The best laid plans...

I imagined Friday night sitting down at the computer and titling a post "Let the Blogging Begin!" and then I was going to finish up the half dozen posts I have in draft form waiting to be edited or spell-checked or linked or have a picture added. I thought because Ex-Marine has gone off for his annual hunting trip with his brothers, and I would be alone, that I would have all sorts of free time to blog, blog, blog. Except that alone for me still includes three children, a cat, a dog, and some fish so Ex-Marine being gone isn't really putting much of a dent in my workload. So here it is Saturday night with no blogging happening. What I did do the past twenty-four hours includes laundry (of course), lots of church functions - it's a big weekend at our parish, a childrens' community theater production, and lots of lolling about watching the puppy cam. Oh, and Freecell too - almost forgot my update - I'm at game 999575. Now I am off to bed to wrestle with my puppy who thinks that if the Ex-Marine isn't home, she ought to have his spot in the bed. Puppies sure are a lot cuter at 6 pounds than they are at 56 pounds! Hmm....I guess the same could be said about all the other family members too!

Dog-mestic Violence

I have a secret; I was abused by my puppy. It was a training session gone awry. Our training history is NOT GOOD. We have enrolled in and started dog obedience school TWICE and dropped out both times - shame, shame, shame. It wasn't that she "flunked out" it was really that I flunked - I didn't have the time to practice the things we were taught. You see even though I am not the one who invited this dog to join our family, she is my dog. If I don't have the time to do it, and I don't (insert big whine here about family of five cooking, laundry, cleaning, carpooling, and full time job to boot)then it doesn't get done.

This episode began with me deciding to try to multi-task two things - exercise and dog walking. The grand plan was just to combine them, rather than the leisurely sniff and stroll we usually did each morning, we would pick up the pace and jog. Two birds, one stone, happy dog, happy mama - or so I thought. Out we went and with a deep breath I started to trot down the road. The dog trotted a few steps and we picked up the pace and it seemed to be going well and then - she lunged. The dog just leaped up on me and started biting my forearms. Well because it was 0 dark 30 and kind of chilly, I was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt and a sweatshirt on top of that which meant the bites didn't hurt but I could feel the clamp and this was not a good thing. Lesson one at dog obedience school (which remember we took TWICE so this one is pretty thoroughly ingrained) is to IGNORE bad behavior. You are not to give the dog attention - even negative attention - because it can be reinforcing. I certainly did not want to reinforce my dog lunging up and biting me so I came to a stop and ignored the heck out of her as she repeatedly jumped up on me and tried to bite me. She did settle down and optimist that I am, I tried this again and again and again and then I finally gave up. I snapped her leash onto the nearest stationary object and just ran laps around my circular driveway until I was tired out. We went in, I ate my cereal, I skimmed the Gazette, I fed the kids, I made the lunches, I read blogs, I curled my hair, and then I went to get dressed. I took off that long sleeved t-shirt and in the mirror saw that my forearms from wrist to elbow were black and blue. Oh My Goodness! By that point in the day, the sun was up, it was warm and the uniform of the day around here is a sleeveless blouse but how could I possibly wear that? So I put on a thin but long sleeved shirt and sweated through the day. And every time the cuff inched up a little bit, I was careful to pull it back down. For the first time in my life, I had this glimmer of understanding of why women keep quiet. I've always been one of those, "If my husband ever hit me, I'd be out of there in an instant, how could you ever stay with someone who hurt you?" kind of girls. It's not that I was unsympathetic to women who had endured domestic violence, I just truly couldn't fathom how they could protect the abuser. Well, I have a little idea now. I did everything in my power to hide my bruises. I didn't want to hear from my well meaning friends what a bad dog I had and how something must be done. I love her and she really is a good dog.

That night Ex-Marine and I looked it up on the Internet and saw where when Labrador puppies (and we assume 7 month old lab mix puppies as well) get overexcited, they jump up and bite. So the exercise plan went out the window - it was just too exciting - woohoo! Who wold have thought? I'll give her a few more months to grow up some more and then - well padded - we'll try it again!

Sometimes the laundry makes me laugh.

