• A slamming door.
• Hearing another dog bark.
• Me, if I ask her to.
• A knock at the door.
• A door bell – at the front door or on t.v.
• Anyone that walks in front of our house.
• The garbage truck when it makes the “backing up ding ding” sound.
• Cosmo, when he stares her down. Or, if he’s in her “spot.”
• Farts. Especially hers.
• Other dogs playing.
• Church bells.
• When she’s hungry.
• Or, when she needs to go out to pee.
• The pileated woodpecker pecking on the chimney.
• Sounds the squirrels make when they are sitting in the tree outside the back door.
• Bagels and cream cheese.
• Come to think of it, any kind of cheese.
• When the dishwasher soap dispenser “pops” open during the wash cycle.
• The phone ringing.
• The washer and dryer “ding” when the cycles are done.
• When a pot is boiling on the stove.
• Live chickens or rabbits or squirrels.
• The gopher tortoise in Uncle Joe’s yard has the ability to drive Clover completely insane.
• Construction sounds like saws and hammers.
• The weekly emergency alert on tv or radio from Emergency Broadcast System or the NOAA radio.
• The toaster when the bread pops up.
• Tin foil.
• Wimbledon (the players that “grunt” when they hit the ball)
• The pressure cooker.

Does Anyone Have Cesar Milan’s Home Phone Number?

(originally published in March 2008. After today’s exhibition of lung power and barking noise, I had to re-post this. I was never able to figure out what initiated today’s barking event. Its just that it went on, and on, and on until she was almost hoarse, and I went slightly bonkers from trying to find what was setting her off this time.)

I have been looking for glass pieces at thrifts and yard sales so I could make myself a garden totem and this is the end result. Total expenses $4.25. (And, please no comments on the weeds. My garden is a mess at the moment!) Am I the only that thinks it looks like the Jetson’s maid “Rosie”?

If someone walked into my house right now, they would think I was a mother of a couple of spoiled toddlers instead of two Labrador Retrievers. The toys are everywhere!

When I went to bed last night, Clover was in her closet, and Cosmo was on the floor next to the bed. When I woke up (thanks Coz for being my early Sunday morning wake-up call), I had two dogs on the bed, a stuffed Coca-Cola Polar Bear, one flamingo Beanie Baby, and one stuffed pink octopus.

When I came downstairs this morning thinking about a pot of coffee, the weather report of thunderstorms later today and the timing of when I need to give Clover her “crazy pill”, I almost tripped on a stuffed snake toy and a tennis ball.

Ok. I admit my dogs have a lot of toys. They are everywhere. Clover, will on occasion, help me pick toys up and put them in the toy box. Cosmo, however, thinks its a game and as soon as I can put the toys away, he is pulling them out again.

I have one question: Who took the toys out in the middle of the night? because when I went to bed, they were safely snuggled in the toy box!

This is a photo of Clover’s oldest existing, still-stuffed, and much loved “Blue Dog” given to her when she was just a puppy by our friend Mary. Blue Dog is the only toy that Clover WILL NOT allow Cosmo to play with. Blue is pretty fragile these days, and I only give it to Clover once and a while to play with. Mostly, he lives in the downstairs closet hidden away from Cosmo.

I bought a locking gas cap. Must guard that liquid gold from thieves. Cost: $21.00 = cost of about 1/3 tank of gas.

Dogs are pretty basic animals. A warm and clean place to live, a good relationship with a human to look after, and a bowl or two of good food every day. My two dogs eat a pretty balanced dry food with the occasional goody mixed in. Well, ok, in theory anyway.

Clover and Cosmo are very different in the way they approach their meals. Clover, is the typical always hungry Labrador Retriever – she will eat whatever I give her whenever I give it to her. Cosmo is the finicky one – he eats when he wants and only if he is hungry. You could fill a bowl of food up in the morning and he would only eat what he felt he needed to fuel his day. I cannot, however, do this, because the minute Cosmo relinquishes ownership of the bowl by walking away from it … Clover is all over it.

