Azure's Campaign of Annoyance

What do you do when you are sitting miserably at home, lamenting the lackluster performance of your alma matter in possibly the most over-hyped college football game to visit the Midwest in recent memory? Why, share the joy by offering up the vicarious experience of life with Azure.



As observed in a previous post, Trinity is the world's greatest big sister.

As is obvious from the beginning of this clip, Emmett is the world's loudest drinker.

Azure is . . . Azure.

Just do as she says and no one gets hurt, o.k.?

Rescue

Lest anyone think we are anything more than the garden-variety goobers with poor boundaries we are, the Grande Dame of the Great Danes, KK, sent along these photos to offer comparison/contrast to the recent video of our Mercy-girl:



Our friend, Fred, says he would like to meet every SOB who’s ever dumped a dog. I think these photos help illustrate the reasons for his anger.

To be clear: The Great Dane Rescue of the Ozarks saved Mercy. They were the ones who were brave enough to walk into a bad situation and walk out with a dog it hurts to look at. They were the ones who taught her to walk. They took her for x-rays, shots, spay and vet consults. They fed her. They loved her. They helped restore her trust in humans.

And then, they did the most amazing thing: they loved her enough and trusted us enough to release her to become a member of our family.

We never met the Mercy from these photos. Thank goodness there was someone else there to meet this Mercy, and nurture her along to the Mercy we met and fell in love with.

We didn’t do the hard part. The brave people who really rescue dogs and who provide safe haven for rescued dogs at great personal cost, do the hard part. We got the easy part, take home a sweet, loving creature, adjust to a silly walk and small idiosyncrasies, and build a family around her.

**For the part of us that is enraged by these photos, they are instructive and inspirational for this:

1. This is the work of puppy mills. Spay and neuter, and encourage everyone you meet to have their animals spayed and neutered. Don’t patronize businesses that sell animals or are associated with puppy mill operations.

2. Support local rescues, no-kill shelters, spay and neuter programs, or any other program that encourages responsible pet ownership and supports the brave people who refuse to just sit by idly while harm befalls other creatures. And if you are in the market for a worthy charity where your donation is tax deductible, the Great Dane Rescue of the Ozarks fits the bill perfectly. Just this week, they rescued two more desperate babies with parvo and idiopathic seizure disorders, so I bet they can use the help.

The Wood Song

The first time my secretary and her sons met Mercy, her four-year-old rushed to his babysitter's house the next day to regale her with the story of “the dog that walks sideways.” For a four-year-old, he does a mean imitation of Mercy’s crazy gait, with her back driver-side leg swinging out, and the little twisting she does at changes of terrain or tempo. I am sure the humor was completely lost on his day care provider.

While to some, her sit-and-spin routine may be the type of tragedy to cry over, for us it has become almost humdrum, not really anything of note except to exhort her to “pull herself back up,” and check the area for any needed applications of triple antibiotic ointment upon return to the trailer. That said, she really is a remarkable creature for her amazing spirit and because of her plucky willingness to keep pulling herself up notwithstanding her crazy back end that sometimes just does not want to mind its manners.

The key to Mercy’s longevity has not been so much anything we can take credit for – we don’t hand-prepare highly specialized diets, we don’t have any magic elixir to help her get around, we don’t place her in a pool for physical therapy. Her “therapies” such as they are, consist of primarily being given run of the trailer and right of first refusal for the couch, the bed, and the kibble dishes; we give her daily vitamins and supplements, pets and pats and massages, farm fresh eggs on the weekends, playmates, and ample opportunities to walk, run, romp and spin.

We could have chosen an easier path. There are plenty of perfectly healthy Danes available for adoption. But Mercy has provided us with a living, breathing celebration and a powerful reminder that, “we’ll make it fine if the weather holds, but if the weather holds, we’ll have missed the point.”

DR Emmett

We have previously told of the new “implement” here at the Farm, our turbo-charged weed eater, the DR. I spent a weekend working with it and its different sharp attachments, emerging with only a small nick on my thumb, a completely cleared island in the pond, and several new “paths” cut around the property.

We were quite pleased with the results. We may have paid a little too much attention to the device, however. It appears as though someone has been left with the mistaken impression that hacking down weeds and spinning around are features we look for in all objects of our affection.

