Dog Names

One of my Facebook friends is a Weimeraner owner. Has had many in her lifetime and currently has 3. She issued a Facebook challenge thusly:

Dog name challenge: Post a picture that represents your dog's name. Here are my girls. Her dogs are Mouse, Olivia, and Tootles (one of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan), so she posted this picture.

Ok, Fun! So a lot of people started posting pictures to represent their dogs. There was a picture of a poppy plant for a dog named: of course, Poppy. Geoffrey Chaucer for a dog named Chaucer.

You get the concept.

So for Dieter, here's what I said and posted. We ended up with some fun comments.

Me: Not the source of the name inspiration, but all I could come up with!

 

 

FB Friend #1: Is that Jim Parsons: If so, in what?

 

FB Friend #2:  Dieter?

 

FB Friend #1: Yeah! How did you know?

FB Friend #2:  Old SNL character by Mike Meyers.

FB Friend #1: Oh, that explains why I didn't recognize it.

Me: Yes Dieter from SNL. "Now is ze time on Sprockets when ve dance...".

FB Friend #2: I don't want to touch his monkey!

 

Me:  But we picked the name Dieter because it means warrior/protector of the people

Me: He would bite you if you messed with his Monkey!

 

Yeah, the old Mike Meyers sketch was pretty funny. For SNL at least. But Dieter the dog has a much more meaningful name than some silly comedy sketch. 

 

Mind Meld Dog

I've got to hand it to Dieter, he's good. Very good. I truly believe he's perfected the Vulcan Mind Meld. The Interwebs define it as: a telepathic link between two individuals, allowing for the exchange of thoughts, thus in essence allowing the participants to become one mind. 

No, honest. Dieter can do that. 

You will give me snacks. Now. Do it!
Drooling to commence shortly.

It usually involves food--me eating some and him wanting to eat what I'm eating. He sits in front of me and gets a very solemn, even stern, look on his face. And he stares right at me. I try to ignore him and tell him it's not gonna work. 

But then he ups the ante. He starts a controlled drool. Nothing nasty and waterfall-y. Just one thin little drool spittle. All the while staring at me with those sad, brown eyes and sending out telepathic dog communication. 

"You will give the dog some of that Swiss cheese. The dog needs the Swiss cheese. Why are you taking so long, human? Can't you see the dog needs the Swiss cheese? Heartless. That's what you are!"

It always works. I cave to the mind meld messages and I tear off a couple little pieces of the tasty item he's craving (usually cheese). He then happily snarfs them down. 

Mind meld over. I am finally free from the canine Svengali. Until the next snack attack hits me. 

A cat in a dog blog?

Dieter has had some troubles off and on with ripping his dew claws. It's happened a couple times. Then just this past Saturday, he was chasing a toy in the kitchen, and in the process he slid into the dog gate. This time he ripped his "pinky" claw. Now normally we trundle him off to the vet to have it checked out. But Lloyd's just gone through some pretty major surgery and isn't supposed to wrangle an 80-pound dog for a while.

Luckily, our vet has a Visiting Vet service, so Dr Vigil came to the house, trimmed the torn claw, gave Dieter an antibiotic shot and a shot for pain, and even did a blood draw for his heartworm test. He put a muzzle on Dieter...just in case. But he was laughing, because while he was muzzling the dog, Dieter was happily wagging his tail. Again, Dieter makes friends and impresses people with his great temperament.

So the headline of this post mentioned a cat. Here's why.

Rory's opinion is the same about the dog and the Visiting Vet.

Dr Vigil usually comes to the house to round up Mimsy and Rory, the feral cats I took in back in 2004. They've come a long way on the friendliness scale, but there's no way they will let me catch them and put them in a cat carrier. So Dr Vigil comes over and we have a tag team set up. Lloyd has a fishing dipnet to catch a cat; I try to throw a towel over the flailing, trapped cat; and Dr Vigil tries to give them their shots without getting bitten. One time poor Mimsy got hopelessly caught in the dipnet and she said it was like being on some wild ride at Great America.

