Impulse control and interpretation

I am not mature enough to be a parent. Apologies in advance, SharkBean.

Evidence A:

When I go to the pet store to restock on dog food, I always check for new and enriching toys for the dogs. Chances are good that a couple of toys usually make their way into my cart, and since the dogs have gotten a little less destructive in the last couple of years, let's just say they have a good selection of toys.

Nylabone has recently come out with DINOSAUR SHAPED DENTAL TOYS. Part of me imagines that the creative minds over at Nylabone sit around plotting about how to get *me* to buy more dog toys, and boy, did they get my number. I am powerless against cool dog toys.

These are especially fun if you growl while you chew on them. Or so I'm told.

There were three different dino-chew toys at Pet Food Express, and with AMAZING restraint, I managed to only buy two: a T-Rex and a stegosaurus. I have tried to use the chew toys as a learning tool, telling the dogs about the dinosaurs, but they remain unimpressed.

Niki has been monopolizing the (now headless) T-rex, and as I write, Elphie is grunting and gnawing away on the stegosaurus. It's really, really funny to watch. (I would record it, but she would notice and stop as soon as the camera/phone comes out.)

"Cute" has a lot of value in our house, evidently.

Evidence B:

Andrew and I went for an appointment for SharkBean (a regular checkup) a couple of weeks ago. On the wall of the room, there is a "helpful" poster with weekly developmental milestones, and some of them had pictures of what the developing baby looks like.

15 weeks (where I am right now) looks like Golum. I am a terrible person for saying it, but that is exactly what the depiction looks like. The eyes on the poster, though closed, also seemed to follow me around the room. It was pretty creepy.

"Hello, Mother."

(That's the closest I could find online that wasn't icky.)

I pointed it out to Andrew, who responded that at 15 weeks, we'll just have to call SharkBean "My preciousssssss".

The worst mother EVER

Yesterday was a hard day for Elphie. Without going into too much detail, Elphie had been exhibiting some behavior that necessitated going to The Vet. While historically The Vet hasn't been a stressful place to go (since the first couple of visits), her last trip was to the Emergency Vet. That was pretty gnarly.

Add to that, our favorite vet ever has moved to London. As with any medical/patient situation, the doctor has a relationship with the patient. In the case of our seriously abused little dog, rapport is important, as is the idea of their growth and development. (Elphie still is a little twitchy around strangers, but she's made some exponential growth, developmentally.)

The prognosis was that Elphie needed to be sedated so that they could flush out the afflicted area. Since she doesn't know the new vet, she was not about to let Dr. A administer ANYTHING. Add to that, Elphie isn't treat motivated, and is wicked smart. So, we decided to give her a sedative first (which doesn't require hunting for a vein, then injecting, which is a time-consuming venture), let her calm down, then I would restrain her, again, to get the sedative shot into the vein.

Elphie makes TERRIBLE noises when she's scared. It's totally heartbreaking. Here I was, doing my best as her advocate/parent/owner, and she doesn't understand why I'm letting strangers (potentially) hurt her. The look she gave me said, "Et tu, Mama?"

She wasn't hurt by any of this, physically. This is important to know. They gave her the sedative, and in seconds she just went limp. I don't think I've been that upset in ages, watching her very lively, active body just. Go. Limp. I had a bad feeling, but I've always gotten good care at the practice, and was ready to wait in the lobby for her to wake up.

(Usually they send owners home, wait for the dogs to totally come to, then send them home. Since Elphie still hasn't gotten over her fear of being in a crate/kennel, we decided- we being the vet and me- that once she was alert enough to lift her head, I'd take her home and keep an eye on her.)

So, I sat and read. While she was under, one of the seasoned vet techs asked me if I wanted them to run her heartworm test- which they hadn't been able to do at her first couple of appointments, three years ago. I was thrilled that she remembered, and approved the test. Elphie got the full "spa treatment" (tooth brushing, nail clipping), all while she slept.

I waited a little over an hour, and the vet tech let me know that she was starting to wake up. We loaded her up in the car, and headed home. When we pulled up to the house, Elphie was awake enough to not want ANY of my help or attention, but I carried her in the house, and set her down on the rug. Then, I cried for a little while. Partly because I was exhausted and hungry, partly because I felt like the Worst Mother Ever.

