Mail Threat Neutralized

The Websphere has been spared my rantings for long enough. I've been busy. I'll try to jump back in.

My relationship with my mailman has been a story of delight told to more than a few of my friends. Before it leaks to Reuters or the AP, a first-hand account of events needs posting for the enjoyment of both of my loyal readers (thanks mom).

I'm sitting on my porch one fine summer afternoon when up walks the mailman.

I knew he was coming. Not because I was paying particular attention. I was likely buried in my laptop. But you see, I have the worlds most sensitive proximity sensors. Let's call them Cranky and Crackaroo.

As most four-legged tongue-draggers get up in years, they get more apathetic. A simple stick kept them entertained for hours. Now it earns me a blank stare.

Most mutts also tend to lose their hearing.

But not mine. Theirs has improved. I've a theory that for the 9 years of her existence, Crackaroo has fiddled with the tuner for the massive satellite-dishes atop her noggin... much like fiddling with the aluminum-foil-covered bunny-ears on the old floor model television tank until the snow on the screen becomes a light drizzle... until she has found perfect reception.

Only she's terrible at determining the source of the noise.

The faintest sound -- a slammed car door from 2 blocks away, or setting down my coffee mug in the kitchen -- sends her bolting from her dead-deer slumber position toward the front door like she'd been Tasered with 50,000 volts. Which in turn shocks Cranky from her day-long nap into a dead sprint. Or, more accurately, a limping scramble thanks to the lack of ACLs in her hind quarters. She doesn't feel any pain (per the vet), so I feel okay laughing at the lack of support her back legs give her. A nice firm scratch on her back while she's standing sends her butt uncontrollably to the floor. She can't possibly have any clue as to what the excitement is about, but she jumps in the melee anyway.

Instantly, my quiet world erupts into a frantic frenzy of barking, lunging, and paw-nails clattering on the hardwood. Rugs spin across the floor. Furniture is tossed over. My own body is banged and shoved aside as my runaway Mack Truck Mutt Muddle barrels out-of-control toward the front door.

Even if the noise originated out back.

The cloud of dog hair stirred up by the whirlwind barely settles before a passing pedestrian or the closing of the microwave triggers yet another crashing, barking 4-alarmer.

Rinse. Repeat.

Rinse. Repeat.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf would lecture these two on the necessity of pre-screening threats.

Thus I knew the mailman was coming. I always know when the mailman is coming.

Now is a good time to mention that I don't have a mailbox. The house didn't have one when I moved in and I never bothered to purchase one. I have a slot in my storm door. The mailman lifts the cover and slides the mail through the slot.

For a time, I was coming home from work to find my mail strewn across the floor. No big deal. It likely scatters in the 2 feet it falls to the ground after the mailman pushes it through the slot.

After some time, I was coming home to find it chewed. Okay, again, not a big deal. The owners of most mouth-breathers can relate to chewing. And Crackaroo has chewed and destroyed pretty much everything in her 9 years: shoes, ceramic figurines, rugs, mattresses, an entire couch, wooden furniture, mp3 players, computer equipment, live electrical wires.

So who cares about the chewed corners of a few pieces of junkmail? Besides, teeth marks in an invoice may serve as warning to AT&T to stop raising my rates.

Well soon, I started coming home to mail shredded and scattered, not unlike a New Years Eve confetti party or ticker-tape parade.

What the hell is happening?

Eventually, I was a witness to the carnage. I recall sitting on the couch, shaking my head at yet another 4-alarm false-alarm. The scene never fails to remind me of the old toddler song "honk honk, rattle rattle rattle rattle, crash, beep beep."

Thump. Bang. Woof. Clatter Clatter Clatter Clatter. Woof. Crash Crash.

They rush to the front door. A task Crackaroo has down to a science.

She clatters at top speed across the hardwood floors... or as fast as a feverishly wagging, overly excited, mentally handicapped klutz can gallop on ice or a swiftly moving treadmill... and plants her paws. She's done this so many times, she knows just when to plant so that she slides the last 5 feet, stopping almost perfectly at the door.

Now, I've seen this event a number of times since, and it's not always so precise. Occasionally, the law of Shaken Doggy Syndrome saps her brain of the cognitive abilities needed to execute this maneuver, and I'm witness to a muzzle-plant into the door.

But on this occasion, she times her slide perfectly. And at the exact right moment, she lunges upward and snatches the mail as it comes through the slot. She shakes the mail viciously from side to side as if killing her prey. Shreds of mail fly everywhere. The whole event seems like carefully choreographed dance.

