Tag Archives: dogs

further adventures of Hurricane Cobie and Kelly Doll

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Them’s my two mutts, in case you forgot.

Preface:  Once upon a time, Mr Moth expressed the opinion that Cobie wasn’t all that smart–not compared to Hannah, at least.

Because if I don’t, I suffer extreme heartburn, every night before I go to sleep I eat a mint.  It can be a Lifesaver or a starlite mint or a candy cane, it doesn’t matter just so’s it’s mint.  And because I have dogs, when I get down to the last bit, I break it in two and give a tiny piece to Cobie and a tiny piece to Kelly.  Kelly doesn’t really like mint, but if I don’t give her any she feels left out.  She tries to figure out ways to keep Cobie from getting her piece of mint without she actually has to eat it.

Two nights ago, she dropped her piece of Lifesaver on the dog bed and laid on it.

Cobe half-circled for several minutes, obviously agitated.  Kelly pretended to be asleep.  I pretended to read.

Because the weather’s been so changeable I have both my summer blanket and my winter blanket on the bed.  Whichever I don’t want, I put on the floor overnight.  Surprisingly, neither dog has tried sleeping on that blanket, but finally on this night Cobie went over to it and started scratching it up.  SCRAPE SCRATCH SCRABBLE.  Left paw, right paw.  SCRATCH SCRITCH SCRUPP.  On and on.  At great length.  I considered making him quitit but I wanted to know why the hell he was doing that.

So did Kelly.  She got up and went over to the blanket to supervise.

As soon as she arrived, Cobie made one of his on-a-dime 180s and dashed back to the dog bed where he quickly found and snarfed up the sliver of mint.

Kelly went HUFF! and laid down on the nicely scratched-up blanket.

Win-win.

I submit that Cobie has complex problem-solving skills.  He should go into management.  Or get married. 

a day of Kelliness

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Yesterday, the day after cx-mas, I took Kelly to the vet because she’s been licking at her left front paw. Zor said it had been bleeding, but I examined the foot and didn’t see any evidence of that. In fact, I didn’t see anything wrong with it, and feeling around didn’t show me anything either, no glass, no gravel. I was puzzled, but not particularly worried, until Cobie started trying to lick it too. Then T-Moth touched her paw and she yiped. Kelly doesn’t yipe, even when Cobie steps on her, so.

We use a multi-veterinarian practice, mostly because Cobie gets carsick and it’s close. I like all the vets we’ve seen there, but this particular vet’s name is Wolf so I love her more. They took Kelly to the back to examine her away from me, which always worries me, and I heard Kelly whine a little. Then Dr Wolf said her claw was cracked down by the flesh where the claw grows out of the foot, and that it was very inflamed and painful, and she wanted to (asked if she could) keep Kelly for a while so she could give her a mild sedative, clean the area (mud season has dunlap disease this year; it’s dunlapped over the holidays) and treat it without traumatizing the poor thing.

After laying all that out, she stood there waiting and I got a faint impression that she expected me to say no, and under different circumstances I might have had to, or at least negotiate for a payment plan, but I still had a wee bit o’ student loan money hoarded back (earmarked for folders and printer paper) and so, even though I’m quite sure that’s not what that money is for, of course I said yes.

Well, first I asked, “How long are we talking here,” to which she replied, “A couple of hours, until this afternoon.” But I was already going to say yes before I asked, although leaving her there, without even getting to say goodbye, was one of the harder things I’ve done recently. Way harder than, say, a colonoscopy.

“Pick her up after three but before six,” Doc Wolf said.

So I went home. Zor had watched Cobie, which she reported mostly consisted of listening to him whine disconsolately. So I spent the afternoon taking down the cx-mas decorations and wearing him out so he wouldn’t be so POUNCEY when Kelly got home.

This neighborhood isn’t laid out in nice normal blocks, and I have nick-named most of the routes it’s possible for me to go; there’s the little block, the double block and now the triple block–not very creative, I know. I was ecstatic to be able to make it all the way around the triple block in spite of not having been as active as I should have been since school let out in November. I’d never tried the triple block before; once Tim had to come get me from the little block when my back went into spasm from Cobie’s relentless yanking. But with Kelly not along, I could focus on getting Cobie to not yank, and he did pretty well, only almost yanking me off my feet one single time.

There seems to be a rule in this neighborhood that asshole dogs all live in corner lots so you have to walk past them twice as long. Mom suggested that maybe living in corner lots makes good dogs turn into assholes, and that could be so, but I don’t think it’s true. Our corner neighbor has a nice dog we hardly know is there.

So after the walk, we played Cobie-fetch with the Kong Ballistic boomerang. Cobie-fetch involves a wrasslin match at the end of every fetch, until he arbitrarily decides to “gizzame it,” which is my version of “release.” Oh, and he only plays fetch in the house. Outdoors he just looks at you crazy, or waits til Kelly fetches and when she’s almost brought it back, takes it away from her and runs away with it. Anyway, we played in the house, a hundred pounds of moose galloping up and down the hall, for a half hour or forty minutes, whereupon he suddenly required a nap.

