Mad at God today

I know being mad at God is about as illogical a thought as you can have but I'm no Mr Spock so mad at God is how I feel today. I know it's wrong but I'm sure many have felt this way at one point or another in their life. I don't get mad at God very often, in fact it's a very rare occasion. Life is wonderful, life is great and when it's not; bring it on God, gimme your best shot. I'm gonna bounce back no matter what, just give me the strength to get through it is all I ask. EXCEPT when a dog dies. THAT takes me a little lower and a little longer to bounce back from that dark place. My heart shatters into a million tiny little puzzle pieces every time this world loses a dog. And it's been a pretty rough several months in the passing-of-dogs department. We lost Brady, Daisy Mae, Cinnamon and now Ty, a 5 year old amazing Boxer who had debilitating bone cancer that had to be put down yesterday. These aren't my own dogs, they are dogs I take care of for my clients but I treat them and love them as if they were my own and they died too young. Ty died too young dammit! And that's really why I'm mad at God today. If I'm mad can you imagine how their owners feel? I weep for their sorrow. I sob for the dogs pain and passing. I cry for myself that I'll never see them again. How can i NOT be mad at God? Surely there are other creatures on this planet that are ripe for the taking; a wild animal just hit by a car needing to be put out of its misery. Or an elderly patient suffering from end stage cancer. Or a criminally insane death row inmate convicted of doing unspeakable things. Or a young driver in a car accident laying in a coma never to recover. Surely, surely God you can take them and leave us to love our dogs just a little bit longer. A selfish request, I know. One for which I will not apologize. The only thing that can keep us going is the wonderful memories. We must somehow find solace in knowing that a body is just a living, breathing, temporary container that begins to die the minute it's born that houses our spirit. When the body dies that spirit moves on to live in places that we are unaware of except for that little bit of spirit that takes up residence in our hearts forever. Once we get past the grief we should consider ourselves lucky if we have a dog's spirit living in our heart.

R.I.P. Ty 3/20/05 - 11/21/10

Forgive me Father for I have sinned....

...it has been four months since my last blog post. At least i THINK that's one of the deadly sins right? I think ten hail Mary's oughtta put me back in the blog God's good graces.

Well it certainly was a super bizzy summah! I had dogs galore all summer and Dave was up to his eyeballs in property maintenance jobs (WHAT recession??). He spent just about every weekend working which leaves me time to lounge by the pool, true, but I don't like to swim alone (must be fear of that whole pesky drowning thing ... Don't wanna end up like William Shatner's wife now do we?) so I didn't get to enjoy the pool all that much, on the weekends anyway.

As most summers go there were parties and BBQ's and beach trips and our jam packed end-of-summer vacation. I know, I know, it seems like we JUST got back from Bermuda and there we were taking time off again. Time flies when you're having rum though, oops spell checker must have missed that one...time flies when you're having FUN!!

We did some pretty amazing stuff on vacation:
-Codzilla
-Block Island
-Jim Gaffigan comedy show
-Plymouth Waterfront Festival
-Annual Wrentham Outlet shopping trip
-Labor Day Karaoke party

Needless to say it was all good clean wholesome fun up until the Labor Day karaoke party. Cuz lets face it; ya gotta be highly intoxificated (made up word) to do Karaoke (well atleast I do) and my poison of choice was Smirnoff Vodka. Anyone who knows me knows that i ONLY drink Absolute if I'm drinking "vokka". I've tried and tested them all in every night club, divey bar, limo ride and back yard party there is and Absolute gives me the least after-effects the next day so I've sworn off all others, even Grey Goose but ESPECIALLY Smirnoff...Normally I drink Black Opal Shiraz wine which also results in nary a hangover but Smirnoff was all that was available at this party so I took a chance. Oh what a super fun, ugly, messy, vomitous, blacked-out chance it was. (Go ahead, I'll wait here while you google "vomitous" to see if i made up that word too). Anyway, there's nothing like a good, summer's end hangover with dry heaves to make you crawl under a rock for two days and put you on the mother of all wagons for a few months. I'm just now tip-toeing myself back into the world of Shiraz (just in time for he holidays)...Vodka might take a while longer, or will it?

