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My funny dog story. It's really not all that funny because I haven't had the dog all that long. It's more amusing anecdote than funny. Here goes:

I own a dog. After 38 pet-free years (my mother, the child of Polish immigrants, scrubbed the kichen floor on her hands and knees every day after dinner and there was no fucking way an animal was entering HER house) I became the owner of Oliver, a Jack Russell something or other who loves me in much the same way John Hinkley loved Jody Foster. When Oliver isn't stalking me around the house, sending me creepy notes with letters he's ripped from magazine pages and painstakingly arranged and glued on a piece of paper, he's laying on my bed, making moon eyes at me. Love me. Pet me. Feed me. I need, I need, I need.

Oliver collects things. I guess this is common for dogs, but since I've never owned one before, I wasn't aware their behavior could be so deeply neurotic. I came downstairs the other day to find several pairs of my underwear, my older son's purple monkey, my younger son's stuffed pig collection and a t-shirt all piled on the living room floor. And I know I didn't fucking pile them there.

Tonight I almost peed myself laughing at him. He wigs when the doorbell rings and the sound of a doorbell was on the TV. I rewound it several times (the miracle of TiVo) just to watch him freak. Mean, I know, but he had just finished eating my dinner, which I left on a low table. He ate the refried beans, the ground meat, the cheese and some tortilla chips, but totally bypassed the guacamole.

gosh, I'll do a lot for a free book.

You remember Tyco, the cat of blue-flame fame. (For those that don't, when a long-haired part-Persian cat walks over a candle on the coffee table, the fur of his underside goes WHOOSH in a fast blue flame. Singed cat hair smell ensues for several days. He was fine.)

So Tyco had been an only cat for 10 years. And then we get a dog, Z. (Hubby named him -- my name of "Mixie" for 'mixed mutt' was too "girly" for the 65-pound rottweiler mix.)

At their first meeting:
Tyco hissed. Z wagged his tail. Tyco poofed (long hair, remember, his 12 pounds went out to 24). Z cocked his head to the side, and wagged his tail.
Tyco growled. Z cowered, then went back to wagging his tail.

In the next few weeks and months, that scene was often repeated as they got to know one another.

Eventually, Z decided that Tyco wanted to play. So he'd pop down in the doggie play-with-me pose, and Tyco would hiss and walk away in the classic 'leave me alone' pose.

We started to notice that Z had some bloody spots on the tip of his nose.

But it wasn't until we saw the sheath to the cat's claw STUCK IN THE DOG'S NOSE that we figured it out. So we pull out the claw, discuss the finer points of what a cat defines as 'play' vs. 'fight' with the dog, and let him go.

Z, wagging his tail, runs straight to Tyco. Tyco hisses. Z wags. Tyco gives Z a right hook, straight to the nose. Z wags. Tyco gives Z a left hook. Z wags.

Tyco hisses and walks away. Z, wagging, follows.

For some reason, I see a lot of my younger brother in Z. A happy-go-lucky loveable little pest.

Alright, I had this gorgeous-but-dumb dog, Pidge (half Norwegian Elkhound, half border collie, named after the protagonist in a kids' sci-fi/fantasy book called The Hounds of the Morigan) who underwent a personality change when we got two cats (Ron and Sid -- my stepfather named them because we were taking too long to come up with anything more poetic/cool/amusing). She became "Auntie Pidge" and felt it her divine responsibility to make sure the cats didn't do anything *she* wasn't allowed to do -- like scratch furniture, or chew houseplants (actually I don't think she would have wanted to scratch the furniture -- she just knew that they shouldn't). In return, those cats absolutely worshipped that dog, and she completely ignored them unless they were doing something naughty. They used to resort to flinging themselves, on their backs, across her outstretched paws when she was lying down, in the hoped of getting attention. Every now and then she would respond by giving them a ferocious nibbling on the belly (sort of like trying to get fleas off them) which they LOVED, and would stagger off afterwards dripping dog drool from their tummies. And if they were really, really diligent in rubbing their nether regions across her face (which most of the time she ignored) they would get the ultimate reward: a brief but vigorous humping. Which they loved. Go figure. I guess the cats come across as funnier in this story, but really, none of it could have happened without the dog.

I just laughed out loud (during a meeting) while reading about the wipes - that is funny stuff.

My husband's dog ate a sock off his sister's foot and very much the same thing happened - they had to pull it out of his butt while he howled and they laughed. He also ate a 5 ft Ginko (sp?)tree and chewed through the fence multiple times. But the funniest story about Thornton (which is really more funny about my MIL but I will share anyway)is late one night my MIL was dreaming that she was rubbing someone's neck when in reality she was giving the dog a hand job and the dog was LOVING it - she said he was moaning like crazy!

I read often but this is my first time to comment - love your blog and the stories about Clara Jane!

Yes! Chigger stories! My life is complete.

Honestly, I laughed at the poop-a-shovel story until I was doing the wheezy laugh that causes you to believe you're going to suffocate because you've simply stopped breathing.

And the Handiwipes story reminds me of how a friend's dalmation ate an athletic sock and there was a debate over who was going to pull it out of the dog's butt.

Hi, I found your URL at Dixie's page, I'm not interested in snagging a dog book, just wanted to say this is the funniest blog entry I've read in a long, long time. I'm typing this with tears in my eyes from laughing. The "throw her a hump" phrase drew me in and the Handi-Wipe story finished me off. I'm going to have to remember that "throwing a hump" thing. Could be useful in many situations. :D

Oh, that dog's ears, the big ones sticking up. Love that. Our little Boston has ears like that. Somebody told us he reminded them of a rabbit with a smushed face. Jumped over here from Cynthia's journal (Crazy Quilt Life)