wideeyedfunk

Tag: animals

  • My work colleagues are dogs. And no, I’m not a sheepherder.

    Miss Tibbit the Useless Little Black Dog and Hamish the Corgi work with me all the day long. And they work hard on their dog chores. Miss Tibbit holds the cushion down on the chair. Hamish holds the chair in position. They sigh and stretch and mumble over their tasks. Every now and again, Hamish has to squirm into a better holding position, Miss Tibbit must squeeze herself tighter into her little dog-round position.

    Today Miss Tibbit worked in the window seat in the front parlor. Hamish occupied himself with holding down the old red settee.

    Dogs

    I was so lonely. The keys wouldn’t type right on the keyboard. The words wouldn’t come in my careful writing. The day was bleak.

    DogcolleaguesNow we’re back up here for the evening round of work. Sweet Tibbit is snoring and twitching with her full post-dinner belly and Hamish looks like he may have actually passed out. And, sure, the WideEyedSpouse is across the room, sighing and creaking around in his chair doing mysterious Spouse office things.  But he’s with me in here only a couple of hours a day. My real work colleagues are over there on the floor and in the corner chair.

    Sometimes I think it might be smart to haul myself up to the University to work. There are people there. It is just barely possible that I would benefit from some human interaction in my puzzling life.

  • Sweet Tibbit gets her money’s worth out of a jelly bean.

    Hamish the Corgi and Miss Tibbit can’t stop thinking about jelly beans.

    DogsI’m looking at Sweet Tibbit now and she’s laying on the window seat gazing into the middle distance. She seems vacuous, blank-eyed, awaiting stimulus. I assure you she is thinking about jelly beans.  Hamish is lounged on the sofa, chin propped and contemplative. He is also thinking about jelly beans.

    Because they are dogs, they both like, or rather, don’t dislike, every color jelly bean. I believe that there is a slight preference for pink, red and purple jelly beans over black, orange, and green. It is hard to tell with Hamish because he crunch-gulps so swiftly that the experience is over by the time his Corgi brain has the opportunity to form an opinion.

    Tibbit (2)Sweet Tibbit, she savors a jelly bean. She snuffles the bean with her strangely mobile little black nose.  If it proves acceptable (and it always does but certain colors are approved more quickly), if acceptable Sweet Tibbit takes the bean with her tiny front nibble teeth and pursed lips. It disappears into her maw. Her catfish-like whiskers twitch as she repositions her prize to her molars. This is a mistake Sweet Tibbit makes every time. Really, every time.

    The bean embeds into Miss Tibbit’s molars.

    We all watch Miss Tibbit make rictus faces and chew with great exaggerated jaw movement. Her awkwardly too-big-for-her-mouth tongue flaps around. She pauses and looks at us. Makes a little test chew. Nope, not done. The rictus, chewing, flapping tongue scene starts again.

    Hamish feels an injustice has been perpetrated. He glances from Sweet Tibbit eating her jelly bean to me to the jelly bean bag. His meaning is quite clear. Miss Tibbit’s jelly bean was obviously better than the cheezy little one he got.

    As I reach into the jelly bean bag for another one, Miss Tibbit abruptly stops chewing and looks pointedly at my hand. She is trying to demonstrate that she is ready for another bean.  I hold my hand in the bag for a moment. Tibbit stares. I wait. I can see her lips trying to pull back into a rictus for more chewing. She is forcibly restraining them. I wait. Ricuts, flap, flap flap of the tongue.

    Miss Tibbit gets more out of a single jelly bean than anyone I have ever seen. Sweet Tibbit, so simple, so sweet.

  • Three’s Company, Two’s Just Awkward

    As it turns out, Miss Tibbit the Useless Little Black Dog and I don’t have all that much to say to each other. Hamish the Corgi was in the dog hospital yesterday. This left Miss Tibbit and I alone in the house.

    Hamish left early in the morning, and Miss Tibbit sat on the bed and stared out the window at the Pathfinder as it left the driveway. When the truck was out of sight, she turned to look at me over her shoulder. I shrugged at her. What could I say? Hamish went somewhere and she didn’t.

    Morning walkies were weird. Miss Tibbit didn’t pull at the leash. She didn’t bark at other dogs. She sniffed everything twice as hard as normal, lingering over the little hedge branch that sticks out too far and rubs against EVERY dog who walks past. I think she sniffed the bark right off of it. She kept aiming quick little glances back at me.

