About Us

Stan

Stan is from Ohio but was also raised in Texas and North Carolina. After four years in the U.S. Navy, he ended up living in Kansas during his college years. He was working as an oil company geologist when we met in Houston, Texas.

He was raised with a succession of pedigreed Rough Collies (the ones that look like Lassie). They loved to chase and tackle Stan, and then hold a wrestling match with him. He loved it too!

Johanna (Jo)

I was born in the Netherlands but grew up in eastern and southern Africa. Our family moved to New York during my senior year. After dropping out of nursing school, a secretarial course led to employment in various places, including Houston.

Uganda was the first African country my family lived in. My parents had a Boxer named Sheba who birthed puppies behind the couch.

In Johannesburg, my parents acquired a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy from the pound. He was returned a couple of years later since he was a biter. Then my mother bought Mitsu, our family's most memorable dog.

Never Underestimate a Dachshund

She was a spirited, pedigreed black-and-tan Dachshund, in between a Miniature and Standard size. She was always enthusiastic about exploring our new houses and yards.

Mitsu was also fabulous protection against poisonous snakes. We would hear her barking hysterically, and she'd be nipping at the snake's tail, then jumping back out of harm's way until a human could deal with the reptile. She took care of two African puffadders (very much like rattlesnakes but without the rattles) and a giant king cobra that way.

Since her breed is trained to go after badgers, she was always digging. One time she was so busy that the dirt was flying in her eyes, and she never noticed the mole that popped out between her legs and ran away!

When we emigrated to New York, my parents flew Mitsu back to her breeders in Johannesburg. They wrote about a year later to say she had died from either rat poison or a heart ailment. She was only six years old...


DOGS WE'VE HAD TOGETHER

Stan and I got married six months after we met. Two weeks after our first daughter was born, his geology career ended along with thousands of other geologists - a long string of U-Hauls accompanied us out of Houston. We bought bare land in southern Oregon with our savings, built a crude cabin and outhouse, and tried to grow produce for market.

We figured the time was right to get a dog. After trying several older dogs with behavior problems that we returned to their source, we chose a chubby puppy, a black Lab/Shepherd mix.


FB (Fuzzy Bear)

On our way home, we stopped in at a friend, who took one look at FB's round belly, grabbed a plug of tobacco, put it in the puppy's mouth, and got him to swallow it. Deworming, country style!

To make a little income, we decided to sell some of the Christmas-like trees off our property. Stan built a shelter on a lot in town. With hay bales scattered around and our baby daughter and puppy in our arms, we looked like a Nativity scene.

A second daughter joined the family; then Stan decided to go to school in Portland to retrain as an engineer. FB finally learned to walk on a leash.

He was a typical Lab concerning food. One day he ate a 3 pound tub of margarine! It all came back up later in a neat pile... He also enjoyed the kids' Halloween candy on more than one occasion, which somehow never made him sick.

Out of ignorance we fed him kibble from the grocery store. After about four years, he had such a big problem with his skin and fleas that he looked like a warthog. When Stan got a job in Sacramento, California, I took FB to a vet who gave him a cortisone shot to stop the itching. We improved his diet to a high-end kibble and within a few months he had only one or two fleas, a beautiful coat and was no longer itching. He also pooped less and it was much easier to pick the stuff up.

When he was about eleven, he gained weight and started yelping with pain every time he got off the couch. Once we slimmed him down, he had no more problems.

About two years later, I noticed his stomach was blown up like a balloon and tight as a drum. The vet called it bloat and said FB would need surgery, but that it would probably recur. Again, money was an issue, so I had to make the tough choice of putting him to sleep. Stan was out of town at the time... We gave our beloved FB a proper burial.