a fusion of textiles & smiles
It’s been a year since Mike the miniature schnauzer who was a “guest blogger” on my blog (smile) suddenly passed away at 14.
I came across this video which I uploaded to YouTube, which showed Mike enjoying life: instead of actually hiking at Castlewood Canyon, he was being carried around by John!
Just sharing this in honor of Mike…
Hopefully, you can recover from my terrible singing. While we were on our hike, I was composing silly impromptu songs!
Well it’s been 2 weeks since Mike the Miniature Schnauzer passed and I thought I would give it a go on returning to blogging. I struggled to decide what to do first: 1) catch up on my blogging buddies’ posts; or 2) write a post myself. I decided to just go with writing a post first and then work on catching up on others’ posts.
They say that the best way to heal a broken heart from the loss of your dog is to bring a new puppy or adult dog into your life. John and I have made the decision not get another dog anytime soon. I am going to ramble on a bit about that decision.
Before I met John over 5 years ago when I moved to Colorado in 2019, he’d lived without a dog (he formerly also had a Miniature Schnauzer) for a couple years. His dog had passed and a couple years later his wife passed after a long difficult illness. But when I added Mike to his life he was very happy and realized the intense grief that followed his wife’s passing might have been eased a tiny bit if he had a dog to comfort him.
I’ve lived with at least one dog since I was in my mid 20s when my late husband Terry, a dog-person like me, insisted that we adopt a little Miniature Schnauzer Kerie that had been found in a drainage ditch by firefighters during a hurricane when we lived in Houston, Texas, and were volunteering with a local shelter as Animal Assisted Therapy Volunteers.
Terry and I adopted many rescued Miniature Schnauzers over the years and for the past 30+ years I’ve not had a period without at least one dog in the house. Usually we had two dogs and as soon as one passed we got another one as soon one was available (usually through Portland Miniature Schnauzer Rescue contacting us that they had a Miniature Schnauzer that needs a home!).
When Mike passed, I realized that for over 30 years my life decisions (primarily travel plans) have been guided by the fact I had a dog(s). There were many trips I did not take because of not having someone to watch the dogs or not wanting to be away from the dogs very long, etc.
John and I discussed: what would life be like if we could just travel when we wanted and not incur the cost of dog camp/dog sitters. What would life be like it we could just go out to dinner, see a movie, wander around Denver, etc. when we wanted and for as long as we wanted during our free time?
I never considered life without a dog as it is all I’ve known since being a young adult, and there are so many benefits (and just basic joy) that comes with having a dog that outweighs any sacrifices you have to make. But John and I made it through the greatest losses of our lives (our life-partners of over 30 years), what if we took a break from “responsibility” and just lived life for ourselves for a while?
Later on when we’ve gotten the travel and adventure bug out of our systems we might add a dog to our life (no cats, John is very allergic and I am mildly allergic); but we don’t have to decide anytime soon.
I’ve spent what seems all my life (yes actually all my life as I loved dogs as a child) as a “dog person” and it will be strange not to be a “dog person”. But I realized I am still a “dog person” as we recently returned from a couple days visiting Breckenridge, Colorado and I visited with many dogs wandering about – dogs are part of my heart, I just don’t have to live with one to still love them.
So not having plans to get another dog right now is a HUGE decision for me and I wanted to share my musings about it.
Mike was a huge part of our lives. He was more than just a “guest blogger” (ha!) on this blog. Our lives sort of revolved around Mike. So life without Mike is very strange but we’ve been adapting. The grief comes and goes and John and I both remind ourselves that we made it through the loss of our life-partners, so we can make it through this loss.
We’ve been trying to distract ourselves with various projects including re-arranging the furniture in our basement where Mike laid in his cushion everyday next to John while he telecommuted for work. It was difficult for John to go to the basement and log into work each day without Mike by his side. (By the way, Mike was the “dog love” of John’s life – see the Postscript section of the post Misadventures in Ice Fishing) So we moved his desk to another area and rearranged the basement layout.
John’s been staying busy with woodworking projects and recently a couple of small and lovely 3-D cutting boards, one of which I had to keep for my own:
I’ve been working on some crafting projects and will share them in future posts.
It was difficult to clean out Mike’s stuff (his stuff was integrated into the whole house) but we were able to donate his stuff to several other dog households including a couple who is actively involved in animal rescue and have 3 rescued dogs themselves.
I appreciate all the thoughtful comments people made on the blog post about Mike’s passing. I received thoughtful condolence cards and e-mails; as well as an out-of-state group of friends sent us a delicious box of ice cream from Salt & Straw that we got to share with a local group of friends at a dinner party we had last week.
This same group of out-of-state friends sent us a custom wind-chime with a Miniature Schnauzer on it and Mike’s name which we hung in our backyard where Mike loved to play ball.
John and I have begun planning/discussing some big trips in the future now that we no longer have a dog to include an across Canada train trip, and traveling to Japan and New Zealand. We’ve listed out all the places we’ve ever wanted to travel and we are constantly discussing what to do with our new “freedom”.
We get to test out a life of just being caretakers of ourselves (John raised kids and then was primary caretaker of his late wife who had a long illness; and I cared for an endless stream of rescue dogs…which was of course a much easier undertaking than of course John’s journey) for once in our adult lives.
Many of your have followed our adventures with Mike for many years and I thought I would close out this post with a gallery of photos of Mike from my blog posts over the years. Thanks for sharing my Mike journey with me and if you want to read the story of how Mike originally ended up in my life see this post – Taking Chances: The Mike Hogan Chronicles (re-post).
I like to think that Mike’s spirit is traveling around in the afterlife in a grocery box and a shopping cart/trolley, his favorite mode of transportation…perhaps my late husband Terry, the reason why Mike was even in my life, is pushing that shopping cart.
Perhaps to end this post with smiles instead tears, here is a classic moment from “Dog Camp” where Mike was always popular with the ladies…
Feature photo credit – Pexels Free Photos
Well you haven’t heard from Tierney in a while so I figured it’s time once again for me to step in and update you on what we’ve been up.
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer who lives with Tierney and John, who despite not having opposable thumbs is able to write a guest blog post from time to time.
Tierney and John had an upstairs deck that was on the verge of collapse. John had tried bracing some of the rotting sections a couple years ago but they were one crazy human-deck-dinner-party (you know if the humans started jumping up and down on top of the deck while dining) from a total deck disaster!
Their awesome friends from Bend, Oregon (where Tierney and I used to live) MJ and J (J has a lot of deck building experience) came and visited us last week; and thus began 4 days of deck demolishing and rebuilding.
MJ and Tierney documented the whole 4-day long project with photos; and I am going to share some of their photos (it’s impressive enough that I can write without opposable thumbs, taking photos with a smart phone would be nearly impossible…but with the right dog treats offered, I could try…) in this post.