I am standing at midnight doing laundry, again, now it takes even longer because there is one more step added to my routine. As I remove the underwear from the dryer, I have to inspect it for wearabilty the ol' "If you were in an accident and the paramedics had to strip you down to your underwear, would you be embarassed?" test. More and more often the answer is "Yes, I'd be embarassed, humiliated, absolutely mortified!" And the reason is the puppy. She has a thing for underwear. She loves nothing more than to get a pair of underwear from someone's dirty clothes basket and gnaw and gnaw until she is discovered and the fantastic treat is ripped from her clenched jaw. Abby especially likes underwear that has been worn. The smellier the better. About now, everyone who doesn't own a puppy like this is wrinkling their nose and saying "ewwww". But it's kind of like baby diapers - remember how you could change your baby's diaper all day and night long and it really didn't seem to smell that bad? But then when you babysat the neighbor kid and had to change his diaper, you were choking back the vomit so as not to puke all over the front of his onesie? It's like that. Gross, nasty, disgusting habit if it's NYD (not your dog) but just another funky, sweet, little quirk that makes up your little punkin's personality if it's your baby dog.

Youngest is going through one of those bath resistant stages that little boys go through. The "I don't want to take a bath" whine-fest followed by playing and splashing until the water is ice cold and then whining about having to get out of the bath - it's not a bad stage - I'm fairly immune to whining. So Ex-Marine and I were sending Youngest to the tub the other night and he started the whining routine. Ex-Marine always has the fun filled solution to every problem so in a very serious tone, he suggests, "Youngest, you don't have to take a bath if you can pass the dog sniff test. If the dog can sniff your underwear without going crazy, you must still be clean." So Youngest is tickled silly thinking about this and immediately drops his uniform pants to the floor. Well forget the underwear, the dog went crazy just with the pants. She dove for his ankles, rolled herself into a ball with the pants taking Youngest to the ground in the process. She was nipping and sniffing and licking like a crazed cat with catnip until Youngest finally untangled himself from the pants and ran to the tub and Ex-Marine took the pants away from Abby.

But that story isn't the only one I am remembering as I fold the clothes. My other underwear story makes me chuckle out loud. I was visiting my SIL out of state (Ex-Marine's sister). We, the SIL and I, get along very well. She's a busy mom and a government slave - just like me. We were talking about some family photos we had done. She complimented me on my outfit and I had to tell her that yes, I was pleased with how it turned out becasue that was actually my second choice outfit. I coudn't wear the first blouse I had chosen becasue it is somewhat clingy and requires a proper foundation garment (aka as a Spanx). I didn't find out until the day of the photo session that my Spanx was not wearable because the crotch had been chewed clean through. And then there was silence and she kind of gave me a look. And I gave her a look right back because WTH, sure I'm talking about underwear but it's Spanx, everyone talks about Spanx, they're part of pop culture. Then SIL gets a real prim and proper tone with me and says, "That's really more than I needed to know." And I am totally befuddled until it hits me...I'm telling her a story about Spanx and my puppy. But she's hearing a story about Spanx and. her. BROTHER! And at that point I laughed so hard I peed! Boy, puppy's going to love that pair of underwear when she finds them.

Things labrador puppies like to eat.

1. The vacuum cleaner cord.
2. Water bottles.
3. Paperback books.
4. Paper towel rolls.
5. Kleenexes (preferably used)
6. Pantyliners (ditto)
7. Scooper for the bird seed.
8. The chair I sit on at the computer.
9. The baseboards.
10. The crotch of worn underwear.
11. Lego's.
12. Stuffed animals.
13. Puppy Kong.
14. Shoes, shoes, and more shoes!
15. Shin guards - the sweatier the better.
16. Soccer socks, school socks, any kind of socks.
17. DVDs.
18. The CD I placed by my handbag for just five minutes as I prepared to go to the very important meeting where I needed to show the photo presentation stored on said CD.
19. Homework and notes from the teacher, really.
20. Bath mats.
21. Sticks.
22. Frogs.
23. Table legs.
24. Pens, pencils, markers.
25. Coins.
26. Bills (luckily just a few singles).
27. The USB cord for the digital camera.
28. Bakugan.
29. The headphones for the computer.
30. A little hole in the wall!!!

My psychic connection to my dog.

Now that you know all about darling Abby, let me tell you what happened on her big day - spay day! It started innocuously enough in the parking lot of our little Catholic school. One of the joys of small town life is the incestuous nature of our relationships. So we have a vet. He and his family live in our neighborhood. They're also parishioners at the church. And his kids go to school with mine. And The Youngest was on a baseball team with one of his younger ones. And I'm friends with the wife through a Bible study group. And, in fact, Tween was "going out" with one of his daughters for awhile - as much as you can "go out" when you aren't old enough to drive or allowed to see a PG-13 movie. But they were such a cute couple for such a long time that we took to referring to the vet and his wife as "The Future In-Laws". (The ex-Marine has difficulty remembering names so all our conversations refer to people we know by attributes other than names so calling them the Future In-Laws is not nearly as strange as it first sounds. We are not marrying our children off in their Tween years - that's the Irish Travellers and they are in a whole other part of South Carolina.) But do you get the picture of the amount of overlap in our lives? It's that way with EVERYONE here! It's like Kevin Bacon's six degrees of separation minus a few degrees and including the whole town.

