Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Our "Roxy", The Wonder Dog.

We had been talking about getting a dog for a long time... actually since we met. We knew it would be a German Shepherd dog (GSD). We knew that it would be a male. We knew that we would name it "Rex". What we didn't know was if it would be a puppy, or perhaps an older (1 year old or so) dog. We both love dogs so much as we both know how much they can add to our lives. Bill previously had Ben and Bonnie, which were Labrador Retrievers and Mary had Kaiser, which was a GSD. However, given that we had gone 'full-time' in the RV lifestyle and have had so many changes within it... 3 motorhomes in the last 3 years, sales of homes, changes of vehicles, etc., we have continuously opted to wait for the right time.

However, now that we have opted to establish a winter residence at Arizona Legends and built a Casita here, we also realized that if we wait any longer it would be too late to do so until next year, as soon we would be hitting the road for another year of spring, summer and fall RV travels. So we started looking for puppies, so we could housebreak it and train it for traveling. Then, we found Saving Paws Rescue in Glendale (Phoenix) in Arizona and started reading about all the great GSD between 1 and 10 years old which have had really bad, abused lives and desperately needed someone to show them Love. The more we looked at them, the more we convinced ourselves that such was the way for us to go and had pretty much decided to go check out a 2 year-old boy named Duke. Well, a Duke is not as high as a Rex (King), but we could always change his name. We filled out the application to adopt and submitted it. They called us the very next day and said we would be perfect to adopt, since no children and no other pets would be involved, so we could give all our loving and attention to a deserving dog. They asked if we knew which dog we were interested in adopting. We said "Duke", if there is a good connection both ways  when we meet him. They said "So sorry, Duke was just adopted by someone else and is no longer available. Our hearts sank with disappointment but explaining that we wanted a dog for a companion to take hiking with us while traveling in the RV and spending winters in Benson, we were told that not all the dogs were on the website and that they had another GSD available, but that it was a female, about 5 years old.
They sent us some photos of her and for Bill it was love at first sight. It was Friday evening, February 22, 2019, so we made an appointment to drive out to Phoenix (about 175 miles from Benson) at 1:00pm on Sunday. Mary took a few days longer, but when she saw that beautiful girl came out the door and went straight for her to be loved on, Mary fell in love too.

Her name was Wonder, or at least that is what she was called either by the Rescue staff, or by the older couple who had found her wandering the street in California, picked her up and called a friend of theirs that worked as a volunteer at the Saving Paws Rescue in Glendale (Phoenix), who drove to their house to pick up the dog and bring her back to the shelter. The consensus of opinion is that she had belonged to a back-yard breeder and that after several years of turning out puppies for sale, he/she either tossed her out or somehow she escaped. It was clear from her teats that she has had many pregnancies. A requirement of the shelter is that all dogs be either spayed or neutered before being adopted, so she was spayed in California and it was found at that time, that she was pregnant yet again, so sadly once opened for spaying the Vet had to take the unborn puppies.

We were both in love with this beautiful girl and determined to give her a loving and protective balance of her life, hoping to counter all the abuse she has endured so far. So we signed the paperwork, paid the $350 adoption fee (which basically just covers the spaying, and all her shots, a collar and leash and the food they send home with her) and took her to our pickup truck. We opened the back door and waited to see what would happen. Would she be hesitant to get into the vehicle? Would she able to jump up high enough to the back seat? Was she going to endure the 3+ hour ride back home without stopping for a potty break? SURPRISE! She jumped right up into the back seat floorboard and then unto the seat and rode back there all the way back home, sleeping part of the way and displaying a beautiful smile as if she knew she had found her forever home with us.

Ever since getting our girl home she has not ceased to amaze us as to what a good girl she is. She had a small accident on the first day, but that was our fault because we failed to acknowledge that her whimpering by the French doors meant she needed to go potty, and the events of the day added to her stress which she just couldn't wait for us to let her out. That was the only accident she had. After that we have taken her for several walks from 6:30am  to around 11:00pm and she has not messed up in the house. On our walks she has met different people and other dogs and has demonstrated an even-tempered and docile demeanor, always gracious to all that we introduce her to. She has come across wild rabbits, squirrels, birds and such other critters and not made any effort to chase anyone. Actually to date we have not even heard her bark at anyone.

There is a Facebook group for the adopters, foster parents and volunteers of Rescue Dogs from Saving Paws Rescue Arizona (SPRAZ) and it seems that most of the people there have all kinds of issues with the dogs they have adopted. We have had NONE. Our girl does not wander (sometimes we let her walk unleashed outside, around the Casita and she sticks right next to us), she does not chew on shoes or furniture or anything else, she has a very calm and docile demeanor (though we feel assured that if someone acted threatening towards us she would display her bad side to them. She does not bark. So far we have heard from her only once, to let us know that she was tired of staying in the same place at Petco, and she wanted to keep going... not a bark even, just one of those complaining yelps (once only). She allows other puppies to jump on her and big dogs to bark at her, and just ignores them.  She is such a good girl.


