Texas Red Dog Adventures

Toot Toot

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 21:50:00 +0000

There is an old joke that has been around for years and it tells a story about a boy who was meeting his girlfriend's parents for the first time before they went out on a date. After the young man knocks on the door he is greeted by the dad and promptly ushered to the living room where the boy sees an old English bulldog named Spot,resting on the floor beside the recliner. The young man is quick to sit in the empty recliner in hopes of hiding his nervousness. Soon after that the father began a relentless interrogation of the boy about his intentions with his daughter. The boyfriend became even more nervous with each passing minute and he noticed that ole Spot was now sitting in front of him, begging to be petted. So in an attempt to calm his nerves he began petting Spot as the father's questions continued. The more questions that were asked the more nervous the boy became. As the boyfriend's nervousness grew his stomach began to grumble and growl. As his stomach continued to growl he started having gas pains. His gas pains got worse and worse. The boy's stomach hurt so bad he knew he needed to get rid of some of that pressure or explode and not in a good way, so the boyfriend let out a little toot in hopes that his girlfriend's father would not notice. After that the barrage of questions suddenly stopped for a moment and the father quietly spoke, "Spot!" then the questions resumed. The boyfriend soon realized that he had not tooted enough to get rid of his terrible gas pains and decided to let loose a bigger one in hopes of getting some relief. When he did the girlfriend's father suddenly stopped all questions again and said with a slightly firmer tone "Spot!" and continued with his questions. After the second toot the boyfriend concluded that the father was thinking Spot was the one passing gas and since he only got minor relief from toot number two the boyfriend decided to let out a big one so he could finally get some significant relief from those gas pains. So without giving it a second thought the boyfriend went for the gold and blew off one that would make a champion chilli eater proud (no pun intended) but when he did, the father screamed out with panic in his voice "SPOT!"....."Get away from that boy before he poops on you!!!"

I know that subject matter is a little crude and I really want to keep these stories as a G rating, especially for the younger readers, but what happened the other day with Red Dog reminded me of this boyfriend story.

It was a restful Tuesday evening, I was not on call and it was just about supper time. Debbie was making her wonderful homemade pizza pie loaded with everything she could find in the fridge. The aroma throughout the house was amazing. I could not wait to tear into that freshly sliced pepperoni, Jimmy Dean sausage, yellow sweet onion, green pepper and black olive pie. Reed was living back at home then while he awaited being shipped to basic training at Great Lakes Navel Station so the three of us grabbed our eating gear, loaded our plates with steaming hot slices of homemade pizza pie and headed to the living room to enjoy our meal while watching M*A*S*H reruns on Netflix. ( I am expecting to receive a handsome endorsement check from Netflix once this story is posted for promoting their product by the way...lol) Even Red Dog got in on the action and got his own slice of pizza heaven on this day. Once we finished eating we all sat back to enjoy the rest of our overindulgent evening. It was quite a sight to see as Reed and I fell into a 30 minute pizza coma while Debbie pecked away at her computer working on her blog, Texasdaisey Creations and Red Dog stretched out on the floor snoring away like some old man with sleep apnea. Once Reed and I had regained consciousness we were all chuckling over some old M*A*S*H reruns when all of a sudden Debbie jumped to her feet and yelled "OH MY LORD WHO IN THE WORLD DID THAT"!!! A new aroma had suddenly overtaken the room and it smelled nothing like homemade pizza, that is for sure. When Debbie yelled out, it got our attention mucho pronto. Out of pure instinct I began reciting apologies from the Married Husbands HandBook in an attempt to deflect any wifely punishments that might be forthcoming for marital offenses, I may or may not have committed in the past 24 hours (i.e. leaving my socks on the bedroom floor, not putting the lid down after doing my little boy business, or sleeping through one of those heart to heart marital conversations that goes on for hours just to name a few). But I was apparently still a little pizza drunk and not immediately aware of what the "OH MY LORD" was all about. All I can say was that my beloved son, who will be written out of my will soon, was quick to point a finger my direction saying "It was Dad, It was Dad" and I was still trying to figure out what all the yelling was about. "Thanks for standing strong for Team Testosterone son!" I finally got a whiff of what all the yelling was about and "WOW!" was it bad. Fortunately for me my dear sweet loving kind hearted wife did not, I repeat, did not initially blame me for this terrible offense. She first accused her number one son which was quite surprising given the fact that he has been her little darling the past 23 years...lol...Reed instantly denied he had anything to do with it and continued to try to throw me under the bus. So as a good murder mystery goes, if it wasn't Reed, Debbie or myself and given the fact that we don't have a butler in a library or reading room in our Huntley Manor then the only remaining suspect in the room is Red Dog. But the question on all of our minds is how could it be Red Dog. He was lying there lazily watching time passing by without a care in the world showing no sign he was the guilty party. The mystery was finally solved a few short minutes later after our attention was drawn back to the M*A*S*H reruns. Red Dog got up from his resting place then began waltzing across the room with his tail proudly displayed high in the air and with each step we heard a TOOT......TOOT TOOT.....TOOT TOOT TOOT!!!!!!!

Unfortunately at that point there was no doubt who was guilty of this terrible atrocity and OH MY GOODNESS it went from bad to really bad in a few short steps. I must confess that I was relieved (no pun intended...well maybe some pun intended) that this one could not be pinned on me but as a guy I had to give ole Red Dog two thumbs up for a job well done...lol...To keep from getting into trouble with my bride I kept my poker face on and the snickers to myself as she marched out of the room completely grossed out. Who knew Red Dog was part pack mule...lol.

Today's take home message is never feed Red Dog homemade pizza and although somewhat gross Red Dog is still a guy and he can TOOT with the best of them. So I guess when it is all said and done the old saying "Guys Will Always Be Guys" hold true for both man and beast...lol... Until the next adventure God bless you all.

Shake It Off

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 02:41:00 +0000

Have you ever been under a time crunch working right up to a dead line to get a project finished and just when you think things are under control and can see the light at the end of the tunnel things begin to unravel. Well that's what happened at this year's Howard Come and Go Christmas and oh my goodness did that stink!

For the past seven years Debbie and I have hosted a Come and Go Christmas party at our house to celebrate the birth of our Savior with my hospital co-workers and have expanded it to include friends, family, church members and neighbors over the years. We have our dear Belizean friend Jo, who is the owner/chef of Blessings Tea Room, cater the event with good old Texas dishes that have a Caribbean twist. Her food is so good it would not only make you want to slap your mamma but knock out one whole side of the family tree. (note to readers: I don't slap my mamma lol). She does an amazing job and many folks at my hospital start looking forward to next year's party by the end of the night. My wife takes about 3 weeks to clean and decorate every room in the house just to make it special for those we care for so much. It's a huge undertaking but we love to do it. Well this year was no different than any other year with Debbie working diligently up to the very last minute preparing to entertain about 80 or so guests. As you have read in the past I have nicknamed our little place the DMZ (Debbie's Mini Zoo). That's because we have had goats, donkeys, chickens, ducks, dove, finches, parakeets, a cockatiel, cats and dogs (all at the same time) not to mention the wild life that wanders through the place like deer, wild hogs, pheasant, quail, dove, raccoon, opossums, bobcats, coyotes, rattle snakes, and skunks. It's a regular Noah's Ark out here and the one who keeps it all under control with tight security is Red Dog who is the head of our home security system. He did have an apprentice for about one year by the name of Rosie but she thought that chewing apart our house was more important than home security so she lives with a new family now. Old Red Dog is responsible for the whole place all by himself now.

