Dog Number-Six

Dog number-six: “Scarlett.” (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

“Scarlett” is Dog Number-Six.
Casey, long ago, was dog number-one, Tracy was dog number-two, Sassy was number-three, Sabrina was number-four, and Killian was number-five.
Scarlett is a rescue Irish-Setter, just like Killian and Sabrina, although Sabrina was more an already home-settled dog, returned to her breeder nearby due to divorce, and the inability of her master to keep her (the old apartment gig).
Scarlett is a rescue-dog, but from Ohio; fairly young, but already a mother twice — turned over to rescue because her owner wanted to switch to breeding small dogs. (Big dogs didn’t sell — does anyone understand the point of an Irish-Setter ain’t moolah?)
Looks like she didn’t get much attention; now she’s thrilled to get it.
The compromise was a meet-and-greet in Buffalo; about 75 miles away.
Getting to the Thruway is a half-hour; Buffalo a straight shot west of about 45 minutes.
Our intended meeting-place was a house in an old city residential area.
It looks like Rochester’s tree-shaded 19th Ward — houses from the ‘30s and ‘40s.
Buffalo has an urban core, but this was far away. Still Buffalo though.
We had Google-maps, but they failed to note the lack of a westbound exit onto the northbound avenue we intended. So we ended up going farther west, and got off the inbound expressway onto a highway on our map.
I then turned north onto another street, that was unmarked at the intersection, but we later discovered was a street we could use.
It crossed the street the house was on but with little warning, so we continued north under a railroad viaduct.
“What railroad is that?” Linda asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Too bad Jack’s not here.”
We turned left onto another street my old directions Jones indicated would be parallel to our destination street.
I turned left (south) onto another street and back under the railroad tracks.
Buffalo has railroad tracks galore. Like Chicago it used to be a major railroad hub. There are lots of abandoned railroad rights-of-way.
The railroad was smack through the residential area. Seemed fairly busy too; I heard a train once.
Finally we turned back east onto Crescent Ave., the street we wanted, and began noting house-numbers.
Our target was a gambrel-roofed abode that had been thoroughly modernized and added to.
A deck had been built on back, with a hot-tub and an above-ground pool. Trash was in a hidden cul-de-sac I thoroughly investigated numerous times with various dogs. “You must be the Hugheses,” someone said. “Just go around back, and take a seat.”
An older guy from the nearby Rochester suburb of Penfield was there with his wife; the whole point of the meet-and-greet — they wanted to get a dog.
The Ohio Irish-Setter rescue lady brought four dogs — great; now I gotta turn down two.
One was a puppy, maybe six-seven months old. No puppies for us.
Another was “Charlie Brown,” a big lazy bozo that acted more like a Labrador-Retriever.
The third was “Rhett,” who was scared of all the other dogs. He finally had to be returned to his crate in the minivan; he was a nervous wreck.
Killian was a nervous wreck too; which is why I hate walking away from nervous wrecks.
“Charlie Brown” hooked up with me right away — “a man’s dog,” they said — but kept wanting to lay down or go in the house.
But Scarlett is a happy spaz; the essence of Irish-Setter.
She started thumping her tail as soon as the side-door of the minivan opened.
“I don’t know how you could ever keep up with that wiggling monster,” the Penfield lady kept saying to me. “I know I couldn’t.”
“We just had a dog like this,” I said. “Extremely high-strung. That’s what we want.”
First choice was the Penfield people; we were only there by coincidence.
Around-and-around they went. I guess hubby was positive, but wife was up-in-the-air.
The puppy was alert, and quickly ascertained that a mirror wasn’t an enemy dog.
“If I wanted a puppy, I woulda taken that dog without hesitation,” Linda said.

(Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

Finally, after over two hours of hemming and hawing: “I guess we’ll give it a shot.” said the Penfield wife.
Their idea is to train the puppy as a therapy-dog, which may or may not work.
After all, it is an Irish-Setter.
She also was worried the puppy might charge through their Invisible-Fence.
“A puppy is less likely to do that,” the rescue-lady said.
“A puppy can be trained, and their threshold of pain is lower.”
“An adult dog that has already charged through an Invisible-Fence in pursuit of critters will do it again.”
So back on the Thruway with Scarlett in our crate.
She’s a fairly large dog, so was cramped.
Now that we have her home, I’ve already walked her on our paths.
She keeps jumping on me: “Let’s do that again, Boss.”
What’s most depressing is walking away from Rhett — that nervous dog needs a home.
And poor Charlie-Brown.
Already returned from one placement that didn’t work out, and still without a home.
“Well, you can always take all three,” the rescue-lady said.
“One dog is enough,” I said; “and we go with the spaz.”
“That tail sold me as soon as I heard it,” I said.
“Looks like that other couple got what they wanted,” the Penfield people probably said.
“Did you see that dog bouncing and wiggling all over? I could never handle a dog like that.”
(They probably shoulda taken Charlie Brown — I bet that puppy grows into a high-strung dog; he’s a field-setter, like Killian. A therapy-dog has to be laid-back.)

RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines.

RE: “Casey, long ago, was dog number-one, Tracy was dog number-two, Sassy was number-three, Sabrina was number-four, and Killian was number-five.” —Casey was not actually our first dog. Our first dog was “Stacy,” a Lab-mix we got from a dog-pound. We gave her away after a week or two, after she bombed our landlady’s bedroom, an act I thought was hilarious. Our landlady was furious and wanted the dog out. —We had Tracy and Sassy at the same time, except Sassy ran away and disappeared well before Tracy died. Sabrina and Killian were also together; and Sabrina died March 2007; Killian just recently.

RE: “Too bad Jack’s not here.....” Jack is my supposedly all-knowing brother-from-Boston, who noisily claims I have no knowledge of railroading at all. I’ve been a railfan all my life.

RE: “My old directions Jones......” —This is my ability to find my way, which is excellent.

“Killian” was our previous dog; a rescue Irish-Setter. He died recently of lymphatic cancer. —He was over 10; we never knew his birthdate.