A DOG STORY--PART 3

This is not a picture of Coco but picture this

dog with a coat gone wild and you will get a

pretty accurate picture of Coco and his finest.

Coco was a chocolate brown poodle that my sister, Pat, gave to Dad. She gave a dog to Larry’s dad too. Neither dog had their distemper shots and Bob’s dog got sick and died. He mourned like he had lost a child.

Coco was an annoyance. He barked at night. We would go out and whack him with a rolled up newspaper, which didn’t hurt anything but his dignity. But, even with the whackings he just couldn’t help himself. He was a barker. In a town as small as Annabella, a barking dog annoyed half of it. If someone on the other end of town had a barker, the whole town suffered.

Coco's coat got long and longer and for some reason—I’m thinking thrift—we didn’t get him shaved. He looked like he was wearing a ratty blanket.

But, even with his annoying barking and his ratty appearance, he knew something we didn’t. He knew Bob needed a friend. He chose the house across the street with the gentle man who loved dogs over our house and the rolled-up newspaper. Who can blame him?

Soon Coco was riding in the back of Bob's battered blue truck. We didn't care, we were glad that someone loved him. But Bob worried. He didn’t want to steal our dog. He came over to apologize. Mom was happy that Coco had found someone who loved him so much. Dad was too. I was glad I would be off the rolled up newspaper detail. Mom and Dad told Bob to keep him.

Coco was always with Bob. Whenever he was riding in the back of Bob’s pick-up his tongue was lolling out of his mouth, strings of dog-spit flying in the wind. He was in dog heaven. And Bob was in heaven too. And so were we. For now the barking wasn't our problem. In fact, Coco may have given up the barking all together.

THE "POOP" CONVERSATION

"Oh, no," I said. "Kramer pooped on the floor."

"Where," Phil said.

"By the computer."

"Wow, I could have stepped in it."

I wrapped the poop in tissues--it was fairly fresh--you get all the nitty-gritty details here, folks. Then I took it upstairs because Phil was going to bed and wanted to have family prayer. But I continued on up the second set of stairs.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"To put the poop in the toilet. You think I was going to hold it while you prayed?"

"I didn't know you had it."

"You didn't think I'd leave it there did you?" Honestly, sometimes men can be so dense.

So I dumped and flushed and washed my hands and when I got to the living room Phil was deep in a conversation with Kramer--the Pooper. Maybe he was the Poopee, some grammar Nazi should let me know.

"Kramer, you must not poop in the house. If you have to 'go' while we are gone you must just be a big boy and hold it. Okay?"

Phil is sitting in the chair and Kramer is standing on his hind legs, with his front legs resting on Phil's leg. I swear, Kramer was smiling and nodding and saying, "Yes, yes, I'll do that. I'll hold it like a big dog." But then I can hear Kramer saying to himself, The carpet is as good a place as anywhere. The cats poop in the house. I think I should have equal rights.

But Phil has a believing heart and thinks that Kramer will obey.

I am a realist. Kramer will poop on the floor.

He poops outside if one of us says, "Do you want to go outside?" But, actually he really thinks we say, "Do you want to go outside so you can pounce on bugs and bark at that German Shepard." (That dog, which could eat Kramer in one gulp, by the way, is staying in the house behind us). Please, Powers-that-be, let that dog be a visitor or we will hear, "barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark," all winter. And then he will bark some more, in case that wasn't enough.

And then he will think his outside work is done.

And then he will come in the house and poop on the floor. I just know it.

A DOG STORY--PART 2

One morning, when I was about eight, I was awakened to a furry ball of energy licking my face all over. It was a brown and white Springer Spaniel.

“We bought you a dog,” Mom said. What she really meant was, “We bought a hunting dog for Dad but if we say it’s for you maybe you will take care of him.” I’m sure I didn’t. Knowing children like I do now, after raising five, I'm sure I promised lots of things but following through? Not so much. But I got to name him and since he was spotted I called him Freckles.

What he really was, was a socialite in a dog suit. He made the “rounds” every morning from one end of the town to another. You could almost set your clock by him. My best friend, Pam Robinson’s house at 8:15, the Barney’s house at 8:18, across the canal bridge at 8: 22, and so it went until he had noised into everyone’s business.

He was the worst hunting dog on the planet. Dad would shoot a pheasant and send Freckles to retrieve. When he came back he had a mouth full of feathers and a mangled bird that looked like a mud-wad with a beak and pitiful bird feet sticking out. There was no way to salvage any bit of a bird that Freckles retrieved. So Dad gave up on him and let him do what he did best, ramble all over town in his tongue hanging out and a sloppy look of contentment.

One day someone came to the house and told us they had found Freckles dead by the side of the road to Richfield . We retrieved him and buried him and then we cried.

