The Chair Stealer

Due to all the hits this blog has been getting, and I hardly post here anymore, I've decided to do more "Dawg blogs."

Really?  Wtf, Bennie.  Lately, he's been doing this song and dance.  I get up to get coffee/wine/beer, and he hops up to wherever I am sitting and holds court.

"Even Caesar Chavis wouldn't understood your dog, dude," a friend said to me.
"I think you mean Caesar Milan, but agreed."

It's not a dominence thing, though Ben and I have struggled with that gig for years, the two of us bickering back and forth more like an old married couple, not dog owner and dog.

"Shut the fuck up, Ben, you're not getting another carrot," I retorted last night as he, very much like a small, spoiled child would do, lay on the floor throwing a tantrum and whining for one while JJ and I were TRYING to watch Northern Exposure.  

And he's relentless about this chair stealing song and dance.  Is it a fad, a phase?  Sigh.  More soon.

Obsessive Dog Owner Syndrome

This is a blog that I transferred from my other site and it's from January 2010. (Yes, I mention "Cactus Man," shudder, and yes his stay was a disaster, but stay with the "dog parts" and ignore CM).

My ex, Scott, AKA, "Cactus Man," left yesterday to go back home to Florida. I thought there'd be tons of wild-monkey-sex during our happy reunion after being apart for two years, but there wasn't tons of monkey-sex. Why? He brought his two giant labs to visit my tiny, one-bedroom house.

Here's my Top Ten signs that you're with someone who's an obsessive dog owner, ODO.

1. Lack of sleep on your part. Dogs get to go out for a middle of the night pee, even two middle of the night pees followed by loud noisy, crunchy treats to be eaten by them in the dark of the bedroom (which aren't treats somewhat unnecessary since that obviously leads to another middle of the night surprise, called a "poop"?). Don't plan on sleeping much if you're with an O.D.O.

2. Dogs cry all night long, wanting to sleep in the bed with you. Prepare to wear earplugs. Bear in mind, I do not have a queen sized bed. Nor do I have a king sized bed. Yup, that means I have a full sized bed, which is a glorified twin bed. Also bear in mind that Scott's almost 6'4" and over 230 lbs. Nothing says no-sex-for-you more than two 90 lb. dogs with their heads in your face, whining and drooling on your pillow all night because they want to sleep with you. This is precisely why I trained my dog, Bennie, to be fine going solo at night. Nookie with a dog ass in your face, or why not TWO dog asses in your face, will surely kill any mood you might have had going while showering before bedtime.

3. Early morning sex is OUT! Heavens no, not when you have two "needy bears" to attend to. Heavens no, you cannot just let them out to pee, feed them, then hop back in the bed again. Good grief, no, not with an ODO. You must then have a good 10 min. baby talk session with them then take them for another walk, then a feeding where you HOLD their pans out for them, not set them down on the floor and walk away, then another 10 min. baby-talk congratulating them on eating and rewarding them with another walk and treats, even though you're going to walk them in an hour anyway.

4. Just before bed sex is OUT. Heavens, no. What are you thinking if you're with an ODO? Before bed time, is for tucking the dogs in, NOT sex. Yup, tucking them in--like little babies. That means making "blankie" beds for them on the floor, THEN COVERING THEM UP WITH blankets, then when they get up fifteen minutes later (because maybe dogs do NOT like being covered up with blankets), get out of bed and re-cover them as quickly as possible, then follow that up with another 5 min. of baby talk. This cycle can be repeated up to an hour, possibly more. No late night sex for you if you're with an ODO.

5. Romantic dining. No time for that when you have dogs that are trained to beg at the table and eat people food. Eating at the counter is the preferred style. Why bother sitting down, if the dogs are only going to cry and jump up on you and knock the candles over? If eating at the table enjoying a candlelight dinner is in action, then the dogs are to be crowded around the table, either whining, barking, or preferably whining AND barking with their chins rested on the tablecloth edge. SO keep your hand around that candelabra.

