Dog Quirks

Beep...beep....beep.......

This is the sound of my dog backing out of the kitchen.
The lure of any kind of food will bring my dog into the kitchen like a lightening bolt. Once she has managed to puppy-dog-eye her way into getting a little piece of whatever I am making, she leaves the room. Backwards. She will not walk right through, but willl turn around and go butt first out the door. She will not walk out face first and starts to panic if you try to make her. I think it's because the floor is tile. Maybe she had a Bambi-on-ice moment when she was a pup.

Possibly related, is her longish toenails. You see, she is a rotti cross, and rotti's are know to have issues with people touching their feet. Sure when she was a pup, we used to purposely touch her feet and trim her nails, in an effort to get her used to it, but one day (no she wasn't hurt) she just decided not to allow it anymore. She pulls her paws away, snarls, cowers, and gives us the evil eye, and I think she also uses the ultimate weapon, passing gas to keep us away. We can try by holding her, or nicely coax her with lots of treats, but no go.



The last time she had them trimmed well, was when she was knocked out getting x rays, after getting her knee surgery last fall. Otherwise, it is just the ends of the longest nails that get trimmed, usually a couple at a time. Our middle daughter has the most success with her.
If you have a rotti, be aware that this is one of their little quirks, they often hate having their feet touched, but if you do it gently and often when they are young, you may have a chance at having less problems when they are older. Didn't work for us, but that's kind of the norm around here.

Sink Cats & Tub Dogs

Just about everyone knows a cat that likes to sleep in the sink.
If you think not, look for telltale signs. Are there strange hairs on your bar of soap....I don't mean the curly ones that you may blame (curse) others for leaving behind, in your home. I mean long silky ones? Is your toothbrush hairier than usual. If you say yes, you may have a secret night-sink sleeper.
I have had 3 sink sleepers. This one is Claw'd (named because that's what you got when you went near him).
This particular cat used to sit on top of the fridge and bat the top of your head when you opened the fridge door, and also hide behind doors, attacking your ankles when you walked past. Sadly this little fuzzy monster is no longer with us.

Slightly less well known...but they are out there for sure, because I have had 2 of them, are the dog tub sleepers. This is Monty, our first tub sleeper (again, no longer with us).


Our current dog will do this as well. She did it a lot as a young dog (as well as dragging out the wet towels and rolling in them). She is getting older now, and it's harder for her to pick her legs up climb in, so we don't see her there as often. I suppose this is a big dog thing, that's what we have always had.
Anyways, cats in sinks, dogs in tubs, just part of the strange goings on in your home when you own pets. Nothing weirder than walking into your bathroom on a warm summer day , and having your sink and tub full of furry animals.
Gotta love 'em, they have their own personalities.

My Dog Leaks

Behind this sweet face, is an aging, spayed dog, that is leaking.

This has been going on for a little while.
At first we thought she was licking/chewing herself, sometimes she licks the floor or the couch and makes it wet. When we are falling asleep in our cozy bed, we can be lulled to sleep....no wait...scrap that..............driven crazy, by the sound of the dog having a good slurp of her hind quarters. I know we all looove that sound.
This didn't turn out to be the cause of the mystery puddles. Not an infection either. What it is, is her age, being spayed, hormones, and all that there stuff. Apparently it's not uncommon. (Oh, my, I'm "spayed", and getting old, is this peeing when I laugh too hard just the beginning? Say it ain't so.)
She can be given meds (hormones I think) that will help her get better control, but for now we have opted to just make sure she is "empty" more often. With all her issues over the years, she hasn't made caring for her, a picnic, and it doesn't look like it's going to change now. But who can help but love a dog that does stuff like sleep behind our curtains, so she can give us a laugh with her Mother Teresa impression.


Nov 30...
just an update.
Our dog hasn't leaked in a few months now. What we thought it was...age, apparently wasn't the reason. We are back to thinking it must have been an infection after all.

Dogs and house damage

I started back at school this week, and my husband was working at home. He couldn't really keep an eye on the dog, so he decided he would put the big Elizabethan collar doohickey on her because she is so bored, she has been chewing any part of her body that she can reach, and we don't want her getting any sore spots. We don't need more problems with her.

Anyways, he put the collar on and of course she reacted like we knew she would. She rampaged around the house causing as much damage as Godzilla in New York.

Then she stopped.

and sat. Very still.

