Raven

Ding-a-ling Raven

Being Raven is having SUCH a hard time understanding housebreaking, I thought I’d give her a hand. I also want to give her the benefit of the doubt that she is much smarter than I am thinking she is, so today when I saw a lovely bell ringer for the door knob, I bought it for Raven especially. She was thrilled.

Raven’s excitement over new bell ringer

Well, she was! Once I told her learning a new skill would involve treats.

Yes!

Did you know Raven can touch another bell on command if you have treats…lots of them, and give them to her? She gets very excited to see that bell, too.

Yowie!  My bell!

See?

The brilliance and brains of Raven

She can touch her bell on the ground, too.

Raven, touching bell on ground

With the office-bell project, I am now working on getting her to ring it every time. She’s got the touching part down.

Now how this is going to come together is I will teach Raven to ring the bell on the door, and whenever she goes out, she will have to ring it before the door opens. Somewhere along those lines, Einstein Raven will figure out that when she NEEDS to go out, she can ring the bell, and that will bring me to open the door for her.

Rainy Day with Mushroom Soup

Tonight I soaked the Shitake mushrooms I bought at Costco in hot water. Then I added the water and all to Miss Ginger’s squash, chicken, and rice medley. She had issues with the mushrooms themselves, but liked the soup, which is supposed to be where the polysaccharides (cancer fighting agents) end up…and that’s what she needs.

Afterwards, I shut the crate and we were all supposed to move on outside, but all of “we” didn’t. Who remained were a hefty crew staring in at Ginger’s dinner mushroom remnants. When I opened the crate door, of course, Raven got first dibbs and finished the mushrooms Ginger didn’t.

Now shortly thereafter, I went back and read the directions from a portion of a file I found at the yahoo groups I joined – Canine Cancer.

“The way to get polysaccharides from mushrooms is through a hot water extract. Hot water extract also means we can do it at home. Buy shitake, reiki, maitake, and (impossible to find except in Asian markets) coriolus versicolor, whip them up with water in a blender, and bring the puree to a boil. You now have that hot water extract, full of protein-bound polysaccarides and polysaccharide peptides, which can be poured over their food and, hey, even over ours…”

I didn’t do that whip them up in water to a puree part. Thank goodness I went back and re-read the directions, so I can get it right next time.

After Raven ramsacked Ginger’s crate, and others had the nerve to touch Ginger’s non-mushroom stuff, well, Ginger was peeved. She stayed in a peeved mood for minutes snarling at anyone who walked by.

Ginger recovers from foreign paws in her crate

Then she overcame, and decided to be Ginger again.

Meanwhile, today it was very rainy and there was not much outside playtime going on in Fort Doberdale.

Rain Rain Go Away

The brown blanket hanging off the fence in the above picture is one of the many peed-on blankets waiting for a turn to be washed. I couldn’t wash today being I hang them to air dry. I’ve been finding this pee-on-the-blankets tradition has started up again lately, and I’m getting tired of washing the same blankets everyday, so I’ve gone back to chaining the juvenile pair to the futon when I am not able to watch them. Housebreaking can try one’s nerves!

Raven’s Last Meal

Tonight I tried to starve Raven. OK, she thought I tried to starve her. But I was really just trying to get her to settle down before I served her Highness dinner. She was just AWFUL tonight at dinner-serving time. Slobbering all over her face and crate, carrying on barking, and even the pot banging didn’t stop her. Raven couldn’t find a piece of mind to get a grip of, so I fed everyone else and put her bowl of din-din in the fridge. Mon Dieu!

Raven’s full of herself

I fully intended on not feeding her till tomorrow, but I’m such a softie. I couldn’t put her to bed on an empty stomach. So about 3 hours later, when she least expected it, I called her to her crate, she walked in thinking she was going to bed, but got her bowl of food instead. It all happened so calmly. It was wonderful.

Welcome home!

When I walked in this evening, Raven greeted me with the same frantic barking she often does once I open the front door. I try to ignore her. And on the occasion that she keeps yap shut and I get all the way in and shut the door, I will let her out of her crate first as reward.

Rushing Raven

Tonight, yap was not shut, so I by-passed Raven, and I let the lovely Lilian out, so she could be first to tend to business and find the Halloween Cuz ball to covet.

Beautiful and Elegant Lilian

Lilian’s crate was free of pee this evening. Oh happy day!

I made a special crate-on-wheels for Lilian, and I keep it by the back door, which is Lilian’s special place, being the crate needs to be washed out from Miss Lilian’s leaky back faucet more often than not.

Lilian’s crate on wheels for easy in-and-out cleaning service

I went back to Raven, and bent down in front of her crate to watch her. She was in Raven’s world, and I dont think she saw me for quite a while. I talked to her and she continued on in a frantic monolog about what happened today, what she wanted to happen tonight, and what she wanted for dinner. At one point, hello, she sat on her food bowl which was upside down in the corner in the back of the crate. It’s stainless steel. One would think it would be a fairly cool jolt, but Raven kept sitting and barking.

