When I Die…

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When I die I want to come back as Layla.  Why?  She’s always happy, gets tons of love, affection and attention and shows her love by wagging her tail and showering me with lots  of doggy kisses. She sleeps peacefully for ten hours a night and takes at least three naps a day, plays with unbridled joy and gets plenty of exercise by running with overwhelming enthusiasm inside and outside, is easily pleased with a nibble of your sandwich or scratch under her chin, manages to get everything she wants with only one word in her vocabulary, knows nothing about pretense and is never embarrassed or self conscious – well you get the idea.

Layla was unfazed by hurricane Sandy – she was actually happier than usual – everyone was home, she was getting lots of  food (that I was going to ditch anyway), and with no TV, Cell phones, Ipads or computers, she was the center of attention and loving every minute. She looked sad as I left on Wednesday to return to work.

Now as a nor’easter threatens to wreak more damage and a downed power line coming from my house makes me think that I can be in the cold dark soon, Layla sleeps. She romped in the snow and is tired. So she sleeps.

I guess what all this means is that we can learn so much from our pets.  What?  Live simply, enjoying the love and affection of your family and friends, take the time recharge by sleeping, exercise with abandon, the take a  nap, don’t worry about how you look, and give the ones you love lots of kisses.

WHAT’S LAYLA THINKING?

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What’s Layla Thinking?

Do you ever wonder what your pet is thinking?  I do – probably too often than normal.  There are times when she is acting particularly bizarre and I find myself guessing (in my head) what she might be thinking.  Here are a few examples.

Sometimes when I let her out of her cage in the morning, she lays prostrate on the floor, flips on her back, and rotates around and around while making odd, not quite barky noises.  What can she possibly be thinking?  How about this?  “I am so tired of being in that cage – now I can stretch and move and the cold floor feels sooooo good!

The other day, she was on the couch barking at no one and nothing in particular.  She was not looking out the window, or following the path of a moth, or trying to find a toy, or standing near the “treat cabinet” or warning us of someone approaching the house.  For no apparent reason, she began to bark somewhat conversationally.  When I asked – what do you want Layla? what is it? She only continued on her canine verbal rampage.  What can she be trying to tell me? Maybe she’s complaining about something from yesterday like when she was confined to her cage while I went shopping, or about the time I threw out her squeaky toy because I could not stand the noise any more, or protesting about my new campaign to withhold table food from her; maybe she’s just testing out her bark range.

Here’s a good one.  I was sitting on the couch folding clothes, she rushed up next to me and for no apparent reason lunged her full weight on me (70 lbs), pushing me into a horizontal position, and proceeded to lick my face, my ears, nibble my nose while wagging her tail furiously.  It was a rare and random act of affection.  This went on for at least three or four minutes and then stopped, at which time she left the couch, jumped on the love seat and went to sleep.  What was she thinking?  Maybe – “I don’t show enough affection.  I really love her, and I think I will shower her with doggy kisses.  Now I’m tired, time to stop and take a nap.”

Just about every night, usually around 9:00 PM, she does her crazy dog routine.  She runs inside (from the yard) at the speed of light, jumps up on the couch, jumps down, jumps on the loveseat, jumps downs, sprints around the living room and dining room into the kitchen, back up on the couch – a sequence she repeats at least four times, until someone hurls themselves on her to stop the insanity.  What is she thinking?  My guess is that she knows the night is winding down, that soon she’ll be given her last treat, escorted to her cage for the night and she wants one last whirlwind of activity. It’s probably her way of ridding herself of stress until she peacefully sleeps for at least ten hours.  What a life – I often say that I want to come back as Layla.  She’s always happy, eats with gusto, sleeps like a content baby and everyone loves her.  What more can you ask for?

Sometimes, when I let Layla out in the yard, I realize that she’s been out for a while, and I don’t hear her.  I go out to investigate and find her standing or sitting on the grass in the middle of the yard – not sniffing, not barking, not digging – motionless.  What can she be thinking?  This is a hard one, but I think that maybe she’s reflecting on all of her interactions for the day.  “Boy, was that leather shoe under the bed a great find – so soft and chewy”. “I wonder why they insist on giving me that awful dry food – I know she’ll give me some real stuff, if I hold off on eating it long enough”.  Is that a bunny I hear, or a squirrel, or some other yummy small animal.  If I stay quiet, I’ll catch it before it even knows I’m  coming”. “I just love the cool (or warm) air – what a day!”.  Well, that’s my attempt and doggie mind-reading.  Signing off for today.  Lorraine

To The Left, To The Left…

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To The Left, To The
Left… Everything I Own To The Left

