Pappy seems much improved today after his crazed antics earlier in the week. He's a little amped, but is willing to go into the kitchen and seems on the road to mental health. It's a relief, because all of his lurking about in the dark was creeping me out. Maybe now my nightmares will stop.
Well, I got home to Pappy tonight after our ten-day absence-- my wife unexpectedly had to stay on in Austin. Our housesitting vacationing visitors were quite thoughtful and wonderful by all measures, and left us a lovely note extolling the virtues of Pappy. They grew quite attached.
On my return I find a few squirrely things about Pappy. Of course he seems a little anxious, which is to be expected. But there's more. Mere hours after we left, before the housesitters even arrived, he chewed up gloves and a hairbrush-- he hasn't chewed anything inappropriate for a year. Well, except the sprinkler, but that's in the back yard where everything plastic is for him.
And he seemed to be afraid of the kitchen. This isn't too weird, because in the past he has been a little leery of the slippery floor. But it hasn't been this extreme; when I first got home he stood outside crying and wouldn't come in to eat his dinner. Now he's standing outside the bedroom door, just staring into the room without going in to lie down.
Unfortunately I have to head out again for a two-day conference after a day home, and my wife is out of the picture. So I have to call in the other housesitter. Poor Pappy's getting put through the wringer with all the different faces. The pet psychologist bills we're going to have!
The weather in Texas has taken the turn towards ungodly hot, and this doesn't mix well with older dogs. Buddy has been quite a little athlete in his day, and I tried to take him out on a run on an early morning. He started strong, but petered out to an ambling trot with frequent sniff breaks. The next morning at the lake I tried to run him off-leash, but he started out at the ambling trot, and then would stop each time I looked back. He was hoping it was time to turn around, so we did.
With Fred in Dallas, I was just taking him for a walk on a hot day. He was thrilled at the prospect. The spirit was willing, but the flesh had a tough time of it. His tongue was almost dragging on the ground, but he wouldn't drink anything. When we got home, he took a long nap on the cool floor.
I guess I should take a run in a fur coat to get some idea of what it's like.
First off, it dispelled any illusions I had about being a beastmaster. In the time since we got Pappy I felt I had a handle on how to approach dogs, and had the calm and confidence to which dogs respond. Evidentally not so. I greeted the dog in the house, let him sniff me, and he gave every appearance of having no issue with me. A little later he bit me after he got agitated when some people were out on the deck, and he seemed to continue targeting me afterwards. Despite conventional wisdom, I spend a lot of time at the dog park helping to break up minor disputes between dogs and even ventured to break up one between different dogs that day at the lake house. But suddenly I'm not feeling so invincible
The second thing that runs through my mind is the question of how much I really trust Pappy. Around the house I always assume he is absolutely no threat, and would do little to restrain him from guests. The dog that bit me was a well-socialized pet that meets new people at the lake house constantly. When first rescued he was a fearful dog, but seemed to have overcome this over the years and was no problem with any of the other people with us last weekend. The main change the owner was concerned about was the addition of a foster dog to the household, and whether this somehow triggered the situation.
This dog barely even tried to hurt me, and withdrew immediately after the bite. It gives me the willies to think what happens when a dog is trying to hurt you. And does Pappy have a trigger? It doesn't seem like it, but how would I know?
I've come across reactions ranging from livid indignation to tongue-in-cheek curiosity. Being profoundly jaded myself, FlexPetz just elicits an eye roll and the hope and expectation that the service remains small, fails quickly, and finds good permanent homes for the dogz.
Meanwhile, this coming week we are abandoning Pappy again to traipse off to yet-another-wedding (YAW). We have new housesitters in the form of our dog walker's visiting parents. But, heck, Pappy would be probably be as happy to have a limo come by and carry him off to a new renter each day. We should probably sign him up with FlexPetz-- as long as he gets to bring his ball for a little fetch action.
P.S. Get your leashes ready, June 22 is Take Your Dog to Work Day. So sayeth the governing elite at Pet Sitters International. (Thanks Chocolate Dog.)
One of the the few times we did practice at home, I used bits of leftover steak for treats. Man, it was like his IQ went up by a factor of three. I had him doing 'standing waits' while I sauntered the length of the yard, his tail gyrating like a propeller. As soon as I released, his paws never even touched the ground.
My results were a little puzzling. Of the 46 cities listed on their map, Washington, DC came in 49th. Ouch.
