The Square Peg

Zoe is a silly, snuggly, spotted, spirited bulldog and I love having her around. And while Zoe is fun, she's a whole lotta dog. She's a powerful, rambunctious, puppy who is completely unaware of her capacity to accidentally hurt someone. Playfully biting or rough-housing with someone could easily do some damage if her power and strength were to be misdirected or uncontrolled. It's for this reason that we try not to let her get into an excited state of mind (except when playing with her friends Karma, Darra and Rex--there's no controlling that excitement); we want a behaved dog, the kind of dog that wouldn't annoy our non-dog-loving visitors yet would behave nicely toward the visitors who welcome her affection and attention. She's a work in progress.

We humans aren't very different; we also have power that needs to be managed and directed the right way. Maybe we don't realize it, or sometimes we just forget, but we need to recognize the responsibility of its strengths and weaknesses.

Zoe's not built for running fast; she's more of a working dog. But when she comes loping into the room and plows her body weight into your thighs, you're going to know it...and it won't matter if she was going 5 mph or 55. Mocha, on the other hand (the dog we had to put down earlier this year), wasn't a working dog. Mocha was created to retrieve. It didn't matter if it was a tennis ball, a fake duck, or a golf ball; whatever you threw, she was going to bring it back. Moose used to stand in the back yard and hit golf balls onto the roof of the house and Mocha would stand nearby, listen very carefully and then run to the part of the roof the ball was going to drop from. Then she'd catch it and take it back to Moose and drop it at his feet so they could do it all over again. She lived to retrieve. Mocha's weakness to her power was that she didn't know when to quit. She'd overplay and hurt herself. And sometimes in her zeal, she'd stand too closely to a golf club and get hurt.


When directing our power and energy into something healthy, it can seem like we're unstoppable because we accomplish so much. But when it's not aimed in the right direction, damage is inevitable. Having a lot of power doesn't impress or affect progress if you spend all your time having to undo what you've done wrong and cleaning up the mess you've left behind.

A bull may be exceptionally powerful, but if the Farmer wants the bull to stand patiently while tied to the plow and wait for Him to return from the house, it doesn't matter if the bull can plow 2 acres an hour; what matters is his obedience. And therein lies our weakness; knowing when to use our power and when to harness it.

Still learning to use my powers for good instead of evil,
Eva

Did you know American Bulldogs were equipped with a built-in thermometer? At least, ours is. When Zoe's cold (or way too hot), her normally pale pink skin brightens up so much it begins to resemble the color of the stuff you drink when you're nauseated. Her display panel is pretty easy to read though: no pink color = no worries. Bright pink color indicates warmth (or cooling) is needed. And apparently, I have the deluxe model American Bulldog because mine also has a state-of-the-art 'tired barometer'. That handy, little gadget measures how tired she is. Its display is easy to read, too. The farther out her bottom lip sticks (compared to the top), the more tired she is. On a typical day, her skin hovers at a shade of very pale pink, and the barometer doesn't engage until around 9-ish each evening. (No, the barometer doesn't really have anything to do with this post; I just included that bit of information so you'd have it. You know, in case you ever need it. 'Cause I'm generous like that.)

I've never been a fan of animals wearing clothes. It creeps me out and makes me question the emotional stability of the person who wants to dress an animal like a human. It's not like they aren't already covered with fur, hair, feathers, scales, or whatever, right? However, Zoe the wonder dog has short, thin fur and she's always cold. It probably doesn't help that we practically keep our house cold enough to hang meat. (What can I say? We're a hot-blooded bunch.) I don't even fold the blankets that we keep in the living room any more because Zoe is usually lying on or burrowed under one of them. But Old Man Winter has finally come to middle Georgia and we've had to bundle up when we head out for our evening walks. (And you know it's cold when I wear a scarf AND gloves. I didn't even wear gloves when we went hiking in Alaska in December a few years ago!). And ever since OMW arrived, Zoe's skin has been bright pink.

So, I caved. I kicked and screamed all the way, but I caved nonetheless. Zoe the wonder dog now has 3, count 'em, 3 coats. The first one is waterproof for evening/wet walks. It's also reversible. You know, because we wouldn't want her to get tired of wearing the same, old thing all the time, right? Yeah, right.

The second is a fleece hoodie (with sleeves for her front legs) in red and black, so she can represent the beautiful Georgia Bulldawg Nation wherever she goes. You know, because she loves football so much. Yeah, right.