We live in a modest corner Cape – messy, busy and very lived
in.  Our yard is large and a few years ago we fenced it in again (after two wooden fences succumb to the weather and fell apart) with a white PCV.  My husband spends a lot of time trying to keep it neat and trimmed.  If you stand on our small deck, there is a
large side yard that faces the front of the house and with a gate to the
outside. It’s an expansive area, plenty of space for Layla to run and run.  To the left are a battered slate patio and the other much smaller side of the yard, where there is a 15 year old swing set that my oldest son refuses to let us get rid of.  He says. “It’s a memory and it stays” – and so it does. When the fence was installed, we never noticed (really had no reason to), that the left side fencing did not fall flesh to the ground. So, there is a gap under all of the fencing to the left of the patio.  This gap is a perfect escape route for Layla to get to our neighbor’s yard and outside to the street.  She’s done both numerous times, but at least from a safety standpoint, prefers to go to the neighbor’s yard, drawn there by their little nippy dog (really need to find out her name).  Something that I realized very early on was that Layla doesn’t just want to go out, she needs to and we need to be able to let her out.  Our sanity depends on it.  But letting her out without supervision inevitably ends with her in my neighbor’s yard or outside and in danger of getting lost or hit by a car.  We tried to plug the gaps with bricks and lawn furniture, boxes, planters, anything we could find.  Somehow, she always figured out a way to pull them away and dig herself out.  A few
times, I caught her as her hind legs slithered away into the other yard or
outside.  I’d sprint to get her.  I don’t sprint well – at 50+ and out of
shape, and a little clumsy, I was well on my way to a caste eventually.  So, our only choice was to barricade the entire left side of the yard to restrict her to the right, where for some reason, the fence came to the ground with no gap underneath.  And so, my husband put a wooden table, a glass table, a storage trunk, and every other yard thing we could find to fill in any potential gap from the end of the deck to the other side of the yard.  It looked like something from Sandford and Son, messy and kind of like a small junk yard.  BUT – it did keep her to the right.  We tested it by letting her out and observed.  She tried to get over to the left; we filled in more spaces that she was trying to get past and really secured the property against “unlawful” Layla departures.  So, for now she’s OK restricted to the right side yard.  What we contend with now is that it’s littered with her toys, and the contents of our recycling bin – she adores plastic bottles – not to mention that’s where she does her business – it’s a landmine of debris and poop.  Just what I needed – more mess to clean (actually, my husband takes care of it).  We moved everything she could possibly get into out of her reach to the other side of the barricade.  Of course, we can’t get over to the left side either – well that’s the price e pay to be able to let her out anytime we want.  That’s OK – right?  So what if we pay $9k in taxes and can only use half our yard?  That’s it for now.  Lorraine

Update – I wrote this last summer, and I am thrilled to say that we now have a whole yard again. Thanks to Layla’s rapid growth to about 60 pounds, she is unable to get under anything, though she still tries. 

 

More Stupid Every Day!

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More Stupid Every Day

Almost without exception, a  Layla “food stealing” incident has occurred every day.
I think that we (or at least I, since I am usually the one cooking,
plating, serving, cleaning up, etc.) have lost a plate full of food to Layla
once or twice a day consistently.  I have  mentioned that my girl is quite tall, and can reach up and put her paws on the kitchen counters, the stove, the dining room table, the sofa table and end tables in the living room, — just about any surface that is waist level for a human.  And, if she jumps up on the couch, she has a view of the whole room to assess any possibilities she may have missed.  Just in the last couple of days, in the split second that I am distracted, she has helped herself to a plate of rice and pork chops, my bagel (for the umpteenth time), and a freshly
prepared plate of bacon (our cheese burgers were quite naked that night).  In the last weeks, she ate a whole plate of just baked brownies, a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, two of three chicken cutlets (caught her before she polished off the last one), stole a stack of frozen hamburgers from the dish they were defrosting on (this included a chase
around the yard, back in the house and success as Diana and I cornered her in
the bathroom), a cheese omelet, a plate of left-over escarole and sausage we
had for dinner, the left-over homemade pizza we had another night – and I know
there are some I’ve missed.  What is most alarming about this pattern is that I must be getting progressively more stupid with each passing theft.  You would think
that by now, I would know enough not to leave food within her reach.  But no, I continue to do it and gather more and more “stupid stars” in the process.  And Layla doesn’t race to the dish, looking both ways to see if anyone is around, she simply saunters into a room (usually the kitchen) surveys the territory for any arrant smells, hoists herself up on any surface that’s available (usually the counter top), and helps herself to whatever is there.  Do I anticipate that she will try to steal my leftovers?  No, Do I put the food in a
place out of her reach?  No.  Am I surprised every time she does this?  Yes.  Am I getting stupider (is that a word?) Yes. Regards,  Lorraine.

