Eviction of the Fluffeh Bunnehs

Karma is coming to get me. But before it does, thanks to CaneWife of Three Pugs and a Baby for inspiring the title.

A few nights ago I evicted five juvenile rabbits from their nest. In my defense it was a foot from Felix's sandbox. They are known carriers of parasites, disease and deer ticks. They are an obvious threat to my burgeoning vegetable garden.

Their huge damp eyes and shivering paws as they ran off to recolonize under our shed will haunt me at least until tomorrow.

There's been neither hide nor hair (hare?) of their mother, nor had we seen them before the night in question, despite their close proximity to a regular backyard haunt, which led me to wonder if she's merely done rearing them, or if something nefarious happened to her. Either way, I had Mark shoo them from the area, and we pulled apart the nest with a stick. They headed for under our shed, but I figured they'd eventually head under the fence for the big, bad woods and marshland behind our neighbors house.

Lo, not three hours later, there they all are, huddled along the fence near the now demolished nest. I am picturing myself with a construction order, a hard hat, and a wrecking ball while the bunnies cower and weep at my cruelty. I am seriously doubting my earlier eviction notice. I scatter them, gently nudging them with a leafy branch, until they head for the safety of under the shed.

Next morning, three of them have returned. They are healthy, cheeky, and no longer frightened of me. I have visions of Watership Down. I feel awful, but mostly? Still afraid of deer ticks and parasites. Sigh. So, I upped the ante. I sicced my dogs on them.

Oh, don't get all horrified. Have you met my dogs? Their natural enemy is their own bed. Dangerous predators they are not. They made a big show of barking and chasing, but all three bunnies left the property alive and relatively unharmed.

I say relatively because if bunnies have pride, theirs is shattered. They ought to send me their bunny therapy bills. One decided the best route to safety was through the spokes of Felix's tricycle wheel. Maurice caught it trying to squeeze through, and nipped at it's tail. It ran off with tail intact. No harm, no foul. Amelie got as far as getting her mouth (her soft, gentle, Golden Retriever mouth) around a bunny. It squeaked (for those who don't know, rabbits scream when they're hurt, so I was largely unconcerned), and she jumped like she'd been stung. I called them off, and inspected the victim. It was breathing and unmarked, but still.

I said very softly, "It's okay, but you should go now."

Then, as if the little guy heard me, he rolled back onto his feet, shook himself (yuck! dog drool!), and hopped, as nonchalantly as possible, to the gap in the fence, where he squeezed under and was never seen again.

Screaming Breakfast Pug

A recent chat on Twitter revealed that our Maurice is not the only Pug who screams.

Seriously. He screams. Like he's being stabbed.

We're treated to this twice a day when it's feeding time, and then anytime we're riding in the car and we arrive. He screams to get out of the car.

It gets me a lot of funny looks at the dog park.
What does that woman do to her dog. Sheeesh. Someone call animal control...

Well, I shot a little home video of this morning's shrieking. It's definitely not the worst he's ever been, but it certainly gives you an idea.



Disclaimer: No pugs are ever harmed, stabbed, starved, or cattle prodded for the Internets benefit. Not that we don't occasionally think about it...

Dog Beds: My Own Personal Brand of Insanity, Part II

The new bed lasted eight days.

Eight. Days.

They got mad at me for leaving them home after putting on my rain boots (which they associate with the muddy dog park--though that was not where I went on that occasion), and they shredded the zipper, leaving the batting exposed, vulnerable to further tomfoolery.

They're sleeping peacefully on it as we speak. The exposed, unzipped bits have been sprayed liberally with Grannick's Bitter Apple. It's holding, for now.

So be it.

Dog Beds: My Own Personal Brand of Insanity

I grew up with dogs, always in pairs. My parents had two dogs before they had kids. Golden retrievers dominated my childhood, though my Mom had an Irish Setter while I was in high school and college, and now they have a Golden and a mixed breed shelter dog. So, you know, big dogs. With hair. And licking. And all the other stuff dogs do.