On this particular day about 30 minutes before the party is ready to start the plan was to put Red Dog in the back garage for the evening so we didn't have to listen to that SONIC WOOF he has when guests come knocking at the door. I thought it best to let him out in the back yard so he could take care of his personal business before hand and when I went to put him up Red Dog was no where to be found. He's not in the back yard. He's not on the acreage and when I go looking for him I notice the back yard gate was left open after our handy man put up the Christmas lights. Well, I wasn't overly worried that Red Dog was MIA for a few moments because he knows who provides him with food, water, air conditioning and heating year round and I knew he wasn't far off. So I whistled for him and I could hear him running toward the front door because each time he gets out of the yard every dog in the neighborhood starts barking as he makes his way home. At this moment I thought everything was cool but when I opened the front door I was shocked. He was covered from head to tail with a dark green stinky goo that smelt like the south end of a north bound Hereford bull. Where had this guy been I thought to myself but I apparently can't think and hold the front door closed at the same time and Red Dog darted into the house with our first guests only minutes away. At this moment I thought I was a dead man when I heard Debbie scream "OH MY LORD, RED DOG" and knew if I didn't get him out the house and NOW it was the dog house for me!!! The aroma from all of those wonderful Caribbean dishes were becoming overwhelmed by this green gooey cow poop and Debbie was not a happy camper. So as quickly as I could I grabbed Red Dog by the coller, which was saturated in this green glorious gunk I lead him in the back garage before folks thought they were coming to a cow lot and not a Christmas party. Man, did he smell bad but "the party must go on" as they say. With Red Dog securely hidden in the back garage the guests began arriving and for the next five hours we had a wonderful time giving guided tours of our home and showing off Debbie's wonderful Christmas decorations. Mission Accomplished. Everyone seemed to have had a wonderful time and the food was fantastic as always. The catering crew was the last to leave and then Debbie and I collapsed in our chairs completely exhausted, Our feet hurt and our faces hurt from smiling so much. I felt like my fat was even hurting and as we sat there reminiscing about the success of the night it dawned on me. Stinky ole Red Dog is still in the back garage. We started wondering how he got into that stinky mess. Was someone trying to be dog napped and put in the back a cattle trailer? Had he chased a coyote or bobcat back to the Brazos River and ran into some old muddy stink hole? As the old Clairol commercial used to say "Only her hair dresser knows for sure"? But after carefully studying his stinky green colored body I came to the conclusion that old Red Dog just decided to go waller in a big pile of cow manure out in the neighbors pasture somewhere. It was the only logical conclusion because this stuff was every where on him. His belly, his back, his tail, his chest, it was even under his coller. It must have been a regular cow patty slip and slide. In my mind I could see him running and sliding across the yard just like a six year old kid sliding across a yellow piece of plastic in the summer heat but it's winter, he's a dog and that green stuff was stinky cow crap!!!!! Debbie and I sat there looking at each other wondering who was going to volunteer to give Red Dog a bath. I was thinking maybe a coin toss or rock, paper, scissors but no sooner than I started developing a winning strategy Debbie spoke up and volunteered. Luckily for me I was still recovering from an appendectomy only a few shorts weeks ago so I'm sure she took pity on me. Off to the bath tub they both went. As fate would have it our night was still not over. After only a few minutes of being in the tub, I heard Debbie yelling for help so I headed to the bathroom and I was not prepared to see what I was about to see. As I walked through the door I saw Red Dog in the tub soaking wet and standing in a foot of what could only be described as fresh green sewer water. He was cold, wet and shivering like some little chihuahua with a clogged drain. Debbie had used every ounce of Dawn dish washing soap we had in the house and Red Dog still smelt like the south end of that same north bound Hereford bull. Just as I thought that the drain was the only problem I then looked toward Debbie and notice she was covered in shimmering little green dots. They were on her face, her arms, her hair and all over her nice Christmas party clothes. Apparently Red Dog shifted into Taylor Swift mode after the drain clogged and decided to "Shake it off, Shake it off " with the bath tub door still opened. As I took a second look around the room, not only was Debbie covered up in these lovely little aromatic dots so was the whole entire bath room. It was polka dot H. E. double tooth picks in there. At this point all we needed was an accordion and a man dressed in liederhosen so we could start dancing the famous Cow Crap Polka right there in the bathroom, sore feet and all. The defeat in Debbie face was obvious so being the wonderful loving husband that I am, I put on my super husband outfit to finish bathing Red Dog and clean (i.e. clean in man speak means wiping up) the rest of the bathroom. Once I got the bathroom "clean" the odor went away with about 2 gallons of Febreze so at that point it was time to pull the plug on the cow patty party and head to bed because we were beyond exhausted.

I guess the take home message for today would be this. Even though the great comedic country singer Roger Miller says that you "Can't Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd" but Red Dog proved that you "Can" slip and slide through a pile of green cow crap. We learned that you can still have wonderful dinner party and a surprise hot tub party all in the same night if you let Red Dog "Shake It Off "..lol...Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Clean Up On Isle Three

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 21:25:00 +0000

Have you ever had sympathy pain for someone when they were hurt? I have heard many stories of men having sympathy pains for their wives while in labor. Do your eyes water when you see someone get poked in the eye and their eyes are watering? Mine do, I'm a self proclaimed sympathetic eye waterer. People come into the clinic all the time with very red watering eyes and within seconds the flood gates open and there I go. Have you ever yawned after watching someone else yawn? The answer to that question is probably yes.  Someone in a group yawns and before you know it, everyone is yawning. Finally someone will yell out "Stop That" like it was someone's fault. Y'all know what I am talking about. Studies show that it's an empathy or bonding response with others that is not completely understood.

Well besides being that guy who's eyes sympathetically water like Niagara Falls at the sight of red watery eyes I unfortunately have a second sympathetic response that is far more unpleasant than your typical red eye. I am in fact a sympathetic gagger as well. If you start gagging or tossing your cookies I am right there with you gagging away myself. I have been in medicine twenty nine years and as soon as I see someone gagging in the ER I jump right on the gagging band wagon with them. It's almost as if two of us are engaged in this at the same time then it some how speeds up the process and the mission is accomplished much quicker. Do any of you remember what the old Double Mint chewing gum commercial once said "Double your pleasure and double the fun" so surely two gaggers are without a doubt much better than one. lol.

The worst part about me being a sympathetic gagger is that it's not subtle. I'm one of those loud gut wrenching toe curling guys. If gagging was made into an Olympic sport I could be a gold medalist for sure. I know this sounds kind of gross and the reason I bring it up (no pun intended) is because this happened at my house several weeks ago but fortunately Red Dog and I weren't the participants. It involves my wonderful wife and our ginormous house cat Mr. Buttons.