So anyway, when you have such overlapping lives, there's no need to actually drive to the vet office, you just slow down in the car drop off line and exchange dogs and kids and whatever else you need to exchange! So Abby got out of my little Honda, into Dr. Former Future In-Law's bigger Honda and off she went to have her surgery. I did this without a qualm of anxiety because Dr. Former Future In-Law is one of those guys that inspires confidence. I knew he'd take care of my baby. And I didn't worry for the whole morning.

I brought my human perspective to the surgery and assumed that it would take place first thing in the morning. After all, anytime I had to go to the hospital, it happened at the crack of dawn. Induce your baby - be here at 6:00am. Remove a small cyst - at least by 6:45. It seems that surgery is best performed when the surgeon is half asleep - maybe that way he or she doesn't get all grossed out by the blood and guts - too tired to think about it yet.

All morning I am work, work, working and not worrying about my puppy at all. But then it hits me. I am overwhelmed with emotion. I am worried. I am scared. I am thinking what a terrible dog mama I am for not having driven Abby to the vet. What kind of unfeeling monster just tosses her from one car to the other on such a big day? And after I have worked myself up into a complete lather, I decide to call and check on her. The perky receptionist answers the phone and tells me, "Oh she just went into surgery a little while ago. Dr. Former Future In-law is operating on Abby RIGHT NOW (emphasis my own - she was not nearly so dramatic)" Right now? How's that for psychic? I have such a mental connection with my puppy that I felt her pain and anxiety from a whole town away.

I should end the post there and just bask in the loving connection that it illustrates. But there's this little basis for comparison that you have to have to get the full effect. Two of my HUMAN family members have been to the emergency room while I was blithely occupied with other things and ....nothing. Not a hint of a thing until the cell phone rang. Dog = physical response, psychic connection. Humans = oh, well, let me stop and buy some candy but I'm on my way. Uh-oh.

Background on the dog.

At the end of baseball season last year, we acquired a puppy. She was one of a litter of puppies found out at the ball field stuck in a storm drain and near drowning. She was rescued by one of the boys on Tween's team. His family fostered her and they named her "Parker" because she was rescued at the park. She hung out with the team and was such a sweet little thing that we just couldn't resist and home she came to be rechristened "Abigail Mary Parker Blank" - a great Southern Catholic name. More than one middle name: one referencing family history and one referencing a Saint. In this case, the Saint is Mary, because Abigail joined our family in the month of May when we take time to honor our Blessed Mother. And of course like most good Southern names, her full first name will never be used except in anger - on a day to day basis she's just Abby.

Abby is a black lab mixed with something. The something has curly hair and maybe a lighter color because Abby has thick wavy fur and auburn highlights. She has soulful brown eyes and had - past tense - sharp puppy teeth. She has grown from that sweet 10pound baby puppy to a 40+ pound six month old dog. In the process, she lost her baby teeth and now has large but duller adult teeth. Thank goodness! I was looking like a teen girl with cutting issues my arms were so scratched up. And she is not as nippy as she used to be. She started nipping to get attention. As I was laying down on the couch with my arm thrown over my head, she nipped me under the arm. It made quite a bruise what with the tender under arm skin. Somehow, she got me in the exact same place on the other arm so I had a matching pair. Just a few days later, I was in a training at the hospital and they showed us how bruises in that location could be an indication of domestic abuse - being held against your will so firmly that you get bruised under your arms. So between the bruises and the cuts on my arms from puppy bites, I'm lucky the police didn't come to the house to check out the ex-Marine for abusing me!

The first weeks at our house, Abby was up throughout the night as if she was an infant. Just like with all our other babies, ex-Marine could sleep right through the crying barking and I was the one up with her during the night. We bonded. I'd take her out for a peaceful/sometimes scary walk on our pitch black dirt road and then come in and lay together - a sleeping puppy in the crook of my arm. I love my puppy. But I did get tired and little by little she stopped actually going to the bathroom on our late night/early morning wasks and I realized it was time for her to "bark it out". It only took a night or two of ignoring the nighttime barking before she was sleeping through the night. Just like with my other babies, I kind of miss that quiet time alone together but I really truly enjoy a full night's sleep. Probably even more now that I am a wee bit older than when I had my biological children!

So that's all the background you need on the dog just so that tomorrow ( or the next day) I can write this...My psychic connection with my dog.