He had been shot.

A long time later a farmer came to confess. Dogs had been into his sheep and when he saw Freckles, ambling along with his loose-jointed way, he got so mad that he shot him. He said he knew all along that Freckles wasn’t one of the dogs that had been killing his sheep but he saw a dog and lost all reason. He said he was sorry. I think he cried.

I can’t imagine how much courage that man had, to come and confess. A man like that you have to forgive, and you would stand up and testify of his goodness before the judgment bar.

I think Freckles forgave him too. He was like that. He loved everyone.

I'm sure Daddy and Freckles are having some good times. I can almost see him, leaning against Daddy, waiting to be scratched behind the ears. And Mom is saving the very best table scraps as a treat for my furry friend. I'm sure he is well taken care of.

A DOG STORY--PART 1

The first dog I ever remember owning was a Pomeranian. My sister, Pat, gave him to me for my birthday. He looked like a red fox that had put his paw in a light socket and had his tail in a giant curler.

photo courtesy google search

I thought he was a noble dog. How I knew anything about nobility as a six or seven-year-old, I don't know. Maybe someone explained pedigrees to me. So I started looking for an appropriate name and there it was, on a box of crackers. Crackers. Ritz crackers. I must have heard the word Ritzy somewhere so I named him Fritzy.

And there my memories of Fritzy ends. I asked my older sister. Julie, what she remembered about Fritzy. Surely she had a better memory than me, she would have been about fifteen or sixteen.

"Wasn't he a yapper?" she said.

All little dogs seem to be yappers, it's perhaps the "short man" syndrome.

And that, my friends, is all my sister and I remember about Fritzy, the noble yapper, my first dog.

KRAMER'S JAIL TIME ROOMMATE

I call Kramer the "Bad Barker." His mission in life is to sit by the front window and protect the neighborhood from everything, including leaves blown by the wind. In fact, he protects the neighborhood from the neighbors. He gets so upset he nearly tears the blinds off the windows. When he goes wild like that he has to have a time out. "Time-out," is the crate we use to take the cats to the Vet.

Kramer had lots of time out's today. When I went to let him out once, I saw an annoyed looking Pika in there. I knew I had put Kramer in there but he was nowhere to be found. And then...all of a sudden, he popped out! And nearly knocked me over getting out of there. Pika wasn't too happy about the whole episode either.

You'd think either she would quit having naps in there or he would quit barking so he didn't have to go to time out. Not so, they are both slow learners--just like so many of us.

I'm not naming names but SOMEONE hates stacks of paper that multiply like rabbits and yet...that someone keeps writing and running things off on the printer and copying recipes that someone has no intent of cooking/baking, etc. and the paper piles up. We should stuff it all in the Time-out box so Pika and Kramer would have something to read while they are waiting for their release.

SONIC THE DOG SLEEPS ON THE BED

This is not a photo of Sonic. Sonic makes this dog look like a pygmy. Sonic is huge. He does everything in a huge way. You ought to see him devour a rawhide bone as big as your arm. Twenty minutes, tops.

We have some friends who have a HUGE golden Labrador. He is a beautiful dog, and does everything with gusto. His name is Sonic and he loves to sleep on the bed with his master and mistress. He waits until they are asleep and then he sneaks, stealthily onto the bed, so stealthily that Mr. Successful doesn't even wake up. He sleeps in between them. He probably weighs as much as the mistress, who I am going to call Blondie. He might even weigh as much as his master, Mr. Successful. Blondie likes Sonic to sleep on the bed because he is like a furry heater and she puts her back up against him and is warm all winter. (Sonic sleeps on top of the covers.)

Mr. Successful is not so fond of Sonic sleeping on the bed. In the first place he'd like to be the one his wife snuggles up against. The second reason is that Sonic has the breath of a dragon. When he lays on his back his breath actually turns the ceiling fan. I'm not making this up, Mr. Successful told Phil. Can you imagine? A dog having breath so strong it will turn the ceiling fan?

The other night Mr. Successful was having a dream of the perfect storm--a storm that smelled like dog breath. He woke up and there was Sonic, with his hot-dog-breath, four inches from Mr. Successful's face. Mr. Suiccessful's eyebrows were wafting to and fro with Sonic's every breath.

So, if you ever have an annoying pet remember it can't be this bad--going to bed with a beautiful woman and waking up to an furry snout, breathing hot breath in your face. Kind of kills any romance you might have, doesn't it? Poor Mr. Successful. Happy, warm Blondie.

