Tag Archives: dogs

A Terrier Hears Horton, or cpap with varmints

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This year, for our fifteenth anniversary, Mr Moth and I treated ourselves to a new bed.  After years of being all Dan and Roseanne in a double bed, we went for the king, even though it pretty much eats up all the floor space in our room.  Mr Moth gladly gave up floor space on his side in favor of more sleeping space.  I can’t, because doing so would leave me unable to open the drawers on my dresser, and of course we had to have room for dogs.

The bed is amazing, wonderful, awesome.  We have so much less pain–bordering on none.  I still have my beloved familial bursitis, but pretty much nothing else hurts when I get up in the morning (unless it’s my head, which is either apnea, sinus, or both).  Mr Moth was able to stop wearing his knee braces, of which he has two.  One being for his actual knee, and the other being one of those sold-on-tv things for back pain.

Yes, that actually worked, right up until he didn’t need it anymore.

To save floor space, we went with a bedframe that has no headboard and no footboard.

Dealing with lack of storage was an issue, but more serious to me–hello, Crazy Dog Lady–was discovering the new bed was too high for Kelly.  She used to use the tiny footboard as a toehold and come up over the end, but now she was just grounded.  Furthermore, Cobie was being a giant territorial ass about it, jumping up on the bed and prancing around, lording it over her.

I surfed the internet extensively looking for ideas, but didn’t really find anything that appealed.  While it seemed an obvious solution, there’s no longer enough room in the bedroom for some of those doggy steps, and I think I may have already reported how the bedding I thought was going to fit the new bed did not.  We went to Ollie’s looking for a bedding set that would fit, and when I saw one of those storage ottomans one of my remaining braincells fired off, and I thought aha!  And we got one.

The ottoman fits barely on Mr Moth’s side of the bed.  It gives him a place to charge his phone while he sleeps, and provides a place to stash clutter where I don’t have to look at it.  One turned out to not quite be enough, because Kelly is longer than one ottoman, so we bought another.  The arrangement might look a little odd, but it fulfills all the requirements.

(My own phone charging arrangement is even odder because of the need to keep the dresser unblocked on my side, but that is perhaps a topic for another day.)

So fast forward to Project Horton.  Someone on FaceBook suggested that Cobie, my spooky dog, might be alarmed by the CPAP machine.  I tried not to worry about that, but I worried about it a lot.  He doesn’t do well with change.  If I even change my text message alert tone, he spends days running to the basement every time it goes off until he gets used to it.  When I was setting up Horton, both dogs watched, and Cobie actually jumped up on the bed, so I showed it to him.  He sniffed it for a long while, then went and laid down on his bed.  Kelly was completely disinterested and entertained herself my licking my pillow.

Then, at some point on Day Two, after Mr Moth had gone to work, Kelly climbed her ottomen–haha–and got into bed with me.  She hadn’t done that on the first night I wore the mask, but some nights she doesn’t.  She kept her distance, although that is also not unusual.  Oliver (the cat) has a “territory” on the bed, and even when he isn’t in it, neither dog is anxious to infringe.  If you knew Oliver, you’d understand.

At some point, Oliver joined the bedzoo.  At yet another point, the mask resumed its leaking and farting*.

Kelly went wild.

She started yarking and charging my face, and Tiggering all around the bed.  Oliver was displeased.  He squalled like a ninja.  Kelly bounced and yarked and went gromma gromma gromma.

I lay there thinking about Elmer Fudd and the fly in his bedroom and how one little distraction escalates until he ends up blowing holes all in his house with a shotgun.  That always seemed ridiculous to me before.

Now, not so much.

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    *  Since Zor’s childhood, we have called blowing razzberries on someone’s belly a “zerbert” because at some point she saw it spelled on a cartoon as ZRRBRRRT.  Among classier people this farting/razzberrying is also called burping, and I am ridiculously glad that my family and other people’s families (as reported on forums) notice how hideously loud it is.  People in other rooms can hear this.  Ergo I can conclude I am not being a princess about it.  It is a thing.  A nerve-wracking obnoxious thing.