First they had to take the existing deck-of-terror down:
The backyard got to looking crazy and there was no place for them to play ball with me (humans are thoughtless)!
Plus they kept chasing me back inside because they didn’t want me to get any splinters in my paws (perhaps that was thoughtful…but I wanted to play ball!!!)
Luckily and I had Tierney and MJ (the female humans) hostage in the basement den binge watching television shows and eating snacks while paying attention to me:
Here I am with MJ, one of my favorite humans in this world (she is lucky I love her!)
John and Tierney made sure the visiting humans ate well, making what looked like delicious breakfasts each morning; and what looked like tasty dinners in the evening like the Chicken Piccata with homemade pasta and Caesar Salad they served one night:
I did get nervous while they were working on the deck as it looked like the humans working on it could fall at any time. They of course made sure I was safe (which is what is most important).
Tierney and MJ helped out the male humans John and J by running some errands including a trip to Home Depot for something called “shims”. Of course Tierney and MJ took me with them and I had to help them find the shims:
You might notice Tierney has a bandage on her thumb – it’s not from working on the deck but carelessness while chopping carrots…
I was concerned when there was an attempt to scan me twice while we were in Home Depot – don’t they know the cash value of me would break a price scanner?!?!?!
We also took a trip to Target to buy J some additional clothes as he had “Man-packed” where he forgot to pack all the clothes he needed for the trip. Little did MJ and Tierney realize that there was a “Service Dogs Only” sign in the entry of the store (oops!)
No one said anything to MJ and Tierney about how I didn’t belong in there as they wandered around the store except to say “cute dog”. Well I guess that was my one and only trip to Target unless I pursue a career as a Service Dog (but I am too grumpy to do that).
By the 4th day the male humans finished up the deck and they were so happy! Here are photos of the last stages of putting the deck together and making it livable again:
The deck is not completely done. John has to order something called “matching trim” for the deck, add post caps (whatever those are), and do some painting. But the deck is now very usable! The humans could even have a crazy human-deck-dinner-party if they wanted.
The last day of the project, the humans went out to dinner and then relaxed in the basement den for a movie night. If you look closely at the lower right hand section of the photo below, Tierney is actually working on the quilt she is hand quilting (see her post Hand Quilting Go Boldly) and perhaps sometime this year she will finish it!
Note: J and John are only snuggled as a joke for the photo, they did spend the 4 days working hard, not snuggling.
By the time we took MJ and J back to Human Storage aka “the airport” as humans call it (see the blog post “Human Storage” and Airport Lore) I was pretty tired because managing humans is so exhausting!
On the way to drop them off in Human Storage and then when I returned home
Well that catches you up on major recent events in my life. I will work on getting Tierney to blog on what she has been up to (before the deck project she had just returned from a trip to New York City with her sister) and to have her work on catching up on all her blogging buddies posts!
Hello everyone, this is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer guest posting on the tierneycreates blog. This is a follow up to my post from February 2024 – Guest Blogger Post: The Granny Square Blanket SHOULD Be Done…
I do a great job typing without opposable thumbs…
FINALLY in April 2024, Tierney has finish the blanket and has put it on the upstairs guest bed as the warmer weather season covering (though she appears to be confused as it is not officially “warmer weather”, we are just getting warm days here and there):
I know, I know, you were hoping to see me stretched out on this bed relaxing like you did in other posts, however I am boycotting this blanket as I wanted it to only be for ME as she led me to believe while she was making it!
Happier times when the blanket was in a configuration that worked for ME…
Oh Tierney has come in the room and bugged me while I am writing…
Don’t bug me while I am writing! A lot of concentration is required when you don’t have opposable thumbs!
Oh, Tierney stopped by to ask me to tell you she got a cute new radio while thrifting last year during her trip to Florida with her sister (see the post Sisters’ Trip to Englewood, Florida) that she placed next to the bed in this room:
She says it is a “Tivoli Radio” and she got it for only $5 when normally it would retail for over $100 and it has a wonderful sound. This means nothing to me as a dog, but I am passing this along at her request (why doesn’t she just write her own darn posts if she wants to share something??!?).
Okay I have to go find somewhere to nap now after all this typing and I can’t just go lay down on the bed behind me as I am boycotting it…
(Oh and I am not going to even address that weird post Tierney had yesterday – Imagining Mike Playing Sports – I am going to learn how to use that app and write a guest blog post with images of Tierney playing sports!)
Just a quick and silly post today.
I downloaded a new app on my iPhone called MS Copilot which can generate AI images based on instructions.
There was a tiny bit of a learning curve on how to word things so the AI could understand what I wanted, but here is Mike my Miniature Schnauzer playing with three of the professional Colorado based sports teams.
The Denver Broncos Football Team:
He’s trying to catch a pass to then score a touchdown!
The Denver Nuggets Basketball Team:
(The AI used an older team uniform for the Nuggets, not their current one) Mike is getting ready to shoot the ball into the hoop!
The Colorado Avalanche Hockey Team:
Mike is going to send the hockey puck into the goal net!
I know there are a lot of scary things about AI but this app appears to be one of the non scary, fun things!
This is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John. If you are new to this blog I guest blog post time to time. I want to update you on the gray granny square blanket (MY BLANKET) that Tierney has been working on as I am a little annoyed.
(Here I am working on the blog post)
(And here I am slightly irritated that Tierney is disturbing me while I write)
Tierney should have finished by now the gray granny square blanket by now – she has joined all the 80 granny squares together by whatever strange human magic she uses to join them.
But now she’s decided she wants to make the blanket large enough to be a summer bedspread in the upstairs guest room so she is doing something called “adding a large border” while requires her to use that weird needle (she calls it a “crochet needle”) and go around and around on my blanket so it will get bigger.
Here is the blanket after she put all those squares together and started doing some weird bordering of the blanket.
The good thing is while she’s been doing her bordering, I’ve been able to get some naps under the blanket even if she occasionally disturbs me when she spins the blanket while bordering.
Yes, I am a “Napping Professional”.
I want her to stop this silliness and just set the blanket down somewhere that I can just private enjoy it.
Just wanted to update you all on my struggle,
Mike
This is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John. If you are new to this blog I guest blog post time to time. It’s January 31st and Tierney has not posted on her blog since January 15th (ScrapHappy January 2024 – Update on Table Runner and More ) and I needed to intervene and jump on her laptop and write a post (even though I don’t have opposable thumbs so typing is challenging).
I need to figure out the dictation feature…
Tierney has been busy doing some purging in her crafting area and quilting table runner she discussed in her January 15th (so long ago) blog post. Also she and John have been doing some traveling and recently returned from a trip to Las Vegas where John was in a poker tournament (he didn’t do too bad in the tournament!)
Since I am on her laptop I was able to find a couple photos from her trip to Las Vegas to share with you including a meal they had at Hell’s Kitchen (Chef Gordon Ramsey’s famous restaurant) of the renown Beef Wellington and Sticky Toffee pudding on the menu.
