{"id":7735,"date":"2021-02-27T18:30:56","date_gmt":"2021-02-27T23:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7735"},"modified":"2021-02-27T18:34:14","modified_gmt":"2021-02-27T23:34:14","slug":"episode-267-when-tara-got-pregnant-a-dog-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7735","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 267 WHEN TARA GOT PREGNANT: A DOG STORY"},"content":{"rendered":"
EPISODE 267    WHEN TARA GOT PREGNANT: A DOG STORY<\/p>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Feb. 2021<\/div>\n

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We called her Tara.  Named after the estate in the movie Gone With the Wind.  She was a coonhound.  Not so<\/div>\n
common in Southern Ontario.  Those  who know much about dogs and like to impress said \u201cNever get a coonhound\u2026hunting<\/div>\n
dogs\u2026they will take off on you following a scent and never return.\u201d  Well, that never happened.  Tara to our family was as porridge is<\/div>\n
to breakfast.   We could take her to the sugar bush and let her loose to nose around but she never lost sight of where we were.<\/div>\n
And not just because she liked the taste of maple sap.   She liked us.  And  we felt the same about her.<\/div>\n

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We knew something about animals  but not nearly enough. <\/div>\n

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 \u201cAlan, don\u2019t you think Tara should have pups?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNever gave it much thought.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWell, I am going to search around for a male\u2026seems every dog in<\/div>\n
Ontario has been neutered.  Not easy to find a male.\u201d<\/div>\n

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Marjorie found one\u2026purebred male coonhound.  Perfect.  She introduced<\/div>\n
them to each other and fell in love. Too fast for Marjorie.  Tara was about as<\/div>\n
heterosexual female as they come.  Her lover felt the same. <\/div>\n

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This is where things began to go wrong.  They were both left alone for a<\/div>\n
time in our backyard.  Almost instantly he jumped on Tara\u2019s back holding on<\/div>\n
tightly with his front legs.  His thingamabob was ready\u2026heading in the right<\/div>\n
direction.  \u201cHouston, we have made contact,\u201d as they say in the space industry.<\/div>\n

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They certainly made contact.   Next time Marjorie looked Tara was facing south<\/div>\n
and her lover facing north.  They were locked!  Normal when dogs have sex.<\/div>\n
But Marjorie did not know that.<\/div>\n

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\u201cOh, dear, she\u2019s going to snap his thingamabob in two pieces.\u201d<\/div>\n

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And  Marjorie ran to the house and got a pail of cold water. Ran back<\/div>\n
and dumped the whole pail on the two lovers.  Marjorie figured that<\/div>\n
would cool off the love affair and allow him to get back to his owner<\/div>\n
in one piece as it were.<\/div>\n

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Later, Marjorie discovered that it was normal for dogs to get locked<\/div>\n
in this rather disgusting fashion.<\/div>\n

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All was not lost.  Tara was very pregnant and one fine spring day she<\/div>\n
delivered eleven\u2026yes, eleven\u2026coonhound pups.  Now that posed another<\/div>\n
couple of problems.  Our back yard was deep\u2026400 get and unfenced.<\/div>\n
The pups ate like stink. And grew and grew.  I tried to contain them by building a walled enclosure but<\/div>\n
the higher my brick wall got the higher the pups got\u2026over the wall.  Lucky<\/div>\n
that Tara was a good mother.  She cornered the pups if they got too far away.<\/div>\n

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The Mississauga news  got wind of our good fortune and sent a photographer<\/div>\n
\u2026big news.  Nice clipping in the paper that has been on our refrigerator for<\/div>\n
decades.   Kevin and all the puppies.<\/div>\n

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\u201cMarjorie, what are we going to do with 12 coonhounds?   Start fox hunting with the idle rich?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNo, Alan, I will run a sign and we will find owners for them.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHunters?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cGet serious.\u201d<\/div>\n

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So Marjorie interviewed all the potential owners of our pups.  Lots of men came<\/div>\n
because coonhound pups were rare.  The interviews went something like this.<\/div>\n

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\u201cLovely dogs,\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cyes, they are lovely.  Do you hunt?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYes, Ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWell you better head home because you  are NOT getting one of our pups.\u201d<\/div>\n

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The reason Marjorie felt that way was because one late November day we found<\/div>\n
a beautiful hound sleeping on our farm verandah.  He was not ours.  His owner was no<\/div>\n
where to be found.  A day or so later the owner arrived saying. \u201cI left my old coat<\/div>\n
for him back in the bush.  Usually he finds it and waits for me.  He goes  off on a <\/div>\n
scent and I cannot keep up with him.\u201d  That line of B.S. did not cut it with Marjorie.<\/div>\n
Neglect, she concluded.<\/div>\n

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And the other reason was another hound we knew about down the Fifth line.  Nice dog<\/div>\n
chained up in the barn all year.  Only let loose in hunting season.  Two weeks of freedom<\/div>\n
then back on he chain.  There was a circle around his kennel in the barn where his chain<\/div>\n
had rubbed the ground.  That was the limit of his world.<\/div>\n

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Another  story kept surfacing of people finding hounds abandoned  at the end of the hunting <\/div>\n
season.  Left to run wild.  Left to die or get picked up by the humane society.  Or shot by a<\/div>\n
farmer for worrying sheep.   Not sure how true the story was but it was enough<\/div>\n
for Marjorie to conclude that no hunter would get one of Tara\u2019s pups. And none did.<\/div>\n

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There also was tragedy. We kept one of the pups and named him Shadow.  A beautiful loving kind<\/div>\n
of dog.  Obedient.  Too obedient.  He got loose one day and wandered down the street following<\/div>\n
a scent of some kind.  We saw him \u2026 only about four houses down from our place.  <\/div>\n

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\u201cShadow, you get back here right now.\u201d<\/div>\n

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He turned.  Looked  at us an came prancing back. He never saw the car coming south<\/div>\n
and the driver had no chance to see him.  We cried\u2026and cried.<\/div>\n

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Tara looks a little ferocious in this picture.  Not os.  Gentle as a lamb.<\/div>\n

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She did not bark much but when she did bark then her booming vice echoed through the bush or down a city street.<\/div>\n

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Did she miss her pups?  Take a look at her face and draw your own conclusion.<\/div>\n

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Alan Skeoch<\/div>\n
Feb. 2021<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EPISODE 267    WHEN TARA GOT PREGNANT: A DOG STORY alan skeoch Feb. 2021 We called her Tara.  Named after the estate in the movie Gone With the Wind.  She was a coonhound.  Not so common in Southern Ontario.  Those  who know much about dogs and like to impress said \u201cNever get a coonhound\u2026hunting dogs\u2026they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}