Robin McKinley's Blog, page 79

A night somewhat off

 

 

I NEED A NIGHT OFF.  Sorry.  I’m still cross-eyed from yesterday, or rather while I would have said I did have enough sleep last night the body, or at least the brain, is saying, no, no, no, nothing like, lock the frelling puppy in the crate and let’s go lie on the sofa some more.  Think how much the poor puppy-oppressed hellhounds would enjoy this.  Be generous.  Be altruistic.

Hellhounds had a LOOONG sofa this evening while I read old gardening mags* and maybe dozed and I am now puppified** and having difficulty not doing more dozing which is dangerous in a straight chair and if I fell off it might discourage/alarm puppy.  Puppy is already taking responsibilities seriously:  I may have to change Pooka’s ringtone because Pavlova barks back.  She also barks peremptorily in response to knocks on the door—and this afternoon, at thunder.  She didn’t appear disturbed, merely suggesting that whoever it was was not necessarily welcome on her patch, and if it would reveal itself she would judge if it was to be allowed to remain.  All this at less than ten furry little pounds.***

And if I don’t stop talking I will have to revert to textspeak.  Especially since my choice is having only one available hand . . . or having gently snoring puppy head on keyboard.  I need a puppy pillow.

So.  Have a few links.  This is from Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP1gQvkiyEU

Love the body language.  If Pavlova’s tail were going any harder in that first shot it would come off.  And Chaos, who is still puppy at heart, is willing to give benefit of the doubt to potential (if presently diminutive) playmate but Darkness thinks they both need protecting from the DANGEROUS INVADER.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zWO7kbHs0r8#!

Gryphyn from the forum found this one.  (Thank you Gryphyn).  And I think it’s adorable.  But in my evil spoilsport headmistress aspect I also want to know that that road they’re walking on is entirely car free and those car-like objects apparently parked at the kerb of a street in active moving-vehicle use are an illusion.  Lego or papier mache or intense yarn bombing or something.  Granted that my view is skewed by the fact that pound for pound whippets are the fastest thing on the planet†, as a rule of thumb all dogs are faster than all humans and no dog never breaks training.  I hate seeing off lead dogs by the sides of roads.

And now two total irrelevancies.  A friend sent me this one and it makes me want to go to seminary and become a vicar in Essex.  But by then the post would probably have been filled.  I probably wouldn’t be able to cope with the village characters anyway.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9609711/Villagers-advertise-for-new-vicar-on-YouTube.html#

I don’t think this last one needs any comment.  Ahem.

http://mcphee.com/shop/cthulhu-christmas-sweater.html

Thank you Katy Ryn Roberts.  I needed to know about this.

* * *

* mainly this one:  http://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/RHS-Publications/Journals/The-Garden  Of course I belong.  If you live in England and either have a patio big enough for a flowerpot or just want to have lunch at a nice café with roses round the door^ it’s totally worth it.

^ http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardens

** Upside down her ears are up.

*** If she were going to stay little, I’d probably think more about how to carry her.  She’s actually very good about dangling serenely as I tuck her under my arm, but I do want to hold her there snugly just in case of sudden surges which means I can’t brace her against my hip or side.  Dunno.  But it’s not going to be relevant very much longer.

† Fastest dog anyway.  Cheetahs are faster but they also weigh a lot more and I can’t do those complicated maths.

 

Six Days till First Hellterror Hurtle

 

Pavlova got her second—and final—vaccination today.  Six days till first hurtle.  YAAAAAAAAAY.  That’s the good news.

And the bad news . . . I got four hours of sleep last night.  Joy.  And it’s not Pavlova’s fault—or only indirectly—it’s the ruddy hellhounds.  SIIIIIIGH.  Same old same old, except this morning I had to get up in time to have Pavlova at the vet’s at 9:30, whatever was happening at 4 a.m.  I know, you’re not impressed, but aside from my keeping of insanely late hours, my mornings have become a lot more complicated since the arrival of the hellterror*.  Hellhounds would be perfectly capable of keeping their legs crossed till I took Pavlova to the vet’s and got home again and had a cup of tea and an apple**, and I was in fact hoping that hellhounds would do their usual early-morning you’ve-got-to-be-kidding opening one eye and closing it again when I appeared fully dressed at 9 a.m.  But no.  That fat upstart† isn’t going anywhere that we aren’t coming too.  MORE SIIIIIIIIGH.  And I’d had four hours of sleep because hellhounds wouldn’t eat their supper and by the time they did I was streaming with adrenaline, etc.***

So I bundled everybody into the car and we all went to the vet, where the receptionist fell on Pavlova with glad cries, saying that bull terriers are lovely and they only have a couple of them on their books ( . . . now three) and there should be more.†  Pavlova was nothing loth about manifesting her fabulousness to a new person.  (Yaay!  Socialisation!)  And I don’t think she even noticed getting the jab from the vet.  (Who felt her carefully all over first.  Yaay!  Socialisation!)  And she weighs 4.1 kilos which is—I looked it up, I still think in pounds—nine pounds.  Which is getting on for a lot to carry under one arm for any length of time, unless you’re Conan the Barbarian.

