pit bulls

Tweedly Tweedly Dee

If you don’t, you’re missing so, so much. For example, this insightful analysis of the third presidential debate:

Third Debate — I’m a foreign policy expert.

While you’re at it, Like my Facebook page too. For crying out loud, Tulip has more Facebook Likers than I do, and I’ve been hammering away at this shit for years.

(I will try to put up a real post tomorrow, friends. All my words for the week got syphoned off into a piece of thinly veiled fiction about a river tubing trip that I barfed out [the story, not the trip] for my writing workshop. But it’s not even good yet, so I can’t post it here. Plus, I’ve been staying up past my bedtime again because the subject matter of the short story is making me all agitated. I need to go to bed now.)

The Foster Chronicles: Tulip, Week 25

Here’s the beginning of Tulip’s story.

Day 1

I give Tulip her heartworm preventative and flea/tick treatment. I take Violet and Redford’s doses out of the cabinet and set them on the counter to remind myself to apply them when they come inside.

As I sit at the computer, Tulip finds something at my feet and munches it. I don’t know what it is, but it’s gone by the time I realize what’s happening.

A few minutes later, I go back in the kitchen and notice there’s only one dose of meds on the counter. I search for the second. Nowhere. Is it possible my foster dog ate a tube of Revolution? Yikes. I observe her for twitches and/or explosions. Nothing.

Day 2

I still can’t find that tube.

Loose dog again on the walk. He gets real close, and Redford goes bananas. A woman driving by says, “Do you need help?” I tell her, yes, can she please put her car in between the loose dog and my dogs until I can get far enough away? She does. Kindness of strangers, saving my ass all over the place these days.

Day 3

At 8:30pm, before our walk, I drive my car around the loop hoping to catch a better glimpse of the loose dog in order to give Animal Control a description tomorrow. He’s not out.

We do the short loop just to be on the safe side.

Day 4

The babysitter picks up Tulip after work. Do you think Tulip could learn to get along with other dogs?, she asks. I tell her, based on the one session with the volunteer from CCB, yes. Because she was thinking maybe her dog, the one she has joint custody of with her ex, needs a sister…

…!

Days 5

I get a phone call from Tulip’s babysitter. Tulip crapped on the dining room floor, and is there a signal she uses to indicate she needs to go?

Dammit.

I tell her no, she hadn’t pooped inside since her intestines were infested with worms months ago.

Day 6

I get a Facebook message from the babysitter saying Tulip took about 24 hours and “now it’s like she’s lived here her whole life”. She thinks Tulip’s “found her home” if [CCB] will let her do it and if she can be OK with her pooch.

…!!!!!

Not getting my hopes up though.

Day 7

The babysitter emails to say Tulip has developed a fan club in the neighborhood. She’s met dogs without incident and settled in like she’s lived there her whole life. The babysitter can bring her back to me after supper “or just keep her forever”.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still not getting my hopes up.

I tell her she can keep her as long as she wants. In her next message, her tone seems to change a little: The president of CCB hadn’t responded, and she really wanted to hear her thoughts and ideas about handling any introductions. “And who knows?” she adds. “She might not even think that Tulip coming here for a furever home is a good idea. We’ll see.”

…?

She brings Tulip back to me at 8:30pm and tells me she spoke with the organization. They’re going to do a home visit and meet her other dog.

But she already submitted the adoption application.

Must not. Get. My hopes up.

The Foster Chronicles: Tulip, Week 26 (The End?)

The Foster Chronicles: Tulip, Week 24

Don’t know Tulip? Start here.

Day 1

It’s dark. By the time all of us see it, the cat luxuriating in the street gutter is a mere four feet away. Redford and Tulip are like, “DIBS ON THE NOMS. JINX BUY ME A CAT.” I manage to control Tulip, but in the melee, Redford ends up standing on his hind legs with his claws in my upraised forearm. I walk away from the cat, pushing him. He’s bunny-hopping backward. For a moment, I’m doing Krav Maga against my dog.

Big old welts in the flesh of my forearm when I get home. Asshole.

Feremin! — Tulip considers starting a band.

Day 2

After my airport debacle, Tulip gets to play at Auntie Wa’s house again. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

Day 3

Day 4

I hear Tulip scrabbling at the door. When I open it, I see she has scratched two scratchy spots in the deck. Is there an animal living underneath my deck that she’s trying to get to? Because that’s what I need. An animal living under my deck.

CCB likes to have pictures of the dogs with their foster people so I attempt to snap a picture of me and Tulip together.

I try again.

Day 5

Redford and Violet’s bestie Barley the Dog comes over for a four-day slumber party while her mommies are out of town. She learns the dog shuffle in a jiffy.

