Pets – If luvin them is wrong, then I don’t wanna be wrong

Who wears a tie with pajamas, anyway?

Pets – If luvin them is wrong, then I don’t wanna be wrong

I just returned home from an eight day trip to India, and, as usual, my Border collie greeted me with sincere enthusiasm.  She is usually so excited when I return from a trip that she looks like she is having a seizure.  (I often have that effect on women). Whenever I am gone for an extended trip overseas, or even to the hardware store, she goes nuts when I come home.  I guess a person can’t say that’s a bad thing. For years my daughters made a game of who could kiss me hello first when I returned from work each day.   I loved the attention, but it was evident that this game became less and less about showing me affection and more about sibling competition.  This was in the early days of video games, so I suspect they were pretending I was a space alien, being killed by their kisses.

At 2am this morning, one of our cats woke us up with her snarky, irritating meow.  She wanted food.  Or water, or nuclear disarmament of all western nations, or whatever.  We never know what she wants, but we can’t get her to stop waking us up.  She seems to have no concern about it being the middle of the night.  If I bought her a kitty wrist watch maybe she would she pay attention to the time?  I really don’t think she cares.  She wakes us up, which then wakes the dog, who wants to go out, and then will bark later to be let back in.  It is a nightly ritual that I don’t miss when out of town. 

Sometimes I think we are trapped in a come-to-life version of the Flintstones cartoons from the 1960’s.  The dog wants out, the cats want in, and there is continuous turmoil about which pet wants to be where.  I may have to give up wearing my leopard skin pajamas.  I don’t want to be seen wearing them outdoors as I pound on the door to wake up the wife after the dog locked me out of the house.

That old, crabby cat has always been crabby, so it is not an age thing.  She has been like this ever since we rescued her decades ago.  (Never do this).  All our pets are rescues, either from an animal shelter, or from being abandoned by someone smarter than us.  You’d think that these pets, after we take them in, clean them up, feed them and get them to the vet, would show some appreciation.  But no.  They just act like dogs, or cats, or goats*…. or whatever.  They owe us BIG, but you’d never know that by their attitude. 

We have another adopted dog, a Great Pyrenees, who is barking outside right now.  He was abandoned by someone who moved from a neighboring farm and so we started feeding him.  He is a very, very large dog, with long white-ish fur, a black nose and black eyes.  When I first saw him, slowly lumbering around in the pasture, I thought he was a polar bear.  But since free ranging Polar bears are not common in Texas I knew that was unlikely.  This dog spends most nights, trotting around in the woods, with his head to the ground, barking at nothing at all.  Apparently he thinks this is his job description. It gets very irritating and we are afraid either he will get shot by a neighbor or they will shoot us for saving him.

We moved out to the country about five years ago.  (It only seems like five decades ago) and the first country pets we inherited were some goats* that a friend of mine had too many of.  He lives in far west Texas and bought goats* to raise for meat.  He quickly realized that due to the romantic nature of goats* they soon multiplied.  The goats* were eating the grass down to the dirt, so he asked if we wanted to take some.  (That was a dumb question to ask my wife, the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler).  She is intellectually brilliant but somehow could not form the word NO when asked this question). So we drove out there (12 hours each way) and spent half a day chasing goats*.  We caught two lambs.  Lucky us.

I have included an (*) after the word goat, because these goats* were not goats* after all.  They turned out to be sheep.  Not that it matters what type of critter they are, since every pet is an animal that eats, poops, needs shelter, and needs their own vet.  I think we discovered the goat* mis-identification after one goat* started getting romantic with the other goat*.  Eventually a third goat* appeared as a result of the romantic encounters, if you know what I mean.  Well, time marches on.  We were given another free goat (no asterisk this time since it really was a goat) that was no longer wanted by someone who was raising show goats for the county fair.  We took in the spare goat.

My wife’s pet adoption attitude may have been the basis for an urban legend which was started to save parents from having to tell their kid that the family pet died.  Kids….if your mommy and daddy ever said they took your pet to out to the country to live on a farm…..it could have happened for real at our place.  My wife is the living embodiment of this urban legend, and I get stuck with the vet bills.  What’s wrong with this picture?

Anyway, I digress.  The spare show goat soon became the object of affection of that amorous ram (goat* or sheep? Now I am totally confused).  Well, he did what animals do in the barnyard and somehow managed to impregnate the real goat.  We took the real goat to the vet. He assured us that it was impossible for one species to impregnate another species.  But it happened.  (This might also explain the existence of Liberals?). This one ended as a miscarriage and, of course, a large veterinarian bill.  I told the vet, “Sir how dare you invoice us for an impossible medical condition?”  (Actually, that’s what I wanted to tell him that, but didn’t since I am a pet wimp.)

Another of our goat stories is more tragic.  When we lived in suburbia, one daughter wanted to raise show animals for the county fair.  This seemed like a harmless way to keep her out of jail, so we funded her activities for every year of her high school doing this. She raised show steers, and one year she raised a goat too.  (a real one).  I remember one night, she was out tending her animals, when I heard a commotion going on at the front door.  I look out the door’s window and see a goat’s head, complete with horns, staring back at me. I open the door and my daughter spilled into the house, carrying her goat that weighted nearly as much as she did.  She yelled that the goat was sick with a fever.  We helped her get the animal into the tub, where we iced it down to reduce its body temperature.  I am not sure of all the events that occurred with this but the goat, sadly, did not make it. 