Hellhounds, sulking in the car, cheered up when we left the newly vaccinated Pavlova at the cottage and went for a sunny and beautiful country walk out at Warm Upford.  Then we all went down to the mews and I spent two hours crashed out in the guest bed†† with hellhounds who, possibly realising a good thing, were remarkably quiet and compliant.  I would be very grateful to get more sleep tonight. . . . †††

* * *

* I keep telling myself I have to start calling her by her call name instead of Little Fat Thing.  She is, furthermore, starting to respond to Little Fat Thing.  Oops.

** Bluebell season is my favourite time of year, but there’s a strong argument for now as well, when my morning apple(s) are fresh off the tree.^

^ It’s a little quelling when you’re all in amber waves of grain/apples off your own tree harvest mode to have to watch your feet for unexpected puppy crap, but not all that quelling, at least to those of us puppy-afflicted who are realists.  And yes, of course in theory I pick it all up as it happens.  In practise, there’s the fending off of the puppy who thinks it looks like a great game, and after dark you’re also of necessity carrying a torch, which prevents you from stepping on the puppy.   Sometimes I give it up as a bad job and in the morning last night’s crap has disappeared, to reappear unpredictably.

*** The only KNITTING I’m getting done at the moment is late at night when I should be SLEEPING but need to scrape myself off the ceiling about one thing or another, probably hellhounds and supper.  Although I got several rows done this evening at Fustian COUGH-COUGH beginner practise at which I made a colossal mess of Grandsire Triples and St Clements minor^, both of which I should be able to ring WITHOUT EVEN THINKING ABOUT IT.  And worse yet, the fellow who ran practise tonight—apparently they pass ringing-master responsibility for the additional practise around like a hot potato^^—reads this blog when it’s about bell ringing.  Maybe I’ll just neglect to add the bell ringing tag tonight.  ARRRRRRGH.  KILL MEEEEEEEEEE.^^^  And it wasn’t enough that I made a horse’s rear end of myself~, the big kids also rang a long touch of frelling spliced frelling surprise frelling major which as far as I’m concerned is right up there with feeding the five thousand with a few loaves and a spoonful of bouillabaisse.  And this is supposed to be the beginners practise night.  I don’t want to think about what their ordinary practise is like.~~

^ We rang St Clements last night at Glaciation!  We rang Oxford Double Bob last night at Glaciation, which I had never seen before in my life and was mugging up hastily by the tiny horrible blue line in the Ringing World Diary!  I didn’t ring it well, but I rang it!  We rang Cambridge minor last night!  Tonight I probably would have made a mess of plain hunt except I didn’t get the chance!+

+ Maybe it’s Pavlova.  Maybe I need to take Pavlova.  In which case I’m doomed, because even as narrow twisty bell tower stairs go, Fustian tower has narrow twisty stairs and there’s no way I’m getting a puppy crate up them.  Not to mention that I wouldn’t dare ask if I could bring her.  You’re the worst ringer we’ve ever seen and you want to bring a puppy?  Are you kidding?  NEVER DARKEN OUR DOOR AGAIN.

^^ Or possibly a steaming pile of puppy crap

^^^ No, wait, don’t kill me, I have a puppy.  Although the puppy is about the least traumatisable being I have ever met.  Have food?  She loves you.  The hellhounds and the husband would miss me more.

~ Sure, I can claim that part of why I was quite so dire tonight was the four hours of sleep.  But pretty much everybody who rings has a life, and comes to evening practise tired and semi-brained.  But our semi-brains are not all created equal.  Mine is more the steaming pile of puppy crap end.  I seem to be saying SIIIIIIIIGH a lot tonight.+

+ The frequent references to puppy crap probably won’t go away till housetraining is (relatively) over with.  And she’s doing extremely well.  But she’s still only ten weeks old and doing extremely well involves a lot of newspaper-changing, taking outdoors every two hours or so#, and picking up after on the part of the enabling human.  Also a lot of puppy chow and cheese.

# Last night she proved that she can stay dry/clean for four hours.  This is not a result worth endeavouring to repeat however.

~~This is why Fustian had never occurred to me as a possible tower.

† I also told her Pavlova was a mini, and she looked surprised and said, she looks pretty well grown for ten weeks for a mini to me.

†† Having very weird dreams as one does.  My favourite involved worrying about remembering the license number of a miscreant and still remembering it when I woke up.  If I saw a miscreant in action out here in real life there is no way I would remember his/her plate number.  My subconscious having its little joke.

††† I have a funeral to ring tomorrow. . . .

