Cactus - 1, Axel - 0

July 26, 2008 · Filed Under Pets · Comments 

Having pets is a constant battle. Yeah, they are cute. They do things that warm your heart, that make you laugh, that make you tell silly stories when friends are over (ever heard the one about our dog Pee Wee and the “Ghost Humping”?). But, there’s also a flip side. Pets are a pain in the ass. Our two small dogs can not get the concept of not pissing or crapping in the house. It drives me insane. We will let them out in the back yard, they’ll hang out, come back inside and pee in the hall. WTF?

Our big dog, an Irish Setter, has always been too smart for his own good. His name is Axel, but mostly I call him Dufus. When he was a small pup we used to lock out of certain rooms. He quickly learned how to press down on the door handle and push the door open. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a short time later he learned how to escape a room by pressing down on the door handle and pulling the door open. All this meant was that he was free to roam the house and get in to trouble wherever he saw fit.

But still, even though they are a pain, when one of ‘em has something bad happen, it’s just like having it happen to one of your kids.

Axel has an electronic collar, so he has a bit of freedom when out on walks. For as crazy as he is around the house, put that shock collar on him and he’s like a show dog. He usually trots ahead 20 - 30 feet. If he gets too far ahead, a quick zap and he’ll pause long enough to come back in to a comfortable range. This lets us keep him close enough in case people are in their yard, other dogs or cars are in the area, we can wrangle him in and keep everybody safe.

Yesterday my wife took Axel out for a walk. As he’s trotting along they are going by a house that has a few cactus in the front yard. As Chris explained it to me, “it was like the cactus jumped out at him.” One of the bulbs from the cactus got stuck in Axel’s fur. This is one time where it’s a good thing that our dog is overweight. Because of his weight and the placement of the cactus bulb being in the middle of his back, he wasn’t able to reach back and grab it with his mouth. That would have made the problem a whole lot worse.

My wife, ever the quick thinker, rushed him home and grabbed some gloves and some hair clippers and went to work. This was the result:

cactus-glove 

Sadly, the gloves did not stop Chris from getting cactus needles stuck in her fingers.

We rushed him to the vet, as it was after noon on a Friday, and they suggested keeping him over night so they could work on getting the needles out over some time as he’s quite excitable. We called them first thing this morning and they said he was all set and ready to go. When we got there she gave him one last once over, told us that it took 3 people to hold him down and keep him occupied while a fourth person removed the needles, charged us only $60 for the visit and sent us on our way. I gotta tell ya, I was expecting to pay a fair bit more so I was quite pleased!

So, Dufus is back home. The groomers suggested we wait a few days to give the area time to heal up before we bring him in to get a hair cut and a bath. He’s got a bit of a bald spot. I need to make sure and take a picture to add to the book of “Dumb things done by Dufus”.

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Has your dog ever told you what he wants?

January 4, 2008 · Filed Under Pets · Comments 

At the house we have 3 dogs; Cooper, Pee-Wee and Axel. Cooper and Pee-Wee are both Chihuahua’s and Axel is an Irish Setter. Axel is a big, clumsy dog with way too much energy. We’ve had him for about 5 years since we was about 9 weeks old. From the time we got him, he’s slept in a kennel in the house at night. We basically do this for our own sanity. When we was really young, the dog would chew up everything he could get his mouth on. Leaving him out of the kennel at night with no supervision would be a very costly proposition. Apparently, that’s no longer the case.

The night before last, as we were getting ready for bed, Axel had been put outside to potty for the last time of the evening and then put in his kennel. We were upstairs in bed and Axel began to whimper/bark. This is uncommon. Normally, when we turn off the lights downstairs, he knows it’s bed time and we don’t hear from him again until morning. This time, though, he wouldn’t stop. So I got up and let him outside again. He milled around but didn’t do anything. I put him back in the kennel and went upstairs. The whimper/bark continued. After about 10 minutes of it, he finally trailed off to sleep and that was the end of that. So I thought.

Last night was almost an exact repeat of the night before. After putting him outside and then in to the kennel, the whimper/bark started up again. Chris and I were playing a game upstairs and I said to her, “Ya know what, I think he just doesn’t want to sleep in the kennel. Should we just let him out and see what happens?” Chris agreed and I headed down stairs. I let him out of the kennel and went back to the bedroom. Axel followed me up the stairs but stopped in the hall, curled up in front of our door and went to sleep. When we finished our game I got up to turn out the lights and go to sleep. Axel woke up, got up and walked in to our room and found a new place to lay. He curled up again and went right back to sleep. When I woke up this morning, there was Axel, sound asleep on our floor. In a different spot than where he started, but from what I could tell, he had slept in our room all night and hadn’t got himself in to any trouble.

I’ll let him try it again tonight and see what happens. Who knows, we may not have a need for the super-sized kennel in the living room any more. That would be awesome!

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