Nicknames…AKA Alias #1

My parents have always come up with a lot of nicknames for me and my siblings.  Some are obvious true nicknames like:

1) Sammy for Sambuca. 

2) Has for Hassenpfeffer (my gray cat bro). 

3)  Badcheese for Banshee (Sammy’s twin sister.  The bad is not because she was smelly, because she wasn’t, but because she was sometimes a little mischievous like Sammy.  Not like me who is always perfect.  Just sayin’).

4) Boomer for Boomhauer (my orange cat bro).

Others are more situational “Characters” that we will portray during our normal daily activities.  I have a lot of these characters…my parents say it is because I am such a character.  Others say I am a crack-pot – although this is not one of those nicknames or a character…more just an adjective for who I am.  Below are a couple of these pseudonyms:

1) Jackson Pollock – you’ll see some of my artwork that inspires this comparison in future posts

2) Cecilia – like in the Simon and Garfunkel song

3) Taz – like the Tasmanian Devil in the Bugs Bunny cartoons…this got replaced by Tornado pretty quickly though.

This post is about my Cecilia character.  To be honest with you, this name is a misnomer…as I suspect the art critics in the audience will feel about the Jackson Pollock association.  As you will see in the below example my mother is more the Cecilia and I am the “someone”.  I get their point though since I am the active participant in the scene – Mom being asleep and all.

The example – I am still working with Dad to improve our cartoons but this is the best he could do in Powerpoint:

If you don’t know the song here are the lyrics (with the key phrase bolded):

“Cecilia”

Celia, you’re breaking my heart,
You’re shaking my confidence daily.
Oh Cecilia, I’m down on my knees,
I’m begging you please to come home.Celia, you’re breaking my heart,
You’re shaking my confidence daily.
Oh Cecilia, I’m down on my knees,
I’m begging you please to come home.
Come on home.
Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia
Up in my bedroom,
I got up to wash my face
When I come back to bed,
Someone’s taken my place.
Celia, you’re breaking my heart,
You’re shaking my confidence daily.
Oh Cecilia, I’m down on my knees,
I’m begging you please to come home.

Jubilation,
She loves me again,
I fall on the floor and I laughing.

Jubilation,
She loves me again,
I fall on the floor and I laughing.

If you remember the song but can’t remember the tune you can check out this link:

Now it should be noted that this “taking my place” (my = dad’s) doesn’t only occur in the bed – it is more frequent that I steal his seat on the couch if he gets up for any reason.

I think it is really funny (and a much warmer spot to sit to be honest with you) but I generally lose out and am forced to move over and sit between the two of them.  I tend to make a fuss when I am first disrupted but then I get down and snuggle between them and get some good shut eye.  After all, what could be better than being next to your parents all nice and warm!

Mo-Tor

Yesterday Morning…As Promised

Yesterday morning was so beautiful outside.  Unfortunately, dad slept a little longer than planned so our morning walk was cut short so they could get to work on-time.  I hold myself partially responsible for this delay since after breakfast I went back to bed and curled up next to him and was shocked when Mom woke us up.  OOOPS!!!

Even though the the walk was just “The Short Block” I had a great time.  Had some good sniffs.  Marked some trees and marked where Ella (a lab puppy down the street) had previously peed.  My brother Sammy taught me how to both just pee a little each time so you can mark a lot of things on a single walk and also how you can really get things like trees and fences real good by lifting your back leg.  I’ll get into the details of this in another post.

Like I said, the short block was great but when we got home I still had a bit more energy.  The below video I think illustrates how I burned some of this off and how Sammy worked out his excess get-up-and-go 🙂 !

I should also mention what happened this morning prior to our walk.  I should preface this section by stating this is not something I am particularly proud of – especially when I realized exactly what it was that got…um…ripped?

