An unusual name for a brief post, but sometimes you just have to be led.
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| Furr Majesty - Tyla |
The odd name of this post arose from a smattering of small, trivial events this morning by Tyla, my five-year-old, long-haired, Belgium line German Shepherd. See, Tyla isn't my only German Shepherd. For over thirty years, we've had multiple German Shepherds of various lines, origins and from numerous circumstances.
We've kept a continuous pack. Some were born here. Others were fosters. Some fit in our Pack and spent their lives with us. Others were just long enough to find a permanent home. Some of the homes were with friends or relatives, so they were still able to be in our lives for all of theirs. So between Maxi, our first German Shepherd, to the five we have now, dozens of these intelligent, loyal, and hairy beasts have been in our lives, and most of the time we've had a minimum of three and a maximum of eleven. Six seems to have been a comfortable number, as we'd buy a 6 pack of Trifexis every month. When one left, by death or rehoming if they were a foster, we'd make room in our lives and our hearts for one more.
The beautiful Tyla was not a foster. She was a Christmas present. After the loss of our Tyler, one of the Rock and Roll litter who was born here, there was a hole in our hearts. A Big One. Tyler was fully named "Rabon's Steven Tyler at the Roxie", being the son of our Roxie aka "Rabon's Metallica at the Roxy", the pet of our youngest son. All of Tylers littermates had the name of a Rock Star, with Tyler being named for the lead singer of Arrowsmith. Tylers father was a big, brusque boy we call Taz, because of his personality akin to a Tasmanian Devil. His registered name was Octavian Wolfbane. Tyler inherited his father's size and he and his brother Jaggar were the two largest pups of a litter of eight, Jagger being a blanket-back and Tyler being a sable. He was accidentally ours. One of the first pups to be chosen, a buyer placed a $600 deposit down on Tyler, and never came back to get him. We tried to contact him and all of a sudden his phone stopped working. We kept the pup for months, not wanting to sell him illegally, as he had a deposit on him, and then we just ended up keeping him.
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| Tyler as a Puppy strolling Savannah |
Tyler was unique. They were all unique, but Tyler had this unique canter. A confident, amiable trot that I've not seen in any other. He was immediately recognizable from a distance, and that came in handy one day. He disappeared from the yard, something that never happened. The yard is fenced in and was typically locked, but one day Tyler and a lab we were fostering disappeared together. At that time, we didn't have cameras and couldn't go back and look. Now the property has turned into Fort Knox, highly protected, secured and with a camera on every piece of grass and half the neighborhood. Tyler had been missing for a total of two and half months. We'd looked and looked and did all the usual things in an attempt to find him, posters, notices in the paper, calling Animal Control on a regular basis. Then one day...
I passed my daughter one morning on my way to work, while she was on her way to work and she called me. We were chatting and I looked over to at the parking lot to my left, as I was stopped at light, and there was Tyler, clear as day, trotting along like he hadn't a care in the world. I got off the phone and was bursting at the seams to get through traffic, to get over to where I had just saw him. By the time I made it, he was gone. I looked all over, in the direction he went, in the direction he had came from, and was about to give up, wondering if he had been a fig newton of my homogenation, when I saw him again! This time I was sure he couldn't escape me. Then he just disappeared into thin air, like a mist on the mountain. I pinched myself to make certain I was awake. I was.
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| Tyla and Shady |
My next idea was to talk to people at the businesses near where I had seen him, give them my number and ask them to call if they saw him. One restaurant told me he came by there every morning begging his breakfast. One store owner revealed that not only had he seen him just a few hours before, but that he had been seeing him every day for about two weeks at the same times of day. Tyler had developed a routine and a schedule. I went behind the store and David, the gentleman who knew his routine, showed me the little path through a small wood where Tyler would travel from one parking lot to another, always early in the morning and just before dusk. Following his path, I discovered exactly how he had disappeared. There was a big pipe under the road, almost large enough to stand up in and certainly large enough for a four-legged traveler. That was how he had disappeared when he dove around the corner and vanished the second time, I had seen him.
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| Tyla and Kira |
Work beckoned. I was late, more than a little late, and as late as I dared to be. Good thing I was the boss. I called my husband and told him what had transpired and passed the search on to him. Following what I had told him, he continued the search in earnest, recommencing where I had left off. The search took hours, but like I did, he spoke to people who worked at businesses in the area and was encouraged by the report of several that they had definitely seen Tyler, and his distinctive, lordy gait, almost like walking on air.
