More Puppy Appearances and What to Eat for St. Patrick's Day

There have been repeated calls for more pictures of our charmer Robin. But she is in constant motion when awake and looks very much like a black blur. Once asleep, however, she presents a calmer study, although her penchant for sleeping on her back provides us with eccentric shots, like the one above. Crashed out indeed!
Robin has progressed nicely in the house training department. She had a single accident (liquid) yesterday but we have mastered the rapid evacuation out the door two seconds after she finishes eating so we seem to have the solids department under control. Bob maintains she's the smartest puppy we've ever had. She is a quick study but I am currently more aware of the sharpness of all those little puppy teeth.

This is the Noble Seated Robin. There is a quality about her that's mature. I mean, look at that face: she does present as a grown dog. That is, when she's not biting and chasing her tail and running around like the little banshee she really is...

Here's the other side. I think she was watching Maggie- everything that Maggie does is fascinating to Robin. The other night, Maggie decided to play Rodeo Girl and run, bucking and snorting ferociously
from one end of her pasture to the other. Robin was terrified but couldn't look away. Robin is fascinated by everything; she's only 14 weeks old, so everything is new.
But lest I forget, it IS St. Patrick's Day and Bob and I are in a quandary about what to eat. Many vegetables are green but we don't eat beef so corned beef is out of the question. Pea soup? If anyone has any ideas, send them along. In the meantime, Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Liquids and Solids

Yes, I stole the title for this post from a book someone else wrote ages ago, about their dog and (you can guess) the excitement involved in house training. Get it? It's all about liquids and solids. Bob and have had more discussions in the past week about canine bodily functions than most people have in an entire life. I have taken to keeping a note pad, complete with time and location of puppy byproducts. It certainly makes for fascinating reading!
Robin- despite having arrived at our house 100% NOT house trained- is doing remarkably well. She sleeps most of the night and it is me that rouses her at 2:30 or 3:00 to make a little trip outside to eliminate so no surprises happen on the bedroom floor. She is smart and doing a good job.
But she has been most unhappy when we attempt to leave her alone, an unacceptable state to a young dog! Let's face it: her entire thirteen week existence has been in the presence of her mother and litter mates and the other adult dogs at the breeder's house. So she has had zero experience on her own and has protested in all kinds of inventive ways. She sings, she howls, she leaves the above mentioned liquids and solids, obviously signalling her displeasure.
And she has proven to be quite the escape artist! Bob and I barricaded her in the kitchen (with plenty of toys ad blankets and reading material appropriate to her age and interests) but she pushed through a three foot high plywood partition blocked by kitchen chairs with ease. We then made a four foot high barrier on the stairway, with a board wedging the barrier tight. Somehow our little Robin- in an imitation of Spider Man- scaled or flew over this obstruction, and Bob found her upstairs. He sent an incredulous email to me at work. I dreaded coming home, and we both worried she'd hurt herself trying to escape the stockade that our house now resembled.

(The pictures, by the way, are of the very end of Robin's very funny tail. It looks like an etch-a-sketch drawing of a dog's tail, except at the end where there is this eccentric little twizzle. Totally endearing!) In any event, today we debated crate training (I've always been opposed) and Thunder Shirts (supposed to wrap the dog in a snug embrace and relieve anxiety) but decided to live dangerously and just leave her with the run of the kitchen and the upstairs hallway. We went out to run errands, hoping that she'd be happier with more room to situate herself where she felt secure and comfortable.
We came home and she was okay: at the top of the stairway squeaking and looking a bit perturbed, but happier than she had been. I went out again this afternoon, and Bob was in his studio, leaving Robin on her own once more. And do you know, she was once again better off with more run of the house... and no surprises in the form of the famous liquids and solids to clean up! Maybe we've found the charm.

Welcome to the First Robin of Spring!

There she is... Robin! A glamorous puppy- our puppy! We are expecting her to be delivered by the stork (actually a dog delivery service) early tomorrow morning. I took a vacation day off from work to be here for the delivery. I requested that it be noted as "Maternity Leave" from work! I had tried to get her delivered on Wednesday or Thursday (my typical days off) so that Bob wouldn't have to play Single Parent (with all the accompanying little surprises like accidents and chewed objects) but when it became obvious that Robin was coming on Friday morning, I decided to rearrange my schedule.

I can't wait to meet her. She has gotten raves from the breeder (who actually considered keeping her out of the litter) and she looks perfect. Mother and Father dogs (Chloe, and Gunnar, respectively) are "pure breds" but fortunately, neither is a popular breed (like Poodles or Labs) and therefore not over bred. Chloe is a Blue Long Haired Weimeraner and Gunnar is a Llewellin Setter (the Field (ie, hunting) version of the English Setter). Don't even get me started on all the weird genetic disorders that plague popular dogs! Goldens are now considered (along with Yellow Labs) the dumb blondes of the dog world, not to mention that they now frequently die of cancer and suffer from heart ailments at alarming rates. So, no pure breds (whatever the fuck that is anyway!) for us!