It's those things that need to be done- vaccinations, doctor's appointments, whatever, that human children say things to their parents like, "I hate you" or "Why are you letting them hurt me?" or whatever. One cannot explain the necessity of these things to a dog. Believe me, I tried.

I SWEAR- for the rest of the day, Elphie was snuggling anybody BUT me. (Fortunately, Niki had no qualms about snuggling me.) After some breakfast, a nap, and a mandatory cup of coffee, I felt better, physically. Mom assured me that I am not the Worst Mother Ever, and told me one of her Worst Mother Ever stories.

Colleen came and sat with the dogs while we went to see Flower Drum Song, partly because I'm neurotic, but mostly because if something went wrong, Colleen would know what to do, and the dogs trust her implicitly. By the time we got home - around 11 PM - Elphie had forgiven me.

By this morning, she was bouncing around on our bed, making me feel like yesterday was definitely over, and today is a new day.

Just like that.

Hey! Elphie likes it!

I have odd dogs. They're selectively odd, so it keeps things interesting, but I find myself constantly surprised at some of the things they do. Especially Elphie.

Mom brought me some grape tomatoes. For the last three weeks, I've been obsessed with eating tomatoes with salt and lemon juice. When I was putting away the extra grape tomatoes, one escaped, which Elphie promptly hunted.

Since grape tomatoes won't hurt a dog, I figured I'd let her play with it. Since neither of the dogs has ever been interested in eating veggies, I assumed that she'd play with it a bit, get bored, and move on.

Nope.

She pushed it around the living room with her nose, stabilized it with her paws, and began to gnaw. A few minutes later, all that was left of the tomato was the skin. All of it. She'd managed to eat everything but the skin, which seemed deliberately left behind. Weird, right?

Speaking of critters that eat weird stuff, here's a video of my friend Tanya's kitten, Chani, eating everything:

In the event of turbulence, please fasten your safety belts

Friday night, Mom and I attended Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s production of “Bach at Leipzig”. I’ll be writing up my review of it (hopefully) tomorrow. I finished the pair of Cascade Heritage socks during the show, which is awesome.

We drove home, and I stayed up later than usual spinning away. When I finally started heading to bed at 2 AM, I noticed that Elphie was having some muscle tremors. They started in her torso, and moved up to her face.

I looked in the dog health book, and among the possibilities were a toxin. So, I called the ER vet, and took Elphie in. To her great discomfort, they did a very thorough check, and assured me that it was very unlikely that she had encountered a toxin.

(Toxins result in seizures, not tremors, per the ER vet. Elphie wasn’t seizing. Thank God.)

The ER vet gave me a list of options, including leaving her there for observation and/or having them administer some activated charcoal in the event that she had ingested something nasty. One of the possible causes of the tremors was anxiety, and given that I changed my routine three consecutive nights, it’s the obvious one, in retrospect.

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know that Elphie is my formerly abused dog. It has taken us a lot of time to get her to the point where she’s functioning like a (mostly) normal dog. Part of this has been through routine, and the ER vet is the exact opposite of routine.

I was worried that Elphie would stress herself into a heart attack, so I said, “Thanks, but I can observe her at home, where she’ll be less anxious. And I’ll be happy to administer the activated charcoal myself.”

The ER vet, not knowing my prowess with medicating my dogs, made sure that I was adequately prepared, sent me home with a GIANT syringe full of activated charcoal. Elphie is a 30 lb dog, and the syringe looked like enough activated charcoal for ME, a 130 lb woman.

When we got home (at 5:30 AM), we sat and snuggled (with Niki, who was NOT amused that he was left home with Mom, who is a champ for coming over at 2 AM and sitting with him). Then, I gave Elphie the activated charcoal, which she took beautifully.

The stuff has a syrupy consistency, and looks like black oil. Per the ER vet, it also stains flooring, so I put down a “dog towel” (a really old, ratty towel, specifically kept for dog purposes), and got about 98% of it into her without much fuss.

The remaining 2% (all over the towel) looks like I used it to take apart and rebuild my engine on it.

