Anne Laurie flagged this the other day:
One hypothesis has already emerged from Dognition’s users, Dr. Hare said. A surprising link turned up between empathy in dogs and deception. The dogs that are most bonded to their owners turn out to be most likely to observe their owner in order to steal food. “I would not have thought to test for that relationship at Duke, but with Dognition we can see it,” said Dr. Hare.
I cooked a delicious tuna steak with some wonderful green beans, sat down to watch the Habs, got a phone call and my cell was in the other room, went to get it, came back, and caught Lily licking her lips were my meal USED to be.
I yelled at her, but only in the way I yell at Lily, because I am such a sucker. “How could you do that Lily?” Had it been Rosie, it would have been “GOD DAMNIT ROSIE,” but really the comparison is not fair. Lily is dumb as a sack of hammers and just loves me unconditionally, while Rosie is a JRT who knows what she is doing and really doesn’t give a shit what I think.
Oh, and I can not find my furminator and Tunch is highly pissed because he wants his winter coat brushed away.
Forty-Two and owned by my damned pets. Fortunately I can go get a chicken hoagie at the bar.
scav
As a species, we never did really catch on to that whole domestication thing. The white mice are still giggling.
Katie5
Good. I can therefore blame your pets for the Habs’s tragic loss.
Baud
I’m sure Lily will post an apology to Cole tomorrow.
muddy
Old style Ace comb is good for undercoat. It’s easy to conceal as you approach the cat as well. :) My cats prefer it to all sorts of brushes.
Omnes Omnibus
Don’t bring it home. Unless you forgot to get treats again.
Morzer
I am waiting for the next post in the John Cole Does Apology Tour in which he expresses his profound regret for describing Lily in such pejorative terms.
muddy
Did the sweet little doggie eat the greenbeans too?
sun tzu
Is there anything free on Dognation?
We just rescued a yorkie/jack russell/toy schnauzer/dachshund cross. 8 lbs.
Help!
gbear
I can send you my furminator. My cats would rather chew through aluminum window screens than be touched by the thing. I have much better luck with a steel tooth comb after my vet recommended it and showed me how to best use it.
SG
I had a dog that ate an entire large frozen steak left out to defrost while we went out for a brief errand. That steak was thick and hard as a rock and all that was left was some shreds of waxed butcher paper on the kitchen floor.
srv
Lily is probably still snorting that mustard every night.
Ash Can
I predict a drunken Cole post in three hours about how he spent his time at the bar drinking bourbon and commiserating with an attractive lady about the tyranny of pets, realized after he left that he failed to get either her name or her phone number, came home to find dog crap on the rug and that Tunch had pushed his computer down the stairs, and that we can all go to hell. It’ll be awesome.
Redshirt
Were you eating off some fancy TV tray, or a coffee table?
PsiFighter37
@Ash Can: It’s easier to get drunk when you haven’t eaten any food.
Especially when your dog ate it in the span of seconds.
Pretty sure the ladies at the bar would dig that story.
PF37 +3
Yutsano
@sun tzu: Dude. Yer doomed. :)
sun tzu
@sun tzu: PLS ANSWER!
jeffreyw
Thread needz moar puppehs!
Mnemosyne
We’re getting our carpets professionally cleaned on Saturday, so we are now taking bets on how soon Keaton pukes on them (which is why they needs to be professionally cleaned in the first place).
Omnes Omnibus
@Ash Can: You forgot the part where he discovers that he doesn’t have his wallet because the animals conspired again to destroy it and the attractive lady has to cover his bar tab. But it is probably a place Cole goes fairly often so they’ll trust him to bring over a couple of chickens and a turnip tomorrow.
PsiFighter37
@Omnes Omnibus: I feel like there was one particularly memorable post at some point last year where Cole talked about having a really good chat with a good-looking twenty-something lady at the bar. I feel like this must be the reference, because after reading that, I was nearly certain Cole had scored.
Punchy
Dr. HARE does research w/ dogs? Lemmie guess….greyhounds? I call shenanigans.