Mom was working in the kitchen getting set for her busy day at work.  I was playing with the stuffed hedgehog that I got this weekend.  Don’t worry though.  Mom didn’t have to pay attention to me because I had already ripped out the squeaker and little rattle in that puppy…HA!  That part of those toys only takes me a few minutes to go through.  Therefore, mom didn’t pay attention to the shredding and ripping noises occurring in the living room…apparently she hadn’t heard me take a break to go downstairs to the basement.  Anyhow, after really getting my teeth into things and giving some very good yanks to rip things apart, I realized I hadn’t checked in with her in a little while so I carried what I had been working on with me into the kitchen – didn’t want to forget where I was at in my project.   Somehow the thing in my mouth wasn’t the hedgehog anymore but this:

I guess I must have found this sock in the basement when I went down there but I must say I don’t recall this happening.  I can’t, however, deny that what my mom found in my mouth was the black sock with the pink K on it.  I feel horrible because I know these are one of Mom’s favorites.  Luckily, she does have two of them!  I think I caught a break because she has that one as a backup…

Enough for now.

Mo-Tor

A Man After My Own Heart

This weekend I heard one of the most remarkable things of my life so far (and I have heard some remarkable things)…it resonated with me because of my personal philosophy:

“Coach, I have only had two bad days in my life” – Austin Hatch*

* = The quote marks aren’t really accurate since I didn’t hear him say it myself but heard an announcer tell this story during a basketball game on Saturday.

In and of itself, this is a pretty cool statement.  I myself have on occasion had some not so great days which I may have deemed as bad at the time but now that I am reflecting they were more slightly uncomfortable or not up to my usual excitement level.

These include things like:

1) going  to the kennel

2) spending a day at the groomer

3) that last birthday party I already told you about.

Note: Sammy loves Dave the groomer (who is also our kennel dude). Me not so much.  That, however, is a story for another day.

I also had some days when I got a little scared as I moved from the shelter to my foster parents to my current home…and then future visits to my current extended family where I was scared because I thought I might end up living with someone new again (this is also more a story for another time).

These examples illustrate some of those days when I felt dark clouds hovering over me.

So as I said, Austin having only two bad days in his life as a freshmen in college is quite admirable.  However, if you aren’t already familiar with his personal history just two bad days is incredible.  Below are a couple of links (or you can just Google him yourself).  In short, he has survived two plane crashes!!!!  In the first accident his mother and siblings died.  The second, his father and step-mother perished.

http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/austin-hatch-plane-crash-survivor-never-doubted-hed-make-it-n187026

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/08/sports/la-sp-vi-boys-basketball-austin-hatch-returns-to-the-court-in-miracle-comeback-20140108

When we went to Michigan my parents got to go to a basketball game.  We drive there often and Sammy and I have a great time in the car (as we do when we drive to New Mexico to visit our other grandparents).  We have a lot of pictures from these travels and sometimes I help with directions.  I don’t like when Sammy takes the wheel though.

Got sidetracked again.  Sorry.  Never fear, I’ll get back to the driving stories in future posts.

At the game, Austin played and barely missed two 3-point shots…my dad swears the second one was half way down.  On the first, he was fouled and was able to make one of them (here is the picture my dad showed me of him shooting) – his first in a regular season game as a college player.  When he came off the court dad said he was talking to the coaches and it looked like he was explaining to the coaches that he expected he would have done better shooting.  This is a kid who was in a coma for weeks!  Amazing.

I realize this kind of diverted from my normal postings but I am going to think of Austin next time I go to the groomer and I will make sure I keep my chin up (which I did during my walk this morning – I’ll tell you more about this tomorrow…I did some great work in the backyard).  Hope it can act as inspiration to the rest of you as well.

I think that is enough for now but I will finish with this thought: he is a man after my own heart but he has also stole my heart.

Go Blue.

Mo-tor

It’s great to be alive

 

Sammy thinks so too….

The Joys of Toys

Sometimes – and by sometimes I really mean most of the time – once I have shredded a toy and ripped out its squeaker there is a lot more fun one can have with toys.  This includes tug of wars, leaping in the air to recapture them after dad tosses them up, or bringing them to bed and ripping them some more to make my parents think I am tearing holes in their sheets (again).

Last week I found another good game to play.  I even taught Sammy the game.  In this game I pretend to have my tongue hanging out (but it is really a remnant from one of my cloth toys) and as I approach my parents on the couch I drop it out of my mouth.  You should have seen the initial reaction on their faces…PRICELESS!  Ha!  Got him back for messing with me (I think I told you about this on a previous blog).  While my mom was snapping pics Dad pretended to “take my tongue.”  This was a blast.  I made a moving picture of these snapshots that I have included in this post.

