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Archive for the ‘Rhea Tails’ Category

for the dog on the move: AmazonBasics Padded Pet Bolster Bed – 35 x 22 inches

Posted in reseña, Rhea Tails, Uncategorized on July 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »

This may not be your one-size-fits-all dog bed. It’s a bit lightweight for that.31PPnBYaIIL._SS300_

But it is as excellent product for the dog on the move. By way of example, we drove our mid-size Whipador ‘Rhea’ from Pennsylvania to Miami on a two-week road trip, then shipped her in a dog crate to our new home in Colombia. Here, she’s got a plush bed on the floor of our bedroom, but still uses this AmazonBasics Padded Pet Bolster Bed as her day-time crash. Plus, we can move it outside to our patio if we’re going to spend an extended time out-of-doors. She follows it wherever it goes and finds it a great mobile couch/bed.

I don’t know when Amazon introduced its AmazonBasics moniker, but it has proven very reliable to us. This product is one example. The price is certainly right, the materials are excellent, and it rolls up and carries in couple of seconds.

Rhea’s black fur eventually means some strong-armed learning, so we wish it came in a darker color. But you won’t go wrong snagging the Bolster Bed for your dog’s part-time lolly-gagging.

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best non-breed ever?: Whipador Mug – ‘God Knew I Needed an Angel, So He Sent Me A Whipador’ Dog Coffee Cup

Posted in reseña, Rhea Tails on July 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Identity comes crawling-slow.41fzQdFUfSL._SS300_

It took us years to figure out the gene pool of our lunacy-to-therapy-dog rescue animal, the pride of two Pennsylvania nursing homes and favorite doggie of children on two continents. Then, one unsuspecting Saturday afternoon, Mr Google and YouTube made it all crystal clear in the space of about 13 minutes: Rhea is a Whipador!

The undeniably Labrador Retriever characteristics blend effortlessly with the elegantly curved back half, the madly playful figure-eight runs round yard and house and municipal park, the thin rather than broad face. We would have loved Rhea no matter who her parents are, but now we are 99% sure she is half Labbie and half Whippet.

So we bought this cup.

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home for a day: Petmate Sky Kennel for Pets from 50 to 70-Pound, Light Gray

Posted in reseña, Rhea Tails on July 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »

When it came to the hard decision to take our beloved Whipador with us on our move 413wKZdIjdL._SS300_from the USA to Colombia, here’s what we needed from the GITTIN’ THIS DONE department:

  • the ability to order the right-sized crate, not too big, not too small, without having to run from one pet store to the next to eyeball things.
  • the assurance that the produce would meet all airline and government-agency requirements.
  • solid construction at a not-exorbitant price.

Rhea and her family are now happily ensconced in Colombia and the trip is a distant memory. All went well, in part because this product made its part of the complex journey both simple and predictable.

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I pray like a dog.

Posted in missio dei, Rhea Tails on August 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »

We have a dog. Little Rhea is a mutt, a canine of uncertain provenance, a largely unremarkable and persistently shedding presence in the home.

Our newspaper appears every morning (well, Monday through Saturday) sheathed in a thin, blue, plastic wrapper that makes a marvelous, repurposed poop bag when we walk Rhea in the park across the street. When I ‘taught’ Rhea to ‘fetch’ the newspaper every morning (Monday through Saturday), I imagined the entertainment value of training this largely underperforming household companion to do something useful. But I also anticipated saving a few steps in my daily (Monday through Saturday) journey down the long driveway to the side of the road whence the newspaper in its thin, blue, plastic sheath gets hurled from a passing car onto endlessly creative subsections of our driveway and its vicinity. (more…)

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Rhea tales: meet the fam

Posted in fauna, Rhea Tails on July 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »

The thing with introducing a new dog to the pack is, you just don’t know what you’re going to get.

When the dog being introduced is a little black fur ball of uncertain origins and the anxiously awaiting family members are big Rhodesian Ridgebacks, one of whom has had his eyes surgically removed, you really don’t know what you’ll get. (more…)

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Rhea Tails: improbable from the start

Posted in fauna, Rhea Tails, tagged on July 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »

When I first met Rhea, I was lying on indoor-outdoor carpet under a table at the Lucky Dog Retreat, trying to coax the scared little girl and her puppy sister Asa to have something—anything!—to do with me.

Thing were not going well.

Robin, the proprietor of Lucky Dog Retreat, accompanies Indianapolis’ animal control officers into what are gingerly described as ‘bad situations’ in an effort to keep some of our city’s hapless animals from being destroyed. A dark look came across Robin’s face as I asked her about Rhea’s and Asa’s origins. ‘There were too many human beings and too many dogs in that apartment’, she responded, clearly not wanting to go any deeper into her description. Rhea and Asa, alone among a tribe of dogs, were to be saved. Their fear of this big stranger lying on the floor suddenly sounded entirely reasonable, at least as far as Puppy Logic goes.

Rhea was improbable from the start, one of just two survivors out of ‘too many dogs’.

Rhea’s tough beginnings—she was clearly not treated well in her first, chaotic home—haunt her still.

My fiancée was half a country away. I described Rhea on the phone, the scared little monster with wan hope of a future. It was impossible to make Rhea sound like the Ideal Dog. Nothing about this waif’s life has ever come close to ideal. Karen was not absolutely opposed to adding a dog with a past to our collection of two Rhodesian Ridgebacks in the new life we would soon share. If we went through with this, Rhea would join a sister who had been the runt of her own boiling, brown tribe back in Costa Rica and a blind and badly abused brother Ridgeback from northern Indiana. Yet Karen’s assent could not be described as enthusiastic.

I was to marry an adventurous bride amid a pack of rejected dogs.

After a few more visits to Lucky Dog, Rhea came home. Improbably. We would live to regret our decision. And then, eventually, to celebrate it. And her.

 

 

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