Being a Doggy Mama - Is it a dog's life?

HA = Hairless Ape

PD = Puppy Dog

•  Running fast - HA 0, PD 1


• Jumping up - HA 0, PD 1


• Pee anywhere - HA 0, PD 1


• Have to wait till I get home to let you out to pee - HA 1, PD 0


• Fart virulence - HA 0, PD 1


• Opposable thumbs - HA 1, PD 0


• Vomiting in public permitted - HA 0, PD 1


• Snore volume - Tie


• Sense of smell - HA 0, PD 1


• Food variety - HA 1, PD 0


• Have to prepare own food - HA 0, PD 1


• All weather fur covering - HA 0, PD 1


• Get to go shopping for clothes and shoes - HA 1, PD 0


• Ecstatic at small things, like going for a walk - HA 0, PD 1


• Stress level - HA 0, PD 1


• Have to attend yearly performance reviews - HA 0, PD 1

The Score?

HA = 4, PD = 11

It is a dog's life!!!

Being a Doggy Mama - Dogenstein

I have created a monster.

When Fluffy Bear was away on a business trip, I thought it would be a good idea to invite Puppy Dog up onto the couch. It was kinda nice being able to stroke his head and have him warm my feet.

But now he's got a little too used to it.

I sit with my back against one of the arms of the couch - it's at right angles to the TV. Puppy Dog jumps up and positions himself, like a Sphinx, between me and the back of the couch. Then, over the course of an hour or so, he stretches out and slowly pushes his paws against me.

Without realizing it, I shift back and bend my knees until, eventually, Fluffy Bear starts to giggle. Then he gets my attention and points. And I see that Puppy Dog now has two thirds of the couch, and I am scrunched up one one side of it.

He's transforms into The Sofa Stretch Sasquatch!

I am starting to ache while Puppy Dog is fully stretched out, head back, breathing deeply and evenly, completely Zen. 

A few months ago Fluffy Bear brought me home some of those hotel spa slippers - the white fabric ones. I don't know what is on the bottom of mine, but they make a crrrrrt crrrrt sound if I drag my feet along our wooden floors.

 

I noticed that Puppy Dog's ears twitched at the sound and he started to follow me around sniffing at my feet when I wore them. And so, of course, I started dancing around, scraping my slippers on the floor. And - surprise, surprise! - he went for them.

He transforms into The Sabre-toothed Slipper Killer.

So now we have a game, sometimes started by me, sometimes started by Puppy Dog jumping me unexpectedly and usually ended by me when the teeth start to feel a bit too sharp. Which doesn't take long.

Puppy Dog follows me into the bathroom when I have a pee. One day I waved my piece of toilet tissue in front of his face, and there began The Loo Roll Game.

He transforms into The Toilet Paper Jaw Snapper.

So now I can never just pee in peace.

I have to wave the toilet tissue around, purposefully grazing Puppy Dog's whiskers. He sits, mouth open, teeth bared, watching the paper like a hawk. His head moves, just a little, from side to side. He waits, like a true hunter, for his chance. And then he snaps his jaws shut.

He usually catches a small piece of the paper, chews it, rolls it around on his tongue and then spits out a little wet blob onto the floor for me to enjoy picking up...

Little Monster!

Being a Doggy Mama - 10 things I never knew about dogs

I thought I knew dogs. My dad had a dog, my friends had dogs.... but Puppy Dog is the first dog I've actually been responsible for, and I've learnt a thing or two:

1. Dog poop is something you can actually start to pay too damn much attention to


2. Dogs snore


3. Dogs sniff the butts of their humans


4. Dogs like to come and sniff you when you are sitting on the toilet


5. Dogs vomit. A lot


6. Dogs have crazy energy, then sleep, then have crazy energy again


7. Dogs do not need much variety in their diet


8. Dogs know when you are taking them somewhere they like in the car


9. Dogs talk to us. We just can't understand them


10. Dog farts are the most revolting things imaginable. They bring a whole new meaning to the "silent but violent" fart category.

Being a Doggy Mama - Puppy Dog is sick

Puppy Dog is sick, and I don't know what to do.

I brought him home from Doggy Day Care (you may laugh, but once a week he goes somewhere and runs around for 8 hours and then is complete peaceful bliss that night) and they told me he threw up.

I gave him a dog biscuit in the car and he threw it up.

I had to go and get tortured for an hour by Silent Evil, my personal trainer, so I had to leave him alone.

And when I got home there was vomit next to his bed and by the back door - he's a considerate puppy - he tried to go outside to do it.

Now he wont eat or drink any water.

And the internet really doesn't help in these situations. You start to read some guidance about what to do when your dog vomits and it all seems really helpful and nice until you get to the part where they say "vomiting could also be a sign of a more serious condition".... and then you're fucked if you read any further.

So now I am sitting here wondering which of these will lead to his imminent death:

• Stomach cancer


• Obstruction in the intestine (which is killing the tissue around it)


• Worms


• Parasites


• Poisoning


• Infectious disease


• Hepatitis (leading to liver inflammation)


• Kidney failure


• Pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas)


• Inflammatory bowel disease


• Intestinal cancer


• Hiatal hernia (part stomach herniating through the diaphragm)


• Hormonal deficiency


• Gastritis


• Stomach ulcer


• Infection of the uterus

OK we can rule out that last one - Puppy Dog is a boy.

Did I tempt fate by imagining a Death Poem for Puppy Dog?

Am I being punished?

Should I return to my Catholic roots and pray?

Will God even remember me?

If God remembers me, will he listen?

