New adventure that took freaking forever to upload because the nav bar was pushed underneath, so I resized all the pictures multiple times and reuploaded, only to eventually find out the problem wasn’t with the pictures at all, but because I had left out a slash mark in an html tag.
Grrr.
Posted by: ssjane | July 30, 2008 | 12:19 pm
Posted in: Bits | Dogs | Comments Off
One of the few benefits of living in a condo on a busy street is the small yard. Our new home was chosen carefully to have a yard just big enough for three chihuahuas, but not so big that it could support, say, a herd of wild turkeys, a family of deer, and a really retarded rabbit.
I figured that at least here, we were urban enough to be free of the ticks and wildlife-induced diarrhea that plagued us in Wayland, but before a week had passed in the new house, we had spotted suspicious pellets on our deck.
The pellets looked a lot like the deer/rabbit poop we’d seen in our Wayland yard, and then when I saw flies congregating on it, I knew for sure that it was one of my worst fears: Poop of Indeterminate Origin.
The Poop of Indeterminate Origin soon became the Poop of Determinate Origin when Chris spotted the lone animal in our yard that didn’t require us to regularly feed it: a squirrel.
For reasons known only to himself, Christopher has christened this squirrel, “Fat Tony.”
Fat Tony nimbly jumps from one fence post to another, occasionally pausing to chitter mockingly at the dogs below. This never fails to infuriate Mina, who races along our chicken wire fence, barking madly and leaping in the air. Stanley is usually right behind her, although there was one time when he actually caught up with Fat Tony. I hadn’t seen this momentous event for myself, so Chris told me about it later.
“And then what happened?” I gasped, envisioning a situation similar to the Great Rabbit Massacre of 2007.
Chris shrugged. “Stanley didn’t know what to do with him once he’d caught him.” And so Fat Tony easily escaped, to return another day to taunt the dogs.
Paco has never had to depend on himself to find food, so although he allows himself to be peer-pressured into joining the barking, he soon stops and wanders aimlessly away. Paco knows only that these animals in our yard are apparently supposed to be fun to chase and/or eat, according to the other dogs, but he has never quite seen the point of all that running unless there was someone waiting at the end of it all to cook, slice, and serve the animal to him.
On days that Fat Tony doesn’t deign to show up himself, he will often leave his calling card on our deck. Instead of a large clump of tiny pellets of poo like the deer and rabbits left for us, Fat Tony appears to have a slower constitution. In other words, one or two pellets will appear at one side of the deck, and another pellet will show up ten feet away and around the corner at the other end of the deck. Cunningly, Fat Tony will secrete his poo pellet in the crack between two deck boards so that we humans cannot spot it, but Miss Mina Beana can.
It took me and Chris two weeks to start filling our refrigerator, but only a few days for Mina to find her own local, organic, sustainably farmed food source. We have Whole Foods; she has squirrel poop.
Posted by: ssjane | July 26, 2008 | 8:37 pm
Posted in: Dogs | This Life | Comments Off
The dogs recently went through several bouts of liquid diarrhea. First was Mina, who got rushed to the emergency vet when we spotted blood in her poop. About $500 later, we found out her bloodwork was fine, her urine normal, temperature normal, and everything evidently just peachy keen, other than some slight dehydration caused by all the diarrhea, and the liquid poo running from her bottom.
They gave her some IV fluids, and sent us home with some kind of canine equivalent of Imodium that needed to be given for about a week.
About a week and a half later, I came home from work to a smell so hideous that I wanted to vomit. Apparently Paco had now succumbed to the diarrhea. I called our regular vet, and the vet tech/receptionist who answered the phone tried to convince us that the problem was related to their food.
“It’s that premium kibble,” she said. “It doesn’t have preservatives in it.”
I was deeply suspicious of this answer, since we’d been feeding the same bag of food since Mina got sick, and yet the dogs were getting sick at different times. So I brought Paco to the vet, where we got the same medication for diarrhea that the ER had given Mina. They found nothing physically wrong with him, other than his weight, which was still too high after two years of getting half the food of the other dogs.
