Pavlov

A Sammy story.

Every night I feed Sammy dinner and I make her lie down and wait patiently while I fill her bowl. She has to stay there until I say go. Sometimes when I'm feeling torturious, I make her think I forgot and go about other things. She is a very good girl and always stays in place as I move around the basement. She must be thinking if I move, I might not get ANY food.

Well last night I was going about the routine (not the torturous part) and turned to tell her to go. In the two seconds, from her lying down, to me filling her bowl, she had started salivating so much that drool was pouring from her jowels!

It was like someone had turned on a faucet. IF ONLY I HAD MY CAMERA!

I'll try and recreate it to capture a picture. I really don't torture her often, I promise.

Haunted

This past weekend, I spend a good amount of time in the car – wearing tread on Interstate 71. I notice when I’m in the car by myself, I reflect a lot. The radio is on, but after about 15 minutes I don’t really hear it anymore. I get lost in my own thoughts.

Sometimes on these trips, I’m haunted by a car accident from that very stretch of highway. When the thoughts occur, instead of pushing them aside, I usually sink in to the memories.

The particular memory I was recalling was being at Meg’s house with Mom and Dad the day after the accident. I was telling her about the accident. I remember feeling very withdrawn. I recounted the story with very little emotion.

As I was telling her the series of events, tears were streaming down her face. I don’t know if she was crying because of what happened or because she was worried about me. The thing that struck me about this memory was that it was completely new to me. Don’t get me wrong, I remember being there and telling her about it— but the visual of her standing there with tears silently streaming down her face was so new.

You’d think that being in the car on 71 would most often trigger these thoughts, but that isn’t the case. Sometimes I think about it in the car, but sometimes it can be as unrelated as discussing weekend events with someone. At those moments brush the memory aside—I don’t have the energy to dig it up.

When I’m in my car, by myself with nothing but my thoughts. That’s when I spend time with them. I feel like I need to remember everything, that I owe it to the two people that died that day.

And the war wages on....

I won the first battle - deciding to keep Sammy in the basement to keep her off the couch. The decision was reinforced because I recently got new pillows for the couch.

She won the second battle hands down with guerrilla warfare. Fiance came home to find diarrhea all over the basement floor AND for good measure, she tore up one of the old couch pillows as if to say "Not only will I have my vengeance but I will spread the feathers of the dead pillow in poop to show my power".

While the war wages on, I am confident that opposable thumbs and brain power will win over disgust and brut strength. In the meantime, I will spend the weekend trying to rebuild my fortress with a steam cleaner!

The Battle

For the past couple weeks, Fiance and I have been facing a loosing battle with Sammy. It began when we decided to give her free reign of the house, while we were at work. She can finally “hold it” long enough and doesn’t destroy anything.

The reason I always resisted letting her out all day – besides the ‘accidents’ was the fear she would make herself comfortable, be it on the couch, chair or our bed.
I grew up in a household with dogs but they were never allowed on the furniture, so I still subscribe to that mentality. Sammy does not.

We never actually catch her on the couch, which makes it almost impossible to teach her its not allowed. When we are home, she doesn’t even act as if its an option. But, I suspect, when she hears the key in the door, she jumps down from the couch and makes her way to greet us.

After a couple days of noticing a round imprint in the couch, I would look closer and see the tell-tale evidence of her fur in a nice snuggly circle.

So my battle began –
I started by pushing the coffee table up to the couch. Didn’t stop her.

I rolled all the cushions forward. She lied on top of them.

I piled boxes and books on the couch – thinks that would not be comfortable to lie on. She nudged them aside and squeezed in between everything.

I put foil on the couch – she pulled it off.

What I can’t figure out is why my parents never seemed to have this problem with their dogs.

Today, pending guest this weekend, I gave up. She is back in the basement all day with the door shut, pending a better solution.

Halloween Weekend

Ok. so I didn't have time to pull together a costume for work but Biscuit had a costume party on Saturday - FIance and I had to come up with something. This is what we did....


Fiance is on the left- he looks short but thats just because my costume was 9 feet tall.

I am on the right - what is it? It was funny. Fiance and I started putting things together and we couldn't stop laughing so this is where we ended up.