Category Archives: Critters and Varmints

Posts about animals.

what the ckatten did, also starring Whee Kelly Doll and Hurricane Cobie McFluffybutt

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My morning routine goes pretty much like this: Wake up. Go, OUCH. Whimper. Flex shoulder until the pain subsides enough to sit up. Run, with my thighs pressed together to the bathroom, praying as I step over each dog. (It’s a small bedroom.) Pee for an hour, flexing shoulder some more. Eventually finish peeing. Let Artemis the ckatten out of Zor’s room. Let animals outside. Empty dishwasher. Make (instant) coffee. Give Oliver two drops of milk. Let animals inside. Make sure a kitchen chair is out so Oliver, who is about 13 and no longer a graceful leaper, can get to his milk bowl, which is on the kitchen table so dogs don’t harrass him (or steal his milk). Fill dishwasher with dishes that have accumulated while I slept. Take first round of pills. Insert sublinguals between upper lip and gums. Go to The Keep (office). Feed Tyrion Hammister and make sure his water bottle hasn’t either (a) leaked, or (b) stopped dispensing, or (c) stopped dispensing because all the contents have leaked out. Sit down. Give Artemis the Ckatten special Keep food in her special Keep bowl. Give Cobie and Kelly special Keep treats so Cobie’s jealous ass doesn’t eat the Ckatten. When the throng dissipates, drink cold coffee that tastes like half-dissolved sublingual vitamins.

Ah, but I LOVE cold coffee. I love everything cold these days, and I have no idea why. Since it doesn’t affect anyone but me, who cares? Cold instant generic coffee. I’m having some now. SLURP.

Anyway, today when I arrived at The Keep, Tyrion was awake, so I decided to bite the bullet (and possibly get myself bitten in the process) and clean the little varmint’s cage. Which I accomplished with surprisingly little Hammister screeching–he still hates being picked up, but he doesn’t usually mind being stroked–and no biting.

Mom often speaks of my special needs menagerie. She wonders aloud how I manage to reliably select such neurotic pets. I wonder silently if I make them that way. But I digress.

So today the morning routine was interrupted by the opportunity to clean the ham-cage. I had to usher out Artemis the Ckatten, Cobie, and Kelly, in case of an escape during the transfer process. I still wear a glove for that, because when Tyrion bites, he bites hard, and I figure the less he hurts me the less likely I am to accidentally drop him. He didn’t bite this time, but I didn’t know that was going to happen, right?

So the Big Three were disgruntled by the time I let them in for Keep treats, but yummy noms soon had them back to their usual selves. I gave the Ckatten her usual, I dunno, a quarter handful? A big pinch? Served on the Mac desk in one of the tiny stainless petfood dishes I bought for an art project, the same dishes I use for Oliver’s two drops of milk. And gave Cobie and Kelly kibble one at a time until the Ckatten was done.

But ah, another deviation from the routine–the Ckatten suddenly decided she wanted dog kibble. Except she doesn’t like this kind. And Cobie really really doesn’t want her to have his treats. But I gave her one anyway, just to prove to her she doesn’t like it, because otherwise she’ll be ripping my calendar off the wall, and my homework out of the printer, and the other fun things she does to vent her spleen when she is hissed off at me.

And she tapped it with her paw and knocked it on the floor, where Kelly snarfed it up before you could say “snarf.”

So to keep it even, I gave Cobie one.

Then the Ckatten reached out and ever so gently patted me. So I gave her another one. She knocked it on the floor. Kelly snarfed. I gave Cobie one. Ckatten patted me. I gave her another one…

So apparently the Ckatten didn’t want a dog kibble. She wanted to hand out dog kibble. Maybe she grasps that she who controls the kibble gets to lead the pack.

Maybe I should be worried.

Silence of the Bunnies

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60 Are You My Mummy.

Once upon a time, when we were kids, a big mean tomcat adopted us and moved into our apartment.  But this is not about Harry; it is about the tiger cat Mom got for us after Harry passed away.  I named her Zephyr, but we all ended up calling her Zee.

