Are You Talkin To Me??

Since we have been back in the city, I have noticed that our little Sophie follows me right on my heels every time Brutus goes downstairs to go potty. At the lake she always kept a pretty close eye on Brutus too, but this closeness was going up and beyond the call of duty. Then I started to notice extra meowing, as in a LOT of meowing. I went out to the screened in porch to see what the deal was, and here she was "yelling" at Brutus.

Now I can't honestly say if this is because she is jealous of him being able to be outside, or she's worried about him, or neither A or B. She might just feel like yelling at him, and the screened in porch is a safe place to do it, but it's crazy. When I came out to check on them this morning, Brutus was just laying on the ground looking at me like "will you get her out of here? She's scaring away all of the chippies".

I went out and scooted Sophie off of the ledge, and Brutus went back to playing, but it only lasted for a minute. She just jumped up on a different ledge and started all over again. It's going to be a funny Fall. :)

Where Are My Bells?

Well, Brutus and I are back "home", and it's been a bit of a culture shock for Brutus. The biggest adjustment by far has been his freedom to ring his string of bells hanging from the door, and having the freedom to go outside when he wants. This is both a blessing and a curse.

For one thing, our home at the lake is a "ranch" style home with a walk out basement, so I was always on the main floor, and letting him outside wasn't a big deal. Our home in the city is a split level, and our lot is a pie shape. The only place that we can have an outdoor tie for him is in the back yard. There are a bunch of rules in our city about having a dog on an outdoor tie, and how close they can be to other peoples property, and whether or not they can be in the front yard. Because of the shape of our yard, the front yard is basically a big no no. So, every time he wants to go outside, it means going down to the lower level family room to let him out. The other issue that comes in to play with that is that he doesn't like to be where he can't find me at a moments notice, so if I put him outside and go back upstairs, he isn't happy. He won't sit out there and bark, but he'll "dog talk". I'll be in the kitchen, and I'll here something like this "ar arrr arr awrr rrr r". Did you understand that? It said, "mom, where did you go, I can't see you?" Sometimes when I go back downstairs and he can see me, he'll head back out  in the yard to play. It doesn't make me very happy, but it's something we need to work on. Again, I go back to the fact that we don't know what he's gone through in his life, so I don't get too upset about it. The thing that does tick me off is that he's perfectly fine when he runs away for an hour or two to chase a chipmunk or deer. I guess it's selective separation anxiety!

The other thing that we have to get used to is our walks. Big difference between here and the lake. At the lake, we maybe saw one person during the whole walk, and that was if the road was busy. Today we actually had to step over to the side of the road so that we were almost on someone's lawn because there were so many cars on the road. I was afriad we would get hit. Most of the roads have sidewalks, but there is one long stretch that doesn't, and it's very curvy, so you have to be really careful.


Also, Brutus would "mark" everything that he could reach, and I didn't have to worry about offending anyone. Big change. Here, he has to be on a six foot or less leash, and I have to have a poop bag in my hand or I can be ticketed. He also has to have his collar on with his registration and rabies tags on it, or again, I could be ticketed. At the lake he was often getting wet, so we had three different collars that we would switch around. All of them have his information and phone numbers on them, but not his city registration and rabies tag. We didn't have duplicates of those. Also, no more marking every few feet. If anyone sees him peeing on their flowers or shrubbery, they get very unhappy, and I don't blame them. He has to keep his peeing to trees and street signs. Definitely an adjustment, but we'll get back in to it. The funny thing is that he completely remembers the route that we take. I deviated a little from our normal walk yesterday so I could take a couple pictures, and he fought me. I assured him it would be fine, and he could smell some new things. He lived!! On a funny side note, we had a city police officer pass by us twice this morning. Good thing we were prepared. :) I know that all of these rules are not only for the respect of us humans, but it also keeps the animals safer, and our environment cleaner.

The very best part about being back home is that Dad is here. Dad is the best, and Brutus is back to looking out the front window starting at 4:00. As soon as he sees Don's truck come around the corner, he is bolting down to the front door to greet him with big "hugs". For all of you that have met Brutus, you know what I mean about his "hugs". For those of you that haven't met him, he stands up with a paw on each side of you, and lays his head next to your cheek. At first we thought he was trying to jump on people to knock them down, but he isn't. He is actually trying to give a little love. We obviously don't allow him to do this to people that come over unless they are family, or close friends that are aware of his actions, but to us, it is endearing.

