Freckle & Ceilidh’s Blog

Did I say that Freckle would be sore today? Well, someone forgot to tell her! She’s perky, ready to roll … she’d be up for a bolt down the beach! Another example of us projecting our own perception of what it feels like to have four teeth extracted? Or is it that animals have an innate “don’t let anyone know you’re in pain and possibly weak” gene that prevents their “real feelings” from showing? Who knows? But Freckle got up this morning and seemed just fine. Granted, she’s had some Metacam with her breakfast to help with the pain… and she’s on soft food… tonight was macaroni, tinned salmon and mashed carrots. She LOVED it! Ceilidh on the other hand thinks that pasta is a snack — not a meal! She’s been hanging out in the kitchen making groaning noises to let us know that she’s there. … and the food hasn’t appeared yet!!

There’s always bedtime snack, Ceilidh!

Freckle’s trip to the dentist was a doozie! When she came to live with us we discovered that she had many broken teeth–in addition to her broken jaw that makes her tongue hang out the side of her mouth. We scheduled a “check up” for today–maybe more like a tune-up and detailing. She’s also had a couple of bumps and a blood blister checked out–Boxers are bumpy and you always have to be cautious. All seems to be OK!

So…poor Freckle had to have FOUR extractions! Mary Doug went to pick her up at about 4:00 and by the time I got home at 5:00, she was lounging on the dog couch. She looked up at me and then got up and made her way to the door to meet me… somewhat unsteadily. By 6:30 when I began to prepare the dog dinners I watched to see what her reaction would be. We were told to feed her a small “soft” meal if she was interested.

Interested? She was VERY interested! With gusto she ate two teeny servings of oatmeal and chopped turkey breast… and looked for more. She’s had a lot of medication today … tomorrow she’ll be pretty sore. I wish that we could explain… but that’s just the way it is I guess.

Poor Freckle … her tongue always hangs out more droopily when she’s tired or stressed… I suspect that tonight she’s both.

Here are some highlights from the favourite snack poll.

Jesse loves those imitation (probably carcinogenic) bacon strips. We don’t buy them often, for obvious reasons, but when we do, she goes quite bonkers over them. [I know Jesse ... and I believe she would go bonkers! And we don't ALWAYS eat stuff that's healthy for us, do we? Read on...]

Peanut butter stuffed into a bone is great but rotten banana skins found under hedges rock the house. [Eeeeewwwww! Started out pretty good ... but ... Maybe if you explained what it IS about rotten banana skins ...]

Roast Chicken [What an excellent choice! How many chickens can you eat at once?]

Billy will eat almost anything. He LOVES treats, big or small. Never fed him fruit before, but he does love vanilla ice cream and would eat chocolate too but that’s a no no for dogs! http://billy-boozer.blogspot.com [Check out Bill's blog -- it's amazing!]

Ceilidh LOVES pretty much everything–except pickles not so much. Besides stuff that most dogs like–roast chicken, banana (not the skins though - yuk! That’s just gross, Gavin!), vanilla ice cream and probably carcinogenic bacon strips, Ceil is just apoplectic at salad-makin’ time. The crunchy ends of romaine lettuce are to die for! And cheese, and yoghurt, and cottage cheese, and mango, green and red pepper, turkey, snow peas, tomato, I could go on and on.

Freckle … well, she’s a “meat and potatoes kinda girl” as Mary Doug says … but hold the potatoes. We don’t think that she’d experienced much in the way of “human food” before she came to live with us. But now … I’d have to say that her FAVOURITE thing in the world is salmon. The girls get tinned salmon a couple of times a week. In fact, one morning Freckle stood at the kitchen counter (balancing herself with her arms) and tried to eat the second half of Ceilidh’s breakfast (Ceilidh eats too fast and makes herself sick so we usually do her meals in two shifts!). But I digress… the most recent thing that Freckle has discovered is mango. After rolling it around in her mouth for five minutes, she finally chewed it and her eyes just lit up. Now, we have to keep the mangoes locked up with the salmon.

Sassy–the Boxer before Freckle–she was the mango queen! Oh how she loved mango … and lettuce, and peppers, and apple (well, in a pinch), and cherries (without the pits), and all the usual stuff too. Oh, and the saddest thing I’ve ever seen? Sassy LOVED bananas … the inside part, Gav, not the yukky outside part after it’s gotten too old. And not too long before she got sick and had to go to the Bridge, we discovered that she was allergic to them… like many many things (yes, we had allergy tests done). I think that Sassy would say, “It’s times like this when I think that humans have it made … if you love it … ya gotta do it. Cuz you never know how long you’ll have.” Sassy could have eaten quite a few bananas before she had to leave (only 3 weeks from diagnosis until her death last July).

Before Sassy, there was Bridget. And Bridget was absolutely obsessed with apples! She would remember the exact location of a rotten apple in a snow drift 12 blocks away. Long after the snow had melted, next time we went that way she would dive at it and enjoy one big gulp of slimy, rotten apple. Maybe there’s a support group out there … whaddya think Gav? Bridget also liked peanut butter and toast … and muffins. I hope she’s dining like a queen at the Rainbow Bridge.

Thanks for sharing your favourite snacks everybody!