 

Layla the Baby Bunny Killer

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My Sweet Layla – a Baby Bunny Killer?

Yes, it’s true.  For some reason, this week, Layla has hunted, found, and killed two baby bunnies.  I am still in shock and what’s worse is that I really think she’s proud of it.

We always have bunnies romping around our yard, and she lunges for them, but thankfully, they have (until now) been too fast for her. I often thought that this one particular caramel colored bunny (I really do think it’s the same one) that I see most nights when Layla goes out for her last pee/poop has a death wish.  As I often do, I assign human qualities to animals I see and imagine we have this kind of weird dialogue.  That squirrel that almost caused me to crash into a parked car sounds like Chris Rock and dares me to run him over. Back the bunny. It seems to sit and taunt Layla, twitching its nose, hopping here and there, and then finally escaping under the fence, just this side of Layla’s jaws.

But it isn’t this bunny that Layla has murdered.  It is probably her offspring.  There is small whole in random section of my lawn.  Layla, dug this small hole into a big one.  Though I did not know this, apparently baby bunnies live under ground until they are ready for prime time. Layla sniffed them out caught two of them in as many days, and killed them.  Now mind you, these little creatures are not bloody or mangled, just dead.  I think she might have scared the life out of them.  Yesterday, when she purged the first one, I was horrified and could not look at her the same way.  When she coughed, I was sure a bunny part would come flying out. My son, who retrieved the carcass, told me the animal was intact.

Today, I let Layla out and she kept barking to come in, but when I went to open the door and let her in the house, she ran down the deck steps toward the scene of yesterday’s crime. Five times, she summoned me to the door and made a beeline to the yard.  I would not follow, but had a sick feeling that she wanted to “show” me something.
When my husband came home an announced  that there was another dead baby bunny near the hole, I was not all that surprised. Now comes the dilemma – how do we stop this serial murder spree?  Diana suggested we put up “enter at your own risk” signs for the baby bunnies, but I don’t think they can read.

I still can’t keep wondering why now – surely there have been other baby bunnies in the year+ since we adopted Layla.  Is it because I threw out her mangled old toys and haven’t had time to replace them?  If you happen to have any opinions on this, please let me know.  For now, Layla has fallen from her pedestal and I wish I knew how to warn all the bunnies.  Till next time — Lorraine

Under Anything

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I shout “Layla, where are you” numerous times during the day.  But the reality is that she’s usually in one of only a few places – and they are all under something.  As a person with mild claustrophobia, it’s beyond me why any breathing thing would intentionally put themselves in a physically confining situation.  I came very close to having a full-blown anxiety attack during a recent MRI of my shoulder.  So, where is Layla?  Well, when one of us forget the rules of the house and neglect to shut any bedroom door, that’s where Layla is. She loves, loves, loves to be under my bed or Diana’s.  In fact, when Layla is in the house (she’s out a lot when we are home and in her crate when we are away), she periodically surveys the doors to see if they are either open or ajar.  She realized that a closed door does not necessarily mean that it will stay closed if she shoves her mighty paw at it.  So, not only do you have to close the door, but you really have to make sure it’s “clicked” shut.  And when Layla goes under the bed, she either chooses her chew toy (if we don’t realize that she’sgotten in) – a shoe, slipper, stuffed animal, — really anything on your nightstand or the floor – proceeds to go under the bed and gets busy pulverizing her catch.  If we are chasing her when she goes under, she’ll settle for anything that’s already there.  Assuming we have not chased her to the under place — when you call to her she remains quiet as a mouse.  After dropping to my knees and discovering her, we play “move the right, left, up, down – and I usually catch her by the tail when I get someone to help me trap her.  It’s quite amusing to Layla, who would play this game all day if we left the doors open.  But, she also likes to be in back, of the loveseat or couch –not really under – too close to the floor – but definitely out of sight.  In this case, she’s usually stolen something from the kitchen – she loves my measuring cups – or candy and is munching away. I must move the very heavy leather and wood couch away from the wall and retrieve her.  Thankfully, there really are no other “under” places on the first floor of my house. When my son forgets to close his door upstairs, she casually makes her way up and proceeds to go under his bed. God only knows what she finds there.  Signing off for today –
Lorraine

 

What Did I Do Before?????

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I often chat with people who seem to have so much time on their hands. Some aren’t
married, others don’t have children or pets, and yet they seem overwhelmed with
whatever they have to do to keep their lives moving. This confuses me because I
have so much going on that I am dizzy with things I have to do, not to mention
what I’d like to do.  With three kids, one of whom is a 17-year old girl (need I say more?), a “needy” house, commitments after work three days a week, a full time job in Westchester (Ijust “love” my commute) and now Layla.

