Anatomy of a Bulldog
04 Jan 2010 Leave a Comment
in Only me, The pigeon wants a puppy
I like to tell people I was not all about buying a bulldog. It was all Dave’s idea and he has a knack for making it sound like it was all Teagan’s idea. The two of them would go to the pet store and look at bulldog puppies and ohh and ahh. The truth is I’m a sucker for animals particularly dogs so buying a bulldog was something I knew would eventually happen. The rational side of me started researching bulldogs. English bulldogs – you know the rolly polly barrel chested ones that you see everywhere – they have 1000′s of medical problems. Weight problems, gastrointestinal problems, breathing problems the list was endless. So calculating the initial cost of a bulldog and adding in the cost of medical I decided a bulldog was entirely too much money. Plus I wanted a dachshund. Or something small-ish from the pound.
Then it happened. We went to the pet store and there he was. A tiny little 11 pound wrinkled mess of a puppy. Of course the kids were in love with him. I had my concerns because this wasn’t an English Bulldog it was an Olde English Bulldogge. The owner assured us there weren’t as many medical problems because it was a cross-breed of an American Bulldog and an English Bulldog. He then explained how this bulldog would be taller and less chesty than his English cousins. OK I’ll admit the way he was nibbling on my toes was starting to make him cuter and I’m a sucker for puppies. That was all Dave needed – he saw me warming up to the puppy and before you know it we had purchased a bulldog puppy. Dave does have a knack for this as the above sentence could also be completed in the following ways: we had purchased a camper, we had purchased a red minivan, we had purchased a HD TV…. the list is lengthy.
Recently we have given our Bully a little more liberties in the house because we now know what specific things he likes to chew on. We decided over Christmas break to let him start sleeping with us instead of being confined. More specifically he was to be sleeping with Dawson, but he likes our bed better. The first night wasn’t too bad… I say that kind of like you might say a minor car accident wasn’t too bad. Teagan usually falls asleep with us and then is placed in her bed or in the fold out bed next to ours. She decided to move directly to the fold out for fear of waking up with half her arm being gnawed on. The dog weighs half what I do and takes up twice as much space. Add to this he is a restless sleeper. He kicks and bucks and moves about all night. And the reason I let him continue to sleep there is purely selfish. If he is confined he starts to whine at exactly 6:59am for food but when he’s sleeping with us he will hold out until at least 8:30 before he demands food.
Last night I had a nightmare that I was being chased by a train. I know trains don’t chase people but it was a dream. Not fully awake I realized the train wasn’t a train it was snoring. Without opening my eyes I told Dave to stop snoring. It didn’t work so I opened my eyes and found the source of the snoring. This is what I saw.
And then he licked my face. He was all snuggled up on my pillow, partially under the comforter and completely sure that he was supposed to be there. I attempted to push and pull and move him back to the end of the bed with limited success and went back to sleep. The snoring started again. Not your everyday snoring but the kind of snoring that will wake the dead. Then as I got up to move him again I began wondering if they make those anti snoring nose strips for dogs. As I got near the back-end of the dog he farted. If he woke the dead with his snoring he would have sent them back to the grave with the gas.
This is when I began to understand the complex anatomy of a bulldog. Starting at the head: 6 inch thick skull that can headbutt it’s way through a fence, cute little black outlined eyes that always look sad so you’re inclined to give them anything they want, giant floppy wrinkly lips that really do nothing but drool from time to time, protruding bottom teeth that are good for opening things other dogs can’t – “can opener” style, a giant tongue that loves to give kisses when he’s done something bad, a giant neck that is hard to find collar’s for and an even bigger chest that is hard to find harnesses for. Then you get to what I call the “accordion.” The “accordion” is the bulldog’s belly and it works accordion style. It squishes up then blows air out each end – thus producing both the snoring and the farting at the same time. Maybe more like bagpipes – based solely on volume because I think bagpipes make more noise than accordions. And finally there is the stubby tail which whips back and forth at a dizzying pace.
There you have the anatomy of a bulldog. I will not ever have another one… I swear – at least until Dave finds another cute puppy…….
Teaching, Nevada & what dogs hear
20 Dec 2009 1 Comment
in Odd Observations, The pigeon wants a puppy
Today I am reflecting on the past 4 days…. there were multiple things that caught my attention so I’m lumping them all together in one blog.
