Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - NoDogNow

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 ... 41
31
Newfoundland Pictures / Re: lainey,morgan,sydney,penny,tasha
« on: August 29, 2006, 09:13:27 am »
Well, those long legged wildebeests are pretty wild.  But I totally misread it too. 

Maybe if you called them gnus...


32
Give up, Chelle.

You're Ellie May Clampett. Barefeet, menagerie and all.

I told you, we're totally onto you. The bunnies talked.

33
Newfoundland Discussions / Re: What'd we do wrong?!!
« on: August 29, 2006, 08:45:31 am »
I'm totally with you on the protecting your kids thing. As much as we all love our furries, we all know that skin-kids come first.

One thing to keep in mind also is the idea of dogs as man's best friend.

Not every human being is going to have the right combination of characteristic s to be your best friend; and neither is every dog. Solomon's characteristic s, even with the best intentions, just weren't the right fit for your family at this point in time. You've made the best decision for BOTH of you, as hard as it is.  :-*

Let me join the basset bandwagon. The best thing about a basset, since you have small kids, is that the basset is NOT going to be taller than they are! One of the things that leads, IMO, to pack issues with young Big Paws of many different breeds and human children is that at 6, 7, 8 months of age, the puppy is 3 or 4 times the SIZE of human kids--leading puppy to a sense that, 'ha, I'm the biggest, I get to be the boss!' And a big paw can often unconsiously convince the kid to believe this, too. I think that kids often have an easier time learning how to be 'alpha' with smaller breeds as their first dog.

A basset doesn't get taller than your kids. ;) 

Plus, bassets are just enormously fun.  Some friends of my aunt's have had bassets for 30 years, and I've never heard of a single problem in all that time with one of them getting aggressive with a child.  A couple of them have chewed the crap out of some potential thieves and a stalker, though!

Besides...I can't think of anything any cuter than a basset hound. Those EARS, those EYES, THAT FACE!  :)

34
Games & Jokes / Re: What breed of dog are you?
« on: August 29, 2006, 07:44:52 am »
I think I'm humiliated. 

I'm a doxie.


35
All right, just admit it.

You're the one who taught them that, so you can blame your dirty kitchen floors on the DOGS, instead of admitting it's YOU who runs around barefoot in the mud!

We're on to you around here.  ;) ;D

36
Groans, Gripes, Brags & Boasts / Re: DEMON DOG--update
« on: August 29, 2006, 07:28:56 am »
She's just the FUNNIEST thing. She had another incident.

Last night as I got off the bus, there was cop car parked at the gate again, a wrecked bike and a really angry guy yelling at the cop. (:o NOT!)

He had ridden too close to her gate, clearly; she barked him right off his bike. ;D  ;D  So he's got the cop over there, yelling about how she's a dangerous menace, yada, yada.  My Demon-Roxie is just sitting there at the far end of the barred gate, keeping an eye on them both--until I walked up to the gate. 

She immediately broke her stare, came loping down, and waved her paw at me. So of course, I stopped, I shook her paw, and told her good wave, good girl, and scratched her chin and her chest and just generally made a bit of a scene.

The cop walks over, standing back. "Is this your dog?"

She's slobbering all over my hands and just wiggling. "No, but she knows me. She's a very good girl." Rubbing her eyebrows, with my whole arms right over the top of her gaping wide open jaws. "She doesn't bark at everyone, you know. She only barks at people she doesn't know who get too close to her gate. Come stand by me and see."

So the cop walked within a couple steps of me, and sure enough, she stepped back from my hand (almost like she was saying 'excuse me, I have to work for a minute.') She stepped over directly in front of him, put her head down and glared at him right in the eye and went GA-ROWF!! at him, quite emphatically. (Not only was he too close to her gate, he was interfering with her scratch!) The cop stepped right next to the fence, and she did her 'wild attack' display, jumping up and putting her paws on the bars and just sounding like 700 devils.

I'm standing there about 3 feet away, just watching her. The cop looks at me and says, "Is this all she does? Jumps up on the fence and raises h*ll?"

"Yes. You know, if you step back from the gate, she'll stop--probably she'll come right back to me. She just doesn't let strangers get close to the gates." 

So the cop stepped back a couple steps. "You've seen her do this a lot?"

"She's been doing it for about 3 years now." Sure enough, as soon as he was far enough from her gate, she came right back over to me, and put her chin up, just smiling. I told her she was so smart, guard the gate, good girl! and she just wiggled.

The guy has just been standing there with his fat mouth hanging open, waiting for me to get my arm chewed off. He started to say something, but the cop just put his hand up. "Sir, I told you: there's nothing I can do. She's on her property, it's MARKED with a guard dog sign.  Stay away from the gate! You're on a bike, you should be in the street anyway."

The guy huffed and puffed a few more minutes, but he finally left. I'm kneeling down, rubbing her jowls when the cop says from behind me, "So what's really the deal? Your boyfriend work here or something?"

"No, I told you, she knows me. She's very sweet." I started to give him a short version of the story of the drunk and how the new guy was bringing his kids to play with her, etc. In the meantime, he stepped up to the gate and was standing next to me while I was giving her lovies and talking.

All of a sudden, she reached her paw out, and started tapping the cop on the shoe. He looked at her and said, "Oh, NOW you wanna be friends?" and she totally moved over and let HIM start scratching her while she slobbered all over him. He just stood there loving her and shaking his head about what a terrible vicious dog she was!

Somehow, I don't think the local cops are going to be taking any complaints about her being dangerous very seriously... ;D  ;D

37
To be honest, I think you're just going to have to give up the grass.  Teach her that she's allowed to dig outside only.