Clover is always fed first. She gets her bowl on the floor when she stops fussing and sits still for a couple of seconds. Cosmo runs to his spot and sits at attention waiting to inspect his food bowl. He sniffs, he goes in tentatively and takes a mouthful of food out of the bowl and backs up into the dining room where he deposits the food on the floor. He then inspects the food again, sniffs it some more, and at that point makes up his mind if he is hungry enough to go to the bowl for the rest. Clover has finished her bowl by now and circled around through the living room to sneak up behind him and hoover up any loose kibble. If I stop her before she can eat it, she will pace and whine until she can see if he’s a clean-plater or not.

Have you ever noticed that a finicky dog like Cosmo, who prefers low-fat cottage cheese mixed in his morning food, and spits out cooked spinach like he’s being poisoned, will eat grass like he’s a cow? Early this Spring after our morning walk, I was unlocking the front door and looked over and thought how pretty the first little daffodils looked … in the time it took me to unlock the front door and get the dogs back in the house … I looked back at the daffodils to see they were all gone. The culprit? Cosmo. How did I know? The yellow petals were sticking out of his mouth as he smacked his lips.

Everyone knows that chocolate, raisins and onions are very bad for a dog to eat. There are loads of experts out there than can give you a list of stuff to not feed your dog and the reasons why, so I’ll leave you to that on your own. What I do know from experience is that onions are really bad and can cause some serious gastro problems. Ask Clover. I also know that while some dogs cannot tolerate dairy, my two don’t seem to have a problem with it in small quantities. Ask Cosmo – he loves cottage cheese and yogurt mixed with fresh blueberries, but would prefer a rare steak with all of the trimmings. Hmmm. Wouldn’t we all.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is for a dog to fall asleep? They lie down, close their eyes, and within seconds they are sound asleep. A lot of dogs snore worse than some old men I know.

Clover is a very light sleeper, and if I speak to her when she is asleep, she will wag her tail. Come to think of it, Clover wags her tail in her sleep without any prompting from me.

Cosmo is a very sound sleeper to the point of being left behind. It must be very strange for him to wake up in the middle of the night to find that he’s been asleep for hours on the kitchen floor and everyone else has been in bed for hours. Cosmo is also famous for falling asleep sitting up. The first time he did it, he was just a small puppy. He was sitting up, leaning against the sofa, with his head hanging down. Then, all of a sudden, he just crumpled and fell to the floor. Splat! The fall didn’t even wake him.

Do you think dogs dream? I’m pretty sure mine do. Either they are chasing rabbits in their sleep, or they are possessed by some sort of twitching demon. High pitched woofles, tail wagging, feet flailing, and me booting the offending mutt off the bed to do their dreaming where it won’t keep me from my tentative sleep.

There is a famous saying “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie” which is all about leaving things as they are. According to Wikitionary:

let sleeping dogs lie

1. (idiomatic) To leave things as they are; especially, to avoid restarting or rekindling an old argument; to leave disagreements in the past.

   Eventually, they decided it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie and not discuss the matter any further.

Translations

• German: Schlafende Hunde weckt man nicht
• Polish: Nie wywołuj wilka z lasu
• Russian: Кто старое помянет, тому глаз вон

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to sleep like Cosmo? Soundly and without a worry? The occasional dream of successful and friendly pursuits?

I, on the other hand, am on my second week of insomnia. When I finally do get a good sleep, I hope no one wakes me either.

I remember getting in a lot of trouble with the nuns in grade school after doing an homage to George Carlin and The Seven Dirty Words.

One of my favorite Carlin routines is “Stuff.”  Back in the “old days,” most of Carlin’s routines were considered X-Rated.  Now-a-days, I would be surprised with a PG-13 rating.

Thanks for the laughs George. And, I don’t hold it against you for getting me in trouble with Sister Mary Dennis.

Today’s forecast?  Dark.

A recent post on one of my favorite blogs (Dennis’ Diary of Destruction) made me laugh because I, too, have a problem with my dogs and the smoke alarm.

When I lived in Ireland, I was very into blackened everything –blackened chicken, beef, you-name-it. And, I was constantly setting off the smoke alarm in the hallway outside the kitchen. That smoke alarm was hard-wired into a security and fire alarm system, so there was no removing the batteries.

