Author: housekeeping

So, you have heard lots about my Two Footed family, what about my Four Footed?  Are you kidding, in this family, where everyone has dogs and cats they inherited or rescued? They can not bear to watch those heart wrenching advertisements that SPCA run in their attempt to find forever homes for the unfortunate canine and feline orphans.

Yes I have Cousins.  Auntie No.1 Sister has Ming-Ming, a similar color to me but a Shih Tzu with that round head and kind of pushed in, serious countenance. But boy, she has springs in her back paws, leaping though the air, jumping on furniture, or tables.  Her potty training is still hit and miss but I blame that on her first owner who tired of her and asked Auntie Itty Bitty to pick up the torch and other things Ming-Ming left on the floor, or the bed or the couch. You get it. Still I am amazed and impressed by her ability to fly from the chair to the couch or from the floor to the kitchen table. Our cats are totally puzzled  and disoriented by this flying dog. The kitchen table belongs to them, not some visiting canine cousin with bad ‘table’ manners. Tell me, how could I not like that doggie?

Next comes Misty, a cream-colored Maltese,  Auntie Goodie Two Shoe’s Dog. Like Momma’s former dog Teddy, she is perfect – well except when her Momma walks out the door, leaves the room or is just not in sight  for a moment.  Then like a wailing banshee, the warbling and  whining  commence, climbing to an ear-splitting crescendo. This is just not an acceptable response, especially when you are a guest in someone’s home. I say Misty needs a  few retraining sessions with a stern dog behavior expert. Momma tells me to be understanding because it is separation anxiety. My best advice, ‘ Well, boo-hoo! Get over it, Misty’.  I try to distract her by encouraging her to join me on the back of the couch in the Sun Room so we can do ‘The Neighborhood Watch.’

Anything that moves in the neighborhood outside, be it birds, critters, dogs, cats, people, butterflies, even leaves, we watch. Their sure are some interesting scenarios that we get to see, in our free front seat row vantage point. One particular day, a man went up and down the sidewalk having a fight with himself, swearing like a drunken sailor (no offense meant to sailors). We are not sure who  won, but it was very intense.  Teens walked  three abreast in the middle of the street (as usual) and an angry, stressed out driver stuck his head out their car windows to chastise them.  Suburban Urban Warfare!

We cannot forget Auntie Taught-Momma-Almost-Everything-She-Knows dog, Cousin Cooper, a little black Yorkie-poo who acts like he could be one of the Three Little Rascals. Just maybe he has a tiny devil with pointy ears, a long tail, and a pitch fork, living inside him, the same as me. Whatever! We are compatible and rush around, looking for trouble, followed by reinvigorating nap, so we can think up more mayhem and chaos.

Cooper also  has a beautiful black with white splotches sister, Daisy. She is cut from the same bolt of cloth as Misty, good to the bone except one time  on a walk, marched over to another dog and nipped his master. What is in our doggie DNA that makes us so inscrutably amicable one minute and an ‘unsub’ the next?  Then we hang our heads in shame as our masters rack their brains for a solution that they never thought would be a problem.

So do I have a Doggie Family? Do I???  You could say, I got it covered.

And, just in case you are wondering, I am still the best trained. None of them can do the tricks I can do, (like counting or waving), the brightest, (who else wrote a Policies and Procedure Manual), the most nurturing, (just ask the Tigger and Babbie – more on them on the way).

I am also amazingly gorgeous and of course modest. Just realize, I am the ‘don’t take my word for it’ unquestionably questionable pedigree dog….ever!

Email: housekeeping@hotdogcoolcats.com

Like, I got some things to say. You know that I ♥♥♥ my Momma and she ♥’s ♥’s ♥’s me but I do not understand why she goes so postal, on occasion, like a few days back. I suspect it had something to do with the fact that I did not come when she called me in.

But, whatever (big yawn) I was outside, there was a full moon, with ***’s (or is it planets,) shining brightly in the dark, clear sky, just beckoning me to enjoy the moment. That it was a nice balmy zero degrees only encouraged me to plow through the snow with gusto.  I was no longer  a sable and white dog, I was completely white, with huge snow balls, like a tiny abominable  snowman.  At the same time I managed to attract monster thistles caught in the wiry fur on my legs, my beard, my long silky ears, my tail and ouch, my belly, from slinking under the dead bushes and left over foliage in the flower beds. I felt like a commando, disguised as a snow (wo)man, on a sssshhh, top classified secret mission.

Okay, I get it (a little) that the longer I stayed out, collecting snow balls and thistles, the bigger the job Momma had when I finally came in. Yet at some point, I always bark to say, ‘Hurry, I am cold, let me in, hurry, you’re not here yet, where are you? I am  dying out here. HURRY, HURRY, HURRY!.’

Is it my fault Momma can not always see me because the snow is so high and she worries unnecessarily, may I add that:

• I may escape the back yard and will be like Sweet Sophie who has never been seen again (to our knowledge) or
• I may be doggy napped and not able to find my way home (did you not hear about Lassie, Momma?) or                                                                        I
•  I will become stuck in a snow drift and my life force will be sucked out of my body before she even finds me and how would she tell Wonder Boy. It is just to sad. See Momma wipe away a tear from her eye.

