IT’S A QUESTION OF COMPETENCY

Have you ever noticed that, sometimes, you pets seem to doubt your mental abilities? Well, I’m assuming that’s what it is because, there are times when the dogs seem to feel that I simply cannot function without high quality and constant canine supervision. Now, I’m not just talking about the ‘Quick! Follow him into the bathroom so he doesn’t use the secret trap door to get away!’ kind of canine supervision.

No; I’m talking about a whole other level of observation and concern.

My guardians. Notice the worried look. I think they still doubt my ability to walk and chew gum at the same time.

It began this morning. I was roused by the very wet nose of a mastiff. Let me tell you, if you haven’t experienced this, don’t! They are huge, wet, and undeniable. There are tiny, bristly hairs that tickle your nose. And, as your eyes pop open to startled (yet bleary) wakefulness, there is a velvety smooth and unbelievably moist tongue to finish off any thoughts you might be harboring about rolling over and snoozing ‘just a few minutes longer’.

Detail view of the nose. If you expand to the full sized view, that’s less than half live size. You see what I mean about undeniable?

The nose and tongue arousal was followed by the puppy dance of joy. This involves 150 pounds of dog muscle wiggling itself and tossing its head in two foot wide space. Somehow, this is cute. Maybe it’s the keening whine of excited greeting, I don’t know; but it is cute. This ebullient capering is accompanied by the golden retriever performing the horizontal running dance.

If you haven’t seen this one, it involves lying on one’s back or side and then extending both forelegs and rear legs out to full extension; drawing them rapidly (but still rigidly) inward and then repeating the motion; many, many times. Usually it is accompanied by a growling moan as if great exertion is being applied to an immovable object. The resultant silliness is enough to rouse anyone with laughter.

But, back to intense supervision. Once the human has been extracted from its bedding, then the real fun begins. The human cannot go anywhere without dogs. Now, I’m not talking about your, good natured, faithful companion kind of accompaniment. No sireeee! I’m talking about having a dog hermetically adhesed to you. You cannot go anywhere without a dog – right there – I mean RIGHT there. And the looks you get are priceless. They are constantly asking, “Are you alright?” and “Is everything okay?” It’s as if they have decided that, by sleeping in, you have gone from pack leader to gibbering idiot in one easy step.

Big Dog demonstrating the tag team method of supervision responsibility. Go get ’em Foofie!

When this happens, the real danger is trying to turn around or change course in any way.

Go ahead. I dare you.

They are so concerned with your wellbeing that they don’t move, even when you expect them to. Sometimes, they even surreptitiously stand on the back of your slipper so you can’t ‘make a break for it’ without them knowing. This form of dog supervision is so intensive that a quick turn will land you on your face. Granted, you shouldn’t be able to miss someone who stands almost three feet at the shoulder and weighs that much, but trust me, three feet isn’t all that tall; at least from an upright human perspective. When you make your half-awake move, it’s like hitting a pony wall. It’s not pretty. As you’re picking yourself up off the ground, you are getting even more questioning about your competence and welfare.

Hmmmm.

Maybe they do have a point after all.

I don’t know. All I do know is I now have to navigate the narrows off the Isles of Doggerham in order to get to the coffee pot.

Wish me luck.

THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS & DOGS – AS WE SEE IT

Cats rule, dogs drool. The good sports are Fiona and Aoife (that’s pronounced Ee-fah. Hey, it’s Gaelic, alright?) The cat is Baby. Notice her tongue is sticking out at all us mere mortals.

Have you ever noticed how sayings and pearls of popular wisdom tend to come back into your life every so often? One that has made a recent resurgence in our circles, is, “Dogs have families. Cats have staff. (or slaves; or servants; anyway, you get the idea.)” I’m not sure that saying is entirely true. Believe me, our dogs get us to do a lot of stuff for them and on their schedule too. Just try ignoring a 150 pound or 90 pound dog when she says she needs to go outside. You only do it once. The resulting disaster is enough to deter you forever. Or take that annoying; demanding; shoots through your ears like sharp, hot needles ‘yip’ that means, “I want inside.”  Oh sure, you can respond with a firm, “Hush!” or, “Your fine. It’s nice outside.” all you want to. The ‘yip’ may go away for a few minutes but, never fear, it will be back.

Fiona, the serious minded dog, still cuts loose once in a while. Here, she’s anxious to go back to cutting wood.