In the meantime, he continues to be the very spoiled happy boy that he deserves to be. Until next time, have a great day. :)

Wow.....Two Saturday Posts

This is Brutus........

 This is Brutus trying to kill me.......

Yep, I was given a mouse for breakfast, and this lizard thingy after lunch. OH MY GOD. I don't know if there is a full moon coming on tonight or what the deal is, but this is just crazy. Have I done something horrible to deserve bad Karma? If I have, I am SORRY!! AHHHHHH! I love nature, but this is ridiculous.

If I Could Wrap Up The Last Two Days With One Word, It Would Start With "F"

The last forty-eight hours have been horrendous. On Thursday morning, I was cleaning up the house and getting things ready for Don to come to the lake a day early. It feels like the summer has just zipped by, and the two of us haven't had very much time together as a couple, so he took Friday off and was coming to the lake on Thursday afternoon. Anyway, I took the garbage out to the garage, and as usual, Brutus was "helping" me. He always follows me around the house when I'm doing chores, which is a good thing. That way I know that he isn't in to trouble! When he does this, he doesn't (or hasn't) ever tried to run away. I usually chat with him the whole time, and he's pretty focused on keeping up with me.

That day had to be different. I opened up the garage door, he tooted across the floor and was GONE. Of course, it was the day that it was raining buckets of rain (four inches total for that lovely day) and I had to go off searching for him. I would have just said screw it  and let him go, because I know that he knows his way around these woods and will come back, but I was too afraid that he would go back to my neighbor's house and continue eating the gutter and down spout that he mangled a couple weeks ago when he was trying to get that chipmunk that lives in China. I did give my neighbor a call to give him a heads up that the Brut was on the loose. I would like to tell you that he was concerned (not really), but honestly, he thought it was hilarious. I told him I was just calling to make sure he protected his house, and he continued laughing while he thanked me and wished me good luck. Uh huh.

So, in my car I jumped. I drove around for a good twenty minutes, looking everywhere, but when you live out in the boonies in a neighborhood that is solid woods, it's pretty hard to find a dog. Especially a dog that has his nose to the ground chasing a chipmunk or some other critter. Damn it! I went back home, got out the umbrella and went to the back yard. Maybe the goof was swimming. It had rained so much that my feet were sinking in to the muck in the back yard. That made me even cheerier. Yep, I was feeling happier by the minute. I searched through the back yard, and after calling for him for a good ten minutes, I had to give up. I headed in to the house, put on some dry clothes and started the wait. It took about another half an hour, but sure enough, he showed up in the garage. He was soaked from head to toe, so I just shut the garage door and decided I'd let him lay out there on his blanket for a while and dry off.

Pretty soon I'm hearing this little knock on the garage door. I open it up, and there stands this sad boy. I went down to give him a little hug, and stopped right in my tracks. When did Brutus get freckles? What the heck were all these little black spots? Did he get in to some mud? I went to get a towel and came back, and the freckles were moving. Oh.....My.....God!!!! They were wood ticks. I DO NOT DO WOOD TICKS, and he was literally covered with them. I grabbed some clear mailing tape and started blotting his face. I had ten right off the bat. It seemed like every time he shook or scratched himself, a whole new batch would come to the surface. When you tell people that you have a "deer tick", they will 99% of the time say "are you sure?" They always want to tell you how incredibly small they are, and hard to see, and how bear ticks and dog ticks are so much more common. So, to let you know that I am sure, here is a picture of one of the ticks next to a dime. These little buggers are teeny tiny little deer ticks.

