This has been one very strange and mostly funny journey into the twighlight zone. Every day Suzie dumps the food bowls over at least once and depending on what they are having Bandit may decide that he wants their food more than his own. They will all stand around crying and whimpering but not going any closer to him than they are in this picture. Oh and they will only eat cat food that I mix with their dry dog food. Seven cans per meal. Bandit beats these poor dogs relentlessly. He sets and waits for them just outside the back door and smacks them as they go out to the back yard. Once they are outside he comes inside the door and waits to get them on the return trip. It is like having the keystone cops live 24/7.
We had the dad and two boys fixed so there would not be any more surprises only to find out that when the girls come into season they are worse than any teenage boy ever thought of and yes it is that time right now. We are about to pull our hair out because they will not leave the boys alone. Not to mention they are confused as to just what sex they are because they keep mounting each other. You know if a guy could find that hormone that makes these females act like this he could make a fortune, that and there would never be another case of a husband saying that he was “cut off” again….. They are ridiculous.
It is kind of funny that the mother Chya picks on poor Tyson more than the two sons that are at least her size. Tyson by the way can walk under Chya and barely touch her underside. That was why I didn’t think there was any possibility that the five puppies would happen.
Tyson is still the boss of the pack with Chya being second in command, of the puppies well they are a year old now so not very much puppies anymore, Barney and Toby take turns being leaders but the true brat is Skeeter. Now Skeeter is only about 14 pounds soaking wet but she has the biggest mouth and attitude of the bunch, then Molly weighs in at 18 pounds and Suzie is the heavy weight at 25 pounds. Barney now weighs 80 pounds and Tody is a close 70 pounds. Tyson the dad, has gained so much weight since he was fixed that he weighs 27 pounds, Chya looks like a walking skeleton at 45 pounds, but she has greyhound in her so I figure that is why she never puts any weight on even though she eats like a horse.
Night time has a ritual of Good and Plenty candy treats then back outside to run and do the nightly thing. Then to bed and that is a disaster movie in itself. Even if we make them get off the bed we wake up in the middle of the night with seven dogs on the bed pinning us either to the side of the bed or under the covers till you can’t move. It all starts with Barney crying for his human mommy. Once he is on the bed the rest follow all at once. It is a water bed so it is like a giant tidal wave hits all at once.
I work out of the house here and that is an adventure in itself. I have to look and see if I have company under my computer desk before I sit down and move my chair. Generally there is at least three around me at all times. Suzie, Barney and Skeeter. Chya may or may not be in my lap and Suzie jumps on my lap every day when Brenda comes home for lunch. It makes working on the computer interesting to say the least.
We are for the most part still however one big happy family………… Don’t know how but we still are….
This little video shows only the start of what it was like when the rements of hurricane IKE came into the Cincinnati, Ohio area. I grabbed my camera and went outside when I heard the wind starting up. The video stops abruptly because a tree limb broke off the tree that was behind me and when it hit me it knocked the battery out of the camera.
At the time winds were only 35MPH sustained gusting to 50-60MPH, however later they said on the news that had risen to 45-50MPH constant gusting to 90MPH. Over 90 percent of the Cincinnati area was without power and more trees were blown down or snapped in half than we have ever had. Sure am glad that it didn’t hit us full force and my prayers sure go out to anyone who was in the area that it came ashore. It was like being hit by a hundred mile wide tornado around here so I can only imagine what it was like in Texas. That is a nightmare I am truly glad that I was spared because the news coverage did not do that storm any justice at all.
Tyson is the father of the puppies and this video shows him breaking up the puppies when their play become a little to rough. The vet told me that this had never been reported in domestic dogs before. That was the reason that I decided to keep a record of the puppies and parents as they grew up. Yes as of right now we plan to keep all seven dogs, they each have such a different personality that it is still hard to think they are all brothers and sisters of the same litter.
He seems to play mainly the police role although I have seen him playing very gently with Barnie and Suzie. Its kind of a tug of war but all he does is stay in one spot and let them pull on whatever toy he brings to them.
