Category Archives: Family

How Many Dogs?

Posted on November 8, 2016 | Leave a comment

Yesterday I had about seven, today four. Tomorrow may be three. Not really.

The weather here has been crazy. Cold one day, warm the next. This week the trees started to leave. Seriously. The wind is up and there are leaves all over the place. Homeowners are required to rake the leaves to the street where the city will pick them up with a truck, to make snow clearance easier, as if they do that. Luckily I’ve snow tires.

You’ll love to know that our fine city has had six warm months in which to fix potholes and sidewalks and re-paint crosswalks. They started last week, November. Our tax dollars at work.

About the number of dogs, I’ve two. One real, Zoe, and one her evil twin Chloe who is the one who leaves fur all over the house. I’ve never met, fed or taken Chloe out but like The Velveteen Rabbit I know she exists.

The rest is fur. I’ve been combing her for days. She loves baths but hates the comb-out. With the weather going from cold to warm her body doesn’t know what to do with the undercoat. Grow one and shed? Or keep it? If I had a loom and knitting needles, and knew how to use both, I could have a couple of really warm Zoe sweaters by now. Instead I use my hands, out walking her, and am giving a down comforter to every squirrel in the neighborhood. Then I comb her out.

No, when she passes I will not have a Zoe “bear rug” next to our non-existent fireplace. I would probably be forced to comb that out as well.

There are wrinkles in our weekend plans, health issues of others, that we must deal with. But Zoe will be taken care of. She was interviewed today by A, her weekend caretaker, plus dogs P and L who liked her. She passed the test. It beats being in a kennel with The Commandant.

I always know when we pick her up that she had a good time when she greets us calmly and happily, but not saying “get me out of here!!!” New dog owners need to read their dogs’ behavior.

At a seminar “many years ago” (I always say it, must have been my birthday the other day) a woman said that they just got a puppy and that she and her husband each work 12 hours per day so the dog is in a crate and is acting up. The instructor said “Ma’am, you and your husband do not deserve to have a dog.” Amen to that.

Zoe does not scratch doors, eat shoes or do anything negative. She herds us, and stares at us if she wants something. Out, I know. Food, I know. Precious (her only and indestructible toy), we know as she only plays it with my husband. There’s little else, except when my husband lets her eat chicken bones or a dead bird off the sidewalk. Then she vomits on our bed, her “safe place.”

I just got her off the quarantine regimen this year (extra rabies shots et all for overseas travel) because she’s getting old and unless we’re overseas for months I think the flights would be ill-advised for her.

Avoiding the elephant in the room, I did vote this morning. We’ll all look forward to a new President or moving elsewhere. I look forward to no negative ads and a significant drop in emails from dueling campaigns. Will be in touch, take care, Dee

Leave a comment

Posted in dogs, Family, Zoe

Choices

Posted on November 2, 2016 | Leave a comment

Our dog Zoe is not welcome where we’re going. I’ve yet to find a place to take her where I can visit.

She is quite old and very spry for her age. She can even scare a squirrel, but will never catch one. She sleeps on our bed and two of her own, has not been in a crate in at least ten years although she has three. She doesn’t chew our shoes or pee on the carpet.

Even if she is sound asleep on our bed at four in the morning and I get up, she gets up and follows me, as I am food wench and morning walker.

I may or may not have choices. No way she gets a cage and fenced run. She needs her pack and her pack will not be here for a few days. I said she’s getting old. I’m driving 1,500 miles with her for Thanksgiving to meet my husband and his family. She cleans the floor from our three-day cooking marathon. Ooh, she dropped a couple of crumbs!

Open facility may be an option with time-outs for her for sleep. I’d rather she be in a home with a family and perhaps other dogs/cats for companionship.

Yes, our vet gave me recommendations for lodging. My seal of approval is that she doesn’t jump up on me while picking up, and just walks out to my car. If she is not desperate to see us, she had a good time and wants to come home but enjoyed her stay.

Do you know how difficult that situation is to find? She has to go through interviews this week. She has passed temperament tests in five cities but must go through another. She passed in a local establishment but they lied to me twice about keeping her in a cage. She is too old and, my brother said shortly after she was born, “needy” for that. She wants her pack. We are her pack.