P.S. In the Washington Post this week there was an article on an experiment concluding that dogs are capable of adapting imitated behaviors based on their own assumptions. Kinda hard to explain, so you might just have to read up to know why your dog is every bit as smart as a kid.
Having seen the attention and devotion that Pappy and other dogs lavish on their stuffed toys, I thought a tribute was fitting. Here's a new perspective of this undying passion.
I came across this blog article concerning how to best promote your niche blog. It really struck me how this maps to my blog and dog blogs in general. It may elicit some "that's obvious" or "I'm already doing that" moments, but the article does an astute job of summarizing the sociology of blogging and a strategy for success. They come at it from the angle of popularizing a blog to make money, but I think it is equally relevant if you aren't profit driven.
A big point they make is the importance of continually participating in your niche community, and keeping up with your peers' blogs. I definitely see big changes on my site's activity based on whether I am "putting myself out there" with other blogs, but that's tough for me to sustain. Being a hermit, it's hard for me not to veer off into my own little world.
We put away the diving board attachment. That was just ostentatious.
By way of completing Nugget's tag to list eight things you might not know about us, I prepared the attached diagram to help you check whether your dog is a Pappy.
Pappy was clearly interested, but couldn't quite work out how to make himself fit. After turning around about twenty times, he finally squeezed in. It reminded me of those shows where a yogi contorts himself to fit into a tiny plexiglass cube. In the evening we went for a cookout to some friends' house, and they gave us a leftover kiddie pool their children had outgrown. Pappy finally has his pool.
At the wedding we met someone who has been spending the last two years clearing out abandoned cars from the roadways and wrecked boats from the harbors. Apart from the extraordinary volume of material, the complexity of the task has been magnified by the vagaries of property and environmental law. It took some time to grant the government the right to remove all of these hulks, getting heavy machinery to the sites is often a tricky negotiation, and fuel and hazardous materials have to be properly removed before the junk can be cut up and hauled away. This is gonna take a while.
This is all very timely, because Variety says that Richard Gere is producing and starring in the movie "Hachiko: A Dog's Story". I'm as fond of dogs as the next guy, but I'm thinking the part of the movie covering the last eleven years might be a little slow.
In a tag-team matchup, I was simultaneously tagged by Tierre (a.k.a. Ty-ree) to disclose seven things about myself, and Ferndoggle to find a celebrity lookalike for Pappy.
For Tierre's challenge, rather than resort to Pappy as the subject I will talk about myself for a change:
As for Ferndoggle's challenge to find Pappy's celebrity lookalike, I would have to say the Swedish Chef from the Muppets if he was real (I hope I didn't burst anyone's bubble). From the realm of living beings I was tempted by Jack Elam's eyebrows, but picked Adrian Brody for the sensitive, vulnerable look and the schnoz.
Since Frasier and Stella 'n Annie are new kids on the block, I'm going to tag them-- go forth, be fruitful, tag, and multiply.
The beach is pretty shallow, so I never saw him really swimming. But all the same I was most impressed with his water dogging. Afterwards we went with Pappy and Polly to Muddy Paws for coffee-- as I sat there, I kept mumbling to myself that it all could have been mine.
It's become the norm to list the odd search terms that brought people to your blog. At Pappy's blog, we are going to take it one step further by providing answers.
Q: dog snorting after going to dog park?
A: Oops. You grabbed the pig.
Q: creating a new pet to take care of on the computer?
A: Just keep her away from the vents atop the monitor. Very hot.
Q: what to do about a dog who is always licking the carpet and floors?
A: Smear peanut butter on the walls. Problem solved.
Q: why does dog pee in are other dog's bowl?
A: Phenomenal sense of humor there. Get away from my water glass.
Q: how long it takes a dog to have pappy's?
A: Sorry my friend, but after they made the Papmeister they broke the mold.
Q: can dogs smell weed through plastic?
A: Heh, heh, heh. Anything to eat 'round here?
Q: my dog ate a maxi pad, what do i do?
A: Ummm, feed him Mini-Wheats? [rimshot]
Q: smart bump sign of intelligence on dog's head?
A: More likely a sign that she runs into things.
Q: pappy and puppy is that cool or what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?
A: Totally.