Whenever I got to cooking my latest blackened whatever, it would take only minutes and the smoke alarm would be blasting. Within minutes my phone would be ringing with a call from the control station that monitored the security system. “M’am, is there a problem? Do we need to send out the fire brigade?”, “No, thanks for calling, its just some blackened whatever for dinner, sorry for the inconvenience.” “Ok, m’am, as long as everything is under control.” I can’t tell you how many times I had this conversation over the course of a couple of years. One time, they sent out the fire brigade without calling first, and I was about to sit down to a lovely Cajun spiced/blackened steak when the guys showed up with sirens wailing.

Poor Clover. The smoke alarm would send her into a tizzy and she would head for the backyard to hide behind the shed until dinner was cooked, and the alarm was silenced. Rain, sleet, hail — it didn’t matter what the weather — she wanted OUT and she wanted OUT NOW!

Now, seven years later, whenever I step into the kitchen and put anything on the stove, it could be the kettle for tea, a pot for a poached egg, it doesn’t matter. Clover still comments on my cooking skills by pawing at the back door so she can wait outside until she is assured that I won’t be setting off the smoke alarm. Cosmo is not happy when the alarm goes off either, and insists on joining Clover outside until the coast is clear. The only way I can get them back in the house is by bribery.

The first time I heard about slugging was when I moved to the Northern Virginia area. I was talking with a colleague who asked where I was living, and after commenting about my long commute, he suggested that I might look into slugging. There is a convoluted reason for the name “Slug” and how it came about, having something to do with fake coins (slugs) and annoyed bus drivers thinking everyone in line was a passenger, as the original Slug Lines started at existing bus stops. Fake passengers=Slugs.

Slugging seems to be a Metro DC Area (Northern Virginia, Maryland, D.C.) phenomenon. Slugging started in the 1970’s, during the Arab Oil Embargo and skyrocketing gas costs. There are a lot of HOV lanes (High Occupancy Vehicle) in the area which allow vehicles with a required amount of occupants to use a dedicated lane, moving them out of the “regular” traffic. In theory, HOV lanes move less vehicles faster than cars in regular traffic lanes.

In order to get access to the HOV lanes, people cruised past bus stops asking for passengers going to certain locations in order to fill up the car to meet the HOV requirements. As time went on, people started congregating in certain locations out in the suburbs in the morning for trips into the city, and in the evening for trips home.

Basically, all of this sounds strangely intriguing. When I was a kid, my mom drilled into my brain things like “don’t take candy from a stranger”, and “never get into a car with someone you don’t know.” But, that is exactly what Sluggers do! A car pulls up to a Slug Line and says the location where they are going … perhaps to the “Pentagon” and then the first two or three people in line going to the Pentagon step forward, hop in the car, and away they go. There are mothers around the region shaking their heads and wondering what other things that they taught their children are being ignored.

Sluggers even have their own language. Apparently, Body Snatching is very bad (grabbing a Slugger before they get in the Slug Line), the Caller is extremely important (first person in line calling out the destination of the car so others in line hear), and a Will Call (which is a driver’s choice to pick up a Slugger not at the head of the line .. usually a friend .. and the driver will call out for that Slugger to hop in. It all sounds very complicated, but it seems to work very well. I have worked with people that swear by Slugging.

Now, I imagine myself in a Slug Line …. (insert swirly dream graphic here) …. I get to the front of the line, a car pulls up and its going my way. First, I check out the car. Walk around it and kick the tires to make sure they are road worthy. Then I look over the driver. Does he or she have beady eyes? look shifty? I then ask to see the car’s registration and the driver’s license and insurance card. I take a good whiff to make sure the driver is not a smoker or wearing a sneeze-inducing cologne. I ask to check out the music selection for the next 30 minutes, and make sure that the interior of the vehicle is nice and clean. At some point in my inspection, the driver has loaded other passengers into the car and they’ve left me behind to aimlessly wander the giant parking lot at Ikea asking for change for the bus.

Just think of the savings if Sluggers are also Hypermilers! I am glad there are no organized Slug Lines out my way. That way I can’t feel guilty about not participating. Its just too darn weird for me.

I ran across this “test” recently and thought it would be fun to share. One point for each of these that you remember from your childhood.

Just how old are you?