Day 6

In preparation for future travels, I’m trying to line up doggy-sitters for Tulip. She goes for a test-drive slumber party at a prospect’s house. (Don’t get excited; this woman won’t adopt Tulip because she has joint custody of a big female pit/lab mix with her ex-husband.)

I get a call about 8:00. Tulip’s peed on the carpet twice; do I have any suggestions?

Tulip! >:/

No, I don’t. Redford gets confused by carpet too (“It’s grass! But inside!”). I tell her just to let her out as soon as she comes out of the crate and every couple hours.

Day 7

I pick her up from the sitter. The woman says there were no more potty incidents after our call. Phew.

Tulip got hella cuter in the last 20 hours.

The Foster Chronicles: Tulip, Week 25

Retrobruxist Friday 8/30/12

Three years ago this week, I wrote the first of several letters to my baby boy, Redford. You’re still my baby boy, buddy, even if you weigh 80 pounds!

I put up a new profile on OKCupid two years ago. So glad that worked out for me (mwop mwop). By the by, I closed up shop on OKCupid a few weeks ago. I just can’t, y’all. It was not fun. It was the opposite of fun. If-and-when I managed to sort through the mostly terrible prospects, I dreaded every date. I’ll either find that the love of my life is the friend of a friend of a friend or I’ll be a spinster. That’s how it has to go.

One year ago—yes, this, look at this and then reread the paragraph above. I’m going to start looking in the mirror every morning and saying, “You look beautiful and you sound perfect. I’ll tell you this every day.”

(…Booooooooooo hoooooooo hoo hoo hoo.)

Fuck This Shit O'Clock — Happy Retrobruxist Friday, y’all.

The Foster Chronicles: Tulip, Week 22

Day 1

My arms are sore. The day prior, five friends and I flipped a giant tractor tire a mile. (It’s a workout created by my sister-wife. She dubs it “the enTIRE mile”.) Upshot is my forearms are Meredith Baxter Burny, and correcting Tulip on our walk is a chore. I decide that, instead of physical corrections, I’ll use mind control. I say, “Tulip!” real short and concentrate real hard on being the boss of her, and wonder of wonders, she drops back six inches letting the leash go slack.

I have to do a lot of mind control, probably about as often as I’d been doing tugs on her collar, but my forearms are saved.

Day 2

I spend most of the day crying. Emotional upheaval, probably not helped by the fact that I’m not sleeping enough. I’ve been walking the dogs between 9:00 and 10:00pm to beat the heat, but when I get home, I’m wound up and don’t go to bed until midnight. Tonight I skip the dog-walk so that I can get to bed at a reasonable hour. Lights out at 10:37pm.

My brain wakes me up at 4:15am. Stupid brain.

[My friend asks, “Aren’t you scared to walk that late at night?” Um, I’m walking 190 pounds of pit bull. Nope, not scared.]

Day 3

More mind control. I think it’s working. I have to choke up less on the leash when we go by the house with three big Rottweilers in the yard. At home, I look online at Rottweiler rescues. I need to stop; I have a problem.

Tulip has 120 Facebook friends. No adoption prospects.

Day 4

On our late night walk, the pack gets agitated. I look around to find a loose or stray dog (it’s too dark to see if it’s wearing tags) about 20 yards away. Redford lunges, and when he can’t get at the stray, he redirects on Violet and Tulip. Tulip snaps back. I’m able to separate the dogs and hustle away from the strange dog. People pooh-pooh pinch collars—they say they’re cruel or whatever—but those things are the only reason none of us has to go to the ER.

Day 5

I have scheduled a walk with the adoptive “father” (he’s only 22!) of Tucker, the boy dog that was confiscated with Tulip. In the pictures, Tucker and Tulip look alike, though he’s clearly mixed with something other than pit bull. It’s possible Tulip is his mom or sister. I’m hoping she remembers him and they have a grand ol’ time together.

We arrive at Duke’s east campus. Tucker walks up with his person. Tulip is excited. She tenses up. She sniffs at Tucker. He hesitates. She says not-nice things to him.

(sigh)

We walk anyway. It’s fine. But damn.

Day 6

I go on a tubing trip down the Dan River that lasts three hours longer than I expect. Tulip is in the crate for almost eleven hours. When I get home, she has jumped around in there and managed to slide it across the room, but she’s otherwise OK. I’m too tired to take the dogs for a walk.

Day 7

Tulip is CRAZY. Between the long stint in the crate and not being walked since Friday night, she has a lot of stored-up wiggles. She gets them out by running laps through the house and tossing her deer antler to herself and then chasing after it.

We go on an extra-long walk. I use a combination of physical corrections and mind control.

Tulip’s always real interested in whether I’m going to eat that.

The Foster Chronicles: Tulip, Week 23