Category Archives: Me Talking About My Dogs

Posts in which I talk about my dogs, something that pretty much only I – and possibly my husband – would be interested in reading about. And yet I do it anyway. ‘Cause fuck you.

Jul 18 1 comments
Friends, Growing a Human, Me Talking About My Dogs

The Happiest Place on Earth

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Maybe not the brightest idea two pregnant chicks have ever had, but my friend Amber (who’s due a mere two days before me) and I decided to attempt to beat the heat and take a 9am hike down Runyon Canyon this morning.    (We failed.   It was freakin’ 100 degrees by the time 9:30 rolled around.)

Sophie ran ahead in search of shade and opted for rolling in the dirt over drinking water, while Madden, desperate to follow the hound into the shade of the cacti, seemed a little less likely than usual to take off on me if I unleashed her.   Sadly I decided that being 7 mos pregnant, and sweating my [gigantic] ass off were probably not the appropriate melding of circumstances to start experimenting with Maddie’s off-leash abilities.

Hiking Runyon on a Saturday morning isn’t something I often do, but today A & I felt like we were crowd favorites running the final mile of the NY marathon as we made our way down the hill.   I think the sight of our two pregnant bellies bobbing while we waddled down the path was too amusing for passersby not to comment on.   Every few steps we’d get an encouraging “you girls look great!”  or “keep up the good work!” (thankfully no one stopped to tell us we were “all belly” or touch us inappropriately.)   It’s nice to feel like people are supporting your efforts when your face looks like a hot-house tomato and you’ve got a pool of sweat gathering atop your 7 month baby bump.    I’ve never been called “cute” or “adorable” so many times in a single hour.   I rather liked it.

Being that we were in Hollywood, of course, more than once we had to shield our eyes from the svelte figures of starlets-in-training jogging past us in their hot pants and sports bras, looking all fabulous and shit – barely breaking a sweat.    Bitches.    May you all get pregnant and grow bellies like mine.

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Jul 14 5 comments
Baby Fever, Me Talking About My Dogs, Sara

D.H. – a study in orange.

One Sunday morning in New York, my room mates and I grabbed some coffee and started a trek uptown to the 101st street ASPCA.   We’d been tossing around the idea of getting a dog (much to Katie and Amy’s dismay, but they were studying abroad at the time and we wanted a puppy, dammit) and we thought we’d go check out the goods.   It was just post 9-11, the world had changed, and we needed what we called “a new leash on life.”

We didn’t have any idea what kind of dog we wanted, and I don’t think any of us were really convinced that we’d be coming home with a living breathing addition to our household that day, but one look at the tri-colored basset hound puppy with the crooked smile and we were done for.   We waited in the smelly lobby of the ASPCA as they tried to track down a reference for us, finally reaching The Gube on his cell phone who assured them (against all better judgment) that we’d make great dog parents.   The Gube can be rather convincing, so they packed up our little hound dog in a kitty crate and sent us on our way.

Sophie The Dog (as she would come to be known, if only to differentiate her from Sophie the Bar, and Sophie the Girl) whined the entire subway ride home.   That night, as we groggily gathered in the living room at 3am to the howls of a puppy that had no idea where she was, we couldn’t help but wonder if we’d made a huge mistake.   This was, after all, a living breathing creature that we were to be responsible for.   I remember Sara and I marveling at the cuteness as McHound finally curled up to sleep, and realizing that this beast would be in our lives for a long time coming – that this new leash on life would still be ours when we had children…although we were certain she would be crotchety and old by then, and hobbling around on her hound legs, half blind, biting anything that came near her.   (Thankfully, despite two shoddy hips and a little graying under the chin, McHound is still quite spritely.)

On the day Dashiell was born, Scott and I had to catch a 6pm flight to Arizona for my cousin Andi’s wedding.   Time and traffic were not on my side, but I threw caution to the wind and raced over the hill as soon as I got the call from Sean, desperate to catch some time with the little guy on his first day in this world.  As I approached the maternity ward, I couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that I was about to meet Sara’s son – a child that I would watch grow up, and who would grow up with my children.    A child that as predicted, would crawl around on the floor with Sophie The Dog as she mistook him for a puppy and tried to get him to play with her bunny toy.   Every moment I spend with Dashiell is amazing to me.   My HLP has a child, and he’s perfect.

In just a few short months, there will be a new addition to that cross-species game of tug-of-war.   And I’m pretty sure that the 3am cries of a scared puppy are about to seem like child’s play to me.  But somehow the territory doesn’t seem so uncharted…I’m lucky enough to have Sara there to lead the way.  (…Or at least to come over to commiserate and hold my baby when I’m delirious from exhaustion and have forgotten to feed myself for days.)

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Jun 24 2 comments
Friends, Me Talking About My Dogs, The Trivial

Apparently, I used to be cool, too.

So, a comment from my friend Eric yesterday (he was dissapointed that I had blogged about J&K+8…but c’mon – Jon IS a total douchnozzle) got me thinking.   Has pregnancy made me soft?   Has my sense of humor gone the way of my ass and turned to complete mush?    I did used to post about absurd news stories and flying cars a bit more often, whereas my more recent posts have taken on a more sentimental tone, talking about family and nursery decorating and crap…but does this mean I’m losing my edge? When I was working full time, and research and keeping up on weird internet shit was part of my job, I definitely stumbled across some odder items to blog about on a more regular basis.    Plus, looking back, I also talked about Ninjas a lot more.  *sigh*…I do love Ninjas.    But I want to keep things interesting for my respected friends who aren’t about to be living in a world of poopy diapers and breastmilk (E – you know you’re super psyched about reading my inevitable “pumping” posts.)

