If Only I Would've Had a Camera

Today Lily & Lola came home from a long day of playing at Camp Bow Wow. They ate their dinners and promptly took up their usual positions begging for food while Daddy and I ate our dinners in the living room. Lily soon tired of this business and curled up for a long summer's nap. Lola, determined to beg till she dropped, stayed under the TV tray where she usually sits, but her eyelids soon betrayed her. Guy and I watched as they started to droop and she struggled to keep them open. But the "America's Funniest Home Videos" moment came when Lola actually closed her eyes and started to slooooowwwwly tip over. She fell asleep sitting up! She was rudely awakened when her head hit the side of the TV tray, but, boy, did we get a good laugh tonight! If only we could have shared it on tape with millions of Americans (and my future husband, Tom Burgeron).

Odd Choice of Signage

I had to take a dog to the South Hills Animal Hospital the other day for work, and I haven't been inside there for a few years, so as I was taking in my surroundings, something jumped out at me. On their front-desk counter, there is one of those plastic signs with engraved letters. You would expect it to say something like "payment is due at the time of your appointment" or "cancellations require 24-hour notice" -- you know, something generic and office-like. No. Instead it says, in big, bold letters -- "GRAPES AND RAISINS CAN KILL YOUR DOG!"

Um...okay...

So can lighter fluid, but you don't have a sign posted about that. I know that grapes and raisins have been the "trendy" item lately for people to make you worry about, but to have an engraved sign about it posted at the vet hospital? It just seemed strange to me.

Mad Mama

I have never been as angry at my dogs as I am tonight. Guy is on a business trip to Virginia, so I'm home alone with the ladies, and usually they are good for me, but tonight is an exception. First of all, Lola has been on this kick lately of squeaking out any door that we open, so she constantly gets out without her leash or collar on. It's not really a problem when she goes out the back door because she usually just runs up the hill and comes back in a minute or two. But tonight, she decided to make her escape out the front door. A black dog on the street in the dark is not a good thing. Now, the reason Lola even had the chance to get out the front door is because of Lily, Miss "I will whine to no end about having to go to the bathroom, but when you let me out, I won't do a thing." I literally let Lily out about 6 times within the span of an hour and a half, and she did absolutely nothing. I knew she had to go number #2 because this is a typical routine with her. I decided to give her one more chance and take her down the street for a change of location. Ideally, Lola would have gone in her crate so I could handle Lily and her poop bag by myself, but not even Nut-tastics could tempt Lola into her cage. She knew something was up.

So, I tried to just get out the door without Lola following, but she got out before me and took off down the road. There I am, screaming her name (to no avail) with Lily on her leash coming along for the chase. Every time I got close to Lola, she just took off further, till she eventually started going into the adjacent townhome plan to ours. It was at this point in time that Lily decided she was finally ready to move her bowels and a nice young couple walked up the road and attracted Lola's attention. I am struggling with Lily while trying explain to them that, yes, Lola is friendly, but that she got off her leash and I'm trying to catch her. They bend down to pet her, only sending Lily into a frenzy because she wants attention, too. As they leave, I'm finally able to pin Lola down to the ground, but there was no way I could walk Lily back home, carry Lola, and carry the poop. So, unfortunately, I had to leave the poop on the ground. I feel really guilty about it, but I couldn't even find it again after the fiasco with the couple, so I just hope nobody steps in it.

At this point, I am about 100 yards from my house with a 45-pound dog hoisted in my left arm and Lily pulling me along on her leash. I pretty much died on the walk back home. At least I don't feel as bad for eating that Dairy Queen cupcake now.

In conclusion, it took all the mental strength I could muster not to strangle both of the dogs upon arriving back home. I am so sick of these issues, which, in my opinion, could be solved by having a house with a fenced-in yard. Can someone please buy me a lottery ticket?

Look Familiar?

