Today's Sunshine

First of all, Monster seems to be healing fine so far. I know it's way too early to rule out infection, but so far I'm cautiously optimistic at least. The scratches and punctures are all dry, and while they clearly itch he's not manic about it. We'll see where it's headed in the next few days...

In further good news we have the neighbor's dog over for a visit again today. Last time she was here was a bit stressful, because while she was out of the worst of her heat she still smelled veeeeeeery interesting according to Monster. I'm sorry, I can't remember if I've blogged about this...? Short recap: Tilly was visiting us regularly, sleeping over 3-4 nights/week, until about a month ago when she came for a three day/two night -stay and I discovered she'd gone into heat. Monster isn't hopeless around the ladies, but I don't really like covering his entire home with heat-scent since that gives him no place to relax. I told my neighbor he needed to make other arrangements for a while (she stayed the weekend of course, I mean after that) and we didn't meet Tilly for three weeks after that. Then she came again a week ago, and as I said already she still smelled of heat plus Monster hadn't met her for so long he was quite nervous of her again. That caused some stress for both dogs, and I had to control their space and freedom a bit to keep her visit as calm and pleasant as I could make it. Aaaaaaand, here I've managed to steer back to my original point again: much better now. It was probably still a bit early last time, but today Monster is used to her again plus she doesn't smell so much of heat (she's still interesting it seems, but he's much more relaxed about it).

Remember when the lawn looked like this instead of that miserable mud pit it is today?
We could run around and play then without sliding around like bumper cars...

So, back to normal! Well, sort of. Tilly's owner says she doesn't get noticeable false pregnancies after she's been in heat, but I don't know... She's tired and annoyed, doesn't want to play or even go for walks, and generally just wants to be left alone in some corner. To me she reads as if she's going into a strong false pregnancy (oh good lord! please, please let it be a false one! I didn't leave them alone together for a second once I realized she was in heat, and that was of course very early in the cycle, but when something can go wrong...), and I would like to know if I should consider that as normal or as a sign something is wrong. But I guess I should defer to her owner who knows her after all! I need to scale back on the control issues... If he says she's fine, and isn't experiencing a false pregnancy either, then so it is.

Anyway, going great! Monster's happy and relaxed, Tilly's... certainly relaxed at least, although I don't know about happy. Veeeeery relaxed maybe makes up for the lack of happy though?

Boooooo-riiiiiing! Let's go for a walk!

Oh god, I can hear the sleet as it beats against the windows....

Today's Cloud

This weather is driving me insane! Mud, ice, hail, and horizontal rain. Dark, wet, cold, slippery and blinding. I hate the so called winters down here. Going for walks is miserable and painful, and I have to admit I drag my feet a bit. Monster gets restless and demands to go out, but once out in the open where the wind starts to bite us and the hail and rain starts hitting us hard enough to bruise he freaks out and starts racing around tangling us both in the leash. So we cut the walk short, go home and fill up the clothes lines with more muddy and dripping wet clothes, shoes and towels... And five minutes later Monster looks up at me and says:

Boooooooored. Bored, bored, bored-bored-bored! Way past time to go for a walk!

What to do? There's only so much we can do at home, Monster needs to go out and move about a bit too - and I get a bit crazy from staring at the walls too. But the weather... There's only one thing for it. Move.

On occasion we do get one or two nice winter days here too though...

Week In Review

You know what sucks? Let me give you a list:

• Migraines. Migraines suck. You know what sucks worse than migraines? When a migraine goes away, gives you half a day's relief, and then starts over again. That sucks.
• Miserable weather sucks. Yet another winter storm blows in, making it pretty much impossible to leave the yard for days - and for the worst of it impossible to even leave the house. Hurricane force winds with all kinds of debris make for a very nervous walk in open terrain! Not that it would be any more fun in a forest, admittedly...
• Cats. Cats suck most of all. Especially that cat I just peeled off Monster's face. Monster found a cat on our lawn when we came home from a walk, and it apparently decided that it should claim our yard as its own since instead of running away it fluffed up and started growling. I didn't see it in time, so Monster ran over and stuck his nose in its face - not trying to bite it, he seemed to be more confused and curios than anything else - and the cat just latched on and clawed him bloody. There are deep claw marks all over his face, including inside his nose, one of his eyes, and inside his lips. A neighbor heard me screaming and came over to help. The cat wouldn't leave! He had to chase it out with a stick (he didn't dare try to touch it) while I held on to Monster. As far as he and I could tell the cat was perfectly fine (and I didn't see Monster hurt it in any way), but it's a neighbor's cat so I'm sure I'll hear if it's been harmed after all. I just find it hard to muster up much sympathy for it. Monster's lived here for three years, the cats know perfectly well that this is his place, why can't they just leave him alone!? And this was a different cat from the one we've been having problems with who hides nearby and jumps out and attacks us when we're walking past... Cats clearly suck. Right now Monster is pacing around the house licking everything in some sort of stress reaction. He's licking himself, me, the carpet, the walls, everything. And when he calms down he'll no doubt start to feel his wounds... I'm hoping it looks worse than it is, I've cleaned them as much as I can right now and will go through them more thoroughly once he's calmed down a bit - hopefully we can manage with home care, but cats' claws (thank god the little orange devil didn't bite him at least - that I saw) tend to leave nasty and easily infected wounds... And I'm worried about his eye. We'll see if we'll need to brave a visit to a vet...
  