This is the nasty little bee that I have been trying to identify. As you can see it looks like a miniature Yellow Jacket. That seems to be ware the similarity ends however. Yellow Jackets can sting you a lot of times because they keep their stingers. They also go wild for mountain dew and you can just about clean a whole nest out with a 2 liter bottle with just enough mountain dew in the bottle to drown the bees.
This little bee is different in that it loses its’ stinger when it stings and the mountain dew traps don’t attract them at all. They do like what comes out of the rear end of the dogs however, and the garbage cans if they smell bad enough. I have also seen them all over some poor leftover that the cat killed. So I guess that you would have to say these bees are scavengers and meat lovers rather than necture lovers.
Yellow Jackets are scavengers themselves as anyone who has ever gone to a park and tried to throw away the picinic garbage can tell you but they will never pass up something sweet even if it kills them.
The normal Yellow Jacket is 5/8 inch to 1 inch long. As you can see from the picture these guys are real lucky if they can make it to 3/8 inch long and that may be pushing it since that’s a dime that it’s next to and they are 1/2 inch accross.
The Cincinnati Zoo gave me a couple of phone numbers to call to try and identify these little monsters and I struck out totally. The only answer I got from them was they have no idea what kind of bee that it was but if it caused that kind of reaction in a dog you sure don’t want a child getting stung by one.
DUH NO KIDDING YOU THINK!!!
Personally I almost dropped the phone when the Phd of Entomology made that statement to me.
But he did give me some other choices that I am researching now. They were call local exterminators to see if they have run into them and maybe identified them.
That proved to be pointless because all they said was they could come out and kill them but there would be a hazard fee because of the sting risk. I told them thanks but no thanks I can kill them that’s not the point.
The other is more disturbing and I have not downloaded it yet it is a university conference site for identifying the mutations that are occurring in the bees here in the US.
I will write more when I have more information and maybe an answer or two but for now if you see a bee that looks like a baby yellow jacket give it a very wide berth.
This year we have a bee buzzing around that I have never seen before. It looks like a small yellow jacket but unlike the yellow jacket this bee loses its’ stinger when it stings. The reason I am writing this is that one stung my dog. Now a dog can take about ten times the amount of pain that a human can before they cry out. This dog of mine has been stung several times this year by honeybees and makes no sound at all she just eats the offending bee and goes on with her day. This little bee however had her screaming for 5 minutes and unable to move her leg for about 15 minutes. She also showed the signs of going into shock, very fast heart rate, ragged shallow breathing and her legs went cold. A paste of baking soda on the sting seemed to help a lot and after twenty minutes she was ok and starting to move her leg again. After half an hour she was walking but not putting any pressure on the stung foot. All problems except the swelling have gone after eight hours.She weighs around 40 pounds and like I said she is not alergic to bee stings in the least so that only means that this little bee packs one heck of a powerful sting. I would hate to see one of these little bee sting a small child, the reaction I saw in my dog makes me think these things could send a child to the emergency room in a hurry so beware.
I sent the picture to the Cincinnati Zoo and asked them to please identify the bee. As a further note these guys eat wood and although I don’t know what the nest looks like, they built one in the wall of my house by eating away the wood trim under the eve. I have sprayed the opening with wasp and hornet poison to try and kill them as well as plugging the hole with caulk so we will see if I got rid of them or they just open another hole somewhere.
Well the puppies are now 9 months old and they have formed a for real live pack. But now before you go thinking that I now have this dangerous hunting dog pack here you have to know that they may be a pack but that is in pecking order only. My wife and I are the leaders so we get swarmed by seven dogs every time we come in from any and I do mean any trip outside the house. This includes taking out the garbage cans.If I didn’t have the knowledge that these dogs came from the same two parents I would not believe it. They range in weight from 14 pounds to 70 pounds and the 14 pounder is the meanest of the bunch when they get rowdy. Barney is the monster but his name says it all he is just Barney big, easy going, not a care in the world as long as he gets four cookies to one for everyone else. It gets very loud here if a dog barks on TV or heaven forbid a door bell rings. We spend the next three minutes telling them it was on TV so we end up missing what we were watching in the first place.Barney and Suzie also have the mistaken idea that they are parrots and without warning you will find yourself with a fifty or seventy pound dog perched on your shoulder. It is entertaining around here as long as you don’t have a headache or are not trying to walk down the hallway when they decide that a rampage through the house is in order. I have been trying in vain to get them to sit long enough to take a picture of this motley crew but it is worse than having little children, you can almost hear them saying “SHE TOUCHED ME! DON’T TOUCH ME!”. Then the rampage starts and I dive for cover laughing.