Yes I’m still talking about the puppy

 

 

I just opened a bottle of champagne* with a puppy under one arm.**

We’ve had a silly day, puppywise, but all days are pretty silly that contain a puppy.  I’m 1 handed again due to Holding & I will never learn that you can’t trust little freller to behave how you expect.***  We’ve had a lot of STIMULATION today but not much running around kitchen like lunatic & after dinner SHE WOULD NOT SETTLE DOWN so I got her out of her crate (grumbling, I wanted my supper in peace†), chased her around kitchen for 15 minutes (with some help from Peter) & plonked her on my lap for some remedial Holding.  Since she was going to be a moaning†† monster for some while I prepared inadequately for being nailed/puppied in place.  I don’t mind carrying a moaning monster around the kitchen under my arm††† while I finish preparations for focussed Holding but it seems a trifle unfair to wake her up when she’s immediately crashed out & perforce behaving.

Diane in MN

A sleeping puppy is a GOOD puppy.

Is arguably the only good puppy.  Although peeing and crapping fast, especially in the rain which she doesn’t mind at all but I do, also registers.

Anonymous

The boys seem to be excepting their new sister (so far so good).

I will not embarrass the person responsible for this typo by naming her out here in public but this made me laugh and laugh.  Yes, that’s exactly what the hellhounds are trying to do.  Except her.

Catherine

I’m immediately starting the process of trying to convince her to relieve herself on command. Hey, have a crap and get a treat! Dogs must think we are totally nuts.

I did this with Chloe, in theory it’s great, in practise it does require me to say ‘Do a poo!’ in public. Note to self: next time, phrase better.

Eh.  I’ve said ‘go pee’ to several generations of dogs, meaning ‘relieve yourself appropriately’.  I get a bit crusty about dogless onlookers recoiling from the graphic scene.  They’re probably the same jokers who object to breastfeeding mums in public.

Claning

I seem to recall it was Robin’s line in one of her books (I forget which one) where the dogs meeting new puppies “looked with horror on what they evidently took to be a revolting exhibition of dog dwarfs.”

Nope.  Not me.

B_twin_1

I’m looking forward to when you find Pavlova front and centre of the Doggy Heap.

I lost her for about a minute a few days ago—before yesterday’s

manifestations of rapprochement—& discovered her in hellhound bed between the two of them who were curled up together in a Celtic knot as they often are.  She was in a state of extreme ecstasy.  Them, not so much.   I do try to protect them from such vicissitudes but occasionally I fail.

Rainycity1

Jmeadows wrote:

Puppy in a bag! Puppy in a bag!

Seems the obvious answer to bell tower stairs, I think… Leaves your hands nice and free for hauling crates, too.

You might think so.  But in the first place you need a hand to ensure the puppy stays in the bag.  Peter and I had a nice stroll along the river in Mauncester today, which was the Scheduled Puppy Stimulation/Socialisation, and I spent most of it stuffing her back in the bag.  There probably are specialist dog-tote bags with, for example, zippers that do not slowly but inexorably unzip in response to frantic heaves of enthusiasm from the occupant, but she’s going to outgrow carrying soon and I’m hauling her around in an old shoulder bag.

Also . . . I am a clumsy oaf.  Tucked firmly into my armpit (supposing she is cooperating) she’s relatively safe.  Out in front of me . . .  I tend to keep both arms around her just so I don’t absent-mindedly slam her into things.

Diane in MN

Pavlova is really cutting in to my knitting time.

Puppies cut down on one’s ANYTHING time.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Catherine

I’d love to try taking Chloe ringing, she’d probably (once she worked out what was going on) be quite down with it, but my tower is in a no dogs churchyard. Alas. And dog in a bag is a great thing, you get to take them so many more places than otherwise.

Today’s Scheduled Puppy Stimulation/Socialisation #2 was taking her ringing at Glaciation where Anthea managed to get out of a touch of Stedman doubles because she had a sleeping puppy in her lap.

Usually dog prohibitions in open spaces like parks and playgrounds are about the possibility of dog crap.  If you bagged her in, why would anyone object?  Have you asked?

Katinseattle

“Me, intimidated? What does that mean?”

I have never seen anything like her.  Granted I’ve tended to specialise in the nervy end of dogdom (although anyone who says ‘w(h)impet’ to me is likely to be bitten severely) but … even so.  The Unexpectedly Puppy-Soppy Bloke was tonight telling me stories of bundles of canine nerves he has known & I’m like yup, been there, done that, hugged it till it stopped screaming.

Mrs Redboots

I love the way puppies waddle, don’t you? She’s nearly outgrown the toddler stage, but you can still see traces of it.

Yes.  I have historically not liked vertical tails but they’re part of the hellterror charm somehow.  For those of us who have dogs to have walking companions it is very important that you like the rear view.  As I follow Pavlova around the garden waiting for an opportunity to reward her however I’m thinking that some of that assertive waddle is just bull terrier.  Ask me in a year.

Skating librarian

Puppy in a bag also looks to be going well. I wonder if being close to you like that has the effect of the ticking clock and the hot water bottle on puppy mood.

I know body heat is popular with most baby mammals (and some grown-up ones) and according to Southdowner and Olivia bullies are very much contact critters.  I did wonder when she was ducking into the bag at the fun fair the other night if it was a reassurance thing.  I also wondered if my own accelerated heart rate—I hate things like fun fairs—might have a negative effect, but her heart rate didn’t change at all.