But what is more exciting than their trip is the time I had at “Dog Camp” where I stay when they go out of town. “Dog Camp” is only for dog’s my size and I have a group of dog friends (like my Miniature Schnauzer friend Bandit is a regular at “Dog Camp”).
Here’s Bandit trying to manage one of the humans that run “Dog Camp”:
And here are more awesome photos of me recently at “Dog Camp” (the humans that run it take photos and send to Tierney so she knows I am having more fun that her and John while they are on vacation):
Yes I need to nap, as do my friends, after all that fun!
Well that’s all I had to share, but I am going to talk to Tierney and ask her to get caught up on her blogging friends’ posts as well as start writing her own posts again!
This is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John. If you are new to this blog I guest blog post time to time.
Tierney has been doing something weird the past month or so and only posting to this blog once a week. I am trying to work with her to increase her frequency. She went from torturing you all to daily posts in the month of October, this blog’s 10th anniversary, to BOOM once a week posts.
So I had to step in and blog about the progress on “my blanket”.
My writing station at “my blanket” in progress
Tierney previous posted her progress on this blanket these post Update on Various Projects and 2023 Recap: A Year in “Makes” and WIPs Going Forward, but she has made quite a bit of progress since these posts – she now has 5 rows of 8 granny squares joined:
Look at all the progress I’ve encouraged her to make!
In case you are wondering why I refer to it as “my blanket” – isn’t it obvious she is making it for me when it coordinates with my fur so wonderfully?
Try not to become overwhelmed with my cuteness
She has 5 more rows of 8 blocks to join to it to make it an 8 by 10, 80 block blanket. But at this point it is sufficient enough for me to snuggle under. For some reason she wants to keep working on it.
I’ve caught her cuddling under it while working on it and she even wrangled it into the car when John is driving to work on.
Here she is working on it while in the back seat when we had a holiday visitor; and I am trying to snuggle in it too:
It should be covering me but she said that won’t work while she is crocheting
Well hopefully it will be done soon.
That’s the end of my guest post and I am going to return to guarding the house from my sunny guard post on the upstairs guest bed surrounded by my natural habitats: blankets (fleece!) and quilts.
I’ve been taking a break from blogging after my push to do a daily blog post for the 31 days of October, my 10th anniversary month of blogging. Additionally recently I had a wonderful visit with out of town family that of course kept me from sitting down and blogging.
Here are some updates on my current adventures in creativity.
THE DESIGN WALL
Here is a follow up to the post ScrapHappy October 2023 – Recycled Jeans and Home Decor Fabric Scraps.
I now have 66 blocks completed and 15 more to go to make 81 blocks for a 9 by 9 layout:
This is not even close to the final layout, just blocks put up on the design wall to track my progress. I have a lot of cleaning to do on my sewing machine after all that lint from sewing denim and home decor fabrics!
THE DESIGN CARPET
This is a follow up to the post What’s on the “Design Carpet”.
I’ve completed the 80 crocheted granny square blocks for the next granny square blanket I am making. I am doing a 8 by 10 layout of the blocks and will set them in dark gray yarn as the lattice.
Mike the Miniature Schnauzer couldn’t wait to lay on the laid out blocks as soon as I moved away from them!
This also is not the final layout, just a general layout to show all the blocks (and a Miniature Schnauzer, ha!).
THE WALL
This is a follow up to the posts Quiltfolk Issue #28 Colorado Released (and I am in it!), Magazine in Hand, and Magazine in Hand, Addendum…. One of the other quilters featured in Issue 28: Colorado of Quiltfolk Magazine, reached out to me and shared pages from an extra copy of the magazine she had purchased in order to take it apart and put the pages featuring her in her portfolio.
I used the pages she sent me to make a display in my studio of the article I am in using these cool 11 inch by 17 inch frames I found. John did a great job helping me hang them.
I’ll close this post with a cute meme my sister sent me the other day as we all struggle with Daylight Savings Time (setting the clocks back 1 hour in the Fall and 1 hour forward in the Spring); that is US states that agree to play along with it (Hawaii and Arizona do not participate).
Tierney needed a break from her daily postings for October 2023 challenge to celebrate her 10th anniversary of blogging, so I am stepping in and doing a guest blog post for her.
This is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John. If you are new to this blog I guest blog post time to time.
Here I am doing some late night blogging.
Well the other day the humans pulled a fast one on me. They loaded me into the back seat of their car and said we were going to “Home _______”. I thought they said home improvement store that I go to all the time with John when he works on his projects – THE HOME DEPOT. This is my favorite store and I am regular there, with many of the humans that work at The Home Depot greeting me and occasionally slipping me a dog biscuit (because my cuteness overwhelms them!).
Nope, we did not go to The Home Depot. Instead we went to some place called HOMEGOODS. Home Good is VERY DIFFERENT than The Home Depot!
Here I am in shock as they push me around in my box in the cart:
No one stopped and petted me or gave me a biscuit. This store sucks!
As we approached the check out line I gave my humans quite the look for disappointing me!
I was fooled my the word “Home” in the shops title!
Mike the Miniature Schnauzer was going to do a guest blog post (like he’s done in these other posts in this category – Miniature Schnauzer Adventures) but this is his current situation which doesn’t lend itself to typing 😉 :
He’s of course playing ball even though he is in a cone (which we have renamed “the scoop” instead of “the cone of shame” as he uses it to scoop up the ball from the ground, ha!). Mike had a “hot spot” on his leg he was bothering, it opened up and now he is on antibiotics after a veterninary appointment and has to wear “the scoop” for a week while it heals.
A week ago we took Mike to the mall and he spent time in Macy’s department store.
Mike’s life has really evolved from when my late husband Terry’s and I adopted him from a rescue organization out of Portland, Oregon in September 2014. When we first got him he was suffering with anxiety and behavioral issues (you can read more of Mike’s story on this old post – Taking Chances: The Mike Hogan Chronicles).
Back in 2014 when we first adopted him I would have never imagined a time when he would go in a backpack to a department store. We were just trying to train him to walk on a leash and not be so incredibly aggressive when another dog (or human) walked by when he was on leash!
And now he goes to home improvement stores all the time in his box and gets pets from other customers and the staff at the store while being pushed in the shopping cart.
And he gets to go to department stores like Macy’s (okay now I am back to connecting this post into the title of this post, ha!) in his backpack!
A lot of this evolution is thanks to John from early on in our relationship encouraged me to give Mike a chance to have new experiences. I also have to thank my sister who encouraged me to take Mike to the Nordstrom’s Rack when she first visited me in May 2019 when I had just moved to Denver.
Previously the only store experiences Mike had were at quilt shops when Terry and I went quilt shop hopping. He was in the backpack on Terry’s back and no one could come near him!
