Posts Tagged ‘Dogs’

I really didn’t used to do this kind of thing, this putting clothes on the animals. I made fun of it, and still do, generally.

But Bruiser actually needs to wear sweaters and stuff, because his fur is as short as the rest of him, so he’s always shivering. So it’s off to Petco for something, and of course it’s all cutesy, and then the holidays come… and I snicker semi-evilly, and we end up with something like this:

Kassie’s pretty stoic about it, but Sammy just wants it gone. Now, if given a preference:

But Bruiser actually loves it. And I’d heard that from other small dog people and shook my head at them. If I pull out some tee shirt he knows is his he can’t wait to ram his head in and lifts his paws for the armholes. In fact, he was NOT happy that the other dogs got into his act and made off with the goods…

Luckily he’s cute and Santa forgave him anyway. Hope everyone’s Holidays were merry!

These past weeks have been a bit insane, even by the rather elastic standards of sanity in my house.

The dozens of boxes of leftover inventory were hauled out of storage, organized, thousands of items individually priced and set up for a massive garage sale (actually held in our front parlors) that spanned 2 weekends. Friends were enlisted/enslaved, Charlie’s patience sorely tested (but rewarded- with some of the proceeds I bought him a much drooled over Kindle for his b-day) and the wine (not to mention whine) flowed.

The dogs were confused. Well, Sammy was anyway- Bruiser took the opportunity to go dumpster diving in bags and boxes to find anything stuffed to steal and destroy, and the bigger the better:

The sale itself was fun, especially since we were primarily an online business- I never got to see people playing with the stuff we sold, and that was really nice. We sold a little over half- not bad, considering that a high percentage of the stock was out of season Mardi Gras decorations.

I donated what was left to charity; it was just picked up a few hours ago. Mostly I’m glad to see it go… all those boxes took up as much emotional/mental space as physical, and closure (trite tho it may be) is a very good thing.

But…well. You know.

Anyway.

Next?

This falls into the good news/bad news category: Pratchett’s started talking! He’s been saying “Hello” with fair regularity, and he’s got a bunch of other words coming down the pipe. I’ve heard this stage called ‘birdie baby babble,’ which is about right- he sort of works on them when he’s alone, saying them over and over to himself, working it all out.

So, imagine my surprise when something new happened this weekend- he started yelling at the dogs…which made me realize how much Iyell at them, because now Pratch is beating me to it. We have a new dog next door, and whenever she starts yapping, Sammy and Bruiser have to join in, even though my dogs have no idea what they’re barking about. And this new dog yaps a lot.

But now, as start as they get cranked up, Pratch yells “S’mantha!”, followed by a bunch of stuff that’s not understandable yet, but will probably evolve into either “knock it off!” or “be quiet, dammit!”

So yeah, little birdies have big ears. Gonna have to start watching that. Again. It’s kind of like having a toddler all over again, and just when I’ve gotten used to the idea that Alison already knows all those words I’d rather she didn’t.

So I don’t usually do things like this, but I bought this goofy hat to put on the weiner.

He took it pretty well, really. He’s used to having shirts on when he’s cold, so I guess he figured he’d just go with the flow.

Sammy, however, wasn’t so excited about it.

And Bianca made her thoughts clear on the matter right off. We decided to skip her.

(No animals were harmed or even seriously annoyed by this silliness, which lasted less than 5 minutes, and now they’re safe for at least another year. )

Sunday was quite the busy day. There were Mardi Gras Indians, romps around the city, dinner with friends, shopping for Alison.

Each of which pales beside something that took about 10 seconds to actually happen. Lunch was being delivered from a local sandwich place, so naturally the dogs went bananas when the bell rang.

This is S.O.P. If somebody ever just breaks into my house, the dogs will figure they must belong there but if the thief rings the doorbell first there’ll be hell to pay.

So dogs are freaking out. Delivery dude is leaning on the bell. I’m knocking everybody back so I can get to the kid to make it stop when…it happens.

In slo-mo : I push the dogs back and unlock the door, unleashing a final barrage of hopping and yapping. One of them loses their balance and topples backward into the bird cage.

Zulu is catapulted out of the cage, up into the air…and out the open door. He FLEW across the street, smacking into the house there, a distance of maybe 40 feet.

Understand that he doesn’t fly- his wings have been clipped since he was a chick. Without this doggie propelled shotgun blast out of his cage it wouldn’t have, nay, couldn’t have happened. I don’t think anyone was more surprised than he was.

Luckily there were no cars coming, because I bolted out after him, coaxing him out from between their fence and the house. “Peep.” he said quietly. “uh…peep.” This is not his usual tone. He was freaked. That made two of us.

He seems to be just fine, nothing hurt except his sense of world order. He stayed in the cage for a full 24 hours, refusing to budge.

And then he found a target. He decided he HATES this perfectly innocent Easter frog. He had been scared of it before, but I guess he’s decided he’s got to regain his manhood, so the frog is feeling his mighty wrath.

All the while, of course, the poor froggy continues to look chipper and thrilled to be there. Whatever, Kermit. You’re a therapeutic tool, and your life has been given up for the betterment of birdkind.

Sammy & Kassie follow/are followed by the puppy. Everywhere. He’s also picking up Sam’s vocabulary. She has a vast and impressive range of socializations and soon I’ll have not one but TWO dogs following me around going “Wrrororoooow! Rooow. Mmmumpfh!”

(Translation: Gotta go out! Seriously. Maaaaa! C’mon!” )

We actually have one Krewe that’s gone to the dogs.

The only two groups that can parade through the French Quarter are Krewe du Vieux and Barkus- neither have massive floats, though both have huge followings.

I’d never gone to Barkus, but Alison and I went down yesterday to catch the goings on. Unfortunately we were pressed for time, so we went to the pre-party, checked some of the hundreds of dogs and had to head back home before the actual parade started.

Their theme for the year is “Raiders of the Lost Bark.” They always use some kind of godforsaken (dogforsaken?) pun, and although any doggie costume is welcome, they encourage going with the theme.

Slideshow after the jump: Read the rest of this entry »