13 posts tagged “dog”

The weather in Alabama in February is unpredictable at best.

We had snow:

 

 

I know....some of you are laughing, but this is a big deal here in Alabama.

 

 

 

 

Following the snow we have some of our Spring flowers in bloom:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jordan watches for the bus every morning.  Some mornings he gets help from Darcy:

 

 OC (Outside Cat) was interested in the camera while I was out taking pictures of the flowers.

 

We had company from India on Friday night.  I showed her how to bake cookies: she did a batch all by herself.

 

That was pretty much my February.  Nothing overly exciting.  I do, however, need to write up a post about what we saw while we were in Rome and Pompeii in January.

We had company Friday night.  A gal from India is over learning stuff for her job and we had her over Friday night and took her shopping on Saturday.  Friday night we baked cookies.  Did you know that Indians don't have ovens?  No baking is done in Southern India; so cakes and cookies are a treat that most have never tasted.  When Pavani got up Saturday morning I asked her: "How'd you sleep last night?"  her reply: "Properly."  ROFL!

I've lost my Debit card and don't have the nerve to tell Chris.

I have a migraine.  Don't try to balance the checkbook with a migraine....The balance is off by over $400.

Sears is having a great sale: 1/2 off the marked clearance price.  I bought over $200 worth of clothing for less than $50: two short sleeved shirts, two long sleeved shirts, a blouse, a hoodie, and a track suit.  I love bargains.

Spring is here...and along with it is the volatile weather.  Today we will have highs in the mid-70's tomorrow we will have severe thunderstorms which could contain tornados, and Tuesday we will have highs in the 40's.  The Daffodils are in gloriously yellow bloom and the tree buds are swelling with life.  We need the rain, but not the tornados.  ~sigh~ 

My husband claims he is trying to quit smoking.  But, I don't believe him.  He doesn't seem to try and 'fight' the urge...he just gives in.  ~whatever~  I'm trying hard to not stress over it.  Either he will or he won't. 

Baron, my mini-dachsund, won't quit licking himself.  Lick, lick, lick, lick---until there is a wet spot on whatever he happens to be laying on.  Which can be very gross---as he sleeps in bed with me, under the covers.  So, I can roll over in the middle of the night to find a cold wet spot where he was laying--lick, lick, licking himself.  AUGH!!  I've bathed him, given him his flea meds and his heartworm meds....he still lick, lick, licks.  I guess a trip to vet is in order.  augh!

Okay, there was more---but the migraine drugs have kicked in and my brain is fuzzy---back to trying to figure out the check book.

It has been a long time since I've mentioned Darcy.  She is full grown now, just needs to fill out some more.  We got her spayed back when she was six months old.  She's finally house broken---but you have to try to decipher her stare:  do you want water?  do you want to go outside?  do you want to play?  and she'll just stare at you until you hit the right one.  Sometimes she wants two things so she'll just keep staring at you.

She now spends the night in Jordan's room with him.  He loves it.  Sometimes she sleeps on the bed with him and sometimes it is on the floor.  I think it depends on how chilly it is in the room.  In a few more months she will be on the floor all the time, probably laying on top of the ac vent.

We have to put her in her crate when we leave for the office on Tuesdays.  This is for her safety as well as Baron's.  Darcy will annoy Baron until Baron is extemely cranky and will bite at her.  They fight over chew bones, but not toys.  It is like having siblings around; but these can not be reasoned with.

She sheds...omg....she sheds!  a Lot.  We've invested in a Furminator.  I just wish I could get Jordan to use it more often.

 

and she loves yogurt...when I get a container of yogurt out of the fridge nothing will make her leave my side until she's had the opportunity to lick the container clean.

 

Some people consider Darcy to be a big dog.  She's a bit over 50 pounds, but since she's been with me from a tiny puppy I don't see her as being all that big.  The only time her 'bigness' bothers me is when she's out on the chain and is running around while I'm trying to get to the back door.  The chain can trip a person up lickity split.  So far, I haven't been tripped completely---stumbled a time or two, but hit the ground---nope.  Not even really today when she caught me off guard.  I wasn't paying attention because we were busy packing the car with Christmas presents, Jordan's luggage, Chris's golf clubs and my bike.  We got them all packed up and ready to go; I was stressing about Baron being stressed that the car was being packed and he was scared he'd be left behind.  I went to step up on the back step, Darcy ran by and clipped my ankle.  I started down, threw out my arm to catch my fall and whacked it hard on the porch railing, that threw me even further off balance and I hit my hip on the porch step, then I was knocked catty-whompus and hit my back on the post holding the porch railing up.  All of this happened in super slow motion and Chris was able to come over and grab my outstretched hand which kept me from totally falling off the steps and onto the ground.

