My Dog

My dog got to go to the park (different ones) two times today. That's a great day.

I may not be doing a lot right in life but at least I'm treating my dog well. And that ought to be scoring me some points, right?

She looks at me with devotion. And I look back at her with devotion. I'd like to know what she's thinking. Maybe, "Alpha Dog nice guy." Which is true, I am pretty nice.

All the petting, cleaning up after, saying "Good girl," etc. People see me coming and, if they knew about how great I was with this dog, they'd surely be going, "There's that guy who's so great with his dog."

And if they knew about this blog, they'd be saying, "Let's read his blog today and see what he said about us." And his dog.

The Language Animals Know

I'm constantly on the lookout for what my animals know, the cats and dog.

They start out knowing nothing about us, our mannerisms, what we say, all that. But then in the course of time they learn all sorts of things, whether to trust us or not.

Somehow they come to associate their name with themselves. I'm still not exactly sure how that happens, except obviously by repetition. But whether they know the names of the others, that's not always clear. I do think our dog knows the words we use for the cats individually.

Then there's all the other things we communicate, especially with the dog. The dog comes in for a lot more interaction because of the bathroom duties. And she, being a dog, cares to be with us more in an intimate and ongoing way than the cats. So she responds to things that are kind, sweet, complimentary, and comes to know things like "Stay" and "No." We think of "sit" as a kind of trick, which is just more of the same.

One thing the cats get trained to respond to, by getting a treat or by having something that will be to their liking, is "Kitty, kitty, kitty" in a high pitched call. You figure they're a blank slate till they get the associations.

Pets To Adopt

I went to Pet Smart yesterday and made the serious mistake of looking at the cats that have been left behind. How sad. Each one said something about how their owner had to give them up.

Oh, I can't see that, but I can't adopt any cats. I have two cats and there's no way we want any others disturbing their routine. But it makes me sad to see, and to contemplate what these owners (and cats) had to go through when they needed to give them up. It must have been terrible.

I don't want to look at them. I don't want to get their hopes up. I feel sorry for them, because I know a cat likes to have a home and not to be in a glass cage in a pet store. They want to be sleeping on a bed, stretched on a couch, curled in a chair.

Not Wanting To Breathe

I examined my dog's nose to see if dogs had nostrils or just a smooth, uninterrupted surface. It turns out she does have nostrils.

I told my dog I wouldn't want to be breathing through a dog's nose. I would be polluted by its body.

The cat also has nostrils. I told the cat I wouldn't want to be breathing through a cat's nose. I would also be polluted by its body.

They told me, 'We wouldn't want to breathe through your nose either.' I halfway expected that.

I told them, 'Hey, my air's OK.'

'Ditto,' they said.

A Day Of Disgusting Things

Yesterday I nearly reached my breaking point on disgusting things.

I wrote about the big huge dead Talking Catfish that had been wedged in and plugging up my toilet (unbeknownst) since Thursday. So, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The toilet was having a terrible time. I had joked that maybe it was that fish. Then it turned out to be that fish. I reached in there and pulled him out, the details of which I wrote about yesterday. Disgusting.

But that was just one disgusting thing, although probably the crowning example. The others were the ordinary ones of cat poop, dog poop, pet strewing garbage all over, the cat puking, and getting some kind of blank gunk from the toilet under my finger nails. To be fair, this last one was not body waste or fish waste but was just the normal build up of black stuff that sometimes you see around gaskets.

Last night, though, when I was tired, there was nearly one last example of disgusting things. And I thought I saw it all. There was a Tupperware container setting on the counter. I opened it and saw the most vile, filthy, disgusting bunk of something in there, coated and now slick with blue mold, blue through and through. I about lost it. And I did lose ... the Tupperware. No way was I digging that out and trying to clean that dish. I threw it completely away, tied up the garbage sack (which included the dead fish carcass at this point) and turned my back on the whole works.

That lead me to preemptively empty another couple containers of food ... before it rotted.

I'm queasy as can be at this point but thinking it was over ... except there was still the task of taking the dog out, cleaning up dog poop in the yard ... then coming back in thinking it was over ... until I remembered, I still need to clean the cat box!

One of the most disgusting days on record.