 Photo: Gracey Stinson  

It was last Wednesday morning … a weekday morning like any other.
I was walking to the bus stop. Arrived. Stood with maybe 8 to 10 other people. I looked around and thought about the conversation that I’d just had with Mary Doug about how people are in a fog and in a hurry in the morning … and why no one noticed anything odd the morning that the 56 year old woman was attacked at the Skytrain station a few days ago.

I turned my gaze east along Broadway and my eyes fell upon a raccoon. Just standing on Broadway as if she were saying, “Jeez, I wished I’d stopped at Starbucks!” She was outside the post office and Copies Plus. A man was making his way down the sidewalk toward her with a coffee in his hand. He noticed her and made a very deliberate veer off to the left … you know of those stories about raccoons tearing a dog’s underbelly open with their hind legs. I can only imagine what this man was thinking … but he did give the raccoon a wide berth.

I was amused and amazed at the same time. I glanced around to see if any of my bus stop companions had noticed. Not a SINGLE one had observed that a raccoon was literally 25 feet from us and contemplating the benefits of a Seattle’s Best at the IGA or going back down Broadway to Starbucks. No one looked around, no one looked in my direction so that I could catch and redirect their eye.

As I continued to watch the raccoon, she began to amble toward the curb. As she rumbled along, my heart began to climb up my throat … I’ve had the dubious honour of watching a Canada goose escort her family across Broadway in the middle of rush hour before! I did intervene in that situation to stop traffic at Broadway and Granville – and was most grateful that drivers did see me and chose not to make me a grease spot along with the geese. While this film was playing in my head, the raccoon paused at the curb, glancing both ways. Traffic lights changed at the intersections a block on either side of Maple. Traffic stopped and the section of Broadway in question was completely devoid of traffic. Amazing! The raccoon stepped off the curb and waddled with purpose across Broadway, up onto the sidewalk and then continued in between a restaurant and the Frog ‘n’ Firkin Pub. Whew! Two seconds later, traffic was again barreling down Broadway and my bus arrived. I glanced around and was astounded that truly no one had observed this tiny (near) collision of worlds.

This experience got me to thinking about the benefit of paying attention to details. Freckle for example, will drill her already smunched in nose into the concrete sidewalk while chasing the blossoms flitting in the wind. A tiny motion to us is cause to leap into action for her. Ceilidh will throw her weight at the TV to avenge the insolent cell phone creatures and their antics. Sometimes I think we humans require a tsunami before we’ll notice what’s going on. What does that mean? Why does it take an exaggerated event before humans notice that we’re sharing our space with events—maybe many—all around us? Why is it that a dog can sit and watch a bug crawl across the floor for hours and never seem to get bored? Maybe it’s about expectations? Maybe we see what we expect to see—like all of my bus stop neighbours? They were looking for a bus … and lo! They saw a bus. If that’s the case, I have one wish for all of us. Expect the unexpected. Look for the worlds intersecting. It can be breath-taking and it might save someone from a brutal attack.

I’ve been too busy lately. Too busy to write, too busy to relax, too busy to enjoy life as much as I’d like. But I was thinking … if I were a dog … I wouldn’t be busy. Then I thought a bit more and realized that I was wrong.

Freckle especially is often busy. For example, just last week, she was extremely busy—bolting down the trail after a white park maintenance truck (the trail in the photo above). Mary Doug and I both said at the same time, “Freckle, could you come here for a minute?” And she said (over her shoulder as she flew like a racehorse down the trail), “Just a minute. I’m busy!” We tried again … this time tossing in a bit of panic to get her attention. Alas, Freckle was soooo busy that she didn’t even respond.

And Ceilidh—she’s often busy too. I’ve seen her on our walks become unbearably busy when the scent of a freshly peed-upon shrub captures her attention. “Ceilidh, let’s go … I’m gonna be late for work.” “’S’a minute! I’m busy!” Some walks—typically routes that we haven’t taken in a few days—make Ceilidh and Freckle extraordinarily busy. Sometimes I feel for them … knowing how hard it is to be really, really busy.

But … you know that I’m just bein’ silly. There’s a “good busy” and a “not so much good busy,” isn’t there? “Good busy” is wonderful—it’s engaging, captivating and rejuvenating. It can create that wonderful state called “flow.” I think that dogs have a knack for maintaining that critical balance between the “good busy” and the “not so much good busy.” And over the past few days I’ve been observing our girls to see just how they manage the “busyness ratio.” They are extremely vigilant about protecting the “good busy.” Try waking a dog up when they’re “busy sleeping” … or get them to come and cuddle when they’re “busy chewing on a bone.” Or think about the times when you’re out and about and you want to talk to them—they’re very often “busy” aren’t they? What’s that joke about the person alone in the park holding a leash? Their Beagle is just “busy!”

So, I’ve starting thinking about how important it is to protect the “good busy” … to make sure that I make time to do the writing that I love to do… to read good books … to spend time watching the garden unfurl after the winter. And in order to know which “busyness” to protect, you need to know your priorities. You need to recognize when you’re feeling pure bliss while busy running after a white pickup truck… the wind in your hair … bugs in your teeth … And you need to know when you’re prepared to stop and say, “Ya, okay … whaddya want?”

So, what’s your “good busy?” Are you prepared to defend it so that the “not so much good busy” doesn’t encroach like a silver lace vine on a hot summer day (another story)? Busy can be a good thing … a GREAT thing! But you need to know when you’re doin’ “good busy” and when you’re doin’ “not so much good busy.” I’m just about finished bein’ busy now … time to get busy makin’ dinner.