Morzer
@Punchy:
He was probably just rabbiting on at random.
Redshirt
Does the bar have Bloomin’ Onions?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ash Can:
Flxed.
Omnes Omnibus
@PsiFighter37: Didn’t he decide he was too old? I went through a crisis of conscience about something similar a while back – in my case, the result was to decide that if the good-looking twenty-something lady was interested in me, woohoo!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
It’s currently 46 in the great state of North Texas (which is not the panhandle, but not really West Texas or East Texas and definitely not Central Texas), and will be in the upper 30s before the sun rises. If this heads east, Tunch may want to keep his fur a couple days longer.
NotMax
Any dogs I’ve shared digs with knew unequivocally that the law is:
In the Venn diagrams of dog stuff and of people stuff, food is NOT in the overlap.
Not to say that wouldn’t occasionally get an extra burger for the 4-legged contingent, just that once it came within the event horizon of the canine food dish, it jumped from one category to the other.
PsiFighter37
@Just Some Fuckhead: I think that wins the thread.
@Omnes Omnibus: Perhaps that was it. Given that with some luck (if we find a good location), I am going to be married in 15 months or so, I shouldn’t be in that kind of situation.
To be honest, though, if I did find myself in that situation, I think it’s a lot easier to say I’d roll with it instead of having the same kind of thoughts that Mr. Cole may have had. Always easier to hypothesize conceptually vs. reality.
Quaker in a Basement
Owned by your pets? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, pal. Get married and adopt a baby girl. THEN you’ll see “owned.”
Gary
As a lifelong dog companion the rule is written in stone: Unguarded food is fair game. Full stop. Human growling and barking is warranted which may or may not elicit guilt on the part of the dog but will help re-establish pack order. I never get mad at a dog for being a dog.
Ash Can
@Omnes Omnibus: Knowing John, he’d discover that he didn’t have his wallet when it would dawn on him that he’d forgotten to put his pants on.
@Just Some Fuckhead: I lol’d.
amy c
I’m reminded of Amy, the cat we had when I was growing up. (Yeah, I use the cat I had when I was 10 as my nym, I can’t be the only one here.)
She was a skinny little black cat and easily the toughest creature who ever lived. Amy did not give a shit. Meanwhile, my dad was a big galoot of an Italian with a hot temper and no love for cats.
He cooked a lovely steak one day, and we were not of the class of people who usually had steak on the menu, so this was a big deal. But he made the mistake of leaving it unattended on the plate for a tenth of a second. Amy saw her chance and grabbed the thing – it probably weighed more than her – and dragged it into hiding. Dad yelled and yelled and eventually found her under the bed, but he couldn’t reach her. And she, of course, hissed madly when he came near. At one point he got the broom and tried to shoo her out, he’s all heaving and sweating and swearing and shouting that if he can’t have the steak then nobody will have it. But she was having none of it and let out this loud, guttural growl that said, clearly, “MY STEAK, ASSHOLE.”
And in the end, she won. It took her hours to gnaw through that thing, and I don’t think she ate for 3 days afterward.
I don’t know if my dad ever forgave her for making him look like an idiot.
Just Some Fuckhead
@amy c:
That’s two of us.
amy c
@Just Some Fuckhead: snort Fuckhead! Time for treats!
Morzer
@amy c:
You’d have half the local teabagger population lined up outside the kitchen door with hopeful expressions.
Rhubarb
re using cat name as nym–I also do that. Rhub lived to almost 20.
Omnes Omnibus
@Morzer: I already have “giant sewer raccoons.”
Roger Moore
@amy c:
You’ve discovered John Cole’s deep dark secret.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
SYFY never replays that one.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Someone posted a sign on the door of my building saying “Giant sewer raccoons in parking lot. Please help.” I assume the fact that street work was going on had something to do with it.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Move ’em on, head ’em out – R a w h i d e
Suzanne
I was at LAX all day, so I had to eat airport food. Barfola.
NotMax
FYWP time.