I lived in apartments until Mark and I bought the house five years ago. The bottom line? No dogs. I pined for a dog. I missed my dogs. I romanticized my parents' dogs. I conveniently forgot the pooping, peeing, vomiting, snoring, shedding, and veterinary care in my fantasy of dog ownership.

Don't get me wrong, I knew about all this stuff - first hand. I just chose not to remember it.

I wanted a Golden Retriever so badly I could smell it's chicken soupy head. Mark wanted a Pug. A Pug. Big man, little dog. Ohhhkaaaaay...

Mark and I bought the house, got married, honeymooned in Hawaii, and spent our first summer up to our necks in renovations. Come fall, I decided it was time for the dog. I went big, I arranged for our puppy to come home the day after Christmas, allowing me to hand paint a ceramic dog dish with the name he'd dreamed up for his eventual dog, and wrap it to put under the tree. I also wrapped the leash and the Monogrammed LLBean dog bed. I was AWESOME! I kept it a secret. I got my Mom and his Grandma to partially fund the pricey pup. On the SLY. Oh yes.

He opened his present with glee. We drove twelve hours round trip to Bar Harbor, Maine, on Boxing Day, in a sleet storm to bring home our bundle of canine joy. It didn't matter; we had our darling little dog.

Darling, except that he kept peeing on his bed. Long after he was housebroken, he would pee on the bed. He would also attempt to shake it to death with his tiny jaws. Eventually, he turned on it, ate the zipper, and eviscerated it. I sewed it back together once. I had a seamstress do it again, when he chewed through my stitching. Are you looking up the definition of insanity yet? After a year, however, he calmed down. I can only assume the bed conceded defeat in a private conversation with the dog.

In 2007, I decided to get my Golden. Right about the same time, I also decided to get pregnant, though the precise timing was a little more out of my control in that case. This time I arranged for my puppy to arrive in Boston via commercial airline (a mistake I will never repeat, but that's a story for another time). I brought her home, and set about establishing her in the household.

She promptly took over the dog bed, then started... wait for it... peeing on it. The bed finally met its end while the dogs were staying with my parents. The bed started out about six feet away from the puppy's crate, with our Pug sleeping on it. In the morning, it was halfway inside the crate, with its innards spewed all over the inside of the crate.

They worked together. To destroy the bed. The soft, monogrammed LLBean dog nest that I so lovingly bought for our dog baby. I could have cried. I could have throttled them.

Some months later, Mark bought a dog bed for them from Orvis, which purported to be indestructible. When the Orvis catalog arrives now, we still laugh at this adjective, since Orvis sent us two replacements, when our dogs chewed through the covers, the liners, and eventually eviscerated them, too. Indestructible, my eye. Eventually, Orvis gave up on us, and just offered us a refund. Surprisingly, they have not asked us to provide a testimonial for their excellent customer service.

"Our dogs just loved the Indestructible Bed. It tastes like chicken! But they really do stand by their product! We got three beds and a refund!"

Or not. At least that's what I'm guessing PR said.

For some months the dogs were better behaved. They seemed to grasp the basic tenets of life with humans, and since they slept on the couch (oh, god, how I hate this, but when one dog is a lap dog, it's hard to enforce no dogs on the couch), we had no need for a bed.

Until we discovered that the Golden was secretly eating the straps for Felix's high chair. You see, at two, he's just using it as a booster, so we hadn't actually buckled the straps for months. And why, pray tell, would I specifically check to see if the dog had been nibbling them?

Of course, I only discovered this when, to the tune of two thousand dollars, our vets surgically removed said buckle from her stomach and small intestine.

So, it was time to put the Golden back in her pen when we weren't watching her. Le sigh. In a rare streak of optimism I bought a dog blanket at BJ's, so she wouldn't have to sleep on bare floor in the pen. Miracle of miracles, she actually left it alone for a whole week. Then, she started fraying the edges.

Not to be outdone, our Pug, who must have been lonely in his freedom, in the span of a week, ate 9 Crayolas, and raided the pantry; he ate two thirds of a bag of dry egg noodles and about a half a cup of brown sugar out of a sealed container in the pantry.

Off with his head! Into the pen!