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped candy with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Coffee shops or diners with table-side juke boxes
5. Party lines
6. Newsreels before the movie
7. P.F. Flyers
8. Butch wax
9. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (COlonial – 6933)
10. Pea Shooters
11. Howdy Doody
12. 45 RPM records
13. S&H Green Stamps
14. Hi-Fi’s
15. Metal ice trays with a lever
16. Mimeograph paper
17. Carbon copies
18. Blue flashbulbs
19. Packards
20. Roller skate keys
21. Cork popguns
22. Drive-ins
23. Studebakers
24. Wash tub wringers
25. Hop Scotch
26. Ring Around the Rosie
27. Hot potato
28. London Bridge
29. Red Rover, Red Rover
30. Red light, Green light
31. Mother May I ?
32. Playing dodge ball and kick ball until the streetlights came on
33. Jump rope
34. You’re IT!!
35. Kick the Can
36. Duck, duck, GOOSE!!!
37. Getting an ice cream from the Good Humor Man
38. Cereal boxes with prizes at the bottom
39. Cracker Jacks with the same thing
40. Parents stood on the porch and whistled or yelled for you to come home
41. No air conditioning
42. Hula Hoops
43. Fat Albert, Tom & Jerry, Pink Panther, Road Runner, Richochet Rabbit, Heckle & Jeckle
44. Schoolhouse Rock
45. Saturday movies for 12 cents with Hop-Along Cassidy
46. Watching Sunday morning oldies (Three Stooges, Abbott & Costello, Tarzan, Shirley Temple OR WONDERAMA!!)
47. Being sent to the principal’s office was nothing compared to what awaited you when you got home
48. A quarter seemed like a fair allowance
49. Kool-Aid was the drink of the summer
50. Any parent could discipline any kid, or feed him, or use him to carry in the groceries…and nobody, not even the kid, thought anything thing of it
51. Almost everyone’s mother was at home when the kids got there
52. A 13″ black and white television in your room meant you were RICH
53. Rainy days at school meant playing “Hangman” or “Heads Up 7-UP” in the classroom
54. “Work” meant doing the dishes or taking out the garbage
55. “Race issues” meant arguing about who could run the fastest
56. Money issues were handled by the kid who was the banker in “monopoly”
57. Being old meant anyone over 20
58. I double-dog-dare you
59. Decisions were made by going “eeny-meeny-miney-mo”
60. Catching fireflies for the whole evening and not getting tired of it
61. Homemade ice cream from a hand cranked ice cream maker
62. Water balloons were the ultimate weapon

And, If you’re REALLY Old:

1. Horses delivering milk
2. Tipping over the outhouse on Halloween
3. Kids missing a lot of school because of rheumatic fever, scarlet fever, pneumonia, mastoiditis (draining ears), polio and a host of other diseases before we had antibiotics
4. Extra, Extra! Read all about it!
5. CCC, PWA, WPA and a bunch of other Federal programs
6. Fireside chats form FDR
7. Tractors with huge iron lugs that would tear up farm roads
8. The steam train coming to town and the race to see if you could beat it, while trying to avoid the black cinders from the smoke that would fall on your Sunday School white shirt
9. The local Civil War vets
10. Memorial Day parades with the WWI veterans marching in their puttees
11. Outdoor silent movies
12. Black face minstrel shows

If you remembered 0-20 = You’re still young
If you remembered 21-40 = You are getting older
If you remembered 41-60 = Don’t tell your age
If you remembered 61-74 = You’re older than dirt!

I saw a news bit on television yesterday about something called “Buy and Bail.” Apparently, folks that bought homes at inflated prices with adjustable rate mortgages in the last couple of years are now buying new, more affordable homes with new fixed-rate mortgages. Once they close on the second house’s mortgage, they quit paying on the original home and let it go into foreclosure. Illegal? I sure hope so.

In reality, none of this surprises me. The money people (banks, credit card companies, mortgage companies, etc.) insist on inviting Clover [Canis lupus familiaris, 49 in dog years, health excellent, no credit/work history] to apply for a credit card, buy life insurance, and refinance her mortgage.

I wonder how much her monthly payments would be on a $1M fixed-fixed rate 30-year mortgage? Two Thousand Dog Bones a Month?