So here is Mike at Macy’s last week:
People would come up behind John and pet Mike no problem.
Mike was pretty mellow and didn’t mind going up and down the department store escalators:
Mike even got to hang out in the mall Foodcourt after all that shopping at Macy’s:
Yes we let him have a little taste of our french fries, he’d been a good boy!
I just realized I adopted Mike nearly a year after starting my blog. Wow how time flies!
Mike the Miniature Schnauzer asked me to write this post for him as a follow up his sort of recent Guest Blogger post Guest Blog Post: Battle of the “Human Managers” . While John and I are visiting with friends on the Oregon Coast, he is busy with new small dog friends at “Dog Camp” and I hear that he is also in a “new relationship” with another cute little female dog! He has quite the reputation with the ladies… (see his guest blog posts – Guest Blogger: Ladies Please Control Yourselves… and Guest Blogger: What Happens at Dog Camp, Stays at Dog Camp)
The photos are courtesy of the couple who run “Dog Camp”, they send me daily photos! His new crush is named Gracie and she is entangled with him in the second photo. We were informed that Mike was obsessed with her during dog camp!
Before John and I left for the Oregon Coast to rent a car and have a road trip (John’s never been to the Oregon Coast and I know it fairly well) and to have a reunion with some of my very dear old friends, John stopped by his Dad Chuck’s house to drop something off. He brought Mike with him (who loves Chuck so much!) and there was another Goose and Mike incident, ha! John of course took photos (smile).
Here is Mike getting loving from Chuck while Goose looks irritated:
Goose then whispers something in Mike’s ear:
Mike tries again to convince John that Goose is trouble:
And finally Mike just walks off:
John says Mike spends a lot of time barking at Chuck and at him when Goose is around. It is like Mike is saying: “get him out of here”!
Hopefully they will eventually learn to get along but for now he remains Mike’s nemesis…
Next post I will tell you about my Oregon Coast adventures!
This is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John and provides management of their lives. I am guest blogging since Tierney has fallen off the blogging-wagon again busy with summer visitors and trying to finish up projects (that she will eventually blog about…)
I want to share with you an irritating issue I’ve been dealing with for a while: a battle between my “cousin” (or “uncle”) Goose and I over who gets to manage the humans.
First you might be confused if you’ve never lived with Miniature Schnauzers. Miniature Schnauzers are natural “Human Managers” and can help guide humans in their daily lives. My late sister Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer had her own blog Schnauzer Snips and she addressed this in a Special Service Announcement she made on her blog:
I already had John and Tierney “under my paw”; and John’s Dad Chuck was very amenable to Human Management by a Miniature Schnauzer – whenever I stayed over my “grandpa’s” house I was able to keep him easily in line.
Then everything changed…
John’s sister decided to get a Miniature Schnauzer puppy (Goose) and share custody with her father Chuck. At first I was okay with this as I know I am a role model of dog fabulousness and I figured they were just trying (and would not succeed) to find their own “Mike wannabe” that they could have regularly in their life.
Little did I know Goose had his own plans and would become my nemesis in a battle for control of the Humans!
Here are some recent photos from when John and I stopped by for a visit with Chuck and Goose (I much prefer when we visit Chuck and irritating Goose is at his other home!)
Goose is whispering in my ear: “Chuck is mine and soon John will be too, I’m going to be in charge of managing the humans!”
Here we are at a stand-off, each one of us wanting to get on John’s lap.
Here I am pleading to John to just ignore Goose, I am his one and only manager!
Goose succeeds in getting on John’s lap and his now mocking me.
Here I am whispering to Goose: “You might have won this one but watch your furry back. There can only be one human manager in this family!”
Hopefully Tierney will return to blogging in the future, until then I am happy to let you know about my struggles to be the primary Human Manager of John and my grandpa!
Hey it’s Mike the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with/manages Tierney and John. Usually I write my own blog posts (yes I’ve learned to type without opposable thumbs) but this time I had to dictate my post to Tierney because I am in A CONE!
Can you tell how irritated I am with the humans?
Just because I had a weird growth on my back, which turned out to be harmless, and had it removed, does not mean I can’t be trusted not to lick my stitches.
I kept trying to reason with my humans to remove the thing. Here I am glaring at a human sitting on the loveseat next to the couch:
I think this is a plot by my female human to have someone else in the household who looks injured. I tried to intimidate her by staring at her knee scooter:
Nothing has worked and allegedly I have to wear this thing for 9 more days. I am going to keep giving them the “furry eyeball” and staring them down until they consider removing this thing.
The humans keep commenting on how cute I look in my cone. Why don’t they try wearing cones for a while?
allposters.com
Hi this is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer. I figured after you read about my humans holiday travel misadventures (see posts A Christmas and A New Years Miracle? (Part I) and A Christmas and a New Years Miracle? (Part II)) you were probably wondering what I’ve been up, especially during the time they were away for an extended period of time trapped on the East Coast of the U.S.
Well I spent my Christmas at “Dog Camp” the house I stay at where they only let dogs my size stay for overnights or for daycare. I got lots of friends there who regularly come during the day for doggy daycare as well as those whose humans keep going on ridiculous trips like my humans.
It was my first time since I got adopted in 2014 by Tierney that I was away from her at Christmas time. But I did okay as miniature schnauzers do not generally keep track of holidays!
At Dog Camp we play ball all day long (and I love playing ball!). Here I am with my friends playing endless ball:
Endless ball makes you tired after a while so there is also a lot of napping at Dog Camp – there is a cozy cushion for every dog. Here I am relaxing with one of my friends:
Since it was the Christmas holiday, the people who run Dog Camp did make me pose for a silly holiday photo which they sent to my humans:
As much fun as I have at Dog Camp, I still was so happy to be reunited with my humans when they finally picked me up from camp. So much so that I am trying to be near them at all times. Here I am snuggling with my female human while she tries to read a book this past weekend:
My humans felt bad for being away from me so long and this past weekend they took me everywhere with them. They even took me in my backpack to the mall so my male human could get some additional winter clothing. Here I am at a department store “hanging around” while my male human tries on clothing over his existing clothing (no worries it was a top not pants – ha!).
Bet you didn’t know those racks at department stores can also hold miniature schnauzers!
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer guest posting as Tierney has been taking too long to write Part II of this two part series of posts that began with John, Project Man (Part I). Okay it’s only been a couple of days but Miniature Schnauzers are an impatient breed in general so it’s my nature.
So I opened up the laptop and got to work:
Yes, John has been busy on projects, and I would prefer he follow my lead and do something like this:
He won’t listen to me about napping instead of remodeling, so I’ve had to spend a lot of time at home improvement stores supervising him:
So Tierney and John got it in their heads that they needed to remodel the basement bathroom, which is also the main guest bathroom for pesky humans that visit us.
And then they decided that they should also replace all the toilets in the house as they are the original toilets from when the house was built.
