Tag Archives: cobie and kelly

dumb bird

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This morning a bird got in. I’m not sure how it got in. I had let the dogs out and set about loading the dishwasher. Then I heard Artemis crying to come in, so I opened the door but she didn’t come in. As soon as I went back to the dishwasher, I heard her again. I called to her that she would have to wait, under the fool me once rule. But then Cobie came and bumped the door open. I didn’t leap up to close it again, although I should have. The air conditioning was already running. It turned ugly hot a few days ago, kind of sudden, after a long cool summer so far.

After I finished loading the dishwasher, started it, made my coffee, and took my empty-stomach pills, I went to close the door, and that’s when something really large started flapping around the lamp just above my head. I startled hard, because I thought it was a bat. Then I saw it was only a bird. I closed the door. I decided a bird could wait. Like, until Mr Moth woke up. I had not had coffee yet, for god’s sake. I wasn’t even wearing pants yet.

Nobody should attend a wildlife rodeo without pants.

So I came to The Keep. I gave out morning treats. I opened my laptop without drama, a welcome change of pace since it’s been squirreling around lately. I started to play Pearl’s Peril, which is what passes for morning meditation with me. I heard a bunch of yapping, woofing, and meowing from the kitchen. I wondered if it would wake up Mr Moth. I felt no particular compunction to make sure it didn’t. Then everything went silent. The dogs came back to The Keep and lay down. This did not bode well for the feathered one.

Cry havoc and let slip the ckatten… Here came Artemis the ckatten. She leapt and twisted and stampeded up and down my shelves and across my desk. I looked up, and there was the bird. I’m not sure what kind. It looked kind of hawklike, but regular bird sized. I stood up and ushered out the dogs. I tried to usher the ckatten, but forget that. She had more havoc to wreak. So I snagged her and ejected her forcefully. She twisted in midair and I slammed the door in her face. She sat there yowling. I can’t believe Mr Moth slept through that, given the proximity and all.

So, bird in The Keep. Flying from edge to edge. Crapping. It crapped on my diploma. It crapped on my photographs. It crapped on my Done is Better than Good sign. Damn bird. I decided to hell with air conditioning, there’s a crapfest in here, and opened the window. Bird is too dumb to fly out. It keeps flapping around the top edge of windows and doors, looking for places to perch. Now is not the time to perch, dumb bird. Now is the time to fly the hell out of here. I opened another window. Still it wouldn’t fly out.

Okay, bird. I get that (a) there is a reason for the term “bird brain,” and (2) fear doesn’t make anyone smarter even if they have a magnificent brain to start with. But fly out already!

Dumb bird fails to comply with my wishes. It tries to perch on the upper edge of a poster. Don’t crap on my puppy poster, dumb bird! I pick up a dust mop and try to steer the dumb bird toward an open window. A metric crapton of hamster seeds fall out of the dust mop all over The Keep. I, dumb human, switch to a yard stick. Dumb bird outfoxes dumb human and evades yard stick, crapping in a few more places just for good measure.

It is not too surprising I was outfoxed by a dumb bird. It might not have been in the house in the first place if I had not been outfoxed by the ckatten so thoroughly and often that I gave up trying to keep her indoors.

Anyway, once upon a time I owned two finches. When one would escape, I sometimes captured it by throwing a towel over it. But The Keep is towel-less, as I failed at the Hitchhiker’s Guide. Especially since the only things I remember about that book is the number 42 is important, and something about keeping a towel handy, which I obviously have not done. I don’t know what, if anything, the Guide might say about being trapped in a Keep, besieged by predatorial pets, with a dumb bird. So I had to use my head. Before coffee. Not cool. After a few minutes of chasing the poor dumb bird around with a yard stick, I had an idea.

Since I wasn’t wearing pants, never mind a skirt–I only own two skirts, one I only ever wore to Porfolio Review and the other I have never worn–I decided I would do what heroes always do when bandages are needed. Who knows, maybe a hero would also do this if trapped in a Keep with a dumb bird and no towel.