Here she is, vogue-ing again. I can't wait to be photographing her in our backyard... her empire!
I miss Jules so much that it's astonishing. But I am hopeful and certain that having a new she-devil in the house will help to heal the gigantic hole left in our lives.
I'll post updates!

On Not Sleeping

Last night, in yet another failed attempt to sleep, I got up and accomplished quite a bit on the above piece. I sewed around all the inner edges of the letters, where the intersect and overlap the insert of horizontal fabric. I'm glad I had something to do, but I sure would rather have been asleep, leaving the artwork for day time.
Do I need to tell you that not sleeping sucks? Of course not. I'm tired, I'm not thinking clearly, I've lost some of the edge of my sense of humor, I'm probably not making a whole lot of sense and hell, I worry that my judgement has gone out the window. (Someone stop me if I consider voting for Ted Cruz. That's what lack of sleep can do to you. Snark, snark, snark.

That mug would wake the dead!! My eyes! As Robert Reich cogently pointed out in a 4 point presentation, Ted is even scarier than The Donald.)
So here I am again, at 3:21 in the a.m. wide awake and posting a blog that leaps from my latest art work to weirdo republicans in a single bound. But I guess this beats lying in bed, debating the (un) merits of getting up versus restlessly turning from side to side, trying to convince yourself that you're almost a sleep. Surprise! You're not!
There is that mysterious moment when you feel immersed in pool of almost not-consciousness and you just let go and slip into sleep, if it's going to happen. The "if it's going to happen" is crucial because if it's not happening, you spring back up like, "Hello! I'm actually wide awake!!" I've become really good at that part. Contemplating that moment of suspension and surrender is not helpful because if your twitching monkey brain is busy analyzing the threshold of sleep instead of simply crossing it, you're not sleeping.
So here I am, the only being awake for miles around, hoping to finish up this blog posting so that I can go back to the bedroom and drift off. I know that since Jules the Dog died, my sleep patterns have gone to hell. In the past if I occasionally couldn't sleep, Jules saw it as his duty to keep my company. Now, even not sleeping makes me miss Jules...
I am hoping that the impending (some time mid week?!?!?) arrival of our latest bundle of canine joy will assist in recovering the ability to sleep soundly. But I do need to take into consideration the fact that small puppies who are not house trained need to be taken outside every two or three hours. That'll do wonders for my not sleeping!

Puppy Porn

Some of you will certainly think I'm crazy and that's your right. But it comes down to there being (as always) two kinds of people. The first kind is the person who loses their dog and goes into an extended period of mourning and sometimes never gets another dog. I fall into the second kind of  person: life without my familiar, my little shadow, my dog is unbearable and unthinkable.*
I have not been able to sleep much or well recently. I don't suppose that surprises anyone! One of the only things I can think to do when faced with sleeplessness is to play on the Internet. Inevitably, I found myself surfing YouTube videos of adorable puppies rolling around with their litter mates. I call it Puppy Porn. I did this surreptitiously, (much like one hears of Japanese business men trolling the Internet at work, checking out the T & A).  I mean, it's four in the morning and I'm up huddled in front of a flickering screen overdosing on little bundles of fur and joy... one viewing leads to another and another.
That led to seeking out my (remembered) Google searches of years past, after Frank the Dog departed this mortal coil. I can assure you getting a puppy is much harder than having a child.
If you care to take minute to corroborate my hypotheses, type in a breed or type of dog into your search engine. I am a combination dog person, as you probably know, and my preferred "type" is a mid-sized spaniel/retriever mix. Hundreds of possible doggie data bases come up, but once you start an actual perusal of the listed results, strange realities appear. The first is that due to all the spaying and neutering, the mixes listed are peculiar. Anything that can be crossed with a Poodle and given an icky name with "oodle" attached has become uber popular. (The first such cross that springs to mind is the infamous "Goldendoodle" that the "developer" of has since admitted it was the worst mistake he ever made. Follow that with Cockapoos and Woodles (half wolf/half Poodle, anyone? I can't make this stuff up!) The next thing that impresses the individual in search of a canine soul mate is just how expensive these "mutts" are. How about thousands of dollars? Not kidding! The mind reels...
So I was having no luck finding my specific match- except these newly designed dogs that are a combination of Golden Retriever and Cocker Spaniel that are some times referred to as Comfort Retrievers or Mini-Goldens (but even these are for some reason having Poodle snuck into the mix)
and these mid-sized cutie pies are commanding about $1800 and a waiting list and one breeder (that Bob and I even visited pre-Frank) is now requesting a non-refundable $100 visiting fee! Are you still with me? Is it me or are things seriously skewing insane? (The punch line to that joke is they all look just like my college-years dog, Archie who came from the Meriden dog pound and cost a princely $25. I should have bred the little bugger. We could be rich by now!)
So... then I thought, "Okay, okay. It's supposed to be a humane and good thing to adopt. Let's see if this situation has any possibilities." I checked every rescue in New England and I saw one dog that seemed attractive. She was about a year old, although I do want a puppy for Bob and myself, I am attempting flexibility and open-mindedness. Lo! and behold, she was actually listed in Connecticut(!) and I'm thinking "great!" but then you click on the adoption requirements and you realize that it's become even more draconian than previously feared to "do the right thing". Page after closely typed page of laws, bylaws, restrictions and even the caveat that if you want a dog sooner rather than later, this is not your best bet and how they have to visit your home and need copies of your last twenty years of income tax statements and blood work and even then THEY choose the dog to place with you. In short, forget it! I refuse to be grilled and dissected and subpoenaed in the name adopting a used dog. I haven't mentioned the fact that the very difficulty in obtaining a dog through a rescue is one of the reasons why there are so many designer breeders out there in then first place. And it is actually less expensive to buy a puppy or dog from a breeder (many purebred with registration papers) than to adopt. This dog I mentioned? They wanted over $600 for her! (You're also taking a risk getting someone elses problem child. Many dogs are given up as teenagers (between 6 months and a year or so) because the tend to be nuts and exhibit crazy behavior and go out of control. I personally like them at that age, but then I'm dog obsessed.)
I have had enough dogs and dog experience to know that Woofie/Archie/Charlie (who no one will remember because we only had him three weeks as he was sick when we adopted him and he died!)Ricky/Frank/Jules were all tremendously great dogs and who all had tremendously great lives as we are nothing if not dog-centric. And I know what I'm looking for in a friend...
Wish us luck!