Keep in mind this was back in the days before people knew quite everything, and were not quite so free with their harping.  Nobody lectured you about what a horrible person you were if your dog or your cat went outside (unless the dog was mean) and nobody got on message boards and expressed moral outrage because somebody dared feed their pets Purina.

Zee was a big kitten, and half wild.  She’d been fending for herself at the greenhouse around the corner where she had presumably been dumped.  She was also already pregnant.  I was holding her when her water broke.  A short couple of hours later she had given birth to three kittens, and we couldn’t keep the fleas off them.  Back then there were flea collars and flea powder and flea spray, but you couldn’t use any of it on kittens.  The vet said to wrap a flea collar in a towel and put it in the nursery nest, but she kept moving them from place to place.  The kittens didn’t live long.  We had Zee spayed right away.

(I think of those kittens whenever I frontline our animals, and I wonder if there are better ways to protect newborn critters now.)

She never quite got over it, and spent every spring for the rest of her life hunting baby rabbits from the litters born under the neighbor’s shed.  Not to kill.  To adopt.

Thing is, a wild baby rabbit doesn’t want to be adopted by a predator.  They scream.  And scream.  It’s horrible to hear, at least for humans.  We’d make her turn them loose and put them back by the shed so they could get under cover.

Zee adapted.  She started taking her adopted bunnies high into trees.

Ordinarily a rabbit maybe gets a chance to scream once, and then the predator finishes them off.  There is nothing quite like the sound of a baby rabbit screaming it’s death scream in a tree…and it goes on and on and on, because Zee isn’t trying to kill it, although she killed several that way when she either dropped them or fell during an escape attempt.

This photo is probably a tame kitty and tame bunnies.  The bunnies are probably not terrified.

But I wonder.  Because sometimes I can still hear those bunnies screaming.

dog story: cobie, kelly, and the sunglasses

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In my living room there are a phone-and-lamp stand, a coffee table, and two end tables.  One of the end tables sits just inside the mural window, and there is nothing on it.  It’s deliberately cleared and positioned so Oliver (the cat) can look out the window, but Kelly uses it too, and I’m ok with that.  Cobie can stand on the floor and look out, or sit on the sofa, but Kelly likes to see out too, and she is vertically challenged.

On the other end table is a second lamp and a pewter coaster.  It’s where I usually sit my drink when I’m watching tv or folding laundry.  And presently there are two chew-bones there.

Whenever one of us leaves and returns, Cobie greets us with one of the three bones the dogs share.  When we had two bones, there were often alarming-sounding battles over who owned all the bones (looking at you, greedy Kelly) and I used to have to store them on top of the refrigerator and only bring them down when I could supervise.  Then T-Moth found an identical bone lost in sofa during Cobie’s puppyhood, and then there were three.  Magically, the competition evaporated.  Kelly could hog up two bones and have more than Cobie, and Cobie doesn’t care if she has more, as long as he can have one.  Heck, half the time he doesn’t even want one; I think he just likes to have it because he can.

Anyhow, when we return he greets us with a bone.  He full-butt wags, and winds around us, grinning around one of the chew-bones, teasing us with it.  Then, after a few moments, we’re supposed to take the bone and pretend to nom on it, then give it back, whereupon he abandons it somewhere until next time.

However, a lot of times when I come home my old lady bladder is at the bursting point and I can’t play Bone with Cobie.  Often he follows me into the bathroom and we play the game there while I relieve myself, but other times, presumably when his bladder has also had an–ahem–full day, he goes right outside, like as not taking the bone with him.  Then I go find it, because I don’t want to lose one and be back to the whole squabbling over two bones deal.

One day I brought one in and set it on the end table.  It sat there for weeks.  No dog touched it, although in that same time period Kelly stole the drinking straws out of several of my beverages.  And maybe this is pertinent; I think it is.  Kelly steals the straws, and then Cobie takes them from her.

Cobie is a dog who is strangely respectful of physical boundaries.  He’ll lie with you, but not touching you.  He’s been able to jump the babygates I use to restrain him since he was nine weeks old, but he only ever did it once.  If he leans against a gate and it falls over, he still won’t go through.  If he’s out and wants in, and the door is only slightly ajar, he waits (and moos) until someone opens the door all the way and invites him in.

My Sheldon dog.  Here he is waiting to be invited inside. 

Anyway…

He took another bone outside.  I fetched it and put it also on the table.  Then there was one.  And then that one got kicked under the sofa, as dog toys sometimes do.  And the next time T-Moth came home, Cobie mooed sadly and gazed at the two bones on the table, but he wouldn’t take one.  They were right there.  “Go ahead,” I said, because I happened to be sitting at the other end of the sofa.  “Get the bone.  It’s ok.”

But he wouldn’t do it.  So, because it was easier, I bent over and fished the third bone from under the sofa and handed him that one and he was happy all wigglebutt and helicopter tail.  The routine had not been interfered with.

The two bones are still there.  And if Kelly takes the one remaining bone, he does not seem to care.  Maybe…maybe he considers I am keeping the other two and as long as she doesn’t have them all…  I dunno.  Sometimes Cobie gives me things to “hold” for him.  That’s why I have a piece of corn husk in my pocket even as I type this.  Maybe I am “holding” two bones for him, and the table is some kind of doggy bank in his mind.

But if Kelly wanted one of those bones, she would take it.  Remember the straws?

So last night I came in the office before bed to check and see if any grades had been posted, and before two minutes had passed I heard THUNDER THUNDER THUNDERPAW, click clackety-click, and then CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH.  Even though it’s been a long time since either dog chewed anything illegal (of any importance) I know that noise and I jumped up whereupon silence descended.

I went into the living room where I discovered Cobie lying with my sunglasses between his paws.  He had a look on his face that kind of said, “Hi!”  Mind you, I left the glasses on the end table, my end table.  Behind the lamp.  Behind the bones that have been there for how long now unmolested.

My initial reaction was that the dogs had chewed my sunglasses.  Actually, one lens had popped out.  The other was partially out.  Only the earpieces took damage and that was light.  I put both lenses in right, took them in the kitchen and washed everything in the sink and they’re still usable, if a little mutilated around the earpieces, but my hair will hide that.

I was annoyed as all get out, but not actually angry.  They’re dogs, and I let my guard down.

But this morning I woke up in a fit of certainty.  Kelly stole the glasses, got in a couple-three chomps, and then Cobie took them.  Maybe he chomped them too, but not much because if he had they would be shrapnel now.  I think Kelly stole them because she does that and Cobie doesn’t, and I think Cobie took them because that’s what he does.  And I think  he was watching them.  When I went into the kitchen he followed, because when I command him to give me something and he gives it, he gets something.  He’s very reliable about giving things up, and I am very reliable about rewarding him for that, because some day I might desperately need him to give something up.

So, even though I caught him with illegal sunglasses, both dogs received carrots for surrending them.  No matter who did what while I was out of the room, they both behaved perfectly when I came back.  Maybe I’m messing up, but I don’t think so.  I read somewhere that dogs don’t understand that you can know things happened that you didn’t see, but they completely get that you know what you did see.

Anyhow, I thought I’d share.

BTW, only one grade posted so far, but it’s a good ‘un.

toys, a dog story

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I haven’t done this in a while, told a dog story.  This one is about toys.

A little over four years ago, when Cobie was new to us and Kelly was not yet with us, we threw a shindig.  During it, Cobie lost both his chew bones.  When neither bone showed up–ever–I kind of suspected the grandspawn had taken them home to share with their remaining puppies, Cobie’s littermates.  Then, last year, T-Moth found one of the bones in his workshop, mysteriously lying out in plain sight.  I couldn’t let the dogs have it, because it was a puppy-sized bone and, moose that he is, Cobie could easily choke on it now.

A couple of months ago, while searching for something I had lost, T-Moth found the other bone buried deep in the sofa.