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.

fear of dogs, or how i caught a pit bull

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I know it’s not politically correct, but I don’t like pit bulls. I used to feel hideously guilty about this until I realized I also don’t like a bunch of other breeds, including some traditionally hardcore breeds like Rotts and Mastiffs, but also including some other dogs like Saint Bernards, Collies (yeah, Lassie), and Cocker Spaniels. My dogphobia springs from my years as a pizza delivery driver, where for whatever reason there were just certain breeds that seemed inclined to cause me major problems.

You might think my fear of Saint Bernards comes from Cujo, book or film, but no. My fear of Saint Bernards comes from literally having been trapped in my own car by a pair of them, who proceeded to chew my bumper and body side-molding. Better that then me, but still.

No tip, either.

I was treed on top of a company truck by a collie, and the dog that actually took a hunk out of my thigh was a collie mix.

And pit bulls?  Well I admit I just don’t like the triangular shape of their heads, which reminds me of snakes. But in my serivice area they were also they were the breed most likely to be tied to the porch rail in the dark, and to pop out snarling and nasty at the approach of the ridiculously attired person who smelled like food.

I also once screamed like a girl when a black lab charged at me.

Yesterday while discussing this, a friend said, “I don’t like dogs that bite, and that could be any of them.”

And there you have it, in a nutshell.  My personal experience has made me wary of these breeds, but I also know that (a) my own very friendly hound once bit a pizza driver (although I believe he was just trying to get pizza), and (b) not all dogs of any breed are going to behave like previous dogs of that same breed I have met.  So while I remain very wary of strange dogs, I try to remain open to them as individuals.

This is kind of how I am about people, actually.  Like, here’s an ex-con for example. I have no trust. But if I get to know him or her, I might learn to trust.

Anyway, as previously reported, I am having some serious issues with lightheadedness (CT scan and ultrasound later today) and yesterday I was crossing the school parking lot at the downtown campus like someone recently escaped from the nursing home. Not quite dizzy, but wobbly, and trying not to worry about what will happen if I start getting dizzy while I’m sitting down and thus can’t drive anymore. When I was about halfway across I heard a bunch of hollering, but it didn’t seem to concern me, so I didn’t concern myself with it, just continued wobbling along.

Finally I came to the sidewalk and stepped up onto it, near the corner of the building where I felt a little more secure, because if I needed to, I could lean on the building. Then I turned around to see what all the fuss was about.

Charging toward me was a liver and white pit bull. Behind it came three humans, one of whom was carrying a football-sized dog. The biggest one of the group was a guy and he started hollering frantically, “She’s friendly!  She’s friendly!  She don’t bite!”

Some weird calm came over me, and I thought toward the dog, “This is not a good place to be a pit bull on the lam.”

On she came. I didn’t look directly at her, but looked at the library across the street and kind of watched her out of the edges of my vision. There was just something so familiar about her expression. Something Kelly-like, although her little pointy spy-vs-spy face could hardly be more dissimilar to a blocky pb face in structure. It was not the structure, it was the expression.

And on she came.  Charged right up to me, getting it on with a full body wag, and exuberant leaping and sniffing.

“Sorry, Sister,” said I, “Your freedom has come to an end.”  And I stepped on her leash.

And then I stood there while she tested to see if she could get away, and then she maypoled me, tying my ankles together, and then she sat down good-naturedly and waited for her humans.

“She’s friendly!” the guy said again.

I agreed, but. “I’m not going to bend over her to get her leash,” I told him.  “She doesn’t know me.”

Dogs don’t really like being bent over, and…she didn’t know me.  Also, if I had bent over, I might have just kept on going, and not only would that have let the little dog escape again, but it would have been humiliating and possibly painful.

Her human retrieved her leash and thanked me profusely, and sounded–to my ears, anyhow–surprised that I was a friendly human.  Which gave me pause to consider, is that how the world is to pit bull owners?  Or is it only how they perceive the world to be? Probably a mix, if I had to guess.

So I went about my business and they went about theirs, and later I would think, “I’ve changed (at least a little).” Because years ago when that black lab charged me, my first thought was, “I’m getting mauled.” But yesterday my first thought was this macro:

Much later, I would realize what it was that reminded me also of Kelly in the expression.