After all, I said some pretty shitty things to Him back in high school before I started ignoring Him altogether. And I was really mean to his envoy, our priest, behind his back. And I sat at the back of the church and didn't listen or sing. And I only went up to get communion for the gulp of wine...

Maybe I should pray, anyway.

Or maybe I should wait till I see the vet tomorrow morning.

It's gonna be a long night.

Being a Doggy Mama - Death poem

I have to go to a funeral tomorrow, so I've been looking up poems.

And it got me thinking... what would be my death poem for Puppy Dog?

And no, I would never buy something like that thing in the photo. That's me being ironic.

And I am in no way trivializing the funeral I am attending tomorrow. Puppy Dog's death would be profound for me, but I would want any poem about him to have the life and nuttiness that he has.

Anyway... poem for Puppy Dog.

He sometimes was a little shit
But - oh! - I loved him so!
Accross the dog park - lickety split!
A-bounding he would go

His ears so soft, his paws so rough
His tail could tell no lie
His coat as silky as a seal's
His wet nose on my thigh

The twitching as he lay asleep
Chasing rabbits, squirrels, cats
The clicking of his little claws
How he loved the strokes and pats

His poo smelt rank, he barked too loud,
He farted, burped and snored
But I shall miss him every day
My Puppy Dog, who I adored

Being a Doggy Mama - Training Puppy Dog

I've been looking at my Puppy Dog, lying peacefully on his pillow in front of the TV, and it got me thinking back how different it was when we first got him...

We took Puppy Dog to his first training class and he was by far the naughtiest dog... the Scary Trainer kept saying "I'm just going to use you as a demo" so she could take him, show the technique and then frown at us when she gave him back to us and we couldn't get him to repeat the good behaviour.

Puppy Dog started off badly by growling back at dogs who tried to dominate him. Both of them started it first – I swear they did – but he’s bigger and his growl is louder so he looked like the psycho dog. Lab vs Pug – who’s going to believe the Pug tried to dominate the Lab?

Then there was the cute golden Lab puppy who tried to bite Puppy Dog behind the neck but, in the melee of tangled leashes, I don’t think it was clear to its owner that her little fluffy darling bared his fangs first.

The Scary Trainer is, as Fluffy Bear says, very domineering, and not in a please-spank-me-Mistress way. “She reminds me of the nuns in junior school!” he said, a haunted look on his face.

She seemed to go through the various techniques like Sit and Stay very quickly. I was having a hard time keeping up. We only got to try things two or three times with our dogs. And when we were having success with something, like Sit, she took out a ball from her magic Mary Poppins fanny pack – there seemed to be endless things stored in that tiny thing – and bounced it on the ground. Well - of course! - Puppy Dog immediately forgot all about Sit and went for the ball. Lesson hereby unlearned!

Scary Trainer had one of her own dogs there to demonstrate techniques. It was amazing to see the level of his obedience, staying focused on her face, for instance, when she gave the command, in spite of an assistant trainer bouncing a ball in a circle around them. I thought he seemed like a dog who'd somehow been neutered twice.

As it became clearer that Puppy Dog and the golden Lab puppy just weren’t going to play ball as well as the other dogs (nerds!), Scary Trainer tried the quintessential dog training instrument on him – the Choke Chain. Fluffy Bear and I tried not to giggle, whispering the quote from the dog trainer in the Simpson’s episode where they try to train Santa’s Little Helper: “Two words you need to know - CHOKE CHAIN!”

But, when it came down to it, we didn’t really want Puppy Dog to have to have a choke chain or, as he ended up being fitted for later in the class, the prong. To be fair to Scary Trainer, she tried both Labs' sensitivity on the choke chain with a practice walk and let us try training him with the choke chain. When it became clear that it wasn’t making a lot of difference, she switched to the prong for Puppy Dog.

She made sure to demonstrate to us repeatedly how to pull the dogs back with a quick tug rather than keep the choke chain or prong tight around their neck all the time, leaving them in constant, dull pain. The prong has metal bits that stick into the fur, emulating how dogs will discipline or overpower each other, by biting or holding onto the back of the neck. We didn’t want to use it but it didn’t seem to hurt him and it really did get results. Suddenly he wasn't the bad kid with nose piercings and a mohawk smoking in the toilets anymore. We bought the prong - cash.

After training class we went over to the the other side of town and I met some friends. Fluffy Bear took PuppyDog to the off leash dog park.

I was having a lovely brunch with friends when I picked up my cellphone to hear him say: “He’s YOUR dog from now on!” When I asked what was going on, he started to explain and then I heard “SHIT!” and - click! - the call was over. I heard the whole story later...

After he parked the car, Fluffy Bear was fumbling with the new prong collar, getting ready to open the back door and put it on Puppy Dog.

“I felt something on my ankle,” he told me later, “then I looked in the back seat and – no dog!”

Puppy Dog had skulked over into the front seat and slunk out of the car. He proceeded to chase cars in the car park and generally run amuck, giving Husband a minor coronary.

Once in the dog park, things didn’t get better. Puppy Dog ran off out of eyesight with Fluffy Bear running behind, yelling, he stole other dogs’ balls and wouldn’t surrender them and he did two massive poops, the second very, very mushy.

Things are much easier with Puppy Dog now. We still can't control him on a walk without the prong, and he still won't surrender tennis balls he steals from other dogs at the park. But he doesn't get out of the car till you tell him to, he sits when you ask and he can stay for about thirty seconds.

I went to pick him up at Doggy Day Care the other day and they started this big pitch on how I can pay to have him trained while he is with them. The guy started launching into schpiel about the initial disount price, but I cut him off.

"SOLD!" I yelled.

It doesn't matter what it costs. Puppy Dog still has some things to learn.