Pets on my Mind

Please go to this website and sign this petition to save this dog. It's ridiculous that anyone would equate a dog's attack on a chihuahua as somehow making it vicious to humans. My dogs kill squirrels and birds and have killed a rat or two....Some of them were bigger than this chihuahua. The dog probably thought it was prey. http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?Lucy

The list of items only scratches the surface of the collection of indigestible articles, according to Veterinary Pet insurance, which has paid claims on surgery to remove those items. While the most common items are pet owner’s personal belongings, other frequently ingested objects include nails, sewing needles and nipples from baby bottles. VPI’s claims adjusters have also received medical records for pets that have swallowed pagers, hearing aids, drywall, snail bait, batteries, rubber bands, toy cars, and sand with bacon grease poured on it.  

So, I came home the other day and this was what was left of my remote control. My first thought was "the beagle." Her name is Meggie, but mostly we call her beagle. It's fun to yell "beagle, beagle, beagle" when you're trying to get her to come inside.
Anyway, she's too short to reach the cabinet the remote was on, so my attention turned to my counter-surfer Tommy. The only places he can't reach are the top of the television and the top of the refrigerator. Other than that he will regularly look for security breaches such as bread left on a countertop (husband), peanut butter left on countertop (ditto), or anything that he might be able to play with, including a sock, a shoe, yarn.

So, my theory, is that Tommy got it off the counter just because he could. His nickname is thief. He loves to steal things, especially things you might value and then wiggle/waggle his butt around trying to get you to chase him. He's not above running out the dog door with a bra or a boot or tennis shoe and trotting to the back of the yard, which is a long way at my house, just so you have to come after him.

Anyway, my theory is that Tommy got it down and the beagle took it from there. I haven't owned a shredder in a long time, not since my first dog, named Bimbo. The beagle will shred anything she can find, newspaper, phonebooks, $$$$ (@#%&*^+!#@$) and now this. She loves to chew. She's chewed my eyeglasses. The other day she ripped the tag off the sofa slip cover, which was the only thing that helped me get the blasted thing on there in one try.

 Anyone who has cable television knows what this mishap meant, standing in a long line at Comcast waiting to get a replacement. They are so conveniently opened during hours when most of us are at work. I pointed that out to the person on the phone who told me the office a million-miles away was open until 12:30 on Saturdays. Last time I drove by there on a Saturday, I thought they were selling tickets to The Who. The line snaked around outside. Some people had lawn chairs.

So I steeled my spine, mostly because it's infuriating to stand at the cable box and press the up button to get from channel 3 to channel 301. When I got there, 12 people were in front of me. It was the office on Poplar, the former bank that had very little decorations.

The only seats, one was broken, were a few theater chairs. Two of the televisions that should have been showing cable shows weren't on. The only one that was on was tuned to General Hospital. Wait a minute, isn't that a network station, the kind you can bring into your house with a pair of rabbit ears and some tin foil?

We inched along in line. It got to be kind of fun to watch the expression of the next person coming in the door. They opened it hopeful that their visit wouldn't take an entire chunk out of their lives. The first look was surprise that there could be that many people in line. Most looked at their watch to see if they could afford the time. Some turned and left. Others bit the bullet and joined the rest of us.

There were only two clerks working. The former bank had teller windows that would hold maybe 7 tellers, but only two to take care of those of us being held hostage by the cable company. Of course, we could leave, but what was I going to do without a remote? What's the point of cable if you can't flip around with a remote.

 I thought more and more about a satellite dish. We went that route before but we were always losing our signal every time it rained. We live in a neighborhood with a lot of trees and our theory was that the weight of water on the leaves blocked the signal. Sounded logical to us, but it was tiresome to go for a couple of days without television every time a front came through.

I tried to remember my life before I got in line, how care free I had been and reckless with my time. After about 25 minutes, I moved up to the prime standing area, that was where you could lean on the former table where people used to fill out bank deposit slips. There were four of us with our elbows propped on it listening to some ridiculous Romeo and Juliet plotline on the top of some castle on General Hospital. Back in the day when I used to watch it, the show was actually set in a hospital. Bobby was a star and Rick Springfield was dreamy.

At about minute 34 (I know this because I have a watch I use for running and power walking and I time everything, traffic lights, long speeches, etc.) I moved to the clerk.

That was the best part of it. Her smile was warm, she was sympathetic and even better, she simply gave me a remote and told me I could have a pass and not pay for it because it was my first offense. Now THAT was Comcastic.