I took off my shirt. I figured I could use it as a towel, net, dumb bird-catcher. Not that I wanted to, because it’s white and hasn’t any stains on it yet, and I really didn’t want it crapped on. But sometimes sacrifices have to be made. As I finished pulling my shirt over my head, I caught my last glimpse of the dumb bird, streaking out the window and away as though it had caught a glimpse of hell’s depths.

I think I have a complex now. Take off my shirt, terrorize a bird.

I hope you have an idea today, and that it doesn’t result in you needing body image therapy.

table war

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This day is off to a bang. First a little dog got caught in my underwear while I was trying to get dressed. So I decided to go let dogs out and THEN get dressed, except I discovered there are linemen up the pole out back, and so I had to backtrack and get dressed anyway so I could make sure the linemen didn’t leave the gate open. Then Artemis the Ckatten decided she wanted some of Oliver’s special gooshy fudz which conflict at least brought Cobie in from trying to eat the treed lineman. Separate dishes interrupted the War of the Gooshy Fudz.

I took a pic of the two cats eating in proximity, but my kitchen table is the only open horizontal surface out of dog range that Oliver can leap to, and it’s currently a shameful disaster area. I mean, expect FEMA at any minute.

Any day that is going to involve running the dishwasher twice is also going to involve a second cup of coffee.

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.

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.

the epic adventures of kelly’s butt (TMI)

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This week has been all about Kelly’s butt.

In case you missed it, she had two abscessed (not impacted) anal glands.  After having them drained, and over a week of oral and topical antibiotics, they were not better because they were so deep, and the vet offered us two choices.  One, we could have her sedated and have the wounds packed, or two we could have the glands removed.

Angst, angst.

After a lengthy discussion with the vet, and some internet research, (which sources backed each other up, mostly) I learned that this is mostly a problem with little dogs, particularly overweight ones, or ones inclined to have loose stools.  Kelly is one pound over her ideal weight, and she poops rocks.  Seriously.  I never worry when she refuses to go out due to weather, because her poo is a matter of a single tissue to clean up.

However, this gives me nowhere to go with alternative treatments.  She doesn’t have that much weight to lose, and she hardly needs more fiber in her diet.  It’s one kind of surgery or the other.  The wound-packing procedure is one half as expensive as the gland removal, and it’s likely that it would have to be done again.  Often, according to the vet, three times a year until infinity.

On the other hand, removing the glands might leave her with nerve damage and bowel incontinence, either temporary (almost definitely) or permanent (not likely but still possible).

Well, see. I have had an abscess packed.  It is the worst pain I have ever experienced.  Literally blinding, literally screaming.  Agony.  And the surgeon’s tray afterward looked like something from the set of MASH.

I voted for the more expensive (in the short term) procedure that will be OVER with.  She will not have to go through having her asswounds packed over and over and over again…especially since there will doubtless come a time when we don’t have the cash for that.  Mr Moth agreed.

Never has it so infuriated me that I have no one to pray to–someday I will no doubt post on this topic, but today isn’t the day.

So I dropped Kelly off on Thursday.  Zor stayed with Cobie.  I spoke briefly with the head vet, who is also the surgeon.  A lot of people have told me that he is arrogant and overpriced, but I find him confident and…well, it’s kind of like how, when you need a lawyer you want the obnoxious shark who graduated top of his class at Harvard.  Except he doesn’t ever strike me as obnoxious.  As long as he really is as good as he thinks he is.

Pretty much any reasonably competent veterinarian can treat a broken toenail (Kelly’s last year’s medical drama), but for surgery near an important rectal nerve, you want someone very good.

One of the things we touched on was how I can de-sensitize her to going there, once she is better.  She is understandably developing a resistance to her harness, the van, and the vet’s office.