At this point, we’re well into Saturday, so I go to bed, and don’t get up until 12:30. Donna and the Minions were headed over, so, I brushed my teeth and hopped in the shower. As I got out of the shower, Donna arrived.

I had a terrific (and much needed) session with her- where she noticed that I’ve been working out. There’s nothing like someone noticing that you’re toning up.

The Minions were champs, we had a great time, and during the course of the evening, Andrew’s first flight was delayed like three times- which meant he totally missed his connecting flight out of JFK and had to fly out the next morning.

Again, if you only know me in the internet world, Andrew has been in Maine since late April. He’s officially back and home forever, but I thought discretion was safer when it comes to out-of-town spousal units. I mean, really! If y’all knew my stash was ONLY being guarded by Niki and Elphie, you might know how to get past my wily guard dogs. Andrew is harder to distract.

In any case, Andrew was tired and just. Wanted. To. Come. Home. As someone who spent the same amount of time working out of state, I would have sobbed in the airport, and possibly thrown a temper tantrum if they had told me I was coming home one single minute later. Props to Andrew for NOT tantrum-ing.

So, again, I stayed up until Very Late spinning on my Tour de Fleece project (which is now only 4 oz away from having the spinning finished) on the new, nameless, Saxony wheel, and promptly slept in until Andrew’s plane was nearly landed.

I dressed up (in one of the new dresses that was ordered and fits), got my makeup on, and went to collect him from the airport. The poor guy was so tired and relieved to be home that he got teary. (In a manly way, of course.)

We went out to get some much-craved Mexican food, stopped at Purlescence (to swap the Heritage sock out for another half-finished pair- the new one there is in Regia Silk, color 0190), and went home to watch Shark Attack and nap.

Despite the fact that we did very little, we’re still exhausted.

Oh, and my shelving should be arriving today. Good timing, huh?

Elphie vs. Knitting (and FO)

I love my dogs. I do. My dogs love me. Elphie doesn't love my knitting. So for your reading enjoyment, some inner dog psychology.

**DISCLAIMER: I'm not a psychologist, dog or otherwise. Just an ass-kicking knitter.

The Time: Lunch, M-W, F.
The Place: The Blue Ikea Couch.

I come home. I eat my lunch, I sit down on the couch to relax a bit. Elphie and Niki usually join me for about two seconds. So, I pull out my knitting to help me decompress before I head back to work. Elphie has decided at this point that she is done with me, and is now eating, playing with a toy, humping Niki, whatever. I pick up my knitting.

BOOM! Elphie is on my lap, on top of my knitting. Doing her little mock-kitten roll, so I scratch her tummy and DO NOT knit. If I transgress so much as to try and knit with her on my lap she will push my knitting away with her nose, saying to me, "Noooo... you should be petting me, and telling me I'm a good dog. Knitting is for other places."

Who can resist that kind of love? Not me, I'm weak.

FO! Socks!
To continue my mad crazy finishing spree, I have finished my 6th item this month (socks), and I really will post pictures of at least the ribbon top. If I'm not lazy.

I'm also living up to my promise, and knitting Joey's socks. Cast them on last night, woo!

Other stuff:
Lots going on, not for blogging, ask me later. Or ask Billy, or Paul, or David. Or Kai, once I e-mail him. If you haven't assessed what it could be about (there is a common link between these guys. Think about it.) ask me.

Front-loading versus top loading washers

Since we're moving into a new house, even though we got the washer/dryer with it, I want to get a new one. Now, for most people a washer is a washer is a washer. Not so; knitting my own sweaters (that are handwash only), I need a few more options. It's especially convenient because when I finish pieces for other people, then often require washing and blocking.

So, Andrew and I looked at washers and dryers and found some rather interesting information. Front loading washers last as long as dryers.

Which brings me to this observation: Have you noticed that houses tend to have new-ish washers and ancient dryers? My parents still have the original dryer that came with the house that we moved into in 1988. Who knows how old the thing is (although, it is 60's green).

More later, the puppy moves in June 12th. We're thinking Lucy for the name.

Puppy!

This is the puppy, for your enjoyment. Any and all suggestions on names would be appreciated.