THE JOY OF DOGS

It is one a.m.
About  two hours ago I decided to go to bed.

This is the bed I decided to go to sleep in.

It doesn't look like much in the photo, but trust me, when you are tired it is  a wonderful place to be. A safe haven. Warm. A cocoony kind of place.

It is also

Unfortunately

Next to the dog crates.

When the dogs are in their crates. When they are not, my bed is fair game , especially for Cooper.

This is what the bed looks like with Cooper on it. You will note, perhaps, that there is no tired and worn person in this bed. I may have mentioned that it is a TWIN bed made, I suspect for conjoined twins, at that.

You may notice a lack of space for humanoid forms.

Machts Nicht!!

Remember I said the bed was next to the dog crates.

Llewis is in the other room, quite content. Conley, bless his piratical little heart, is asleep in his crate, by choice.

Cooper has my bed.

Nigel woke up about two hours ago an decided he had had just about enough crate time to last forever and he by god wanted out.

This would be great if he could walk and were not incontinent.

He is not sure what position he wants to be in or which direction he wants to face.I flip him around and he snarls. I hope he didn't mean it because I ignored it.

Howver, I still have nowhere to sleep.

Sweet dreams, everyone else.

REPLACING LOST BLOG

I had written an entire blog but it vanished.
This is the hired hand,  attempting to even out the mountain of clay left in the front when the plumbers finished repaired the Kerplooie Sewer system that the Village had put in (clay tile) years ago.
Never mind what the tree roots in our proudly "green spaces" Village do to the clay tiles which in our case were not only collapsed but full of tree roots (not our trees: he have none in the front) the size of my wrist.

John is really, to my way of thinking, too old to be doing this but there he is anyway. Tough old geezer he is, but he pays for it later.

***************************************

This is my room as it appears during
the day when I am sorting and trying
to find places for the books, the CDs, the PHOTOGRAPHS...oh my God the photos.
By evening it is usually much better.Eventually it will be nice. Probably when I am dead and someone else lives there.

So we have had a few set-backs this year, not to mention the thousands of  dollars we have spent just getting this far and now, of course, our missing member Nigel, living at the Vetsspital unable to walk, unable to void or defecate by himself.

As suddenly as a leaf turns color there was Nigel unable to move. What happened? Many have asked but I have no answer-- he is a Basset, that's what happened. He is accepting this with good grace. I visit twice a day with food and water since he will neither eat nor drink for them. I have a gazillion questions and some profoundly disturbing self-doubt.SHOULD we do an MRI? And what good does that do if we do not do surgery? Two Vets, two different theories. Couldn't they get together on things just omce??

All three in less stressful days-- Nigel on the far left. Why did I miss the signs? Did I miss them or ignore them? Is there someone who could come to the clinic and do acupuncture? Would Doc agree to that (probably-- he may even have someone.)

Here is what I want:
I want to be in the Guld of Mexico, floating in an inner tube off the white beaches of Sanibel with the sun shining down and the birds around. I want a cold Margarita in one hand and a good book in the other. I want John to be happily poking about Battlefields in a nearby state: my children to be making money and content and in love, and ALL my dogs to be well and whole again.
Oh. And the house perfect. Everything put away, landscaping done, and last but certainly not least, the coffers full again. (Or halfway maybe.)

And with that I thank all of you, and there are too many to count, who have written to wish Nigel well. It is hard to believe that one little dog matters so much to so many who have never met him, and have never been on the receiving end of one of his Death Ray Stares.
Thank you all.
You are all wonderful. I would include that old Irish blessing here but other than something about wind at your back, I cannot remember any of it.

NIGEL: BONSAI'S QUIETLY MAKING NOISE, TD


We wait to see what Dr, C can do for you. We miss you at home. We love you. We wish you every good wish possible. Nigel, we love you.

BECOMING A CHAMPION

I guess the Nationals are being held now in Kentucky. I was going to go, had planned on it last spring, but now with all the house crap I cannot-- it's too expensive right now (well, it's ALWAYS too expensive but that's why God made credit cards.)
Anyway I thought it would be appropriate at this time to just run through a few of the measures that one must take to get a dog from zero to 100 (Champion.) based on my experiences as an amateur handler.

