Tag: dogs

My New Nickname

I have a few nicknames that Mitch has given me over the years, “Speed Racer” when I spun out at the airport and crashed going too fast on wet pavement, or “Dances with Ladders” after my latest tryst carrying a ladder down a hill (it didn’t end well). But today I can add a new nickname to my list. This time it’s the dogs that can take credit for my new nickname.

On our morning predawn walk today things started off as always, Charlie and Orso sniffing and peeing on everything wandering back and forth on both sides of the street making the most of their time and bodily fluids. I was distracted thinking about a million different things, calling the doctor to rewrite a prescription, what I was going to wear to work and what to take for lunch, you know everything that goes on in your head as you go about your day. Granted, it was all my fault, I know better, when walking the dogs in the dark I have to be on guard constantly for critters large and small that might cross our path.

Just as we had crossed the road to head down a long tree lined dark stretch of road, Charlie and Orso either saw or caught the scent of something ahead. I didn’t see or hear anything but they did. Charlie was on my left side and Orso was on my right side, when Charlie jerked around and circled behind me yanking my left arm behind my back to come around and stand next to Orso, both lunging and growling at something. Jerking my arm around behind my back with enough force and the combined force of Orso lunging forward with Charlie meant my body had a choice, dislocate my shoulder or spin around and follow the leashes. In reality what happened was a combination of both. I would like to say that I pirouetted around like a ballerina, but in reality I jerked around lost my balance and very ungracefully ended up sitting down hard in the middle of the street with my feet splayed out in front of me.

The dogs turned around to look me in the face with what looked like embarrassment that I was so clumsy. How could they possibly be tough dogs facing the unseen danger ahead with this woman who can’t even stay on her feet? I on the other hand was not so pleased with their attempt to be guardians of the roads. I stood back up dusted off my behind and made sure nothing was broken or bent. Evidently whatever was out there fled in terror, not so much from the ferocity of the dogs, but because of a small woman flaying around like a madwoman.

My new nickname, “Sits in the Road”.

Exercising With Your Dogs

You hear it all the time; get more exercise in by walking your dog. It’s supposed to be a win-win situation. The dog benefits by getting needed exercise, stays slimmer and burns off energy. You are moving more working your muscles and getting your heart rate up also staying slimmer and wears you out. Of course we all know how well my walks with dogs go in the morning. My heart rate definitely raises and I work lots of muscles, upper body and locked legs doing the “no, no, no” extensions when confronted with wildlife.

Yesterday in a further attempt to get back in shape after three surgeries in a twelve month period, I decided to start doing Yoga at home. I loaded the Yoga DVD in the DVD player, pushed the coffee table out of the way, unrolled my yoga mat and sat down for the opening breathing exercises. I was immediately face to face with Charlie who wanted to help me by sticking his nose right in my face to make sure I was breathing correctly. I pushed him away but he pushed right back and got even closer. He was determined to help me breathe. I tried to ignore him and stood up to move to the next series of moves. I dropped to plank and Charlie dropped down right next to me too. I sank into cobra pose and Charlie scooted closer. I moved into downward dog and Charlie rolled over onto his back right underneath me and whacked my face with his paw in an attempt to get me to pet him.

This was turning into more effort to avoid him than in doing the yoga moves. Cat/cow was equally a challenge because now Orso had decided that watching Charlie annoy me to distraction looked like lots of fun and jumped off the bed to come and join in helping me exercise. As I arched my back for cow and looked up I got a great big wet slobbery kiss from Orso right in the face. Yuck! That almost caused me to drop on the floor and squish Charlie who was still underneath me being a huge pain in my backside. I pushed Orso aside, tried to move into child’s pose and ended up putting my knees on Charlie’s tail. It did not make him happy. He jumped up causing me to jerk and lose my balance falling over into the coffee table, cracking my elbow on the table’s edge.

That definitely got my heart rate up.

Summer is Here Now but Just Wait

We’re having the usual August heat wave, which seems so much more miserable because this summer we have been very lucky to have had very pleasant temperatures in the eighties instead of the usual nineties. But just in case we’re feeling sorry for ourselves and wishing for some cooler temperatures I just want to remind everyone of what is coming sooner than we want.