If Wishes Were Houses, We Wouldn't Live in a Trailer

I bought the property now known as MisFit Farm over three years ago, wholly intending to build a house on it. In the meantime, there was a trailer on the property, which for the likes of Coffee-dog and me was quite all right. A few months ago, one of the Dane rescue people, desperate to find a placement for a foster baby, asked, “aren’t you done building your house yet?!?!”

“The house” has taken on a number of iterations. I have been encouraged to build a sod house, an A-frame, a berm home, a kit home, a straw bale home, just about everything except a toilet home. Before I realized the joys of mass animal care, I had entertained the notion of a total do-it-myself home building project. When K joined me in the planning phases, we spent hours poring over home design books and floorplans. We made lists of “must-haves,” “like-to-haves,” and “absolutely not’s.” We thought we had decided upon the perfect design. Then came the Danes. And not just Danes. Danes with disabilities.

The summer before last, I was sharing some bonding time with my mother in a brief car ride. She confided in me that she had a terrible fear that in ten years, I would still be living in this trailer, only I would have ten dogs living here with me. I encouraged her to find other more important things to worry about like ice caps melting, world hunger or genocide. Shortly after this conversation, the dog count hit five, and a mere year later, we have crossed the halfway mark on the “feared number of dogs” count to bring our total to five-plus-one-more. I certainly hope the alternative fears my mother agreed to take on have gone better. We may have to call her off the whole ice caps melting thing lest Kansas become the new Galveston.

Always ones to look upon the brighter side of life and in an effort to not appear lazy, indecisive or unmotivated, we believe that this additional time has provided us with an opportunity to reconsider how we (meaning both bi-peds and the dogs) will live in a house. Thanks to this additional time, we have come to appreciate what a complete inconvenience the presence of things like hallways would be in our home. We have had time to think through the design of a “dog room,” plumbing configurations, appropriate furniture and doorway placements, home entry strategies, safety features and storage needs.

As you can clearly see, the planning process and what will hopefully soon be our final descent into the actual event of homebuilding has taken quite a bit out of my already truncated attention span. So we hope all will bear with us as we are perhaps a bit less frequent in our posting. Once the house is completed, we promise to throw a big virtual party for all to join.

In any event, one of these days very soon, we will have the perfect home for our not-so-perfect krewe. Hopefully before MisFit Farm becomes beachfront property.

Love Seat Redux

I assume that the Shriners and/or the “clown car” are a universally recognized emblem. An emblem of what, I am not certain. Like a magician pulling miles of scarves from a hat, the Shriners or the clowns emerge, one after the other, wearing funny hats, or wigs or makeup, some wearing shoes that alone would fill up the back seat of a Honda Civic.

But the “clown car” has some magical property a ‘la Hermoine Granger’s clutch from The Deathly Hallows – jangling around in the untold depths are bucket seats, family photos, and probably the very same circus tent that houses scores of clown car aficionados.

As it turns out, the love seat in the trailer contains the same magic elixir that allows not just one oversized dog to inhabit it; the love seat is not even mollified by the presence of two Danes, a feat so oft-repeated it doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. But three: now there is a feat worthy of the awe and attentions of people who haven’t received the memo about the obsolescence of fez hats.

Or, at least it merits a photo.

There is one person in the Dane rescue group who labors under the delusion that there is something that could be done to stop the Dane infestation of a household’s furnishings. As for us, we have just given up and started saving for our next couch.

Love Seat

When selecting furniture for the trailer, I didn’t have any notion that we would someday call upon it to accommodate multiple large dogs. I haven’t ever been one to be fussy about things like pets on the furniture, which is a good thing, since the Danes aren’t too interested in reposing upon anything other than the furniture. How animals from checkered and caged existences come so quickly to a place where they feel entitled to have the right of first refusal for the couch is a bit of a mystery to me.


Yesterday, I was trying to teach my three-year-old niece to re-direct her one-year-old brother, instead of shouting at him and pushing him when he encroached upon her play area. Today, as I watch the dogs vie for the “couch” and look across a mass of un-occupied dog beds, I am awash in the irony of a naïve belief that undesirable behavior can quickly be supplanted by the availability of a reasonable alternative.


Unlike my three-year-old niece, we HAVE learned a little something about sharing.

In retrospect, I don’t know that I could have chosen a better piece of furniture than something called a love seat for our cozy little place in the country.

