I get my point across
January 23rd 2011 5:30 pm
I have pretty much perfected the art of getting my point across to my humans. If there’s something on the counter, stove top, or in the refrigerator that I want… we’ll let’s just say I know how to let the humans know.
I started this little “trick” back many months ago when mom made hot dogs for dinner & didn’t share. Back then I just would sit in front of what I wanted & stare. Well, that worked OK, but not well enough. Now I figured out how to super charge my demands.
See it goes like this. There’s a tub of dog cookies on the kitchen counter. I want some cookies. The humans don’t seem to understand that I need to have dessert after my dinner and a bedtime snack too. So I start out with the original sit & stare. Sometime this gets noticed, but more times than not, the peeps are more interested in whatever is on that stupid TV. So that means it is time to super charge my demand.
Super charging means that I take the above mentioned technique and add a very low growl to it. Mom almost always hears it. I think she has hearing close to us pups. She can hear EVERYTHING! Even the things us pups don’t want her to hear us doing. Anyway, the growl gets noticed 99% of the time. Of course this just amuses mom to no great end. But mom is mean. She won’t immediately get me the item that I am requesting. Nope, she makes me wait. Sometimes it’s only a few minutes and sometimes it’s as long as 30 minutes. But 9 times out of 10 I get the item I requested. If I don’t get that item, I at least get some sort of reward. Mom thinks that I’m starting to be scary smart!
My ruff year
January 28th 2011 10:24 am
This past year has been a ruff one for me & my family. Some of you may remember that I lost my best play buddy, my sister Annie, to a sudden brain tumor back in March. I still miss her 😦 I was so depressed mom adopted Pixie to be my companion & playmate. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pixie, but she sure isn’t an Annie.
Things went fairly well until summer. Then my big sis Abby got pancreatitis. She felt so bad, but she eventually bounced back. You could tell her age & health issues were slowly creeping up on her.
Then things really took a nose dive in December. Abby got sick again, she’d suddenly lost weight. Mom took her back to the vet, and got the devastating news that Abby had cancer. Things didn’t look good.
Then right before Christmas, mom went out for a quick shopping trip after we had eaten our dinner. When she got home, she gave us treats. We LOVE treats. But my brother Ty didn’t want his and he was acting strange. Mom touched is sides and she knew what was wrong. He had bloat. Off to the after hours pet clinic for emergency surgery!
January rolls around and it seems like all we were getting was snow. Abby’s health was continuing to decline. She lost her battle with cancer on the 10th. That same day, my kitty brother, Pip, went to the vet with an UTI.
Pip sort of recovered from the UTI but something else was going on. Back to the vet he went. He stayed there for a week. Nothing the vets tried worked. He went to the Rainbow Bridge on the 25th of this month to join Annie & Abby.
Mom & I say enough is enough! It’s time to turn things around and only have good, happy, positive things happen! That’s my wish for the rest of the year, not only for my family, but for all my pals & their families too!!
In Memory of Abby
In Memory of Pip
Patton 2.0
February 7th 2011 6:56 pm
One of my friends has a mom that has been feeling a little sad. Well, I like to think that my stories can help cheer her up & make her smile. So I’m dedicating this tale to her. *paws crossed that it works*
Patton 2.0
He’s brighter, stronger, smarter…. He’s Patton 2.0
I’ve been working on being annoying and cute, all at the same time. I have been programmed to wake up at 6:45 every day and I mean every day. I don’t know the meaning of sleeping in on a weekend.
At 6:35am, I hop off the bed and make a perimeter patrol around the inside of the house. All looks well, so I hop back on the bed. Did I mention that my bouncing on/off has woken up my mom? And she isn’t pleased.
6:40 am – I start making sure that mom does not oversleep. You know some one has to put in the hours to make sure I have plenty of kibble, cookies and toys to enjoy. I make sure mom doesn’t oversleep by doing a few assorted things.
1) I lay my chin on her shoulder & snort in her ear. If mom wasn’t trying to sleep, she would thing this is cute. This usually results in her turning over and putting her back to me. I’m pretty sure she’s muttering about how she still has 5 minutes to sleep.