Idiots.

A long time ago, I gave my dad a paperweight made out of green granite and carved on the side it said:

“A Father Is A Banker Provided By God”

Over the years, this proved very true! Dad is long-retired and now the paperweight sits on top of his dresser.

On the left is a picture of my dad when he was young, and without the many gray hairs my sister and I gave him over the years! On the right, sporting his favorite Black Lab T-Shirt (“Take a Hike”) .. on his 80th birthday last year. Lookin’ good, Pops!

Woohoo! Mary (MAM who I think is Mary in Cedar Rapids) got it right! Thanks to everyone that took the chance and made a guess.

It is a Coconut Grater (also used for cabbage, carrots and anything else that needs shredding)!

So, here is June’s Whatzit? Contest Rules:

• Take a guess! and leave a comment here with what you think this strange thing might be.
• If there is more than one winning guess … the first person to speak up is the winner.
• I will post the winner’s name, and notify them by e-mail, and will post the answer to “Whatzit?” on Saturday, June 20 (probably in the afternoon after some yard sales).
• The winner will get the choice of actually owning the “Whatzit?” or I will be happy to put together a nice big box of books (new/used, all genres, paperback and/or hard covers) as the prize.
• I know what it is only because there is a label on the back!
• Here are some hints: its wood and it is about 1.5 inches thick and about 14″ x 8″ in size.
• You can get a close-up of the surface by clicking on the photo below.

Update!

• I will add a few clues over the week, so don’t get discouraged, by Friday evening, someone should figure it out!
• You can guess more than once.

Clue # 1 – It is an import. Country of origin is Honduras

Clue # 2 – It is a kitchen / cooking tool

Whatzit?

I spent the better part of last week at a retirement seminar. Now, I’m not old enough to retire (yet) but decided to take the seminar because I could, and as a way to start planning for the day when I don’t have to go to work any more.

I have learned so much this past week. At one point, I felt like my brain was going to explode. Taxes, Annuities, Working in Retirement, Making a Bucket List, Investing Now for Retirement Later, and the list goes on and on.

So, what did I learn?

(1) I will have enough money to retire when I reach the age of 92;

(2) I really need to start playing the lottery on a regular basis, as that money will be very helpful in my old age;

(3) I cannot list my dogs as “my survivors” on any of my beneficiary forms; and,

(4) talking to us about our health as we age and then making us sit in the most uncomfortable cramped seats ever invented and causing deep vein thrombosis is counter-productive.

I kept more normal hours this past week, and since Clover is so mental about her schedule being changed, both dogs spent the four days at doggie daycare, from 7:00am to 5:00pm. They are so exhausted from all of the activity — almost as tired as my brain from trying to absorb all of the retirement information.

To answer the question, “Is it really worth it?”, I would say yes. I drive a 2005 Ford Escape (non-hybrid). Before I started using some of the hypermiling tactics, I was getting 21 miles per gallon.

Now, after a week of trying to hypermile but not always succeeding, I calculated my mileage at 25 mpg. Ok. Not great, but better.

I wasn’t expecting to get 55 mpg or anything, but after being flipped off, yelled at, and downright insulted by other drivers, I would say yes, but more would have been better if for no other reason to balance out the negatives and the positives.

So all of you drivers that think driving 62 in a 55 mph zone is too slow, I say, “Thanks for being the cop magnet as you zoom past me at 75 or 80.” And, to everyone else slamming the accellerator to go around me and then cutting me off because you think I’m going too slow, “Gee, what is that sucking sound, I hear?” Idiots.

My intention is to keep at it, incorporate additional methods, and try and squeeze some more miles per gallon out of a tank of gas.  Squeeze.  Hmm.  Good word. Kind of like what the oil companies and speculators are doing to all of us.

The weather that came through Northern Virginia and Maryland yesterday afternoon was wild! As I was about ready to get ready for work around 2:30 p.m., Clover jumped up off the floor, looked around and flew up the stairs and headed straight for her closet. Cosmo jumped up on the back of the couch so he could look out the window easily, then came running over to me, barked at me, ran around the living room, up the stairs to the bedroom, barking crazily (totally out of character). It kept getting darker outside and then all of a sudden the wind and the rain, and the thunder and lightning. I could hear tree branches breaking outside, a couple of large branches went flying by the window, and I closed all the shades and unplugged the computer and the television, too.

