Category Archives: Rants

Clean Up Tuesday

67 Replies

You can tell once spring has definitely arrived. The fair-weather peeps come out after hibernating in front of fireplaces all winter long and start to take their pups for walks now. They are out in full force in my ‘hood these days but many of them seemed to have left a couple of very important things back at home. Their consideration and their dog bags. 

As our friend Jodi from Heart Like a Dog so aptly refers to them, the DADOs (dumb a$$ dog owners) are out in full force now that spring has finally sprung. What the heck people…were you raised by wolves? No, of course you weren’t. Wolves are raised in highly social and respectful packs. Growl!

Are the DADO’s without poop bags out in force in your ‘hood?

Life, love, bark! 🐾

Did You Know?

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My daughter with whom I have been visiting all week recently posted this graphic on Facebook and as a mom and as a caring human being, felt duty bound to share. Do you know whether the products you use are tested on animals? Are you surprised at some of the companies on this list from the folks at the Beagle Freedom Project as I was?

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Game On Dude!

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Normally when it’s been ‘game on’ in the past, it means I’m trying to match wits with a certain blonde knucklehead. This time however, we’re talking about a totally different game.

I’ve tried, really I have. Living in an urban setting, there is a surprisingly diverse wildlife population. Foxes, all sorts of songbirds, a couple of mangy coyotes, an owl, a pair of hawks, some raccoons and of course, squirrels. I enjoy watching them as they adapt to city life and have managed to co-habitat easily with them. That is, except…for the squirrels which seem to be some sort of spin-off from a Hell’s Angels fur gang, minus leather jackets. Lately they’ve become even more bold.

Source filched from the web

Oh sure, we all like to think of our little Sciuridae fur-iends as impossibly cute and even entertaining. Isn’t the one above just beyond adorable? Yeah right. The ones in my neighborhood are a lot more like this one. They’ve eaten screens, chewed ginormous holes in the trash and recycle bins to scrap out that lone tiny piece of stuck cheese in the discarded pizza box and left giant holes in the compost bins. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind it they stuck to the compost bins and enjoyed a strawberry hull or two, but crimmin-Italy…not the dang window screen…again!!

Source: another filched image from the Web

Less than two weeks ago, the most brazen of the 3 or 4 that have been terrorizing gracing the Ranch from large tree in the front yard chewed through the screen in the kitchen presumably to snack on some bananas. Must be offspring from the one from a few years ago that broke in through that same screen and devoured a package of brownies on the counter. Yesterday as we were returning from our early morning walk, we arrived to find a blur whiz past us. Naturally the Ninja huntress took off after it. She nearly caught him too. Sure gave him a scare as he double timed it up the utility pole just out of jaw’s reach.

Meanwhile, back at the scene of the crime, I realized we had caught him ‘screen-handed’ though by the time I retrieved Elsa from chasing him, the only thing left was yet another torn screen in the exact same spot as the prior 2 times. Little bastard. If it only happened a few times every 4 or 5 years, I probably wouldn’t be so cranky about it. But this was less than two weeks ago!! So I went out to the garage to see if I still had any rat traps. While I didn’t find a rat trap, I did find a couple of mouse traps and baited them with some peanut butter. Not 30 minutes later that same hoodlum snatched the glob of PB off one and triggered the other one from the window sill. Are you freaking kidding me??!!

Ok, pal…it’s game on now and I’m going full nuclear. I’m going full Bill Murray from “Caddyshack” and plan to catch that little rat bastard. Have you ever been victimized by a rogue gangster squirrel? While I consider myself a major animal and wildlife lover, this. has. got. to. stop. We’ll be visiting our friendly hardware store this morning to stock up on armament.

Live, love, bark! ❤︎

It’s baaaack

53 Replies

It’s that time of year again where we arbitrarily move toward insanity spring forward. Yup, time for a Ranch PSA to let you know that Daylight Savings Time arrives this weekend for the majority of the US this Sunday. Regardless of the pending calamity adjustment, we hope your weekend arrives with the promise of fun and some rejuvenation. Enjoy your weekend and for those of you lucky enough to not have to yet start this bi-annual catastrophe, we at the Ranch are quite jealous. Happy weekend!

Any big plans on tap beyond dreading the change?

Live, love, bark! ❤

Things that go bump in the night

38 Replies

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.

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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.

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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! ❤

Wordy Wednesday

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Sam here. Ever notice how uprights have a double standard when it comes to us dogs? Remember…keep your eyes on the path and not on your social media so we can both enjoy our walking time together.

Live, love, bark! ❤

Summertime and the living is…noisy

48 Replies

dog-meeting

Ever have that one dog in the neighborhood that barks non-stop? Day and night? We’ve got one and I can’t quite pin-point its exact location but I’m so jones-ing for a ‘come to Jesus’ chat with its owner. This poor dog barks when I take out the recycling. He raises Cain if I’m working in the garden. He barks at 5:30 in the morning before the day’s cacophony begins and he barks at 12:30 at night. I’m guessing he lives outside, but with all the wooden fenced yards around, I can’t quite determine which house he lives in with exact precision.

My first reaction is to go up to the front door and (1) calmly and patiently talk with the owner about what can be done about the barking dog (I’m guessing the owner is so tuned out that they don’t realize it’s an issue to anyone) or (2) simultaneously want to take a bat with me and bash whomever answers the door and scream “would you please shut that &#@% dog up or find it a more responsible owner who will pay attention to it!” Sheesh people.

It isn’t the dog’s fault. I get that, yet still desire a bit of peace and quiet when I leave the house rather than that endless barking till I’m out of range. Yes, I realize that the weather has been hot and miserable lately. Shoot, I’d bark as well if it’d get me back in a cool house. But for the love of all that’s holy, why can’t you bring that poor creature in rather than let it suffer outdoors and disrupt the entire neighborhood? Why does he have to stay outside 365 days a year? Yup, that poor dog barks in the winter, he barks in the summer, he barks early in the morning and in the dead of night. I feel as badly for him as I do for those of us who must endure it.

Did you ever have a dog that barked incessantly and non-stop in your ‘hood? What did you do? Bonus points if you didn’t get arrested AND still managed to resolve the problem without the dog being punished.

Live, love, bark! ❤