An Expensive Dog

In January of 2005, we acquired a black lab puppy from a neighbor. We needed a dog because our huge golden retriever, Rocky, died over the holidays. We were visiting JoAnn's mother in Mesa, Arizona for Christmas, when we received word from our neighbor, Ray Butler, who was feeding the dogs, that Rocky was nearing the end of his life. He had been in poor health for a couple of months, but we didn't think he would go so fast. Since Dustin was the one he had most bonded with, we put him on a plane so he could take care of Rocky at the end. Rocky did die shortly thereafter, and Dustin and a friend buried him in the pasture. Rocky was a huge dog and that is probably what did him in at a relatively young age, he was only 6 or 7 years old.

This is a photo of Rocky who is bigger than JoAnn. He certainly weighed more. The nurses at the vet were always amazed when we brought him in. My favorite Rocky story happened before he was neutered and gained so much weight. He kept running off to the neighbors who had a female dog in heat. So I put a rope through his collar and tied him to a post which was inside a small fenced area just off the garage. When I went to check on him, all that was left was the collar tied to the rope. Sure enough, I found him over at the neighbors flirting with their female dog.


So anyway, back to the black lab puppy we named Boomer. This is a photo of Boomer with Sadie shortly after we got him. He is now about twice Sadie's size. I think he got the name "Boomer" because when we were in Arizona, Ida was having trouble with the plumbing in one of the bathrooms. She hired an acquaintance named Boomer to fix the problem. He was a weird and funny guy and I think the name "Boomer" just kind of stuck in Dustin's head and that is what he named him.

We got Boomer for free. His owner had about 10 puppies he had to get rid of and he wanted to do it fast. Boomer was very young when we got him, just barely weaned. JoAnn thought about giving him back, he cried so much. Even though his initial cost was cheap, he has been a very expensive dog. The first time we took him for a ride in the car, he jumped out when we were going about 30 mph. He was OK but it resulted in his first trip to the vet. He has a problem with allergies which manifests itself in ear infections. When his ears get infected, he scratches them. When he scratches them they bleed. Then he shakes his head violently and blood gets sprayed everywhere. Before we got this figured out, he had done so much damage to the ear, the vet tried at least twice to bandage the ear to his head so he couldn't flail it around. The bandage never lasted more than about 8 hours. Eventually, the vet had to put a piece of cardboard on it and stitch the ear to the cardboard.

To resolve the problem, we found a non-allergenic dog food (expensive) that we hoped would put an end to his ear problems. After about a week, we found him on the floor one morning, unable to move. According to the vet, he was severely dehydrated. He spent the night with the vet before he could move again. Now, we use a commercial ear wash weekly and a couple times a month, I use a product most often reserved for human females with yeast infections and inject it in his ears. It really works.

A couple of weeks ago, you read about his cold water tail. Shortly after he had recovered from that, JoAnn came home to find him limping badly, not putting any weight on his right front paw. A day later, since he was no better I made an appointment with the vet for the next day, a Friday. PJ had stayed the night so we took Boomer to the "doggy doctor" where they did an x-ray. As we sat in the exam room, I heard the lab technician exclaim "that explains a lot!"


This is a photo of Boomer after his emergency surgery to remove a two-inch piece of wire from his foot. It wasn't sticking out where they could pull it out with plyers, it was completely embedded; they had to dig it out.


This is the wire the vet took out of his paw. If only we had surveillance cameras in the yard to see what he did to get that wire embedded so deeply in his paw. He has been an expensive dog!

Mormon Times

For those of you who take the Deseret News (if you take the Tribune, shame on you, if you don't subscribe to any newspaper, even more shame on you), there is an insert in the Thursday edition entitled Mormon Times. There is always interesting stuff in the Times but last Thursday (March 5, 2009) caught my attention more than usual. On the front page, there is a photo of President Obama along with four LDS law professors from the U of U. Each professor examines current issues related to their area of expertise. Evidently, none of these professors listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, because they generally have optimistic attitudes about the direction the administration is taking the country, at least in these areas. Excerpts of these articles follow.

****************************************************
An obligation to our environment

By James A. Holtkamp

Mormons tend to be conservative Republicans, which is a cultural and not doctrinal characteristic of the faith. As a result, there is much suspicion about the new administration's plans to enact a comprehensive new government regulatory program. However, Mormons also understand the concept of stewardship, which denotes mankind's individual and collective responsibility to care for this God-given home we live on. There are many Mormons who have become very active on environmental issues that affect their communities, families and health. Attacking climate change will require action by individuals, companies, universities and governments -- indeed by all entities.

Moroni prophesied that in the latter days "there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth" (Mormon 8:30). These pollutions are both spiritual and physical. We have an obligation to overcome both.