Here's another little fun fact of stupidity on my part. I have treated Brutus with Frontline Flea and Tick since March. I wasn't going to take any chances of having a flea infestation in my home, and like I said, I don't do ticks. The first couple months of this summer were really heavy on the ticks, I mean like ten a day, and I was very meticulous about always remembering to put the Frontline on Brutus, as well as the cats, even though the cats don't go outside. Can't be too safe!! Well, we hadn't seen any ticks for a few weeks, and I got too comfortable, and two weeks ago when I should have put Frontline on Brutus, I forgot. So not only am I sitting here with a dog that is infested with deer ticks, but he isn't protected either. I am just dying. Don needs to get here and get here fast.

When Don does get to the lake, he was surprised, but didn't seem as grossed out as I was, until we sat down to eat dinner. Brutus was sitting right next to him (I'm sure he wasn't begging or anything) and Don was looking at his head. Three ticks just walked out of Brutus's fur. Don got the tape and grabbed them. Pretty soon Don's on the floor going through Brutus's fur. Two hours later, we have thirty ticks. By mid morning the next day, we are up to forty, and by dinner time last night, we had taken off forty seven. By now, some of them are getting burrowed into his skin. He has one on top of his head that seems to just have the legs sticking out. On Thursday, as soon as I saw the first ticks, I had that Frontline on him, so a lot of the ticks are dying off by the next day, but he has some pretty nasty bumps on the top of his head, so I put a call in to his vet on Friday night. When the receptionist answered the phone, and I told her we had taken off 47 ticks, she said "what did you just say???". She was freaked out, the vet, not so much. We had Brutus immunized for Lyme's, so he said the biggest thing to watch for is infection, and to try to put hydrogen peroxide on the bites. Yeah, we're having great luck with that. What we need is a hydrogen peroxide dip!I have all forty seven ticks, stuck to tape and in a big bag, so if there is ever any question about any illness that would happen to come up with Brutus, those suckers are going right to the lab. Hopefully the ones that are still stuck on him will die and fester out. They are too tiny for me to get with my tweezers, especially since they are partially burrowed in. So, here's my "bag of ticks". I kind of feel like I should make a Halloween joke there!

To top off this lovely experience, I woke up this morning and came out to the dining room to sit down at my computer, which happens to be by Brutus's toy box. I'm looking down at the toys, and amongst the toys there is laying a REAL dead mouse. It couldn't be one that Brutus killed because it isn't all slimy. This one looked like it was "scared" to death, which would involve our three cats playing with it all night. I looked at Don and said "Take me back to the city, NOW".

If There Is A Doggy Heaven, It Will Have A Dairy Queen!

There isn't much in this world that Brutus loves more than the Dairy Queen, other than chipmunks of course, so today when I had to run in to town to do some errands, I decided to take the big guy with me and treat him to some ice cream. What started out as a great idea ended up turning in to the normal fiasco, but it was fun anyway. Let's just say that I have to make another trip in to town to run my errands!

I had a bunch of mail that needed to go to the post office, so thankfully I did that first. The other thing I needed to do was go to the grocery store, but the things that I needed to get also needed to stay cool, so I figured I would get Brutus his ice cream, and go to the grocery store on our way out of town. In retrospect, I probably should have reversed those two things. Brutus just gets so excited when he gets his ice cream, that everything else takes a back seat. 

Of course, I maybe "needed" to get a little sundae for myself too, and it maybe had some butterscotch on it. The problem with that was that I had to hold Brutus's cup for him while he ate, and there were no breaks for any adjustments. I set my sundae in my lap, and I made the mistake of letting go of it to grab my camera to take some pictures of Brutus. I was so involved in holding his cup and taking his picture that by the time he was done, and I had put my camera safely back in my camera bag, the butterscotch from my sundae was all over my lap. I mean, it was a MESS!! I actually let Brutus lick it off because I was running short on wet wipes, and I knew I would never have enough to clean up the mess if I didn't let him clean up most of it first. Yep, I was covered in sticky, gooey butterscotch, and it wasn't even for fun!! Not only was I bummed because I LOVE butterscotch, and rarely go in to town for a treat, but this also meant that I couldn't be seen in public again until I had gone home and changed my clothes. My pants were covered, and the bottom part of my white t-shirt too. So, while you are sitting there laughing at my stupidity, I'll show you the last two pictures of Brutus loving on his ice cream. And I mean loving it. A couple times he closed his eyes, and I was waiting for him to start purring. So worth it. :)

Sooooo Happy :)

No Whining Involved :}

I finally got my butt out of bed today, and quit feeling sorry for myself for being so tired. To be honest, it was primarily because Brutus was tearing through the house throwing his toys all over, and it was either get up and get rid of some of his energy, or lose some of my belongings! Don has this game that he plays with Brutus with two Kong's. You throw one, and while he's running back to you with that one, you throw the other one. He found that he needed to do this, because Brutus isn't very good about parting with his toys, when and if he decides to bring them back, and if he has another one flying through the air, he just keeps going. You can tell that the Kong's have had a lot of "love"!

