY knitting with and running with it…several times (I hope she’s still willing to dog sit on occasion)
- He learned the delicate art of performing a squeakerectomy and destuffing of eight dog toys.
- He managed to lose six baby puppy teeth and lovingly hand them over to Echo (husky puppy) to chew on.
- He learned to dig to China in the mud puddles in the back doggy potty area… yup we’ll stick with hoping they were all “mud” puddles.
- He learned how to open the baby gate from the kitchen and let loose the entire herd of dogs (during some cold and stormy snaps we had all 6 dogs inside… 2 German Shepherds, 2 Great Pyrenees, Siberian husky pup, golden retriever).
It was a LONG 2 weeks of recovery but I am glad to say Ratchet has been returned to livestock guardian dog duties OUTSIDE and he…me…all of us couldn’t be happier.
Just being a puppy probably!