LODESTAR Dog Ranch

LODESTAR on
Labs and Life

SIT! STAY!

SIT in peace and STAY in touch with the world of Labrador Retrievers and their humans.
Now--
GO
FETCH!

We at the LODESTAR Dog Ranch have slowly worked our way to the back of the dog house. After seven years and hundreds of Labs in new, loving homes, it's time to say good bye.
Jean and I would like to introduce you to new friends who love Labs as much as we do and will help you find a Lab for your home, or a home for your Lab.
When looking for a new Lab to complete your life, or if you have a Lab who can complete somebody else's life, please visit:
Luvin Labs

We can't thank enough those of you who have given such wonderful homes to our guys/gals over the years, A giant Thank You to those who have supported with financial contributions. We appreciate those of you who have kept in touch with letters and pictures and those many who have visited this site faithfully over the years. You, like Labs, are all a rare and wonderful breed.

Please keep Lodestarlabs.com on your favorites' list. We will still be around awhile with Lab and life related materials. (Please scroll down.)


Thanks again from every one of the hands here at the LODESTAR Dog Ranch
Jean, Tom, Cody, Dooley, Mugs, Bud, Lincoln, Smokey and Mori






Cooper's Fund will be transferred to Luvin Labs to help fund Dawhoo's Fund when appropriate. In either place, needy Labs will be cared for.
Tom Payne
Jean Payne
Founders
LODESTAR Dog Ranch
Lodestar On Life and Labs
3/14/10
Not familiar with the breed? Check out this video: The Labrador

You don't have to breed your Lab to witness the "Miracle of Birth," do it the easy way. Have the family gather around the monitor and watch: Momma Lab and the Really New Ones
LABS LOVE TO GIVE HINTS
LIFE'S LESSONS YOU DON'T HAVE TO LEARN YOURSELF

In this section we will be including stories from an unpublished manuscript by Tom Payne entitled, "The Second Mouse Gets The Cheese." Many of his "lessons' have been taught to him by his dogs. For previous Lessons click SECOND MOUSE

LET US SPRAY

Jean and I had a log cabin in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. It was a place we used to get away from the hustle and bustle of big city Albuquerque. Like anything else worthwhile, it required maintenance. Log maintenance required wood preservative.

To apply the preservative we decided to use a sprayer. Spraying the preservative was basically spraying oil in a windstorm, a disgustingly nauseating, but necessary, task.

I wore goggles, carried the heavy, unwieldy and sticky sprayer and covered myself from head to toe to keep the spray off any part of my body. Next I took a deep breath and sprayed for as long as I, or the sprayer, lasted. Then it was time to pump the sprayer, take a deep breath and go at it again.

After a few rounds I realized I needed to step back and take a time out. I needed time to see that the job was coming out the way I wanted.

I asked myself:

"Have I covered everything I want to cover?"

"Is what I'm doing making a difference?"

"Is it OK to move on?"

What about the big "spray job" of life? Might you need to step back, take a time out. Do you need time to see that everything is coming out the way you wanted?

Ask yourself:

"Have I covered everything I want to cover?"
"Is what I'm doing making a difference?"
"Is it OK to move on?"


Lesson #34 Life, like a log cabin, requires maintenance.

E-mail:Lodestar Dog Ranch

LABS LOVE TO KEEP IN CONTACT

"If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have know will go to heaven, and very,very few persons. - James Thurber

UNDER MY WINGS ANIMAL TRANSPORT--VOLUNTEER PROJECT

It's not that we have too many dogs, they are just in the wrong place. Under My Wings located in Morarity, NM has arranged for the transport of thousnads of unwanted New Mexico dogs from an unsafe place to safe places in Colorado. This orgnization is a one, senior citizen, run operation. Saving dogs one at at time is very benfical, but by the thousands is extrordinary. She can use your help of all kinds. Each trip to Denver requires a driver, volunteers to help overnight/load dogs and carries about a $200 cost. Any financial help (or maybe you can even sponsor a trip) would be appreciated. For information on how you can help, please call: 505-832-6834
"I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult." - Rita Rudner
LABS LOVE TO BRING IT BACK
DOG WHEELCHAIR

We have a wheelchair designed for a female, 50-60 pounder (See picture). If you can use it, with the stipulation that it be returned to LODESTAR Dog Ranch when it is no longer needed, let us know at Lodestar Dog Ranch.