So this worked about three times, and then Brutus changed the rules. He kept the toy in his mouth that he was running back with, and picked up the other one that I had thrown, thus having both of them. He'd run to the end of the driveway and drop one so I would have to go to the end of the driveway and get it. He is such a little stinker. Again, who is training who here??

I took the picture above when he decided he was tired out. If I tried to go toward either one of the Kong's, he would head right for it. I gave up, and headed for the house. He decided it was a great idea, and is now napping. He's probably getting all rested up for his late night game of "let's ring the bells to pretend to go outside to try to get treats out of Mom"!!

Oh So Tired (and Whiny)

I have been so incredibly tired this summer, and I'm so frustrated with it. Four years ago when we first bought the lake home, I could go out on Friday night with Don and stay out until the wee hours of the morning, and actually survive. Sometimes we could even do something fun on Saturday. Now I can barely stay out until 11:00 on Friday night, and I'm completely pooped on Saturday. You're probably wondering what this has to do with Brutus. Actually, I'm not sure. I'm trying to figure that out.

This summer, I was treated for Lyme's Disease. The doctor didn't give me a blood test because she said they were more often than not wrong, but I had all of the symptoms, right down to the achy joints. And, being I had been walking Brutus every day along a heavily wooded road, I was picking ticks off of both of us constantly. It was disgusting! So, a diagnosis of Lyme's was no big surprise. Then I had my physical two weeks ago, and I was told that I had B12 deficiency anemia. Well, anemia can make you feel tired. So this week I started B12 injections. I was fully expecting to feel amazing. Instead, I caught a bad cold. Can I blame that on Brutus? Most likely, NO, just still trying to figure out being so tired.

So here's the other thing that amazes me at this particular moment in time. There are women out there, A LOT of women, going to fertility clinics to have babies at my age. The one thing I can tell you for sure is that I would be totally incapable of raising a child at this age. How do I know that? Because I can barely raise a two year old dog. As cute as he is, he is constantly wanting to go outside, then come inside, then go outside, then have a treat, then play ball, then jump on the bed, then off the bed, then...........well, you get the picture. Sometimes I feel like I just can't do it. Then I tell myself that those are expectations that I am putting on myself. Not that Brutus is putting on me. After all, he was in a kennel heading toward the gas chamber. I'm guessing that the life we have given him is much better than that!

Hmmm. So what is the point of this post. Probably just to make myself feel better. Even though I took Brutus out for a mini walk today, I have been laying in bed nursing my head cold, and feeling guilty. He wants to play so desperately, and I don't. So instead, I took some pictures of him trying to play by himself. He really is pretty adorable.........when he isn't getting in to mischief! What I really want is to have my energy back again. I want to be excited to head out on our walk every day, and have the energy to be a great dog parent, and still manage life. I've been married for twenty five years and raised three children. How hard can it really be to have a dog in our life????? I WILL figure this out. For now, I'm done whining, so here are some pictures of Brutus being a good boy today. Enjoy. :)

If The World Could Be A Fly On Our Wall

This story is kind of broken up, so I'll start with the part where Brutus and I left the lake on Thursday around noon to head back to the cities. I had been cleaning on Tuesday and Wednesday from company, and just general cleaning that needed to get done, and needed to go back to the cities for a Friday morning doctor's appointment, so we (obviously I) decided we would leave on Thursday so we could spend an evening with Don. Since Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday morning were busy in Sheri world, Brutus didn't get a walk. The extent of his exercise was going in and out of the house a billion times, and then wanting a treat. I think I would have been better off just taking him for a walk and tiring him out!