So, the inside part of the elbow where the elbow would rest on an arm rest is swollen and reddish purple, my back hurts, my hip is bruised and I have a welt on my ankle.  All I can think about is the fact that my 72 y/o mother will be here for 18 days in January watching my kid and my dogs---I hope Darcy doesn't trip or out muscle my Mom.  that would not be a good thing. 

Ibuprofen is the Chris recommended therapy...I wonder if I should ice the elbow, too?

Darcy loves to play with OC.
OC loves the attention she gets from Darcy.
Darcy begs to go out and see what OC is up to.
OC will stand outside the back door and meow until I let Darcy out.
Sometimes OC regrets her interspecies friendship.  When she gets tired of Darcy she just walks away.  Sometimes it is completely out of sight, but mostly she walks just out of Darcy range of reach and will just lay there and flick her tail as if to say: "Try and get me now---you lowly dawg." 

Below she lays claim to the top of the garbage can and Darcy is voicing her opinion.

 

 

It's been a little while since I posted a Darcy update.  Well, since she tore up the carpet and we contemplated becoming a dog-free home.

Rest assured, we are still a two-dog family.  Baron is barely tolerating the new puppy as Darcy is now much much bigger than he is.  Baron can now walk under Darcy and they won't touch.  She's about 14/15 weeks old now and is over 20 pounds....she's growing so fast that she can't seem to eat enough to compensate, so she's skinny.

The house-training is slowly-ever-so-slowly coming along.  She now averages about one accident a day.  If I could just get the other people in the house to pay as much attention to her signals as I do...we would be pretty much accident free. 

She'll sit on command, and she now sits when I go to put the chain on or take it off.  She is a very intelligent dog (well, with the exception of house-training and being alone.)  She does not like to be alone, and if she is left alone outside of her crate she will tear stuff up.  Thus, she has to stay in the crate at night or when we aren't home.  Which luckily for her is not that often.  I just can't get her to 'come' when called.  She's getting to the age where she will run off if she knows you are trying to get her to come into the house and she thinks she's not ready.  This is very frustrating.  She loves to chase a ball.  She will chase it and return it to me about six times before her puppy attention span gets swapped to something else.  I think it is pretty cool as I've never had a dog play fetch with me before (outside and with a ball....Baron will chase a toy, but he mostly likes tug-of-war with them.)

 

 

Darcy meeting OC at 6/7 weeks  

Darcy at 14/15 weeks and OC earlier today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When CR and I first got together I was recently seperated from my soon-to-be-ex-husband.  The ex and I had many different pets...my favorites being the kitties as I wasn't allowed cats as a kid.  (My dad despises cats.)  I had several favorites through the years, and most of them were the kind of kitties that had the extra toes.  Smokey, was a big hefty male cat, and I was the only one that could pet him.  He was big and mean enough that all of the dogs/hounds that we had would get out of his way as he walked by.  Then there was Samson.  I kitty I got one time the ex and I were seperated.  Samson is the only kitty I ever had that came when his name was called and not to "kitty kitty kitty".  When we got back together my ex decided he didn't like Samson...I can't prove it, but I know he poisoned Samson.

So, when Cr and I moved in together the first thing we did was adopt a kitten from the pound.  We named her Punkin because we adopted her in October.  When we first got her she was a little bitty mite of a thing.  The first night she slept on my shoulder, she slowly moved to the top of my head and as she got bigger she moved to the bottom of the bed.  She was a picky little thing and would only drink water from the toilet.  CR hated that as she inevitably wanted a drink just after coming out of the litter box and she'd leave kitty litter on the seat.  She really liked hiding and playing in our closet.  I would remember to close the closet door, but CR would forget and in she'd go....especially when we were gone to work.  She sharpened her claws on CR's Dad's leather briefcase.  That didn't go over too well.  Another day she used my wedding dress as a sharpener.  ~sigh~  I loved my kitty and thought that when she did 'wrong' it wasn't her fault but ours because we left the closet door open or the toilet seat up.  Not long after Tigger was born we found her in the crib.  CR used the cat smothers baby myth to guilt me into giving her away.  The day after she left I started feeling better...I had been perpetually sick for a long long time.  After she'd been gone about a week I felt 100% better than I had in ages and ages.  It was then that we realized that I hadn't been sick, I was allergic to Punkin.  Proof came the next time I was exposed to a cat....I sneezed, swelled, and had trouble breathing.