When I told Chris that Paco still needed to lose another pound and a half, Chris was optimistic.
“Maybe the diarrhea will speed up the weight loss,” he said hopefully.
Two weeks later, just as Paco was nearly over his diarrhea, Stanley began having diarrhea. By now we were getting used to this, and I immediately put him on boiled chicken and rice, and off we went to the vet. He was apparently in great shape, just like the other dogs.
“It could be something they ate,” the vet said. “Or worms or parasites. Have they eaten anything unusual, gotten into any trash?”
“No,” I said. “Although we do have a rabbit that comes into the yard a lot, and…”
“Yes, they could have picked something up from the rabbit,” the vet said.
“So then they could get re-infected?” I asked. Horrified, I was now envisioning our house drowning in a sea of diarrhea . “The cycle will start all over again?”
“Well, it could,” he admitted, with the casual attitude of one who didn’t have three diarrhea-stricken dogs in a house that was about to be sold.
“If they start coming down with the diarrhea again, we’ll just worm them all,” he said.
And sure enough, Mina began to have diarrhea again while Stanley was still taking medication for his diarrhea. We were supposed to be out of our house within a few days, so we dosed everyone with the pills from the vet and kept an eye out for the rabbit.
I wasn’t happy about the dogs and their diarrhea, but I still couldn’t help but have a grudging admiration for the rabbit. It had taken her a year or two, but she’d finally gotten her revenge for the babies she’d had to abandon when Stanley dug them up.
Posted by: ssjane | July 8, 2008 | 10:36 am
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We went on our first walk of the year today.
For normal people with normal dogs, a walk is an event to celebrate; an occasion to be marked by joyous barking. For our family, we go on walks because that is what people with dogs do, and not because any of us particularly enjoy it. Mina hates her harness, Stanley is afraid of his collar, and Paco simply does not walk. And Chris and I have to walk so far apart that we might as well be on separate walks.
Chris is usually in front with Mina. Although she will stand frozen when we put her harness on her in the house, she becomes an entirely different animal once we get outside. Suddenly she is a speedwalker; legs moving rapidly and hips swinging from side to side. And if she sees a squirrel? Flo-Jo, baby.
Sometimes Chris lets her off-leash so she can chase a squirrel. She has never been able to catch one, but we prefer not to crush her dreams. Once she loses sight of the squirrel, she circles nearby trees and stares expectantly up into the branches until Chris convinces her that she has successfully made the squirrel disappear and can resume speedwalking.
Then we have Stanley, who keeps a consistent pace and distance exactly halfway between me and Chris when I’m holding his leash. Because Paco almost always trails behind me and will stop at the slightest tug on the leash, I end up falling more behind Chris as the walk continues, and Stanley walks further ahead of me in an effort to catch up with Chris.
Paco was so slow today that I had to give Stanley’s leash to Chris so that my arm wouldn’t be stretched out with Stan walking so far ahead of me. While Chris and the two dogs gradually lengthened the distance between us, I started talking smaller and smaller steps in an effort to avoid getting so far ahead of Paco that he would stop moving altogether.
“It’s more tiring to walk this slowly than at a regular pace,” I complained, during one of the few moments when we caught up with Chris because Mina and Stanley were busily marking every available blade of grass.
“Well, he doesn’t like walking,” Chris said. “He does this every time.”
“But he’s usually not this slow. I mean, this is REALLY slow. Do you think there’s something wrong with him?”
“There’s nothing wrong with him! He’s just lazy,” Chris said.
I kept worrying. One of Pedro’s symptoms when he first got sick was that he would sit down during walks and refuse to continue walking. We hadn’t known anything was wrong, and I had pulled him with the leash to get him to walk. Then I found out he was suffering muscle weakness, and then he was dead. Since then, I had refused to pull on any dog’s leash.