    Tibbit (2)The office situation was even odd. I sat at the desk, clacketing away as normal. Miss Tibbit sauntered in and sat, sort of sideways, and looked at me from the corners of her eyes. She seemed to have something to say but wasn’t comfortable enough to break the silence. We made accidental eye contact over and over again. It was awkward.

    Evidently Miss Tibbit and I just aren’t all that close. Hamish the Corgi is my best friend. He is Miss Tibbit’s best friend. But Tibbit and I seem to inhabit an acquaintance kind of friendscape. We realized yesterday that while we do spend a lot of time together, we are spending that time with Hamish not with each other.

    I tried to make it better, like you do when you are in an uncomfortable social setting, “uh, good girl,” I told her and patted her on the head. She went along with my attempt to form a connection, but she yawned with a squeak at the end. Grasping at any distraction, I suggested we go downstairs for lunch.  I figured if we were doing something it would be less noticeable that we didn’t have anything to talk about. Well, that lasted about 30 seconds. Once her lunch was gone, we were at the same impasse. A lot of time and no real interest in each other. We stood in the kitchen, whistling to ourselves and faking absorption with the fridge magnets and the nutrition information on food wrapper labels.

    “Well,” I said, fed up with the whole thing, “now we know.” Miss Tibbit tried to look agreeably insightful. It wasn’t easy, she was stretched up on her hind legs trying to lick the butter dish on the counter at the time. We went back up to the office. I typed and clicked the mouse. Miss Tibbit napped in the chair. We ignored the space on the floor between us where Hamish usually lays and waited for our uncomfortable day to end.

  • Lemme me see the other side.

    I’ll tell you what. I have lived in Minnesota. I know what cold feels like. I spent a couple of winters in Anchorage. I know what big snow looks like. I grew up at the South Jersey shore.  I am familiar with bone cutting, sand carrying, January winds that administer the midseason microdermabrasion treatments. Stings a bit when the feeling comes back into your cheeks.

    Now I’m in Buffalo. And I am becoming expert in the wintry mix. Sloppy.  Gusty. Raw. The Christmas pine garlands are flopping all over the place. And dog walks are wretched.

    “Yeah.”

    Sorry, that was Miss Tibbit interrupting us. This afternoon she pranced onto the back porch, got blasted in the face with a sleety snow, and turned around to come back inside. Wasn’t worth it. No thank you ma’am.

    Buffalo winter means that Hamish the Corgi and Sweet Tibbit come home from walkies with salty wet feet. Hamish’s undercarriage is a cindery mucky mess. Every time. (The cat just sneezed in my wine by the way. Just saying. Nice moment.) If I leave the dogs alone I have mud on the sofa, salt foot prints all over the house, maybe a sick dog because I guess they aren’t supposed to lick that rock salt.

    So. Every day, several times a day, we do the lemme see the other side routine.  The dogs know and when it is gross outside they climb the first set of steps and wait for me in the hall landing. I unglove, unshoe, unhat, uncoat, unscarf, grab the dog towel, and crouch down. Hamish stands stiffly in front of me and presents his near foot – usually port side, held high in the air. I wipe it, rub his chest under there. Let go. He steps forward and balances his weight on the starboard side. I wipe the back foot, wipe the belly, let go. Miss Tibbit, who is anxious that this isn’t going fast enough, pushes past. “Lemme see the other side,” I tell Hamish.

    He steps forward a bit, performs a Corgi K-turn, hoves into reach and presents his starboard foot. Wipe. Forward. Wipe. “Next,” I say. Miss Tibbit appears in my face, one front foot in the air. Wipe. She steps forward. Back foot wipe. “Other side,” I say, like a train conductor announcing the stop. Tibbit steps away and carefully negotiates a turn, presenting the other front foot. Wipe. Forward. Wipe.

    The dogs assemble conveniently near the dog treat storage area while I drape the dog towel on the heater. It’s irritating, the dogs get rubbed with a warm towel after the Buffalo winter walks. What am I running here, a dog spa?

    Anyway, I rattle the lid of the treat jar and toss snacks into waiting maws. “Alright,” I tell them, “I’ve got work to do,” and we head back up to the desk. Oh boy, only a couple of hours until the next Buffalo winter dog walk.

  • Walking dogs in the fall has a certain frisson.

