Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Proceed With Caution….Day Two Hundred, Twenty Four

By

About a week or so ago, I wrote a post about the dogs ripping up toys.

Sometimes the toys are torn apart immediately and other times the toys remain untouched for an extended period of time. Some of the toys my dogs have they have had for years.

Even though we are lenient in letting the dogs rip their toys apart, we still monitor them when they are in a ripping frenzy.   Because you never know what is inside those toys.  Keep in mind almost everything we buy here in the states, is made in China overseas.  I found that out when I was trying to buy “Made in the USA” toys for my grandchildren’s Easter baskets.

A lot of the stuffed toys have the little round squeaker inside them, (you may recall we refer to them as “bubble gum”) Sampson and Delilah love to pull these out of the toy, chew the little squeaky mechanism off and then chew on the remaining piece.  Luckily for us, neither one of them has ever farted and squeaked or I’m pretty sure we would stop that practice all together!

Some of the larger stuffed toys, don’t squeak.  Their sound is different, deeper and more drawn out.  I discovered that these big toys harbor an even bigger secret.

Yes, the mechanism that makes the long drawn out noise, is housed inside the toy in a plastic bag!  Thankfully I was standing there when she yanked it out, and I watched to make sure she didn’t swallow any plastic.  It was actually quite large but folks, this is the dog whose mouth I pulled a plastic baggie full of ham from!

And just a couple of days ago, I pulled a plastic wrapper filled with pepperoni or sausage from her mouth because some idiot dropped it in the woods.  She’s not human and doesn’t have the sense to pull the wrappings off, so imagine the damage this could do to her intestines.

If you let your dogs rip up/chew up toys that’s great;  just please supervise to ensure nothing dangerous is in there.

What Is That?…Day Two Hundred, Twenty Three

By

I can’t figure Delilah out.  Most days she’s a pretty good girl, I mean yes she has her moments like licking the cabinets and floor and always being under your feet when you are preparing food.  She can go for long periods of time without getting into trouble.  And then one day….

While you are in your bathroom applying make-up for work, you hear it.  Smack, Smack, SMACK.  You venture out of the bathroom to find Delilah lying on her bed chewing the heck out of something.  It’s dark in the bedroom and you don’t have your glasses on, but you know she has something.

“Drop it!” you shout.  Delilah drops it.

You pick it up but you can’t see what it is, you say, “What the hell is that?”

It feels kind of hard, so you carry it out into the kitchen where there is more light and take a closer look.


Yes, it’s the stem of the banana, all that remains.

Naturally it wasn’t the only casualty that day.

What’s left of a candy wrapper and a napkin.

A crushed coolatta cup, left by the hubby in the sink.

You never know when the mood will strike.  Or what she will find.

Buzz Off….Day Two Hundred, Twenty Two

By

There is a reason I don’t spend an enormous amount of time outside.  The bugs love me and I am allergic to the biting bugs.

My skin is extremely sensitive.  9 out of 10 times, I can feel the mosquito bite me.  It swells up to about the size of a dime and it itches.

When I was about 12 I got stung on my thigh by two yellow jackets.  I had a hard, hot, itchy spot the size of a pancake on my thigh….for weeks.   When I was 17, I stepped barefooted on a bee’s nest.  The arch of my foot swelled so much that I actually needed crutches to walk because my arch is what I was walking on.  The last time I got stung by a bee it felt like someone took a red-hot needle and slowly pushed it into my toe, it brought instant tears to my eyes.  I went to the Dr after three weeks and got some steroids to make it go away.

Because of my sensitivity/allergy to biting insects you will normally find me walking my dogs in long pants, a long-sleeved shirt and a ball cap.  Even in the very hot, humid days of June, July and August.

Still the bugs love me.  As soon as I step onto the path, the first bug buzzes me.  Then he takes up the cry, “She’s here!”  “Dinnertime” “Come and get it while it’s hot.”  It is like the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor.  They swarm at me, buzz me and actually do fly bys.

I use insect repellent (Off, Cutters, Bugoff, Skin so Soft) I wear a bug band.  Once I even used two bug bands and hung them from my glasses.

And yet, most days still finds me removing my hat and fanning it back and forth to ward off the bugs.  You can imagine with my limited coordination how this looks, not to mention the many times I have smacked myself in the face being a little too zealous with the hat.

Yesterday I got bit.  On my arm. By what I think was a horsefly.  Through my long-sleeved shirt.  I felt it, in fact I looked down and said, “You bit me you f*&%*&r!”  Within minutes I had a welt.

It hurt, I mean it really hurt.  I didn’t have any ice, but I had cold water in the dog’s bottle so I put some cold water on it.  I kept my eye on it because I have never been bitten by a horsefly.  I know how I react to bee stings on my lower extremities, but I’ve never been bitten (knock on wood) by anything other than a mosquito on my upper half.

After about 20 minutes, the welt had subsided and I had a little bit of a red mark.  This is what it looked like when I got home. I washed it, iced it and put some Benadryl cream on it.  I also took a Benadryl.

This is what it looked like after 24 hours.

It is itchy as all get out!  I just took another Benadryl and put a salt paste on it, because I remember when I had the stings on my foot that the salt water of the ocean helped it.  I also put some Benadryl cream on it and I think I might ice it again.

So tell me, what do you use to protect yourself against bugs?    I’m actually considering getting one of those portable electric bug zappers that look like  a small tennis racket.

Picture courtesy of Gottahaveitforless.com

Hey it beats waving my hat and smacking myself in the face.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...