Still, walking out of there without her was so damn hard.  Nothing like leaving Cobie to have his ‘nads removed.  I was practically waltzing that day, because he was so horrible, biting and mauling and chomping me…and I was getting a break.

He sure has changed.

I took Zor to school/work…and Cobie rode along, because he is so jealous when I take Kelly places without him.  He doesn’t understand, of course.  But taking him on a long car ride was a roll of the dice, because in his younger days he always got violently carsick on any ride longer than a trip to the vet or the dog park.  On this day, however, he didn’t get sick.  And he was so excited!

Maybe he didn’t get sick because, since Kelly had to be NPO after midnight, so was he.

When we got home he was completely befuddled.  I suspect he thought he was going with me to go get Kelly.  I tried to play with him.  He fetched his ballistic boomerang exactly once, and then put it carefully and gently on the end table where Kelly stands to look out the big front window.

Not a very good shot, but:

Ever since I took down the vertical blinds and put up curtains to cut the glare on the television, there’s never enough good light in that room for photographs.  Anyway…

Late in the afternoon it was time to go pick up Kelly.  I had to leave Cobie at home by himself to do it, and I was worried, but he lay on the sofa like a big lump and barely raised his head to watch me go out.  Mind you, he was always good about staying home alone before we got Kelly, but that was (holy smokes) three years ago.

The vet’s was packed with people.  This one guy kept trying to do that Caesar Millan “touch” on his dog and he was doing it way too hard.  I wanted to touch him myself…in his eye…with my fist.  I couldn’t believe no employee said anything to him.  Maybe they couldn’t see exactly what he was doing because of the counter.  I bet that’s it.  I couldn’t say anything, because I was afraid I’d end up in jail, and who would take care of Kelly if I followed this jackass home, slashed his tires, and stole his dog?

I’d better not see him again.  I may not be able to contain myself.

So Kelly looked a mess.  Her butt was (is) shaved, and there was still some blood.  She was lunging and thrashing in the loop-style leash trying to get, not to me, but away.  Out of here!!  I couldn’t get her harness on.  I ended up carrying her to the van, along with our plastic baggie of medicine and an elizabethan collar the size of half a tire.

She huddled on the back seat while I drove through rush hour traffic, ridiculously thankful that the day’s snow could never work up enough enthusiasm to actually stick.

Ok, so dog is home.  She is not allowed to lick her butt, or drag it.  She won’t stop licking it.  So we have to put the collar on so we can like, yanno…sleep.  Except it won’t stay on.  Mr Moth drank two beers and is crabby about staying up.  I am crabby about the fact that he can’t stay up because he drank two beers.

Beer is never an excuse for anything.  I hate beer.  Beer enrages me.  And when I say enrage, I’m talking genuine rage.  This is not hyperbole, dammit.  I HATE BEER.  Just so you know.

So he went to bed and I propped my eyelids open with toothpicks so I can go, “Kelly, no.  Kelly, leave it.  Kelly stop it.”  Which apparently I have to do (by myself) non-stop for two weeks, which is how long until the sutures come out.

And how the hell am I going to go back to school?  Will I have to hire someone to watch her?

Finally it occurs to me to zipstrip the damn thing to her regular collar, and to cinch that collar up so tight…because I know I’ve mentioned it before, but Kelly’s neck is bigger than her head.  That’s why she has to wear a harness.  In order for a collar to stay on, it has to be in strangle mode.  Ugh.  But I desperately need to sleep.  And I can’t have her ripping her stitches out.

Photo, taken the next day.  Note the zipstrip sticking out:

It is so huge it protrudes beyond the end of her nose.  She can’t get a drink or eat anything with it on.  She spends two hours trying to get out of it.  She backs off furniture.  She got her claws caught in the snap holes.  She whined nonstop.

She kept trying to lie next to Cobie.  He kept getting up and moving.  I wanted to bawl, I felt so bad for her.

Finally she passed out in the corner of the sectional.  And, finally, so did I.