In spite of Mimy's travails, it's always been Rory (Mimsy's son) who is the most timid and afraid. Heck, it's taken him more than 10 years to even let me pet him. Last night as I was doling out the cat food, only Mimsy showed up. I just figured Rory was off doing something else, like sleeping. But later, when the cat treat bag didn't lure him, I began to wonder if something was wrong.

Who's there? Is that vet guy gone?

Then it dawned on me. He saw Dr Vigil come in and recognized his voice. "Oh, no. I'm not letting that guy get anywhere near me." Rory's favorite hiding spot is behind a large bookcase in the living room and I'm sure that's where he was.

He finally emerged about 10 PM last night, looking over his shoulder ever step of the way.

You just can't be too careful these days!

Go Cubs Go

So between the two of us, Lloyd and I have been Cubs fans since...oh, let's just say longer than dirt. So this has been quite a ride this year, with the ultimate culmination of the Cubs winning the World Series. Still can't believe I'm typing those words!

Since he's been a little puppy, Dieter's been raised a Cubs fan. I don't think he follows the game quite like we do, but he's learned that when his humans leap up and holler "woo hoo" it's a good thing. So he runs over and leaps around with us. Maybe he's like my friend Asha, who blithely admits to being sports challenged.

For the playoffs, I bought Dieter a Cubs bandana. I always wear my lucky Cubs shirt(s) and figured it couldn't hurt to have a lucky bandana. I don't think Dieter quite grasped the gravitas of the situation, but he gamely wore the bandana. I think he did notice that his humans were much more nervous, worried, angst-ridden, (fill in the blank with words reflecting abject worry and upset). His dad seemed to be cursing more than usual. And stomping off while muttering it was all too much for him to watch. And mom? Well, she was crying quite a bit during ballgames, and that was a bit out of the ordinary. Oh, and she was channel switching a lot when the other team was batting.
 
Luckily the planets were in alignment and when the Cubs actually won the World Series (sorry, time out to breathe into a paper bag...still makes me hyperventilate just thinking about it!), the humans and Dieter stood in the middle of the family room and jumped for joy. He stands on his hind legs and we all hop around. We could almost be mistaken for the Three Graces, we're that picturesque and all.

A few weeks after the series was "history," I started singing "Go, Cubs, Go"--just because I could!--and Dieter came running over and acted all excited. So he knows that song. That makes him both a Cubs fan and a Steve Goodman fan, since Steve's the one who penned the song. 

Now we're all recuperating from the wild Post Season. Dieter's bandana is put away, but we might break it out for Spring Training. Pitchers and catchers report February 14!

I cannot be bought with a mere cookie!

A woman I work with was recounting how her husband--who is a UPS driver--always has a stash of dog biscuits in his truck. Apparently the "regulars" on his route know him and know that he always doles out dog biscuits. But one German Shepherd on his route was smarter than the other dogs. This particular dog figured out that the stash of dog biscuits is in the truck, so as my coworker's husband started to drive off, he heard a noise and looked back into the truck. There was the GSD acting all nonchalant. "I'll just ride along and have a snack if that's ok..."

Her point was that German Shepherds are smart. Yes, I know that. I have a brilliant genius GSD for a son. And it seems that my genius son also figured out that UPS drivers are good to have show up at the house.

I had ordered a new cell phone and they'd tried delivering it twice, but couldn't leave it because they needed a signature. On the third day, I was was working from home and heard the doorbell. I went downstairs and there was Dieter by the front door, barking and looking at the UPS guy who was standing on our porch. It dawns on me that Dieter had somehow unlatched the gate and was no longer a corralled critter.

I told the deliver guy "one second," and he nodded and held up a Milk Bone! I somehow tricked Dieter to go back in his area (not that he's totally untrained, but when there's a fun guy ringing the door bell, I'm amazed he obeyed). The guy said: "He knows me. I've been trying to deliver your cell phone the past two days." He even gave me the dog biscuit for Dieter.