*********************************************

Even greater comfort' in troubled times

By Christian Johnson

For the Deseret News

Elder Richard L. Evans, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, stated at the height of the Great Depression in the 1939 April general conference: "I do not know in what condition this people will find itself a year or a decade or a generation hence. I do not know whether we shall be at war or at peace, whether the world will be in greater spiritual darkness, or ... whether we shall be in greater depression or in greater prosperity ... I do not know any of these things, but I do know that the words of all the prophets will be fulfilled."

I take great comfort in the heroic efforts being made by our political and economic leaders to fight our current economic crisis.

However, I take even greater comfort in Elder Evans' counsel spoken 60 years ago that my family and I "will be better off to be found among the faithful of this people, than in any other condition in which we might find ourselves."

***********************************************
Obama Sets a New Energy Path
Lincoln L. Davies
Deseret News
Sunday March 8, 2009

Lincoln L. Davies wrote "80% of oil executives believe the world has already reached maximum oil production or will within 10 years. Our choice is clear. We can start preparing and transitioning now, or we can wait and risk potentially disastrous results. The Obama administration has chosen the "act now" approach. This is good, but not enough.We need complete innovation, real change. President Obama seems to understand this. President Spencer W. Kimball taught "Preparedness, when properly pursued, is a way of life, not a sudden, spectacular program. Ultimately, Obama's success must be judged on how well his lofty programs and iedeas help us pursue a new, sustainable way of life".

Darwin's Birthday

A new Gallup Poll dated February 11, 2009, on the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, shows that only 39% of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution", while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way. These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity. Even to this day, highly religious individuals claim that the theory of evolution contradicts the story of creation as outlined in the book of Genesis in the Bible.

What is the official position of the LDS Church on evolution? I would hazard a guess that most of the members don't really know and just assume that the church's position would be one of opposition. However, that is not the case.

If you want to look at the official Church position, read the statement in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Part of that position reads as follows:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern, declares man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity.... Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes.

I'm not someone who necessarily believes that one of my ancestors is a chimpanzee but the Church could have said evolution was not true, and it did not. The position statement leaves a lot of room for evolution to take place.

For those of you who are interested enough to read further, there is a very interesting article in on a website entitled Fairlds.org. The website is operated by the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) which is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of LDS doctrine, belief and practice.

The article is entitled "Evolution and Latter-day Saint Theology: The Tree of Life and DNA".
The conclusion of the article is this:

"the data support the scientific interpretation of an evolutionary process for human origins. The scriptures state that God created humans in His image, we believe these two apparently contradictory paradigms can be reconciled if God created the natural laws by which humans were created. We refer to those natural laws as evolution in a package. Conflicts between the scientific data and the scriptural accounts result from our interpretation of the scriptures and our interpretation of the scientific data. They're not in the data or in the scriptures inherently."

For more information on how eminent LDS scientists reconcile their religious beliefs with their scientific knowledge, read my previous blog, Science vs. Religion.

The Black Lab with the Cold Water Tail

This is a hard time of year for our dogs, especially Boomer. With the wet weather we've had and the warm days, there is a lot of mud in the yard. When we leave the dogs out all day, we come home to some very muddy dogs. In order to make them presentable, I've had to take them out back and wash them off with the hose. Sadie handles this quite well, sitting and watching; waiting her turn while I wrestle Boomer around to clean him up. And then it happened, all of a sudden we noticed Boomer's tail which was always sticking straight out, and which wags in a circle, was limp as a wet noodle. Hanging between his legs like a sign of perpetual depression. We were in a quandry, what had happened to Boomers tail. Then a couple of days ago, JoAnn and Senta were searching the internet for clues and found the answer in an article entitled "Cold Tail, Dead Tail, Limber Tail". This syndrome is thought to be associated with the dog getting wet and not getting dry soon enough. It's funny that when JoAnn mentioned this to one of her teacher friends at school, the friend gasped and said "it happened to our dog last week after we gave him a bath. Other folks have blogged about this happening to their dogs. So, a word of warning to Lab owners, don't bath your dog in the winter.



Boomer's tail normally looks like this; sticking straight out!

The Red Head is Dead?

The other day, I read an article in the Smithsonian Magazine about the impending extinction of red heads in the world. To quote the article:

"If predictions by the Oxford Hair Foundation come to pass, the number of natural redheads everywhere will continue to dwindle until there are none left by the year 2100."

This upset me a little because some of my favorite people in the world are red heads. In fact, I have been called a red head myself. I remember when we lived in Orem decades ago, I used to go home teaching to a family where one of the little girls called me "the man with the orange hair". Now I don't think I have orange hair, just some auburn highlights.

I guess the reason we have four red-headed children is because both JoAnn and I have have auburn hair. I remember going to the store when they were all small and getting dirty looks and even accusations of evil doing since the accuser had red hair but had been unable to have red-headed children.

