we put one of the bday pillows out yesterday afternoon and watson’s reaction was perplexing at best. it wasn’t clear if he was terrified of the pillow, protecting the pillow from everyone else, or trying to protect everyone else from the pillow - suffice to say there was a lot of barking. it’s all a mute point as fletcher took care of the evil pillow, most assuredly at the behest of watson…

david bought me 2 pillows for my birthday…this is news for 2 reasons (and one is not because he remembered my birthday – he always does). the first is that the pillows are stuffed with feathers – evidence that even people married to vegans don’t always understand vegans. i have to overlook the feather stuffing as he diligently removed all evidence of tags rendering them unreturnable. he was so diligent i could have been led to believe that he made the pillows himself. plus he went to the trouble of picking and buying them for me – i’m not a great returner of items like that. the second bit, both more odd and newsworthy, is that apparently watson has developed a fear, actually a significant fear, of pillows.

after i unwrapped the pillow i put it on our living room couch. for the next hour or so watson stood in the living room, staring at that pillow barking his head off. every time someone walked past the living room he barked like mad. at first i thought he was protecting the pillows until i walked toward him with it and he reacted as though i was a crazy-eyed killer wielding a machete. i actually felt as if i was being cruel to him, approaching with such a soft, fluffy item. i put that pillow away and picked up one that he has lived in harmony with his entire life. low and behold he ran away from that one too. we decided to put the birthday pillows away and give him some "pillow-safe" time so we’d have a control. oh how i love a scientific experiment. we’re now back to all the pillows we had before "the birthday pillow incident of '08" (if this were covered on cnn there would already be ominous theme music and a zippy graphic). this morning when tested he had no problem with old pillows. tonite we’ll bring one of the new ones out and set it on the couch when he’s not around and see what happens. maybe he thinks a pillow with feathers could fly around, zero in on him and smother him????

we’ve had speck for exactly 6 weeks this weekend and two things stand out in this puppy’s development:

1. she has not grown up but she’s grown out. take a look at the picture on the right…you might think the photo has been manipulated or that i was standing over speck when taking the photo. you would be incorrect sir – i was standing directly in front of her and she is at actual size. she is a mighty 11’’ tall and i’m pretty sure that’s the same height she was the day we picked her up 6 weeks ago.
2. you might remember the episode of growing pains where mike is at a school dance and sees a beautiful girl across the gym only to be shocked by her horrendous voice when she speaks (or you might actually use your memory for more advantageous information). speck is that girl across the gym. she’s real cute and a pleasure to look at but her voice is absolutely atrocious. a few weeks ago i was having headaches and my jaw was bothering me. i thought stress was causing me to start grinding my teeth at night…then i realized that when speck barked (shrieked is actually a better word for it) i was tensing up and that was causing all the pain. dave told me i just needed to relax, be with it and let it wash over me. easier said than done, my friend.  i’ve since learned that i need to stay out of small, tiled rooms when she starts with her shrieking. i really think if she knew what her bark sounded like she would never make another sound again.

so to wrap up, we’ve got a midget ear terrorist who’s pretty cute! here’s a little video of her hijinks in the morning.

due to the fact that murray’s been ordered to not use stairs and there is no way out of our house without using stairs we decided a ramp was necessary. it was either that or a catapult. we were originally going to have a temporary ramp built on top of our front steps that could easily be removed when it was no longer needed and put back on if it became necessary again. then in a "lightbulb" moment we came up with the genius idea (and by we i mean i) of building a permanent ramp off the side of our front porch. it was genius for several reasons, the least of which being i knew murray wasn’t going to use something temporary – he’s a strictly permanent, built to codes kind of guy. there have also been several other periods of time in the past where a ramp would have been useful to our elderly dogs and saved us a few visits to the chiropractor. the ramp also has the added benefit of funneling traffic off the front porch and, if so inclined, i can lace up my heelys and take a run down it. oh yeah, i’m a proud 39-year-old heely owner…i just don’t have the guts to wear them to the mall like every kid over 6 does.  (i've added the catchy tune to drown out the sound of my horrendous voice).

indi must give off a scent that is akin to wearing a “kick me” sign – she’s our resident punching bag. i had hoped when we adopted another female that some of the male attention would be diverted from indi but speck isn’t carrying her weight. in fact now not only does indi have to take all the male attention but she’s got to do it with speck hanging from her face…

so we have a deck that is on the second story of our house where we will sit and eat meals. sometime last year i realized jewel would often stand on the lawn below the deck and stare up at us. unbeknownst to anyone else i would chuck food over the railing for her but it would generally hit a tree before landing, causing me to think jewel imagined the tree was of the giving variety. i started chucking food over whenever we ate there and at some point jewel caught onto me. i actually created a monster because every time we head to the door with food jewel rushes past us to get to her spot, almost knocking us over. if she were just a touch smarter she’d realize that if she actually succeeded in knocking us over she’d get all our food instead of little nibbles of it. the other day dave & i were snacking on some celery with peanut butter and when we got to a bad piece i threw it down for the yard monster. it was a bad (or perhaps a little too good) throw, however, and it landed on her back, peanut butter side down, of course. knowing with certainty it had to be very nearby, she spent a good amount of time looking for it to no avail,…nor did anyone else find it (real freaking sherlock holmes’ we have here). a little while later she and her piece of celery were sitting on the deck with me when the wind must have blown just right and she caught a whiff of herself, threw her head around and grabbed the celery off her back…what a loon.

   

        the deck                       jewel in position                        the celery

 

this is the scene most days after all the balls have been thrown and caught:

zander gets really excited for mealtime...i mean really excited

this is a very scientific test of flanagan's non-existent hearing:

i've finally gotten a little bit of time to start editing some videos to post...hopefully you'll enjoy some little samplings (many of these videos will contain dog sounds so i would suggest lowering the volume if you have a dog in the room). this is a typical day at the office - hopefully your officemates are more productive: