There I was, soundly asleep this morning and it was only 11 a.m. Suddenly I came awake to the sound of one very loud bark. I woke up in terror and confusion, looked at the doorway to the bedroom, and there he was, Simon, feet planted, looking back at me, as if to say, "You've been there long enough." Once he had made his point, apparently, he walked across the room and settled down on one of the two huge dog pillows we have on the floor next to the bed. And he went to sleep. For heaven's sake. What was that all about? A dog's mind is a mystery, mostly.
Simon is the most vocal when he has a specific desire, even when we don't understand what it is. He barks to be let in when he's out, he barks to be let out when he's in. Now Schuster does too, somewhat. The problem with Schuster is that he is a continuous barker: all the way to the dog walk yesterday; for at least 3 hours when someone arrives, and so on. Simon is a precise barker. One loud bark in the bedroom this morning, one loud bark at the door last night. Did he want out, as you might think? No, he wanted me to leave the big dad chair and come to the door, so that he could get to the chair and settle down for the rest of the evening. Simon. The thing is, he stayed with me this morning until I got up, got dressed, made the bed, took my pills, and left the bedroom. Now that's a friend, and I did need to wake up. At my age one never knows. Except, apparently, Simon.
Of course I have left out Dexter, who is a whole different kettle of fish, as my mother used to say.
Guy I know was walking past his love seat, when he saw his little red dachshund lying there. He stopped, started to sit on the arm of the love seat, missed half of the arm, slid off the arm onto the seat whereupon gravity took over, he slid off the seat and landed on the floor next to his Jack Russell terrier who was lying there. On the floor he had his back to the footstool that sits there, which the dogs use to climb onto the love seat. So, feeling foolish my friend gave his JR a belly rub which she adores as if that were his entire reason for dropping down there. Meanwhile, his little red dachshund had jumped down to the footstool and began chewing and licking his ears. What an experience my friend had with his creatures.
When the storms roll through, Frollie, our not so brave alpha, stays close to my feet and shakes uncontrollably. The other three do not seem to notice the thunder and rain, unless they have to go out. None of them like to get rained on.
Mary and I were watching a show on Netflix at 5:30 today; Schuster was asleep on the top of the love seat. The moment passed and he didn't start to pester till 6:10. Hmm. I actually had something interesting to describe today, but that moment has apparently passed too. Good night one and all. 3:34 am.
Mary and I were exhausted when we got home, for various reasons. She had been at the lake for two days; I had been awake and moving meaningfully earlier than usual. (I do not do lakes anymore, really. And the lakes seem better off for my absence anyhow.)
Around 3:30 we both fell asleep in the living room (the living room looked more like the dead zone). She was comfortable on the sofa; I was somewhat uncomfortable in the big dad chair since I hadn't planned on falling asleep. My faithful dog Simon was sound asleep beside me. And so the afternoon passed into the late afternoon, when I slowly became aware of a tiny whine being repeated at ever louder decibels, and I heard the telltale bounce, bounce, bounce. I readjusted my neck and looked up at the clock. It was exactly 5:30. Schuster, as well as his brothers and sister, gets fed at 5:30 every day usually. It was exactly 5:30, and there he was, bounce, bounce, Feed Me!
I staggered to my feet, went to the kitchen, got out the four bowls, and fed him/them. How did he know it was time? That, I'm afraid, will remain one of the great mysteries of western civilization. To the minute he knew it was time for his supper. The other three slept on. Only Schuster seemed to know. I'm beginning to think he's a house elf, or something other than just a hungry dachshund. A little bit scary.
I'm afraid that if I mess with the picture entry, the picture will vanish. I'm still not sure how I managed to get it from Mary's Facebook page to here. Surely my accomplishment is a technological wonder.
In any case Mary and I went to Michael and Katie's for brunch around 12:30 p.m. Their two dogs were wonderfully friendly. Kipper the lapdog managed to bounce into my lap at one point and even let me love on him a bit; Rascal the very large overly friendly and extremely loveable doggie dog sat next to me so I could scratch his ears and pat his head frequently. Full of strange dog odors then, I came home and was set upon by my good buddy Simon who is usually too comfortable to bestir himself: "Oh, it's you." Not today. I plopped down on the love seat after releasing Schuster, and Simon was there, on my lap, sniffing me from head to toe. He even got his head stuck between my leg and the seat trying to get at the new smells. Nice to be an object of interest to him for a change.