I had already replaced the bones, of course.  I had purchased two, one for Kelly and one for Cobie, exactly alike, or so I thought, on the assumption that toys can be too small for Cobie’s safety, but nothing is ever too large for Kelly.

Sidebar or, The Story of Kelly and Cobie’s Balls:  Kelly kept taking all the tennis balls away from Cobie and stashing them under the sofa so he couldn’t get them.  When I found an enormous tennis ball, I bought two of them.  It was hilarious watching Kelly trying to unhinge her jaw enough to get ahold of one of those balls.  It took her about two days before she managed to chew a flap in the fuzzy covering so she could carry one of those balls around.  It looked kind of like she was carrying a bowling bag.

Ok, so two bones, apparently identical, except for some bizarre reason there was one bone they both wanted and from time to time feelings would get hurt over it.  Because of the size difference in the dogs, I took to storing both bones on top of the fridge and taking them down sometimes after dinner so I could supervise.  I do that with most toys anyway, but I always wished I didn’t have to collect toys just to go to the bathroom lest hostilities erupt while I’m indisposed.

Also, Kelly is a hoarder.  She shares food, no problem.  And me, grudgingly.  But all the toys are belong to her.

Anyhow, the two alike-but-strangely-different bones, plus the found bone made three.  And suddenly, Kelly could hoard one and chew one and there was still one left for the Cobester.  Peace reigned.  I could pee while dogs chewed bones.

Ahhhh.

But there are other toys, such as the Kong Ballistic Boomerang.  I bought one.  Teeth were showed and fur bristled.  So I bought another.  One is blue and the other is purple; we have learned that having things match is pointless.  Usually the original one (the purple one) is the preferred toy.

Yesterday it was the blue one.

We had just come back from the vet, where I had hoped Kelly would be cleared for me to remove her donut collar.  That was a disappointment; she has to wear it until Sunday.  To cheer us all up I decided we could all have a nice play session to take our minds off our troubles, Kelly’s trouble being the collar and Cobie’s trouble being that he’s sure whenever we go to the vet without him that Kelly and I are out having happy swell fun times without him.

So I threw the purple boomerang down the hall–because while Kelly will play fetch anywhere, the big gallumphing moose will only fetch indoors–and Cobie brought it back.  I threw the blue one.  Both dogs raced after it.  Somehow, in spite of her donut collar, Kelly got there first.  She snatched up the boomerang and trotted proudly to the chaise part of the sectional, hopped up, and lay down to have a nice gnaw.

Cobie decided the purple toy was suddenly no good.  He had to have the blue one, no matter how much I tried to distract him with the purple one, which I squeaked, juggled, and finally threw.  He would not be derailed from his desire to possess the blue boomerang.  He whined.  He stared.  He chuffed in her face.  He tried to hump her.  He WOOFed in her face.  She grumbled under her breath and kept gnawing.

“Cobie, play with the other one,” I said, and made an empty throwing gesture.  He stared at me.  Slowly he turned and headed down the hall.  He picked up the purple boomerang.  He turned, without enthusiasm.  And then, I swear I could see it, the light came on.

His head came up.  His tail came up.  He pranced down the hall like a Lipizzoner.  When he emerged, he tossed! the purple boomerang joyously into the air.  He caught it.  He squeaked it.  He tossed it again.  He pranced in circles.  He threw it on the floor and pounced on it with both paws…

In short, he pretty much did everything I had done when trying to interest him in the purple boomerang.

He kept it up for a good minute, minute and a half…until Kelly could no longer resist.  She abandoned the blue boomerang.  There ensued a brief scuffle over the purple one.  Not as brief as you’d think.  Cobie snarled and tugged and defended.  And then he let her have it.

He strolled away, giving a couple of backward glances at where she lay on the floor, now happily biting the purple boomerang.  He collected the blue one off the sofa, took it behind the entertainment stand, and lay down it.  We obviously couldn’t play fetch anymore, because the Diva Terrier would notice.  He heaved a big sigh.

