More on hummers

No…nothing to do with Ferris.

It’s a commercial actually... that really ticks me off.

The scene is a mom driving her son to school on the first day…new school kinda thing.
The kid looks like a middle-schooler, and as you know middle school is all about appearances. So she asks him if he wants her to drop him off down the street a bit. We, the unwitting viewer, know its so the other kids don’t see him getting dropped off by his mom…which can be so uncool.
But the kid replies “No, I think it’ll be fine.”

The next scene shows him walking up the school steps and kids parting the way looking past him in awe at his ‘ride’. Mom pulls away in her jagumba shiny, new, black hummer.
Of course the kid is immediately accepted by his new peers.

Aaaaaaaauuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhhh.

Great, so if mom has …say a 1993 minivan(sound familiar) then you are basically gonna get the snot beat out of you on the first day of school.

I cannot think of a worse message to send to our kids (specifically our adolescent sons).

I have yet to see the commercial a second time. I can only hope they pulled it.

Stuffed

I am still full - how 'bout you?

The accident ...in brief - so as not to upset our laywer: there was a minor miscalculation in entering a busy road*, which really should have resulted in a fender bender. But timing, positioning, and lay of the land caused a roll. Full roll, right back up onto its wheels. Seatbelts do work...wear them.

I got the call, at my desk at work - sirens in the background. He told me he flipped it, and that he was fine. I then called my perceptive wife, ever so careful not to use the word 'flip'. We both left work and went to the scene.

She said later, when I make these calls - that as soon as I say her name ...she knows...and reaches out to grab onto something. This is, of course, one of many times I have had to 'call' regarding Ferris. At 5 years old, he was dubbed "Rubberman" by his uncle when he was hit by a car in front of our house, nary a scratch on him. He lives up to this name all too often.
His thoughtful (and careful) sister said she that she was 'thankful for Ferris' at our Thanksgiving table.
Amen.
Oh...and we are in the market for a good used car if you know of any....



* this was 'our' busy road, must blog about our plans to move soon...

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has a lovely holiday.
Stuff yourselves silly.
Drink yourselves merry (at home please).
Be thankful for any little thing.

hummers

I have been remiss about posting.

I posted a short time ago about being fed up with the consumption in our suburban town. I specifically mentioned Hummers at the High School.

I would like to recant.
I believe my dear, exhausted and motherly wife would love our children to drive Hummers.
I will show you why. But I want to say first and most importantly – Ferris is fine. Absolutely fine. Also, he was not doing anything wrong…not speeding, not goofing around, not showing off.
It was an accident plain and simple.

oy...

didja notice my daughters comments to the last post.
she mentioned Riggs' sister.

yes, they wanted two of them.
can you JUST imagine.
(and ...actually, I think I would have caved if the other puppies had not already been adopted...whew)

Chapter 12 - The Tally

Well here we are now.
Our FREE dog is going to be 3 years old on November 25th.

As I was tallying up - I began to remember more and more. Perhaps I was blocking.

…so many of Ferris’ hats stolen and destroyed, every throw rug and doormat I bought - mangled (after about 10 of them I realized …do not buy little rugs with a ‘looped’ weave). Too many pens and pencils to count (and the inevitable ink stains they caused), oh and the huge hole that she ate in our Pottery Barn living room rug (which I decided not to include since we are actually still using said rug …it has since been turned in such a way as to hide the hole under the sofa... we thought replacing the rug but we knew that was just asking for trouble).

And so here it is. The Tally.

adoption cost $ 25.00
baby gate $ 25.00
new door and hardware $ 150.00
crate $ 30.00
various stuffed animals $ 30.00
many of Ferris’ hats $ 50.00
my Serengetti sunglasses $ 125.00
obedience school $ 125.00
leash and collar $ 25.00
a better collar $ 20.00
a second leash $ 15.00
a stronger collar $ 15.00
chain link fence $ 3,000.00
wooden fence $ 280.00
repairs to chain link $ 300.00
repairs to wooden fence $ 120.00
3 shrubs $ 75.00
2 trees $ 80.00
garden fence $ 160.00
repairs to gates $ 45.00
tomato juice and douches $ 30.00
vet costs to date (included spay) $ 885.00
throw rugs and doormats $ 130.00
(estimated as there were sooo many)
TOTAL $ 5,740.00

but this…


well...ok, not priceless.
but we'll keep her.

Chapter 11 – Life on the Inside

Riggs is pretty well contained these days. Now when she gets out it usually out a door as someone comes in, or a gate left open by a child.
So for the most part life is good inside the fence.
However, even being contained she managed to get herself sprayed by a skunk. Full on in the face.