Mo-Tor

More on Gators

My parents did it again.  More Bluegrass fried gator bits!  This time they even took a picture with which to taunt me (I think that is the correct way to say this so I do not end in a preposition – a bit stuffy though, just sayin’).

They explained to me why this was such a special treat.  Apparently Mom had an allergic reaction to chicken before I came to live with them.   Over the years (and following some home experimentation) they discovered it wasn’t really chicken itself that she had a problem with but the antibiotics that the chickens feed had been treated with to keep the chickens healthy.  This may have been good for the birds but not my mother.  Since she had this reaction they decided that she never order chicken when they go out to eat.   I should mention that the experimentation I mentioned a little earlier identified a particular brand of chicken that is antibiotic free and that they can eat at home which made them very happy.  However, she still stays away from them in restaurants so she hasn’t had chicken fingers for a really long time.  The gator is as close to this classic food with the extra special sauce that makes it just that much better.  The downside is that Bluegrass only has this menu option during their Mardi Gras celebration so they have been making sure to take advantage of this time of year.

Later that evening, Sammy tricked me into thinking they brought him his own bit of alligator but it turned out to be just a foot that I must have mislaid after I took apart that toy gator last time.

This time, rather than bringing us home some toys they brought us home CROCODILE SAUSAGES!!!!  YUM!  I know crocs aren’t gators but I say it is close enough and I am very thankful.  Sammy scarfed his down and tried to steal mine but I held my own.

On another note, after my last blog on gators my auntie Elaine made a comment that my uncle Glenn would take me to Gatorland!!!  At least that is what I heard.  He loves it there but she warned me about not wearing a chicken costume – the gators there will jump out of the water and try and eat whole chickens that the staff at the zoo hang out for them.  They call this the gator jump-a-roo.  This gave me an idea.  I know, I am on fire!  More ideas since starting this blog than during all of last year!  My thought: what if I went in a Gator disguise?  What better way to sneak up on those prehistoric reptilian bags of teeth than dressing like them.  I’ll ask Elaine if I could borrow her Gator outfit for this purpose.

Have a great week,

Mo-Tor

P.S.  I think this will work and make me quite the spectacle at the zoo!

New Routine

Typically, when mom and dad get home from work we hover around them…generally speaking this is to remind them it is dinner time or if they are making dinner make sure that the maintain a certain level of quality control (in other words, if they drop anything on the ground we get it and they don’t try to claim the “5-Second Rule”.

Lately however, once we have dined on our kibble and wet food we disappear upstairs while they work on their meal.  They still have no idea what we are doing…he, he, he.

This evening, my dad tried sneaking up on us to get photos.  I think these will illustrate that we are being complete “angels”.

Little did we know they were working on these in the kitchen:

To be honest, we did smell steaks but we knew we wouldn’t get any until they were done eating.  Therefore, we focused on our activities upstairs.  More on what we were doing later (doubt there will be any authentic pics from these actions though in my future posts since I totally believe in the 5th amendment – LOL).

Mo-Tor

Smoke Detectors

One thing Sammy and I can agree on is that we totally don’t like: The Smoke Alarm.

I realize that makes it sound like we don’t like a lot of the same things but that is completely misleading on my part since we both:

• Love walks (especially when we don’t have to wear a leash…like in the mountains!)
• Will always take a treat or two (when we don’t we often are at the vets in the next 24 hrs.)
• Chasing squirrels, rabbits and skunks out of any of the yards we patrol. Our interactions with the latter are a series of long and not so funny stories for another day.  Although Mom did not think us barking and chasing rabbits at 4AM was very funny.  Something about the neighbors… Not that her yelling at us to stop was very quiet.  Just sayin’.

Back to the smoke alarms. Sammy tells me these screeching and terrifying things are a relatively new thing in our house. Seems he and my parents lived in another house for 6 months or so while something happened to their regular house. The result of this time away was more indoor space but less backyard – he says overall it was for the better since we now have our own room and the backyard has paths around it so when it is wet outside he can walk on the stones and not get his precious little feet wet. As an aside, I don’t mind wet feet. I do however, enjoy prancing among the different rocks, dodging between the evergreen, leaping over the seat wall arbor and generally tearing up the grass as I tornado around the yard.