This Is Serious

As previously documented, the goats have been a delightful group of pets, but not so very uniformly reliable as lawn mowers. Of course, just in time for Fall and Winter, they have grazed down their pasture and the island in the pond, thereby necessitating the purchase of hay to supplement graze as the weather turns cold. And, just in time for Winter, I bought a new “toy” to help the goats with their chores.

I am externally restrained from playing with fire and sharp objects. The first Christmas I was living here at the Farm, I asked my mother to buy me a chain saw. She begged me to let her just give me the money and I could purchase it myself, so she wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of having purchased the implement that eventually severs my arm or some other part from the trunk of my body. She made up for her pessimistic attitude the next Spring when she kindly came out to watch over the smoldering embers of the two acres I accidentally set on fire while cleaning up the property and multi-tasking.

Imagine the mixture of horror and delight as I was reading through the owner’s manual for my new toy, and happened across this:


What to say beyond, “ouch”?!

The good neighbors and I were touring the property a few weekends ago and admiring the overgrowth when I told them I had ordered this industrial strength push-trimmer, but I couldn’t remember the name. We bandied about several versions of what I thought the name was when Steve remembered that it is a “D-R.” As what may turn out to be a terrible instance of foreshadowing, he proudly announced that he remembered the name because it was D-R like Doctor.

I may need to order a second Blue Cross/Blue Shield card for K to keep in her purse. I have a feeling it will be difficult to retrieve mine from my wallet if my finger looks like that. Have no fear, safety goggles were included.

Just say "yolk"

These are our first two eggs.



These are our first two eggs on toast.

Any questions?

Not at the Farm

O.k. - this has absolutely nothing to do with the Farm or funny stories about the krewe. I momentarily entertained the notion of attempting to create a gossamer connection via the first question asked here, which is something akin to: An animal with three letters in its name.

But that would be intellectually dishonest, wouldn't it? And I expressly save intellectual dishonestly for the fourth Wednesday of each month, which is not today.

So suffice it to say: I have watched this several times and laugh my ear off every viewing.

Part of it is the nostalgia of the program - I remember watching Family Feud with my mother for a brief period after my sister was born and my mom did the whole stay-at-home thing. Television then was incredible. We had Family Feud, The Dating Game AND The Gong Show. We had Ryan's Hope, Emergency One and Mary Hartman. People like Raquel Welch, Lena Horne and John Denver visited Sesame Street. We were rescued by Spiderman, The Bionic Woman, The Ten Million Dollar Man, and Charlie's Angels. Last but not least, Saturday Night Live was awesome then.

I would happily bet $100.00 that no one in America laughs at Survivor, The Biggest Loser, The Great Race, Big Brother, or almost any other show like we can laugh at this:



** ahem, jumping down off soapbox now **

She Stands Accused

Or maybe Azure has just surrendered to the authorities. Not likely.

One of the people involved in Azure’s many travels spoke to me by telephone after we had brought her to the fold of MisFit Farm. Among Azure’s many transgressions while in the caller’s company, this particular person seemed to be particularly troubled by an episode where Azure “tore all the covers off the bed.” Throughout our phone conversation, the caller returned to this event repeatedly. Sure, she broke through the glass in the French doors. O.k., maybe she tried to eat the cat. And perhaps Azure used the household furniture like catwalks. The caller impressed upon me this Most important observation: she tore all the covers off the bed.

For all the behaviors we have been able to correct in Azure, tearing all the covers off the bed is one that has escaped correction. Perhaps the caller knew more about this particular behavior as a harbinger of terrible things to come. Perhaps the caller had an unnatural attachment to her bedding. Perhaps it was just the so-called straw that broke her back.

As for us, we generally just keep the bedroom door shut. On occasion, we are less vigilant, and a crack in the door quickly becomes an opening for Azure to quell her insatiable desire to tear all the covers off the bed.

I can’t help loving it when I find Azure sprawled out like this, even when she has torn all the covers off the bed. It looks, for a small moment in time like Azure has surrendered, whether she has surrendered to the pure joy of a good back scratch, the jubilation of another successful bed defiling, or the scintillating pleasure of having breached the baby gates to settle herself into exactly the place she ought not to be.

4 feet x 4 feet x 4 Danes

Storms rolled through the area last night beginning around midnight, and are prepared to settle in and stay for what looks to be at least the rest of our Saturday.