I am unclear why they would want to waste their money on new toilets as we have a perfect good backyard to take a pee in like I do.
And if they need to poop they could just follow my lead and do it on my twice a day walks.
But I am not going to carry around their poop bags like they do for me – ew! (What is wrong with humans, why are they always collecting my poop and carrying it around in little baggies on our walks – what are their plans with it?!??!)
We have a lot of pesky humans scheduled to visit us in the near future, so last weekend they worked on remodeling the bathroom (I used the term “they” loosely as it appeared Tierney was only in charge of snacks).
Here is John removing the old tile floor:
I stayed away from this as he was making a lot of noise and creating a lot of dust.
Instead I did this on his behalf:
Tierney did not bother taking step by step remodeling photos (there goes her career as a home remodeling Instagram influencer) but here are some photos of what it looked like with a new floor, new toilet (waste of money), new lighting, new fixtures (whatever that means, dogs don’t care about “fixtures”), and new shower curtain:
John has his bar near the bathroom and collects nice whiskeys as a hobby, and so they went with a whiskey themed bathroom. The shower curtain according to Tierney is a reproduction of the original “whiskey still” patent (whatever the heck that means, humans are so weird).
They also took photos that John took in 2019 when he went on a Kentucky Bourbon tour with his friends, converted them to black & white photos, enlarged them, and then framed them as art for the bathroom:
They were pretty pleased with themselves when the project was done.
Tierney did mention that her fantasy would have been to just gut (that sounds painful) the whole bathroom and do a nice tiled walk in shower but that was too expensive an option. But they are happy with the small amount of money they spent (they wasted) on the remodel.
When John is not doing remodeling projects, he is doing his other favorite hobby: cooking.
Here he is in the kitchen making my favorite of their human meals – pizza! I like when they (using the word “they” loosely again as Tierney is in charge of getting pizza making supplies out of the refrigerator only) make it because sometimes a little cheese will fall on the floor, and they always give me a piece of their pizza crusts!
John always makes a pizza for my Grandpa (John’s Dad who I visit all the time) who lives nearby; and my human brother (John’s son) and his family, whenever he makes pizza. It’s like he supplies pizza to 1/2 the neighborhood!
So this closes out the series of posts on “John, Project Man”.
Now I have to get back to my very important project:
If you’d like to read more of my musings, they are all under this blog post category: Miniature Schnauzer Musings.
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John. I see that pesky Beastie has had like 4 guest blog posts recently; and it is time for me to have one. (Plus I am a REAL miniature schnauzer, I am tired of that allegedly cute little fake miniature schnauzer – Mikelet.)
Last time I did a guest blog post for Tierney, I wrote about how Tierney and John tried to scare me to death in the post Guest Blog Post: How to Completely Terrify Your Miniature Schnauzer. And before that I wrote about some of my adventures as Dog Camp: Guest Blogger: What Happens at Dog Camp, Stays at Dog Camp.
In my Dog Camp post, I shared my challenges of being EXTREMELY popular at the Dog Camp I attend whenever my humans go out of town (though occasionally I stay with John’s Dad who refers to me as “his dog” even though he now has a miniature schnauzer puppy living with him).
The Dog Camp is only for smaller dogs and I am always surrounded by the little female dogs that attend camp for daily dog daycare or are boarders when their humans go out of town like mine.
Recently I spent a stint at Dog Camp when my humans went to Chicago and oh my goodness – from the minute I arrived the ladies went crazy!
The human that runs Dog Camp took this video and my human Tierney uploaded it to YouTube so you can see what happened the moment I arrived at Dog Camp!
I am so glad to be back home and take a break from the ladies. I am neutered but it still does not matter, they all follow me around!
It is not all “Mike-stalking” by the female dogs at Dog Camp, I did also have time to play lots of ball with my buddies there:
Well it’s time for one of her guest bloggers to step in, as Tierney has disappeared from the blogging world for some time now due to “Hooman Life Distractions“.
I recently learned us dogs are supposed to refer to our Humans as “Hoomans” courtesy of looking at too many dog postings on Instagram. I guess they feel dogs are not very literate? Nah, I am going to keep called them “Humans”, as you can see I am literate enough to write guest blog posts.
In case you have not guessed it, this is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer here to fill in for Tierney and do a blog post.
If you are new to this blog, I fill in from time to time and here are a couple samplings of my previous posts:
Guest Blogger: What Happens at Dog Camp, Stays at Dog Camp
Guest Blogger: Happy in My Box
Guest Blogger: Obsession with Making Crocheted Dishcloths
Once you recover your awe from the brilliant writing by a 12 year old Miniature Schnauzer in the links above, you can continue on with this post.
I am not sure if my Humans Tierney and her partner John will like this post, because I am going to tell you of how they attempted to COMPLETELY TERRIFY me by taking me on a day trip to Seven Falls in Colorado Springs, Colorado and making a death-defying vertical climb up the scariest stairs I’ve ever seen, with me in a backpack!
Here we are at Seven Falls before the terror started:
Seven Falls, according to the Broadmoor’s website (yes Miniature Schnauzers are capable of online research, duh) Colorado Springs Seven Falls, is Colorado’s most majestic waterfall.
The only waterfall in the state on National Geographic’s list of International Waterfalls, and often called “The Grandest Mile of Scenery in Colorado,” Seven Falls is situated in a 1,250-foot-wall box canyon between the towering Pillars of Hercules. Take in stunning valleys, striking rock formations and golden prairies as you climb the challenging 224 steps to the hiking trails and the banks of glistening streams that feed the falls, and its 181-foot drop of falling water.
Did you notice the phrase in the quote above: “as you climb the challenging 224 steps…”? To me it seemed like they were climbing 224,000 steps to get to the top as I was looking our the backpack on the back of John’s back.
Here is the photo my Human Tierney took (she caught the photo during a moment that I had turned my head to take a break from the terror I was looking at below):
Oh! My Human Tierney just walked in while I am working on this post, and is now insisting that I share more photos from this day trip to show the climb was worth it.
Although I don’t agree, here are a bunch of random photos from our day trip to Seven Falls. Just know the photos I like the best are the one’s taken on the ground before the crazy climb, even if the Humans think the climb was worth it!
All I see when I look at these photos are rocks, rocks and more rocks. But the Humans seem to enjoy the scenery in Colorado.
Here is the scenery I really enjoyed: after we climbed back down the 224 steps (and the Humans’ legs were like jello), we found a nice place to have a picnic before heading home:
And here I am trying to convince the Humans that I’ve earned a sampling of their food:
So that’s the end of my story, here I am putting the finishing touches on this guest blog post:
You will hear from my Human Tierney again after she catches up reading her blogging buddies posts (and she’s let them go too long without reading). Hope she gets her act together!
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer that manages Tierney and her partner John (who I will refer too as “the humans”), guest blogging for this post.
