I Might Have Said

Setting:  A decent restaurant, surrounded by 30 friends, eating good food and engaging in scintillating conversation.

Climax:  BBBH is placing a few morsels in the styrofoam take-home box.

Listen in.

BBBH:  Have to take a goodie home to my doggie.

J (across the table):  People food is not good for dogs.

vanilla (either because he knows everything, or because he rushes to his wife's defense): Dogs are omnivores.  Their digestive systems will handle just about anything ours will handle.  Cats, on the other hand (now he is in the TMI mode) are carnivores and their systems are designed to handle only meats.

J:  I have a friend in Florida who has a beautiful retriever that was not well.  She took the dog to the vet who told her that she should never under any circumstances allow the dog to have people food because it is not good for them.

vanilla:  (Oh, really?  Most people eat people-food that is not good for them, either.  Consider that chocolate cake there on your plate, for instance.)

 [The above is in parentheses because I did not say that, because, in fact, I only thought of it twelve hours later when I should have been sound asleep.  Dang, why does that happen to me?]

Giving Meds to Pets

About a decade ago this one made the rounds on the internet.  I found it too funny not to share, and since it is admittedly internet lore, I feel free to steal it so I posted it here seven years ago.  We (BBBH and I) read it again last night.  Much guffawing and gasping for breath  Laugh your head off: we did. 

How To Give A Cat A Pill
1. Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side
of cat’s mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to
close mouth and swallow.

2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle
cat in left arm and repeat process.

3. Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.

4. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm,
holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push
pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a
count of ten.

5. Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of
wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.

6. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold
front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to
hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth
Drop pill down ruler and rub cat’s throat vigorously.

7. Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil
wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep
shattered figurines and vases from hearth and set to one side for
gluing later.

8. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with
head just visible from below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking
straw, force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.

9. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink 1
beer to take taste a way. Apply Band-Aid to spouse’s forearm and
remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.

10. Retrieve cat from neighbor’s shed. Get another pill. Open
another beer. Place cat in cupboard, and close door on to neck, to
leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill
down throat with elastic band.

11. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on
hinges. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of scotch. Pour shot, drink. Apply
cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus
shot. Apply whiskey compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another
shot. Throw Tee shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.

12. Call fire department to retrieve the damn cat from across
the road. Apologize to neighbor who crashed into fence while swerving
to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil wrap.

13. Tie the little bastard’s front paws to rear paws with
garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table, find heavy-duty
pruning gloves from shed. Push pill into mouth followed by large
piece of filet steak. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and
pour 2 pints of water down throat to wash pill down.

14. Consume remainder of scotch. Get spouse to drive you to the
emergency room, sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm
and removes pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on way
home to order new table.

15. Arrange for SPCA to collect mutant cat from hell and call
local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.

Conversely (and for the sake of completion)…

How To Give A Dog A Pill

1. Wrap it in bacon.
2. Toss it in the air

In the interest of full disclosure:  The dog deftly snatches the bacon from the air, eats same.  Later I find the pill on the floor.

Berkeley Defined #T

While Berkeley was by all appearances an excellent Golden Retriever, he had some quirks, non-retriever-like quirks.  We had a wonderful outsized Golden prior to Berkeley's time in our home from whom we learned much about the behaviors of the breed.  I wrote about Dundee here.

My earlier post advised you that Berkeley was well-behaved and properly trained.  It was not until we got to the lake place that we discovered the missing element in his training.  The dog had not been broken to leash.  When we first attached the leash to his collar he set his feet and refused to budge.  Using the choke-chain, I literally dragged the dog down the lane two or three yards, his feet cutting furrows into the gravel.  The fault was soon corrected, however, and the dog became an excellent walking companion.

I mentioned earlier that gunfire or firecrackers made the animal frantic.  And lightning?  Forget about it.  The dog would climb into the nearest lap and beg for mercy.  This was particularly annoying when the nearest lap belonged to the nonagenarian occupant of our home.  Mother was not amused; in fact, she could be described as frantic.  You get the picture.  This problem was finally alleviated when we directed the beast to the shower stall which was quite small and confining.  He found comfort and safety there, and eventually he would head to the shower whenever a thunderstorm approached.