So now the remote sits high atop the television set like a priceless jewel. My dogs, of course, have claimed their innocence and have both indicated that they are innocent of all charges. They have no idea how the remote got in that state. It doesn't even taste good.

Here are some of the signs that your pet might be in pain, The list was put together by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) and the Association of American Feline Practitioners (AAFP).   Because animals naturally hide their pain to protect themselves from predators, pets may be suffering from an illness or injury even though they don’t show obvious signs.  

Pet owners should contact their veterinarian if they observe:

• Abnormal chewing habits
• Drastic weight gain or loss 
• Avoidance of affection or handling
• Decreased movement and exercise
• Excessively licking or biting itself
• Uncharacteristic “accidents”

 These signs can help uncover underlying medical issues and pain.  For the complete AAHA/AAFP Pain Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats go to www.healthypet.com

This new public service announcement from the Humane Society of the United States is gripping. It brings in the plight of pit bulls and the bait dogs. Check out Russell Simmons with Be Kind founder Frances Hayward and Humane Society president Wayne Pacelle.

Click on this link to learn more about Be Kind

/>Part of the problem is me. Part of it is my dogs. Part of it is my neighbors. Walking my dogs has become like planning an early dawn raid. I've steadily gotten up 15 minutes earlier in the past month to find a time to walk my dogs when the neighbors aren't walking theirs.

Now, this is the part of the fault that's mine. I have not worked on my dogs individually to train them not to respond to other dogs they see walking on leash with their owners. By the barks of some of those dogs, neither have my neighbors. But even so, if I were Caesar Milan, my dogs would ignore those distractions and trot along beside me with slack in their leashes looking ahead at our future.

Instead, my dogs look like the before scene in a Dog Whisperer episode. They lunge and bark and jump like their lives are dependent on getting to the other dog. Tommy, the biggest is the worse. He has a thing for small white fluffy dogs. My friends tell me that sometimes a dog's prey drive is high for little dogs that look like that because those dogs appear to be a rabbit or another small prey animal.

Note to self: Avoid small, rabbit-looking dogs.

So, I've just about figured out when those dogs come out for their morning walks. One comes faithfully at 7 a.m., an adorable miniature schnauzer and his owner. The two small dogs, (one is the white one) come out anywhere form 6:30 to 6:45. I've tried leaving my house at various times and ended up running into one of them. If I try to leave later, there's another wave of dogs out there with their owners, but earlier seems to work.

So I started getting up at 5:45 instead of 6. That worked sometimes, but if my dogs all stop and do their business or get tangled up, it throws us off in our 2.1-mile walk and we run into the first rotation of dogs.

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I went to Florida last month to visit my friend Erin. One thing I didn't know about Florida, actually there are a lot of things, but this one: there are lots of lizards in Florida. Quick flicking, climb on your leg or hang on the door frame at about 5' 4" inches high (my height) lizards!
They get in your house, in your boxes, in your pile of clothes!!!
One night there was one crawling on the wall and Erin's cat Ned was stalking it? I told Erin to knock it on the floor so the cat could get it.
Erin: “It’s a life.”
Cindy: “It’s a life that could come crawling across my face in the middle of the night. I’ll never sleep a wink.”
She begrudgingly swiped her broom and it hit the floor and the cat grabbed it. We went after the cat to make sure it was going to be a quick kill and not a slow torture. The cat was in the kitchen and took off when we came in. On the floor, wriggling and inching along like a worm was the tail.
Erin (screaming): "Get it, get it, get it."
She handed me a paper towel. I didn’t look. I just reached down and scooped. She managed to separate Ned from the tailless lizard and she scooped it up with her paper towel. She opened the back door and we flung it outside. There were a bunch of wads out there. Apparently the cats get lots of lizards.

So,

Why are all the cat lovers quiet? Don't mind the new ordinance that lets your neighbor call and report you if your cat poops in their yard? I'm curious. City Council passes an ordinance that can impact your cats and there was hardly a sound.

Tell me what you're thinking. I really want to know. What are some other issues happening with cats. It's always so hard to write about cats because owners are so quiet. I am never short of dog topics but I always struggle to find topics about cats.

So The Shops at Saddlecreek opened its stores to let dogs in. What do you think? Has Memphis reached the point where we can let animals in or do you think we have a lot of work to do with people teaching their animals to behave.

Maybe other stores should start with only dogs that weigh less than 20 pounds and go from there. I know it's biased against bigger dogs. All my dogs are big. And people with bigger dogs already suffer unfairly with these ridiculous renter rules about dogs that weigh 25 pounds or less. But maybe in this case, it would be good to start small.