"A really companionable and indispensable dog is an accident of nature. You can't get it by breeding for it, and you can't buy it with money. It just happens along."- E B White, The Care and Training of a Dog
LABS LOVE TO SLEEP WITH THEIR SECOND BEST FRIEND
THE DOG RULES

1) Dogs are never permitted in the house. The dog stays outside in a specially built wooden compartment named, for very good reason, the dog house.

2) Okay, the dog can enter the house, but only for shirt visits or if his own house in under renovation.

3) Okay, The dog can stay in the house on a permanent basis, provided his dog house can be sold in a yard sale to a rookie dog owner.

4) Inside the house the dog is not allowed run free and is confined to a comfortable and secure metal cage.

5) Okay, the cage becomes part of a two-for-one deal along with the dog house in the yard sale, and the dog can go where ever he pleases.

6) The dog is never allowed on the furniture.

7) Okay, the dog can get on the old furniture but not the new furniture.

8) Okay, the dog can get on the new furniture until it looks like he old furniture and then we'll sell the whole works and buy new furniture…upon which the dog will most definitely not be allowed.

9) The dog never sleeps on the bed. Period.

10) Okay, the dog can sleep at the foot of the bed.

11) Okay, the dog can sleep alongside of you, but he's not allowed under the covers.

12) Okay, The dog can sleep under the covers but not with his head on the pillow.

13) Okay, the dog can sleep alongside you under the covers with his head on the pillow, but if he snores he's got to leave the room.

14) Okay, the dog can sleep and snore and have nightmares in bed, but he's not to come in and sleep on the couch in the TV room, where I'm now sleeping. That's just not fair.

15) Okay, The dog never gets listed on the census as" primary resident," even if it's true.

LABS LOVE TO EAT
"A dog is one of the remaining reasons why some people can be persuaded to go for a walk." ~ O.A. Battista
SAY WHAT?
 by Tom Payne

I found a list of "to do" items in a book I took from my brother Bill's office. This would not have been an event worth remembering, much less writing about, if it hadn't been for the fact that I got the book when we were cleaning out Bill's office after his death.

A "to do" list for a person who has died set me to thinking. Listed were items in Bill's hectic, get-on-and-off-an-airplane, take-a-taxi, check-into-a-hotel, make-a-difference-in-others-lives, check-out, get-on-an-airplane, and start-all-over-again world. These were activities he believed he needed to accomplish to make his life and the lives of those he touched meaningful. Bill was, when you sort through all of the descriptors, a teacher.

While he was my younger brother, I followed him into the world of improving organizational performance by concentrating on the fulfillment and growth of each individual. Granted, I may not be very objective for many reasons, but I believe Bill's work was important. Bill gave it everything he had and was darn good at it. He took his work and his life seriously (a family trait), so those "to do" items were to Bill a real commitment. But to see them in the context of life and death definitely put "9 a.m. meet with Dean" into perspective.

Let me share with you my philosophy of life -- "We're born, we die, and in between we do something." As simple as this philosophy is to understand, it takes most of us our entire time here on earth to figure out what that "something" is.

When Bill was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus (Warning: not taking consistent heartburn seriously may be harmful to continued life), we spent time together just talking. Talking about things other than business was something we hadn't done in years. (Warning: not taking consistent time out with someone you love may be harmful to who you are.) I had recently read an article in Reader's Digest on 50 things the author wanted to do before she died. I told Bill that I couldn't think of more than two or three things that I wanted to do; Bill felt the same way. This meant that we had either done everything (which we knew was not the case), or our "possibility genes" had atrophied.

Over time, when you take life too seriously, and your "to do" list gets too long, you close out all other possibilities. You're born, you work on your "to do" list, then you die. If you don't fancy that as your epitaph, what are you doing to change it? Because of some errant cells, Bill and Ardele lost a devoted son, Joan lost a loving husband, I lost my brother/friend and you lost -- Bill.