6. Fun cooking. This one is out, unless you mean, one person cooks while the other judiciously guards the countertops. Koe Koe jumped up on my counter, while my back was turned for TWO seconds, and ate half my roast that I had doctored up and worked on all afternoon. That was really fun. The way a root canal is fun, or a bounced check, or driving on black ice or getting a D.U.I.

7. Having nice blinds down on your windows. Oh, this one is SO out. Your house should be crazy-animal-proofed as if you were proofing your house to be in a sample holocaust house blasting area. Yesterday, our romantic afternoon was cut short when I got a call from my neighbor, Leslie, informing me with a picture/text that my blinds were hanging in shreds from my living room window. Nothing says sexy time more than shopping at Wal-Mart two days after Christmas looking for replacement blinds!

8. Romantic walks in the snow are OUT--of course this is out! Dogs' pads might get too cold. Therefore, a long walk in the delightful winter snow is out. It must be limited to 40 min. or less on account of the dogs' most tender footpads. This one is rather interesting to those of us who've read WHITE FANG. It seems to me that dogs descended from wolves, who rather liked the snow, but what do I know?

9. Sexy clothing. Oh this one is SO out. Unless of course your sexy peek-a-boo top is made of rip-stop nylon! Yes, aren't halters made of rip-stop parachute material easy to come by? After spending 45 min. with a roll of duct tape on my expensive peek-a-boo sweater, I sadly hung it back up in my closet, instead opting for a windbreaker that hair wouldn't stick to.

10. Absence of concern over safety, YOUR safety that is. The "bears" safety should always come first. The last night he was here, I couldn't remember if I shut off the mattress pad heater. So under the tiny light of my nightlight, I crept out of bed, carefully stepping over one dog in my 9' by 9' bedroom, just to trip over another dog, sail through the air like a rocket propelled grenade, only to land in a crumpled heap on the floor. Scott, the classic ODO, bounces up from bed, "Koe Koe. Are you OK?"

I said, wearily, knowing there'd be no sex again tonight, "Koe Koe's fine. Don't worry about me. I think I might have a major contusion, is all. Nothing."

Ha, ha. Fun for me!

Ho, ho, ho!

My Baby and His Weird Moods

Bennie has the weirdest moods and behaviors of any dog I've ever known. In fact, here's a few of his weird characteristics:

1. The Constant Blabber at Parties--

Whenever I take my dog out to get-togethers, especially if there's another dog around, he acts retarded. No, it's not anxiety. And no, it's not him trying to be an alpha-male. Bennie's like that dork in junior high who walked up to everyone on the playground, "Hey, whatcha doing? Let's play, let's play, let's play" whom everyone ignored. He's so lonely that when he DOES get to see a little doggie, he never gets mean, but he wants to play more than everyone else does and is more than fascinated with the smells of butts. Doesn't matter the gender, he just loves butt-smell.

2. The Weird Bath Dance--

I've heard from another bichon frise owner that her dog acts this same way, so apparently it's one of those genetic things, like how everyone in my family has a salt-tooth and a fixation with potato chips. Anyway, after you give him his bath, and blow dry him, he has to run back and forth between rooms like a maniac. Actually, it's more like someone who has obsessive-compulsive-disorder. Bennie's got to run the same exact path, back and forth about 15 times. BUT IT MUST ALWAYS BE THE EXACT PATH. To the door, turn around, and run back into the bathroom, over and over and over.

4. The gargling with mouthwash growl--

Just about everyone misinterprets this growl as a defensive mean growl. But to Bennie, this is just talking. It sounds like he's got mouthwash in his mouth and is gargling. There appears to be no apparent reason.

5. The, "No Two People Can Pay Attention to Me" Rule--

Now, this one is weird. But if two people are talking and looking at Bennie at the same time, he gets mad and makes a "I'm mad, stop it IMMEDIATELY," growl. It makes no sense. It can be two people looking at Bennie and discussing his dogfood, but whatever the case, Bennie hates it. Also, two different people petting him is also NOT allowed. I can't see the rationale in this. Is it he gets too confused to have two people petting him? Is it he wants to milk one person for all their attention before moving on to the next one?

