I have a new website. It’s Shanhale.com. It’s going to be more geared towards personal branding/freelance/professional stuff. I’m keeping this website around, and I’ll post more personal stuff here. I might also start selling things through this site if I can find the time and/or ambition to actually do that.  I want to, really I do. 

 The wind and bitter cold are relentless today. Now, it’s snowing and blowing and I’m seriously over it.  When it gets like this, my desk area gets so cold that my ankles ache from the cold.  I’m drinking coffee and wearing a blanket and trying to stay warm.  I wish I was at home, snuggled on my couch with T.J. watching a movie. 

I’m very much looking forward to spring. Except for dog poop duty.  I sorta let it go all winter.  It keeps snowing and snow makes poops hard to find, so I’m sure I have about 25 lbs of poop to clean up.  Damn dog is nuthin’ but a poop factory! 

Since when did Robert Downey Jr start looking like this?
 
I’m suddenly a lot more interested in this Sherlock Holmes movie. 

I was looking for a link to a website that I may or may not have posted on my website several years ago.  So, I called up The Way Back Machine and while I was looking around I found a post I did in January of 2004 regarding working out and weight loss.  When I moved back to Michigan I gained a bunch of weight. As a result of some pretty big life changes recently I’ve lost a bunch of weight, but I’ve been wondering how my current weight compared to what I weighed when I was working out a lot when I lived in Albuquerque. The Way Back Machine delivered.  In early January 2004 I did a post noting that I was weighing around 170 (I’ve since taken all of my old posts offline).  I’m pretty close to that now.  That has me feeling pretty good.  At that time, in 2004, my goal was to lose 30 lbs.  I think 20 would be fine, but I’m not going to stress out about it. Basically I need to improve cardiovascular health, strength and endurance.  Weight is just a number.

 I never did find the link I was looking for. 

I just don’t update here very often, do I?  Nothing happened to my mom’s neighbor who shot her dog.  Apparently he shot another neighbor’s dog and that dog had it’s leg amputated.  My mom says he’s moving.  I’m glad for her that he is.

I’m back in school getting my master’s degree in Spanish, and it’s taking up a lot of my time.  I should be working on homework right now, actually.  But I’m not. It’s hard to stay motivated.  It’s a beautiful day today, and I really just want to be outside.

Original story is here.  The article calls him a pit bull; he was really a mixed breed dog who had some pit bull in him… he looked half pug or sharpei to me, and certainly was not the size of a pit bull (he was more comparable to a fat beagle than a pit bull). He had a noisy breathing problem, but nothing that could be confused with “growling.”

August 1, 2008

Man may be charged in dog’s death

By Lisa Roose-Church
DAILY PRESS & ARGUS

A 52-year-old Unadilla Township man could face criminal charges after shooting and killing a pit bull he said was being “aggressive,” police said.

The dog’s owner, Malinda Welch, said Thursday her dog, Ozzie, was not aggressive and she is “devastated” that a neighbor killed him.

“I had a dog sitter that day. Ozzie was sitting at the end of the driveway, waiting for me,” she said, noting that she found a 12-gauge shotgun shell casing at the end of her driveway. “I’m not surprised (the neighbor) would shoot a dog, but I’m surprised he’d shoot my dog.”

Attempts to reach the neighbor, who is not being identified pending charges, if any, were unsuccessful.

Chief William Cook of the Unadilla Township Police Department said Thursday that the man reported at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday that a neighbor’s pit bull on San Merino Drive was in the roadway “growling.”

Anne Burns, director of Livingston County Animal Control, said her office received a call from the man saying, “the dog was attacking him, so he shot it.”

The man told police that he was concerned the dog would attack him or his children, so he went into his home, retrieved a shotgun and shot the dog, Cook said.

“The dog owner says it’s not an aggressive dog,” the chief said. “She doesn’t believe it was aggressing toward the man or his children.”

Welch said the neighbor’s children liked to play with Ozzie, and they would call him to their home.

“I’ve had to tell them not to call him up there,” she said. “He doesn’t go anywhere other than the end of my driveway.”

Ozzie’s body was found directly across the street from Welch’s property— about 50 feet away from the spent shell — and Welch believes her dog attempted to run.