She wouldn't move her head. She looked supremely miserable and started to drool. That plastic collar started to fill up with a big pool of drool. It was only to be a matter of time before it started to gag her and then there would have been a big shake of the head and we would be cleaning dog spit off of everything within a 3 meter area. So my husband took it off.

She calmed down and was fine. I guess some things are better left alone.

Huzzah

It's stitches out day!

My life is just so damn exciting.

My ass is getting fat

We have no crate, we have doggie in an enclosed space. We have two couches, and a couple of chairs and coffee tables blocking her in. The TV is there too, so we can sit and watch, and she is in the center, which makes her happy.

There is rarely anything on TV though, and I have gone through all the DVDs we have at home now.

I get to stay in the room with her most of the time, while everyone else goes about their business. I get to go grocery shopping once a week for about an hour, and someone else gets to watch her then, but when I'm at home, I know if I leave the room she will start getting antsy. She is putting more weight on her leg and when we take her out to go pee, or to our bedroom at night, she pulls hard and tries to go fast. It's hard to restrain her. We have been told that the more careful we are with her right now, the less problems we are likely to have, so we are being careful, we don't want to deal with this continuously for the next year like some people do when they get infections or re break the bone or pop some screws out.

Does this look like a sick dog?

I thought I would be a better couch potato than this, but even though I have the TV and the computer right here, it is getting boring, and I feel like I am turning into a blob.
I go back to work part time at the school in 2 weeks. It will be interesting to see what happens then. It will be my first real freedom from the house, in a month.

Update

Okay, so I suck at doing a daily diary.



My dog is doing pretty well. She is much more alert, probably because she is finished with the heavy pain meds. She is putting a little weight on her leg. She hasn't been licking/chewing her stitches. She is starting to get bored being in a small space all day, but if we let her out she will roam around too much, jump up and run when someone comes in the door, etc. My god, this is going to get tricky for the next month.

She has been going pee, in her special place, and we hose it down afterwards, so that is working really well.

She gets her staples out on Monday. How they do that I don't know. She is such a nervous dog around people, they may have to knock her out agin.

Her leg yesterday...looks so much better. Her fur is starting to grow back pretty quickly too.

Problem for the day

First night was not tooooo bad. The dog wanted to be where she usually is at night, in our room. So we sectioned off a part of it for her, and she was very happy. The only thing is that we didn't want to put the big collar on her because we figured she would hate, hate , hate it and would probably bang around a lot and keep us awake. Instead we chose to leave it off, and since I am a light sleeper and my hubby wakes up a few times in the night usually, we decided we would keep our ears open for any sounds of her licking her incision too much.

Of course neither of us got much sleep, because every time she licked her lips, our heads popped up to look at her. May try the collar tonight.

Today's task, is to figure out the peeing situation. To go outside, there is a fairly steep set of stairs (I think about 10 steps) She doesn't want to go down them and she's really not supposed to if we can help it. We got her down once, by helping with a belly strap to lift her a bit. She didn't like that and didn't want to come back in the house. My husband picked her up and carried her in. Quite a struggle and I wouldn't want him to try and carry her down. Kind of dangerous. There is no way I could get her up and down on my own.

Our solution, to turn our deck which is off the living/dining room area where she is being kept, , into a mini back yard.
We are tracking down a little bit of turf and will put it on our deck. It will be her own little space place for the next couple of months.

Okay, here we are. Very, very strange, I know, but it worked. We hose it down after she goes, so it doesn't get stinky. At least it's safer than risking our, and her life and limb getting her up and down the stairs. The things we do for our pets, eh?

My Dog's TPLO Surgery

I just brought our dog home from the hospital. She hurt her leg a few weeks ago and snapped one of the ligaments in her knee. This operation is pretty darned expensive, but we were told that especialy for a big dog like her, this is by far the best option for her. She's a 120 lb rotti/lab cross.
I am going to be sitting in this room with my dog a lot in the next while, making sure she doesn't chew out her stitches or do any jumping or running, she is confined to a limited space for the next couple of weeks. Putting her in a wire cage would be a good way to keep her confined, but we rescued her from a pretty nasty situation when she was a pup, and there is no way she will stay in one without causing herself more harm. I decided to keep a kind of journal for her and our daily experience.
I'll add pictures...some may be kind of gross, but maybe someone else would like to know what to expect if this happens to their pooch.

