All posts filed under: Pets

They are all completely unpredictable.

Miss Tibbit, the Useless-Little-Black-Dog, had a bad week.

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Friday: There was a horrendous, apocalyptic thunderstorm and she was forced to go out into the yard for bedtime peeing while the storm still rumbled in the distance. It was scary. Saturday. It was still raining, and Miss Tibbit had to go for morning walkies in the rain. Her coat got all wet and her paws splashed through endless puddles. Plus, all the worms were floating and mushy instead of barbequing on the sidewalk the way she likes them. Who wants worm soup? Sunday. Even though the sun was shining everyone was too busy scrubbing the traffic soot off of the front porch and making a screen for the front window. No one offered a nice, long park walkie. No one lounged around in the back yard for hours. It was boring. Monday. The vet’s office was smelly with other dogs, none of whom were available for playing. Miss Tibbit had lots of treats, but she was stuck by three needles dumping stuff in her, one needle taking stuff out, a nasty nose drip medicine …

Hamish the Corgi Achieves Master Craftsdog Status

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Press Release: With the intuitive senses of a nascent master of his craft, Hamish eyed the 107th Annual Strawberry festival at the Church of the Good Shepherd at the corner of Jewett and Summit Avenues. A cluster of younger people with their kids and older folks sat in the shade trees sharing strawberry desserts, music, and good fellowship. I could see that he thought it looked promising and he was considering a performance for the Festival attendees. He didn’t commit to it and we walked on. How fortuitous that we did so. Although perhaps it wasn’t luck but a deeper sensitivity in Hamish’s newly proved mastery. Diagonally across the intersection, the Darwin Martin house was having a red-carpet affair: valet parking, bejeweled and well-dressed middle agers climbing from luxury autos, and hors d’oeuvres and cocktails inside what is itself an architectural master piece. Hamish walked to the groomed corner lawn of the Martin House Complex and stopped. He cast his glance uphill to the Strawberry Festival, clearly within sight and scent. His ears swiveled backward, …

10 Reasons Miss Tibbit The Useless Little Black Dog May Not Lick My Face

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10. Miss Tibbit is a dog and has aromatic dog mouth. 9.  She licks the floor. 8. She licks the sidewalk. Oh, why? Because it has on it flavorful substances like gum, bird crap, spit. 7. Miss Tibbit bathes herself and her pal Hamish the Corgi with her tongue. I don’t want that on me. 6. Miss Tibbit enjoys cat litter snackies. She eats the crumbs from the basement floor. You know how it works: the cat jumps out with litter stuck to his feet. The litter scatters. Tibbit cleans that up. Two strikes – basement floor and cat litter. 5. Two days ago I yanked a rotting baby bird carcass out of her mouth by its little feet. It was mostly down her throat already so I had to have a good, strong grip on those curled up bird toes. 4. Miss Tibbit has sticky spit. 3. She sniffs the cat’s butt, and I can’t be sure she does it from a sanitary distance. 2.  She licks her own wet nose. And finally, the …

Woodstock ends his days.

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Woodstock moved in with us Friday. This evening he was sleeping on the rug in the front parlor. Tibbit pretended not to notice. When she believed no one was watching, she sampled a small taste of Woodstock. Delicious. Hamish interrupted the tasting, as he is of the opinion that that Woodstock flavors belong only to the elder dog. Hamish spent a little time with Woodstock, lulling the little bird into a calm. Hamish says that Woodstock’s succulence is improved when the fear adrenaline no longer courses through Woodstock. Don’t be fooled little Woodstock. Your time is nigh.

Sweet Tibbit’s Very Bad Day

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She thought it was a great idea at the time. A remarkable opportunity even. How often is a dog left alone in the basement after all? As she snacked her way through the tasty cat box bites, Miss Tibbit savored the rewards of her momentary independence. The biggest, best bits gone, Sweet Tibbit thought she would have just one more nibble of the wheat cat litter. Delicious. She paused, licking her chops, and yes, perhaps one more sample. And another. Perhaps a bit more. I admit, that part is recreative speculation based on observations taken during subsequent events. The first hour after Tibbit was found in and removed from the basement, she couldn’t get comfortable. Her belly was too achingly full to lay down and she sat on the bed next to me awkward and tense, staring intently into the middle distance. I wondered then, did Miss Tibbit regret her feast? I left for a couple of hours of work, where concentration was hard won as I imagined the messy horror Sweet Tibbit may have …

No Dogs Allowed? Hamish the Corgi Finds a Way.