BERMUDA SHOW & TELL

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO ROUND-AND-ROUND
yup that's right we rode a school bus en route to the Falcon Pier, Boston. We took the commuter rail to South Station (way WAY cheaper than a cab) but who knew they were working on the tracks between Holbrook and Braintree for the next few months? (I never got the memo!) So they announced we would be shuttled by bus between these stops. Now I'm thinking Greyhound or the Plymouth-Brockton Bus...you know; tour bus type. Whenever we pulled into Holbrook station I just about fell off my chair and tripped over my jaw when i saw yellow school buses!! Yes apparently now I'm a bus snob.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



CANES, WALKERS, SCOOTERS, OH MY!
The Boston to Bermuda cruise is like the cruise of the living dead! Many, many senior citizens. And not that they shouldn't enjoy a nice vacation; hell they paid their dues but it just surprised the shit out of us how many feeble, hunched over, ghostly, elderly people with canes and walkers and YES even rented scooters monopolized the guest list on this cruise and chose a floating, heaving, hoeing, weaving, waving hotel as their destination. We saw several blue-heads take a flying leap! Screw life jackets; I hope they had extra hips on board!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



YOU KNOW YOUR ON VACATION WHEN...U DON'T EVEN WANT TO TALK ABOUT DOGS
except for the towel dog left on your bed by housekeeping that is. On a few of our excursions we made some friends and ended up at karaoke with them. Sitting around the table the conversation went to DOGS (always does) and i found it to be the LAST thing i wanted to talk about. I tuned out and did some chair dancing to the gawd awful karaoke going on in the background. Surprising, i know; Amy didn't want to talk about dogs! Kinda like Glenn Beck not breaking into a crying fit on air or Donald Trump not wanting to fire someone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WHERE CUP HOLDERS OUGHTTA BE
I don't have a picture of this one but DANG i wish i did...there were actually cup holders in the stalls of the restrooms all over the ship. Ishityounot! No pun intended. (In the stall next to me were a mom and her little girl screaming "I want daddy!!!!!" ...yeah that'd be me if we ever had kids cuz, after all, everybody loves Dave! 'quite an epiphanic moment for me)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



WOULD YOU CARE TO DANCE?
No island vacation would be complete without the ridiculously expensive SWIM WITH DOLPHINS excursion. We were gonna scrap it because of the price but Dave won $300 at roulette (go 21!!) which paid for MOST of the excursion. It was INCREDIBLY EXHILARATING! I highly recommend this excursion on any vacation! Even if you're a water-phobe like me!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



VIEW OF KINGS WHARF BERMUDA FROM THE SHIP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




A FEW OF THOSE CHEESY, OVERPRICED, SHIPS PHOTOGRAPHER PHOTOS THAT YOU MUST HAVE!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



WE SURVIVED THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE AND LIVED TO TELL ABOUT IT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



DAVE'S GQ POSE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


MARTINI'S NEED PROTECTION FROM THE SUNS GLARE TOO YA KNOW!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RANDOM PICS:













~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

5/21/10
There's nothing like going on vacation to make you appreciate coming home. Vacation was awesome but I had a shit-eatin grin on my face the whole ride back to Middleboro (often referred to as Wheel barrel). I couldn't wait to get back to my dogs, my house, my bed, my life! I even gave my car "Ruby" a hug when I got out of the cab. (Ok we've already pointed out that I'm crazy so hugging my car should HARDLY come as a shock to you.) I felt like George Bailey when he got his life back as he ran through Beford Falls with such excitement at the reunion with the wonderful old Bailey Building & Loan, the Emporium, the Movie House and even Mr. potter and not to mention the rickety stair ballast post at home in his drafty old house! I finally figured out why going far away is hard for me. I LOVE my life! So why do I need to leave it? That's not to say I don't like taking time off from work; cuz I love that too. I just prefer to take it off at home. I don't need a vacation from life, just from work. Home Sweet Home!

Incidentally, "It's A Wonderful Life" was originally going to be the name of this blog but it was already taken.

I DIDN'T BLOG WHILE ON VACATION BUT I HAVE A FEW INTERESTING THINGS TO SAY ABOUT IT SO STAY TUNED FOR POSTS AND PHOTOS FROM BERMUDA!!

Dear Vacation Diary, Installment 7

5/10/10
Dear Diary,
OMG! OMG! vacation is just four days away! I'm half-way between excited and overwhelmed. There's so much to do and plan...and OMG I'M LEAVING MY DOGS FOR SEVEN EFFING DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! < < SLAP > > Thanks I needed that! As a person who takes care of dogs for a living I see people come and go on vacation and leave their dogs like it's just another day of the week. Why, oh why, can't i?

