Bending: The Rules

        Like many tall people, I occasionally throw my back out. Okay, not with the trash. But I pull muscles and my doctor has told me to stop bending over.

          Simple advice for most, but not if you have dyspraxia. Remember I told you about that here?  I’m genetically klutzy, and what most coordinated people never consider is that I drop things more often than they do. A lot more often. I even put my cell phone on a chain so I could catch it.

          Only now I have to leave the item where it landed. Drop my keys? Gone forever. Drop a towel? Oh well.  Drop a jar lid? Better get some plastic wrap.

          Within a week I predict my floor will look like a teenager’s bedroom. All kinds of objects will be cluttering the ground and I will risk life and limb to weave through the rubble.

          There is only one up-side to this, and it’s for our dog, Mickey. Every day she prays that we will drop food on the floor that will stay there, and that she can gobble up. Now her prayers have been answered.

          Check out my Youtube Mom videos full of great life hacks (except for the above mentioned problem).

Alexa Lays an Egg

            I just read an article in Consumer Reports that said bird songs can lift your mood, according to a study done of 655 hikers in Colorado.

Well, hot-diggity dove! I immediately asked Alexa to play some, to see if it worked. It started with a soft squawk.

No sooner had I opened this Pandora’s Box than Mickey, our Terrier/Chihuahua. came racing into the kitchen, hackles up, barking like the maniac she is. I could just imagine the wheels turning in her little grape-sized brain.

Then our cat, Simon, charged in, eyes the size of hubcaps, fur puffed out. He kept kept staring out the back door, on high alert for a bird foolish enough to rest on our patio. I had to wonder—are these recordings of injured birds who are easy to catch?

Mickey continued carrying on until I told Alexa to stop the bird songs. Did this lift my mood?  You tell me.

BUT… my books will definitely lift your mood. Fine them all right here.

Doggerel Days

          Doggerel is a word which means an irregular, silly, or badly written rhyme. I’m going to assume that its origins trace to my own dogs’ ancestors who were undoubtedly all three—irregular, silly, and bad.

          However, this does not mean I don’t love dogs; I do. They just need to attend I.Q. camp. You recall, of course, that one of my dogs literally did this damage to this book:

          He was also the one who kept barking at an old hot water heater before it was picked up for recycling.

          Today we are down to Mickey, so named because she sort of has a silhouette of Mickey Mouse on her back. The other day I saw her at the glass back door, barking at the porch.  I figured there must be an animal of some kind out there, and a scary one at that.  Nope. This is what had the nerve to be crouching on our cement:

          St. Bob had left a small Home Depot bag on the patio table, and it had blown onto—horrors!—the ground.  She also had a fit some time ago when a stray balloon found its way to the kitchen island: 

          And now, to share with you her latest hobby, it’s twirling in our curtains.

         

Occasionally she gets so wound up in them she can hardly find her way out.

Last week I was grocery shopping and saw a magazine called Inside Your Dog's Mind. How can there be even one paragraph of information on this topic, much less an entire magazine? I didn’t browse through it. I just assumed it would be photos of cobwebs. Maybe some doggerel poetry about dogs’ thoughts.

          But I adore Mickey nonetheless. After all, she thinks I’m hilarious.

The best way to endure the dog days of summer is to stay inside where it's cool and read one of my books. Find them all right here.

Doggone Crazy Timing

           Cancer is many things, but one thing people don’t always consider is that it's time consuming. You suddenly have an overwhelming number of appointments, phone calls, procedures, and paperwork to do. I say that as if you can now decide never to get it because of the hassle. I mean, who has time for all this, right?

          So I’m awaiting word of an upcoming appointment I need, when I get this message:

          For those who can’t see it, it’s a reminder to bring my RABIES CERTIFICATE (okay, in all fairness they did not capitalize it) to my upcoming appointment. 

          And I’m thinking, Seriously? Can I not just wallow in self-pity for two minutes?  The answer is no, I cannot. I have to endure ludicrous messages (some would say from the universe—the humor sector).

           And, of course, then I remember that I’m taking my dog in for a nail trimming and the message is from them. But it is not addressed to Mickey. Just saying.

However, should you actually contract Rabies, I imagine you’ll be looking for some great books to read as you recover.  Here are just a few of mine. Okay, all of them.