What really happens is, you wait until you get the timing of the yipping down and then, just before the next red hot poker shoots through your ear to feed your growing migraine headache, you let the dogs in. Why? Because it’s your idea. Yeah, right. Let’s be honest. They won. They got inside. You just made yourself feel better opening the door before the next searing pain in your head. (or is that pain really a lot lower and around the back side? What – ever!) There are a lot more examples of how we live to serve our dogs but the point is, we serve them as well as cats. But there is a fundamental difference between serving cats and dogs. It’s attitude. It comes down to the fact that dogs realize that their relationship with us needs to be symbiotic whereas cats don’t.  As part of that symbiosis, dogs realize that they need to be tolerant of our foibles. Here’s what I mean. We have some friends who have a Brussels Griffon. That’s supposed to be a breed of dog. I’m not sure. I think it’s the root species for whatever Yoda is masquerading as a dog. Anyway, her name is Bella and she is a remarkably good sport. She is also the only dog I know of who has her own dresser for her outfits. This dog has a bling wardrobe that would put Paris Hilton to shame. The point is, Bella recognizes that, in trade for food, water, an apartment in which to sleep, safety from being eaten by eagles, etc., she has to give back. And one way she does it is by permitting herself to be repeatedly dressed up in butterfly costumes, ballet tutus, bat costumes (which, on her, look remarkably realistic), and – well the list goes on forever. You get the point. Bella tolerates her human’s desire to make her look cute. That is, cute in human eyes. I’m not too sure how Bella feels about it. I’ve seen their other dogs point and snigger.

Aoife, on the other hand, fancies herself something of the hipster. Here she’s acting out her ‘gangsta dog’ persona. She does break dance. A bit behind the times but, hey, she’s a dog.

See, dogs recognize that we mere humans are a bit flawed. They approach our shortcomings with wonderfully tolerant senses of humor. Why else would they permit us to dress them up or teach them stupid dog tricks? Cats – on the other hand – have no sense of humor. They’re an awful lot like teenagers. They hate us for the embarrassing things we do. They can’t understand why we feel that we can just grab them and cuddle them whenever we want. They just want us to leave them alone so they can “do their own thing” or ‘find’ themselves. Failing finding themselves, they are perfectly happy finding a warm place to sleep. Patches of sun from the skylights are all well and good but the darned things move. Better places are like in the middle of the open laptop. On the gel keyboard for the tablet. You know, reliable sources of heat and/ or comfort.

Is this pillow lumpy or is there a cat under me?

No, cats are well aware that they are descended from powerful predators. Gelmir (remember him “THE” cat from an earlier post?) anyway, Gelmir is forever telling us that he’s an ‘apex predator’ and that we should respect that. Also, we should be grateful to him for gracing us with his presence. Except when it’s time to eat. Then he’s the most solicitous suck-up you’d ever want to meet. Now, I’m going to tell you something that THE cat doesn’t want known. First of all, here is a pictures of him with our old cat, Tornado. Tornado is the one on the silk pillow, admittedly underneath the ‘silver warrior’ but definitely in control of the prized asset. Tornado said it wasn’t so bad. He told me that, by being on the bottom, he got the added bonus of a living blanket. Pretty sweet!

Sadly, the old man passed on a while back. He lasted 25 years and was a sweet, good natured, and loving friend for all that time. And, unlike most cats, he had a sense of humor. He let us do stupid cat tricks with him. But we won’t go into those out of respect for him. So, what does THE cat not want you to know? He does stupid cat tricks too. The video below this post is evidence of his shamelessness. His two weaknesses? Bacon (the fattier – the better), and Spam. Turkey runs a close third. Never the less, here is the evidence that he doesn’t want seen. It’s kind of the kitty version of having your “personal” videos go viral.

NEWS FROM THE FURRY FRONT

We have dogs. Large dogs (please refer to NOSING AROUND for details). When you have large dogs, they need to be trained and have rules. Simple things like:

• You have to wait to be released before going outside. (UPS will not deliver to the house if you eat their delivery personnel.)
• You may not bowl the humans over when going outside. (You don’t pay the medical bills so we get to minimize our risks.)
• You may not eat the cat. (It doesn’t matter how hungry you are or that he put his head in your dish in another failed effort to supplement his meager rations.)
• You must wait until the food dish is on the floor before you suck up dinner in one gulp. (Followed by the first item in this list.)

People have commented that we have well behaved dogs. I think sometimes that’s a polite way of saying that we’re over controlling, but when you live with an animal which weighs as much as an adult human and has a mouth that can engulf half a man’s arm (or a whole cat), you need some guidelines. We see it more as a dynamic social contract which allows all of us to coexist. And the key word here is dynamic, at least from their point of view.

Hey! It’s a sensible precaution when you live with a golden retriever.

It turns out that humans are not the only ones who have rules. Dogs have rules too. Now, these rules make as little sense to us as ours probably do to the dogs. Never the less, here they are; at least according to Big dog.

• Dogs may not leave the bedroom until the last human has vacated. (My bed has lots of memory foam in it. Why do I want to rush off?)
• Little dog must always be awake, even at three in the morning when you get up to use the restroom. That way, if there’s a problem, she can tell me about it. (Translation: Don’t bother me, I’m sleeping.)
• Little dog is the official morning greeter. (She has no appreciation for memory foam.) If you want to pet a dog, pet her. She’ll bring my share to me on my bed.
• I’ll stand next to my bed looking forlorn until you tell me it’s okay to get on it. You think this is an extension of my compliance with your rules (re: first item, your list, this blog). Really, it’s a lampoon of your idiotic rules. Find your copy of A Modest Proposal and re-read it if you have any questions.
• I’ll go outside at night before your bedtime but I am not going up the hill into those weeds. When I go to do my business, they tickle my nethers and I don’t like that – at all.
• You can make Little dog do all the stupid dog tricks you want. I am a mastiff. We don’t do tricks. We are serious minded dogs. (Ignore the cute, puppyish rolling in the grass and trying to get Little dog to play.)