As soon as we realized what had happened, we had to think quickly. If Riggs just got sprayed by a skunk, then the skunk was inside the fence. If Riggs is inside the fence and a skunk is inside the fence and WE are inside the fence this greatly increased the probability of more spraying.
So …nitwit that I am – I immediately took her into the mudroom. Where we both immediately teared up and coughed until we choked… it didn't really dawn on me that being closed up in a really small room was NOT a good idea. Luckily my clear headed wife yelled to us to go BACK outside. (there was a lot of YELLING…not angry YELLING…but the kind of YELLING that happens when you are in an emergent situation…as if you need to speak loudly and clearly over the din of the event).

Of course we had to throw everything away that had been in the mudroom with us.

Ok so now…we need to wash.
The little wrinkle with that is …Riggs is petrified of the bath.
So we started by giving her a sponge bath out on the patio with LOTS of tomato juice. And then did it again. Then we heard we should be using vinegar and water douches. So we went to CVS and bought out their supply of Massengills. You can imagine the looks we got…(just what are those lesbians up to?).
We found that the douche works quite well actually. The vinegar seems to really get out alot of the odor and the applicator is shaped perfectly for a dog whose been sprayed right in the face.

After two tomato juice bathes and more than a few douches -- she was still not quite ready for re-entry into the general living area, so we coerced her into the tub.
Of course I had to get in with her, while my steadfast wife stood right behind me to thwart any escapes. After some initial thrashing about, she settled down enough so that the bath went fairly well. And really we only sustained very minor injuries.

So for a couple of bucks in feminine supplies and cans of juice it wasn’t so bad, well unless you factor in all the stuff we had to throw away…various lunch bags, a pair of flip flops, the throw rug, a hat…

And now of course we had to figure out how to keep skunks OUT. There’s always something to be done when you have a fence.

Next week we’ll tally up the results. I also have some pics from around the house of stuff yet-to-be-repaired. I suppose I will include those as a future expense.

Chapter 10 – Looking for Clues

As security tightened around the encampment, it became increasing difficult to figure out how Riggs kept getting to the other side of the fence.
There were a couple spots in the wooden part of the fence where she got under. I added pressure treated boards in these areas and that seemed to stop the problem.
She started to nose at the latches on the chain link gates. You’ve seen them – the ‘U’ shaped latch that simply folds over the gatepost.


We installed clips on all of them to keep them down.

One afternoon I was in the garage, leaning into my car organizing and gathering things to bring into the house. Riggs walked up and poked me with her nose… a friendly greeting. She seemed winded, as if she had been running. She runs a lot – really fast -- in great circles. It’s rather comical. I am hoping to get a clip of it sometime.
I pat her head and leaned back into the car to get a couple more things.
Then…. I stopped – froze, my head tilting to one side my eyes gaze quizzically up to the left, one eyebrow raises. If I were a cartoon you would see the light bulb glow over my head.
I turn, ever so slowly, and nonchalantly – patted Riggs on the head again… and GRABBED her collar.
The garage is not inside the fence.

Once again, we walked the fence line. Looking for breaks, or a ditch, or a hole of some kind. It wasn’t until I came back twice and noticed the big back gate was off its post hinges and just resting in an upright position.

From what we could gather – she squeezed under the gate lifting it off its hinges.
Then the gate …just out of shear luck landed in such a way that from a distance you couldn’t tell it was off the hinges.
After some pondering, I installed an extra post hinge upside down on each gate, restricting the gates from any upward movement.

The subsequent breakout stunned us. After fixing the big back gate, there was about 5 inches of space between the ground and the bottom rail. Now remember, the gate no longer has any give upward at all.
But there was a cat. A cat on the other side of the gate. And Riggs still had the memory of getting under this gate. And – there was a cat on the other side of the gate. I saw her run full out towards the gate and chuckled to myself, knowing she would be foiled.
But that 75-pound dog squished herself down to an unthinkable size and squeeeeeezed herself out. Did I mention there was a cat on the other side?
I would not have believed it if I didn’t watch it happen with my own eyes.

I put a 4x4 piece of wood there temporarily. She moved it.
I put a rock against the 4x4. She rolled the rock and moved the wood.
I put a 2x6 against the fence and the 4x4 against the 2x6 and a rock against the 4x4….

Finally, my exasperated wife added to that 2 cinder blocks. So far this is working like a charm.

I will estimate $45.00 on various gate parts, and more pressure treated wood.
But I still need to come up with a more permanent solution for that gate.

