Today's post is late because my pupils have only just now returned to normal (and no, it wasn't the pot. It was the opthamologist. I am happy to report that I have normal, healthy 20/20 eyeballs. The fact that they have to practically blind you to discover that is a bit annoying, though.). All hail normal dilation! And now, on to today's post:
My dog, Gertie, sucks. She has sucked for a little over a decade, and just when you think she has reached the pinnacle of suckitude, she manages to take it up a notch.
In her short time on this earth, Gertie has devoured weather stripping, eyeglasses, doorframes, carpeting, diapers both clean and soiled, chocolate, (highly toxic) acorns, a digital Nightmare Before Christmas watch, my friend's best silver hoop earring, and innumerable small, non-life threatening articles of trash.
As a dutiful owner, I have aided in extracting many of these items from the back end of the dog. When she was a puppy, in fact, I never left the house to walk her unless I had a roll of toilet paper with me. One never knew when one would have to paper, grasp, and pull a foreign object from the dog.
But yesterday, Gertie did indeed take it up a notch when she ate an entire tub of Vaseline. As you may imagine, petroleum coated hilarity ensued.
After sufficiently lubing her innards, Gertie spent a lot of quality time outdoors, leaking. The she spent a lot of quality time in the bathtub. I spent my time being thankful for the box of latex gloves I brought home from the hospital after The Boy's birth.
So if you're wondering why I'm not opining on academia, politics, or pop culture, it's because spending an entire afternoon dealing with greasy dog emissions kinda sucks the fight right out of a person.
I share with you because I refuse to suffer alone.
Posted by Big Arm Woman at February 23, 2004 12:59 PMI feel your pain. My dog loves neosporin. If she gets a hold of the bottle, she rips a hole in it and sucks it out. Then she draws little poop maps in the backyard.
Posted by: Christine at February 23, 2004 01:21 PMSome rules about mine and thine are a good idea to teach. Dogs are remarkable good at figuring out what's been given to them. Mine has no trouble distinguishing socks she's been given from my identical socks (but less worn) cluttering the floor. We use worn socks for tracking and she gets the sock as a trophey afterwards.
Anyway, the Snappy Trainer is an excellent teacher snappy trainer about countertops and garbage pails. Put little temptations there too.
Going back a stage, Novice training as Koehler teaches it teaches the dog to listen, which is helpful for a lifetime. A wonderful introduction to Koehler is Vicki Hearne's _Adam's Task_, the essays on Washoe and ``How To Say Fetch!'' If those make sense to you, you can train with Koehler. You may even get a dog to train with Koehler, which is what happened to me now these many years ago. The book draws angry reviews at Amazon but is one of the best that's ever been written. Not everybody can follow it, evidently.
Posted by: Ron Hardin at February 23, 2004 06:47 PMDear BAW,
I'm impressed. I can't remember our dogs actually getting into the Vaseline. But there was one, well, extremely memorable night when one of the two jumped a gate, got in to the bathroom at the other end of the house, retrieved a bar of soap, and shared it with the other dog (who didn't jump gates).
Oh my. We got back from our concert and found two vast soapy puddles of dog barf (the dawgz had lots of water, and naturally once they'd swallowed a ton of soap they went for it). OK. We got that cleared up. Then, as if on cue, they each barfed again. Same deal. Kind of a late evening.
The really marvelous thing was the collaboration. It took one dog to go fetch a bar of soap for the other to get sick.
Posted by: Michelle Dulak at February 23, 2004 07:07 PMOh. My. Gosh. It was a crappy day in my house too. Came home and the dog had the squirts all over the kitchen. What is it, doggie-doo-doo-day? Luckily for me, my nearly-adult kid cleaned it up and then washeed the floor. I was so grateful. I don't think I could have endured doing it myself, on top of the otherwise incredibly dark funk I'm in this week.
Posted by: AG at February 23, 2004 09:25 PMI'll never forget the first Christmas my first wife and I spent together: We couldn't afford to buy decorations for the tree so we strung it with popcorn.
One evening while she came to pick me up from work (we only owned one car) our puppy, Buddy, attacked the Christmas tree. I think he must have swallowed 20 feet of popcorn stringers before we returned home, but probably had 50 feet to go... I cut the string off about 3 inches in front of his mouth.
Buddy the dog became an outside dog that very night as I feared the popcorn might come out still on the string.
Posted by: Billy The Blogging Poet at February 23, 2004 10:28 PMAny Dog Named Gertie is A Bad Dog.
And I have the tooth marks to prove it.
Hysterical piece....my eyes are *still* watering from laughter. It didn't take long for our sweet little innocent-looking dog, shortly after we sprung him from the slammer (..er, adopted him from the pound) to be named Rascal. The "fried clam strip incident" still causes the humans in our house to recoil in horror.....
Posted by: Scott Kelly at March 8, 2004 04:31 PMmy roommate's dog is pretty bad too. aside from chewing stuff and still being largely incontinent at the age of 1, i think the worst part is her doggy attitude. she whines all day when she's in her crate and uf you aren't giving her full attention at all times she starts to whine some more. i'm at wits end with this stupid dog. in short, if he's out of town some weekend and i happen to have a few beers, he's going to come home to a dead pooch.
Posted by: cisco at August 6, 2004 06:44 PMOur boxer mix, Piper, has had the hives 4 times, a noncancerous lump removed from her side, a broken leg at 3 months because she climbed a doggy gate, been made to throw up once due to consuming a roach trap and once due to eating bottles of ephedra and allegra, eaten 3 remotes, numerous shoes, drink coasters, carpet, cablevision wires, and 2 feather pillows. All this and she turned 1 last month. I should have known what I was in for when I rescued her from the streets when she was about 7 weeks old. I brought her home and she crapped out deer corn and a plastic wrapper.
Posted by: MJR at August 10, 2004 05:10 PM