The Terrible Fours?? Fudge Gone Wild!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Strange things are happening in our household with Fudge. Fudge has always been a bit of a rebel outside, but inside she is a dream…that is, until this week.  Most of the time if Vern gets up in the middle of the night, Fudge will opt not to go out with him, unless she is absolutely sure some critter might be outside. Lately, she will walk to the door with him and then turn and grab a stuffed Octopus and walk in a loop around our living area.  Often she will end up in our dark foyer and there she sits with this green toy and all eight legs hanging from her mouth. 

Fudge's Toy is Green!

This is the last image I have been seeing as I head off to bed. I have no idea how long she sits out there like that, and some mornings I fully expect to come around the corner and see her still sitting there just holding that octopus. Fudge has always been an interesting dog. Where Vern is more of a “what you see is what you get” kind of dog, Fudge is an enigma to me and I have no doubt in my mind, she would smoke me on an IQ test and probably finish long before the time is up and then just sit and stare at me with a look of disbelief on her face. 

Disbelief that in a world gone mad she is expected to listen and obey someone of such lesser intelligence. 

In this case, that person is on the right!

I always get the impression when she is outside and I call her to come, she is weighing all of her options and thinking to herself how maddening it is that some mere mortal cannot see she is doing something important. For all I know, she is teaching calculus to the chipmunks as she has them cornered in our stone wall.

 

Well, several things have happened this week that have me thinking I don’t know Fudge at all.  The other day I came around the corner to find both dogs in the foyer focused on something and in a way that made the menopausal hair on my chin stand up.  It is never a good sign when they have their backs to you, tails wagging, and seem to be surrounding something that you can’t see.  With much trepidation, I inched forward, fully expecting to have to call John at work with an emergency request for help needed at home, only to see they had massacred my bubble wand that comes in my large jar of bubbles. 

Normally, I would think Vern was the enforcer in this case and Fudge had just authorized the kill, but Fudge had parts of the bubble wand hanging from her face and seemed to be chewing on another part. Vern was wagging his tail in time with her chews and neither dog seemed too contrite when I made them hand over what was left of a valuable tool in my photography repertoire.  I have been using that wand to get their attention when I photograph them and I guess they wanted me to know that they had to draw the line somewhere.  As it turns out, while I thought they were napping, they were in fact, leaving me bits and pieces of a bubble wand all around the house and making sure I got the message that there would be no more tapping them with the long wand and telling them to look in my direction.

 

Sure, I knew Fudge had her own way of protesting when I got my camera out, but I never thought she would resort to destroying my property and making mincemeat out of an innocent bubble wand. Up until now, she has been content to turn her head at the exact moment I click my camera or give Vern a non-verbal cue that means, “let’s blow off this photo shoot and wrestle instead.”  

Vern likes to display his red crayon when he sees the camera, but since my Photoshop skills have gotten better, his attempt at rebellion is just a couple of clicks away from making an unwanted uprising disappear. Fudge practices much more finesse than Vern in getting her point across.   Yesterday, she managed to thwart my “dog running at me on the pier,” shot simply by complying with the come command, but at a speed slower than a snail on his way to an escargot convention.

Somehow, she knew I was on my knees at the other end of the pier and I only had so long before my knees crying out in protest made me decide this was not one of my best ideas and I put the camera down to get myself up.  I also wasn’t interested in a “dog baby stepping her way down the pier at a speed almost needing a beeper to warn of a back up,” shot, so I used the time on my knees to pray that the Lord gave me the strength to deal with a dog too smart for her own britches. Meanwhile, we were trying to find Vern’s off switch as he happily ran back and forth between John and me.