My wife Debbie prides herself at being a loving attentive wife and mother. Over the many years of raising kids she has done every nasty smelly gross mommy job under the sun. I have seen her clean up some of the stinkiest little rear ends on the planet and wrestle messy poopy diapers off of those same little bottoms. She has endured white smelly baby vomit running down her chest, washed wranglers that look and smelled like they were drug through a cow lot (which they were I might add) and watched her bathe two large stinky dogs covered in skunk spray without blinking an eye. She is Wonder Woman, Cat Woman, Bionic Woman, and Xena the Princess Warrior all wrapped up into one when it comes to taking charge around the house but the other day I witnessed a chink in her armor and no one was more surprised than I. It came in the form of one of the largest nastiest looking hair balls that a cat has ever produced in the history of man kind.  All compliments of Mr. Buttons our two ton lazy house cat. I mean this thing was nasty with a capitol "N" and here is how it all went down.

It all began on a very pleasant warm Saturday morning. We got up and headed off for our regular Saturday morning breakfast date like always. We made our usual stop to the feed store on our way home to pickup some scratch for the chickens. Once home I sat back in my over sized comfortable recliner with a hot cup of coffee to finish my morning with a weekly deer hunt on the Outdoor Channel. My morning was slowly winding down and the plan of hunting until lunch time was coming along quit nicely.

I decided to make myself a sandwich and then see how much nap time I could squeeze in before supper. (Deer hunting always makes me hungry and sleepy...lol). My plan was working out very well until I suddenly (and loudly I might add) heard Debbie scream " No Mr. Buttons!!! No!!!" It wasn't one of those "you are in so much trouble" type of screams that I have personally heard many times during thirty two years of marriage but this one was different.

Out of pure instinct I sheepishly sunk deep into my big fluffy recliner just in case she was screaming at me. I know I said she screamed out Mr. Buttons name but from past experience my wife has called me by all of my kids names, my brother in law's name and she even sometimes goes through the whole family tree before getting to my name when I am in trouble. All you married guys out there understand what I'm talking about, right? Well if your wife hasn't done it I know your mothers certainly have and when we heard our first, middle and last yelled out by our mamma's, we knew there was trouble in River City.  But there was something different about this particular scream. It was more of a panic like scream but I still tried to make myself invisible just in case. Then I heard Debbie yell out again "Oh No, Oh No" and she swiftly darted out the front door. Since my back was to the door I couldn't see a thing and heard the door slam shut behind me. I said to myself "self you may not be in trouble here". But before I could muster the courage to come out of hiding I heard the front door open and suddenly slam shut again. I also heard her yell out "Oh No" again as well. By this time I figured out that she wasn't yelling at me so I walked out the front door to see my poor sweet wife throwing up in her flower bed in the front yard.

I must admit that my initial thought was oh crud she's pregnant again and unfortunately for me that was the first question that came running out of my mouth (there are days when my thought filter doesn't work very well and this was one of those day). There she was on her hands and knees in our front yard violently vomiting into her poor pitiful looking flower garden that has been devastated by a four year drought and she looked up at me like I was the most ignorant man on the planet and snarled "No I'm not pregnant, I've had a hysterectomy". Duh! It wasn't one of my finer medical moments to say the least and that old saying about there is no such thing as a dumb question, well, I have news for you, there is!

So after asking her if she was ok I cautiously asked a second question. What made her sick. She told me that Mr. Buttons hacked up the grossest hair ball she had ever seen on the carpet in our bedroom and when she reluctantly attempted to clean it up she started to toss her cookies so she ran outside.  Of course I had to ask the most obvious third question which was much safer than question number one.
Why did you run outside to get sick when the toilet was just a few feet away?  Her answer was that she did not have time to clean the toilet before she vomited. What!!! She wanted to clean the toilet before barfing in it. I was very confused at this point. Then she told me she refuses to stick her face in a place where people sat their naked bottoms (that's necked bottom if your from the south)without cleaning it first!

  I remember her telling me this in the past but just thought she was pulling my leg. Apparently there isn't any leg pulling when it comes to the issue of vomiting in the toilet and as I thought about her clean toilet issues it began to make some sort of sense to me.  You don't sneeze on someone else's meal and we don't slobber in someone else's ice tea so I guess it's reasonable to think that we shouldn't stick our face in the toilet before it's cleaned. I think it was Jim Croce who said you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off the ole Long Ranger and you don't vomit in a dirty toilet or something like that. Once again I have been enlightened by my wonderful wife.

So what is the take home message of today's adventure. Well first, I would say never own a two ton indoor cat because bad stuff could show up on the bedroom carpet. The second would be to never ask the wife, who has had a hysterectomy, if she is pregnant while she is barfing up her toenails because you will become the dumbest person on the planet in her eyes. Thirdly I would say never use your toilet ever again for its intended purpose because your wife may need to vomit in the next century. And finally, if for some reason your wife does need to go vomit in your front yard "DO NOT" remind her that barfing in the front yard on her hands and knees might have been entertaining for the entire neighborhood or you might find yourself eating bologna sandwiches for the next several days. Until the next adventure God bless you all.

Rhodesian Underpants

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 01:52:00 +0000

Since the recent birth of our first grand kid many old memories of when our kids were born came flooding back to me and over the years I have come to realize that as a parent I didn't have a clue about what I was doing. I am so thankful that Debbie's parents lived down the street a few blocks for helpful advice or I might have been hosing those little goobers down in the back yard with the water hose at bath time and duct taping them to the hood of my pickup to dry them off. Good thing duct tape doesn't stick well to little wet bodies. lol. Clueless would have been an understatement as far as my daddy skills went. The only thing of any real value that I knew about little kids was that they liked to be tossed straight up into the air and caught again. My dad, who was known as "Uncle Alvin" by all of my cousins (which were many), loved this activity. He used to grab them under the arms and basically launch them from a standing position high into the air with his brute strength and catch them on their way back to earth under their arms before they hit the ground. It was amazing to watch young children in perfectly good health leave the ground like a tomahawk missile, disappear into the blue sky then suddenly reappear as a blurred shadowy figure returning to earth. The cousins just loved this and all of them would stand in line for hours begging "Uncle Alvin" for more. I think dad enjoyed it as much as the kids. One important rule that had to be observed during this process was never launch them facing the sun for the obvious reasons. For some reason most mothers had trouble getting their minds wrapped around the thought of someone launching their little darlings into the stratosphere for fun but my cousins were convinced it was nothing less than Six Flags Over Hooterville. On a rare occasion a kid would slip through Uncle Alvin's grasp and have what NASA would call a "Hard Landing". But once the dust settled a cousin would get up and clean themselves off and hurry to get back in line (although some were slower than others because of their newly acquired limp). It became an unspoken rule that if you were involved in one of those "Hard Landings" there was no crying because once one of the Mommas heard their little darlings boohooing it was "Game Over". No one really ever took Dad to task over a "Hard Landing" because everyone accepted the fact that even the great Dallas Cowboy Bob Hayes dropped a pass once in a while. Although my dad taught me many wonderful things about life and how to be a good dad, the skill of launching young children into outer space with brute strength captured my attention the most. It wasn't helping my sweet wife clean house, give baths, warm bottles, wash clothes, change diapers or rocking babies to sleep. It was throwing those little goobers in the air and praying I didn't lose sight of them in the sun. Now that was a cool daddy skill to have.

