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So for the next two and a half weeks I have not one, but two extra dogs. They are really large and bumptious extra dogs. Truffle adores them but they wear her out just by existing. She gets really excited and barks and runs around with her tail wagging and her ears laid back and then she pants and collapses. I have got her on the other stress medicine (prednisone) so she doesn't literally die from the excitement.
However, these dogs don't understand that the cat is a privileged citizen. They think that finding the cat in my bed at midnight is a grand adventure and possibly an offense to all that is good and holy. They have a lot to say about it. The cat is alarmed, probably with good reason. I tried barricading the extra dogs from the bedroom but the bedroom doesn't have a door -- it just opens on to the stairs like a loft or something -- so I tried piling heavy boxes at the top of the stairs and reinforcing the door-object that is lying across the open doorway to the attic so the cat has a refuge. The problem is that he won't be able to leave as I can't get the bedroom window-door thing open, so I'll have catpoop in a corner of the attic. So I need to barricade the opening to the bedroom to keep the extra dogs out while I'm not home and I need to get that window open (call Zack). There are extra protable baby gates at work: I wonder if I can borrow one.
The extra dogs did not accept being barricaded from the bedroom while I was in bed. The larger, fluffier, more wolflike one, Lola, howled. The mastiffy-houndy, slender, puppyish one, Percy (I am not responsible for these dogs names), just kept throwing himself at the barricade and panting really really loudly. Truffle was a maniac. I finally got to sleep by putting the extra dogs on their leashes, which momentarily deluded them into thinking we were going to go for a lovely jaunt at past midnight, but whjen I took them into my bedroom on the leashes and repeatedly explained that they were to sleep on the blanket on the floor and no they couldn't go into the attic they eventually subsided after panting really loudly for a long time. Truffle kept wanting to chew on the leashes, but when I repeatedly told her no (she has shredded several leashes of her own, I can't let her do that to these leashes)she finally settled for licking my arms very thoroughly. I am sure they were quite delicious as I had been working hard during the day cleaning out my classroom and struggling with her and the extra dogs all night.
The dogs have not been trained much but they are socialized with people (less so with dogs other than each other). When they came for a visit last week Percy leaped the front gate and ran off in search of a bicyclist (he only intended to find out what it was). This time he was about to do that and I shouted at him and he didn't. It was hilarious actually. He stood in front of the gate poised to leap and started wiggling his butt ready to jump: I shouted: he settled back a bit: he started wiggling his butt again: I shouted: he stopped: this happened maybe four times in the space of a half minute or so while I caught up to him and grabbed his collar. So while Percy isn't especially adept at following most commands or coming when called, he's clearly attuned to the basic obedience frame of mind.
I'm not the world's most effective or consistent dog trainer, but I intend to have Percy better at stopping and coming when called before Leroy (Katherine)and Yosi come back.
Another baffling part of this is I have their van thing for the duration so I can transport the dogs to the beach or wherever (and run a few errands while I have it, I'm not so devoted to walking that I won't grab the opportunity). However, I am not a big car driver by nature and it was an epic just getting the damned thing into the driveway without smashing into the no-parking-except-with-a-permit sign that bounds one side or the overgrown dwarf Meyer lemon that bounds the other side of my substandard-sized narrow driveway. It took me several minutes of desperate searching to find the parking brake, but I found it. I did not figure out how to accelerate. For some reason touching the gas pedal made no difference at all. However, merely putting the thing into gear and letting off the brake pedal caused it to move slowly and without much power, but sufficient to move the car the few feet I needed to move it back and forth and back and forth to angle it into the little space I have for it.
I do not see the appeal of this type of vehicle, outside sheer necessity. I think I would not have one, even if I had these dogs permanently. I think I would get an old fashioned miniwagon like Honda used to make: something that handles like a small car and takes up not much more space but is boxy enough to have more internal room than a regular small car.
I have been drafting a post about what I know about teenaged mothers but it's not finished in my head yet.
It's different from what most people know.
However, these dogs don't understand that the cat is a privileged citizen. They think that finding the cat in my bed at midnight is a grand adventure and possibly an offense to all that is good and holy. They have a lot to say about it. The cat is alarmed, probably with good reason. I tried barricading the extra dogs from the bedroom but the bedroom doesn't have a door -- it just opens on to the stairs like a loft or something -- so I tried piling heavy boxes at the top of the stairs and reinforcing the door-object that is lying across the open doorway to the attic so the cat has a refuge. The problem is that he won't be able to leave as I can't get the bedroom window-door thing open, so I'll have catpoop in a corner of the attic. So I need to barricade the opening to the bedroom to keep the extra dogs out while I'm not home and I need to get that window open (call Zack). There are extra protable baby gates at work: I wonder if I can borrow one.
The extra dogs did not accept being barricaded from the bedroom while I was in bed. The larger, fluffier, more wolflike one, Lola, howled. The mastiffy-houndy, slender, puppyish one, Percy (I am not responsible for these dogs names), just kept throwing himself at the barricade and panting really really loudly. Truffle was a maniac. I finally got to sleep by putting the extra dogs on their leashes, which momentarily deluded them into thinking we were going to go for a lovely jaunt at past midnight, but whjen I took them into my bedroom on the leashes and repeatedly explained that they were to sleep on the blanket on the floor and no they couldn't go into the attic they eventually subsided after panting really loudly for a long time. Truffle kept wanting to chew on the leashes, but when I repeatedly told her no (she has shredded several leashes of her own, I can't let her do that to these leashes)she finally settled for licking my arms very thoroughly. I am sure they were quite delicious as I had been working hard during the day cleaning out my classroom and struggling with her and the extra dogs all night.
The dogs have not been trained much but they are socialized with people (less so with dogs other than each other). When they came for a visit last week Percy leaped the front gate and ran off in search of a bicyclist (he only intended to find out what it was). This time he was about to do that and I shouted at him and he didn't. It was hilarious actually. He stood in front of the gate poised to leap and started wiggling his butt ready to jump: I shouted: he settled back a bit: he started wiggling his butt again: I shouted: he stopped: this happened maybe four times in the space of a half minute or so while I caught up to him and grabbed his collar. So while Percy isn't especially adept at following most commands or coming when called, he's clearly attuned to the basic obedience frame of mind.
I'm not the world's most effective or consistent dog trainer, but I intend to have Percy better at stopping and coming when called before Leroy (Katherine)and Yosi come back.
Another baffling part of this is I have their van thing for the duration so I can transport the dogs to the beach or wherever (and run a few errands while I have it, I'm not so devoted to walking that I won't grab the opportunity). However, I am not a big car driver by nature and it was an epic just getting the damned thing into the driveway without smashing into the no-parking-except-with-a-permit sign that bounds one side or the overgrown dwarf Meyer lemon that bounds the other side of my substandard-sized narrow driveway. It took me several minutes of desperate searching to find the parking brake, but I found it. I did not figure out how to accelerate. For some reason touching the gas pedal made no difference at all. However, merely putting the thing into gear and letting off the brake pedal caused it to move slowly and without much power, but sufficient to move the car the few feet I needed to move it back and forth and back and forth to angle it into the little space I have for it.
I do not see the appeal of this type of vehicle, outside sheer necessity. I think I would not have one, even if I had these dogs permanently. I think I would get an old fashioned miniwagon like Honda used to make: something that handles like a small car and takes up not much more space but is boxy enough to have more internal room than a regular small car.
I have been drafting a post about what I know about teenaged mothers but it's not finished in my head yet.
It's different from what most people know.