First, in my quest to find a different occupation I have added “teacher” to the “not an option” list. I helped Teagan’s 1st grade class during their holiday party make gingerbread houses. I went with a positive attitude because it was only for an hour and a half. How bad could 1st graders be for an hour and a half? The answer to that question is “OH MY GOD!” In all fairness to her class most of the kids were well-behaved and sat in their chairs and painted icing onto their milk cartons and attached their candies. However there were about 6 children who were constantly out of their seats, grabbing a parent or the teacher with some urgent need for more M&M’s or to tell on one of the other five for eating the candy before everyone was done. Two of these lovely children sit in Teagan’s desk grouping and neither of them needed sugar but both of them had consumed enough to send a diabetic elephant to the hospital. By the end of the hour and a half I had contemplated the consequences for sitting on both of them just to keep them still for 30 seconds. And I would have felt sorry for myself had it not been for the poor grandmother at the next table over who had one of the other girls who was out of control. This girl had taken blue gel icing and smeared it all over her paper plate to “make a pond” at her gingerbread house and her hands were covered in blue dye, icing and sprinkles. It finally took the teacher pulling the girl over to the sink to get her to wash her hands and I overheard the teacher telling one of the other parents that the same girl had a fancy ruffle on her dress earlier in the day that she had cut with scissors and then ripped completely off. Not that going back to school to become a teacher is a realistic option for me, but there is no way I could handle children on a day-to-day basis. God bless the teachers out there with all their infinite patience because I know I couldn’t do their job.
Second… “Nevada”. ”Nevada” is an example of something I have pointed out many times to many people. Pregnant women should not be allowed to name their children. I was shopping for shoes when two children went running past me and I heard a mom yell “Cade and Nevada come here now!” It wasn’t so much the Cade that caught my attention as the Nevada. Actually I wouldn’t have given it too much more than a passing thought, but Cade and Nevada were notorious. No matter what part of the store I moved to Cade and Nevada moved with me with their mother always demanding for “Cade and Nevada come here now!” After the fourth or fifth time of hearing the mom’s demand for them to come here now my curiosity got the best of me and I had to peek around the corner to see Cade and Nevada. Both adorable little towheads about 3 and 4 years old, running amuck while their mom attempted to shop. What struck me was the older of the two was a little girl – the entire time I had assumed the mother was yelling after two boys. Now I’m all about unique names for your children to avoid having an entire softball team full of Brittney’s (in fairness to my sister, there were only 3 Brittney’s on the softball team) – but Nevada? All I could think about was in the movie Four Christmases where the characters were named after the location they were conceived (i.e. Orlando, Denver and Dallas). I guess it’s lucky for little Nevada her parents weren’t more specific or else I would have been hearing “Cade and Reno…” or “Cade and Las Vegas!” As I moved toward the front of the store to leave I passed the family once again, the mother again catching my attention with her exasperated “Cade and Ne-va-da!” (she had now separated each syllable drastically as if to show her increasing displeasure at her children’s misbehavior). It took every ounce of energy I had not to go over to Cade and Nevada and pick them up and place them in their mother’s shopping cart and explain to her that by placing the children in the cart you would not have to yell at them in every aisle to “come here” or “put that down” because they are contained. That was the angel on my shoulder…. the devil on the other side wanted to take Cade and Nevada to the glass aisle, give them a pound of sugar each and teach them to say “Mazel Tov!”