Oops! I seem to have sidetracked myself reflecting on all the fun I have in our yard. The point I was trying to make was after they moved back to the original “improved” house, these alarms would go off through the house. He tells me that it initially happened when Dad was doing “woodworking” in the basement (he does these things mostly in the garage nowadays). Apparently, Sammy would hear the compound miter saw start as Dad would cut up some wood creating some smoke. By the way, Sammy and I can smell this starting to happen pretty much right away. A little after we become aware of the scent there would be this ringing noise that would start in the basement and circulate through the entire house. This FREAKS us out.   If Mom is around we tend to get as close to her as possible. We will be shaking from head to tail (and not the good shaking we do to settle ourselves) while the alarm goes off. It isn’t until 5+ minutes after Dad is able to get the sound to stop that we finally calm down – that is if we get the requisite amount of pets and possibly a treat from our parents.

As I said, Dad has moved his operation into the garage to prevent this from happening and to be honest in the winter he tends not to do any of these projects – he is generally pretty lazy this time of year.  So why I am I going on about smoke detectors today? Well it so happens that this same series of alarms can also happen when they are doing things in the kitchen. Again, Sammy and I are pretty much on the job with detecting these odors but apparently my parents won’t rely on us to inform them if there is smoke in the house but would rather rely on these electronic contraptions. Muy annoying! Sammy and I will be a nervous wreck while the alarms are going off – which has happened a number of times since I have lived in the house. Sometimes my parents will say something like: “Yikes! I forgot to start the fan over the oven” or “…%$%…” (I probably shouldn’t put those statements in my blog).

The next thing that occurs is windows will be cranked open and doors flung open (but never to the front yard – what’s up with that?). Dad or mom will then get a chair and unplug the closest of these contraptions. Boy I tell you if I ever get my jaws on one of those it won’t be making those noises again! The alarms will eventually fade away and quiet will be restored.

So you are probably thinking this must have happened while making the chicken for dinner last night. This would be a completely valid assumption. However, no alarms went off this week…but the fan over the oven was turned on.

We are pretty smart dogs and have made the following conclusion:

Parent(s) in kitchen + oven fan = Smoke Alarm => dogs need to vacate the scene.

This relationship is related to one of our other equations that we don’t have to employ as much anymore:

Dad comes into house with wood + he heads downstairs = Smoke Alarm = find Mom ASAP.

Thus, yesterday when the kitchen fan was turned on this is where we ended up:

Although the fan is kind of loud, it is localized to the kitchen and it is not nearly as terrifying as the smoke alarm. We were fortunate that on this occasion we did not have to endure the screeching throughout the house and it wasn’t long before dad found us on the couch and made us feel better again (treats = everything is better…usually).

Mo-Tor

Busted!

One of our morning routines is dad sits on one of dining room chairs, puts on his shoes, and pats both Sammy and I.  This is something I look forward to every morning…Sammy is a bit ambivalent about this tradition and will often walk around the house or may even go check on mom as she is getting ready upstairs (I even think sometimes he will go and lick his bowl as a hint to dad that breakfast-by-mom was not sufficient in his mind).  Dad largely ignores him except for when Sammy saddles up next to him and asks for pets. 

But before this happens we are allowed outside in case we need to do anything out there – I think I mentioned this in a previous post.  Today, since it has been warmer out, things were a little wet.  When I came back in to find dad on the chair putting on his shoes I was so excited I jumped up and put my paws on his knee.  Immediately I was aware he had his iPhone camera activated and was taking pictures. 

I said to myself: “Oh no!  I hope my paws didn’t get dirty since dad is in his work pants.”  I’ll never hear the end of this if he gets a good photo of my indiscretion!  To try and prevent this I totally stared freaking out and bumping his elbow as he attempted to capture the event on his phone.  Sammy just stood by laughing and wagging his tail and asking for more pets.  Here is the results of my efforts.  He, he, he.  Nothing.  He got absolutely nothing.