Ford 5.0 engines in the trucks and Bronkos mainly during the 9X’s had a unique problem that would a lot of times get diagnosed as a leaking head gasket or warped heads. The problem was the PCV (Positive Crankcase Ventilation) valve would get plugged up or more often the vacuum port that it was connected to would become blocked by deposits of carbon and oil sludge. What you would find when you changed the oil is a brown foamy mixture on the inside of the oil cap. You may even see water drops in the cap. Now every mechanic out there knows this is most likely just a plugged port but it is quite often reported to the customer that they have a leaking or blown head gasket or a warped head. The reason is simple it costs about $45.00 labor to clean the port and depending on the cleaner used $10 to $40 for supplies. Now head gasket jobs go for around $1500.00 to $2500.00 shop dependent.
There are two ways to tell if you have a serious problem or just a dirty engine. If you have the same brown foam in the over flow bottle or on the inside of the radiator cap then I am sorry but you do have a serious problem. The second way is to ask to have your engine block checked. This is done using a solution that changes color from Blue to Yellow if there are any combustion gases found in the coolant system. The mechanic will let the engine cool totally and then remove the radiator cap and drain enough anti-freeze from the system to prevent contamination of the test. He or she will then start the engine and place the block tester in the place of the radiator cap. As the engine warms up samples of the air in the coolant system will be taken and as long as the fluid in the tester stays blue you have no problem between the cylinder and the coolant system.
Now remember that I already said that if you had oil in your coolant your engine had serious problems so that is a primary check. Just remember that water under the Ford 5.0 oil cap especially clear water does not mean major problems. It needs to be checked further to save you from a very costly and unnecessary repair.
OK this may only be for my own conscious and maybe one other reader but here is mechanics uncovered. This is a possible horror story turned good by the use of a second opinion. A customer contacted my shop requesting the price for replacing the heads on his Bonneville. This car had a 3.8 liter engine in which the water pump had failed and the engine had overheated. The water pump was replaced however the customer was noticing that he was having to add coolant regularly. He took his car to a major franchise shop and was told the heads were warped and it would cost $2500.00 to repair the car. He was also told that if he kept driving the car he would blow the engine up and cost $5000.00 to replace the engine. Since he did not want to spend either amount he simply started using water in the cooling system instead of anti-freeze. The result was the engine started overheating again and the coolant was rust colored.He contacted my shop and I told him to put coolant not water in the radiator and asked him to bring me the car and I would check it out for him and give him an estimate. I met him as he pulled up and asked him to open the hood and the first thing I found was the system was not under pressure even though the engine was at or slightly higher than normal operating temp. I checked and found no water in the oil. This is just a visual check done by removing the fill cap and turning over and looking for what looks like chocolate foam on the underside. If you see any there you check the valve cover and see just how much has accumulated. The second part of this test is to check the coolant system for oil. If the heads warp a lot of times the head gasket will first leak from the water jacket into the oil passage. I aways check both the oil and coolant because I have found that if the PCV port plugs up enough moisture can accumulate in the oil to put foam in the cap. This is most often observed in the Ford 5.0 liter engine with the breather tube connected in the fill neck.Back to the car at hand. Both tests showed a negative result so I did a block test. This is done by taking a sample of the air in the radiator using a tube filled with a chemical indicator liquid. The liquid starts out blue but will change color to yellow if there is any combustion gases present in the radiator. Tells you without a doubt that you have a problem. Leaking head gasket or cracked head. Regardless if you get a positive here you have your work cut out for you. However I got a negative here also, so I asked the customer how the other shop had determined that his head was warped because the engine was running fine and it had no leaks other than the fact that the system would not pressurize. By the way it was the radiator cap. the gasket in the cap was torn. That was the first thing that I checked when I found the system not