Paco had tested negative for Pedro’s disease, so I knew he wasn’t walking slowly because of the same problem, but maybe there was something else wrong with him. Maybe the diet he’d been on for two years had been too strict and now he was faint with hunger and unable to walk. Maybe the winter had weakened his legs. Maybe he had some kind of tapeworm.
We turned onto our street. If there are no dogs visible, we sometimes take Paco off his leash and run with him to our house. This is the only time during a walk when Paco gets ahead of the other dogs because he knows that he’s heading home.
“Try running with him,” Chris said.
I took Paco’s leash off and tried to get him to run, but he still slowed to a walk after a short attempt at running.
Once we were all gathered in front of our house, Chris and I checked the dogs for ticks.
“Take off his harness,” I said to Chris, as he looked over Paco. “It’ll be easier to check.”
Chris began to remove the harness, and then stopped suddenly.
“How did you do this, woman?” he bellowed.
“Do what?”
Chris showed me Paco’s harness. One loop of it was wrapped firmly and tightly around his leg. We couldn’t even pull it off easily because of how tight it was on. Every step must have pulled fiercely at his leg.
“You stuck the neck hole around his leg,” Chris said, working on the harness.
“So where did I stick his neck?” I wondered.
“No, I mean you stuck the neck AND the leg into the same hole.”
My first thought was horror, that I had subjected Paco to this pain and blamed him for his slowness. My second thought was pride — the DIET HAD WORKED! He was so thin now that his neck AND leg could fit into the neck hole!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course, I felt so guilty that I gave him lots of treats once we made it into the house. Subconsciously, I may have been trying to fatten him up so that I wouldn’t make this mistake ever again.
Posted by: ssjane | April 9, 2008 | 5:25 pm
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I tried to watch an episode of Oprah a few years ago and had to turn off the TV when I became too disturbed by the cheering and whooping of the audience. They were all, “You go, girl!” and I was all, “Shut up so I can hear how to buy bras!”
Today, Oprah will have a story on puppy mills.
If anyone can get the average person aware of what it takes to get that puppy into the pet store, Oprah can.
You go, girl, indeed.
Posted by: ssjane | April 4, 2008 | 11:47 am
Posted in: Dogs | Entertainment/News | Comments Off
We have long known that the Bean is set in her ways, and a peaceful coexistence requires that we simply do whatever she wants, when she wants. As far as she is concerned, every “command” we give is merely a chance to exercise our vocal cords. “Sit,” for example, which the other dogs know very well and will often automatically perform if we just look at them, amounts to a slight squat on the Bean’s part with her bum held a decorous half-inch above the ground.
Even our latest dog trainer, who has been helping us with Stanley, figured out pretty quickly who the boss was in our household. On her second visit, the dog trainer was advising us on how to keep Stanley from hiding in the garage when he suspects we are leaving the house.
“Call him to the kitchen after you take him out,” she said, “and give him a treat. Make him sit first.”
She eyed Paco, who was jumping hysterically at her ankles and clearly intent on wrestling her pant leg to the death. “It wouldn’t hurt to have this one sit, also,” she said.
She turned to Mina, who was squeaking happily and doing her best to encourage the trainer to pet her.
“Just give her a treat,” she said, “for, well, showing up.”
We were glad to have the dog trainer’s approval on this, because our pre-trainer technique had already been to tell the boys to sit or do a down, and then look at Mina and say, “You…um, you be cute,” and toss treats to everyone.
As you can tell, Mina has trained us well. The newest trick we have learned for her amusement involves her favorite activity: going outside. Theoretically she goes outside to pee and/or poop, but in actuality she goes outside to look for errant squirrels and to eat rabbit poop. As these are both incredibly exciting activities, she will often alert us to the necessity of a trip outside by barking incessantly until one of us gets up and lets them outside.
The yard where the dogs do their business is accessed via two different doors. During the day when we’re often in the kitchen on the upper level, we let the dogs out through the French doors which lead out to a deck. The dogs can run down the deck stairs and do whatever they like in the yard while we watch them through a kitchen window or from the deck.
