She's Here! (and no, she doens't have a name, yet)

In case you were wondering, it's very difficult to take pictures of a puppy who won't go do something else. I have several pictures just like this one. Oh, and one amazingly bad shot of her running to me. wanna see it? Of course you do. 'Cuz it's a puppy, and we already know that I'm no photographer.



That being said, I love a puppy that loves me, and this puppy LOVES me.

See?



How can I not melt when she looks at me like that? Sadly she still doesn't have a name yet. I'm leaning towards "Pia" though. I don't know why. I just like the name, and it seems to suit her.

Ginger totally digs her. Ginger dug all three of the puppies yesterday, and wished she could stay and play with puppies forever. Hey! This puppy is wearing a ginger-tailed hat!



She's met all of the dogs. Though she's a tiny bit apprehensive about them, she's doing just great. They like her. A lot. She's still trying occasionally to nurse. On Nick. He's not impressed.

Gratuitous Zippy picture:



This is our "going home" shot taken by Denise Wall yesterday. Those ears are SO going up. Sure do hope so, anyway.



Ok, ok. One last one.

Friday Confessional

I Confess...

that I don't normally get involved with memes, but I think this is pretty cool so I'm GOING for it!

I Confess...

that I've stumbled upon a group of really amazing women who blog. They have a somewhat different focus (not dog blogs) and I probably don't fit in, but in my usual socially awkward sort of way I'm choosing to overlook that.

I Confess...

in high school I bought one of my BFFs a holiday tin filled with M&M's (for Christmas). I ate the M&M's before I could give them to her.

I Confess...

I bought more M&M's and filled it back up. I ate them too. I think I finally gave it to her for her birthday. In August.

I Confess...

that I did not wash my boss's fruit this week. Pesticide power, baby! If he shows back up to work with an extra eyeball I'm going to laugh my hiney off while denying all guilt. If this post disappears you'll know why. I'm already plotting next week's small rebellion.

I Confess...

that the most used phrase in my house is "Be QUIET June", followed closely by "Knock it off, Linc", and variations thereof.

I Confess...

sometimes I'm afraid that I've lost my funny. For good.

I Confess...

I eat alone a lot. I probably have awful table manners now and don't even know it. I probably even snort and chew with my mouth open. This is probably one of the many reasons why I'm still single. Oh, but I draw the line at blowing my snoz at the dinner table. Ok, TV tray. I still have SOME couth left.

and lastly I Confess...

my 11 lb Papillon rules the world. This past week he took off with a 1/2 of a chicken wing (don't worry... it was raw and he was supposed to have it). I knew I wasn't going to get it away from him, so I didn't try. Had anyone else told me of this I'd have been all "well, then you GO GET IT!". hah. Good luck with that.

Thank you, to Mamarazzi for hosting this!

Stats

My apologies to my Facebook friends for my oopsie post yesterday. I was looking around on Blogger and discovered (yes, just) that there is this "Stats" page. It tells you things like which sites refer people the most, and which search terms led to your blog and so on. I found the search list hysterical and was planning to copy and paste the list. Well, when Ctrl-V didn't work I tried Ctrl-P. In case you didn't know, Ctrl-P posts your post, even when it's blank. Oopsie!

So here's the list that has led people to my blog a bunch... aside from the usual suspects like "Crooks and Crazies" there is also:

white duck (probably inspired by the duck posts)
topsy turvy marijuana
tiny little house

and last but not least... wait for it....

marijuana plant two seeds in one pot

Yes. Really.

My guess would be that this post about my tiny little garden is responsible for a lot of that traffic.

Dear Federal peeps who inspect people who grow stuff like marijuana and stuff... I promise I wouldn't even consider it. I don't even know what a marijuana looks like, and I've never even smoked a cigarette. I think the worst thing I've ever done was accidentally stealing one of those size markers off of the racks at Belks when I was five. My mother helped me take them back and I was like... broken for life. Plus... I can't even grow my grass properly. Promise, so please don't haul me off for posting about my little upside down tomatoes. kthnx!

By Request - the Vulcan Toe Grip Story

I've had a request to pull out the Vulcan Toe Grip story - so here you go!

Several years ago my Grandfather and step-Grandmother were up for a visit. We were all eating dinner in the living room on TV trays at my Mother's house. Grandma Vickie asked if she could feed Ginger from her plate. I politely told her how much I appreciated her kindness, but that Ginger wasn't allowed to have people-food (oh how things change). She insisted, and I re-iterated that NO, Ginger could not have her food, exclaiming "You eat it Grandma Vickie!!". She bobbed her head, and I thought the matter was settled.

