Vehement Solutions for Trivial Problems: September 2021

Duchess

Adopted 1996, passed May 2006

We adopted Duchess from the St Paul Humane Society, where we'd been volunteering, within 24 hours of buying our house in Richfield after going "just to look." Duchess was our 'first born,' which was good, because she was a bit of a handful. She was a real dog's dog, and had a tremendous amount of energy- whoever got home from work first had to take her out immediately and throw the frisbee to wear her down. If she was really amped up, she'd race around the house a few times for no real reason. Andy played all kinds of games indoors with her, including sitting on the floor and quickly moving a toy from hand to hand around his body so she'd run around him panting for minutes at a time. He could also get her to run up and down the stairs repeatedly by pretending to throw things.

She was the valedictorian of her obedience school class. We could place a biscuit on her nose and she'd wait for the signal and catch it each time. Andy would put her in a sit-stay and take the leash off, go halfway down the block, then call her and race her home. She always won
She loved to play fetch- she'd wear us out before she wore out. She could track a frisbee over her shoulder and had great accuracy leaping for it in mid-air
Her instinct to fetch sometimes translated in odd ways, such as when she insisted on repeatedly taking swimming noodles away from people in the lake and putting them on the beach. She also dragged our toddlers away from us and back to shore when they were on floats
She loved taking running leaps off the end of the dock chasing a tennis ball, You could throw the ball as far as you could and she'd find it in the water and bring it back
Despite being an "only child" for a while, she adjusted surprisingly well when we brought both kids home as infants. When we brought Meg home from the hospital we let Duchess sniff a blanket Meg had peed on in the hospital. Duchess inhaled the scent intently, then sat down with a resigned look that clearly signaled 'alright, I understand- bring her in.' She was always patient with the kids, even when they used her as a jungle gym or bossed her around in their toddler voices
She was a great high-chair clean up crew, although at times a little over-eager in cleaning up the kids while still in the chairs. Will would sometimes yell out "Dushess" and we'd see her with her head buried deep under the highchair tray cleaning up his lap
Once she was standing by me when I was changing a diaper, and an arc of loose yellow baby stool streaked down her head like a strange mohawk. She looked up at me with a dazed look as if saying "what just happened?"
She had a naughty streak. She'd try to steal food off the counters, like a loaf of banana bread in the middle of the night (family legend is I woke up and raced downstairs in record time and saved the loaf), and an ice-cream bucket filled with monster cookies. She figured out how to steal strawberries and tomatoes from our garden. Sometimes Andy would find teeth marks in tomatoes still on the vine
She was a nervous car traveler and would throw up regularly, even when going places she loved. She had an amazing ability to sense when we were getting close to the cabin (but before we would turn or make any other car moves- we never figured out how she did it) and would become crazed with excitement. That dog could really whine
She was nervous in other circumstances, like the time she put her head through a glass door at the cabin when we were on the boat, and the time she destroyed the garage door at my mom's house
She injured her knee playing frisbee and we had to have her ACL ligament surgically repaired, after which I did the rehab protocol

Her health started to really fail not long after we moved to Bloomington in early 2006, and unfortunately Andy had to bring her for euthanasia when I was away in Japan on a business trip.

Sadie

Adopted Sep 2006, passed June 5, 2013

We adopted Sadie from Ragom. We were told Sadie came from Iowa, where she was surrendered as a result of a divorce and subsequent moves that would not accommodate a dog. She came with pure-bred golden papers. Unlike any of our other rescue dogs, there was no adjustment period for Sadie. She walked right in and was at home immediately. Sadie was always smiling. It helped that she was pretty dumb- she didn't seem to fret about much. She was quite heavy when we got her, but lost weight with diet and daily walks. Regardless, she was built for comfort, not speed, and disliked most forms of exercise. She would get hot and pant, and her tongue was amazingly large.

She was so dumb she once got lost in our minivan and had to be escorted out. She failed the "blanket over the head" intelligence test by allowing the Andy's baseball cap to remain over her for minutes, until we finally took it off in sympathy
She didn't play any dog games, which at times was a disappointment for Andy- her favorite activities were napping and sitting around smiling
She never misbehaved, except one time, during Christmas when we used a baby gate to keep her out of the living room for the young Poeschl kids, and she jumped on the table and stole the julekaka in protest
At the cabin she loved to poop in the lake, much to everyone's disgust
Once I came home from work after a big thunderstorm and she didn't greet me at the door as usual. I called for her, and started searching but I could not find her. I finally found her wedged completely under the guest bed in a stupefied state, and it was a big effort to pull her free
She was so docile you had to remember where she was- the kids would put her in a closet, or you could leave her outside in the cold and she would never bark to remind you where she was. She also never barked when anyone came to the house
As she aged, she slowed down and started to have more problems with the stairs going up to our bedroom. We had to help her up the stairs by holding her back legs up as she climbed. We tried putting her bed at the base of the stairs so she wouldn't have to climb them, but she whimpered pitifully until we came to help her up the stairs

