You know how some animals have this compulsion to eat certain items? Growing up we had a dog that would raid the bathroom garbage looking for leftover girly waste. With 3 women in the house it was pretty much disgusting all the time. One of our cats has a compulsion to lick the butter. That’s particularly gross since our countertops are black and the cat litter is rather dusty leaving a little trail of paw prints every morning.
Busy also has a flavor for the unusual. Besides the kitty roca she lurves her some toilet paper. The first day we left her alone for any length of time we came home to a giant mess of TP all over her bed. That first day it was funny. The second time it was less funny and then we figured out that we should probably shut the bathroom door. Our toilet paper holder is such that she can pull the whole roll off.
We have all become rather diligent about keeping the bathroom door shut because frankly, TP ain’t cheap and she makes an almighty mess. Of course she’s been known to snatch a roll while the boy is taking a shower and the trusty husband is sitting right there.
The other day she was being rather quiet and I went to check on her. Sho nuff, she’d snatched another roll. Now I was only through my morning coffee, but I could swear that both bathroom doors were shut. I checked, they were. Where the hell did she get a roll of TP? Um yeah, off of the kitchen table. I had an allergy issue the other day and was out of kleenex so I was carrying around a roll of TP. It was in the middle of the table and the dog is now tall enough that if she puts her front feet up on the table she can pretty much snatch anything she wants.
She’s going to be one big girl.
Last weekend we were able to get out and enjoy the sunny weather. We took Busy for a walk at Chambers Bay and the sun was just starting to set (at all of 3:30 in the afternoon). By the time we got to the half way point of our 2 1/2 mile walk we stopped and I snapped a few photos of Busy. Thought I’d share my pretty girl with you.
Life with a gigantic puppy is going along rather well. She now sleeps in her kennel all night long with little troubles and no accidents. The last straw to the kennel training was the 6 nights in a row waking up to let her out at 2 a.m. and finding poop everywhere or letting her out at 2 a.m. for her to not really do anything then come back into the house, let us get almost asleep and then having her come back in our room to indicate that she had indeed pooped all over the house. Kennel training was like ripping off a bandaid. We threw her in there (with a few toys and a blanket) shut the kennel door, shut the family room door and ignored her. The first night I got up and put her out at 3 a.m., but after that she’s gone the whole night without much of a fuss. Now she still has a tendency to pee on the boy’s carpet. The dog is basically not allowed anywhere near carpet anymore.
One cat has pretty much adjusted to the dog. The other cat can’t leave well enough alone and the dog has yet to learn. If Busy comes within 10 feet of Julius (aka dumb) he growls at the dog. No amount of growling, claws out swatting or cat dying screeching will deter this dog or the cat. The cat is now taking his frustrations out on us and scratched the trusty husband this evening. He is old and we are cutting him major slack, but if he does it again I’m throwing him out in the rain. That’ll learn em.
The boy-dog relationship is also improving, but there is still the cycle of hyper and screeching that drives me batshit crazy.
And now I’ve gone from the crazy cat lady to the crazy dog lady. Hey, I was just here to show you photos. YOU’RE the one that kept reading.
Busy is and will be a blessing to our family. In time she will teach the child about patience and problem solving skills. She is very active and needs to be walked every day so she’ll be a great source of exercise for both me and the trusty husband. However, she came at a horrible time. We are trying to ignore that part and look at the good stuff, but this morning I locked myself in my bedroom to cry for a little while.
On the annoying scale the child has far surpassed the dog. Because of his sensory issues (mainly the smelling thing) he almost always refuses to touch the dog. He absolutely refuses to touch her when any food is involved. She wants to smell what he is eating too and tries to get up on the chair or couch when he’s eating. He refuses to push her away which results in the most annoying sound in the world, my child yelling over and over and over and over again, “BUSY NOOOO.” He repeats every command we give her. Busy out, Busy leave it, Busy no, Busy off. When we tell him to stop his response is, “weeeell, I’m the one in charge of the dog.” Fine child, if you are in charge of the dog you can go into the yard and clean up the poop that you keep walking in and then tracking into the house. I swear there is stealth poop out there.
The good news is the dog is about 97% potty trained. We still have to get up in the wee hours of the morning to let her out and then she thinks that it’s time to play. We have not gotten her kennel trained yet (at all). She still harasses the cats. The cats fall just below the child on the annoying scale. The old stupid one growls at the dog if she comes within 10 feet of her. The only person not annoying in the house is the trusty husband. Although he’s been studying for a test so he hasn’t had time to be annoying.
