Saturday 31 March 2012

Little Miss FussBucket

It’s no surprise I live with a Princess, or should I say Court Jester, or to be more accurate a Little Miss FussBucket. She’s got her habits and her fits, her routines and her protests. I actually think she’s given me the ‘off with her head’ look a few times. Yet still I do stupid things just to please her. Well, I realized this week that I’d created an absolutely ridiculous situation for myself. Of course I got there because I was digging myself deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of food, and Chili, in Chili form, took full advantage. It’s just the next chapter in the food saga. I was crossing her over to a mix of new food, but in the meantime was still using up the last of the other food and also mixing in a bit of other food just to get rid of it. Her mealtime consisted of a mix of 4 different foods. It was just temporary. Ultimately the plan was to end up with a mix of just NRG and Nature’s Logic. Yeah, that was the plan.

A few nights ago at about 1am, Chili threw up her whole dinner. Poor girlie. The next morning I wasn’t really sure what she would do, but she ate her food mix as usual so I was relieved. At dinner, she sniffed her food, looked at me, then ate it. Uh oh, I knew what that meant. The next morning at breakfast Little Miss FussBucket staged a full on food protest. She wouldn’t even sniff it. She backed away from the dish and looked at me with those, ‘mother, do something about this or else’ eyes. So, here we are at 6:30am, staring at each other. I don’t really have time for this, but what am I supposed to do. I picked a few pieces of the NRG out of the mix and tried hand feeding it to her. She wouldn’t even look at it. OK, no NRG. So I abandon her mix and start taking fresh kibble from the bags and presenting one at a time to her to see what she’ll eat. She turned her nose up at one, but she ate the other two. For now, crisis averted.

At dinner, since I had more time, the master plan was to again present her with all the options and see what she’d eat. Picture this, Chili standing before me as I put taste test after taste test on a plate in front of her. Even as I’m doing it I’m laughing at myself. What has this dog turned me in to? Surprisingly, she turned her nose up at the NRG again, and the Fromm. Luckily she had no issues eating the Solid Gold and the Nature’s Logic. OK, new plan, mix these two until the Solid Gold is done, then just feed her the new stuff. That’s the plan anyway until Chili decides to change it.

Have you ever stopped to think about some of the ridiculous things that you do either for or because of your dog? Some would shake their head at me and call me crazy, and it kind of is. It’s really laughable, a lot of laughs that I wouldn’t have had if there was no Chili. If you have a dog, think about how many times in a day you were just going through the motions then suddenly looked up at a big or little goofball doing something stupid, and just smiled or started to laugh? I know for me, it’s countless. Put it all together and that’s a whole lot of happiness and laughs in my life just because I have a dog.

Yes, although my dog can be costly, can be frustrating, and makes me go damn near out of my mind sometimes, she’s also the best girl in world. Don’t you love how the mere presence of a dog completes things?

Saturday 24 March 2012

Crazy Routines

I find it funny just how routine dogs can be. There’s a ritual to almost everything. It’s like they’re superstitious or something. You can almost hear them thinking, “If I don’t twirl 3 or 4 times before I pee or poo, the boogie beast will bite me in the bum.” They don’t just have plain routines, some of the routines are site specific, or time specific. I wonder sometimes, what exactly is going through Chili’s head. Actually, I don’t think I want to know.

The Flip Flop: After breakfast every morning, Chili goes into the bedroom and flip flops her body all around the floor. We can hear the thumping and the growls as she’s flinging herself from side to side, rubbing her dirty body all over the carpet.

Stick to the Left: Chili is fanatical about being on the extreme left of the stairs when she’s going up or down. If you’re on the stairs and she’s coming up or down behind you and you move to the left to give her room, she’ll bulldoze her body between you and the wall or railing to ensure that she is still on the extreme left as she walks up or down the stairs.

After Daycare Treat: This one is time specific. Five days a week, when Chili comes home from daycare, she gets her paws cleaned, then once she’s given the OK, she boots it up to her crate to get the treats that are waiting for her. What I find interesting about this one is that she knows the treats are only there when she comes home from daycare. She doesn’t even go check it out any other time when we’ve been out, only when she comes home from daycare. Somehow, she knows.

Me First: There’s just something about heading up and down the stairs (what is it with stairs) that makes Chili barge her way by and make sure she gets there, wherever there is, first. If you’re coming up fast behind her, she’ll pick up speed to be sure she gets to her destination first. She can’t be beat.

Scratch My Ass: Exactly when did we turn into ass scratchers? I don’t know, but it’s happened. One of us will call Chili over to give her some lovin but just as she gets to us, she whips her back end around, backs up and throws a look over her shoulder, “Scratch It, come on, scratch it!” Well, she’s cute no matter what she does, but sometimes I’d just rather have the cute end as opposed to the stinky end. Actually, both ends are kind of stinky, let’s just say I’d rather scratch her head and ears sometimes instead of her behind. Oh well, she happy.

Psycho Beast: My least favourite of the routines, one that I’m constantly trying to change, and this one is place specific. When Chili is in the truck and a dog walks by, she goes a little psycho, but only sometimes. For example, if she’s in the truck at the daycare parking lot and another dog is walking through the parking lot, no problem. She’ll just watch them walk by and wag her tail. However, if the dog is walking down the road in front of the daycare parking lot, she lunges at the windows and acts like a psycho beast. There are certain places where we park that dogs can walk by no problem, then there are others where she just can’t take it.

Yes, all dogs have their quirky routines for whatever superstitious or crazy reason. For the most part their routines just make us laugh and shake our head, then there is the odd one that we’d love to change. What are your dogs routines?