Chester

Adopted Aug 2013, passed May 2, 2019

After Sadie passed, we were watching the Ragom website for another dog, and Andy was looking only at female dogs. I told him he was being sexist and we should look at male dogs. He said he didn't want to risk a dog that stopped and lifted his leg every few minutes on a walk, but I insisted we look at them. We went to a Ragom event featuring some available dogs and Meg selected him with an air of great certainty after he leaned on her. They told us of his history being found running loose through the countryside in Iowa, perhaps after escaping or being left. We polled friends and family for name suggestions, and settled on Chester. Chester had a bit of a rough adjustment. Will and I brought him to an outside event, where he freaked out and broke loose of his collar. A stranger caught him as I hollered running after him. If we tried to leave the house without him, he'd get frantic, once knocking Will over and putting the doorknob through the door. A consult with a dog behaviorist didn't help much so the vet prescribed anti-anxiety meds, which quickly helped significantly. Once he settled in, which took a few months, Chess was just chill. He was cool with whatever the day entailed, and would follow you around the house. He did well in obedience classes, and Andy noticed he had superb and relaxed greeting skills at the neighborhood National Night out, so he pursued the effort of earning a pet therapy certification through Pet Partners in April of 2015. Chester started going to work with him at St Joseph's hospital weekly, often Thursdays. He loved it so much that by Wednesday of each week, he'd start pestering Andy to go.

Unlike our other dogs, he wasn't much of a swimmer and preferred to stay out of the water. He also didn't like to walk on the dock, and his toes would spread out
We paid to have his DNA analyzed, and the results were straight-up lab
He was a big hit at soccer games, drawing lots of attention from kids
When given a stuffed toy, he would set out to "kill" it immediately, disemboweling the stuffing within minutes
He was very food motivated, and he never forgot a person or location of a snack. In the mornings he would herd me towards his food dish for breakfast. He would start drooling and blowing bubbles when food was on the way. Elizabeth invited him into their mini van a few times to find all of the dropped cheerios and goldfish crackers
Because he was hungry all of the time, we learned he needed a bedtime snack. Occasionally if we fed this to him too early, he'd forgot we fed him and refuse to come to bed
He once snuck up behind a study monitor at work and gulped a muffin she had on the table without chewing. From then on when Chester came to work the call went out to "watch your muffins"
We once threw a party for neighbors that turned into a loud dance party. At one point I looked over and he was asleep right in the middle of the living room dance floor
Andy would tease him by poking him in the ribs until he started wrestling. His only other game was tug-of-war, but he was really good at it. A variation on this was playing tug-of-war with the ankle of Will's old sweatpants, earning him the nickname "the nibbler"

Harriet

Adopted 9-29-19

Harriet is a little (just 50 lbs) sweetie. When we met her, she looked up into our faces and put her paw on our leg. Another Ragom dog, she was born in the country of Turkey and Ragom paid to have her flown to the US. She lived with another family in the Twin Cities for a couple of years before being surrendered back to Ragom. She has hip dysplasia, but the vet assured us it would be unlikely to detract from her being a great companion.

She's an avid hunter. She loves to watch squirrels and chipmunks for hours. She gets excited about dogs and animals on TV. Disney's 101 Dalmatians is her favorite movie
She's got such a hunting drive, in fact, that within several days of getting her we had to find a new home for our aquatic African Clawed frog, Stan, whom we'd had since Mar 2009. The way she plastered herself against the aquarium we knew something bad was going to happen if we weren't proactive
She loves going camping and hiking, anything outdoors. However, she doesn't like hiking when it's warm. We were hiking up at the North Shore in July on a particularly warm day, and she was dragging. We came to a puddle on the trail and she flopped in it and couldn't be convinced to get up. We had to cut the walk quite a bit short
Andy has taught her how to play wrestle a bit, and if she gets really excited she'll zoom around the coffee table several times, the "zoomies"
She loves to be on the porch, sleeping in a sunbeam and looking out the windows, or in the winter by the gas fireplace (but not a wood fireplace- the crackling noise frightens her)
She loves being in the water and whines to get in whenever she sees water. She can swim back and forth for hours. We've taken her on a couple of walks in which she even laid down in puddles
She's taken the longest of our rescue dogs to really let down her guard (and given her background it makes sense). She's always been obedient and pleasant, but aloof, spending hours looking out the window. She started becoming much more affectionate and attached about two years after we adopted her
In Jan 2023, Andy got Harriet certified as a pet therapy dog, this time through the Alliance of Pet Therapy Dogs. Preparation involved a number of practice trips to Home Depot. She loves going to work with him and navigating the way to Starbucks for a pup cup.