How to hypnotize a Jack Russell Terrier

Too bad it doesn't work to stop the barking.


We paid a visit to Hayward Lake today.


It's got some groovy scenery.


But the beach was too small, and in terrible light, to get any really good photos.

So sometimes, you have to rely on comic relief.


Ruger was no help in this department, as he is Very Serious About Fetching Sticks. No room for fun, k?


Well, maybe a *little* room


I had ONE shot at a group photo, before Dexter and Cal took off. Notice how Cheryl's dogs are looking at her, and all of mine are ignoring me (except Dexter, who is trying to silently convince me to give his release command)


I know why Piper is ignoring me ... I am making her wear a t-shirt. Last night I found a gross, disgusting, inflamed and painful looking hot spot on her chest. After cleaning it up, I put one of my old t-shirts on her to protect it and keep her from scratching. She hates me now.

At least Cal still loves me. And by me, I mean the cookies in my pocket.


DID SOMEBODY SAY COOKIE?!?!?!

Confessions of a rotten dog owner

5 Things I should not laugh at, but do anyway:

i. Wootie is v. v. jealous of the clothes brush

Mr. Woo is A Very Jealous Dog. He cannot abide anyone else to getting attention he believes is rightfully his. Which is all attention. Thus has the jealously of the clothes brush come to pass ... once, when my vacuum cleaner was out of commission, I resorted to de-hairifying my area rug with the clothes brush before guests were due to arrive.

Woo perceived this as the rug getting pets, pets which HE wanted - nay, deserved - and practically did cartwheels to divert attention. When this failed to distract me, he threw himself on the brush, bit the brush, stood on the brush and barked at the brush, then barked at me.

I laughed. Big Mistake.

To this day, when I try to remove Woo-and-Nutz hair from my bedspread, Wootie leaps on the bed and "attacks" the brush. I yell "Wootie, get off the frickin' bed!!" and he does a playbow, and evades me, but won't get off the bed. Or he gets off the bed, and then gets right back on it again. I still laugh!

ii. Piper makes Mad Teeth(tm) at me when I kiss her nose

Probably this is a really bad idea, but I find it amusing. It's like her lips are connected to my nose, marionette-fashion. When I go in for a snuzzle, out come the pissed-off teeth. One day she is going to lose it, and bite me, and then I'll be sorry. I probably won't laugh then.

iii. Tweed sings the blues when he sees it's time for Walkies.

When I whip out the gumboots, Tweed begins to yodel. It starts with a singing full body stretch, and I like to tickle his throat while he does it so the song is all warbly. I am easily amused like this. This doesn't seem so bad, but his vocal range intesifies with each passing year. The more Tweed ages, the louder he gets. He is also a HUGE ham, so every time I laugh, he sings more complicated tunes. It goes like this: Tweed yodels, Food Lady yells "shutup Tweed HAHAHAHA I mean, shut up! HAHAHAHAH."

By the time he is a senior, he'll be screaming operas at me, and the neighbors will be calling the police.

iv. Mr. Woo's "go-to" response is ROLLOVER

It's just bad. No matter what you tell Noodles to do, he rolls over. And not a submissive roll - it's completely enthusiastic. It was the first thing I taught him, and the only thing he seems to retain.

v. Tweed wears anything I tell him to. This is not so much a Tweed thing as a mean Food Lady thing. And it's not that I laugh at him because he does it, but I laugh when I make him do it. I'm such a sadist.

I want to see what Pia's dogs do that make her laugh. So I'm going to go tag her blog so she can do a post of 5 things her dogs do that she shouldn't laugh at, but does. And then she can pass it onto another dogblog. Soon we will all be laughing.

Happy blogging!

Howl-o-what?

The dogs don't really 'get' Halloween.

"Whadda ya mean 'lame excuse for a costume' exactly?"

But hey, at least he wore them. That's more than I can say for SOME Pipers we know.

Personally, I think Mr. Woo, AKA your 9th grade French teacher, wore them quite well.

The only person in the house who was really in the spirit of Halloween was Donutz.

ZOMBIE KITTEH!!

You can't really blame the dogs for not being down with Halloween though. The downside to living next to a graveyard is that the neighborhood celebrates Halloween hardcore, and the firecrackers have been obnoxious all week, and nonstop since 5pm this evening. Tweed and Woo lasted 20 minutes at the dog park and then were huddled at my feet shaking like leaves. refusing to play fetch any longer.