Update:  I was “job eliminated in May, and now my fulltime job is to find another job. Quite unexpectantly, I am just as busy, if not more crazed now that I am unemployed.  And I now know that there is no stress that you can experience at a real job (including a crummy commute and the boss from hell) that is more stressful than NOT having a REAL job – one that actually pays you.  Back to my blog and by the way, nothing has really changed as Layla has grown (I originallly wrote this blog last fall). She is still unbelievably demanding, but I must say, she does sleep more so I guess it’s a bit better. 

 I thought I was busy before, and now I wonder what I did with all that extra
“non-Layla-related” time I had before we adopted her.  I now, in addition to all the above stated responsibilities (did I mention the endless shopping, cooking, laundry,
cleaning, chauffeuring, bills?) I have to think always of what Layla is doing,
where she is, has she eaten, does she need to go out, is it time for a vet
appointment, does she have enough toys, treats, and her almost constant need to
play, etc..  I wonder to myself (who else would I wonder to?) what did I do before Layla?  I must have been wasting an enormous amount of time because now, with
her in our lives, I have so much more to do and nothing that I had before has
gone “away”. (Except my REAL, paying job)  It’s true, but we seem to have (at least moms do) the uncanny capacity to add on more tasks to an already overloaded
schedule, without dropping any balls.  I have so many balls in the air that they block the sun from burning my face.  That’s it for now, Lorraine

Digging is Such Fun!

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Dig and Dig Some More
(Written last October)
October 26th would have been Pebbles’ 10th birthday.
Even though I love Layla, I still miss her every day.  There were many issues with Pebbles, including her not so great nature and unwillingness to do her business outside; but, in reality, she was easy when I compared to my life with Layla.  A behavior that was never part of Pebbles’ repertoire was digging.  Well, not only
does Layla dig, but her excavations are not limited to the outside; let’s talk about my yard first.

Picture this – what
was once a large grassy expanse of property, only interrupted by a small vegetable garden, a couple of pussy willow plants, and two lilac bushes, is now a crater-filled (not to mention the debris from her garbage rummages and piles
of poop) obstacle course that threatens to break any ankle that unknowingly trips in a hole.  She particularly likes the section that my husband cleared for my garden because she doesn’t have to dig through grass – half the work is already done!  In an area that’s probably only 5 feet by 6, she has dug at least three huge holes and she goes back to them time and time again to deepen them.  Then, spread over the rest of the right side of the yard (recall that we barricaded the left side) are at least 8 more holes that she randomly has dug to at least a foot in depth.  Thankfully, I don’t have to put her on a leash and walk her to go potty, she just goes out and takes care of it (HURRAY!).  But a few weeks ago, before we made this enormous step forward with the potty training (I don’t even want to speak of it, for fear of jinxing it), I was, often times in the dark, taking Layla out in the crater-filled yard to go potty.  On more occasions than I can count, I tripped, fell, and stumbled over her holes.  When you watch Layla dig, you realize that she’s not just getting some random exercise, she is intent and driven.  She also revels in the activity – often stopping to dip her head in the cool earth or take a munch of some grass or dirt.  Funny, she never buries anything, but does cultivate to each hole, making them bigger and deeper. When we fill the hole, which in the beginning we tended to do, she immediately re-digs and I swear, I spied a cross look in our direction as she went about her task.  She also has imaginary holes in the house.  There is a spot in the kitchen, under the window, that she feverously “digs at”.  Of course, there is no hole because the flooris tile, but she goes back to that spot and digs and digs.  She conducts a similar effort against the wall in the dining room, scratching the newly painted wall in the process.  I really ponder what’s going on in that adorable head of hers.  So, if you ever visit, and find yourself in my yard, I suggest army boots and a flashlight at night.  And don’t fall over Layla’s imaginary holes in the kitchen and dining room.  Well, that’s the “hole” story – signing off for today, Lorraine.

Update
Layla still digs, but now it’s a game that she and my husband play. She digs a deep and creative hole, he fills it with fresh earth so that one of us does not trip and break and ankle, and Layla re-digs the hole.  What fun and such good exercise for them both!

Three Speeds

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Three Speeds

Layla has three basic speeds.