Like with ALL of Bennie's rules, NONE of them can be changed, altered, or removed in anyway. After all, Bennie's the boss, the head poo-bah, the Head Baby In Charge.

LOL.

Bad Boy Blues

OK, so I have been pretty neglectful last year. Not regarding my dog, but blogging about him.

I apologize to my dog readers, but my personal-dating-life in 2010 fell into the shitter. Not really the shitter, but it's dangling right on the toilet seat.


Anywho, what's new on the dog front?

Well, Bennie has become potty trained. Yay.

However, he's developed some LAME habits. Here they go:

1. Split Personality Syndrome--At home, Bennie's the consummate gentleman, "Mommee, if you hold the door open, I'll wait for you to exit first. And Mommee, I never would bark annoyingly. Let's cuddle and play kissie." But once one of my friends come over, he becomes Spawn of Satan, barking and barking like a tweaker full of crack. YES, I tell him to sit, and push his butt down, and keep it there til he settles down, but then as soon as I get up, he repeats barking for minimum of twenty minutes.

2. Napoleon Syndrome in Bed--"NO one is allowed to move in bed!" So says Lord Bennie. If I move in the middle of the night, there's a growling, complaining, whining fit until I resume a corpse-like sleeping position again. Discipline him? Go for it. It's 3:00 a.m. and I have to get up in an hour for work. Go right ahead.

3. Discretionary Peeing--Bennie seems to think, that when I go off to work and he's stabled in the kitchen with baby gates, the tiny kitchen is his office where he'd NEVER think to pee or mark territory, unless he drank too much water. But if I let him reign over the living room while I run out for an hour to go to the grocery over the weekend? It's a regular ol' party, not Woodstock, it's Peestock, and he pees once by the green chair, once by the couch, and once for good measure under the guitar stand on my UNvarnished antique hardwood floor. "Whasss up, Homie?" he says once I get home, groceries in hand.

4. Mistaken Cat Identity Syndrome--Bennie has taken to sitting up along the narrow ledge of the couch while I read. This is cute and amusing to all. Until he farts, behind MY EAR!

There's oh, so much more like weird doggy B.O. and some funky cheese breath, but that's fodder for next time.

Poop and Pee Games

Poop and Pee Mishaps

As promised, here’s the poop-pee blog. Do you know the dog owners that chap me the most? The ones I daydream that their dog one day will give them a big surprise, say, chew up their zip drive with their big presentation for the boss on it. The owners who used to smugly brag to me with a wide Grinch-like smile, “My dog, Pitsy, was potty trained in two days. He’s never gone in the house. Ever.” They say this to me after I inform them that it took Bennie SEVEN long, arduous months to finally get potty-trained. Then they look at me like I’m an unfit Mommie, who should be reported to the AKC at once, and poor Bennie as a mentally challenged baby.

Yes, it took SEVEN months. And let me tell you, this wasn’t the “Take Doggie outside a few times and he’ll figure it out,” style of training.

At the beginning, it seemed he was as incontinent as a career drunk, had the bladder of, say, a peanut, and the intestines of a piece of string. He had to pee more times that a pregnant woman, more times than an espresso-drinker. He peed more than I do at happy hour.

It got to the point of complete ridiculousness. “Do you HAVE to pee every four seconds?” I wailed cleaning a puddle up for the fourth time in one night. I couldn’t keep up. I’d banished ALL rugs, including small throws from the house. I remember one particularly low point at Pet-Smart when I was with Rob, staring at a mini-diaper, in blue gingham print, for small dogs, re-usable, for $26. Rob said, “Are you serious?” I was at the end of my rope.

Finally, this is what I ended up doing. I’d take a wind-up oven timer and set it to 15 min. over, and over, and over, and over again, back-to-back, for a period of 8 hours, 16 hours a day or however long I was awake. Then I’d take him out on a leash in the yard and say over and over and over until I thought I’d lose my mind, “Time to go pee. Time to go pee.” Sometimes, I’d get so bored of the mantra I’d change it up. “Time to go Pee-dee. Time to go Pee-dee,” until my neighbor, Leslie, opened up her bathroom window and yelled at me, “Pee-dee? What the hell is that?”