My precious bubble wand wasn’t the only casualty this week at the hands, or should I say mouth, of Fudge.  She also counter surfed, for the first time ever, and snatched a piece of Barbecue Chicken pizza off of John’s plate.  First of all, this irritates me because I made that pizza from scratch, not counting the Boboli pizza crust, and she knows I hate to cook.  Most of the time I am trying to figure out how to get out of cooking and I have even gone so far as to call John at work and thank him for asking me out to dinner that night in a shrewd attempt to catch John off guard and unable to decide if he said something he can’t remember saying. He may or may not be on to me, because last time I did it and told him how much it meant to me that he asked me out on a date, he said his girlfriend told him to do it to be nice.  I told him I liked that girlfriend and don’t’ screw it up with her. Anyways, the least Fudge could have done was steal something on a night when I refer to my fine cuisine as “crap on a platter,” (in another thinly veiled attempt to make dining out sound better), or at least steal it during the preparation stage so there is nothing left to cook.  No, Fudge waited to steal it on a night when I actually cooked something edible and left me crying out, “I still get credit for this meal!”  It seems John had left his plate unattended for a moment and came back to find Fudge licking her licks and no pizza on his plate.

Found Guilty of all Charges!

So there you have it, octopuses, bubble wands, and counter surfing.  All in a day’s work, according to Fudge. I can’t wait to see what the fives have in store for us with Fudge.

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Check and see if she's getting her wisdom teeth. It makes them smarter and also makes them want to chew on plastic and pizza.

[Pat and Traveler]

So funny, Laurie!  Love the pictures too, especially the one with Vern's bandana over his eyes.  I could just see the two dogs with their backs to you and tails wagging--oh-oh!  Not a good sign at all!  lol  

I'll have to watch Trav--he's coming up on 4 also.  Counter surfing??  Eating photo props??  Oh my.  :)

[Gail and Bailey]

So that is how you get them to look at you for a picture....tap them with your wand??!  I'll have to try that but where did you get such a big one... (that's what she said)?

[Bonnie and Kona]

Oh Fudgie! What have you done! Laurie, I'm wondering if perhaps Vern has been blamed for Fudge's bad behavior all this time and it was smarty-pants Fudge doing the damage and then leaving Vern with the evidence. She is one smart cookie after all. 

Love the wrestling photo with Vern's bandana over his eyes! "Menopausal hair on my chin stand up"... LOL!!! And yes, you most certainly still get credit for cooking food the dog stole. You cooked, you cooked, you really, really cooked!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Camilla, Thank you!! Fudge is almost five, so maybe it gets better :) Oh but, Vern will be four, but he has already been doing all the things you said Darwin just started :)

Carol, I bet cute Banjo will skip this stage. Just keep throwing that Jolly ball for him :) Thank you about Fudge and my photos. We call her Diva all the time :)

[Carol and Banjo]

Uh oh.....I guess we better not get too complacent around here....Banjo hits the big 4 in December!   Fudge, you are so beautiful.....and your mom takes such amazing pics of you.....you're simply acting like any good Diva would!

[Camilla and Darwin]

I wouldn't be surprised, Darwin turned four in May and since then he's tried his paw at barking, garbage digging and being really, really smelly all of the time. Doodle rebellion! Love this blog and the pictures!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Jane, LOL...well like Murph and Vern.....I am sure you meant cuddly and adorable :) Fudge is calm in the house. I don't know what is happening. Hopefully, Murphy will do better and then you can send Ben my way :)

Sheri, I bet that was what Fudge was thinking. Somehow, I blame it all on John :)

F, I had a weak moment, but I do think she is pretty darn smart :) Oh, how I wish she could cook. I would be fine with that. Our standards are very low!

[F, Calla & Luca]

This may be my favorite of all your blogs. At last you admit to your place on the evolutionary IQ scale. But I am sorry Fudge has decided to laud her smarts over you. Loved the photos. Now let Fudge cook, clearly she needs some challenges.

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

I'm thinking that Fudge was just confused about the pizza.  She is always hearing John say "well you will cook for the doodles, but you won't cook for me", so she thought the pizza was actually hers and that John had Counter surfed!  Lovin the pic where Vern's visor is his bandanna.