life with pets

JUST SAY NO! to treating your pets like children.

~ thedailydish ~ 21 Comments

Today’s JUST SAY NO! is going to make some people ANGRY. Well then, GOOD. If what I have to say in the following paragraphs strikes a painful chord, then this is long overdue.

It has come to my attention that some of you are suffering from a delusional sickness called doggiemommyitis. Sufferers of this burgeoning disease find themselves incapable of grasping the important distinction between PET and HUMAN CHILD. For the sake of these pitiful souls, let me clarify. Human children look like miniature versions of us. They have (usually) one small person’s head, one trunk, two arms, two legs, ten each of fingers & toes, and they walk (once they learn to do so) upright. PETS on the other hand, do not look like us. They have fur, or feathers, or scales. They typically walk on four legs, or fly on two wings, or swim w/ fins. Some may slither, as in the case of snakes. Indeed, some may even talk – like my crazy ass bird who says “wuuuuuzzzzzzzuppppppp,” but that’s pretty much the extent of it. They DO NOT wear clothing and would NEVER EVER EVERRRRRRRRR want to. EVER.

Animals – as much as we all love them (except for those weirdos who don’t) – are animals. Not humans. AND MOST DEFINITELY NOT human children. On a recent trip to Petsmart, I was shocked and horrified to see this:

For those of you who have never seen one of these, it is a stroller. Yes, of course! Except this one isn’t for a child. No. It is called the Pet Gear™ Blue Happy Trails Pet Stroller. It costs $100 and is one of the “lower-end” pet stroller models. The Jeep Rubicon Jogging Stroller (for Pets) is a whopping $219.99. In the olden days, people used to take walks or run with their dogs. Now they push them like human infants. In a country where childhood obesity is reaching epic proportions, people are now PUSHING THEIR PETS AROUND LIKE KIDS.

A while back I had the misfortune of seeing something like this at a public park:

Only it was a grown MAN wearing his dog, and he looked even slightly more ridiculous. if that is possible. No offense to anyone who totes their dog around on their chest like a small human, but… well. actually I guess I do mean offense. B/c you need HELP. Pets were never intended to be carried around in Baby Bjorns, oversized pocketbooks & arm luggage covered in rhinestones. That’s why they have LEGS. You know, the four appendages dangling off their body that you’ve squeezed into a leotard and tutu? Yep. right there.

Behold this poor creature:

This dog is wearing a wig for pete’s sake. A WIG. If you are subjecting your pet to this, then you need to call your doctor IMMEDIATELY b/c your dosage is WAAAAAAAYYYY TOO HIGH. I know it is cute to see what Lil Poopsie looks like in a doll’s dress, once – maybe twice, but there are things that should never be done to a dog. EVER. Do you think they are doing this over in Africa where people are dying of starvation? Dressing up their pets? NO WAY. They would be eating them if they were lucky enough to have them. This is AMERICA PEOPLE. Where we have enough money to condone this sort of thing as acceptable behavior. Sort of like Botox injections. or Twitter.

Last year when we went on vacation, we boarded our dog. He stayed at a reaaaallllly nice place. At least it must be for what we paid. I was hoping he was getting above-average quality kibble, extra fun play time, that kind of thing. But when we went to pick him up, I was surprised by something they handed over to me, along w/ his leash and the bill. It was a stack of papers. Each one had a sweet doggie graphic and a space for writing. And each sheet was filled out – as if by MAX (our dog) – describing what he’d enjoyed most each day. Playing w/ the ball. Taking his nature walk. Playing tug. Cute, right? Well. Sort of, I suppose. Except that Max can’t write. And never will. And so, understandably, this got my attention. I thought about it a lot. You know I did.

When we pulled away from the boarding kennel I noticed their “Doggie Day Care Center.” And then I really truly understood. The windows of the Doggie Day Care were papered w/ fingerpaintings. Done by dogs. Little paw prints in all the colors of the rainbow. Outside the place stood a tot-sized easel listing the schedule of daily activities. And beside the building was a fenced-in play yard complete w/ Little Tykes playhouse and children’s playground equipment – stuff my daughters would go wild for – but it was FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH DOGS. And I thought to myself WOW. Doggie Day Care. PURE GENIUS. Can this population be exploited more thoroughly?? I THINK NOT.

And so, I beg you all – but especially YOU,

to JUST SAY NO! to treating your pets like children.

Untitled.

~ thedailydish ~ 7 Comments

My heart feels like a flaccid orange and my mind is numb. W/out exaggeration, the past 2 days have simply SUCKED BEYOND BELIEF. YES I know I joke about a whole lot of things, but for once I am totally serious.