The Laboradors, notwithstanding centuries of breeding as hunting dogs, are deathly afraid of loud noises. Loud noises in the nature of fireworks and most relevant to our present situation, thunder, send the Labs into a frenzy.

So last night went a little something like this:

9:00 p.m. To bed for an out-loud chapter from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
10:20 p.m. Phone call from frantic aunt in search of runaway uncle
12:43 p.m. Phone call from frantic aunt having found runaway uncle. Faint thunder is beginning in the distance. I am awake enough after the frantic aunt phone call to get up and medicate the neurotic dogs.
4:00 a.m. Full blown storms. Effectiveness of medication called into question. Attempt to continue repose in a supine position is abandoned. Dogs are sheparded out of the bedroom so someone can get some semblance of rest.

I spent the rest of the morning attempting to sneak back to bed, sleep in a chair, sleep in the loveseat and accomplish something – anything.

Admittedly, the storms were pretty intense. Lighting was heavy, even into the late morning. I nearly completed one of the books I have been reading, “Dog Spelled Backwards,” as consolation and by way of reminder of the abiding love I have for the krewe. I disinfected dog dishes, dusted, made a special breakfast for the dogs laced with more medication for the ones who needed it, and at some point in time, noticed the four-dog pile up at my feet.

I am not a fearful human. That said, I live in mortal fear that the Labs will pass their neuroses on to the Danes. I cannot imagine anything more terrifying than the combination of insane anxiety and destructive ability that could be wrapped into a tidy package in the Danes.

When I counted off the floor tiles in the photo and calculated the known width of the ghastly carpet they were spread across, it appears as though they actually have squeezed themselves into less than 16 square feet, but 4x4x4 makes for a dramatic equation.

I maintain that the building of a total house is completely unnecessary. All we really need is the 16 square feet immediately surrounding me.

An Anniversary and An Obstacle

Time with the krewe seems to slip right through our fingers. I looked at the calendar earlier this week and was astounded to see the 22nd of October approaching.

The 22nd of October marks our un-official one-year anniversary with Azure. After I had deposited her in Northern Missouri on October 20th and turned my car toward home with much relief, it never once occurred to me that I had not seen the last of this little dervish.

Azure’s story is not just her own. It is also the story of her counterpart on the fated dane-train ride to the north, and it has grown to be the story of love and friendship across the miles.


Folks who are familiar with the story know that, a mere 36 hours after I deposited Azure at her Friday night stop on the Dane Train, she returned to us, and her angelic counterpart, Ava, left us to take her place with this forever family. The exchange of leads was tearful on both ends. As the two vehicles departed that roadside drop-off point, one headed north, and the other pointed south, both cars were filled with regret and misgiving.


For nearly a year now, Ava in her northern home and Azure here at the farm each have learned their way through their worlds. Azure has fallen into her routines and has found the structure she needs to make her life stable and sane. Ava has won over the complete allegiance of her “brother,” and made significant inroads with the family cat. By email and through the blogs, we have shared in the growth of our respective families. We had the greatest opportunity to spend time with Ava’s mother at a conference earlier this summer, and an affinity we had developed through the dogs was able to gain traction of its own, personally and professionally.

I cannot explain how it felt to receive the message that suddenly, without explanation, Ava lost the remainder of her residual eyesight a few days ago. Notwithstanding brave pronouncements about life with disability, the notion of moving from Ava’s shadowed world into total darkness was a disconcerting thought. Ava’s mommy had made the statement one time that, when we met in that parking lot in Northern Missouri to trade out dogs, she could tell that Azure would be able to find what she needed with us. Azure does indeed demand a firmer hand, probably a skill set more suited to handling by someone like me instead of the creative, ebullient, loving, sensitive types of people who are inclined to become sign language interpreters.

And now, maybe more than ever, Ava needs the security, creativity, encouragement, patience and support of the people who are the perfect-made-to-order-just-right family for her. As I gaze upon our crazy little dervish, Azure, and picture her springing up from her chair and into action, butt tucked under her and ears laid flat back as she bursts into a full-bore run, and I think of Ava leaning bravely against her mommy, teeth chattering as they step into the darkness together, I am filled with an overwhelming sense that we are all exactly where we belong.

