Something about Emmett

One of the disadvantages of Dane ownership is summed up thusly: floppy lips. More exactly, wet, floppy lips. Wet, floppy lips that can leave an unsuspecting victim of love with a slime coating.
One of the advantages is the belly-laugh shared when standing up from the slobber assault to K's exclamation, "Oh look - hair by 'Something about Mary'!"

Not the Boss of Me

As hard as it is for a control-freak such as myself to admit, I think we may be losing control of the pack, at least insofar as sleep rituals are concerned.

Although consensus does not exist on the etiology of the issue, I am of the belief trouble began with excessive middle-of-the-night toileting activities. First, dogs were asking to be let out around midnight. Then they added a 2 a.m. outing to the mix. The one thing we do agree on is, they have us on this one. The alternative involves more scrubbing than either of us want to engage in as a first-thing-in-the-morning ritual.

Mercy has since added a 4 a.m. rousting – not for the purpose of going outside. Heavens no, it is cold and dark outside at 4 a.m. Which makes it a perfect time to play squeaky-toy smackdown. Like clockwork, she is up and ker-plomping around the bedroom, snatching up squeaky toys. Contrary to her name, she squeaks them mercilessly, tosses them so she can chase them down and pounce on them with all the grace of a defensive lineman wearing a plaster leg cast. We have tried telling her, “Mercy, go back to bed,” but that directive doesn’t seem to exist in the small pantheon of commands she has chosen to heed.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have Presley, who is a very avid communicator. She uses a whine/bark combination, always in an escalating manner, to express her wishes. Obtuse as we are, she has found it necessary to employ this communication method to various tasks throughout the day. If her twice-day feeding ritual is off-schedule, a series of whines moving to short, persistent barks is all it takes to get us back online. When she would like to be released to the front to do her business or investigate the incessant barking from the neighbors’ weenie dogs, we are similarly informed. About two weeks ago, at 9:30 p.m., Presley began doing her whine/dance/bark routine. One of us got up from our position in the living room and walked over to let her out the front door. She stood there with that “stupid human” look in her eyes and did not move to the front door. She slowly sidled toward the bedroom.

K, always the more astute communicator, observed, “I think she is ready to go to bed.” Being the accommodating person I am, and the designated 4 a.m. playmate for Mercy, I acceded to Presley’s wishes and followed her in to the bedroom to get ready for bed. In the ensuing weeks, the 9:30 p.m. bedtime call has slowly inched itself earlier and earlier, so the dancing toward the bedroom and barking begins around 9:00 p.m. these days. I was remarking that 9:00 was a little early for even me, when K pointed out it isn’t if one is to be getting up every day at 4 a.m. As usual, she has a point.

A few days ago, when I followed Mercy out into the dark living room to begin our puppy calisthenics, I noticed a dark lump on the couch. As I crouched down and moved towards it, a single eye rheumy eye opened to return my gaze. Slowly and with a great groan, the pieces fell into place: after she ushers us off to bed each night, Presley assumes a resting place on the basically-no-dog couch and settles in for her beauty sleep.

I could go further and posit that her “plan” has been working insofar as she gets up and moves off the couch before Mercy and I rise for our 4 a.m. playdate, which explains the earlier and earlier calls to bedtime, but that would make her smarter than me and we all know that can’t be true, right?

A Toy Story

K was dispatched to pick up dog food the other day, and she came home with a bonus bag stuffed to the brim with toys. She meekly offered up the receipt, sheepishly smiling and pointing out “they were on sale.”

Of course: irrespective of need, the acquisition of more shreddables should be dictated by the sale rack at the local Petco or Petsmart. And of course, I don’t really care one way or another, it’s just part of the complex dance we engage in over the dogs. I say they don’t need treats – their treat is fresh water and predictable twice-daily offerings of high-quality kibble. She says they need pork rolls, greenies ©, pig ears, and Blue Dog Bakery treats. I say the dozen dog beds we have laying around the house are more than enough. She says so-and-so needs a special one in a special spot where he/she likes to rest. I say they should be happy to have each other for playmates and chewthings, and walls to eat for entertainment. She says they need toys.

So the treat jar runneth over, dogs beds fill up any available floor space, and yesterday evening K gleefully unloaded a bag full of Halloween-themed toys, busily presenting them to me, emphasizing their various features, and lined them up on the table. One by one, dogs walked up and gingerly claimed toys for themselves, pulling them off the table as K had removed tags, stickers and other potential hazards. Their new plaything in tow, they each moved to their respective corners, beds and special spots to explore the squeaking feature, chewiness, and tossability of their new playthings.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I concede the point that even if not completely necessary, the toys are well-appreciated by the krewe. They have indiscernible yet distinct preferences in toy selection. Each evening before bed, I dutifully pick up all the toys and place them in the toy basket, and every day the dogs dig through the toy basket, looking for the toy du jour.