Before we left for Mass tonight, I carried little Schuster's cage into the living room. I had trouble opening the door to the cage and happened to notice that little Schuster was patiently standing behind me waiting for me to open it so that he could enter. This from the little dog who is patient about nothing. Bounce, bounce.
I felt guilty, yet the only reason we "crate" him is that he can't be trusted not to tear the house apart when we aren't here. He even tears things up when we are here if he knows we aren't looking. He got a magazine cover again last night. Or early this morning as he apparently got up this morning before I did. Lately, he seems to be able to distinguish between that text which will get him in serious trouble and the text that will bring forth only a mild reprimand. He's so cute!
Well, when we returned from Mass, he bounced in his cage till we got there to release him; once released he dashed out as usual, did a quick turn around to go back for his toy tiger, but then he did a new thing. He grabbed the toy tiger and brought it to me to play with him. Delighted I grabbed the tail and gave it a couple of tugs, got it away from him, tossed it across the room. He chased it and brought it back to me so we could do it again. Oh joy. Little Schuster is becoming a real pet in the best sense of the word.
When he is resting on top of the aptly named love seat, and I stop to stroke his soft back, he will even turn over now secure in the knowledge that a belly rub will be forth coming. Little Schuster!
Ha! We fixed the little monster two days ago. We took all four dogs for a very long walk, Schuster pulling on his lead all the way out and all the way back. He continually tries to catch up with Frollie or Dexter who are not always tethered. That night, scattered around the living room, four very tired dogs, and no bounce, bounce, bounce at all.
Incidently, Schuster usually sleeps on top of the love seat in the groove between the rigid back and the soft pillow. He reminds me of Snoopy on top of his dog house, except that Schuster sinks down into the groove, and since he is almost the same color as the love seat, sometimes it is difficult to tell whether or not he's really there.
Another benefit of his presence up there is that I can stop on my way to the bathroom and pet him from head to tail. Even with my ruined hands I can tell that he's soft as an eiderdown pillow. He makes me think he's the kind of dog a hobbit would have if a hobbit would have a dog. It's the very hairy feet.
We had come home from Michael and Katie's; the kids take pity and feed us, well, fairly often, actually. I had taken care of some household chores and had just plopped down next to Simon in my big blue recliner, about 5:30 p.m. Simon and I reclined.
Bounce, bounce, bounce.
"Go away Schuster; I'm old; I need a nap!" (I didn't get to bed till 5 am this morning.)
Bounce, bounce, bounce.
Goofy little dog! The dogs get their supper at 5:30 pm, usually. How does he know it's 5:30, supper time?
"I need a nap. Who's the master here, little dog?" Ha! I refused to budge. Simon and I stayed reclined. Schuster went away. I fell gloriously asleep. For all of 20 minutes, when I more or less felt something (neuropathy!) chewing my fingers. Chewing my fingers! I hauled my arm back over the side of the chair.
Bounce, bounce, bounce.
It's 6:10. He's hungry. He's insistent. He's trying to chew Simon's nose. I got up and fed them, all.
Life becomes extremely difficult when one reaches a certain age: that would be the age when one's body no longer functions well, at all. And yet there are Simon and Schuster, Frollie and Dexter to keep me entertained, though I have noticed that Frollie may almost have reached that age too. It takes her a while to get up and start walking in the morning, though she seems determined not to let Schuey have all the fun chasing squirrels. She races out too, barking like a banshee. Instead of always racing around the rose garden like Dexter and the dachshunds, sometimes she will surreptitiously plant herself on the boardwalk to see if a squirrel will double back. Sometimes they do.
Since Schuster behaves like a small nuclear disaster when we are away, we still "crate" him. A year ago he would run and try to hide when we brought the cage out; Mary and I would have to trap him between us. Now, we bring the cage out, open the door and he either walks or runs in. We put his chartreuse blanket in there, and a new toy tiger we bought for such occasions. And he goes peacefully and happily, apparently. He doesn't even howl before we leave or after; he saves that till we come home. Then we can hear him from the garage. "Quick, quick, climb those stairs and open my door!" And we do, at which point he races out of the cage, dashes around our feet, races back to the cage to grab a tiger, then tears around the house with his tiger by the tail. Makes coming home truly memorable. And delightful.