I’ve worked with dogs and cats much of my life, as a volunteer in shelters and spay/neuter clinics. I am interviewing them more than they are interviewing me. My first dog raised my second cat for a year, same bed. Dogs used to come and call on Mick and he’d wrestle with our neighbor’s dogs or they’d run away from home to see him through the window and I’d get a call. Is he there? Hold on. Yep. I’ll keep him ’til you get here.

A lot of places demand training. Zoe knows what to do from Pup 101, even hand signals from me, and sometimes chooses not to do what is asked of her. I want this old girl cared for and given time to sleep, as she does not do so with other dogs. She forgets to sleep, eliminate, even drink water. She’s grandma, taking care of everyone else.

I’m going away for a long weekend and give this much attention to the old girl who left our bed and is a few feet away from me on one of her beds that gives her a view that will not allow me to go anywhere without her knowledge. All hail the herders. Dee

Leave a comment

Posted in Editorial, Family, pets, Zoe

Home

Posted on October 27, 2016 | 1 comment

Home is just something you do, we always moved so I made it. Of course you have your birth family but soon you meet another, such as a potential spouse. In my case parental supervision was entailed. After being asked by two others, I took the hand of my husband on our first date and he never let me go. We’ll be married 14 years very soon.

He is home. My father and brother are home, when I see them. My in-laws are home whenever we want, emotionally and physically. After 15 years of us together they even want our dog to come visit!

We always try to have a view or something, even soft mats to keep me in the kitchen, cooking. That makes a home. So do people who care for us, especially when we can return the good deed.

Years ago when I met my husband’s brother, he wasn’t interested in getting to know me. It took a while but now he calls me “sis.” That’s family. That is home.

When I was being interviewed as a potential wife by Nanny, I was asked to promise that my potential husband would take a job for 40 years and get a gold watch at the end. I said, no, he’s in software. There are no gold watches or long-term deals. I cannot promise you this. She made me an honorary grand-daughter anyway. That is home.

I told Nanny that I could take care of him. She said he was too skinny, and last week she told me he’s put on too much weight! In the middle she always told me, as she agreed to be my Nanny too as I never knew my own, that she knew her grandson was doing well because he was fed well by his wife. That would be me. That’s family, and a home I look to seeing very soon as Nanny hosts Thanksgiving for at least 50 guests.

When I drive long distances with the dog she sleeps, unless there’s an off-ramp or stop sign. At Thanksgiving, when I drive her over fifteen hundred miles, when we turn on to the five mile road to the family ranch, she knows it’s home. Her head pops up and she knows where she goes every year, nearly all of her many years. She stands on J’s sofa and watches for him to come back from feeding cattle. He ignores her, so she loves him even more.

M loves to have Zoe around because we have a three-day cooking extravaganza, and Zoe eats crumbs off the floor. Our parents and dog are home.

Someone is leaving here, a guy who has helped us over the years. He will be missed. One day he ate a piece of corn custard I made for someone else. There was he!! to pay. Since then I made it for him. He is leaving us and I’m making him a final farewell dish. Why? When I told my husband he was leaving he said, “well, you’ll have to cook him something.”

That’s home. Dee

 

 

1 Comment

Posted in Editorial, Family

Home Improvement

Posted on October 23, 2016 | Leave a comment

My husband buys expensive dress shoes. I have folded “dog towels” in the entry-way for shoes.

Years ago I told a property owner that people in northern climates have no closet space. They need room for coats, boots, hats, gloves, scarves and there is nothing.

I just made our own space. It cost less than 10% of one pair of his dress shoes. For years I’ve been using folded “dog towels” and I didn’t want to do that anymore. I’ve no option but for guests to see shoes and boots on a rack but anything looks better than dog towels, which even dog Zoe doesn’t use. She has her own towels, perfectly hotel-rolled in a basket next to her/my shower and bath. They’re nicer than our towels.

In the end I may use one clean towel under the shoe showcase in case of rain, ice, snow or mud. Getting rid of stuff and boxes and paper et al is an inspiration. My husband is appreciative and apprehensive, the dog thinks we’re moving so is at my heels every moment. That’s a herder! Dee

Leave a comment

Posted in Editorial, Family, loving life

Eldest, Wing Ma’am

Posted on October 16, 2016 | 2 comments

Yes, I am, but not with a flock of fledgelings. They’re all grown up now. When we meet, we meet. We all cook well and enjoy rare time together.