Prob gonna be a treble post when if it coughs mine out.
Sandia Blanca
“got a phone call and my cell was in the other room”
Dum dum dum! And when he answered the call, there was no one on the other end! Just faint snuffling sounds and the jingle of a dog collar . . .
danimal
So long….and thanks for the fish!
PsiFighter37
@Suzanne: Hope you got to wash that down with some beer, although I know airport beer selection can be pretty shit.
SiubhanDuinne
@amy c:
Amy was not a cat; Amy was a honey badger.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My wife and I drove our lab Mickey 18 hours to Florida to visit my god damn in-laws. I warned my father in-law to not fucking leave Mickey alone anywhere near food. About 3 times. Did he listen? Fuck no. He left a lasagna on the counter he just took out of the oven and went to buy cigarettes. Mickey housed that lasagna. He thought it was hysterical but I was irate.
Suzanne
@PsiFighter37: It’s okay. My company designed the SkyClub, so I get free booze.
? Martin
The curse of the corgi. They’ll eat every fucking thing in sight, but they’re unable to jump or climb and have such short legs, they can’t actually reach any of the food.
? Martin
And I finally figured out why the Brits colonized India.
Instructions for the perfect gin and tonic:
Step 1: Reach out your back door and pick a fresh lemon…
mai naem
I was unloading groceries and had taken the puppy along, so the puppy was running around me and I had a paper Trader Joes bag with bottles of salsa. Well, the bottom of the bag ripped and the bottles drop out, one breaking. The puppy, not knowing that this is hot red salsa starts licking the salsa(food!food!food!) A few seconds later the pup’s running around not knowing what happened to his poor tongue.
lojasmo
DO NOT EAT SEEDS. GRAINS, OR BEAMS
bnut
1 75lb lab puppy. 1 5 pound bag of flour. 1 very long (and probably hard) next 24 hours for both of us. I feel ya Cole. Mine knows better too, he just doesn’t give a rip.
YellowJournalism
Sometimes we have to lock the dog out of the room while we eat. She’s learned that if she sits next to one of the boys long enough during a meal, something yummy is going to go splat in front of her. I swear she’s even calculated where the right spot is in relation to what my youngest is eating.
I’ll never forget the day I caught her hovering around him when he was one and a half years old. He had a mini ice cream cone in his hand and didnt quite get the concept of keeping it upright. She kept walking around him until the right moment that he let his arm down enough for her to snatch the vanilla ice cream off the cone. He pulled the cone back up to eat, gave it a long look that lasted at least twenty seconds, looked around (dog and ice cream were long gone) for another twenty, and then finally burst into tears.
Yeah, I shouldn’t have laughed, and I probably should have made a better effort to stop the hovering. But I can’t help but wish I’d been filming it at the same time, too.
NotMax
@? Martin
Lemon? Lemon?!?
In a gin & tonic?
Sacrilege.
Have to walk about 100 feet or so into the back yard to pick lemons, limes or oranges.
Hm. Maybe should move the house closer.
cckids
My sister had a lab who could & would eat every.fucking.thing. left out anywhere. He once scarfed down a semi-frozen pork loin roast that was close to 7 pounds. He ate loaves of bread (plastic included), rising bread dough, Christmas candy from the stockings, etc, etc. I never understood why they never learned that HE’D EAT EVERYTHING. Morons.
PS, he earned his name: Kirby.
NotMax
Did know a dog once who would gleefully tear apart packs of baseball cards to get at and eat the wafer of chewing gum.
PsiFighter37
@Suzanne: That sounds mightily kind of awesome.
catclub
@YellowJournalism: I saw a kid in a stroller (maybe in arms), with an ice cream cone, being pushed across the street.
ice cream falls off, stroller goes on, car runs over ice cream, splat, tears.
MattR
@catclub: And what percentage of the BJ readership immediately thought of the Eddie Murphy bit?
mclaren
Solution:
Shave the cat.
reality-based
Hey, is this an open thread? Or restricted to tale of being outsmarted by pets? My cats eat whatever they damn well please.
