Stick to the Routine, Please!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

On most nights you will find me in my bedroom watching TV. Since John and I don’t really like the same shows, he watches TV in the living room in the evenings and I go back in our bedroom.  Fudge usually starts herding me into the bedroom around 8 pm and makes it known that it is her bedtime and she needs her beauty rest.  I pride myself on the fact that my dogs have a pretty good routine, but sometimes that comes back to bite me in the “you know what” when things get changed up.  On the few occasions when we have company at night, as we sit in the living room talking I usually have a hard time concentrating on the conversation once it hits 8 pm.  I don’t need our grandfather clock to chime out the hour because I have Fudge reminding me it is her bedtime by pacing around and around the room.  After awhile it starts to drive me a little bonkers and I find myself trying to keep my train of thought and respond intelligently to the conversation around me.  You won’t get a lot of repeat guests if they are telling you all about their kids or grandkids and you start shouting out, “KNOCK IT OFF OR I AM GOING TO SCREAM!”  She is smart too, and always manages to stay just out of arm’s reach. Most of my family and friends already think I worry too much about my dogs, so I hate to draw further attention to the fact that they are right, so the last time it happened I found myself discretely trying to get John to pick Fudge up and put her on his lap.  I did this by covertly sending him a series of involved hand signals when nobody was looking, only to have him say very loudly, “Why do you keep pointing at my crotch?”

 

Despite all the obvious clues and my mother pointing it out to me on every visit, I guess I didn’t realize how well trained the dogs had us until I switched places one night with John and watched TV out in the living room.  I love to watch The Oscars, although I can’t really tell you why because I rarely see all the movies.  Because I read People magazine, I count myself sort of an expert on all things Hollywood.  Ask me a question about something that happened in history one hundred years ago and I might answer, “who cares?” but ask me if Kim and Kanye are having financial difficulties and I can tell you what he recently tweeted out, because I read it in People magazine.  I am up on most stuff, not like my Aunt Nancy who knows nothing about pop culture and once commented that she loved Merle Steep in the movie we just went to see, only to have me say, “Her name is Meryl Streep and she wasn’t in the movie. It was Diane Keaton.”   My point is you don’t want to watch the Oscars with Aunt Nancy because the correct response to “I am glad Lady Gaga isn’t wearing a meat dress,” is not “who is Lady Gaga?” 

 

I also quickly found out you don’t want to watch the Oscars with Fudge or Vern either, although I bet they might know more than Aunt Nancy about who was nominated.  Because the Oscars go on so long and I didn’t want to start them in the bedroom only to be uprooted when John came to bed, I told him to switch places with me that night.  I had no idea how that one simple suggestion could ruin my TV viewing.  Since my dogs are so used to their routine and Fudge won’t go to bed without me, this meant Fudge was out of sorts and I swear, looking for ways to annoy the heck out of me.  First, she got one of Vern’s bones, which gets Vern out of sorts and began chewing it in front of both of us.  Vern has a little basket of bones that I keep right by his bed in the living room.  He could have thirty bones to choose from, but he always wants the one Fudge has and she knows it.  I don’t care if some people think dogs can’t reason or plot, but the only time Fudge shows any interest in Vern’s bones is if she thinks it might bug me.  John says I am loaded with conspiracy theories, but I know I am right. 

 

Vern takes his bones seriously.  He doesn’t like me moving them and doesn’t understand why I don’t want to find them all over the living room floor.  As soon as I put them back in his basket he likes to take them back out and show me that he prefers them where he had them.  Most mornings I find the blankets on every one of the dog beds scrunched up and off the beds and all of Vern’s bones out of the basket and all over the floor.  It’s like Vern has a party every night when the lights go off.  For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why Vern wouldn’t come into the kitchen for a treat when I called him, and then it dawned on me that he was standing guard over his possessions in case Fudge showed any interest.  Unfortunately for Vern, he is no match for Fudge in the brains department and Fudge usually does the equivalent of “look over there, I think I see a pink hippo,” trick that I used to do to my kids when I wanted something to eat off their plate. As soon as they looked away, I stole it right off of their plates.  Fudge will bark at the window and distract Vern and grab what she wants and poor Vern doesn’t know what hit him when he finally turns around.  The aftermath is so sad because Vern will lie down next to Fudge and watch her chew his bone and Fudge makes “no bones about it” that she has never been happier or enjoyed a better bone.

 

So, on Oscar night, not only was there drama on TV, but there was also drama going on in our house and Fudge would have taken home the Oscar for “Naughtiest Dog” and Vern would have won for “Best Pathetic Performance by a Dog.” To make matters worse, all the bone chewing seemed to be making the dogs thirsty because while I was trying to listen to who won what all I could really hear was Vern slurping.  If you have that disorder where listening to people eat or drink gives you the major willies, Vern is not the dog for you.  If you are a neat freak, and don’t like to see water and food all over the floor after he gets done at his dog bowls, Vern is not the dog for you. I don’t know if he thinks he is leaving clues so you are able to locate him in the house later, but there is always a trail of something left in Vern’s wake. I tell him the same thing I tell John…don’t ever commit a crime, because you will be caught within minutes.  When Vern drinks his water it usually sounds as if two ducks have landed in his bowl and are fighting for water space and he always seems to be the most thirsty when I am trying to hear something on TV.  For all I know on Oscar night, Slurp, Guzzle, and Gulp, were in the running for Best Supporting Actress.  All this activity and noise just because John and I switched places for one night and Fudge, in particular, will not go to bed without me.

 

So, I finally did what any well trained human would do and drug their XXL bed out into the middle of the living room and we all laid down in it and they promptly fell asleep.  I think next year, I will go to Aunt Nancy’s and watch the Oscars. It couldn’t be any worse. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

LOL, Laurie, I love "it usually sounds as if two ducks have landed in his bowl and are fighting for water space". In fact, I might use that line myself! Vern may be bigger, but JD could give him a run for his money in the Noisiest Water Drinking Doodle competition. Fortunately for me, I only watch the Oscars to see the dresses, so I don't care if doodle noises prevent me form hearing anything. :) 

[F, Calla & Luca]

No Jane, Laurie was on the dog bed with them. To say your dogs have your trained Laurie, even though mine have me trained too, is the understatement of the millenium. But I have a solution I will share since I love you dearly. Get a pair of Sennheiser earphones and John can sleep while you watch TV into the wee hours. It works for Luca and me. Dogs can bark, elephants trumpet etc. and he sleeps peacefully. You need to call Sennheiser  folks to get the right ones for you. My sister recently got them too so she can listen to the news while she cooks dinner in the kitchen which has no TV. Of course that doesn't solve the company problem but issuing no invitations takes care of that :-)

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

You really did drag your bed into the living room....really?  My first thought was that you were "punking" us but then I started thinking....it is Laurie, so maybe.....

I understand about the slurping and the trail of water that they leave in their wake...that's Murph.  He also has a new habit...drooling.  It's not water - it's really gooey slimy drool and it's almost always on the kitchen floor.  I walk barefoot most of the time, and there is nothing more disgusting than stepping in one of those puddles of drool.