A Little Bit About the Dingo – A Very Special Pet

Dingo is a very special pet. He is a constant source of entertainment and aggravation. He does a lot of stuff and comes equipped with many features. Some of his features include an auto-return mode. When we go for a hike, Dingo runs ahead a little way and then stops and returns to make sure our group is intact. He doesn’t like it if he can’t see us, so he is constantly running back and smashing into our legs because it is important for him to have physical contact. He also has a learning mode. Dingo is ALWAYS in learning mode. The on/off switch for learning mode is stuck in the on position. Recently we started using a bark collar on him because his alarm feature is always going off. The collar shoots out a fine mist of citronella whenever he barks. It worked for about a week. He barked, the collar sprayed, he looked confused, and stopped barking. The learning feature quickly kicked into high gear and now we have a dog that runs up to us, tilts his head back ever so slightly, then barks so the citronella mist sprays directly at us. He will bark at us until it is empty. Along with those features, he does other wonderful things like eats my panties, licks my flip-flops until they are soaked, hunts Chubs endlessly (he thinks we don’t know what he is doing when he goes upstairs to “get a drink of water”), he conveniently locates his face into any plate or bowl on the table, and he believes it is his job to herd the English mastiff who outweighs him by over 120 pounds. He will drag a whole giant-size package of toilet paper out of the bathroom and invite the other dogs to help him shred all of it in the living room while we are gone. All of the dogs are very pleased to show us their decorating skills when we return home. Most dogs would hide or tuck their tails. Not ours. You will never see three dogs that are more pleased with themselves than our bunch! Dingo is a very helpful pet too. He will happily sort and shred the mail for us. Unfortunately he will often take it off of the counter before we have had a chance to read any of it. He is not a snuggly pet. He is very stiff and robotic and waddles when he walks, and really, he just wants to bite water, chase his ball, chew a bone, and bark at cows. That’s it.
Yes, Dingo is a multi-featured pet that tries our patience constantly and creates a new problem as soon as one is solved, but we love him very much and are thankful to have such a comical pet to keep us laughing…and crying…and…DINGO!…are those my panties?!!

Dingo letting me balance a new toy on his head

Dingo on his way to Pike’s Peak

Oblivion Nation

Word of the day: Oblivion

No, I am not referring to a video game or a movie. I am not talking about a state of being…exactly.

The oblivion I am referring to is: a person who is completely unaware that his or her behavior is so shockingly stupid that the only thing an observer can do is shake his or her head and walk away.

Oblivions, (plural of oblivion), can be found very frequently at Costco. In fact, whenever I go to Costco, which is only to buy dog food now,(a side effect of the oblivion), they are there in force. All I want to do is take my cart to the very farthest end of the store, because that is where they put the dog food much to my chagrin, grab the dog food, and get the hell out of there. What happens is this: A herd of oblivions are already lingering at the entrance. I haven’t even gotten into to the store yet. The televisions are the first thing to greet me when I finally get past the oblivions still searching for their Costco cards to show the greeter. Now, I don’t even know how to explain this, but for some reason, Costco has set up patio furniture near the televisions. There is a family, sitting on the patio furniture watching TV. I’m not talking about testing out the chairs or the televisions, I’m talking about feet tucked up on the cushion, children in lap, eating snacks and watching movies! Are you kidding me? I did what one can only do when faced with oblivions–I shook my head and walked away.

I have a system at Costco where I power my cart through the side aisles to get as far past the main aisle before I am forced to enter it. It cuts at least 8 minutes off of my time. How is that possible? Well, when faced with the long line of sample gods on the main aisle who are  pedaling virtually the same thing every time I am there, oblivions lose all sense of where they are and what they are doing. Carts stop dead in the center of the aisle. Oblivion mouths agape, eyes glazed over, slowly approaching the sample gods quivering with anticipation. The Oblivions will abandon their carts in the aisle and wait until the sample gods make more of whatever it is that they are serving. At this point I have to weave through the mass of abandoned oblivion carts which are turned in every direction. When I finally make it to the dog food, I throw it in the cart and head for the check-out. I work my way back through the oblivion sample-hungry masses and find the check-out lane with the fewest people standing in it. As I said before, all I want to do is get the hell out of there, but even when I am done checking out, there is a bottleneck of oblivions walking slowly toward the exit where receipts must be checked against what is in carts. I am dying here. I just want out. Should I breech Costco protocol and speed past the glacial oblivion in front of me with a cart piled so high that there is less oxygen at the top? Yes! Yes! Yes! And I am in my car driving away while oblivions are happily revelling in the carnival-like atmosphere eating pizza in the Costco food court.

 

Pet of the day

Today’s featured pet is Chubs. He is essentially his own chair. Does anybody else’s cat sit like this? It’s shocking. I’ve had Chubs for about four years. His name wasn’t always Chubs. It started out as Kona, but he quickly packed on some weight and sounded like thunder walking on the stairs, so something had to be done. Name change! Chubs has been a great companion, but he has some…shall I call them strange habits? Let me preface this by saying Chubs is a neutered male cat. Now here it is- Chubs cares a great deal for anything made of fleece . He has several fleece “lovers” around the house. I have walked in on Chubs having his way with a fleece blanket. I stopped dead and stared at him, mouth agape, and he just looked at me like he’s saying “just keep on walking, this doesn’t concern you.” Stunned-that is exactly what I did. He was straddling the blanket with one end in his mouth. I won’t describe exactly how it went down. I can’t. I now have to warn guests to contain their fleece items lest Chubs seduce them. He has on occasion dragged a large stuffed bunny from my daughter’s room. He dominated that too.

Okay, so my cat is kind of pervy, but life would be a lot less interesting without him. There will be more stories about Chubs in the future, (there are lots of them). I hope this one made you laugh. I have three other pets: an English mastiff, a cattle dog and an Aussie mix. These will most certainly be featured in my future posts. All I can do sometimes is laugh at them, so I will share their stories so you can laugh too.

This is the dingo

 

This is the Dingo, and he did eat my panties…more than once.