But what I really want to ask is – any BJers ever had lyme disease? Gotten over it? Had any experience with inaccurate – or accurate – lab tests?
I found an engorged deer tick on my neck last august, health has gone to hell in a handbasket ever since –
? Martin
@mai naem: My son did that once when he was about 2. We were at a mexican restaurant and while I had my head turned he reached over, grabbed a jalapeno and fired it down. It took a moment before he started crying, but he was in full wail for about 5 minutes. My wife spotted it just as he was putting it in his mouth but wasn’t fast enough to stop him. It’s a bit cruel, but honestly, we couldn’t stop laughing. Learned that lesson the hard way, he did.
? Martin
@NotMax: What are you talking about. There’s already lemon in gin. Besides, it’s 10PM and 80 fucking degrees out. I’m gonna put lemon in every fucking thing from here until October as is my want. It’s summer, bitches.
? Martin
@reality-based: We have a friend who got it 2 years ago. She’s 40 and walking around with an oxygen tank. It’s heartbreaking. I hope your case goes better.
Wish I had something more optimistic to offer, but that’s my only experience with it.
GxB
@Punchy: He’s Hare of the Dogs – now your messing with a sonnavabitch. Don’t blame me, that’s the actual story behind that song/album. That along with Steely Dan’s Chain Lightning being about Nazi’s are the two most profound musical revelations I’ve had in the past year. Damn I’ll miss the intertubes when civilization goes completely to hell.
? Martin
Best pet eating experience was our cat about 20 years back. She was declawed in the front and liked to play with helium balloons, and bat them around the house and whatnot – particularly when they’d lose some of their lift and hover around. We gave her one from a party and I came home one day to find her just howling miserably. I went into the living room to find her running around with the balloon stuffed right up against her face bobbing around as she ran, banging into thing. She had swallowed the string, and kept swallowing until the balloon just completely consumed her forward view. With no claws she couldn’t pop it, and for whatever reason she couldn’t bite it either (she was a pretty small cat).
Once I finally caught up with her, I grabbed the balloon and started pulling with the cat gagging the whole time I yanked the string out of her stomach.
Oh, and I had a dog when I was a kid that liked to eat bees. He’d chase them around and catch them in his mouth, they’d sting the fuck out of him, he’d spit them out, and then catch them again. This would repeat until the bee was dead. Then he’d go find another bee.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@? Martin:
Lime, dude. Lemon in G&T’s only became a thing in Britain when limes became too expensive.
NotMax
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Amen.
PeakVT
@reality-based: Here’s a big article on ticks and lyme disease I ran across recently. The good news seems to be that antibiotics can work.
? Martin
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Nope, sorry. Sticking with the lemon. I’ve got limes too, but I prefer the lemon. They’re really good lemons, too.
But then I drink Plymouth and everyone criticizes me for that too. Fuck em.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@? Martin:
Per Sylvester Stone, different strokes for different folks, I guess. Enjoy it!
kdaug
If memory serves, the bar is directly across the street/alley from your house.
Ain’t exactly a walkabout, N!xau.
But cherish the stupid ones. Srsly.
Yutsano
When I was in high school my dad’s cat Leo refused to stay off the table during dinner. If there was something he wanted to eat up there he would just jump up and take what he wanted regardless of the hairless apes. And woe betide you if you tried to shoo him off especially if there were deviled eggs.
Also: I’m convinced Tunch ate the tuna and pinned the rap on Lily.
Suzanne
@Yutsano: I had a cat that loved bread when I was in high school. My mom would make homemade bread and we would come home and find huge chunks of the loaves torn out and gone. She would literally snatch toast out of the toaster.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@? Martin:
Was it tough and stringy? What sauce did you use?
Suzanne
@? Martin: Mia grabbed a jalapeño when I was cleaning out the fridge a few months ago, and she took a giant bite of it before I could grab it from her. She spit most of it out and cried, but the diapers were….unpleasant.