Later, when both dogs were tired of being selfish–well, dogs–we played fetch some more.   But only with the purple one.  It’s back to the number one toy slot.  At least until I get the Wubba out, and there is only one of those.

why I must now shop for plates

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My life lately has not been a comedy of disasters involving several dead or dying friends, medical supply houses that refuse to ship medical supplies, the post office refusing to deliver Zor’s mail, an insane number of assignments from my college’s sink-or-swim graphic design program, an inability to receive personal phone messages because (mostly) the GOP fills up my answering machine more than once per day, multiple dead appliances, bad house wiring that would cost roughly the Korean war debt to fix, and personal illnesses.  No, it hasn’t been hellish at all.

Oh wait, yes it has.

So it will come as no surprise that there has been a latest minor disaster.  The only surprise will be the nature of the minor disaster.

Last night I was stuffing a second day’s worth of dirty dishes in the (new and miraculously still working) dishwasher.  Both dogs were crowding around, drawn by the “dirty clink”, hoping to lick plates.  With my head full of a tidal wave of mucous that changed directions every time I bent or straightened, I was not consistent with shooing them away.  Then, well…  As they say, it happened so fast.

I think what happened was, Cobie got his collar caught in the bottom dishwasher rack.  He panicked and dragged the rack, full of all my worldly china, out of the dishwasher, where it hung up briefly between the dishwasher door and the (not working GODDAMMIT)  oven.  He plunged and leapt like a cayuse, yanked the rack free in a hailstorm of silverware and plate, saucer, and bowl shrapnel, and dragged the rack into the kitchen, scattering broken shards as he fled.  There the rack came unattached, allowing Cobie to take cover in the living room.

Kelly hid under the dishwasher door.  As soon as the noise stopped, she came out and started inspecting the wreckage for tidbits.

Both dogs were barefoot, obviously, and so was I.  I was trapped by my bare diabetic feet amid all this unbroken glass, and I was too close to the sink to bend over and scoop up Kelly.  I scanned the ground for blood, and didn’t see any.  Right about then T-Moth (husband) and Zor (youngest spawn) showed up to see what the racket was.  “Could you get her before she cuts herself?  Could someone bring me some shoes?”

Eventually we got it all cleaned up, and as far as I was able to determine, nobody was cut–thank goodness.  However I am down two plates, a saucer, and a bowl.  Perhaps I can replace them, as I bought these open stock at Odd Lots a couple of years ago, and it’s Christmas (blargh) so maybe they will be carrying red dishes again.  Although the way my luck is going…

Dishes were not in the budget at all, nor time for a shopping trip.  But I could also look at Goodwill, where they might have some plain white plates that, while they wouldn’t match, at least would not clash.

Of course I sold my old dishes at the yard sale.  I suspect this is how hoarders get started.

a cobie tale

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Cobie has more vocalizations than I could name–probably more than I can tell apart.  He moos, he warbles, he howls, he chuffs, he woofs, he emits volleys of cannonfire barks, he yaps.  A few of his vocalizations I recognize instantly, for example his, “Help, I’m stuck behind a line!” groan.

For a dog that only cares what I think when it doesn’t inconvenience him overly much, Cobie has an over-the-top respect for physical boundaries.  If I shoo him and Kelly out of the kitchen, he will almost always stay out–even though Kelly almost always won’t.  He won’t come in if the door isn’t all the way open.  He won’t push by a door left partially ajar; he’ll stand on the other side of the threshold, craning his neck to see in, and groan at me til I come open the door.

Or until Kelly does.

This is Cobie in vampire mode, waiting to be invited in.

So after last weekend’s bout of dysentery–now everyone in the house has it–I have a to-do list as long as the street I live on, which is short for a street but long for a to-do list.  Waking up with a sore throat and a stuffy head was not on my list, but I added it in because what can you do?  I let the dogs out and left the door partially ajar, I thought enough so that Cobie wouldn’t go into Vampire Mode.  I grabbed a basket of folded laundry from the living room and headed back to put the things away.  I was sitting on the bed in my underwear trying to pick out socks to put on and feeling sorry for myself because I feel like crapola (again) and even though I only own three kinds of socks, it seemed an impossibly difficult decision.  Black ankle socks, white ankle socks, or white crew socks?  It was, of course, vitally important to choose correctly.