And who I am to try to say no to an evening spent thusly:

The Plan According to the Underpants Gnomes

I am not a professional communicator. K is, but aside from the bursts of inspiration and pleasant aesthetic she offers to this blogging project, she does not engineer most of the communication found within this forum.

I have a B.A. in English from a fine institution of higher education. I know what makes a good story. I know the requisite component parts and pieces. Which would lead one to wonder why characters appear within this forum, disappear and perhaps re-appear, all without any exposition. Periodically I come to the realization that I have abandoned the use of fundamental storytelling mechanisms, and for no readily identifiable reason. The only reasonable explanation is that I have adopted storytelling in the tradition of the Underpants Gnomes: something happens in the middle here ?????, and then – make profit!

As we left things last, The-dog-formerly-known-as-Princess and Merrick were traded off in a cross-state transaction. The-Dog-Formerly-Known-as-Princess had a potential home on the east side of the state; Merrick was in need of some veterinary care following his miraculous recovery from a brutal case of demodectic mange, and there was a family living close to our island in the GDRO universe who were very interested in adopting him after all health issues were resolved.

Aside from the gore factor, Merrick ’s veterinary care was completed without incident. He was neutered (a must in rescue) and Doc corrected a strange situation with his eyelids that I do not completely understand even to this day. For those with a morbid sense of curiosity, the condition is called Entropion, where the eyelids turn in so hair aggravates the inner eyelids and creates a potential for irritation, infection, etc. . . For about 4 hours – 4 days post-surgery, one would wonder if the cure is worse than the disease. Because this is a rated-PG blog, I will not include the pictures I took of Merrick's bloody dripping eyes. After full recovery, Merrick found his way to a family who wanted a baby boy, and who love him with a fierceness that in other situations may require therapeutic intervention. Another happy ending.

While we were happily cutting-and-pasting Merrick into his final adoptable version, The-Dog-Formerly-Known-as-Princess (hereinafter referred to as Presley) was in the process of alienating her potential adoptive family. Not a week after we left Merrick happily ensconced with his forever family, Presley made her way to catch a Dane-train back across the state of Missouri, and into northeast Kansas to return to MisFit Farm, where she looks likely to spend the rest of her days. Her reputed transgressions have been easily corrected, she seems to be content -- even happy, and her health is fine. We could do worse in inheriting her as our latest perma-fost. She has laid claim to any dog bed closest to where I am presently located, has enlisted the alliance of Mercy to star in the role as her co-Diva, plays a great game of Senior Olympic chase, and dispenses kisses tainted with breath that can only belong to a septuagenarian dog or someone who routinely ingests dirty gym socks soaked in fish-flavored, outdated milk. So, we have another happy ending of sorts, although our census puts us out of the foster business for a while.

Which explains why the pretty little baby with a hunched back, infected mouth and intestinal worm collection, Emma-Smudge, could not remain at MisFit Farm. She was immediately dispatched to GDRO headquarters for follow up x-rays, follow-up care and no small amount of petting, cuddling, playing, and general wonderful living. She has gained five pounds in the ensuing week, has determined that her back is going to be a permanent feature, and otherwise looks to be a perfectly fine little bundle of puppy-joy, ready to be snatched up by some loving family with an aesthetic taste in large dogs that runs toward the burnt-and-bent. http://www.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=14840711

So, rest assured that despite the big question mark in the middle of our comings-and-goings, we have once again managed to muddle through another month of blessings, angst, laughter, tears, ups, downs and in-betweens, to reap the profit of satisfaction in a job well-done, and an abiding sense that every one of us is right where we belong.

Hungry

Most folks don’t have to spend much time with me to figure out that I have a large appetite. I generally snack my way through most days; even at that I am able to consume large amounts of food at any given mealtime. I am told this is a longstanding characteristic – my childhood is replete with stories of consumption conquests – entire steaks at age 5, an entire large pizza at age 10, all-you-can buffets munched right into financial ruin. There are also the myriad stories of the variety of foodstuffs of which I would partake – as a toddler in a high chair happily munching down a raw green onion or pushing through my first dill pickle, or cow tongue as an appetizer, a taco filling, or a main course.