While my wife was away last weekend, Pappy and I tried something new. For some time our friend and irrepressible enthusiast, 3DogCache, has been extolling the virtues of geocaching as the perfect activity for owners and dogs. Typically it involves following a GPS receiver to some coordinates in search of a "cache", or hidden box placed there by some other geocacher.
It works something like this-- first you go into your desk drawer and locate a geegaw, such as your souvenir keychain from the trip to the Florida swamp country. Then go to the geocaching.com web site and pick a nearby cache location, load the coordinates into your GPS device, and follow it blindly into brick walls and off cliffs in a line towards your destination. Having arrived in the vicinity, look around until you spot a likely poison ivy patch. Wade straight in until you find a hollow tree containing a moldy tupperware container. Open the container, swap your geegaw for a plastic Happy Meal figurine from the cache, and sign the soggy log book for posterity. Repeat.
Given that we like to walk, we'll probably do some more geocaching. It's a good excuse to explore new places on a nice day.
Based on Pappy's total inattention to the TV, I would have thought dogs just couldn't grok the 2D images. Clearly I was mistaken. And it looks like Westies and expensive flat panels just don't mix.
I don't know if it's the constant drizzle of aphid pee and caterpillar pellets this time of year, or the four atoms of peanut butter that floated down from a sandwich, but it's all I can do to keep Pappy moving on a walk. Yesterday Pappy was so enraptured by sniffing under under a weed that I got bored, put down his leash, walked about 100 feet, and looked back at him. Finally he stood up, startled, and gave me a look as if to say "how did you do that?"
For the both of us, coming home to someone who hasn't the least idea of what you are worried about, whose priorities are a pat, a treat, and a good walk, goes a long way to putting things in perspective.
To: Denizens of Dog Exercise Areas in Montgomery County, Maryland
From: Pappy's Fella
Subject: Yip-yip-yahoo
This Thursday, May 10 the Montgomery County Park Planning Board is meeting and will review a proposal to expand the dog park program and incorporate them into all new park plans. They have collected a great deal of feedback regarding the three current pilot "Dog Exercise Areas" in the county, and seem to consider them a success. I know I do.
I find board meetings to be paralyzingly boring, but I'd be totally psyched to be there. In lieu of attending, I dropped an email to the Chairman of the Planning Board, Royce Hanson, expressing my support-- I hope it doesn't just get sent into a black hole. I am a little leery of the recommended three acre minimum size for new dog parks, since this could be a bit of an impediment to retrofitting them into the more densely populated areas around DC. Our puny little half acre dog park is okay by me, and I'd like to see a lot more of them.
I've written before of Quiet Waters State Park, the local Mecca for dog lovers. And I have commented on the injustice of not being able to bring Pappy to work. I was on the verge of an epiphany, when some guy just stole the idea I hadn't yet formulated.
I was reading an article in yesterday's Washington Post about a two-year old business called Muddy Paws in a shopping center by the gates of Quiet Waters. They combine self-service dog bathing facilities with a coffee bar where you can bring your pets. When you realize how stinky your dog is after a swim at the beach, you can take her over there and hose her down while drinking an iced latte.
One of the owners, Joe Mutlu, said "I just wanted to be able to take my dogs to work". Who does that sound like? That's right, me, me, me. And locating it outside of Quiet Waters, with the fantastic concentration of dog crazy owners dying to pamper their pets... that's the kind of sheer brilliance that ought to be my signature.
I like coffee, and I have to bathe my dog. If he hadn't jumped on the concept two years ago, it should have been mine. Prior art, shmior art.
Our neighborhood dog walker has been off at a wedding, and we had to make other arrangements for a few days before and after last weekend. She has been so rock solid for more than a year that this is one of a handful of times I can remember having to make other arrangements. We're commuting or at work for the better part of eleven hours, so this is a pretty essential service for Pappy's well-being.
So yesterday I came home early to take Pappy for a walk with Molly, who patronizes the same walker. Both dogs are pretty good on leash, but can pull when the mood takes them. And neither of them is a weakling.
Since the day was beautiful, I took them out for a good two hour walk. I can handle either of them well alone, but you put the two of them together and notions of loose leash walking go out the window. Since fair weather walkers and riders are out in force on the trail this time of year, I was trying to keep the dogs on short leash to my right. I found it nigh-on impossible to keep the two dogs in perfect synch, and by halfway my right arm was getting the shakes from the workout. Our walker takes both of them out at the same time, and I'm amazed she doesn't have forearms like hams.