Last night while watching Philomena, the excellent Judy Dench movie, I heard a commotion across the room, looked over that way and saw Schuey on the footstool, continually bouncing up and down on his front feet in front of Frollie who was lying on the floor before the footstool, watching him. Mary and I laughed delightedly and paused the movie to watch.
I have more to write but the cursor jumps around on the page and into what I have typed before. Very frustrating!
Schuster is still skittish around people, even Mary and me. He will come to us but he doesn't like to be picked up. Of course, if there is a treat or if someone is eating, he is the first one on the scene and quite willing to take whatever morsel is available from our hands.
Thus, a while ago I came into the living room from the back of the house and saw Schuster and Dexter asleep on the love seat, the most comfortable seat in the entire house, naturally. They were sleeping butt to butt, east to west. I stopped, then sat down on the footstool directly in front of the love seat. Dexter slept on, Schuey and I just looked at one another. He is so beautiful, exquisite actually, the kind of creature you want to reach out and softly touch. I did. He held his head up for a bit while I stroked his back; after a few seconds he put his head back down on the cushion. Then he closed his eyes. I kept petting him, from his neck down to his butt. He slept on, didn't try to get away, didn't move.
I looked at him more closely than I had ever done before. He is exquisite. He weighs probably 12 pounds; thus he makes a delightful small bundle, especially when he is curled up a bit. What delights me most are his hairy ears. In fact if a Hobbit had a dog I am certain Schuster would be the dog, especially with his hairy ears and hairy feet and beautiful reddish coat with black accents. I kept on stroking his back, he turned on his side toward me, eyes closed.
Even with my ruined hands I can appreciate the value of touching, along with the value of sight. The more I looked the more I thought that Schuster's exquisite beauty and creatureliness are not ends in themselves but vehicles, so to speak, for directing thought and insight to the source of such beauty and being. This idea is difficult to explain, but the qualities inherent in matter, the beauty of the little dog, point to a reality beyond themselves. The little dog is beautiful whether there is anyone present to see the beauty or not. Ultimate reality is beautiful. The tangible points to the intangible. We want to own the beauty, make it our own. All we can do though is pet the little dog, and give thanks for such a goodness, and sometimes, for a moment, that is sufficient.
My laptop is on the fritz, and I keep messing up the entries using my iPad. Simon and Schuster are still in fine form though, what with the ear-chewing, sock-, shoe- and napkin-stealing, and under-the-cover sleeping.
Yesterday we all went for a walk, the first in a month. With Simon I like to call them "piss and sniffs," since that is an accurate description of what happens on them, at least for Simon. Schuster, however, has not yet grasped the purpose of a walk for a male dog. He just pulls tiresomely, trying to catch up with Frollie and Dexter. He may lift his leg once, if we are lucky. Eventually, Mary gets mad and yells at him, loudly, forgetting for a moment "how damn cute" he is. Simon and I usually bring up the rear, so to speak, for with Simon there are many many pauses to "piss and sniff."
Well, I seem to have posted one from my iPad. Truly, real behavior modification.
When the older, less playful dogs have had enough from the youngster and they retaliate with force, Schuster always invokes the Schuster defense: roll over on your back, wiggle back and forth like a fish out of water, and wave your feet in the air. It works for him every time. I'm just saying, it works for him.
I see that I haven't been here for a while. It isn't that there are no adventures with the little ones; it is that once I try to take notes to remember the adventures the way I used to, my hands don't work. Don't you just hate it when your hands don't work? It's almost worse than being body-slammed by a low-land gorilla.
I do have one good memory from the snowfall. I was standing at the bedroom window, looking out, of course, when I saw the dogs playing in the new snow, as if they truly knew what snow was for.
Schuster was inside a fenced-off area just to the left of the window; he is the only dog small enough to get inside the fence. He would run through the snow from one end of the fence to the other, though the snow made it difficult for him and slowed him down. Frollie was on the other side of the fence keeping pace with him and barking at him. They were having a great time, running through the snow and barking.
Every once in a while, Schuster would come out from behind the fence and try to run through the garden with Frollie hot on his tail, to speak accurately. Every time she caught him she would roll him in the snow. He'd get up, shake it off, and start running again, especially running under bushes where Frollie was too big to go. When he got tired of being bitten and rolled, he would go through the fence and that game would start again until they were both worn out.
