Category: dog

Yesterday we took Barley for an early swim at Cathedral Park. He was delighted and could sense what was going to happen even before we got to the water. Thrilled, he lunged in over and over after his tennis ball toy. There was a brief threat from another dog, but Barley decided an aging, three-legged Weimaraner wasn’t going to take his ball, and he returned to frolicking in the river. The rest of us enjoyed the trip too, though the river is colder than we all expected, likely due to the high volume of water and source.

Playing under the St. John’s bridge was pretty fun too. It’s such a lovely fixture on the river.

Yesterday Barley had a mast cell tumor removed from his right ear. The procedure required that he be anesthetized, so he also got his teeth clean and nails trimmed. He’s still a bit groggy this morning, but last night he was a big, helpless dope. The vet did a nice job of removing the tumor without leaving a permanent hole in his ear (on of his cutest and softest parts), but we’ll have to wait to see how it heals.

Tigger also received some news. He’s in renal failure and has hyperthyroid. I made some comment about testing positive for evil, but it turns out they don’t screen for that unless you request it. Bets are now on as to how long he’ll last, but we’re pretty sure he’s been in this state of shutdown for roughly 2 years, so in maybe another 2 he’ll be hittin’ the ol’ dusty trail.

Too far?

Ever since we moved to the new place, Tigger’s cat food occasionally disappears. The whole bowl miraculously empties. Tigger, being a cat, is a finicky eater at best. He’ll only eat the food at the top of the bowl, no matter the bowl size or depth. Eventually, the bowl has month+ old food on the bottom and fresh food on top. So we figured that the missing food wasn’t from Tigger.

The food sits next to the cat door, so our fear was that one of the neighborhood cats had found their way in. This made us nervous, given our experiences with cats and houses. Michelle and I were going to try and find a web cam to catch the culprit, but Michelle decided to try moving the food before going with such a drastic scheme.

When the food moved, the disappearing food problem got worse. How? Well, you see, when a food bowl is on the ground, it’s very easy to eat out of without disturbing the bowl. When the bowl is moved to, say, eye level for Barley, it becomes more difficult to eat because you have to approach from a different angle and such.

Well, the bowl was emptied twice, both times tipped messily towards the edge of the cabinet and both times spilling water and food on the floor. This last time happened while Michelle and I went out for food. It was clear that Barley was the cat food thief. Busted.

Now we’re just curious as to why he stopped behaving. He had always been so good about not eating Tigger’s food. But he’s been eating less of his lately, and Tigger recently switched from Senior to Sensitive Stomach formula, and maybe it tastes better. Still, it’s not good for the Roo so we’re going to have to place it even higher.

One of the funnier (in retrospect) stories from the OBF was the accidental introduction of Barley and Maddie right by Barley’s food dish. As I recently mentioned, Barley is turning in to a bit of a situational asshole. Well, it turns out his buttons are threats to food, threats to toys, and getting hurt. This is the story from my perspective, and there are probably at least 4 decent versions going around.

Andrew and I go into the basement to get some fans to help cool down the house. As we re-entered the house, Barley slipped by us into the sun room where Holly, Michelle and Maddie were doing part of the home tour or something. Barley immediately noticed that Maddie was *in the same room* as his food and transformed into asshole Barley (Barshole). This was a bit spookier than previous tussles because Maddie screamed bloody murder (barked it, anyway) and Barley grabbed at her collar. I pulled them apart but they were still close to each other and Barley simply went back at Maddie, once again grabbing her collar and a fair amount of hair. I grabbed his collar and tried to pull him off Maddie, thus lifting both dogs a little. Eventually I used my leg to wedge them apart and threw Barshole to the rug and pinned him down while Maddie escaped. The whole scene was rather scary, and I ended up with terra cotta tile burns (like rug burns) on my knees. Once we’d all calmed down, someone noticed that there was a single, solitary turd on the tile. It appears that Maddie (though it could have been anyone, I suppose) had the crap scared out of them, literally, by the incident. No one wanted to take the blame, so for the purpose of this story (and history), Maddie had the crap scared out of her.

I venture that Barley’s side of the story went like this:

Do do do do do – I’m so excited there are people here – people to pet me. Let’s go back inside – look more people! Oh crap – there’s a dog trying to eat my food! I’ll kill her. I’ll kill her. I’m totally kicking her ass! What the hell – The hairy human seems upset with me. Oh – they’ve left defenses down and the dog is trying to eat my food again! I’ll kill her! I’m being lifted! I’m being slammed to the ground and yelled at! What did I do? That’s my food! What’s that smell?….

Maddie’s was probably something like this:

(nervous pant noise) We’re in a strange place. Where’s Holly going? I should follow her. Holy cow – there’s a dog attacking me. I’d better scream! Help! Help! Help! oh good – they’re saving me. Oh no – he’s attacking again! What did I do? Save me! Save me! (poop!) Oh – I’m so embarrassed! I’d better go outside.

I’m not really sure what other sides of the story sound like – but I know Andrew was somewhat pleased that Maddie finally got her comeuppance, though I don’t think she deserved being attacked by Barshole. They got along the rest of the weekend, but what a nightmare.

At the end of our walk this morning, Barley made a quick lick at a stain of dumpster juice that was dribbling from the eroded corner of the bin outside a restaurant down the street. I yanked him away quickly because last week there had been maggots in the juice, and after a week of 80F plus weather, god knows what else might be in it. Gross.