Ah, and if this wasn’t enough, it was during the worst winter South Dakota had in over fifty years, the kind that makes it into the Almanacs, with blizzards, wind chills enough to freeze Big Foot into a wall of ice, snow drifting under my windows, which leads to another problem.

Bennie, being a short to the ground chap, didn’t like his dingle to dangle in the snow. In fact, it made his bladder seize up, and he’d adamantly refuse to pee at all, his tiny nose held high into the air in disgust, sniffing at me. “I’m SO SURE, Mommie. Really?” So guess what I had to do EVERY day that winter? I had to shovel a mini-football field, all the way down to the grass, in my yard so he could pee. Nothing spells, Crazy Old Woman like me in a pair of Sorrells, robe and parka over that with a broom and shovel at 6:30 a.m., shoveling my yard twice a day, in fact, so crazy midget dog in a red sweater could pee.

But I wasn’t out of trouble by a long shot. Bennie carried a grudge towards me, that I was actually expecting him to pee and poop outside infuriated him. “Why does MOMMIE get to pee and poop inside but not me?” I could see him wonder as he plotted revenge.

To spite me and show me he could harbor a grudge, one night, he took it too far. He pooped in my SHOE sitting by the front door. Yes, he curled one off IN MY SHOE! Good thing I happened to look down as I was sliding my foot in to take him out the fourteenth time that night.

Then there was the time he pooped, without my knowledge, at an unidentified location in the kitchen. It was late on a Saturday night, and I was watching Northern Exposure re-runs. I should probably add that I’d been drinking wine. Not copious amounts, but certainly a bottle, with a fancy little plate of cheeses to accompany it. And I was having a grand time. I love watching that show by candlelight, the house decorated so festively and relaxingly after a long week at work. I sat back in my recliner happy. But as I sipped my wine, I thought I smelled something. Gas? Did Bennie fart? Was there something weird in the kitchen trash? No, it was nothing, I thought as I wiggled my feet happily in my fuzzy slippers. Then I got up to get another glass of wine, the room delightfully dark, the kitchen alight with only one tiny candle. I poured myself another wine and settled back in for my episode of Northern Exposure. Again, that smell. What is it? Ah, it’s nothing. Rob had said he’d stop by after work, and since he has a key, I heard him turn the key in the lock and come in.

“Hey, dude, it stinks in here,” he said as he took his snow boots off at the door.
“Yeah, I think I gotta take out the garbage,” I called from my recliner, enjoying my happy buzz. Then Rob turned on the lights.
“Uh-oh,” he said. “I see what stinks. You might want to come in here.” I sighed and set down my wine and walked into the kitchen. Bennie had pooped on the floor near the stove. Unbeknownst to me, at some juncture, as I was pouring more wine, I had stepped in it with my fuzzy thick slippers. Not only had I stepped in it, I’d trailed the poop not only all over the kitchen, but the living room hardwood floors, too. It was like a mosaic of poop decorating the whole first floor, more poop than anyone would think was possible for a dog weighing less than 8 lbs.

“Guess, you’ll be busy for a while. I gotta go,” Rob said as he put on his boots and left quickly. I guess he didn’t feel like helping.

And that’s exactly what you want to do on a Saturday night in your PJ’s and robe and poopy slippers after a few glasses of wine. To get down on your fours, say, like a dog, and mop all that up, re-wax the living room floor, right? And then wash out your fuzzy-poopy slippers while Bennie smiles at you, the taste of revenge so sweet.

It's Fun to Have your Dog Play "Bitey-bitey!"

Doggie Bitie, Bad Dog! Bad Dog!

One blizzardy night when Scott was here over the holidays, Bennie sat on the couch. I wanted him to get off, because it was forbidden for Scott’s dogs, Koe-Koe and Sophie, to be on my furniture, so Bennie had to get off, too, to be fair. Besides, I wanted to lie down. After all, I’m the Mommie. I’m the boss, the one in charge.