I turned around to talk to my brother, and when I looked back Grandma Vickie had put her almost FULL plate ON THE FLOOR underneath her TV tray and was holding it with her gnarled up crusty old toes!! Ginger was face first in this plate of delicacies, certain that she had died and gone to heaven. She was making some serious headway through this pile of ham, mashed potatoes, and lima beans. So, it was Laura to the rescue! I got down on the floor and proceeded to pull the snorting dog out of the plate, and then I got the bright idea that I would try to take the plate and put it back on Grandma Vickie's tray. Hah.

So, there I was, on the floor, under her TV Tray, face to face with the bottom half of her old surly gnarly self in a mu-mu. She had that plate in a Vulcan Toe Grip, and no way was she letting it go.

I'm telling you, this woman must have done toe dumbbell lifts. I never thought I'd find myself playing tug-of-war with an 82 year old woman, but nevertheless there I was on my hands and knees on the floor trying to remove this plate from her World Heavyweight Champion toes. To top it off, Ginger had performed an end run around the quarterback and was again snarfing just as fast as her little mouth could go. Lima beans were rolling across the floor, and Grandma Vickie was screeching at me and trying to thwack me on the head for taking her plate. Screeching, snarfing, and thwacking. The harder I tried to pull the plate away the stronger her Vulcan Toe Grip became. What a scene.

I eventually managed to peel her toes off of the plate, one by one. It was a hollow victory, really. Noisy too. For Ginger it wasn't hollow though. She'd pretty much wiped Grandma Vickie's plate clean for the most part.

You all don't think I would come from a family full of normal people, do you? Of course not.

Needless to say, we had some baked ham/lima beans/ mashed potatoes blow-outs that night. In her defense, though, Grandma Vickie was pretty far along in her Alzheimers at that point. Strangely, after having to deliver the "People's Elbow" and a "Rock Bottom" to a little old lady's toes, suddenly some of the other issues in my life seemed to just fade away a little.

Small Dog Update

The vet found no blood or notable bacteria in his urinalysis, so concluded that he must have an infection down inside the sheath (there was a bit more green goo in there than expected). She sent him home, day before yesterday, with some antibiotics.

If you have delicate sensibilities or are not a dog person, please take this opportunity to skip to the very last paragraph. I urge you.

As soon as I got home he started that bizarre running and sitting thing that he'd been doing a few weeks ago. When I was finally able to catch him I found that he had an erection, and it wasn't going down. I facebooked. I posted on dog boards. I called all of my friends in a panic. I called the emergency vet.

After reading some articles and talking with friends I decided to put him in a tub full of cool water to see if that might... encourage the turtle back into the shell. I knew that the Viagra commercials mention to see a doctor after four hours... and it had been two, but still I was worried. Tiny dog had a wood for two hours. He's neutered, by the way. At any rate, after the bath and talking with the emergency vet I headed over to him with some vaseline, intending to lube up the works a tad. It was then that I finally found it had retracted. I've never in my life been so happy to see something go down!

I've been a crazy person over this. I am aware of it. I am also glad that my friends are all still speaking to me.

Anyway, when the wood finally subsided he started walking normally. My relief was short lived, though, because not long after that he started walking all hunched up and started flipping his tail weird. The pencil was still in it's holder, but it was still obviously... uh... quite stiff and swolen.

Yesterday morning he was laying near me licking himself, and crying. I went over to take a look and he'd licked himself bloody (on the outside of the sheath). I cleaned him up and hit him with some neosporin, and he finally went back to sleep.

Fast forward through another call to the vet and an elizabethan collar for the Small Dog (which thoroughly enraged him) and when I got home from work last night he was completely normal.



Last night I called Pam and was telling her how at lunch his pecker felt... softer and squishier. I explained that I had squeezed Nick and Linc's pieces parts to reference, as well. I then suggested she should go squeeze Rogue's pieces parts to give me a comparison. She declined. I don't know why.

Yes. Crazy person = me. I've never said the word "penis" so many times in my life as I have in the last three days. I am becoming an expert on dog penises, and penile anatomy. It is like having my own... but not. Also, dogs with ouchy penises apparently run sorta sideways. And they buck like broncos. In case you were wondering.

You may start reading again here, if you ducked out back at the beginning...

This morning he is completely normal. He's had four doses of the antibiotic, and they are clearly working. The package is still wrapped and it feels normal to me. It has become glaringly obvious that it has been swolen lately, in general. He appears to have some external sensitivity, but by and large I think he's quite on the mend. It is very stressful when tiny old dogs get sick.

