Momma Didn’t Raise No Pencil Pusher

We were home about 5 minutes tonight when I heard the unmistakable sound of Wonderbutt chewing on something that was splintering way too fast.  I grabbed my phone and caught him in the act.

 

So, what do you think he was trying to tell me with this act of rebellion?

A.  How is this different from my dog food? They both taste like sawdust.

2.  I hate people who spend time writing their blog instead of paying attention to me.

III.  I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box but that doesn’t really matter now, does it?

Four.  I’m going to make this #2 live up to its name.

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If We Were in Biology Class, This Would Be The Frog

I told Wonderbutt not to stay that way for too long or someone might think he’s ready for dissection.

ALWAYS Have an Exit Strategy

Our bulldog, Wonderbutt, has been trying very hard to run away from his own butt lately.  He suddenly leaps up, looks at his rear end, and then races around the house, screeching to a halt in random locations, and sitting down hard.  Then he tries to bite whatever is bothering him back there, and generally topples over because dogs shaped like fat sausages just can’t do that kind of contortion.  This picture shows Wonderbutt following one of his desperate attempts to elude his bottom, at the end of which he barged into Dimples’ bedroom where Cap’n Firepants was relaxed on the floor reading to her with a blanket over his legs.  Wonderbutt charged underneath the blanket, then whirled around and glared at everyone from underneath – apparently blaming us for his disobedient derriere.

But enough about him.  Let’s talk about me.

The other day, I was getting ready for work, and decided to wear a dress that I hadn’t worn in awhile.  I vaguely recalled that it had a zipper on the side, but my fumbling didn’t find one, so I decided to pull the dress over my head.  Of course it got stuck.  That happens to me a lot.  But this time I could not wiggle my way out of it in either direction.  The more I tried, the more stuck I became.  What’s worse is that I realized during my struggles that there was a zipper on the dress – and it was very decidedly zipped.  Which made me feel a bit less fat but a lot more blind.

The sight of myself in the closet mirror made me panic further.  Cap’n Firepants was in the shower.  There was no way I was going to let him see me like that.  There are just some things you can never unsee.  And I certainly couldn’t let my daughter see it either.  I only had one option.

I tiptoed to the bathroom and got the nail scissors out.  This was no easy feat considering that my arms were strait-jacketed to my sides.  Even more challenging was cutting the dress.  But a shot of adrenalin made this an easy task when I heard the shower water turn off.

Unlike Wonderbutt, I can’t blame my butt for my wild dance around the room; the dress never even made it to that region of my body.  Nope.  Just my own stupidity and lack of planning.

From now on, I’m going to take a cue from my dog.  If I’m going to insert my uncooperative body into a piece of fabric, I’m going to make sure there is an easy way out.

Either that, or I need to perfect that glare that lets everyone know that the fact I look ridiculous is entirely and completely your fault, not mine.

Oh, and Watch Out for the Bogeyman Who Lives in Our Shed

“XYZ Pest Control.  How may I direct your call?”

“Direct me to the person who just made me leave work and haul a$$ over to my house for no good reason.”

“Sure.  Just one moment.”

5 seconds later.

“XYZ Pest Control.  I’m the person who just made you leave work and haul a$$ over to  your house for no good reason.”

“You said my dog was running around the backyard chasing you.”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“I am standing in my house right now.  With my dog.  In the kitchen.  He has a dog door that leads to a pen that is surrounded by chicken wire.  The chicken wire is 4 feet tall.  Are you saying that my 70 pound bulldog leapt over the chicken wire, chased you around the yard, then leapt back over the chicken wire, and raced back into the kitchen just in time for me to arrive home?”

“That seems unlikely.”

“You’re darn right that’s unlikely.  Unless you were carrying around a shoulder of beef.  Were you carrying around a shoulder of beef?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Because that would be stupid, you know.  Since your job is to get rid of pests, not attract them.”

“Yes, that would be stupid, ma’am.”

“Okay.  Now that we agree that you’re not stupid, the only logical conclusion is that you made this story up just so you wouldn’t have to spray our backyard.  And you are going to come back here, do your job, and not charge us anything at all, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.  Oh, and by the way, watch out for the snake back there.”

End conversation.

That’s exactly how this whole thing went down.

Except for the part after “How may I direct your call?”

Our vicious guard dog – Wonderbutt

 

 

Wonderbutt Gets Ready for Halloween

What does it mean if you promise yourself to blog regularly to hone your writing skills, and then you skip the writing part of the process?  It means Wonderbutt kindly presented some blurry photos right when your week hit its busy peak…

Dimples gives Wonderbutt instructions on choosing decorations from our Halloween storage box.