Yesterday morning I got into a car accident. My daughters and I are all fine. The car is okay. But I saw first-hand how emotionally charged people can be following a collision, and road rage is a DAMN good reason why handguns should be outlawed. W/out rehashing all the details, I got rear-ended. It was a stupid accident. The driver of the other vehicle did not want to be at fault. Rather than take responsibility for her error in judgment, she wanted to take it out on me. She & her large male companion threatened me repeatedly w/ bodily harm. They screamed. They cursed. I do not like being threatened. I do not like being cursed out by two enraged human beings hell-bent on being right when they are wrong. and especially NOT IN FRONT OF CHILDREN. It was ugly. Very, very ugly.

If I saw these folks on the street I’d think they were a lovely family – an attractive mom & dad w/ a beautiful little girl. But the time I spent w/ them. The threats. It was totally surreal. Is it normal for a grown woman to threaten to KNOCK ANOTHER WOMAN OUT?? I haven’t heard this kind of stuff since I was in high school – and even then, it wasn’t ever directed at me. People I know do not act like this. It’s barbaric. INSANE. People who try to look like middle-class America, driving around in a fancy SUV, dress well, and then act like street thugs? Is this real? For the LOVE OF GOD what are people doing to their kids in this day and age?? When you teach your children to hate first and think later – to play a race card – you are as good as crippling them. They will never be more than that. They will never see more than that. Here in Philly – people act. and they think too late.

I spent all day yesterday dazed. Feeling off-sorts. Saddened. angry. sad again. even scared. Trying to reconcile everything. And then, Last night, after dark, raccoons crept into our rabbit’s fenced-in pen and attacked her. We didn’t even know until after the fact. Our good friend & neighbor, Jim, saved her from being mauled. Locked her in her hutch. Broke the bad news. One look, and I knew she was hurt badly. I could see visible puncture wounds on her right side, and she wasn’t moving her one arm.

6 months ago, I spent weeks nursing this rabbit back to health via syringe feedings. You simply cannot stare into the eyes of a creature that close to death, feeding them as a child, holding them, encouraging them, without seeing them as your own. Prudence had been just this side of the pearly gates, wagging her cotton ball tail through the slats for fun. She bid adieu to St. Peter, and rejoined humanity – for what. For THIS? The indignity of being mauled by a hungry raccoon trying to feed her young. I know that God exists, and I know that nature is cruel. But the injustice is too much.

This morning the ladies and I took Prudence to the vet. I knew what they would say. I knew the options. But I took her all the same. How could I do anything else? To keep something I love in pain, safe, at home? To allow her to suffer b/c I could not bear to lose her would be abject cruelty. But taking her…. In my heart, I knew that I was leading her to death. The chance – however slim – that she had or would contract rabies from the bite. that was all that mattered. How could I live w/ myself it it happened? If she bit me. My children? My heart aches. My beloved rabbit, Prudence, my friend. Who’d been at death’s door and had overcome, blossoming into better health and spirits than she’d ever known.

I’ve written before about my love of pets, and I’ve written briefly of their loss. I’ve introduced you to several of our cast of characters – most notably, Kiwi (my crazy ass bird) – but this post… this is a tribute to Prudence.

Spring through fall, Prudence lives/d in the backyard in a wooden hutch w/ her own fenced pen. It had become sort of a joke, that she was a “free-range bunny”, b/c most days we left the gate to her pen open and she would hop in-and-out at will. Although our yard has open fencing, and Prudence could have escaped if she wanted to, she never did. The most she ever did was hop over to our next-door neighbors to sample the clover. So most days I would gaze out the kitchen window to find a Teletubbie-esque scene, with Prudence hopping from spot to spot in the yard, munching grass. Although we have a ton of cats on our block, none of them ever gave Prudence the slightest grief. In fact, the total opposite. These cats would (no joke) actually come to hang out w/ her. Our one cat Bixby would sometimes laze up on top of her hutch, and our other cat Milkshake slept INSIDE of it. Prudence seemed to think this was just fine, and somehow here in West Philly, it WAS normal. They all just got along. Different. But happy. Prudence was as close to a “wild bunny” as a totally domestic fed pet could get – she’d even felt inspired to recently begin digging a burrow in the corner of her pen, like her rabbit forebears. Somehow she just knew. She knew how. She wanted to. And it was okay.

Tonight, my heart aches. Tomorrow we will bury our sweet bunny’s remains in the burrow she’d been digging these past weeks. A fitting tribute to her work.

Happy Momma’s Day Weekend~ YO!