NotMax
@Yutsano
A litter box frequented by a cat who has gorged on deviled eggs qualifies as a WMD.
fuckwit
@? Martin: I learned early on in cat ownership NEVER to let a cat play with a string unattended.
Their tongues are serrated like Velcro, in only one direction: in. I guess this is to prevent living things from escaping while the cat is trying to eat them, or perhaps it’s to help the cat drink water, I dunno.
In any case, it’s a one-way valve. String goes in, does not come out. I heard about this and never played with string with cats, and tried not to have string or yarn laying around where they could get at it.
NotMax
@fuckwit
In high-def video: How A Cat Drinks Water
Katie5
@reality-based: Had friend who got it 10 years ago. She’s pretty good (would have better had she been diagnosed earlier), although she has rheumatoid like symptoms.
Yutsano
@Suzanne: As a massive lover of carbs, I cannot fault kitteh’s taste.
@NotMax: I never had to clean Leo’s box, because he never used one. We lived on an acre with several dirt patches and brush covered areas and Leo always did his business outside.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Yutsano: The first cat I had loved Red Vines.
dollared
@PeakVT: There is some bad news. I have a friend who, 9 years after leaving NY in good health, had a career, got married, had a kid, and then over the course of a month his immune system crashed. He has spent 4 years unable to work and living on antibiotics.
However, I have heard that rapid treatment shortly after the bite makes a huge, positive difference. Go to the doctor right away.
Keep the tick, BTW. In a jar, that is.
Elizabelle
Came home one night years ago and my beagle had a very strange expression on her little face.
Kind of an insane smile.
She had destroyed her wicker dog bed, and some of the curved wicker was stuck at the back of her mouth, propping it kind of open.
My neighbor helped extricate.
Do wish I’d thought to take a photo first.
This is the same dog that used to urinate in my laundry basket (clean clothes). She’d be napping and just didn’t care to get up and out.
Miss her to this day.
Fred
Yer just damned lucky the dogs let you live in their house to begin with. I know I’m grateful that mine let me stay.
p.s. Watch Cesar Millan. He’s got lots of tips on being a good pack leader. Calm & assertive. But of course you won’t. Somebody’s got to be the bitch.
Another Halocene Human
@Suzanne: Why is it that airports serve food that makes you more likely to puke if you get motion sickness? Alcohol and pure greasy mess.
Those snack food places have gone upscale, though. If you’re willing to eat dry food there’s quite the frou frou selection on offer.
Another Halocene Human
@mai naem: sounds like my cat. too stupid to live.
she’s not allowed outside because she heads straight for the alliums.
Another Halocene Human
@cckids: omg, I lol’d. that’s perfect.
Another Halocene Human
@reality-based: My sister was exposed in MA in the 1990s. I think they gave her one course of anti-biotics and it’s been fine ever since.
It is possible to get a lingering immune system-triggered inflammatory reaction following certain serious infections. I don’t think taking long-term antibiotics does a shred of good, though.
You could get your levels of CRP tested, though. I’m not sure how it is supposed to be tested. You might want to check b/c there are a lot of blood serum tests sold over the internet that are useless because the blood levels don’t tell you anything. But the people selling it to you won’t tell you that.
ETA: it’s never actually been proven that Lyme disease causes this kind of autoimmune disease. Actually, mono is a common culprit in this. Mononucleosis is very contagious, and people often don’t realize what it is when they get it and don’t get it tested. But Lyme disease is common in the NE and the transmission vector is impossible to miss so it’s easy to blame that.
Another Halocene Human
@? Martin: WTH, that sounds like COPD or something, which is not caused by Lyme disease. Either that, or your friend needs albuterol and somebody is taking her for a ride.
Not a doctor, but… every organic chemical out there makes me sick. Let me tell you, me on albuterol, it’s like the old, forgetful, late, disorganized me is gone, replaced with organized, proactive, energetic me. Total transformation. go steroids, go!