I get no fun Halloween Parties. I don't get to go outside and play with fireworks with the neighbors. I am stuck in the house babysitting two phobic dogs (and a Piper, who thinks Boys Are Dumb).

So we are enjoying a quiet evening in finding indoor stuff to do. I think I've located Tweed's highschool year book photo:
HAHAHA!


"Oh puke."


And Piper's head shot from her modeling days?


"Yawn. Boring."


And Mr. Woo's ... oh screw it. Here's Mr. Woo in glasses again, cuz it's funny.


"Oh GAWD. That's atrocious!"

Okay, so clearly Donut wants to be in today's entry.

Donut?

"What?"

"Oh, you want to take my photo? No. Go away. I dismiss you."

*sigh*


"HAHAHA! You got pwned!!"
(picture not sideways - that's Woo laying on the couch)


"Pwned? What's pwned? Can I fetch it?"


"Is that a firecracker I hear?"

My "big brave" boys hiding out on the sofa

I should go join them.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

BOO!

People Look So Dumb in Bicycle Helmets

"What is she doing to me now? HAAAAALP!!!"

Everyone looks silly in a helmet.

But you should ALWAYS wear a helmet! And with winter coming, you should wear something warm on your bean under your helmet:

Piper is not into cycling. She prefers to be fashionable.

And she has shoulders to die for. Tweed ... not so much.

Mr. Woo is outdoorsy, and likes the MEC fashions.

So I lied. We didn't explore Hole Digging Park today ... it was a bee-yoo-tee-ful day, so we made the trek to Trout Lake for some swimming and stuff.


"'Ello! You Che-waa-waa, Mi' ja!"

"YOU CANNOT HAZ!"

So this week I learned that Mr. Woo's Fetch Mechanism is broken, but is repairable with cookies.

It goes something like this:

Throw ball. Woo ignores you, and it.

Throw ball, waggle cookie. Mr. Woo enthusiastically chases ball, and returns it to you.

Coy devil.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FELLOW CANADIANS!

ETA: See anyone you recognize in this man's photostream on Flickr??

What a moron ... I mean, Marushin

The following photo was two years in the making.

Countless episodes of forcing Tweed to wear human clothing and be humiliated on the blog; months of taking this out of the closet and giving Tweed a cookie for not panicking (he used to be scared of it); untold hours of being rewarded for sitting next to it ...

... and at long last, Tweed climbed Mount Marushin:

That's right. Tweed has conquered his fear and allowed me to pose him proudly (?) in my motorcycle helmet.

Look at the brave doggie!
How stupid is this??

ETA: Lest you think I am exaggerating the magical feat of getting Tweed to pose in my helmet, let me offer this texted gem I received on my trusty iPhone on May 12th. It's from my ex boyfriend, who owns the motorcycle, and once lived with Tweed, and can attest to Tweed's life-long helmet phobia. He doesn't care for Tweed, but likes to read the blog. The text read:

"F*ck me, i can't believe you got that helmet on his head!"

See? SEE??
------------------
Piper, OTOH, speculated that I was out to kill her by asking her to pose in a simple scarf. Donut, with her Incredulous Sniffer of Disbelief, did not help matters.

"Holy crap, what's she doing to you?"


So Tweed thanks you all for the birthday wishes. He thinks they would have been a lot better if they had all come with wieners, but he'll take what he can get.

Proof that Tweed is happy:

In other news, The Infamous Woo is going to be on television ... again. He happened to get interviewed by these nice people from Taiwan, who were filming a travel show and happened upon the dog beach.

I did most of the talking, but apparently Woo is more interesting. And even more interesting than Woo, apparently, was the Chuck-It (tm). Apparently they do not have Chuck-Its (tm) in Taiwan.

Financial Tip Of The Day: Become a billionaire and import Chuck-Its to Taiwan.

The host of the show, Brian, must have chucked Tweed's ball about 4 trillion times, so much that Tweed got downright tired of going to retrieve it. That hardly ever happens.

Here is standing on the shore kind of going "le sigh."

I do not know the name of the show, as I forgot to ask, and don't speak Tawianese anyway, so I will never see it. But it never fails ... somehow, Woo manages to get on tv wherever he goes.

It must be because he does stuff like this:

What a card.


HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
(my ungrateful little brats didn't get me anything! I hope other dog-mums out there got something sweet!)