First get a puppy. A good one. Four legs, two testicles (if it's a male) and a happy tail if it's a Basset. Make sure your breeder understands you are going to be a "show home".

Then train it.
BWAAAAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
(The laughter applies only if you are working with Bassets.)

Here is a Champion Basset:

No wait. Sorry. That's Conley getting one of his three points that he has. He needs only 70,000 more. That's what it seems like when he goes in the ring and drops his tail. Oh yes, that's another thing: no tail, no ribbon. No ribbon, no chance at points.

This is what a Champion might look like if the dog in question would go into the ring like this, instead of being in the backyard. Because your dog looks like a million bucks in training, don't assume he will do the same thing at a dog show. Chances are, he will find a way to have his OWN rules at the show, and they won't be ones you like. The Judge may even laugh, but she is writing
"Dog is doofus: owner/handler FAIL" in her little book.

This bitch needed only 3 points when I stopped showing her to breed her. I will never do that again--either thing-- stop showing to breed a bitch or even just breed a bitch. I loved it at the time, but she never got those 3 points.
Don't think you can spay her to make your life easier-- you cannot show a spayed bitch and after a few months you (and a sharp-eyed Judge) probably can tell by the way the nether regions appear.

This dog IS in fact, a Champion. I am not sure how it happened. It must have been a mistake because I was showing him. The AKC says he has the points and he also has a minor herding title. He got that because we were at the Nationals and I did NOT take him into do the herding. He actually does not care much for sheep but it was a novel experience so for once he didn't just pee on the posts and leave.

If this Afghan Hound went through all this and is not a Champion he should be.

This dog was a Champion and had bigtime Obedience and herding titles as well. In conformation you get a little ribbon but in Obedience you get stuff like this. Not always-- I think he was High In Trial that day. Clearly, he was not my dog. His name was Beacon and I do not have all his names and titles to give you, but he was a great dog.

All these dogs were at the International last spring. This cute l'il Basset Boy beat our ass off every single day. If he is not a Champion by now I would be horribly surprised but I do believe he is finished: I think it was in the BUGLER a while back. You can see his tail is up-- it never went down. He is a gorgeous dog.

This is my Champion making sure all the "Little people" know he is one and they are not.
Llewis (and that is he) cares not.

This is what a dog whose owner wants a Champion but who doesn't give a rat's ass about BECOMING a Champion does instead of putting his tail up in the show ring.

He has saved me a lot of money this way.

EXPERIMENTAL BLOG

Ok we will see how this works.
When we were rained out of the house, the couch arms and a couple of spots on the back wore big splocks of dried Drool. The Bassets are the big villains, but I have to admit, Cooper can drool up a storm given the opportunity. We used to laugh in Obedience class because on the down-stay we could always tell where Cooper had been: Mr. Nervous would have a puddle between his front legs, where he had drooled out his anxiety.

So in an effort to keep the couch clean, DadPerson kind of went overboard in finding things to cover arms and backs of the couch and chairs clean of drool.
The other day he wanted to know where all the sheets and towels were. Had they been lost? (We did not take any with us when we were forced to flee.
There simply wasn't time.)

Looking at the couch....two throws, three towels, two sheets and a pillowcase....and where are the dogs? On my bed.

My other task now is sorting the thousands of photos I have in boxes and drawers and so on. In the past three days I have purchased 8 albums. Five hold one hundred photos, two hold 240 and one holds 300. I am going to need more.

Now I want to see how the photo upload works on this.

Ok looks as if it's gonna work better this way.

TROUBLE IN BLOGGER CITY

I am suddenly having a lot of difficulty getting my blogs to look the way I want when I publish them. Fair warning that I may be looking for another blogsite. This is getting ridiculous.

snort snort grumble bitch

THE CHAIR FROM COOPER

MomPerson bought a new office chair for her room.

Guess who she made sit in it?

Dis chair it goes tippyback.

It also go roundy

You can see from my xpresshun just how much fun I think this is.

I shooda threw up all ober her new rug but I not that mean.

Chair sposed to be black like me but it not.

Somebody no how to stop her from doin stuff like dis with me?

Love and Magic Belgian Power to all in need,

Ch.Midnight Acres High Noon, HCT (Cooper)