• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Wootube!

Dolittle's got nothin' on me

  • Blog
  • Big Air Photo
  • FAQ
  • Contact
  • Links ‘n Stuff
  • Shop

Minnie

Snow Day Part II

February 24, 2018 By The Food Lady 7 Comments

After we played in the snow yesterday, it continued to dump snow all night long and we had about a foot of snow when we got up this morning.  But it stopped snowing and the sun came out so it was clear and bright and shiny and that means it is of course going to rain and ruin everything.  So we made time for Snow Photos The Second, since we are unlikely to get snow again, plus it will probably just pee rain until, like, June.

Since my suggestion of a second snow photos post received an enthusiastic YES from y’all, here you go.  This time I made sure I got shots of every dog so nobody is left out.  We’ll showcase them alphabetically, just for fun.

 

ADDY has a look of grim determination on her face.  Is it because she’s trying to break through snow that’s almost as tall as she is?  Is it because The Food Lady forgot to put a sweater on her before we went out and she’s freezing to death?  Is she being pursued by bear?

No.  I offered her a cookie, and she is coming to get it as fast as she possibly can.  It’s serious business, cookies.

 

DEXTER cannot apparently have a photo taken of him where his tongue is not lolling out of his mouth as though he were a halfwit (*whistles innocently*).

… unless you shove something in his mouth, so I did.

(Peetie ruined the Wootie Toy (surprise surprise) but it still flies straight!  It’s a good toy, we’ll have to get another)

 

Retrieving this toy is FAE‘s version of tap dancing for attention.  When she gets it, she does the zoomies with it and flings it around to be sure I have noticed what a Good Retrieving Girl Who Needs A Cookie Or Ten she is before bringing it back.

There are these “sticks” sticking up all over the property.  They are the remnants of some dead plants and they plague me.  They ruin more shots than I care to count, by virtue of being in the way.  I edit them out when I can, but sometimes it’s just more trouble than it’s worth.  In this shot, however, there were only two “sticks.”  Just two in a vast stickless atmosphere, and MINI MAMA chose to run right between those two sticks.  But hey, it worked, and it’s a good photo!

PEETIE has started picking fights with my other dogs.  I don’t know why.  This morning she decided to kick seven kinds of shit out of Winter, and he wasn’t even interacting with her – he was playing with me at the time, and this apparently offended her.  It’s not the first time she’s done it and it’s not just Winter; she has also tried to kick the crap out of Spring for no really good reason.  AND she knocked Piper ass over teakettle when she did it.  AND she tried to bite me when I hauled her ass out of that scrap.  I cannot have this in my household/life … Peetie is going to meet a person this week who is thinking of taking her home.  This was a tough decision for me, but I cannot risk her hurting one of my other dogs and for the life of me I cannot figure out why she has taken up this new hobby now, two years into her life with us.  If the woman does adopt her, Peetie will be moving to Belize.  So not only has she driven me crazy for the last two years, and started beating up my other dogs, and making me feel like a monster for rehoming her, she is also going to have a much cooler life than I do.  THANKS, PEETIE.

PIPER is doing much better on the steroids than off, so we are leaving her on them.  Notice she doesn’t need to wear her harness anymore because I don’t need to haul her to her feet or help her walk!  She can get along just fine on her own, even if her gait is a bit weird, as her right hind leg doesn’t work super well.  And she can’t wag her tail anymore (?).  And she gets stuck in a left-turning loop sometimes if I am out of eyesight, but less and less often as the days go by.  And when she goes outside to potty she gets a bit confused and I have to put on my shoes and a coat to go retrieve her.  But all in all, she’s holding it together pretty well, and I am very happy about that.

 

SILLY needs no explanation.  Really.

 

SPRINGalingaling, while initially pretty traumatized by spontaneously having her ass handed to her by Peetie for no reason, has bounced back and is her very happy self.  After all, when she is outside she gets to hunt all the bunnies, real and imagined, that she wants, and inside she gets to share my tv watching chair with me under the heated blanket.  Not a bad life!  And I love that provides me with “Look ma! No feet!” photos like this.