We have experimented with commands to which she has not displayed having been trained to obey. No Sit, Stay, Lie down, Off, Place, etc. and when she walks on the leash she is all over the place and tugging. So we realized that we would have to take her to a professional trainer to make her life., and ours with her, more mutually beneficial. In campgrounds she will run into other animals (dogs, cats, etc., as well as wild critters) so she would need how to behave. We also don't want to also have her on a leash, being able to walk on hiking trails by our side yet able to wander a bit, though know that she would always come back immediately, if we called her, as she could run into wild critters or rattlesnakes. So we signed her up for a two week Dog Obedience Boot Camp (as Mary calls it) though actually it is a professional dog trainer who teaches dogs to walk off-leash by your side (maintain a 6" distance from your left leg, turning as you turn, stopping when you stop, etc.), and all the basic commands, Heel, Come, Sit, Lie down, Place, Take, Release and such. He also can train for protection with three secret words, one which engages her protective mode to protect us from an attacker, another to engage the attacker and another to release and hold the attacker once the threat has been controlled. These last three we probably will never need as we want her as a Companion Dog, not for protection, as Bill usually always has the S&W 9mm readily available.

 
 
 
It has only been two days since we brought her home but we couldn't be happier with our choice of a dog. We know we are going to keep her for as long as she blesses us with her life intertwined in ours, hoping that we can make up in some small way for all the abuse she has had to endure until she found us... and we found her.

Here are some more photos of our girl, "Roxy", The 'Wonder' dog...











  










 

Thursday, February 14, 2019

February 12, 2019 - Whitewater Draw Wildlife Refuge near McNeal AZ


February 12, 2019 – Having spent the last several (5-6) months working on the construction, furnishing and decoration of our Casita in Benson AZ, to be our ‘winter residence’, and then the last two months recuperating from Bill’s VA total knee replacement, we decided to step out and try a short drive/hike visit to the Whitewater Draw (a State Wildlife Refuge Area) in McNeal Arizona (about 30 miles from the Mexican border town of Douglas AZ and Agua Prieta MX, where thousands (25,000 to 35,000) Sandhill Cranes stop at during their national migration, arriving around October and leaving in March to April, headed back up North, as do the ones that go to Florida.
 
 
 
Mass Ascension of several thousand cranes from the field where they had been feeding all morning. They are very social birds and socialize, flying, feeding and doing most things together. Except for mating season, the males are often found to travel in small groups of males together.
 




Mary watching awed by the sudden ascension of 1,000+ cranes from the open field. 

Entrance to the Whitewater Draw Refuge.

Mary signing us in.



The Whitewater Draw Wildlife Refuge Area (formerly a cattle ranch), was purchased in 1997 by the State of Arizona and is now managed to enhance wetland habitats and provide waterfowl habitats, as well as management for plains leopard frogs, and for wildlife viewing by the public. Since 1997, the Arizona Game and Fish Department has made substantial improvements to make this a premier southeastern Arizona wildlife viewing site. Available water is managed to provide marshland, mudflats, and open water areas, even during droughts, when water is even pumped into these mud flats to keep the area enhanced for the ecological wildlife it supports. Viewing opportunities have also been enhanced with viewing decks, an interpretive trail, viewing scopes, and an educational kiosk, all in the interest of allowing excellent viewing opportunities, while not disturbing the wildlife that lives or visits this area. Several ponds surrounded by native vegetation provide habitat that has become rare in southeast Arizona. Native grasslands, with intermittently flooded wetlands surrounded by agricultural fields, provide shelter and feeding opportunities for the cranes and a wide variety of other birds, amphibians, and reptiles in this area.
 






The number of wintering Sandhill cranes has increased dramatically since the 1950s, and over 30,000 Sandhill cranes may be present in winter, making this the premier crane viewing site in Arizona, October through March, yearly. The number of water birds wintering here has also increased in recent years, and thousands of ducks and other water birds are usually present all winter. Wetland birds include a wide variety of ducks, geese, herons, egrets, and migrating shorebirds, gulls, and terns. The small stand of riparian woodland attracts many migratory birds including warblers, vireos, flycatchers, orioles, tanagers, grosbeaks, buntings, and sparrows. In this area and neighboring areas, it is said by the AZ Department of Fish and Game that are some of the best places to see wintering birds of prey, including Golden Eagles, Prairie and Peregrine falcons, Northern Harrier, Cooper’s hawk, American Kestrel, Red-tailed hawk, Merlin, and Rough-legged hawks. Certainly in our own back yard in Benson we have often seen Peregrine falcons and the American Kestrel and Red-Tailed hawks. One even landed on the parapet of our roof from where he or she could scope the open field behind us.
 