After we had Punkin about six months we were given a Pekingnese.  We were told she was about a year old, so we treated her like a person would a dog....expecting her to be house broken, etc.  When I took Jasmine to the vet after we'd had her about a month, the vet said she was right at four months old.  No wonder we had so much trouble with the house training...she was still a puppy!  Jasmine was a good little dog, she would sit/lay on the couch next to me and just be. 

We moved to NC...Jasmine didn't like living in the pine trees and Punkin was scared of the big water bugs (those huge cockroaches that are about 2-3 inches long ).  While we were there we adopted a guinea pig, and named him PineCone.  During one of our many moves, PineCone decided that he couldn't take the trauma anymore and died of a heart attack.

Once we were back in MS we decided to adopt another dog, this time from the pound.  So, off we went to see what they had to offer.  We passed cage after cage that were filled with dogs and the cutest puppies all of them came bounding to the front to bark and whine at us, or they cowered in the back corner and refused to be 'noticed'.  None of them felt right.  At the very end of the row of cages there were a couple of empty cages, then there was the very last cage.  In this cage in the very back tied to the cage was this little black scraggly looking sad exuse for a dog/puppy.  He looked at me and wagged his little stump of a tail.  His fur was so matted that his two bag legs were one.  He stank, he reeked,he was very sick, he had ear mites and the mange; but he was the one.  I knew it in my heart of hearts that he was the dog we were meant to adopt.  Adopt him we did.  We named him Pappilion (Pappy for short).  We took him home and put him straight into the bathtub.  He stood there and let us use scissors to cut away all the clumps and matts.  He didn't complain when we bathed him...and it took three shampoos to get most of the stink off.  When he was finally semi-presentable we took him to the vet.  Found out he was only about six months old to the 10-12 we were told at the pound, got medicine for the ear mites, and whatever else ailed him.  Pappy ended up being the very best dog ever.  He NEVER EVER, not even once had an accident in the house, he tolerated many different things...Jasmine, Punkin, moving many different times, Tigger, all of the kids I ever baby sat.  Pappy was a great dog.  We never were able to get him completely cleared of the ear mites, he almost always smelled at least a little bad, but he was a good dog.  The only thing he ever did that made me mad at him was the one time he snapped at Tigger.  But, I blame Tigger for pestering Pappy and pestering him, following him around while Pappy tried to escape...and just bugging the crap out of the dog until he couldn't take it anymore.  That was the one and only time he snapped.  He taught Tigger a lesson that day.  On my first night away from home, during my very first business trip ever; Pappy died in his sleep at the age of 11.  

 

When we moved to Texas we couldn't take both dogs with us.  We had to give one of them up and due to certain circumstances it was decided that we would find Jasmine a new home.  The home she found treated her like the Princess she was....she ended up being so spoiled with the expensive doggie food, rhinestone collars, her own seat in the car, etc...  I'm glad she found a new home.

Once in Texas we were a happy one dog home.  But one year CR forgot my birthday.  He recieved a phone call while he was at work from one of my friends reminding him that it was my birthday.  On his way home from work he stopped at a pet store and bought me a miniature dachsund.  I named him: Baron Von Dervergotten Guberstaad (Baron of the forgotten birthday).  He has been everything I ever wanted in a small lap dog.  He sleeps in bed, under the covers with me.  He hangs out on the couch with me, gets under my robe and is very affectionate.  Baron is now seven years old. 

 

We are currently the proud owners of a Bearded Dragon.  When we got him we picked up a pair of them.  They were tiny little things which would fit on CR's nose.  We named them Boomer and Sheila.  They grew up and laid eggs.  Which we were unable to hatch because conditions have to be just right, and we were never able to maintain the 'just right' conditions that were needed.  Sheila got sick and died when she was five, Boomer is now six and seems to be doing just fine as an 'only' dragon. 

