Category: Monday Moanings

Sibling Dynamics

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 48 Comments

It’s been slightly over a month since Sam was joined by a little raven haired sister. Apart from Elsa’s diagnosis of epilepsy shortly after arriving, her integration as a dog into our household continues. Mostly it’s been without incident but the past week or so, there have been a couple of big kerfuffles which seems to suggest the ‘siblings’ are a bit jealous of one another. As the little miss gains her confidence, she realizes that the attention and loving care she is receiving is a pretty good arrangement. The past couple of incidents were the result of her apparently not getting all she thought she was entitled to, or that she was jealous at a misperceived favoring of Sam.

If you weren’t aware, let me just say I’m a big sports fan. As in…huge. Following along in that theme, there are times when I’m trying to decide if the Ranch has turned into a hockey arena or if it’s Madison Square Garden’s fight of the week…or maybe a combination of both. Sure there’s lots of jockeying for the puck (guess the puck would be me) with the ‘goal’ being to score favor in mom’s eyes. If you lean more toward being a pugilist…the combatants go to their neutral corners. If I sit on the floor, they come running to garner my 110% attention by sitting in or near my lap, to have their ears scratched. Usually it involved Elsa deftly maneuvering Sam out of close proximity. She’s a real master positioning herself between him and me. Being fairly close in size and weight, she has figured out just how to subtly herd him out of the way. Most of the time Sam wanders off on his own confused, but at other times, Elsa makes sure he wanders off with the precision of a military drone sniper strike. It always ends quickly and both look at each other and then at me as if they’d been possessed by demons with no explanation as to how that dust-up happened. Luckily there are no food aggression issues.

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With siblings there always seem to come a pecking order and we’re still trying to sort out that order, in addition to integrating a puppy mill dog who has no clue about manners let alone how to properly be a dog. Add in trying to manage her condition and it becomes a muddy mess. In the meantime, I’ll be the one wearing a striped shirt, blowing a time-out whistle and refereeing these games, be they hockey or Golden Gloves.

How do you handle ‘sibling’ competition?

Live, love, bark! <3

Things that go bump in the night

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 38 Comments

Ok, picture this. It’s the middle of the night and the call of nature wakes you up. More like screams its ugly head off, but you still resist. The crisp autumn air is a definite deterrent so you roll over and think, it’ll go away soon. Twenty minutes later, your bladder continues to send messages to your brain to get up and take care of this. You’re wide awake now so you succumb to your brain’s nagging and drag your sorry butt out of bed…shivering. You quietly tiptoe past the snoring fur-kids, quietly closing the bedroom door so as not to disturb anyone, walking toward the bathroom. Then you step on one of these babies. O.U.C.H. Ever step on one of these gizmos of pure torture? We kick or walk over these things 87 times a day. Elsa drags them from one end of the house to the other and I love that both fur-kids enjoy these beef hooves, but yikes, those bad boys will make you howl like a banshee if you step on them with bare feet when you’re somewhat half asleep.

Suddenly you’re hoping around on one foot, yelling every HBO word you’ve ever heard, kicking those hummers every which way and the racket of all that yelling combined with skittering hooves across hardwood floors crashing into walls and furniture has woken up the entire household up with you asking everyone, “Who the [blank] left these things lying around?!?!” The sleepy faces facing you just nod, mumble and shuffle back to bed. You’re left wide awake with the you-know-what scared out of you, blood pouring from a toe and too mad to pee. Why is there no justice for mom? Would I be less crabbish if I stepped on a squeaking stuffie in the middle of the night? Yeah probably not, but at least I wouldn’t have to triage my injury before getting back to sleep in the freezing dark.

Note to self: think about getting one of those IED robots to clear these “land mines” out  before you going to bed to avoid this far too often repeated scenario.

Hope your re-entry into the work week was far less traumatic and you had a great night’s sleep following a beautiful Autumn weekend.

Live, love, bark! <3

Monday Moanings

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 34 Comments

Morning, sports fans. Hope you had a great autumn weekend. Did your football team do well over the weekend?