Brite

First, I apologize for being a blog reading lurker for many years without ever signing up to show my appreciation for your books and your blog.

No, no!  No apologies necessary!  Very glad for readers!  Very glad for all forum joiners! ‡

I had to register when I got really into KES because I can’t buy it,

BUT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SOME DAY.  Let me write some more of it, preferably including something a little more recognisable as a story arc.‡‡

And…Congratulations! I think terriers rule, but I’m biased.

Bull terriers rule.  And hellhounds, of course.  Oh, well, and Border Collies, and Great Danes, and . . .

* * *

* Well, cheap fizz, but it had a cork in a little wire cage like real champagne.  And no, you don’t want to know.

** No canines were harmed.  There may have been some language, equally distributed between puppy and bottle.

*** Stupid adult human  Stupid.

† You have a new puppy & you wanted supper in PEACE??  Hahahahahaha.

†† Puppies make the most ridiculous noises.  She has this sudden eruption of outrage noise like she’s just sat on a rather blunt tack, when she feels that her needs are being insufficiently catered to.  It’s nothing like a bark or a yap, & it comes after she’s been whinging for a while.  Silence will fall, briefly, & then a sharp little iiiiEEEEiiii.

††† Although as previously observed my puppy-under-arm days are numbered.  My bicep starts burning rather quickly now, eight days after puppy arrival.

‡ With a sotto voce caveat about politeness and Pollyanna.

‡‡ There may be a Suggestion of a Recognisable Fantasy Story Arc in the Next Ep.

Slightly nonplussed victory

 

Olivia has apparently spent the entire week in tears at the Loss of Her First Puppy,* and when Croissant was due to go this week Olivia was Teetering on the Brink**.   So Southdowner said that it was time she saw her family again anyway, and she’d take Croissant and drop her off in London and then, since she has pretty much to come through here anyway, stop in and see how Pavlova is doing.

Due to a Variety of Reasons, Good and Bad, I am Very Short of Sleep (again) and I’ve been trying to decide (including when I should be sleeping) whether demonstrating that Pavlova is alive and apparently undamaged would be less frightening if it was Olivia, who is merely besotted and not a professional, or if it was Southdowner, who is a professional, but who therefore understands about the difference between dog training manuals and reality.***

I stopped thinking about it by being too tired to think about anything and, furthermore, it was Southdowner who was coming so who was scarier was moot. . . and we all met up at Third House.  Hellhounds and hellterror and I have been up there I think three times, and the, ahem, interface is beginning to develop, even if Darkness does still run upstairs if she COMES AFTER HIM indoors.†

But I felt like the headmistress of some ramshackle, borderline school whose students unprecedentedly band together to see off the Ofsted†† inspector who might have the authority to close us down.  We may not be going on to Oxford, but we’re unexpectedly getting a passing grade.

 

Very good. One more step however and Darkness will be on the far side of the pond.

 

I’m hanging these in chronological order. But this is just the best photo ever.

 

 

However I am not a one trick puppy. I have a full range of cute behaviour.

 

 

I’m the biggest, meanest hellterror EVER! I can take you on with my tail tied behind my back!

 

 

Um. I could do that too. Um.

 

Hey! That’s MY tail!

 

PLAY! WITH! ME!!!

 

Aaaaugh! You got me! (And the hellgoddess was so amazed she almost didn’t take the photo.)

 

Yup. We’re all here. This is now US.

 

We’ll all get used to the new ‘us’ thing. Eventually.

 

 

Stay tuned.  More to come.

* * *

* Lavvy’s attitude, by the way, is, YAAAAAAAY.  I’ve been bored with them for weeks.

** You’d think she’d be looking forward to getting some of her life back.  I’m pretty sure her husband is looking forward to her getting some of her life back.

*** I’ve told you about the ‘introduce your new, ie still unvaccinated^ puppy to your old dog or dogs on neutral ground where other dogs don’t go’, haven’t I????  SNAAAAAAAAARRRRRL.  Where are we supposed to find this Elysian field out here in the real world?  You finally find a dog book that admits to the possibility of adding a puppy to an existing dog situation, and THIS is the advice it offers??????  I paid money for that book.

^ Eight days till first walk+

+ Except that frelling Southdowner says ten minutes.  And you add five minutes a month.  I can’t wear a hellterror out in ten minutes.  Why do you think I want to TAKE HER FOR WALKS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

† That’s not going to work much longer.  You might want to consider resigning yourself to the inevitable.

†† http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/

 

KES, 48

 

FORTY EIGHT

 

Belt, I thought.  My jeans probably won’t fall off and the grey-brown sweater hauls down nice and low.  Besides, another meal or two at Eats I won’t be able to use this belt till I punch some more holes in it.  I pulled it off and looked around for, ahem, my dog.  She was lying on the floor again watching me.  The tail gave a thump, but I thought she looked at the belt worriedly.  “Oh, honey,” I said, distressed, and stuffed the belt under my t shirt.  I knelt beside her.  She raised her head and gave my nearer hand a lick.  I had fed her twice, I was god.  Also it was warmer in cabin seven than it was out on the street.  I lifted my t shirt and let the belt slither harmlessly to the floor.  Her eyes moved to watch it.  I tapped the bottom of her front feet with the end of it.

She rolled up on her stomach and sniffed it.  She raised her head and looked at me.  And then MacFarquhar does something else criminally stupid with a dog she doesn’t know anything about except that she eats tuna and hash and doesn’t necessarily rip anyone’s throat out overnight in a motel room.  I started sliding the end of the belt under her belly, in the gap left between her elbows and the sighthound swell of her sternum.  She turned her head to watch it emerge on her other side.  I got it halfway through and stopped.

Nothing happened.

I picked up the end nearer me and draped it over her back.

Nothing went on happening.

Fortunately it was a very long belt—the kind you’re supposed to knot around on itself.  Even the skinniest sighthound has a tremendous depth of chest.  I draped the farther end over her back, toward me.  She turned her head to peer at it and me but she didn’t move.  I crossed the two ends and brought them forward to buckle around her neck.  Voila.  Instant figure of eight harness.  She shrugged a little and then looked at me.  Expectantly.  Hopefully.  Okay, I got this.  I should have thought of it first.  And it did suggest that she’d had some training that didn’t involve the misuse of belt-shaped objects.  I went back to the (rapidly deflating) grocery bags, found the wedge of local cheddar that had been highly recommended at the deli counter and hacked a bit off with my pocketknife.  Sid had got up and followed me around the foot of the bed, wearing her harness.  I held the cheese a little above and in front of her nose.  “Sit,” I said, moving it toward her.  She sat.  Excellent.  Although it may only have been surprise.  She took her cheese daintily but without wasting any time either.  I put the rest of it in the tiny refrigerator in case she got any ideas.  There were two small bottles of apple juice and two small bottles of orange juice in there already.  After I added the cheese there was just about room to get my hand out again.  And close the door.

So far so good.  I still needed a leash.  There are occasional advantages to cold weather:  you probably have scarves lying around.  Or crushed in the bottom of your knapsack if you’re trying not to be a wuss and therefore not wearing them.  The one I unearthed was pretty crushed and it would probably go from six-foot muffler to sixty-foot twine if Sid took off after anything, but it would do.  I hoped.  I tied a knot around the center of the figure eight of belt over her shoulders with one end of it and we were ready to face the world. . . . I hoped.  Have you ever taught a puppy to walk quietly on lead?  It’s not necessarily a fun time for either of you.  I hoped most of all I wasn’t looking at that situation here, with fifty or so pounds of full-grown (if underweight) dog with a fully developed personality and an unknown history.

“Come on, honey,” I said.  “This is the quid pro quo moment.  You get regular meals and to sleep warm and in return you have to walk on a lead.”  And go to the vet, I thought, but we’ll worry about that after breakfast.  My breakfast.  She looked at me.  I looked at her.  I dropped the lead, went back to the refrigerator, and put the cheese in my pocket.

Picked the muffler-lead up again.  Holding the end of it, went to the cabin door and opened it.  Looked around.  My dog was at my heels.  We went through the door together.  When I paused to close the door, Sid paused too.  We went down the steps together.  Clearly this was too easy.  Something would happen any moment now.

 

1 handed typing

 

2day seems 2 have gone by faster than it should so find myself trying 2 bodge blog 2gether whilst giving hellterror 2nd half of daily Holding which consists of having 1st let her run around till she begins to slow down* and then plonking her in ur lap & obliging her by hugging to lie quietly.  All the puppy bks tell u not 2 wind ur puppy up & 2 take regular breaks 2 calm dwn.  Since puppies exist on a kind of HD plane of mania this is pretty funny.   Southdowner says that hellterrors furthermore have no off switch generally & this is way 2 build 1 in.  Takes time, however, & hands.  I am reading** more newspapers & magazines bec they lie open nice & flat & u probly turn pp less often than rebellious falls-shut paper book.  Ebooks good 2 when u didn’t 4get & leave iPad on other side of room.  Having begun Holding u don’t really want 2 tuck fractious hellterror under arm & go fetch things.

There is some1 doing someting w FOOD over there.

 

Flashy pedigree puppy practising her victory lap

 

 

Little triangle face.

 

Bigger.

 

Hellgoddess foot in danger

 

Those ears are trying to stand up.

 

O mighty helldoddess from whence all good things ESPECIALLY FOOD come. Yes yes the soft bed & freshly filled water bowl & central heating & the way cold rain stays outdoors are all good but we’re chiefly interested in FOOD & we’re SURE we haven’t had anything to EAT in at least 20 minutes.

 

Yes but is whatever it is EDIBLE? –Don’t be silly, I’m a hellterror. OF COURSE IT’S EDIBLE.

 

Reshaping Peter’s sandal.

 

* Eleven days till 1st walk.  Am counting hours, sigh.  Pavlova’s siblings r getting their 2nd vac 2morrow drat it but my local vet won’t give till 10 wk birthday which isn’t till Tues, & then u wait week till takes effect.