They shaved her whole leg, and while our baby is a tad overweight, her leg is quite swollen. We are told day 3 and 4 could be worse, but then it should get better. We have to apply cold (gel pack) to it 3 or 4 times a day for 10 minutes.

She is on Percocet for the first 5 days, also she is taking some other medication because when they shaved her leg they noticed that she has a skin condition that may make her itchy. (we didn't know that before)

What's in a name?

Almost as hard to come up with as names for your children. Although occasionally, it seems like people just don’t want to think about it too much. I can remember being a kid and having a cat named Lucky, and then the next cat we got was also named Lucky. Ironically neither cat was.
We had a lab cross named Penny, and a beagle named Tammy. Both names that were considered for me apparently, but were given to dogs instead.
I can remember sitting around the kitchen table writing names on paper that would be chosen out of a bowl. That was for our black shepherd. I wrote Thor, a brother wrote Brutus, and he ended up being called Ben. That was a good name for him.
I had guinea pigs named Bubbles and Pickles, I have no idea why. I was a kid.
Since I got married and started my own family we have had a cat named Dickens, not after the writer, but because he was a dickens. Also a cat named Claude, because that was what you got when you went near him “Claw’d”. Our kids names their cat Skittles (why?) and our first dog a golden retriever was a purebred and so appropriately we named him Montgomery (Monty). Two rabbits, Magic (black) and Twister (because he would run and then jump up in the air and twist around, also the movie was a big hit at the time) Our current dog is Tira, named by our kids after some anime character.
I always think of good names, like Achilles, so I could say “Achilles heal! When we don’t have a pet to name, but when we do have a new one, it just seems so daunting to come up with the right one.

Painting a Memory Box

I recently had a friend of mine, request a box made for her friend that had recently lost a beloved dog. She wanted this dog and the man's two other dogs on one box.

I was given a photo with three dogs (not sitting right beside each other) and from that I drew a picture of them close together.

I then transferred the picture on to a simple wooden box.

Then I painted in the large areas and began to start the detail.

Then I filled in the requested background colour and finished up the details.

Finally, I worked on a fitting border, (huskies, sleigh) and put several coats of varnish and sanding it between coats.

These boxes can be used for anything, but I have heard people say they put in a few favourite pictures, a collar or dog tags, and then keep it somewhere they can always be reminded of their special friend.

Morning, Oh Joy.

I wrote about this "animals and morning" thing last year, and am finding it is happening again this year.

The time of year when my cat starts to think she's a frickin' rooster.

At precicely 5:55 she starts walking up and down the hall outside my bedroom door, meowing.

I lobbed Tums and cough candies and anything else I could find in my nightstand drawer at her, but she just thought it was a demented form of dodgeball, and kept meowing. My eyes were still half closed and I didn't have my contacts in, so the missles didn't actually make contact. That may have been why she didn't run away.

During the week it isn't a problem, the alarm goes off about that time anyways. But last night (Friday) I put a bunch of marshmallows in my drawer and when she started up this morning, I was more prepared. Or so I thought. I forgot about the dog. I have a very lazy assed dog that usually sleeps in until 9:00 or so, but the smell of marshmallows flying through the air, aimed at the cat, woke her up and she started intercepting and eating my marshmallow ammunition before it reached the intended target. When she devoured it all, she started licking me.
My husband could sleep through all this. There will be no sleeping in for me.

Oddly enough, the rooster that lives across the field, doesn't start crowing until about 1:30 in the afternoon.

Different Ways People Make Peanut Butter Sandwiches

Martha Stewart:

1. Grind wheat, make bread dough and bake bread.
2. Get top quality, hard to find, no preservative, hand made by nuns or monks using peanuts too good even for squirrels, peanut buerre.
3. Get jar of last summer's home made strawberry preserves that you slaved over and gave to all your friends instead of gifts at last Christmas.
4. Cut cooled bread into nice thick slices.
5. Generously spread peanut buerre on one piece of bread. Sprinkle nutmeg on top.
6. Spread jam on the other slice of bread. Top with fresh strawberries cut into rose florettes.
7. Arrange bread on an attractive plate, side by side. Top with melted Ghirardeli chocolate and add a sprig of mint on the side of the plate.
8. Enjoy with a friend.