One night. That's all the bed lasted. Our two dogs ate their way into the bed, and reveled in the polyfil batting inside. In my head, they dance to "Celebration" by Kool & the Gang, while tossing bundles of batting by their snouts. I obviously spend too much time thinking about this.

I would have let them live with his half eaten monstrosity for an indefinite period, had it not been for waking up Thursday to the wafting scent of poo on the air.

There is no. better. way. to wake up on a Saturday morning. None.

They had hidden the pile of poo under the bed. Oh, yes, soaked and saturated and ground in to what was left of it's cloth cover. Oh, the smell! I bagged the whole mess and marched it right outside to the trash barrels.

And went to BJ's to buy another bed.

A Pug in His Natural Element: My Husband's Lap

501

Yesterday was my 500th post and I didn't even celebrate.

So, instead, I'll show you what my two favorite men were doing while I wrote that 500th post.
Yep. Snuggling with a pug dog. What could more celebratory?

Can You Ever Get Enough of Stories About Dogs and Poop?

The Fallingdown House is never a dull place, even on a lackluster Monday evening on the cusp of July.

It was about quarter past eight. Mark went out to collect the curried chicken thighs from the grill. I was in the kitchen, searing some fresh chard and kale from a friend's farm share in garlic and oil and scooping curried brown rice, barley, and split red lentils from the rice pot. Felix was in his jumper, in the doorway between the kitchen/dining room and the family room, with Maurice and Amelie for an audience.

Imagine my disgust and horror when Mark came in off the deck and howled at Maurice, who was frantically licking Felix's leg. In our busy shuffle to get dinner on the table, we didn't see that Felix's diaper had sprung a leak, and that poop was running down his leg. Onto the pug's head. And the floor. And there are both dogs, eating it up. Mark evacuated the baby to the changing table upstairs, while I cleaned up the floor, the jumper, and the dog's head. I met him upstairs and we stripped, cleaned, and re-diapered Felix.

Dinner was still warm when we got back.

Sometimes I do wonder what has become of my life...

In which our heroine swears and carries on about her naughty dogs.

My dogs are...

fucktards?
oystershuckers?
asshats?

Yes! All of the above. Actually, no. Neither dog can shuck shellfish, due to lack of opposable thumbs.

Amelie will be lucky if she lives to see her first birthday (which is, incidentally, in 8 days). Here's a list of what she's done today:

1. While I was upstairs for ten minutes getting dressed, she ate one of Felix's toys.
2. When I yelled at her, she peed on the kitchen floor.
3. When I sent her outside after peeing on the floor, she ate something nasty and threw up copiously all over the yard.
4. This afternoon, while I took Felix upstairs to put him down for his nap, she ate a chunk of the Christmas tree.

When do I go back to work?

Week in Review

Since Monday, a rhythm has surfaced to our days at home. Felix is, as defined for someone his age, sleeping through the night. By this, I mean that he goes to sleep around midnight and only wakes once between 12 and 6. I feel human! He can also be counted on to nap (ie: alone, in his crib or bassinet) for 2 to 3 hours in the afternoon, along with all the other baby-related dozing in arms or slings or in the baby-papasan. This has meant a shocking amount of cleaning and organizing has gone on around the house.

We've ventured out to the library, to the mall, to the post office, to drop off some stuff at the Salvation Army, gotten gas, gone to the bank... He's really becoming a functional member of the household, in his way. Hooray! Now, if he'll only let me get some more Christmas knitting done. Some folks may be getting IOUs this year. Having a baby six weeks before Christmas can be taxing on a gal's knitting mojo.

The dogs continue to be neurotic and weird, but not at all hostile towards the baby, which gives me hope. They've taken to eating things like dog beds and cushions, and Maurice still enjoys rabbit droppings in the yard when he can find them. Yuck!

We'll kick off the holiday season this weekend with a couple of friends and more than a few oysters, a far cry from some of the parties we've thrown, but I hope everyone would understand the need to scale it back this year. I suppose, in years to come, it will evolve into a more family friendly affair, but we'll see about that as the year goes by.

We're Having A Baby... and It's Eaten My Brain

Duh, right?

