Getting out of the heat

We've been going to the beach a lot in the last few days to get out of the heat. It's been a good idea - it's definitely cooler at the beach. Although today I'm just coming off of a 5 day migraine, so I've had to fit the beach jaunts into that - timing the drugs so that I can go to work, take care of the dogs and have the head pound at convenient times. Yesterday I noticed though that I had taken 18 acetaminophen within 12 hours so I gently tip-toed around all evening hoping that I wouldn't go into convulsions or a coma. No sign of a rebound headache though. Thank-dog for small mercies.

Here's a slightly doctored picture I took of each dog individually at Conrad's on Sunday - I took the pictures individually - but didn't get any pictures of them all together - but don't they look so much nicer when they're all next to each other?


A slightly doctored picture 

Junk Yard Dog Eats Cat Shit

I was sitting in my chair tonight when Daisy quiety tries to walk past me with something in her mouth. And I knew immediately exactly what it was. It was a piece of cat shit. She likes to take pieces of cat shit out of the litter box into the room next to where I was sitting and pick the litter off of them before she eats them - I know that because I find kitty litter on the floor of the room next to where I happened to be sitting tonight.

So I stopped Daisy from proceeding into that room and I said to her - "Daisy - drop it! Drop it, Daisy!" That is a reasonable command to give a reasonable dog - any one of any of all my other dogs that I've had would have dropped that piece of cat shit like it would've been on fire at that point simply because I had given them the command to drop it. Hell - I'm sure Charlie was thinking about going and getting something just so that he could bring it over and drop it for me just to make me happy! But not Daisy.

Daisy is the hungriest dog that you'll ever meet in your life. I have to keep a collar on her at all times that will absolutely not pull off over her head - a metal choke collar works best but they are so inhumane that I'm ashamed to keep it on her so I've found a martingale works just as well. I need that because if she finds something to eat outside - and it could be something that's deadly poison and will kill her on contact but she thinks she can eat it - absolutely nothing will keep her from it. That's what happens when you've been starved. And Daisy has been left to starve to death in the past. And unfortunately she's never forgotten it. So she's always hungry.

So do you know what she did with that piece of cat shit that she going into the other room to pick the kitty litter off of so that she could eat it? She looked me in the eyes, rolled her tongue around it and swallowed it whole. And I went - DAISY! THAT'S GROSS! And she very calmly took 2 steps and jumped up on the couch.

Needless to say there will be several things that she'll need her mouth to touch before she gets any kisses from me tonight! See below for pictures of a very self-satisfied rottie mix...


Nothing going on in my belly...


Man, I'm feeling a bit gravelly for some reason.

My two ranting worlds come together!

Yesterday morning I was reading the Chronicle Herald when lo and behold Peter Duffy puts in his 2 cents about what's going on up in Guysborough! Here's what he said:

"In Guysborough, the local council is struggling to enforce a county-wide ban on pit bulls against a couple who insist on keeping their pet. When it comes to these dangerous brutes, my sympathy lies with the elected officials. Memo to the council: fight, fight, fight to avoid bite, bite, bite."

Isn't that just precious?

How could he have printed something so absolutely perfectly wrong? There was no way that he could say someting so egregiously bad like that without me gleefully writing in a response - I could barely finish my breakfast before I sent in the following:

"I LOVE it! Once again Peter Duffy has talked about dogs and gotten it all wrong from one end to the other. The ban on pit bulls in Guysborough county encompasses the district of the Municipality of Guysborough ONLY - the district of the municipality of St. Mary's which is also in Guysborough County has no breed ban whatsoever and actually welcomes ALL breeds of dogs and actively advertises that if
you go to their websites - such as for Sherbrooke Village. The ridiculousness of breed bans is highlighted perfectly in Guysborough County by the fact that if you drive literally 3 minutes down the road from the affected "pet" in question in Mr. Duffy's column you will come to the district of the municipality of St. Mary's where he would be living his life free from all constraints of the death sentence that he's now facing simply because of the way he looks. Once again Mr. Duffy has chosen to add his opinion and inflame a situation that needs absolutely no fire with more incorrect and uninformed "opinion". "

Joan Sinden
Halifax, Nova Scotia

I really struggled to not put the last word as "blather" rather than "opinion". I really wanted to use the word blather but I knew they would leave the last sentence out if I used that word so I used the word opinion instead. This might be the first letter they don't print though since it's so spiteful. But it's an important letter I think.

It really does point out how stupid breed bans are - really and truly literally 3 minutes down the road from Zeus there is no breed ban at all. And it's really important that people know that there is only one part of Guysborough County that has such a heinous policy about it's companion animals. And it's in the district of the Municipality of Guysborough ONLY.

And Mr. Peter Duffy gave me the fabulous opportunity to point that out and the opportunity once again to try and show him that his attitude towards dogs is perhaps not very healthy. I have no idea why he has so much anger towards an animal that is a gift directly from God that's meant to give us nothing but pleasure and the best kind of unconditional love. It is surely Mr. Duffy's loss.

One Year Anniversary of Home Ownership!

I moved into my little house one year ago June 1st - I had to buy a house because the building my apartment was in had been sold and they had evicted all the tenants because they were gutting all the units and turning it into a rooming house for university students - and thereby probably quadrupling how much money they were going to be taking in every month in rent. There was no way I was going to find another place that would let me have FOUR dogs and THREE cats so I was forced into buying a house - probably the best thing I ever did.

I haven't had hardly any time since I've bought the house to do anything with it - but today I fixed up a little garden that is at the front of the house. It had a wooden fence around it that had fallen apart so I put up a brick facade which I think looks really cute.

The back yard has to be seen to be believed. There are TWO cars BURIED in the back yard. I am NOT kidding you. It's going to take me years to get it cleaned up. The back yard is huge - the lot is 50' x 200' and most of it is trees and rocks - but there's a huge section off to the site (not in any of the pictures below) that is just a big pile of garbage and brush that has the cars, garbage, and God knows what else. I'm slowly picking at it - but you wouldn't believe all the stuff that's there. Literally 100's of liquor bottles. Someone had fun in my house in the past.

Anyway - a couple pictures of my new little garden out front and the row of plants on the "good" side of my back yard!


One giant leap for the front of the house... 


And the back of the house is mowed, whipper-snipped and slightly less jungle like for a few days too! 

It's all about the buoy booty

I have been so consumed with the Guysborough "situation" the past few weeks that I've been neglecting my own dogs who've been patiently sitting on the floor staring at the back of my neck and waiting for me to take them to the beach as the summer quckly starts to pass us by.

So I shook my head and off we went to Crystal Crescent Beach on Thursday and Prospect Bay on Friday. There must have been some good storms off Crystal Crescent with a boat getting wrecked because there's was lots of good stuff there that I had to leave behind because I just couldn't carry it all. There was even a big whole buoy floating free but caught on a big rock that I just couldn't get to - that would've been sweet but I probably would've drowned getting it. That would've sucked I guess.

So here's a couple pictures from the adventures!


The almost complete wooden lobster trap I left behind 


The queen of dirty feet with big dog syndrome surveys her kingdom at Prospect Bay 


Buttercup sniffs the buoy booty that was carried home - quite a haul - I'm VERY proud! 

Guysborough Water

A pensive je-ne-pense-pas Charlie looking around Guysborough's Boylston Park tonight

Tonight me, Charlie, Buttercup, my friend Lee Anne and her 2 boxers drove the 3 hours to Guysborough to a town council meeting where the owner's of the pit bull Zeus were going to ask for the resignation of Warden Lloyd Hines. Lee Anne and I were late (of course) because we got horribly lost and spent a long time on a dirt road that seemed to take forever - so we were about 45 minutes late and probably missed lots of good stuff.