Blackjack and the Goat Lady

I have made reference to the Goat Lady, or Ziegefrau as we call her at home, before and I thought it was high time to explain this a bit further.  Pablo was not a huge fan of bringing Blackjack to Germany, maintaining that it made absolutely no sense to cart a dog overseas in the belly of an airplane.  I agreed that it made no sense, but maintained that was no reason for us not to do it.  In a triumph of love over logic, Pablo finally agreed to bring Blackjack with us on the condition that we not let Blackjack's presence deter us from jaunting about Europe.  So when we arrived, one of my first priorities was finding a kennel for Blackjack.  Since we don't have a car over here, it also had to be one that we could access via public transportation. 

Having learned the proper word for kennel in German, Tierpension, I set about finding information on the Internet.  There was very little.  There were some great places that I couldn't reach and some other places within the city that only take small dogs.  Finally I found a reference to a Billy's Tierpension that was run by someone that also raises Boxers.  It turns out that the owner, a woman not named Billy, runs a dog kennel, raises Boxers and also raises goats. She has an internet site for her goats, but nothing on the kennel. Really, after finding that out, Ziegefrau seemed to be a far better name than Billy's Tierpension.  The Ziegefrau is not only great with dogs, but also one of the most cheerful and kindest people I have met anywhere.  And people warned me that East Germans were typically closed and not immediately friendly!

She has a house and a barn not too far from the Elbe river on the outskirts of Dresden.  Taking first a tram, then a bus, and finally walking through a barley field it only takes us an hour to get there!  To call this place a kennel is somewhat misleading - there are no boxed in enclosures in sight other than the chicken coops, although she must surely have some means of separating dogs that don't get along with each other.  In any case, Blackjack sleeps either in the house or in the barn.  Periodically all the dogs get taken out to run  (freely, I might add, although she made sure to ask if that was alright) along the Elbe.  Occasionally Blackjack apparently goes swimming in the river too.  Whenever we pick him up, he smells distinctly of goat, so he must spend some amount of time in the barn.  When we picked him up from the last trip, it had been raining all week and she warned me that Blackjack had taken every opportunity he had to play with a Labrador Retriever in large muddy puddles.  So he smelled of goat and stale pond water.  Mmmmmm!  But he's always excited to go there, so it's worth the trip and the bath when he comes back.

Goats and barn

Barley field

The Elbe river flooded the house, barn and even the entire barley field unfortunately, although the damage was not quite as extensive as the major 2002 flood.  That time the river filled the house almost all the way to the ceiling of the first floor, and this time it came only 2/3 of the way up to the ceiling.  It's been a little over a week since they could navigate back to their home, and things are getting back in place.  Apparently the goats won't come back for a few months until the nearby grazing area has regrown fresh, healthy grass instead of silt-coated grass.  Hopefully dogs will be able to go back by the time the kids are out of school on July 12 as we want to go on one more trip before we return to the States!