August 22, 2007
Dare I assume a double, super-dog-day spent fetching sticks and running in circles after each other, would leave “Dot” and “Cash” sapped of energy and prone to the “sleeping like a log” syndrome.
And dare I assume that just shy of dusk on any given summer evening, my neck of the woods be a candidate for the quiet slumber of night, fragrant with the smell of fresh cut field hay.
Nope.
Instead, 30 seconds before the water boils for my cup of “caffeine-free sleep well” tea, and while the arc is high on the last doggie pee break of the night, “Pepe La Pew” is spotted minding his own business along the fence line.
While I understand the deep-seated canine instinct to chase anything that moves, could the “powers that be” please explain one more time, why my dogs don’t get it about skunks?
Like a scene from the movie “Groundhog Day,” did the same scenario unfold two consecutive nights last week, and four times in June and July, when after a spirited pursuit, both dogs slammed headlong into the scent glands of the white-striped varmint.
And once again there I was, standing outside on the porch step at 8:45 p.m., in the middle of a slow-motion movie shouting expletives at my stooges and watching in disbelief as Pepe stopped short to spray at the same time the tea kettle whistle blew.
And in a New York minute, as the sun went down and the wind shifted and brought the consequence to my nostrils, I wished I lived in the Big Rock Candy Mountains where the land is fair and bright and the wind “don’t blow” and the chickens lay soft-boiled eggs.
Dot and Cash should have used their supersonic hearing to catch the message from “The Duke,” who in the minutes prior to their odorous episode barked down the countryside to his canine colleagues the sage advice that, “Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.”
After legendary face-to-face consultations with Pepe’s backside, “The Duke” now concedes right-of- way and his food dish to “Mr. Stinky.”
But despite my canines being able to hear me open a can of dog food at 600 paces, they apparently didn’t catch that doggy memo.
Instead, ripe with skunk and soaked in my anti-toxin of “Febreze” plus hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, water, and baking soda, the stooges sit shunned at the backdoor puzzled as to why, once again, they are excommunicated from the farmhouse.
Not to mention me, having come into contact with a fresh recipe of “Pepe on dog” while trying to expunge it, carry fragments of the affair with me into the kitchen where the tea kettle has boiled dry and a husband shouts from his dent in the couch, “What’s that smell?”
Right then, I wanted to burst into flames like Nicholas Cage in “Ghost Rider” and scare the pants off everything that moved or spoke.
But instead I just took a deep breath and said, “Second hand skunk”—which immediately affected Pete to jump to his feet and run to draw me a bath.
(I guess the unexpected can have its rewards).
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
'Paws' for thought
July 5, 2007
The anonymous author who penned “Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree” also should have added dogs to that discipline philosophy.
In my neck of the woods, I’m quite sure the few smart brain cells my canines did have, fell out and into the hole where they buried the last meaty beef rib bones I doled out to them.
That deduction would at least explain why “Dot” and “Cash” seemingly never can find their secret stashes again.
It also might explain why Cash evidently didn’t remember what happened the first time a skunk lifted its tail in his face two months ago—as he rolled around and drove his face into the grass 16 times Saturday night after a second ill-fated chase.
What I know for sure is that all the hours of my hard work under the sun were destroyed by the likes of two tomfoolery dogs not nailed to a tree.
Dot is a mix of fox terrier and border collie. In other words, a digger that understands 500 words—with the exception of “No,” “Come Here,” and “Stay out of my garden.”
Cash is all Labrador retriever and could outswim a fish if the prize was something to eat. If only he would just learn the meaning of “No,” “Come Here,” and “Stay out of my garden.”
Though I’d been gardening since early May, I was busy connecting again with Mother Earth over the long weekend planting orphaned flowers rescued from local greenhouses as they geared up to empty out their nurseries of the over-rooted six packs of plants bypassed by other green thumbs.
That’s when I saw Dot make a beeline for a small propane tank situated at the side of the house where I was gardening, her nose then jammed in a small air space underneath.
That’s when I heard it—the telltale squeak of a mouse that also had prompted Dot to crank her front paws into dig mode.
“No!” I scolded, thwarting the excavation of new ferns and flowers I’d just finished planting close by.
In my wisdom, I decided to encourage the little critter to exit his hideaway by poking a broomstick under there, which would send it scurrying onto the lawn and into whatever fate awaited.
Cash loped over, dripping wet from a swim in the creek to check out Dot’s mission, and joined the ridged and shivering canine with equal anticipation, forgetting to shake off his excess coat of water.
I poked the broomstick under the tank.
I had about a two-second warning, during which time my brain processed the impending swath of destruction of everything I’d just spent hours working on.
All of a sudden, a little brown body with saucer eyes, a furry tail, and the telltale signs of a chipmunk stripe bolted out from under the tank and down the flower bed.