Welch said the 5-year-old dog had been accused about a year ago of running at-large with two other dogs that attacked a fawn, but her dog was “acquitted” of those allegations by witnesses to the event.

Welch’s daughter, Shannon Hale, said Ozzie was a gentle dog who helped nurse one of her mother’s cats after it had been shot several months ago.

“Ozzie stayed with the cat and licked his wound until the bullet came out of the cat’s leg,” Hale said. “Ozzie probably saved the cat’s life. I can’t say whether the two shootings are related, but this is not the first time an attempt has been made to kill her pets. Ozzie was always very caring and nurturing towards the cats and kittens.

“I cannot, in my heart, believe that Ozzie was doing anything to deserve being shot in his own driveway. It seems to me that this was the act of a cruel and heartless person, with no regard for the emotional turmoil this would cause my mother,” Hale, of Redford, noted.

Cook said the dog was not on the man’s property, although the man contends that the dog running at-large is an ongoing problem. However, Cook said that his department had no complaints to that effect until the Tuesday incident.

“There have been some unrelated civil disputes” between the man and his neighbor, but Cook said police do “not believe that’s a factor” in the shooting of the dog.

According to the state’s Dog Law of 1919, “any person, including a law enforcement officer, may kill any dog which he sees in the act of pursuing, worrying, or wounding any livestock or poultry or attacking persons, and there shall be no liability on such person, in damages or otherwise, for such killing.” It also states that “it shall be unlawful for any person, other than a law enforcement officer, to kill or injure or attempt to kill or injure any dog which bears a license tag for the current year.”

Burns said the dog owner licensed Ozzie in 2005, but no license was sought or approved for subsequent years.

Welch said she believes the dog was licensed and is currently looking for paperwork to that effect in her flooded basement.

Pit bull attacks have been a concern in the community since a Sept. 13 mauling that took place in Iosco Township.

In that incident, Diane Ruth Cockrell is charged with two counts of having dangerous animals causing death, because police say four of her American bulldogs mauled to death Edward Gierlach, who lived in Fowlerville, at his cottage on Crofoot Road in Iosco Township, and Cheryl Harper, 56, while she was taking a walk along the same road. Cockrell also is charged with a misdemeanor for allowing her dogs to stray.

Trial is set for Aug. 25, with a final status conference set for Aug. 22.

In April, a Handy Township man was sentenced to 30 days in the county jail for allowing his two pit bulls, which mauled an Arabian mare in its stall, to run loose. The horse had to be euthanized.

The police report on the Unadilla Township incident is being forwarded, most likely today, to the Livingston County prosecutor’s office for review of possible charges.

Contact Daily Press & Argus reporter Lisa Roose-Church at (517) 552-2846 or at lrchurch@gannett.com.

Here’s a picture of my yard (courtesy of Google Street View).

As you can see I have a treacherous slope in the front yard. It’s actually more dangerous in person. We finally got around to our first attempt at lawn mowing yesterday. We pulled the lawnmower out of the shed and, of course, it wouldn’t start. Our neighbor (who’s lawn is immaculate) came over, offered us a spark plug and even offered to let us borrow his push mower. I think he’s a little anxious for us to get on the ball with the lawn care.

Personally, I don’t have the time, ambition or know-how for fixing a loud, smelly, gas engine powered lawnmower. So, I had John drive me out to Home Depot where I could buy an old fashioned reel mower:

So, I think I like it. John did the majority of the mowing, I did the hill. It’s definitely safer and lighter on the hill than the cuts-off-your-leg-if-you’re-not-careful gas mower. We let the grass get a little too long, though, and that’s a problem. It won’t really cut anything over 5 inches tall. Also, the smallest little stick gets stuck in it and stops it completely. John thinks we should get the gas mower serviced so we can use it everywhere except on the hill. I think that’s a good idea, but I just don’t feel like I have the time or the ambition.

What I’d really like to do is turn the hill into some sort of super-low maintenance garden that doesn’t require mowing, doesn’t look like crap, and won’t cost an arm and a leg. Anyone have any ideas? Did I mention that it’s almost impossible to dig on the hill because of the huge trees? Yeah, it is.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my landscaping woes.