Don't kiss Leroy

Turns out that if I only blog when I have something interesting to say, I never blog. Instead, I’ll update you all on a series of mundane happenings in my life. I hope you enjoy the redesign (if picking a different template and clicking okay counts as a redesign) of the site. During the dreariness of this season, I thought a bit of brightness could be nice.

Monday was our first puppy school class with puppies (the first was parents only). The teacher tried to put certain dogs in certain corners so as to minimize barking. She made the mistake of putting Leroy in the center of the room. He took turns setting off 3 other dogs into barking matches. The teacher used him as an example for two exercises and he proved that he will enthusiastically do anything for food.

Jack is homeschooled on Tuesday nights. This means one of us takes him into a room and shuts the door to work on the exercises we learned in class. Leroy sits outside the door and complains. Apparently Jack’s natural obedience is more a product of his lack of curiosity and laziness. Mostly when I do the exercises with him he stares at me with a sort of blank/confused look on his face. He is not accustomed to having to do anything more than sit and/or balance things on his head for treats.

And for the final and unfortunate puppy-related update—Leroy is a poop eater. His own, other dogs’, it doesn’t matter to him. I think Leroy equates walk time with open buffet time more than potty time. The first time I realized he had something in his mouth on a walk I made the unwise choice to go in after it. I do not make that mistake anymore. I have seen dogs eat poop before, but never with this kind of gusto.

Close to a resolution

I watched Oprah last night and this week it’s all about living your best life. I thought about how it might be nice to drink less, eat healthier, and exercise more. Maybe I’d even start some of those gummy Flintstone vitamins. Kenny pointed out that we’d have to do all of those things when we had a baby anyway. No need to start now. I still might try those gummy vitamins.

Important Matters

Leroy is going to go to school to learn how to be a good boy. He is a good dog at the moment in that I have no doubt he would survive in the wild and keep himself well fed. We’re going to start him in a class where we give him treats in exchange for not being so dog-ish and also not so mountain goatish. We keep finding him sitting on top of things like his cage, his food container, our countertops.

Last night Kenny forgot that we have two dogs. Jack is comparatively quiet and hard to see. You’re usually all—hey, where’s Jack? Only to realize he is directly behind you or next to you. Last night I heard Jack crying and thought perhaps his collar had gotten stuck to a blanket or something. As I was already in bed and thus unable to move, I asked Kenny to find out what was wrong with Jack. He said, “Oh he’s fine. He’s sitting on the couch.” I called Jack. Leroy came. Jack continued to cry. It was then that Kenny realized the crying was coming from the hallway outside our apartment. Apparently Jack did not make it back through the door after Kenny had taken the boys out about ten minutes prior. He must have sat there for at least five minutes without making a sound—patiently waiting for his father to remember him.

Man I talk about my dogs a lot. Sorry about that. I will think of something not dog related for next time.

People who have wronged me

I always do this. I don’t post for weeks at a time and then I feel the need to post less than 24 hours later. Oh well. Here goes.

Lindsey reminded me that I neglected to mention the great injustice wrought upon the Kodkagel and Johnson households this weekend. A few weeks ago we discovered that Lindsey was to arrive in Chicago days before we were to leave Chicago. She has family in Rockford, IL see. There was great joy and celebration at the revelation that Lindsey could not only come by for a short visit—but that she could even stay overnight with us. Wine was stockpiled. The guest room was prepared. Her flight was supposed to get in around 11:00 am. I am sure you can see where this is going. Since she was both flying United and flying into O’hare (the black hole we call an airport) I was certain we could expect her around 4 or 5 that evening. The weather was mildly cooperative. Her plane was not. United kept my Lindsey on a play for like 4 hours and didn’t take her anywhere. They also wouldn’t give her a meal voucher, and I’m pretty sure they made unkind insinuations about her mother. They cancelled her flight and refused to bring her to Chicago until the following evening—completely cancelling what was going to be a wonderful visit. This is not the first time United has wronged Lindsey, but it will be the last.

Also, there is a bit of a blizzard going on outside the office windows right now. It’s gonna be a fun drive to St. Louis in a few hours! At least we’re not putting our faith in United to get us there. They would probably hold our puppies hostage and make us go to Cincinatti or something. I’m pretty sure they do that sort of thing.

What? I have a blog?

I think this whole remembering to blog thing will be on my New Year's resolution list. I have several important things to tell both of you.