Speed One –
something I call Crazy Dog.  This happens about three times a day and goes
something like this. She stops, spread her front paws, gears up for a five
minute workout, gallops to every end of the house, jumps up on the couch, to
the ottoman, to the love seat, bounces off the dining room wall, then returns
to whatever piece of furniture may have someone on it, ambushes them
alternatively with wet kisses and nips, pinning them with her considerable
strength.  This lasts only a couple of minutes, and then she’s back down sprinting from place to place.  It’s at this point that I hurl her out the door to finish her Crazy Dog routine outside.

Speed Two – Looking for trouble.  For most of the day, when she’s inside and
not confined to her crate, Layla prowls my modest living room, dining room and
kitchen (after checking to see if any door was left open or ajar), fortrouble.  This can include: stealing anything within her reach any surface she can reach (She is in Speed two as I write this and a knife just crashed to the floor from the counter), selecting a
book or two from the bookcase to tear up, finding a random napkin or paper
towel to shred, disappearing behind the TV to gnaw on a cable, DVD, or TV cord,
stroll upstairs to see if my son’s bedroom door is open, pull a sweatshirt or
jacket from the hooks by the doorway, chew on the cabinet drawer in the
kitchen, pull her blanket from her crate and “dust” the floor with it, steal
socks or she particularly loves my daughter’s bras from a basket of laundry
begging to be folded, pull down a box of cereal (they are on a microwave cart
in the dining room), — well you get the idea. Speed Two usually involves quite a few crashes and bellows of “Layla stop!” with several expletives interspersed.
If I come home and find Layla sitting sadly in her crate, I know she’s
been on speed two for a while and in frustration, someone put her in her crate for a time-out.

Speed Three –
She’s asleep – passed out, unconscious. Speed three comes directly following
speeds one and two.  She wears herself out and naps – blessedly.  Speed three
actually has an adorable sub-speed.  In the morning or as Layla awakens, she is lovable, mushy and affectionate without being rough or obnoxious.  You can cover her with kisses and hugs.  She submits willingly to being handled and hugged. I must say, that unlike Pebbles, who was not a “huggy” animal, generally, Layla does not protest (at any point), and I think even likes it when you embrace and kiss her, never squirms from your grasp if you pick her up – though at almost 40 pounds, it’s harder and harder to lift her.

I look forward to Speed Four – mellow.  Maybe sometime soon.  Lorraine, signing off.

(Update – July 2012 – Well, I must say that in the months
since I wrote this, last summer, Layla has mellowed a bit.  She now lounges on the sofa, and often plops to the floor in a sudden overwhelmed gesture, with her hind legs splayed out flat, and her long body flat to the cool kitchen floor and takes a break.  Usually, not for long, but often enough time for me to run to the laundry room or fetch the mail.)

 

Under the Fence We Go

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Under the Fence – Let’s
Meet The Neighbors

We have lived in our house for almost 18 years and because I have always been a working mom, (until 5/18 of this year when I was “job eliminated”) I don’t really know all of my neighbors, especially those who have moved in within the last few years.  When the old couple in the house next to ours (our yards are only separated by a fence) suddenly disappeared, (still not sure what happened to them) I did notice some activity in the house and I heard a baby.  I meant to go over and introduce myself but never got around to it.  But Layla has given us the opportunity (many times) for frequent meet and greets.  The morning after we got Layla and let her out into our large and fenced-in yard, it did not take her more than a few minutes to identify the gaps under the fence, and figure out that if she dug a little, she could easily get under the fence.

One afternoon, when my neighbor (Tom) rang my doorbell with Layla in his
arms, I was more than a little surprised and embarrassed – I “Lily” and baby have a little nippy dog (not unlike Pebbles) and when she barks, it sparks an irresistible compulsion Layla’s pea brain and she must follow that bark to its owner.  She adeptly flattens her body and slithers under the fence.  Even though we have tried to plug the holes, I have lost count on how many times she figured out how to “unplug” (she does have a lot of time on her hands – I mean paws) the gaps and visit our neighbors.  We’ve
become quite friendly and I have made it a habit to bake a little extra
(pumpkin bread this week) and bring it over as a peace offering regularly.  Thankfully, all Layla wants is to play and they are good sports about it.  Recently,
she showed up on their deck as they ate a bagel and stole one on her way out. Tomorrow, I’ll tell the story about how we barricaded our yard so that she can’t visit our neighbors.  Until then, this is Lorraine signing off. (Update — I wrote this entry last summer, when Layla was still a puppy.  Well today at almost 60 pounds, she is finally too big to dig herself under the fence.  Now she is satisfied to dig out a section of dirt big enough to stick her head out and people watch. She is on patrol at about 10:00 AM every morning.  She has several burrows so that she can observe from various places.  Recently, I was coming home and spied her from the other side of the fence, observing her wet black snout and part of her face — it was sight to see.)