MORE NAKEDNESS

I don't know if it was The Scottish Dreamer's experience--asking the naked man to breakfast--or if it is my galloping insecurities or what, but last night I dreamed I was naked. In someone else's house. Agreeing to babysit their dog--a Rottweiler, yet. While looking at their 1949 Packard Convertible limousine and wondering why they weren't more upset--or even upset at all--by my nakedness.

And then I realized that no one in a naked condition should agree to babysit a Rottweiler. Or be in someone else's house. Or even look down. Especially the looking down part. In fact, they should just wrap up on one of Omar's tents and go home. I don't know why I didn't do that, in my dream last night, instead of hanging around, at an embarrassing level to a Rottweiler's cold nose with a Packard convertible limousine, with leather seats. Have you ever sat on a leather seat? Naked? With a Rottweiler right there, all attentive and slobbery?

Some nights it doesn't pay to go to bed.

WHERE CAN I SIGN UP FOR A BORING LIFE?

Today a friend blogged and said she read my blog and that I do fun stuff and that her life is boring. Fun stuff? I'd trade for a boring life, really I would. Where can I sign up? Some days I'd like to run away and change my name and dye my hair and be somebody else. I won't bore you with my big problems but here's a little one that has happened recently.
Her Excellency of Mousehole has brought her wee doggie home for a while. Wee doggie is supposed to "wee" on something called a "Potty Pad." And supposed to poop there too. So far I see no pee spots. WHERE is he going? I'm frantic trying to find out. Oh my gosh, do you know what the house is going to smell like before long? Not to mention the germs, etc. I am holding my head in my hands here. I'd take a picure to show you but I've been out in the snow and my hair is a mess. Besides that, my facial twitch would scare you.

Yesterday wee doggie pooped behind the chair in the living room. I sighed a lot and shook my head and whined and twitched. Then I picked up the poop with a paper towel and put it on the Pottie Pad, hoping he would get the idea. Did he? Here's the story as Phil related it.
"Kramer came into the kitchen and drank some water," Phil said. "Then he went over to the Potty Pad and looked at it. Then he went back and drank some more water. And then he pooped by the stove."So there you see, my friend with the boring life, my life is not so fun. This is the least of my concerns but it is a concern and it's driving me s-l-o-w-l-y insane.

Twitch, twitch.

HER EXCELLENCY OF MOUSEHOLE'S NEW PUPPY

The Boarder came by today to show us this. Her Excellency of Mousehole's "Happy Birthday to You," present:


How cute is he? And The boarder too.

Then he took wee doggie home to her and we haven't heard from her yet. Why? Because the doggie has never been out of her arms, we're betting.

Happy Birthday, Her Excellency of Mousehole. There is nothing we can ever give you that will come anywhere close to this.

Does that mean we don't have to try?

No, we didn't think so.

The Boarder did well. Congratulations to both of you and to the little barker who will be very pampered, we're guessing.

Update: She called ten minutes after I posted this. She loves him and is naming him Kramer. His hair does look like Kramer's, doesn't it? And I was right. He is going to be very pampered.

MY ABC'S OF GRATITUDE--A THROUGH D

I am going to post A to Z, things I'm grateful for. We'll see how far I get today.

A--Artichokes. I love artichokes but they have to be dipped in mayonnaise, lots of mayonnaise so I guess I will not love artichokes as much as I used to when mayonnaise was considered (by my cousin, Jim, who used to eat mayonnaise sandwiches) a food group. In fact, I will not eat artichokes at all so I guess I will not love artichokes but maybe will love armadillos, instead. I don't know why. I just think they are cool and there is that new commercial about the armadillo who gets so frightened he rolls into a ball and his wife knocks on his shell and says something like, "Honey, it's all right, you can come out now." Is it a Capitol One commercial?

B--Baths. I gave my kids baths every night before bed. They smelled so good and were so warm and clean and when I tucked them in I breathed in their cleanness.

I loved baths as a kid. I would stay in the bathtub for an hour, emptying and refilling the water as needed to keep it steaming hot.

Now, there isn't time for baths? (I have to blog, after all.) And, not so much of me is submersible. Who wants to see large portions of the anatomy sticking out of the water? So I do not love baths as much as I used to. Or at all.

I will love the color Black--for "B"-- instead, which goes so well with white pants but winter is coming and the white pants will have to be put away so even black isn't as much fun as it used to be.

I wonder, is anything as much fun as it used to be?

C--Conference. Tomorrow is our semi-annual General Conference--two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, broadcast from Salt Lake City for us to watch on TV,--and the same on Sunday. We hear talks from our Prophet and the General Authorities. These two weekends (1st weekend in April and October) are my favorite ones of the year.

Tomorrow, during Conference I think I will have to make some chili sauce out of my very ripe tomatoes. I will watch Conference while I work.

