Confessions of a rotten dog owner

5 Things I should not laugh at, but do anyway:

i. Wootie is v. v. jealous of the clothes brush

Mr. Woo is A Very Jealous Dog. He cannot abide anyone else to getting attention he believes is rightfully his. Which is all attention. Thus has the jealously of the clothes brush come to pass ... once, when my vacuum cleaner was out of commission, I resorted to de-hairifying my area rug with the clothes brush before guests were due to arrive.

Woo perceived this as the rug getting pets, pets which HE wanted - nay, deserved - and practically did cartwheels to divert attention. When this failed to distract me, he threw himself on the brush, bit the brush, stood on the brush and barked at the brush, then barked at me.

I laughed. Big Mistake.

To this day, when I try to remove Woo-and-Nutz hair from my bedspread, Wootie leaps on the bed and "attacks" the brush. I yell "Wootie, get off the frickin' bed!!" and he does a playbow, and evades me, but won't get off the bed. Or he gets off the bed, and then gets right back on it again. I still laugh!

ii. Piper makes Mad Teeth(tm) at me when I kiss her nose

Probably this is a really bad idea, but I find it amusing. It's like her lips are connected to my nose, marionette-fashion. When I go in for a snuzzle, out come the pissed-off teeth. One day she is going to lose it, and bite me, and then I'll be sorry. I probably won't laugh then.

iii. Tweed sings the blues when he sees it's time for Walkies.

When I whip out the gumboots, Tweed begins to yodel. It starts with a singing full body stretch, and I like to tickle his throat while he does it so the song is all warbly. I am easily amused like this. This doesn't seem so bad, but his vocal range intesifies with each passing year. The more Tweed ages, the louder he gets. He is also a HUGE ham, so every time I laugh, he sings more complicated tunes. It goes like this: Tweed yodels, Food Lady yells "shutup Tweed HAHAHAHA I mean, shut up! HAHAHAHAH."

By the time he is a senior, he'll be screaming operas at me, and the neighbors will be calling the police.

iv. Mr. Woo's "go-to" response is ROLLOVER

It's just bad. No matter what you tell Noodles to do, he rolls over. And not a submissive roll - it's completely enthusiastic. It was the first thing I taught him, and the only thing he seems to retain.

v. Tweed wears anything I tell him to. This is not so much a Tweed thing as a mean Food Lady thing. And it's not that I laugh at him because he does it, but I laugh when I make him do it. I'm such a sadist.

I want to see what Pia's dogs do that make her laugh. So I'm going to go tag her blog so she can do a post of 5 things her dogs do that she shouldn't laugh at, but does. And then she can pass it onto another dogblog. Soon we will all be laughing.

Happy blogging!

Dogs With Jobs

Staff Meeting


Corporate Takeover


Flirting with someone in another department


Sleeping your way to the top


Sneaky co-workers


Evil supervisors in good with the boss


Temp staff


Competitive coworkers


Staff Christmas Party


I like that I can bring my dogs to work. They get to come with me 2 or 3 times a week. Sometimes my boss' dog Turbo (^^) comes in too. And occasionally one of our volunteers brings her pal Fenway in when she comes to do some work for us.

The dogs are so used to coming to work now that they just install themselves in different places all around the office - under this person's chair, under that person's desk, and snooze most of the day away.

Plus the PR guy always saves everyone the last third of his lunch. They think he rules.

Smoking is bad for you

And it's not just cigarettes. Pipes are bad for you too.

Though one may look dashing with a pipe ...

smoking kills.

And at first your friends and family will be sad about your demise

But eventually they will go on with their lives

And forget you ever existed.

Woo? Woo who?

So take up a different hobby. Maybe a sport.

This has been a public service message from The World's Bossiest Dog.

Who has feet, but no visible legs.

----------------

Strangely enough, I did not win the lottery last night. That's weird.

It's also too bad, because late this week I heard from my landlord who wants to sell my condo.

ARGH! I just moved in like 3 days ago or whatever!

He's offered to sell it to me, but banks do not generally like to give mortgages to women with more dogs than sense. Or cents, if you'll pardon the pun. And you have to, because this is my blog.

I figure I have three options:

1) Kill my landlord, find his will and alter it to suggest he's left the condo to me. But this one sounds like a lot of work.

2) Move. Again.

3) Go to the Bank Of Mummy And Daddy.

How come my photography does not make me rich?!

It is, however, making me moderately famous. A little birdie tells me that TWAAW will soon make an appearance on the most excellent and informative blog Behind The Behaviour from the wise folks at Companion Animal Solutions. And even if it does not, the blog is a great site with loads of really good insight into the canine bean. You should check it out!

It's really neat to see what sort of photos tickle your fancy. Keep up the good work with your photo contest entry suggestions!

Captain Ice Beard commands you.

Can I help you with something?

Maybe you want to point that camera at something else. Before I rip your eyebrows off with my teeth.

Need help? Here: "Look Mr. Woo, foolish dog, there's a cookie in the carpet."

What? Where? Really? Where?

Umm .. is there really a cookie around here somewhere? And is my head really, really big in this photo?

