Retirement and Dogs Part 15

Mason, GG and my grandson Alex

Mason, GG and my grandson Alex

Argh, he’s still here.

I’m sure we all who have a dog thinks their dog is special, and I’m not saying Mason isn’t special, but he’s a little off. I’m not saying he doesn’t have his good moments, but those are mostly a relief that I’m not calling his name for something he’s doing wrong. We all have our way of dealing with Mason, like GG pushes him down the steps with her nose, I show him the remote, and K, well, the back scratcher is her weapon of choice.

Alex weapon of choice for Mason

Let me give you a scenario: I have put stairs up to the bed for GG to come up more easily as she’s gotten older. Mason will go and lay across the stairs so that she can’t come up, then GG starts barking to let me know that something is wrong. I start calling Mason to move, and after about the sixth time calling his name, he’ll turn his head toward me and go back to pretending he hasn’t heard me. This is annoying, just as if it was a child doing it. Finally, I pick up the remote and have to get up off my comfortable spot  to stand in front of him and wave the remote, and then he takes his time getting up. Boy, oh boy, I really want to pop him. I’m not saying he has never gotten popped, but it has been very few  times because I’m scared I might have flashbacks to all the things this dog has caused and done, and I might not stop. The newspaper headline would read “Woman in Jail for Beating Her Dog.” If I’m going to jail for anything, let it be something worthwhile, and not because of Mason. Has anyone noticed in his pictures Mason’s head is small? Does that mean he has limited intelligence for a dog’s standard or what? Let me give you a comparison: GG was home alone when I went to work, so she had to get used to weather occurrences. Mason gets left home with GG, but maybe since she has no interest in him he feels he’s home alone. GG has no problem with thunder, lighting, rain or snow. Mason has issues with all weather conditions, except sunshine. When it’s  thundering and lightening  most dogs get scared, shake and try to find a comfortable place to hide. Mason not only does those things, but we all have to get into the bed. I mean GG, K and myself have to get in the bed, and Mason  lays on the bed and faces the wall and stares. Not normal. What’s even weirder is he will stare at things when the rain is far away. The rain can be in Delaware and moving our way, and Mason would be staring at the food container or anything in his path. We have come to use our weather dog for more accurate weather predictions than the weatherman. My cousin emails me and says “ I know you are being held hostage.” I guess that could be a true statement. We can only move when he finally moves. What you are wondering, is what happens if we don’t get in the bed. Mason is running around upstairs, downstairs, barking and shaking. I’m afraid he will give hisself a heart attack. We had to finally take him to the doctor for something to help, because the thunder shirt didn’t work, nor the shock collar. The first time he had anxiety meds they where too strong, and Mason would be staring at the trash can or walls with no rain forecasted for the east coast. We had to take him back for a lesser dosage because he was scary. One night I dreamt I turned over and he was on top of me showing me his teeth, but when I was fully awake, he was laying down sleeping. I hope it was a dream. Mason meds are regulated, he still stares, but he is better with the shaking. I hope you enjoyed this blog about Mason, and you look forward to next week’s blog. Be safe.