I tell you, Momma is just like her father before her, so I understand, worrying needlessly…. But not without cause.  I heard Momma tell Wonder Boy, tears in her voice that a little boy, a few miles from here had been caught in a snow bank during the blizzard Wednesday and died before he could be rescued.  That is why Momma clears the steps of snow, then shovels a pathway for me from the door to the very back of the yard, under the big old evergreen tree I love to hide under, surveying the world at large, while, as I said previously,  the world can not survey me. Winter is so much fun. In my next life, I want to come back as one of those husky sled dogs, in the land of the midnight sun or maybe not…I enjoy being pampered too much and…oh, that’s right, I like people more than frothing, barking, whining dogs.  I am not a team player.

This particular night Momma, finally had to put her boots on, and come outside to find me, then chase me in the back door.  Apparently that is unacceptable behavior that falls short of previous training.   Who Knew? She raised her voice so loudly, I thought I’d go deaf or my ear drums would pop.  Usually, with Momma, it is over in a minute but not tonight. All the frustration she felt in past four years spilled  and spewed, making a stew of words I could not understand or fathom. I was served a full plate of her complaints, in a loud, penetrating rant. I felt so ashamed for letting her down, I could not look her in the eye as she melted my snow balls, in warm water, towel dried me, then used her blow dryer on low heat to complete the drying process, brushing or cutting out the  thistles I had managed to collect.  It made me feel so warm and contented and guilty.

But there is more to tell and well, I like you to know that I realize my short comings.  Even though Super Boy has great admiration for me, when he doggie-sat me, he soon realized I was powerful contrary, and dead set on doing what ever I want to do.  I am trying…..  but I am a work-in-process.

In the meantime, everyone agrees that I am uncommonly smart, (though not boastful) and mostly sensible so that I know to rein it in when  I get out of line.

And if you see me behaving badly, please feel free to put me in my place.  I need lots of structure.

Did I tell you yet about our back yard? There are all kinds of things that catch my attention back there and so many places to hide from Momma’s all seeing blue eyes.  A big dog may consider the yard a postage stamp but when you weigh  twenty pounds, stand about fourteen inches from fluffy paw to upturned top of head, it is a heady jungle to plough through.

Green, green grass, massive flowerbeds chock full of hostas, peonies, rose bushes and flowers that germinate from seeds that float from the neighbor’s garden, all providing a leafy canopy to hide away from the world.

Yet still I can observe all the activity taking place, a little mouse running, a worm pushing through the damp earth to the surface, some busy ants and butterflies of every color landing daintily on the tip of a cone flower. It is a breathless, ever-changing oasis. A fence line on the East, West and North side of the lawn denies my escape while the house is the barrier on the South side, keeping me in and undesirables from the neighbour hood out.

Then there are all the trees Daddy planted, a silver birch, a red  and  green maple that provide shade with their canopy of leaves filtering and obliterating the hot sun.  Also, a back yard  cherry tree is an invitation to squirrels who zip up the trunk, shake the heavy laden branches with practiced little front paws, raining cherries in the back yard.  But maybe my favourite is the big fir-tree,  with a massive circumference providing shelter in the cold of winter and coolness on scorching day in the summer.

Managing the Indoor – Outdoor cats (Momma calls them the Indoor-Outdoor-Indoor Cats now because they are inside way more than they are out), the Colony Cats, Squirrels, Raccoons, Rabbits, and lonely old possum – oh boy, that keeps me busy.

Take our cats, (p–l–e–a–s–e), all who are older than me and sometimes wiser than me. They mostly treat me with something between respect and indulgence because, well I am street smart and the Baby of the Family.  But what they appreciate the most is that I have a loud, annoying bark and will run off enemies as well as defend them to my last breath. In return, I have carte blanche when they start hissing and growling at each other to pounce on them and bring them back to their senses.  They will stalk away, ears back, tales swaying moodily,  but in no time they are making friendly with each other and me, no grudges allowed or tolerated.

Let’s talk about the rabbits who I believe, over the years have learned their lesson and no longer invade our flowerbeds because, well, the cats will perpetuate the cycle of life and death, on these poor, witless creatures.  Better to listen to Mama Rabbit and stay the heck out of Dodge.  I love the cats but not for a second do I understand their predatory nature, given that they get the same soft and hard food, treats and toys from Momma, as I do. I mean, I make a lot of noise but I would never take a life, as pointless as it may be.

And tell me, what is wrong with a Mama Bird that she thinks her baby should be pushed out its nest, the only home it knew, into our back yard where the cats are prowling and salivating? I bark to warn Mama Bird. I try to protect those poor little peepers by inserting my body between them and the cats, as they valiantly practice using their little wings.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, it is all in the game, says Momma, who is as perplexed as I am at both Mama Bird, and our cats’ behaviour.

Now the raccoons, they have it together.  They know the rules, they obey the rules.  They do not come in our back yard.  There is a time and place for everything and they learned it is best to come out and pick cherries from the tree at the side door under the mindful supervision of Momma or Wonder Boy.

Sometimes on a clear summer night you will see the cats, raccoons and squirrels all together, cherry picking, like in Revelations, where the lamb lays down with the lion. Of course the cats don’t have any use for cherries, except to bat them around or to steal them from under their opponent’s nose.

As for me, I am a voyeur. I just sit on the steps with Wonder Boy, monitoring the cherry picking, watching the June bugs buzz around the outside light, and the awesome fire flies, just marveling about sweet is my very own kingdom come!