As soon as I opened the car door to start packing it up on Thursday, he was in the car, on the middle seat, laying down and in riding position. He would not move. There was no getting out to go potty, and I think that even if a chipmunk ran past the car door, he might have stayed put. For some reason, he was very anxious, either about me leaving him behind, or he was excited to go someplace. Who knows!

We made it home in pretty good time, and had only stopped for one potty break, so the first thing I did when we got home was put him on his tie in the back yard while I unloaded the car. It was nice to not be tripping all over him. I got done, and he was sitting at the patio door waiting to come in, and all was fine.......until Don came home and told me that his tie wasn't attached to anything because he had run over it with the lawnmower. What? I had left Brutus in the backyard for probably fifteen to twenty minutes, tied to a rope that wasn't tied to anything. Oh my God. I had to let all of the "could haves" go flying out of my brain so I didn't have a heart attack. Getting loose in the city is a whole different ball game than getting loose at the lake. For one thing, we're next to an incredibly busy road. Ugh, I can't even think about it. OK. No more letting Brutus outside without his leash on.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful, thankfully. We crawled in to bed, turned on the heated blanket and ordered a pizza. It's called the perfect Empty Nester's evening.......plus one. It's hard to completely enjoy it with two big sad brown eyes looking at you saying "please, just one bite, you make me eat kibble, come on people!" We usually cave and give him a crust. I know, bad dog parents.

Friday morning Brutus would not get out of bed. I had to leave for my appointment at 9:30, and he was still in bed, so I finally woke him up with a treat to get him to go outside to go potty, and then I had to put him right in his crate. That was a BIG guilt moment. He was still groggy enough to not even know what hit him. I got back three hours later, buzzed right downstairs to let him out, and he ran right upstairs to get in the car to leave. I think he had had enough of this being in the city business, and he was going "home". I had left a car door open when I was taking out a few things, so Brutus had gotten in, and I kid you not, he sat in there for an hour while I finished up what I needed to do before we left. We drove all the way to the lake with no potty breaks, and as soon as I hit the dirt road he came bouncing up in to the front seat because he knew we were close. I pulled in the drive way, opened the door, and instead of waiting for me to open his door, he jumped right over me and out and ran around like he had just won a fishing contest. I would have said crowned for Homecoming King, but around here, it's much more important to win the fishing contests!! Plus, if he's at a fishing contest, he usually manages to knock over somebody's beer to get a drink. Um Yeah. The dog likes his Leinenkugels.

Don showed up a couple hours later, and we had been invited to go out for dinner with friends, so then came the big decision of do we crate him AGAIN, or tie him up. He was after something in the garage, so for the first time, we decided to just close the garage door and let him play in the garage. He had his blankets and food and water, and the light was on. He'd be fine. Well, apparently he must have slept the whole time we were gone, because at midnight when we got back and felt very much like going to bed, Brutus felt very much like wrestling and playing fetch and ringing the bell for treats. He was CRAZY!! The other issue with Brutus is that he doesn't like to eat his kibble unless one of us is with him, so here it is, midnight, and Don and I are standing there in our respective jammies, or lack there of, with the dog so he can eat his dinner. I cracked up at the thought of someone seeing us at that particular moment. They would definitely certify us as crazy dog people. After we had both been sufficiently bruised from being jumped on, and gotten up enough times to tell Brutus "NO", there will be no more ringing the door to go outside just to fake us out to get treats, we had to ignore him, and for the first time ever, instead of sleeping at the foot of the bed, he went in his crate and pouted.

Adolescent dogs truly are children, and adolescent dog owners truly are embarrassingly nuts.

Monday Morning Blues (POUTING)

Brutus really workin it :(

 

Well, Brutus once again survived his Monday morning blues, which amounted to twenty-four hours of solid moping and pouting. Don's parents had been at the lake with us for the last week, and Nick, my oldest son had also been here. With all of this great attention and extra belly rubs, Brutus was in seventh heaven. Don showed up on Wednesday for an extra long weekend, so he had his favorite buddy (Dad) around too. Life simply couldn't have been better. Then his other human brother Andrew showed up. Man, this was amazing!