Wait!  What is this?  Who took this picture?  No way he captured my paws on his leg and clear paw prints on his pants!  This has to be one of those Photoshop things I’ve heard of…

More soon.

Mo-tor

PS-I’ll let you know what I find out about the authenticity of the above photo.

BTW – is dad or Dad correct?  Does it matter?  When I typed it into Word (and by me I mean “The Scribe”) it didn’t underline it with one of those dashed lines. Just want to educated that guy who is doing my typing.

…(BTW) – I am practicing my texting abbreviations as I suspect I’ll be getting an iPhone soon – otherwise how can I really track my activity???? LOL  (thanks Tammy!)

Dad? You messin’ with me?

So the other day I told you about our new toys and showed a couple of pictures of my handiwork – shredding those creatures and ripping out their tiny little squeakers.  My parents have taught me that once I get them out I am supposed to bring them to them in exchange for a treat.  This is the so called “Trade You” lesson.  Now although the treats are good, I want to keep the squeakers for a little while since the noise they make is music to my ears.

As I was saying, the other day it took me only a few minutes to rip them out of my new toy.  Dad was paying attention and took the first one away from me before I had a chance to choke on it (their alleged reason for me “trading” them).  I did get a treat but didn’t really get to enjoy the squeaks like I would have liked.  Shortly after this we went on our evening walk and I totally forgot about the squeaker on the counter.  One thing I am very good at is letting things in the past stay in the past.  A lesson my brother taught me explaining to me that this is one of the best things about being a dog.  It took me awhile to understand this because the first few months of my life I lived in a number of houses (all very nice people) but it made me a little nervous whenever I went to a new house.   More on this in a future blog.

The next day passed by with my parents at work and Sammy and I hanging out in the house.  When dad got home that evening he walked through the kitchen, grabbed something off the counter and then started making those VERY SAME squeaking noises.  I was afraid that dang alligator had forced its way down his throat.  The following video is my reaction to this.  At one point I had to check in with Sammy to see if this was really not something to be concerned about as he just stood back laughing at the whole event.  I tried some new moves with my ears to try and figure out what was going on.  After he stopped taking the video, dad took the little white squeaker out of his mouth and showed it to me.  I had two thoughts at this moment – a strange phenomenon since a lot of the times I have ZERO thoughts going through my head.

The thoughts:

1) How had I forgotten that the squeaker was up there all day?  After all, I spent my entire day in that part of the house.

2) Dad.  Not cool.  Messing with me like that.

He better give me some real nice treats or some new toys to make up for that psychological abuse.

Have a great week,

Mo-Tor

 

Where is Sambuca?

Yesterday, before my parents left for work, they let us out to run around the backyard for one last time.  We are allowed to do whatever we want – chase a squirrel (or our own tails), pee on their plants, sniff the good odors of the neighborhood – which in the mornings of winter consists of other dogs, rabbits and other “wild” life.  A quick aside: in the summer sometimes we get whiffs of people grilling all sorts of good stuff, rain clouds moving in and all sorts of flower scents (then there is also the occasional bee that will buzz by that we bark and lunge at – maybe in a few months I can share some videos that document these activities).

Boy did I get off track thinking about summer.  This entry was supposed to be about Sammy.  So now that I am back on track: yesterday Sammy and I did our normal quick surveillance of our backyard before the work day started.  When I got back to our room I turned around but couldn’t see Sammy.  I was really worried he got lost…he is getting older and those things can start happening – or so I have been told.

Here is what I saw:

I turned to look at dad to see if he was worried.  He was not.  I turned back around and looked back our in our yard and saw this:

Phew.  He didn’t get lost.  He was just behind those dang yellow grasses.  Now if I was allowed to jump in the house I would have spotted him in an instant…just saying.  And to be honest with you, I knew he wasn’t far away since I could still smell his old (parental edit).

More soon,

Mo-Tor

-bad news: I just hit my activity goal for the 37th day in a row.  This may sound like good news (which I guess in one sense it is).  However, if I heard my parents correctly they might bump up my activity goal to 50 minutes from 30 minutes.  I don’t have to tell all of you how extreme that increase is but it may mean I have to work even harder to meet my goal and get the random,”Good Girl” every day. Wish me luck.