 

TWOOIE is becoming lazier by the measurable second.  I cannot believe how expertly this dog can conserve energy (and thus body fat.  No diet in the world will slim this chunk-o down).  The ONLY thing that can motivate him to run is a bunny.  Otherwise he spends the entire time we are outside laying down and pretending he’s scanning the property (but his eyes are usually closed) or dogging my heels making his snapping-turtle face for cookies.  Deep snow makes him even lazier, if that’s possible.  Cold be damned, he’s going to sit his ass down in one place and stay there until he can get back to the sofa.

 

Poor WINTER who this morning just wanted to play the “Don’t steal my apple!” game with me this morning (I have told you, haven’t I, how every morning he sneaks over to the landlord’s side of the property and steals a single apple from the goats?  My landlord says he’ll be drinking coffee and see the goats startle, look out the window and then says “Oh it’s just Winter getting an apple.”  He kills me).  When he (Winter, not landlord) brings the apple back, I start stalking him and telling him I’m going to steal his apple and he growls at me and gets all hunchy over his prized fruit and then runs away with it so I will chase him.  It’s a very innocent game that delights him, so it was super mean of stupid Peetie to attack him mid-game.  And hard for Winter to fight back with an apple in his mouth.  Winter also is built like a tank and cannot get Spring’s air, but he tries his best, my brave little weird soldier.

 

And last, but never least, we have WOOTIE.  So distinguished, so photogenic, so full of poise and suaveness.

Oh FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, Wootie!!

 

In other news, if you happen to have a spare washing machine, can I have it?  Mine died last week and there is a frightening, mounting pile of dog laundry in my kitchen.  It smells bad, and pretty soon it’s going to all have to go live on the porch, which will make me more white trash than I am keen on experiencing.  I keep trying to buy a cheap one off craigslist but these things get snapped up like a hot damn, as fast as they are posted!  And given how the liquid-iron-I-mean-water here kills appliances, I am not keen on spending a lot on a brand new one.  If you have a line on a cheap washing machine I can get my hands on, hit me up!

 

Filed Under: Nowhere Particular Tagged With: Addy, big air photography, Dexter, Fae, farm, foster puppies, Minnie, Mr. Woo, Peetie, Piper, rescue dogs, Silly, snow, Spring, TWooie, Winter

A Real Snow Day

February 23, 2018 By The Food Lady 5 Comments

It snowed soooo much and soooo hard that it was difficult to take photos because the camera couldn’t find my subjects through the blizzard.

Addy is so over it before it even began.  She wouldn’t come out of the barn.

This is the face of a be-sweatered and be-snooded skinny little dog who hates me for taking her out of sunny Southern California, I’m pretty sure.

I’m not sure the WooTWoo were all that much happier, because they have all the hair and they get all the snowballs.  So they don’t appreciate being made to pose in the snowfall.

And then there’s Silly.

That right there is an “OMGOMGYAY!” face if ever I saw one.

In rather sharp contrast to the “I will kill you in your sleep” face that Spring is currently sporting.

Maybe it’s the sweater.  Which she managed to take off, and which I promptly put back on her again right before I took this photo.

And since I was pissing off dogs, I decided I may as well piss all of them off by making them sit in the doorway of the barn so I could get this photo.  In for a penny, etc.

Addy is conspicuously missing, because she was inside the barn with me and never leaving unless tucked inside my coat.  Silly was off somewhere else being ALL LEGS.

Actually, he was probably across the pasture barking at horses.  He’s a real ass about barking at and fence running with the horses (as well as the neighbour’s super irritating german shepherd on the other side of the pasture).  I’m working on getting him to call off, and that’s coming along, but now he thinks the game is to run at the horses and bark and then get called off and recall for a cookie.  I tried a long line for a while, but he can still outrun me even dragging 20 feet of leash.  He definitely needs some work in the recall department, as he quite an independent streak!