I honestly think that pregnancy has sucked all my blogging ability away from me, since I have eleventy billion things to do in preparation for the little man (who, by the way, is tickling my internal organs with exceptional frequency these last few days - busy guy).

Yesterday, for instance, I sat down to blog, and ended up registering us for a childbirth class, a tour of the maternity ward, and then calling a potential pediatrician.

I had already been to the vet yesterday, with O, Maurice, & Amelie, to get some meds for her nasty ear infection. And I'm sure I had great plans for a rant about $90 bills for someone to tell me what I mostly already knew, and give me an anti-inflammatory/anti-bacterial/anti-fungal ointment. ::sigh::

During the last two weeks, I've had my tooth mostly fixed, a very successful second ultrasound (which confirmed that Babypants is not, I repeat, NOT, suffering from a kidney problem - hooray!), married off my brother, and replaced the clutch on my VW. Ouch. Life is pricey sometimes.

Oh, and O started speech therapy sessions three weeks ago, at a fabulous new private practice here in Beacon Hill, called Chatterboxes. I love his therapist, she's terrific, and I think he's starting to show some improvement!

I also just ordered a small fortune in yarn in order to complete my Christmas knitting. Christmas knitting? you say.... Yes, since come early November (or Dasein668's birthday, whichever) I'm going to be wicked distracted, I drew up a list of recipients and projects, and figured out yarns, etc... Now all I need is for the giant Knit Picks box to arrive...

The wedding, for those of you who might be curious, was everything I had expected, but all in all successful. The ceremony was very nice, and it was spectacular to have 4 out of 5 of my Mom's siblings in one place, some even with spice and offspring, and their spice and offspring. I love family reunions.

Coming up in the next few weeks: I'm taking Rylee to the Spencer Fair on Saturday, we're having a wedding party for Jamie & Dy in two weeks, and then it's all baby, all the time until the critter shows up, and then it's really all baby, all the time.

Look Ma! No Walls!

It's been an exciting weekend here at the Falling Down House. Mark has been tearing the third side off the old part of the house, re-sheathing it and installing the new windows for what will be the bathroom and office/library. I spent yesterday taking care of some things, like getting Amelie's stitches from her spay surgery taken out, visiting my parents, taking the dogs to Callahan for a few hours, grocery shopping, and baking off cakes for Miss E and GGS.

Miss E's cake came out beautifully, if I do say so myself. I used the white cake recipe from the Better Homes & Garden's cookbook (an oldy, but a goody), Rose Levy Berenbaum's Stabilized Whipped Cream along with some crushed Oreos for a mousse-y filling, and Kaye Hanson's Buttercream, which is an adaptation on classic Italian Mousseline Buttercream - yum!

Today, I spent up to my ears in buttercream, making the 2 dozen hibiscus flowers for the top border, and icing the "grass skirt" onto the sides. It went fairly smoothly, except for a small hiccup over the green icing...

Amelie has been wearing the gentle leader for two full days now, and the difference in her behavior is amazing. Her jumping is almost gone, and she doesn't pull on her leash anymore. She's not psyched about wearing it, but we're all so much happier with her, that I hope she feels the difference... Of course, Friday night she at two corners off our coffee table in the twenty minutes it took Mark to shower. Bad dog! If only we'd started her training before yesterday...

My old iPod finally came back, and oddly enough, while it won't interface with my computer, Mark reformatted it to his PC, and it's working fine, though ipodmechanic.com had one thing right, the screen doesn't work anymore. In fact, it's cracked, and the lcd stain has spread, but Mark figures he'll use it as an oversized Shuffle for his truck.

Among the things I haven't done this weekend: laundry, housekeeping, or staying off my ridiculously swollen feet. Oh, well...

Neighborhood Watch

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

I had the afternoon off from toddler wrangling, while the family traveled to NYC for a back tie family wedding. I came home to the melodic sounds of Mark taking apart the house. Now that the new extended fence is in place, and the leaves, debris, and other foolishness is off to the dump, the house is starting to look just a little less white trashy (just ignore the blatant lack of front door, please? Sorry, Ar, you missed the house in full ghetto mode....). I like that. So, like a good nosy neighbor, I took the dogs out for an hour long march around our 'hood to check out what everyone else is doing to their houses this spring.

