Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours! 

It's not perfect, but it's as good as we could manage with a timer and two very confused pets.

Camping

 

Js, Nova and I headed out Saturday morning for Riverhurst, SK to attempt our first camping trip. We were expecting a nice relaxing time and we got just that. It was great to not worry about the time or when what needs to get done. We just walked around, played in the lake with the Noves and just shot the shit until time to go home came around. We would have liked to stay longer but the weather was getting kinda shitty so we packed up after just one night. Definitely will be better prepared for SK weather next time and hopefully get to stay a bit longer.

We didn't even fight setting up the tent. YAY for us!

Smores were enjoyed by all.

Nova got spoiled

We drove to Regina on Monday because we needed to buy more food for Jacko and Nova ended up being the one getting spoiled at the pet supply store.

This winter has been especially cold and when we walk her for too long, she just drops to the ground and tries to warm herself up when she gets too cold. Then we have to stand there and freeze until she's warm enough to keep walking. Le sigh. Js decided she needed a coat and I decided it needed to be stylish. She is a fancy lady after all. :)

We also got her a new bed for the living room because the one in her crate was getting a bit ew so her living-room bed got demoted to crate-bed to make room for this prettier and matchy-matchy-er one.

Work it.

New camera fun!

A bit ago I promised to post some pictures taken with my new Canon Rebel camera Js bought me for Christmas.

We took Nova to the Wakamow Valley park here in Moose Jaw and everyone had tons of fun. Her with a frozen tennis ball, Js chasing her around and me with my new toy.

Hi.

My dog. She's skilled.

It was a gorgeous day.

Merry Christmas!

It was hard enough getting Nova to stay still for a couple seconds, I didn't get a chance to include Jacko in the picture - he sends his love.

Day 01 - A picture of yourself with fifteen facts.

1. I live in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
2. I am being shot at with a Nerf gun.
3. I'm married to the man of my dreams, Js.
4. Said man of my dreams is currently shooting at my cat with a Nerf gun.
5. I have a cat names Jack and a dog named Nova.
6. I get really annoyed by Nerf guns.
7. I have been blogging for a little over two years.
8. I'm a military spouse.
9. My first language is French.
10. I'm short.
11. I really enjoy Indian food.
12. I love to bake and cook.
13. I love my job.
14. I am, yet again, being shot at with a Nerf gun.
15. I can be surprisingly patient, at times.

Holiday Preps

The Holiday preparations have officially started at the "L." household! :) Last year, we waited until the last possible moment and then got hit with a monster snow storm so the lights never went up outside. This year, my nagging worked and we produced a very disorganized and amateurish display of colorful lights tangled in the branches of our dying tree. Oh, the joys of the season.

Nova was there to ensure the quality of our work.

 

And behold, the glamorous results :

Dog vs Mat

I was quietly preparing dinner (zapping some left over lasagna I slaved over the day before) and I heard a weird noise coming from the side door. Kinda like a "hacking" noise but I knew Jacko was upstairs. "Shite! The dog's about to puke and she's asking for the door!" *runs paper towel in hand*

I slammed on the breaks before I got too close when I saw what was really going on. We'd given Nova the end of a raw-hide in the morning so we could play video games - yes, we're horrible pet owners. My precious, brilliant dog had decided she wanted to bury it somewhere in the house. After searching high and low, she decided behind the side door was the best option. She could then cover it with the mat.

The noise I heard was her trying to push the little mat around with her nose... front paws solidly planted on it. So there she was, pushing with all her might and holding it down in place blinded by her determination. I stood there, laughing and waiting to see what she would do next. In my defense, I didn't know how bad it was at this point - it was just horribly cute. After a while she figured it out (!!) and started scratching and nudging the mat in place. Eventually she had done it, the little raw-hide was (almost) entirely hidden under a giant pile of mat.

She looks over at me with so much pride and happiness like she was saying : Look Ma, no one will ever find it now! Tell me I'm a good girl! I look a bit closer and notice something is a bit off on her face and the mat and floor are covered in streaks of... what is this? Blood?! Nova rug-burned her nose. Like, bleeding and all. She worked so hard she never felt a thing but now she has a little bald spot on the top of her nose, it's kinda scabbing and a bit gross but healing.

Nova : 0
Mat : 1

Home is where your cat is.

I never thought I could miss a little fuzzy thing like my Jacko so damn much. Yes, I do miss Js and Nova and everyone else but missing Jack's been pretty difficult in this whole situation.