So the only reason my children have turned out to be anywhere close to normal was because of my wonderful wife's strong parenting skills but weak upper arm strength. I can only recall one failed decision Debbie made with our first born and it was to use cloth diapers instead of disposables. I was perplexed by this because given the choice of throwing a poopy diaper in a trash can verses washing them out with your bare hands I would pick the trash can every time. But since my secret objective was to avoid those stinky baby chores, I agreed to see where this would lead.
Well after three days of rinsing poopy diapers out in the toilet
I noticed Debbie's resolve was waning.  I came home from work on Day Three of cloth diaper use to find a pile of brown colored cloth diapers piled high in the toilet. The baby was crying, the bath room was stinky and I knew it was time for our family to start producing our very own "environmental footprint" because she was done with cloth diapers . So I made the thirty five mile drive to the grocery store and walked into the twenty first century by purchasing several boxes of disposables. The rest of the old cloth diapers became cleaning rags (minus the stinky pile I mentioned above) and parenting got a tad bit easier from that day forward. I will tell you that over the years when my kids wore disposable diapers, there were several times I considered suing all of those diaper companies for false advertisement. As you might remember, each box of diapers came marked with a weight limit on it such as "10 to 15 pounds" or "15 to 25 pounds" right? I must tell you that no matter which diaper brand or size we bought, none of them ever held that many pounds of poop between diaper changes and trust me I gave it the old college try. I decided it was all a big con by corporate America to make us dad's look bad. If your bottle of coke shows to contain 20 ounces of soda why shouldn't us dad's expect that those diapers should hold that many pounds of baby poo? I have yet to find a lawyer willing to take my case.

The reason I bring up the subject of diapers is that at age fifty Debbie and I had no clue we would be forced to start buying diapers again and it wasn't for our new granddaughter Zerah or her fifty three year old grandpa!!! It was for Red Dog's pesky little sister Rosie. Yes, Rosie our 10 month old ridgeback. Since some of my readers are youngsters and I don't want to go into great detail about the birds and the bee's (even if most of them already know more about that subject most of us old toads) I will just say that Rosie came into her "special time" so she could have puppies some day. (Note to readers: Please pause at this time so that the youngster can explain to you in more detail what "special time" means lol). With three women living in my house most of my married life I have unfortunately become way too familiar with "special time" over the years and I thought these days were long gone but I was "WRONG". "Great", now Rosie has to have her "special time" and we have never had indoor dogs to deal with "special time" so I'm flat clueless (which is not uncommon for me about females) as to how to take care of this blessed event. My first thought was to banish her to the back of the property until the "special event" was over but then I thought what if some gentleman caller finds his way under the fence and we end up with a gaggle of puppies because it would be just my luck to be stuck delivering those little goobers and I don't recall being trained in puppy birthing during my medical education. So what do we do? Well it just so happened that my oldest daughter and husband were in town and she had the answer for the situation. Baby diapers and little girl panties! That answer wasn't even in my top 100 of solutions. Diapers and panties.....hmmm! Now folks you have to remember I am not necessarily anatomy ignorant and have been in medicine in one fashion or another for almost 30 years so how do we fit two legged equipment on a four legged problem with a tail?  And the answer is........(ding)....scissors! Ok, now we have baby diapers, little girl panties and a pair of scissors but we still have a dog, four legs and tail. If we are going to cut off a couple of legs and a tail I have power tools that would do a much faster and easier job than scissors and I think teaching Ms. Rosie to walk on two hind legs will be way too difficult especially given the fact she will have just lost two front legs and a tail. Well my daughter quickly remarked (while rolling her eyes at me) that there would be no need for any type of amputations today. So off to the Dollar General Store went the girls. For those of you who have never heard of a "Dollar General Store", it's the Hooterville version of WalMart (I am now expecting an advertisement check from both companies for mentioning their names on my blog in my dreams of course!) and for those of you who are too young to know where "Hooterville" is, well that's what "Google" is for (there's another advertising check right there, I wish!) so grab your tech gadget and look it up. When they get back from DGS they have baby diapers and little girl pink panties with multiple Tinkerbell characters on them. My daughter eye balls Rosie's rear end then takes the scissors and cuts an x in the center of the panties and diaper. She then grabs Rosie, plops her on her back and slaps the diaper on then tapes it around her middle. She then grabs the pink little girl panties with Tinkerbelle on them and shoves Rosie's two hind legs through the legs holes and we now have a doggie diaper safe and secure. I bet by now your asking what did she do with the tail, well that's where the x came in on the diapers and panties and it wasn't quick and easy to tackle. First trying to poke a wagging tail through the cut in a diaper and panties was like trying to poke a wet noodle through the eye of a needle. It took several tries to hit the bulls eye. What was even more difficult was when poor little Rosie realized that the object of the game was to grab her tail and poke it through a hole she went into immediate tail tuck. I mean that tail of hers was locked down so tight between her legs it nearly took a lift jack to put it into threading position but finally Ms. Rosie caught on as to what we here trying to do and relaxed. So now we have the blood line of a great lion hunter in diapers and panties, how proud her ancestors would have been. But to Rosie's credit she stood up and started prancing through the house with her new homemade pink diaper panties then went outside to sun bathe to show off her new drawers to the world.

I am not quite sure what the take home message is about Rosie and her new "Doggie Diapers". I guess it could be whether you are man or beast wear your diapers with your head held high and keep on enjoying life. But mostly I just find it really strange to see a dog, especially one who's heritage is to track down and kill lions, walking through my house with a diaper and Tinkerbell panties strapped to her rear end. But I guess that's just how we roll at the Howard house these day. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Dog Sitting Stinks And Grandkids Don't

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Six months seems like a long time but now that I am back writing about Red Dog so let me tell you about this latest little adventure. "Warning" if you have a vivid imagination be prepared to hit the delete button in your brain because this one might be a little gross but sometimes life gets a little smelly.

The story starts with my wife and I becoming brand new first time grand parents to the prettiest baby girl in all of Texas. She is an absolute blessing and we are proud to be this little girl's Gigi and PAC. In case you are wondering what PAC means it's the acronym for Physician Assistant Certified. A title I worked my tail off to obtain several years ago. Besides there are plenty of Pa's, Papa's, Poppies, Grandpa's, etc. I know one guy who's grandkids call him Doc since he is a veterinarian. I even have an old marine corps aviator friend who's last name is Bandy and his grandkids use "Moe" as his grandpa name because that was his call sign as a fighter pilot. How cool is that! I know that PAC doesn't sound very cool and it may even border on dumb but it's unique and I kind of like unique. Besides PAC is a much better choice than the first grandpa name my wife and kids wanted to use. When we first found out we were to be grand parents my wife decided she wanted to be a Gigi and she suggested I needed to be Pee Pee!!! Yes a Pee Pee!!! So when she told the kids of that brilliant idea they thought it would be great (especially after laughing about it for five minutes) and that's when I knew I better come up with something else or I would forever be known as Pee Pee to all of my grand kids. "Heck No". So PAC it is. lol.

The weekend after Zerah Grace was born our oldest kids came to see their new niece and brought their Ridgeback Mattie with them. You remember Mattie, she was the first Howard family Ridgeback and we were so impressed with her manners that we got a couple ourselves. Mattie comes to visit every time the kids come to town so when we get three large Rhodesian Ridgeback roaming around the house it gets a little crowded. It's a Ridgeback here, a Ridgeback there, every where a Ridgeback. Walking across the room with the three of them lounging around the house is like trying to roller skate through a buffalo herd to coin a phrase from back in the day.   They just love to be rubbed and scratched on but there is apparently a fear running through the pack that one dog
might get a tad more attention than the other two so they all dart your direction trying to grab all the petting they can get their paws on. I can see a hip fracture in my future as they all bolt my direction and knock me to the floor. It is highly probable that these mutts are spoiled and get their way to often.