Yes, there are responsibilities, one of which is to cede to whomever is better for a certain task. As big sis, I tend to know the traits of my younger siblings and am confident in all the family tasks they have taken on with me as a “wing ma’am.”

We’re all older now and take on different duties. What I need to do is probably send a parachute out of a plane one day (it will not include me unless all of us agree to sky dive) with kid stuff and letters from whatever bad memories of childhood remain. I used steel wool on my father’s paint to get off the tar. Whoops! My sister and I coated the basement with water to clean it, with his favorite horsehair brush. Oh, and we flooded it. Sorry!

No. Scratch that airplane thought. My horrible new ACA health care premium company (not marketplace) won’t pay for an ER visit when my head was spurting blood. Humana said because it was only my head spurting blood it was not a danger to life and limb and just charged me 9K to not diagnose me and give me unnecessary medical procedures. I need to get a new health care company even though we’ve tons of other insurance if I want to go para-sailing or jump out of a plane.

I had a large growth they never looked for. It was later diagnosed by a professional, excised, biopsied and was benign. I was healed. Now InHumana is denying everything. Remember the movie with Matt Damon, Danny DeVito and Great Benefits? I bled all weekend so couldn’t see the doc until she could see my eye. If this is the new health care system I’d rather a high-priced insurer who actually pays a valid claim. They’ve denied the majority of my surgery and biopsy as well.

Right now (or ever) I don’t want to jump on a plane because of TSA, or jump out of one. My husband is away for three weeks and the dog is depressed. She misses the fun guy. So do I. Everything will work out. Dee

ps Please never call me ma’am. A grocery clerk called me Miss the other day and I think I was just over the moon! Thanks, D

2 Comments

Posted in Editorial, Family, Recipe Ideas

Snoring… or Not

Posted on October 12, 2016 | 1 comment

I am a mother. Yes, a mother of a husband and dog. No, I am a wife and a dog owner. I’m the food wench.

The difficulties lie in degrees. If my husband is deeply snoring, I cannot sleep. I go and lie on the sofa with a blanket. When he stops snoring I can try to go back to bed. My first thought is that he is not breathing, so I check. Fifteen years ago I could control and monitor his breathing. Now, as he’s gone much of the time for business he doesn’t care about breathing, even farting, because he’s in a hotel by himself.

Every day I don’t see him is not a life. Fifteen years ago last week we had our first date. Anthony Hopkins’ Hearts in Atlantis, and Mexican food.

When I can’t hear him I’m right there and know that he is alive and breathing and I can take a breath as well.

Same with our old dog Zoe. Sometimes I wonder if she is breathing after I’ve lifted her up to our bed. I place my hand on her chest and know she’s OK for now.

Now he’s on a business trip and Zoe wants to get put back up to bed. She checks on me as well. I miss his company and snoring. I love to see Zoe awaken in REM sleep to chase squirrels. Life is all around us. Enjoy it. Dee

ps Gotta go. Zoe needs Otis (me) the elevator person to get her back to bed after she jumped down to make sure I was breathing. I was writing, little one! I can write and breathe at the same time. She’s back up, Otis’ed, so I must go. When I can not hear my husband snoring, I miss him. D

1 Comment

Posted in Editorial, editorial pets, Family

Tagged

Remarkable

Posted on October 1, 2016 | 1 comment

It’s been five days since teeny baby Paisley and her family moved out. We’re down to two dogs on our floor because Huxley, the quiet one, moved to the suburbs. Paisley’s folks will be building a home in the country.

There are seven very nice apartments up here. Our old dog Zoe (90 in “people years”) was the only dog for years and made sure everyone was safe. For a while we had three dogs here. Now it’s just Zoe and her old blind pal, Mr. B.

Imagine that with so few homes we’d have two pregnant ladies! Granted, Paisley’s mom moved. Another bairn (Scots for baby, see “wee bairn” in my Aunt’s, the retired English teacher’s bathroom). I had to find a word, pronounce it correctly, spell it and use it in a sentence every time I used the powder room!

My neighbors with blind Mr. B are due for a blessed event this month. They’re doing great. Over the days I see a number of packages at their door. Some look like flat packs. I see them from down the hall and think of IKEA and other flat pack furniture that comes with a crummy Allen wrench.

Then my mind goes to a couple of years hence when baby boy/girl sees a tricycle and points and says “Mommy, Daddy, I want that!” Then the inevitable happens. Parents buy the tricycle in a flat pack and do what my parents told me decades later.