One year the kids and I made apple pie filling during General Conference. We made a huge apple mess in the kitchen and Kraut threw apple peelings all over us and yelled, "Happy New Year." We laughed and laughed. It is one of my finest memories. I don't think we listened to much conference but we did have the TV on all the time. We bottled over 60 quarts of apple pie filling and it was delicious but we didn't make one apple pie with it. We heated it as a side dish. Maybe Apples should be my "A" word.

D--Dessert. I have a friend who, in her personal computer cookbook, has more dessert recipes than all other items, doubled or even tripled. I love to look at pictures of desserts on cookbook sites. Because of the nature of what happens to the body when you eat desserts, I don't eat them much. See "B" above about why eating lots of desserts and then having baths are not a good idea.

So, maybe I will forgo being grateful for Desserts to being grateful for Dogs, which we do not have. We used to. His name was Sebastian and he was Lord Bumhampton's dog. When Lord Bumhampton grew up and left home he left his dog here.

Sebastian was an obedient dog. He loved to howl at fire engines and ambulances. I would go to the bathroom window in the middle of the night and tell him he could not howl, and he would howl-whimper, and then I would tell him again and he would just whimper. He wanted to howl so much but he acquiesced to my wishes and muttered, in a high pitched sissy sort of way, deep in his throat, but didn't howl.

After he died, I often found Phil, standing at the slider in the kitchen, just looking out at the back yard. He'd say, in a quiet little voice, "My dog died." It broke my little heart.

So, I'm grateful for one very funny dog who wanted to be in the house so bad that he laid on the top step in the dead of winter, with ice on his fur, shivering almost off the step, instead of going into his HEATED dog house because he thought there might be a chance we'd let him in.

Which we did.

SIX WORDS FOR CHESTER'S COMFORT

Chester, breaking and entering for comfort.

IT'S A DOG'S WORLD--CHESTER'S

This is Chester. He lives outside--sometimes--and then, when the weather is too cool or too hot his owners open that little window and Chester trots right up there and inside the house. Burglars are not invited.

The last time I saw Chester the window was open and he was lying in the open window, as pleased with himself as if he were the king of France. Oh, wait. The king of France was beheaded. Chester was pleased to be some other metaphor.

MOVIE EIGHT BELOW INFLUENCED THE GAMER'S BUILD A BEAR CHOICE

The Gamer wanted to go to Build a Bear for his birthday gift. His family watched "Eight Below" last night and so he stood in front of the "Husky" bin for a long time. His little brother got the Husky dog for his birthday less than a month ago so it was hard for The Gamer to get the same dog, but finally the longing won and he chose the Husky.

Good choice, I think.

Then it was time to stuff......and fluff......and decide whether the dog wanted clothes or a bed, etc. The Soap Queen buys all the do-dads and she gave him the choice. He choose the bed, a bowl and a baby dog which hangs from the Daddy dog's mouth. Good choice. What self respecting dog wants to wear pants?Then it was time to give him a name...which I have forgotten. The baby dog's name is Max.Mom watches as he types in all the information.Smiley thinks it's pretty fun, coming to Build a Bear. He always gets to come."When will it be my turn?" he seems to be saying.On the way out of the mall we walked through Deseret Book and a sales girl said, "You may not take photos in this store."

What a fat head. Oh, excuse me, I mean, what a diligent sales person, making sure I followed the letter of the law. I tried to joke around with her but she was not having any of that. She did not waste any charm on me, either. I should write to Sherri Dew and tell her that she has succeeded in hiring sales people with zero percent charm and ninety-five percent gestapo tendencies. Or maybe the sales girl's boyfriend dumped her and she couldn't stand to be civil. Can't say I blame the boyfriend. Oh, did I say that? Sorry. A little I've-been-told-off-by-a-snippy-sales-girl cattiness. So I smiled at her and put the camera away.Happy Birthday, darling ten-year-old Gamer. You made a good choice. I love your dog and baby Max too. But most of all I love you and so does Grandpa. We love you very much. Happy. happy birthday. And many more.

SIX WORDS FOR HOW TO HANDLE STRESS

Learn to act like a dog.

FOR THOSE OF US WHO TAKE LIFE TOO SERIOUSLY

This quote came in an email yesterday. It's a wee bit irreverent--pun unintended--so if you are easily offended don't read.

This is great advice. Let's live our life today with the attitude of a dog.

"Handle every stressful situation like a dog.
If you can't eat it or play with it,
Pee on it and walk away."

PS Now don't go doing anything embarrassing! This is only a metaphor.

SIX WORD SATURDAY 5-24-08

I think I will post a six word "Story," every day. That way people can click on it and be done, won't have to read the real blog at all. So here's today's:

Dog cried all night. I'm yawning.