Little dog has her own rules but they are considerably more relaxed.

• When humans come home I must greet them with a stick, piece of bark, tree branch, or other appropriate gift.
• I must always take the shortest route to my humans, even if that means upending the table outside and spilling beer everywhere. (I like beer so this is not a problem. I’m a responsible dog and believe in cleaning up my beer and human food related messes. Other messes?? Well…)
• I must always be as close as possible to a human. Preferably I should be lying on their feet. (Only because they have some stupid rule about dogs not being on the furniture.) If I cannot be on their feet, then I must lay as close behind their rolling chair as possible. These rules exist to keep them from being without high quality dog help in all things.
• I must be awake at night when humans stir because they may need to play and it’s my job to be the play dog. Big dog does not play, no matter what she says.
• If a gnat burps, I must bark. (Hey, someone needs to know about this stuff and they won’t get me a Twitter account!)
  

  Why don’t people take me seriously?

Do your pets have arcane rules like these? We’re thinking of forming a “Human Victims of Pet Rules” support group. Until then, please tell us your pets’ odd rules via the comments section of this blog.

NOSING AROUND

What? We didn’t do anything.

Those of you who have read our ABOUT post may recall that we promised the occasional discuss how pets “lower (raise?) your blood pressure.”  This post addresses that parenthetic insertion.

Again, as mentioned in the ABOUT, we have two big dogs. We refer to them as the Big Dog and the Little Dog but to clarify, the Little Dog is little only in comparison to the Big Dog. I say this since most people consider an 85 pound dog to be BIG.  But, in comparison to the 150 pound dog, she’s relatively little.

You may get the impression that we like large dogs. And we do: for various reasons. Among them is the fact that some of our non-bipedal neighbors are bears. It’s a simple maxim of country life, “Got bears? Get big dogs.”

That aside, The Girls (as they are collectively referred to) are sweet pups. They’re playful, cuddly, and very smart. The Big Dog is also very good at putting the Little Dog up to doing the grunt work, like awakening the humans when she needs to go outside. I’m convinced they whisper to each other and I know I’ve seen the big one nudge the little on toward us. Which brings us to the ‘raising your blood pressure’ part of this post.

Let me start by saying, I am not a morning person. I can do a wonderful imitation of a lump under the covers. The alarm needs to be set a half hour to forty-five minutes before I need to arise. Even then, I tend to wander around like a slow speed pinball, bouncing off of things, faulting, and occasionally even tilting. But there are times when I can come to full alert and function in .006 seconds or less.

This morning was one of those times. I can’t be sure but I thought I heard vague canine whisperings from the far end of the bedroom. The next thing I knew, the Little Dog was ebulliently wiggling at me. (She’s a golden retriever. They are ebullient about everything.)  Goldens are forever “releasing their wiggles” as it was so aptly described in Nacho Libre. One quickly learns that goldens are perennially excited by mundane things like dust motes floating in the air, sun beams, gravity continuing to work – you get the picture.

Understanding this, and being a good dog dad, I greeted her, blearily. I’m pretty sure I patted her, or at least I tried to pat part of her as it wiggled past. Being a golden retriever, she was distracted by and satisfied with this human interaction and returned to her bed. I returned to my dozing.

The next thing I knew, the Big Dog was there, sighing with exasperation and bouncing the mattress with her nose. Let me tell you, the nose on a 150 pound American mastiff is an undeniable thing when it is moving rapidly mere microns from your face. Did I mention it’s also very wet? Ah. Well. It is.

The Big Dog only stirs from her bed when there is a pressing need. Any of you who have pets know what I mean by a pressing need. It’s something you ignore at your peril although with a 150 pound dog, it’s more like extreme peril.

Hence, the awake in less than .006 seconds reference. Upon arising I discovered my own pressing need. (Note to self, no more drinking five glasses of iced tea in the evening – no matter what the temperature is.) I made reassuring noises as I rushed to prevent my own accident in the house. The Big Dog, flanked by her smaller companion, wagged her tail in understanding sympathy. Or so I thought.

When I reentered the bedroom, I found both dogs, curled up on their beds, eyes closed, looking for all the World like some obnoxious kids pretending to be asleep in a 1950s or 60s movie. When I spoke to them, somewhat sharply I will admit, they both slowly raised their ‘sleepy’ heads and through squinting eyes gave me that, “What? I was sleeping.” look.

Muttering to myself, I decided against resuming my recumbent position and shambled out to the kitchen to make the day’s first water of life (coffee).  As I wended my slow, bouncing off the walls way down the hall, I’d swear that I heard dog sniggers and Colleen patting their heads and telling them what good girls they are.

Do you think I have a reason to be worried or am I’m just being paranoid?