 

Wonderbutt “chooses” an appropriate holiday adornment for the family room. Of course, he is planning for it to adorn his stomach…

 

Wonderbutt decides that the selection process is much easier if he gets in the box himself.

 

Then Dimples tried to put a Halloween headband on him, and that was the end of Wonderbutt pretending to be helpful.

 

 

 

 

 

Wonderbutt Goes to Starbucks

I always wanted a Starbucks dog.

You know the type.  The owner sits at sidewalk table sipping her coffee while the dog calmly snoozes on the ground behind her chair.  His tail wags every once in awhile as other people approach and ask leave to pet him.  The owner smiles and nods, and everyone comments on the laid-back canine’s sophistication and fine manners.

It was pretty clear nearly from the outset that Wonderbutt would not be a Starbucks dog.

An animal who Poops as He Walks (and farts to the beat of the Texas Two-Step when he is still) is generally not welcomed by patrons of eating establishments or coffee shops.

Nevertheless, after nearly 3 years of holding out hope that Wonderbutt would one day develop some social graces, I decided to stop waiting for San Antonio Hell to freeze over and just take him to Starbucks anyway.

When I informed my husband (the long suffering Cap’n Firepants) of this plan, he gave me the why-don’t-you-just-check-yourself-into- a-mental-hospital-and-save-us-all-a-lot-of-trouble look that he has been giving me more and more often lately.

But he has learned that I must make my own mistakes because, like Wonderbutt, I will scratch my butt when I have an itch – even if it means that I am going to fall over backwards and bonk my head on the concrete floor.

I was grimly certain that this was going to turn into some kind of Marley and Me fiasco, with the not too remote chance of being banned from every Starbucks in the universe after an episode of Wonderbutt humping a few customers, wrapping his leash around a table, and dragging it into the adjacent Trader Joe’s parking lot.

But I figured, “At least I make sure he poops before we leave the house.”

I used my new trick of letting him into the part of the yard where he is never allowed to poop which, of course, makes it inevitable that he will indeed defecate right on the walking path.  I sealed the deal by dramatically declaring, “Oh, no!  Please don’t poop there!”  And, of course, that is exactly what he did.

Then, we hopped in the car to take Dimples to swim practice, and continued on to Starbucks with my backpack full of plastic bags for the rest of the poop that I knew would follow as soon as Wonderbutt realized that his “movements” were restricted.

Cap’n Firepants met me at Starbucks, and sat outside with Wonderbutt as I picked up our order.  Then, the three of us hung out under the shade – waiting.

I was waiting for Wonderbutt to invent a new way to embarrass me, but it seems that I was doomed to be disappointed.  Although he was certainly not the laid-back Starbucks dog of my dreams, he was surprisingly well-behaved.  There were two other groups of people on the patio – who completely ignored him.   Other than approaching every new person that entered the area in the hope of licking them, Wonderbutt remained by us – alert, but somewhat disappointed by the lack of attention he was receiving.  He didn’t seem to understand the point of this new activity, but was not completely adverse to sacrificing the boredom of the lonely kitchen for this exciting change of scenery.

Overall, to the surprise of all parties involved, the experiment was a success.  Wonderbutt lasted two hours at Starbucks without getting us kicked out or threatened with a lawsuit.  I guess, if I want blog fodder, I will have to become a bit more adventurous.

Stay tuned for the next installment: Wonderbutt Goes to Church and Burps During the Homily.

Don’t worry.  I’ll still bring the plastic bags – just in case.

Please come over here, nice stranger. I promise not to fart.

I don’t understand why everyone is sitting so far away from me. Do I smell or something?

 

 

Working Out with Wonderbutt

You’re not supposed to play tug-of-war with your dog.  Don’t ask me why.  I heard someone say it once – probably the Dog Whisperer.  Or maybe it was a nun.  They tend to give frequent mandates on avoiding any type of fun.

Other than snoring and farting, tug-of-war is the only thing Wonderbutt loves to do for an extended period of time.  Since he needs to lose 1/3 of his body weight just to be considered “slightly rotund,” I feel like the least we can do is let him spend twenty minutes a day on his favorite form of exercise.

Lately, Wonderbutt has begun to confuse my exercise time with his exercise time.  Now, as soon as I am five minutes into doing Tae Bo, Wonderbutt wakes up from a heavy snore, and races into the bedroom, completely ready to exercise too.  His way of communicating that he is eager for action is to try to hump my leg as soon as I fling it out for a Tae Bo side-kick.  When I finally shake him off,  he looks momentarily confused, then leaps onto his rope toy and pitches it into my face just in case I have any doubts as to his intentions.  (Which I kind of do, since he was just trying to hump me.)

