Well, that didn’t work out

Did I mention I was adopting a dog?

What I really meant was renting.

I’d been warned  that some of the rescues are… optimistic about the dog’s temperament, and this (nameless) rescue did just that.

It all started out so well. The foster person brought the dog over and we sat and chatted while the dog explored. The dog seemed friendly – tail wagging and everything. While said dog was wandering around my apartment sniffing everything, the foster person said she was going to sneak out since everything seemed to be going well.

And everything did, until the dog realized that she was in a strange place with a strange person.  She was sitting next to me chewing on some bit of animal carcass, and then she jumped away and bit me.

Not snapped. Bit. Hard.

Lucky for me I pulled my hand away and only got grazed, but the dog started growling, snapping and baring her teeth.

Look, I get being scared with a new person, but I didn’t sign up to adopt a miniature hell-hound.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t enjoy being bitten. Or potentially sued.

“Oh, what a cute little.. OUCH!!!! I’m calling my lawyer!”

I’ve had enough experience with trying to get cats into carriers that I know the oven mitt trick – you sneak up behind the animal (WAY easier with dogs, BTW), grab them with the oven mitts and then deposit. In this case, a roomy crate that the dog was happy to enter.

I draped towels over the crate to make her feel more secure, and then decided to sleep on it instead of calling the foster person and telling her to turn around and come get the fucking dog.

In the morning, I lifted up the towel to check the dog’s food and water and she bared her teeth and snapped.

That was it.

I called the rescue and told them to come and remove the beast.

They sent the same foster person back to get the dog, and upon arrival, she blamed me for getting bitten. Apparently, it was all my fault because I put the dog in the crate.

When I mentioned that the dog bit me before I put her in the crate, she just turned her back and told me that they were going to have to board the dog at a vet where they’d keep the dog in a very small cage and force her to listen to Justin Bieber. Or something.  At that point, I just wanted the dog and the crazy lady out of my place.

Oh, and don’t even ask how I found out the dog wasn’t potty trained.

Cat people have a reputation as being crazy, but I have to say my experience with a dog rescue makes me think that dog people take the crazy cake. And the candles.

Since it’s Friday, here’s a photo of a calm blue ocean:

Filed under: Non-Work, crazy, dog, holy shit, Justin Bieber, rescue

Guess I’m playing for the other team now.

I had a cat for a very, very long time. I got her when she was 6 weeks old and had her for 17 years. She was my best friend, and once-in-a-lifetime special.

Since she passed away, the house has seemed weird and empty, but every time I went to adoption events and looked at the kittens they didn’t measure up and it just hurt too damned much.

So now I’ve gone completely off the deep end and am getting a dog.

Actually, I’m technically just a foster home for the 10 lb terrier mix so I can figure out if this dog thing is for me or not.

I’m still not sure.

They do seem like an awful lot of fuss, and today, as I stood in the middle of Petco, I realized I have no idea what dogs like.

I know they like sniffing crotches and rolling in filth, but who doesn’t, really?

But toys? Once I get out of the squeaky mouse aisle I’m kind of lost.

Ditto chewy bones. Why the hell are there so many different kinds of fucking fake bones to chew? Are dogs really that picky?

Does the blue one taste like a different kind of ass than the red one?

And the clothes. For dogs.

Jesus tap-dancing Christ, people. We live in Southern California. The fucking dog has a fur coat. It does not in any way, shape, or form need a parka.

Or shoes.

Or sunglasses.
Or a novelty sombrero.

Okay, maybe the sombrero.

At the checkout, a fellow customer accused me of animal abuse because I mentioned I thought the dog would be fine without a wardrobe.

And I thought cat people were crazy.

Filed under: california, dog, life in LA, Los Angeles, Non-Work, pets, crazy, dog, pet, terrier, time off

…and that’s why I have a cat.

My upstairs neighbors, despite the fact that they play bad guitar and clomp about like Budweiser Clydesdales, are really nice folks who have a very, very adorable French Bulldog.

Aside from being very sweet and somehow managing to smell like a wet dog even when she’s not wet, the dog needs enough attention that at least one of the neighbors must come home from work at lunch every day to let her out to do whatever it is that dogs do on the front lawn.

Said upstairs neighbors want to go to a party tomorrow night which may or may not go late, so just to be safe, they’ve had to line up a dog babysitter.

Yes, you read that correctly.

A babysitter. For the dog. Because apparently one can’t leave a dog alone for more than 15 seconds or they’ll start a land war in Central Asia. Or something.

To me, this seems awfully similar to having children. The difference,  I suppose, is that one can just throw the children in the hall closet and tell them if they move, the clown will eat them. But then they grow up and crash your car right after they borrow money from you, so  there’s that.

In contrast to needing a doggy baby-sitter, my cat, although she acknowledges that I am the one who pours the kibble in the bowl, is largely indifferent to my existence (except when she’s cold), and probably wouldn’t notice if I vanished from the face of the earth, as long as the food bowl was kept full.

I’m so thankful I don’t have to hire a sitter if I’m going to be out for one night.  Or two.

 

Filed under: Non-Work, Uncategorized, animals, budweiser clydesdales, cat, dog, dog-sitter, home, nature, pet, travel, upstairs neighbors, vacation

Mid-week random updates

The anklebiter (the small dog I found) was kept by her ‘foster’ home – so I still have visitation rights and I don’t have to pick up poo! Best of both worlds!

