His Dog

There is a reason why Briggs is Murph's dog, while Tucker is my dog. I'm guessing a lot of couples experience this, but there is just something about the big brown dog's personality that "clicks" with the Husband's. They are just similar in some ways. Take their sleep style for instance.

I come upstairs, arms loaded with folded laundry and entered my bedroom to find Briggs laying directly in front of my dresser. There was no way around him, so as I attempted to step over him, I tripped, stumble a bit and dropped all of the socks destined for my drawer on the dog. ooops.

His reaction:
What a sleeper. I dropped an armload of clean socks onto the dog and not only did he not wake up, he didn't even flinch. He didn't look up. He didn't even crack an eyelid. In fact, he was so sleepy that I put away the socks, went downstairs, got the camera, came back up to the bedroom, and then took this picture. He didn't wake up until I opened the curtain to get some better lighting.

This is pretty much how Murph sleeps. I could light myself on fire in bed and he would barely roll over. I envy this ability to fall asleep and not wake up until the alarm goes off.

Now the Tino and I are pretty much also kindred spirits, canine soul mates, a match made in heaven, ect. ect.

This picture explains it all:

(heaven is lined with fleece)

ThreeThings

I do not want to contemplate roofing estimates. In fact, I do not want to do this task so much, that I am using the folder of roofing info (which I should actually read) as a laptop desk.

I have been wondering all summer if anyone has come up with a great device with which to carry easily bruised stone fruits with them to work. You know, without all the bruising, bashing and general horror of finding you afternoon snack, shoved in the bottom of a bag looking like the loser (or maybe the winner?) of a mixed martial arts fight. Bubble wrap perhaps?

I am really interested in knowing who keeps leaving chicken carcasses at the corner of Blaine and Carter Street. And while Tuckertino and Briggs have confessed their undying devotion to whomever keeps leaving chicken bones on the sidewalk, I feel differently, what with chicken bones not being a great supplement to their diet. Murph tried to tell me that he was the one leaving the bones in the road. He claims to buy a weekly bucket of KFC and hang out on this corner (of a residential neighborhood) and secretly eat chicken and throw the bones on the ground. And while I was suspcious of his story, what with the VEGANISM and all, I bought it until I saw how grossed out he was by the the act of prying 1/2 a chicken from Briggs mouth today. Whom ever is doing this, please stop. Please!

They Do This Professionally

The Ususal: Ninjatino v. Briggs - No Snuggles Here

they don't do this often

there is usually more teeth gnashing and humping, but occasionally they just give up and settle in for a nice long snuggle.

ninja dog seeks comfortable bed

i haven't written about the dogs in a while. since it is summer and the heat has been pretty stifling and the thunder rolls in a few times a week, the big boy hangs out in basement most of the time. he likes it there. it's dirty and cold and he smells like dust. i think he's into it. he loves his alone time, you know. this gives us more time with the little guy and lately he's been cracking me up.

we bought him a new bed a while back to replace the green one that the two of them shredded to bits over the last year. the new bed has a removable cushion. at some point in the last two weeks he figured out that he can now bring part of his new bed with him wherever he wants to in the house to have nap. he also like to bring the cushion over to briggs and taunt him with it. it's as if he's saying "haha fucker, beat this! you can't! your bed is way too big to drag all over the house". and then he shakes the bed vigorously in his mouth, throws it to the ground and collapses on it. (and yes, I suspect that the tuckertino uses foul language - if you've met him you will agree with me)

the other day the husband and i were sitting on the couch when we realized that tucker had brought the cushion into the livingroom and placed it on top of another bed (because you can't have too many dog beds) and was fast asleep, much like the princess and the pea.

so there you have it- we have one lone wolf and one princess with a mouth like a sailor.

and now we are home

its funny what becomes a good thing when you are experiencing something so far out of the norm. like slurping...normally that noise would probably drive me insane. but tonight the sound of the husband slurping up a strawberry smoothie has me smiling.

other things that are good today include the decision to have briggs bathed at the kennel, a fresh papaya, and the fact that i am planning to sleep for many hours in a row in the very near future.

its good to have everyone home.

tissues...i need tissues

oh my. have you ever had a week so shitty that the only way you can think to repair the damage done is to fashion yourself a time machine, go back to when you were about 12 and just live your life over again? last week was one of those weeks.

it started with the dog training on wednesday. i was excited and ready but lack confidence in my decision to go that route. my hesitation must have been very apparent to the dogs because last thursday will forever be known as the day briggs and i had a show down in the yard.

we had taken a morning walk and were returning to the house at about 6:45am, just in time for me to shower and dress for work. but briggs saw an opportunity when i made him sit before tromping up the back stairs. he wiggled out of his harness, broke free and proceeded to make life a living hell for the next hour. the details are over-rated. at this point all that is important is that i was stuck in the yard with my dog unable to move him for 20 mins and at the end of it wasted an hour of my day trying to get my big brown dog to come inside.

frustrated, overwhelmed and tearful i was finally able to get him in the house. i was an hour late for work and so shook up that i probably should have just stayed home.

at work i proceeded to have a crap day. both my underwriters were for upset with me and one was outwardly snarky with me- which is never good. i then had to send "stern" emails to two people. i lost a good sized account after much effort invested in trying to salvage i. then, i yelled at my boss in front of everyone. and then it gets better....

i finally calmed down. my heart stopped racing from the morning of freaking out. i was sitting at my desk typing away when my foot started to hurt. FOR REAL hurt. i took my shoe off. then my sock. then suddenly i'm looking at swollen thing that used to be my ankle but surely can't be because last i checked my ankle was in fact an ankle and not a cankle. i tried at that point to make my way over to the printer and couldn't really walk. so i left work early (after arriving an hour late) to drive myself to the er where i was x-rayed and looked over. i don't recall being in that much pain before i was sure i had broken my foot.