So to prove (mostly to myself) I’m not that soft – here’s a picture of a dog’s butthole.   More specifically: Zoey, the sweet little Jindo puppy that stayed with us a few weeks ago, and unexpectedly got her period.

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See – Zoey’s Daddy was supposed to have had her spayed, but apparently hadn’t gotten around to it yet, and didn’t think it warranted a mention when he dropped his Pup at our place for a week.   Naturally, we had no puppy pads on hand – because – well, we weren’t expecting a menstruating houseguest.   So we took one of the newborn baby diapers that I scored at the Ellen Show (and yes, that’s Gaf tape we used to affix it – the regular diaper sticky part wouldn’t stay with all of that puppy-like squirming – don’t worry, we didn’t get any of her fur in there) and slapped it on her bottom while Scott ran out in search of lady products suitable for a dog.   If you look closely, you can see the hound going in for a sniff to check things out.

See?   That wasn’t about babies.   (I guess it was about menstruation though, and a baby dog…dammit.)   But hell – I’m going to be a Mommy…I’ve got to soften up a bit at some point, right?   I mean, I can’t have my little girl running around calling people donkey-schlongs and laughing at dick and fart jokes before she even starts school, can I? …Can I?

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Mar 04 1 comments
Me Talking About My Dogs

a little hound for a rainy day.

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Just stumbled across this picture of me and the hound from the day we brought her home on the subway.   That freakishly proportioned snugglefest made for one cute puppy.

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Jan 14 0 comments
Me Talking About My Dogs

The Adventures of Madden the Goat-Dog

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There are some things that just have to stay between dog and owner.   Well, this is our dirty little secret.

You’ve heard the expression the Cobbler’s son has no shoes?   Well, Madden, since the day she snuggled up to Scott’s knees at the pound, has been both a trash diver (you’d swear she has thumbs) and a scavenger.  (Not to mention her seemingly having the ability to defy gravity.)  When Scott’s around, that dog is an angel.   She’s quiet, she’s well behaved, she won’t take a step out of line.   But she’s a Shepard, and Shep’s are only loyal to one Master.   So when Maddy’s Daddy heads off to work with other dogs?   El Chupacabra comes out to play.

When Scott lived on Magnolia, we’d come home to find her perched (all four feet) atop the fence, watching the cats with her little matchstick tail swishing back and forth.   When we first moved in together, I’d come home and find her sitting on the coffee table, the hot tub lid, or on occasion, the dining room table.   Time after time after time, we’ve come home to our table tops disturbingly undisturbed, while various food items are conspicuously missing from places that would seem incredibly hard to reach for Sophie McShort-Arms and your average 50 lb Shepard mix.   And yet…a box of sprinkles cupcakes…last night’s Chinese take-out…an entire bag of blueberry bagels….a ten pound bag of dog food… all gone without a trace, save for Maddie hiding outside – ears back, head down, belly bloated – waiting for someone to yell at her.

Well…this weekend, the Mad-dog really outdid herself.  See, a few weeks ago, we all got up in the morning (the dogs have a Pavlovian response to my alarm clock, they get up and sit facing our bedroom door when it goes off, because the first thing I do when I get out of bed every morning is feed them breakfast, which, thanks to Mad’s gastro-intestinal adventures, this morning I cooked for them – rice and ground beef.)  Ahem.   Anyway, a few weeks ago we all got up in the morning and as I went to give them their Old-Dog pills, I thought Madden’s eye looked a little weird.  (I lost my Rottie, Bruiser to a tumor behind the eyes a few years back, so I’m a little sensitive to this.)   And when I tossed her her pill, she winced, and all of this saliva came pouring out of her mouth.   I called the vet.   They suggested that “maybe she’d had a stroke, but she can probably walk it off…only you know your dog!”   Taking their earth-shattering advice to heart, I decided that only I do know my dog, and right now, my dog was acting really really weird.   So we took her in.   They spent two days not being able to diagnose her, except that she was in incredible pain in her jaw, and was keeping it locked as a result, and the pressure behind her eyes was so great the reading was twice what it should be.   (In fact, the vet later said they pressure got so intense behind those buggy eyes that if we hadn’t brought her in she could have lost her vision by that evening…excuse me as I pat myself on the back for my excellent dog-parenting, before telling the rest of this embarrassing story.)

Anyway, long story moderately shorter, they started her on Steroids to reduce the pressure.   They thought it was some genetic condition having to do with her jaw muscles, but those tests have since come back negative so now they have no clue what caused it…but I digress.

Point being, the dog is ‘roided up.   So Sunday night, when she ate a very questionable batch of cookies left on the counter by our generous house-sitter (I’m talking about 25-30 cookies here) I called Marcos completely frantic, then called Candice still frantic, and then ultimately took her in to the puppy emergency because there was some concern that her Pancreas, under the stress of the Steroids couldn’t handle the chocolate/sugar/other stuff her body had already begun to digest.   After we filled her up with ipecac to no response at home (she had her jaw clamped so tight, she managed to make it the whole ride to the emergency room in the back of Scott’s truck without blowing a single chunk) the vet was able to give her a shot and finally get her to toss those cookies, and q-tips, and other miscellaneous items they kept bringing out in a kitty-litter box filled with dog-vomit to show me.   (Again, I stress, the dog was NOT in our care this weekend!)  One Vet Tech actually came out early on and said “were those oatmeal chocolate chip cookies?   They smell good.”

Anyway, thanks to the help of the Studio City Animal Emergency team who kept her under close watch over night and managed to avoid the dreaded Pancreatitis they feared could be fatal, (and of course the real heroes of the night Marcos, Lisa, and Candice) Madden is home and back to her old tricks, currently trying to find a way around the baby-gate Scott just installed in the kitchen.

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