Kudos to you folks out there that can handle multiple dogs; it's no walk in the park. Well, yes it was, but... well, it wasn't a cakewalk.
We don't live in anyplace like the country, but we spot deer with increasing frequency in our little suburban neighborhood. If Pappy and I are walking along the stream path at dusk, we are almost guaranteed a sighting. It's a little disconcerting, because they are crashing around through peoples' back yards just a few feet from busy roads.
Recently we encountered one a short distance from us on the path. As Pappy strained on his leash, he lined up perfectly with the fleeing deer. I couldn't help but notice a curious simliarity in their hindquarters.
On our morning walk the other day, Pappy was sniffing and grazing around a tree in front of a neighbor's house. As he rounded the tree, he suddenly lurched, woofed, and a cat tore off through the ivy. He was so excited that he was hauling on his leash for the next five minutes as we went on our way.
A couple of days later we were on a walk and he casually sauntered up to the tree again to check out any new smells. When we were close enough, he pounced to the far side of the tree. No cat.
Yes, pollen counts are through the roof, and at the office every fourth person is calling in sick. Even Pappy isn't unaffected. Yesterday I was sitting on the floor, minding my own business, when Pappy came in from the back yard to have a five-minute face grinding session on my leg and armpit in an effort to gouge out his itchy eyes. My wife has taken to using a wet washcloth to wipe any pollen from his face. I don't know if it does anything, but his eyes haven't turned into bright red beebees so far this year.
Here is a Pappy haiku in honor of the season.
the evening light filters
through the tender green blades
(chomp), (munch), luscious
I hope everyone left with the right dog.
I was recently checking the Bone Zone at DogsWithBlogs, and they are announcing their one year anniversary on April 25. I registered Pappy's blog with them just last October, and assumed the site had been around for years given its popularity in the dog blogging community. If you want to find the most canine literati outside of an asylum, DogsWithBlogs is the place to be.
For the great occasion, Pappy and I knocked together this tribute video to honor the passion, devotion, and lunacy of the webmasters and members of DogsWithBlogs.
Since then I have been in touch with Ferndoggle, who is my model for a training-focused owner. Plus some of her dog tribe have had similar issues to Pappy concerning leash aggression on encountering strange dogs-- a situation where I feel pretty lost. She has graciously done a little networking on my behalf to find good trainers in the Maryland suburbs of DC. Her recommendations included FourPositivePaws in Greenbelt, and the Washington Animal Rescue League, which is one of the shelters we frequented while searching for Pappy.
At this point I suspect we'll proceed with the Petsmart course to stay on track. I hate to lose our momentum waiting for a different class to start up, and we had a pretty positive experience with the beginner's class. The intermediate class deals with training with distractions, where we need a lot of work. I see some individual and more specialized training available from these other sources, and I think we certainly need to look at these too for some targeted training.
Sorry-- I made you read that shaggy dog story, and don't even have a punch line.
Pappy seems much recovered today following his bout of "False Lime Disease", consisting of lethargy but no secondary symptoms. We were at the vet's yesterday and he took Pappy's temperature with a rectal thermometer, and then took a stool sample to gauge it's consistency. Then he checked the chart and noted that Pappy was overdue for a worm test, so he performed a third anal probe-- just like in alien abductions. It was around this time that Pappy seemed to decide that further medical tests were unnecessary, and he was feeling much much better.
Pappy was all recovered from his tweaked leg by Sunday night. Then today, Tuesday, he didn't really want to wake up. He was generally lethargic all morning, slow to rise, and lying down in unusual places. He wasn't excited by going on a walk, but he seemed steady once we were out and about. His appetite is good, and he is wagging his tail when we call, but he just seems all-over achy.
I'm in training this week, so I was pretty torn about whether to leave this morning. I decided to have the dog walker call at midday with a status-- he doesn't sound worse, but he's still pretty mopey. We made an appointment at the vet's for this afternoon to see what is going on. The trials of parenthood...
Later update:
We're back from the vet, and I guess no news is good news. The vet didn't locate anything, his appetite is good, no diarrhea, no localized pain, no temperature. Pappy seems a little off still, but there are flashes of normalcy as he gets excited about things. The vet asked whether we would like to go on a fishing expedition with a bunch of tests, or whether we'd rather pursue a strategy of "benign neglect" (in other words wait-and-see). I went with the latter, since this is pretty much how I'd deal with my own ailment. But maybe he deserves better than what I'd give myself...
