annie

Doggie tales

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 12:09 on 17 July 2007

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.

Demon dog Annie

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 17:30 on 12 July 2007

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.

Doggen watchin'

Blog Instead of being asleep at 18:43 on 7 July 2007, kitt created this:

Danger, through his mom, had given Kris two VIP tickets to today's A's game against the Mariners. The Mariners who, by the way, have Ichiro playing (Ichiro being the only consistent hitter I have in the Beat the Streak contest. At Doyle's suggestion, I prefilled Ichiro as my hitter for the next two weeks, in case I forget to pick a player. What do you know? My best streak is at 13 now. Kris' is at only 9.).

Not being exactly the biggest baseball fan ever, I suggested Kris ask someone else to go with him. Yes, I'd go, but wouldn't he rather go with someone who will also enjoy the game with him, and not go and wonder why she was there, thinking of all the other tasks she'd rather be doing? I mean, come on, think of the babies!

So, he called up his new best friend yesterday, and made plans. I offered to watchin' the doggen, so plans were made to leave from here, with two dogs having a doggie fun day at Krikitt Downs.

I'm still not sure what drugs I took to make such an offer escape my lips.

So, this morning, Andy came over with Blue and Shadow. Thankfully, he didn't knock when he arrived. Instead, he followed standard Krikitt Downs' friends protocol and walked right in. I love when my friends know they can do that, and do.

A short while later, Kris and Andy were off, and I was in the house with four dogs. Four dogs that, combined, were double my weight. More doggen that I'm used to having.

Blue spent the first half hour of his visit with me staring at the front door where Andy had gone through. He stared almost as if, by sheer force of will, he could bring Andy back through the door.

When that failed, he sat down next to me and stared up at me.

Panting.

For two hours.

Might have been longer, I'm not sure. I tried to pet him, get him up on the couch next to me to snuggle me as Bella does. He wasn't having any of it, and sat there, staring and panting, panting and staring. At one point, he went back to the front door to stare at it, no panting. He returned a few moments later to stare at me.

And pant.

A strange way to spend the day, to be sure.

Eventually, the game ended, and the boys came back from the game. Blue heard the car door shut and either Andy's or Kris' voice first, and bum rushed the door. He was shortly followed by a Shadow, the Cone-head and the Howler.

That either Andy or Kris made it through the front door with the mounds of doggie flesh piled up behind it, amazes me still.

Air lick

Blog Posted by kitt at 15:52 on 29 May 2007

I am licking the air. It is salty.

Dumb dog.

Andy's doggie adventure

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 17:32 on 21 May 2007

Andy volunteered to watch the girls while we were in Boston. I though he was fairly insane when he offered to bring them over to his house for a slumber party.

Turns out, he was only partly insane. He let us know:

Sleep was a commodity in short supply Saturday night, although we had fun.

Blue and Annie ran around in circles in the back yard a bit, while I held
Bella and Shadow so they wouldn't bark. Annie seemed to be having fun, but
might have been a bit stressed about the whole thing. There was one tussle
at feeding time. Later, she spent a long time licking Blue's face (Blue
licked back--it was cute but weird), and then she tried to spend a while
licking my face, which was cute for a minute or two. Dogs will be dogs.

We had one group outing: to Whole Foods Sat evening. When we got there, we
had a vote and elected one person to go in and buy the goods while everyone
else waited in the truck. Luckily I was the only one that voted.

Annie, Bella, and Blue all wanted to sleep pressed up against me. Bella had
at least one spell of howling in the middle of the night. It's a little
hazy--there might have been two incidents. She finally settled down for good
around 4AM when she figured out how to get under the covers with just her
schnoz poking out.

Sunday, I couldn't come up with any plan to take everybody to the park that
I was happy with, so I decided to drop off Annie and Bella on the way around
10am. When I gathered everybody up in the truck, I had to search for Annie,
and realized she had found a hole in my doggie defenses: she was attempting
to consume a bag of mulch that was made from cocoa bean husks. They do smell
nice. Blue went at them a little bit, then gave up the day I got them. I
don't think she was at it long, but it was a little scary. There are no
warnings about dogs on the bag, but I really don't know whether it had any
properties of chocolate. I stopped back to check on her after the park trip
around 11am, and surprised Heather. Annie seemed fine, and I told Heather
what had happened. (I probably didn't surprise her as much as Crystal did
when she squirmed through the dog door to pick up the cones and white
board.)

Anyway, I think everybody had fun--including me--and I don't regret it a
bit.

Practice was very productive. Lots of women this time--we went 4-women about
half the time. Once, the defense ran 4-women by accident, and since they
were playing zone, no one noticed until the turnover. We had a scrimage, and
two games. Dark won the scrimmage 5-4, light won the two games 7-6 and 5-4.

Decisions of youth

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 23:01 on 7 May 2007

Kris, Bella, Annie and I went to Andy's for dinner tonight. Andy grilled, which fit in nicely to Kris' and my agreement that this summer is going to be a summer of enjoying the outdoors in the evening. We went to the park near Andy's house for the dogs to meet "on neutral ground" before Bella and Annie toured Blue and Shadow's home as Blue and Shadow had done our house two weeks ago. The other thought of heading to the park was to tire them out before a bit so that the dogs would be managable during dinner. Unfortunately, Annie both runs away when she's offleash and doesn't tire very easily. So, instead of allowing her to run run run offleash, and run away, I ended up running next to her, with Annie on her leash. I tired out instead.

That, and the running made me sweat. I'm sure I was ripe before heading over for dinner. Poor Kris. Poor Andy.

Dinner was tilapia (for Andy and me) and salmon (for Kris), rice and mojitos. Andy's growing mint in his back yard, in a hydroponic pod he and his father built, which makes it really cool, and less likely to overtake his garden bed. Before he started the fish, he made us mojitos. I couldn't convince Kris to mash the mint in a rotating manner, so that I could wiggle my hips like the rum commercial. Instead, he just plunged the handle up and down, making my movements more like squats. Not very sexy.

The dogs were very much a highlight of the evening. Shadow likes to circle the yard, barking at birds and rats on wires. Blue and Annie wandered the house, Annie looking for food, Blue making sure she didn't find any. Annie is totally part of the Crews pack. She fit right in. Bella, not so much. She just checked out the house, then hovered around us.

I'm starting to believe Andy knew me in college as much as I knew him in college: which is to say, he knew of me peripherally, knew which house I was in, but didn't much pay any attention to me, as I was outside his world. Which suits me fine, as there are many, many, many parts of college I'd like to forget. The one part, however, that he did know about was my senior picture. "Want to see Kitt's senior picture?" Not that it's particularly forgetable. For some reason, that's what I wanted at the time.

At Tech, each senior receives a half page in the yearbook. A senior can submit one or several photos, and they'll be arranged with other seniors on the various pages, with a quote if desired. When I submitted my pictures, I liked them a lot. When the yearbook the following year had a senior picture in it that mocked my photo, I started to doubt the wisdom of my picture choice. That, and my mother was scandalized when she saw my pictures for the first time. Scandalizing one's mother? Not always a good thing.

So, in the spirit of embracing that which embarrasses me, making it my own, overcoming the embarrassment, I'll post my college senior photo. Imagine what it looks like, if this is the mockery in the following year's yearbook: