Posts Tagged ‘dog’
Delilah’s Dilemma
Delilah must have rolled into some sap. Cyndie thinks it might have been bugging Delilah for a few days. Our poor dog was biting at it, pulling her hair out, and licking obsessively, which eventually created a sore spot of raw skin.
When I got home from the day-job, Cyndie was working her way through an escalating series of interventions to dissuade Delilah from messing with the sore. She had yet to find a method that achieved her goal.
Poor Delilah didn’t realize her lack of cooperation was the cause for the increasingly intrusive control methods being hoisted upon her.
Finally, out came the pad and cling wrap. Cyndie started applying it while Delilah was lying down on her side, and I was getting ready for the chaos that was about to happen when Cyndie tried getting the cling around Delilah’s body. Then she told Delilah to stand up, and the dog responded perfectly, allowing Cyndie to complete the wrap.
It wasn’t very tight, so after a couple of hours it had slid down off the sore spot, but it did help Delilah stop fixating on the wound for a little while.
Before the end of the night, Cyndie had reached the point where she was willing to try the “cone of shame” around Delilah’s head. It wasn’t a full effort, stopping short of threading her collar through loops on the cone as directed, so it didn’t last long. It didn’t really matter. Delilah’s obvious misery was so extreme, to the point of not wanting to move a step while tucking her tail and ignoring any offering of treats, it led to the swift removal of the psychological torture.
It was such a sorry sight, I didn’t have the heart to violate her indignity with a photo recording the moment.
We prefer to remember her in her better days, like the time this weekend when Cyndie grabbed a pillow off the couch and set it on the floor in front of the fireplace to lay on. In a flash of milliseconds after the pillow landed, Delilah dove in for a pin-point landing before Cyndie could lean back.
The dog had arrived with her fangs wrapped around a precious morsel of bone and went about her business with a feigned obliviousness to the intrusion she had brilliantly executed. When Cyndie turned to question the violation of space, she got the well-known universal dog expression. The look that says, “What’d I do?”
Puppy eyes. Twist of the head.
“Whaa~aaat?”
She knew exactly what she’d done. I don’t buy that act for a minute.
Yesterday, shortly after my photos of disappearing snow posted, we got a fresh new (temporary) inch of white stuff covering everything. Cyndie cleaned off the upper parking pad of the driveway.
Delilah was granted some leash-free time to watch. I think the snow probably felt good on her sore spot. She makes for such a noble looking sentry, doesn’t she?
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Sunrise Greeting
Wednesday morning, as Cyndie was making her way in the sub-zero cold with Delilah for the first walk of the day, she captured this wonderful view of Dezirea, alone in the back pasture as the sun climbed above the eastern horizon.
Thank you for sharing, Cyndie!
Last night, when I stepped out with the dog for her last walk before bed, and to roll the garbage bin down to the road, we were met by the magical glow of winter moonlight. It is such a striking contrast from the inky blackness we experience here on a moonless summer night.
Our end to the day was a nice bookend to the start that Cyndie captured at dawn.
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Shared Treats
Cyndie and I have been on a bit of a movie binge lately, cramming to see movies and actors nominated (and winning) for this year’s awards season. During the week, squeezing in a movie after dinner tends to leave Delilah feeling a bit neglected by the end of a flick.
Sometimes, she takes it out on Pequenita, unloading oodles of pent-up energy on the poor little feline. Of course, in very cat-like behavior, ‘Nita doesn’t hesitate to bait the over-zealous dog into stirring up more trouble than she bargained for.
Even though the two house-pets are sole animal companions indoors, their interactions tend to give off a strong aura of faux friendship. Frenemies might be an appropriate description of their relationship.
It can appear to be cute when large Delilah prances over and tentatively sniffs at teeny ‘Nita. The stoic cat looks like she is giving great effort to tolerate the attention, especially when Delilah suddenly unleashes a quick tongue-drag across Pequenita’s back. I get a little grossed out when I offer the cat a scratch on her back and find it’s wet.
The two of them have one venture where they cooperate well with each other, putting their usual antics on hold for brief moments. They meet in the kitchen and bat their eyelashes at Cyndie until she gives in and offers up some kitty treats. They are Delilah’s favorite.
The exercise of shared cat treats started way back when we were first trying to acclimate dog and cat to each other. The first positions were spread far apart, but each subsequent treat was placed closer and closer until they eventually grew comfortable eating side by side.
