Tag Archives: pets

Doggie Aid

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oct 201401

 

I haven’t wanted to eat and moving hurts too much. Ellie takes me out for a walk, but it is so much easier to just sit down. One foot really is hurting me. I howl at Ellie after she turns off the lights at night. I howl when she goes out. I howl when people come in, but nothing changes.

Then Ellie gets up in the morning and mutters to herself as she moves around the house. I pee on the floor before she can put me outside. So she stops and cleans that up. Then she’s in the hall bathroom making lots of noise. She comes looking for me, picks me up, and puts me down into the bathtub in some warm water. I would rather not have a bath, thank you very much. But the water just comes up to my tummy and she doesn’t do the usual scrubbing with soap and bubbles. She just strokes my back and keeps me from falling down. I relax a little, but then I’m ready to be out of there.

Ellie lifts me out of the tub, without much cooperation from me. I just want to get away, wagging all my legs like I’m still in the water and swimming. She dries me off with the usual big towels. While she’s drying me and I’m struggling, she handles my sore foot again and I hear a loud, “Yes! The water loosened it up!” She holds on tight and I howl as she pulls something that’s stuck to my paw. Finally she lets me go.

That was a few days ago. Whatever was making my foot hurt is gone. I can walk and jump again, although I still fall down a lot. Most days I’m doing my peeing and other stuff outside and that makes me feel like jumping for joy.

I love it when Ellie knows what I need! Time for a long nap…

Achoo! Achoo!

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April201601

I sneeze and my head bounces off the floor. Again and my nose hurts. That just makes me sneeze more. Now Ellie grabs me and is trying to wipe something off my nose. Tastes funny. She puts a wet cloth on me and it stings. I sneeze again. Oh, well.

These days I’m hitting my head a lot. I just don’t see that the door or table leg or box or bed is in my way. Or I don’t hear Ellie sneaking up behind me and I jump and whack my head on the wall. Or I trip on my water bowl and land on my back, my nose grazing the cupboard door. That’s life!

We just came back from a nice slow walk. I sniffed the bushes and picked up lots of good smells while the wind blew my fur all around. Ellie started pulling on the leash near the end of the walk. Achoo! This time she was sneezing. Achoo! Achoo!

“Come on, Foxy,” she said. Back in the house for treats and dinner and a nice long nap.

PEE ZONES

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It used to be that my favorite part of my daily walks involved leaving my mark on all the important places in the neighborhood–that bush at the edge of our lawn, a big rock at the entrance to a house around the corner, newly wet weeds and grass. Hey, you other dogs, Foxy’s here! Not so much anymore. Nowadays I am happy to be able to let it all go when the urge strikes, which is usually as soon as I get outside.

Several times a day, Ellie picks me up, carries me down the steps, puts me on the grass in the back yard and says, “Go pee.” If I was sleeping when she picked me up, it takes me a while to get with it, but I know what she wants and it usually sounds like a good idea. So I yawn a couple of times and then here you go, let me make your day. Other times she puts the leash on me and carries me down the front steps so we can take our walk. We take a short cut across the front lawn to the sidewalk.

I usually pee as soon as I get to our lawn.  Now it’s mostly dirt along that path. Not long ago, I saw Ellie  scattering something over the bare ground, covering it with some dirt from a bag, then sprinkling it with the watering can.

I like to walk on the soft grass in front of most houses we pass, so sometimes I wait to pee at one of those, often without even sniffing to see if someone else has marked a juicy spot.  One day we were rounding a corner and I was on the grass  doing my thing when a man came out the front door and said something unkind to Ellie. I didn’t get the words, but she answered him in a downcast way. I’m not sure what that was about, but since then, she usually pulls me off the grass of that yard.

Not so today. We were doing our usual walk and I was enjoying the release of letting it all go on that lawn–ahh, I love my walks–when I heard the sound of the house’s garage door starting. Ellie jumped and pulled me, mid-pee, onto the sidewalk, leaving me quite unsatisfied and dribbling all over myself and the sidewalk. She scooted me down the walkway to the corner. I saw her turn to look back at that house and then she hurried me around the corner. Humans are such a mystery!