** Saying catching up on reading would b going 2 far

 

Expose Puppy to More Stuff*

 

Because I am sometimes too argleflipping dumb to live, last night, waiting for hellhounds to eat their supper,** I decided to roll up my next hank for Second Sweater***.  I was going to need the second ball soon, it would be a nice mindless, even soothing, task, in its repetitiveness, and the only thing I had to do is PREVENT IT FROM GETTING SNARLED UP.

You see where this is going.  I rolled up about 80% of the wretched thing without mishap and then . . . I have no idea what happened.  The gremlins shouted, Hey!  Yarn rolling in progress!  She’s getting away with it!  STOP HER!  And they did.  Golly frelling howdy did they ever.  And, because my stress level is totally off the planet† I instantly entered orbit around Sedna and was pretty sure I’d stay there till I got the slumgullioned thing untangled . . . which is to say that I’m even shorter of sleep today than recently.  ††

But Pavlova was provided with an adventure that further served to wake me up at least briefly.  I’ve told you before that I brought hellhounds home mid-October—in fact exactly the mid-October Thursday that a town near here has a Fun Fair, one of those appalling things with Rides and Junk Food and Shoot Something and Win an Ugly Prize stalls and NOISE.  Especially NOISE.  You can hear the thing several miles away, as well as recognise the flickering Mordorian glow on the horizon.  My hellhound puppies were way too traumatized by coming home with me that Thursday six years ago for any consideration of further excesses, but I think of bringing puppies home every year at this time, because the fun fair posters are everywhere.  And here I am, bringing another puppy home.

But Pavlova has been here four days††† and so far as I can tell is up for anything.  So because I have so much free time for socialising my puppy I bagged her again and we went to the fun fair.  In the rain.

When I first stuffed her in the bag‡ she was all, No!  No!  Want to play!  I wasn’t running up the walls of your kitchen‡‡ nearly long enough and I’m sure I was about to convince Chaos to play with me!‡‡‡  But as we got closer to the scene of anarchy and pandemonium she quieted down because, you know, wow.  I think even my nine-and-a-half-week-old (mini)§ hellterror was impressed.  I wouldn’t go near a fun fair if I didn’t have a puppy to socialise, but it was impressive, not necessarily in a good way.  About halfway through, as we strolled the perimeter, she started ducking down into the bag briefly and then popping out again, as if taking a few deep breaths in the dark and (comparative) peace.  Or possibly wiping the rain out of her eyes.  I could have used a bag to duck into myself.  But her heart rate never changed so I assume she put it all down to another of those weird human things, like being praised and given food for having a crap.  Well, yes, if you want more crap that’s the way to go about it. . . .

* * *

* You’ll get another KES here in another day or two.  Probably Saturday night.  But right at the moment I haven’t got time to write any more eps, and I’ll get paranoid if I drop below ten or so ahead of what I’m posting.  Give me a few more days to get used to fitting Pavlova into a schedule that was already creaking at the frelling seams, and I’ll be able to start up with KES again.  I’ve just found out a plot development that makes me laugh and laugh.  I had suspicions, but . . .

** Pavlova of the beach-ball tummy blessedly crashed out in her crate.   Which is now on the kitchen table, not the Winter Table over the hellhound crate.  Which means there is now no kitchen table.  There is, however, still a Winter Table to put plants on when the temperature starts threatening to dip below freezing.  ARRRRGH.  THERE IS NO LONGER ANYWHERE IN MY KITCHEN FOR ME.  But hellhounds were absolutely not going to put up with being the ground floor with a puppy on the first floor.  Not only wouldn’t they eat their supper—they usually finally, wearily, only-to-please-the-hellgoddessly, cede the point and eat their supper inside their crate rather than out of it, although we’ll have been playing tiddlywinks over the floor for some time previous—but I would keep finding them crammed in the furthest corner of the kitchen looking miserable and threatened.^

^ Maybe you need to know my hellhounds, but that tail-wagging in the video is not happy, welcoming tail-wagging, it’s The End of the World Has Arrived placatory tail-wagging, with the humped backs and the low heads.  They are since chiefly manifesting the Archimedes Fallacy.  Remember Archimedes when Wart first meets Merlin in THE SWORD IN THE STONE?  There is no boy.

There is no puppy.  But they still don’t like poltergeists overhead.

*** Diane in MN:

Have I mentioned that I’ve started another sweater? No, I haven’t finished the first one.

So why are you supposed to have finished the first one?

Thank you.  This one’s a completely plain crewneck pullover.  Far fewer bits to fit together.  Or not.

† Did I tell you, first night, I half-waking-nightmared that I’d killed her?  By putting a towel over her crate to block out the daylight since we were getting to bed rather late as usual.  I had SMOTHERED HER.  Actually I hadn’t.  There were, you know, gaps.  But I have the meanest superego anyone has ever had.

†† But I have a new ball of yarn.  And the hellhounds ate supper before I finished untangling.  How’s that for a kick in the head from the god of irony.  Who is in league with the yarn gremlins.