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Charlie Always on the Hunt

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Just saying, it may be hot now but way too soon it will be cold and miserable.

Almost Fatal Attraction

I almost died this morning. No, not really, I’m exaggerating but it sure felt like it for a moment or at the very least I could have ended up with a really bad case of road rash, maybe even a bruise or two. And as is almost always the case, it was because of the dogs. Those miserable mongrel beasts that I feed, walk and let sleep in my house as well as my bed. Let me put it in perspective for you, I am five foot two inches tall and weigh in at a little over a hundred plus pounds, I’m not giving exact weight that’s only for the scale and me, but you can see that I am not a super big imposing person. The dogs on the other hand come in at one hundred and seventy plus pounds together, with Orso at a hundred and one and Charlie at seventy one pounds. Plus they both have way more muscle mass than two other people and me put together. Even though they are both senior dogs, Orso is eight and Charlie will be ten on Halloween, they can still get to afterburner speed when they are so inclined.

Our morning walks are always in the predawn hours when the creatures of the night are still out carousing and the morning animals are starting to stir. Most mornings I can hear owls calling out to other owls and a few of the early birds that are just waking up. It’s quite common to see raccoons, opossums and deer in the dim light. Because of that I am always on high alert making sure I see anything before the dogs hone in on it, causing them to bolt and charge after the object of their desire, thus making me a boat anchor dragging behind them. This has happened too many times to count. I’m pretty sure I’ve paid for more than one vacation for my chiropractor all from walking the dogs.

This morning started off very sedately, that’s how it always begins by the way. I get lulled into a false sense of security, a cool morning with fresh air and a slight breeze with the dogs sniffing and peeing on all of the bushes and trees strutting down the street like we are the only ones out this time of day. We had walked out to our time limit spot and had turned back to head home so I could jump in the shower and get ready for work. We had topped the hill and had headed down to round the curve in the road when Orso saw something and lunged forward to give chase with Charlie reacting a split second later. I was caught totally off guard, thinking about what I was going to wear to work, not paying attention and almost lost my balance. I came very close to actually falling down before I regained control and jerked on the leashes to yank them back. Orso turned and looked up at me with a very contrite look on his face and sat. Charlie on the other hand looked at me with a look that said, “It’s all the big dog’s fault, I was trying to save you. I would never have done that.”

It took a few minutes for my adrenaline level to get back to normal and my heart to stop pounding in my chest. I never did see what was out there in the dark that caused Orso to want to chase after, but I will definitely be watching a little closer tomorrow even though it won’t be there.

Monday

Can I please just go back to bed and pull the covers over my head? It started yesterday when we came home around 12:30 and backed into the driveway. I pushed the transmitter button for the garage door operator and nothing happened. I pushed it again, still nothing, so I pushed the remote on my key ring thinking the battery must be dead. Nope, the door didn’t budge. Mitch got out of the car and walked up to the keypad on the garage and punched in the code, nothing. It finally dawned on me there was no power. The electricity was out, it was working just fine when I left to go get Mitch, the sky was perfectly clear no storms, so what had happened?

We walked in the house and sure enough the house had no power too, duh. That meant no air conditioning either. Super. We had friends coming over for dinner at 4pm, no power meant no stove, no lights and no dinner. We called around to make sure we weren’t alone in our misery and found out that a huge dead tree at the other end of the lake decided to fall over and take out the power lines with it. Everyone on our side of the lake from one end to the other had no power. Perfect just perfect. Power and Light crews were on the way, but I wasn’t sure if and when we would get power back on. I called our friends to ask if I could move the party and all the food to their house if the power didn’t come back soon enough. The power was restored about 2pm so we were back in business. I reset the clocks and figured we were good to go. Dinner was great and I totally forgot about the power outage.