I miss Js with all my heart but I can call him, I know he's there for me and thinking about me while I'm away. I know he wishes he could be here with me during this difficult time to support me and my family and that is incredibly comforting.

Since I adopted Jack 5 years ago (already!), he's always been there. I've always been able to find comfort in snuggling my nose in his neck and falling asleep to his soft purr. When old boyfriends dumped me, when Js left, when Js came back, when Js left again and came back again and left again, when I decided I was moving wherever Js got posted, when I found out it was Saskatchewan, when I miss my family, when I opened up old wounds to learn to live again - Jack was always there. He's my constant and when I look at him, I know I'm where I should be. It's silly really, to attach such a huge emotional hook to a small kitty cat who can't even talk let alone understand everything that I rely on him for. Maybe it's just that. He's there no matter how much I depend on him, he can't talk back and he lets me make my own decisions and just snuggles.

The challenges that I've faced this week definitely call for a very long snuggles session between Jacko and me to restore my strength and courage. He's 3000kms away and it sucks.

Reason #2256 why our dog is damaged - The Oven Monster

A bit ago, I posted a link to a blog post from Hyperbole and a Half's Dog entry claiming that it was a perfect depiction of Nova. Case in point :

Side note : Since we've had her, Nova's been introduced to crate training. We are firm believers in crate training a dog, especially a high energy dog like Nova. It allows her to have a "safe place" where she can relax and sort of "shut down" to fall asleep. If she weren't crate trained, she'd spend the entire night roaming around the house, investigating every little smell or sound - not good. Same as when we're at work - she's safe in there, not running around building on anxiety for being left alone. She just zones out and falls asleep, knowing we'll be back soon to let her out again. Basics of crate training but I always feel like I should explain because we often get weird looks when we say she's crated at night. Given her past, she's prone to anxiety so it's best for her to be contained - kinda like my messed-up self.

One random evening late after dinner, Js and I decided to go out to the movies. We looked up the show times online and saw that the last showing was in about half an hour. I had baked something for desert and it was just about ready so we stuffed a couple in my purse and away we went. Nova safely resting in her crate for the night, we left the house.

We came back, nearly 2 hours later and Nova was unusually quiet. Normally, the minute the car pulls up we can hear her whining her misery - how dare we leave her for such a long, unbearable time? This time, there was nothing - no cries, no weeping. As we walk up to the house we hear a faint beeeeep-beeeeeep.

"Where the hell is that coming from?"
"I don't know... sounds like it's from inside the house." The call is coming from inside the house!
"Huh... sounds a lot like our oven timer."
"Huh..."


We turned off the oven but in our rush to catch the movie, we forgot to turn off the timer. That timer is one of the most annoying inventions known to mankind. It's very pushy and insistent.


Beeeee-beeeep. I'm done. Beeeeep-beeeeeep. Com'on guys, I'm done! Beeeeeep-beeeeep. Hey, look alive! You ask me to tell you in 10 minutes, I tell you in 10 minutes and what do you do? You ignore me? I think not! Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Our poor, poor Nova had to put up with nearly 2 hours of incessant beeping. Now, every time timer goes off or the oven beeps because it's done pre-heating (wouldn't it be nice if men had that function?) she goes into a frenzy! She runs in circles around whatever piece of furniture is closest and lets out weird little barks - not loud enough to get into trouble or to interrupt the Beep-BEEEEEEP Monster.


And that, ladies and gents, is one of the many ways our dog is damaged.

Hyperbole and a Half - Addiction and a Half

First off, I'd like to apologize to anyone who reads this who isn't already addicted to Hyperbole and a Half because you're about to be - INTERNET FOREVER! Hyperbole and a Half is a totally hilarious, totally fantastic blog that I discovered a while back then kinda lost in the abyss of cyberspace when my lappy went kablamo. I have found it again and it's full of win.

Now, why would I do such a thing as get everyone else addicted to it, you may ask?! Well today's post just essploded with awesome and well... for anyone who's met our dog, Nova - it's perfect. It's a description of Nova down to the very last retarded detail.

I won't give it all away because you should really check out the blog but I'll leave you with this little tid-bit :

A lingering fear of mine was confirmed last night:  My dog might be slightly retarded.
I've wondered about her intelligence ever since I adopted her and subsequently discovered that she was unable to figure out how stairs worked.

Dog for sale!