These three, who's ancesters were rugged tough lion hunters living on the arid African plains now live a life of "swimming pools and movie stars" as far as dogs are concerned. It's a dog version of "Life Styles Of The Rich And Famous". They all have a special bed to sleep in, get their own personal eating bowl, and have their own private concierge medical practitioner who many times is me ( I'm apparently a very diverse practitioner caring for people and now Ridgebacks).  Mattie is the real city girl with a special prescription diet, lives in an high rise apartment and is well acquainted with the lights of the big city. Red Dog and Rosie live in a small rural town in Texas but have a well groomed yard in which to poop in, a 17 foot long back yard water feature in which to swim in, an enclosed high fenced 3 acre compound in which to roam in (it also makes for great protection from the larger intruders in the area like cougars, coyotes, feral hogs, bobcats, and the occasional crazed gray squirrel) and last but not least is central air conditioning and heating for that year round pleasurable climate controlled living experience but they still have to endure the occasional inconvenience of outdoor living (like real dogs) I know, I know. The humanity of it all.

After a wonderful weekend of drooling over our new grand baby our oldest kids realized they had no one to dog sit Mattie before their trip to the comfort of the high mountains of New Mexico over their upcoming holiday so Debbie and I agreed to let Mattie stay the week with us while the kids were traveling. Now we have the blessing of three pony sized Ridgebacks leaving the dream in this climate controlled Doggie Oasis for the next 10 days. How did we get so lucky? What's next, Bob Barker jumping out of the closet saying "IT'S A BRAND NEW CAR"!!!!! I sure hope so. Well anyway here we are me, the wife and 3 red Clydesdale's trying to occupy the same living space. "IT'S GREAT".

I think I mentioned earlier that one of these spoiled mutts has a special doctor prescribed diet? Well today we found out why Ms. Mattie has this "special diet" and will get to that in a few minutes.

When I was a kid I had the blessing of having an old Heinz 57 mutt wander into my life. He was named Lion Dog. He got this name because my sister and I thought he looked like a lion. Well old Lion Dog just showed up on our front porch one day and never left. He took to us like ticks on a hound dog and would play with my sister and I for hours on end. He was the best but he never got to live indoors like the Ridgebacks.  Lion Dog slept outside come rain or shine heat wave or blizzard. I do remember once dad relented to let him stay in the garage during a blizzard because the snow had drifted over the top of our house and he didn't want Lion Dog to suffocate or freeze to death. Don't get me wrong my dad loved dogs and growing up he had a loyal companion named Laddie for many years but dad was raised on the farm and that meant all critters lived outside. It also meant that the dogs ate left overs from grandma's cooking or they went out to catch their own supper. Lion Dog didn't have it quite that tough. His meals consisted of our left overs and co-op dog food because it was the cheapest priced dog food in town . No special diets for those guys so I guess that's why it seems weird that Mattie needs one.  She's a dog and should eat regular dog food not prescription dog food in my way of thinking. Brother, was I wrong about that one.

A few mornings ago Debbie and I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of Mattie's specialty prescription diet. Have you every heard the one about the older gentleman that woke up in bed early one morning and thought his water bed had sprung a leak overnight and as he laid there wiping the sleep from his eyes he suddenly realized he did not own a water bed! Well this particular morning I woke up and as I laid there in my comfortable California king sized pillow topped perfect sleeping man sized bed I noticed a not so alluring fragrance filling the room and as I wiped the sleep away from my eyes I thought to myself "Wow supper really gassed me up during the night". The longer I laid there I tried to think which foods created this extraordinary aroma? As I was mentally going down my culinary check list it dawned on me that I only saw Red Dog and Rosie go out the back door when I let them out around 5:00 am. As I continued lying there in the warmth of my toasty sleeping spot with my beautiful bride snoring (LOUDLY) beside me I started thinking about how much trouble I was going to be in when she woke up to a stinky bedroom. So I began to formulate a plan to keep out of trouble. I first thought that playing possum would be a good idea and when she woke up I would plead my innocence or ignorance which ever worked. That's when it hit me. "Bam" as Uncle Si would say. Mattie was still in the house and she normally goes out to potty around 6:00 when my son in law comes home from fighting crime for the police department and it was now 7:05. I yelled out a very loud "OH NOOOOOO" and jumped to my feet. Well that "OH NOOOOOO" was very effective in waking up my sleeping bride and her ultra sensitive nose which immediately knew what had happened. She jumped out of bed and starting yelling at me as she ran across the room to turn on the lights as the room was still dark. At this point I'm a little confused because I'm not exactly sure who is she is upset with, me or the dog so I began to yell out Mattie's name just to be sure I wasn't going to get the blame.  When the lights came on there it was or should I say there "THEY" were. Ms. Mattie not only left a smelly gift that was the size of a small log home but added a couple dozen stinky mud pies on the carpet as big as the dots in the Milton Bradley kids' game "Twister" minus the bright colors of course. Oh My Lord. How could one dog produce this much poop in one hour. It had to be some kind of a record! I just stood there in shock. I couldn't believe my eyes (which were burning by the way). The carpet at the foot of the bed looked like the Keebler Elves broke into the house and used it as a baking sheet to make some Jolly Green Giant sized cookies. What a "Ginormous" mess. I just stood there staring at the mess then I looked over at Debbie and then looked back at the mess then looked over at Debbie again. After doing this about 5 times Debbie looked over at me I and said "WHAT"! I replied, how in the world did you run all the way across this room and maneuver through that stinky mess and not once step on one of those lovely little gifts? And in the dark none the less! I don't know if I was amazed or in shock that she made a clean pass (no pun intended) through the disaster zone as I watched her carefully inspect her feet. No melt down meant no mud pies between her toes. Luckily for me I was running late for work by this time so I did what any hard working man would do. I cautiously tip toed through the tulips and made a mad dash for the shower then out the door like an Olympic sprinter. Well to spare you too many more gross details, a six pack of Charmin, three pack of Brawny and barrel of hand sanitizer later the poo was gone but the stains remained. On my drive home from work that evening I decided to prepare a small sermon to speak over Mattie's grave as I knew my kids would have wanted her to have a Christian funeral. I arrived home expecting to see a HazMat team in my front yard with yellow tape wrapped around our house and the neighborhood under full quarantine but to my surprise there wasn't even a sign of a cleaning company in sight. I was shocked when I walked into the house and saw that the carpet was spotless. My loving wife put her mad computer skills to work and Googled up a recipe of Dawn dish washing soap and white vinegar that cleaned the spots right up. DEBBIE'S THE BOMB!!! I think she deserves a special smooch from me, that is if she's speaking to me after abandoning ship earlier in the day.

As I sit here trying to think of what the life lessons are about this story, here is what I came up with.

1. Dogs who are the size of Clydesdale's should live outside for the obvious reasons no matter how much you loved them.

2. Marry a wife who has crazy foot working skills. But maybe put her through some type of NFL workout with tires and ropes before you propose so you know her skill set.

