This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

(Some notes on the dogs ...)

Whoops -- it's been so long since I've written anything for my blog that the front page went blank with the steady passage of time (thanks to the automatic site rebuilds triggered by blog spammers leaving their comments about mortgages, Viagra, and porn). So I'd better finish up this half-written post I've had sitting around for a while, so that visitors will have something to contemplate besides the void.

• A few weeks ago after German class, I stopped by our local pet food emporium to restock on dog food; while I was there, I picked up a replacement plush toy. Having two dogs in the house (especially one who's a boundless energy source) has really been hard on the chew-toy supply — with just Scout alone, we held onto the same pile of toys for years, but Digory and Scout working together have managed to kill four toys in just a few weeks.

  Now we have a new 'stretchy Beagle' (it has a long elastic band stitched into its floppy middle, so that it stretches during tug-of-war), and Digory is as happy as, well, a dog with a new toy. Digory goes absolutely ape over any toy you have to offer — throw it, and I'll chase it! Just hold it there, and I'll play tug-of-war! If nobody else wants to play, he'll just grab a toy and run around the house with it on his own, occasionally throwing it up in the air to 'break' its 'neck'.

  Scout has a much more standoffish relationship with toys. Sometimes she'll pick one up, frisky and ready to play. Other times, she'll drag a toy off to her lair so that she can hunker over it, growling at Digory if he comes close enough to take it away (which leaves Digory completely unfazed: he'll dart in and snatch the toy away, leaving Scout with a "what just happened there?" look). Mysteriously, when she does decide to play, Scout is much more tenacious with me than with Digory; in tug-of-war games with me, she tries to win, while with Digory, it just takes a few hard tugs before he trots off with his prize.

• The scarred furniture above is from an unfortunate phase in interdog relationships. Need to show that other dog just how vicious you really are without starting an actual dogfight? Take a bite off of a convenient couch, table, or bookshelf! Sure, that was just a piece of furniture — but next time it could be you, buster! Fortunately, we seem to have transferred these displays of viciousness-by-proxy onto cheaper and more replaceable toys. (Scout, unfortunately, will still occasionally gnaw on the edges of furniture to get our attention — making sure to maintain eye contact and doing it verrrrry slooowly, so that we know it's a deliberate act.)
• Beags and Chips:Seeing how poorly pets fared in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina induced a sense of paranoia in me about the fate of our own dogs in the face of a possible hurricane. So, dog food and a box of biscuits are a part of our (recently established) stock of earthquake supplies, and both dogs are now RFID chipped, in the event they're picked up without their collars. Digory came chipped; we just needed to get his registration transferred over into our name. Scout got chipped a few weeks ago, when she visited the vet for booster shots. Watching them verify the chip after it was injected didn't instill a sense of security, though: they'd just injected the chip, so they knew exactly where it was, but it still took them five or six tries with the hand scanner before they got a 'read'. How hard will a harried shelter worker try before giving up? Best to keep our dogs as close as we can, methinks ...

(And to finish, a random local pet food emporium recommendation: Anaheim Feed & Pet Supply, near the corner of N. Lemon & La Palma -- not only do you get the warm fuzzy of buying from a local business, they're generally cheaper than the nearby Petsmart behemoth.)

Posted by Kevin at November 1, 2005 10:34 AM