Today is Jack of the dog park's birthday, but it is rainy and disgusting and I don't know that Pappy and I are going to make the trip. I can't recall the last weekend morning we were in town and didn't go to the dog park.
Part of the reason is that we are on the mend. Yesterday at the park, Pappy limped up to me acting all needy and "kiss my boo boo". I was pretty worried and looked him over, but he seemed to walk it off pretty quickly. I didn't give it too much thought until later when, after lying down, he was limping a bit when he stood up. Keeping an eye on him, I don't think it's anything serious but he needs a little down time. Then last night we went out to a reception at DC's Museum of the American Indian, abandoning our ailing dog. As we were walking from the subway past 3rd and Pennsylvania, I twisted my ankle sharply while focused on making a walk signal-- it was on one of those shallow graduated steps that too-smart-by-half designers sneak into the plans so that building occupants can laugh at the stumbling pedestrians below. After standing around on the ankle for a couple of hours, it hurt quite a lot by the time we got home.
Interestingly, my bad ankle is on the same side as Pappy's. Anyway, the two of us are taking a break today.
At 2:04 PM Thursday, when I wasn't paying attention, Pappy's Dog Blog received its 10,000th unique visitor who surfed in from Santiago, Chile (boy...legs...tired). Who knew Pappy had such broad international appeal? Of course the visitor had been searching for DJ Dac of the Reggaeton Boys, but you gotta take hits where you can find 'em. (I'll probably get fifty more hits for repeating "Reggaeton Boys", and even more for mentioning "Britney, Lindsay, Imus, and porn".)
Cue the confetti.
At the office we seem to have a pretty constant stream of kids. Kids brought to the office because it's "Teacher Education Day", or a snow day, or summer. Stone cold bored kids who are tearing up and down the halls while the parent is splitting time on a normal day's work. I sympathize with the dilemma of parents left without other arrangements, but I am also the bitter bitter man whose team is left to clean up the spyware-infected computers these terrors leave in their wake. If you can't tell, my life is chock full of contradictions.
And yet, something keeps me from bringing Pappy to the office. I envy Gus's mom, who routinely takes him "on the job". Pappy would be a darn site better behaved than most of these kids, and probably better housebroken too. He's certainly not going to be trawling the porn sites or conducting a shrieking contest outside the office of someone having a teleconference. There may be some kind of regulations against animals, but, hey, we've already got mice everywhere in our cr*ppy old building. Pappy would probably reduce rather than increase the count of non-human mammals.
I talked to one of the senior managers about the idea of bring-your-dog-to-work-day. She may have been humoring me, but she gave every appearance of being very receptive. I'm not going to turn into one of those creepy old kooks who walks around mumbling to himself, am I?
Pappy may not be the fastest dog, but boy is he quick. When chasing balls he doesn't want you to throw the long bomb, he wants a worm burner that hops all over the place. I've watched a lot of dogs, and Pappy is really exceptional at catching bouncing balls at a full run. It often makes me wonder how he would react to a field full of rabbits...
Except that he needs a sense of purpose, and chasing rabbits would be a vocation that clearly suits him.
No, no, absolutely not! Unacceptable and cruel!
Well... there are going to be an awful lot of castoffs once those adorable gift Easter bunnies grow up in a few weeks...
I've written in the past about Pappy's complex about treats over four inches long, but this public service announcement provides a documentary exhibit. The object of his pathological anxiety is a pressed rawhide bone from his birthday stash of goodies. You can't really hear his whining throughout the incident, because it often penetrates the ultrasonic range.
Following the filming he took the bone into the backyard, scraped aside some mulch, and partly covered it-- a milestone! The first time (to my knowledge) he's buried something! After a couple of hours I finally coaxed him into gnawing the end a bit, at which point he snarfed it down.
Maybe I shouldn't worry so much about the vet's warnings about Pappy's tooth wear. He could use a little bling, and he'd look pretty fly with mad chedda grillz.
We took Pappy to the vet last weekend to get his shots and a general checkup. He was very brave and calm entering the office, given that when we last came to get his stitches out he was a quivering wreck.
Everything was going great until the vet checked on Pappy's teeth. Pappy's canines have shown noticeable wear since we got him, and are quite flattened at the tips at just two years old (like his tooth-grinding owner). The vet warned that if things keep up at this pace he may require a doggy root canal one of these days.