And you'll probably have to put her in the basement with a bunch of toys while you're at work.  If you give her a couple of frozen kongs and some toys to play with, and buy a thrift store couch for her to lay on, she won't mind the basement a bit! ;)

38
Groans, Gripes, Brags & Boasts / Re: Please tell me it's OK! Small rant
« on: August 25, 2006, 12:32:09 pm »
OMG, you said it again!

Seriously, it was far, far too horrible to even begin to relate.  Briefly, as I twitch:

5,000 turkeys
An overturned semi truck
A fence down
A 2 lane highway
A temperature of over 100 degrees

Deponent saith no more.

I need to go splash my face.... :P

39
Groans, Gripes, Brags & Boasts / Re: Please tell me it's OK! Small rant
« on: August 25, 2006, 12:24:29 pm »
You are an evil woman, Sofia.

I'll have you know that flashback made me fall out of my chair. I'm still twitching. :P


40
Groans, Gripes, Brags & Boasts / Re: Please tell me it's OK! Small rant
« on: August 25, 2006, 10:35:08 am »
Turkeys!

Don't talk about turkeys!!

I have FLASHBACKS about turkeys!!!

41
Groans, Gripes, Brags & Boasts / Re: Please tell me it's OK! Small rant
« on: August 25, 2006, 07:19:42 am »
Quote
Farm life is NEVER dull!

Not even when you wish it would be, I know. :) I sent Becky and Julie each a book (it was Outlander) thru Amazon at the beginning of the summer, thinking we could have a 'book club' party while I'm home the first week of September and NEITHER OF THEM has had time to read it yet. OK, yes, it's fat, but one book!

Don't misunderstand; I'm glad to go home and 'help out' on my friends' farms for a week or two; I'll help bottle 300 quarts of fruit, turn 12 more bushels of the same fruit into juice/jelly/jam while blanching another 20 bushels of veggies to freeze. I'm competent at all that stuff--I can drive the tractor, sneak eggs out of the nests, intimidate the bloody pig, even hand milk, if I have to.  I just don't LOVE to do all that stuff, and I never really did.

Cowpies in the utility room would have made me homicidal after the first week--there'd be veal for dinner after that. Lambs are cuter than calves to me; I can stand lambs for about 2 weeks before I start thinking of mint jelly every time I look at them. (I know, I'm a terrible, terrible person!)

I just have to be reminded every so often by stories about calves in the utility room and chicks in the stove, or I lose perpective here in the city on just how truly horrible a farmer's wife I would have been! 

42
Groans, Gripes, Brags & Boasts / Re: Please tell me it's OK! Small rant
« on: August 25, 2006, 05:48:51 am »
Quote
What other wife has to clean up COWPIES to get to her washer?!"

All the dairy farmer's wives I know. It's why I'm not a farmer's wife... ;)

Sometimes, I look at the chaos all around me here in LA, where I can't even have a dog of my own to spoil, have to spoil other people's, and I think, "you know, you should have just married him, you could have had all the dogs you want..." and thinking of every hassle there is about living in the city.

Then someone will remind me about livestock in the house and I remember why I went to college!  ;D  ;D

43
Behavior, Housebreaking, Obedience / Re: He just wont listen!
« on: August 24, 2006, 10:10:36 am »
A long lead is a really good reinforcer for "come", too.  You can gently bring the pup to you as you repeat the command.  Get down to lure him in the beginning, if that's when he'll come to you, rather than using a treat. Once he's reliably coming, you taper off your bending down as lure.

44

Max is forever getting stickers in his paws, and Bactine is what Mom uses on his feeties when she pulls the stickers out; I know I use the pump spray bottle of it when I get a skin reaction to weeds or cardboard.  It works like a charm. Spray or wipe it on Sam's paws and then cover them with socks/booties to keep him from licking it off.  (Max loves the taste of it for some reason.)

Do you have any hydrocortisone cream?  That will help the itchy dermatitis part. If you have some, put the cream on, and socks over it to keep the medicine on.

45
Anything Non-Dog Related / Re: the news was not good
« on: August 23, 2006, 01:24:42 pm »
Oh, Kristi. 

I am so, so, SO sorry. Leaving the classroom was such a wrench for me--and I CHOSE to do it--it must be a hundred times worse to be forced to leave.  :'(  :'(  :'(   I just don't even have words for how sad I am, for you and for those kids who needed you and your heart in their lives.

Tutoring is a great idea, but once you move, also contact the districts around you about being a 'medical leave' teacher. Most districts who have these positions have them under a union contract, so all your teacher benefits and stuff would be the same as if you were still in a regular classroom, even though you'd be going from student to student.  The downside of that job is that most students aren't on medical leave for long enough to really get a rapport going, but the pay would probably about the same as you're used to getting after 15 years in the classroom.

HOWEVER: This may be even BETTER for the immediate future:

After 15 years, I'm sure you have files and files FULL of units, lesson plans, activities, etc. You need to get onto TeachersPayTea chers.com, which is kind of a teacher's eBay for lesson plans that I just heard about. You can start dispersing your best units and worksheets, etc. out there for other teachers, particularly new teachers, to use and learn from! Get all your lessons out, re-keyboard them and clean them up, convert them to pdfs and start selling them. Things are about to go to 'slow' time here in my office, and I'm planning on doing just that with some of my literature units, and weekly vocab sets.

If unit and lesson planning are something you like to do, you can still create them for others to enlighten kids with.  I love creating study guides and tests and stuff--I still help Debra do hers.  She hates it. I'm exactly the opposite--I don't mind making up the lessons in the least, it's the correcting I object to. ;)

Now go--get out those files and start figuring out which ones those first year Spanish teachers are going to need when school starts next week!

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 ... 41