The third item is (ironically enough) a pepto-bismol pink sweater embellished with a snowman, snowflakes and bling. Yes, bling. On a dog's sweater. I know, it's totally ridiculous. But the dog needed something to keep her warm when we walk and when she lies around the house all day goes into her undercover stealth mode as she faithfully protects her turf every day, so she might as well look good, right? Yeah, right. Actually, I don't give a rip about the cute factor but I do give a rip about the ugly factor. And they had some *fugly* stuff out there for dogs. Didn't argyle die around the same time as Babe Ruth? Well, it should have. What is WRONG with pet apparel designers, these days?! There were designs and colors in the store that humans shouldn't be wearing, much less putting them on our beloved pets.

Huh.

So I guess if what they say about dogs beginning to resemble their owners after a while is true, then it stands to reason the old man/woman who likes to wear argyle would want to dress little Fido in it, too. And I would, of course, want Zoe to be trendy and fashion forward in her dress.

OK, so maybe I care a little more about the cute factor than I realize or am willing to admit. But I'm drawing the line at jewelry and all that other crap. Because it's ridiculous.

I'd like to go on record: I still think it's creepy. But since all the bald and/or balding men I know wear hats in the winter, there's bound to be some kind of wisdom in covering a non- or thinly-veiled outer surface that makes it copy-cat dog worthy.  (Sorry. I couldn't help myself.)

Being the good bloggy chick that I am, I'm posting a couple of pictures. Go ahead and laugh; I did.
Those little, tiny dots are iridescent sequins. Which is fancy-talk for "bling". Ridiculous.

Here we have Zoe (who is sawing some serious logs) in her fleece hoodie. Her waterproof, reversible jacket is above her.

















Have a ridiculously doggone good day, y'all.

In other news, not to sound like a weatherperson or anything, but, man, I am loving this fall weather we're finally getting! We've had the a/c off for 2 days now. Yay for lower electric bills!

Later. :D

I am writing this from a hotel room in North Carolina. Moose and I are on our way to Virginia for an awards ceremony. We took off this morning and will be home in a few days. Before we left, Tasha said that while she hoped nothing weird would happen, she did hope I’d find something ‘blog worthy’ to write about while I was gone. So far, I have the following blog-fodder to share with you:

We left the house around 8:30ish. By the time we:
1) filled up the car with gas,
2) got coffee at the Starbucks inside Kroger instead of our regular favorite stand alone store because Kroger was within the ‘errand group vicinity’ and would save us a little time, mileage, and gas,
3) ran into the bank to close our local accounts so we wouldn’t be charged another fee for accounts we don’t use anymore,
4 & 5) went to get breakfast & say good-bye to Drewby,
6, 7, and 8) got about 5 or 6 miles down the road before we realized the camera was still sitting on the charger in the house, turned around to go get it and got back on the road…

it was 11. And what we saved by getting our coffee from Kroger got wiped out by numbers 6, 7 and 8. We weren’t in any particular hurry (don’t have to be there until tomorrow) but geez, Louise, the day just felt really long.

We stopped to eat lunch at Western Sizzlin. Boys and girls, can you say “Fashion Faux Pas Capital of the South“? I am not even kidding you. I think everybody in that place had bad hair, bad teeth, wore overalls, too much make up, or a combination of all of the aforementioned faux pas. Or is it faux pases? Faux pi? ??? Somebody please tell me what the plural form of faux pas is! I don’t know; I’m not French! I swear I thought I entered the redneck twilight zone. And the music! Oh. My. Word. It was slap awful. Old, annoying, psychedelic, whiney, shrill; you name it, they played it. Moose and I stood out like sore thumbs. For one thing, we were dressed appropriately (khaki shorts, t-shirt & flip flops for him; yellow tank top–which matched my yellow toe nail polish thank-you-very-much, blue jeans shorts and sandals for me. For another, we didn’t know ANY of the words to the songs they played. They did…and they were tapping their toes and singing along.

We checked into our hotel (Holiday Inn Express), did a little shopping at an outlet (didn’t buy anything), browsed around Target (again, we bought nada), and had a late dinner. I think our waitress was the gal that played Half Pint in Little House on the Prairie. Hey, don’t judge; the economy SUCKS!

We were almost finished with dinner when Tasha called my phone. Now before I go any further, you have to know that when I leave the house I always remind Drew about 3 (or 10) times that he has to watch Zoe carefully if she’s not locked up because she will get into stuff. She is, after all, still a puppy. I never tell Tasha anything more than once because she pays attention the first time and heeds my warnings and instructions. But today she must’ve gotten distracted by something sparkly which caused her to momentarily forget the one thing I repeat so often, I probably mumble it in my sleep: you have to keep an eye on Zoe. You should also know that my 3 (or 10) reminders to watch Zoe annoy Drew. Eh, you probably guessed that already.

