Thursday, May 28, 2015

I hate dogs.

Until I cool off, Murphy and Belle are now "outdoors dogs". They can live in the pen forever now.

Because it was so hot when I went to work, I decided to do the nice thing for the dogs and leave the basement door open so that they could go down and lie on the cool concrete floor while I was gone. Normally they don't go down there but these last few days I've seen them coming down while I was reloading or working in my basement shop just to flop on the cold concrete. So since there's nothing really down there for them to get into, I figured why not just give them that option while I'm gone. It sure beats leaving the whole house air conditioning on for them, right?

Not even factored into my decision was the laundry tub containing some new storage food that I'd bought to put up. This particular tub, covered with a lid but not yet sealed, contained large sacks of rice and pinto beans and a couple of cans of oatmeal--2.5lb. cans of oatmeal, to be precise. The big ones.

The dogs have never messed with this stuff before even though there has always been right at their level in my kitchen pantry every day. But there's a first time for everything, and when I arrived home, the basement looked like a Rocky Mountain pass in January--it was covered in white flakes, and there I found the remains of two of the large oatmeal cans. The dogs had opened the tub and gone to town on the oatmeal.

Damned dogs, I thought as I went upstairs. But at least the oatmeal cans only cost me two dollars each and they'd left the bigger, more expensive sacks of rice and beans alone.

Lesson learned by me, right? Oh, but there was a bigger one coming, one that I wasn't thinking as I walked up the stairs into the house proper. This lesson concerned the effects of several pounds of dried oatmeal inside of two German Shepherd dogs who apparently also drank a lot of water. Apparently all of that oatmeal really expands when water is added inside a dog, just like it does in a bowl, and the end result is about ten pounds of oatmeal barf and dog crap on the floor in quantities and locations that leave me no doubt that both dogs were equally guilty in the oatmeal theft.
Yeah, I'm not really a dog fan right now. I don't even know of any local pet stores with hamsters but maybe the feed store in town will swap me even up, two Shepherds for a box of ducklings. Failing that, I may just go visit that guy at the new Chinese restaurant in town and see if his cash offer on them is still good.

And thanks to Bob for the pic. Sigh.

23 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:52 PM

    Keep in mind ducks crap even more than dogs. More even than big dogs. Just to make sure you factor that into your equations.

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  2. Oh man I can only say I'm not laughing at you but laughing with you when you finally get things put to rights.

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  3. A friend of mine moved to town and I took pity on her little rat terrier and let him come live at our house. We thought he had an eating disorder because he ate everything in sight and is quite wide. We left him home with our rat terrier, and he ate the ear piece off my glasses and then several pens. When he got into my husband beer brewing kits, my hubby should have killed him. It took him chewing up my cell phone before he got completely ousted. Then he got sick. I spent a rather large amount on him to find out he is a diabetic. I let him inside to give him shots and let him lie around. I guess the diabetes makes him do odd things - like drink a gallon of water and puke it up on the carpet. Now his bladder is not working so well, and he tinkles and sometimes pees great amounts - like on my chair. Why am I doing this?

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  4. BWAHAHAHAHAHA ...gasp, breathe in...HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

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  5. Hey Murphy..

    Well crap.........I never saw that coming..........but they did...over and over again......

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  6. Time to childproof your home. Really. For your sake, and theirs.

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    Replies
    1. It was oatmeal. In a plastic tub with a lid. In the basement! The same oatmeal that has been on the bottom shelf of the kitchen pantry since before either of these dogs moved in.

      The problem is, no matter how well I put stuff up or secure it, they have all day, every day to figure out how to get at it.

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  7. Anonymous9:19 PM

    :-)

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  8. Anonymous9:44 PM

    Well, they coulda tracked said fecal matter all over your house, carpets, furnishings, etc. Like I had to clean up last weekend. Ugh. Dogs. Good or Bad. We love them? Sometimes not.

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  9. Anonymous9:48 PM

    We are laughing at you. Oatmeal?!?! They did that?? Good grief man!! Yet I got my dog new knees. Don't ask. It was a matter of, if you have the money, and the dog will be able to walk... .

    Love your site.

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  10. Anonymous3:33 AM

    "I don't even know of any local pet stores with hamsters but maybe the feed store in town will swap me even up, two Shepherds for a box of ducklings"

    You do realize that nobody believes you, right? And we love your dogs more than we love you, so there :)

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  11. Ah man! It pains me even to picture the mess.

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  12. Just to review again, you got Belle to keep Murphy company and to keep him out of trouble? It doesn't seem to be working. Now you are outnumbered and they plot together against you. Good luck cleaning. They are still your babies.

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  13. Oh man, that... I'm sorry for you. I know that wasn't fun...

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  14. I was going to say, "This too shall pass."... but apparently it already has...

    Dann in Ohio

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  15. I told my wife about this and she laughed so hard she had tears in her eyes.

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    Replies
    1. Oh, and that makes me feel SO much better.

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    2. Don't feel too bad....ours horfed all over the new carpet this morning.

      I was wondering why she was eating all the grass. Murph and Belle must have sent her some kind of doggie ESP message or something.....

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  16. I won't feel so bad about Abby rolling in dead animal last night. The smell STILL isn't out of the house, even with her bath.

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  17. Brigid,
    I wonder if you can use Simple Solution's Stain and Odor Remover directly on the dog? I'd hit any place she may have been, with this stuff. I've had really good results with it. Even took the smell out of a garage floor, from long term use by a renter's dogs. Nothing else had much effect on the concrete's smell.

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  18. Yep. Been there. Not so much with oatmeal, but with sticks, books, rugs, towels . . .

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