Double Danger Dogs Diary: Vol 2

Put another month in the books – we made it out alive.  All of us slightly injured, our moral broken at times… but overall – ALIVE.  It makes me think of that about the Uruguayan rugby team stranded in the snow.  They stayed alive by eating their teammates. Eventually they were rescued.  It wasn’t pretty… but they made it out alive.

Izzy has definitely decided to grow.  She must way 30 lbs now at least and when she stands on just her back legs her head comes up above your belly now.  Her height is very easily witnessed on any given morning when she decides to see what is going on up top where the humans lay (and the smaller, slick-coated danger dog).  The familiar “thump thump” of her paws hitting the bed is followed by the heavy porn-star breathing in my face to see if I was REALLY sleeping.  Of course I wasn’t, how could I be sleeping with someone spending the last 30 minutes eating their selves 2 feet away?  She buries her whole face in her leg, foot, belly and other places not to be named – grooming.  Her nose covered and suppressing her airflow – it sounds as if someone is strangling her slowly and she is trying to bite them into submission.

This is all by 6:30 in the morning or so, day hasn’t broke – birds aren’t chirping… just Izzy being Izzy.

She still hasn’t decided that sleeping the entire night would be in any of our best interests.  In fact she has enlisted the help of the other danger dog (Mikey) to be sure she doesn’t miss a trip outside around 4 or 5.  I cannot even keep count of all the times that he pops out of the covers and walks over us (because that is what he does best) and just looks down adoringly at his oddball sister, as to say…

“Oooooh Isabelle… don’t forget our nightly romp in the backyard!”

Of course her sixth doggy-sense kicks in and she gives us one of her patented 3AM yawns that sound similar to a small baby’s underdeveloped voice saying… “YeeeeeeeeeOooooo!”  At this point is Shala’s queue to say…

 “MIKEY!”

She knows that he is the one who initiated this whole event.  It is too late now though, he has already awakened the sleeping giant.

We have become an equal opportunity lender of late – each of us taking unspoken turns at taking the dogs on their early morning journey to the backyard.  I have been sick lately and so Shala has been a sweetheart and played the usher in our movie called life.  However I still stir at night and find myself up anyhow, and take them when I realize it soon enough.  Regardless, we both end up awake for a bit – so we might as well hold hands while doing it as a team.  Maybe not.

Izzy has found that endless water fountain called the toilet and sometimes in the middle of the night you think that a water main must have busted, a faucet shot off or something – the sounds of water colliding and splashing.  Normally I wake up freaked out – thinking about un-flooding services, the costs of re-flooring our entire house or what it would be like to live in an aquarium (I’m a weird sleeper… give me a break).  Then I realize it is our dog drinking out of the toilet again and give the all-to-often-yelled… “IZZY!”  She stumbles like a derelict back to the bedroom trying to hide a baritone belch.

Busted.

Shala ordered a Peticure because cutting Mikey’s nails is bad enough – we couldn’t imagine trying to cut the 30-pound villain’s without a tranquilizer and a set of shackles.  It hasn’t made it yet though, so we have a couple of Freddy Krueger impersonators that don’t know their ass from their elbow.  This means that when jumping up on you, slapping you, walking over you or whatever else pops into their brains – neither Mikey nor Izzy know that nails scratch.  Pretty simple concept – but we are talking about trying to teach this to something that drinks from a toilet and eats anything off the floor without even looking at it first. 

Shala found out about this the hard way yesterday – when I came home she was on the treadmill and I could tell that MY dog had done something.  Shala said…

“Look what YOUR dog did to me.”

She points to the two 3 inch scratches across her forearm that are sure to leave a perma-scar.

“She made me cry.”

I shake my head knowing that this is one of the days where Izzy would be boxed up and returned if possible – however, not an option.  I look down at Izzy, oblivious to the fact that she is on THE SHORT LIST of things Shala would like to waterboard (if that’s still legal means of torture) – then hang by her toenails.  Her tail is wagging, her ears are down… I assume she has felt some wrath already, but expects me to continue in the same fashion.  All I can do (sensing she will not get the point, since this happened half an hour ago) is grab her by her ears and look her in the eyes, trying to explain to her how she is stupid and that she will never make it in life at the rate she is going.

She nods, explains to me how she was just excited about Shala coming home and that she had learned her lesson once she received a nice heavy knee to the chest (see Marley & Me for explanation).  After bartering, setting boundaries and coming to a conclusion that indeed she had wronged her Mother regardless of her intentions – we parted ways.  I knew she realized her wrongs.

Directly afterwards she smelled Mikey’s hind quarter then bit his ear.  She obviously was a changed dog.

We have set up a trip to the vet for the dogs for tomorrow – our first trip with Izzy since we got her.  We figured it was time to get her on a leash and get her used to it, since Mikey had a tough time as a youngster.  Oh man… we should have started months ago.  Big mistake.

When she was tiny I bought her this pink leash – because she was a girl dog and that’s what girl dogs do, wear pink leashes.  It wasn’t a retractable, it was all that practical even… kind of dumpy.  Well, I pulled it out and put it on her the other day and she began to buck like a bronco before dropping her entire bladder on the kitchen floor.  I yelled.  This is my usual reaction to anyone that decides to piss on our floor – especially in the kitchen. 

Chalk this event up to traumatized.

Quickly I realized that she was scared by it all, and I shouldn’t have yelled, but it was way too late – I followed the trail of urine to the living room where she sat in her bed in a pile of pee shaking.  I thought to myself… horrible owner.  I petted her and told her “it was ok”, “let’s go outside”, “you’re a good girl”.  We made it outside – her, scared for life, me… thinking I could make up for it.

I let the leash thing slide for a while, but with the pending vet visit looming, I thought we had to do something.  Thinking my fault was not having a retractable leash; I went and picked one up on the way home.  Got home and was thinking I could whip this dog into shape in a matter of minutes.  I called her over; I leashed her up without her realizing at first what was going on.  OH YOU WANT TO PET MY EAR!  TOUCH MY COLLAR!  GIVE ME TREAT!?!  Then it clicked.

She bucked and ran, this time on the retractable so she bolted into another room – trying her hardest to slice Shala’s legs off at the shins in the process.  Piss trailing her the whole way.  Sitting in her bed in a pile of pee – traumatized again.  We managed to get her outside and tried walking her, with her hating every minute and sitting most of the time.  Disastrous at best.

So one day prior to a vet trip and our 4 month old dog hates us, hates leashes and is likely traumatized for life.  It should be a nice piss-filled trip to the clinic tomorrow.  We are excited to say the least.  Last time Mikey went to the vet, he pee’d & crapped on the dr.

Here’s to bodily functions!

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