Dear Vacation Diary, Installment 6

5/8/10
Dear Diary,
Our trip is just under a week away...It could just be from sheer exhaustion because I was Dave's job site slave today and my sciatica is actin up but I have very little excitement at the moment about this trip. I think it's a survival-mechanism; one of my brains inner panic-prevention measures. Instead of getting all worked up, all emotion is removed so I feel nothing. Yeah, just wait until the night before the trip, there will be an avalanche of emotion and I'll be doing the conga in the kitchen! The trial sleep over with the dogs at Lisa's went great last night except for a little wee-wee accident and trying to walk on the pool cover. (Apparently they are NOT strong enough for an elephant to walk on like the commercial says...so any of you that HAVE an elephant, don't let them walk on the pool cover.) Nobody got in a fight, nobody escaped and nobody got scooped up by a chicken-hawk! But still, I have little motivation to prepare for this trip by digging out summer clothes from storage in the basement and washing them, packing, packaging the dogs food for their stay at auntie Lisa's, get a mani-pedi, color my hair, organize our passports & cruise tickets, arrange for a ride to Boston AND clean the house. That's right, clean the house! I can't possibly be the only one who likes to come home to a clean house after vacation, can i? Oh it's just one of my many quirks...And apparently I like the added pressure of jUsT oNe MoRe EfFiNg tHiNg on the to-do list!! I'm a huge procrastinator and last-minute-lucy when it comes to any monumental task. I blame that on Scarlett O'Hara, she's the one who taught me! "But I can't think about that right now. If I do I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow." Scarlett came up with the best ways for dealing with stress...I'll take her cue!

Dear Vacation Diary, Installment 5

5/7/10
Dear Diary,
We dropped the dogs off earlier tonight at auntie Lisa's for their trial sleep over. Annabelle sniffed around here, there and everywhere then went out side and pee'd here there and everywhere. Alexis, having been to Lisa's before, felt right at home and went straight for the doggie toy box but noticed a cardboard box next to the fish tank and was eyeballing that for a good chew instead. (Cardboard trumps ALL dog toys just so you know!) Go figure. Back at home, the house is quiet and empty tonight without them. I hope I can sleep. 'Trying not to let my neurotic thoughts run away with me. Runnin runnin and runnin runnin.

Dear Vacation Diary, Installment 4

4/22/10
Dear Diary,
ok, just added another wart to the worry list: Lisa has a huge plate glass window in her living room. What if Alexis sees the UPS guy or a cat or a bird or a leaf and jumps through it????????????? It could happen.

Dear Vacation Diary, Installment 3

4/8/10
Dear Diary,
Before going to, appropriately enough for me and Lisa, a Mexican silver jewelry party tonight we headed out for a pre-party glass of wine at a trendy Plymouth waterfront local spot that had funky lamps on the bar made of barbie dolls sitting in mini Adirondack chairs. So cute! So cool! Of course the topic of our dogs came up--always does. We love them so! Lisa asked what am i so afraid of when I leave the dogs with her to go on vacation. Gee when you ask it so simple and 'matterafact like that, I almost couldn't come up with anything logical. My answer would only give her another sneak peak into the well hidden, crazy inner-workings of my mind. Aside from the hawk paranoia, I'm not entirely confident in Alexis' ability to sleep away from home with someone who works full time without having an all out panic-shit-yourself-attack. It's not uncommon for dogs to have a nervous bowel movement. I see it all the time in new dogs to the daycare group. Often on their first day they'll have to make a bowel movement within seconds of arriving and if i miss the signs, my kitchen floor is just as good as a patch of grass in the yard. Alexis does what Dave and I jokingly refer to as a "stress poop" but I assure you it's nothing funny! If she is stressed out over a long period of time it will eventually result in a diarrhea poop explosion. So I told Lisa of this delightful little tidbit. She was surprisingly unphased by it and said poop can be cleaned up, don't' worry about it so i said ok. Now that we have the hawk thing covered and the poop thing covered things are looking up.