Welcome to Wacky New England

We are both rather sore from raking all day Sunday.
Raked the yard in shirt sleeves cuz it was almost 70 degrees out.
Tomorrow its going to be below 20.
Last night on my way home from work I noticed someone had their Christmas lights up.
Gotta love this place.

Stay tuned for "Chapter 10 - Looking for Clues".
New boss starts today - and thats a whole nother story.

Chapter 9 - and so it continues...

Well… we plant most things on the other side of the fence.
My wife’s tasty vegetable garden is INside the fence. Riggs likes vegetables.
After she had eaten all of the broccoli we had planted, that left room to play in the dirt.
We sorta gave up on the vegetables that first year, and by the end of the season the garden was well tilled.

Just when you thought you were done building fence…


10 4x4’s and 100’ feet of wire fence – $210.00

Chapter 8 – Boredom

Well after some ‘tweaking’, the bars at the bottom of the fence worked. Is anyone keeping a tally yet? Not to worry – I will provide a spreadsheet if I ever get to the end of this story.

So Riggs was confined. She was a caged animal. Can anyone tell me what caged animals do? Anyone? Anyone?
They get bored.
When you get bored you either – become lethargic and depressed…or get creative. Wanna guess which path Riggs took?
Let’s just say 3 shrubs and 2 trees later we realized she had found a way to entertain herself.

-- my wife the gardener and I conversing while walking around the garden

Me: Wasn’t there a shrub here?
Wife: yes
Me: Like a 7 foot shrub?
Wife: yes
Me: Did you move it?
Wife: not exactly
Riggs romps by happily with a 7 foot branch in her mouth.

…short while later

Me: Who put this chewed up stick in the ground over here?
Wife: that’s a pear tree.

Ok, so that’s. 3 shrubs lets give them a replacement value of $25.00 each.
And two trees (given to us by my mother to plant around the new fence) at $40.00 each.

We plant things on the other side of the fence now.

Chapter 7 – Escape

During the first weekend with the fence- we walked the entire length and shored up any high spots. I made sure that the fence was no more than 2-4 inches off the ground in any spot.
So we were ready. Yay. No more walking the dog on the leash. Just open the door and let her go. One minor glitch was that Riggs didn’t seem to be able to see screens. We had screen doors off both back doors. Riggs not only repeatedly ran head on into them – she would also paw at them, which would of course rip them to shreds. So back to Home Depot to buy a new screen door for $40.00 bucks which I then modified for our needs. (the screen flaps like a dog door)

Now we were truly free.
Riggs could run in and out as she pleased. And when we wanted her on one side or the other we simply closed the storm door.
Riggs was so happy. So much room to run, time to herself to explore, or sleep in the grass or hunt bugs and play with sticks.
It was a couple of weeks of sheer bliss. Until… Riggs, and we, learned – chain link bends.
Yup. If you push the bottom of it, it will bend. It bends enough to fit a 70 pound dog through in fact. It seems there were a couple spots where the space was just big enough and the chain link just flexible enough where she could get out.
As a temporary measure we piled cinder blocks along the bottom of the fence in these areas.
There’s no way she could move cinder blocks.
Which was true.
However, what she COULD do was to grab the chain link in her teeth and pull and twist and bend it, until she pulled the fence up over the cinder blocks.
And of course escaped… again.

So now – Riggs can get out of the fence…pretty much at will.
With Riggs back on the leash, we called in our fence guy.
He said not to worry, this happens all the time. For only another $300.00 he could install a bottom rail.
So of course we replied, “How soon can you come?”

When he got there to do the installation, I showed him where Riggs had mangled the fence to get out.
He looked at me in amazement and said “A dog did this!?”

Patience

sorry for the delay in our story kids.
but its 6p.m. e.s.t. and I have been here at work since 7 this morning.

stayed tuned.

Chapter 6 – Confinement …on a larger scale

For this chapter I will step back in time slightly. Because the following events actually started prior to the Obedience School and .... are actually ongoing.

Riggs does not come when you call her. If you take a step towards her – this is a game. The object of the game is to elude your captor. The loser usually gets a bath (often times we both lose). The winner gets to run wild and free.
This was part of the catalyst behind Obedience School. But you see where that got us.

So obviously we needed a FENCE.

(on a side note: we had tried tie outs, runs and kennel enclosures with our last dog. They were ineffective at best and in some cases simply cruel. I did not want to have a dog tied to a chain in the backyard.)

We are intelligent and thoughtful pet owners, so we discussed our options at length. Our choices were of course: Invisible fence…or an actual fence… hmm.