Retirement and Dogs Part 14

Mason my problem child

The tension in the house was at a all time high. My partner, K, wanted Mason out, and so did GG. I just couldn’t do it. My partner and I were arguing at home, but that wasn’t enough, so she’d call me on her way to work to argue some more. It was crazy. Sure, I could have her find a home for him, but I came to need him. You see, when she decided to go to Afghanistan, I would use Mason as a watch dog. He was probably three years old. Mason did not let anyone walk past the house without barking. The person could be two blocks away and he’d start barking, so it was somewhat comforting to have him at home. I did understand that he was a good watch dog from afar, because as soon as someone saw him they would see this little Shih Tzu with a big mouth. Mason couldn’t leave now, so if K’s intention was for me to do something with him, that backfired on her. I know what you are thinking: why not just find him a good home with kids, and an adult who would be at home all day, or a senior. I don’t know why I was so against it, except that I didn’t see anyone keeping him for long, and he’d end up in a shelter somewhere. We paid a good amount of money for him, plus three couches and French doors to keep him in blocked into the kitchen, and a crate. We are not rich people so the expense of Mason was enormous. GG still had very little interaction with him, but he continued to try to get her to play tag with him. My spouse would watch all kinds of dog training shows and nothing worked. He was untrainable. How did I come to that conclusion? Well, my partner took him to Petsmart for dog training. I didn’t attend, and my partner said he was a embarrassment. Mason wouldn’t follow any commands, and even pooped on the floor. He barked at all the dogs, and was a disruption to the class. Untrainable. She was, in so many words, asked not to bring him back, and maybe he would benefit from one-on-one training. We just couldn’t afford anything else that pertained to Mason. There did come a time when I thought “Mason has to go.” He was costing us a fortune. I was only given the cold shoulder by GG, whenever he came near me. What I mean by “cold shoulder” is that I’d call her, and she’d look at me and turn her head. Again, I couldn’t get rid of him with my partner leaving. What would you have done? I did my best to deal with him and stopped arguing. She was leaving, why should she care? I don’t know how many of you take your dogs to the vet, but it’s expensive. The vet we use cost $300 just for shots for one of them, so that was doubled. The groomer is $160 for the both of them, and there’s no tax deduction for it. I’m telling you this in case any of you are thinking of getting a puppy. I couldn’t believe one dog could do so much damage, not just to our home, but to my relationship with K and GG. The biggest problem was that we were both working, and Mason more or less had to teach himself. He was like a latch key kid on his/her own, while his/her parents were at work. GG didn’t care for him and was happy, being the only dog, so teaching Mason wasn’t one of the things she had any interest in doing. I was in unfamiliar territory because I didn’t have any of these problems with GG. GG learned quickly how to use the weewee pad and not destroy the house. When people came to my home there was no smell. They didn’t know I had a dog until the person saw her. Mason on the other hand had us buying stock in air freshener companies, we were buying so much of the stuff. You think that’s it, not by a long shot. Be safe and look out for part 15 next week.

Retirement and Dogs Part 13

Mason with his stupid grin

It’s been a while since I posted on WordPress. My mother passed away just before Christmas,and writing was the last thought on my mind. It still hurts, but somehow I’ve decided to use writing as a healing tool. It is one step at a time these days, and some steps are easier to achieve than others.

Mason, as you have read in my previous blog, is a handful. GG hated him, and my partner and I were at our wit’s end over what to do with him. There was no leaving him downstairs at night, since he would somehow manage to get upstairs. The mess he would make was unbelievable, or maybe I was tired after my commute to work and back home. We tried to have a routine for him by taking him out when one of us came home; but it seemed that whether he went out in the mornings or evenings, there would still be a mess to clean up in the mornings. This dog had more poop in him than a dog park. It was unbelievable. The neighborhood kids for some reason loved him.They were always asking about walking him and GG. I decided to help this young lady with her dog-walking business by letting her and a friend walk them. I paid them a few dollars until I discovered they weren’t really walking them at all; they would take them to her porch and sit. That was the end of helping the kids with their dog-walking business. I was back walking them in the evenings when I came home. I say me,because as I wrote in a previous blog, my partner would make up all kinds of excuses as to why she had to work late. I know, because in one of our usual Mason arguments, she let it slip out. Can you believe this? I couldn’t. I’m getting up at 3am, and getting home at 6pm; and she didn’t want to walk or clean up, so she just didn’t come home until she was sure I was. Well, once you say it, there’s no way to take it back. Once I knew what she was doing, that came to a stop; and fast. I wasn’t having it, because Mason was out of control. Well, she topped me by volunteering to go to Afghanistan for a year. I’m not going to say Mason was the only reason, but he did play a part in that decision. I was on my own with these two. I don’t know how many of you have dogs, but walking GG and Mason was tactical. The first thing you had to do when taking Mason out was survey the area to make sure there were no people or pets there. The problem came when he saw people that spoke to me. He would try and jump and bite the person. If he saw another animal he would bark like crazy,pulling me and the leash in the direction of the other animal. I would end up holding the leash up high so his feet were no longer on the ground, they were moving in the air, trying to get to the other animal. GG just tries to stay out of his way. It’s a crazy scene. The only way to avoid this kind of problem was if someone was coming down the street, I would walk in the opposite direction. When there were animals or people coming from both directions, I was screwed. We still to this day act like police surveying the area before we can leave the house.