Guess what, forgetting the power outage came back to haunt me this morning. When I walked into the kitchen to feed the dogs and check on the coffee pot I noticed that it had already filled the pot instead of just starting to brew and it dawned on me that I had forgotten to reset the clock when I went around resetting everything else, so it started brewing two hours earlier. I quickly reset the time so that won’t happen again and went about feeding the dogs. I took Mitch to work, walked the dogs and got ready for work myself. I walked into the kitchen to fill my thermos and saw the coffee maker was off. I put my hands around the carafe which was still warm but not hot. That’s when it dawned on me that when I reset the clock I forgot to reset the heating time. It has a two, three or four hour on timer and when the power is off it resets to two hours, thus making my coffee lukewarm and I hate lukewarm coffee. I had to fill the measuring cup with coffee and heat it in the microwave before filling the thermos. Microwaved coffee is not so tasty, but I can’t go without my coffee.

I thought, “Please nothing else can go wrong, pretty please.” I took the dogs outside for one last pee break before heading off to work and standing there as big as you please in the neighbor’s yard was a very large deer. The two charged off in hot pursuit, with me yelling, “No, no, no, get back here right now!” That took five minutes to get them back in the yard and in the house. I was not pleased at all. I grabbed two rawhide chews and marched into the living room to hand the chews out and get my stuff. Now I’m running behind and Orso is still pumped up about deer chasing and reaches up to snatch the chew from my hand and missed biting down on my thumb.

I am not holding out much hope for the rest of my day.

Tis the Season

I should have seen it coming. It is that time of the year. Sudden intense storms that blow out of nowhere, with little warning and leave vast destruction in its wake. Yesterday was one of those days. Beautiful morning, cool temperature partly cloudy skies and a nice breeze, a perfect day for yard work and a DIY home improvement project. We had the whole day planned out. Mitch would go rent a jack hammer to dig out holes in the shelf rock under one of the bedrooms on the old side of the house and I would go to the grocery store then come home and mow.

First off I misunderstood where he was going to rent the jack hammer. I thought he said Lowe’s, so I figured he could drop me off at Sam’s Club across the street rent the jack hammer then come back and get me, killing an extra trip for me. But no, he said Home Depot, not even close to where Sam’s is. Strike one against me for the morning. I caused him to have to drive farther out of his way to take me to Sam’s then on to Home Depot then back to pick me up. He didn’t bother to correct me until we were getting off the highway at the exit, so by then it was too late to correct the misunderstanding. It didn’t end up saving any time for either of us, because I had to wait about a half hour for him to come back and get me. The only upside was the looks on people’s faces walking past me standing in front of Sam’s with a cart full of food.

After coming home and unloading food and jack hammer I buzzed off to the grocery store leaving Mitch to attack rock to his heart’s content. I came home and unloaded groceries, made sure Mitch hadn’t jack hammered off one of his toes, changed my clothes and took the dogs outside to commence yard work. I dragged the mower out of the shed ducking for cover because of the growing wasp nest in the door. I keep forgetting that it’s there until I have to mow, then I’m rudely reminded of it when the wasps buzz bomb my head. I pushed the mower down to the driveway, grabbed the gas can and filled the mower. I pulled the cord and the mower started right off then promptly died. I pulled the cord again and again, now the mower wouldn’t even try to start. I thought great, not now, not today.

I was already hot and tired from cutting limbs from bushes and it was 11:30 so I thought it was a perfect time to take a break, eat some lunch then ask Mitch start the mower for me. I walked back in the house to see how much he had accomplished. He had punched out two holes each about a foot and a half square. It was slow going, Mitch had to break up the rock in big chunks, lift the large rocks out of the hole then use a shovel to scoop up the dirt and smaller rocks out of the holes and into a bucket. He then had to carry the bucket outside and down the steps to the trash dumpster. Hard heavy work and he still had many more holes to dig. I suggested breaking for lunch, but he said no he wasn’t ready. I said that I couldn’t get the mower to start and asked that he start it for me, but I was tired and wanted a diet coke and just sit for a minute. Strike number two, since I stopped to take a break, in essence I made him stop what he was doing too. He quickly reheated a leftover steak while I ate a salad and drank my diet coke.

When I was done, he followed me out to the mower. I pulled the cord just to check; it started right up, then died and wouldn’t start again. Mitch pulled and pulled but nothing happened. He told me to push it into the garage so he could work on it. I could tell by his expression, it wasn’t going well. Strike number three, I told him not to worry about the mower that I could do something else and he could go back to jack hammering. He looked at me with that look and I saw the first signs of “Mitch Fit Warning”. I offered again that he could stop taking the mower apart and I would do something else. That’s when I saw the “Mitch Fit Warning, Imminent”. The look that says “take cover things are about to starting flying or get broken”.

