Took Bella for a walk today after my pilates/yoga class this morning. When I arrived home after class, she was jumping and barking and generally excited, so a walk was in order. Clearly.

We walked up to the school, where she ran once and walked around the perimeter, cataloging each and every smell on each and every tree and ivy leaf from the corner to the street before I stopped her. I leashed her up and off we ran for a while, the wind blowing back her ears, and breathless smile on her face.

Instead of heading back home immediately, we walked a few blocks away from the school before heading back around home. We walked along a new street, to give Bella a chance to catalog some new smells.

As we turned the corner to head back home, Bella crouched, and entered her slinky, I'm-sneaking-up-on-prey pose, moving slowly towards a parked truck.

My first reaction was, "Come on, leave it alone!" I tugged on her leash for a bit, dragging her away from the truck, before I thought, "Eh, why not?" If she wants the cat under the truck so much, let her have it. She'll get a swipe on the nose and be less likely to attack the next cat. Yes, I like this idea. I let up on the leach and unlatched the lock.

Bella immediately crouched back down and started slinking towards the cat again. She stepped closer and closer. Closer... Closer...

The cat didn't move. When Bella was about two feet from it, it turned to her and meowed.

It didn't hiss. It didn't arch. It didn't even stand up. It lay there and meowed a "hey, how about scratching behind my ear, will ya?" meow.

Bella jumped and rushed away, stopping behind a truck tire and peering back around at the cat. I chuckled, unwrapped the leash from the various truck underbody parts and started to pull Bella away, to continue on our walk.

Bella wasn't quite done, however. She resisted, and, when the cat stood up and started walking towards us, pulled her way back to the cat.

Holding Bella back, I reached down and started petting the cat. After a few moments, I stopped holding Bella back, and let her sniff the cat while I petted it. True to dog form, she went straight for the butt, sniffing it for a moment, then jumping back, sniffing it for a moment, then jumping back. It was almost as if she knew she was supposed to attack this smell, but the smell wasn't threatening, or even interesting (which sounds wrong, given Bella's a dog and ALL smells are interesting to a dog. Except alcohol. Yeah).

After freaking out at the cat for a few minutes, Bella stopped and just stood there as I continued to pet the cat. It was a great cat, very friendly.

Kris thinks Annie would have eaten it.

And, speaking of Annie, Kris sent me a note this morning about Annie's new adventure today on her weekly off-leash, all-day hike.

There is a new girl walking Annie today. It's her first day. She is with an experienced person, who is her trainer, but I have a feeling that having to walk Annie is going to be trial by fire. If she comes through this, she'll do great. If she breaks down into tears by the end of the day, well, so be it. Maybe they want to see what she's got by giving her Annie! If only she knew what she was in for. The funny part is, though, that I handed the leash to the new girl and the trainer said "Go ahead and load her into a crate." Before the new girl could do anything, Annie jumped into the van then jumped into her crate and scarfed the treat. Amber was used to this behavior, and closed the crate door before Annie could continue the hunt for more treats, but new girl wasn't. Annie jumped out of the crate and went sniffing at another crate trying to get at the treat inside. I just smiled and walked away. Trial by fire...

Should have interesting stories tonight.

This morning, as I was brushing my teeth, and Kris was standing in the living room, waiting for me to finish, I listened to the sounds of construction from across the street. Even though city ordinances say construction noises can't begin until 8 am, the workers all arrive at 7 am, and do all the thudding and moving of materials until 8 am, so we're awakened by the noise early regardless.

Promptly at 8 am, they started in with the powertools, today's specialty being the nail gun. The construction is coming along nicely, with a large part of the house mostly complete. The nail gun was being used to put up the interior pieces.

As I brushed my teeth, I listened to the construction noises...

fffft-thunk!

fffft-thunk!

fffft-thunk!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The last followed by a slew of hurried, concerned voices.

After a few moments, these voices were followed by a gale of laughter. Aw, those construction guys, pulling pranks on each other. No one lost an eye or a finger today.