At the dog park on Sunday we brought along a vet approved rubber ball rather than letting him play with the tennis balls in the enclosure; I wouldn't normally bring toys, but Pappy's not at all possessive so I don't anticipate problems. Gad, I never thought my stoic dog would require special instructions-- "Don't let him have that tennis ball, he needs this special orthopedic ball. And he's allergic to tree nuts, and here's his inhaler..."
I'm thinking of starting up a Formula One racing league for dogs if anyone out there is interested. Now that's gonna be news.
Both of them commented on the fact that Pappy was much taller than he seemed in the blog. Thinking about it, I don't often photograph him next to people and there isn't much of a point of reference. So I thought I better set the record straight.
Pappy is huge. Like seven feet tall when he stands on his back legs (step back Finnegan). He's often mistaken for one of those hairy Himalayan ponies, only a really really big one with paws like dinner plates. And he's got like a ten foot vertical leap-- check out this picture with him catching a basketball. Seriously, the NBA ought to open the draft to other species-- the game would never be the same. He could totally dunk on Shaq if he had thumbs.
One of the challenges of a dog with a face as furry as Pappy's is reading his mood and next move. Though the eyes may be the windows to the soul, that only works if you can actually see them-- which, in his case, you can't.
After living with him for a while, I've found that the best indicators of Pappy's intentions are his ears. You'd think that floppy ears wouldn't communicate much, but in his case they say plenty. When he is on high alert, the entire shape of his head changes as his ears go erect-- this is my cue to adjust my grip on the leash and get ready for his next move. At medium alert, his ears are just a little cocked and he's anticipating something. In Happy Pappy mode (which is also Sad Pappy mode) he's just so excited (or miserable) that his ears are totally flat against his head. The illustration below is intended as your guide to his thoughts in photos-- nine out of ten times he is at medium alert because he's bored with posing.
For a long time now I have been getting a lot of Google hits on the term "Pappy Dog", particularly from South American countries. It seemed like a pretty remote possibility that anyone in Chile had developed an attachment to our terrier hero, but what was going on here? I finally took the five seconds required to conduct a web search, and found a Spanish language music video of "Pappy Dog" by the Reggaeton Boys.
Feeling it was pretty important to understand what they were saying about my dog, I settled down to creating a translation of the lyrics to English. My wife applied her college Spanish and I applied Google Translate to the task. In the end, I'm not sure it really explains as much as it should.
ORIGINAL LYRICS tranquilo tranquilo boby ja ja ja ja tranquilo chiquitin,enanin ja ja ja ja oye oye oye no lloren no lloren ya les dije tu sabes quien mas reggaeton boys CORO. soy tu pappy dog tu eres mi sexy doll te doy mi fotolog manmi agrega mi flog si queri un hot dog enchufate con mi plug tu eres mi sexy doll y yo soy tu pappy dog.(2x) GUYVENS: ja soy tu pappy doga tu perro de siempre tu sabes tu casanova pide lo que quieras tu sabes que vamos a toda me gusta mas bien cuando te vistes a la moda my sexy lova cometela toda como que tu quieras y tambien con salsa soya suavecito despacito que ya no andas sola bailotea y aulla como una loba mi regalona. DAVID: manmi relaxy cuando tu te mueves shorty tu te ves bien sexy bailame ese dembow que viene de dj dac(xy) dale hasta bajo hasta que se vea el coxy entre en catarsis(2x) CORO:(2x) PUENTE: eh eh guayame guayame guaya tocame tocame toca gritame gritame grita eh eh eh eh(2x) PIERRE: soy tu bullterry el perro guardian del castillo del doctor larry aqui no se permite el juego de tom and jerry correte escondete escapate llego el papurry eres mi mamurry(2x) CORO:(2x) ja ja ja ja mas chiquito que un chiguagua oye chiguawini ja ja ja ja tu saaaabes david,pierre,guyvens oye dj dac los bullterry. jajajajaja nos fuimos pa REGGAETON BOYS. | ENGLISH TRANSLATION Calm, calm Boby Ya ya ya ya Calm little one, dwarf Ya ya ya ya Listen listen listen Don't you cry, don't you cry Anyone will tell you who are the Reggaeton Boys CHORUS I am your Pappy Dog You are my sexy doll I give you my photo album Manmi adding my flog If you want a hot dog Plug into me You are my sexy doll And I am your Pappy Dog.