Finally, what dogs hear. Dawson talks to the dog a lot. He talks to the dog like someone might talk to a baby and the dog loves him for it. But on occasion the dog is bad and Dawson yells at him. Like earlier today when Bam ate Teagan’s gingerbread house (yes the Gingerbread House that I spent an hour and half in hell a.k.a. 1st grade making) and I heard “BAM! NO!……. You are a bad bad dog! You go to your crate! Now Mister! Fine you can have a cookie but go in the condo!” (note: we call Bam’s crate his condo – as if to make it seem he is on a luxurious Florida vacation while confined). I imagined what Bam heard. “BAM! blah blah blah blah condo blah blah blah blah cookie.” I would have added that he heard the word NO! but I know he didn’t because that word seems to be a bit of an obscure concept for him. Bam knows exactly 5 words, “Bam,” “Cookie,” “Sit,” “Kissy” and “Condo,” and one phrase “Where do good puppies go for cookies?” The answer is “condo.” “Kissy” will get you slobbered on and “Sit” only works in conjunction with “Cookie.” But Dawson does his best at communicating with the dog, my only hope is that soon he teaches him “no” and “bad dog.” The bad thing is we went from a dog with an extensive vocabulary: sit, stay, come, down, off, car, speak, find, bad-dog, jump and free-dog. And could do tricks like “hokey pokey bear” and “stop drop and roll.” And now we have the bully who thinks “kissy” will fix anything he screws up. Just so were clear it has taken me a while to write this because there is a dog snoring and resting on my right hand the entire time. OK I’m done… he is now slobbering on my right hand and I think the slobber is dripping into my keyboard
Dear Glad… your containers are not bulldog proof
04 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
I have found that owning a bulldog is at it’s best challenging. Today I cleaned out the refrigerator tossing old leftovers in Glad containers into the sink. Without a second thought I decided to head back to the laundry room to see if the clothes were dry. I was back in the laundry room for just a moment when I realized something was wrong. No bulldog at my side and it was quiet. Bulldogs are never quiet unless they are up to something bad. There is usually a crash or a bark or a whine or a whimper and even when they sleep they snore louder than a freight train. But when there is quiet…. they are up to something. I returned to the kitchen to find that he had managed to get all 4 leftover containers out of the sink and open and was snarfing the last remaining bits of pulled pork, mashed potatoes and pizza. The thing is, he hadn’t destroyed the containers – he had taken the lids off. Had I not watched as he gingerly opened the last container with his front teeth I wouldn’t have believed it. With little effort he popped the lid right off and made short order of the taco meat inside. I stared in amazement before scolding him. I thought that since the containers were sealed there would be no way he could open them. Again I was wrong.
You see there are very few things that are bulldog proof. Titanium and Kryptonite being the only things off the top of my head that I can think of. While I’m writing companies to request they make their products more bulldog proof….. let me include Wilson, Mizuno, Adidas and Rawlings. To date he has eaten or partially eaten 1 Wilson baseball glove, 1 Mizuno left-handed catchers mitt, 1 Adidas left-handed baseball glove, multiple tennis balls and at least 3 Rawlings baseballs. For those of you that don’t know a baseball is made up of a cork ball covered in rubber, then (this is the fun part) 150 yards of cotton yarn and 219 yards of wool yarn covered by cowhide. It takes a bulldog 3.4 minutes to destroy one and string all 236 yards of yarn throughout the house. Adidas does get partial credit, their soccer balls do survive fairly well – and yes a size 4 soccer ball does fit into a bulldogs mouth. Footballs do not fair so well and anything made by NERF will be completely destroyed in less than 1 minute.
The stuffed animals in my house have built themselves a Stuffed Animal Preserve in Teagans room in an attempt to not be eaten since Teagan keeps her door shut. He really enjoys chewing a good baseball hat or two so Dave put them all in a large Rubermaid container however after watching him pry open the Glad containers today I’m not sure that’s safe anymore. He has eaten an umbrella, a baseball bat bag, 2 pairs of hiking boots, 1 pair of leather fire boots, the cable TV line, 2 garden hoses, the carpet off the stairs in the garage and an unknown number of trash bags.
He loves flip-flops and he loves to lick toes if the you are wearing flip-flops. He has devoured 2 pairs of Crocs - jibits and all. He has head butted his way through our fence and we had to replace it and then reinforce it. And on the chain link fence he learned the Diablo-houdini trick of flipping the latch on the gate so now it has a pin in it. Luckily he has not learned the Diablo-houdini door trick or the Diablo-houdini crate trick. My kids are the only ones I know of who could actually use the excuse “my dog ate my homework” – because he has eaten homework, paper, pencils, books and made an attempt or two at a backpack.
Basically there is nothing made on this planet that is bulldog proof. Well… technically he has not been able to destroy his Kong toy. Their claims have held up that they are indestructible. Kong needs to make more products… like baseball gloves, baseballs, footballs, stuffed animals, umbrellas, shoes, flip-flops, fences, rakes, books, and most importantly…. left over containers.
Tell me what you think......