Pigeons in the Robin Box - What D'you Do?

I wanted to start this entry out with a beautiful image - our "Jane" magnolia, blooming in August. This doesn't happen very often in Nebraska; magnolias bloom first thing in the Spring before the leaves show up. The delicate pink flowers stood out nicely against the dark green foliage, and I loved it.

Now, on to the rest of the story.

Once upon a time, there were two pigeons. These pigeons had cased the entire neighborhood, looking for someplace nice to nest. Apparently, nothing was good enough; not the high eaves of the house (the eggs might roll out); not in a tree (they might actually have to build a nest); but finally, they settled on the Robin's nest box (after all, it wasn't being used at the time). The two of them, lovebirds that they were, squeezed themselves into the nest box and thought, "This will work." They laid two eggs.

After a while, the eggs hatched. Along with the chicks, a dilemma was born: how on earth would two big fat pigeons fit in the nest-box with the two chubby chicks?

The parent birds figured it out. One squashed itself above the nest box, right up under the eave of the house, while the other stood watch on the nearby rooftop. They watched vigilantly while their chicks grew and grew. (I tried to get a good picture of them nestled in the Robin's nest-box with their tiny hineys hanging out, but I need to get a better camera for such shots). Finally, they grew big enough that it seemed that they took turns being squashed inside the nest box.




First one, and then the other took a turn breathing the fresh outside air (how I can tell which is which is a question I hope you will not ask - they could be the same chick, for all I know).



Tonight when we drove up, we noticed something odd - there was something dark on the chimney, where it angled down to the fire box. It was one of the chicks!




You could almost see the other little pigeon gleefully taking up as much room as possible in the nest box - it had to be crowded in there. Finally, s/he could breathe! S/he did look a bit lonely, though.




I'm not sure exactly how it happened - how the pigeon chick actually got from the nest-box to the chimney. All I know for sure is that s/he's there to stay. Poor thing, it can't be comfy hunkered down like that, but when your life is on the line, you do what you have to.



I parked my car as close as I could to the chimney tonight. I'm hoping, if the little one falls off the chimney, it won't have as far to fall - and it would have to be more comfortable on the top of my car than on that rough brick.

The little bird is just beautiful - these photos don't do it justice. A dark slate blue, with just a hint of the irridescence it will have as it reaches maturity.

I just hope s/he makes it!

Akida/Tess

I’m not sure a trip to Omaha actually qualifies as a “road trip” since it’s only about an hour away from Lincoln, but a friend asked me when I’d be updating my blog, and I figured, what the heck - I do have another little story to tell.

Most people who know me know I love dogs, and that I’ve always been a Shelter Seeker. I browse the websites of different shelters, even if I’m “full up,” because one never knows when one might see a dog that a friend (or even a friend of a friend) could adopt. The Capital Humane Society is always first on my list, since I found Tim, Winnie and Star there (and because they’re local). The Nebraska Humane Society is also high on my list. I rarely search out places like Hearts United for Animals. For one thing, they’re a no-kill shelter, so there's no "deadline" - and for another, there’s some bad blood there between us. But I won’t go into that.

Last Monday, July 26, while browsing the Nebraska Humane Society’s adoptables, I saw “Akida.” She’s a beautiful little Husky mix, and sort of reminded me of Winnie with her long nose and slight build, with one exception: beautiful blue eyes. It was love at first sight - with reservations. When you’ve had a dog or two (and had your heart broken a time or two), you realize that “love at first sight” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I decided that, "if everything worked out right," Akida would be a good addition to our pack and might fill the yawning empty space that Winnie left behind.

Several things had to happen for everything to work out:

1. She had to still be there by the weekend. Although I have some vacation time, I wasn’t going to take it to go see Akida. I’d rather spend it taking half-days after adopting a new dog, to acclimate him/her to our household.

2. She had to pass my initial inspection. If she was hyper, she wouldn’t fit in at all. I also hoped to feel some sort of bond with her.