Then BAM, people started leaving! Andrew left first because he had some school work to get done. There were still enough people around that Brutus was able to say "goodbye" and still be fine. Dad left Sunday night. I could already tell Sunday afternoon that Brutus was getting nervous. He can always tell when Don is starting to "pull things together" at the lake, and when Don does this, Brutus starts sticking to him like glue, and looking sad. We were invited over to the neighbors for dinner on Sunday evening, and Brutus wasn't, so that made it even worse. Don walked home from the neighbors, said "goodbye" and got in his truck and left. Brutus was left in the garage on his tie and no one else came home. Not cool in his mind. Grandpa is having a hard time walking distances right now, so we drove home from the neighbors about a half an hour later, and I can honestly say that I thought Brutus was going to get in the car with us before we could even get out. His separation anxiety seems to be getting more and more intense. Nick informed me that when I am gone, Brutus lays by the door with his head on his paws looking sad. That kind of breaks my heart. I always go back to the fact that he was "thrown away", and wonder if he felt that way when he was ditched. I appease myself by knowing that anyone who loves him as much as I do simply couldn't have thrown this boy away, so maybe he didn't have a strong attachment to his previous "stupid horrible abusive" owners.

Monday morning rolled around, and Grandma and Grandpa headed back to Illinois. Now the pouting was turned on in full force. Brutus laid around all day with these big sad eyes. Nick tried to give him a treat, and he practically had to put it in his mouth. That isn't like Brutus at all. This boy is very food motivated. It gets to the point where you just have to ignore him and let him work it out. Nothing is going to make him feel better, and he looks so ridiculous that it makes you want to laugh, and that's just downright mean.

Nick had a flight on Monday afternoon to head back to Ohio, so he started getting packed up to go. I knew that if Brutus didn't come along, I would probably come home to a dog that had died from a broken heart, so I let him ride with to the airport. As luck would have it, we goofed up the time that Nick was supposed to be at the airport with the time that his plane was supposed to leave, and being this is a really little airport in a fairly small town, the people that do the check-in process are also the people that load the plane, so by the time he got there, even though it was still ten minutes before departure time, the plane had already left. They were VERY efficient. He was so bummed, and Brutus was NOT. When Nick got back in the car, obviously very upset, Brutus had kisses for him. On the bright side, Nick was able to schedule a flight out for the next morning, and we had a great evening together. I made a yummy stir fry, we had a cocktail, and laughed a little more about Brutus's behavior.

Today life is better. Brutus once again came with to the airport, and afterward we went through the McDonald's drive through window to get a breakfast sandwich. The girls there love him, and always give him one of those little packages of three sugar cookies that they hand out to kids. The problem?? Brutus gets a little too excited, and his "lipstick" comes out of the package. It's so embarrassing. I really need to learn to start bringing a scarf or something with to throw over it. lol! It sure is an easy way to know that he's happy. It makes me a little more sympathetic for all of those thirteen year old boys out there, which is probably about the age that Brutus is in dog years. Ugh!

During his little pouting adventure yesterday, he did manage to be naughty, so I had to go buy some dirt to fill some holes that he dug trying to go after a chipmunk. At least this time it's on my property. That I can deal with!! Have a happy!

Hello Everyone

Hi there,

It seems like Brutus and I haven't been here for weeks! It's been a little busy and crazy around here. I managed to recover from my migraine, which I'm sure Brutus had nothing to do with, yeah right, and on Monday night my oldest son Nick came to the lake to stay for a week. Brutus was so happy to see a boy, and a human being that moved! He loves Nick. Nick has huge hands that can cover a great amount of space on his belly in a very short amount of time, and Brutus knows it, so I swear that all Nick has to do is look at him and say "hey Brutus", and Brutus is on his back ready for a belly rub. I wonder if I started doing that, but laid on my tummy, if I could get a back rub? Hmmm. Something to think about.

As you all know, Brutus was very naughty last week, so we are still trying to figure out how to make that right. Our neighbors are being very gracious and insisting all will be fine, but we are insisting that we make Brutus's damage right. It will all work out in the end. In the meantime, "Brutus" bought a nice mum to take over to Pam with a little note of apology attached. Mom has been trying to learn how to edit pictures for her photo club, so this was not only the morally correct thing to do, but it was educational too. Double score!

