My dog is allergic to Christmas

Just when I thought our poor obese dog Barney couldn’t possibly get any fatter he had a crazy allergic reaction to something this morning (my currently theory is that he finally got that bee he’s been trying to eat for the past week) and swelled up like a balloon.  Every inch of his fat rolls… I mean body… was covered in giant bumpy hives and his eyes were swollen damn near shut.

I racked my brain for someone close who would have an EpiPen so I could just stab the guy, but I couldn’t think of anyone so instead I shoved a handful of Benadryl in a piece of cheese and made the dude eat it.  I wasn’t sure what kind of dosage was appropriate for a dog since it didn’t say on the label (and yes… I actually checked before I realized how ridiculous that was) but I figured since it’s not possible to O.D. on an antihistamine but it is possible to go into anaphylactic shock this may be a “more the merrier” kind of situation and loaded that rolly polly bastard up.

Then I dragged him along to my inlaws despite their eye rolling because I was still worried his air way was going to close in on itself and basically told them they could deal with our dog or have Christmas sans our entire family.

They reluctantly said ok.

So Merry Christmas everyone, what kind of craziness did y’all experience today?

How to fuck with your dog

Daisy, every night for the past five years or so, has slept happily by my feet on the bed.

I gave the dogs an IQ test a year or two ago to find out once and for all whether Barney is really retarded or that’s just a big mean joke, (he actually is retarded… it didn’t surprise anyone) which is how I know that Daisy is a really smart dog.  She just over thinks things and isn’t very good at change.

Which is why occasionally I like to fuck with her by randomly sleeping the wrong way in the bed.

Then I just lay back and watch how messed up it makes her.

After looking back and forth from one end of the bed to the other for a good ten minutes she’ll half heartedly go lay by my feet.  Then a few minutes later she’ll come lay by my face where she normally is, toss and turn and stare at me like “goddamnit mom.”, then end up flopping somewhere in between and moving around all night long while I laugh at her.

I’m so mean.

Come and get your cuddle on

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

Every dog needs a child and every child needs a dog.

Knowing that kids exist without a dog makes me want to cry.  Ok, not really cry, but it bums me out, and don’t tell me about how sad starving kids in Africa are… we’re not talking about that right now.

I say this as someone who didn’t have a dog when I was little.  I got a cat as a consolation prize from my mom after my dad left in elementary school but cat’s are judgemental bitches, even my much beloved Stormy who I turned out to be deathly allergic too, I loved to her pieces but by virtue of being a cat she was a judgemental bitch… and I mean that in the most affectionate way.

Then we (the “we” at my dad’s house) inherited two dogs.  A dumb as rocks cockapoo named Anna Mae and a morbidly obese beagle/chihuahua mix named Molly who got run over by a street sweeper and was horribly disfigured as a result.  Molly also may have been part cat because she was a judgemental bitch.  But not in the endearing way that Stormy was.  Moral of the story is I fell madly in love with both of them and swore if I ever had kids they would have a dog.  They would always have a dog.

So we do have dogs; two, formerly three.

And it’s a beautiful thing.

Death. And how much I’ll miss one tiny, smelly, sweetheart.

Wednesday afternoon Banana, my precious tiny dog, passed away.

I got this picture the day before he died.  Verona adored this little guy almost as much as I did.

I found Banana as a stray a few years ago and brought him home with the full intention of taking him to a shelter only to find all the shelters were full and nobody would take him… and so, be default, he became ours.

Death is a weird weird thing while simultaneously being the most natural thing in the world.  Banana’s death was beautiful and full of love, while at the same time being horrifying and gross… but somehow the beauty didn’t take away from the horror at all and the horror didn’t taint the beauty… they just existed side by side in a bizarre juxtaposition of inevitability.

We knew it was coming so we all had a chance to say goodbye, but Wednesday morning when I saw him I knew the time was very near.  He was so weak by that point that he couldn’t walk or even stand so that morning I move him and his little bed out into the sun so even though he couldn’t see anymore he could feel the warmth and the kids and I spent the morning outside playing so Verona could spend some more time with him and he wouldn’t be alone.

When they went down for their nap I brought him inside to sit on my lap while I watched a movie, something we’ve done together most evenings since I found him those years ago.  Despite having no eyesight left he kept pulling is head up, something that was incredibly difficult for him, to look at me.  He seemed so scared so, through my tears, I told him he didn’t have to be, that everything was going to be ok, and I was holding him so if it was time he wouldn’t to be alone.  I also reminded him how incredibly loved he was.

A few minutes later suddenly the room was filled with an emptiness, I reach down and put my hand on his tiny chest and realized he was gone.

When I picked his dirty, scraggly self up off the street those years ago I never anticipated how much I would love him or how blessed I would be by him.  He needed me at a time in my life when I desperately needed to be needed.  While it was good to have the chance to say goodbye it doesn’t make me miss him any less.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Dogs and Kids

I am a strong believer that every dog needs a child and every child needs a dog.  Verona, incidentally, has started repeating that to me on a fairly regular basis (apparently I say it too much).  But it’s just the way of the world, some truths cannot be denied.

This is what my room this morning.

David and I had officially been kicked out of our own bed… not that either of us minded too much, how could you not be enamored with this?

When we first had Verona I was admittedly a little worried about how the dogs would be with her.  Daisy, although a sweetheart, can get a little crazy at time and Barney is one of the dimmer bulbs in the chandelier for sure, not to mention approximately 6 times bigger than Verona and 10 times bigger than Finn.  But they are both wonderful with the exception of the almost daily occurence of Barney stealing a waffle, piece of toast, or cheese stick straight out of V’s hand, and their love of the kids is only surpassed by the kids love of them.