I heard the other guest blogger that lives in my house, the tierneycreates Beastie, was going to be posting soon and I wanted to get my post in before hers. She is the one with that fake schnauzer “Mikelet”. I cannot believe the humans named him after me.
But we don’t need to discuss our guest blogger rivalry, I do not want to interfere with your enjoyment of my excellent post.
So if you’ve been following my female human’s blog, you’ve noticed that she’s been up to a lot of traveling since late Spring. You might wonder what becomes of me when she and the male human go out of town (or into “storage”, see post “Human Storage” and Airport Lore).
Well I go to Dog Camp.
A couple years ago the humans found a family who only watches small dogs (the best kind in my opinion) at their home; and they live near us.
I really like Dog Camp because they throw the ball for me as much as I want, there are lots of fur people my size there, and they give me special treats with my meals such as mashed sweet potatoes and chicken.
But what I really like are all the cute little female dogs to hang out with there. I am a single (and yes neutered) guy and I like hanging out with the girl dogs, what can I say.
Now personally I believe that: “what happens at dog camp, stays at dog camp”, but the lady who runs Dog Camp, keeps taking photos of my exploits and sending them to the humans! Is there no privacy??!?!
Since the humans already know, I thought I would share some of the photos and video from previous dog camps. I sort of have a thing for cream-colored girl dogs and here are a couple of my girlfriends from previous dog camps:
But sometimes the girls go a little crazy over me (which is understandable) as in this incident below captured by the female human that manages Dog Camp:
Ladies – there is enough of me to go around – stay calm!
But that is enough, I have to keep some secrets from Dog Camp.
My male human is trying to help me fend off the girl dogs by going incognito with some shades for next time:
Hi this is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney of tierneycreates and her partner John.
I saw that the tierneycreates Beastie did a guest blog post, so I wanted to do one too.
Since you last heard from me (see February 2021 post Guest Blogger: Obsession with Making Crocheted Dishcloths), I’ve been busy overseeing remodeling projects by my human John, just like in the post from 2020 Guest Blog Post: A Whole Lot of Remodeling Going On.
I spend a lot of time in home improvement stores (Lowe’s and Home Depot) and I love riding in John’s truck as his co-pilot:
He always has my box ready to go behind the seats, which I ride in whenever I am in a home improvement store helping him select the next round of home remodeling supplies:
(Note, I’ve gotten a summer haircut recently and look less shaggy)
I’ve met a lot of staff and customers while riding around in my box in home improvement stores, and the other day John wheeled me in via the shopping cart into Home Depot and heard “Hi Mike!”
It was one of the cashiers greeting me as I went by! They remember my name.
Same thing happened that day when he had to go to a different home improvement store.
I am sort of a local celebrity!
John and I have been working on sprucing up the backyard. I oversaw his installation of pavers under a bench that Tierney found on clearance to place under the large Aspen trees in the backyard; his installation of pavers under their new backyard swing; and his building of a privacy screen for the backyard patio area.
I was pretty exhausted after all that work!
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer who lives with the human Tierney.
I was reading Tierney’s posts (yes Miniature Schnauzers can read, duh) and I was wondering how she was going to keep up her current practice of daily posting to her blog (since February 11, 2021).
She was having difficulty getting motivated today and I don’t want to break the streak, so I offered to guest blog for today’s post.
You’ve probably read some of my other previous guest blog posts like The Inpatient Schnauzer: Update on the Granny Square Afghan (Guest Blogger), and Guest Blog Post: A Whole Lot of Remodeling Going On; and was highly impressed by how well I write without opposable thumbs, so I suggested to Tierney that I treat you to another sample of my writing.
Aren’t you lucky!
I thought I would combine discussing a crafting project and me (as it is important that I am one of the main features of this post) for this post.
For years Tierney has a huge stash of cotton yarn that a friend gave her over 20 years ago:
Well Tierney decided a couple of months ago that it was time to do something with this stash. She needed new dishcloths in the kitchen, so why not crochet them herself out of her old stash of cotton yarn? Additionally it was a great portable project when in the car or waiting around, etc.
She put together a little zippered bag of yarn, crochet needles and supplies:
She’s been taking this bag everywhere with her, especially on car rides, and I am not sure I like this.
Why? Because when she is the car her primary responsibility is to pet and cuddle me while the car is moving.
Instead, I’ve had to cuddle with the yarn:
Also she has mocked me with the yarn and placed it on my head while crocheting as if I were some live furry yarn holder!
Finally, I’d had enough and resorted to just cuddling with the dishcloth she was working on to block her progress and make her re-evaluate her priorities!
She did laugh and stop crocheting to love on me (how could she have refused?)
She even had me pose for some selfies in the car with her but as you can see I am still a little perturbed that I was ignored for part of the car ride:
I am sure in time I will emotionally heal.
Oh I should probably close this post with an image of what the washcloths look like completed and you will see on the left one actually in action (wet from being used to washed dishes!)
Wait. I think I hear you all saying that you wished another image of me would close this post. Your wish is granted – here I am finishing up the post. Hopefully my human will get her act together for tomorrow’s post.
And to schedule me for a desperately needed haircut!
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer who lives with Tierney of tierneycreates. I am guest blogging on this post as you may have noticed Tierney has not blogged in a while and someone has to keep you updated…at least on my frustration.
If you saw this post like 3 weeks ago (maybe less, Schnauzers are not great with their perception of time) Update on the “Granny Square Madness”, she has been working on (like forever…or “fur-ever” as we say in canine) on a granny square afghan after teaching herself to make one via videos on YouTube.
Well I’ve been waiting a long time for it to be finished and I am getting very impatient!
(First I need to tell you that afghans and other cozy blankets are the “natural habitat” of Miniature Schnauzers)
I first fell in love with the afghan when it was just a couple of square she had made:
Then she made more squares and my love of this afghan kept growing and I would sneak in to lay on them whenever I could:
Now that she finished 90 granny square blocks, she is SLOWLY (at least in the Schnauzer-Time-Space-Continuum perception) putting the afghan together.
And I cannot wait.
I’ve begun nesting in it, while it is in assembly, any time she steps away from it:
I’ve even begun nesting in it while she is working on attaching the blocks together (note the crochet hook on the lower left):
She’s tried to appease me by wrapping me in it, but I am not fooled:
Do I look “appeased”?!?!? Nope. I want a finished afghan.
Unfortunately she only has 3 rows together and has 7 more rows to add:
Unacceptable.
She has a system on the guest room bed where she has stacked the individual blocks for each granny square row (so I won’t topple over the rows and mess up her order like I was doing when they were laid out on the living room floor):
She says she is working on it as fast as she can but has this full-time job thing going on and other life activities (poor excuses).
I know I mentioned somewhere in this post that a partial afghan might do but on further thought it does not. I want to nap in the full completed thing!
