2001:  Alphabet Soup
2002:  I Am Woman, Hear Me Scream
2003:  Why Medical Staff Goes Grey
2004:  A Good Loss
2005:  Comedy and Tragedy
2006:  Five Random Things

IN MY OPINION
"Mame"

Books Read in 2007
(Updated 1/15
"Snow in April")

Currently Reading: 
"The Cat Who Could Read Backwards"
"Dog is My Co-Pilot"

FUNNY THE VLOG
"More Hospital Musings"


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THERE COMES A TIME

17 January 2007

I was originally going to title this "Your mother wears army boots," but then realized early this morning that this was only part of the problem.

It was 7 a.m. and I had just fed the puppies.  I decided to try them without the bit of canned food I mix with the dry and they were having none of it.  All three turned up their gourmand noses and howled in protest.  "No Eukanuba??  I don't think so!"

I was picking up poop at the time and had just smeared some from my (fortunately thickly clad) foot into the Pergo.  I took the plate out of the cage, mixed canned food with it, put it back, and Dasher started eating, but the other two, having been once insulted with unadorned moistened dry dog food continued to howl.  They were having none of my too-late attempt to make things right.

Dasher joined the chorus at the door to the cage, and I took them all out and, instead of letting them romp about the room like they usually do, I dumped them unceremoniously into the playpen, a playpen which needed a bedding change, but I didn't care.

I fed Sheila and gave Lizzie the rejected food, sat down in the recliner and burst into tears.

That's when I decided I had to remind Ashley again that I am ready for them to move on.  I told her only a few days ago, when I learned that she was having trouble finding homes for the glut of dogs the SPCA seems to have now, that they could stay here indefinitely and that things were not going all that badly.

But it seems that every time they get up, they find new things to get into.  I have given up wearing slippers or sandals around the house.  That "Lockjaw" video I posted a couple of days ago shows the result.  Dasher is obsessed with my feet and when he sinks those razor sharp teeth into my flesh and locks his jaw, any affection I had for him goes instantly out the window in a blinding flash of pain.

He's just all teeth right now, more than the other two.  His goal in life is finding good things to sink his teeth into.  As I was writing this, he was crawling around at my feet.  I lifted him up and, as I always do, I brought him up to my cheek to cuddle and he jerked around to grab my cheek with his teeth.  It's only a matter of time before he inflicts some real damage as his strength and agility grow.  I know he just needs to examine things and that there is nothing evil about it, but it doesn't hurt any less.

They are very cute to watch playing with each other, as in the "tug of war" video, but they are constantly finding new ways to cause trouble.  Once I found a way to distract them from the wicker basket they love to chew up, they discovered that they can crawl under the credenza in the family room and chew the telephone cords.

I can't kneel so once they get under there, I can't see them or get to them.  "Rudy decided that he wants to disconnect your computer from the telephone line," Walt said last night.  There are some things that are not to be tolerated!

A couple of days ago, I had to lock them out of my office permanently because there are just too many cords in here for them to chew--and they try to chew them all.

Fortunately they do come when I call them.  "Puppies... puppies... puppies!" called in a shrill voice brings a stampede of little puppy paws coming to see what new goodies I have in store for them.

Perhaps without the daily commute to San Rafael I would have more patience, but today it all just came crashing in.

Walt has been wonderful, doing more than his share of cleaning poop, feeding the dogs when I'm away, and running herd on them.  I've been very grateful to have him here.

But on the other hand, he's here all the time now.  The big dogs and I have had a way of going about our day for years and I'm finding that I'm now hyper aware of everything they do, knowing how much of it bugs him.  I give them a little leeway on barking, for example.  I don't mind if Lizzie barks at the front window and let them both bark a bit outside if strange dogs or the garbage men pass by, but Walt is much more aware of it and upset by it. Lizzie now sports a citronella collar most of the time.

Having been unable to curtail her leaping, I just put up with it when I'm here alone, but now I feel guilty when she leaps at him because I know how much it bugs him.

I suspect all of this would bother me less if I weren't on the road 3 hours a day, if I weren't getting up for an hour each night with puppies who need to poop and prefer to do it somewhere other than their bed (which seems reasonable to me...also a good indication that house training them is probably going to be easy when someone starts to work with them).

When the response came from Ashley that she was going to see if she could find someone to take them now, I started crying again.  I want them gone.  I don't want them gone.   I don't want to see them go.  The conflicted emotions tumbled over the interrupted sleep I had last night (4-5 hrs, I think, split into two chunks) and I decided to write a journal entry because that's a more productive way to get the feelings out than sitting here sobbing.

...and then came the health worries.  It's probably just as well that I do NOT post the photo I took a few minutes ago to show to Ashley, but one of the puppies just pooped out what looks like a nest of worms.  I've never seen anything like it. 

I  definitely wasn't ready for that!

This guy nails what I felt about watching The Man in the White house on 60 Minutes on Sunday.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Unaware that life is about to change...

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