*And never think that searching for another dog shows disloyalty to the recently departed! On the contrary, it is the highest tribute to the deceased that life is completely lacking in savor and shape. I experience so much with and through a dog's company!

A Eulogy for Jules 2010-2016

What can I say about Jules the Dog now that he's gone? I loved him; we loved him. He was a wonderful dog. It is too terrible contemplating our present lives, without Jules. He was our constant companion and a vital force of nature. The house is too quiet and very empty.
Jules loved snow and tennis balls and chasing squirrels and carrying large sticks. He was silly and funny and smart and tolerant of my off-key singing of atrocious songs in his praise. (I know he secretly loved hearing my nonsense tunes, extolling his virtues, even though he rolled his eyes and acted embarrassed.) He was a truly handsome dog. He wasn't even six...
He has been gone almost a week. I have left a bowl of water for him in case some spirit incarnation of his is thirsty and needs a drink. His tennis balls are here, buried under the snow. I haven't been able to go for a walk yet without him. I have cleaned up all his silky black dust kittens (and he did know how to shed constantly!) but I would gladly have fur-encrusted stairs if it meant that Jules was here. Fuck a clean house!
As is apparent to anyone who follows this blog or was fortunate enough to have met him, Jules was a star.

Gardening in February

This is the truck the morning after the Connecticut Horticulture Society's Symposium that Bob and I attended yesterday. Long day! We were up early to attend to all the "farm chores" before driving off to Hartford where Bob had been asked to present as a vendor. Fortunately, we made some money because we've done a few of these events and came home without having sold a bloody thing. Not only are you out the  money that they charge to be a vendor, but you are doubly frustrated by having to schlepp all that metalwork home again!

And while this may look like a truck full, it is a much lighter load than we left with. But at 5:00, when the symposium ended, this weighs way more than it did in the morning... coupled with the fact that the hall where we all set up was up a labyrinth of halls and elevators and some moron parked thier car right in front of the loading dock so that we all had to hand our items up and down and carry them to our trucks and vans. Bob and I were exhausted by the time we got home, but we did hear a few interesting lectures on shade gardening, odd edibles (paw paw and hardy persimmons), and gardening to encourage pollinators and beneficials. A nice diversion from that unwanted snow...

The heavy wet (and does anyone want to say "unexpected?") snow on Friday morning caused a heavy limb of the pine tree directly above Maggie's barn to break off. It scared the hell out of Maggie who circled, snorting and spooking for a good while afterwards. (She may have even been in the barn when it landed!) Much to my chagrin, she began chewing on the tips of the pine branches, forcing me to run into the house and do a quick google search to learn that pine tree needles are actually good for horses, providing a green, fresher source of vitamins and fodder in the winter. Who knew?

 

Bob and I pulled the branches down, Maggie gets a free lunch and no harm was done to the roof. Now, if only this snow would go away...
Oh! We might have been tired but we did manage to stay away long enough to hear 2/3 of the those foolish republicans take pot shots at each other. And we are very excited that Tuesday is the first primary AND the start to Mardi Gras! Where is my king cake?!?!?!