Day 284

I didn't sleep well last night. Dot woke me up at 3 AM and later at 4 AM when she heard thunder in the distance. By morning, the rain she was anticipating had arrived and it was wet and messy for the rest of the day. The first thing the dogs do every morning is race out to the back yard, do a lot of barking to wake up the neighbors, and go pee. On rainy days however, they won't even set foot outside the house. They just poke their heads out the door and look back at us as if we could magically stop the rain. They were going to have a long wait this morning, because the weather radar showed the storms extending halfway across the state.

While I was waiting for the rain to stop, I noticed that all the bees that have taken over the Eastern side of our house were quiet. They apparently didn't like the rain any more than the dogs did. It actually looked like they were all sleeping. This was the first time in weeks that the critters weren't buzzing around in a threatening manner like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I took advantage of the relative quiet and quickly knocked all the hornet's nests off the eaves of the house with a rake and sprayed them with roach and ant spray. It probably wasn't the proper way to get rid of bees and wasps, but it was all I could think of. I didn't get stung either. So far, the plan appears to have worked. None of the wasps have returned. It's been over 12 hours and all is quiet on the Eastern front.

Since everyone who usually walks the Dalmatian Rescue dogs on Sunday morning will be at the Golf Tournament tomorrow, we went and took care of the dogs today. They were wild. It had been raining most of the morning and I don't think the dogs had been outside of their kennels all day until we got there. I walked a new dog named Hobbs. He was a young male who apparently had never been on a leash before. He just about dislocated my shoulder when I first started to walk him, but after about twenty minutes he had calmed down a bit and was walking more or less normally with the other dogs. Dalmatians are strong dogs. I have a lot more aches and pains than I did before I started working with rescue animals. It's worth it though. It's kind of amazing how much progress you can make in socializing some of these strays in just a few months.

Our of our veterinarian friends invited Janet and I to go to the SPCA "Fur Ball" with her this evening. It would have been fun, since this is the big social event of the year in the rescue community. Unfortunately, we're still working on last minute preparations for the Golf Tournament tomorrow. I hope the weather clears up. This is our big fund raiser for the entire year and we need a good turnout to pay all the vet bills the dogs have run up this year.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day