MikeJ
@reality-based:
I had it when I lived on the east coast, you don’t want it. At first I thought I had a flu or something, but no respiratory symptoms. Body aches and fever. My baseline temp was about 99, but every 4-6 hours it would go to 102° for an hour. Finally after about 4 days I got the rash. Many spots covering my body each in the shape of a bull’s eye.
My doc had never seen a case and she was thrilled! She had various texts out, comparing the rash with the pics. As a geek I loved seeing somebody so excited over getting to see something new. They ran a CBC and my white count was over 20k. The lab tech thought the machine was broken and did it again the old fashioned way, with a microscope and confirmed it.
Doc started me on Ampicillin and sent a culture to grow out. By the time the results came back the next day I was already feeling better, but not cured. Took it for 30 days.
About once a month for the next year I would have one day with no energy, body aches, and a fever. The next day I would be fine. Those episodes eventually stopped. Never had any evidence that any particular episode was connected, but it felt the same.
Uncle Cosmo
So the dog ate your
homeworksupper when you walked away. And you say she’s “dumb as a sack of hammers”?raven
@Uncle Cosmo: Exactly.
Randy P
I’m a big believer in well-disciplined dogs. I’ve never let one sleep in the bed for instance. Yet certain things seem beyond training, at least for me. One of those is this “if I can reach the food, it’s fair game” thing. My black lab also would sleep on the sofa when she thought nobody was looking. The reaction when caught always made it clear she knew the rules.
I wonder if the instinctive pack behavior is a little more complex than we thought, if there’s always a little bit of disobedience in the air. Maybe it’s connected to the thing where the leadership is always open to a challenge.
raven
@Randy P: What does sleeping in the bed have to do with discipline? Both of ours did and then, since my wife developed back problems, they don’t. They now get a cookie at bedtime and go to their respective doggie beds. When she’s well they may come back. That is discipline, they do what I tell them to do.
greenergood
Vegetarian Thanksgiving: Turkey ‘resting’ on kitchen counter, while drinks are imbibed in living room. Cue Siamese feline to push turkey off counter, to share said bird with golden lab waiting below. The vegetables were good, and luckily the stuffing was cooked separately from the bird.
Also too, black lab left unattended with rum cake containing half-bottle of rum (applied after baking so still alcoholic), and pound of butter.
raven
@greenergood: Bohdi opened a tin of dark chocolate rum balls.
Randy P
@raven: I guess it’s discipline because I don’t want them there. I know lots of people do including our esteemed bloghost, but I don’t. And i’ve never had a problem enforcing the rule.
The point is that dogs don’t usually understand “sometimes” rules. I have no problem with firm ones. I don’t feed at the table either, no matter how soulful the look. Not even if someone is resting their head on my knee and drooling.
I’ll take the fifth on the subject of snacks elsewhere in the house.
raven
@Randy P: I have to admit I was surprised how readily they adapted to getting the boot.
MikeJ
@reality-based: One more thing on ticks: Carl Zimmer’s essay in the latest Outside, “The Complex and Pathogen-Laden World of Ticks“.
Schlemizel
meh. This is the first morning in 19 years I have gotten up, stumbled to the kitchen for coffee and not had my girl try to run between my feet and try to kill me. I wouldn’t mind giving up the occasional dinner if I could have her do that again
raven
@Schlemizel: Aw man, I’m really sorry.
raven
We who choose to surround ourselves
with lives even more temporary than our
own, live within a fragile circle;
easily and often breached.
Unable to accept its awful gaps,
we would still live no other way.
We cherish memory as the only
certain immortality, never fully
understanding the necessary plan.
— Irving Townsend
Schlemizel
I’m going to post this again, just because I can. THink of it like the old days when there was an evening edition and a morning edition
Edward Wellington Mouse Ripper III (Ripper) 1995-2013 was called home to the embrace of Bastet on May 2nd
Ripper peacefully fell asleep in her humans arms after a full and interesting life. Despite a rough beginning that resulted in food anxiety and fear of strangers most of her life was lived in comfort and fully loved by her humans.