Retrievers love the water and keeping them out of it is a challenge.  Of course, that is any retriever other than Berkeley.  He hated the water, could not abide so much as wet feet.  It was a major chore to get him into the lake for a shampoo, and a greater task to keep him in there long enough to rinse the suds out of his fur.  This phobia was abated somewhat by the spawning season of the fish in the lake.  The nature of the sunfish impelled the creature to come near the shore, fan a nest into existence in the sand where the female would lay her eggs.  In turn, the male would fertilize the roe, then stay to guard the nest until the hatchlings arrived.  This little fish swimming guard on his nest was what attracted Berkeley to the water.  He would stand transfixed for the longest time, watching the show.  But eventually it was too much and he felt obligated to take a swipe.  This got his paw wet, and eventually he decided that if he were to wade into the water he might have a better chance of catching a fish.

That was successful to the extent that his big old foot standing in the middle of fish nest was annoying to the fish.  Frantic bumping and nipping at the offending intruder resulted.  Otherwise, Berkeley failed in his attempts to catch the fish, but like all fishermen, he would return another day to engage in his sport.

It should be understood that Berkeley was not the only canine inhabitant of our domicile, as Spot was already a resident when he arrived.  They accommodated one another early on though little love was lost between them.  We had just concluded that each had accepted the other when one afternoon, having let them into the fenced yard, I glanced through the kitchen window just in time to see  that Berkeley had Spot down and was clearly intent on finishing him off.  I hollered, "Berkeley is killing Spot," and ran for the door.  I got to the animals in time to save Spot's life, but not before Berkeley had torn the scalp loose from Spot's head.

Plastered the scalp down, and it reattached, so no lasting harm.  They lived peacefully together several years thereafter until Spot's demise at the age of fifteen.

Berkeley #T

I have written from time to time about some of the dogs in my life, from "my" dog, Jiggs, to our current dachshund, Wiener. But somehow I seem to have neglected Berkeley's story.

Berkeley, though named for the British philosopher Bishop Berkeley, was not a philosopher, or at least he never discussed such things with me.  We did, however, pronounce his name even as the stalwart Brit pronounced his, and thus it was that people, even his vet, when writing his name usually wrote "Barkley."

Ellie carried her lunch, traditionalist, in a brown paper bag.  As Springtime approached and the southern breezes wafted comfort into our surroundings, she would take her little sack outside and sit on the bench near the natatorium to partake of her sustenance.

A dog found her there.  And she shared her lunch with him.  He returned the next day, and that evening Ellie told me she would like for me to meet her lunch companion if I could get free for a couple of minutes.  I saw what was coming.  The next day I met the animal, and that evening he went home with us.

Berkeley, as we soon named him, was one hundred pounds of beautiful golden retriever.  He did not appear to be the typical underfed stray.  He was very well trained, eager to please, and completely house-broken.  We went to some lengths to find the dog's home, even advertising in the newspaper.  We got one response from a lady who told us the creature was not hers, but she had been feeding it in her back yard for a while.  She, too, had tried to find its home.  She did not desire to keep him. Berkeley was now our dog.

Some of Berkeley's behaviors helped us develop a narrative as to why such a beast would be wandering, unclaimed.  We discovered soon enough that gunfire or even firecrackers sent him scurrying, terrified, for cover.  We pictured this.  Berkeley was a retriever, after all, a sporting breed. Someone had acquired the pup, trained and nurtured him.  Then came the day he would be taught to hunt.  And when the time came for gunfire, the hopeful hunter discovered the dog's fatal flaw.  Well, it could have been fatal, but our Nimrod had a bit of a soft spot in his little heart, so he transported the dog to unfamiliar territory, told him he was on his own and released him.  This, we imagine, is how Berkeley became a valued member of our household.

I found the picture of Berkeley, and on the same page of the album I found a picture of Pig and Duck.  Remember the story of the pig that taught the duck to swim?

