Dr. Jasmine and Mrs. Hyde

Our Boxer, Jasmine, is just a wee bit on the crazy side.  She has two distinct personalities: inside dog and outside dog.

When Jasmine is inside the truck or house, she is the picture of sweetness.  She looks at me with love, waiting for the merest suggestion of command to do my bidding.  Words that come to mind are: calm, attentive, obedient, and good-natured.

Inside dog: "May I help you?"

When she is outside, Jasmine is the picture of demented craziness.  She pulls at the leash as if my very presence is toxic and also goes deaf the minute the door is opened.  Every sound, shadow, and smell is of the utmost importance to her and requires her immediate attention.  Words that come to mind are: spastic, psychotic, possessed, and attention deficit order.

Outside dog: "Chase all the things!!"

Jasmine will chase anything, including birds that are flying, the shadow of herself on the ground, and tree stumps that look threatening. In South Florida recently, she discovered lizards. They were everywhere; in fact, Florida may have almost as many lizards as old people. Walking down the sidewalks in Sarasota, she was more spastic than usual as lizards scurried about in front of her.  I'm surprised her little brain didn't explode with all the things that needed chasing.

She may not remember sit, stay or who I am while we're walking, but she knows where the lizards live and this bush will never be the same:

She attacked that bush every time she got near it after seeing lizards run into it once.  Twenty years from now, that bush will be gone and in its place will be a condominium for old people (Florida's largest commodity besides lizards) and Jasmine would still stare intently at that very spot where there was once a lizard. 

Hopefully the old people won't mind being stared at by a crazy Boxer.

If only Jasmine could use her laser-like focus for something other than chasing lizards, she could probably do great things, like fix the economy or make me a sandwich.

No matter what she does though,
that face is hard to resist.

But I *would* like a sandwich.

Pungent Polecat or Curious Chupacabra?

 National Geographic skunks are cute.
Real ones? Not so much.

You may want to back away from your computer a bit before you read any further. This week the Tumbleweeds do not smell nice. 


What's black, white and stinky all over and does not want to be BFF with Jasmine? Skunk. Polecat. Stinktier.


Our crazy, sweet, wild, obedient dog decided to ambush some weeds to find out what smelled so darn good. I'm sure a dog that eats goose turds like they were french fries, finds eau de Pepe Le Pew delightful.

It all started innocently enough. Jasmine and I took our last walk of the evening behind a warehouse complex, in Mesquite, Texas. We were parked for the night at the consignee, where we would deliver in the morning. The property was surrounded by fields and lots of grass; it was quiet and we were the only people there, a rare find for us.


I had her on leash, since we are still practicing that particular skill. Picture trying to walk the Tasmanian Devil and you have a pretty good idea what it looks like. It was dark and she was on hyper alert, as always, ready to attack tree stumps and boulders at the drop of a hat. She kept pulling, yanking, and lunging to get these nefarious threats and I was getting tired of it. So when she started pulling so hard she was standing on her hind feet, I let go of the leash, ready to laugh when she realized it was just a clump of tall weeds. The laugh was on me.


She stormed into the weeds, thrashed around and came out foaming at the mouth like Cujo, flinging drool everywhere and smelling like a rancid Chupacabra. In fact, the smell wasn't like the skunk odor I was used to from roadkill. You know that smell? It was different somehow, acrid like burnt rubber and so strong I could taste it. I never saw the creature in the weeds, maybe it was a Chupacabra.

From Fox News. This is the stuff they
report on when they aren't looking
for Obama's birth certificate.

I did a little research on the Google but never came up with any other aninmal that sprays in self defense like a skunk. 


Fact: There are seven major volatile compounds that make up skunk spray. As shown here:

No idea what this means. 

But I don't need fancy chemistry to know that they all combine to stink like crazy and attach their nasty little compounds up my nose and everywhere else. Jasmine got sprayed right in the mouth, the poor little dummy; I wonder if she'll try to make friends with a skunk again. Probably.

As you can tell, the smell is really bothering her.

Tumbleweed Math and T-Rex Ninja Skills

Or, how 60 pounds of dog changes everything.

First the truck becomes even smaller. A mathematical ballet of sorts must be performed every time someone changes position, since there's only about 4 square feet of floor space. 