Sunday 11 March 2012

Chili Fuel Change

We were a couple of weeks in to the new food when I saw the inevitable signs of a protest to come. I would put the dish down and Chili would give it a sniff, look at me, sniff the food again, then reluctantly eat it. I recognized this pattern. I’ve seen it twice before. It’s her way of telling me she’s not impressed with this food and I better do something about it before she stages a full on protest. Well, she decided not to wait. A couple of days after, she refused to eat it. I had to mix it with an old food of hers just so she would eat. She still wasn’t impressed but she did eat it. I could see her trying to sift through the food to pick out the good stuff. I knew my time was limited because I’ll only get away with this for a few days before she makes me start hand feeding her. All I needed was for her to last until the weekend so I could go back to Your Pet Pals to find something else.

I don’t live by the ‘if you don’t eat it, then starve’ mantra, when it comes to Chili. She’s at daycare all day and with her high energy lifestyle, I want her fueled up. She doesn’t have the option to run up to the girls in the middle of the day and say, “Hey, I’m really hungry, can you give me a bite to eat?” It shouldn’t be their responsibility to manage it anyway, it’s mine. I need to send her to daycare with success in mind. Sending her hungry, well, unless I’m doing it for a health reason, just isn’t right.

I always seem to forget that Your Pet Pals opens at noon on Sundays so I end up sitting in the parking lot for a while. For how often I’ve been there in the past few months you’d think I’d clue in, but I don’t. Luckily Lori saw me and waved me into the store. I knew we were at that point where I had to do something different, even if I didn’t really like it, or to be more accurate even if I didn’t like the potential cost. It’s time be creative.

I sincerely believe that Lori and her staff are motivated by their love of animals. I’ve never felt like I’m just being sold a bag of dog food. They’ve been extremely helpful and patient through our whole food search. Between Chili being a fussy girl, and then having to find a food that won’t bring on a bout of pancreatitis, it’s not been easy. I was starting to feel guilty about how often I was going in and bugging them, but as usual, once I get there, I’m greeted with a big smile and hello and they start quizzing me about Chili. I wasn’t alone in this, they were there to help me and it felt good to have people who were knowledgeable about dog food and nutrition on our side.

As I said, I knew I wouldn’t be just walking out of there with another brand of kibble. You can only do the same thing over and over again for so long before you realize that change is needed to make a difference. Lori suggested I try a mix of kibble and NRG which is dehydrated whole food. To say I was jumping on board right away would be a lie. I was hesitant and not because I didn’t agree with her, only because I didn’t like the costs involved. However, if I’m mixing it with a well-made kibble brand that would help stretch it out and make the cost easier to manage. It would also increase the nutritional quality of Chili’s meals. So that was it, we’ll see how this goes and maybe get lucky.

I sometimes shake my head at the things I do for this dog who seems hell bent on spending all my money. How is it that a stray has become such a bratty princess? Maybe in another life she was a princess. Hmmm, knowing Chili I imagine her more as the court jester.

Saturday 3 March 2012

Black Dog Beautiful

Black Dog Syndrome, a sad but true phenomenon. It’s said that black dogs don’t get adopted because some people consider them to be bad luck, too common, and they don’t seem to photograph well. Is this how people are picking their companions? I guess so because apparently more black dogs are euthanized than any other colour. We miss out on some of the best things in life based on choosing with our eyes, but, we all know, looks can be deceiving. We’ve all experienced what it’s like to choose the wrong human companion based on their looks. Luckily when we end the relationship you both move on to find your next love. Although it’s difficult, we have a choice in how we move forward. For an animal, there is none. There are times when an animal just comes into our lives, and there are times when we are actively seeking one. If we could just take the time to see the beautiful in every dog and have the patience to wait until that moment hits us where the true inner dog catches our attention. There are never any guarantees, but they all deserve a chance.

Here is an example of falling for a dog based on feel and not look. We were at the dog park one day and Chili was off playing in the muck when I felt a dog at my side. I didn’t look at it right away, I just put my hand around its head and started rubbing it. I felt an immediate connection with this dog. When I looked down, to my surprise, it was a Doberman. To be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of Dobermans. I guess I just always felt they were a little aloof and sketchy. For an instant, I had a short dream about taking her home and adding her to our family. That’s the impact she made on me. Every time she came close to me I couldn’t believe her beautiful energy. When her owner arrived I kept telling him over and over again, how wonderful she was. Thankfully, you could see how much he loved her. I was glad. So, there you go. I fell for her on first touch, not first sight, and she was a type of dog that in my mind at least, I didn’t think I liked. Lesson learned.

I’ve been lucky in my life to have shared time with two very different black dogs. First, there was Ruby, the reason I became a dog lover. She loved our little world, and didn’t care much for anything outside of it. If you weren’t petting her, you had no reason to be touching her. She would give you a dirty look, grunt, then move away. She shed like crazy and would wake us up in the middle of the night from her farts. We would have to hide under the covers. She would put up with my forced hugs and always looked at Brad with love in her eyes. She was the most beautiful girl in the world for us and I couldn’t imagine life without her. Then suddenly, life was without her. We still miss her.

This opened the door for Chili, the trickster with a love for life and everything in it. She wants everyone to touch her and believes everyone wants her to touch them, and she’s touched many. If you’ve been reading my posts, you already know about her, and you would already know that she chose us. She knew a good thing when she saw it. She knew right from the start, these two will put up with my tricks and give me the life I deserve. Imagine what would have happened if we looked her over because she was black. Chili seems to be my ‘meant to be dog’ in the way that Ruby was Brads. I know you’ve heard it before, but this beast has taught me a lot and pushed me to be stronger. We started out wanting a big, cool Newfie, or an impressive Great Dane, then at some point, we just stopped looking and started feeling. How lucky for us.