Stinky Business

Many thanks to Val Thevictorian of Unbagging the Cats, who made this suggestion while commenting on my last post about stinky dogs: “I think you should run with this concept, and develop a line of pooch perfume/cologne for those leash dogs who live in high-rise apartments and whose foot-pads rarely touch a blade of grass. If you concoct it, they will come.”

Well those high-rise apartment dogs should be showing up any minute now, because I decided she is right. I’m working on my new business, "Pupfume." I’m thinking about shaping the bottles like little fire hydrants. But first things first! To begin my business, I am of course doing the very most important thing and naming the scents.

Please feel free to preorder by sending me large amounts of cash. Nothing but the best for those high-rise dogs! If you don’t see the scent of your dog’s choice below, please do offer suggestions. All fragrances come, of course, in Eau de Toilet:

Ten Names for Dog Perfumes

1. Guerlain’s Shallowmud or Elizabeth Arden’s Pew Grass. Or possibly for the manly dog, Old Spit.
2. Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Pew
3. Cool Lake Water
4. Calvin Klein's Escape 1 (from the Dogcatcher) and Escape 2 (from the Fence)
5. Juicy Carcass Couture
6. Evening in Garbage
7. J’adore la Pew
8. L’Air du Romps
9. Burberry Butt

And for the really discerning French dog,

10. Chien-Smell #5

Yesterday I was a dog.  Today I’m a dog.  Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a dog.  Sigh!  There’s so little hope for advancement.  ~Charles M. Schulz

Succinctly Yours Week 223: Skunked

It’s time again for Succinctly Yours, a weekly meme made possible by the lovely Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash. Each week, Grandma posts a photo with the challenge to come up with a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer to go with it. The bonus word this week was “gargle.” Ouch, Grandma! My second offering is the true story, written in 140 words, that inspired the first offering, written in 140 characters. Phew. Or is that, pew?                                                                                                                         

Gladys planned to steep a dead skunk in the wading pool so she could gargle before meeting the handsome new dog next door. She wanted to be at her best; that Dane was great.  140

She was Buddy’s best girlfriend ever, a blonde shepherd mix named Amiga who appeared from time to time in our yard sporting a new bandana that signaled a recent bath. She was a big gal who could handle his obnoxiousness and keep him in line. When she needed to rid herself of that spring-fresh smell, she knew he could be counted on to dispatch the insult toute de suite. The two of them made a great pair, leaping and snuffling and gargling in each other’s slobber. Then she’d go prancing back home, bandana torn and covered in dog spit.

Once she got skunked along the way and was thoughtful enough to return the favor. It was a skunking-by-proxy. After two baths, I had to resort to V8 because I didn’t have tomato juice.

It had been love at first sniff.   140

True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice. ~Ben Jonson

When It Really Is Unlucky to Have a Black Cat

It’s been a while since I’ve been on blogs. Part of the reason is that I’ve been even more overwhelmed than usual lately. The other reason is that I’ve had a horrible bout of writer’s block ever since our beloved little Catsby passed after an unexpected diagnosis of congestive heart failure a couple of weeks ago. It’s amazing to me how empty my lap feels now when I write.

I really didn’t want a cat at the time we found him living under a concrete bench in the yard a couple of years ago. Not only was I just not a cat person, I thought I was too busy. My social life is fuller than it’s been since I met my former husband over thirty years ago, and I won’t apologize for that. I’ve earned it. 

And Catsby had some abandonment issues. At first I complained about how needy he was, but it turns out his constant presence is what I miss most. It was endearing that he adored being with loved ones so much.

Once when I went in the closet and saw his tail protruding slightly from under the clothing, I impulsively said (in a peekaboo voice), “I wonder where our dear little kitty could be?!”

When he popped out and exclaimed, “MeOW!” it sounded for all the world like, “Here I am!”

That was our Catsby. That goofy critter converted a family of dog people into dog AND cat people. 

That's what made him The Great Catsby.

I can’t tell you how much your kind words meant to me during that time and still mean to me. Also—a block-shattering bit of good news—my NYMB…On Being a Woman story, “Worse Than Zombie Warts” will be featured on www.laughuntilyoupee.com this coming Friday. I’d appreciate it if you’d consider coming back and leaving a comment over there, and as always, thank you so much!

 Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with. ~Mark Twain

Succinctly Yours Week 206: Sure to Go

It’s time again for Succinctly Yours, a delightful meme courtesy of Grandma’s Goulash in which we are invited to spin a little yarn of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer to accompany the photo. The bonus word this week was “pace.”

Mary’s little lamb may have been sent from school at a hasty pace, but Mary’s family filed a suit declaring it a service animal to treat her ADHD and rewrote those rules. 139

It may at last have gone out like a lamb, but the whole March was a reluctant pace for those who were sick of winter.  93

Me: Why do you have a purple back-scratcher sitting on your desk?

Sixth Grade girl (smiling sheepishly): My grandma gave it to me for no particular reason, so I made it my pet.

Raining Cats and…Cats

Is there magic in anniversaries? Sometimes I think so. Today marks a full year since some higher wisdom placed an abandoned and starving senior cat on our doorstep. Catsby is no longer starving by human standards—though his appetite begs to differ.

We’ve done a lot of speculating about where he’s come from, because this friendly, shiny-coated, declawed, neutered kitty was obviously loved and cared for at one time. But why his former owners didn’t answer our ads or check the information we recorded at the shelter is anyone’s guess. Did their circumstances change? Did they give up looking for him too soon? In the days before finding him, our area suffered damaging tornadoes and vicious thunderstorms. We’ve discussed the possibility that he was lost as a result of those storms, but weight loss like he’d suffered doesn’t take overnight. He had to have been homeless at least several weeks prior to that. 

What is certain is that he was exposed to the elements during those storms. At the first distant growl of thunder, his ears pivot like radar and he heads for shelter—shelter being under my bed, where he has spent the greater part of the rainy season. Even the softest, gentlest of rain sends him darting for his perceived cover. He has his own little nest set up under there.

Very early Mother’s Day morning, we got a doozy of a storm. The unmistakable clatter of hailstones on the roof in the middle of the night was almost deafening. The human members of the family met up in the family room as was our tradition since the kids were little. Some of my fondest memories occurred in the darkness of electricity loss, while the children and I snuggled together and laughed over the sound of thunder. So as we were discussing the luck of having our cars in the garage, Catsby came running out of the bedroom and into our waiting arms, but running in a sort of crouch, like SWAT teams do. He was dodging the hail. Indoors. It was both hysterically funny and desperately sad all at once. 

But here’s a coincidental little postscript. We had more storms this morning just as I was working on this…and Catsby ventured out for the first time. Maybe there’s magic in an anniversary, after all.  

And now for more well-timed news: I just found out my piece, “Super Timmy,” has officially been accepted in Not Your Mother’s Book…On Cats, due out September of 2014!

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass.  It’s about learning to dance in the rain. ~Vivian Greene

Special Delivery

It started, as do most of our backyard adventures, with the bunnies.

But these were not the big, mean, fat bunny gangs. These were itty-bitty, adorable little piles of tiny precious babies no more than 4” long, tops. In other words, future big, mean, fat bunny gangs.  But they were so teensy weensy and helpless that I was horrified when I almost mowed two of them. What ensued was a call to Wildlife Rescue, a homemade bunny nest, and lots of checks to make sure said babies were making it back to Mama. Which I think they did. In fact, I believe the above is one of them several weeks later.

In the meantime, though, I discovered a cat hanging out in the yard, presumably waiting in line at McBunBun’s. I ran it off several nights in a row. I’d see it from the window, but it would be gone like magic as soon as I’d get the door open. Finally I waited at the door without closing it all the way and flung it open. There was a black cat—not merely crossing my path, but standing on it.

“Mew?”

When I got a close look, it became clear that this was really a cat skeleton wearing a fur suit. And let’s face it—there is nothing sweeter than a hungry kitty. So I uttered those fateful words. “Awww. Are you hungry?”

Bet you can guess the answer.

                                                      

The rest, as they say, is history. Here we are, months later. We’ve taken out ads and made reports at shelters. We discovered that there are some very strange people who “collect” black cats. And the nice people who came forward ended up deciding he couldn’t be theirs, after all. So he chose us, and we’re glad. I didn’t think I was really a cat person, but The Great Catsby is sort of perfect for our family.

Some pets are sought, and some are bought. The others are, I guess, the ones that someone up there thinks we ought to have, delivered right to our doorstep.

And that’s pretty good luck.

The Great Catsby

A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. ~Groucho Marx

Honored

Hard to believe it’s been an entire year since our beloved dog, Buddy, died. The new Chicken Soup for the Soul dog book, called I Can’t Believe My Dog Did That, is coincidentally due out next Tuesday.

A few months ago, I had a dream. I don’t remember my dreams much anymore, so I’ve taken to writing them down. This was a particularly vivid one, so I wrote it right away. Here is what I wrote:

I dreamed I saw Buddy. We were in a pretty, shady park that was lined with hydrangeas, and Buddy was just sitting in front of me, staring at me. Which is what he used to do when he was alive, come to think of it. I knew he was dead, but it was possible for him to come back for a visit. In fact, he somehow let me know that he was back due to a special occasion. I have no idea what the special occasion was—it wasn’t his birthday, which was back in March or April, but I didn't want to ask him because he seemed to think I should know.

Later that day, I looked up the meaning of hydrangeas: friendship, understanding, devotion, gratitude.

Still later that day, I received the message that my story about Buddy, “Happy Holi-dog,” was accepted for publication in the aforementioned book.

Friendship, understanding, devotion, gratitude. I will always feel those things for Buddy. And for Chicken Soup for the Soul, come to think of it.

 Friends are the family we choose for ourselves. ~Edna Buchanan

Improper Poll: Water to Water

I recently mentioned that my daughter’s fish died. This was an especially sad thing, because this female beta named Rory (named after a Gilmore Girl, I believe) was my daughter’s first pet for which she was solely responsible. It was her “college fish.” Even sadder, Rory had developed a tumor that she’d been struggling with for quite a while. To quote from her eulogy, Rory really was a fighting fish.

When the children were little, we had hamsters. They are cute, easy to care for, and I honestly think they are perfectly happy living their whole lives in a little plastic cage as long as they’re well cared for. But they live about a nanosecond, so it felt like we were always doing hamster funerals. I got pretty good at those.  I even made little hamster headstones out of a mini muffin tin and plaster of Paris.

I had my last dog cremated and we buried the ashes under a marble headstone.  Then we moved, so it seemed almost pointless. When Buddy passed away, I did have him cremated, but I didn't retrieve the remains this time. I was going to bury one of his toys, but in the end, I wanted to keep it.

I told my daughter I’d respect her choice of funerals. When she was a little girl, she got upset with me for giving one of our fish the “water burial." But a land burial for a water creature just didn’t feel right. This time she agreed, and it was a nice service—though our funeral party of three was a little crowded in the bathroom we chose.

Do you have a special way of remembering your late pets?