I gave it to Dieter instead of eating it myself. Now don't laugh...I contemplated it, but then thought better of it. Lloyd forever fell out of his niece's dog's good graces by doing the unthinkable with her Milk Bone. Maia the dog was pretty timid and Lloyd was trying to entice her to take the Milk Bone he was offering her. She hung back, and so finally Lloyd got tired of cajoling her and took a bite of the dog biscuit. Maia barked her head off at him and never totally forgave him for what he did.

Fun to look at, but not worth eating.

The next day, I discovered that evidently Dieter didn't want to hurt my feelings. While he gladly took the biscuit I gave him, I later found it, sitting by the basement door. "Meh, biscuits, bleeech." He's even indifferent to fancy dog cookies, so I give him what he loves: freeze-dried liver treats, Stella and Chewy salmon flavored treats, and freeze dried lung (I know, ick--but it was a training treat for nose works). He has a Wobble Kong and I put his regular salmon kibble in it with a few Stella and Chewy's for a special treat. Now that's fun.

But the UPS guy is still fun, too. It's always fun when the doorbell rings. 

So tasty

When we were in Galena, one of the places we shopped was the Galena Canning Company. We bought some sugar-free jelly and discovered some interesting-sounding summer sausages. We bought elk, bison, boar, and venison sausages. The humans have been nibbling on the assorted sausages and
enjoying them.

You know where this is going, right?

Fast forward a week or so and the other evening I noticed a couple of empty sandwich bags on the kitchen floor. I asked Lloyd if he'd dropped them.

What? That sausage wasn't for me?
If only I coulda knew!

His head started snapping back and forth and I think he said something pithy like "Wha? What the? Oh, [expletive]."

I looked a little closer and there on the floor next to the empty bags was a neatly peeled off label for venison sausage.

All focus turned on Dieter, who did his best shocked indignation look. "Who, me? Why am I always to blame....sluuuurp. Have you got any more or that tasty sausage, by the way?"

I was more concerned that the sausage casing might cause some intestinal issues. And also figured sausage might be a little rich for his gut. But after a call to cousin, she reassured me  and I calmed down. We will observe the hound and his bathroom habits.

The good news is all is well with Dieter. The bad news is we have no more of our favorite sausage. I guess human and canine alike can attest to the goodness of this sausage. Luckily I found that the Galena Canning Company has a mail order option and I've ordered some replacement sausage.

It will be on lockdown once it arrives.

Escape artist

There's the old saw: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Similarly, if a dog escapes from his gated area and there is no human to say "no, no, NO, come back here," does the mess he made really exist? Does the dog not care if there is no thrill of doing something naughty and getting caught doing it?

Deep philosophical thoughts, eh? This is what prompted such musings. Lloyd took me out to dinner to celebrate my birthday, and as we walked up to the front door, he said: "Oh, he's there waiting to meet us."

It finally dawned on me that the "he" he was referring to was Dieter. There he was, standing by the front door, wagging his tail, and grinning. Someone (nameless at this point, but I have a prime suspect) didn't latch the gate again. And the ever-vigilant Dieter tested the gate and discovered it hadn't been latched properly. 

Figuring how to get on the side where the
cat food lives

All the cat food has been devoured, one cat food bowl is still unaccounted for, there were wash clothes strewn about, and an empty container that needed to go into the recycling turned up in the upstairs hall. 

There was no sign of the cats at first, but Mimsy finally appeared. So at least I know she wasn't eaten. No sign of Rory yet, but I'm pretty sure he's still extant, as well.

I guess Dieter was decorating for my birthday. "I'll bet mom would like some washcloths and such artfully arranged." But all in all, there wasn't much destruction. So I guess he has finally grown up.

But now all I can think of is this: I just hope he doesn't do more decorating after eating all that dry cat food!

Oh, and this just in: Rory is alive and well, too. The cats are complaining bitterly about the emptiness of their bowls, too. That soon will be rectified. And the missing cat food bowl showed up in the family room, where Dieter had also removed the dowel rod/security bar for the sliding door. Trying to make it easier for robbers maybe or hoping he could practice his home security skills that way? Now that would have made a mess!