The Dogs and I Need Time Apart!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but this winter has taken over my life, my thoughts, and my moods.  I don’t ever remember a winter when the snow would not melt and stayed around for such a long period of time.  We live in the boondocks and I drive to different locations to walk my dogs.  We go twice a day, but there is nowhere to walk that has been plowed, unless I want to walk them over deep snow covered ice.  On top of that, our township thought it would be fun to only plow one and a half lanes on our two lane roads making it very hard to get around. This means as you try and navigate your car into some of the places I go to walk the dogs and you have the misfortune to meet another car coming towards you, you have two choices 1) engage in a vehicular version of chicken 2) flash one of my STAR credit cards and yell, “Police business! Back your car up!" and hope no one asks for a closer look. 

 

When you have two dogs that don’t do “nothing” well and nowhere to go to walk them, this can make for extremely long days and nights.  Oh, and for those people who say their dogs entertain each other, I would like to say to you, “nobody likes a braggart.”  My dogs entertain themselves for about ten minutes by wrestling right on top of me and then they spend the other 23 hours, 50 minutes looking at me like “what are we going to do next?”

Fudge isn’t the problem as much as Vern and he reminds me of my youngest daughter when she used to have a friend spend the night.  My oldest would invite a friend over and they would hole up in her room for hours.  For all I knew they escaped out of the bedroom window by tying together all of the clothes that Megan kept strewn all around her room and went bar hopping, but they were quiet and left me alone.  Hayley, on the other hand, would have a friend over and I would have to turn myself into the Activity Director on a cruise ship to keep them happy.  Many times after I sat exhausted in a chair after numerous activities, she and her friend would look at me and say, “What else is there to do?”   A couple of times I said, “how about you do the laundry and your little friend run the vacuum,” and when that didn’t shut them up, I often times offered to drop the friend back at her house. I did have my own “little black book” of sorts and any friend that got five stars (five being extremely high maintenance) meant that if Hayley and the friend wanted another sleepover, it would have to be done at the friend’s house.

 

Yesterday, I had to walk the dogs around and around in a parking lot. We were like three hamsters on a wheel, except our wheel was covered with ice in some spots.  I can’t tell you how exciting it was to have Vern surge forward just as I realized my feet were slipping and sliding underneath me.  I swear Vern thinks his new name is “EASY, VERN!” because he just turns and looks at me like “hey, what’s up?” as I scream it over and over. 

Hey Fudge, do you hear somebody yelling, "EASY, VERN"?

In the afternoon, I opted to forgo the walk and take them up to the tennis courts and let then run.  The roads had not been plowed at that park, but it was obvious other cars had been there, probably in a desperate attempt to find somewhere to walk, and I was able to get far enough into the park to find a parking spot.  My feeling of victory was short lived as we plowed through knee high snow and ice to get to the tennis court only to find the gate frozen shut.  I knew I could open it wide enough to squeeze Fudge in, but Vern and I would be a problem.  I have been soothing myself all winter with junk food and we have all heard the old saying “you are what you eat” which seems apropos because prior to going to the park I ate a Chunky bar.  Anyways, I was determined to get us into that tennis court and managed to force it open enough to get both dogs inside.  I tried yelling from the other side, “go play,” but they just stood inside eating snow.  Well, I knew that wasn’t going to make them tired, so I squeezed through the opening, which was no small feat and tried to work them into a frenzy with my sing songy voice to get them to chase each other.

So far this week I have tossed a frozen ball 953 times, buried a frozen ball 867 times and encouraged them to find it, ran around my car for a fun game of chase about 57 times, taken approximately 1820 photos of one dog fetching and two dogs un-burying frozen balls, done sit/down/stay exercises with Vern in the driveway 953 times because Fudge won’t let Vern retrieve the frozen ball, and screamed “leave it….stop eating sticks…put the stick down…Vern, give me that damn stick…Fudge, stop teasing Vern with the stick,” more times than I can count. 

Oh, and let's not forget this fun part of having two Doodles that love snow!

or this (although this does make me smile)

Why do I do all this, you ask? I do it so Vern sleeps at night and so both my dogs don’t end up sprouting a tree limb out his/her rectum before winter is over.  It got so bad yesterday with the sticks, I started pelting them with snowballs when I saw them pick up a stick and I am pretty sure “correction by snowballs” is not an approved dog training method in any state.

I will admit, when Vern pulled me down in the field and got all tangled up in his leash, I didn't mind giving him a wedgie correction!

The snowballs finally made me realize I had gone over the edge and I might need an intervention.  I beg of the interventioners NOT to tell me to tether the stick-eating dogs to me, because we need a break from each other, and I would much prefer to tether them to John as he leaves for work each day.  I have asked John to take some vacation days and the last time I did he said, “It’s almost like you don’t want me to go to work.”  All I could think was I needed to find a more obvious way to say “stay home or kill me before you leave.”

Thankfully, my salvation came today in the form of a text from my dog sitter.  She has not been available for my dogs (blog to follow) because she got another job, but she wrote me and said if I wanted her to take the dogs to her house today to play with her dogs, she could!  I am sure the text I sent back scared her a little, because it read a bit like the diner scene in When Harry Met Sally when Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm and screams, “YES, YES, YES, OH YES!”  When she came to get them, the dogs went ballistic and then stood at the door, tails wagging, and attempted to telekinetically open the front door and get in her car.  It has been six blissful hours without my dogs and absence really does make the heart grow fonder.  We’ll see how the dogs feel when they get home.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

DJ, Oh my...thanks for the compliment, but that 76 degree day made we want to smack you :) LOL

BG, Oh no...a frozen septic tank is always bad. Hope they got it all taken care of without major problems. Our snow does seem to be melting a little and our temps. should be in the 50's tomorrow, so that is good. Stay warm.

Ricki, Not you, too. I expected a comment like that from Pat, but never you. Our honey bees have gone to Florida to winter :) You are welcome to visit anytime and enjoy all the snow :)

Pat, There you go again...wishing mud on all of us. I hope Megan gets there today :)

Swetha, Thank you!! I did have a wonderful day!

[DJ & Chance]

You are such a great writer--I felt every moment of agony, frustration, and finally joy even as I felt only vaguely guilty for enjoying another temperate 76 degree day :)

[BG and Gavin]

I am dying for Spring.  We walked 2 km into the cottage in high thigh snow to stay with some neighbours (our place is not winterized) in minus 20 C temps only to find out their septic tank was frozen :O It was not good.  But that is a story for another day.

Snow!  Please melt:  

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Sorry, Laurie, I'm having trouble feeling your pain too. There were so darn many honey bees in the garden today that for a minute I thought they mistook me for their Queen! I'm so jealous of your snow pictures, gosh you're just so lucky!  ;)

[Pat and Traveler]

Ha,ha....I don't blame you a bit, Laurie!  I'd be a crazy woman if I had to deal with all that snow and dogs with snowballs on their legs and faces.  It won't be long before the mud comes....  :)

[Swetha & Elsa]

That is such a hilarious read!  Sorry to be laughing at your troubles but I can't help it...you're funny :)  I'm so looking forward to Spring.

Hope your "me" time was awesome!

[F, Calla & Luca]

Good idea Laurie. We know Megan is always eager to assist in your plans : )

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

F, I asked Megan to go to Pat's house and yank out those daffodils :) LOL Stay safe.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Luckily typing gives me time to censor my thoughts Pat. Despite it having warmed up today the perils remain around my house and it takes me 15 minutes to decide which way to get out. : (

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Thanks, Nicky!! Fudge was exhausted. Vern still got up last night, but he was happy to see me at 2:30 am :)