~ thedailydish ~ 7 Comments

I don’t know about you, but I for one enjoy the easy life. Someone else cooking my food, cleaning up after me, picking my teeth. So next to my birthday week, and Christmas, I like Mother’s Day weekend the BEST.

Friday night kicked off the festivities w/ a hot date featuring my husband.
After sushi for two @ our favorite place, we hit Ye Olde Booksellers. I got a great new book called Farewell, My Subaru. A tale about a guy who gives up his material existence to live off the land in New Mexico. Never mind he’s a pampered urbanite with zero farm experience. I was sold when I read he’d gotten goats off of Craigslist.

Given the number of pets we have, this shouldn’t come as a major surprise, but we’ve also gotten animals off of Craigslist. Our former 3rd-hand macaw, and our little wonder bird *Kiwi*. Now normally I’m not one to toot my own bird, but since we’re on the subject. Toot-toot. it sure is hard to imagine life w/out Kiwi. I would have to go back to grooming myself, changing clothes just once a day, and having friends. YES, She’s become so attached to me, in fact, that I may have to take a restraining order out on her. She has of late begun trying to drive all others away from me. For instance, when someone comes over to talk (and by someone I mean ANYONE, including humans, human-esque forms, animals – even toys and telephones), she begins to chirp in a jealous fashion. If I do not respond, she becomes slightly more agitated, to the point where she starts to lunge at said person (or animal – or phone), trying to bite them and send them packing. I have had boyfriends who were not so attentive. Or insane.

ANYWAY. Saturday my husband – who is just so smart! brought down the big plastic log cabin that was up in our attic playroom and reassembled it outside for our daughters – as well as the rest of the kids on the block. It looks like this:

Except that ours is now taking up most of our front porch, and those are NOT my kids. But they do look like they are having a grand old time, and they would not be the only ones. The ladies were having the BEST TIME EVERRRRR this weekend playing in that thing. And who can blame them?! If I were a kid, I can’t imagine anything better than my very own plastic log cabin!!

So Saturday evening my husband dragged the girls away from the cabin to take us all to the Borgata buffet for a pre-momma’s day feast. We got there just after 5 PM and let me tell you, that is the BEST TIME TO GO. There was no line, no waiting, nothing but food glorious food and meeeee eating it alllllll. After dinner, I did NOT play my secret luckiest winniest machine ever, mostly b/c someone else was using it and they did NOT appear to be winning anything. Instead I went the next aisle over and played a brand new machine called S’mores. And it was DELiCIOUSLY addictive. Yes, I blew $40 away on the machine quick-as-a-wink, and wanted to go back and spend more. B/c THAT is the kind of food-obsessed moron I am. Oh well. It was fun while the flavor lasted. After the Borgata, we went to the beach, and it was as magical as ever even though it was windy and cold. Ahhhh. Nothing like it.

Yesterday, Momma’s Day, was lovely. My older daughter lost her second tooth in TWO DAYS. I kid you not. We were all giddy about it. She also got her brand new violin restrung, and practically slept w/ it she was so happy. Later in the day we went shopping, and even though I have decided that bathing suit shopping is as close to hell as I care to get, I even found a new swimsuit! It is WAY CUTE with the prettiest pattern. I usually hate most bathing suits b/c they are made of hideously ugly fabric, things you wouldn’t dare dress in EVER. Not to mention the fact that most of them make you feel like an over-stuffed sausage sticking out of a waaaay too small casing. But this one is soooooo sweet. YAY. Yes, I know I have half a dozen bikinis that my husband begs me to wear, but all I want is a cute 1-pc that holds my ample chest in place so I can run around in the surf & build sandcastles w/ my kids w/out worrying that my breastesssessss are popping out unbeknownst to me and some old duffer is getting an eyeballfull. which has happened before. This suit is great b/c it is SO CUTE and fun, but highly practical. My idea of perfection.

So last night we returned home for supper before the BIG SURVIVOR SEASON FINALLEE!! 3 HOURS OF SURVIVOR FUNNNN!!! Which brings me to the funniest story. Last night as I was inside getting dinner together (YES I KNOW I WAS COOKING DINNER ON MY VERY OWN MOTHER’S DAY BUT WAIT TILL YOU HEAR THE REST OF MY STORY). SO, I was inside, and the next thing I know my husband comes in the house w/ the biggest smirk on his face. He goes YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED. And he starts just cracking up. Well it turns out, our little neighbor across the street isn’t quite *up to speed* yet w/ regard to potty training. So she’s out there playing with all the kids, hanging out inside the cabin, when SNIFF**SNIFF** my older daughter’s like “Who FARTED??” The cabin apparently goes silent. The kids are all looking around at each other, waiting for someone to fess up. My daughter asks the littlest neighbor, “Did you fart?” To which the little one responds, “No fart, POOP.” My daughter looks down and sees that the kid has POOP all over her leg – AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! Thus prompting a MASS EXODUS from the cabin. All the kids spill out onto the sidewalk. So on the cement, my husband discovers this one lone turd. Just sitting there. right outside the cabin door. Our friend across the street happened to come across just then, with a plastic bag in her pocket. No kidding. Craziest thing ever. Can you imagine just walking down the street and PLOP a big crap falls out of your shorts! BOY I hope that’s not me some day.