He looked at me and said very slowly, “Go find something else to do, right now.” Here it comes “Mitch Fit Imminent” is getting ready to strike and I didn’t want to be in the path of that storm. This had all signs of a major event. He had rented a jack hammer, paying an hourly rate to get grueling back breaking work down and I had just halted the process in order to fix the mower. This wasn’t going to be pretty at all.

So I grabbed the dogs and beat a hasty retreat. An hour later he walked into the house and said, “I got it running for now so go mow right now before it stops.” Thank god we had rocks he could break.

It’s a Conspiracy!

I’m not normally one of those conspiracy theorists, but in this case I’m willing to believe that some other hand is at work here. Every morning I walk the dogs in the predawn twilight. Everybody that knows me knows that. Because of the time of day and lack of light I am always on high alert especially when we get to certain areas that are more remote like the one stretch of road where there are no houses on either side and trees block out almost all of any light from the moon. For the most part, our morning walks are usually sedate, with multiple stops to sniff and pee, but for some reason this week almost every morning we have had close encounters with something. I say “something” because I have not seen what it is.

Yesterday the morning walk was going very well, we had just crossed the intersection where three streets meet and were heading down the long dark stretch of road when Orso almost stood straight up and started barking his head off. This encouraged Charlie to follow in kind. I couldn’t see anything, nothing moved in the shadows and dark spots ahead, there was no sound, nothing. I hushed the dogs and kept walking on down the road. Yes I know, maybe not the brightest move, but I figured what’s the worst that could happen? An axe murderer waiting for me to get closer, not likely since axe murderers are usually asleep at 4:30 in the morning. A werewolf waiting for me in the shadows probably not, because it wasn’t a full moon yesterday morning. Some critter that was holding really still in the dark, that was the most logical scenario I could come up with, so I tightened my grip on the leashes and off we went.

Charlie was all puffed up sniffing the air and the ground jerking back and forth trying to follow the scent of whatever it was that had them both so spooked. Both dogs were walking with their ears perked listening intently trying to locate “it”. As we walked farther down the lonely stretch of road the dogs became more and more agitated. Charlie either caught the scent or heard something and started barking loudly and very throaty which set Orso off too. I couldn’t see anything but decided that maybe we really should turn back and not tempt fate. All the way back home both dogs kept straining at their leashes sniffing and ranging back and forth.

This morning the walk started off with the dogs on alert, ears up and searching the dark landscape for any movement. Of course when they are on high alert, I’m on high alert too, I’ve been jerked around and pulled off my feet too many times when I haven’t been paying attention. They settled down about the time we rounded the first curve and headed up the hill. Just as we started down the hill something fairly large jumped up and bolted away from us on the other side of a stand of thick bushes. I couldn’t see what it was only that it was large enough to make a lot of racket when it bolted. That startled both the dogs and me, thinking, oh goodie here we go again. We quickly walked down the hill and headed off toward the long dark stretch of road. We made it down the long lonely stretch of road and back without incident and I thought we were home free.

Wrong. We retraced our steps back up the hill, around the curve and were only four houses away from our home when Orso jerked around and lunged at something in the dark barking away. This caused Charlie to jerk back to search for the unseen threat. They yanked me back and I came really close to losing my balance, my adrenaline shot through the roof, thinking this was it, “they’re going to find my dead mangled body and think there was a yeti or something running around.” Nothing was there. I looked around and didn’t see anything at all, nothing. Whatever “it” is it’s creepy.

Now I’m wondering what is going on is there something out there or is it someone jacking with me or what? Maybe it’s my hairdresser, maybe she thinks I need to color my hair more often, by scaring the bejesus out me and making my hair grayer. Maybe it’s my doctor maybe she wants to go on vacation and if I have a heart attack, the insurance claim would be more than enough to subsidize a nice little trip somewhere. Or maybe it’s Mother Nature, trying to tell me she controls the night and I better be more careful.