Doggy Door

Here at the trailer, we sport the largest doggy door in the history of the world. It was installed before we began Great Dane rescue, after we had taken in a dog under threat of euthanasia. He was a black lab named Checota, a sweet, amazing lug of a dog, who was one of the most fetching-est dogs I ever met. Checota was jet-black. K. purchased this fabulous glow-in-the-dark ball for us, and when I would take him into the front yard every evening for our workout, the ball was all you could see in the wonderful, peaceful, amazing darkness we enjoy here. I would toss it across the yard and he would come streaking out of the darkness to gather the ball up in his mouth mid-bounce, and come bounding across the yard like an ecstasied “goth” at a Rave. Next to a heavy-bag recommended by a former therapist, that ball, dog, and exercise is some of the most therapeutic time I have spent in my life.

After Checota was gone, the doggy door remained, and it has come in handy as our pack has grown. Unfortunately for us, the pack’s idea of the doggy door’s utility and our ideas about its purpose have occasionally diverged.

As the largest doggy door in production, it measures roughly 15” x 20”. Even at that size, it was nearly too small for our former foster boy, Alistair. The krewe, however, seems to eschew the notion of “too small.”

Among the luxurious accommodations offered here at MisFit Farm is the omnipresence of oversized dog beds. Our average dog bed runs about 40” x 30”. Looking at them strewn across the living room floor, K. remarked the other day that it looked like we had a harem living here.

The krewe seems to be in agreement with K’s assessment and are committed to the deconstruction of this decorating motif, so they have taken to pulling the oversized dog beds out through the oversized dog door into the yard.

As I pulled into the driveway one evening last week, Trinity was majestically perched atop one of the beds out in the yard. Another bed was laying at the opening of a bunker the dogs have trenched out on the west edge of their yard.

Their spatial reasoning must be magnificent. I once endeavored to move a queen-sized mattress with hinges up a very narrow stair well to a second-story bedroom. I had to employ the use of ratchets and pullies. They don’t even have thumbs (thank the heavens).


On occasion we will come home to find a bed wedged in the doggy door. I strongly suspect, however, that this is the case only because we came home too soon and they abandoned the endeavor in favor of gang-rushing the front door to greet us and show off their handiwork.

On the other hand, I came home this evening to find this three-bed pile-up. I summarily decided that after the demise of our current stash of beds, we will upgrade to twin or crib-sized mattresses. Surely those won't fit, with or without hinges or thumbs.

Puppy Kisses

I know conventional wisdom tells us that dog kisses are gross, but at MisFit Farm, we accept them as part of our charm. Kisses are just another delight for the inhabitants of MisFit Farm, and just as our barks are completely distinct, so is our style of kisses.

Skeeter is the queen kisser. Skeeter actually likes it best if you kiss her on her snout. She will offer it up to you to receive kisses; if you do a good enough job, she will return the favor with licks to the chin, cheek, and sometimes hand.

Azure is a committed chin-licker. She prefers to climb up onto your lap with her front legs and offer firm, not-too-wet, concise licks on the chin. I refer to the process with Azure as “tenderizing.”

Emmett isn’t a licker so much. He has this funny way of putting his face right up next to yours and holding it so close, you can feel him breathing on you. Then quickly, he “bumps” his nose and mouth into you. Our neighbor, Steve, finds the whole process hilarious. Steve recounts, "Out of nowhere, a huge blocky head appears, and you are expecting the sloppiest kiss ever in the world." Instead, as long as Emmett hasn’t recently taken a dip in the water bucket (otherwise referred to as a drink), you just get a little love bump. K made the comment the other day that actually, this is probably what it feels like to Emmett when we give him kisses.

Mercy has a similar style of kissing, only she pushes her soft, wrinkly mouth and floppy lips up against the object of her affection. She is also inclined to offer a regimen of “flea biting” behavior as a special sort of flourish for her kisses.

Coffee is the exception to the rule. Among Coffee’s many personality quirks, public displays of affection cannot be counted. Given the rigors of medication regimens, he will hardly eat food out of my hand, always wary of an unsuspected pill. On occasion, however, he will give my hand a little lick, when for some unfathomable reason he is overcome with affection.