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| An Alpine Dog checking out the snow |
He had asked several folks to give him a call if they caught sight of Ty, one of them being a storage building salesman, a few guys at an auto parts, and another at the John Deere place. Later in the afternoon, the phone began to ring. He was seen coming out of the pipe again by one. He had crossed the lot of another. Others saw him head toward a small wood down the path of a transmission tower row. Upon his motorcycle, in case he had to go backwoods, my husband rode up an down in the area, and eventually spotted Tyler cantering behind a hotel. The closer he got, the further away the dog trotted. He then stopped, took off his helmet and started calling his name. "Ty! Ty boy! Come!" Tyler looked. He paused. At first, he was uncertain what was going on. Then it hit him.
Whether it had taken a familiar scent on the breeze, or the sound of my husbands voice that jogged his memory, but suddenly the enormous, boisterous dog realized who was calling him. He galloped to my husband at full speed, wiggling and bouncing and twisting like a worm in hot ashes, the sheer joy of reunion overtaking them both. My husband later confessed that he had prayed, diligently, that if the Good Lord would help him find Ty, he would make a few promises and uphold them. And he has, ever since that day.
There was one more problem to solve with finding Ty, and that was how to get a 110 lb. oaf of a dog home. It was not going to happen on a motorcycle. He called my son, who was getting out of school, and had him come by with his jeep, to help get him home. When I finally got off work, there he was and we had another joyous reunion. He never left home again. But a question remained, how he had gotten out of the gate in the first place.
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| Constantine Conan aka Coco, a favorite |
Tyler had been missing for about 10 or 11 weeks. He didn't look like he'd been gone a day. Most stray dogs are very thin and show wear and stress from being on the run. Not Tyler. He hadn't lost a pound. He wasn't even dirty, in fact, he could have just came from a groomer. Ty was in wonderful shape, which led us to believe he hadn't gotten out on his own accord. He had been stolen, and probably had been taken to the other side of town, near where we found him. He had been well fed and well taken care of for two months. At some point, he escaped, as he had been seen making his rounds for two weeks or more.
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| The Pack |
What floored us was how brilliantly he had survived. He must have found a place to relax in the woods, or behind one of the businesses in the boscage, out-of-sight, and safe. He made his rounds to eat and forage for food, early in the morning and later in the evening, avoiding the busiest traffic. He used his undeniable charm to beg handouts at the fast-food joints. He didn't try to risk his life by crossing a busy highway, he wisely went under the road instead, using the large tunnels to take him from one side to another, learning the back paths from one parking lot to another, staying behind the chaos and danger, moving between and behind, where the dumpsters live, and staying away from moving vehicles. He had survived this way unscathed for over two weeks. Now he was home again. We never found the Lab, they had either parted ways, or the Lab stayed with whomever had stolen them. Perhaps the Lab was not as clever as Tyler and had been hit by a car. We'll never know. He wasn't our dog and the bond wasn't there, so our happiness at finding Ty wasn't overshadowed by not finding Colby. We enjoyed life with Tyler for about another five years. He was ten years old by then, and tragedy would strike. The evil would come in the form of another dog.
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| Tyla, Shady the mix, Kira and Bella the white |
While most of our fosters and dogs have been German Shepherds, we have hosted and adopted other breeds. One of my favorites is Australian Shepherds. I favor working breeds, intelligent, trainable dogs. Our guys are not just pets, they serve as a security system, and not just as alarms. Other breeds have been Labs, of course. We've had several; Raven, Jetta, Colby and his siblings and a little yellow one we fostered that I so wanted to keep.
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| Didi a foster I wanted to keep |
We've had Huskies, a husky mix, a Shiloh Shepherd and a Newfoundland. I've always wanted a Golden, too, or a Flat-coated retriever. Maybe one day. We do not take in small dogs, only medium to large, as that is how we started when the local Humane Society began and I learned they only took in dogs under 50 lbs. I asked why and was informed that it was because they had no foster homes for large breeds. As we had stopped breeding and already set up to handle large breeds and prepared to keep dogs separated that did not get along, we started fostering. We also put the brakes on bully breeds.
Some swear by them, good for those folks, they are not our cup of tea. To each their own. Then came the time we made an exception, to our own detriment.
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| Tyler and Yoda |
A friend of my husband had a breakup and was forced to move out-of-state to a relatives home. Two dogs also became homeless in the imbroglio. One was a female pit-bull, sweet as they come, and the other, one of her puppies, her son, about four months old. His father had been a German Shepherd in one of those accidents people get when they don't spay or neuter. He was a cutie, and half-shepherd, so for this friend, we agreed to keep this pup until the owner returned from Illinois to pick him up, as they were only able to accommodate the mother at this point. Weeks turned into months and the puppy grew up. He was a cutie, with a slick, tawny coat, a squarish pitt-shaped head with an extended German Shepherd muzzle and black mask.