This weekend is supposed to be the Base Yard-Sale and true to Saskatchewan weather, it's raining. It's been pissing buckets all week and everyone hoped it would stop in time for the event. It was supposed to be today and then pushed back to tomorrow if it rains. If the sun doesn't come up tomorrow, I'm having a Living-Room-Sale.

To keep myself entertained and ready for the slightest ray of sunshine, I priced everything in the house yesterday. In a moment of craziness, I priced Nova for $0.30 ... she didn't get what was so funny.

Js bought her.

Crazy dreams - Sea animals and the end of the world

Last couple of weird dreams I had, I blamed the prescription medication. This time, too much sugar and wine might be the cause.

**Warning, very weird and disturbing dream ahead. I promise I'm not deranged.

So we'd borrowed some animals from Sea World, we kept them in a box until we had to return them for our amusement. Evil, I know. They were kind of weird too... one of them was a Sea Dog. It's was pretty much Nova with gills that looked a bit like an otter. So... anyways, for some reason I had to leave Moose Jaw and I was really upset but it would allow me to drop off the sea animals in Winnipeg on my way back to Ontario so I kinda had to do it. (?) So I left without telling anyone, boxed up Sea Dog in tow.

When I got to Sea World Winnipeg, the nice lady in a wet suit told me that we could only return sea animals on Sunday and being Thursday, I'd have to wait a couple days. So I slid down an ice structure to where I could find food and shelter for me and my sea dog for the next couple days. On the way, heard some cries for help so I stopped sliding because I'm magical like that and saw that some people had fallen over. So I found a piece of string and helped them out. The lady and her 2 daughters offered to take me and Sea Nova into their home until Sunday to thank me. Bad idea.

As we walked over to their home, I left Sea Nova at a Sea Kennel and got the weird feeling everyone was in a panic. I started looking around and everyone was preparing for the end of the world. Setting up shelters on the roof, packing up supplies and everyone was wearing rubber boots. The lady left her 2 daughters outside as they were begging her "not to do it again" and she said "well I have to show our guest so she knows!" and left them to play in the snow. The daughters are kinda strange and I stay behind to have a good look at them. They look like normal happy kids but they seem totally oblivious to everything that's happening around them. The youngest one looks like she's wearing pink play-handcuffs.

I walked into her house and it seemed pretty normal. There were too many knick-knacks for my taste but nothing I couldn't tolerate for a couple of days. Right in the middle of the place, there is what looks like a defibrillator machine but the paddles are hooked up to the ceiling. The woman then explains to me how she's discovered a source of electromagnetic energy (I blame Lost for this one!) that will save her and her daughters from the catastrophe. She says that sending shocks into her house will "shake off the water if there's a flood", "protect the home during earthquakes" and "will make it fireproof" somehow. She needs to show me what happens so I can be prepared in case she needs to set it off while I'm there. I assume that's what her daughters were warning her about before but don't make much of it.

She presses a button and the entire house lifts off it's foundation and starts to shake like a cell phone on vibrate. Everything stays in place, she explains, because everything's moving at the same time. She finally stops the machine and then runs outside.

I immediately see her oldest daughter laying limply in the front yard but she doesn't seem to notice. She is frantically looking for the youngest one who's nowhere to be found. I stand there, like stunned, staring at the oldest one in the snow. A stranger walks by on the street and yells "That girl looks dead!". I take a closer look and see he's right so I get the mom's attention but she doesn't seem to care - she's still looking for the young one. So the stranger-man picks up the lifeless little body and brings her to her mom and then the girl wakes up a bit and says something along the lines of "Why did you have to do it again?" - the mom doesn't seem to care and keeps asking about her younger sister. The weak girl lifts up her head and says "You can stop looking." and shows that she's wearing the handcuffs now and then passes out.

...then I woke up.

Pup-Pride - Nova teaches a lesson to young girls everywhere

This photo is to demonstrate Nova's skills and how obedience classes pay off on so many levels.

The cutie you see there in Amanda's backyard is Diesel, Nova's crush. She used to be all up on him like a ShackRat at Mess on a Friday evening but now, she is (mostly) cool and collected as she sit-stays on the other side of the street. Good girl. :)

The picture doesn't quite illustrate the degree of dog-owner-pride (and creepy-middle-of-the-street-picture-taker) I experienced during our short but fun walk today. As the weather becomes more and more ... survivable on the Prairies, I'm looking forward to walking her more regularly. Does both of us good and allows me to show off my well-behaved puppers.

