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.

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.

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.

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)