By the time I got upstairs, Clover was lying on her dog bed in the bath tub (don’t ask), Cosmo was sitting on the floor in the bathroom looking around and woofling. So, I joined them, and we waited the storm out in the bathroom together. I have become accustomed to Clover’s antics when it storms and can pretty much predict her behavior, I even anticipated her discomfort by medicating her earlier in the day. I was pretty shocked by Cosmo’s behavior as he is usually so calm no matter what the circumstances. 

We sat out the worst of the storm, which seemed like forever but was probably only 20 minutes. All the while thinking, my dogs as wacky as they are, are pretty good at predicting the weather. They heard the storm coming, and ran like hell to hide.  Me, too.

Late last November, I took both dogs to the dog park for an hour or two of exercise in the cold crisp weather. It was a gorgeous day even if I was bundled up and looking like the Michelin Tire Man. But in red instead of white.

There was one other lady at the park with her dog. We chatted while the three dogs ran around chasing each other. Cosmo and the other dog (sorry, Nice Lady, can’t remember your name or your dogs). We had been at the park for about 45 minutes when I looked over to see Cosmo on his back in the dirt. He never rolls in the dirt and it was after a few seconds before I realized he was having a seizure.

I ran over to him and got down in the mud to hold him still. His eyes were huge and his tongue was hanging out the side of his mouth which was foaming. His feet were flailing and he was seizing. The Nice Lady kept the other two dogs away from Cosmo and after what seemed like an eternity, he started to come out of it. The twitching stopped and he lay there for a few seconds more. Oh, yeah, did I say that I was kneeling in mud the whole time? The Nice Lady said that she timed the seizure for me (she obviously had some experience with this type of situation), and told me that it lasted just just under 3 minutes.

Oh, yeah, I think I mentioned that I was kneeling in mud, right? Well. Cosmo starts to come around, I’m totally freaked out, and my knee is killing me, and I’m stuck in the mud. Now. If I had been by myself, I would have crawled a couple of feet in the mud to the bench and hoisted my fat ass out of the muck. But Nice Lady, who was probably 1/2 my size and short and a bit older says “Here, lean on me, I’ll help you up.” My knees kept sliding in the mud, Cosmo is pulling me one way, and I’m at face licking level for Clover who thinks I’m the one who needs mouth-to-mouth.

Nice Lady helped me up. I grabbed Clover and Cosmo and headed for the car where I called the Vet’s office and told them I was bringing Cosmo in. Cosmo never had a seizure before, and I don’t know who was more scared, me or him. He was very shaky on the way to the truck, and I had to pick him up to put him in the back seat. It took me 30 minutes to get to the Vet’s office and the whole way there Cosmo looked like he was in a trance.

My vets are really wonderful. They met me in the parking lot and helped Cosmo right into the observation room where he got a catheter, the tech cleaned him up and wiped all the mud off of him (Hey! what about me?) and Clover and I sat in the waiting room for about 10 minutes before the nice doctor came out to tell me that they wanted to keep Coz for observation and they would call me with any updates. “Please, Mrs. (they always call me Mrs. even though I’m not) .. don’t worry, Cosmo will be ok. We’ll call you in a couple of hours.”

I got a call a few hours later that I could come pick Cosmo up. After more than $500 in fees for diagnostics and blood tests and liver tests to make sure he hadn’t been poisoned, the Vet determined, “Hmmm. Not sure what happened, it could have just been a one-time seizure.” Not exactly what you want to hear when you spend that kind of money and your dog has just scared you spitless.

When I went in to pick Cosmo up, the vet gave me a “Seizure Kit.” It contains a vial of Valium, a needle, and a syringe. The instructions were, “If Cosmo has a seizure that lasts longer than 3 minutes … take the needle and put it on the syringe .. stick the needle into the vial of Valium and pull the plunger to put all of the Valium in the syringe. Then take the needle off .. take the syringe and put it in Cosmo’s butt and push the Valium.” The explanation was that the Valium will be absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract quickly and it will calm or stop the seizure. The next step would be to load him into the car and bring him back to the Vets.

