dogs — Page 8

Picking Up

March 11, 2012 at 10:33 am by Claudia

It’s sunny, a bit warmer and what am I doing today? Besides crocheting, that is. Picking up dog poop from the corral and picking up rocks in my front yard.

Oh, yippee.

Nothing like dog poop and rocks to put a spring in your step and a song on your lips.

I have much to accomplish in the next less-than-a-month. Suddenly I’m hyper aware of everything that needs to be done around here before I go to Hartford. I think it’s time to make some lists.

There is yarn everywhere in this house, but especially in the den. That’s because the den is where I sit and blog and sit and read and sit and watch television and sit and crochet. There’s a box of it on the desk (that I crop out of all photos like the first one in this post.) There’s a bag of it on the floor right next to the desk. There’s a tote full of yarn next to my chair. I’m crocheting like a madwoman.

I’m aiming for a shop update tomorrow. Obsession Scarves are being purchased almost as quickly as I list them. I have 3 for tomorrow and more in the coming week. Meredith has crocheted some wonderful flower scarves and I’ll be listing them tomorrow as well. Wait ’til you see them – they are so summery, so fun!

How is your day going? Any plans for this Sunday?

The Story of Shannon & the Dentures

February 5, 2012 at 10:19 am by Claudia

Source: Wikipedia, Irish Setter from 1915, W. E. Mason, Dogs of all Nations

My friends, I’ve been very blue this weekend as I contemplate the deterioration of my mother’s already fragile health and listen to my dad cry out his heartbreak during our phone calls. I feel as if I’m on the edge of a precipice of loss. When it will happen, I cannot know, but that feeling lurks in every corner of my daily life.

So often lately, I choose to remember my parents as they were decades ago. In my head I see a photo of us together in San Diego (I’ll have to share it with you someday), that first summer I lived there, just weeks before I met Don for the first time. Big smiles, still vital – happy to be with me in my new city. Or I picture my mom and I laughing over something or other. We laughed a lot together; we’d laugh so hard that we’d clutch our stomachs, tears in our eyes. Laughter is the best medicine.

With that in mind, I thought I’d share a funny story with you. A true story. When I was a teenager, we had an Irish Setter named Shannon. Shannon was smart as a whip and constantly into something or other. Oh, he was a handful, but how he would make us laugh! He’d grab a dish cloth or a hand towel and run through the living room with it in his mouth, hoping to get our attention. If one of us purposely ignored him, he would reverse direction and run back through the room, dish cloth still in his mouth. This would go on and on until, exasperated, he would finally just drop the cloth in our lap as if to say, See? I took it. Doesn’t anyone care???

My dad wore dentures. He would sometimes leave them on the sink in the bathroom when he went to bed. One morning, my mom was in the living room (dad was still sleeping) and Shannon tore by her with something in his mouth. Then he tore by her again. She glanced up. Not a dish cloth. Something she couldn’t see was hidden in his mouth. She called out his name – Shannon! He did what he always did when he had something he didn’t want us to get from him. He went under the dining room table – just far enough to make it hard to reach him. By this time, Mom had asked for my help. We got down on our hands and knees and reached for him – he moved his head away from us. We reached again. He moved away. Finally, Mom got hold of his collar. Then we tried to pry his mouth open. When we pried his teeth apart, we saw anotherset of teeth – my dad’s.Oh no.

In a panic, all we could think was that my dad would completely lose it if Shannon chomped on his expensive dentures. And he would have. As I kept his mouth open, Mom, with the skill of a surgeon, began to remove the dentures from his mouth – praying the whole time that he wouldn’t bite down on them. Somehow we did it. Adrenalin-infused strength, I bet.

Afterwards, she took those dentures, scrubbed the life out of them, used some denture cleaner and put them back where they had been – on the side of the bathroom sink. She knew she couldn’t tell my father about it. I was sworn to secrecy and dad didn’t find out about it until many years later. For years, mom, my sisters and I would tell that story and laugh our heads off.Shannon was always up to something. We had a travel trailer parked in our driveway (right outside my parents’ bedroom window) and many was the time that mom and I would be out there on our hands and knees, one on either side of the trailer, trying to get Shannon to come out from under it. He would invariably lay there, right in the place where we couldn’t reach him, taunting us. We’d do this in whispers, trying not to disturb my dad (sleeping again) or our neighbors. After what seemed like hours of this rigamarole (confident that my dad was still sleeping) one loud bellow of Shannon! from the direction of the bedroom would bring him out from under the trailer and into the house, making Mom and me, on our hands and knees, look ridiculous.

All these years later, those stories still make me laugh. And that’s a good thing.

Are You a Cat or Dog Person? Or Both?

November 7, 2011 at 7:00 am by Claudia

This is my favorite photo of the dogs. There is such a sweetness, a gentleness to it. I have it framed and it lives on our living room wall.

I am a dog person. I wasn’t always. When I was a wee child, about 2 years old, a family friend’s dog jumped up on me and knocked me over. I became terrified of dogs – so much so that when I walked to my piano lesson about 6 blocks away from our home, I would cross the street if I saw any dog.

So my parents wisely decided to get a dog. They figured the only way to help rid me of my fear was for me to get to know and love a dog. He was a terrier named Friskie. I distinctly remember the barrier my parents put up between the kitchen and the living room which kept Friskie safely away from me in those first days. Mom would lift me up and carry me from room to room. Gradually, Friskie and I became friends. He slept in my bed with me. I would lift up the covers and he would burrow his way down to the foot of the bed where he felt cozy and warm. Friskie lived to be 16. Other wonderful dogs came our way. (Remind me to tell you the story of Shannon and my dad’s dentures some day.) It was a no cat household until I had moved out (I’m allergic to cat dander) and my sister conned my parents into rescuing a barn cat. Now they have two cats.

I spent years dreaming of having a dog. Because my life during graduate school and beyond consisted of small apartment living and long hours of work, I had to hold off. It wasn’t until Don and I moved in together that we got our beloved Winston, a rescued Aussie Shepherd mix. Then Scout, also a rescue, came into our lives. After we lost Winston at the far too young age of 8, it was just Scout until Riley came along.

I must be honest and say that I wasn’t particularly thrilled with cats until I worked for a Veterinarian. Being around them all the time really changed that and I grew to admire and like them. Nevertheless, I’m allergic and I don’t want to hassle with even more allergy trouble than I already have.

I can’t imagine not having a dog in my life. My dogs are great teachers and make me a better person.

What about you? Are you a cat person? Are you a dog person? Or are you someone who has both a cat and a dog? Or more? Please share. I’m all ears.

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The winners of a copy of Maman’s Homesick Pie by Donia Bijan are Lucille (who doesn’t have a blog) and Sheila of The Quintessential Magpie. Congratulations! Send me an email with your mailing address and I will forward it on to TLC Book Tours.

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Picking Up

The Story of Shannon & the Dentures

Are You a Cat or Dog Person? Or Both?

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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