In his life he taught thousands of people how to work. In his death, he taught me how to live.



FOR GIVE-AWAY AND SALE

We, at LODESTAR Dog Ranch, have some odds and ends fencing which can be used as a way to reinforce your fencing, top or bottom, if you have yourself an escape artist Lab. This fencing (all or some) is yours for the taking. We also have three gates (two 8 foot and one 4 foot) which we will make available to anyone needing them. For the gates we are asking for a donation to COOPER'S FUND. For information please email: Info on Fencing.





LABS LOVE TO HANG OUT


LOOKING FOR A HOME FOR YOUR LAB?


 Check out the article in the Web site "Companion Animal Issues" Finding A New Home For A Companion Animal

Apology to Our Dog? When "I'm sorry" is not enough.

LABS LOVE TO WATCH YOU WORK
TOM'S MINI BOOK REVIEWS


Best book I've read--maybe ever.

The Art of Racing In The Rain
Author: Garth Stein
Harper

Garth Stein writes with the equivalent of a Lab's "soft mouth." His soft, well crafted words and his insights into the love of a dog for his people are maybe something we would just like to be true, but after reading this marvelous book, I'm a believer. It will be hard to look at your dog the same way after reading The Art Of Racing In The Rain.

Two men and their dogs books:

Merle's Door
Lessons from a Freethinking Dog
Author: Ted Kerasote
Harcort Inc.

Rescuing Sprite
A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish
Author: Mark R. Levin
Pocket Books

Both of these books are about the life and, inevetably the death, of beloved dogs. Both are 4 handkerchief books. Both are about men who really love their dogs. This is where the similarity ends. Ted Keraste, when the end was inevitable, showed he loved himself more than he loved Merle. Mark Levin, on the other hand, put Sprite first when, in a dog lover's life, it was most difficult to do.

And,of course, the classic Marley & Me

"Marley and Me" by John Grogan

When considering finding a "new home" for his young Lab, Marley, Grogan wrote:

"He had come a great distance from the spastic puppy we had brought home two years earlier. In his own flawed way, he was trying. Part of our journey as his owners was to mold him to our needs, but part also was to accept him for what he was. Not just accept him, but to celebrate him and his indomitable canine spirit. We had brought into our home a breathing being, not as a fashion accessory to prop in the corner. For better or worse he was our dog. He was part of the family, and, for all his flaws, he had returned our affection one hundredfold. Devotion such as his could not be bought for any price

I was not ready to give up on him."

In a recent article by John Grogan written after the filming of "Marley and Me," he told of being given one of the 32 puppies used in the film. They named the pup Woodson. After several weeks it became obvious Woodson had some health problems noticed in his gait. Woodson's both hips were malformed. As can be imagined the breeder was mortified and said to bring Woodson back and he would replace him. As tempting as the offer was, the Grogen family decided, "Dogs are not commodities to be discared when they break." As he finished the article, and the reason I'm telling about it here, Grogen writes "Woodson will never go hunting or hiking or even on long walks, and that's OK. Some dogs are put on this earth just to love you." Amen.
LABS LOVE THEIR FAMILIES
"Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes like has never washed a dog." - Franklin P. Jones
DRIVERS WANTED If you would like to play a part in the rescue of dogs in New Mexico, consider volunteering to drive dogs from point A to point B within New Mexico. Sometimes it's not that there are too many dogs, often they are just in the wrong place. To add your name to the driver list, please call 505-660-2822. If you prefer to drive to Colorado (the Denver area), call 505-832-6834.

NEED HELP WITH YOUR LAB? Special info for those of you looking to get a better insight on why your Lab does what your Lab does: We here at the LODESTAR Dog Ranch use, and would recommend, animal behaviorist, Cameron Murphy. Cameron can be reached @ cowboycam@msn.com or trainer Mike Allsbrook @ 505-264-2514.

LABS HATE TO DRESS UP

In Memoriam
 
Dedicated to those who have run out ahead of us
We share the earth with our animals, but it is in our hearts where they live, and from the heart they cannot die.
Tom Payne




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