March 2010

Seven is a bully – a fat bully.

by Veronica on March 29, 2010

in Animals,Sponsored Posts

This post is sponsored by Nuffnang.

Seven was our first dog, a Dogs Home rescue over 2 years ago. Being at the dogs home and previous, god knows where, well, it’s given her Issues. With a capital I.

Seven is a bat

You can’t pat her without her cringing. She is bossy. And dominating.

I mean, she is a terrier x daschund x whatever – she is short and fat and has tiny little stubby legs so she doesn’t run very fast.

Seven 004

And being a small dog, she gets very fat, very quickly.

When I see her getting fat, I put her on a diet – which works …. for a while. Boiled rice, vegetables, raw bones, and a little bit of dog food is my normal plan (not all at once of course).

However, you’ve got to factor in the fact that Seven is a bully and she’s not averse to stealing everyone else’s food while she is dieting.

In fact, I think she has the cats so scared of her that they purposely throw her their food, just to keep her happy. Think schoolyard bully, shaking the weedy nerds upside down for their lunch money.

Yeah, that’s what Seven does.

So Seven gets fat, I put her on a diet, she loses weight, she beats up all the other animals for their food, gains weight again, I notice and put her on a diet again.

It’s like yoyo dieting for dogs.

And now we’ve got Susie, I need to be extra careful that Susie is eating enough and that Seven isn’t stealing all of Susie’s food, as well as the cats food, as well as any mice the cat catch -

As an aside here, this morning I went outside and narrowly missed stepping on a dead mouse. There was another one in the dogs bed, another near the water bowl and one in the hay. Seven was running around in circles, growling any time the cats tried to steal their (dead, cold) mice back. They eventually gave up. Like I said – bully.

So yeah, Seven is a fat bully.

Heh, Seven is eating from Susie's pile here. Like I said, bully.

Nuffnang asked if I’d like to be part of a trial for some new dog food, Pedigree’s Light and Mature for Overweight or Old dogs and I wavered for a while. I mean, it’s dog food.

But then I thought that it would give me an opportunity to talk about Seven and make Taz happy, so I agreed.

I’m under no illusions, when Seven is looking fat, then she is unhealthy. It seems that nowadays, over 40% of Aussie dogs are fat. Heh, I can just imagine them trying to run around a dog park, puffing and clutching at their sides.

This dog food from Pedigree, it’s formulated for less active and/or older dogs, with 30% less calories. I think Seven with her teensy little legs falls under the less active category. Poor Seven.

She seemed to like it to be honest. Not that that is any great test, I’m fairly sure this dog of mine would eat anything if given half a chance. Susie practically inhaled hers as well, despite not really needing it.

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Team Ivy

by Veronica on March 28, 2010

in Blogging

Long time readers will remember Ivy from 18 months ago, when we petitioned for her IVIG to be approved and won.

Now, Ivy’s mum, Tiff, is wanting to give back to the hospital and ward where she spends so much time with Ivy.

Can you help?

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Siblings

by Veronica on March 26, 2010

in Amy,Isaac

They’re fighting. Again. It’s not all sunshine and roses, or giggles and playtime.

Isaac has stolen her blocks and crawled away at the speed of light, while she whines high enough to make the dogs prick their ears up and chases him. He clutches the blocks to his chest while I growl at her to share and you’ve got plenty of blocks, give your brother some to play with.

She hands him off a few blocks and he gives them back with a ‘Here!’ and claps, proudly. She takes them and he waits for her to give them back and continue the game. Only she is three and she wants the blocks for herself, so she doesn’t.

He pouts and tries again, stealing all of her blocks and crawling away, one in each hand, giggling.

She chases him and bonks him on the head with her tower.

Time outs are given, just as she starts to whine again.

