dogs – Page 3 – Hank Kalet

Doggie diary: The story of Rosie and Sophie Houdini dog strikes again

It has been an eventful week with the doggies, marked by their growing comfort with the car (woo hoo!) and an unfortunate willful streak that has both Annie and me feeling a bit frustrated.

They’ve regressed with their jumping and nipping, a huge problem that we have to take care of now. They’ve been on the counters and the dining room table — they got a hold of some important mail one day and stole a sandwich I was making for lunch on another. They’ve also been digging (I think I’ve got that one under control — when they dig I squirt them with a water bottle) and refuse to listen when we kick them off the couch.

This morning brought a scare, courtesy of Rosie the Magician. I let them out in our fenced-in yard, did a few things in the kitchen and then looked out the window. Only one dog visible. I went outside, figuring that Rosie was back by the shed or on the other side of the pool. She wasn’t. Somehow, she managed to get out of the yard and was investigating the creek that runs adjacent to our yard.

That’s when panic set in. I ran into the house, grabbed her leash and ran out the front door. I had to calm down before I approached her — if I had run at her or yelled, she probably would have taken off like we were playing a game of chase. I sidled over slowly, pet her and hooked the leash to her collar.

I then went back in the yard with her and checked the fence out. I found the spot she snuck through, an unsecured spot that needs to be fixed. She probably bumped up against it while the two dogs were playing and rolled underneath.

The upshot is that I have to get some spikes and secure the fence so that they can’t push through it and escape. Sheesh.

Doggie diary: The story of Rosie and Sophie Almost a Garp moment

We took the puppies for a nice long walk last night, heading over to my brother and sister-in-law’s so my niece and nephews could see the dogs before they left for Iowa for the week. Aside from the wind and the rain that arrived as we did at their house, the walk was uneventful, though I almost had what I’ll call a Garp moment.

I don’t know if anyone remembers the scene from the 1982 movie with Robin Williams, “The World According to Garp,” in which Williams as Garp goes off on a pickup truck that has been terrorizing the neighborhood by speeding through the quiet suburban streets. But that is how I’ve been feeling lately as we’ve been getting out with the dogs. The number of speeding cars, vans and SUVs — and, no, it’s not just teenage drivers — barrelling around this neighborhood, on Kendall, New, Kingsley and even some of the side streets, is mind-boggling. I said to Annie the other night that I think they drive faster on Kendall than they do on New.

Last night, as we walked, I flashed to the scene in the movie. Garp has reached the boiling point as the same driver of the same red pickup flies through his neighborhood. He takes a baseball bat and chases him and blasts the truck.

Needless to say, I’m not vindictive or violent and I’m the law-abiding sort, so I let the moment pass. But I can see how that kind of overreaction could feel real satisfying.

Doggie diary: The story of Rosie and Sophie The first real damage

I guess it was just a matter of time. Exhaustion takes hold and we miss the signs.

Consider the last couple of days, as we still tried to keep them calm after their surgery, when all of their puppy energy gets pent up without an outlet. They run around the house like crazed and headless chickens on a sugar rush, tumbling maniacally. The result, as I wrote earlier, was a little issue with Rosie’s incision, but nothing major.

They are not listening particularly well, however, which is probably our fault. And we are failing to pick up the signs.

There have been the pee issues of late — Rosie, for some reason, has taken to relieving herself on the rug shortly after coming in from outside. Not that she hasn’t attempted to tell us — she has. It’s just that our frustration and her constant requests to go outside — and her less-than-clear signals (she gets antsy but not in a specific way that distinguishes it from other behavior, unlike Sophie who will ring the bells by the door) — have gotten the better of us.

All of this culminated early this morning in the latest damage: a hole in our den couch. Sophie has chewed through a laptop power cord — not great, but not irreplacable. The hole in the couch, however, is a major problem. Our couches are an unusual green with tan piping and a pillow top attached to the main cushion. We can’t just sew it and turn the cushion around or over; we have to get it repaired and/or live with the obvious damage. Who knows what it will cost (laptop cord was $100), but it is money that we do not have.

It happened around 6 or 6:30 — they began bugging us at 4 and Annie let them out. Sometime after that, closer to 6, they began bugging us again. We failed to listen — exhaustion, aggravation — told them to lie down and fell back to sleep. They knocked over the gate that keeps them in the bedroom and hallway and were loose for a while.

Bad dogs, for sure, but bad owners, as well. We’ve now learned a valuable lesson: When they start bugging us like that, we have to get up.

Doggie diary: The story of Rosie and Sophie Rosie’s trip to the vet

I posted from my mobile phone yesterday as I waited with Rosie at the vet because her stitches had come apart. She had been spayed last week and developed some swelling of the abdominal area under the stitches.

We called the vet and he told us it was fairly normal in female dogs, but that we had to keep them quiet to allow the healing to complete itself. The swelling was a fluid pocket that would eventually go away as the fluid was reabsorbed.

That didn’t happen, however. Without going into the gory details, the fluid leaked from the incision, which apparently opened slightly. I called the vet and they told me to come in, which I did.

The upshot was that she’s OK — nothing to worry about — and the vet resealed the incision with some wound glue and Rosie is none the worse for wear. She’s still tumbling and wrestling with her sister, something we apparently are powerless to stop. So we have to keep an eye one her.

But all is well in the Kalet kennel.

Doggie diary: The story of Rosie and Sophie Graduation day from dog training

The puppies are done with training and, while we don’t always realize it, they’re doing fairly well. They are a smart pair — and any problems we are having are really our fault. We’re pushovers.

In any case, the trainer, Pat, dressed them in caps and gowns — a goofy thing that I wasn’t crazy about (dogs, after all, never seem all that comfortable in clothing and I find all those goofy photos I see on the Web and elsewhere a bit, well, goofy). But they were cute in their red caps and gowns, as you can see from the photos, and Annie really enjoyed it.

I like the red, myself. It reminds me of my Rutgers graduation — I was in black and the female grads were in red, like my female pups.

What I find interesting is that they seem to have the same expression on their faces as I did when I had to wear the cap and gown during my Rutgers graduation — a mix of happiness, finality and utter annoyance at the officiousness.

But then, I’m probably reading way too much into it.