The Terrible Six and Sevens!!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

I recently reunited with a “step” niece after twenty-six years apart.  The separation was through no fault of our own and we were only able to find each other after she finally joined Facebook, for which I will be forever thankful.  The fact that fate moved us within a couple of hours of each other just sealed the deal.  In preparation for her trip to our house, I wrote her and asked what kinds of things she liked to eat.  I burst out laughing when she wrote back that she loved breakfast casseroles and knew then that we were going to need some time to get reacquainted.  I hate to cook and she must have been too young to remember that minor detail, so I wrote back that I hated cooking, but I would be willing to throw an egg and some cheese in a bowl and microwave it for her.  She wrote back to skip the casserole, that she wasn’t being picky, but had just answered my survey honestly and didn’t need any special treatment.  She has a great sense of humor and went on to say she would just take dry toast, which in my mind meant I could hand her a slice of stale bread and call it a day.  I hate to cook so much that I recently told John the day he retires, I am retiring from cooking forever and all he said was he thought when you retired from something it meant you had actually been doing it for years.

 

Well, I have just a bit of that old Lutheran guilt and I got to thinking that I hadn’t seen my niece in 26 years and if she liked breakfast casseroles then by golly I should make her a breakfast casserole.  I scoured the Internet to find the perfect recipe and set out to make the best darn casserole the world has ever seen.  I even got up early on Saturday to make sure the casserole went into the oven and would be ready when everyone woke up.  I only eat Oatmeal for breakfast so I had to take their word for it, but John and my niece said the casserole was very good.  While we were all reminiscing and enjoying our breakfast out in the living room, I happened to look over to the kitchen and I remember thinking, “who is getting another helping of my breakfast casserole?” because I could see a little brown head of curly hair bobbing up and down near the counter which contained our morning meal.  About the same time I was asking myself that question it dawned on me that all of the humans in the house were sitting in the room I was in and that little brown mop of hair belonged to Fudge.  She had her front paws up on the counter and was enjoying the fact that I had cooked something good.  I could tell she liked it by the way she was licking it as she stood there.  That casserole had ten eggs in it, a healthy amount of cheese, half and half, a pound of expensive sausage (I got a very good kind), some hash brown potatoes, 9000 calories per slice, and my blood, sweat, and tears, and in a matter of seconds was rendered inedible by one naughty Doodle.

 

This behavior is brand new and Fudge is seven.  It started when Jane (of Jane, Rooney, and Stuart) came to visit and brought along a bag of homemade dog treats that she called Puppy Crack.  Both dogs went nuts for the treats and I don’t know what was in it, but I do know after consuming it, Fudge humped Vern for the first time ever and counter surfed to get more of the treat.   We had just given the dogs a couple of the treats and I was giving Jane and Bob a tour of the house when Fudge and Vern jumped up on our guest bed and Fudge immediately mounted Vern and humped him.  Again this was a first ever and I haven’t seen it happen again, but if you are going to witness a first time, embarrassing behavior from one of your dogs it is always fun to have company there with you.  At least I had witnesses that I am not making this stuff up.  All I can say is I chalked the behavior up to those dog treats and began to suspect that Jane had slipped in an aphrodisiac and testosterone booster just for kicks and to get mentioned in one of my blogs. Needless to say, I had to hide the Puppy Crack and it was doled out in very small amounts for fear I would find Fudge mixing up cocktails one night for Vern and herself and then moving the party to the guest room.

 

Vern is six. Up until this time he has had a healthy amount of fear in him, which I have always found to be a good thing because he won’t venture far from us.  The few times Fudge has made a break for it, Vern will start to follow and then quickly decides it is better to stay with the sure thing.  Fudge takes off, won’t come when she is called, and then returns when it suits her with no remorse and an expression on her face that seems to say, “what’s the big deal?” The last time it happened I was dumb enough to believe she had changed and stopped leashing her when we walked from the front gate to the open car, a distance of about 10 feet.  For weeks she had gained my trust by quietly jumping into the car. I had even gone so far as to boast to John that he was being a nervous Nellie and Fudge was a changed dog and off she went with my words still hanging in the air.  She led us a merry chase around the neighborhood, always one step ahead of us, until she must have overheard me yelling at John to just let her go see if she could find another idiot who fell for her tricks and just like that, she returned to our house.  Luckily, Vern knew his place, which was in the air-conditioned car watching and hearing the whole event unfold from his front row seat. 

 

That is until this week when he too made a break for it while I was placing a leashed Fudge into the car.  Off he went to see if anything was interesting at our neighbor’s carport and then across the street to another neighbor’s house to see what was going on over there.  He turned a deaf ear to my cries to return and even went so far as to hesitate, like he just might run again, as I approached him.  The difference is Fudge will come back with a sullen teenager look on her face like we are holding her back from a lifetime of fun, but Vern is the happiest naughty dog on the planet.  Everything about him read that he was proud as punch at himself and having the time of his life.  When I grabbed him and brought him back to the car his tail wagged all the way home even though I was telling him that I was so disappointed in him and what a bad dog he had become.  He greeted Fudge like he had been gone on a long trip and I just know she whispered in his ear that he was “one of us” now and to look for more adventures in the future.  So for now they have both lost their privileges and are escorted to the car by me in what I hope is a humiliating turn of events for two naughty Doodles.

 

Why now and what’s next?  At the rate we are going if Fudge and Vern add two naughty tricks into their repertoire each year, John and I are screwed.  We might as well get a couple of those Life Alert gadgets so we can call for help when we need it….Help!! I’ve fallen chasing my dog all around the neighborhood and I can’t get up.  Help! My dogs are humping again and I fell trying to separate them and I can’t get up. Help! My dogs just stole my car keys and are trying to go for a joy ride and I fell trying to stop them!  If this keeps up, we may be the new spokespeople for Life Alert and the benefits of carrying one if you own two big dogs with minds of their own.

 

Finally, if you are asking what happened to the breakfast casserole? I threw it away.  I had no choice even though John said to serve it to his brother and wife because Fudge barely touched it. I guess he is still carrying a grudge from the time his brother stole his box of Ding Dongs and ate all of them.  Luckily, I have that touch of Lutheran guilt and knew throwing it away was the right thing to do, even though I likened it to Monet having to throw away one of his masterpieces.  I can only assume from Monet’s body of work that he didn’t have a couple of Doodles distracting him in his studio.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Thanks, F. I thought things were going great here too....right up until it wasn't :)

[F, Calla & Luca]

Love the doodle adventures. I am getting nervous since we haven't had any hijinks here for a while. Glad you are living up to your gourmet cook reputation.