I am almost embarrassed to report the number of times Trinity has provided me with the unexpected delight of some in-the-mouth tongue action. Trinity freely offers her affection at the slightest provocation. When she is allowed into the bed, she always expresses her appreciation by offering lots of kisses and flea-bites to the cheek, chin, or any other available part (cover up, kids!). When she is feeling a need to be close and I am feeling a need to wash dishes, she will spread herself out on the kitchen floor with her head on my foot and offer my ankle intermittent kisses.

My sister and I took my nephew to the park one time when he was just under a year old. On our way home from the park, as an homage to a childhood family ritual, Lisa and I took C to Dairy Queen. He was young enough we decided going inside the DQ would be best in the interest of avoiding ice cream carnage across the back seat of my car. It wasn’t until we were inside that we realized C hadn’t ever really had ice cream before. So we decided it would be best to cut his teeth on a hot fudge sundae.

As we had expected, he loved it. He was so enthusiastic about his new treat, he was grinning and grabbing my arm to deliver hugs and kisses to my upper arm all the way back to the car. That is what Trinity kisses are like: an excitement and an acknowledgement of a love so overwhelming, it just seeps out as little kisses – a toe as you walk by, a hand that has fallen off the side of the bed, an open mouth asking K what she would like for dinner, or an elbow on a walk under a sky brilliant with stars.

Skunked

K is, for the most part, pretty unflappable. Not much really seems to get to her. Whether she is called upon to provide communication in extraordinarily intimate settings or required to wipe up cold dog vomit, she maintains a generally calm, staid, pleasant demeanor. She does not engage in an excess of emotive displays. She does not raise her voice in elation or crumple to the floor in sadness. With one reliable exception, she is not in the least inclined to dramatics.

Shortly after moving back to Kansas, while K, Skeeter and Susie were living with K’s parents, Skeeter became frantic about being let outside one crisp Fall evening. K took her to the back door, obligingly opened it, and when Skeeter shot out the door, K stepped out behind her, straight into the oncoming spray of a skunk.

K tried every product and every home remedy known to humankind to rid herself and Skeeter of the skunk odor. Hours, days and gallons of water were devoted to the dissolution of the powerful odor. When she showed up for an all-day engagement several days after the close encounter of the skunk kind, the other interpreter, eyes watering, demanded that K leave the assignment at once. K swears that to this day, there are remote corners of her mother’s basement where she can still smell the vestiges of her skunk attack.

A by-product of this experience is that the smell of a skunk can send K into absolute conniptions, a response that unfailingly reduces me to laughter, and reminds me of my own fond memory, a band my step-father played in, the Shyster Mountain Boys, and their rendition of my sister’s only favorite song they played. This isn’t them, but these guys are nearly as goofy as the Shyster Mountain Boys were in their heyday:

Deer Season

The air has begun to turn crisp here in Kansas, an early harbinger of the advent of the Fall season. In Kansas, Fall can last three days or three months, depending on the vagaries of El Nino, the hole in the Ozone layer, population trends or any of a variety of indiscernables. Although how brisk or how brutal the changing seasons will be in Kansas is totally unpredictable, deer season is not.

Aside from the crispness in the air, we know we are moving toward deer season when the sounds of shotgun reports echo through the valley, Wal-Mart becomes inundated with camoflauge and it is time once again to insult Mercy’s panache by outfitting her with a hunter-orange collar.

Despite her attempts to look completely annoyed and utterly unimpressed by our concern that she would be mistaken for a deer by some near-sighted, Southern-Comfort-soaked hunter in the early morning mists, we know that deep, deep down inside, Mercy really does appreciate our care and attention.

Compendium of Inappropriate Chew Toys

The dogs are not always perfect, but few are. On occassion, they will direct destructive tendencies toward less-than-appropriate chewables. Thankfully, we own very little material objects of value. There have been a couple of books destroyed, which are of course sacraments in the home of this recovering English major. CDs, DVD's, PS2 games and VHS tapes have fared well. Various paper products, including the most recent Lawrence phone book have met their pulper somewhat earlier than anticipated. Shoes have largely been the chosen object of destruction, mine in particular.

In response to my proposal to invest in a new pair of Doc Martens for the krewe's chewing pleasure, my friend, Fred, supplied the following:

"Along with Doc Martens, here is an addendum to the list of alternative dog chew toys.