  

A what!? No-no, I feel fine, promise!

(Another thing which sucks could be that I apparently write like a drunk child when I have a migraine, but let's just pretend that didn't happen OK?)

Toadys Sunding

For some reasin our neighbors love Monster! With Monster throwing himself at the fence, rigidly staring and growloing, genrally acting not so good toward the neighbords (he needs me to help him better, right now is not so good  - normally more relaxed aboiyut the neighbors) , the neighbors still just laugh and say "he's sp pretty! I love hime!". What's up with that?! I agree with them, he's very pretty. But doesn't it bother them at all days lie this when he's a bit out of control? They just tell me Corsi are "mafia dogs", ask me how much pups of his breed cost, and laugh and smile some mroe. You have a tiny Yorkie! How could Monster possibly be a dog you'd apreciate? Still, for whatever reason, I'm very greatful though! Day's like today are horrible, not scarung the neighbors make them a bit more acceptable. Thnak you so mych!

Sorry. Head huirts. Monstermom out.

Today's cloud

I'm two days in to a migraine We're talkng vision troubles, arms and legs numb beneath the el ows/knees, disrupted spech, and of course hellish pain. I try to keep my head above water and keep Monster as entertained as I possibly can (this is one of the few drawabcks woth being single - still worth it thougs!) , but I need ot to let up soone now...  I rarely have migraines last more than two-three days htogh, so we should be in the final strech . Poor Monster. Bored. Can't explain.

Today's Sunshine

Today on a walk, I had Monster off leash and was throwing a stick for him (I know high energy activities like that can be very stressful and have a bad effect on reactivity, but I make sure to demand focus and self control in between throws, he has to be able to perform without signs of stress, and I limit it to a minute or two before he has to hand over the stick and we walk on). I threw it off to the side of the path we were on, into some long grass. Monster raced off to find it, and unfortunately it turned out I must have nearly brained a hare with that throw, because as he was sniffing around to find the stick in the grass, a hare jumped up right next to him and zig-zagged away! And I'm not talking "it couldn't have been more than 15-20 meters" next to him, no, I'm talking "it bumped into his hip as it jumped up" next to him. Literally. Today, Monster was tackled by a hare... I thought disaster had struck - sure, Monster's not a crazed hunter, and I know I can recall him from a hot trail, but everyone has their limit you know. In my minds eye I saw him galloping off toward the horizon. Instead, reality showed me this:

Dude! Would you knock it off!? I'm busy here!

(Obviously it's an old photo, but you get the idea.)
Monster has a marvelous way of absolutely not multitasking when his nose is switched to "on"; he was looking for a stick with my smell on it, the hare was clearly not a stick and smelled all wrong, so there was no reason for him to pay it any attention. While I gaped after the hare Monster found the stick and came bouncing back to me (to whack me in the thigh with it until I agreed to play tug, as per our usual routine), still completely unconcerned with the fleeing hare. That. Was. Awesome!

I know! See, I found the stick!

In other news, reason #4018 for why this place just doesn't feel like home no matter how many years I live here: wild animals aren't wild. Plus, they're really stupid. We have hares. deer, etc back home, but you can go years between seeing one even if you go out in the forest every day. Here they're everywhere, and they don't bother running away until long after it'd really be too late - if they bother running away at all. Plus they often stop to pose - to make sure we've really seen them and prepared ourselves to hunt them - before they set off... What is wrong with them?! This is not normal prey behavior! And it's not like they're not hunted here, every moron with 15 minutes to spare one Sunday a month calls himself a hunter... It drives me nuts, and not even just because of the unnecessary temptations for Monster, but mainly because it's so wrong. It's like the animals around here are broken... Someone broke the wildlife!

Today's Cloud

A couple of incidents not going as well as expected today, like how he focused on a dog even though it was far away (that speed walking Golden Retriever) and how he was quite concerned about a woman following behind us in the dark on our evening walk (she eventually passed us - with us off to the side - without Monster losing his cool, but he wasn't relaxed about it), but let's focus on the real problem we came across today: the lovely dung heap a farmer has plonked down in the middle of our usual stretch of off leash walking path... Monster is absolutely great about not eating gross things - great about not eating anything, actually! He doesn't touch feces, dead animals, or even "real" food (he'll walk right past a dropped sausage) - I haven't had to deworm him since he was a puppy (naturally I test him for parasites, I'm not just guessing), plus it's just so nice that he doesn't go around chewing on something revolting. But... Instead he has a different, quite disgusting, weakness: if something is gross enough, he'll desperately want to roll in it! A dung heap? Yeah, that's on his top ten...

What? Are you saying there's something wrong with that?! Eau de Monster, people!

When he caught the scent on the wind, he set off like an arrow straight for the dung heap... I saw what was going on (I could smell it too) and could call him back before he reached it, but I had to leash him because he was practically bouncing from desperately wanting to run off and take a dip! So now we have that to contend with every day, presumably for quite a while (I expect it's meant to be used as fertilizer on some field or other, but the farmers round here are rarely in any rush so who knows when that'll happen), which feels quite depressing now that we've found this bit of freedom for Monster nearly every day...

Aw, come on! If you just let me go for a swim in it, there's no problem!