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“Where are we going?” Hamish the Corgi asked as he watched me dig the hiking pack out of the coat closet. It wasn’t easy. Five months of hats, scarves, gloves, reusable bags, dog towels, and YakTrax had crammed themselves on top of it. I looked over my shoulder and up the steps to look at Hamish. He stood in the hall, big ears perked wide and high. He was smiling. “Tifft Nature Preserve over by the lakeshore,” I told him. “Awesome,” he said, “that’s not mine yet.” He disappeared into the kitchen and I heard rummaging in the dog cupboard. I yanked the day pack strap and slammed the closet door before all the other stuff escaped. I went up to the kitchen to fill my water bladder. Hamish was waiting by the sink with the dog hiking water bowl and dog water bottle. He looked from me to the treat bin on the counter, me to treat bin, me to treat bin. “Don’t forget to pack the go-go crunchies,” he reminded me, nudging my …

Snowfall and sunshine, with tubercular hacking.

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The sunlight glowed through yesterday morning’s snowfall so that the dogs and I were surrounded by whirling and sparkling crystals on morning walkies. Miss Tibbit, the useless little black dog, pranced down the side walk in her bouncing happy stride. Hamish the Corgi sniffed, raced to the next interesting spot, and sniffed again. The world was bright and full of opportunities – a snow storm in the sunshine? Anything seemed possible. Across the street a car door creaked open and the dogs and I listened to a tubercular hacking emerging from the ancient sedan. Miss Tibbit stopped to look and Hamish glanced over from his position against some unfortunate shrubbery. The hacking head leaned out of the car and drooled a liquidy mess onto the street. Awesome, I said to the dogs. Miss Tibbit strained against the leash, deeply interested. Let’s go check it out, she said to Hamish who walked up next to her. Ok, Hamish said as he stepped off the curb. In the brilliant shine of a sunlit snowfall I fought the …

Now that’s a man-sized Croc.

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And it is no wonder really that Wiggins the Cat was poking his head in there. To a cat, a Croc that size might be something to crawl into. Hang out in. Attack people from the comfort of. The question as I see it is more along the lines of, what happened that caused the cat to puke inside the Croc? As I think about the mechanics of it, having watched Wiggins the Cat puke more than once in his 14 years, I try to imagine his posture. Was his head inside the Croc or did he projectile? If he projectiled, why into the Croc? The Spouse assures me that he also calmly thought through the scenario as he slid his foot into the Croc at 6:10am this morning for running the dogs in the yard. He thought, why is my foot wet? Did I get snow in my shoe during the bedtime dog trip to the yard? No, he concluded, there’s no snow on the ground right now. Did the cat pee in my …

Snow trash is the best.

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Gloriously foul and endlessly fascinating, snow trash happens when the deep snow melts and reveals the urban detritus of weeks. It is a special seasonal process to be enjoyed only a few times a year. Because I happen to be a professional studier of the material remnants of human activity, I can’t look away from a nice nasty city snow bank. I like them to be really full of good stuff and I stop for particularly rich ones to be sure I’m seeing everything. This isn’t the WideEyedSpouse’s favorite activity, but the dogs sure don’t mind. Dog dookies are ubiquitous in the melting snow banks. Big, small, dark, light. You can really see the variety of diets fed to the neighborhood canines. Here in Buffalo chicken bones also are typical in the melting snow mounds. Perplexing. Yes, Buffalo Chicken wings, but does everyone eat them all the time? They must fly from car windows like confetti. I see newspapers, catalogs, dryer sheets, and Kleenex that appear used but may just be wet from the melt. …