Cyndie and I have seen 5 of the 9 movies nominated for this year’s Academy Awards Best Picture. I think Pequenita will be happy to have us soon complete the last 4 and get back to having the time to entertain Delilah for a few more hours each evening.
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Teamwork Challenged
Yesterday, I experienced a classic example of a frequent challenge Cyndie and I have been navigating to varying degrees over the 35+ years of our life together as husband and wife. Our minds sometimes tend to operate out of sync from one another, despite our best intentions.
It was a beautiful winter day outside, with a lot of blue sky and sunshine, a comfortable temperature, and minimal breezes. We headed out to give Delilah some exercise by letting her run loose in the pastures while throwing discs for her to chase. We walked right past the horses, cutting through their paddock to get out into the hay-field.
On our way back in, Cyndie said she wanted to pay a little visit to the horses. While milling around with them, Cyndie decided to scoop some of the fresh manure under foot. That inspired me to grab a pitch fork and clean the edges of the large pile we have been creating during the snow season.
When she was done cleaning up, Cyndie said she would take Delilah out for one last session of running loose in the back pasture. In a very short time, I was commenting on their quick return.
“Delilah’s tired and I’m getting cold, so we are going to head up.” she reported.
I told her I would finish what I was doing and then follow them shortly. Earlier, Cyndie had asked me what shovel I had used in the past to make a winter path through the labyrinth. I told her the trick is to just walk the route wearing snowshoes, implying we could do that later in the day, after lunch.
As I walked up to the barn to put away my pitch fork, Cayenne turned and approached me for some loving. I soaked up her attention and lingered for what seemed like a long time to me, staying engaged as long as she maintained interest. It’s funny how much hot breath, wet nose, and sloppy tongue seems perfectly acceptable when a horse is choosing to nuzzle and mingle. I searched for a sweet-spot of scratching for her, moving between her ears, neck and chest.
Eventually, what ended our little love fest was Legacy, coming over from the other side of the overhang. I don’t know what reason he had to finally interrupt, but I tried spending a little time with him to see if he was just hoping for similar attention. Since he’s not as accommodating to hands-on affection, it comes across more as though he just doesn’t want her to be getting all the fun.
I finally made my way up to the house, ready for a break and some lunch. Stepping inside, I found no one there. Cyndie must have gone down to the labyrinth already, I thought to myself. Looking out back, sure enough, I spotted Delilah moving around down there. I rallied my energy and decided to join her.
First, I looked in the garage for the snowshoes, but couldn’t find them anywhere. Did we leave the second pair at the lake? Oh well, I’ll grab the plastic shovel, just in case I can find a way to use that to help. The shovel wasn’t where I keep it, either. Frustrated that I couldn’t execute my plan, I walked down empty-handed.
I arrived just in time. Cyndie said she needed my help with figuring out where the turns should be.
Imagine this, it turned out she had brought down the second pair of snowshoes and the plastic shovel, in case I wandered past on my way up to the house.
Now, why didn’t I think of that?
Welcome to my world.
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Holding Court
When the weather outside returns to single-digit cold, there is added incentive to spend a little more time indoors. After work yesterday, I sat down and leaned the recliner back for a little relaxing review of the latest newsworthy offerings from a multitude of front pages on the internet. 
It didn’t take long for our furry friends to join me at that location. Cyndie captured the moment for posterity. I was holding court with our crew.
I read them some of the most outrageous blurbs, but they both ignored the content. Delilah just wanted more scratching, while Pequenita simply wished Delilah would go away.
I switched to telling them tales from this week’s commute to and from work. One morning I had the pleasure of moving in a group of vehicles stuck behind the dreaded slow ambulance with flashing lights.
It moseyed along at a speed about 5 miles an hour slower than the prevailing desired rate of travel. No one dared to pass him, because if you are in front of an emergency vehicle with it lights flashing, you are supposed to pull over and let it pass. Meanwhile, other cars ahead of the ambulance were noticing the lights and pulling over, subsequently becoming added vehicles to our ever-increasing pack.
It was odd to see this huge group of cars slowly “rushing” down the highway together toward their diverse destinations.
On the way home, on a section of divided 4-lane expressway, I spotted a car ahead of me that was having dramatic difficulty maintaining position in the right lane, both crossing the center line and moving off to the right shoulder. It was a little scary to witness. I wondered if it was alcohol related or a case of texting while driving.
