You are looking at quite possibly, the world’s most spoiled Basset Hound.

At the end of December she scared the hell out of me when she got sick. When Sweety took her to the vet he mentioned some other behaviors she’d been exhibiting and the vet told him that she was just getting old and things like that were going to start happening and we would have to be ready to do what we needed to when the time came.

Well, I’m not ready for death time yet and I’ve gone to extreme measures to make sure she eats.

For a few months, she would happily suck down her dry dog food if it was mixed with wet dog food. Then she quit eating it. I knew that she would starve if I tried the “you’ll eat when you’re good and hungry” strategy so I started mixing her food with potted meat. You know, that canned shit that is sold in grocery stores. Grocery stores for people. Do you know what kind of look you get if you go into Wallyworld at 9 o’clock on a Friday night and buy 30 cans of potted meat? A weird one.

We rocked along on the Potted Meat/Dog Food So Nutritious I Could Eat It Diet for awhile. Then she flat quit eating it. (I don’t blame her. That potted meat is fucking gross.) So I moved on to canned tuna because I happened to have a ton of it that I’d bought on sale but when I found some tiny bones while eating it I couldn’t eat it any more. And that worked for awhile.

Guess what I’m doing now? Cooking for her.

One big pot of people food does her for about a week and then she’s ready for something new. (Conveniently, one big pot of food happens to last her a week.) We’ve done beans & rice, canned veggies (she wasn’t crazy about those so we won’t do them again), spaghetti and starting tomorrow it’s macaroni & cheese. Then I’ll start the rotation over with beans & rice because I have a big box of it in the pantry. The week after it’s Cheeseburger Hamburger Helper (minus the meat and milk).

I’d like to point out so Sweety doesn’t kill me that all of the foods I’ve been giving her are things that were on a giant sale. So basically she’s going to nosh on whatever is the special of the week. I can’t believe that I actually scour the grocery store shelves, looking for shit on sale that would be sticky enough to mix with dog food because if it’s not sticky she will just pick out the human food and leave the dog food behind.

Why do I have a feeling that I’ve been manipulated by Stinky Dog?

And Oliver….sweet…perfect…Oliver…

See that? That thing on the floor in front of Oliver’s back feet? That would be weenie sheath. Weenie sheath that touches my floor every time he stands still.

I’d like to get a bandage to wrap around his middle to keep it off the ground. I wonder if I could use some kind of strong tape to yank the skin on his middle up and that would lift it off the floor? Like a facelift but for his abdomen…

I don’t like seeing it touch the floor. Luckily, he does not have any little public hairs sprouting out of the top of it or I would pluck them to try and keep the area more sanitary. Don’t ask me how I happen to know that he’s hairless down there. Ahem.

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I’m waffling between, “What is that crazy bitch doing?” and “I’m gonna hit that!”

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This is Oliver .5 seconds after I screamed really loud to wake him up. He gets all buried up and then bumbles around when I scare him. It never gets old.

Here he is fighting for his blankie. We’ll wrap his toy in the blanket and then he’ll find it. If he can’t get to it easily then he will just chew through the blanket to get the toy.

I turned around to this. Sometimes Sweety scares me.

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I think Oliver may have a giant streak of asshole. He spent a couple of weeks wooing us with his mad fetching skills and his pottying outside – but now? I think we’re fixing to have a doggy showdown. Tiny Dog has enjoyed her position on the throne as Alpha Dog for 5 years now and he is getting ready to knock her ass rolling off of it.

He’s started running in to steal Stinky Dog’s food. The barking. For the love of Pete, the barking. If I don’t do what he’s wanting RIGHT NOW then the barking starts. And after about 15 seconds Stinky Dog joins. Then you hear Tiny Dog screaming. It’s like they’re all in my head.

I’m trying to be sneakier about feeding them. If they know I’m feeding them then it’s 10 minutes from start to finish with the barking. If I sneak out of bed in the morning I can get a headstart on them. Then when I come home at night I tiptoe around to fill their bowls before they realize that I’m home.

Helps keep my eardrums intact.

But if we’re keeping score – Tiny is Alpha. For now.

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Maybe I needed to barf that last post out because I woke up yesterday feeling okay for the first time in a long time. To make it better – I got off work early! It was slow so they were letting people off if they wanted.

I took the opportunity to go back to my doctor’s office to get the fucking cough that’s been around since August tended to. He gave me something that will hopefully stop the coughing (He said it might take a few days to work. whatever. I’m not hopeful.) and I’m going to get a chest x-ray and scan of my sinus cavity. I told him that I didn’t think I’d ever poked a bean in there but maybe I had and it was festering and making me sick. I really hope they see something with all of this. Because if they don’t then I think I will cough forever.

And I stayed home today. *cough* *cough* I’m cleaning a little and realized that the vacuum is gone. Do you know how often I actively seek out the vacuum cleaner? Like once in a blue moon. I’m guessing that Sweety took it to work with him to clean up there.

Oh people, I almost wigged out on the boys yesterday. I got home an hour early. Sweety wasn’t home. (The boys had to walk home from school a couple of days this week because he couldn’t get off in time to pick them up.) BB is in the front yard playing basketball (um, how many times have I told them to stay inside the freaking house if they’re home alone?!) and LB is there with him, shoeless. (I have a big problem with them running around shoeless. This stems from the numerous times they’ve come home from the coaew’s house with cuts on their feet or other things that they’re bitching about that could have been prevented with foot coverings.)

I feel bad that they’ve been home alone and instead of cooking ask what they want. Taco Bell. We load up in the car and during the drive it comes up that they have not let the dogs out to potty since they’ve been home from school. I was immediately so pissed off that I wanted to kick them out of my car and let them walk the last few blocks home. So you played video games in my bedroom while Stinky & Tiny howled their heads off in the adjoining bathroom and Oliver pranced at your feet? Poor Stinky Dog completely messed her bed and it’s been disinfecting all night.

For crying out fucking loud. I had no idea that I needed to tell them to let the dogs out when they came home from school. They know that they should do that!

They are going to be here this weekend and I knew if I freaked the fuck out that it would make the whole weekend shit. So I’m sweeping it under the rug. This weekend I am getting a dry erase marker and writing the things that I want them to do every day after school on the icebox. They will probably get more chores than they would have yesterday morning because I’m still pissed about them ignoring the dogs.

Tonight I’m going to put on my glitter eyeshadow and ride with Sweety to the bowling alley where I will probably drink a lot and subject everyone to my music on the jukebox. I’m beyond ready!

The reason I’m able to wear my glitter eyeshadow? I’ve been thinking for two weeks that I lost my whole makeup box but noticed it when I was taking the above photo of Oliver. I’d just stashed it away for some odd reason.

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We have yet to find a conventional dog toy that Oliver can’t destroy in an hour. It is very surprising to me that he doesn’t chew random things in the house like chair legs or bedspreads. We leave him in our bedroom during the day and he hasn’t ruined anything in there. He knows when something shows up in his bed though that it’s his for the taking.

The only thing that has lasted so far is a racquetball. It took him 10 days to finally gnaw through it. Luckily, they come in cans of three.

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