Respect their intelligence and nobility. I don’t crudely state, “Olive, here’s some fresh water.” I present her with her paw printed ceramic bowl and announce with an air of royal snottiness, “Olive, here’s some french water.” In one of the weim’s few undignified behaviors, Olive laps up the water, and walks away, dripping goblets of RH2O across the length of the kitchen. What does she care? She has her loyal subject to mop up after her. However, I do speak to her throughout the day as an intellectual peer. She may consider me her inferior… until I give her a command. I speak to her as though I am channeling William The Conquerer or General Patton. Or a very irritated, premenstrual Helen Keller. “OLIVE. OFF. COUCH. NOW!” I hear my own voice and am intimidated by its volume. Christ, I sound like an anthropomorphic bullhorn. I watch Olive’s pupils shrink to the size of a pinhead a nanosecond before she takes flight and zooms away. This is in sharp contrast to the voice I use when, awakening to a brand new day, I give Queen Olive a full body massage as she lies in her crate, unwilling to emerge until this splendor-filled ritual has been sufficiently executed and completed. In a much softer voice, I tell her how beautiful she is and how much I love her. (Wow. I just realized that Olive is an anagram of “i love.”) She must think, “YEAH, NICE HOUSE I LIVE IN, BUT I’VE GOT SYBIL AS MY LANDLORD. KEEP PETTING.”
Archive for the ‘weimaraners’ Category
Scat On a Hot Shingled Roof
In weimaraners on 02/23/2011 at 7:07 pmI told this story to friends over the Summer and I’m not sure how I neglected to re-tell it here, but it bears repeating. This is actually a postscript of sorts to my “Kryptonite” post. Once a week, I’d take an environmentally unfriendly plastic grocery bag and march out into the backyard with a scowl on my face and a garden shovel in my hand. Time to scoop up and dispose of the fecal land mines all over the yard. By the time I’m done, the bag feels as heavy as if there’s a bowling ball the size of Minnesota in it. Mind you, I perform this unsightly chore in full view of all the cars that pass by on this busy county road. I know if I drove by and saw someone doing this, I’d laugh my ass off. And then I’d probably lean out the window and yell something like “HEY, DON’T FORGET TO PICK UP YOUR OWN WHEN YOU’RE DONE PICKING UP THE DOG’S!” Olive waits inside the kitchen, quietly tearing everything off the refrigerator door, even messily devouring the cute miniature paper doll chain that my friend’s 6-year old made for me. I think I’m done. Usually, I walk three-quarters of the way around the property to dispose of this transitory septic farm in the trash can. Today however, I’m lazy. I’ll just go to the back of the house, tie up the bag and heave it down below near the garbage can. Then, when I go out later, I’ll pick it up and dispose of it properly. I walk over to the top of the rotting railroad tie retaining wall (which to replace is going to cost me what it would cost to purchase a small country), tie a knot in the bag, swing it backward, then forward, releasing it as though I were in the national finals of a slow pitch softball tournament. Wow. It feels great as it leaves my hand. This baby is going up, and up and up…OH SHIT. IT’S GOING TO LAND ON THE ROOF. Yes, the bag of Olive’s lawn cigars and moon pies (complete with intestinal parasites) lands on the corner of the roof. The only saving grace is that it barely misses landing on the vent pipe that prevents radon fumes from building up in the house (a common geologic occurrence in New Jersey.) WELL, THIS IS GREAT. IT’S ONLY JULY AND I DON’T NORMALLY CALL THE GUTTER GUY UNTIL THE FALL. For a brief second, I think of getting the ladder out to retrieve it. I quickly realize the ladder will fall short by about 15 feet. Then a newspaper headline flashes before my eyes: LOCAL WOMAN KILLED IN FALL FROM LADDER. BAG OF DOGSHIT FOUND AT SCENE. I shake my head and walk away. Maybe it will decompose and blow away before then. As annoyed as I am with my laziness, I am even more annoyed by my “shitty pitch.” But by the time I walk inside the kitchen, even I’m laughing. It’s a great story. I look at Olive and with a straight face and ask her, “OLIVE DID YOU SHIT ON THE ROOF?” She just looks at me all happy, with her tail wagging furiously. Without Olive, it would be just another boring day.
This Looks Easy
In weimaraners on 02/17/2011 at 7:51 pm
"Comforters are filled with GOOSE feathers??????"
Cat in The Hat
In weimaraners on 01/10/2011 at 9:30 pmWhat a “Cat in The Hat” morning I had today. This is how I describe a series of ridiculous events that starts with some innocuous act on my part and quickly accelerates into a Pandorian nightmare. Usually because I’m rushing and not paying close enough attention to something I should. At around 6:30 am this morning, while lugging the 40 pound plastic bag of wood pellets up onto the pellet stove, dumping them into the hopper, the bottom of the bag breaks open and 20 pounds of compressed wood pellets come cascading down the front of the stove onto the living room rug, scattering like tiny shiny turdlettes. Olive is now trying to gobble up these unexpected treats like a Dyson vacuum cleaner. To her, it probably resembles deer or rabbit scat, two of her favorite environmental delicacies. I reach into her mouth with the finesse of a blind plumber, trying to extract these tiny missiles to no avail. They are so small, she can barely chew them; they disappear down her gullet only to tumble onto the pile of other foreign objects she has recently ingested (pencil bits, the eye from a plush lizard, cardboard, discarded Q-tips, etc.) I retract my hand, now dripping in a syrup-like coating of dog saliva. To make matters worse, part of the heavy-duty white plastic bag is now melted onto the front of the black pellet stove. I’m so annoyed with myself I want to slap my own face repeatedly. Olive gets led to her “dungeon” crate downstairs while I clean up and curse at myself. (I call it her dungeon crate only because it is very spartan. It’s where she goes when I have to leave her for awhile and the possibility of a gastrointestinal train wreck is very real. Often she holds on to her lawn cigars for hours, apparently in an attempt to polish them into diamonds.) Soon, she’s barking and I know this time it’s for water. I swear the dog forgets to drink sometimes and when she’s thirsty, she becomes very insistent and the water in Princess Olive’s bowl had better be as pristine as an arctic spring. If it contains microns of stick bits, whisker dust or God forbid, a bloated kibble, she won’t touch it. Any foreign floaters, and she turns her nose up in disgust, waiting for her handmaiden (me) to replenish it. I clean and fill her water bowl, let her out of the crate and scrub my hands. What a great day today! You won’t hear me complain, my dog is a nuthatch and I’m insane!
Life With Olive 