Mason would try to play with her, but GG was having it. He would hit her with his paw trying to get her to chase him. She would just go sit down in another area. He would push her out the way when coming from outdoors so he could come in first and then look behind himself to see if she was chasing him. She would just mosey along. The thing Mason did that bothered GG the most was he hid milk bones all through the house. I wondered if he thought a famine was coming, and wanted to make sure he had food. GG would watch him hide the milk bones.wait for a while, and then would go get the milk bone. That would make him so mad. We realized that leaving him downstairs was not going to work, so we would all go up together. Mason would have bothered GG all day; so, when she got to the top of the stairs first, she would bump him with her nose and he would would go tumbling downstairs. He eventually knew what was going to happen, and he’d wait for her to go into the bedroom before he would come upstairs. It was funny, but then again not funny, because he could have broken something; but I understood GG’s frustration, because we were all frustrated with Mason. I’m glad to be back blogging; it’s a relief I desperately need. I will be posting to the Unique Things blog this week also. Retirement in Dogs Part 14 will be published this week, so look out for it.

Retirement and Dogs Part 12

Mason believes in his comfort never mind anyone else

Mason Did What?

I’ll start by recapping my last blog. I was on my way to having that fantasy we all dream of as children. The marriage, kids, and white picket fence, however in my case the marriage was a relationship with a woman, the kids were dogs and the white picket fence was a cement floor patio. It was all good never the less. I was finally able to get another dog for company for GG. We named him Mason. Mason was a fluffy little crossed eyed dog that deceived my partner with hugs and kisses. GG ignored him no matter how he tried to cozy up to her. She would just move to the other side of the room and watch him. I wonder if she was waiting for him to touch her toys so she could drag him across the floor like a mop. I thought I got the evil eye for leaving her on the weekends to go out but the look I got now was worst. Mason didn’t do much but sleep and try to snuggle with you. I made sure when GG was looking I didn’t touch him for long because the evil eye was worst than the why is he here look. Every look of hers seemed to get worst than the one before or maybe it was my imagination. I didn’t crate train GG so I figured it was no need to do it with Mason even though my partner K thought we should. Well, we let them have run of the house while we were at work, this was a big mistake. I would get home first and ever time I walked in the house the mess was worst than the day before. We forgot boy dog peeing everywhere, torn training pads and chewed furniture legs. It was horrible. I figured out that K was staying at work just so she didn’t have to clean up the mess. Why didn’t I think of that first. Our relationship was going to hell with arguments about Mason. GG would just look at me with a who told you to bring him here look. I could scream. We took Mason to the vet to get fixed, which I hoped would stop some of his bad behavior. The vet said he was still kind of young for the procedure but she would do it because he was well endowed. What the blank did that mean. Was she saying he was a baby making machine or what. I just looked at her with a blank look not knowing what to say. We slept upstairs with Gg.  She slept at the end of the bed on top of the cover. We bought Mason a crate after awhile because the stress of coming home to a mess was to much. We were going let him sleep in his crate at night. Mason cried all night and me having to get up at 3am for my commute made me not a happy camper. We tried putting him in his crate during the day but his crying was so loud we thought someone would call animal control. I mean he was loud and it probably seemed louder at 4:45am when I left for the bus. We had a nice comfortable couch I mean those cushions were so soft your butt sank right in. We had to throw it out because Mason thought it was his fire hydrant. The couch was maybe 2yrs old only and K was not happy. Mason had one paw out the door. We then decided not to crate him but to put up a gate across the kitchen entry way. We were hoping he would not cry if he wasn’t confined, well one night we were upstairs watching television and out of nowhere Mason was coming up the stairs we had for GG to get up and down from the bed. I can’t tell you to this day how he got over the fence and up the stairs. I’m only beginning with Mason’s escapades. You’ll have to read next week for more of his shenanigans. Have a safe week