After that I got hooked into a marathon of Property Virgins, a program I very much enjoy but hardly ever watch. I think I got my fill for a while yesterday though! It was on until seven, and I only took an hour break to collect Kelly.

The vet’s office was packed, and it took them a while to get to me. Part of the delay was caused by a dog an elderly gentleman had brought in, a stray. She was beautiful, a border collie and/or Australian Shepherd and/or something mix. I don’t know how long he had her before someone suggested her have her scanned. Sure enough she had a chip installed, and there were records on file. Unfortunately her humans didn’t answer the phone and the chip company had to leave a message. But they did learn her name is Tina and is an escape artist who has disappeared before. So Tina will be going home soon, if she hasn’t already. And seriously, I was willing to wait a few more minutes to collect Kelly for this.

Microchips work. Keep your info updated!

So finally Kelly and I were home, and she was really cold, which I related to because whenever I am physically traumatized I suffer low blood pressure afterwards and that just makes me BRRR. So I cuddled her up beside me on the sofa and wrapped her in my hoodie, whereupon evil Oliver the asscat decided to pretend he didn’t know she was in there and walked on her. I knew she didn’t feel well when she ignored that insult. After about a half hour she warmed up and stopped shivering, bless her heart, and she was fine for the rest of the night, even reporting for begging duty at dinner time, although perhaps not with her usual enthusiasm. She refused to go outside without a human escort, but she did all her business. She also whined a little at bedtime, wanting to get in the bed with us, but she soon settled down.

Today she seems nearly back to normal. She is stalking the hamsters, whining for tortilla chips, and devoured her peanutbutter-encased drugs (anti-biotic and NSAID) with gusto.

She’s supposed to go back before Thursday to get her injury inspected, but I anticipate she will be back to her usual unsinkable self before then, bless her heart. We made good use of the time she was gone, but we really missed her for those couple-five hours she wasn’t here.

Forgive a moment of sap on my part: She’s my Kelly Doll, and I wuvs her.

best dog toy ever?

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I bought Cobie and Kelly this Kong Ballistic:

(I didn’t get mine from Amazon, I got it from Jack’s. I was in there buying the equipment to set up a new bin for the hamster males, which product has stalled due to my inability to tell the boys from the girls. Unless they’re all girls… But anyway.)

I’m so excited!

Ok, this boomerang-type toy made of cloth, and it’s big enough for the big dog to play with no risk of choking, and small enough for the small dog to manipulate it easily. It’s soft enough to play fetch in the house without destroying things or hurting a dog who gets in the way of it. It’s heavy enough to fly the entire length of the hall (and into the office.) There’s room for two dogs to hold on at once for tug purposes, or to carry it back to me, at which time there’s a third “handle” for me to take hold of with minimal risk of having my hand accidentally CHOMPED.

There’s a squeaker inside each pod. It also allegedly floats and is washable; I’m not sure how that combination works out, but I bet if I throw it in with a load of towels it’ll get clean. It does come in other patterns/colors, but I just like purple.

Now here’s the part I consider SERIOUSLY COOL: It’s made in three layers. Two of them are ballistic nylon, meaning it’s made with the same technology they use to make bulletproof vests.

Bulletproof or no, I’m not letting them chew on it, because I paid a good bit for it (about $15, as I recall) and I want it to last…and it seems like it will. Kelly tried a couple of times to pack it off and rip its squeakers out, and to no avail. I have high hopes, and I had a blast playing with them. They haven’t had any indoor toys in a while because of their tendency to destroy everything in two days max.

The only downside I’ve discovered so far is that after a few rounds of fetch/chase/CHOMP, it gets wet and kind of icky feeling, but hey. It’s a dog toy. When you have dogs, the occasional wet and icky is part of the package.

kong stuffing

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Or, how I spent my morning instead of writing.

First, take two Kongs, one per dog.  Block up the small ends with little pieces of Slim Jims that I keep frozen for just such usage.  Then fill them with a layer of peanutbutter and a layer of not-the-usual kibble.  I’m presently using some Beneful I got on sale.  It’s easier to stsuff them with the Kongs propped upright.  I use coffee mugs.  They’re the perfect size.

Next, microwave them, still in the cups.  Cobie and Kelly watched this procedure anxiously.  Kelly got herself all in a blur.

I did the black Kongfor a minute, because black heats up faster, and the blue one for a minute and a half.  When they came out, they looked like this:

I topped them up with more peanut butter and popped them in the freezer.  They’ll last much longer when the melty peanut butter hardens, and I like them to last.  To stave off disappointment in the meanwhile, I offered up the spoon:

And since Cobie was being a greedo–surely not because I accidentally cut off the top of his head in the last shot–and was crowding out Kelly, I put the camera (my phone) down and gave her some peanut butter on my finger.

I did write later…or actually, outlined.  Outlining is not writing, but it has to be done, at least by me.  Between outlining and typing this, I’ve reached lunchtime, so I’m off to find some noms.