Impotent and Furious

First off, my apologies to my Facebook peeps who've already heard this. I need to rant. The top of my head is about to blow clean off.

I got home from work last night, and noticed that the Small Dog (Zippy) had some brownish spots on his back legs. I thought it looked unusual, so got down on the floor to take a closer look under the chassis. What I found was some dried goo on the outside of his pecker - looks like maybe dried blood. Poor wee guy! I loaded up my bathtub with warm water and Epsom salts, and filled it up to about chest level on him. I put him in, and basically soaked it off of there. He didn't seem to mind that part very much, though when I started to rinse him with clean water he started bucking around the tub like a bronco.

He's still my little wild thing, even at 17.

At any rate, he's had a small handful of accidents lately (though nothing major), but I've mostly chalked that up to cognitive dysfunction. He does seem to go out, forget why he's there, then come in and pee on the carpet. Sigh. Then about two weeks ago he had that bizarre running through the house at midnight episode, which again I wrote off to cognitive dysfunction. But this... this is an obvious enough indicator to make me think he needs a urinalysis done.

So this morning I managed to catch a urine sample, and tossed it in the fridge. On my way to drop off the urine I called the vet's office to give them a heads up that I was coming. My regular vet (who rocks, by the way) is out this week. The receptionist told me they wouldn't take a sample without seeing the dog since it's been a while since she's seen him (uh... it was late November/early December). Oh, but they don't have anything today... the earliest they have is tomorrow at 11:30 am.

Now that I KNOW he's having troubles the waiting to help him thing INFURIATES me. Not just a little bit, either. I don't understand why they wouldn't just take the sample, and go on and give me something to help him (if it was a clear course of action), and THEN let me bring him in tomorrow. Maybe I'm being unreasonable. But it's Zippy. He's tiny. He's feisty.

Thinking that one of my dogs is in pain makes me a crazy person.

What I feel at the moment is furious at being impotent. I'm almost tempted to drive home, get my dog, and go drop him off in their laps. I want to call them back up and scream at them. I want to go over there and yell at someone.

I won't do any of that because I am a nice person. However, I plan to satisfy the urge by picturing it over and over in my head all day.

I think the Zip-man will be OK... it's twenty four hours from now. My fury comes partially from the fact that I get the impression that the receptionist thinks I couldn't possibly have a clue. What I'm hoping is that by the time I go over there tomorrow I'll be able to have an intelligent adult conversation with the vet. She doesn't know me from Adam. I'll be nice, but firm. That's the plan anyway.

I have pee in my car, in case you were wondering.

There's Something To This

I'm not a huge Cesar fan, really, but I also don't think he's the debil. There is a lot of disagreement within the dog community about his methods, but for the purpose of this post I'll say that I think there's something to this whole walking dogs as a pack thing. I've always tried to walk my own dogs as a pack together, but I'm talking about something slightly different in this context.

Take the Noodleman for example.



He's a bit of a troll under the bridge sort of dog. He's a little snarkilicious sometimes, even with his own "pack", though he's not overly serious about that. What he IS serious about is that he's not a big fan of dogs of other breeds. Though he often likes the ladies he just as often doesn't like the males. He has very strong feelings about these things.

Here's where it gets interesting. I've noticed recently that I can take him on a walk with a dog that he has issue with in a home setting, and he'll act completely different in a walk situation. Take this same dog that he wants to harass in the back yard on a long walk, and suddenly they're BFFs. Ok, maybe not BFFs, but certainly copacetic enough.

For example, Sunday we took a walk in the woods with Sandy and her new Golden Retriever, Kobe. Nick met Kobe a month or two ago at my friend Pam's house. The two of them met in the back yard and Nick started immediately skulking around, circling, air snapping, and just generally being a jerk. He got in lots of trouble for it, and eventually wound up being put back in his crate for acting like a punk.

However, out in the woods on the walk? Swimming in the lake? He acted as if Kobe was just part of the pack. He swam with him, ran with him, and didn't ever even give him a hairy eyeball. It was a completely different dynamic.



I really do think that there's just something about walking as a pack that changes the dynamics for some dogs. Maybe not all dogs (I've seen dogs determined to work other dogs on walks like these), but certainly it changes things for the Noodle. What I'll be interested to see is if it changes the dynamics only in that situation, or overall. Based on what I've seen from Nick so far, though, I think it only changes the dynamics for him in that particular circumstance.