Archive for the ‘Dogs’ Category

The Cat in the Hat, the Dog in the Shades Part Two

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

By Tiber

We thought something might be wrong today with Cax, our golden lab. It was a really nice, sunny day but when I tried to take him into town with me, he wouldn’t budge. Then, Dad had a thought. Could it be about the sunglasses?

You might recall, a few months ago, when Cax needed some eye medication and Dad, playing around, had put his expensive sunglasses on the dog.  He thought Cax would just swat them off. Instead, the dog loved them and for a time, he refused to leave the house without them.

The glasses cost a lot, though, and Dad wanted them back, so eventually, when the sky turned overcast all the time, he was able to wean Cax off of them.

Now, with the sun bright again, Dad wondered if Cax’s reticence to go out was sunglass related. It was.

Once Cax had those expensive babies back on, he was practically behind the wheel of my car and ready to drive me into town.

I soon saw why.

Once the two of us got out and happened to pass by a dog park, a female dog who had been running, took one look at Cax in his luxe shades and she halted on a dime. Her mouth fell open slightly and her hungry gaze locked onto Cax until we were out of view down the street.

I may be very short of cash right now, but to turn my life around, somehow and right away, I have got to get me a pair of those sunglasses.

………………Okay, yes, I am fully aware of what I just wrote. It’s come down to this.

I am now taking dating tips from the dog.

Yeah, yeah, I see you

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

By Tiber

I was going to Dad’s study to ask him a question, when I caught him standing in the middle of the room with one of his arms flailing. He was alone, except for the dogs, so I raced in, thinking he’d had a stroke or something.

It turns out that with everybody trying to come up with money-making schemes, Dad has been working on an attraction of his own that people might pay to see.

He told me about an article he’d read online recalling how the actor Hugh Grant’s father had tried unsuccessfully for years to get his cat to wave back to him.

So Dad was working on getting Brendan, our Irish setter, and Cax, our golden lab, who sat across from him on the floor, to wave to him.

Again, Dad waved vigorously. No response.

“Uh, Dad, you did notice the words in the article ‘tried unsuccessfully for years,’ didn’t you?”

“Yes, but come on! He was working with his cat! I’m training dogs! Everybody knows dogs are smarter!”

Well, the cat in the article was evidently smart enough.

He quickly figured out that by just sitting there, he’d found a way to avoid waving until the end of time to Hugh Grant’s father.

Not a creature was stirring…except for the ones who stole our tree

Saturday, December 26th, 2009

 

By Tiber

We woke up on Christmas morning to find that not only were about half of the Christmas presents gone, but our entire tree had been stolen as well. In spite of the difficulty of breaking into this house, someone had obviously done it. We were all very depressed, until Dad, who’s seen the film, “A Christmas Story,” went over suddenly and smelled the dogs.

He then whirled around and accosted the rest of us.

“Do they have Spam breath?!?

They did, of course, It’s sort of hard to miss. Dad quickly hurried down the hall and soon, he spotted one of the missing gifts, along with a trail of pine needles. We followed along, finding more and more busted-up gift boxes along the way. And we saw that the Christmas tree had been dragged all the way down three hallways and then out the back door.

We rushed outside and there it was, sparkling in the winter sunlight, a little crooked but still standing, brightening up a formerly empty flower bed and providing food for the birds, who were excitedly pecking at the branches.

You see, once again, Dad had brought home more cases of Spam, trying to get us to spend less money on food and, once again, everyone in his family was trying to get rid of it.

Mom had stuffed hers into the gingerbread-house ornaments on the tree. My brother Duncan’s triplets – (I’ll write more about them later. Sometimes you save the best for last. This will not be one of those times) had taken some craft supplies that Grandma Noni had given them, plus what looked like toilet paper rolls and some doll parts and had built what can only be described as a Barbie rocket launcher. Late in the night, they had managed to shoot countless loaves of Spam across the length of the living room and impale them on the branches of the tree.

In my older post, “The Spam Tolls for Thee,” I wrote about how the last time Dad brought home cases of Spam, Duncan had crafted me a Spam girlfriend, declaring that she was bound to last longer than any of my real ones. Well, here she was again too, since Duncan had stuck her under the tree for me to find on Christmas morning, only to have her dragged outside when the dogs took the tree.

Of course, this only proved Duncan’s point further. She was now caught on the inside branches so the dogs weren’t able to get to her, proving once again that she’s still lasting longer than any of my real girlfriends.

The whole thing was a sight but, as it turned out, Dad decided that he loved the tree disappearing and then being found again outside, feeding the birds and reanimating the flower bed. He called it a Christmas miracle. Unfortunately, I think the real miracle is going to be if we can ever stop Dad from bringing home any more Spam.

The cat in the hat, the dog in the shades

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

By Tiber

Our golden lab, Cax, got conjunctivitis and had to have some eye drops put in for awhile. Dad worried about him and when they were going out for a walk, as a joke, he put a pair of old sunglasses on him “to cut out the glare.”

He figured Cax would buck them off in under five seconds but it turns out the opposite has occurred.  Cax liked them so much that now he won’t go out without them.

It’s like living with three-quarters of the Blues Brothers. Four legs but only one head.

The other day, Dad wanted to take Cax for his follow-up appointment with the vet and woe to the world, Cax’s sunglasses couldn’t be found.

We all tried to fit him up with anything else we could find – a baseball cap, a plastic tiara, a hoodie. We even tried somebody else’s sunglasses. But no. Evidently, Cax thinks sunglasses are like toothbrushes. He has to have his own.

So everybody was dispatched all over the house to locate his glasses. Finally, they were found behind our Irish setter, Brendan’s, water bowl.  There’s no denying that Brendan hid them there. And who can blame him?

As everyone was solicitously adjusting Cax’s shades to his ever more demanding perfect angle, Paracelsus, the cat, walked by. Brendan barked at him but Paracelsus just took one look at Cax’s so undog-like diva preening, sat down a few inches away from both of them and took a bath.

Brendan flopped down and literally put his paws over his face. You could actually see him thinking with dismay,

“All of my work. Destroyed.”