Anyway…
It seems I will need to get a new spool of thread to replace the new spool of thread I bought for a sewing project. Tasha said the CSI team is still investigating how Zoe acquired it, but the ME’s (medical examiner) report stated it only took Zoe a few minutes to completely and utterly obliterate 36 yards of 100% cotton thread. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, doesn’t it? “How long does it take a puppy to kill a spool of thread?” Ha ha ha

You wanna know what’s really funny? It’s funny how Tasha was hoping I’d have something blog worthy to share and ended up being the material for said blog. Way to participate and not just spectate, Tashy! wOOt!

Will staying at the Holiday Inn Express make Brian eligible to perform surgery tomorrow like they advertise in the commercials? “No, I’m not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

Is the pillow inside the pillowcase that has “firm” written on it REALLY firm or is that just a marketing ploy to make me think it’s firm? And what's up with hotel drapes always being so ugly, regardless of the color, style, and swankiness of the hotel? Is there a rule about this type of thing? If so, how do we change that? Where are the Hotel Decor Police when you need them? Will tomorrow’s part of the trip bring more bad fashion? GASP! Will Moose wear socks and sandals without my noticing?!

Will the lunch people from Western Sizzlin read this blog and see the evil of their ways? Will they buy new wardrobes?

Or will they stalk and capture me, forcing me to wear overalls and let the polish on my toes flake off slowly as I’m tied to a chair and made to listen to bad music until my ears emit tears?

Tune in again to find out…same blog url, same blog BS.
The Square Peg would like to thank our sponsor, Tasha. Without her support, there might not have been a blog post today. We appreciate her generosity and will buy her Starbucks coffee (or tea) when we return home in hopes that she won’t pull her sponsorship from our program.

OK, not really. But it did make me want to say bad words and single-handedly destroy a self check-out machine.

You know, one of my favorite things about Wal-Mart is that they have 50 check out lanes, 10 cashiers manning them, and half a million customers trying to get their stuff rung up. Every. Single. Time. I. Go. I decided to go through the self check-out lane. And after standing in one for 10 minutes, it was discovered to be broken...so I found another one.

It seemed that nearly every item I swiped across the glass didn't register its weight when I put it in the bag on the stand. And the machine kept stopping its price-calculating work to flash the little button at me that says "I don't want to bag this item", and it wouldn't allow me to do anything else until after I clicked on said button, forcing me to lie to the self check-out machine and say I wasn't bagging the item, when in fact, I already had! I can't get arrested for that, can I? Don't tell the po-po, k?

While I was at Wal-Mart, I bought the Zoe dog a new toy. It was one of those ropes that was braided and knotted for chewing. Yeeahhh, within 5 minutes she had the knot undone, all braiding unbraided, and left it in a slobbered on, ripped apart, tangled up mess of string. And she couldn't have been prouder of herself.

Notice that big, fat stick in her mouth? Clearly, she has now moved on to bigger and better things.

And now that I've made my public confession and prayed over and forwarded all those stupid, I mean totally legit chain email letters I get, I've been given another chance at heaven.

Peace out, people. But if you're a little on the impatient side and want to keep peace (& go to heaven), I recommend you stay away from Wal-Mart.

:)

These are the three things I can count on when I go to pet Zoe.

Her wag greets me, her licks practically wash my whole face if I don't bob or weave in time, and her nibbles tell me she's ready to play. And sometimes her nibbles are those little tiny bites that are meant to be playful but are stronger than she realizes. We call those kind "mafia love".

She charged into the house a while ago, stopped to bark when she found us, then ran back out at top speed with her head low and ears lying flat. At first we laughed but then I wondered if she was trying to tell us something. She was. She came in a second time to get us but Moose was already on his way out the door. The dog across the street had come to our side of the road and was in the neighbors driveway. And evidently, this required that we be notified.

Who needs motion lights, an alarm system or firearms when you've got Zoe the wonder dog on duty? :)

Happy square root day, everybody! (Get it, 3/6/09?)

Zoe and I were driving in the car today (well, I was driving, she was riding) and she was in the passenger seat looking out the windshield. I thought I noticed her head moving in a weird way but when I looked at her to see what was up, she had stopped. A few minutes later, she did it again.

It took a couple more of the weird head movements for me to figure out what was going on. She was "ducking" every time we drove under an overpass. What the heck?!

Later, she was fast asleep in the backseat when a motorcycle came up in the lane next to us. She sat bolt upright, threw her paws on the back dash and perched there, watching him for a few minutes in silence. I guess it took her that long to size him up and decide something was definitely wrong with him, so she started barking like crazy at him. As he passed us, she moved from the back seat to the front and kept barking as she watched him. I wonder what she was trying to tell him.

I'd be curious to know what Cesar Millan would say about this funny (albeit strange) behavior.