Simon stayed in the house under a blanket on the sofa; Dexter stood watching Schuster and Frollie and barking at them, but he didn't join the chase.
The snow game looked so delightful that I wished I could join them. It reminded me of childhood games in the deep winter snows of northern Ohio. Our version of the chase game was "Fox and Geese," with trails stamped out in our side yard; the Fox of course chased the Geese until he tagged one. The only rule was that you had to stay in the marked out trails. Whoever got tagged became the new fox. I was always a clever goose, so to speak, and hardly ever got tagged. At least that is how I remember it.
Simon and Schuster can be very entertaining. Simon, as I have reported, likes to bury himself under a blanket on our sofa. Schuster has discovered this behavior, and likes to harass Simon. He gets on the sofa, uncovers Simon, digs him out, then chews on his ear until Simon attends to him. Schuster sits on top of Simon and chews on Simon's ear as if it were a piece of rawhide. Uncovered, Simon at first tries to keep sleeping, which, of course, is difficult when someone is chewing on your ear. Eventually the two dachshunds end up on the floor, wrestling and chasing one another around the front room. Watching them turns out to be more interesting than watching television, except, of course, when it's The Blacklist.
Side bar: one terminally cute, destructive, little red dachshund--Schuster. Mary is home; now we can trap him between us again, though he may actually have figured out that it isn't curtains for him if we pick him up. Besides, he loves to eat and that helps us secure him too.
What delights me no end though is the way he lies down. Standing in front of me when I am sitting in my chair, eating, he keeps his very short little legs straight and simply collapses backwards onto the floor. He was up; now he is down, and he does not lose eye contact should the person before him decide to charge.
When I collapse onto the floor someone calls for an ambulance.
It is difficult to write anything when you have, as they say, an embarrassment of riches from which to choose. Schuster, for example, should have been called Havoc, given that that is the way he leaves the house and what he makes me want to do: "Cry Havoc!". Mary is/was in Texas; I am/was on my own with 4 dogs (well, 6 counting Schuster), Pinkie the cat, Dusty the outside cat, and Possibly the possum (Possibly the outside possum).
My body does not work well at all anymore. I cannot catch the little beast. I cannot crate him at night. He mocks me daily. He pees on the floor beside the pad instead of on the pad--well, half the time; thus the mockery. He figured out how to get into the blocked-off upstairs carpeted rooms by crawling under the sofa by the door. At first I thought he jumped over the barrier. Who knew he could get that close to the ground though and wiggle through. Inside the room, he tore up a series of decorative lamp shades, some odd colorful costume material (not mine), a collector's outfitted teddy bear (also not mine), and he pooped on the floor. He POOPED on the floor!
The last I saw he was outside on the deck wrestling with Simon. Simon on the inside attacks only pillows and he does that right in front of us. Well, that is not quite true. I was remembering Frollie's and Dexter's food bowls which he also attacks, as I have explained before.
In any case I am exhausted.
However, now it is time to feed everyone, all "6" dogs, Pinkie the cat, Dusty the outside cat, and possibly, Possibly the outside possum.
Schuster, as of last Wednesday (I think), underwent the operation. Schuster now has low T. It has not, however, slowed him down any. Not even from the start. He still calls Dexter "Uncle Dexter," and Uncle Dexter usually tolerates that as just one more of those things in life that he has no control over. Schuster, ignoring the rejection, climbs up on the love seat (a nice irony there), gets as close to Dexter as he can, and goes to sleep. Precious.
Schuster is adapting to the household, though he still prefers the company of other dogs, especially Dexter, to people. All things considered, that is probably sound.
We have to crate Schuster "overnight," as the meteorologists say, since he is very quick and quite destructive. Everything on the floor is at risk: magazines, books, electrical cords, etc. He hits a room like a cyclone, with equal destructive power, if we do not watch him. We have the "crate" in the bedroom now next to Dexter's bed, which seems to keep Schuster quiet, at least. When we had the crate in the kitchen he howled and carried on something fierce. He sounded like a caged demon, not that I really know how caged demons sound. But it was fierce. So, he won; mostly. Five of us are in the bedroom (three dogs and two people), the cat is in the laundry room (our choice), and the Little Master, Simon, chooses to sleep on the sofa, under covers and pillows, in the living room by himself.