Folks in the nutrition business or diet industry will readily distinguish the difference between appetite and hunger. Make no mistake, I appreciate the difference and am thankful every day that, notwithstanding my healthy appetite, I do not go hungry.

When you are the littlest puppy in the litter and something terrible has happened to cause your spine to grow into a hump, you are experiencing great discomfort from the foreign object lodged up into your upper gum, you are being nibbled away at by hoards of fleas, and you are teeming with whipworms, hookworms and roundworms, you know hunger. With that wonderful combination, you probably couldn’t eat enough to assuage the hunger, even if you wolfed down canned food in seconds flat, and then stood for another ten minutes licking the smell out of the dog dish.

And you would be a magnificent creature indeed if even though your little belly was concave, and each and every rib could be counted, you still could enjoy the comfort of a soft bed, and had love to share with anyone willing to offer up a lap.

Mostly, we appreciate the work of the dedicated folks who keep a shoestring rescue going notwithstanding the driving, the expense, the late nights and early mornings, and the repeated heartbreak, so we know this baby will never have to know hunger again.

Steve the Duck

Never ones to look a gift duck in the mouth, and completely clueless on the subject of how to catch two ducks emancipated into the wilds, we did exactly what was expected of us when the mystery ducks appeared on our pond; we submitted to their presence and incorporated them into our animal care routine. In a riff on our beloved neighbor (who finally acceded that the ducks were escapees from his barn) and without any way to tell them apart, the ducks came to be known collectively as “The Steves.”

After my initial stale-english-muffin assault, the Steves remained at the water’s edge, notwithstanding additional incursions such as dog chasings. They demonstrated an ability to fly, albeit not high or far, in escaping these intrusions, but stubbornly refused to reliquish residency from our pond. I would take feed down and deposit it at the water’s edge, but the Steves kept their distance, and I was never certain my meager offerings were consumed by their intended recipients.

Although they demonstrated the ability to escape chase from our pack, one of the Steves became the victim of some other type of attack, so by mid-Summer, we were down to one Steve. Saddened by the loss of Steve’s companion, but without any alternatives except interia we continued to offer refuge for the remaining Steve, such as it is.

At some point in time, our incorporation of the duck into our routine appears to have crossed a line into assimilation. Maybe the assimilation occurred after the great poultry slaughter of June 2009, as an unlikely alliance designed to ensure Steve’s continuing survival. Maybe this was always the more social of the Steves, now left to freely fraternize with his pasture-mates. As I have readily admitted, we are not well-versed in matters of duck so we are at a loss for any explanation for this interspecial mingling.

All I know is Steve the duck, despite, or perhaps because of, his distinct size disadvantage, has appeared to join our small herd of goats and horse.

Ruminations on Regurgitations

We have been asked if we ever think about having children. I won’t lie: we have contemplated the possibility. For now, the dogs provide plenty of instructive opportunities for what parenthood would look like for us.

Late last night or early this morning, one of the dogs began making a retching noise, which eventually turned into the production of regurgitated stomach contents. I have only a vague recollection of the events, as I believe nighttime is a time for rest and repose, not holding back puppy ears and cleaning up the resulting by-product of a grass-eating binger.

I also believe any type of regurgitation is best done away – away from me, away from places where people eat, sleep or nap, away from the indoors, if possible. This means when I am in a state of wakefulness and one of the dogs makes a retching sound, I summarily usher him or her to the outdoors. This generally involves a lot of pushing, running around, arm waving, and I may have been known to shout a bit to expedite the process of moving the gagging dog from the inside of the house to the outside; mostly, I can report this process usually does not work. By the time we make it to the door, stomach contents have been cleared, and all the dogs do is go outside and munch down a thicket of grass, thereby ensuring a repeat of the process at some future point.

I don’t know that I would use this process with a child, but I suspect I might. I remember the first time my nephew got sick as a toddler. When I tried to explain the generally accepted practice of vomiting into the toilet, he looked at me as if I had asked him to bob for apples in the thing. He clearly had no concept of the controlled aspects of the process, and steadfastly refused to project his stomach contents, thereby resulting in a dribbling effect that compounded the difficulty of cleaning.

K, on the other hand, plods patiently behind the dogs, armed with a roll of paper towels, a plastic disposal bag and cleaning solution, mopping up their mess while cooing, “poor baby,” regardless of the time of day or night. I swear she didn’t curse or gag the entire time she cleaned up after Trinity last night. And when I woke up this morning, I found the most unfathomable thing of all: not only had K not sent the heretofore barfing Trinity away, she had allowed her entrée into the bed.