Have you ever seen someone shouting in slow motion in a movie during a fleeting action scene? “Nooooooooo!”—three octaves lower than my normal voice—spilled out of me and my eyes popped out of my head as the dogs, in hot pursuit of the frantic chipmunk, trampled all the delphiniums that had been standing proud and tall in their transplant.
And as most any panicked animal would do, the little chipmunk took the closest exit from terror and ran at the speed of light through the open porch door and down the basement stairs, followed within a tail hair by two barking dogs—one of which was soaking wet.
If I hadn’t known where the trio had gone, I would have first checked the toilet to make sure “Chipster” wasn’t swimming in the bowl like his town cousin recently did while visiting Jack Elliott’s house in Rainy River.
(But then we put the seat down at our house, Jack).
Luckily for the chipmunk, it eluded the dogs altogether and in the end (though I’d assumed a successful escape back up the stairs and into the free world during the pursuers’ pit stop at the open bag of dog food in the basement), the chipmunk had, in fact, chewed a hole through a storage bag containing Christmas garland, where it was a stowaway for more than an hour.
I managed to haul the bag outside before the chipmunk shot out of the hole and across the yard—much to the dismay of two dogs, locked just then in their kennel (paused for thought) after I found them eating the uprooted flowers I could have salvaged from the chipmunk chase. Alas, the dogs days of summer are here.
The anonymous author who penned “Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree” also should have added dogs to that discipline philosophy.
In my neck of the woods, I’m quite sure the few smart brain cells my canines did have, fell out and into the hole where they buried the last meaty beef rib bones I doled out to them.
That deduction would at least explain why “Dot” and “Cash” seemingly never can find their secret stashes again.
It also might explain why Cash evidently didn’t remember what happened the first time a skunk lifted its tail in his face two months ago—as he rolled around and drove his face into the grass 16 times Saturday night after a second ill-fated chase.
What I know for sure is that all the hours of my hard work under the sun were destroyed by the likes of two tomfoolery dogs not nailed to a tree.
Dot is a mix of fox terrier and border collie. In other words, a digger that understands 500 words—with the exception of “No,” “Come Here,” and “Stay out of my garden.”
Cash is all Labrador retriever and could outswim a fish if the prize was something to eat. If only he would just learn the meaning of “No,” “Come Here,” and “Stay out of my garden.”
Though I’d been gardening since early May, I was busy connecting again with Mother Earth over the long weekend planting orphaned flowers rescued from local greenhouses as they geared up to empty out their nurseries of the over-rooted six packs of plants bypassed by other green thumbs.
That’s when I saw Dot make a beeline for a small propane tank situated at the side of the house where I was gardening, her nose then jammed in a small air space underneath.
That’s when I heard it—the telltale squeak of a mouse that also had prompted Dot to crank her front paws into dig mode.
“No!” I scolded, thwarting the excavation of new ferns and flowers I’d just finished planting close by.
In my wisdom, I decided to encourage the little critter to exit his hideaway by poking a broomstick under there, which would send it scurrying onto the lawn and into whatever fate awaited.
Cash loped over, dripping wet from a swim in the creek to check out Dot’s mission, and joined the ridged and shivering canine with equal anticipation, forgetting to shake off his excess coat of water.
I poked the broomstick under the tank.
I had about a two-second warning, during which time my brain processed the impending swath of destruction of everything I’d just spent hours working on.
All of a sudden, a little brown body with saucer eyes, a furry tail, and the telltale signs of a chipmunk stripe bolted out from under the tank and down the flower bed.
Have you ever seen someone shouting in slow motion in a movie during a fleeting action scene? “Nooooooooo!”—three octaves lower than my normal voice—spilled out of me and my eyes popped out of my head as the dogs, in hot pursuit of the frantic chipmunk, trampled all the delphiniums that had been standing proud and tall in their transplant.
And as most any panicked animal would do, the little chipmunk took the closest exit from terror and ran at the speed of light through the open porch door and down the basement stairs, followed within a tail hair by two barking dogs—one of which was soaking wet.
If I hadn’t known where the trio had gone, I would have first checked the toilet to make sure “Chipster” wasn’t swimming in the bowl like his town cousin recently did while visiting Jack Elliott’s house in Rainy River.
(But then we put the seat down at our house, Jack).
Luckily for the chipmunk, it eluded the dogs altogether and in the end (though I’d assumed a successful escape back up the stairs and into the free world during the pursuers’ pit stop at the open bag of dog food in the basement), the chipmunk had, in fact, chewed a hole through a storage bag containing Christmas garland, where it was a stowaway for more than an hour.
I managed to haul the bag outside before the chipmunk shot out of the hole and across the yard—much to the dismay of two dogs, locked just then in their kennel (paused for thought) after I found them eating the uprooted flowers I could have salvaged from the chipmunk chase. Alas, the dogs days of summer are here.
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