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| Yoda |
He grew to be larger and more long-legged than his mother, with a stout, muscular body, but smaller than a purebred Shepherd. The one trait that distracted from his spring-made build and powerful jaws hinged onto the extended muzzle, was his enormous, erratically spaced ears. They were huge. He looked like a donkey, or more precisely, like Yoda from Star Wars, so hence his name, Yoda.
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| Tyla and Candy |
Yoda was fine for a while. Ty loved him. They were best buds and loved to play. All was well until something happened up the road. An elderly neighbor had passed away, and the home was sold to people from another country and another culture. The house became a hub, like a temporary station for travelers, as you never see the same vehicles. A certain group will be there for a few weeks or so, until they get in their own place, and then a new batch arrives. Take that however you may, it's the only way to describe the revolving door of people in that house. One van full arrived with a couple of dogs, and of course, they were unaware of laws, traditions and customs here.
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| Yoda and Willow |
The two dogs roamed the neighborhood a will for a few weeks. Everyone saw them. One was a larger-sized chihuahua type dog, and by that, I don't mean she was large. She was not a teacup. The other, we would discover, was her son. He was over twice her size with a long yellow coat. He looked as if his father had been a Golden Retriever. Not sure how that could have happened, but he had the head and coat of one, with his mother's short legs. A peculiar-looking sort.
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| Willow, Candy, Scout and Tyla |
During the time this pair was allowed to roam freely, negating all local pet-owning regulations, the little mother dog went into heat. A neighbor down the way commented on social media that her two hounds, bonded brothers, had gotten in a fight because the pair had wandered into their yard and the female had flirted through the fence with her boys. Up and down the mountain, or hill, this little dog with her incestuous child was causing mayhem among the households of responsible dog owners. This kind of makes me sound like a bit of a Karen, but when someone's irresponsible behavior causes chaos and harm amongst the rest of the neighborhood, it's more than an unsightly ornament that grates at your HOA. We don't have an HOA out in the boondocks, but we do have folks who love and take care of their animals. During this time, I was at work, and my spouse was at home at work in his shop, unaware of the troublesome pair making their rounds. Then the little floozy decides to come up and tease our Tyler, who was neutered, but not immune to the hormonal pull of her musky spore.
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| Tyler and Yoda |
By this time, Yoda had matured to a lusty young adolescent and was deeply affected by the chihuahuas amorous ardor. Of course, he was on the other side of the fence. Someone else was on his side of the fence as well, his best bud, Tyler. By this stage of Tylers life, he had slowed a bit and gained some weight. He was a healthy, vigorous ten-year old, but still at 125 lbs., large, but a bit slower than he was in his youth. Yoda was smaller by about 40lbs, but quick and wiry as adolescents are, and fast. The pitt instinct overruled the Shepherd wisdom and Yoda attacked Tyler, going for his legs and avoiding his head and the powerful jaws.
By the time my husband heard the fracas, there was blood everywhere, on both dogs, but most noticeable was Tyler's limp, and a river of blood pouring from his armpit. My husband quickly fashioned a tourniquet and was carrying him up the hill, when some kindly farmers across the road, who were also foreign, awesome neighbors, not of the same ilk as the transient waystation, heard the fray and came rushing to help. They draped Tyler in towels and placed him in the back of the truck and rushed him to an Emergency Animal Hospital over an hour away. In all this, Yoda was standing there looking guileless and innocent, covered in blood.
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| Kira |
Tyler went into emergency surgery, and we knew it was going to be a long arduous procedure, so my husband returned home, knowing if Tyler made it, he would have to at least stay overnight. About 1 am the phone call came. The leg with the tourniquet had to be removed, they were not able to save it. His cephalic vein had been severed. Then the worst news. The other leg had been mauled just as bad and they were going to have to take it, also. Before they proceeded, they wanted to make sure we agreed to the charges and were ready to care for a 125lb dog with no front legs. We were not, I would not have been able to lift him. His life expectancy would have been about 3 more years. How would we have been able to accommodate him? We could not quit our jobs to do that. So, sadly, we had to say goodbye to Tyler.
