Dizzy Dean, Pivate Eye

This fall Dizzy's level in the defending the world at large and Beverly in particular has seen dramatic advancement. She has arisen to obstacles of potential crime in a manner that far exceeded anyone's imagination.

Where a walk outside was once a chance to play and enjoy life, Dizzy now sees danger lurking under every leaf....and believe me, folks, there are a lot of leaves in Beverly. In front of nearly every house in Beverly, are piles containing evidence of every squirrel, dog, cat, and person that have passed that way in the past two weeks. These must be uncovered. They must be unraveled. Dizzy has sworn to unearth the hidden agenda of the unorganized crime element of mob boss Constantine and his underlings.

As Dizzy grumpfss and hrumpfs through these trails of leaves, the question still remains....Will Beverly's Private Eye bring these forces of evil down?

some might have said that...

...that chair's days were numbered.

and we believe that they were right.

Good dog no more

This summer has been quite uneventful for the Dizzle. She has two cryptonites: heat & tickling. We thought that we had finally reached that famed 'two-year' mark where every dog seems to settle into old age. It was a brief illusion. Now that the weather is cooling as fall aproaches, the crazed dog reappears. We have witnessed two episodes of tail-chasing, one lasting 5 minutes. We really need to video this. Every time she does it, I laugh till the tears come, and then some. I like it so much that I tried to train her to chase her tail. I put peanut butter on the end of her tail. Jeff thought that is was cruel, but it doesn't matter because it didn't work anyways. She just curled into a ball and licked it off.

Other summer events include swimming in the ocean and frisbees. She has an uncontrollable need to chase things. She runs away after she catches the ball/frisbee when she doesn't want to chase anymore. Of course, we always end up getting the ball back and throw it again....and off she goes. She has to chase. It is impossible not to.

Dizzy has also beefed up security on the home front in light of recent Judson Street events, namely a neighbor German-shepherd mut that pees in front of our house. Security measures include patroling every window in the house (keep in mind that in the height of a threat this happens in nano-seconds). Dizzy simulatenously attempts to drive all creatures from the vicinity loud, rapid barking. We didn't realize how loud this actually was until we started having church upstairs. She sounds like a dog fight...which is quite impressive since she is the only dog barking. She has made a small progression towards passivism....she now is sometimes able to run the window circuit without barking. We should note that sometimes this does involve jumping up in the windows and sitting on the sill. Apparently the silver chair is not close enough. Which brings up that the silver chair is now loosing its cushion cover as a direct result of neighbor dogs.

Dizzy went to the vet this summer. She had been unable to control her bowels. Jeff says, "I think she has worms." I say, "Have you seen them?" "No, but she is eating lots of grass." So we decide a visit to the vet is in order. I call for the appointment. "What are you feeding her?" asks the vet's office person. "Just dog food....wait, and some people food." (In consternation vet office person responds) "No more people food, and put her on a 24 hour fast." Which we did and after 4 hours of said fast I said, "Wow, I guess people food really upset her stomach." "Do you think that refried beans would have upset her stomach?" Jeff asked. "Why did you feed her any?" Looking very quilty, Jeff responds "Well, I might of fed her a little." By little he means a healthy human sized helping of the nearly entire left-over can of jalepeno refried black beans which he did not like and so fed to the dog who eats everything including tomatoes and lettuce and plastic. We just found out that Chinese food doesn't agree with her either. At this point, we are so tired of cleaning up after our dog that we finally decided not to feed her any more people food. Although Jeff still tries to get her to eat his salsa that is too hot for humans to handle. We learned it from the 'How to train up a child' book and thought that maybe if we put salsa on every piece of food she begs for she will learn not to beg. It didn't work...she just gags, and then eats more. Maybe it just works better on infants.

Speaking of which, Dizzy has another new friend. His name is Silas and you can see him making faces in the photo below. This 3-year-young man is an energy match for Dizzy. He runs around (they alternate chasing) and sometimes she just stops and looks confused that someone else runs so much too. He also shares her fascination with balls, as well as the accompanying tempation not to give them back. Thus ensues chasing each other to get the ball back. Silas also likes to walk Dizzy. This involves both the adult and Silas having their own leash which probably looks something like a moving May-pole festival.

dizzy's new friend

so, last night, we held church at the gentry's due the fact that our usual hosts are somewhere in the florida keys without us. it was a smaller group. no music. just teaching and good fellowship.

what happened after church was something akin to a fictitious meeting of albert einstein and sir isaac newton.

dizzy was released from the kennel and immediately (as if by natural instinct) settled upon playing, if not full on wrestling with our dear friend, artie. of course, this was all completely mutual and, in fact, instigated by artie himself.

for what seemed like the next several hours (actual time not known), we sat and watched the chaos. diz would lunge one way for a toy that artie was dangling just out of reach. he would change direction at the last moment and she would regroup, if only briefly, before her next attempt. all the while enduring taunts of, "you're not fast enough" from the man with the toy in his unique, unmistakable voice.

the two of them seemingly invented games as they went. with artie chiming in with gems like: "whats-a-mattah?" and "you're too slow." all at top volume.

the truth is, i would dare say that dizzy met her match last night, as it seems that she tired out long before artie would have. in fact, (the time now well past 11 pm) it was nearly impossible to get him to stop playing. despite being told by every person in the room that he needed to stop because a) the neighbor upstairs was trying to sleep, and b) at this rate, diz would NEVER calm down.