†††  FOUR DAYS?  FOUR DAYS?

‡ Not for very much longer

‡‡ RAAAAAAAINING.  And while hellterrors appear to be impervious to the elements, she’s only little.

‡‡‡  And the Pope is not Catholic.

§ I got a blast from Olivia last night by email.  SHE IS A MINI AND HER EARS ARE GOING TO COME UP.  Hee hee hee hee.  I had no idea Olivia was going to be so much fun to tease.

 

Further Aspects of Puppy

 

I’ve actually got some work done today.*  Cheers and shouting.

Today’s firsts include going up to Third House for a race around the garden.  And finding that that whole end of the street is blocked by the builders opposite Third House knocking two cottages into one.**  As has become usual.  The builders are, fortunately, mostly very nice, and someone came trotting along to move the largest and most driveway-blocking van.  He came round to apologise which wasn’t necessary but I appreciate the effort to stay on the locals’ good side, and I’d just let the hellhounds out of the back of Wolfgang, and was carrying Pavlova.  He said he had lurchers at home—‘the hairy kind’—and I said that my guys were part deerhound but none of the litter was broken-coated.  He turned to Pavlova and said, oh, bull terriers, I love that profile.  Mini bull terrier, I said hastily** as he petted her and I ticked another big bloke in my Pavlova’s Encounters mental list*** but it wasn’t till later that it occurred to me that with two lurchers and a bull terrier I have the perfect hard-man dog profile.  Oops.  I’ll just have to wear more pink. †

 

gymnastic puppy

 

There Is Something Back There. Yes, there is. The Dirty Laundry Monster.

 

galloping (blurry) puppy

 

Outside the hellhound gate. I’m so little, but they won’t play with meeeeeeeee. –It’s true, I have to lock them in when she’s loose. They’re TERRIFIED, and paste themselves at the back of their crate.

 

Intent. Person with Camera is holding a Dangerous Toy and it is up to the Intrepid Bull Terrier Puppy to Save the Universe.

* * *

* And one doodle.  Sigh.

** Do you remember the whole business about getting the 1,000,000-foot-high Leylandii in the corner of Third House’s driveway taken down?  That since I’m in a ‘conservation’ area I have to get permission to cut a tree down, which in theory sounds fine, but we’re talking bureaucracy here and I got refused.  WHAT?  Is the city council out of its tiny mind?  Meanwhile the two little old people in those last two cottages in the row were pathetically insistent that the tree had to come down, it was their roof it would (probably) fall on, if a wind took it over.  Arrrgh.  The tree surgeon I’d used once before said, leave it to me, I know someone in the Tree Division.  And the tree FINALLY came down.

And the two little old people in those last two cottages died one right after the other about a month later.  I like to think that at least they slept better those last weeks, not worrying about that tree.

Anyway.  Those two cottages.  Someone bought them both and is spending an extraordinary amount of time and builders on renovations.

** You know her ears still aren’t up. . . . I actually like the little flopped-over ear-tips and I wouldn’t mind if they just stayed that way.  It would also mean that I wouldn’t have to worry that she is so fabulously the perfect breed type that it would be my duty to show her.^  Just so long as it doesn’t mean that she’s planning to grow into the Fifty-Foot Woman’s henchdog.^^

^ Diane in MN, stop that laughing.  It wouldn’t be me, it would probably be Southdowner, since she’s the one with major showing experience, but I suspect I’d be sucked into wanting to go along to watch.  Have I mentioned that Pavlova’s dad won best of breed at Crufts last year?  Olivia sent me the YouTube link.+  And Pavlova has his blaze—the broad crooked stripe that slides off one side of the nose.

+ If there’s a clamour I can post it, but it’s the whole Best in Show class and it goes on forever.

^^ Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman and Her Bull Terrier.  Now there’s a monstrous image.

*** Ian Dunbar Get Stuffed.  I read Before and After You Get Your Puppy because Southdowner and Olivia INSISTED and yes, okay, lots of good positive suggestions and a blessed lack of alpha rolls and the attitude that goes with them, but for those of us prone to guilt and the deep conviction that we’re Doing It Wrong, I really resent his insistence that if your puppy hasn’t met 3,912 people by the time she’s three months old including a tall black man on a pogo stick and a short Japanese woman in a heavily embroidered wedding kimono YOU HAVE RUINED YOUR DOG FOR LIFE.  I’m failing, okay?  Pavlova is going to grow up twisted.^

^ Speaking of twisted.  What is the matter with a world where people don’t smile at a puppy?  You don’t have to be a dog person.  I smile at kittens.  Little baby mammals are cute.  I smile at BABIES, the distressingly furless human ones, and they’re usually snotty and drooling.  I was expecting a lot of good engagement in Mauncester yesterday, but no.

† And let us not forget Southdowner’s Hazel’s pink feather boa.  I can totally see Pavlova in a pink diamante collar.^

^ I knew I was glad to have another girl around again.