It was Whee-ness.

And now when I call her Whee Kelly Doll, maybe you’ll have a little better idea how she came by that title.

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.

woowoo at casa del pooch

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Last night, around 2:30 a.m., as I was finishing up in the kitchen before heading to bed, I heard a sound.  It was a *TING* sound, and if you have dogs with tags, and those dogs have stainless dog dishes, you know what sound I mean.

I can always identify which dog is at the dish, and whether it is a food dish (there are two) or the water dish (one) by the quality of the TING.    (Kelly’s ting is duller, I assume because she’s shorter and the tags rest against her chest.  Cobie’s ting is more melodic, probably because when he bends down to drink, the tags dangles.)

So not an unusual noise, except it sounded…off.  A water dish TING, but not Kelly’s ting and not Cobie’s ting.

Also, I was looking at both dogs.  Specifically, I had them in a sit because I was about to give them each a baby carrot.  Which I did.  Then I investigated, but found nothing.  (I thought maybe a June bug, ugh.  But no insects were in sight.)

Oliver doesn’t wear a tag, or a collar.  Furthermore, he had gone out.

I wrote it off as my imagination, but the water dish was a little low so I refilled it.  Then, as I prepared to leave the room, I heard it again.  TING.  And it did not sound like either dog’s tag at either dish, yet it had to be, right?  Except they had both gone down the hall to lie outside Zor’s door and sniff kittenfumes.

Again I checked for June bugs.  Again I found nothing.

Oliver scratched to come in, so I let him in, and then, as he brushed past my ankles, TING.

I was getting creeped out.  Odd, considering that I am not an easily creeped person, and that the sound was so ordinary.

I heard Zor coming sleepily down the hall, past the dog patrol.  She had kittenfumes (aka Artemis) with her, so the troops followed.  I watched her come into the kitchen and get a drink.  I felt compelled to stay put until she was done in the kitchen; I used the excuse of kitty sitting.  In due course she finished, and we all went to bed.  I didn’t hear anything else.

Weirdness…

pretending to be blind

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Every night for several years now, as I walk to bed in the dark, I say to myself, “Self, you should blog about doing this.”  And then it comes daylight, and I forget.

Today I remembered, lucky lucky you.

It started when I found out about the first cataract, which came on abruptly and advanced aggressively until, within a year, I was nearly blind in that eye.  And by nearly blind, I mean when I took the eye test at the BMV, I couldn’t see anything at all through that eye.  Not a shape, not a shadow…nothing.

I would have to have surgery, and I was terrified.  What if I went blind?

Back in juinior high school, and I forget whether it was seventh or eighth grade, in the English reader (how I loved the reader every year) there was a story about a man in ago times, a meek clerk of some kind, who had his dominant hand crushed in some act of violence, and who taught himself to use his non-dominant hand for writing so he could work.  I don’t recally any more about the story than this, which was the most important aspect to me apparently.

It worried me mightily that I could lose my ability to write if something happened to my right hand, so I began at once to practice writing with my left.  I never became good at it, but I can make moderately legible scratch marks.  And of course, now, if I lost my right hand, I could probably just do most of my writing at one keyboard or another, typing slowly and one-handedly, and it would be legible, but at the time typing everything on a typewriter would have been a huge hassle.  So I practiced.

Which is why it was completely in character for me, faced with a loss of eyesight, to practice being blind.  And now, still, although the first cataract–caused, Drs L & P say, by an injury–is gone, and a second in the other eye–caused by age and sunlight–is both miniscule and not avancing, and is thus of no account, I still nightly practice being blind by turning off all the lights and walking to bed that way, navigating from corner to doorway to dresser, with dogs felt trotting along before (Kelly) and beside (Cobie).  They’ve gotten quite good at this over the years.  Even Kelly, who trips me about eight times a day, manages to stay out from under foot while we’re practicing being blind.

Anyhow, now I can stop thinking I should blog about it, because now I have.  There’s one thing off the to-do list…

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.

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.