Seems I have this little black cloud foreign exchange student following me around these days. Seems like I can never turn around without a certain raven haired beauty shadowing me. I’ve never been a big brother before so this is all new territory for me. Mostly I’ve been pretty good, but sometimes, she just gets too close and doesn’t let me monopolize and guard see my mom. Are all foreign exchange students like that, or just sisters? Remind me again when the semester ends?

Live, love, bark! <3

A Monday Howliday

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 27 Comments

Despite the fact it is illegal to shoot off fireworks in the City and County of Denver, there still are way too many people who ignore that ordinance up to an including the July 4th ‘howliday.’ We suspect Denver isn’t the only municipality where residents illegally set off fireworks either.

Sam here. In keeping with past years, we aim to notify the appropriate authorities of illegal fireworks and spread the word to educate cretins…I mean uprights that it’s not a good idea to set them off. There are plenty of professional fireworks displays people can watch if they must, but they definitely don’t need to set them off in residential neighborhoods where the noise may be a little too close for the comfort and well being of pets, as well as a potential fire hazard. Don’t know about you, but we’re not particularly keen on any of our neighbors setting off fireworks after relentless days of hot temperatures that dried out trees, shrubs, and grass or having a spark hit a shingle on the roof.

July 3rd is the busiest day for veterinary offices (when anti-stress medications are picked up) and more pets go missing on July 4th than any other day of the year. It breaks my mom’s heart and makes her say naughty words when they go off. Our last sheepdog, Finn nearly lost his mind when they started up in our neighborhood and none of her various remedies/strategies would ease his distress. He even got himself stuck between the box spring and the bed frame. It was all she could do to extricate him without either of them getting hurt or bitten. Mom said right then and there she’d make it her mission to keep other dogs from suffering like poor Finn. It’s ok to celebrate the 4th, just remember someone at home may not find a noisy celebration quite as much fun as you do. Dogs process those loud noises differently than uprights do.

Here’s hoping you have a safe and happy 4th of July. Happy birthday, America 🇺🇸

Live, love, bark! <3

Monday Moanings

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 16 Comments

Even after a couple of days recovering from, it seems clear that Sam is still a little ‘crinkled‘ rough around the edges. Is it pawsible he’s still hung-over from Ruby’s margarita truck or is the Denver heat just getting to him? Hopefully he’ll wake up in time to make the fur-stealing appointment session with the groomer so he can look pawfectly spiffed up for a hospice appearance later today. Anyone have a doggy Advil at their house for the Rastafarian wanna-be here?

Here’s hoping you all had a swell time at the pawty and a terrific weekend. Happy Mo(a)day.

Live, love, bark! <3

Hello February…you sweet thing

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 51 Comments

Sam here. I decided to commandeer the blog today since Mom is celebrating, albeit via long distance, her ‘baby’ brother’s birthday today (happy, happy Tim-we love ya) and tomorrow is Ground Hog Day. Till then all I can say is: don’t let the door hit you in the tush, January. Spring is just around the corner, regardless of what that rodent says tomorrow and I for one am excited about supervising work in the garden again. Woof, woof!

Mom and dad are busily clearing out dad’s storage units and breathing dust  but look forward to being able to enjoy some of California beyond its traffic and…ahem…interesting drivers. Happy Monday. 😉

Live, love, bark! <3

Monday Moanings

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 24 Comments

Hey everybody…Sam here. I see mom hijacked the blog the other day to ‘go over’ the walking rules. Yeah, whatever.  Sorry you guys had to read that drivel. Now that she’s getting ready to fly the coop at work, she’s gotten a bit cocky and thinks she can have free rein over the blog. Not likely but if that’s what floats her boat and makes her happy, we’ll let that be our little secret, ok?

    So for the record, I love being the center of attention most of the time (I am a Standard Poodle after all) but sometimes a boy just needs a little alone time. Like today…so I’m wondering why can’t I enjoy a little privacy? Here I am minding my own business no doubt thinking about my next post on a gorgeous 45º F degree day watching people walk by and mom disrupts my sun-basking with her stupid camera.  Sheesh woman, don’t you have anything better to do…like give me a break? Go pester dad, he enjoys your attention.

Hope you had a safe and Happy New Year’s weekend. As you can see I’m working on my New Year’s resolution to perfect the art of ‘chillaxing.’ What’d you do this past weekend? Got any resolutions you want to share?

Live, Love, Bark! <3