Morning time. What better time to go see another Harry Potter film than morning? I mean, just because you walk out of the theatre expecting cool and dark, and get hot and bright, doesn't mean you shouldn't go see Harry Potter at 11:30 in the morning on the company's dime.

Call it a reward for hard work.

I picked up Guy from his home (he deserved a huge bonus for all the hard work he's been doing around the house), picked up Doyle from the office, and off we went to the theatre, me in a huge panic because it's the day after opening day, and everyone knows that means full theatres.

Guy didn't think so. Doyle didn't think so. I had visions of young kids, out of school, swarming the theatre, making lots of noise.

I was so wrong.

When we arrived, there were four people in the theatre already. By the time the movie started, there were only about fifty. Certainly not enough to fill the theatre or cause the undue level of stress I felt.

The actual movie? Just like the book: lots of words and teenage angst.

Since she's been on antibiotics and in the cone, Annie, the walking antibiotic dog, has stopped gnawing at her leg. I started her on benadryl so that, come Tuesday, she could go on her all-day, off-leash hike. After three weeks in the cone, except for Ft Funtown! she's been in the cone and realy hating life. I can't imagine how sitting in a smelly cone all day, using it as a battering ram, could possibly not be the most boring life ever.

Well, off Annie went, and, when Kris picked her up, Amber, the dog walker, commented that yeah, Annie ran off, but well, Amber herself didn't really worry about the dog too much, as she always seems to meet back up with the group near the end of the walk. At one point, Amber was slightly worried, and was getting ready to radio to the following group behind her to watch out for Annie, when Amber, demonstrating for Kris, lifted an arm and pointed into nowhere, "saw her running in the distance."

That's Annie for you.

When she came home on Tuesday night, she was totally exhausted. She couldn't keep her eyes open and spent the whole evening sleeping. Since I knew she had ticks on her, I didn't let her into the bedroom on Tuesday night, and didn't notice anything unusual. Wednesday morning, as we were nearly walking out the door to head to VS, Kris reached over to pet her good-bye and she looked up.

Both eyes were livid red.

I don't mean albino red eyes, I mean her inner eyelids wouldn't drop, and both eyes were bright, inflamed, blood red balls peering back out of us.

"What's wrong with her?" Kris cried out.

I looked at her, in my vast veterinary experience, and concluded her inner eyelids weren't dropping. (Oh, amazing conclusion of mine.) One of her eyes opened, so I said it was okay to leave, I'd come home early and check her out in the afternoon.

Well, by the evening, her eyes were still inflamed, so I called the emergency vet. She said, if Annie wasn't scratching or clawing at it, waiting until the next morning to see our regular vet was fine. If she was clawing at her eye, then she probably had a foxtail in her eye, and she should come in.

She wasn't scratching at it, but I couldn't tell if that was because she was on benadryl, or because it just didn't bother her. Though, not being able to see out an eye would bother me.

Guy took her to the vet today, and sure enough, she had a foxtail in her eye. The vet pulled it out, "it was gross, but really cool!" according to Guy. The vet also found a cornea scratch on her eye with a black light.

And now, Annie, the walking antibiotic dog, has one more series of antibotics to run through. If she didn't love these offleash hikes so much, I'd consider stopping them. However, they tire her out, if only for one day.

And for that one day a week, she's actually a good dog.

"So, is there a default image to display?" I asked today at work. I was trying to finish up a set of dynamic pages for a client's website, and didn't know if there was a default image to display when a movie was supposed to load.

"A default image?" Mike responded.

"Yeah, a default image to display."

"Your butt." was Doyle's response.

"Really?" I was excited.

"Yeah."

"Cool!" I jumped up to take a picture of my butt. Camera out, camera on, butt out in pose.

"To display if they don't upload one? Make it of a triangle like YouTube." Mike answered me, looking a little concerned at my actions.

"Oh, not of my butt?"

"Aw, why does Mike always have to spoil our fun?" Doyle lamented.