A. Driver seat.

B. Passenger seat.   

C. Four feet of floor space 

D. Bunk 

1. Himself 

2. Me

3. Jasmine

It basically goes like this:

While driving, 1 and 2=A+B and 3=D unless 3 is eating, then 3=C. If 2 needs to make a sandwich then 3 must equal B or 2 will have a hissy fit about her bubble being intruded upon.

Sometimes 3+1=A (as shown in figure 1a)

Figure 1a

Standard Operating Procedure wherein 1+2=AB-3xD (as shown in figure III)

figure III

Next, the fat lazy Tumbleweeds have to walk. A lot. 

Without a dog the day went something like this:

Wake up. Eat. Drive. Eat. Drive. Eat. Sleep.

With a dog:

Wake up. Walk the dog. Feed the dog. Drive. Stop and walk the dog. Drive. Stop and walk the dog. Eat. Walk the dog. Feed the dog. Walk the dog. Sleep.

And lastly I have to regain my ninja skills. I do the final walk the dog in the evenings alone to give Himself a chance to relax without me nagging him finish his log book and catch up on paperwork. I like the evening walks, just me and Jasmine. She's a really good listener and always agrees with me. She thinks I'm quite smart.

At most truck stops we can usually find a field, some woods or other non-peopled place. I try to give her a good walk, not just a quick pee in the nearest grass but I also try to stay in well lit places. The closer we are to cities we are, the more wary I am. Hobos in the bushes that want me to pet their red-nosed pig, I do my best to avoid.

I carry a knife. I try to look confident and like I would be too much trouble to mess with, (I am). I put myself in the frame of mind that if I were to be attacked, it will be a battle to the death, where I fight dirty and win and not wait around being a nice polite girl and get kidnapped by a sociopath who chains me in his basement, starving me so he can make a suit out of my skin. Not gonna happen.

I believe this mind-set will serve me well. 

One time I even squared up to face a two men who looked like they were trying to flank me. They were approaching in my direction as I was walking along a fence when they suddenly split up and came toward me from different directions. I put my back to the fence, stood firmly facing forward, my hand on the knife in my pocket and assumed a "I will kill you" look. They walked right past me. Oh, yeah. I'm tough.

In truth, I don't even think they saw me but I have a really active imagination and I had already plotted out the fight, their death and me being interviewed by 60 Minutes, Chuck Norris giving me an award and Angelina Jolie playing me in the movie about my brave fight.

Ima go all crazy T-Rex on you!

Three Tumbleweeds, Festus and Some Wyoming Facts

****Breaking News****

There is a new Tumbleweed in the truck. Her name is Jasmine and she is awesome. A 3 year old brindle Boxer who has been in foster care for 6 months after being surrendered by people who starved her because crack is expensive they could no longer afford to feed her. 

Deep thoughts.

Serious face.

It's been a year and a half since we lost Harley our first Boxer. I have written about her some, but she died before I started this blog so she never really got to be a famous Tumbleweed like us. Now that there are at least 3 people who read this who aren't related to me I'm sure the movie of our lives is being planned in Hollywood right now. I'm sure they'll want Festus to play my part. *fingers crossed*

We got her from the angels at  Black Hills Boxer Rescue in South Dakota, which is about 3 hours from where we live in Wyoming. We picked her up last Wednesday while we were home for a week and I forgot my #1 rule for driving around Wyoming and it's neighbors, which is to always bring food.

We had a light breakfast and a busy morning and left around noon, excited at the prospect of getting our four-legged daughter. In the first 100 miles we had passed a gas station and a Subway but held out because we thought we could wait for something a little better; we eat so many sandwiches in the truck that I avoid them when I can in our off time.

One of the sprawling urban areas of Wyoming.
Yes. Population 1.

You know how in cartoons one character looks at another and sees a steak dinner? That was how I was beginning to feel. We found a Taco John's around the 200 mile point, before Himself lost a finger, but I won't make that mistake again. I love the sparseness and open spaces of Wyoming and the fact that it's not very populated but it's not a good state in which to have low blood sugar!

Sidebar:

Did you know the population of Wyoming is only 563,000? The New Jersey Turnpike has more people on it at any given time than we have living in the whole state!
Wyoming was the first state to give women the vote, the first to appoint a female justice of the peace and elected the first female governor. Wyoming is so friendly to women that even in our small town of Douglas (pop. 5,000) there are no fewer than 14,987 hair salons.

Can you believe she wants her seat back?

This is our first week in the truck with Jasmine. The truck is a little more crowded, a little more stinky but there's a whole lot more love and we are tickled to have her!

Adventures from the Wayback Machine

Hey it's October how did that happen??

Last night the Tumbleweeds were in Jackson, Mississippi at the Flying J truck stop. The last time we were here we had our dear Harley, aka the best dog a Tumbleweed could have, and she and I had a little adventure.

Let's get in the Wayback Machine and cue up that harp music that accompanies having a flash-back. 

There we were in for the night in Jackson and Himself catches up on his logbook and I take Harley for a walk. It was dark and in the back of the parking lot was a patch of woods behind a fence. A nice bit of grass lined the length of the fence so we headed back there and I let Harley off her leash to get in some free sniffing. It was fairly lit on the grass side of the fence but behind it loomed the dark woods, thick with trees, I couldn't see anything. 

Harley was ahead of me happily sniffing back and forth at the fence line when she suddenly got still and the hair along her back went up. Her mohawk, we called it. I called her to come to me but she started chuffing at the fence. I was getting creeped out and didn't want to get close the fence but I was worried for her too. Naturally, she wasn't listening to me, so I walked up to her and put the leash back on. 

I couldn't see anything but I could feel we were being looked at from behind the fence. The hair on my neck was standing up too. A voice from the dark "Is that a Pit-Bull?" I almost jumped out of my skin. The barking began in earnest, Harley style, which sounded like a rooster with laryngitis. She was a Boxer, but I figured the guy might be scared of a Pit-Bull so I said yes and pulled her away, pretending to hold her back from ripping his throat out. In truth she never met a person she didn't like and would happily go off and live with Jack the Ripper probably. She saw the best in everyone. The disembodied voice called "I got a red-nosed pig, wanna pet it?"

We got out of there but fast. I never got to see the red-nosed pig, thankfully. Harley and I made a bee-line back to the well-lit and crowded parking lot, grass be damned, she would have to make do on the pavement. We didn't go back to the truck immediately, in case we were being watched. I didn't want to be murderlized in my sleep by a red-nosed pig.  

Harley's gone now so I didn't get a chance to repeat that little adventure. I would though. I'd love to hear that little sick rooster bark again.

Walking Among the Ruins

We didn't discover an ancient civilization but we did have a nice walk among the junk in memory of Harley.

Today we are in Northern Illinois. We stopped for the day early enough to walk among the corn and soybean fields and happened upon this old abandoned equipment. Harley would have loved this walk; scaring up rabbits that hide under the junk, sniffing at the pile of something that smelled rotten, playing hide and seek with us in the cornfield.

Harley was our boxer and we lost her in December. She had been having seizures for about year, but they were under control with medicine. One day the medicine quit working. She had a seizure and then another and another and never really came out of them. We spent five days trying everything the Vet suggested but in the end we had to let her go.

I don't look too closely at the end. It starts looking back at me and I have to divert my eyes, look away. So I focus on her and the dog she was, is really because she's still with us, we talk to her all the time.

 In fact, since she peed and pooped in every state we drive through we can't get away from her. It's comforting to think her scent may still be in all the places we walked. I'd even like to think some of her poop is still out there somewhere!

She was a good dog. Not because she obeyed, she rarely did, especially if antelope were involved and she wasn't particularly smart and her breath smelled like a garbage can behind a fish market. When she yawned, you knew it.

 All that I would take back in a heartbeat though. She was a happy dog. That's the best way to describe her. A go anywhere do anything happy to be with her peeps dog. She was so friendly, I think she regarded the whole world as her fans. She loved people but not in a needy, big-eyed, greedy pet me way. Just, "hey! I'm happy to see one of my loyal fans, if you want to pet me I"ll wait". Of course, if it was dark and time for bed then forget it, a diva needs her sleep.

She was one in a million and the perfect dog for us. She is part of us and we are better for having known her. Our time was too brief, but rich. And worth every minute.