The Rabbits #T

Sometime during that time frame in which I was between seven and ten years of age, Sister always two years my junior, we had rabbits.  My clever male parent, I see in retrospect, determined to raise rabbits for the purpose of consumption of same at our dinner table.  Ever the one to kill as many birds as he could with one stone,  Dad acquired two adult does of breeding age.  I think in the case of rabbits that that is almost anytime after the bunny is weaned.  But I digress.  Now the father had constructed two very nice hutches and placed them at the back of the property, next to the outhouse.  But he did not throw the rabbits into their new homes and start raising bunnies.  No.  He "gave" a doe to me and one to my sister.

How wonderful is this?  Now, each child has a "pet" rabbit, along with the requisite care one must bestow on a pet.  You see how this works? Already, Dad not only has breeding stock for table meat, he has caretakers for the project, caretakers who can "learn" responsibilities and the routines that accompany them.  Oh, no one ever said my father was not a clever man.

Now, you might ask, "But how, with only two does, are you to obtain offspring?"  Why that is the easiest thing in the world.  The neighbor directly across Seventh Street from our house had rabbits of his own, and he had a buck!  This buck would visit our rabbits, betimes.  And always, always a month after the visit, both does would have a litter of offspring.  These were not pets, no matter how cute they were.  They were Dad's property.  The upside of that is that he took care of turning them into meat, stretching and hanging their hides and so on.  And after Mama worked her magic, we enjoyed them at the dinner table!

My pet was a beautiful gray rabbit, blue eyes and of the sweetest disposition any animal ever had.  Sis's rabbit was a white doe, pink eyes and schizophrenic.  That is not an official APA diagnosis, it is my conclusion in retrospect after observing her behavior for two or three years.  The night she had her first litter, she gnawed her way out of her hutch, carried her babies to the nearby sweet corn patch and buried them.  This warned Father that in future he would be required to remain alert to the birthing process so that he could remove the infants from harm's way.  This also meant that my lady bunny had to double up on nursing responsibilities, and sometimes that meant as many as 22 children to care for.

Fortunately, we took no rabbits with us when we moved.  But chickens were in our future.

Where is Jiggs? #T

I suppose I was nine years of age.  I know I was not yet ten, for just before my tenth birthday we moved some forty-five miles up the road to a city.  I walked each day to school, walked home for lunch, and walked back to school for the afternoon session.  Then I walked home. Each trip was some seven city blocks, or possibly half-mile in standard units.  The two-mile exercise each day did not hurt the kid.  In fact, it was doubtless the most exercise this kid got, for he was much more likely to be curled up with a book than to be out and about.  But this story is about the dog.

One of the first things on the agenda when arriving at the house was the greeting by the faithful pet.  But one day, Old Jiggs did not show when I arrived home for lunch.  Then.  Then Old Jiggs failed to show up that afternoon, nor was he home before my bedtime.  The desultory conversation alluded obliquely to the fact that no one could imagine what happened to Jiggs.

The next evening at supper, the four of us sitting sedately at table, as was our wont, I was fiddling with the food, stirring potatoes with fork, scraping peas back and forth, but putting little or nothing in my mouth.  A lot of silence around the table.  I finally stated, in my pensive way and with a tentative question in my tone, "I've been thinking.  I think Old Jiggs is dead."

Dad looked up, said, "What would you say if I were to tell you Old Jiggs is dead?"

"Is Old Jiggs dead?" I asked in a startled voice, terrified at the prospect.

Daddy laid his fork and knife across his plate, signalling the completion of his meal, and responded, "Yes, he is dead.  I found his body in the ditch two blocks up the street late last night."

Jiggs made an important contribution to my life for the two and one-half to three years he lived with us.

Rabbits.  Our next "pet" experience involved rabbits.

Jiggs #T

When I was a lad, perhaps six or seven years of age, a dog came to live with us.  I was never sure of the details concerning the acquisition of the beast, but I don't believe he was a stray.  I think Dad had rescued him from some circumstance from which he needed to be free and persuaded Mama that it was the right thing to do.  The dog was housebroken and a good pet, ostensibly for the kids, but there has never been any question that Jiggs was Dad's dog.