    The leaves changed in here Buffalo in that last week or two. An orangey road glow replaces the striking sun to shadow dichotomy of summer. Bowers formed by century-grown wrinkled and twisted tree branches, trimmed into arches over the sidewalks, allow a little more of the post autumnal equinox sun through so that there is a gloaming rather than pools of shade. Miss Tibbit and Hamish kick up leaves as they trot along, noses in the air to catch the damp scents.

    Fall dog walks joyously beautiful. They are peaceful. The fair-weather dog walkers have abandoned the parks and streets and Miss Tibbit has fewer dog friends to yowl toward. Hamish has fewer challengers to his tiny and vulnerable Corgi dignity. Yet, fall dog walks are fraught with danger.

    It is a social danger, sure, but no less frightening for that. It is all Hamish’s fault.

    As you may know from past chronicles, Hamish is a Master of the Craft of Display Defecation.  His joy in his craft is unsubtle. A car full of family returning home from a long day at work? What an excellent opportunity for a drive-side event. I stand and wait, blue bag on my hand, in a public demonstration of my intention to clean up. As Hamish finishes, he eyes me and smiles, steps forward and kicks with his ears up and his mouth wide in a doggie grin. His tiny back legs do a little stiff legged dance – left, right, left, right – pause – and one more time. I’m sure I’ve described it before.

    The practical effect of his charming act during these serene fall walks? He covers his deposit in layers of leaves, which are shaded just the same as his…well I don’t want to be overly vulgar. I think you know what I am implying. I am left with a car full of homeowners observing us and a yard full of brown, gold, orange leaves with something unpleasant to extract.

    I sigh, wrap the leashes tight around my free hand, and start pawing through the leaves. “Miss Tibbit,” I call, “Come help me find this.” She ignores me. Hamish is 15 feet down the sidewalk, already planning his next event. Hamish deposits , kicks, and moves on – job done. He sees no need to linger in the area. The longer I crouch in someone’s front yard, pushing leaves around, the less likely I am to find the prize. I can feel the family of observers losing confidence that I will provide a satisfactory conclusion to our so far benign neighborly transaction.

    I won’t tell you how adept I have become at “finding” what Hamish has left behind. I’m not proud of it. But sometimes a person has to make morally ambiguous compromises. The fall dog walkies are beautiful, but they are filled with peril.

  • Miss Tibbit Takes Herself to Brunch.

    “I’m feeling peckish,” Miss Tibbit, the Useless-Little-Black-Dog, thought to herself this sunny Saturday morning. She was curled tight on the Big Bed next to the Person.

    She laid there for a few moments more, thinking through her options. The Person had coffee and a book, nothing worth asking for there. Wiggins the Ancient Cat now lives in a sequestered room and his food bowl was not accessible. Miss Tibbit had cruised the kitchen counters during breakfast two hours ago. Empty. Also empty was the Sesame Melba Toast carton abandoned by Hamish the Corgi on the living room floor.
    Miss Tibbit sighed and resigned herself to hungry napping.

    One ear perked. Miss Tibbit had an idea. An elusive memory tracked across her tiny mind. She felt that something wonderful sat on the kitchen floor, unguarded, far away from the Person, and certain to satisfy even the biggest snacky appetite.

    The Person mistrusts Miss Tibbit’s intentions as a matter of habit, so this had to be a cunning operation. Miss Tibbit made a plan.

    “Yaaawwnnn,” she said, with a cute squeak at the end. She stretched against the person and made her brown eyes limpid and relaxed as she assessed how deeply the Person was immersed in the book. Pretty deeply, Miss Tibbit judged. She stood, slowly, and jumped from the Big Bed. “Where are you going?” the Person asked immediately and suspiciously. Miss Tibbit dipped her tongue into the water bowl, thinking “see, just a little thirsty.”

    She stood staring at the water until she sensed the Person’s eyes were off of her. She casually tiptoed out of the room and stealth stepped down the stairs, pausing at the landing to listen, and into the kitchen.

    Miss Tibbit’s eyes grew wide and round. “Yes,” she thought, “I knew there was something wonderful here.” She approached the nearly full 25 pound bag of IAMS Naturals dog kibble that had been sitting next to the trash can for nearly a week. The Person and Hamish the Corgi brought it back from their trip to the shore. Miss Tibbit noted its arrival, but sort of overlooked it in the excitement of having them back. “Overlooked no more,” she said to herself, “time for some brunch.”