“Get off the couch, Bennie,” I said. “Come on, move it.” Bennie just blinked at me and let out his gurggly-growl noise, the sound he also uses unfortunately to say either, “Whazzz up, Groovy Mommie?” or “Screw you,” only you never know until it’s too late.

“Up! Out!” No dice, so I bent over, though not as fast as I should have, and tried to pull up him by his harness. Showing off in front of Koe-Koe and Sophie, Bennie decided to show them he’s the Alpha dog and no “Mommie” is going to tell him what to do, so he sunk his thumbtack fangs deeply into Mommie’s thumb. I wanted to holler and jump up and down in pain, but I coolly said, “Bad Bennie,” and with a swat, bumped him off the couch. Then looked, aghast, as I saw that I was bleeding on the floor like an infantry soldier.

“Wow, Bennie sure is a dickhead,” Scott noted. Now to another dog owner, this is like saying to a parent, “Wow, your kid is a really spoiled, rotten, jerky brat.” And while your dog/kid might really be a "dickhead" or "brat," it isn't fun to be reminded of this.

This aggression thing on his part started last May. Until then, he was the poster child for perfect baby doggie. He’d run up to me in the mornings, like he hadn’t seen me in years, rest in my lap while I read the paper. He’d cuddle at the drop of a hat. You could pick him up almost like he was a little purse and tote him around with you, and he loved it. I'd even take him to happy hour in a little Paris Hilton style doggie bag, where he could peer out one end and party. He was the perfect date: he didn't argue with me, tell me we had to go or make me buy him a beer.

Then, out of nowhere, in May he started acting like a little psychotic, rabid lamb especially at bedtime. I raised him to like his kennel, and for the first 9 months, he’d gleefully trot off to bed every night when I’d say, “Time to go to bed!” Then I’d lean over and lock his little cage, and he’d fall asleep. But then in May, he started resenting being told to go to bed. Like an angst-ridden pre-teen, he’d run growling, cussing under his breath, backtalking and P.O.’d that Mommie dare say such a thing. So I started letting him sleep on a little bed in the living room, to give him his own space. But the aggression/territorialness continued, when he’d be sleepy and you wanted to pet him, he’d growl/snap and say, "Mommie Asshole!" and he's now to the point where any time you want to do something that displeases him (like ask him to get off the couch when he doesn’t want to), he gets snappy to the point of taking a bite outta you.

The really interesting thing is trying different things to prevent this and asking people for advice. I’ve heard, and tried, EVERYTHING under the sun, including advice from the Godfather of all dogs, The Dog Whisperer. That show slays me. WHY IS IT that HE can say, "Tssst-tsst," and stand just in front of a dog making that noise, and the dog redeems himself, as if he's spent hours in a confessional, yet for me nothing works.

A student in class once offered, “We just give him a swat on the nose, and that does the trick.” I just laughed, like Bennie would do if he heard such a suggestion. “He growls anyway,” I said. Another student said, “Grab him around the jaws and tell him not to growl.” Oh, that one works wonders when the dog moves faster than a snake and sinks his teeth into you, I told her as the class laughed. Then there’s the 1. Time Outs in the Kennel, which Bennie just uses as time to plot acts of revenge, like chewing up my favorite technical pencil while my back is turned. 2. Ignoring Bennie, which just means he figures it is a good time to take a nap and dream about his girlfriend, Sophie.

Then there’s the classic, “Show him you’re the alpha-male.” As if. Yes, I tried the pinning him down, pretending to bite his neck with my hand until he’s completely submissive which takes ten minutes, sometimes longer. Then guess what happens? As soon as you let him up, he has complete amnesia and starts growling again.

I guess Bichons are like what the AKC says about them. They’re “willful” and “stubborn.” They KNOW what the rules are. They’re not stupid, but they’re willing to face the consequences. They will comply once they’re tired of the LONG punishment game. And then and ONLY then will they comply by the rules.

I know. It took Bennie seven months to learn this simple rule: “Peeing and pooping in the house is NOT COOL.” But that’s fodder for another blog!

Happing Biting!