DPP5 and 6 :: Flute concert

December Photo Project

This afternoon Verona decided to give a concert for the dogs.

Verona’s been really interested in instruments lately so we’ve been exploring the ones we have around the house which between me and David include a flute, clairnet, guitar, piano, harmonica, various drums and other percussion instruments, two violins, and more than one box full of kids instruments.

She’s fallen in love with the flute above the rest (other than maybe the piano which she plays every day).  She likes to run around blowing on it… not where the you actually blow on a flute but she’s having fun so who cares… and she likes making me blow it and then punching keys so it makes different notes.

I love this kid.

Barney is an @#$^%&*.

I grew up in a household where “gosh”, “butt”, and “fart” were bad words… partially due to that and partially to the fact that I’m 1/4 sailor (or at least assuming I am) I do tend to use some pretty colorful language, as do the other adults in my house.  When I was younger I swore (pun intended) that I would never curse around my children… I swore a lot of things about “when I have children” because, as we all know, there’s no expert in child raising like the person who doesn’t have any.  Then I had kids and realized I have a lot more important things to try and fix about myself, when I get those under control I can tackle some of the smaller stuff like my tendencies toward profanity.

Fast forward to a few days ago.  Our dog Barney had done something bad and someone made the declaration that, judging by how often it’s used, should officially be the mantra of our house.

But this time instead of the traditional response of the poor mentally challenged dog drooling, tail wagging, and flopping over on his back that we’re all used to there was a tiny echo.

We all knew this day would come, and here it finally was.

Over the next few days it would occasionally crop up, usually when Verona was already talking about dogs… or when she would see Barney… or think about Barney… or sometimes seemingly out of nowhere.  She would say it nonchalantly, obviously unaware that there was anything different between this word and the other 200 or so that she’s learned.  I was torn between wanting to tell her to stop, not caring, and wanting to pee my pants laughing over her innocent little voice informing me “Barney @#$^%&*.”

I decided to just ignore it, I wasn’t going to make a big deal about it because I didn’t want it to become something fun and exciting to say but I also wasn’t going to repeat it back to her when she said it like I do with most words.  Is this the right course of action?  I have absolutly no idea.  But maybe, I thought, maybe she would just forget about it.

This seemed to be working ok until we went to coffee time at church a few mornings ago.  That morning it was myself and a few people spanning middle age to old who started talking about parenting and swapping funny stories from when their kids were little.  So I decided to share our little situation, explaining the basics of Verona hearing this colorful word and now repeating it.  They were all thoroughly amused, being far enough past this stage in their own parenting ventures to be able to find all the humor there was in it.

I had made the cardinal mistake of parenting though, assuming first off that Verona wasn’t listening when we all know that kids are ALWAYS listening (unless of course you want them to be) and secondly that by using “colorful word” in place of the word itself that she wouldn’t know what we were talking about.

She did know what we were talking about, and instead of knowing that I was intentionally avoiding the particular vocabulary in question because swearing loudly in front of the pastors and other various pillars of the church is something not even I intentionally do she assumed I just couldn’t remember the word.

As far as she could tell I couldn’t remember the word and it was causing me to tell the story wrong… but she was going to be helpful damnit!  She wouldn’t stand idly by and let me mess up a story because I was forgetful!  No no, mommy, I will help!  Don’t worry!

Yes honey, thank you for your help.  Sigh.

A Small Dog or a Large Rat

This is my little dog Banana.

He may actually be a large rat instead of a small dog… we’ve never been entirely sure.

One lazy Saturday afternoon a tiny matted white mass followed me through the automatic doors into Walgreens where I was going to rent a movie.  He proceeded to trot his dirty little self around the store to the surprise/horror of the employees and upon seeing that nobody else was going to help him I picked him up to my husband’s surprise/horror (mostly horror… he knows me well enough not to really be surprised). 

After going through every possible option (he didn’t get away from a family in the parking lot, he didn’t get out of the vet’s office next door, he didn’t have a microchip and nobody was looking for him) I did what any rational person would do (because in the spirit of this story we’re pretending I’m a rational person) and decided to take him to a shelter but every shelter in the valley (and there are about a bazillion) was quick to inform me that we were not the only neighborhood full of the pets that got abandoned when people get foreclosured on and that they were full and couldn’t take any dogs… but I could call animal control.  (We all know what happens to smelly old dogs at animal control.) 

So I brought him home and swore I would find someone to adopt that scraggly thing.  This was more than two years ago.

And so now we have a homeless man.  Banana, the most ancient of all the ancient dogs, is mostly blind and deaf, severely arthritic and hopelessly senile… a truly ancient old man.  One ear sticks straight up, the other flops around like a flaccid youknowwhat, one eye is substantially larger than the other, and something went wrong with his vocal cords long ago so he can no longer bark but only make a high pitched whiney cat-like sound.  But he loves to sit on my lap, loves to cuddle, and adores eating the crusts off my cinnamon toast for me in the morning.

I love that little crusty creature something fierce… nobody else does but I do.  And he loves me right back. 

We have two dogs, Daisy and Barney, and we also have a little old homeless man.  He’s like the grandpa that you wish you could put in a retirement home but you can’t afford to so instead he spends the day wandering aimlessly around your house trying to remember where he is and who you are and all you can do is love him regardless and cross your fingers that he doesn’t go to the bathroom on the floor.

A Giant Dog

2011 Photo Project

I love cuddles.  So does he.  It works out.

BFFs

2011 Photo Project

These guys were made for each other.