3. Always pay close attention to the words "Special Prescribed Diet" whether its your dog or a family member because you don't want to clean up after either of them.

4. Always have an exit strategy in case your pet blows up the house over night. You are not Mike Rowe and don't want to get stuck with the "Dirty Job".

5. Have a good internet provider because you need Google in case there's an emergency.

6. It's last but far from being least and I've not mentioned it since the opening of this story. Go out and get yourself some grand kids, "THEIR GREAT". But what ever you do never agree to dog sit when your on a "grandpa high" because bad things can happen and that "bad thing" probably isn't coming from the new grandbaby if you own a herd of Ridgebacks!

Until the next adventure, God bless you.

Little Sisters

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 02:55:00 +0000

I don't know about you but many of us grew up with a siblings who for some reason or another got a great deal of pleasure out of tormenting us in our younger years and mine just happened to be my little sister Cindy.  She was a tough fiery red head that was without a doubt no girly girl. We were the only children in the family and hung out together all the time. She played football with my dad and I, all the time and was a natural athlete. She could punt a football further than any of my buddies and was twice as tough. She was always my first pick when we had pickup games in the front yard because she wasn't scared to put a hit on anyone. My dad told me a story later in life about how one day, while playing football in the house,one of my buddies went to ask him to make Cindy stop tackling so hard.  This request put a big ole proud poppa grin on His face and still does today when we talk about it.  In 5th grade one of her male classmates would regularly pick on her during recess. One day she finally got enough of him and tackled the boy to the ground like NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Dick Butkus. She then began beating him about the face and chest until the play ground teacher came and pulled her off of him. That same boy years later thanked her in the senior yearbook for beating the poo out of him when he was being such a brat, lol. She even wanted to try out for the Jr. High football team in seventh grade but was told no by the school. Later that same year she told my dad that she wanted a football and a bra for Christmas which was the first time in her life that any of us saw a sign of her turning into a young lady. My mother was thrilled with this news and my buddies were hoping that the gift request was a sign she was retiring from the game of football soon. To say that my red headed sister is tough was an under statement. Not only was my sister tough but for some reason unknown to me she got great pleasure out of tormenting me on a regular bases. She would do things like lock me out of the house after school and taunt me through the windows just to watch me have a nuclear melt down on the front porch. She always knew how to push my hot button and would even sometimes invite her girl friends over to watch me explode like a cheap Fourth of July fireworks display, just for the grins and giggles of it. It was apparently pretty entertaining and she spent a lot of time dreaming up new ways to get under my skin.....And she did! I would give more details about many of her devious plans but I don't have the time to go back to therapy these days, lol.

Since I am on the subject of little sister let me tell you a little story about Red Dogs little sister Rosie. When Rosie moved in with us I fully expected Red Dog would teach her the ways of the Howard household like where to eat, where to poop, where to sleep and where to play. Red Dog would be the Master and Rosie would be the Pupil. Well after two months of training that turned out "NOT" to be the case. Rosie is a Rhodesian Ridge Back and comes from the same brave line of lion hunters as Red Dog. She is a fiery red headed female who is as tough as nails and full of spit and vinegar just like another red head I know. She is stuborn and does things her own way (again like someone else I know). Over these past few months I was under the impression that Red Dog was doing a good job of keeping her in line which I should have know was impossible. Who ever heard of some guy being able to keep any female from doing what ever she wanted, Ridge Back or otherwise. Day after day I would hear a yelp or two coming from the next room and thought Red Dog was on top of his game as Sergeant Major of the Howard Home Defense System by teaching Rosie all of the do's and don'ts of her new home but come to find out he was just another innocent victim of the "Evil Sisters Society". Those subtle "yelps" I had been hearing from the other room were coming from Red Dog. "WHAT" yelps from the Mighty Red Dog. Has the king of the lion hunters been brought to his knees by the likes of his little red headed vixen sister. Say it ain't so, Joe say it ain't so but in the immortal words of Paul Harvey "It's True"!!! That cute little fur ball is in reality a wolf in sheep's clothing.

The other day after hearing multiple yelps from the bed room I decided to go see what all the racket was about and when I walk into the room all I saw was Rosie chewing on Red Dogs legs, tail, nose, mouth and ears like a rawhide chew bone. He just laying there and painfully allowed her climbing all over him digging those sharp little milk teeth in every square inch of his body. Wow that looked so painful. No wonder I was hearing little yelps coming from the other room. Red Dog even got up to walk across the room and there's Rosie with her jaws locked down his right ear like a bear trap while Red Dog drags her over the floor. I even saw Rosie bite down on the side of his neck and watched her stretch his skin out like she was in a world champion taffy pulling contest...Ouch!!!! That looked like it hurt somuch I started having sympathy pains for him but Red Dog stood there and took it like a champ. He's a really patient big brother and Tough!!! After seeing all ofthis it made me think about how many time my little sister pestered me when we were younger and I wished I would have had half the of the tolerance he had. lol. Good job Red Dog. You are one tough hombre.

I guess the take home message today is that when life starts to wear you down and people start chewing on your tail, nose, ears, legs etc.  Be calm, stay collected, and don't lose your cool.  Some people are just waiting to watch some fireworks for their own personal entertainment. And by the way I love my little sister with all my heart and I would not have wanted her be any other way because there might have been an occasion when I might have crawled into her bedroom on my hands and knees under the cover of darkness and I might have slid quietly up against the side of her bed and I might have thrown my left arm over her forehead to pin her head against her pillow as she fell asleep just to hear her scream. But I'm getting old and my memory isn't as good as it once was...He He He...Until the next adventure God bless you.

