Quit Buggin' Me

"Shut up. Stop barking at me."

"I'm totally ignoring you now."


Some people never learn.
The Tweed Mad Teeth (tm) Sequence


Part 1: Growl. Elicit kind-of-worried response from irritating Labrador

Part 2: Borrow your sister's Mad Teeth (tm)

Part 3: Give intellectually-challenged Lab a few seconds for the warning to sink in

Part 4: Nail stupid Lab


I used to really get on my dogs for snarking at other dogs at the beach, I think because a decade of living with the very dog aggressive Briggs had conditioned me to expecting fights and holes. But now I let my dogs punish irritating dogs who chase them at the beach. I mean *I* find it annoying and rude when someone looses their big idiot retriever and lets it harass other dogs while they stand there smiling like an ineffectual and/or stoned lump on a log. I can't imagine how irritating my dogs must find it, being they are the ones getting jumped on, barked at, chased down and run over by dogs twice their size. It always amazes me that the owners of the offending dogs stand there and do or say nothing - they don't even seem to realize their dogs are bothering anyone, despite the Mad Teeth (tm) flashing every few seconds.

So now I let my dogs correct the offenders however they like, as they seem to do it fairly. Big or small, if you chase my dogs enough times, they will eventually tell you to piss off. Like these Berners, that were very sweet and cute:

But they also liked to tag-team other dogs. Tweed decided to put an end to that game.

And don't expect any slack just because you happen to be The Woo.
You'll still get served:

Speaking of Woo ... at the beach today, someone replaced him with Vampire Wootie:

WTF?

I think he may have been enraged because this dog out-Flamboyanced (tm) him. I mean really - the white dog's Flamboyance (tm) is bigger than all of Woo. See the look of total disgust on his face?

It didn't help that today was the First Annual Border Collie Roll-Off.

First Woo had a go.

The Tweed stepped it up a notch with some fancy footwork.

But our friend Cooper brought home the gold.

He just really put a lot of heart into his routine.

Mr. Woo hates to lose. So he consoled himself by killing a very small puppy*.

*Puppy is fake. Don't freak out.

Once again, I was forced to engage in a My Super Old Dog Is Older Than Your Super Old Dog contest today. As usual, I won.

Gypsy is old:

But Sport remains the undefeated champion:

"Victory is mine!!!!"


Piper is not amused.

But Wootie is:

Tweed is just confused:

*dances in distance with tongue out*

(Today's title is completely meaningless. It came up as an autofill for the Header, which means I must have been taunting someone on the internetz at some point. It amuses me, so I used it)

Mr. Woo wants you to know that he is *SO* over Sport.

What? I dunno.


Earlier this week we had our monthly board meeting with the non-profit I work for. Because the weather is nice (allegedly) and because they are trying to break me (more likely) they held the meeting in Coquitlam (muy lejos on the highway, meester!!) at one of the board member's homes, instead of in my downtown office building. I brought Mr. Woo along with me, as he wanted to play with Leo, the resident dog.

Leo is a very handsome border collie X German Shepherd Dog.

He also has a ridiculously long tongue

Really, the reason I brought Mr. Woo is twofold

1) Because there was a baby in residence, and Mr. Woo (unlike Tweed) is good with babies
2) I can leave the house with ONE dog, which is Mr. Woo; ALL dogs or NO dogs. Mr. Woo does not stand for me taking another dog out without him. The last time I tried to take Tweed to the store, Mr. Woo busted down the babygate and was hurling himself against the front door screaming. What kind of separation anxiety is this? He doesn't do this when I leave for work or otherwise leave the house with no dogs! What a spoiled rotten little brat!

"Who, me? Nah!"

Anyway, although we went to the beach and took lots of photos, as is the norm, I thought you might like to see some pictures of the dogs from a different angle.

Like, The Gettin' A Cookie From Food Lady angle

Or I'm Really Old, Let Me Get Up Close And Personal To Smell You angle

And of course the OMGINEEDTHATCOOKEAREYOUGOINGTOGIVEITGIVEITGIVEITTOMENOW!!! angle

And there's always the Ridiculously Happy Dog angle

The Mr Woo and Food Lady Both Have Skinny Legs angle

And then, there was the beach.

