from the vault: my awesome dog

When you break the world down into dog people and cat people, I guess I'm mostly a dog person, even though I've loved every cat I've ever owned.

Sometimes, though, my dog tests me, like in this entry from the vault…

When I was at CES [a few weeks ago] for InDigital, I got a phone call from Anne.

"I
just had to tell you how totally awesome your dog is." She said, in a
tone that indicated "my dog" (what Ferris is called whenever she does
something particularly irritating) was anything but awesome.

"Oh?" I said, "please tell me what my awesome dog did."

"Well,
I took some bacon out of the fridge for the kids, and put it on the
counter. Then the timer on the dryer went off, so I walked into the
laundry room –"

" — you mean the garage?"

Ha. I am so funny.

" . . . yes. The garage."

Oops. Pressed my luck a little bit, there. Shutting up, now.

"Anyway, when I got back into the kitchen, the bacon was gone, but your dog was licking her chops, awfully close to an empty bacon package on the floor."

". . . bitch!" I said.

"Uh.
Yeah. So you don't worry, I already called the vet, and it's nothing to
worry about. " She went on to tell me about her conversation with the
vet and why we shouldn't worry. We expressed our undying love for each
other, and I hung up the phone.

"Hey Hahn," I said, "want to hear how awesome my dog is?"

Fast
forward to yesterday morning. In my kitchen, on the counter, is a
jalapeño pepper in a plastic bag from the grocery store. I love
jalapeños, and I frequently slice and dice them into all sorts of
things. Like ice cream.

Anne woke me up at 7, holding the jalapeño in front of my face.

"Want to know how awesome your dog is?" She said.

"This couldn't wait until I woke up?" I said.

Grrr. Wil grumpy. Wil stay up too late playing poker. Wil sleep now.

"Your awesome dog grabbed this off the counter, and chewed the hell out of it."

"She didn't eat it, though, I see," I said.

"No, and I don't think she'll be jumping up on the counter any time soon."

At that moment, Ferris walked into the room, with the very adorable were you talking about me? look on her face.

"You know what she's saying right now?" I said. "'Mom, dad, I don't want to alarm you . . . but there's something really wrong with the bacon.'"

Ferris had a small tumor cut off her hip about six weeks ago. It wasn't a big deal, but it had the potential to turn into a big deal, so we had it removed. The surgery went perfectly, the surgeon's margins were completely clean, and now she's on some medication for a couple of months to make sure that whatever caused the tumor to appear goes off to the Land of Wind and Ghosts, and stays there.

The thing is, the medication she's on makes her extra antsy, extra thirsty, and extra hungry. For the last six weeks, she's been getting into everything, taking things off the counters in ways that I've always thought required at least one opposable thumb, digging holes everywhere, bringing all kinds of random junk into the house from outside, and generally being a huge pain in the ass.

It's not her fault, and we know she isn't trying to be disobedient, but we've had to dog-proof the house the same way we once child-proofed it, and it's worked out pretty well.

Um, until about an hour ago, when I walked into my living room and saw this:

Ferris_is_a_bozo

Yes, that would be the trashcan from my bedroom, caught on my dog's collar. This would also be a copy of the crappy cameraphone picture I snapped and sent to my wife with the caption, "Your awesome dog."

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74 thoughts on “from the vault: my awesome dog”

  1. As a dog person and a cat person and an every-kind-of-animal-god-ever-made person, I adore every single thing about this post. It’s just charming and so wonderfully written.

  2. I could be really gross and tell you about what happened the time we induced vomiting after DJ ate a pound of bacon, but . . . well, no. Or I could tell you about her habit of carrying trash cans out to the living room, and leaving them in the middle of the floor, often full and right side up.
    Why do we keep dogs anyway? What use are they, really? Why do I spend nights unable to roll over because I have one stretched out on each side of me? Why did we just replace our small sedan with a Subaru with fold down seats for dog-space?
    I can’t explain this intellectually. I just know that very little has made me as happy as our dogs do.

  3. I kept hearing a banging sound last night and would open the door of my room to peak out, but I didn’t see anything, no kitty, no strange men prowling the apartment.
    Finally I caught my roommate’s awesome cat (who plays fetch) with a milk cap ring in his mouth and banging his head against my door. Apparently asking me to come out to play. But when I opened the door he would run into the living room. Stupid me, I didn’t know I was supposed to follow.
    Animals are weird. Awesome, but weird.

  4. Because, no matter what, you dog loves you more than anyone or anything ever will in your entire life, and she does it unconditionally.