(2x) GUYVENS: Yeah I am your Pappy Dog Your dog forever You know I'm your Casanova Ask me what you want You know we vamoose to everything I like a lot When you see yourself with ice cream My sexy love All of you is eaten Just like you like it Also with soy sauce Soft and slow You know you don't walk alone Dance and howl like a wolf My regal one. DAVID: Manmi relax When you move my shorty You look very sexy Dance to undergound music DJ Dac will be there(xy) Get low until your coccyx is seen Inbetween cathartic releases(2x) Repeat CHORUS twice PUENTE: eh eh Grind me, grind me, grind me Touch me, Touch me, Touch me Scream me, Scream me, Scream me eh eh eh eh(2x) PIERRE: I am a bull terrier Your guard dog In the castle of Dr. Larry Here you are not permitted The game of Tom and Jerry Run to the escape hatch I arrive all papery You are my mammary(2x) Repeat CHORUS twice Ya ya ya ya Smaller than a Chihuahua Listen palm plant Ya ya ya ya you know David, Pierre, Guyvens Listen to the bull terriers, DJ Dac. Ya ya ya ya ya We're not your Daddy REGGAETON BOYS. |
I've recently been poking around the old newsreels on archive.org, and a lot of them reflect the amazement and urgency of the early days of spaceflight. I'm too young for Sputnik and Mercury, but the words "Pegasus", "Telstar", and "Gemini" still spark a sense of wonder in me forty years later. 
I'm not normally very sentimental, but the whole story strikes a melancholy chord with me. But I hear that there are bands named after her, and novels speculating how she was rescued by aliens... or was discovered by a Norse divinity to become his companion... or circles the Earth watching over us and feeding off of radio waves... and this gives me warm cockles.
It's pretty ridiculous when you see it-- Molly loves Pappy, and Pappy loves the ball.
More recently he comes to check on us a couple of times, and then takes himself off to his bed. We'll be wondering where he's gone, and he's upstairs snoozing away. It makes us feel kind of guilty, that we are that boring. It seems like an ad for antidepressants: "Do you sleep all the time? Do you lie alone in the dark? No longer enjoy your favorite pastimes? Ask your vet about puppy uppers."
I've been doing an inordinate amount of number crunching at work the past few weeks. So I've decided to break out the spreadsheet at home and reapply my mad skills to the task of assessing Pappy in pure mathematic terms.
So we've had Pappy for 390 days. He has always eaten about 2 cups of food a day, weighing in at about 6.8 ounces for a total of 166 pounds-- plus another 50 pounds of treats. His food adds up to about 774 calories a day, and in the 556 to 834 miles we have walked together I am sure we have burned about a third of that. When we first got him he weighed about 32 pounds, but he has put on about seven pounds. In total, I have probably picked up about 98 pounds of poo, or a little more than two and a half times Pappy's body weight.
So, when all my tabulating is done, I figure on about 216 pounds of "input", but can only account for about 177 pounds of "output". There's 39 pounds missing. I'm a little worried I'm going to check behind the garden shed or sofa one of these days and discover a secret stockpile of poo.
Though the whole story is not yet written, many people wonder how Pappy got his start in music videos and the superstar business. It was a long road, and few recollect this rare early clip of our pooch in competition. In the end he missed his flight to Hollywood, but found his own road to celebrity on the Internet.
* Rated PG-13 for graphic language.
I'm a morning person, and I'm pleased to say that Pappy follows in my footsteps. After I hop up to turn off the alarm is one of the few times in a day he lobbies for a belly rub. He lies on his back waggling his tail until I give him a good rubdown, during which he can barely restrain himself from gnawing my hand. He then hops up, does a little yoga (the downward dog pose), has a full-body shakeoff, and prances over to my wife's side of the bed-- juiced over the new day.
Meanwhile, my wife is moaning like someone hit her with a weary stick, and the way she blinks her eyes brings to mind The Mole People. She's definitely not a morning person.
It's a shame Pappy's birthday is past, because he'd really enjoy one of these dizzy squirrel dispensers. Hours of fun for everydog.
Pappy and I would appreciate your votes in the competition. You can vote here, and it doesn't require any registration. The site suggests people vote early and often. Pappy's fondest goal for this year is to reach the Sweet 16.