2) I continue with the staring routine and add in the super cute “wiggle waggly tail”. This is a fairly simple move. I just wag my curly tail like a rattle snake. I make sure I put lots of effort into it too. This will make the bed shake and earn me more muttering.
3) If all else fails, it’s time to break out the heavy guns. And that is simply my body weight. I will drape myself over mom’s side. Most of the time, this makes her roll over onto her back. This gives me the perfect chance to make my move. I stand up and sit back down on her chest!
Option #3 yields the best results to date. Mom usually start squealing that I’m suffocating her. Ha! I know better than that. If she can’t breath, she can’t squeal. I reward her with a nice sloppy smooch. And… well, if she starts rubbing my ears and scratching my head I will move off of her. By this time, the alarm clock is playing some sort of annoying music. This means it is kibble time.
I prance down the hallway, snag a toy out of my toy box and continue into the living room while I sling my toy around. Oh happy morning! It’s kibble time!!
However, I will admit that weekends do require some extra work. Mom is much more stubborn on the weekends. Every now and then I’ll toss her a bone and let her sleep until 8:30am.
Maybe Patton 3.0 will figure out a way to fix the weekend “bug”.
Scary night
February 9th 2011 10:32 am
I had a scary night last night. It started out normal enough, eating my kibble, getting a treat, snuggling on the couch. Then it happened. My brother Ty had a seizure.
Now mind you the ER vet told the pawrents that he’d had several while he was there having emergency surgery for bloat (right before Christmas). Since he’d never had them before, this was sort of chalked up to the stress & medicines he was on at the ER. He was put on phenobarbitol to control the seizures, “just in case”. Well our regular vet was working on weaning Ty off the phenobarb since he hadn’t had any seizures or signs of them. Next week would have been his last week on the medicine.
Mom took Ty to work with her today so she can keep a watch on him. And to keep him safe from me. See, I got really upset last night when I saw him having the seizure. After Ty recovered from the seizure, I would growl at him anytime he came close to me. I even had my hackles up. By the time bedtime rolled around, I had pretty much calmed down. But to be on the safe side, mom thought a day apart might not be a bad idea, especially if there was the slightest chance that Ty might have another seizure.
So after speaking with the vet this morning, the decision has been made to keep Ty on the phenobarb permanently. And his dosage will be increase to 2 pills a day. Hopefully this will prevent any new seizures. Mom certainly hopes so. She says she can’t take too much more doggy drama right now.
Snicker, Snicker, Snort!
February 10th 2011 1:10 pm
Oh man! I forgot to tell you guys what I did to my dad. Heeheehee! Of course he didn’t think it was funny, but my mom dies laughing every time he mentions it. Well, here goes–
Earlier this week I was lounging on the couch watching TV with the pawrents. Mom was on one end, dad on the other and myself stretched out between. Of course mom was graced with my head in her lap and dad… well, let’s just say he had a less than pleasant side of me. See… I’ve had a little stinky butt issue. It clears up then months later it will flare up again. Needless to say, it had flared up again. And no, I did not smell like roses.
Dad had made several comments to mom this particular night about how bad I smelled & he figured it was time for a little V-E-T visit. Hmmmm…. I heard that mister! So I decided to extract some revenge. All night long, I allowed that area to come in direct contact with dad’s jean clad leg. Heeheehee! He didn’t realize that I was releasing my secret weapon until it was too late!
I cured my stink butt problem by releasing the stink right on to dad’s leg! Heeheehee!! And guess what! It worked! Dad had to immediately launder his pants because they smelled SO bad! And you know what? I haven’t had stink butt since that night! No V-E-T visit for this smart boy!
Adding to my Skillz!
March 14th 2011 8:46 pm
I’m adding to my skill set. I’ve told you about my “growling” to express what I want. Know I’m adding something new to the mix. I’m starting to speak in response to questions. The other night, I’m laying on the couch between the pawrents. Dad says “Patton, do you want a cookie?” I sit up, look at him, look at the kitchen, look back at him. Then I hop onto the ottoman look at dad and let out a great big woof! I proceeded to escort dad to the kitchen and then I assumed the sitting pretty position. That was an awesome cookie. And I impressed the ‘rents with my new speaking abilities! Watch me talk in the video below!
Patton's Diary 