Dear Vacation Diary, Installment 2

Wednesday 3/31/10
Dear Diary,
I have a secret fear and it's like something out of the Twilight New Moon series...It's that poor little Annabelle would be swooped up by a hawk. This is something that can actually happen out here in the boonies where a plentiful abundance of owls and hawks the size of a Yaris swoop down and make off with our cats and tiny Paris Hilton dogs! I've never verbalized this fear to anyone, not even Dave, but it was something I was going to eventually warn The Queen about before she dogs sits while we are in Bermuda, of which i fully expect her to laugh at me and pee herself while doing so. Just imagine my shockorror (shock and horror...i told u I make up words!) when The Queen tells me in passing conversation today that she has a hawk living in her trees. Oh! My! Effing! Gawd! I explain my secret fear and we have a good chuckle. This is going in the dear diary blog I tell her. She laughs and tries to calm me by telling me it's just a one eyed disabled hawk. Ok so that means it will just run Annabelle over with it's handicapped accessible van? Does it have a handicapped placard to prove said disability? A Doctors note even? Hawks can't be trusted! You've seen Warner Brothers' Foghorn Leghorn get his ass kicked by that unassuming little chicken hawk in those cartoons haven't you? Not to be trusted I tell ya! "Go away boy, ya bother me!"

Dear Vacation Diary

We just booked a Bermuda Cruise for our 15th wedding anniversary and it is with much trepidation. How can this possibly be you ask. Any great length of time spent away from home, away from my pack is, has always been and will always be, a bittersweet experience. Even long before Alexis came along. For example, three days into our trip to France in 1999, I missed the Yorkies so terribly that I would have gladly gone home early. It didn't help that I felt like we were in a galaxy far far away. I'm a homebody at heart so going far from home is hard for me...unless of course it's the type of vacation that I can bring my home with me. How redonkolous but it's true. Once Alexis came into the picture it became more difficult to pawn off 3 dogs to go on vacation (see my previous blog on that subject too) so we got creative and planned vacations where we could take the dogs with us. RVing. Beach House rentals on the cape. Stay-at-home vacations with day tripping. You get the pathetic picture. We finally got up the nerve to take a real vacation for our 10th anniversary five years ago; a mini 4 day cruise to the Caribbean. We had it all planned out; a family member was going to house sit and take care of the dogs. Except 2 days into it we found out that family member wasn't comfortable being away from HIS pack either (home & computer etc) so he left my sister holding the bag to come feed and let out the dogs twice a day. It was a total bummer but it all worked out ok. So here we are five years later, one less dog and ready to go on a real, 7 day cruise to Bermuda. I think I'm more excited to be cruising out of Boston with NO flying than I am about the actual cruise itself. And I must add that this would never be possible without our good friend Lisa Henning a/k/a Queen of Cuisine. Sure, as soon as i booked the trip I was playing steel drum Caribbean music dancing around the house. Really, it's true; ask Dave! Yes, I'm goofalicious! Like you didn't already know that! But now reality has set in, the music has stopped, the steel drums have been silenced, the dancing shoes have been put away and here I am with my thoughts about leaving my dogs...

Sunday 3/28/10
Dear Diary,
Yesterday I was dancing to steel drums, today I'm petrified to leave my dogs. Oh I'm sure they'll be in good hands with my dear friend Lisa but I'm a worry wart and I'm thinking about all that could possibly go wrong. What if she forgets the garage door is open and she opens the door and Alexis gets out? What if Annabelle pees on the carpet? What if Alexis misses me as much as I miss her and she turns into one of those separation anxiety ridden dogs that I have to kick out of D2D? What if? What if? What if? OMG somebody slap me! This is the part of me that I hate ... and for most of you that know me I'm pretty full of myself so this flaw in my fabric is troubling. It has all the makings of a scene out of Analyze This! (I would be the Robert Dinero "tough guy" character in case you were wondering.) Ok I'm sick of thinking about this right now. Gonna go back to folding laundry (a/k/a laundry therapy).

You are what you eat

WELCOME TO MY FIRST POST OF 2010!!

Wave your fingers in Wayne's World fashion and let's get back to 1999 OR you can plug your DeLorean into the flux capacitator and get it up 88mph to generate 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, whichever method you prefer ...

As any good dog owner would do, we signed up Alexis for obedience classes toot-sweet as soon as her breeder, now trainer, would take her...around 4 months old. So that takes us back to around July 1999. Ahhh the 90's, i remember them well.