Don's parents came on Tuesday to spend the week with us also, so we've been busy shopping and eating and visiting and eating, and eating. Brutus loves all of the attention, but by 9:00 at night, he's begging to go to bed. He doesn't like to sleep alone, so he usually stands at the bottom of the stairs and gives me the look. If I move at all, he runs up the stairs. If I haven't followed him, he'll come back downstairs and do the same thing all over again. He's also been trying to train Nick to give him treats when he rings the bell to go outside to go potty, and then takes a quick right for the treat counter instead, but Nick is very tough with him. No treats for Brutus. Just belly rubs.

So, when all is quiet around here, Brutus and I will bring you a nice big update. Until then, have a wonderful weekend!!

So Embarrassed :(((

Fair warning, this is a tough post for me to write, so it isn't my most understandable writing. Sorry about that.

So my Brutus was very very naughty, and I could absolutely die from embarrassment. You know how parents take what their children do personally? Well, I take what my pets do personally too. There is the semi-sane part of me that knows that we are still, well probably, more toward the beginning of our training with Brutus than toward the end, but I got too comfortable, and he caused some damage to my friends house. Now I am mortified.

This apparently took place on the day that Brutus ran away after the deer. Here I was looking for him all over in the woods and corn field, and apparently, for at least some of that time, he was behind our friends Gary and Pam's house tearing up their down spout on their gutter to get after a chipmunk. And, of course, it couldn't just be any old generic down spout, it's a custom made down spout. The worst part?? Well, seriously not the worst part, but one of the things I feel really bad about, is that they didn't even call me to tell me. I found out in a round about way when I had called Pam to just chat. I was already having not the greatest day, and after I heard about that I threw up and went to bed. I felt so bad. Brutus is our dog, not theirs, and he is completely our responsibility. I had gotten comfortable walking him off leash, other than the now and then encounters with the neighborhood deer, and I guess I should have known better. Like I had said in my post that day that he ran away, it was his last off leash day for the year. It's one thing if he's in the yard with us, because he doesn't have the loose temptations to go after, and frankly, we don't give a crap about our downspout. I'm looking very forward to replacing them!

So parents, this is what you do when your child hurts something that isn't theirs. You apologize profusely, and offer to pay for all damages. When your lovely neighbors say "absolutely not", you tell them that they are being ridiculous, and pay for the damages anyway. I feel so bad that I feel like I should even do the footwork to get new ones ordered for them.

When my kids were growing up, I got really tired of being told how naughty my kids were (mostly Andrew, sorry buddy) because the parents telling me had children that were perfectly capable of being naughty too, but I just didn't have it in me to tell them. There were times when I should have, but I didn't. Frankly, I doubt they would have believed me anyway. I always believed them, and I always felt sick. Maybe the world would be a little better place if parents felt that pit in their stomach, and made their kids take some responsibility for their actions. Obviously, I can't really make Brutus get a job to pay for this damage, but he will no longer go visiting to their house, and he will be walking on his leash.

Big embarrassed sad face inserted here. Ugh. :((

Aaaaah Choo!!

Brutus has seasonal allergies. The poor guy has spent the last three days with his eyes a little swollen and oozing (sorry, there just isn't a nice way to say that), and he's been sneezing and scratching his face with his paws. I finally called his vet in the cities today to see if there was anything I could do to make him more comfortable until this passes. This is when the sky opened, and the angels began to sing. She told me that I could give him 75 mg. of Benadryl twice a day (based on his weight), BUT, here comes the best part, it would make him SLEEPY!! Wait, what did she say? Did she say sleepy? OK, not only could I help Brutus feel better, but I could catch a break too? Yep, those were angels I heard singing. I thanked her profusely, hung up the phone and started to break open those little child proof wrappers! I didn't want him to chew the Benadryl, so I put each tablet in a little piece of bread with some butter on it, and sure enough, he swallowed each one whole. And the result??? See below. May I say that it's been a lovely day, and my house is actually kind of clean. Wow!