In general, friends, things are looking up, especially in the hideous home exterior category. Around the corner from the far end of our street was a garrison colonial painted a color best described as electric lilac. It had indigo shutters and a magenta door. I absolutely shit you not. Well, as Maurice, Amelie and I passed this house today, imagine my surprise when it had been almost entirely repainted since Tuesday evening! It's now a charming, buttery cream with oyster off-white trim. The magenta door is still there, but that can stay as a testament to what was...

Our new next door neighbors still haven't moved in. (Must be nice to be able to afford a mortgage and rent...) They are slowly repainting and meeting with contractors (and *why* haven't they called Mark? They know he's a contractor and they know he's done work on the house....), and leaving me to speculate on the important things; such as, which of the cars that come and go belong to the two of them? The Jetta? The Beamer? The Mazda MVP? (One of these things is not like the other... LaLaLa...)

On the other side, the Changs have finally moved the debris from last year's grisly apple tree massacre in order to erect a plastic shed, which looks, if possible, worse than our rotting wooden one.

And, as regards the modular colonial sitting on a tiny, steeply graded corner lot up the street from us, which is on the market for upwards of $600,000, should you be interested (ugh!), we watched a highly amusing event. Several men gathered to watch a single guy dig holes for, plant, back fill, and water 15 Arbor Vitaes along the ridge of the property, ostensibly for privacy and noise screening. But it seriously took five or six seemingly able bodied men to watch one guy do all this work. On a house that's overpriced by at least 100K and has been on the market since last fall sometime, as far as I can tell.

The house directly behind us appears to be vacant again, for the second time this calendar year. Maybe we're driving them away?

Won't you be my neighbor?

Bad Dog; Good Morning

Amelie began the morning at 5:50, when she started barking to be let out of her crate. This is not something we encourage, but it's proving difficult to find a good preventative strategy. Sometime between 6:35 and 6:50, she half swallowed a twist tie, which, with great dexterity, she removed from the TV cabinet. We use the twist ties around the knobs, to keep her out of the DVD player, etc... Serves us right, I guess. Mark extracted the twist tie, and came upstairs to let me know that the DVD/canine security system had been breached. In the three minutes he was upstairs, she pooped on the dining room floor. She hasn't done that since the first week she was home.

Bizarre.

On the other hand, I got to see my favorite view of Boston this morning. Sadly, we were traveling at 55 MPH in heavy volume, so taking pictures would have been wholly irresponsible. As you come in on I90 there's a banking curve that follows the curve of the Charles, and the city rises up out of the trees that line the river. When the spring/summer morning light is right, the city is shrouded in mist and the light filters through the trees by the river.

Lovely.

The A-Ha! Week

I've been off from work all week, and really amounting to very little. I've watched some movies (Elizabeth I; yay, Helen Mirren! Hollywoodland, which lacked something... and some others less memorable), shopped fruitlessly, gone to Boston to smell the flowers, not cleaned my house very much, and done about 17 loads of laundry.

All this accomplishment pales in comparison, however, to what my darling Amelie has done this week. She's figured it out. We haven't hadn't an accident in almost three full days. That doesn't mean she won't regress, or have random incidents from here on out, but she's consistently asking at the door, and waiting longer in between visits to the great outdoors. Hooray!

Are we done yet? Not by a long shot. But this is a good step. Hopefully, as I return to work tomorrow, and it's back to the dog walker, she'll be ok...

Spring!

Today was my big outing!

My Mom came in, and we went to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society's 2007 New England Spring Flower Show. I love the flower show. I love looking at all the landscaping and the gardening, and it's always green-smelling and lush - it reminds me that spring is really coming. And despite my love of all things winter (even, perversely, driving in ice storms), I'm always ready for spring by March.

In lazy news, I've discovered that if I use the retractable leash to let the puppy out, I don't even need to leave the house to let her pee. I was pretty sure I was the laziest human alive, but this might cinch it. Sadly, no amount of retractable leash will help with the gunky ear infection she's developed in one ear. Off to the vet tomorrow for us, and hopefully they'll let me pay with a kidney, or perhaps a length of intestine, because I certainly can't afford it otherwise!