They stayed up until 4 a.m. (at least Dad did) putting together the metal kitchen for me, assembling the mini car race track for my brother. I always wondered why my parents were so tired at six o’clock Christmas morning.

Soon they started buying us sweaters and socks plus one small special item each, then getting a family gift for the basement (nice big room, windows, fireplace et al) like a ping pong table one year, air hockey the next. As I recall they always said the sweaters et al were from Mom and Dad, the special gift for all was from Santa. All of a sudden, my parents weren’t so tired Christmas morning.

They did start a tradition, however, one worth preserving. Every year Mom went out and got us kids themed ornaments for the tree. She never liked those glass balls that broke into 1,000 pieces except for “filler” on the tree. Often she marked the kid’s initial and year on the back. When we went off to college she gave each one of us a box with our own ornaments to start our own tree.

I do not know where many of my old ornaments are but my husband and I will soon be married 14 years and I try to get us matching ornaments on a theme of where we’ve lived (lassos and bagpipes,snowmen and a moose on a sled, vastly different ornaments, of course). It provides a family history. “Oh, that’s the year were were in ….”

Cheers and help maintain and create traditions, food and more, in your home. Food is sustenance, and family. Dee

ps The racetrack was 8’x15′ and in the basement. Electric, with strips underneath the car to connect to the track. Two cars, one blue, light and fast. One white, a bit heavier and slower. I was always white and always won. When blue tried to beat me it was so light that on the turns it flew off the track and cost time. I went fast on the straightaways and slow around the turns and the tortoise won the race. D

 

1 Comment

Posted in Editorial, editorial pets, Family, Home Improvement

Tagged ,

Family, Caring and Rescue

Posted on September 14, 2016 | Leave a comment

We have been planning our first vacation in 14 years. It is a very special one as it is for my father’s 85th birthday. For two months I have been unlucky in finding my dog a place to stay.

She has been vetted at a local cage-free location but has never stayed overnight. Yes, she’s been vetted in Austin, Houston, everywhere. I like her to be at home. She’s my companion, a herder who may be sleeping but will go back to sleep in minutes, at my feet in another room once I move.

I’ve been sick for two days so haven’t checked my email. Two days ago, after sending in a request for a second doggie daycare visit and overnight. That was today. I got her there, she pulled like a donkey not to go in. I should have listened to her. Then I went home and checked my email. Two days ago this company said there were cages. Yesterday, over two phone calls I was told emphatically there were no cages.

I called a lawyer’s referral service for an opinion. This has nothing to do with dogs (except mine), and knew I had to use every means available to rescue my dog.

Complaining about the lying was covered up as “we should have explained it better.” I think their customers are dropping like flies because they want to cut down customer service while keeping up rates and keep numbers of dogs in the dark all night from 7:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. without going to the bathroom. Who knows? When I checked Zoe out (the charge was a pittance against getting our old dog back from the liars) the water bowl behind the admittance desk was empty. Home, Zoe went right for her water and drank two cups. Yes. I immediately took her out.

Then, after my complaint, the lady at the desk with the nose ring said “You’re lucky, you showed up just in time to pay the half-day fee of $18.75. I paid it, got my dog and they are the ones who will not be lucky.

They lie outright to their clients, switch stories. What kind of business is this? One an attorney and the Better Business Bureau would enjoy looking into. Fido, no friends. Overcharging for services not provided, not properly knowing or supervising dogs. I will never place Zoe there again, even to just get her nails trimmed. Yes, I’m always in the room with her as a “tech” and no other dog is present. Yet I still cannot give them any business.

Today, I got there asap and just said “I want my dog.” If they lie to me, they’re lying to her. If they changed the rules they certainly never told any of their customers.

The thing is this company must have turned to cages for a reason, liability. Perhaps a dog was attacked without provocation and with no supervision, let’s check it out. Zoe is once again two feet from my desk chair and calm, sleeping. She’s hydrated once again, relieved, sleeping and calm. Cheers to animal welfare and the end of fraud by any means. Dee

 

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Editorial, editorial pets, Family, truth, Zoe

Tagged ,

Sign Language

Posted on July 17, 2016 | Leave a comment

A week ago I gave our neighbor’s visiting grandkids a Braille game. Tennis balls in a muffin tin and three questions to ask their grandparents providing a Braille letter or two for all’s instruction. See, the Grands,’ our neighbors have a blind dog who tends to bark at people who stand outside our door and whisper then call out, “Zoe!” Heaven bless them, they’re about to be teens and will forget about Zoe, who they’ve called on for years.