Wonderbutt is not a fetch dog.   He wants to be chased, and if you don’t feel like playing that game, then he wants nothing to do with you; he will forlornly drag his rope toy back to his bed, and put his head on his paws, sighing in disappointment at your laziness.  Or,  you can get down on the floor and start growling at him.  Then he is more than happy to prance over to you with his toy, dangling it in your face, leaping backwards every time you reach for the rope, and growling viciously.  So, by now, you’ve broken about 100 Dog Whisperer rules, including putting yourself on the same level as the dog, sticking your face in his, and encouraging him to growl at you.

But the dog is exercising.

For the most part.

The only part of Wonderbutt’s body that never gets fatigued is his jaw.  After about three minutes of tug-of-war, the rest of his body gives out.  Then, he clamps down on that rope for dear life while I drag him throughout the house, which is a bit rough on the carpeting, but works quite well on the concrete floors in the living room.  (I am seriously considering attaching Swiffer Dusters to his sides.)

After being dragged for a couple of minutes, Wonderbutt gets his second wind (after releasing four or five of his own), and leaps back to his feet to resume play.

I started to complain about Wonderbutt regularly interrupting my Tae Bo – until I realized that I couldn’t catch my breath the last time I played tug-of-war with him.

I thought I was doing him a favor, but wouldn’t it be funny if he thinks he’s the one helping me out?

Preparing for his Drag Technique – completely oblivious to the effects of carpet burn

I Think He’s Implying that I’m Shark Bait If I Don’t Give in Soon

Quick recap:  Our bulldog, Wonderbutt is on a diet.  He does not like the new food.  So, now he is texting me his displeasure.

 

He is Not Satiated – And May Soon (Well, Maybe One Day) Be Emaciated – Meaning I Have Definitely Not Ingratiated Myself to Wonderbutt

Wonderbutt is not pleased with me right now.  It’s quite possible our leather furniture, which has lasted over a year according to our countdown widget, may be in jeopardy.

We recently took him to the vet, and he weighed a whopping 77 pounds.  Technically, he is supposed to be around 50 pounds.  So, he is now on new food that is,  ironically, called, “Satiety.”  And he DOES. NOT. LIKE. IT.

My first clue was when I woke up this morning, and he was waiting forlornly in the hall for me.  Cap’n Firepants gets up long before me on the weekends, and was already out and about.  I went into the kitchen to get some breakfast, and Wonderbutt tagged along.  He walked straight to his food dish, and nosed around it.

I heard food moving, and looked at the dish.  If the Cap’n had already fed him, then the food should have been long gone.  Wonderbutt never leaves food in his dish.

Until now.

He looked up at me, as if to say, “Look what that idiot fed me this morning.  Can you give me some real food now?”

I tried mixing some of his old food in with the new.

Nothing doing.  Of course, there are other things I could add to the food to make it more palatable, but that would kind of defeat the calorie reduction purpose of this whole enterprise.

The Cap’n seems to think Wonderbutt can stand a couple of days without eating, and that he will eat the food when he gets hungry.

I am absolutely certain Wonderbutt will eat when he gets hungry.  The problem is – I don’t think it will be the food.

It’s pretty bad when a dog who has no problem eating a carpet padding, books, hair barrettes, dead geckoes, and the foam of several sofa cushions refuses to eat his kibble.

Please send all donations to feedthestarvingbulldog@wonderbutt.org-anicfoodsux

Wonderbutt maintains a safe distance from the offending food bowl.

Dimples uses her power of persuasion to attempt to convince Wonderbutt to eat. Didn’t work.

My Secret is Out

Okay, I guess I might as well confess, even though most of you have probably figured this out.

When I’ve had a really busy day, or my writing synapses suddenly stop firing, I bombard you with Wonderbutt pictures.  School started today – so I had my first day, Dimples started middle school (and piano lessons), and Wonderbutt was suddenly abandoned after a summer of constant companionship.  It was stressful on all of us 😦

Sure, he looks peaceful, but I swear on the Jedi force that, as soon as I clicked the button on my iPhone, Wonderbutt leapt off his bed and tried to eat my face.

This was how Wonderbutt chose to listen to my bedtime reading last night – snoring behind Calvin & Hobbes, his death-gas-emitting derriere aimed directly at my face.

And this is my attempt to find a productive way to use a free app that I downloaded.  I only spent 2 hours, and made 2000 different versions before I settled on the first one.