That’s when I heard Cobie groaning.  “Help!  I’m trapped behind a line!”

As soon as I stood up I had to pee (again), so from the toilet I tried calling Cobie.  I don’t know why; that has never once worked and it didn’t work this time either.  He barely comes when called when he isn’t trapped behind a line.

Finally I got enough clothes on to risk going in front of the living room window.  I get to the door (it opens on the garage which opens on the back yard; there is no direct access) expecting to see the familiar and cataclysmically handsome face peering at me with the also familiar expression of both expectancy and disappointment in my slow-ass primate response time.

No Cobie.  Just Kelly sitting on the rug there between the door to the garage and the one to the basement.

Cobie groaned again.  Dammit.  How did he get stuck behind a line outdoors?  I prop the door open with a couple of milk crates so it doesn’t blow shut and trap critters anywhere.  I look, but the crates are still in place and the door to the outside is open.

I put on shoes.  I take my sick self out into the cold and the dark and the drizzle and look for Cobie, and  he is not in the yard.

I freak out.

I hop over Kelly, who is still sitting on the rug, race to the front door, and yank it open.  It’s dark, it’s cold, it’s raining, I’m sick, and the dog who never comes when called is loose.

Then I hear him again, somewhere behind me.

WTF?

So I back track, and finally find him in the basement.  Mr Moth had put up a deck chair, one of those chaise style nylon and aluminum things, to keep the dogs out of the room where Oliver (the cat) is currently recovering from a paw injury.  He can’t hop the gates right now, so his supplies are in the family room, and the dogs keep raiding his dish.  We use the lawn chair because a regular gate, of which I own an abundance after a yard sale score, won’t adjust out wide enough for that doorway.

The chair/chaise/cot thingie looks like this:

It turned out that somehow Cobie had squeezed through the gap between the chair and the wall–a gap left so that if Oliver chooses to come up he can–and then decided he couldn’t get back through the same space.

In fact, he refused to come back through until I slid the entire chair behind the sofa so it was not impeding his progress at all.

Mind you, this is a 110+ pound dog.  He could have hopped the chair at will.  In fact, he hopped a baby gate his third day here.  I scolded him for it, and he has never hopped one since, not even when Kelly does.  (Which she won’t, unless I am on the other side of the gate.)

So there is my morning adventures with Cobie.

He is such a nut.

kelly, cobie, and the war of the locust

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I accidentally planted cherry tomatoes instead of real tomatoes.  I ate about four of them and got bored.  The vines, neglected, have spilled over the little fence around their bed.  Somewhere in the tangle, a locust has been screeching for days.

Scene:  Steamy autumn night in Ohio.

Kelly:  I hear bug.  I KILL bug!  Lemmee at the bug!

Cobie:  You haz bug?  *sniffs*

Kelly:  GRRRRRRRRR! GET AWAY FROM MY BUG SNOW COUNTRY INFIDEL!  *outs self as were-badger*  SNARL!  SNAP!  *lunges at Cobie’s face*  Yappety snarl ARK!  *dives at Cobie in full body-check* 

Cobie:  *looks astonished*  *retreats to deck* *tries to wedge 100 lb butt under plastic parson’s chair in which bossmonkey is seated*  Save me, Bossmonkey!

Me:  Kelly, knock it off.  *pets Cobie*  Good Sir.

Kelly:  Gromma gromma gromma.

Me:  Nuh-uh.

Kelly:  Grumble gromma.  *goes back to locust hunting*  *catches locust half the size of her head*

Locust:  *is outraged*  BZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Cobie:  *peers out of Sanctuary toward Kelly*

Kelly:  RAWR!  HE’S LOOKIN AT ME!

Locust:  *flies out of unexpectedly opened jaws of death*

Kelly:  Huh?

Locust:  *buzzes bossmonkey’s cheek*

Me:  *shrieks like a girl*

Kelly:  *tears ass after locust*

Cobie:  *twists neck and gazes at bossmonkey*  Chuff?