If you recall from the last chapter – this dogs threshold of pain is remarkable. This made us leery of the invisible fence. Since it was a fairly big area we wanted to enclose, the theory was she could get a running start and at top speeds would be on the other side of the wire by the time she felt the shock. Then, of course, would not be able to get back home across the wire again. So, although it would have been more attractive and certainly more affordable, invisible fence was not for us.

Now onto the myriad of choices for fencing. The first thing we learned is: Fence is expensive, and attractive fence is astronomical.

Compromise was in order.

The most affordable fence is chain link. The ugliest fence is chain link.
Ok, so the compromise-- we would get chain link fence for most of the enclosed area, but it would be the black-coated chain link to make it somewhat more attractive.

So 3k later – we had ourselves a fence. Complete with two gates, one large enough to pull the tractor in, and plenty of room to run.
But we were not quite fully enclosed yet.

Part two of the compromise was that no chain link fence would be near the house (for aesthetic reasons).
First we priced attractive black aluminum – knowing that the iron we really wanted would be out of reach. For the two short runs of fence we would need the price was higher than the entire chain link. That wasn’t going to happen.

And so… we returned to our DIY roots.

Saving thousands of dollars-- the whole family chipped in and we built ourselves a fence.



An attractive fence for just a couple hundred bucks in materials.

Oh, and we learned one other thing about fences… .

Chapter 5 – Control

With Riggs continuing to get bigger and stronger, we soon realized we needed to gain control over this happy beast.

So we asked around, and asked our vet. Everyone suggested Obedience School.

At first we scoffed. C’mon how hard can it be to teach a dog some basic commands?
But Riggs was willful. And so we succumbed. We enrolled in school, $125.00

We were told to have a long lead and a chain slip collar…another $25.00.
Off to school we went.

My very patient, animal loving wife took the classes with Riggs. I went to the first couple classes to observe. Which was probably not a good idea because every time she noticed me she wanted to come visit. With Riggs over 70 pounds now (remember…this is ALL muscle) when she wanted to go – you followed.

It became readily apparent that we had no ‘control’. The stern Obedience Instructor suggested we may want to invest in a ‘prong’ collar – since Riggs did not seem to respond what-so-ever to the simple chain choke collar. Conveniently she sold them there…for only $20.00. So after about two classes of Riggs pulling my 120 pound wife around the room like a doll. We coughed up for the prong collar

The collar worked… a little. She still pulled – this dog’s threshold of pain is remarkable (remember that point, as it will affect decisions down the road).
But we could make it through a class, so we had hope. We did have to replace her lead (was it once or twice …I can’t remember) cuz she bit through it.
But by this point we were basically just hoping for a passing grade. The Stern Obedience Instructor nicknamed Riggs ‘Mr. Muscle’ (mistaking her for a male).

Riggs readily learned commands. But she had an attention issue. So many dogs, so little time to play. And she couldn’t seem to understand why none of the dogs wanted to play with her. If we weren’t so tired and frustrated I suppose it may have been sad or endearing.

The prong collar was helping to keep her from running like a maniac all over the room… but there was going to be no lying down, or sitting and staying when there was another dog right next to her to play with. It got so bad that other owners tried to position themselves away from us in the circle.
Suffice it to say we were not at the top of the class.

At the last class…the one where you find out if you pass (at this point we really just wanted it to be over). I needed to take over for my ailing wife.
I …we… were doing miserably. So bad in fact that once when Riggs jumped up on me, the ‘stern Obedience Instructor’ made me hold Riggs up by the front paws to teach her a lesson. I was to stand there holding her up, as the class continued on, until she told me to stop.
So here I am holding up the 75-pound unwilling beast. Who is gnawing politely at my fingers to get me to let go… until the apparently insane instructor felt like telling us to stop. After a short time my arms started to shake. I began to wonder just who was getting the lesson here. I was finally allowed to release her and we were both relieved. Although neither one of us was more obedient from it.

On the very verge of failing I remembered I had a pocket full of dog biscuits.
So I slipped her one.
She sat immediately and obediently at my side.
A short time later she poked me with her nose.
I slipped her another one. She sat like an angel.

We were then told to walk around the room in a circle. This was a common class exercise that on the last three attempts we managed to turn the entire room in to chaos.
But now… now we had a plan. I showed her the biscuit…palmed it and began walking. She followed my fist like a pro.
I stopped …she sat. I slipped her the biscuit. Perfect.

She must have had 30 of ‘em that night.

When it came time for the Stern Obedience instructor to walk around the room and give each of us a Pass/Fail. Riggs was sitting sweetly by my side. Poking my hip every so often for another biscuit. The instructor came up to us… looked at Riggs approvingly. She told me we passed, and isn’t it amazing how that technique of hers worked on such a wilfull and strong animal.