under pressure and no major leaking. The only coolant leak that was visible was at the overflow tank. He told me they had pulled two plugs out of the engine and they were wet so it had to be coolant that was leaking into the cylinders. For the record if you ever have coolant get into the combustion cylinder it will result in the most beautiful white smoke coming out of the exhaust that you have ever seen. It is also very sweet smelling since you are basically burning a sugar. I am not talking about the condensation smoke you see on a cold day I am talking a white cloud so thick that no one behind you can see where they are going. Or if you live in the south and have seen a fogger truck that is the smoke the engine will produce if the coolant gets into the cylinder.I explained my findings to the customer and told him that at most he may need a thermostat because of the rust buildup but the only problem that he really had that I could say for sure was a bad radiator cap and an engine that needed to have the coolant system cleaned out good to remove the results of using straight water instead of coolant.Now a little science content. Coolant is not just an anti-freeze. It has wetting agents and anti boil chemicals in it that keep it from boiling away in todays hotter engines. Also the coolant system must be able to hold pressure or even coolant will boil and not efficiently cool the engine. Long story short the $2500.00 repair ended up costing $50.00 for the block test, coolant system cleaning, radiator cap and new coolant. The system was tested and found that the thermostat was working, the fans worked and the system held pressure. It was run for twenty minutes and showed no signs of coolant loss, smoke or overheating.The customer did tell me that he knew nothing about cars what so ever and I warned him that in some shops that was not the thing to say. It really bothers me that anyone should have to be warned about that but the fact is that in a lot of shops that comment will triple your bill so don’t say it please. You don’t need to act like you know about the mechanics because the service tech will know the deception within two or three questions then it’s still open season.Good luck out there and if you find an honest mechanic that you trust stay with him and quite literally follow him from shop to shop. You will find that mechanics move from time to time.
Air conditioning service is one of the hottest money makers that is available to the aftermarket service shops. For a mere $29.95 in most areas they will give your cars ac a checkup. Here is what that involves. A visual inspection looking for obvious leaks. Those are usually identified by oily dirt on the lines at connection points, turning the blower on and running it through its ranges and if it is an honest shop you will get a vent temperature reading. If your system has any problem you should be advised that there will be a diagnostic charge and any other costs that you may incur before any further work is done. Now don’t get me wrong AC systems are simple to check out although since you are dealing with a gas it requires for the most part introducing a dye into the system and then with an ultra Violet light you look for the leak. This may require you to drive the vehicle until the AC fails then bring it back in for recheck. There are sniffers that can detect leaks in the heater box component of the AC (the Evaporator) but they are more than a little suspect due to the high false readings they produce. Even though I just said that AC systems were simple that does not mean that I feel this is a Do It Yourself service. Yes if you already have AC knowledge by all means if you have the equipment do the work BUT AC systems are under high pressure and the gas used is also a liquid under pressure. If you get sprayed by it you will discover just how cold it is by way of being frost burned. This is the freezing of the skin and can be very serious and is quite painful. Yes I am speaking from experience because in the early days we vented the systems to the air rather than recycling the refrigerant so I have lost several layers of skin over the years. I most strongly advise against the back yard mechanic approach when it comes to the AC system because it is not a case of it only takes what refrigerant it needs to top it off. The system can in almost all cases take on enough excess refrigerant that it will either blow out the pressure relief valve on the compressor or blow a line. Either of these events will I guarantee make enough noise to give you a heart attack or at least have to change your underwear. Not to mention that you will have this really cold spray coming out of the system somewhere. Another thing to think about before running to the parts store or WalMart is that yes R134a is less damaging to the ozone layer than R12 it is still damaging and it is illegal to vent it into the air.