Oprah

1. Scour the stores for your favourite peanut butter and jam, buy caseloads of it.
2. Get 100 loaves of your favourite healthy bread.
3. Call Maya Angelou to come over and inspire you.
4. Get Gayle to come over for the big kitchen adventure, put on some music.
5. Layout the bread all over the place and start spreading the peanut butter and jam, have fun and then tell Gayle to stop singing.
6. Make lots of "yummy" noises".
7. Slam the sandwiches together, wrap then in cellophane, tied with a big huge bow.
8. Give them away to needy people.
9. Show clips of what you did on your TV show


M. Knight Shyamalan

1. Goes to the kitchen and gets all ingredients out.
2. Begins to spread the peanut butter, but looks out the window and sees a woman by the pool.
3. Goes outside to investigate...when he gets there he finds that she has disappeared.
4. Comes back into the kitchen to discover that the sandwich has been made, and a small delicate bite has been taken out of it. Yet he can see no one around.
5. Get a glass of water, take a sip while contemplating this, and put it on the counter with several other glasses of water, wanting no more because it is contaminated.
6. In a surprise twist, he decides that he wanted a tuna sandwich anyways.


Jerry Seinfeld:

1. Realizes that he has run out of cereal and only has peanut butter in the cupboard.
2. Wash hands.
3. Get out the white bread, jam and new jar of peanut butter.
4. Take lid off the peanut butter and see a whole peanut sitting on the top. Wonder "What's the deal with the whole peanut sitting on top of my peanut butter? Am I supposed to crush it? Am I supposed to throw it away? Am I supposed to eat it, and if so will the peanut butter live up to my expectations after eating the real thing?" Throw it away.
5. Get a clean knife and smoothly spread the peanut butter on the bread.
6. Wash the knife.
7. Open the jam...yada...yada...yada...
8. Yada...cut the finished sandwich.
9. Go to answer the ringing phone. Come back to see Kramer standing there just finishing off the sandwich. Shrug and put arms in the "whatever" position.

Criss Angel, Mindfreak:

1. Takes a bag of sandwich fixins and goes to find an audience on the street.
2. Rips small pieces of bread and stuffs them in his mouth.
3. Using his fingers, puts the peanut butter up one nostril and jam up the other.
4. Put a foot long piece of saran wrap in left breast pocket.
5. Cause some sort of diversion, like setting himself on fire.
6. Opens his mouth and takes out a small object, unfolds it to reveal a fully made and saran wrapped peanut butter and jam sandwich.
7. Smile mysteriously and knowingly.


How I would make a peanut butter sandwich.

1. Put on protective gear.
2. Get a stool, climb up, take peanut butter from cupboard.
3. Take jelly, teapot and reading glasses out of the fridge.
4. Wash finger. (foodsafe training kicked in)
5. Dip finger in peanut butter, and taste test.
6. Get out bread and spread peanut butter generously on bread. Wipe hand on butt leaving peanut butter finger prints on ass. (Note: smell of peanut butter on ass attracts the dog)
7. Spead jelly, lick the knife and spill jelly on protective gear on chest.
8. Put pieces of bread together, and cut....finger, then sandwich in half.
9. Bandage finger, take off protective gear, go sit down and eat sandwich. Squirt jelly out onto chest when taking first bite.
10. Fight off dog trying to lick jelly of my chest

Cats vs Dogs

The cats have stepped it up a notch.

Pet Portraits.

I sometimes do pet portraits.

This was my old dog Monty:

This is my current dog Tira:

One of my current projects is a painting of someones dog. As with ...well most of the pet portraits that I have done, this beloved pet has passed on.

I can't think of any other paintings that I do that give me both the fear and the excitement that pet portraits do. These are hugely emotional for those that ask for them.

I know some people think.."You paint dogs! Where's the creativity in that?" Well it's not so much creativity as it is sensitivity. You have to find the special quality in that pet that the owner will recognize.

It is scary. I can paint, say a wolf, and if I forget to paint his ear or give him a lump on his head, well who's to know that he wasn't just attacked by another wolf. I can do what I want, because it' s just a random wolf. If I were to give someones loved dog, a gimpy eye, or a weird shaped nose, they will notice. What you really need to nail is the expression. If you get that right, and luckily so far I pretty much always have, you will get a reaction unlike any other art buyer. Smiles, joy, tears. A lot of times tears. That's the big payoff in doing pet portraits.

(I don't mean that I like to make people cry)

(Also just so you know I don't usually give my wolves bumps on the head or missing ears)