Cleaning makes me grumpy.

~ thedailydish ~ 5 Comments

I spent today cleaning the house. If you know me, then Yes, I am okay, thank you for asking. For those who don’t know me personally, I’ll put it bluntly.

I HATE CLEANING.

I adore having a clean home, it makes me happy like few other things in the world, but I absolutely despise having to clean it. For one, it’s large. I am not complaining about that – oh no, I love it. But there’s a reason why middle-class Victorians had servants. 3000 square feet of dust accumulation. Hauling the jumbo shop vac up and down is a chore in and of itself, but having to operate the sucker over all three floors, then turn around and haul it back down to the basement for storage – UGH. Mopping each floor with diluted oil soap is an extra kick in the pants. My back ACHES after all of this. Not to mention all of the windexing and the dusting with lemon oil. We have a LOT of woodwork. And don’t get me wrong, I am the first one thanking God we have more than one bathroom. But having to scrub three toilets, 2 bathtubs and 3 grotty sinks.. not fun.

We have a zoo here and I love all our pets dearly. But they are dirty. It’s more because of them than anything that I MUST CLEAN. Our beloved dog alone sheds a small animal every other day. He also happens to have a severe allergy to some mystery substance – perhaps it is us – which renders him itchy, flaky and incredibly smelly a good part of the year. We have tried everything. Nothing seems to work. And the only reason we put up with his hairball tumbleweeds, and the snow-like layer of dander which falls off him coating the floor around his bed, is because we love him. We have a conure I adore who sees me as her own personal toy. She likes nothing better than to poop on me the minute she leaves her cage in the morning. In fact, she enjoys free pooping pretty much everywhere, so I spend a goodly portion of each day wiping up after her or changing shirts. I mentioned in a post a long time ago that we used to have a second bird, a macaw whose slovenly eating habits encouraged a whole village of mice to move in. Said bird was also incredibly vicious, and we ended up having to give her away. It was sort of a relief not having to clean up after her anymore – as much as it was a relief not worrying about her biting my face off. My husband says all the time, MAN can you imagine how clean our house would be if we didn’t have any of these pets?! I know it’s true. So unbelievably true. My husband is eagerly counting down as we lose pets to sickness or old age. And he keeps warning me not to bring anything more home, but frankly even I have my limit. As much as I would love to have more pets – I adore animals and have so much love to give – I just don’t need another reason to HAVE TO CLEAN.

My family. I love them like nothing else, but they are pigs. Yes, I know I am too, but I am after all the one doing most of the cleaning. My husband is fairly tidy God bless him, but he doesn’t see the point in dusting. He will vacuum, mop, etc. But he just doesn’t notice the inch of dust over everything. My kids, forget it. They love it when the house is clean, but they are both just like us – pack rats out the whazoo. My older daughter, the aspiring artist, collects a forest worth of paper in her room every week. Understandable. We recycle most of it, but man oh man, what is her excuse for the rest of it? Every price tag, bit of string, scrap of foil, pieces of every little thing she encounters, she hoards all of it like someone who lived through the Depression. And I would know. My grandmother, before she moved to her retirement home, she would keep every bit of food ever made. Eating a meal in her house was like a recreation of her past 7 suppers. 25 empty margarine tubs filled with 2 bites each – she did tapas before it was ever cool. But I digress. What I’m saying is I simply find it heart-breaking to spend an entire day cleaning the house, then after dinner look at the floor and realize it was ALL IN VAIN. I sweep, I pick up, it’s never-ending. So half the time I just don’t bother. The only reason I ever succumb and do a deep cleaning is because I have no choice. I wake up one morning – like this morning, and I can see the outlines of things in the dust when I move them. The dog is sitting in an inch of his own hair – and so am I. Then I can’t take it anymore. Only when the mess and the hairballs and the smell reach maximum threshold, must it be done.