3. She had to pass Harry’s inspection.

4. Last, but definitely not least, she had to get along with Tim and Star.

I decided that if Akida was still there on Friday afternoon, I would drive up to Omaha on Saturday, and if my initial assessment was positive, I would drive back home, pick Harry, Star and Tim up, and then we’d see how things went.

As the week progressed, I must have checked on Akida twenty times a day. Each day she was still there, the hope that it was "meant to be" built. I had a mental image of me walking her and Star. (Tim goes on walks with us less and less these days – his kidney disease is taking its toll). By Thursday, I had renamed Akida “Tess.”

Akida/Tess was still there Friday afternoon. My friend Sheila, when she learned I was going up to Omaha to visit a dog, called me Friday night and asked if she could come along. (I’m pretty sure it was because they had two greyhounds up for adoption - Sheila adopts retired racers). We came to an arrangement: since Sheila always wants to drive, she would pick me up at 8:30, which would give us plenty of time to get lost in Omaha and still find the place before they opened for adoptions at 10:00. If everything worked out, I would call Harry, and he would drive the furkids up in the Dogmobile.

I have to admit, it was difficult to sleep Friday night, and Saturday morning came dark and early. I woke up at about 5:00 and couldn’t get back to sleep. I called Sheila at about 5:45 a.m. (luckily, she's an early riser) and told her that if she wanted to come over earlier, Harry had said he’d make her some eggs. Sheila got to my house at about 7:00, we ate breakfast and then we were on our way.

Saturday proved to be a lovely day. Although it started out almost foggy, the sun broke through and things started warming up rapidly. Sheila and I located the Nebraska Humane Society with no trouble at all. It’s a fabulous facility, situated in an old grocery store - a big one - and is obviously well-funded. It was beautifully landscaped and everything is well-tended. A very old granite fountain with built-in dog drinking bowls burbles out in front of the building and colorful pots of flowers bobbed in the morning breeze. I love that fountain (and later, so did Star and Tim). While Sheila and I waited for the doors to open, we met “Reno,” the male greyhound, who was out being walked. We talked to him and petted him, but even as he submitted to our attention, all the while he looked past us as if to say, “You are of no importance. I have nothing to say to you.”

At 9:45, we went inside, handed our completed adoption applications to the folks behind the counter and, in return, were each handed one of those little buzzer things you get at restaurants. Mine went off first, so Sheila and I both went up together. The kennel attendant, a nice young woman named Serena, took us to a visiting room, and then brought Akida in. Akida, in person, was absolutely stunning, even more beautiful than her photo on the website. A creamy white with butterscotch highlights and crystal blue eyes, she stood about knee-high. She was on the thin side, had a bit of a limp due to a deformity of one of her front feet (possibly an old injury left untreated) and it looked like her tail had been slammed in a door - it had healed into a sharp right angle. Serena explained that their vet had decided surgery wasn't necessary for either of these conditions, but that any potential adopter should be aware that Akida might need pain medication in the future. Sheila and I played with her for a while. My fears about Akida’s energy level proved unwarranted, since after an initial burst of energy she settled right down and ended up napping on the floor. She was very vocal, and sang a funny “aroowowr” sort of singsong when she asked for a treat. All in all, she seemed like a great candidate for our pack.

I put a $30 non-refundable deposit down on Akida, and then I called Harry to ask him to come up and bring the Star and Tim to meet her. (He must have been nearly as excited as I was - he told me he'd be there in an hour and half, but when I called him back in less than 15 minutes to ask him to bring the kids' tags and collars, he was already a third of the way along.) While Sheila and I waited for Harry, we walked through the kennel area and looked at the dogs waiting for adoption. The kennels are all well-lit and clean. Each dog has one of those PVC hammock-type beds and a blanket. There was only one dog barking his fool head off, and the rest actually seemed pretty content. Some of the smaller rat-terrier types were shivering, but overall, I could imagine that if you weren't on a nice couch or waterbed, this wasn’t that bad a place to be. Sheila loves the older dogs, and she was nearly in tears when we discovered “Cookie,” a 14-year-old dachshund. Poor little thing, her eyes were clouded with cataracts, and when I put my finger through the bars of her cage, she toddled over and tentatively licked it. Sheila lost her heart, and marched right back up to the counter to request a visitation with her.

