Snuggle Bunny
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Category Archives: Pets
NO MORE STAIRS
I used to run up and down the stairs from the house to the yard every day without stopping to look at them, without feeling any pain. That’s not easy anymore. I still run up, but sometimes it takes me a while to gather my energy to leap. And going down the stairs? No, thanks. Especially at night, I can hardly see them. So Ellie picks me up before our walk and at bedtime and places me on the grass or the sidewalk. I struggle to escape when she picks me up. I’m a guy! I’m tough! Well maybe not so much anymore. But I still want to do it myself.
Ellie gives me treats in the backyard every day. It has something to do with a metal pathway with a scratchy surface. She puts it down on the grass and holds out a treat for me. Sure, I want the treat. (It’s a piece of some little hot dogs that come out of a tiny jar…why are they called hot dogs?) So I jump up to get the treat and land on the grass or on the metal thing or halfway on each. Usually the treat lands in the grass, since I can’t find it in her hand. Then I sniff for it in the dry grass while she waits. After a few tries, she gets at one end of the pathway with me at the other and beckons for me to come get the treat. Sometimes I run all the way down the metal to her and grab my treat. When that happens, she’s jumping up and down.
Before we’re done, Ellie moves the metal thing so one end is on the deck and the other is on the grass. She climbs up to the deck and asks me to come up the ramp for my treat. I have to think about it. Sometimes I’m feeling the breeze or a fly going by or I hear a noise behind me. Sometimes I walk up the ramp and she gets all excited. Then she tries to get me to walk down the ramp, but so far, that doesn’t appeal to me, no matter how many treats she has in her hand. You must think I’m nuts. I don’t want to be picked up, I don’t want to go down the ramp or the stairs, and I don’t want to pee on the floor. That’s just the way it is. TIme for a nap.
DOWN BY THE (NAPA) RIVER
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I WALK THE LINE
From the front lawn I leave Ellie in the dust and run straight to the door. As soon as she gets the door open–sure wish I could do that myself– I race down the hall, slipping and sliding on the wood floor, and skid to a stop on the rug in the TV room. That’s near my food bowl and I like to check it often to see if anything new has turned up. Then I trot back to the bedroom and lie down. Or go through Ellie’s office and down the other hallway to the front room or the garage. Most of my walking is back and forth between the bedroom and the kitchen. If that floor was more like the dirt in the woods, I’d have worn a path into it by now.
At night I’m not sure where I want to be. Ellie is in her bed and the lights are out. I look around the bedroom, not seeing much. I walk to my water bowl in Ellie’s bathroom and give it sniff. I step out into the open space by the front door. What now? Where to? I saunter into the kitchen, sniff my food bowl, walk around the sofa. Do I want to go out through my door? Not really. Check the food bowl again–empty. Everything else the way it should be here, I walk back to the bedroom. Click, click, click, my claws mark my pace. I walk in, hear Ellie sleeping, check out my beds–the old one I never use any more, the comfy one that smells like me and is lumpy and ripped, and something new that Ellie keeps throwing treats on. It’s thick and spongy, hard for me to walk on. None of them seems very interesting, so I walk back out to see what’s going on in the kitchen. Click, click, click…
DOG PARTY
FEET, LEGS, FOOD (BUT NOT FOR ME)–HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN, TRISTAN!
FOXY FOOD
I’ve been quiet because Ellie was gone for so long I almost forgot her. Well, let’s just say that Mark tried his best to take care of me. He gave me food and walked me, but it isn’t the same. When Ellie opened the door I was scared at first. She marched in with that rumbling suitcase. “Hi, Foxy. How’s my little guy?” I ran away at first but then I started to remember her smell and her sound. Soon she was clomping around the house and I was following her.
I don’t eat all my food when Ellie is away. Well, actually I don’t ever eat all my food. I forget it’s there or I’m not hungry or it just doesn’t smell as good as what she is eating. Since her return she’s been feeding me a lot of new stuff. The yucky food in the cans has disappeared. She’s been cooking up a chicken storm, filling the whole house with great smells. Let me at it! I get chicken mixed with rice or with some other grainy thing that is easy to spread all over the floor. Also my usual carrots, although she must have noticed after a couple of bites on a carrot I leave it somewhere on the rug, because the carrots in my food are soft.
Ellie is doing something else funny. First she puts my food in my bowl. Then if I don’t eat it right away, she comes with a big spoon and spreads most of it over a big plate, like the ones she uses. She leaves the plate on the floor next to my bowl. It helps me to sniff what is there and pick out the pieces of chicken.
Today she gave me some wonderfully stinky stuff that smells like the little treats she tosses on the floor for me to gobble up–salmon? And some string beans from a can, which I like OK. I wish she would just give me exactly what she is eating with all the sauce and good smells. Why can’t I have that?
Camo-Dog
It’s cold out there!
MULTI-TASKING MUTT
You humans think you are so brilliant with your smart phones and computer games that you play while you’re watching TV. I can multi-task even better, without needing any store-bought devices to help me along.
Have you noticed how I analyze the grass with my sniffer while at the same time, to say it nicely, my other end is relieving itself of a burden? Multi-tasking! Or when we’re out for a walk how I can have my eyes glued on a dog approaching from way down the street while my feet are deftly stepping over rocks and branches all over the walkway?
See, I can listen, smell and look all at the same time, in case some wild animal is stalking me, or some smelly little squirrel is close enough for me to chase. Or someone has dropped a sausage in the path. Sausage, yum! It may seem that I’m not listening to you when you try to call me away from my food bowl or a fight with my favorite toy. I can hear you–I’m just not interested. I may be a multi-tasker, but I still decide where to put my attention! Now where did I hide that biscuit?
Five signs of heart disease in dogs
If you have an aging/ailing dog, check this out: http://theilovedogssite.com/the-top-5-signs-of-heart-disease-in-dogs/?utm_source=ILDS-Email&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Newsletter_12-08-14
Foxy had most of these symptoms before starting his miracle meds.
DOGGIE DOLDRUMS
Another visit to the doggie doctor. It was a long day, although I slept during most of it. Ellie dropped me off without breakfast (grrr) and didn’t feed me much when we got home. Actually I didn’t feel like eating. My teeth kind of hurt; my whole mouth felt sore, like I’d been chewing on some huge bone for days and days. My claws were mysteriously shorter and there now seems to always be a breeze around my butt.
Sometimes it’s dark by the time Ellie takes me for my afternoon walk. I don’t mind this, but she stumbles along with her flashlight, holding her coat tight around her body. She’s been sneezing and coughing and going to bed right after my dinner, so maybe she’s not feeling so great either.
Today the ladies came who sweep the floor and push that noisy machine around. I spent some time on the deck and then wanted to see what Ellie was doing. I found her lying on the bed with that computer thing. She slapped the bed, like she thinks I can still jump up there. Are you kidding me? Then she got up and came at me with her hands out, like she wanted to pick me up. I wouldn’t mind a quick snuggle, but if I can’t get up there on my own, forget about it! Why don’t you come down here? I scooted under the bed, a better place to hide from the broom.
Once when Ellie wasn’t around those ladies let me out the door when they were leaving. I ran out to the street to see what was happening and the ladies started chasing me. I didn’t know what they wanted, so I headed down the block. They were screaming at me to come back. Hey, I’m on an adventure! Then a neighbor lady with her dog came along and talked to them. They held her dog and she came slowly up to me talking very quietly.
“Is everything OK, Foxy? Poor boy, don’t be scared.”
It didn’t take long for her to get her hand on my collar and soon I was back in the house. Those ladies were smiling and wiping their faces like they’d been cleaning the house all day long.
myleashonlife 