Somehow, Isaac has lost his pants in the last 5 minutes – I know he was wearing them a moment ago, but he’s bare legged now. I suspect Amy helped him wiggle out of them, she is constantly ‘helping’ him. Including helping by not letting him eat his breakfast because ‘he has had enough to eat now Mummy’ as she steals the plate and eats its contents herself.

He comes to seek solace in my lap, his head snuggled under my chin and our breathing intertwined.

Only for a moment though, before he crawls away and I stand to find him clothes for the day.

****

mummytime

I am also part of Brenda’s blog flogging group, which is nicer than any other kind of flogging I can think of.

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A Nest

by Veronica on March 23, 2010

in Amy,Isaac

Pillows? They’re awesome.

Especially when they’re a nest in the middle of the lounge room.

These kids are devoted to each other. Isaac tantrums when Amy goes to bed of a night time and he’s not allowed into her bedroom and Amy, well, Amy woke up this morning and Isaac was still sleeping.

‘Mummy, I need Isaac’

‘You need Isaac?’

‘Yes. I need my boy.’

‘He’s sleeping still.’

‘OH NO! …. I can wake him up?’

‘No. He’s sleeping. He’ll be awake soon.’

‘Oh dear.’

15 minutes later he woke up and we could hear him talking.

‘YAY! He is awake! Isaac is awake!’

She ran to his bedroom.

‘Hello Isaac! You are awake! MUMMY! Come and get him out!’

Like I said. Devoted.

[Of course, they fight like cats and dogs too, Isaac is obsessed with pulling hair and Amy steals his bottles/food/toys constantly. However, they are united in the Bedtime Is Bad campaign and the Do Not Let Mummy Write campaign. Heh]

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Pillows

by Veronica on March 22, 2010

in Animals,Grief,Life

You don’t know this, but I have a thing about pillows.

I like them.

A lot.

So much in fact that when we were cleaning out Nan’s house, I ended up with all of the pillows. Seems Nan liked having lots of spare pillows about too.

We used her spare pillows to pack the furniture as we moved it, shoving them into glass cabinets and between things to prevent breakages. They did their job and nothing broke.

Today, I found 4 pillows on the floor of my bedroom, all sans pillow cases – it seems Amy likes naked pillows as much as she likes her naked self. I picked them up and went hunting for pillow cases.

Thinking about it, I remembered that out in the shed, there were more pillows, packed still into the glass cabinet that’s in storage here. It’s coming up to winter now, the weather is cold and the cats have a plethora of mice that they can’t kill fast enough.

Side note: It’s probably not going to be that long until you start seeing posts like this. and this. and this and this and this.Wow, seems I wrote a lot about mice last year.

I went out into the shed and unpacked all of the pillows, not wanting the mice to start nesting in them.

One, two, three, four, five, six pillows, packed into the cabinet.

6 pillows.

I rummaged around in the shed and brought inside anything else that I thought mice might find interesting, then I came inside to put pillow covers on all of the pillows.

You know, almost 9 months on, those pillows, they still smell like my grandmother.

And that kinda sucks.

***

I have Nan’s overcoat sitting in the back of my closet. Despite hanging around with my clothes, it still smells like her perfume. Every now and again, I’ll lean in and breathe in her smell.

Then, I’ll take a deep breath and walk away; back to my daily chores, back to the blogosphere; back to life.

I’m not sure what I’ll do when it doesn’t smell like her anymore.

***

A few months ago, maybe month 6, maybe month 7, I stopped talking about Nan. It hurt too much, there were too many tears unshed and so I just stopped.

I dragged my brain away from thoughts of her and refused to think about it.

At all.

Mostly, this works for me.

I don’t have to think about her, or speak about her, or cry anymore.

But, it’s funny. Still, most days, fuck, every day – something will happen and it will run through my head like a litany.

I miss my Nan. I miss my Nan. I miss my Nan.

In time to my heartbeat; in time to my breathing.

Because I do. I miss her so badly it hurts.

I just don’t talk about it anymore.

It’s been almost nine months.

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