DNA, Shmee N A

          Probably the hottest trend right now is tracing your DNA.  I have friends who are over the moon excited to find out that they’re part Cherokee or Russian or Chinese, when they thought were 100 % Irish through and through.  And it is exciting.

          So I thought I’d see if you can do this with dogs.  Because that’s how my mind works.  Of course, there’s no use doing it with AKA-registered show dogs; their backgrounds are already documented on paper. It would only be fascinating to do it with mutts you’ve rescued.

          And, as a long-time mutt rescuer, I have often wondered what accounts for not only the odd appearances of my pets, but their odd behavior. 

Because this is just a blog and not a book, we shall deal exclusively with my current dog, Mickey. I believe that if I traced her bloodline, it would lead directly to a muskrat, as she will burrow under anything she can.  Somehow, in a miracle of science, a muskrat and a dog must have bred centuries ago.

And as long as we're mixing species, her eating habits would indicate that she may also be a small percentage frog, chicken, owl, or snake, because she gulps her food down whole, as do those same creatures.
It’s also possible that her line includes a fictional, animated mouse, since there is a Mickey Mouse silhouette on her back-- nature’s way of shouting truth, right?

As for actual dogs in her line, let’s start with her breed.  The shelter said she was a Taco Terrier, a designer dog created by breeding a Chihuahua with a Miniature Fox Terrier.

          Now, Taco Terrier is a cute, alliterative name, but it is also the PERFECT RECIPE for a dog that cannot be housebroken.  If you look up a list of dogs tough to potty train, Chihuahuas will lead the list, followed by other toy breeds.  “Miniature” is a clue, and I believe actually refers to their bladders.

          In addition, terriers are known for being stubborn, independent, feisty, and not wanting to be team players with humans.  So, if you had the diabolical plan to create the perfect storm of an untrainable dog who piddles all over the house, you would breed a Chihuahua with a miniature terrier, hence Taco Terriers.

          Of course, I didn’t know this when we simply chose her based upon adorableness.  

          I didn’t even look at the paperwork from the person who surrendered her until years later, when I noticed that in the box labeled “Housebroken?” they had written, “Somewhat.”

          Folks, you cannot be somewhat housebroken. It’s like being somewhat pregnant.  Either you are or you are not.

          And so the housebreaking ordeal of the century began, and, despite her DNA, at long last we have a dog we can trust.  Somewhat.

          If you can take your eyes off your dog, settle down with a good book, or some short YouTube mom videos.  You can find them all here.

          

In the Shrill of the Night

          Last week I was awakened at 5:00 a.m. by a shrill, piercing, nonstop whistle.  Imagine a smoke alarm, except it isn’t beeping; it’s just continuing.

          St. Bob could sleep even if a marching band came tromping right into the bedroom. 

However, he cannot sleep if his wife keeps nudging him and shouting his name.  “What’s that noise?” I ask. “Do you think the house is on fire?” It doesn’t smell smoky, but neither do deadly gas fumes, which I am also imagining.

          I might add that this is the worst time to be awakened because it’s just close enough to your real wake-up time that you can’t get back to sleep again. But Bob is a saint, remember, so he gets up and goes downstairs to investigate.

          He is gone for a very long time.  Now I am imagining robbers gagging him and tying him to a chair.  Finally I get up as well.

          Bob has dragged the ladder in from the garage and has dismantled two of the smoke alarms by the time I arrive.  But then he gets an idea. He checks the family room where we have beeper pads on our sofas, to keep Mickey (often the culprit in these stories) from jumping onto the cushions.

          Turns out we forgot to put Mickey in her crate for the night, which she actually loves, and she had jumped up onto the sofa, set off the beeper pad, and then jumped down.

          Except that she also knocked a blanket off the sofa, and that was now resting heavily atop the pad, making it beep incessantly until Bob pulled off the blanket and saved all our hearing.  Mickey, by the way, was hiding in the back yard, and only timidly approached once the siren had stopped.

          We glanced back at the ladder and the two dismantled smoke alarms. We glanced at the beeper pad. We glanced at Mickey. We glanced at the clock.  Oh, well.  Anyone for sausage and pancakes?

Next time you’re up in the middle of the night,  grab a good book to read.  Might I suggest one of mine?  You can find them all right here, along with my YouTube Mom videos.