For my birthday in 2005 CR let me get two Russian Dwarf Hamsters.  We named them Brenda and Eddie (Billie Joel fans) In a very short amount of time we had babies.  ONe of these babies got his leg caught in the cage and he lost it.  We named him Stumpy and in an effort to not have anymore babies, we let Sheila go with her babies and we kept Eddie and Stumpy.  Eddie died in his sleep at the ripe old age of one.  Stumpy is still alive and kicking living as a sole hamster...he is almost two. 

 

When we moved here to the House on the Hill, the house had mice.  Poison and traps didn't seem to work.  A friend of ours is good friends with the lady that runs the local shelter.  She had a beautiful cat that needed a home or it was going to have to be put down.  So, we went to check it out.  After it was determined that the kitty could survive outside, and that she had been spayed, we decided to adopt her....allergies and all.  She is named OC (Outside Cat) so we (meaning I)  can not forget that she can't come in the house.  If/when I pet her I have to immediately come in and wash my hands, sometimes change my clothes.  OC is the best mouser, within a week of bringing OC home we no longer had a mouse problem.  She brings the dead little critters to the front porch to show off her 'prize' and to recieve the loving attention she most assuredly deserves. 

 

For Christmas of 2005 we went to the pound a picked up a really cute puppy for Tigger for a Christmas present.  After Pappy died we were going to get Tigger a puppy, it did not matter that it was Christmas time, he was getting a puppy.  We fell in love with this puppy and since he was going to be put down the next day, we adopted him.  It was after we'd had him about 10 days, after giving him to Tigger Christmas morning...that we saw the black spots on his tongue that let us know he had Chow Chow in him.  His other antics as he grew led us to believe that he was also part pit bull.  He was a stubborn dog that destroyed many things, but Tigger loved him and we were bound and determined to mold him into the dog that we wanted.  Then when he was nearly a year old, he bit a baby/toddler who happened to just be toddling by him.  Frodo had to go. 

 

Now we have Darcy.  We are leary of pound puppies because of the incident with Frodo.  So we went to people that still had possession of the parent dogs.  Darcy is 1/2 German Shepherd and 1/2 Alaskan Husky.  She is only about 12 weeks old, we are having major trouble getting her house trained, but she is very smart and will already come and sit. 

There you go.  The rest of my critters....

This post was inspired by JustMarie and her post Homing the Homeless

 

I’ve had so many furry critters in my life.  When I was a toddler/preschooler we had two Basset Hounds, Toto and Vicky.  Toto had a litter of puppies, 13 of them.  I remember we named two of them, Horse and Clover.  Horse because he was the biggest and Clover because not only was she the runt, but she had a mark on her back the shape of a clover.  Clover was my first experience with death.  All those puppies got cold and piled on top of each other…smothering poor little Clover.  I remember not being allowed to go out with my brothers when they buried her.  I can still remember standing on the couch watching out the window as they carried her and a shovel out of my sight.  I cried so hard.  When we were living in Connecticut Vicky got out of the fenced in back yard.  We searched for her for several days; I remember Mom getting a phone call from a vet saying that she had been hit by a car.  I cried and cried.  This prompted Dad to decide the back yard was too small for dogs and he gave Toto away.  I cried.  Not long after that Dad got transferred to New Hampshire , my first question was whether or not we could get Toto back.

 

While in NH the school I attended was small, very small, so small that First, Second, and Third grade all shared the same classroom and two teachers.    During Second Grade we had a class pet:  a guinea pig that went by the name Peanuts.  (He was black and brown; the brown was the color of peanut butter….)  When the weekends would come one of the students would take Peanuts and his cage home to take care of him.  When it was my turn to bring him home my family fell in love.  The question came up, what was Mrs. Charles going to do with Peanuts come summer time?  She told us that whoever wanted him should bring a note to school from his or her parents stating that they could have Peanuts.  Oh my goodness, I remember rushing home all full of excitement…please please please can we adopt Peanuts?  I went to school the next day with a prized note of acceptance.  Oh, then I was worried, what if someone else’s parent sent a note, too?  I was told the notes would be put into a hat and the winner would be drawn out.  I could hardly stand the suspense while waiting for the rest of the week to come to an end.  I know the teachers got sick of me asking if someone else had brought in a note.  I could not fathom why no one else wanted the little Pig.  Finally the day came and I was the sole note bringer.  Peanuts was mine!!  Never was a guinea pig loved as much as that one.  I played and played with that poor little pig; I’d tie a piece of yarn around his neck and take him for a walk.  Mom says he’d come back inside with the bottoms of his feet bloody from where I ‘dragged’ him.  Dad built him a new cage when we moved to ME and it sat in the hall-way near the kitchen.  Peanuts learned to squeal when the refrigerator door was opened, he’d squeal until he was given a piece of lettuce or carrot, it didn’t matter if he still had a piece in his cage from last time he’d still squeal.  (Getting supper ready was so much fun!)  My parents tell me that after I went to bed in the evenings, Peanuts would get out of his cage and go wandering the house.  He’d pay them a visit in the family room and when he got tired he’d go crawl back in his cage.  Peanuts died of old age on my Mom’s birthday.  I cried so hard.