The toilet is fixed.

I’m appealing my unemployment denial, and when I got the statement from unemployment about contributions, I saw that Axium reported none of my earnings to them at any time last year. Fuckers. Interestingly, a subsidiary company of Axium called Pax did report earnings.

All of us are really hoping the writers take the DGA deal – pilot season is when I make a significant chunk of my year’s income, so losing it would suck even worse now that I know over half what I made last year wasn’t reported to unemployment.

Over the weekend, I decided to go out for a long bike ride (I know I sometimes make it seem like I use martinis to cope with my problems, but I really use my bicycle to cope with problems), and when I was about 15 miles away from the house, I managed to get two flat tires. Basically, what happened was this: the city of Los Angeles will sometimes try to put stop signs right in the middle of the road (in the lane dividers), so motorists can see them better – of course, it takes about a nanosecond for the sign to get run over, so then the city comes along and cuts off the signpost about an inch above the pavement – also of course, they don’t bother to mark it so anyone can see it, so it just sits there until either the road gets repaved or someone important shreds a tire.

After I ran over the thing, I went back and looked for it and I could barely even see it when I was looking for it. Awesome.

The good news is that it just tore up my tubes, so I won’t have to replace the fairly expensive road slicks I’ve got on the bike.

Also, I only had to walk about a mile to reach a bus line that went to my neighborhood. Normally, whenever I put my bike on one of the bus racks, I’m completely freaked out that someone’s going to grab my bike at a crowded stop – this time, I figured if they did try to steal it and ride away, they wouldn’t have gotten very far so I was able to sit back, relax and listen to the guy next to me talk to himself all the way home.

Filed under: life in LA, Los Angeles, mishaps, Non-Work, axium, bicycle, bus, deal, dga, dog, Los Angeles, pilot season, tires, unemployment, writers

So now I need some advice.

Almost a week ago, I found this dog:

All attempts at finding her real family have failed (according to the lady at the shelter, there’s a good chance that she was dumped), and now I’m having to think about things.

I really like the dog and want to keep her, but given the hours I work I just don’t think I’m the right home for her. I was hoping that my friends would keep her because that way I’d still be able to visit, but now it’s not looking like that’s going to happen.

So, who out there has experience with tiny dogs? I suspect she’ll be unhappy when left alone for 14 hours a day (well, not alone but I can’t imagine she’s ever going to get too buddy-buddy with the cat). Chihuahuas aren’t like cats, right? They don’t like to be home alone all day doing whatever it is cats do (I think my cat’s using the internet while I’m gone, but I can’t prove anything), right?

I’d love for the dog people out there to weigh in on this one.

Filed under: Uncategorized, cat, Chihuahua, dog, home

Half a weekend goes well with panic attacks.

My main problem Friday night wasn’t the copious amount of poison oak all over our location, but the dust and pollen in the air. For some reason I always forget that if the location’s on a dirt road the approaching vehicles will make the inevitable dust storm worse. I then vow to never again leave my house without dust masks in my work bag. Then, after working all night I’m tired and I forget the whole thing.

Since the all-nigher and related allergy attack shot Saturday all to hell anyway I stayed on the sofa struggling to breathe and then on Sunday I went to see American Gangster (which I highly recommend even though this trend of three hour long movies is beginning to wear thin).

Monday was the day the panic started to set in. I haven’t got enough money saved to make it through a long strike. I’m going on vacation (for which I can’t get a refund were I to cancel so I might as well go) at a terrible time, and if this doesn’t get resolved soon I’m pretty sure I’m going to starve to death on the street, wallowing in a puddle of my own filth.

The incessant strike-related nattering of the local televised news-bots isn’t helping one little bit, either. Trust me guys, it’s a big world out there and there’s got to be something else you can air besides that one fucking clip of the picket line in front of Paramount. Didn’t someone cure some disease somewhere? Can’t you go look and double check?

When I really start to sit and worry, I can work myself up into quite a state, so in an effort to prevent that I spent Monday trying to find a home for one of the neighborhood’s random stray dogs (for some reason, people like to dump strays in my neighborhood. I don’t know why). This one looks like a purebred Chihuahua, but can’t be. Chihuahuas yap and make me want to drop-kick them and this one’s quiet and really nice, so I’m going to conclude that she’s some other flavor of ankle biter that shakes a lot and is difficult to housebreak.

So, after walking about ten miles in a vain attempt to wear out said ankle-biter (who seems to have a hell of a lot more energy than I do) so she’d appear less hyper than she really is when I dropped her off at a friend’s house (where she’ll stay until I either find her original owner or a new one), I was too tired to worry much, but today I’m rested and since a lot of other people are out of work (or will be soon) the phone calls are flying and everyone’s collectively working themselves up into a lather.

Although going three months at a time without work isn’t unheard of (for me at least), since I don’t have the savings pad that I’d really like to, if the strike outlasts my unemployment I’m going to end up sitting in a cubicle somewhere, rocking back and forth and muttering incoherently about my stapler.

And no one wants to read about that.

Filed under: life in LA, movies, Non-Work, up all night, Work, allergy, American Gangster, Chihuahua, dog, dust, Los Angeles, news, picket, poison oak, stray, weekend, WGA strike