I continued talking to her calmly, and then there was a point where she stopped barking. For more than just to take a breath, she stopped. So I counted to three, and told her how wonderfully good she was (lie lie lie), then stood up and opened her crate.

Zowie! She was off and running, but I grabbed her harness and brought her ’round to me. I held her and told her to calm her bad self down…softly, calmly…but she was going on about how she just couldn’t. However, after a lengthy discussion, she just did. She was calming herself down, and as soon as I told her how good she was and I let her go, she rammed into the back door. So I pulled her off, and asked her nicely to sit. She did. And I opened the door. She ran thru, so I shut the door. Then she body slammed herself back into the door. She’s so precious.

We all know that it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, and I take advantage of that well-known fact often. Raven’s an adolescent Doberwomann, so I forgive her “change-my-mind” antics. Most of the time.

I changed into dog clothes, and realized afterwards that the rice cooker hadn’t started rolling yet. The timer was off by an hour. I guess I can’t count as well as I used to. But this happened to be a good thing because I had wanted to put a pound of bacon in the rice tonight, and so, I did. We are having bacon-rice, eggs, and either cheese or string beans. I haven’t decided yet.

While doing that, my wonderful Doberchildren and Raven went outside and found remnants of a visit from Clem on the ground. Clem is our mischievious squirrel and he’d been up in the pine tree tasting the delights from the spirit of Eule Gibbons. When he’s finished with a cone, he drops the core, much like a corn cob. Sometimes, he throws down perfectly good whole cones. Wherever he choses to eat, he seems to taunt the dogs.

Clem on his super high stump

I grabbed the pooper scooper to collect what I could and had a nice collection as I walked back to the pooper scooper barrel…er, bucket. Raven was walking ahead of me, as her PITA self often does. Right in the middle of from here to there, she stopped to pick up one of Clem’s discards. I rammed into her, and poop fell off the scooper and guess what I stepped in? OK…this made up for the happy dance I did about not having to wash out Lilian’s crate tonight. Raven is getting good at pulling the happiness carpet right out from under me.

I hobbled over to wash the sole of my shoe off, unloaded the remainder of doo-dee into bucket, then rinsed the pavers off. The middle pavers where the poop remnants were is the dip-area. So when rinsing it off, a lake forms. This happened to be a polluted lake. So I had to clean it twice as much with broom and disinfectant. This gave the Doberkids plenty of time to find a way to get their paws wet so they could walk in and out of the house with wet paws. I finally got the “wipe your feet” blanket down after the paver job was done. Then I had one question to answer.

Where’s Raven’s scrawny little neck? I want to hug it tightly tonight! Raaaaven!

Raven’s busy again

Post-BSL Letter Writing

Tonight, I wrote a letter to provide people information about a bill in Florida – HB 101 – that wants to revoke Florida’s anti-BSL law on the books. OK, so I heard the very beloved Dobies (that were and are the reason behind my passion to get this bill kicked like a football somewhere like to the moon, but further) loudly playing elsewhere in our small house. But I couldn’t stop writing to find out WHAT they were doing. When I’m writing, it’s not lilke I can stop the flow and turn it on again like a faucet. Well, OK, I can, but it really bugs me to have to do that, and the new flow is never like the old flow.

Let me say there is a certain irony to having sweated out a few good words for my freedom and those of my Dobies, then to walk into the living room and find that one of the 3 pieces of furniture left in my house had started to be used as a chew toy.

May I present the Exhibit?

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

Note the soft and comfy doggy blankey is unscathed.

I called in the nose of the family. The one who speaks the truth and I know it. Annie. She told me what she smelled all over those foam rubber buttons.

Annie explains what her nose knows

Later on she whispered a name in my ear. I pretty much figured it was one or the other of my innocent puppies, but I was leaning more towards the one who had a look in her eyes earlier in the day that made me worry…that look in her eyes is like an earthquake predictor.

Raven, where is your halo?

OK, but instead of an earthquake, it was a volcanic eruption of foam rubber. The couch suddenly opened up and the stuff just came popping out. That’s Raven’s story and she’s sticking to it.

And the judge and jury, that would be Helen and Annie, believe Raven’s story this time. We know who the chewer of “stuff” is. OK, one of them. Taadaa! Luna. Guilt is all over this Doberchickies’ face!

Luna’s the culprit

Or is it more on the face of Lilian? With a Doberbeak like that, pulling open a sofa is nothing. As a matter of fact, the reason we no longer have the matching loveseat is due to the beak on this Doberpecker’s face!

Lilian’s beak

Gotta love them. They keep me on my toes.