1. It is very cold in this Chicago place. Also, Kenny and I are brilliant. We decided to wait until yesterday to dig our car out of considerable ice and snow. It was 4 degrees below zero while we did this.
   
2. Leroy expressed his undying love for Jack today. He gave Jack a thorough bath. Licked the inside of both ears thoroughly and then moved onto the nether regions. Jack seemed to either not mind it or enjoy it. Either way, it's a victory in Jack-Leroy relations.
3. In other news and evidence of our high intelligence--it did not snow today or yesterday. We are opting to drive to St. Louis tomorrow night during the snow and ice storm.
4. Happy Hannukah or Hanukkah or Chanukkah. The burning candles are among the few items keeping us not completely frozen. If only it were not merely the second night.
5. Kenny has both of the puppies right now. This is in clear violation of the rules attached to the thermostat agreement the cheap bastard drew up a few weeks ago. I still love him.
6. Monday night football is a crappy way to squeeze more unwanted football into my life.
   
7. I really don't mind cleaning up puppy feces as much as I feel like I should.
   
8. I might have to go see two movies on Christmas day in allegiance to both Brad and Jen.
9. Numbers are an excuse to not have to come up with cohesive thoughts or segues.
   

Kiss kiss.

Soon he'll be cracking safes

Before I got home last night Kenny asked me to guess what Leroy had gotten into that day. We keep Leroy in the bathroom with the door shut. We tried keeping him in there with a baby gate reinforced with chairs, but he can easily clear the baby gate and apparently move chairs. I guessed that maybe he had gotten into the toilet paper, the towels, or maybe he’d figured out how to open the cabinet under the sink and distributed my tampons throughout the room. But no. Our new little guy had gotten into the medicine cabinet.

He must have jumped onto the toilet then onto the sink and figured out how to open the cabinet doors. Casualties included chap stick and some candles and lotion knocked to the floor. Thankfully he hadn’t gotten into any of the drugs or such. In his bed, he also had Kenny’s electric toothbrush we keep on a shelf under a window in the bathtub that is at least 4 feet high. He hadn’t chewed on the toothbrush. I guess he was just cuddling with it.

I took pictures of the crime scene, but you don’t get to see them. This whole forgetting to upload pictures thing prevents me from posting quite often. I figured today I would just write about it and you can use your imaginations.

Bad Bad Leroy Brown

Two Saturdays ago we picked out a little doggie named Spike at the animal control shelter. We were excited when we found out that he would have surgery (get neutered) the next morning and that we could pick him up later that day. We went straight to PetSmart and Target to buy him a bed, collar and of course clothes. You can't have a dog without clothes, right? I began rolling up and storing away all of our carpets. Sunday morning we got a call from the shelter saying that Spike could not be adopted because he had a cough. Kenny was getting ready to watch a football game with some boys and I was getting ready to go shopping with my friend Amy. We were both devastated. I was horrible company for Amy and spent most of the shopping trip mopey. The phone call had been sort of cryptic and we were half-way worried that they were just going to not treat him and euthanize him or something. I had asked what was going to happen to him, and she just told me it was complicated and we should pick out another dog. We barely slept that night. The next night I picked up Kenny after work, and we went back to the shelter so that we could figure out what was going on. By then Spike had been diagnosed with kennel cough and was in isolation and receiving treatment. For some reason they couldn’t just call us when he was better. A nice man who worked there gave us his cell phone number and said we could call him every three days to check on Spike’s condition. Finally when Kenny talked to him this Tuesday we got good news. He said we could pick him up between five and six on Wednesday.

Spike’s new name is Leroy as he is from the South Side of Chicago, stands about six foot four, and is meaner than a junkyard dog. Kenny took off work early to go pick him up. We were told and assumed he’d be groggy from having had his balls cut off earlier that day. This was not the case. They think he is part beagle part Jack Russel.

He'd been home for about a whole half hour before I had to put clothes on him. In all fairness though, we keep the house barely above freezing.


Jack is of course a little mad about the whole situation. He has moved from anger to tolerance. Leroy keeps trying to teach Jack about playing. Many have tried this. None have succeeded. The picture below features the backsides of the THREE boys with whom I now live.



We're going to have to work on this whole "sleeping" thing. Leroy tried to sit on my head at 2 am, 4 am, and 6 am this morning. Also, there was a scuffle at some point that resulted in Jack being ejected from his spot next to my legs and being replaced by Mr. Brown. The excellent news is that so far there have been zero accidents in the house.

Click here for more pictures.