My husband should have stayed in the hotel this weekend and not come home. He has a bad cold but can eat and drink tea and take Emergen-C. He won’t take anything else in pill form, even Wellness Formula.

After our hip-less wonder dog grew her own hips from cartilage, we started Dog Training 101. I did the work. My husband sat by the wall and criticized my behavior. Not the dog’s. It didn’t matter. The Commandant knew Zoe would obey everything I said so never even looked at her and concentrated on miscreants, the ones who misbehaved in order to behave and get a treat. Smarter than the average Bear (cartoon).

With my first great dog, Chani, I learned sign language from her trainer. She’d been abused by a deputy sheriff for a year and local kids used to throw rocks at her over their fence, then in a no-kill shelter for another but her time was up. I took her home for ten years and found a trainer while getting her good food for a change. Fear was a major factor, that I nipped in the bud right away with me, who even sat with her at the shelter in a neck brace every week. A year later at home with me she loved babies, kids, men, and men in uniform.

In a private training session John told me she was rude as she looked his purebred Schuttshunds in the eye and she’s a Beta dog. I learned sit, down, stay, come to me (the most important one) and down with my arms. No voice. She just knew the command.

Today, with my husband sleeping away a cold, 12 years with Zoe my “new” dog responds to non-verbal commands. No, it won’t keep her from my husband letting her get a chicken bone after July 4 fireworks and ruining our bed linens with vomit from that bone. It will allow him sleep.

I got to teach the kiddos Braille. even got a Braille bookmark for them for the Grands to deliver. I’ve known dog non-verbal communication for decades. I can say sit, down, come home, and get her off the bed without a word spoken. Thanks, kids, and John the trainer. Cheers! Sleep, my dear, there’s tea waiting when you’re ready. Dee

ps She’s old and kind of a mascot in our neighborhood. Heel is not in her repertoire, though I know the sign for it. The good thing is that she’s a people’s and dog’s dog. She loves everyone, even cats, save for amblers which means homeless or tourists who stand there and take a lot of pictures. She’s on a 1.5″ Martingale (for Greyhounds) handmade silk collar and 6′ braided leather leash, no stitching. It gives me control on the walk. I’ve arthritis so she can’t pull me over when she sees a squirrel. D

Leave a comment

Posted in Editorial, Family

Tagged

Teach Your Children

Posted on July 2, 2016 | Leave a comment

well, that was the song my tone deaf band sang at age 12, at a concert. Whenever I rose up to do harmony they came up with me. That was my only concert, even though in a huge school we did place second.

It’s after nine a.m. and the dog doesn’t know where to go so I’m thinking of taking her out, again. She loves sleeping on the bed but wants me now as well and I’ve been up for hours. My husband works on the other coast and is looking forward to a long weekend with us. Shhhh, sleep, dear.

I’d like to think the songs of Bob Dylan, CSNY, PPM, Joan Baez and others have made a different life for parents and children. I was too scared of Dylan at age 12 and I’ve only about 12 chords, never enough for Joan Baez even though I sing her music all the time. Dave Mason, I took up guitar again at age fifty and cannot play Joan Baez, I’m a beginner. One of the best musical virtual friends (now deceased) I have is Johnny Cash. I made fun of country/western music as a kid at age 12, just to be cool. A fool, I was.

Johnny Cash is one heck of a teacher even after he’s gone. When I was in private lessons I’d download free lyrics then unpack my mind and new guitar and make up chords to go with it. No primers, no music, or chords. I’d just hear in my mind, and do it.

It was time to quit private lessons as my teacher was rude to me, treating me like a kid, and when we sang a song together and he followed me to harmony he became angry, denigrating me by saying I had perfect pitch. It was American Pie and I did a riff at the end that he liked, practiced all week. He was impressed then did a turnaround.

I told him I never thought of it but Dad and all my music teachers said so. I think he had such talent on instruments that he taught his kids well, I had perfect pitch but nothing like his playing ability so as Dave Mason would say, we agreed to disagree. Dee

Leave a comment

Posted in Editorial, editorial pets, Family

Tagged , , , , ,