I decided to get around the car by passing in the left lane. As I made my way cautiously past, I glanced over to assess the likely reason for the poor lane management. I can’t swear it wasn’t alcohol related, but the easy explanation and my first impression was that it was probably age-related.
The driver was a little old man who could barely see over the steering wheel. I am fairly certain he wasn’t doing any texting.
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Full disclosure: No animals were injured in the creation of this post.
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Snow Angel
Cyndie took some pictures of what she described as a “snow angel” that Delilah made the other day. I make no argument over her claims. Looks good to me.
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I’m Thinking
I’m thinking of changing my writing style. Making it great again. Really great. You already know —and people tell me this— that I write about what I know. I know a lot. I’m smart. Very smart. I’m the best friend blogging has ever had. They love me. I tell all the stories about our dog Delilah; the best dog. Best breed. Very, very smart.
We have horses —Arabian horses— that I write about when I blog. Incredible horses. Our horses love me. When I go down to clean their manure —they create a lot of manure; 50 pounds per day from each horse, every day. You could power a small factory on the heat their composting manure creates every day. Daily— I can walk right between each of the horses, right between, and they know why I’m there. They will come right up to me, Hunter does this, they walk over to piles I am raking, while I’m still raking the piles, and deposit a fresh contribution for me to collect.
Their manure is so smart, it composts itself. I don’t do anything. Just make a pile. It cooks on its own. Hundreds of degrees. 160° right in the middle of the pile.
Okay, enough of that dung. Except maybe the narcissistic part where I bragged superlatively. That part was pretty great. Well, sort of great, anyway. I want to give some credit to the article I spotted on Vox while researching linguistic stylings, which inspired my little adventure in changing my writing style for a few paragraphs.
Back to my woe-be-gone tales of our paradise called Wintervale… where all the horses are strong, the dog is good-looking, and the cat is probably above average. We are wallowing in the purgatory of “between-snow.” That’s a phrase I use to categorize the amount of snow which is messy and should be cleared, but isn’t enough to deserve shoveling or plowing. It’s a common winter hassle, especially during periods between real snowstorms that dump so much snow at one time you have no choice but to plow if you want to get in and out of the driveway.
The best way to solve the conundrum is to simply plow as soon as it falls, even if it is barely enough to warrant the use of the machine. My problem in this case is a limited opportunity (or to be more precise, limited energy), after getting home from the day-job. An inch or two isn’t worth the push to get off my butt and plow after work, whereas three or more inches would inspire me to rise to the occasion.
Since I’m home today, I will do some plowing. It will give me an opportunity to test out that tire repair I did before leaving for Florida, and allow me to clean up the paths I want to have open for the tree trimmers, whom I hope will be here in a week or two.
That’s what I’m thinking, anyway.
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Welcomed Home
Despite some fleeting moments of inclement weather early in the morning (after a really nice little thunderstorm in the middle of the night) our flight home was on-time and without incident. That part about no incidents is a little surprising because of the number of babies and infants on board.
I spotted the youngster sitting closest to us was under headphones and being mesmerized by programs on a tablet for much of the 3-hour flight. What a great invention when it comes to really, really wanting a child to be occupied for an extended time. Too bad that advantage gets offset by the greater number of times when parents would like their kids to be present and engaged with others in a moment when they instead choose the oblivion of a tablet.
When we landed in Minneapolis, instead of having George and Anneliese pick us up, we took a taxi to Cyndie’s parent’s house in Edina to borrow her mom’s car while mine is in the body shop for repairs. That had us on the road for home at about the same time I would normally be driving home from work on a Monday.
That’s one way to quickly put an accent on the fact we are not on vacation any longer.
We were met at the door by a very friendly dog who seemed very happy to see us again. Before unpacking a thing, we changed into work clothes and headed out to walk Delilah and tend to the horses. Cyndie decided to put her recent gains in mobility to the test and grabbed ski poles to support her first foray into the snow and uneven ground of our trails. She had done some good walking on multiple surfaces and outdoors while we were in Florida.
We made our way to the horses and got right back in the swing of the usual routine.
Anneliese made a wonderful dinner, followed by a card game at the table, making us feel completely and warmly welcomed back to our home.
Just to get myself fully back into things at Wintervale, I did a little repair work on a problem spot on the electric fence. It was arcing something fierce at the insulator that Legacy had pulled off the t-post. Turns out he cracked it. It was a quick fix of swapping out the bad one with a replacement stolen off a post that wasn’t currently being used.
With that task accomplished, I felt like things were well in order after 5-days away.