 


 
Mammals that can be found in the area include the javelina, coyotes (not the Mexican illegal immigrant traffickers, although there are certainly some of those in the area too with Mexico just a few miles away), mule deer, black-tailed jackrabbit, and the cute desert cottontail. Whitewater Draw also features the healthiest and most stable of the plains leopard frog populations in the state. This frog is one of the most narrowly distributed of all Arizona leopard frogs. A variety of other amphibians live around and breed in the draw including the Green toad, Great Plains toad, Mexican spadefoot, and Sonoran Desert toad. Some of the more common reptiles of the area include Western Hog-nosed snake, Gopher snake, Nightsnake, Desert Kingsnake, common Side-blotched lizard, Texas Horned lizard, and Southwestern Fence lizard. One of Arizona’s more unique invertebrates, the whip-scorpion or ‘vinegaroon’, can be commonly viewed in this area as well (boots are encouraged), particularly after sunset on paved roadways (with a black-light).
 


Mary well-covered from the sun as her Northerner milky-white skin is sensitive to the sun 

One group of Sandhill cranes, with a dust-devil (sand or dust whirlwind) in the background).

They settle down in various groups but usually based on where the standing water ponds are, as that is where they feel safe for spending the night to evade predators as they can hear their movement through water and the cranes can take off in a second. There is plenty of water ponds to accommodate everyone.











Notice the different species sharing the ponds. They can do so because of their varying individual feeding habits and needs not infringing on each other. 

Bill, after all the weight he lost (70 lbs.) for his knee surgery. He went from a waist size 44 to a 34, from a 2XL shirt to a L. Now walking pretty good on his new knee from Dec 4, 2018.



We had planned to go around 6am to be there around daybreak, as that is when the Sandhill cranes (like the ‘Mass Ascension’ of all the hot-air balloons talking off at the same time during the Albuquerque International Baloon Fiesta in NM in October yearly), ALL take off together and fill the sky, leaving their roosts to go feed in the neighboring alfalfa fields and circular-wheeled irrigated fields; then they return to their roosts around noon. However at 5am when we awoke it was still 28 degrees outside so we opted to delay our departure and went around 10am, arriving there around 11am. Still we had a great day as by then the temperature was in the 50s and as luck would have it, as we approached the Whitewater Draw area, turning (South) on N. Coffman Rd, off of W. Davis Rd, we found an entire field full of Sandhill cranes (still feeding). We pulled off the road to take photos and not more than 10 minutes later the entire field of cranes elevated and took to flight heading back to their roosts about a mile away, in the Draw. WOW!!!! That was an awesome sight.
 
 


Then as we parked at the Whitewater Draw Refuge and saw the rest of the cranes already there (over 15,000 to 20,000 we were told) our jaws dropped and our cameras started clicking. This is awesome. To all our friends in FL who see 10-20 cranes flying together and call it a ‘flock’, we can only say ‘FLOCK THAT… This is a flock. J The cranes spend the night in the shallow (6-9”) water for protection from predators, and the ones that do not have water to stand in, are surrounded by the many other cranes around them. At one point we were walking along the path and suddenly thought we heard a truck coming up behind us. It was not a truck. It was several thousand Sandhill cranes taking flight and flying around. The sound was from all their wings flapping...
 


 
















 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
There were also Northern Shoveler (kind of like a Mallard but with a darker head than green) and other ducks, white Snow Geese (black tipped wings), long-billed Dowitcher (looks like a Sandpiper), Wigeons (brown ducks), and others. We are buying an Audubon Society Bird Identification book to be able to better tell what we find and report these more accurately. Hopefully that will help.
 


 


 
 


Either Snow (black wing tips) or Ross's (black tails) Geese
 

 

 


 
Northern Shoveler ducks
 


These are Conservative ducks... swimming RIGHT.
 


These are Liberal ducks... swimming WRONG.
 
 
And this is what happens when they realize they went the WRONG way.
 
 



 
 
A Conservative celebrating that he is headed the RIGHT way.
 
A male and female Sandhill cranes, Males have the red head to attract the females.
If only it was that easy for humans.
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Long-billed Dowitchers (Sandpiper are smaller and have shorter beaks).



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Nearing lunchtime we passed a tree that was clearly posted 'Owl Roost area' and though no nest was seen the owls were seen on the tree. 



This is the parking area and a covered pavilion for shelter if/when it rains or for people to have lunch in the shade in the summer. This is the car or small van parking. Further back (seen in the background) is the larger RV parking area where RVs can spend the night to be there for the dawn ascension of the birds when they leave to go feed. We'll be back for that in the motorhome as in the motor home we'll have inverter power and if necessary gas furnace, water, restrooms, shower, etc and satellite TV, plus cooking facilities. 