Ok this may only be for my own conscious and maybe one other reader but here is the second part in the mechanics uncovered. The aftermarket service industry is any garage, service franchise, or independent car dealership other than the manufacturer of the vehicle you own. With that said, for the aftermarket service industry there are two major sources of information for repair and general service information that are in use. There used to be three but the third was named Chilton and they mysteriously just closed one day went offline and out of existence. The service information industry is also very cut throat however they call it aggressive competition. Regardless now there are only two major players or sources of repair data that are at the top of the heap. Odds are that if you go to a Midas you will be at the mercy of “All-DATA” a program that is actually quite good although I do prefer “MITCHELL ON DEMAND” myself. All-DATA is from if you are ready Autozone. Now I do not know if this is something written for them and their commercial market or if they purchased it after completion. Autozone is not one of the highest quality parts houses out there but they are no worse than anyplace else in my book and as long as they don’t try to do more than read codes they can’t do any more damage than most ASE certified mechanics. MITCHELL ON DEMAND is owned by Snap-on tools. They make and sell some of the best although highest priced tools for professional mechanics. You may have seen their trucks pull up to a shop or at least on the road from time to time. By the way a professional mechanic may have $80,000. Or more invested in his tools and some of the tool boxes themselves can run $15,000. For the big roll around monsters that look like a walk in closet. I can say this from experience because unfortunately insurance will only cover ½ of the cost of replacement for tools and my tools take up three boxes and were insured for $80,000.00 do the math and you will see that over the thirty some odd years I have a very large investment in tools. But no I don’t have the monster box just smaller roll around boxes that I modified to handle the added weight. This is part of the driving force that blurs a young mechanic when it comes to adding a unnecessary service to a quote. Some of these poor guys have tool bills of $200.00 per week on more than one truck so when the owner says start pushing service sales they only see the dollars. Most shops have adopted the commission based pay for the mechanics that work for them. This is called flat rate and it is based on the time the book or the computer gives for any service job. So it stands to reason that under this pay plan the guy working on your car has all kinds of incentive to find as much as he or she can in order to pay their bills. A few years ago a group formed a certifying organization and developed the Motorist Assurance Program or MAP. The service providers association jumped on it as another ASE type program and that means more money in their pockets. But surprise, these people were actually interested in the motorist not the business so after the members complained about being busted by a secret shopper the association dropped the program and did everything in their power to discredit it. I realize that honesty is hard and its easy to say everyone is doing it but that is not changing the fact that someone that put their trust in you to tell them what is wrong and how much it will cost just got lied to and robbed. Parts and labor rates are high enough without stealing from your customers. OK enough of my soap box now on to some of the clues that you are in the wrong place. For the most part a car is very show and tell. Gee mister this is the broken part and this is what it should look like. Owners go crazy when I tell them to send the customer back because they know that sooner or later they will see that with very few exceptions the parts on a car that are failing or have failed are pretty easy to see if someone knows were to look and what to check for. So first RED FLAG that you should have is a mechanic or service writer coming up to you in the waiting room and telling you well I have your quote ready. And as for saving the old parts to prove the repair was done I am sorry to tell you this but unless you know the mechanic you had better see that the part came from your car because a garage generates more scrap parts than a dumpster can hold in just three days. If it wasn’t for the junk men coming around looking for scrap steel every shop would look like a junk yard in a week. Second thing that should raise a flag. The manufacture cannot and does not require any service on your car believe it or not, they suggest it. Now that said please hear this especially if you own a Honda or Acura vehicle the timing belt should be changed at or shortly after the mileage they suggest simply because that engine is what is called an interference engine. That means that if the belt breaks the pistons will hit the valves and damage will occur. And this will be major damage so as expensive as it is get that changed for insurance if nothing else. By the way even the timing belt is not a required repair. The point is this you own the vehicle not them so if they require you to have anything done guess who would have to pay. It is the mechanics job to let you know as a customer how serious you should take the suggestion. Kind of a vicious circle I know and that’s why I feel so strongly about the honesty and quality roles the mechanic must adhere to no matter what the shop standard operating procedures. By the way it is my personal belief that when a timing belt is changed the oil seals and, if it is driven by the timing belt, the water pump should also be changed. The reason is that the major cause of belt failure other than age is oil saturation. The belt is made from a petroleum product so oil breaks it back down pretty fast. The rest of the reason is economics if the water pump fails, and they do, you have the same labor cost as a timing belt and it could even damage the belt when it failed so don’t take the chance the time added to the job should only be about 30 minutes and the cost of the pump is usually under 45 dollars. As for the belt tensioner unless you are at a dealership the belt tensioner comes in a belt kit so the only extra cost would be for most applications 10 minutes labor. So I hope this helps if not let me know because I will be adding to this and may even leave off my soap box on the next one.