Sister and I may have been "involved" in the naming of the dog, I really don't remember.  But again, I have no doubt that the chosen name was the name Dad chose, or would have chosen.  I cannot prove this, either, as so much fades into the mists of the past, but knowing my father as I did I suspect that he lifted the name directly from the comics page in our little local newspaper.  Dad, many times over the course of his life, said, "The only thing you can believe in the newspaper is the funnies page."  And I do know for a fact that Amos Hoople, Alley Oop, and Jiggs and Maggie were among his favorite literary characters.  Hence, the dog's name was Jiggs, or as he came to be known during the two or three years of his residence with us, "Old Jiggs."

The animal was referred to as a fox terrier, and there is no doubt that his parentage was predominantly terrier.  He was mostly white, with black and brown markings.  He would have weighed perhaps twenty-five pounds.  He ate the same things the family ate, assuming there was something left for the dog.  Kidding.  He always got something to eat.  Jiggs was a good house pet, and a suitable companion for the children, both under ten years of age.  But let Mama pick up a broom, and Jiggs's tail instantly protected the underside of his body, as he crouched and slunk out of sight, could he find a place to hide.  Clearly, the dog had suffered mistreatment sometime in his life, but never at the hands of any of the occupants of our house.

Jiggs was otherwise fearless. He never offered to attack or even offend a human. Dogs, on the other hand, were all fair game, size or disposition notwithstanding.  He was an obedient dog, though. He sat on our front stoop, but he would leap down to attack a passing dog only if granted permission to do so .  One of my father's delights with this dog was to sit beside him on the top step watching the world go by. When a dog would approach, Jiggs would prick his ears, thrust his muzzle forward, raise the hackles on his back, thus announcing his intention to vanquish the would-be intruder.  As the offending outsider would pass our walk, Jiggs would start to tremble. Yet there he would stand until Dad offered the magic words:  "Sic 'im, Jiggs!"  Then like a lightning bolt unleashed from a storm cloud, the animal would explode from the porch in hot pursuit of his prey.

I vividly recall watching this tableau play out on more than one occasion when the "victim" was a St. Bernard that lived two blocks up the street, and was given to taking his morning stroll past our place. Unaccompanied. Most dogs walked themselves in that time and place, for the dogs were no doubt brighter in those days than are the namby-pamby creatures we harbor these days.  They were perfectly capable of walking themselves.  And they did.  Anyway, "Sic 'im, Jiggs!" would set Jiggs on this behemoth which no doubt weighed northward of 175 pounds.  Jiggs would burst from the yard, pursue his target, and leap upon the great Saint's back, landing on all four feet and securing his position by taking the scruff of his foe in his teeth.  The Saint would amble on, never missing a stride.  And Jiggs would persevere half or three-quarters of a block, until he heard Dad's shrill whistle, which called him home, just as that whistle would call home the Sister and I if we were out of sight at supper time.

The Better to Hear You With

Wiener has been with us for five months now.  I believe we have all adapted to the new circumstances.  He is a very well-behaved dog, doing what he wants to do for the most part.  The biggest problem is that these two elderly people haven't the energy to frolic with the dog as much as he would like, and thus he gets bored.  How does he handle that?  He gets in his bed and sleeps. Then BBBH feels guilty and says, "He sleeps way too much."  I can think of worse things.

He was walking across the floor with both ears flopped back over his head, so I asked him to stop and pose.  He did.  He often has one ear or the other back over his head, but seldom both at the same time. I thought it quite funny.

Kitty, Kitty!

We had a lovely visit with friends Stan and Pat a few evenings past.  Since our last visit in their home, both their kitty and their dog went to the Rainbow Bridge.  Thus they have acquired two new cats.

These felines are litter-mates.  Orange liked me, and came right up to me and asked for pets.  Very loving cat.  Black Ears would not get within two feet of me.