Harry arrived shortly after that, and he came into the shelter to visit with Akida while I sat in the car with Tim and Star with the air conditioning running. After a bit, I took Tim and Star for a walk - there's a wonderful, grassy area right next to the Shelter - and while we were over there, Sheila called me on the cell and told me Harry was in meeting Akida and if I wanted to bring the kids in, it wouldn't be long. Tim and Star behaved beautifully in the facility. They’re accustomed to being in nursing homes and those kinds of places, but not humane societies, so I wondered how they would react. People admired them and petted them while I peeked through the window and watched Harry interacting with Akida. He’d brought Marro-Bones in his pocket, clever man. It appeared that Akida was charming him. When he looked up and saw I was standing there, he motioned for me to come in, and Sheila held Tim and Star while I went in and talked with Harry and the adoption counselor. She didn’t waste time, that one. She turned to me, cocked her head to one side and said, “You need to know that this dog is an escape artist. This is not the first time she's been here, and once a dog that loves to run (like Huskies do - and I have two of them myself) learns this behavior, she's going to continue to do it. If you take her home, you will have to put up a trolley system with a cable or keep her chained, even though you have a fenced yard.” I told her we had a dog door, and suggested that we could keep her in Star’s crate and just let her out when we were there, and she said, shaking her head, “She’d be gone in an instant.”

It was right about then that Sheila got buzzed to go visit with Cookie, so our adoption counselor offered to go hold Star and Tim while Harry and I conferred about Akida. I didn't get the feeling the kennel lady really didn’t want us to take Akida - she just wanted it all to work out. She told me she’d been doing this for 15 years, and that in her view, just getting a dog adopted was not necessarily a success unless the dog never came back to the shelter. I thought about Mikey, my little Dingo dog who we used to call “Houdini” because he could escape from any fenced yard, and realized I really didn’t want Akida to come home with us and teach Star how much fun it would be to run, not to mention the fact that she could be hit by a car or God knows what. And I really don't want to keep a dog on a chain its whole life, either!

So, it was tough, but I decided, and Harry agreed, that Akida a/k/a Tess just wasn't the right fit for us.

We waited for Sheila to come out of her visit with Cookie, and when she did, I could tell immediately by the wistful look on her face that she’d come to the same conclusion with Cookie. Poor little Cookie had never lived with other dogs or cats and had been surrendered because her elderly owner just couldn’t take care of her any longer. How heartbreaking that must have been for both dog and owner!! Sheila has a boisterous young greyhound and a crabby old cat. Cookie’s cataracts make her very jumpy when she feels something is looming over her, and when Sheila tried to lift her up, Cookie snapped at her, so Sheila’s lovely mental picture of sitting on the couch watching TV with Cookie by her side just wasn’t to be, since there was no way Cookie could jump up on the couch without Sheila lifting her up there. So, Cookie went back to her kennel, too. The attendant that brought Cookie to see Sheila reassured her, though - the dogs at the Nebraska Humane Society stay there until they get adopted. What peace of mind that gave us both!

On the way home, we stopped at Wendy’s and had burgers for lunch (each of the dogs had their own bacon cheeseburger).

On Sunday, just because I can’t seem to help it, I went back to the Nebraska Humane Society’s website. My $30 deposit on Akida, although not refundable, is transferable to another dog any time within the next 60 days. Akida is no longer at the Nebraska Humane Society - and neither are Cookie or the two greyhounds, so, you see, there was a happy ending for some, after all.

That empty spot Winnie left seems even bigger now, but I know that, when the time is right, the pup will come who will be Star’s playmate, our Silken Snuggler, and Tim’s friend in need.

Until then, I guess I’ll just keep Shelter Seeking.