Excuse me, Food Lady? Can I ask something?

Yes Wootie.

Can we go to the park?

Sure!

Oooh, me! I wanna go! Me too!

Yay! This is so fun! BUT STAY AWAY FROM MY BALL.

Aww, I'm just kidding. But seriously, stay away from it.

It's mine.

The secret to Wootie-Ball-Love is irregularly sized balls. (That sounds really dirty!). This ball I plucked from the toy basket at the last minute as we were leaving, as for the past few evenings Mr. Woo has been lying around in the leftover snowpatches eating "stuff" and getting fatter. It's called a "Buddy Ball" and it's twice the size of a tennis ball, but smaller than Fifa (tm). I can kick it, and he can pick it up. It makes him very happy, and it makes me happy to see the lazy little shit get some exercise!

This morning while walking in the graveyard at 6AM, I glanced up and saw silhouetted against the street lights the unmistakable Big Vee of coyote ears.

Now, I like coyotes quite a bit. However, I also know that the cold and snowy winter has been very hard on our urban wildlife, and that they are hungry. Recently a coyote ate someone's Yorkie in our old neighborhood:


So I was very cautious. I called my dogs, all of whom came immediately - even Wootie. Think they heard the panic in my voice?

And then - and this is the part that you will love, and wish there was a camera around - I put everyone in a downstay and then ran straight at the coyote. He didn't move. Humph. So much for my scary reputation. I had to go Yeti on his ass.

Yeah, umm, what?

Ok picture this - the Food Lady starts running through the cemetery, waving her arms all akimbo in the air, stomping her boots with every step and yelling "BLARGH AGAGAGAG RAAAARRRR" at the poor animal. And he ran - boy did he run. So would you, if a Yeti in gumboots was chasing you.

The dogs thought I was INSANE. They never even saw the coyote, and just thought I was having one of my crazy fits. When I returned to them, Wootie started doing "Roll Over" and "Sit Like A Bunny" in case this was some new command he didn't quite understand yet.

But we're going to be a little more careful in the cemetery from now on.

Is a coyote going to eat me?

More importantly, is it going to eat my ball??

You're both safe, don't worry. It already ate the colour in Food Lady's camera.

That Food Lady Just Won't Shut Up!

Today you can read an interview with me, The Nattering Food Lady, on the Pet Doc website.

Thanks Jonathan, for contacting me about the interview! It was fun.

In other news, I've been invited to enter a few animal photos in a national contest, but holycrow, I cannot for the life of me choose any to submit.

Got a favourite photo of someone else's dogs?

Or is your fave among Briggs, Tweed, Piper or Wootie's photos?

Help me out folks! I can't decide.

I apologize

for screwing up Tweed's Snooker run today and sending him into a tunnel that was not part of my plan.

There. I said it. I messed up.

Onward and upward! It can only get better ... right?

Are you there doG? It's me, Tweed. Plz give me a decent handler. kthxbai.

Hugs For Food Lady!!

... orrrr, hail the cookie Gods. Take your pick.
Tweed picks cookies.

You always think the worst of me. Maybe I'll kill you for that.

So, wow ... I was really overwhelmed with your response to Red Dog's Memorial Post. What a great bunch you are! I am sorry I made a bunch of you cry too ... I'm trying to figure out a way to exploit this underused talent and make a bazillion dollars from it. Then I can pay for all the dental work Piper is going to need, after a large metal caribiner hit her in the face and split one of her teeth in half last week (long story, don't ask).

But I won't need it for agility entries, because tomorrow Tweed is going to get his last Masters Snookers Q for his Almighty ATCh. Right?

I said, RIGHT?!

I'm not sure. I think my foot is broken. See?

To be fair, Tweed did have some kind of crazy, whine-and-cry-and-limp inducing crashbang with Nate today. You all know Nate as Boomer from our rescue. We had a chance meeting with The BoomBoom today, and he took Tweed down.

Who, me?

Tweed was going to beat the crap out of him for it with a Really Big Stick ...

...but Piper and Woo staged an intervention. At least, I think that's what they were doing.

I don't know if this happens to you very often, but on a fairly regular basis someone wants to breed one of my dogs to their dogs. I am thinking about traveling with a soapbox from now on, because that's a topic that can get me on it in a hurry! Today it was the owner of this cute little Australian Shepherd.

She wanted to breed her to Tweed (Hah! Good luck with that. Not only is Tweed neutered, but he also doesn't like girls. Tweed only likes underage boys, and the occasional pant leg).

I said that there are literally thousands of Australian Shepherds in rescues/shelters all across North America and that breeding your dog to a certified weirdo mutt you meet in the park is probably one of the worst ideas a person could come up with and -

HEY! GET OUT OF THE SHOT, RANDOM DOG!

We are really, really tired of the snow snow snow everywhere snow.

It's pretty and all

But we are all pretty bored with it now, I think.

Who wants to see grass again?

Me!ME!Me!ME!Me!ME!

Blargh. Stupid snow.


Wish us luck tomorrow! It could be Tweed's big day!!