  7. Wow. This really one of my favorite posts and I laughed my ass off at the picture. Glad to hear Ferris is doing all right! My cat, Kermit, is neurotic and spent his first birthday in the vet hospital having emergency surgery to remove – I kid you not – two dozen Q-tips from his stomach. :sigh: So we have had to cat proof the bathroom by placing baby locks on the cupboards. At least your dog’s behavior is medication-induced and (God willing) will go away. Thanks for sharing, Wil!

  8. Jalapenos and Ice Cream? Holy shit that sounds fucking nasty as hell. I guess I shouldn’t knock it until I try it but holy fuck man, what in the hell made you even TRY and combination?
    I am a dog person also. I have a cat and he’s cool, but dog’s are just more lovable and loyal. Cat’s don’t give a shit about loyalty, they just lay around, eat, sleep and look cute all day long and expect you to pet them when they grace you with their presence.
    Dog’s on the other hand can’t seem to live without you and always want to be around, which can also be annoying, but I am really into an animal that want’s to hang out with me, no matter what I might be doing. Cleaning the yard, taking out the trash, clipping the hedge, washing the car, etc.
    My dog LOVES hot peppers. I fed Gibson (my golden lab) a very hot red pepper the other night and he loved it. My wife’s dog, Fender (a cocker spaniel) is a complete scavenger. I don’t like her that much.
    Michael

  12. last month, my bassett hound, Spike, had a very similar operation… or, cutting-offing. he become so hyper that in the span of literally 20 minutes of being unsupervised, he tangled himself in the phone cord so badly he could not move AT ALL. he was strapped to the wall. wish i had gotten a photo. it was grrrreat!

  19. I laughed out loud.
    A few years ago I was at my parents house for dinner and, while getting ready to leave, put a piece of steak (wrapped) on a chair near the garage door. Well, you can predict what happened next if you’ve already figured out that this is a dog story: I forgot the steak there. My mother later said that she found the dog licking her chops and looking quite satisfied. There was no challenge there. I recall my dog used to eat gingerly. Daintily. I’m trying to picture it now.
    Poor Ferris. I wish her the best. Save Ferris!

  20. Sooo funny. I love the crazy things dogs do. I had a dog once that refused eat food out of your hand. (Which I LOVED him for.) He never stole food once, and rarely begged. Well, I cooked a whole chicken once for my family, and he sat and begged the whole time I was cooking it. Then we ate it, and my husband put the carcass on top of the trash, which Apache (yes, after the Web Server) had never gotten into. The next day we go to take out the trash, and can’t find the carcass that was right there! Yeah, he ate the whole darn thing. We were picking up poo with chicken bones in it for a week. We were really lucky he didn’t puncture something, and he just ate it whole without chewing!

  21. Hilarious!!
    Years ago on the day after Thanksgiving, myself, mom, and a couple of friends were hanging out in front of our house. Our dog, Gretchen, a chubby beagle, came waddling around the corner with an entire turkey carcass stuck on her head. She had gotten into someone’s trash and just got stuck!! heh heh

  23. I’m assuming that many people had seen this already, but it’s such a classic; worth a reminder, I think.
    http://muttcats.com/articles/garbage_disposal_cat.htm

    This is the story of the night my ten-year-old cat, Rudy, got his head stuck in the garbage disposal. I knew at the time that the experience would be funny if the cat survived, so let me tell you right up front that he’s fine. Getting him out wasn’t easy, though, and the process included numerous home remedies, a plumber, two cops, an emergency overnight veterinary clinic, a case of mistaken identity, five hours of panic, and fifteen minutes of fame.

  24. Ferris reminds me so much of my dog, Kai. Not only do they look alike, but they both are food-thieving ninjas… who don’t have the sense to hide their tracks. Glad her surgery went well, and hang in there with the antsiness. There is no destructive power on earth messier than a bored and antsy Rottweiler/Shepherd mix.

  25. I know when Ferris is stealing something, because Riley comes into my office and lies down right next to me. It’s like she’s saying, “Listen, when you go out there and see the coffee grounds and torn up paper towels and shit by the trash can, I want you to remember that I was sitting here next to you, being good, the whole time.”

  28. Riley the tattletale!
    Isn’t cleaning up coffee grounds the BEST? I swear that my kitchen floor is not nearly as bad as it looks — it’s just that coffee grounds have permanently stained the tile.

  30. Until I read the explanation of the picture, I thought you were going to say she’d needed a barf bucket attached to her collar for a while until the baconpeño poppers passed.

  33. Dogs are so hilarious. My dog was partial to tissues. Tissue boxes had to be put WAY out of reach or there’d be shredded white floof everywhere. My grandma used to keep tissues in the pockets of her robe and he would even pick her pockets for them.