Here are some photos of me “not appeased” to close out this post:
Now get to work Human!
Recently I’ve had several guest bloggers on my tierneycreates blog – Wendy Hill (a human) with her series on her Quarantine Quilt collaboration (see link Quarantine Quilts for all the posts); and the tierneycreates Beastie (non human, monster) announcing her new Beastie partner (see link Beastie Adventures for all her posts).
Well Mike the Miniature Schnauzer (non-human, canine) was feeling a little irritated that he had not been invited to guest blog. So I guess it is his turn…
Hello Bloglandia.
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer. I am dictating this post as although I might secretly have opposable thumbs that would allow me to type for myself, I like to keep certain things secret from my humans.
It’s my turn to do a guest blog post! My adopted sister Sassy (who passed in December 2017) used to have her own blog, Schnauzer Snips: Musings from a Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer. I am not asking for my own blog, just to be invited to guest blog once in a while so you can read about life from a Miniature Schnauzer’s perspective.
I am a rescue (I rescued my humans from life without me) and if you’d like to read my story it is on this post – Taking Chances: The Mike Hogan Chronicles (re-post). I lost one of my humans (male human, Terry) suddenly in December 2018 but my female human (Tierney) and I have been making the best of our new life in the metropolitan Denver Colorado area since April 2019 (see series of posts Colorado Bound).
I now have the new male human in my life (John) nearly fully managed as you will see later in this post.
I’ve been spending a lot of time at home improvement stores during the pandemic. My humans have been working on a lot of remodeling projects and I am trying to supervise them as best I can.
Back in late March/start of April 2020 my humans made the decision not to move to a new house they were going to buy and instead to stay in their current abode (see post Perspective) due to the initial financial crisis in the early days of the pandemic.
Staying in their current residence meant fixing it up so that both humans were happy with it and it met their needs.
For my female human, that meant redoing her studio (see post Guest Blogger: tierneycreates’ “New” Studio Tour); and for my male human it meant building a workshop for his woodworking in the daylight basement:
His workshop is still a work in progress but he is very happy to now have his own “playroom” like my female human!
So you might ask – what did it mean for me? Well it meant lots of trips to home improvement stores for supplies.
Sometimes on my male human’s back:
And sometimes in the shopping cart:
I know, I know, you just can’t get enough of the cute photos of me in a shopping cart. Unfortunately my female human said we have to limit the photos to only four (4) because she has to protect her digital storage allotment on her blog (sigh).
The humans also did a lot of “fixing things” in the house to include dangerous high altitude ceiling fan installation:
Yes that is a ladder, on top of scaffolding. Looks pretty safe to me (NOT!)
My male human even figured out during the early days of the pandemic how to fix their dryer himself by watching YouTube videos and ordering parts:
He also completely redid the garage, drywalling it in, painting it and installing shelves:
He also built bookcases in the front room to create our “home library” as my female human mentioned in this post – The Library Book and the Home Library. In this post she promised to share updated photos (and forgot), so I guess it is up to me to make sure you see how the room turned out:
Most recently he added in a shelf behind our living room TV to distract your eye from the fact the flat screen TV is in front on an alcove (circa early 2000s) for a large deep TV. This was my female human’s idea from looking at too much Instagram home decorating feeds!
I am sure there were a lot more home remodeling projects that occurred over the past four (4) months but this is all I can remember since I was sleeping through many of them.
When I am not overseeing the humans while they complete their home remodeling projects, I am going on bike rides. I appear to have convinced my human John to ride me around on his back in addition to carrying or shopping-cart-driving me around stores!
Here we are headed out for a bike ride and then on a bike ride (in the second photo my female human Tierney is behind us dangerously taking photos while bike riding…)
In honor of Friday August 26 being “National Dog Day” and in celebration of Mike’s 2 year anniversary with us, here is a re-posting of a post from 11/27/15:
Making a decision whether to “take a chance” on something or someone, is part of life. We all face decisions on whether to take chances related to work, family, relationships, finances, environment, career, artistic endeavors and so forth. Most of the time there is no guarantee that the chance we are taking is the right one to take.
Even the most evaluated, considered and researched “chance” requires an element of risk and an element of faith that it will work out. Otherwise it would not be “a chance”, it would be “a certain”.
In September 2014 I took a chance that required a very large element of risk and faith, and that chance’s name is Mike Hogan.
(Usually any posts about the miniature schnauzers are done on Sassy the Highly Opinionated Schnauzer’s page Schnauzer Snips, but she gave me permission to post on this topic.)
Meeting “Cujo”
For nearly 24 years we have adopted miniature schnauzers from rescue organizations. Our first miniature schnauzer, Kerie, was from a rescue organization in Houston Texas, where we volunteered as Caring Critters Animal Assisted Therapy Volunteers, visiting health care facilities, residential homes, and shelters with animals to foster the human-animal bond.
After our first rescued miniature schnauzer, we were addicted to the breed. Kerie passed away after we had moved to the Pacific NW, and we adopted our next rescued miniatures schnauzers (two brothers, Fritz and Snickers) through Miniature Schnauzer Rescue, Inc. and all future rescued miniature schnauzers.
In July 2014, after losing the second of the two miniature schnauzer brothers we had adopted from Miniature Schnauzer Rescue, and applying for another rescued dog from the organization, we were contacted about a miniature schnauzer “Michael” that needed a new home.
Michael was a troubled rescue – surrendered by his family due to excessive nuisance barking and aggression. We first met Michael at the end of July 2014 at his foster parents’ home. After meeting him, I nicknamed him “Cujo” (yes, after the terrifying rabid dog from the Stephen King book and movie), I gave an apologetic but firm “NO” on adopting Michael.
To summarize his behavior when I first me him: He was insane. My husband Terry however saw something in Michael and was willing to give him a chance but I quickly talked him out of it.
Alright, You Can Come Home with Us
In September 2014, we were contacted by the rescue organization asking us if we would reconsider adopting Michael (they were persistent!). He had been living between two foster homes (Michael needed to be shared!) and the rescue organization had brought in an animal behaviorist to work with him. I am not sure what convinced me to say yes to meeting with Michael (aka “Cujo”) again but I did.
When we met Michael again in September 2014, he was a bit calmer and we could see the good work his foster parents, in two different homes, had done with him. He was still territorial and moderately insane. I had a lot of hesitancy but my husband Terry felt strongly that Michael needed to come home with us, and I agreed to give Michael a chance. (My primary fear was that Michael, with all his territorial issues, would not fit into our very social lifestyle).
When we loaded Michael into our car, he became very quiet and calm on the ride home to our house. He seemed like a different dog once he got into our car. He got along well with our other rescue dog Sassy on the ride home.
The first couple of months with Michael were challenging – he had anxiety issues, engaged in plenty of nuisance barking, had leash aggression and was very territorial to anyone trying to come into our house. He even chewed on one of my quilts (it was an old quilt and I was able to repair it but it was very upsetting and I was worried for the other quilts around the house).