good news is that somewhere in my fit of rage that morning with the dog i managed only to sprain my ankle. i was given some super advil, some crutches and an air cast. crutches are for sissies so i just used my air cast and some ice.

friday morning i limped out of the house to go to work to be met by the crossing guard, who proceeded to show me how my neighbor had backed out of his driveway and into the door of my car. so she then very nicely held my coffee and my purse while i climbed into my car with my gimpy foot because my door wouldn't open. yup. the little old lady crossing guard said, "wow you've had a terrible week. you should just go back to bed".

fortunately my day at work was slow and uneventful. of course then i got home in time to have to dealwith my car-crunching neighbor and somehow get into a tiff with the husband where i'm sure i ended up sounding like a complete jack-ass. in the end we patched things up and he left to go see earth crisis and i stayed home to watch tv, rest my foot and savor two glasses of wine.

looking back on the week i can see about 1,000 ways that i didn't handle myself well. mostly i couldn't get out of my own way and instead of calming down and centering myself to move forward, i basically plowed over myself and anyone unfortunate enough to be in front of me.

here's hoping that i can learn from all this, that this week is great and that my foot heals quickly.

if you've got issues, we've got tissues

today we started a new chapter here at the murphy residence. previously, our two beautiful dogs, you know them as briggs and tucker the ninja dog, had been running our lives. at some point it became abundantly clear that we were in fact being owned by our two furry friends. i started to notice it back when the briggs man became an expert pacifist and started nonviolent street protests earlier this fall. at first i thought it was the price of gas that was moving him toward such action but quickly realized it was just that he wanted to make my life miserable. and so like all powerless people who think they have the upper hand, i responded by completely losing my mind, and if you can imagine, this is how i became known on our block as "the crazy neighbor who appears to be beating her big brown dog". the title was accurate enough but i thought it lacked imagination.

fast forward to february and i have one big dog who likes to defy me outside and a smaller dog who likes to defy me inside. tucker the ninja dog's antics ranged from "innocently" eating half his weight in dog food to attacking his best buddy briggs every time he saw another dog and then of course there is his SAD disorder. you know, SAD - Squirrel Attachment Disorder. its a terrible disease wherein the afflicted party is constantly plagued by the feeling that they MUST under any and all circumstances bark, run, and dig their way to any squirrel or squirrel like thing (read any other rodent, small dog, cat, large leaf blowing in the wind or anything else that may move by its own fruition) that my catch their eye. i know some dogs are into rodent chasing but this was ridiculous. at one point tucker's SAD was so bad he thought he could climb trees (he can't) and there were those saturday mornings where he just spent hours staring out the windows stalking the squirrels from room to room all the while barking his god damn head off. these were the less relaxing weekends around here.

the husband and i were coming up empty again and again. tricks we had employed when briggs was an "only dog" didn't work. food lures didn't work. time outs didn't work. surprisingly, yelling didn't work. we spent more time yelling at the dogs and being annoyed with each other than we were enjoying the company of our best fur-buddies. so a good portion of the tax refund was spent today on hiring a dog trainer. one that came with a lifetime warranty. i was nervous about having the woman come to the house, fearing that perhaps she would chastise us for the SAD or the briggs' nonviolent protests. or maybe she would be crazy and ridiculous and talk a bunch of crazy talk about speaking "dog" the importance of reading your dog bedtimes stories or some other such nonsense. but no, she was normal. she wasn't a crazy dog lady, she was a professional who acted accordingly and gave us some tips and techniques for actually having a happy home and a well-ordered pack.

she was here for a 3 hour session and we have 1 more hour to go. it seems we have more issues than the regular pack. i admit that i still feel pretty shaky on these techniques. its a little bit of dog whisperer, a little bit common sense, and a lot of practice because it appears that it's mostly about timing. the husband seems to have picked it up better than me, but i will keep trying. tonight though, we are all exhausted from our busy day.

10 things i like

1. today was the first snow we've had of the season and the husband shovels the driveway

2. the silly border collie that lives on our street was trying to herd the shovel his owner was using to clear the sidewalk when i drove by.

3. this post about ugly oatmeal - i too enjoy my own brand of ugly oatmeal that i eat at my desk every morning while reading the important and unimportant daily news.

4. the street are filled with the soft glow of christmas lights which makes my drive home and my walks with the pooches a little nicer.

5. my drive to work was uneventful, despite it being the first snow of the season.

6. school was delayed two hours which meant that the angry dad at the end of the road was not waiting at the bus stop blocking my view of oncoming traffic.

7. tucker the ninja dog steals briggs giant bed every day, and briggs is just fine sleeping on tucker's small bed even when it's under a table.

8. i started to refinish a chair i've had in the garage for over a year.

9. yesterday i baked banana muffins, which meant we didn't waste the brown bananas

10. that we finally bought a new battery charger for the camera

before & after

the dogs just getting ready to go. they are bright-eyed and alert. ready to get to our destination.


and after our weekend....not so bright-eyed, barely alert, ready to nap for hours......

love affair

briggsington still heart's the car...a lot. he remains ever so excited to jump into the back of the GTI at any given moment. he prefers to jump in when he knows he is going to the dump- or to dog day care. (I never thought I would be that person) this weekend we hiked up to ME for a visit with the family and I was reminded at how much the dog also loves the husband. they have a little love affair...really. this is briggs sleeping on the husbands shoulder,
which is how he slept almost all the way back to MA. he only managed to rest his big old head on my shoulder when I happen to take out a snack- for myself. only then was he all over me being his buddy. but thats ok- I know he loves me....just not quite as much as the husband. after all he does take him to the stinky dump every week.