Retirement and Dogs Part 11

Mason older picture

Just Because

I’ll give you a short recap of the previous blog. GG and I moved in with K, who I was in a exclusive relationship with. We were trying to find common ground, or maybe I should say, compromise. We were going out on weekends and GG was left at home alone. I felt guilty, because she wasn’t my first priority and I had yet to find the balance between her and the relationship. I thought getting another dog for company might help; at least then she would have company. I would bring up another dog, and K would shoot the idea down. I was excited when I asked and finally got an okay. We went to PetSmart to look at their dogs. There were some cuties, but after hearing that they dealt with puppy mills, I thought we should go to the Puppy Barn. Many years ago, I got a golden retriever from them, and my experience was good. The Puppy Barn had all kinds of puppies, and I knew I wanted a king Charles or another Shih Tzu, and preferably a female.

However, I figured I’d let K pick the dog, just because it was her first experience buying a dog, and I figured she’d be more involved and invested if she thought mentally that this was her own dog. I had no problem with that, I just wanted company for GG; those sad eyes of hers were killing me. Puppy Barn, here we come. The first dog she picked was a boy, who was lovable and loved to lick you. We named him Rudy because he seemed like a lover. Rudy had a cold, so the attendant at the Puppy Barn told us to let them have a doctor look at him and to come back on Monday. We were on our way to Atlantic City for the day, so Monday was good for us. The ride to Atlantic City was full of excitement, it was Rudy this and Rudy that. I didn’t realize that all of the excitement was coming from me. I should have known it was too good to be true, and it was. K had all kinds of doubts. The trip to Atlantic City was no longer a fun trip, and by the time we got back home, Rudy was no longer a reality.

As the days passed, we were tense with each other and I only paid attention to GG, which K hates. I’ll be honest, right now K was  and still is jealous of GG and it was obvious to me. Finally, about a week later, she agreed to get Rudy and bring him home. The ride to Puppy Barn once again was full of excitement, and this time I made sure it wasn’t just me. When we got to the Puppy Barn and inquired about Rudy, we were told that he had been sold. I could have cried. K saw how upset I was, and suggested we look for another puppy. I let K take the lead, walking around and holding puppies. She seemed to melt with each puppy she held. We walked around twice, looking and holding. I was still going to let her pick the puppy and name him/her. We kept coming back to a stall that had Shih Tzu’s in it. There must have been about 6 puppies all playing together, with one curled up by himself in the corner. K picked him up and he started licking and K was in love. The puppy was a boy, but it was her choice. The Puppy Barn checked him out and gave us our going home package and instructions. We had a new addition to our home.

He was cute and fluffy and seemed to curl right up in my arms for the drive home. I’m bad with time, but I’d say that GG was about 6 years old now. I couldn’t wait for her to see her little brother. Our little family was complete in my eyes. We were two gay women, with two dogs and a house; no white picket fence, but we had a patio. We finally got home, and I carried him into the house. GG was on the bed, so I took him over to her to introduce him to her and she looked at him and moved far away from him. I was like, “Okay, let’s all sit together and name him,” but she stayed away. K decided that his name would be Mason. When we looked at him closely, we noticed his eyes were crossed. Maybe all of this was a sign of something not good. What was worse than his crossed eyes, was the fact GG refused to acknowledge him at all. Mason would try to snuggle up to her, and she’d move away from him. What did I do? This was just the beginning of the story of Mason, the dog from hell. Have a safe week.

GG being uninterested