To top all of this off I’m quite sick. As in my sinuses are filled with nasty green stuff, I occasionally hack up a lung and I feel like I’m going to throw up all of the time. I really just want to lay on the couch and sleep, but I have to get up every 2 seconds to spray a cat, dog or child with the spray bottle. I need a super soaker that reaches further so I don’t have to get up.
This all may sound like one big giant bitch and moan, but I want to assure everyone (read: my MIL who bought me the dog) that it is mostly about me being sick. I do really well with the juvenile factor of my house when I’m feeling good. This is the second time this month that I’ve been sick and it is totally because of stress and lack of sleep. The smart thing to do would be to lay around for a while and rest. 4 days before Christmas yeah, wight. I have 2 projects to finish and a little bit of Christmas shopping to do, not to mention 4 gifts to make. Merry effing Christmas.
At 5:00 last night the postman knocked on my door and said, “are there really 70 there?” Yes. It would have been more, but I have a few deliveries and some people did deliveries for me. 78 orders in all. 396 individual boxes of candy. 2299 truffles and 2510 caramels. I would give you the financial figures, but that requires some math and additional clicking of things and I just haven’t had enough coffee for that yet.
What worked: the awesome help of my volunteers, the use of St. Mark Lutheran’s kitchen, a well planned out strategy.
What didn’t work: a fewer number of helpers on boxing day. It wasn’t that it didn’t get done. It’s just that I was working until 9:00 that night putting on labels. I appreciate the help of the ladies I did have that day.
What I would do differently: not get an 8 week old puppy during chocolate season. Especially one that has a serious case of worms requiring me to stop what I’m doing and take her to the vet.
Don’t get my wrong. I luuurves me my dog. She is too damn cute not to love. If I had my choice I would not have gotten a dog at this particular time. However, she was the last one available, the breed of dog we wanted (only with some added Mastiff) and an all around awesome dog. She’s just well… Busy.
The update on her though is that she weighs in at a little over 19 pounds (the size of the boy when we brought him home from Russia). She is 9 1/2 weeks old. She is going to be one big girl. The trusty husband, the vet tech and the vet were taking bets on how big she’s going to get. Derek says 65 pounds. The rest of us are thinking well over 80. That’s ok. We love her no matter what.
Now that chocolate season is done I actually have less free time than when I did during chocolate season. I have all of the work that I put off during those two weeks to finish, cookies to make, Christmas shopping to finish, a few remaining presents need to be made and finish potty training said 9 1/2 week old puppy.
The first two weeks of December are the single most busy weeks in my life. This year was especially busy because of the shear number of chocolates and caramels I had to make (1882 truffles and 2088 caramels to be exact). So far I’ve done 1941 truffles and 1804 caramels. I still have 216 truffles to make. And now you are wondering what public school I went to for that math. Extras people, extras. I have to have some kind of reward for doing all of this.
I will say that I could not have gotten as far as I have without the numerous volunteers that have helped so far. Last Saturday I had about 8 volunteers that did at least 4 days worth of work. The past 3 days I’ve had my girlfriend, Raissa, her to help. We’ve taken turns cooking dinner and it has worked out great. I have help tonight (none on Friday *hint*hint*) and a crew of people coming on Monday. I will get this done.
So with all of that work, I certainly did not expect to have other life things piled on top of it. Things like a puppy. Add to that a 5 year old and well… he’s 5. Enough said. Then he’s the 5 year old with some tactile issues (read: doesn’t like to touch the dog) and well… I need a little Prozac. Mom, can you hook me up?
Other than one “minor” incident yesterday when the dog decided it would be fun to crap allll over my bedroom carpet it hasn’t been terrible. It would be nice if we could get her to sleep in her crate at night, but she cries and wakes everyone up. She sleeps in there, but if we close the door it is like torture. Instead, the cats sleep with us (nothing new), dog sleeps in the crate and comes down to our bedroom to wake us up to go potty. We made it through the night last night without an accident. WooHoo! Of course this morning the cats both decided to simultaneously puke. One eats the Christmas tree and the other, he’s just a world class puker to begin with.
We are finally getting a rhythm around her. It includes closing the doors to every room of the house. It’s just better that way. The cats are also adjusting to the change. There is less hissing and scratching and they are not hiding in the bedroom anymore. I guess this is a good sign.
