Animals

Yellow Dog Day

by Veronica on June 4, 2010

in Animals

Since Susie died, I find myself sitting on the dogs home website more often than not, looking at the imploring eyes of the dogs there. When we first moved in here and wanted a dog, that’s where we went. We came home with a 7 week old wiggling puppy, Seven.

When we wanted a second dog, we looked at the dogs home again, but there wasn’t anything really suitable – then Susie sort of fell into our laps and then we were done.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the dogs there, the friendly happy dogs who pressed themselves against the edges of their cages hoping for some love, or the dogs out walking who were just so happy to see people and be walked.

The dogs home is actually brilliantly set up, with runs and play areas, and with volunteers who walk dogs all day.

Doesn’t mean it’s a place that you would want to live there, however.

So, Susie died and I can’t stop thinking about another dog.

We’ll get there eventually, I know this. Nathan isn’t ready for another dog yet and my common sense is kicking in, knowing that if we’re going to bring home a new dog, then Spring is a better time to be doing it than Winter.

And I keep watching the photos of the dogs, seeing most disappear and new ones appear and I’m happy that someone out there has adopted a dog that I feel so sorry for.

When we’re ready, we’ll be bringing home a dog and giving them a second chance. A new life with property to play on and children to run with.

Seven needs a new playmate and my heart aches for all the abandoned dogs out there.

Our Newest Addition

Susie as a puppy. I still miss her.

Seven

Seven, our happy dog. She would love a playmate.

Pedigree are currently running an adoption drive, raising awareness about the thousands of dogs stuck in dogs homes and RSPCA’s across the country. All this wonderful family potential, going to waste, pining up against a cage door, hoping for someone to pat them as they walk past.

It’s no life for a dog.

Pedigree have also offered to donate 1 bowl of dogfood for every person who ‘Likes’ their page on Facebook. I did. And then I made Nathan like it too.

Because until I can bring home another dog from the dogs home, I’m going to continue to watch the website, seeing the photos come and go and feeling bad the whole time.

***

Pedigree are currently running a campaign and I was invited to take part, however this is not a sponsored post and I was not paid.

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As dusk fell, I trudged over to feed the ducks – they were clustered around their water container and I figured that they were probably hungry. Amy generally feeds them of a morning, but I don’t remember her asking for help with the pellets this morning, so the ducks were hungry.

A little bit of back story:

We have access to water from the river, pumped right to our doorstep. This water waters the garden, keeps the tank for flushing the toilet full, waters the trees and keeps the duck containers full. In effect, we have a giant hose running from one end of the paddock to the other, being dragged to wherever we need water next.

The tap for this hose lives in the paddock next door, which I can just reach with my hand if I pop my arm through the fence and strain.

Anyway.

So as I wandered over to the ducks, I noticed the last little bit of light glinting on a … puddle?

A puddle? That’s odd. We haven’t had that much rain.

As I got closer, I noticed that the hose was running and oh wow, the back of the paddock was flooded.

I fed the ducks and grumbling about my forgetful partner the whole time, traipsed back to the house to growl at him for leaving the water running.

‘Nat! Why is the hose running?’

‘I don’t know.’

His face doesn’t have the characteristic glint he gets when he is fibbing to me.

‘The hose is running. You must have forgotten to turn it off!’

‘No. I didn’t turn it on. When did you fix the duck’s water last? You must have forgotten about it.’

‘No. I remember turning it off, because I hurt my shoulder doing it.You certain you didn’t forget to turn it off? Remember I asked you to do the ducks water yesterday afternoon?’

‘Well yes, but I forgot. So it wasn’t me.’

‘Maybe the farmer?’

‘Maybe the farmer.’

‘Surely he wouldn’t.’

‘Hmmmmmm.’

‘Anyway, I’m going to go and turn it off, duck’s water should be full now.’

As I walked over to the other side of the property I looked for clues – were there tyre tracks leading up to the tap? No? The farmer NEVER walks to the tap, he drives over, through the waist high grass.

Funny, the grass is all flattened.

I reached my hand through and ….

Oh wow.

That’s right. I remember seeing that.

The tap is covered in dry saliva.

The paddock is, at the moment, full of cows.

Well, steers anyway. (castrated males)

Half grown steers. Little more than weaned babies.

And yesterday, they were standing around the tap, mouthing it and using it to scratch their faces.

The tap was only turned on half a turn. The pressure is the same no matter how far you turn it on, but we turn it on all the way, just in case. Just in case of what? I don’t know, don’t judge me.

The cows, they’d scratched and mouthed so much that they’d turned on the water.

Wow.

Remind me to keep an eye on the hose from now on?

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So, mothers day. What a fuck up.

by Veronica on May 9, 2010

in Animals, Headfuck

Mothers Day.

I was meant to sleep in, be woken nicely by a cup of tea and snuggly children, before enjoying a lovely relaxing day.

That however, was not what happened.

Amy woke up and I got up with her, to grab her breakfast before diving back into bed and prodding Nathan awake. After Amy had come to bed too and stuck her hideously cold feet on my stomach, I was more awake than asleep. Isaac woke up shortly afterwards and despite kicking Nathan out of bed to deal with the kidlets, I was soundly awake.

Seven also spent a good deal of time barking outside my bedroom window.

So I sucked it up. I got up and had a cup of tea sitting outside with Nathan. I probably should have realised then that Susie wasn’t about when I didn’t have to fend off muddy puppy paws and LOVELOVELOVELOVE. Heh.

I showered, interrupted lots by my small children, before getting dressed and realising Nathan wasn’t about.

I didn’t think anything of it until he came inside looking shaken.

Someone had hit Susie with their car. Stopped to move her off the road, and yet, they hadn’t bothered coming to knock on the door to let us know.

You know, whoever you are? Thanks for that.

Now, it’s not like I live in the suburbs. There are 2 houses within a 500m radius and we’re right next to each other. And Susie was hit right outside our house.

Sigh.

From the look of her, she died instantly and for that, I’m grateful.

Needless to say, I wasn’t expecting to spend mothers day morning watching Nathan dig a grave for my dog.

We went out shopping anyway, grumpy as we were, vowing to kick people in the shins if we got a chance (we didn’t).

That was a crap shoot too. Insane drivers – a P plater who was more interested in talking to her friend than staying within the road lines, a HUGE SALE that was more a bunch of junk thrown into bins and priced and two children determinded to disappear in different directions. We won’t mention the many and varied dislocations. My ribs, I think they’ve forgotten what their purpose is in life. No longer are they a protect the lungs and heart cage of bone, instead they’re a slidey held together by chewing gum bundle of pokey bits.

After we’d found both Sushi places closed (what? I wanted sushi for lunch), we gave up and went to McDonalds. At least we know their chips are GF for Amy. It wasn’t even pleasant to have burgers, which are normally a pretty large treat.

I finally convinced Nathan to take me driving through the Derwent Valley, so that I could take some photos, only to discover a few minutes down the road that I’d left my SD card at home, so photos weren’t on the plan after all.

Sigh.

Fucked up day.

After finding Susie dead, the rest of the day didn’t really have a chance did it?

Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better.

Susie

***

Other news, installment #2 of my Welcome to the Interwebs series is up on the other blog. You should read it.

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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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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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