And Mini Mama was off having the zoomies (and losing her coat) because for a little kinda naked dog, she LOVES the snow.  She can get FaeBitch to play with her when it’s snowing outside.  She had a meet and greet with a potential family but they decided she was not the doggo for them.  She has another one coming up, assuming I can ever get out of my driveway again with all this snow.  I wish I could just keep her, I love her very much, in spite of all the goat poop she consumes.

I even managed to get a photo of Piper that I really like a lot.  I may clean it up a little more and have it printed.  This is how I will always remember her best – bulldog legged and wearing a slightly judgmental / slightly confused expression on her face.  She’s still chuggin’ along and of course she loves the snow, so this is her happy place, even if she doesn’t really look like it is.

Anyhoo.  No stories this time, just snowy photos.  But if you want to, you can all think “I hope you get diarrhea” thoughts about WebJoe, because as I type this snuggled up beside my portable heater and shivering under a blanket, he’s in Hawaii posting photos on facebook about how he’s trapped on a sunny beach somewhere.  Snowy Fae thinks he deserves the diarrhea.

Filed Under: Nowhere Particular Tagged With: Addy, big air photography, Dexter, dogs in clothes, Fae, foster puppies, Minnie, Mr. Woo, Peetie, Piper, rescue dogs, Silly, Spring, TWooie, Winter

Happy Valentine’s Day

February 15, 2018 By The Food Lady 4 Comments

Okay, so it’s not Valentine’s Day anymore.  Just pretend.  I’m a busy Food Lady and time gets away from me.

For Valentine’s Day this year, we got the gift of snow.  Snow is apparently TWooie’s soul mate, and that’s why he’s so darned happy.

We got quite a lot of snow where I live, so I brought my camera along on our hike, thinking to get some dogs-in-snow photos, but there was hardly any snow where we hiked.  It was oddly warm out, and melting faster than the ground could keep up with (my driveway was basically a swimming pool when got home) so mostly it’s just photos of dogs being mostly wet.

 

Check out The Silly!  He’s growing so fast – he’s almost as tall as Peetie is already!  And starting to look more like a dog and less like a puppy.  Until he does something …well, silly.

Like when he saw his first helicopter (and I don’t mean me!  I’m not a Helicopter Mom, like Auntie Fiona is!)

He’s a pretty great puppy.  He’s goofy and kinda laid back, but he’s got a great work ethic and is a little bit bossy/demanding when he wants something, but he’s learning to curb that a bit.  He also has a weird (kinky??) fondness for shoes, which I love a little less, but he doesn’t eat them, he just stashes them all over the house so that I am forever looking for a shoe’s mate.  The funniest thing is that he *worships* Old Lady Mad Teeth(tm) and falls all over himself bowing to her and licking her when she comes in from one of her (prednisone-induced many) staggering, lost-in-a-fog pees.  She, of course, “hates” him and get all pissed off, but it’s the most animation I see from her these days, so it warms my heart.

Piper is actually doing okay – better than I’d hoped after weeks of no improvement, but not as wonderful as before this latest episode.  But the prednisone has made enough of a difference that I’m pleased.  My vet says it is possible that she has a brain tumour, which is sad, but in a way is better – I mean, I would rather she has something tangible that will eventually lead to making a decision I cannot question, rather than just kind of falling apart for no reason, and her physical health waxing and waning, because that makes it much harder to make a decision, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, right now she seems relatively happy.  The snow pleased her very much, because her whole life, her most favouritest game EVER has been for me to kick snow in her face so she can jump up and bite at it.  Her front legs don’t really leave the ground anymore when we do this, but she still is thrilled.  She is also – for a dog who can barely walk – remarkably able to stay on her feet when she indulges in a game of tug with one of the other dogs.  I am continually shocked at just how determined she is – she NEVER loses a game of tug, even when she plays with the Grim Reaper of tugging (AKA Peetie) who will tug so fiercely that a) she nearly kills the dog on the other end of the toy and b) will actually kill toys in her quest to win the game.  But she never wins against tiny 25lbs of old lady Piper dog!