After about an hour there and a mile or so walk around the Draw, we had lunch on the truck's tailgate and then discovered a nesting pair of Great Horned Owls under the big building next to the parking area. They were both asleep, as they are nocturnal hunters, with one in the nest and the other on the other side of the building. With a little encouragement (Bill meowing like a cat) they both opened their eyes for about 15-30 seconds, for a 'photo opportunity', then closed them again and proceeded to ignore us. These are magnificent birds.









We then drove back home following an alternate route to explore new vistas, returning headed East on W Davis Rd, to the small town of McNeal (current population about 100 and declining), which is about 20 miles from Douglas AZ (at the Mexican border); then north on US Hwy 191 for 6 miles to the town of Elfrida, which is supposed to have a good restaurant called the 'Kountry Kafe', however their sign is almost bigger than their building, but for a town of 450+/- people, what can one expect. Just outside of Elfrida we had witnessed a triple wildfire burning by itself in a field just outside of town, so on our way through town we stopped at the Elfrida Fire Dept to report the wildfire, for which they were very appreciative. We continued to follow US Hwy 191 north, past Sunizona and through Sunsites (population of about 2000) where we saw a big fire truck heading South with sirens blaring, possibly to assist the wildfire we had just reported back in Elfrida at MM 23.
 
Then continuing to drive north, we decided to turn West at W. Ironwood Rd to go check out the campground at the Cochise Stronghold, which we can see from the other side of the mountain, from our back porch. This was the winter residence of Chiricahua Apache Chief ‘Cochise’ (?-1874), prominent leader of the ‘Chiricahua’ Apache tribe, feared for their settlement raids of the mid-18th century. He was arrested by Lt. George Bascom of the US Army for allegedly kidnapping a rancher’s (John Ward’s) adopted-son (Felix Tellez). Cochise insisted that he had not kidnapped the boy but the Army did not believe him and under the pretense of an invitation to visit the Army camp for dialog, Cochise and his elders were arrested and Cochise was imprisoned until the boy was returned. Cochise escaped his confines and for the following decade led his people against the settlers on both sides of the border as Cochise felt that both US and Mexican settlements were infringing on their lands. The US Army reacting to calls of protection by the American settlers in the US continued to try to capture Cochise but each time Cochise eluded capture by retreating into his encampment in the Dragoon Mountains, which by the topography seemed impenetrable.. Within a few years of the end of his life, tired of the ongoing fighting and in his declining years, he finally accepted the government’s offer to relocate the Chiricahuas to a larger reservation in the southeastern corner of Arizona. He died in 1874 and on that night the story is that his braves painted his body in yellow, black and vermilion and took him deep into the Dragoon Mountains and lowered his body into a rocky crevice, the exact location which remains unknown. However, that section of the Dragoon Mountains is known a ‘Cochise’s Stronghold’.  Surprisingly, or perhaps not so, about a decade after Cochise’s death, Felix Tellez (the boy whose alleged kidnapping by Cochise and the Chiricahua Apache had started the war between them and the settlers and US Army), was suddenly identified as an Apache Scout for the US Army, and reported that he had been kidnapped by a group of Western Apache, NOT by Cochise or the Chiricahuas. So sad… and the government injustices continue.
 
Speaking of the government, here is one of the Border Patrol Checkpoints. This one on US Hwy 191. Surprisingly they seem to know who they should question more critically and who they can waive through with "Thank you for stopping...Have a nice day" (like we had a choice of stopping or not).
 

The campground was deep into the mountains where we had to forge wet washes (uncommon in Arizona) and travel through unimproved roads. Thank goodness for our 4x4 high clearance F150 truck. We definitely can’t take the motor home there, but will be back to camp for 1-2 nights with the truck. The area is quiet and well maintained within the campground… no potable water or hook-up sewer or electric, but there is non-potable water available and bathroom men’s and ladies ‘facilities’, with good paved  camping spaces with outdoor grills, fire pits and concrete bench tables. Ideally, there should also be an abundance of wildlife in the evenings and dawn hours.
 
 

 


 


 


 
 
 

 


 


 We came up on a deep wash with water in it. We threw a big rock in the middle to see how deep it might be and though deep, Mary said she was sure that Edith would get us across. However, I volunteered to stay behind to take photos of her braving the elements, until I was sure that she did get across... dry. As it turned our it wasn't as deep as it looked. 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


The town of Cochise, alongside the Stronghold in the Dragoon mountain retreat had a population of about 3,000 in its day, but now only has about 50 full-time residents who live there, just 5 miles south of Interstate I-10.  
 
We then went on north 5 miles to Interstate I-10, then west about 39 miles back to our Casita at Arizona Legends in Benson. It was a long but very enjoyable day.

See you on our next outing.


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