 

 

Puppy, Day Two

 

Yes.  I took her bell ringing last night.

It was at South Desuetude whose access stair only looks feasible from a puppy-hauling point of view to someone who regularly rings at the abbey.  Southdowner*, whose silly idea taking her ringing was in the first place, suggested that I take her out of the crate and carry her up separately.  I want to believe I would have thought of this myself** but I didn’t have to.  I’m not sure I literally could get the crate around that spiral with a puppy in it. When she grows too heavy to carry under one arm (soon) I’ll have to make two trips.***  Glaciation—Colin’s band swap between the two (ahem) towers—is a nice roomy ground floor ring however.†

We played Pass the Puppy while the pre-ring gossip went on†† and then for the first touch Colin let me sit out with a puppy in my lap.  Pavlova didn’t so much as flinch when six bells pulled off, although she did try to bury her ears under my arm.  And she curled up in her crate for the rest of the evening with every indication of nonchalance.

Today Fiona came down to examine the new addition and I said YAAAAAY and thrust a puppy in a bag††† at her and all five of us went for a (slow) hurtle, which involved a lot of Chaos!  NO! as he kept bouncing off Fiona to investigate the contents of the bag.  This afternoon, however, I hung Pavlova round my own neck and Fiona and I had a hellhound-free  stroll‡ around Mauncester as today’s chapter in Expose the Puppy to More Stuff.

And tomorrow . . . I’m sure I’ll think of something.

She’s bigger than she was yesterday.

 

The tail is always wagging. I know this doesn’t necessarily mean a happy dog, but it does in her case. She thinks the world is just fabulous. Even if the hellhounds won’t play with her (yet).

 

I realise I’m besotted but I think this is hilarious. I’m taking no-flash photos in ordinary indoor light and my camera can do only so much. This is a puppy shaking a dangerous toy to submission.

 

I’ve bagged a puppy.

 

The view from above. AWWWWWWWWW. TOO CUTE.

 

* Olivia, for some inexplicable reason, does not ring.

** But I am very short of sleep.  It took hellhounds an hour and a half to eat^ their supper Sunday night, and last night . . . she barked.  I’m telling myself that a lot of puppies go through this phase.

^ One of my big stress points is the likelihood that Presence of Puppy would put hellhounds off their food.  Yes.+  We’re still just about holding our own but . . . SSSSTTTRRRREEEEEESSSSSSSSSS.  We also had a loooong puppy-free sofa this afternoon in the interests of hellhound reassurance and knitting.  Pavlova is really cutting in to my knitting time.

+ Is the Pope Catholic.

*** Unfortunately she’ll probably outgrow this crate before she’s old and sober enough to lie down and stay there.  There are dogs that accompany their bell ringing humans to bell ringing.  But I’ve never heard of a bull terrier.

Although this Will Do Anything for Food is SO EXCITING.  There are obviously glimmers going on in that puppy brain that peeing and crapping produce delightful rewards and I think she’s beginning to suspect that bum on floor = cheese if she hears ‘sit’.^

^ Southdowner and Olivia have told me six hundred million times that bullies are tough to train:  what an ordinary dog needs fifteen or twenty repetitions to catch on to, a bullie needs fifteen or twenty hundred.  Piffle.  It took Chaos four years to learn to lift his feet to have his harness put on.  At least you can get a bullie’s attention because they’re INTERESTED in that piece of cheese in your hand.  Of course then you have to convince them that they have to do something before they get the cheese.  We’re working on this.

† So she can keep coming to Glaciation in her next crate.

†† I was extremely amused that one of the blokes whom I would not expect to be soppy about puppies . . . was soppy about this puppy.  Although he declined to carry her downstairs after practise.  Hey, it’s downstairs.  Never mind.  Although I got frelling STUCK at the bottom when the frelling crate managed to wedge itself fast.  ARRRRGH.  My extremely well-handled and well-socialised puppy, however, just dangled from my other arm in a blithe and carefree way while I wrestled with the beastly thing.

††† I still haven’t made it to the vet’s to find out how soon she can get her final jabs, so I can take her for hurtles.  I think it’s a fortnight.  Pleeeeeeez that it’s only a fortnight.  I had hellhounds indoors for AN ENTIRE MONTH and I was conspicuously more crazy at the end of this stint than I had been before.  And no, I have never recovered.  Beware of People Who Have Raised Lots of Puppies.^

^ Kittens are just as big a time sink but I believe they’re less labour-intensive.

‡ I think Fiona might have considered it more of a hurtle.  Her legs are a good deal shorter than mine.  And I’m used to hellhounds.

Hellhounds meet hellterror

 

http://youtu.be/EFgwO1RYmuo

 

And for anyone interested in dog behaviour* and dog training styles** this is a fascinating article:  http://www.examiner.com/article/dog-whispering-the-21st-century ***

* * *

* Thank you Southdowner

** with or without new puppy in lap & typing 1-fingered

*** Note mention of Patricia McConnell in notes, who some1 on forum mentioned a day or 2 ago.  Have bookmarked her blog:  http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/