Peetie herself remains resolutely annoying AF.  We’ve had a couple of incidents lately of her fighting with my other dogs – she started a brawl with Winter recently, and then she decided to fight Spring (who fights terriers?  Honestly).  In both cases, I have no doubt that the terriers instigated it in some backhanded way … Winter was, if I recall, laying on a dog bed growling for no good reason (because Winter = weird).  And Spring was standing behind me in my computer chair when the Peetie-and-Silly roiling ball of play bumped into the chair and Spring snarked at them.  But the worrisome thing is that rather than just giving the offender a wide berth, which is the preferred course of action in this house (I mean, when you have this many dogs, someone is always getting snippy about their personal space) she launched at the dog and started a brawl.  I DON’T find this acceptable (especially when I’m in the chair they are brawling in!).  And a couple of times since I have found her side-eyeing and bristling at Spring, which I also DON’T find acceptable.  As such, I have been chatting up a former adopter of mine who is potentially interested in adopting Peetie.  She doesn’t have any terriers, and just one other elderly dog.  It might be a good fit.  It’s funny because Peetie is actually super social with other dogs 99.9% of the time and happily greets and plays with anyone new, but I just can’t have her scrapping with my terriers.  I guess she’s just maturing, and maybe she isn’t cut out for a multi-dog household.  And I am sure Dexter won’t miss her biting his back legs whenever he is in motion, a habit I cannot break stupid Peetie of.

Pretty, but also pretty damn annoying.

The puppy would miss her, and I would too, but only because she’s good at keeping him entertained when I’m busy ;-)  The other day I gave Silly a smoked chicken foot someone gave me a package of, because he was gallumping around the house being generally irritating and there was still an hour to go before we left for hiking.  Peetie wanted that smoked chicken foot REAL bad, but there’s one thing Silly is pretty firm about and that’s that One Does Not Try To Take His Food.  Even FightyPeetie knows better than that.  So she weighed her options after staring at him for a while, and finally decided to offer him something in trade.  What Peetie finds valuable, and what other dogs find valuable, are not always the same thing … so Peetie tried to trade him the smoked foot for an empty food bowl.  Worse, she tried to trade him his own empty food bowl.  He may be Silly, but he’s not stupid, and he did not fall for it ;-)

Springaling is no worse for wear after her scrap with Peetie, though she was a bit extra clingy for a couple of days, because for all her terrier snark, she is a very sensitive and emo little creature.  But I found her a new jacket at the thrift store, so she’s stylin’ at least.

 

Everyone else is pretty much as you’d expect.  Dexter is getting soooo deaf now …. the other day he was napping on my bed and I walked by the bedroom, popped in to give him a smooch on the head and I startled him so bad he jerked awake and bashed me right in the nose.  **stars**  Also, apparently I can never, ever get a photo of him without his tongue hanging out, so I have just given up even trying.

 

The WooTWoo are getting old :(  I always think of them as kind of ageless, but lately I have noticed that TWooie loses his footing / balance sometimes – like I bumped him with my knee the other day and he just … fell over.  And Wootie is either losing his hearing, or losing his desire to bother listening to what I have to say – it’s really tough to tell which one it is.  It’s very possible that in his advanced age he just doesn’t give a shit about listening to me.  At least he still makes for pretty portraiture:

 

Whereas his brother just gives me stink eye.

Addy “my legs fell asleep!” Pants remains her delightfully naughty self :)  These are her ‘THERE’S A RABBIT!!” ears, which are ridiculous.

 

And this is Alfie, just because I liked this photo (drool not withstanding)

 

I could probably blog some more (and will!) but I also have to get ready to go to work, so instead I will just leave you with this valentine’s gift of a group photo (minus Silly, who has no “stay” yet, and Piper, who was at home).  But since it’s the day after Valentine’s, I’ll give it to you for 50% off ;-)

Filed Under: Nowhere Particular Tagged With: Addy, big air photography, Dexter, dogs in clothes, Fae, foster puppies, Minnie, Mr. Woo, Peetie, Piper, rescue dogs, Spring, TWooie, Winter

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright © 2021 Sheena Staples · Site by Transmit Studio · Log in