Guest Blog Post: Dog chaos

I was more than delighted to receive an email on Friday with an attachment from my mom saying "for your blog". Haha! It was all about the past weekend when my mom was at her house with my parent's 2 dogs: Puddles and Daisy and my sister's dog: Lani...and my dad was so graciously staying at our house watching all 3 of our dogs while Jimmy and I were living it up in Baltimore/DC!! All I could think when I read this, is "wow...we really are related" :) Enjoy!!

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Lani came back to live with us on Tues afternoon after Lyndsay’s friendly neighbors threatened to start a petition to get her kicked out of her apartment because of this crazy barking dog. It is fine, we can easily handle one more dog, right? Thurs morning Roger got out of the shower, put on his slippers and walked through our bedroom to the kitchen. All of a sudden I heard horrible cuss words coming out of his mouth! Lani had pooped on our hardwood floor in the bedroom and Roger slipped on it. Great way to start the morning!

Sweet little Lani...

There have been so many wonderful dog moments this week, here is a short recap:

Why does Lani have to roll around on a dead worm? And then she eats it. Just five minutes later, she goes into the kitchen and throws up the dog food she ate about 30 mins. ago! Joy! I don’t get the whole dogs rolling in bird poop and dead worms.

The first afternoon Lani was here, I put her in the kennel while I worked out in the basement. She barked for about 10 mins then crashed! What were those picky girls in Manhattan complaining about?? I didn’t get it….until 1:30am. Roger refused to put her in the kennel to sleep. Picture this…Lani laying peacefully around Roger’s neck and he says,” But she is sooo cute and adorable, I can’t stand putting her in the kennel to sleep!” So she is the newest addition to our king size bed with Puddles and Daisy already claiming their territory in the middle of the bed. We all settled into our normal sleeping spots and Lani was roaming the entire bed, bothering everyone! I tried to calm her down for about 30 mins and at 11:00pm, I gave up and put her in the kennel. No problem, no barking, no whining and everyone got some sleep. Until 1:30am when Lani woke up and barked until 4:00am. Constantly. Not even coming up for a breath! How does she do that? I closed the bedroom door, put the pillow over my head knowing that I could not go and get her because that would just reinforce that negative behavior, right? Roger swears that he didn’t get any sleep either during that time frame but he was snoring louder than Lani was barking. Puddles was up and wandering around the room, trying to figure out what was going on. It was a circus! I was tempted (for about 1 min) to get up and go walk on the treadmill and read my book…I was awake, might as well take advantage of the time. But I didn’t, I just waited until the alarm went off at 5:28 and the morning began again. I was so tired during the day, just the perfect excuse for a nap that afternoon! With all three dogs on the couch while watching Oprah!

Lani up to no good....

Friday I came home at 2:00 after a college meeting. I let the dogs out to do their thing in the back yard. Puddles wasn’t too happy that Lani is back on Mullen Road. Here is this 14 year old dog with no teeth and arthritis and all he wants to do is poop in private. Lani just doesn’t get it. She must think he is in a play stance when he is pooping because she will jump all over and under him. Imagine an 81 year old man trying to poop and a kid jumping all over him??

Lani attacking poor Puddles!!

The only place that Puddles is safe from Lani’s tormenting is on our bed. So I put Puddles and Daisy up on the bed. I left the bedroom for a few minutes and when I come back, I smell something horrible. I look around for Lani poop and can’t find any. Then I saw Daisy looking at me with these sad eyes and I saw it. She had massive explosive diarrhea on my comforter! The comforter that I bought last summer (at 75% off! And matching pillows, window treatments, etc!) which cannot be replaced at that incredible price! Horrible, disgusting smell! So I blotted it up with paper towels and realized that it seeped through the comforter, through the blanket, through the sheets and onto the mattress pad! Are you kidding me? I was gone about 3 minutes! So I stripped the bed and started the laundry while looking for a 50% off coupon from Pride Cleaners in my most recent Entertainment book. None to be found! I laid the comforter across the footboard and turned the ceiling fan on high.

Puddles and Daisy on their "spot" on the couch....as far away from Lani as possible! Except she learned to jump on the couch....

I had a 4:00 hair appointment so I put the dogs in the laundry room and Lani in her kennel. Upon my return, my bedroom smelled horrible! The comforter spot was dry but it still smelled. I pulled out the special Trapp Orange Vanilla candle and lite it in the bedroom. I usually use this candle for “special” occasions! This definitely qualified! I eventually decided to wash the comforter in my new washing machine on the gentle cycle. It wouldn’t fit in the dryer so I hung it over the second floor balcony so it could dry! As I walked through the bedroom to gather up everything, I stepped in a small spot of Lani pee. Just one foot and I had on my favorite “sleep sock”. I guess it would have been worse if I hadn’t had on my socks! So I threw the sock into the washer in one of the 4 loads of linens! The three dogs and I hit the bed after a night of washing linens, eating popcorn and drinking one too many margaritas! Just think, I could have been, should have been in San Diego with Susan this weekend! Hmmmm….what was I thinking?

The comforter hanging from the balcony and drying!!

Wonder what Roger, Toby, Milly and Willy are doing at the Carter’s in PV? He left at 7am on Friday morning and I called him at 5:30pm on Sunday night and asked if he was moving in with the Carter’s! I think he liked it a little too much! Just imagine if all six of the dogs were over here this weekend! It would be a nightmare! Is this just a preview to our weekends in the future with the grandkids, instead of the grand dogs?! Maybe this idea of us staying at separate houses during these special child sitting weekends will carry over to hanging out with the grandkids! Sounds good to me!

CUTE!!

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Thanks Mom, for a GREAT post :) So now you know---it's not just our house where the dogs take over our lives........but you have got to love them, right? There were lots of videos my mom sent too, but those are like impossible to upload to blogger!!!