Trainings were held in the basement of some big old church by the Bristol County Dog Training Club of New Bedford which Alexis' breeder was part of. Our first training class was just that; a class. All the dog owners sat in chairs with the trainer at the front of the group, kinda like first grade. Hindsight being 20/20 i think this was nothing more than an opportunity for the trainer to weed out the idiots from the half wits and the geniuses. I ain't gonna brag here...i was one of the idiots but at least I knew to keep my mouth shut. One of the topics we discussed was pet nutrition, which by the way was a turning point for me in biblical proportions when it comes to edumckating dog owners about what's in their pets food. I owe the entire life of my dogs to this class and this trainer! One of the first questions she asked was "is it ok to feed dogs raw meat?" I didn't really know the answer so Tar-baby just sat thar ain't sayin nothing! But someone yelled out "no, because it gives them a taste for blood and they'll want to kill." Holy crap were we in the werewolf class or something?? Did i make a wrong turn somewhere in the Whaling City? But in amazement, alot of people agreed..."mm-mm that's right." It was probably all the trainer could do to contain herself and keep from goin all Jackie Chan on that guy but I have a feeling she'd heard it before so for now, his life was spared.

Our trainer was not much of a preacher; she relied more on the power of suggestion. She suggested we all go home and do an internet search on "pet nutrition" and she told us we would be amazed and horrified at what we found. (This was LONG before the days of "google it" ... how did we ever survive!?) That's all she said; that was our homework assignment. No clues, no hints, no indications as to what exactly we were looking for or what we were supposed to find in this Sherlock Holmes-esque assignment. I suppose the people who really cared about their dogs went home and researched it on their big clunky hard wired computers with dial-up internet. The ones who didn't care, well, their dogs have probably left this earth from the various ramifications of poor pet nutrition. NOT ME!! As you all know, Alexis is still here, healthy as a horse, strong as an ox, alive and well, thinking she's 5 years old instead of nearly 11. What did I find out about pet nutrition on the internet, you ask? Dare I leave you in suspense and make you do the very homework assignment I was given some 10 years ago to find your own answers? That would be cruel...and besides I love to hear myself "write." What I found was that the brands of food you buy in the supermarket and many retailers are downright inferior and dangerous; many of the ingredients used are killing our pets! The commercial pet food industry is a sub-industry of the human food/agricultural industry. Anything unfit for human consumption at slaughterhouses such as waste & grain remnants that end up on the floor ends up in our pet food. I bet you never really thought about that did you? Whats worse than that is useless and dangerous, indigestible ingredients are used as fillers in pet food so that these large corporations can save a buck! Whats even double-dog-dare-ya worse than that is research has shown that euthanized animals have been used in pet food. Have I got your attention now? As an answer to sub-standard pet food, premium brands were created by veterinarians, breeders, etc. and use only top grade, species appropriate ingredients that are fit for human consumption. (But beware; some self-promoting premiums are anything but!)

I now give this research homework assignment to every new customer that passes through my door and any one I know with a dog. I tell them to google "pet nutrition" and see what you find. Of course I help my customers along by giving them a printout of my "Pet Nutrition; It Can't Be Found In The Supermarket" article that appeared in two issues of The Pet Gazette last year, which has a mini analysis of the most popular brands of dog food and shows you how to decipher the ingredients list on your package. You can see the entire article at www.dedicated2dogs.com/petnutrition

Pet nutrition has become my soapbox (anything to make me taller, right?) I believe that what you feed your dog is the single most important decision you have to make when it comes to the physical health of your pet. Education is power; don't just take the word of me, your veterinarian or anyone else what to feed your pet. Do the research yourself. Our pets rely on us to take care of them. Pet ownership is a huge commitment that should not be taken lightly. What you feed them should not be taken lightly either. Although many will eat anything, Dogs are not garbage disposals. Dogs (and cats for that matter) are carnivores (meat eaters) and simply lack certain enzymes to digest and process many of the foods we eat such as grains and plant based materials. You can see by their TV commercials taunting us with yummy vegetables and stew-like foods that many of these corporate, commercial brands are trying to fool us into believing that dogs and cats are omnivores like us (meat AND plant eaters). They are not! It's important to make yourself aware of those ingredients and avoid them or I promise you, you are shortening the life of your pet!

Ok I'm stepping off my soapbox now before my head pops off. After you read this blog and my Pet Nutrition page you will be wiser....Use your power for good, not evil! May the force be with you. WOOF!