"i'll use a quieter toy." argued artie. again we tried to explain to him that the toy was the least noisy of the elements involved.

finally, they were pried apart and artie was convinced to go home. dizzy didn't calm down for about a half hour, but i'm sure she had no trouble sleeping.

personally, i think diz needs to come to church every week.

Dogs are so gross

I took Dizzy out to relieve herself (finally! she is coming and whining when she needs to go out). As always, she almost forgot her mission with the varying distractions of the outdoors. (Right now she is doing the "Brooke & James" [i.e. peeping out windows to see what suspicious activity is going on outside] to continue monitoring those distractions). As I sat down to study, Dizzy laid down to chew on what appeared to be a rock. On closer inspection it was a snail that she captured and carried inside with us. I didn't want to touch it and so I let her eat it....if people eat snails why can't dogs? I am still squirming and gagging at the sounds of shell crunching and chewing on squishy stuff. Of course, she just ate the shell and I had to pick up the squishy stuff anyways. And then just a few minutes ago she started gagging and trying to throw the snail up on the carpet. Eeewww

Sunday, May 1

11:00 a.m. – I have been studying for an hour and Dizzy has been in the kennel three times for stealing. She generally steals when she wants our attention. Finding something she is not supposed to have is a sure-fire way to get it. Supper Nanny has given me strength and vision for disciplining our rebellious doggie. I now know that we need consistency and not to give in to misbehavior. It is only a test to see how far we will go.
Dizzy, it’s the naughty kennel for you.

11:35 – Jeff’s coffee smells remarkably like dog shit. I smell it and immediately get a faint sense of nausea thinking about what may need to be cleaned off the floor. Then I think, no Jeff just got up….it’s his coffee again. But it smells so much like shit…coffee is supposed to smell good and we just got a different blend. They all can’t smell that way. But I can’t shake the thought that Dizzy had another accident. I go to investigate in Dizzy’s usual dumping ground. The floor is bare and in the kitchen coffee is brewing.

11:40 – Dizzy was caught gnawing on the remnant of the extensions cord. She is whining in the kennel. Poor Dizzy.

UPDATE: Dizzy has been in the “naughty kennel” about three times each day. We’re glad because that’s down from about 20 times per day and nothing has been destroyed. That’s progress….

Search & Destroy

Here is what Dizzy has eaten in our bedroom to date:
~1 extension cord
~multiple candles
~1 cell phone charger
~chewed the cord off of a portable fan
~Jeff's books
~Kellie's Bible
~various socks
~underwear
~shirts
~miscelanous papers
~boxes of kleenex
~chewed a hole in down comforter,
~1 pillowcase, shredded
~1 pillow, hole with stuffing partially removed
~one flat sheet, large hole (incidentely my favorite set of sheets)
~blanket covering window, multiple holes
~afghan knitted by Jeff's grandma, one large hole
~multiple pens and pencils. For added pleasure, some were eaten on top of other things so that ~they would become that color of ink.
~plaster chuncks from the places where baseboards need to be installed

And you would think we don't give her any rawhides or toys.

Dizzy's Gotcha Day

Jeff and I had been wanting a dog for a while. One Saturday I decided that this would be the day it should happen. We began our second journey to a rescue shelter in Hopkinton, MA (an hour drive each way). The first time we made this venture we arrived at 8 p.m. after a full workday in hopes of finding the spitting image of Jeff’s childhood dog and life-time love, Katy, a German Shepherd/Chow mix. What we found waiting to meet us was a yippie little Sheltie. The website had been wrong on breed and gender. Needless to say, we were a bit disappointed. Yet I was willing to try again and drug Jeff along with me. As we approached the shelter once again, we were greeted by a host of fire trucks and police men. Apparently a propane truck had overturned in a ditch near the kennel. The dogs were safe but not allowed out of the kennel until the situation was cleared. We left empty-handed once again.

Jeff was ready to give up but somehow this situation only strengthened my determination to find a dog today. We made our way to the Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem. Huddled quietly in a cage next to a noisy Marley look a like (Rick's dog, James' nemesis) was a female Blue Heeler. My dad had several Blue Heelers when I was growing up that helped him herd cattle in Colorado. All of them were excellent dogs with very memorable personalities. So we took “Despy” out of her cage and outside to play with her and see how we all got along. Once off-leash in the pen she ran full-speed in circles, chased us, taunted us to chase her, and chased toys. She definitely made us “dizzy.” We had so much fun that other people began telling us that if we weren’t taking her that they would. We decided we really had to lock this one down.

Before we took her home, the shelter told us that Dizzy was originally from a kill-shelter in Nebraska and came to Massachusetts for a new lease on life. The first family in Massachusetts that had taken her had brought her back after keeping her for two months. Apparently the dad really liked her, but she was too much dog for the kids to handle. That’s how, as a 36” snow storm bore down upon us, we ended up bringing home a new member of the family.

let the record show…

that i finally wore out dizzy. last night, after dizzy and i completed a 2.4 mile run, i was up and around, washing dishes and preparing dinner, but dizzy was incapacitated. Her exhaustion was evident in her incessant panting and inability to stand for any length of time. take that, douche!