 

For my birthday the next year I wanted a rabbit.  The day before my birthday my Dad went out into his shop area where he started measuring, sawing and hammering.  I went bouncing out there: “What are you building?  A rabbit cage?”  “No a coffee table for your Mother.”  “Nuh huh….it’s gonna be a rabbit cage!”  He kept insisting it was going to be a coffee table, I kept insisting it was going to be a rabbit cage.  He almost had me convinced that it was something for my Mom for Mother’s Day (my birthday is May 11^th and it falls on Mother’s Day quite regularly) but when he drug out the paint can I knew it wasn’t a coffee table.  I wasn’t sure what it was going to be, but Mom would not have a Battleship Grey coffee table in her home.  I got called inside before the wires and such got attached so I didn’t really see the finished product until much later.  Not long after that my parent’s had to make a run to the store for some ‘forgotten’ birthday party supplies.  While they were gone my brothers set in telling me how I wasn’t getting a rabbit; that Dad had not built a rabbit cage, etc…they thought they had convinced me that I wasn’t getting a rabbit; but I knew I was…I just knew it.  Sure enough, when my parent’s came home they had a bunny rabbit in their possession.  He was white with a few black spots down his back.  Just to continue the ruse, I named him ‘Surprise’.  I wanted everyone to think they had surprised me, when they hadn’t.  Things I learned while owning a rabbit: if you feed them rhubarb, they will pee red and it will scare a kid to death thinking that the rabbit is bleeding to death.  They bite and it hurts.  They like clover and will escape their cage often in order to get to it.  If your rabbit is missing check the big clover patch before panicking and looking elsewhere.  One October day while I was at school, I felt something wasn’t right in my world but I couldn’t figure out what it was.  When I got home I asked Mom if everyone in the family was okay and they were.  I went out to feed Surprise and he was lying in his cage, dead.  I cried when we buried him next to Peanuts.

 

Also while we lived in my Dad got a dog.  A Brittany spaniel, his name was Rebel.  I don’t remember too much about him, except I tried to teach him lots of tricks and he just didn’t learn them.  When we found out we were moving to California Dad said Rebel couldn’t go.  It wouldn’t be fair to a country dog to move him to the city where he’d be confined to a small fenced in backyard.

 

While we were in CA my parents got me another rabbit.  This one was solid black with a white nose.  I named him Cotton, because he was as soft as a cotton ball.  He escaped his cage a lot, too.  But he always stayed inside the fence.  We left him with my brother when we moved to Mississippi.

 

Once settled in MS my Dad said I could have a dog.  Another Brittany spaniel was purchased; this one was registered, we named him Patricia’s Rebel Ben.  He was still a puppy when he ran off.  I knew he was ignoring me as I called for him.  I also knew the second he decided to come, because that was the second I saw the car.  I’ll never forget the sight of that car hitting my puppy, but I didn’t stick around for the ending.  I was running into the house; hysterical.  It wasn’t until after we buried him that I found out that car went into the ditch trying to avoid hitting him.

 

That is all of the critters I had as pets when I was living at home.  Coming sometime soon will be a run-down of the critters I've had since CR and I have been together.

I woke up around 1:30 this morning and noticed that Baron was not asleep at my feet as he usually is.  I rolled over and found him beside me only half under the covers...another oddity.  I put my hand on him, he was cold, stiff, and he wasn't breathing.  I waited what felt like an eternity waiting for him to breathe, move, or in some other way prove to me that he wasn't dead.  I didn't happen:

Me: *gasp!* Baron's dead!!!

CR: (woken from a sound sleep) huh? What?

Me (after Baron has moved....): Never mind, he's okay!

Shit!  I didn't sleep well the rest of the night....especially since Baron decided he was done sleeping with me and spent the night in my office on his bed under his blanket.  ~sigh~