New Camera

We got some money for our fence replacement from the insurance. It gave us a little extra, actually. So we got a camera that actually works and is kinda nice. So I decided to add some pics here from the new camera. These are close ups of our animals.

Spy

Soccer

Anna

The Morning After

My dog, Anna, is getting old. She's pushing 10. But for all I know she'll live another 10 years. But if she does, I'm not sure her body will hold up. She's getting a bit of arthritis, I think; can't get up as fast, and kind of hobbles around. Poor old thing. But she also seems to be having a harder time holding her bladder and...stuff like that.

Anna sleeps at the foot of my bed, and early one morning I woke up to an unpleasant smell. I quickly flipped on the lights, and did a quick visual search of the room. All clear. Must have been an Anna toot. But I'm not completely convinced. About a month earlier she had a lovely case of the runs all over Sarah's room. So I check there first. All clear.

Deciding that Anna probably needs to go potty, I take her down stairs. And what do my wondering eyes behold in the darkness of the living room? In an almost perfect cemi-circle, there lies the runny remains of what ever Anna had eaten the night before. It was bad. I'd describe it in more detail for you, but I'm not sure it'd be appreciated much. But I did have to stuff tissue up my nose to make it through the clean up process.

I'm not sure how long it had been sitting there, soaking into the carpet, but after several passes with the carpet cleaner, stains remained in some of the more concentrated areas.

Then, not too long after, I guess she just really had to go pee, and we were all playing a game, or something, and didn't recognize the tell-tale signs of the "potty dance". And so she relieved herself in the very spot she had previously. At least this time was number 1.

Maybe it's time for doggie diapers.

- Chel

Good Human

Our animals have us quite trained. We like to think that as humans, we are in control of our pets and that we have them trained. But its just not true. Ok, I guess I should say its not true in our household.

We have two cats: Spy and Soccer; a dog: Anna; and then there's the fish and the gecko. They don't do much but hang around in their tank and cage - so there's no real training on either end to speak of there. But the cats and dog, well, they have us quite trained.

Every morning the first person up has to feed the cats their "soft cat food treat" or else they get hounded relentlessly with meowing, following around the house, leg rubbing, etc. Finally their humans catch on and feed them the required snack. And lest we forget, after the soft food treat, they need their true breakfast of hard cat food - which is requested in much the same way.

Anna, now, has a set food time; hard dog food in the morning, and that's it. She tries to get us to feed her more often, but we don't go there, becasue she gets plenty of other treats when we let her lick our plates (well I do, Chelle can't stand it), or when she herself snatches her own snack from off the table or counter, and then plays innocent. Other than the food thing, we are all very trained on her "potty time". We have no doggie door, so when she has to go potty, she does the potty dance, and if we miss that signal, she does the "get in your face" combined with the potty dance. If we are still dense humans, she will go to the door and "knock" on it, pound on it if necessary, to let us know she really has to go out. So finally we get the hint, ask her if she needs to go potty, and she answers with a resounding "YES you fool!" So we let her out, close the door, and go back to our little lives inside. We could very easily forget about her, but she's trained us again in this matter. She just knocks on the door again, and up we jump to let her in.

She's not allowed on the couch. She has her bed, and that's where she sleeps. Unless of course the door to Sarah's room is open and she crawls on her bed, or when we are on the computers in the living room, she'll crawl up onto the couch, and if she gives just the right look, we feel sorry for her ('cause she is so old, after all) and just let her stay there. She gets away with way too much when she plays on our little heart strings - a little extra limp here, slow moving there.

So, yes. Our pets have us wrapped around their little paws. And for the most part, we like it that way.

Sorry this was so long. I didn't have time to write a short one.

- Chel