Sadie has left the building

Sadie, the Auxiliary Back-up Dog, died today at the age of 13.

We will miss Sadie, but we will never forget her. She was, I think, the sweetest dog ever. All she ever wanted was a belly rub:

A little more than a year ago, we gave Sadie to Cpl. Wolves and Married Into Wolves, because they wanted a pet but wanted to take baby steps. Both of them loved Sadie, so it was a natural fit. Over at the new place, Sadie enjoyed many an hour playing the sock game with Cpl. Wolves, who would taunt her with a sock while she tried to kill it:

She was very happy in her new home, back with the boy she loved so much and getting more attention than she had in years.

Unfortunately, she died today from cancer. I know she's in a better place. Her decline was rapid, and I don't think she suffered -- she went from apparently fine to not in just two weeks. She was a love muffin, and we will miss her. Best auxiliary back-up dog ever.

Sadie gets cleaned up and moves to her new home

Married Into Wolves has been wanting a pet for quite some time. Cpl. Wolves test drove cats, as long-time readers know. but Married Into Wolves is allergic, so that did not work. A solution did present itself, however. Married Into Wolves loves Sadie, the Auxiliary Back-up Dog. So we took her to a groomer and got her cleaned up for a possible transfer:

She looks pretty good, I have to admit. Also very energetic:

So Sadie the Auxiliary Back-up Dog went over to live with Cpl. Wolves and Married Into Wolves. She loves it:

She plays kill the sock with Cpl. Wolves constantly:

Looks like a good fit. We miss our auxiliary back-up dog, but we are happy she gets so much loving attention at her new home. Cpl. Wolves was always her favorite, so it isn't too much of a dislocation for her.

Of course, this has Mrs. Wolves talking about a new puppy, God help us.

I'm not sure what's wrong with this dog

I have two dogs. In the South, they say that one dog is family, two dogs is dogs. I think that might be right. Sadie the Auxiliary Back-up Dog, is small and likes her bed:

Jeb The Wonder Dog, on the other hand, has no bed and sleeps where he likes. On occasion, though, he likes to take over Sadie the Auxiliary Back-up Dog's bed:

Obviously, the bed is too small for him. It can't even be comfortable. I don't know why he does this. But he does.

Oh, for God's sake, grow a pair

Actually, Jeb the Wonder Dog still has a pair. Nonetheless, he defers to Sadie the Auxiliary Backup Dog when a pig's ear is in the dog treat equation. You can tell he wants it:

No way is he going to try to take it from her, though. He knows she can kick his ass. Yeah, she chomped up the whole thing with no challenge from Jeb. Sad.

Darkness falls, and so does the snow

I'm pretty sure we're over 3 feet at the point these pictures are taken -- about 5 pm. People were out shoveling:

But Jeb the Wonder Dog needed to excrete:

While Jeb was about his business -- maybe -- I tried to get some perspective on the mountains of snow in front of my house:

Jeb the Wonder Dog is less of a snow weenie when some shoveling has been done:

Unassisted by shoveling cast-offs, the snow was up to the windows as one of my neighbors:

Jeb the Wonder Dog is, of course, not the only dog in the house that needs to excrete. Sadie the Auxiliary Back-Up Dog also has needs. She likes snow even less that JTWD:

She peed as quickly as possible and headed for the door:

My last check, at about 9 pm, indicated snow had stopped falling. It might just be a pause. We'll see if the Tsnow-nami is over. And how long it takes the area to recover.

Who thought this was a good idea?

I have two dogs, as regular readers know: Jeb the Wonder Dog, a collie who weighs about 60 pounds, and Sadie the Auxiliary Back-up Dog, who weighs about 10 pounds. Needless to say, they use different leashes, especially since I often walk both at the same time.

Now, in their infinite wisdom, the makers of dog leashes -- and we're talking about retractable leashes here -- make the leashes of different sizes and strengths depending upon the weight of the dog to be walked. Big dogs = heavy-duty leash, small dog = light leash. This makes sense, of course -- at least when you are talking about the actual leash, string, whatever that attaches to the dog. When you're talking about the handset, though, somebody had a failure of imagination. As you can see, the big-dog leash is big, and the little-dog leash is little:

But did they think my hand would get smaller when walking the little dog? Seriously:

All of my fingers fit in the big-dog leash, while I can barely get three fingers in the small one. I understand why the cord is smaller in one than in the other, but my hand is the same size regardless of which dog I am walking. These leashes happen to be from the same manufacturer, but this disconnect applies to all makers. Who the fuck designed these things, and do they own dogs? Or have hands?