Now we have new snow expected tonight and tomorrow, which will serve as a final punctuation mark to our welcome home.
No doubt about it, we are no longer in Florida.
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Dog Days
It might be the dead of winter, with sub-zero wind-chills, but I am enjoying some dog days lately while filling in for Cyndie on dog walking duties. Delilah has slowly adapted to my increased role, showing signs of gaining renewed respect for my authority, and choosing my company when she’s longing to play.
This means a lot to me, occurring soon after we intensified an effort to re-establish alpha status over her in our pack after she stole my dinner off the counter. She has responded well for the most part, and then not as well between some of those moments.
I have noticed her occasionally becoming obsessed with the flavor of our covered waste basket in the kitchen. When not that, we might find her licking the hand towels hanging on the handle of the oven door.
I think it is her way of recalibrating that uncontrollable urge which led to her making it all the way up to the counter where she could reach my dinner off the plate. She now aims a little lower.
Of course, I would have it that she respect our kitchen so much that the most she would dare do is assure there are no specks of food remaining on the floor, and only doing so after all human activity in the kitchen has been completed.
A guy can dream.
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Not Fun
You know that part about me driving multiple times to Cyndie’s parent’s house for Christmas events? Didn’t happen. Chalk this one up as “Worst. Christmas. Ever.” for me. At least I didn’t have any problems with trying not to fall asleep behind the wheel.
A dastardly nasty spell of weather foiled my best intentions. We experienced sleet, rain, freezing fog, lightning, thunder, heavy rain, and as a cherry on top, high winds with scarily intense gusts. My Christmas was spent home alone. I might as well have been a character in the movie.
Knowing the impending freezing rainstorm would wreak havoc on roads, we headed out on Christmas eve prepared for Cyndie to stay the night at her folks’ house. I drowsily made my way home through the beginnings of the freezing mist on Saturday night so I could take care of Delilah and the horses.
Sunday morning dawned with a perfect glazing over everything, quickly convincing me I wouldn’t be trying to drive to the cities for the grand gift exchange extravaganza that Cyndie’s family executes with incredible flair. Actually, it was Delilah who convinced me, as she did an immediate slipping-on-a-banana-peel spill off the front steps before she realized the hazardous conditions.
I could have tried to warn her better, but we all know she wouldn’t have listened.
The horses were way out in the hay-field, happily grazing through the snow, so I left them out in the mist for much of the day. The temperature actually climbed a bit, melting some of the glaze by afternoon, but you couldn’t see the difference between frozen and not, which made it doubly dangerous.
I navigated my way around our property by changing my gait to something that looked like I had aged several decades over night. Even with that adjustment, there were still frequent moments of heart pounding panic as I’d catch myself from going ass over teakettle.
By the time it had turned to real rain and become obvious that I needed to get the horses inside for the night, I was fighting both them and the elements to accomplish the task. They stayed out in the field while I prepared their evening feed in the stalls. They made me trudge out in the soaking wet to guide them back to the barn.
The wind howled something awful all night long, making my longed-for uninterrupted night’s sleep an impossibility. At some point around zero dark thirty I figured out the spooky clunk that kept occurring was from a bird feeder hitting the house outside the bedroom. I wasn’t about to get out of bed to do anything about it at that hour, and in that wind, so I just had to get used to the sound enough to ignore it and get back to something close to restful sleep.
Yesterday morning presented with a diabolical combination of standing water (much of it hidden beneath cover of snow), freezing temperatures, and continued strong winds. The slopes around the barn were coated with very slippery ice. I tried spreading sand over them before offering Legacy a chance to bring his herd out for the day. He stopped and surveyed the surroundings, put his nose down to the icy surface, and then turned around to lead me right back into his stall.
They would spend the day indoors.
Cyndie ended up spending another night at her parent’s house. Delilah did well with the crazy weather, too confused by the inclusion of thunder in December to even bark at it. She happily agreed with me to cut our walks to the shortest distance necessary. She and Pequenita became my silent companions, waiting out what nature was serving up, clueless to the joyous family gatherings I was missing.
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She braved the gales with me to inspect the drainage ditch that is backed up a bit with a mixture of snow and water.
It’s going to take some time to get back to decent snow conditions around here, but probably not as long as it will take for me to quit moping about my sad fate this holiday. Only 363 days until I get a chance to replace this year’s Christmas memories with new ones.
Here’s hoping we end up with better weather next year.
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Relative Something 