Next day I spent on the sofa, as seen in the above picture, watching nothing on TV, because every time she caught me not looking directly at her, she dragged her butt.  Mr Moth, when called upon to watch her, insisted she had not been dragging her butt because he had not seen her dragging her butt.

RAGE.

It’s probably hard to see an upstairs dog drag her butt when you’re, yanno…downstairs.

I ran my phone battery dead twice researching alternatives to e-collars.  In between trying to drag her butt, she lay around like life had become too much of a burden.  She couldn’t go down the two steps to the garage to go out, so I took the damn cone off, and BOING!  Old Kelly back in an instant.  Bouncy, bounce, whee whee!  Then of course, I had to put it back on so she’d stop trying to chew her heinie.

Finally, when it was time to collect Zor from work (she had been home and gone again; thankfully Friday was Mr Moth’s day off) I (with many misgivings, since he didn’t believe she needed to be watched because he had not seen her drag her butt, even though I had repeatedly told him I had seen her do it repeatedly, and so had Zor) went to collect her and to stop by PetSmart and buy an inflatable donut collar.


It cost–holy smoke–thirty dollars.  (I also bought some Nature’s Miracle pet stain remover and a hamster bottle, because Algernon’s has been leaking like crazy.)  Anyway, Here’s Kelly, modeling the collar:

Does she like it?  No.  Does she like it better than the cone?  Yes.  She can drink.  She can eat.  She can navigate steps.  It attaches to her regular collar without zip strips.  She has a thirteen inch neck, and the medium goes up to thirteen inches.  Amazing that a 16 pound dog can almost wear a large, huh?  Miss bull neck.

What she can’t do is scratch her face or neck or ears, so when she comes up to me, I make sure to give her a full rubbing over.

Oh, the other thing she can do in this collar?  Chase Oliver.  He’d been going up to her and sticking his face down her cone.  I could almost hear him whispering Nyahh nyahh…  Because Oliver’s a bastard that way.

She can also jump on and off the sofa, get in the window and bark, and find cookies I have pitched into the yard.

Things were looking up.  Then, like the colossal dumbass I am, I gave both dogs their heartworm pill.

Let the diarrhea begin.

Which is how Saturday became the worst day so far.  Poor Kelly, leaking from her butt, not allowed to lick it (but she can almost–almost–reach it, which nearly causes her to do cartwheels with trying), not allowed to drag it.

Me, trying to watch like a hawk and clean up runny doggy doo from the house and her backside.

Lesson:  If you ever have a dog’s anal glands removed, give them their heartworm treatement before, even if that makes it a little early, or after, even if that makes it a little late.  If it’s skeeter season, I’d go with before, but it’s snowing here.  I should have waited.

Thankfully the runny poostorm passed by the next morning.  She still has this issue where little poos just kind of fall out at random times, and they are not as rocklike as before, but they are not tremendously difficult to clean up, either.  I can handle this.  The only issue is keeping her butt clean when I’m not allowed to scrub at it.  Might as well let her drag it as scrub on it, right?

I try soaking it, but you can only soak a terrier’s ass for just so long before she loses patience.  As a result, well…it could be cleaner.  Could be worse, too…

Anyhow, that’s where we are.  Picking up arbitrarily dropped poos and soaking the dog’s butt with wet rags.  Other than that, and the unreachable and thus unscratchable ear-itches, and her frustration at being able to keep herself clean by either licking or dragging, Kelly seems more or less her usual self, personality-wise.

And Cobie?  A saint.  Apart from not really wanting to cuddle up to the plastic cone, he has not bullied or blustered or reacted to her in any way different from how he always has done.  Truth be told, I was a little worried about this; when they remove a dog’s anal glands, they remove his or her identity in the doggy world.  When they buttsniff, that’s what they’re sniffing.  But he’s been perfectly ok with it.  Perhaps a little more affectionate than usual, even.

He hasn’t even tried to lick her.

They’re good dogs.

Mostly.