    IamsBagUsing the little nibble teeth at the front of her mouth, Miss Tibbit removed a tiny, barely noticeable she thought, section of the bag. She pushed her nose into the opening and sampled. “Oh yes,” she sighed. She dipped her head into the bag again. And again, faster and faster because after all, it isn’t everyday that a useless little black dog gets an All-U-Can-Eat brunch.

    Many minutes later Miss Tibbit stood swaying and belching as the Person harnessed her for morning walkies. Hamish sniffed Miss Tibbit’s breath. “Miss Tibbit,” the Person said, “why is your stomach distended?” Miss Tibbit belched again, wafting kibble aroma directly into the Person’s nose. “Brunch,” she smiled.

    FullTibbit

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

    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 and, AND, some people held her down to clean out her ears. It was awful, so awful that Miss Tibbit could do nothing for the rest of the day except lay on the sofa and sleep away the trauma.

    Tuesday. There was thunder again. The Boss and the Lady shoved a tube full of smelly medicine in her ear and squirted gunk in there. Miss Tibbit had to shake and shake her head all over the house to get that stuff out. Which, if pressed, Miss Tibbit will admit was actually was a little fun, not great, but a little bit fun.

    Wednesday. The temperature dropped to below 70 degrees and Miss Tibbit was cold. She curled herself around her nearly hairless pink belly and shivered on the window seat. She concentrated real hard on making her winter hair grow back. It was uncomfortable.

    Thursday. Today. The Lady stole a flat, maggoty baby bird right out of Miss Tibbit’s throat. Tibbit worked and worked to get it swallowed fast, but she didn’t make it in time and the Lady reached right in and took it. It was unfair.

    Poor, poor Miss Tibbit. Maybe next week will be better.

    Tibbit

  • Hamish the Corgi Achieves Master Craftsdog Status

    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, and he turned to eye eyed the glitterati atmosphere of the Martin House event. Two large huskies live in the corner house directly across the street, his nose tilted in their direction. Three small beagles inhabit the yard on the fourth and final corner of intersection of Jewett and Summit and while they gave a final sense of completion to his pending performance, they were clearly supporting, rather than critical elements.

    Positioning carefully, Hamish turned his hind quarters in profile to the Festival and the Red-Carpet Affair, he faced the Husky House and put what is really the least interesting view to the beagles.

    In an act of pure artistry, simple in appearance yet complexly composed and powerfully nuanced, Hamish achieved his Mastery of Display Defecation. Please join us in our congratulations for this new Master Craftsdog.

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

    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.IMG_1762

    And finally, the hard limit, the final unarguable reason:

    1. I just now saw Miss Tibbit eat cat crap that some city cat left in my garden. Yes, I am glad it is gone. No, I am not happy Miss Tibbit ate it.

    Miss Tibbit is a sweet, lovey useless little black dog who likes nothing better than to greet people with kisses. Just saying, think about it.

  • Sweet Tibbit’s Very Bad Day

    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 been producing. Returning home finally, I was relieved to see that all was well.

    All wasn’t well. I simply remained ignorant of the coming storm.

    Sweet Tibbit’s belly decided it had enough of the tasty little box treats and it evicted the partially digested material. Voluminously. Twice. On two separate rugs. The aroma was remarkable. It was an aggressively physical miasma that billowed out from the sloshy and disturbingly lumpy source puddles. The WideEyedSpouse retched helplessly as he cleaned the first puddle. Later I came across him retching over the second puddle as he prepared the steam cleaner. Again I wondered, does Miss Tibbit feel regret? Has she learned her lesson?

    Feeling better and prancing around the house, Miss Tibbit decided she would like to spend some time in the yard. I was only too happy to oblige her. It was an elegant justification for removing myself from the event horizon. But then of course, Sweet Tibbit engaged in Stage 2 processes. Not nice. Not nice at all.

    It is now two days later, and Sweet Tibbit apparently is empty. She is getting tired of bland rice for breakfast. Bland rice for dinner. Bland rice for snackies. She licks at the rice and rejects it as inedible. Which, given recent events, I find pretty amazing.

    Did Miss Tibbit learn a lesson from her Very Bad Day?

    Ten minutes ago I caught her doing preliminary investigations of the litter box while I was in the basement. Useless little black dog.