My husband Terry was very patient with him. We spent a lot of time working with him and renamed him “Mike Hogan”. (He appears to love his new name “Mike Hogan” and his tail goes wild whenever we say it.)
One of the Great Loves of My Life
It is now 14 months later and Mike Hogan is now one of the great loves of my life (as are all my dogs). He is still territorial at times (though we are now able to have friends over without him being too insane as well as bring him over friends’ houses); he still has a bit of leash aggression and he still likes to bark.
These things do not matter as he is the most loving, cuddly, sweet dog I have had in my entire life. Every night I go to sleep snuggled to him and every morning I wake up to him nestled against me. He insists on sharing my pillow with me. He is obsessed with my husband Terry, and I refer to Mike as “Terry’s Fan Club President”. He is also very sweet to his adopted miniature schnauzer sister, Sassy, who we got a year before Mike.
Mike Hogan now knows quilts are for napping and snuggling in, not chewing. He appeared to sense how upset I was when he chewed on my quilt when we had first adopted him. He is attuned with our moods and seems to want to make us or keep us happy. He continues to struggle with wanting to protect his home and his people versus being open to meeting strangers and giving them a chance. He has learned to trust us: if we act like someone is okay, then they just might be okay!
One of the things I did with Mike Hogan during the early days of adopting him is continually tell him “you are safe” and “we are your forever home”. You can debate whether or not you believe dogs understand human language but in my heart I feel he heard me.
He obviously suffered from anxiety, as confirmed by a veterinarian friend of mine, and by continually making him feel safe and loved, he settled down. I cannot imagine not having adopted Mike Hogan, he was a chance well taken! (I am forever grateful to the volunteers at Miniature Schnauzer Rescue who encouraged us to revisit giving him a chance).
Living with fear stops us from taking risks, and if you don’t go out on the branch, you’re never going to get the best fruit. – Sarah Parish
By the way, I now lovingly call Mike Hogan my “sweet little Cujo”…
Making a decision whether to “take a chance” on something or someone, is part of life. We all face decisions on whether to take chances related to work, family, relationships, finances, environment, career, artistic endeavors and so forth. Most of the time there is no guarantee that the chance we are taking is the right one to take.
Even the most evaluated, considered and researched “chance” requires an element of risk and an element of faith that it will work out. Otherwise it would not be “a chance”, it would be “a certain”.
In September 2014 I took a chance that required a very large element of risk and faith, and that chance’s name is Mike Hogan.
For nearly 24 years we have adopted miniature schnauzers from rescue organizations. Our first miniature schnauzer, Kerie, was from a rescue organization in Houston Texas, where we volunteered as Caring Critters Animal Assisted Therapy Volunteers, visiting health care facilities, residential homes, and shelters with animals to foster the human-animal bond.
After our first rescued miniature schnauzer, we were addicted to the breed. Kerie passed away after we had moved to the Pacific NW, and we adopted our next rescued miniatures schnauzers (two brothers, Fritz and Snickers) through Miniature Schnauzer Rescue, Inc. and all future rescued miniature schnauzers.
In July 2014, after losing the second of the two miniature schnauzer brothers we had adopted from Miniature Schnauzer Rescue, and applying for another rescued dog from the organization, we were contacted about a miniature schnauzer “Michael” that needed a new home.
Michael was a troubled rescue – surrendered by his family due to excessive nuisance barking and aggression. We first met Michael at the end of July 2014 at his foster parents’ home. After meeting him, I nicknamed him “Cujo” (yes, after the terrifying rabid dog from the Stephen King book and movie), I gave an apologetic but firm “NO” on adopting Michael.
To summarize his behavior when I first me him: He was insane. My husband Terry however saw something in Michael and was willing to give him a chance but I quickly talked him out of it.
In September 2014, we were contacted by the rescue organization asking us if we would reconsider adopting Michael (they were persistent!). He had been living between two foster homes (Michael needed to be shared!) and the rescue organization had brought in an animal behaviorist to work with him. I am not sure what convinced me to say yes to meeting with Michael (aka “Cujo”) again but I did.
When we met Michael again in September 2014, he was a bit calmer and we could see the good work his foster parents, in two different homes, had done with him. He was still territorial and moderately insane. I had a lot of hesitancy but my husband Terry felt strongly that Michael needed to come home with us, and I agreed to give Michael a chance. (My primary fear was that Michael, with all his territorial issues, would not fit into our very social lifestyle).
When we loaded Michael into our car, he became very quiet and calm on the ride home to our house. He seemed like a different dog once he got into our car. He got along well with our other rescue dog Sassy on the ride home.
The first couple of months with Michael were challenging – he had anxiety issues, engaged in plenty of nuisance barking, had leash aggression and was very territorial to anyone trying to come into our house. He even chewed on one of my quilts (it was an old quilt and I was able to repair it but it was very upsetting and I was worried for the other quilts around the house).
My husband Terry was very patient with him. We spent a lot of time working with him and renamed him “Mike Hogan”. (He appears to love his new name “Mike Hogan” and his tail goes wild whenever we say it.)
It is now 14 months later and Mike Hogan is now one of the great loves of my life (as are all my dogs). He is still territorial at times (though we are now able to have friends over without him being too insane as well as bring him over friends’ houses); he still has a bit of leash aggression and he still likes to bark.
These things do not matter as he is the most loving, cuddly, sweet dog I have had in my entire life. Every night I go to sleep snuggled to him and every morning I wake up to him nestled against me. He insists on sharing my pillow with me. He is obsessed with my husband Terry, and I refer to Mike as “Terry’s Fan Club President”. He is also very sweet to his adopted miniature schnauzer sister, Sassy, who we got a year before Mike.
Mike Hogan now knows quilts are for napping and snuggling in, not chewing. He appeared to sense how upset I was when he chewed on my quilt when we had first adopted him. He is attuned with our moods and seems to want to make us or keep us happy. He continues to struggle with wanting to protect his home and his people versus being open to meeting strangers and giving them a chance. He has learned to trust us: if we act like someone is okay, then they just might be okay!
One of the things I did with Mike Hogan during the early days of adopting him is continually tell him “you are safe” and “we are your forever home”. You can debate whether or not you believe dogs understand human language but in my heart I feel he heard me.
He obviously suffered from anxiety, as confirmed by a veterinarian friend of mine, and by continually making him feel safe and loved, he settled down. I cannot imagine not having adopted Mike Hogan, he was a chance well taken! (I am forever grateful to the volunteers at Miniature Schnauzer Rescue who encouraged us to revisit giving him a chance).
Living with fear stops us from taking risks, and if you don’t go out on the branch, you’re never going to get the best fruit. – Sarah Parish
By the way, I now lovingly call Mike Hogan my “sweet little Cujo”…
tierneycreates 