At night, though, we’re usually watching TV when the Bean demands to go out, so we use the garage door to get to the yard. The garage door is on the opposite side of the house from the deck, so we just watch the dogs from the garage door until they are ready to come back inside.
For whatever reason of her own, Mina has recently decided that she prefers to enter the house through the French doors on the deck. Upon taking all the dogs out through the garage door, we would inevitably find Mina waiting, immobile, by the French doors when it was time to come back inside.
After numerous and futile attempts to get her to come back inside through the garage door, we soon learned that the only way to get Mina back in the house was to bring the boys in through the garage door, go up the stairs to the kitchen, and open the French doors for her.
On a few occasions when we’ve had to put something away or fetch something on our way from the garage to the kitchen, we have forgotten to open the French doors for Mina. This means that after a while, she will walk right up to the French doors, stare unblinkingly at us through the doors and bark once, peremptorily. One bark is all it usually takes, because she has trained us well.
Tonight after dinner I let the dogs out through the garage door. They wandered back and forth in the yard, bestowing liquid gifts upon certain rocks and bushes, and then the boys were ready to come back inside. I called for Mina, but naturally, she didn’t respond. I peered up at the deck and could just barely make out a tiny dark shape waiting by the French doors.
“Dumb Bean,” I muttered.
I ran inside the house. Because there are coyotes in our neighborhood who would just love a little chihuahua appetizer, I don’t like to leave the dogs outside by themselves for long, if at all. So I raced up the stairs to the kitchen as quickly as I could, accompanied by Stanley and Paco who were barking ferociously and were clearly under the impression that something exciting and perhaps even scary was happening. Was the mailman at the door?
I turned on the deck light and slid open the door. “Mina?” I called. Usually she waits right by the doors, but I couldn’t see her at all. Oh my god, were the coyotes that fast? And why couldn’t they go after the rabbits who kept pooping in our yard and leaving the tidbits for the Bean to snack on?
I walked out onto the deck and examined the back yard. Very faintly, I could see Bean’s tiny body standing in front of the garage door.
I didn’t have outdoor shoes on, and I wasn’t about to brave our poo-filled (rabbit or otherwise) yard in the dark to fetch the Bean.
“She is such a weirdo,” I told the boys, who joyously chased me as I ran back down the stairs.
I opened the garage door.
No Bean. This was ridiculous.
I looked toward the deck again and…yes, that looked like a Bean-shaped splotch standing patiently by the French doors. Did she have a Star Trek transporter, or how was she moving so quickly and silently?
“For god’s sake, STAY THERE!” I ordered her, and slammed the garage door shut again. The dogs and I ran up the stairs and by now I was getting pretty tired. The boys had no idea what all the fuss was about, but apparently barking wildly was suitable for all situations, because they wouldn’t shut up.
I flung open the French doors, and the Bean trotted casually in.
“What took you so long?” she seemed to be saying. “I thought you’d never decide what door you wanted to use.”
Posted by: ssjane | March 17, 2008 | 9:52 pm
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This morning Chris took the dogs out as he always does on weekdays. I shut the bedroom door after he left, just like I always do on weekdays, so that I could get another half-hour of sleep before getting up.
As soon as Chris had left for work, Stanley sat outside the bedroom and scraped the door and howled. So far, all was proceeding as usual.
However, I soon heard a noise that sounded like Stanley was peeling strips of paint off the door. This was not normal, so I got out of bed and flung the door open.
Stanley immediately ran into the bedroom while I leaned down and checked the door. The door looked fine.
But now Stanley was in the center of the bedroom, staring at me, and I knew there was no way to get him out of the room so that I could go back to sleep.
I decided that the only way to get him out was for me to leave the room. So I did.
Stanley followed me downstairs, where I said hello to Paco who was curled up in a bed by a heat vent. Then I turned around and ran as fast as I could back up the stairs.
Even at full speed, I made it to my bedroom door only a second before Stanley, and I slammed the door triumphantly in his face. Then I jumped into bed, pulled the covers over me, and… realized I was completely wide awake.