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie

We knew the dogs would be excited to see us when we picked them up from the pet spa on Saturday after we returned from vacation, but we were somewhat disconcerted when we noticed Charlie was not his normal happy psycho dog self. He seemed a little off, more subdued than normal, there was no one thing that we could point at and say that is what is wrong. So we watched him and his behavior trying to figure out if he was getting better or worse. I thought that maybe he was depressed and then thought can a dog get depressed and why would he be depressed? Life inside a cool air conditioned house, good food and our soft bed, what is there to be depressed about? The only clue at first was his sad face.

Charlie continued to do all of the normal things we do every day; he had a healthy appetite eating everything put in front of him, walked at his normal fast “I have to be first” pace and jumped into bed with us to annoy us at night. He just didn’t have his happy face. But on Wednesday things went downhill fast.

Mitch called me at work that afternoon and said, “Something is wrong with the little brown dog.”

I asked what and he said, “At first he was walking around in circles with his head down and like he wanted to throw up, but he didn’t throw up. Then he started shaking, after that he wouldn’t put any weight on his left hind leg and it started to spasm uncontrollably. I have him lying down next to me, but something definitely wrong with Charlie.”

I called our vet and made an appointment to take Charlie in and finally figure out what was going on. I thought maybe he’d had a stroke or cancer. Mitch came by and picked me up so we could both go to the vet. The vet took one look at Charlie and said that the shaking was from pain. Charlie was in a great deal of pain and we couldn’t read the signs. All I could think of was that we suck as pet owners. He said that first thing to do was pain management and he would give him some morphine, then do some blood work and take some x-rays. He took Charlie and told us to come back in an hour.

Bracing ourselves for the worst, an hour later we walked back in the vet’s office and were ushered into an examination room. Charlie was standing there happy to see us, still pretty wobbly, but definitely in a little better shape than when we dropped him off, must have been the morphine. The vet brought in lots of x-rays to show us (that was going to cost us, I thought). He said that the blood work came back normal so that was a good thing. But he found something on the last x-ray he took, isn’t that always the case, never on the first x-ray. The x-ray was of Charlie lying on his side and about midway between his shoulders and hips there was a spot where it showed a spinal injury to one of his vertebrae. Our vet said that it looked like an old injury, but maybe being at the pet spa and playing with the other dogs, he may have re-injured it and that may be causing the pain and his inability to put any weight on the back leg. Plus he said that Charlie had a high fever running a temperature of a hundred and four. He said he gave Charlie a shot of antibiotics.

Our vet handed me two bottles of prescriptions, one was an antibiotic and one was pain medication. He also said we were in for a rough night. I didn’t think too much of what he said just thinking Charlie wasn’t going to die and this was going to be very expensive. We walked out to settle up with the receptionist and just about turned around to give Charlie back when she smiled and said that the bill was seven hundred thirty three dollars. That and the two hundred ninety nine dollars we paid the pet spa to keep the dogs while we were on vacation almost made me regret taking a vacation in the first place. Oh I know it’s nobody’s fault Charlie got hurt and sick, the same thing happens to children at daycare centers and we dearly love our vet and trust him implicitly with the dogs, it was just the shock of the amount. Why can’t I just add them both to my health insurance, pay my ten dollar co-pay and be done? Technically they are sort of like dependents, they depend upon me to feed them and walk them, so in the broadest sense of the word, they could be considered dependents. Too bad the insurance company doesn’t see it that way.

Oh well, I guess the next vacation will be a “staycation”.

Ready or Not Spring Has Sprung

The dogs and I went for a short walk and found some signs that Spring is finally here.

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Orso enjoying lounging in the sun

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Charlie likes the playground equipment too

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We found a goose setting on a nest

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We found another nest sans Mom

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Then Mom showed up to let me know not to come too close.

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We even found a turtle sunning himself

Photos taken with my Canon Rebel

Another Play Day and Everyone Survived

We had another play day with Eddie and bonus everyone survived.

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Eddie waiting as patiently as a puppy can

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See how handsome I am

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Eddie encouraging Orso to play

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Eddie and Orso

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I have the drop

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Orso giving Eddie the look

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I’m a tired puppy

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This is the best tasting water ever