My favorite part of the ordeal is what happens next.

She plants her feet, looks back at me, and puffs up her chest proudly as if to say:

"I'm on the job."

"Nothing to worry about, Daddy."

"Threat neutralized."

So there I was, sitting on the porch. Up walks the mailman. We chat as mutts bark and snarl ferociously through the window and screen door, most of the time standing on back legs so they can see through the window. The mailman probably thinks they're rabid. Or I'm the worst parent of all time.

Finally... in response to what I know is coming... I reach inside the screen door and close the storm door, revealing the mail slot... The mailman reaches into his pouch... pulls out my mail... and waves it as he repeats our running joke.

"I hope your dogs are hungry. It's Coupon Day."

It never gets old.

(also visit my photography blog at http://www.everydayaphoto.com
or my business Gigabark at http://www.gigabark.com )

Neurosis Magnified (photo)

Those who know me know that I've been obsessed with photography lately. I've become decent with Photoshop.

One day I created the most terrifying sight for any owner of neurotic canines... Twenty-seven neurotic canines. Enjoy!

Alternative Use for Duct Tape

From time to time, even the most resilient dogs have an incident that she can't fix by licking.

One sweaty afternoon, Cranky, Crackaroo and myself jumped in the car. Destination: dogpark. I remember the day because it was the last time we've been to a dogpark.

There's a reason for this.

I'll name it Cranky.

The car in question was a beater with haunted electrical wiring from the days I owned a car rental company. We had quite a few beaters. We also had a customer-base whose combined social standing resembled that gooey ick in a half-filled fish tank left in the garage for 9 months behind some old tires after Nemo went belly up. They had a similar smell too.

It was a perfect doggy shortbus.

Especially for dirty paws and overheated dogs.

Dogparks are a source of tension for me. It's like I'm walking into court to face the judge, but my lawyer is the dude with a black hoodie and sickle. All in attendance frown. Here comes THAT GUY. As if I've chosen -- actually TAUGHT -- my dog to take buttsniffing as a personal affront, on par with tooth removal or tail amputation. I feel guilty and shunned. And I just got here! Please judge... go easy on me.

I'm pretty sure -- if Jupiter aligned perfectly with Tatooine and the moon of Endor -- I could face only community service and doggy trash cleanup. But I'm resigned to the fact that there will be blood shed. And it shall come swiftly.

Not three minutes after we make our woofing, crashing presence known... to the sheer horror of owners now scrambling to pull pooches from a doggy-scrum free-for-all... a random buttsniffing took an unfortunate turn.

Now LISTEN UP uptight dog-owning assholes: If you can't stomach an occasional dogpark scrap, don't come to the fucking dogpark! They were designed to be wild fucking animals! They have a pre-wired duty to figure out who's the head dog! If you can't take it, stay the fuck home and feed your perfectly-mannered princesses Beluga caviar and hormone-free beef while they lay on their backs on tassled velvet pillows and you bring them to orgasm.

Now that I've expressed my anal glands and the dust has settled, it was easy to see there was little carnage beyond some scratches, a slightly ripped ear, and my chances of visiting any more dog parks. But still, the verdict was in... and the dude with the sickle was smiling.

I literally dragged Cranky through the double-gated fence and back to the car. No one held the gate for me. Crackaroo hopped and bounced the entire way like an excited child who just witnessed a horrific ice-cream truck accident... terrified to the point of shaking yet bursting with delight. Of course SHE hadn't gotten injured during the melee. She was hiding under the picnic table.

Pooches were loaded in the passenger side. Crackaroo, as always, moved to the driver's seat. I pushed her back into the passenger side with Cranky as I squeezed in. They looked like two sausages in one casing.

The windows were down. Some asshole shouted something on the way out. The Le Mas rythmn panting became a tongue-wagging motorboat ride down Lake Dogslobber, now puddling in the center console. Noses were mashed to the A/C vents. Dogslobber glazed the dash like a Krispie Kreme. As I drove, a breeze stirred up a doghair dustcloud, half of which stuck to the wet dashboard.

I was especially glad I drove this beater today.

It wasn't until we were at home that I noticed the bleeding. I saw a trail on the kitchen linoleum. I searched Cranky, but I couldn't find the source. Not on her paws. Not on her legs. I found it in the strangest place.

At the very tip of her tail.