Stanley: 2,346
Jane: 0
Posted by: ssjane | March 6, 2008 | 10:28 am
Posted in: Dogs | Comments Off
Posted by: ssjane | February 29, 2008 | 3:29 pm
Posted in: Bits | Dogs | Comments Off
because he is neurotic and provides lots of material.
This is how Stanley spends his weekend mornings when we don’t get up as fast as he would like.
(Sorry it’s so dark — I’m still using our digital camera to record movies and they come out darker than it looks through the lens. Also considerably more fuzzy. If anyone has suggestions on a better camera, let me know.)
Posted by: ssjane | February 17, 2008 | 2:27 pm
Posted in: Dogs | Comments (0)
11:00 PM
Last call. All the dogs and I go out into the bitter cold. They pee while I watch to be sure they don’t escape the fence in pursuit of the very, very stupid bunny who continues to try to have babies in the dog yard only to forsake them when they begin to smell like Stanley, thus leading to sleepless tear-filled nights after I discover the very, very dead babies.
11:10 PM
Dogs run upstairs to their bedroom. Mina gets into her portable pet home, sticking her head out of the entrance periodically to be sure I haven’t forgotten about her, and Paco runs to the papasan, jumps up, jumps down, runs to the door, runs back to the papasan, and in general is more active than he has been all day. Stanley leaps into the purple sack and hides. I dispense treats, close the light, and shut their bedroom door.
11:15 PM
I brush my teeth with my Philips Sonicare brush, trying to keep the toothpaste foam from shooting onto the bathroom mirror while simultaneously reading a book. Two minutes, it turns out, is a very long period of time to be brushing your teeth unless you have come prepared with reading material. Stanley begins to scrape at the dog door.
11:17 PM
I let Stanley out of the dog room. He stands by my feet while I finish in the bathroom. He quivers and shakes and generally looks as though he is being abused, even though the bathroom door is open and he is free to wander as he pleases. Apparently I am taking too long for him, because he begins to scrape at the carpet at the stairs, turns multiple times, and finally lies down with a heavy sigh.
11:25 PM
I go upstairs to bed. I shut the door firmly in Stanley’s face. I get into bed and start playing Sudoku on Chris’s DS Lite.
11:27 PM
Stanley scrapes at the door. He whines. I Sudoku.
12:30 AM
Stanley is still intermittently whining and scraping. Sudoku numbers are beginning to blur in front of my eyes, and I find myself fading into pleasant dreams wherein little numbers, dressed as French soldiers, march briskly about and fall into line in the correct positions. I get up to go to the bathroom again.
12:40 AM
I attempt to convince Stanley that the crate is not a bad place to sleep. He does not fall for this trick. I attempt to convince him that what he really wants to do is go outside to pee and then sleep in the family room. This is unacceptable to him.
1:00 AM
Desperate to get some sleep before the night is over, I drag a dog bed and blanket into my bedroom. Stanley hops into the bed. I get into my own bed.
1:25 AM
I lie awake listening to Stanley’s toenails click against the floor as he trots around my bed. He stops every time he gets to my side, and puts his paws up on the bed, trying to telepathically convince me to pick him up and put him in my bed.
2:00 AM
Stanley finally settles into bed. I am now wide awake. Come back, little French Sudoku soldiers!
6:45 AM
Stanley wakes up and demands to be taken outside to pee. Apparently, when you spend most of the night whining, you really fill up your bladder.
6:47 AM
I open the dog room door and tell the other dogs to come outside with us. Paco falls out of bed, still half-asleep and yawning. Mina stays in bed until I whip off the covers and then she gives me a look that says, “What the fuck? It’s the middle of the night!” I pick her up and carry her outside.
7:00 AM
I try to go back to sleep. Stanley whines outside my door. When he finally stops, Mina starts barking at me.
8:54 AM
I get up. I work. I watch the dogs sleep all around my feet. I wonder how long it will take Chris to get home.
Posted by: ssjane | February 12, 2008 | 2:44 pm
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