I am sure that not many of you have been greeted at your front door by a sick goat needing to borrow you tub for a bath.  Or maybe you have.  That might explain why you are still reading my stories.

To summarize:  Do not purchase, rescue, or temporarily agree to shelter, any kind of pet, of any type, breed, or species, from anyone.  Just like the warnings announced in the airport:  do not accept packages from anyone you don’t know or do know.  If you ever do find yourself at a weak moment, about to agree to rescue an animal, immediately stop the process and mail me your wallet.  You can thank me later.  But not at 2am.  And not in person.  I don’t want you to see me, locked outside, in my leopard skin jammies.

All the News that’s fit to plagiarize

All the News that’s fit to plagiarize, satirize, or bastardize, from the Sub-Continent.

 

“First, don’t do anything stupid…unlike the American voters”

Today’s headlines, ripped from real life fiction.  Yes, Gentle Readers, it’s time for another installment of news from India, the Sub-Continent.  The term “Sub-Continent” became popular after the Brits took over vast land holdings in India.  They used the land to grow submarine sandwiches, which had been popularized by King Jared of England, who lost 50 stone weight by eating a diet of only submarine sandwiches.  This was later referred to as the Paleo diet, because all Englishmen have a rather pale complexion.

International terrorist news - An Al Qaeda spokesman, recently interviewed, lamented the lost glory days when they had a monopoly on terror.  Comparisons have been made of Al Qaeda being like the Microsoft monopoly of the terrorist world, when it was revealed that Al Qaeda means “Windows” when translated into English.  The version Al Qaeda 8.0, had a software glitch that allowed Navy Seal hackers to penetrate the Operations security system. The new Management at the firm have recently released an upgrade:  Al Qaeda 8.1, where the “start” button has been replaced by the “sword” button to euphemistically end the program.  In the “72 virgins edition”, they have the same button but labeled “detonation”.  You only push that button once.

Al Qaeda’s competitor in the terrorism industry is a newly formed organization known as I-SIS. It has become popular with hip young terror geeks, who claim that the I-SIS operating system is faster, more brutal, and savvier when using social media, like YouTube.  I-SIS even has a corporate logo that looks like an apple.  But everyone knows it is really a hand grenade. The I-SIS campaign to expand market share by stepping over red lines, has seen remarkable results, and they now dominate a new newly defined sales territory, I-Raq.  I-SIS is suddenly very profitable, after venturing into banking and crude oil production.  Next quarter’s corporate goal of I-SIS is to take over a region currently be serviced by another organization.  This new region, if I-SIS is successful, will be re-branded:  I-Srael. 

Political news:  Hillary Clinton was forced to abruptly cancel her India book signing tour due to lack of interest.  This came on the heels of her canceling the U.S. tour promoting her book about being Secretary of State.   Mrs. Clinton still had ten of the original dozen books that were printed for the U.S. market so she brought them to India hoping for a friendlier audience. 

Hillary was infamous for her ill-fated overture to Russia where she gave the Russian President a red “reset” button.  The Russians laughed at Hillary for the idea.  Her failure in India stemmed from a passage in the very last chapter of her book (chapter 2) where she told of giving the Prime Minister of India a smaller version of the red reset button.  In her book she said it was a “red forehead dot reset button”.  The India Prime Minister was not amused.   It was suggested to her that if the book had been printed on softer paper, that sales might have been more robust. There are 1.8 billion people in the country and there is a toilet paper shortage.

Washington D.C. - “Cautioner-in-Chief” Obama urged to do something. – When it came to light that over 100 U.S. citizens are now in Iraq and Syria fighting for ISIS, alarm bells went off in many political circles.  The potential for these individuals to return to the U.S. and cause harm has gotten many conservatives in a lather.  President Obama is being mocked for his “don’t do stupid shit” doctrine, which stemmed from his statement that he still does not have a policy for dealing with ISIS.  A recent headline suggests that there is growing pressure for Obama to abandon his minimalist foreign policy and “to do something stupid”. 

London – UK Cops tell victims to solve own crimes - Victims of petty crimes, like car theft, criminal damage, or dis-embowelment of prostitutes, are told to do their own detective work and investigate their own cases.  A report by the Inspectorate of Constabulary found that this do-it-yourself, or DIY trend was linked to the public’s viewing of certain television shows.  The viewing of TV shows that feature amateur sleuths solving crime, such as ABC’s “Castle”, and the PBS show “This Old Crime Scene” are fostering a new confidence about solving your own crimes, reports an un-named bank robber.  This un-named person happened to be investigating his own recent robbery of a bank.  “I am very close to solving this crime and my suspect is the notorious Al Capon”.  When questioned by a reporter about whether Mr. Capon could have actually done the crime, since he has been deceased for several decades, the investigator said, “Hey, we ought to throw the book at him!  Somebody gotta do the time!”  Mr. Capon was not available for comment.

And finally the lighter side of the news – Is your pet depressed?  Much like humans, your furry companions could also suffer bouts of depression.  What to watch for:  Pets who are withdrawn, have a lack of appetite, changes in sleeping patterns, dullness, or less chatty, These may be signs the pet may be suffering from either depression or from being covered with fur.  If your pet feels abandoned when you leave for a month, then do not let your pet see a calendar, or any multi-part television shows, so they won’t know how long you have been gone.  If your pet does not show signs of improvement after your return, one suggested treatment is to buy your pet his own pet. But make sure your pet is old enough to be responsible for his own pet.  And that your pet has no plans for any extended vacations.