Much of the hair had been stripped from the end, and it looked like the very tip had been cut off. Like when you open Super Glue by snipping the end.

The blood wasn't flowing. Just seeping. I opted against stitches. But how in the heck do I wrap it?

While I found an old T-shirt and ripped it into pieces, Cranky had taken to licking the end of her tail in an effort to stop it from bleeding. For the most part, it worked.

But she'd also managed to smear blood all over the kitchen floor.

I did an amateurish job of cleaning the tip and applied pressure with the cloth. Though I'm Doctor McSqueamy, my beautiful intern, Cranky, and I owned it.

So I went for a drink, cleaned up, and continued about life as a quasi-normal quasi-adult.

Until I saw it.

Now... I'm taking artistic license when I say I'm not very observant. Sometimes I think sleepwalkers pay more attention. So it took two weeks or more to notice that something was off.

At the time I lived in a townhouse. The front door opened to a long hallway to the living room. Just inside the door, immediately to the left, was a step and a landing way, and then steps to the second level. Since Cranky and Crackaroo wait as near as possible to the last known sighting of daddy, they basically plant themselves on that landing at the base of the stairs for the majority of the day. I could often hear tail-wagging thumps against the exterior wall from outside the house.

So one day I'm about to climb the steps, and I notice the wall around that landing. The entire bottom half of the wall looked dirty. I peered closer.

No dirt. Thousands of little spatters, not much higher than my waist.

I turned on the light.

Like a scene from Texas Chain Saw Massacre, my foyer walls looked like a crime scene. The location of a viscious machete fight between two angry hobbits. Or possibly a Jackson Pollack original, painted with the bloody tip of a wagging tail.

I learned that Cranky wasn't very fond of the scab on the tip of her tail. Or maybe it itched. Probably it just tasted good. But she chewed it off. And then wagged.

And repeated.

Shit.

I started walking around the house slowly. I squatted down to inspect the WHITE cabinets and WHITE drawers of the kitchen.

Shit.

A CSI's dream.

Everywhere I looked... doggy DNA. Bloody, tail-wag spatters adorned every wall, every door, every cabinet, and every bathroom tile that I owned.

I found it on the side of the bed. The couch. Even my shower curtain.

Even two pairs of jeans.

Every time Cranky's wound would scab, she'd chew it off. The wall accents started to look more like the final scene from Carrie. No matter what I did over the next two weeks, I couldn't keep her from chewing off the scab.

Band-aids on her tail.

What a joke.

I wrapped it with gauze and then medical tape.

Cranky would either slide it off the end of her tail (when I didn't tape it too tight), or chew right through it (when I did).

Bitter Apple spray. It's tastes so gross to dogs, they quit licking or chewing.

Turns out, Cranky loves Bitter Apple.

Gauze with masking tape? Didn't stand a chance.

I purchased a cone. It provided all manner of entertainment watching Cranky navigate hallways. But with a small amount of creativity, tail tips can be chewed.

I was out of ideas. Deflated and beaten. Resigned to a lifetime of bloody wags.

Then I noticed atop a roommates toolbox... A big roll of duct tape.

You WOULDN'T DARE!

I did.

For about three weeks, you could drive through my neighborhood and see on the end of a leash...

The most ghetto...

The most junkyard...

The most confused dog you've ever seen in your life.

She displayed with every wag her full-tail, applied-directly-to-her-skin, thirty-layer, duct-tape tail-cast.

Covering a soon-to-be healed tail tip.

I win.



(also visit my photography blog at http://www.everydayaphoto.com
or my business Gigabark at http://www.gigabark.com )

What's Shaken Doggy Syndrome?

Doggy idiosyncrasies. I've lovingly accepted them for so long, I've grown immune to how truly funny they are... those bizarre behaviors that gives everyone's animal a wickedly unique personality.

They so define our pets that we should name our pets later. Just call them all Lord Voldemort until they're 4.

If my canine redheaded-stepchildren didn't have a hard enough time with their real names, I'd give them new ones to match their idiosyncrasies... though they've more tics than Sheldon Cooper, so which do I pick?

Each is a smelly, redheaded, ovary-challenged lady. The shepherd/boxer mix more closely resembles a cross between a 4-legged kangaroo and a satellite dish. I'd probably call her Radar to acknowledge the DirecTV dishes atop her noggin -- or maybe Sonar -- but she is so fertile with neurosis, tics, and twitches that I must do better.