My special effects equipment consists mainly of an inexpensive Canon digital video camera and a painted bulletin board as a "green screen". The Christmas video uses animation made on the computer, but most live action special effects in Pappy movies involve the simple layering of still and moving images where I have made the backgrounds transparent. Making a film sequence have a transparent background is done by filming against a background of some uniform color that isn't in your subject-- most commonly pure blue or green, but it could be any color. Then you use your computer and a video editing program like Adobe Premiere Elements to process this video to remove the background color. The area you want to render transparent is called the "key". Thus, the process of using a specific color to create your transparency key is called Chroma Keying.
Your digital photos can be opened in Adobe Photoshop Elements or a similar photo editing program to select and delete portions of the image, leaving these areas "transparent". Since you can manually draw a mask around the subject in a still photo, you don't have to use a green screen. Saving these to PNG format allows you to retain this transparency information (called the "alpha channel") so that you can use that image in front of your video-- this is called a matte shot.
Finally, you superimpose all these images and videos together against a solid background in your video editing program. It's very much like creating a moving collage. Now, don't all of you go racing out to make your green screen movies. Somebody has to sit back and watch them.
I took Pappy and neighbor dog Molly to the dog park this morning, and events turned very disturbing. Dog park regular, Jack, snapped up a ball that was being used by a big dog I didn't recognize. The stranger dog had played well with other dogs, but had snarled when they had shown an interest in his ball. In this case he locked onto the scruff of Jack's neck and three full grown men couldn't get him to release. I ran and got my bottle of water to dump on them, but he was completely unphased. It seemed like forever, but I guess after a minute or two we got them separated.
Jack wasn't wounded, and seemed fine in a couple of minutes. His owner was extremely upset, but was very conciliatory with the other dog's owners. She said that she thought it was just a case that the stranger dog had gotten caught on Jack's collar, but this was putting it kindly. She was going to take Jack to the vet just to make sure he was well.
That takes me back to the time that Pappy was injured in the dog park. I still tell myself that it was a play accident rather than an act of aggression. But the truth is I really don't know what happened. Even with my dog being the victim, I was pretty desperate to rationalize the whole situation as something that wasn't going to implicate the safety of the dog park. Because if the dog park isn't safe, what am I doing taking my dog there?
Of course this rationalization is less dangerous than the one that an erratically aggressive dog can be trusted at a dog park, no matter how much someone loves him. I hope I don't see the stranger dog again, because neighbor dog Molly plays keepaway just like Jack was doing. When you think about it, it's a pretty thin fabric of faith and good sense that holds the dog park situation together.
Last weekend at the dog park, I had the great good fortune to be present for Cruncher's coming out party. Cruncher is the six month old black pug that Crusher's family got following his sad demise. We miss Crusher at the park, but Cruncher is pretty adorable-- though he's still kind of skinny to fit my mental image of a pug. He was instigating with Molly Basset Hound by pulling on her huge ears; I've never really seen that Molly playing before.
I forgot to bring my camera to the park this weekend, so here's a mug shot of my best recollection of the pug perp. I expect we'll be seeing more of him.
Sunshine, longer days, Daylight Savings Time... spring is fast approaching in these parts. The first signs last Saturday at the dog park was Pappy flopped down panting in the midst of a session of fetch. That hasn't happened for months. Later in the afternoon people were showing up in short sleeves and thongs (sandals, not bathing suits).
Hey, I'm all for moving up Daylight Savings Time. I love long days, and I like leaving work and seeing daylight. But this weather is all supposed to be past before DST rolls around. I've had the better part of five decades experience, and this is just plain unnatural. I thought those greenhouse gases were supposed to take care of this.
To get over my video director's block, I did a quicky of Pappy's post-bath antics. It may not be of the magnitude of a Pappy spectacle, but it's nice to be done with a movie in a day.
I added a little search widget to the blog as a plug for Petfinder.com, the pet adoption search engine, after seeing it on The Blog Pound. That's where I heard about Nablopomo, so I'm always ripping her off for something. I don't think she'd mind.
Anyway, the source URL for the specific widget is at www.petfinder.com/tools/featuredpet, but for some reason my version was missing the little search box and wasn't working quite right. I looked at the source on The Blog Pound and got the code below if you want to use it on your site. If you look closely, you can tweak which states are included for the featured pet.