Stuck In The Middle With You

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 06:29:00 +0000

When you were growing up did you ever get the blame for something you didn't do or get in trouble because of someone else? I think we all have at one time or another and I remember an incident that happened during my senior year of high school in math class. My good pal Devery, who was well known as the class cIown, was goofing off in the class when our teacher Mr. Laverty told everyone to get back to the lesson after allowing us a little cut up time. Well my old pal Dev had apparently lost his capacity to understand English which did not sit well with Mr. Laverty. Now don't get me wrong, Mr. Laverty was one of the coolest teachers at our school but when he said it was time to get to work he meant it. This guy was about six foot four and in pretty good shape (especially for an old guy). During Summer breaks he was a steer wrestler or bull dogger (as it was called back in my day) and he farmed and ranched all year long. So there wasn't any need for him to spend time at the gym. He was as strong as an ox and could swing a paddle harder than anyone else in the free world. Every student in the school was well aware of this fact including Devery but for some reason he just couldn't shut up this particular day. As Dev kept on jabbering, I was in complete compliance with the teachers previous instructions and had my face deeply planted into the math lesson as did everyone else. We all knew the consequences for disobeying his orders. Suddenly I heard Mr. Laverty tell Devery to go to the principals office and every one of us knew what that meant..Two Super Sonic licks from Mr. Laverty's paddle. A hush fell over the classroom and that's when I had a lapse in judgement. I looked up from my work to watch Devery walk out the door and that's when Mr. Laverty saw me rubber necking and said "Howard, you aren't doing anything so you go with him". Those words still echo in the deep recesses of my brain and I'm nearly fifty three years old. Well to make a long story a little shorter, we both got a valuable lesson in physics and thermal dynamics that day. (Note to the reader: When a wooden paddle travels at super sonic speeds it doesn't burst into flames until that sudden impact against your rear end). I found out many years later from my dad that Mr. Laverty told him what had happened that day and that I wasn't doing anything wrong that fateful afternoon but he knew I had got away with a couple of stunts earlier in the school year without getting caught and thought it was a good time to "catch me up" as Mr. Laverty put it. WHAT!!! I was innocent (of course I knew that already) but still punished for a crime I never committed or at least never caught doing! Where was Perry Mason or Ben Mattlock when a guy needs a lawyer? I think both my dad and Mr. Laverty still laugh about this little life moment today or at least my dad does.
I tell you this because my heart went out to ole Red Dog the other day as he had to take one for the team as well. As I mentioned in my last post, we now have a new Rhodesian Ridge Back by the name of Rosie. She is a two month old pooping/peeing machine. More water comes out of this little girl than a rain bird sprinkler and the odorous little gifts she leaves laying around the place are just plain gross. How can so much "stuff" come out of one little body? I guess that is a question parents and dog owners alike have asked many times over the years. I'm sure you have figured out by now that the potty training isn't going so well with Ms. Rosie but my wife Debbie has been a trooper through this whole messy ordeal and is working hard to teach Rosie the proper way for a young lady to potty. Just when we think things are getting a little better we stumble across more rain puddles and mud slides if you get my drift. Debbie has tried just about everything to get this little girl's attention but wow it's been tough. She even volunteers Red Dog to go outside with Rosie in hopes he will teach her proper potty protocol (PPP) but at this point everyone is getting a failing grade. I came home the other day to Debbie working her tail off cleaning every floor in the house in hopes of ridding the place of Ms. Rosie's special scent. She was exhausted by the end of the day but watching Rosie like a hawk in hopes of having a potty free night. This morning around 6:00 am all seemed to be well in Potty Land when Debbie got up to let Rosie and Red Dog outside to take care of their morning chores and calisthenics then she let them back inside an hour later. This is usually plenty of chore time for Red Dog but apparently not for Rosie. As I am getting ready for work I heard a groan from the living room as Debbie caught Rosie doing a little splish'in and a splash'in on the tile floor. As Debbie was scolding Ms. Rosie and putting her back outside Red Dog was making his way back to his bed at warp speed in an attempt to avoid any friendly fire but to no avail. I heard Debbie call to Red Dog "go outside" and keep Rosie company. Poor Red Dog still can't catch a break with the new mutt around and as I walked past the back door on my way to work there sat poor Red Dog with this sad pitiful look on his face like "what have I done'? "I ate all my breakfast, drank all my water and took care of my morning business outside just like I was supposed to and I get stuck out here on this cold damp ground paying for Ms. Rosie's mistake". It was at that moment in the early morning light of this cool winter morning that I had one of those "I understand your pain" like moments for Red Dog. Mine came at the end of a math teachers powerful right arm and Red Dog's came at the end of a little furry four legged water sprinkler named Rosie.

So I guess it goes to show you that life can be unfair to both man and beast but I think the key to survival is to be sure not to hang out with people who can't stop joking around or peeing on the floor. This may not be life altering advice but it could help you avoid people with a bladder problem and poor sense of direction. I think I will file this life lesson right behind the one where you shouldn't chew your fingernails after cleaning fresh chicken eggs. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Hanging With The Big Dogs

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 05:31:00 +0000

I would like to introduce you to Rosie. The newest addition to the DMZ.

Many years ago when I was little I used to love staying at my Aunt Peggy's farm house out in the middle of nowhere in the Oklahoma panhandle. There were only two t.v. stations to watch from a 20 foot antenna and depending on the weather we might accidentally get a fuzzy picture from a third station in Ensign, Kansas so a person had to use their imagination to make the day pass by and my cousins Randy, Billy, and Terry were experts in this particular field of entertainment.
Up in the Oklahoma Panhandle there aren't very many trees across the rolling plains and if you see a clump of trees out there you can just about bet one of two things are going on. The first would be that many farmer/ranchers planted them around their houses to use as a wind break for those harsh panhandle winds that blow through the land or to provide shady cool refuge from the scorching panhandle sun. The second reason you might see a clump (and I use the word clump because forest or grove would over exaggerate the number of trees that actually exist in that part of the world) of trees such as Cottonwood or Chinese Elm that could be seen across the landscape was only because there was a pond, creek, or river near by. Well it just so happened that my cousins Randy, Billy, and Terry lived within 200 yards of the mighty Kiowa Creek which trickled into the North Canadian River (or Beaver River as we called it) which runs through much of the Oklahoma Panhandle and this is where many adventures took place daily. Randy lived on the west side of Kiowa Creek with Billy and Terry living on the east side. All three boys were older than me so I saw it as a great privilege to hang with my older cool cousins. How lucky could a five year old get to hang out with such wise and experienced individuals. I was mesmerized by this fact and would have walked through fire just to hang with them. I followed those guys around like a little puppy excited to see what the adventure of the day looked like. I don't quite remember the details of how we planned out each adventure but we sometimes had top secret meetings in the old storm cellar north of Randy's house which jumped the whole experience into the "Mega Cool" category because none of my other five year old friends had an under ground fort (insert your Tim Allen "man grunt" now). I don't even remember Uncle Bob and Aunt Peggy having a telephone in the house and we cousins must have communicated with each other by Morris Code, Smoke Sign, and probably Mental Telepathy because we all seemed to find our way down to Kiowa Creek at the same time each day and didn't go back to the house until late in the afternoon. I can remember being so excited as I stayed in Randy's hip pocket as we made our way down to the creek. Man those were fun times. We would fish, hunt turtles, tell stories, have stick and dirt clod fights and even wade around in the creek when we got too hot. I'm sure that I got on Randy, Billy and Terry's last nerve much of the time and they probably tried to ditch me a time or two but my brain just refuses to remember those occasions in order to keep all of those Kiowa Creek Adventures in that "Mega Cool" category of my five year old life.