Ha.

Ok. So – ‘bought $200 bucks, and 8 classes later… we still have no control.

Time for another plan.

We will return to our regular blogging shortly.

Sorry.
Not enough time today to blog Chapter 3 - please tune in next week. (promise)
In the meantime, perhaps we could all spend the weekend just trying to be more conservative.

To calculate the average size of each person's [footprint], it measures land use, pollution, energy consumption, and the level of carbon-dioxide emissions. It then determines how many hectares of land are necessary to produce or absorb what one person uses.

The impact of an average North American is double that of a European, but seven times that of the average Asian or African.

read the article

Blue

***We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging to bring you this:***


It's Spirit Week at the high school.
The kids show their school spirit by dressing differently each day. Yesterday each class was to wear a different color. Seniors wore black, Juniors wore blue, Sophomores wore red…you get the point.



Well, you CANNOT tell Ferris to wear blue. They were just asking for trouble.

Chapter 4 – The Beast Within

Riggs continued to grow and grow.
Beyond our expectations and much to Ferris’ delight.

She started to go through her mischievous stage. I suppose if we tally up everything she destroyed during this period it would up our grand total considerably. However, the losses were happening at such a rapid pace – I don’t really even know what we lost. We are still finding stuff out in the back yard – years later. We do know she ate a number of Ferris’ hats, a lot of pens and pencils, any Tupperware should could get her teeth onto and then… there was the Kermit massacre.


Yes, Riggs had developed a taste for …. stuffed animals.


We also learned during this period that Riggs liked to …no… NEEDED to run.
She ran in circles mostly, big circles and very, very fast. With seemingly no purpose other than to RUN. Sometimes she would carry huge sticks when she ran. It was also during this time we learned she had an incredibly high threshold of pain and was more powerful than any other dog we had known.
Clearly we needed a way to deal with this new phase and this freakishly strong dog.
And so we contemplated our next phase of confinement… and control.

Chapter 3 - Confinement

And so we learned – Riggs was not easily contained.
Since we really had no doors on the first floor with which to contain our new puppy (doncha just love an ‘open’ floor plan) we decided to invest in a crate. Crate training is supposed to be very good for a dog. They say they actually grow to love their crates as their dens. Julia is crate trained and that works very well. So off to Wal-Mart I go.

Hmmm, what size, what size. Based on the size of Riggs mother, and that the dog is only supposed to be able to comfortably turn around, I select one of the larger medium sized crates, (yes, I am sure you know where this is going) and for $29.95 I am outta there.

Riggs was adjusting nicely, and she and Julia started to play together.

The crate was working out pretty well (except we had to have it in our room at night to keep her from bouncing it all over the house looking for us).
But, as you may have guessed, it wasn’t long before we couldn’t stuff her into the crate anymore.

Luckily we are able to borrow a larger crate.

We put her favorite Batman comforter in there and she seemed happy enough.
As you can see we lined it with some rubber flooring material because she would dig so hard at the metal bars to get out – we thought this would protect her. HA.

Shortly thereafter, we gave up on the idea of a crate altogether.


She was happy, which of course made us happy. But this still left us with the problem of not being able to confine her.

We decided we needed a door.
So we bought an interior French door (we needed a door with some glass) from Home Depot for $125.00 and some hinges and a doorknob for another $25.00 bucks.
I hung it myself.
It’s a little crooked.
But it keeps the dog in the mudroom.

There, problem solved. Dog contained for only $180.00.

Chapter 2 - The First of Many

When we got her home…she and Julia were the same size.


Our kids had already picked out a name.
"Riggs" - after Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon – they actually wanted us to get two puppies so they could name them Murtaugh and Riggs. Luckily when we arrived to pick her up all the other puppies were spoken for.
Our other pet’s names are also from the big screen – the kids are movie buffs. Julia is named after Raul Julia, because she has those big dark eyes; and our cat Willow is named after Willow Ufgood from the movie Willow.

On her very first night, we made a cozy bed for her in our mudroom. She had her water bowl, newspapers for the inevitable accident, a toy we brought home from the pound with the scent of her litter mates and a little soft music to sleep by.
Since there was no door on the mudroom we put up a baby gate to confine her for the night.
After about an hour or so of whimpering and crying there was finally quiet.
Silly us to think that she had fallen asleep – when in fact – that little darling 6 week old puppy ATE her way through the baby gate. She chewed a hole in the heavy plastic mesh making a small little hole, and squeezed her way out. Her first successful escape.