Preoccupied

I'm guilty of lurking for the past few days - truth is, I've been preoccupied with a few things, and it's affected my writing, if you can call it that.

We had a lovely weekend, which included having friends O&N staying with us over the weekend, with their awesome dog, Scout (photos when I finally get that roll of film developed). We had The Fabulous L&T over for dinner on Saturday, and we were a very merry party of six for Persian Walnut Chicken with Jasmine Rice, Cider Braised Kale and Apples, Soybean Curry, and Frozen Greek Yogurt with Honey and Fig Sauce. I kick ass. No false modesty here. We also took the hounds to meet my parents' dogs, Niner, Chance, and Leah. The neighbors' dog, Frank came over for a visit, making a grand total of 6 dogs in my parents house. Hilarious. I wish I'd had the camera...

The workweek has been busy, O turned 2 yesterday, and this morning his parents decided, with his pediatrician to do a speech intervention. Hooray! I'm psyched to start getting to the bottom of why a smart, expressive, engaging toddler has no real words - and to start getting him talking. Big Brother J has been home for two days with a fever, so we've been chilling, watching movies and playing online with his collection of Webkinz.

Serious thought is going into the house these days, and Mark is getting ready for another big push when the cold fronts move out. With Daylight Savings coming early this year, we''ll have more light to work by, right?

Establishing the Hierarchy

I have been a bad blogger.

I have, however, been a very good puppy mama, and a pretty good nanny, so I'm excusing myself.

There are quite a few pictures of the new puppy on
The Year of the Nanny, so head on over if you haven't already.

It's been funny watching the household shift with the new addition. Maurice is doing very well, except that he's neurotic about his food bowl and her food bowl and what might be the difference. My thumb felt the consequences of the first feeding altercation. From then on, we've set the bowls about six feet apart, and one of us supervises feeding time to keep the natives from getting too restless! Even Mark and I have to readjust. In order to give the dogs breakfast, and give them some play time before it's crate time again, I get up at 6, take everyone out, feed them, and play with them until 6:30, when Mark is ready for work. He watches them until he leaves at 6:45, then I come back down from showering, etc, and take them out one last time before leaving for work at 7... Makes me sleepy in the afternoons.

It's worth it, though. She's a great dog. She's spunky and silly, but not very high maintenance, which, after a pug (though I do love him madly) is a relief! They play really well, so in some senses, by getting another dog, we've rendered ourselves obsolete.

We're still trying to find a competent dog walker, since the flake who used to walk Maurice is currently unavailable, so we have two interviews next week. Until then, one of us will cover the midday feeding/walking session. With the freezing and thawing and snowing of the last ten days, our backyard is starting to look like the streets of Deadwood, and our floors are a disaster (hooray for plywood subflooring - indestructible), never mind the fact that policing the poop is difficult when it's freezing, thawing, raining, snowing, etc... icky.

It's fun to be back on the top of the heap, though. I am pack leader, hear me bark!

Pugs Love Snow!

But they don't love having cold feet.

We learned this when he refused to pee when we let him out both last night and this morning. He just tried to get all four feet off the ground simultaneously, and when that failed, he crawled up onto the back steps and looked pathetic. I got a late start to work this morning trying to get him to pee.

So, after more than twelve hours without peeing due to the wintry conditions in our backyard, I bought him fleecy booties at Petco. O&I returned to my house, suited him up in his Land's End Squall Jacket for Dogs and his fleecy booties, and we headed out the door. After a minute of frantic spinning (ooooh! footwear!), he peed (bladder infection averted!), and then lost a bootie in a tiny drift - but he was a happier pug!

Dialing It In

If Maurice Were Getting A Sister...

... what should we name her?

some suggestions:

Sadie
Stella
Maraschino
Tallulah
Saffron
Cider
Marzipan
Gretchen
Whiskey
Glenda
Sapphire
Flour
Sorrel
Tartine
Gemma
Brioche
Calliope
Noisette

write-ins are always welcome!