I saw this article about a dachsund laying with a tiger and had to click on it. Turns out the dachsund looks a lot like someone I know...

Mary's Dog House

Lily & Lola went to their first official "grooming" yesterday at Mary's Dog House in Bethel Park. I got a good recommendation for Mary's from my friend, Julie, and it's not far from home, so that's why we decided to take them there. I'll sum up our experience with a quick list of pros and cons.

Pros:
-Price! It was $56 for both dogs to be deep cleaned (they even cleaned around their "bumholes" as the lady working there put it), have their nails trimmed, ears cleaned, hair between their paw pads trimmed, and Lola even got a beard/eyebrow cut and had her nails ground to make them less sharp. I definitely wasn't expecting it to be this inexpensive.
-Results! Both dogs looked bee-yoo-tiful when they were finished. Mary's put cute little flowered bandanas on each of them, and Guy didn't even recognize Lola when she first came out with her fresh haircut.
-Staff! The staff members were very friendly and accommodating.

Cons:
-Time -- Now, since I have never taken the dogs to be groomed before, it's hard to know if this is truly a con, but it took 2 1/2 hours to finish them. I was expecting more like an hour. But, I could be totally off base in my expectations.
-Appearance of store -- When we first walked in, the store definitely appeared in a state of disarray. I know that shaving and cleaning dogs all day is sure to be a messy business, but the place looked like it could use a good scrubbing.
-Strange child playpen in the rear of the store -- There was a really, really odd fenced-in area in the back of the dog-grooming space with toys and a little toddler just kind of piddling around. It looked like we were observing him at a zoo. Granted, this doesn't have anything to do with the quality of their business, but it was just plain weird.

So, as you can see, I would say the pros definitely outweigh the cons at Mary's Dog House. If you don't have the time to do a self-serve wash, I'd highly recommend Mary's for all your grooming needs.

The Great Poop Caper

Lily is two years old now, and we'd like to consider her housebroken. It's a very, very rare occasion when she goes potty in the house, so when she does, we know it must have been a true emergency.

The other night, Guy and I were cleaning his loft, so we left the gate open by accident. Later on, I noticed a piece of poop literally draped over one of the steps to the loft, like whichever dog had done it did so on the run. I immediately blamed Lola because she still has issues with pottying outside, but Guy had other ideas. He got a paper towel to clean up the stuff, but while he was transporting it to the garbage, he decided to model it for me to explain why it was much too big to be Lola's. He was holding it at different angles and viewpoints while I was screaming at him to stop. Eventually he relented and flushed the poop and the conversation down the toilet. However, after observing the size of Lola's BMs for the past day or so, I guess I have to agree with Guy that there's no way Lola could have managed the poop drapery.

So, sorry, Lily, for not letting you out if you really needed to go. And sorry, world, for letting you know that poop analysis is part of our daily routines. This is what our lives have come to.

I'm Sick 'Cause I Ate One

When I took the Red Cross babysitting course in sixth grade, they taught us a little "poem" to remember the phone number for Poison Control. It went, "I'm sick 'cause I ate one. Sick, sick, sick, upside-down sick." Can you figure out what the phone number was? See the bottom of the post for the answer.

Anyway, I really wish there was an online database for all things poisonous to dogs. Lily, being the smart darling that she is, chews things up and spits them out. Lola, on the other hand, chews things up and ingests them. She eats paper towels, plastic, her own vomit, and pretty much anything she can get her paws on. Today I caught her chewing/eating an old Polaroid picture of one of my friends and Ian from Survivor: Palau. The back of the picture smells kind of funny, like it has chemicals on it, and Lola's breath now smells the same way. I'm really not sure if it is a big deal, and I don't even know if she swallowed anything, but I tried Googling "dog ate Polaroid" just in case. Needless to say, I didn't find any helpful results. I don't think this situation warrants calling Poison Control, but it'd just be nice if there was a message board or online chat with veterinarians who could ease my fears.


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