Regardless of the article, I'm optimistic that there will always be red heads. I've read articles by other people who think the prediction is hogwash. And as you can see, I've done my part to ensure the long-term survival of the red head. Photo credit: Brian Wilcox.

PJ is Three

On January 22, 2009, Parker turned three. This just happened to be on a Thursday which is when we get to have him over for the evening. The night before, his other grandma and grandpa took him to Chucky Cheese. He must have had fun because when I asked him what he did, he jabbered at me for about 5 minutes. Typically I can understand him fairly well, but he was going so fast, I couldn't understand a word he said. To celebrate his birthday, we had a little party and Senta made a cake with a "Cars" theme featuring Lighting McQueen (click on the photos to get a better view). Parker loves Lighting McQueen. He has a Lighting McQueen bicycle, pajamas, coloring book, etc. etc. We were kind of worried about the cake because Senta called and said she was cleaning up after she had a "cake accident" on the way to the car. But not to worry, it turned out great. To see all the photos, click on my picasa album.

Richie and Greg at the Obama Inauguration

Soon after the election, Richie called and asked if I would try and get him some tickets to the inauguration. He had evidently discovered that getting tickets from his Virginia congressmen would be impossible. Interestingly, that very day there was an article in the paper about how to get tickets. I immediately contacted the Jason Chaffetz at the indicated email address. Congressman Chaffetz emailed me back saying he didn't know how many tickets he would get, if any, but would let me know. I also called Senator Hatch's local office, they told me to forget it, and Senator Bennett's office, they put me on a list. On December 17th, I got an email from the office of Congressman Chaffetz letting me know they had two tickets for me. Soon after I got a phone call from Senator Bennett's office letting me know they also had two tickets for me. Believing, and rightly so, that Richie probably had some friends that could use the tickets, I confirmed that I would pick up these tickets.

In order to prevent scalping, I guess, the only way to get the tickets was to appear personally at the congressman's office with ID about three or four days prior to the event. When Richie and Greg went to the office of Rep. Chaffetz, they realized that security was so tight and the line so long, that by the time they got the tickets, Senator Bennett's office would be closed. Greg called Senta and asked her to get them a number for the office. When they called the number and explained the situation, Rep. Chaffetz came out personally and gave them the tickets.

On the morning of the big day, they got on the Metro at about 7 AM and headed for town. As everyone has heard, the crowds were massive. After they had been waiting in line for an hour, they noticed up at the front of the line, that security was turning people away. Greg told me that he had enough experience with concerts to know that there was usually a way around security. This next photo shows the line (I use that word loosely as it was really a street full of people) with a row of buses on the right side. Richie and Greg made their way to the other side of the row of buses and walked around security (it's kind of scary when you think about it, two college kids from Utah busting through inauguration security) and eventually got to their spot about 10:45. There were a lot of people not so lucky, or maybe not so devious. There have been many articles about the people who didn't get in. Click on the link to read one.


These next two photos are of the very patriotic Wilcox Boys at the Obama Inaguration.

Tickets to the inauguration were divided up using colors. The tickets Richie and Greg had were silver. A map showing the various locations can be seen by clicking on the link. As one newspaper article stated:

"There are five types of tickets, each color-coded depending on the entrance and how close guests can be to the stage: blue, yellow, orange, purple and silver. Most of the tickets are rectangular, just a couple inches high and about six inches across. But ironically, the biggest tickets (silver) are for spots the furthest away from the Capitol and are designated as standing room only. Those tickets are three-times the size of the others.

"I guess they have to do something for the people in the back to make them feel special," one aide said.

And, by the way, for those who have heard that this was the most expensive inauguration ever, it is completely untrue. Check out the link.

As some of you may know, Greg works on the school paper at UVU. He tried to get them to pay for his ticket, but with the state budget the way it is this year, there was no way. However, he did get to bring a camera owned by the paper. So even though they weren't all that close, they still got a photo in which you can see the President and his wife (you'll have to double click on the photo to enlarge it).

If you click on the photo and look down from the right edge of the window to the right of the red-draped entrance, you can see Pres. and Mrs. Obama (look for a yellow-colored coat).

Pres. Uchtdorf and Elder Ballard represented the Church at the inauguration. They both seem to have a hope and respect for Pres. Obama which seems to be lacking in the general membership.

Both left the prayer service with a sense the people of America are going to unite behind the new president and his administration and that we need to pray for him. Elder Ballard said, "We need to exercise our prayers and help him accomplish the great objectives that he has set."

Both President Uchtdorf and Elder Ballard used adjectives like "marvelous," "wonderful" and "overwhelming" in describing their experiences.

"This new administration is sending a message of hope and change to the world," President Uchtdorf said. "We know there is no greater message to all the world than the message of the Church and the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I only hope this historic moment will open doors and hearts to the gospel message of hope and change."

To read the full article in the Church News, click on the link.

To see all of their photos, click on my picassa album.