Yoda was another issue. He had only superficial injuries, but we were extremely angry with him. The first response was to contact the person who had left him with us and never returned. They were not able to accommodate him and instructed us to take him to the dog pound. Long story short, he suckered his way back into my husband's heart, but something had changed. The dog had tasted blood, and apparently that is a factory installed fault in Pitts. It wasn't long before he attacked our nonaggressive, laid-back Australian Shepherd, who was also an elderly dog, but also the only other male. The attack was unprovoked. Thank God, my husband was close enough to get them separated, with tools. Again, he had to run another dog to the vet. This attack was to the neck, and thankfully, due to the Aussies thick cushion of fur around his neck, the damage wasn't irreparable.
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| Scout |
Scout recovered, but the vet had reservations. The second time, just weeks later, that it happened again, and yet again Scouts fluff and ruff saved his life, the vet had more than reservations. Yoda's violent behavior was escalating, and she felt that his attacks would only spread. We could lose another dog, or he could attack a person next, and we could possibly be injured ourselves or end up in a lawsuit if he jumped the fence and attacked someone walking down the road, or a visitor, or delivery person. In the end, we had to put down a healthy, young dog because of his increasingly aggressive and dangerous behavior.
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| Our Regal Boy |
The combination of the loss of both was a deeply unsettling event for my husband, just having reached retirement age, who was with them all day. The only solution I could think of was puppy breathe.
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| Tyla as a Fuzzball Pup |
We believe in rescuing over buying a dog, but in this case, I wanted a purebred German Shepherd. Each Shepherd has its own personality, but still, you know what you are getting. I chose the breeder, but wanted him to chose the pup. He wanted a female, tired of fights between males, not saying females don't fight, they will, but a careful balance of personalities can usually keep the peace. "Puppying in", is also a more successful introduction. Adult dogs will normally accept a puppy, and it just grows up into the pack.
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| A game of Ring around the Cedars |
The litter ended up containing three girls and after watching them tumble and play, my husband picked the bully. She was the cutest ball of fluff ever, but she terrorized her siblings. She still does, just a different pack of siblings. Weeks later, when she arrived at her forever home, it was easy to see why he had chosen her. He wanted a guard dog. He got a guard dog. She follows commands, reluctantly. She likes to play, as long as she wins. She lets everyone know, there is one Boss Dog, and she is it.
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| Baby Face |
We named her Tyla in honor of Tyler. Today she is five years old, thick as a brick, with enough hair for an army of army blankets. She was born with baby-making hips, although that will never happen. Tyla has an oral fixation that would make one think she was taken away from her mother too soon, however, she was with her for a full 12 weeks. She has to have something in her mouth at all times and will hold a toy or pillow in her mouth and whimper like a pup. When she sleeps, she dreams of nursing.
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| Miss Oral Fixation |
Tyla is the complete embodiment of the definition of the word denoted to describe her exact gender and species. She is ball-crazy, and fortunately for her, so is Kira. Kira was found as a half-starved stray, but aside from a scar on her ear, is now an absolutely beautiful girl, a sable, of West German Working lines. They would play all day if they could. The other girls know Tyla is Boss Dog, and don't challenge her, but they also avoid her if at possible. She likes to go out a door first, then turn around a ambush anyone who follows, with a loud, quick reminder, therefore, she often goes out alone and everyone else is on the other side of the fence.
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| Ballmouth |
Tyla is a Miley Cyrus, she comes in like a wrecking ball. Rattle the gate, and you can see her from a distance, flying up the hill at full speed. She's fast, but not the fastest, those wide hips slow her down. Leave the gate just cracked and BAM!!! She will burst through it like a mad bull, then stand there at ready the head turning quickly side to side, rapidly assessing the situation and reading the room. Guard Dog.
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| Every move you make, I'll be watching you... |
She herds me every morning. I don't go to breakfast; I am led to breakfast. That's what Shepherds do.They also guard. I watch television with a guard at my feet. It's fascinating how they will place themselves at just the right vantage points to see the most. It's built in programming.
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| Kira, Bella, Tyla, Zelda |
Tyla is an Alpha with a capital A. Whenever this fact becomes an issue, I remind my husband he picked the aggressive one. The one who has to be fed first in a room by herself and the last one to be let out after. Routines can't be broken or it causes calamity. Tyla would eat everyone elses food, and they would allow her, if no one was watching and giving commands. She's a Pig. She doesn't know she's a Pig, but she would eat herself sick if allowed to. This whole story was originally intended to lead into the story of an individual, a human being, who was also a Dominant dog and also a Pig. Instead, it just became the Story of a Dog, a dominant dog, who doesn't know she is a pig.