Woe is our dog

Js went to Ontario to visit family and friends this week. I got to go for the Holidays, he got to go in February. That was the deal.

Nova does not approve.

She's been going crazy, pacing around the house, looking for him. She's been driving me batty.

Normally, she's all up in our grills, sniffing at our faces being the happy puppy that she is. This week, she's been hiding in the basement and just staring out the window constantly. She waits by the front door, then the side door, then the front door, then the side door ad nauseam.

At night, when I let her out for her last pee before bed she refuses to come back inside. I have to put on my coat and go out there to drag her back in. I think she waits for Js to come get her because that's what normally happens.

I know she must be bored out of her mind especially because I can't really go out and walk her. I can't even walk myself right now unless it's in very tight circles.

I feel like I should do a countdown and mark the calendar for Nova so we can count the sleeps until Js gets back... we are lame people. :)

Jack, however, is dealing quite well with having me at home all day.

Nova : 1 - Fence : 0

So Nova decided that her backyard lead wasn't long/sturdy enough for her anymore so she pulled and tugged and chewed until she was free. She comes back into the house after a short pee and runs right past me, 5 feet of lead trailing behind her.

We grumpily get into the car to go get a new one at Wal-Mart. It's sturdier and long enough so we can tie her to the side of the fence and she can roam about everywhere in our backyard as she pleases. No longer restrained to her usual area, Nova is overjoyed. Our fence is not.

She actually pulled a whole chunk of the fence straight off and dragged it around as she sniffed about the backyard.

I open the door to let her back in and didn't notice the fence right away. I see that she's all the way at the end of the yard, rolling around in a patch of snow crazily happy. I call her and she comes running to me and as she does so I think "Huh... I didn't know it was THAT long..." She zooms right by me again and I start pulling on the lead and what do I see, slowly making it's way towards me from across the yard?! A chunk of fence.



Nova weighs just about 50 pounds and she is not even a little bit destructive. I don't think she needed to pull that hard to get the fence to come apart but we did get quite the chuckle out of it. :)

As far as CFHA is concerned, it was like that when we got it.

Sunday Lazy Sunday

Couple Year Old Doggie Bag

So I'm in the kitchen, doing the dishes after dinner and Js is in the basement getting his hockey gear ready. Jack's somewhere upstairs snoozing and Nova is in the living room, pawing at a toy that rolled under our little love seat... or so we think.

Js comes back up the stairs and walks into the kitchen.
- Honey, where did you get that dog treat from?
- *blank stare*
- That treat that Nova's eating... where'd you get it from? I don't remember buying that.
- *blank stare* Whu...?

As he realizes that I didn't give Nova any treats, both our brains go "What's she eating now!?" and we rush to the living room.

Much to my surprise, Js fishes out of her mouth, a little stick of raw hide, the kind for smaller dogs. I have never bought that. Ever. Neither has he.

I mention the love-seat-clawing session from earlier so he goes and lifts it up. There it is, a brand new, fresh rip right under the seat. Perfect hiding spot for dog treats. It's nicely hidden so at least there is no damage done but it's quite funny.

Now, to figure out where/when the thing came from!!

Here's a brief review of this love seat's life to help shed some light.

???? to 2003 - My Aunt bought this love seat brand new. During that time, she had a cute little dog called Misty.
2003 - 2004 - Maggie and I lived on Carmen Ave in Ottawa. No dog.
2004 - 2005 - Maggie and I lived (again) on Donald St in Ottawa. Surelock lived with us for a couple weeks and he was very very little - I don't think he would have hidden a raw hide out of pure clumsy puppy-ness.
2005 - 2006 - Lived with Marianne in Orleans. Marianne's dog, Lola, was a large breed and I don't think Marianne ever gave her much raw hide. Mocha, Marianne's mom's dog was a small beagle/pig - she wouldn't have skipped out on a treat. Yeah, it was a ZOO!
2006-2009 - Jack and I were joined later by Js in our appartment on Mona Ave in Ottawa. No dog. Jf may have brought over little Romeo for a visit - still no chances of raw hide.
2009 - present - Nova arrived in our lives and we know we never bought her that kind of raw hide. WAY too teeny for her, it lasted about 10 seconds.

Anyone mentioned above is more than encouraged to speak up if you ever intended to play a joke on us to see how long it would take for our future dog to eventually find the treat. It was brilliant! :) Good thing Nova's more of a clawer than a chewer! :)

Oh, to be a dog.