I am a housewife. I feel an obligation as such to actually clean my house on occasion. Mind you, this urge doesn’t really kick in more than once, twice a month, but still it comes. We don’t have a lot of extra money, so I would feel intensely guilty hiring someone else to clean my house. I take it as part of my moral obligation and duty. But I confess I fantasize about having a paid house cleaner the way other people fantasize about strippers. Or movie stars. Or whoever else floats your boat. I want one baaaaaaaaad.

I remember a vacation we took 6 years ago. We went to the shore for a week, it was great. I remember many things about the trip, but the one which sticks most in my mind is the family renting the apartment next door to ours. The mother, a vivacious woman with a tan to die for, had the most neurotic compulsion I’d ever witnessed. Every morning, at like 6-7-8 AM, this woman was up vacuuming – and not only her own apartment, but the OUTSIDE DECK. Yes, I do know that sand accumulates and inevitably gets kicked inside. BUT WHAT THE HELL?! Every fricking morning of your vacation you want to be up vacuuming someone else’s house? NO THANKS. I will also never ever forget this woman’s kids because they were made to scrub their shoes I believe daily. Their sneakers were so sparkling white I would have eaten off them without thinking twice. But those poor kids. Do you know many kids whose sneakers look nicer than brand new 6 months after purchase? If so, pity them.

Dear Prudence

~ thedailydish ~ 4 Comments

It’s a bit hard for me to believe it’s 2008. With the jumble of the holidays and all of the travel, by the time we got home it was already here. I came down New Year’s Day with a terrible respiratory cold, which started out as a runny nose and quickly degenerated into total head congestion, sore throat, burning sinuses and complete malaise. Oh, the malaise…. From fine to wretched in 6 hours flat. And if you can imagine all of that coming on top of the vertigo I’d already been fighting for 2-plus weeks beforehand, you can see why 2008 is just catching up to me now. Fortunately, Sunday I felt my real self beginning to break free of the chrysalis of plague, and by yesterday I was finally feeling normal again. Not wanting to crawl into a ball and sleep. BREATHING in_and_out of my nose! Dizziness, almost gone. So I’ve been trying like mad to catch up on a whole slew of things – basically life – that had to be put on hold while I was down for the count. And unfortunately, one of those things is our little rabbit, Prudence.

For those of you who don’t know me in “real life,” our family has a whole slew of pets, and I can pretty fairly be described as zookeeper. Well, last week being so sick, most of the animal tending fell to my husband and older daughter, with me doing some minor tasks, like letting some of the pets sleep on/with me. I was holding and petting Pru while watching TV on Tuesday and Wednesday and she seemed fine. Thursday I noticed she seemed a little off and wasn’t eating. Friday she didn’t eat, and by bedtime that night, she’d begun acting really weird. Normally feisty and playful, Prudence was listless to the point of being almost unresponsive. When she moved in her cage at all, she shook, palsy-like. First thing Saturday morn we took her to the ER at my husband’s work. Apparently Prudence had been ill for some time, but the vet said that rabbits have an uncanny ability to mask sickness until it’s almost too late. Definitely something to share with other rabbit owners. They diagnosed Pru as being severely dehydrated and kept her over the weekend for blood work and further testing. Yesterday afternoon we finally got to bring her home, though we could have kept her at the hospital for an ultrasound and additional diagnostics. Please don’t get me wrong when I say that in a perfect world I would like for my rabbit to be able to have an ultrasound, but in my world (replete with 1 paycheck for 2 adults, 2 human children and a barn full of other animals), rabbit ultrasounds are at the bottom of the financial priority list.

Having said that, I am so happy to be holding a most alive! and sweet Prudence! The only difficulty is that we (first my husband, and now me) have to administer liquid antibiotics for the next 19 days via a thin mouth syringe, not too hard actually, but the real kicker is the liquid feedings via large syringe. Ho boy. Let me tell you, if it comes down to this, I think it will be a miracle if my bunny gets enough food/liquid to maintain life function. The food itself isn’t revolting, in fact, quite the opposite. The powdered “herbivore critical care diet” has the most pleasant smell – like a cross between fresh hay and anise. And we mix it with vanilla protein shake, similar to what they give patients in hospital for calorie-rich consumption. But it’s just so HARD to get her to eat it. First we have to lay a bath towel down on the floor, then wrap her up in it like a bunny burrito. Then you have to cradle her football-like in one arm, whilst maneuvering the syringe into her (most unwilling) mouth and then squirting it in. The feedings go in drips and drabs, with most of the food being wiped off her face. And trust me, you have to wipe it off because if you don’t it will congeal and then harden cement like on her fur. Then there’s NO getting it off.

You can just SEE how much this rabbit loves this process. And me, well doing this 2-3 times a day is reaaaallly fun.