The barrel-chested boxer/lab mutt oscillates between a cuddle-happy lick-machine and a PMS-ing alpha male who sometimes raises her leg to pee. I can't decide if she's judging us from atop the lick-stained couch... or just too lazy to care.

While I reserve the right to change their monikers at any time... whether to better describe them, to confound my readers, or to send secret messages about the end of the world to my 501(c)(3) cult... let's call them:

Cranky and Crackaroo.

Give me time... volumes shall be written. History is made every single day in my house.

Shut up and get to the point! What is Shaken Doggy Syndrome?

Oh, right. The title. Tangents aren't just for math-class anymore.

So... I have a theory. And an ancillary purpose for writing this blog...

I strive to raise awareness for a malady affecting millions of dogs.

In fact, all dogs, everywhere.

Or at least all dogs that live under my roof.

And maybe a couple other roofs I know of.

A malady which turns those doggy idiosyncrasies into full blown doggy psychopathy.

A malady I call Shaken Doggy Syndrome.

Some cases are mild, and some are debilitating. But similar to what happens from drinking Master Blasters, shaking babies, or the mass migration of a man's blood from his brain to his penis, tail wagging kills brain cells. Or at least reduces brain activity to 6-degrees Kelvin.

Think about it.

Canines are built to survive wild environments, scarce food supplies, and harsh weather. They build complex social structures and coordinate their efforts to hunt larger and faster prey. But when a dog gets excited...

And she sees her owner...

And her tail starts wagging...

And all brain activity short-circuits like a toaster in the bathtub...

Feces becomes food.

Furniture becomes bowling alley lane bumpers.

The gap beneath chain-link fences becomes the Grand Canyon, further causing intact ears to become irrelevant.

The seventh step from the bottom of a staircase becomes a lauchpad.

Plate-glass windows become a stiff breeze.

And I'm here to prove it.




(also visit my photography blog at http://www.everydayaphoto.com
or my business Gigabark at http://www.gigabark.com )

The Backstory

Alternatively titled: "Seriously, Another Stupid Blog?"

All great ideas have to start somewhere. Mine was in a pair of hanging-by-a-thread boxers hunched over a rickety card table, a sludgey mug of instant coffee in one hand and a giant cup of disdain in the other. 40% for the "must read" nowhere-near-as-hysterical-as-advertised blog open on my laptop, and 60% for the trail of dry dogfood extending 30 feet from the back door, through the kitchen, to the blank stare wagging before me.

Okay, disdain might be too harsh... I'd come to accept and laugh at the neatly organized piles of dogchow scattered throughout my life and my house. I've theories on why my beautifully neurotic mutt does this, but we'll save that for another day. At the moment the only thing I can see is the narrow entrance to my kitchen... which today is a vast river of dry animal by-products. Which wouldn't be so bad if either of my mouth-breathers had any inclination whatsoever to eat the food. Or if the broom weren't in the kitchen.

I was struck by a desire to vent.

Not to call mom. It needs to be bigger.

Not to bury a Facebook status update between posts about a hopeless Farmville sheeping accident and a baby's diaper soup.

Bigger.

Something so big that hords would flock to it like a yearly Meccan pilgrimage. Something big enough to match the center-of-the-universe view that I share with four-legged, drain-clogging daughters.
Let's BLOG!

Really? BLOG? Seriously?

So I thought...

And thought...

And I realized that... I have some fucking hilarious stories. And I produce better stories on the double-ply every second morning than most of the incoherent brain-melting blogs. Blogs that would be better composed by elbow-punching keyboards in the dark. Plus, the world needs more humor and less running over other people with cars (true story). And when my fifth-grade drawing ability is coupled with my furry yet adorable flea-bags, there's no end to the silly artwork to illustrate our antics. So...

Let's BLOG!

But really? Another BLOG?

If there's a word that sounds more pre-teen than BLOG, I can't think of it. Of course, I'm not counting the lazy-ass non-words that you can't even pronounce like ROFL, LMAO, and OMG (seriously, someone in the next cube just used OMG in a sentence. Next stop, spelling bee). The only response to those are a bacon-wrapped rawhide and a right-hook to the temple. No... BLOG is easily the most juvenile-sounding word ever to infiltrate our lexicon enough to be used in serious places like behind a podium brandishing the Great Seal of the United States of America. And yet it's the world's most perfect word to describe a collection of stories about slobbering, shedding, whining, shitting beasts as could ever be imagined. So...

Let's BLOG!