She more than earned the name ‘ripper’ as an adolescent kitty ripping around in games of chase with the kids. Always a bit prickly she never really made peace with the other cat in the house or many of the people who passed through her life; she lived on her own terms.
She grew to love her time outdoors once she understood leaving the yard meant outside time was over. For many years she fiercely defended her backyard territory over the boisterous objections of birds and squirrels while compiling a perfect record of no captures and 0 kills. She was, however, an outstanding defender of the home, no bug was safe. Family often wondered at her ability to appear sound asleep on the sofa only to leap up and pounce on some hapless bug that had accidentally wandered in.
In later years she mostly enjoyed the breeze in her fur and sun on her face from her perch on the deck. This past winter was particularly difficult for her as she really struggled with the endless winter that prevented her from snoozing on the deck until a few days ago.
Because she was lived with responsible humans she leaves behind no children but a cousin, who probably will be relieved, and humans who will be heartbroken. In lieu of flowers Ripper requests donations to local animal shelters like the one that gave her a second chance.
Hug your kitties
WereBear
@reality-based: Get on a long term antibiotic protocol and stay on it. Don’t believe any BS about “oh, six weeks is long enough.” You need like six months, or until the symptoms go away and stay away.
It’s like a retrovirus; it becomes part of the cell and is only vulnerable during a certain part of the life cycle.
Elizabelle
@Schlemizel:
Thinking of you. So sorry for your loss, but what a lucky little kit to live with you so long.
PS: great cat obit.
WereBear
@Schlemizel: That’s lovely.
Hugging commencing.
Valdivia
@Schlemizel:
hugs!
Valdivia
Peggy Noonan really went off the rails with her column this am. I just have no words anymore. I think maybe she wanted to outdo Dowd?
Elizabelle
@Valdivia:
Noonan sees nostalgia for GW Bush everywhere she looks.
She ain’t looking very far.
MomSense
My old lab once jumped up and grabbed all the steaks just off the grill while I turned my back for a second to get tongs for the corn on the cob. Dinner ruined! And yet my response was OMG he jumped up! I was soooo relieved because he had had hip surgery.
My unexpected reaction scared the crap out of him and he wandered around being extra sweet and looking incredibly confused and worried. Damn but I loved that dog. And now I have a new old lab and deliberately give him pieces of yummy steak and such even though he doesn’t even chew or taste it –just inhales the food into his pig belly. I’m a sucker and I know it and I don’t care.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
She ain’t looking very far and this President is too near for her.
MomSense
@Schlemizel:
Hugging! Hugs for Rippers responsible owners, too.
Valdivia
@Elizabelle:
probably not beyond the tip of her nose. how can she still be allowed to publish after the stupid stuff she pulled in the last election? I guess they have zero accountability.
Patricia Kayden
My boxer pushed his snout into my plate of spaghetti when I went to open the door, so I know how you feel, John. But what can we do? We love our pets.
Ash Can
@Schlemizel: You gave Ripper a long and very happy life. Condolences to you and yours. Beautifully written tribute (and great name, too).
Ash Can
@Valdivia: Probably not beyond the bottom of her martini glass.
Dearolddad
LOL…you could be 60 and owned by your pets. (the only bummer is your pets from your forties are gone when you are in your sixties)
Maude
@MomSense:
Dogs will grab what they want. I don’t get why people get mad at them.
MomSense
@Maude:
They are like sharks when it comes to food I suppose.
Mary B
John Cole- I love you because you let yourself be “owned” by your animals among all the other good things that you are, say and do. You are one of 3 blogs I follow and always the first one I read. When you get into one of your funks, try to remember how much you mean to a lot of people you don’t even know are out here.
Keep on.
Mary
Lex
One Christmas Eve we had some carolers come to the door, and in the time it took to hear them sing “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” Samson, our 80-pound collie/shepherd mix, jumped up on the counter and devoured an entire 8-pound roast. I don’t remember what we ended up eating — baloney sandwiches, maybe. I just remember how shocked we all were because he was always so well-behaved, other than occasionally chasing a motorcycle.
Dogs are weird.