Me:  She can’t help it, Sir.  She’s a terrier.  *massages chest now aching from bugfright adrenaline rush*

woofstock

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Today (my youngest spawn) Zor and I went to Woofstock.  That’s a pet health fair held annually as a fund raiser at Wiggley Field next door to the dog park.  We took the dogs.  It stressed Cobie out; I knew it would.  It’s hot, it’s crowded, it’s noisy–these are things that stress me out.  Still, he only bristled at one other dog, and he came away like a good boy when I hauled on his leash and said come on. 

I’m not generally in favor of snapping around on a leash to correct a dog, but when he starts to bluster, I use what’s fasted so things don’t escalate.  Cobie actually likes other dogs; it’s the people that stress him out.  Me too!  I used to blame this on myself; if I were not such a hermit, maybe Cobie would be better socialized.  Then I realized one of his parents was also a nervous and spooky dog.  Now I think some of his spookiness is probably due to genetics, and maybe it’s for the best that he’s with a less social person who doesn’t mind not having a lot of company. 

Kelly, on the other hand, was excited but well-behaved.  That is, until she stepped out of her harness because she wanted to go off and pee in peace.  Afterwards she stood and let Zor swoop her up.  She wasn’t too crazy about going into the harness again, but she didn’t actively fight, either.  She’s my sociable dog.  I try not to think how much easier life would be if I only had Kelly.  I love Cobie a tremendous lot, but the truth is, he’s a huge pain in the butt–literally and metaphorically.   When Kelly gets excited she makes an ear-splitting ki-yi-yark! sound.  When Cobie gets excited he tries to yank me off my feet, and since he weighs a hundred pounds I figure it’s just a matter of time until he succeeds.

A fight did erupt while we were there, and I was thankful it didn’t involve either of my kids.  Well…sometimes I say Cobie “picks a fight” because I’m afraid that’s what it looks like to the owner of the other dogs, but I’ve never seen him flare up unless another dog was crowding and bullying.  Then he bristles up and skins his lips back from his ever so long teeth and snap-snap-snaps scant fractions of an inch from the other dog’s face.  I consider this a big bluster and a flat out warning:  Knock it off, Chief, I’m not kidding.  But I do worry how other people perceive it.  And of course, I get him away from whatever dog has pushed his buttons asap.

At Woofstock you pay $10 for a punch card and then go around to the vendors and pick up freebies.  It’s like trick-or-treat for dogs.  Cats aren’t disallowed, but most cats probably would not enjoy a day there.  It’s really hard to keep an eye on an antsy dog while you’re talking to vendors.  My husband was supposed to go with us this year, but for the third year in a row something came up.  I had to agree that what came up was an opportunity, but he’s promised no matter what comes up next year he’s going with us to hold Cobie part of the time.

The other reason he has to be watched is because everyone wants to pet him, but Cobie doesn’t want to be petted.  You’d think, or I would, that people at a dog health fair would be able to read dog body language well enough to know, especially when there was a big display about dog body language!  But they don’t.  Ordinarily Cobie loves kids, but he was clearly signalling, no kids either.  So I felt on edge trying to keep people away.  A couple of kids tried to sneak up and pet him anyway, even after I told them not to and he hid behind me.

Dear world, a dog that is hiding does not want you to pet him!

Lots of people want to be the exception.  They want to be the person Cobie likes.  Cobie only likes the people who gave him to us, and us, and one friend of Zor’s.  If you want him to like you, you have to come over a lot and ignore him until he relaxes.  That might take weeks.  Oh hell, I have no idea how long that would take.  No one except the one friend has tried it (did I mention I’m a borderline hermit?)  This is just my theory.  I think if someone came over a lot and ignored him, he’d eventually relax.

Meanwhile Kelly will be your friend.  She loves everybody!

Meanwhile I wish I had more places to take Cobie where he could be around people who would ignore him.  It’s sad that people stress him out,  because when he’s not stressed he’s an amazing varmint.