Someone asked me the other day how many shots I have to take in a session and how many of them turn out to be winners. That varies from session to session. I can, however, show you some photos that I like to call Almost Famous. I get quite a lot of these shots.

This one is *almost* awesome. Except it isn't, and that makes it ass.

And ... oops.

And I'm not sure what category this falls into even. I don't have an interpretive dance section!

But Wootie tries to make up for the bad photos by providing me with the opportunity to take good photos.

... of soccer

... of Mad Teeth (tm) Response

and of course, ears.

I tried to take a group photo and two things happened

1) I learned that Sport is not entirely sure what "Stay" means, as he kept getting up and leaving
and
2) I lost my balance as I was taking the photo and fell over, so the photo is crooked!! But still cute.

Sport continues to do just fine on the Prednisone. He thinks raw chicken is pretty gross, but likes raw lamb quite a bit. He likes to run a lot now, which is disconcerting, as he looks like a Zombie from a proper Zombie movie (ie, not the Fast Zombies movies that are all the rage nowdays) when he does it, but he can motor along pretty good.

He is still skinny, but now he just looks like a skinny old dog, so people don't make "tsk tsk" sounds under their breath when I walk past them anymore. But having a Really Old Dog is kind of like a competitive sport (pardon the pun) ... when I run into other people with other Really Old Dogs it gets a little tense. So far, I have won every encounter ... my going-on-17 year old dog is always older than your dog!

And Now, Your Sport(s) Update

In today's report ... Sport plays soccer!

But first, a word from our sponsors.

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Sorry to be MIA for a while. It's a long weekend here in Canada, and I've been out enjoying the sun that was finally returned to us. On Saturday we had an agility trial, and it was cold, windy and raining right until we packed up to leave. Then the sun came out and has not left since.

But back to Sport ... Sport's not *actually* playing soccer. He is doing pretty well, but he's not THAT good!

Being a good little worker bee, I did as instructed and bathed Sport in an oatmeal & aloe bath regularly. The problem was, he stunk worse after a bath than before it, and he also would scratch and scratch and scratch himself raw. He scratched all the skin off his neck, right up to his cheeks, and chewed all the hair off the inside of his flanks. His skin was all moist and yecchy where he scratched and licked, and smelled even worse.

Poor Sporty.

So I marched Mr. Sporticus back to the vet in frustration. Terry looked him over and said "Food Lady, no old dog deserves to die without having tried steroids." So we did a skin scraping for mange (negative) and a blood test for diabetes (also negative) and started Sport on a course of prednisone. Ironically, I threw out Briggs' pred about a week before Sport arrived, reasoning that it was doing me no good sitting in the cupboard. Yeesh.

Within 48 hours, Sport had stopped scratching completely (miracle drug). He still smells yucky, but I think this time a bath will actually cure that problem.

His appetite has also joined the family, although at the moment he still only wants to eat ground beef. We are working on introducing some other meats slowly.

Now Sport looks like a skinny dog, rather than one I'm trying to kill through starvation. My finger tips no longer touch when I circle his waist with my hands. This is good!

In other news; this just in ...Tweed is weird.

Playing an innocent game of Fetch today turned out to be a challenge, as our games were intercepted by the Notorious B.E.L.L.A. Bella is a Golden we do not know, but one who was obsessed with Piper's ball.

Bella was VERY insistent that I give the ball to her, and was not shy about speaking her mind:

The "Bella Barks" Series

Normally, dogs who steal our balls really annoy The Food Lady, but Bella was pretty cute. Also, Bella came with her own pick-up game of soccer - a nice young man and young lady.

Woo enthusiastically handed the nice young man his ass in the soccer game.


While Woo was off romping with the boys, Sporty was wooing the ladies.

Breaking news: Piper has a really long tongue

It was otherwise just another afternoon at the beach. I got bored, so I created a new being that has the front end of Piper and the back end of Mr. Woo. I like to call it

A WOOPI (tm)!

I also checked in on the baby gulls on the roof next door. They are much bigger now and running around. Their feet are gianormous.

Then I wrapped up the weekend with a bicycle ride up the evil Causeway in Stanley Park, and then around the park on the road. I really do live in such a lovely place:


And we close this report with another message from our sponsor:

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