Ms. Pearl Loves Snow

 When we moved here and experienced winter in Northern New Mexico and its below zero temperatures, our friends said, "Get Ms. Pearl a coat!" So we bought her a coat. The other day when it was as low as minus 10F and had finally inched up to 10F above zero, Ms. Pearl wore her coat when Tom and she went out for her morning constitutional.

Ms. Pearl looks ready for anything in her new coat, complete with reflective stripes around her middle and a collar that Tom says is reminiscent of Barnabas Collins, the classy vampire in the old soap Dark Shadows.

The problem is she isn't ready for everything. When she wears her coat it's like an invalid inhabits Ms. Pearl's body.

A cold morning at The NIckel and Dime

She doesn't want to pee or poop while wearing the coat. Ms. Pearl won't range about like she normally does during her morning walks. She prefers to sit. If coaxed, she walks toward you, holding up a paw, as if she has a sticker. But there are no stickers, just a dog that isn't sure what she should be doing while wearing clothing.

Tom took off the coat and she immediately took care of business. Then she found a Frisbee disk and decided it was time to play a bit. Running through the snow naked is her true calling.

She prefers to be unencumbered. We will keep trying the coat, though, because Pearlie is getting up there in age and needs to be coddled just a little, don't you think?

She likes her blankie, though, along with a nice, soft recliner chair.

Ms. Pearl is a Big Baby Wuss

Pearlie Mae is an intrepid hiker, but along the way she often picks up a sticker in her paw. When this happens, she limps along until someone says, "Aww, do you have a sticker?"

She stops in her tracks, lifts up the offending paw and waits patiently until someone pulls it out.

Murphy Comes For a Visit

Murphy and her parents, K and J, came for a visit and brought lots of snow with them!

Here's a short clip of Murphy and Ms. Pearl, having some quality time, playing in the snow.  Murphy has no hangups being around big dogs; she's a girl that just wants to have fun.

Occupy Guadalupita?

We had an occupier at our house. Tom called us the 1% and the occupier was a 99%er. Our occupier was a stray Queensland Heeler dog, a popular breed around here because they were bred to be cattle herding dogs.

She showed up yesterday afternoon on our porch and promptly made herself at home, curling up on the recliner chair that should have been taken to the dump but is still sitting there. She was glad it had been overlooked.

I was worried because she looked like she had recently had puppies and there were no puppies with her. The weather report said evening temperatures would be in the teens and so I worried about puppies surviving this cold.

So we gave her food and water, brought a travel cage onto the porch, propped the cage door open and lined it with a pillow and some towels.

And she spent the night in the recliner chair. What a tuffie!

This morning I sent out an email to local community members to see if someone was missing a dog or who wanted one. I also called a friend to see if he knew anyone on our road missing a dog.

The friend said, "She's at your place?"

Late Friday he had seen some movement on the side of the road and stopped to investigate. Under some pine branches were two puppies. The mom came running from across a field where our friend thinks she might have been hunting for food. She and her two puppies had obviously been dumped. Some folks are just plain dumb and mean!

Our friend had relocated the mom and her pups to a neighboring ranch where she promptly dug a hole under the wooden porch. He had been feeding her there but for some reason she left the pups and ended up at our place.

Our friend went to the ranch where the puppies were and was able to lure them out of their "cave." He brought them to our house where mom and pups were reunited. The photo below is of one of the pups, a fat little fluffball that looks like his mom.

They were gathered together in the truck cab and the Queensland family are on their way to a new home in Las Vegas, NM. Tonight it will be -6 F, so I am glad the dogs will be safe and warm.