Claw hammers
7 ¼ inch Skil Saw cases
Formaldehyde-treated deck timbers
Live ducks
Countless leather work gloves
Hundred-pound karate kicking bags
Electric fence insulators
Each other
Select Comfort mattress pillow-top
Pioneer VSX-515 audio/video multi-channel stereo remote control units
Live pet bunny rabbits
Holy scriptures left open on the floor
Condenser microphones
Assorted outdoor furniture
Happy Meal prizes
Lawn sprinklers
Garden hoses
Live 110-volt electrical cords
Beautiful blooming rose bushes (thorns and all)
Bicycle seats
Bicycle pedals
Lawn mower starter ropes
Empty beer cans
Full beer cans
Gasoline cans
Oil funnels
Grease rags
Prescription sunglasses
And probably wining lottery tickets (I wouldn’t know.)"

This list is empirically developed. I myself have been witness to some of the destruction to which Fred refers. Unbelievably, this is the work of five or six dogs through the years, at least half of whom fall firmly within the category of "drop kick" or "ankle biter" dogs.

See, don't we feel better now?

Happy Tails to You

K mentioned tonight that I should update folks on the status of Emmett’s tail, particularly given its softer chosen target as documented in our “Economy” post.

As we left the story last, we were in the process of trying an under-the-belly sling to restrain our happy boy’s jubilant tail. K’s brother, the Vet, recommended affixing the tail to Emmett’s rear leg, a trick apparently employed by people who raise and treat Greyhounds. Both systems met with advantages and disadvantages of their own, or perhaps my execution was weak.

Suffice it to say that I was not getting the results I desired within the timeframe I desired.

So, with the family mantra of “better living through chemicals” dancing on my lips, I loaded Emmett into the Jeep one sunny Saturday morning to implore our Vet to give us a jump start with some antibiotics.

A word about our Vet: oh, forget it. I couldn’t possibly proffer up just a word.

A common remedy employed by our Vet is a cocktail shot, cocktail being a word I believe is very near and dear to his heart. The cocktail is usually some combination of antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and steroid. Whatever the cocktail is, experience has made us believers.

Having worked with hematomas, abrasions, skin infections, ear infections, allergies and any of a variety of other ailments that have led us to his doorstep, Emmett was dispatched to the good doctor’s office for a dosing of the cocktail.

Imagine my dismay when the good doctor’s first comment was, “Oh boy, I may have to take that off.”

Never one to exercise an expansive sense of bedside manner, Doc didn’t look up as I responded, “The idea behind this visit is to leave with MORE than we came with.”

“Well,” he responded to Emmett, “we’ll start with a shot and have your mommy give you some pills.” He finally looked at me and said, “If this isn’t a lot better in the next week, I will have to take it.”

Devastated but determined, I returned home, pills in hand, resolved to the salvation of Emmett’s tail. I purchased the entire available supply of Pet-Wrap from the local PetCo, a spray bottle of Bitter Apple, and re-committed myself to our tail-wrapping regimen, bolstered by our week’s supply of antibiotics.

The week came and went, and we did, in fact, make marked improvement. The happy tail remains attached to the happy torso. K feels confident that we have turned a corner. It has been another full week without blood splatter, and healing seems to be occurring, or maybe just scarring. We are certainly not completely out of the woods yet, but feel confident that additional damage will be manageable. Emmett, for one, looks hopeful.

Lessons on Economy

Another very important lesson the dogs have taught us is about economy. Aside from the obvious: buy kibble in bulk and have it palletized and drop-shipped, they have taught us about the value of using all available resources.

Take our feet for example. Up until the krewe joined us, we were completely wasting the top parts of them. Sure, we got a lot of mileage from the bottom parts as they carried us from place to place. On occasion, the sides of our feet were used for kicking, pushing, or holding something in place. One time, I did use the top of my foot to “lever” a door into place as I was sliding it onto its hinges. Other than these few, isolated incidents, feet were pretty much all about the bottom.

Not any more.

Now, the tops of feet are routinely used as cushions, springboards, stepping stones, levers, belly scratchers and headrests.

Our legs serve as supports to hold not only our trunks upright, but also the trunks of dogs. They work as tunnels. They offer blockades for safe passage. And sometimes, as evidenced by this:

They make excellent whipping posts.

In a world where many things are taken for granted, the krewe reminds us again of the gross under-utilization and lack of imagination and innovation inherent to our dulled and bi-pedaled existence.