  35. When I was a kid we had a german shepherd who pulled a pan of frozen Lasagna off the table and ate about half of it…Frozen! You couldn’t leave anything out with him.. he was a real chow hound

  36. Ferris is an awesome dog. Getting the trashcan on the collar – priceless. That’s the best dog picture I’ve sen in a while. Glad she’s okay and the surgery went well.

  38. Dude. Even after Dogproofing the house my greyhound, Zulu, still finds stuff to get into. The other day he broke into the tv room and thought it was a good idea to chew on all my Adventure People that we had kept for my son. There is that and him and the cat having destroyed a brand new couch. Not trying to top you but talk to me when your wife is pregnant, eating Tums like candy and they dog eats a whole bottle of them, froth everywhere, from the front to the back.

  39. See I interpreted that picture as Ferris saying : “Dad, if you put the bacon directly in this bucket then I can carry it around and eat it whenever I want. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

  40. Heh. What the photo doesn’t really capture is this look on her face that said, “Oh shit. I have no idea what’s going on here. A little help?”

  41. Priceless! We’re just getting our second dog, looks like it may be a Giant Schnauzer (rescued from shelter by a friend who trains service dogs http://tinyurl.com/cfkx2b) to go with our oversized mini. Prepping to do the training all over again. Including purposefully putting hot sauce on something on the table to teach them NOT to eat what they shouldn’t.

  43. When I was a teen, I was watching TV when my cat came backing through the room with a Spaghetti-O’s can stuck over his head. After three minutes of ROFLMAO, I was finally able to regain control and remove the can from his head. He was not amused.
    In college, I was at a friend’s house for dinner. We set a 9 X 12 pan of lasagna on the stove while the oven preheated. Then we went to the garage to get a screw driver (the tool, not the drink – that came later). The amount of time to walk to the garage, dodge a few obstacles, get the screwdriver, and return was about 1 minute give or take. In the kirchen we discovered the pan was on the floor perfectly clean – we picked it up and said this looks like it came out of the dish washer. The dog was in the living room with a huge fat belly and a big shit eatin’ grin on its face. My friend scolded her, but that grin never left her face. I just couldn’t believe how fast that dog downed an entire pan of lasagna.
    The medication that Ferris is taking, is it Prednisone?

  44. Wow, two dozen Q-Tips! I’m a veterinarian and we see pets eat a lot of weird things: feminine hygiene products, bones, bottle caps, and in the case of one cat, two dozen of those twisty hair ties – I call them hair twizzlers. I removed an earplug from a cat and one year later TO THE DAY that cat ate another that I had to surgically remove.

  45. Ah, the cat walking backwards is one of my personal favorites. My cat Sketch once got caught in one of those tall, square Kleenex boxes. Comedy ensued.
    Ferris is on Prednisone, yes. So far, she’s done precisely what our vet told us to expect, which means that this “what can I eat and how much stuff can I get into” phase should end in about a month or so.

  46. Cats are funny. They try to be so prim and proper that you can’t help but laugh when something happens to them.
    Enjoy the next month of dog proofing. Don’t forget about the “how much can I drink and pee in the middle of the night” phase of prednisone.
    What kind of tumor was removed?

  47. I’m so glad that Ferris will be ok. I have always had pets, dogs and cats, but right now, just cats. We have owned three dogs in 34 years of marriage, and losing them was traumatic and heartbreaking. I don’t know if I can go through that again. I like to hear other people talk about their dogs, and live vicariously through their stories in getting my canine fixes.
    Our two cats are funny and entertaining. Having them reinforces what I always knew – dogs have owners….. cats have staff……

  48. Oh, she’s been rocking that phase since the day after surgery.
    I have a jug that hold 3.5 gallons of water, that auto-fills her dish, and she goes through a full jug about every 2 days.

  49. I’ve been helping my mother in rescuing cats and dogs since late last year. My best friend from way back adopted one that my mother had been caring for. Felix has adopted me as his pet human for some reason, and picks on the dog, then jumps into my lap purring, thinking I will save him from her wrath. He also will pit the kids against one another so he gets the max amount of attention. He’s cute, and aggravating all rolled into one.
    Their dog Luck, has a Dino Flintstone complex, and knocks me over with love every time I come to visit. She’s just so cute, and will sneak up to you and hand you toys and sort of woof squeak to say she wants to play. SHe also has a way of sneaking stuff and looking at you so that you cannot be upset. My friends can’t explain how they can be raging mad at her one minute, and toss her a Milk-Bone the next…dogs own the world, while cats manipulate their way into it…
    Very cute picture Wil!

  50. oh, your dog looks like my dog (whom i miss dearly). have you ever driven/walked down s. orange grove and seen a short balding asian man walking a dog that looks like ferris? that’s my dad and my dog.

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