When I said to the Vet, “You know, Doc, Cosmo is not going to like me putting anything near his butt”, the Vet looked at me and said “Mrs. M., Cosmo will be seizing and he won’t ever know.” Hmm. Ok. I gave him that one. But, here is another flaw in this Valium thing .. if the dog is drugged into oblivion, just how the heck am I going to lift 70 pounds and carry him to the truck? Doc told me to lay him on a blanket and just tug the blanket all the way to the car and then lift him in. Yeah, right, so the neighbors call the cops and tell them that they just saw me load a dead body rolled in a blanket into the truck?

Here is the plan. I carry the seizure kit with me when we go to the park or on an outing with Cosmo. I understand about the “remove the needle” thing before sticking the syringe in poor Cosmo’s butt. I am currently on the lookout for a nice used wheelbarrow so I can maneuver Cosmo to the truck, that is of course if this happens again.

All the while, planning for the worst and hoping for the best, I can’t help but think, “Hey, what about me? Where’s my Valium?”

I walk my two pups every day unless the weather isn’t cooperating. Clover is too skittish to be walked in the rain if there is a possibility of thunder or lightning, and its just plain not safe. I have been walking them separately just because its easier, and I would get two times the exercise each day.

These two would much rather be at the dog park for an hour or two, but some days I just don’t have the time, and I keep promising myself that we will make at least two trips to the park each week. A couple of years ago when it was just Clover and she was still a very energetic puppy, we would go to the dog park at least 5 or 6 times a week. That was also back when my dog park friends were either single, without child, still married, or hadn’t moved away. I miss those guys and their dogs Daisy, Brady, Ocho, Sophie, and Lexie.

Walking two big dogs together takes a lot of planning. Just getting out the door is a challenge, but they’re getting better at it.  As I try to hold them tight, turn to close the door and lock it, they will sit nicely on the stoop waiting for me to get my act together.

Clover does not like it when Cosmo bumps into her and she will pull left to get away from him. Cosmo just wants to walk and have fun and will move back and forth, left to right. So, I shorten their leashes by wrapping them around my hands, always with Clover on the left and Cosmo on the right … its a no nonsense walk with no pulling. I use a head collar on Cosmo (Halti) to keep him from yanking my arms out of their sockets, my shoulders back looking forward, no tension in my hands/arms (per The Dog Whisperer).

However, as soon as I lengthen the leashes when we are on the way back to the house via the large grassy public area behind our house, its like a three-ring circus. I am just thankful that Coz has quit trying to kill me by tripping me on up on his leash.  He will sometimes get caught up on his leash and will stand still waiting for me to untangle him.  Clover just looks on in disdain.

A couple of months before I started using the Halti on Cosmo, he slipped his collar when we were walking and before I realized it he was running very fast away from me. I almost had a heart attack. When I called his name, he thought I wanted to play, so he started running around in circles and was about to start off for neighborhoods unknown. I remembered something that I had seen on a TV show, and I yelled very loudly something like “whoop whoop whoo” and when he turned around to look at me, I started waving my hands high above my head and kept up with the “whoop whoop whoo.” I definitely caught his attention, and here is the hard part, I turned my back to him and took a couple of steps in the opposite direction from my loose and collarless dog (he is microchipped). I was about to turn around and see if he was still in my zip code, and I felt him at my hand nudging his collar and leash that I had in my hand. I grabbed that dog up, headed home, all the way trying not to hyperventilate.

I worked the recall command with Clover a few times when she was a puppy and it continues to work pretty well. She watches my hands and will come from a far distance just by my using hand signals. Cosmo, on the other hand, thinks everything is a game. He hates the clicker and the whistle, and is pretty head-strong. I still have a lot of work to do with that guy.

I used www.random.org to pick the winner ..

(insert drum roll here)

Congratulations to Susan at Black Eyed Susan’s Kitchen!

Thanks to everyone that came by, checked out my blog, said hello and participated in my first contest!

I am planning another for later in June (this is just too much fun!)

You may have to put on your thinking caps for the next contest which will have a question:

“Just what is that darned thing?”