Walking Jeb the Wonder Dog, Deluge Edition

I got home tonight and, as usual, walked Jeb the Wonder Dog and Sadie the Auxiliary Back-up Dog. Sadie pooped, Jeb watched in amusement and peed. As usual. We got inside, and the heavens cut loose. Serious fucking rain. Jeb the Wonder Dog, maybe not too clear on what torrential rain sounds like, looked at me in expectation: My turn to drop the deuce, dude. Hard to argue with his logic, but I had no desire to go out into a frog-strangler, so I tended to other tasks that needed to be completed before I went to bed. JTWD, naturally, got in my way at every turn, reminding me that he really needed to do the doo, while STABUD got in my way at every turn reminding me that bacon is her birthright.

Eventually, it sounded as if the rain had slackened. Since JTWD and STABUD both had managed to con me out of some bacon (one of my tasks involved cooking bacon), it seemed like a good time to take JTWD on his walk.

Wow, what a shitty idea.

While the rain was no longer killing amphibians in low-lying areas, it was still fairly substantial. I quickly promised Jeb the Wonder Dog that we would head for home as soon as he did his business, regardless of where we were in our usual course. Little did I realize this would become a battle of wills.

I should have known. After all, in summer, Jeb cares not about the heat. In winter, under Arctic conditions when I am ready to die, Jeb is unmoved. Snow, ice, sleet, heat -- he doesn't care. Torrential rain -- yeah, whatever. He shook occasionally, but seemed to be in no hurry.

Ultimately, we didn't shorten the walk at all. By the time he finally duked, we were at a point in our usual walk that there was no way to take a shortcut home. So we didn't. I was drenched and miserable. He was drenched and gave exactly zero fucks.

Sometimes I hate that dog.

The roads were fine, but the walk -- now that was interesting

We had a sleet/freezing rain event today. It occurred entirely while I was at work, so I did not have to venture out into it, but Mrs. Wolves texted me in the afternoon and let me know that my drive home might be challenging. Since I have managed to stay out of the ditch through all of our recent winter weather events that have forced me to drive home through them, I was feeling pretty good about my odds.

And as it turned out, by the time I left work, two things had happened. The roads had been treated, and the temperature had risen. No ice on the roads, at least not that I could tell.

Sidewalks? Different story. It wasn't like Sunday night, when I was the only one on my block who de-iced his sidewalk. That actually was better -- because all of the sidewalk except for the part in front of my house was iced over, I knew what to do. Walking on ice is not a big deal -- just walk like a penguin, taking small steps and never really taking your feet off the ice. Shuffle, waddle, whatever you want to call it, you won't fall.

You also won't move very fast. This is a problem for me, because I actually have two dog-walks every night when I get home. First, I walk Jeb the Wonder Dog and Sadie the Auxiliary Back-up Dog together. Jeb pees on everything in sight, and Sadie poops. Five, ten minutes, tops. I waddled as necessary Sunday, with the sidewalks iced over, and when possible I let Jeb pull me along, sliding on the ice, for much of the walk. Kinda fun, like those kids at the mall who have roller skate wheels in the heels of their shoes. I never have figured out how the fuck you walk in those normally. But I digress.

But then I have to walk Jeb again so that he will unleash evil. This is a two-mile, half-hour walk. He needs the exercise, and so do I. Ice complicates this and can make it take much longer than a half-hour. Sunday, we walked in the street, which was ice free. Tonight, different ballgame.

Most of the sidewalks on our two-mile trek were ice-free. Probably 80 percent. The problem, of course, is that other 20 percent. My neighborhood has no streetlights, so I would find myself walking cheerfully on dry (or at least ice-free) sidewalk, and then I suddenly would be sliding all over the place. This happened just at random, and I usually couldn't see the ice before I hit it. I never went down, but I was slip-sliding, Jeb was slip-sliding -- it was like a fucking Paul Simon concert:

Yeah, cheap reference. Live with it.

Gee, and I thought it was cold

Having just stumbled in the door from walking Jeb the Wonder Dog -- a separate event from walking Sadie the Auxiliary Back-up Dog and JTWD at the same time, which I did just before the Jeb walk -- I checked the temperature, since I was pretty sure my face had fallen off. As it turned out, it was only 6 degrees F, nowhere near as low as I thought. Of course, the wind chill took it to -11 F, so maybe it was cold. Doesn't matter. Jeb the Wonder Dog showed no signs that he thought this was anything other than a comfortable spring day. We went for 35 minutes, and he showed every sign that he could go as long as anyone wanted to walk him. Sometimes I hate that dog.

Dogs and bacon

Game food invariably includes bacon. Far more so than Jeb the Wonder Dog, Sadie the Auxiliary Back-Up Dog has a keen sense of when bacon is being cooked. When this sense alerts her to the imminent appearance of bacon, she comes to the kitchen, sits, and waits.

She will wait however long it takes. This works for her, as she usually has scored several bites of bacon before Jeb the Wonder Dog shows up. The Auxiliary Back-Up Dog will do whatever it takes to get her bacon. It is difficult to tell from this angle, but here she is hopping up and down on her hind legs. I can usually get her to dance in a circle on her hind legs, too.

She certainly enjoys the simple pleasures.