The reason I tell you this story is that Debbie decided the day after Christmas she needed a new Rhodesian Ridge Back puppy added to here DMZ (Debbie Mini Zoo). Her name is Rosie and we aren't sure at this time how old she is because our vet wisely chooses not to work over the holidays but she is a short chubby red Rhodesian pooping machine right now and she has driven every ounce of holiday fragrance out of the house if you know what I mean. She is mesmerized by everything Red Dog does and follows him E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E. She is his officiall "Mini Me". Red Dog's world has been turned up side down and now has to share the "Good Life" at the DMZ with someone else. I don't think he is very happy, happy, happy about it. When poor old Red Dog goes to eat there's Rosie. He goes to drink there she is again. He goes outside to take care of some personal business and who is there climbing all over him...You got it, Ms. Rosie. I thought yesterday might had been the final straw as Red Dog headed into the bedroom for an afternoon nap on his new Christmas bed but guess who beat him there....Rosie. Red Dog has taken the presences of his new friend in stride but when he found Rosie sleeping on his new bed that was ENOUGH of that. Red Dog snarled and Rosie wisely darted under our bed to avoid any retaliation for using his stuff. It was about an hour later when I walked back into the bed room and there lay Red Dog fast asleep with Rosie snuggled beside him. I guess a comfortable bed and a good nap can fix a fellow's attitude. So later that afternoon with a good nap in the books Red Dog started showing Rosie the ropes. He began patrolling the indoor parameter of the house as usual with Rosie close at hand watching every move Red Dog made and during the course of his patrol a situation suddenly arose that caused Red Dog to spring into action...There were strangers near the front door...Although the holiday has started to wind down some of our neighbors still had family visiting and were unaware of Red Dogs primary patrol rule which is that any person who has not been identified by Red Dog as a regular neighbor will be sternly warned with multiple "SONIC WOOFS" until they return to their appropriate side of the street and with no questions asked. So as Red Dog monitored the situation out the front window he had no choice but to enforce that rule as strange children played near our driveway. So the warnings went out very loud and clear to move away from the premises with "WOOF WOOF WOOOOF WOOOOFFFF WOOOFFFF WOOOOOFFFFFFFF". I don't think that Ms. Rosie was quite ready for such a loud warning and immediately took cover underneath a chair in the living room but after a few moments she was back at Red Dogs side ready to help do her part to defend the property. Once all of the "SOINIC WOOFS" were over and the children moved back to their own yard I saw Rosie walk up to the same window Red Dog was looking out of and not being able to see over the window sill started this low grumbling puppy growl. Suddenly she squirted out two little "mini sonic woofs" and went to following Red Dog throughout the house once again. Rosie successfully survived her first training session and walked away feeling ten foot tall and bullet proof. Although the mission was successful Rosie has a lot left to learn and I can almost bet it won't be the last time that Red Dog gets annoyed with his new colleague. But the neat thing was that this whole episode stirred up some great childhood memories of a time gone by when I was a little goober much like Rosie hanging out with my "Cool Cousins" having adventures on the old Kiowa Creek. I'm pretty certain that my cousins remember the details as more of an annoyance than an adventure but they were still nice enough to put up with me anyway. I laugh to myself when I think back on those days and how I must have acted alot like Ms. Rosie following Red Dog around. I learned many things hanging out with them and I must give credit to my "Cool Cousin" Randy who taught me how to talk like Donald Duck and my first cuss word which nearly got my five year old head slapped off by my mother when I used the newly learned slang in front of her friends one day. I won't repeat the word because of younger readers but I will tell you that the soap she used to wash out my mouth tasted nothing like chicken. When I think back to that time I was probably way more annoying to my cousins than Ms. Rosie will ever be to Red Dog but those wonderful childhood memories live vividly in my heart and I will cherish them "FOR-EV-ER" to quote one of my favorite lines from the movie "Sandlot". I can't wait to see what adventures Red Dog and Rosie get into as a new year begins and if they are anything like the ones I had back in the day with my cousins, it will be an interesting year. I hope that each of you have a great 2013. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Gone With A Bang

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 22:33:00 +0000

Well as we all know, dogs come in many shapes and sizes with most dogs having a specific shape and size in order to accomplish the task of the breed. For example Beagle's and Jack Russell's are bred to hunt rabbits and foxes (and not the two legged kind that wear bikini's. Just want to make that clear to the male readers.), Labrador's are bred to swim and retrieve ducks from the water, Huskies for the endurance to pull a snow sled, Brittney's to hunt and retrieve quail and pheasant, Australian Shepherds to herd and sort cattle, German Shepherds for personal protection and to eat criminals, and poodles to wear dumb looking hair cuts and prance around some old ladies house. You can probably tell which breeds I like the most. Each dog has a specific purpose for existing and ole Red Dog is no exception. I don't really understand why but I am absolutely fascinated with the fact that Red Dogs blood line is bred to track and hunt lions. If nothing else it just sounds cool that his ancestors hunted down something so majestic and lived to tell about it so to speak. A fox or rabbit will always run away. A quail, pheasant, or duck will fly away. But the thought of Red Dog's ancestors chasing down a critter that could turn and eat them just captures my imagination. I've seen a rabbit stop to stand his ground when he is being threatened by a coyote but that didn't last once the coyote decided it was lunch time and I've even seen cattle chase Australian Shepherds out of a corral when I used to work for a rancher. I have never seen duck, quail, or pheasant make an organized aerial attack on hunters unless pooping before take off is considered to be some kind of ugly symbolic gesture on the bird's part, however I have witnessed a Yellow Billed Starling dive bomb my oldest daughter multiple times when she was twelve years old and that just made me laugh till I cried. But to think that this big red muscular smart stout handsome looking animal known as a Rhodesian Ridgeback could hold his own with Mr. Lion, the cool factor is off the chart in my mind and I own one. It makes me want to stand tall with my hands on my hips, look skyward and do the Tim Allen man grunt "ARARRARRARR". It's so cool. That's why I like my Red Dog so much but today I found out something about Red Dog that I was hoping not to be true so let me tell you about it.
Many months ago I decided to get back to shooting my guns that I haven't shot in many years. Since crashing my Harley at seventy miles per hour 6 years ago, (and not being able to get the wreck out of my head) I have been looking for a way to fit some quick stress relief into my busy schedule. Shooting my old guns and buying some new ones to shoot seemed to be the way to go. So that's what I have been doing lately, burning up ammo every chance I get. Well this afternoon as I gathered my gear for the firing range I thought I would take Red Dog along and he could enjoy it with me. Red Dog, being the observant fellow that he is, noticed that I was no longer in my work scrubs but in my play clothes so to speak. He began watching every move I made, following me from room to room in order to see what I was going to do next. Finally Red Dog heard the jingling of my truck keys as I grabbed them off the table and he went into full alert. His ears flew skyward, his eyes locked on to me like a missile defense systems, and began to wag his tail around and around as though he was rapidly cranking a World War II warning siren alerting everyone that something was up and Red Dog was pretty sure he knew what it was or at least he thought he did. The jingling of my keys and a wardrobe change could only mean one thing to Red Dog..."ROAD TRIP!"...and I told y'all in the last adventure how much Red Dog likes to go for a ride and he was "RED DEEEEEEEEE" to hit the road. Out the door he went, with the excitement of a six year old headed to the Toy Store. He jumped into the bed of the truck and immediately moved to his favorite riding spot (which is the front right of the truck bed so he can enjoy the view of the country side) and off we went. He likes sticking his head outside the bed in order to catch a cool breeze but once we hit sixty miles per hours his face looked like Tommy Lee Jones face while in the G Force machine in the movie "Space Cowboys". Red Dogs ears are flapping like a flag in the wind, his tongue is hanging out and flying straight back touching his ear, his face has that distorted G Force look to it and he is smiling from ear to ear the whole time. Sometimes I swerve around in my lane because I'm trying to watch Red Dog in the rear view mirror. We finally make it to the firing range to see that we are the only two out there and have the whole place to ourselves. Yippee!!! I decided to let Red Dog stay in the truck for a while since he has never been to the range with me and let him get accustomed to the gun noises from a distance. So after thirty minutes of sighting in one of my rifles I walked back to the truck to get Red Dog who was patiently lying down in the truck bed. I opened the tailgate and he jumped to the ground with the excitement he had before leaving the house. He was "Happy Happy Happy" as Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty says. We walked back over to where the guns and gear were and I told him to sit down beside me. Now that he was in a safe place I was eager to see how he would react to the report of the rifle and I would soon get my answer. I continued to pet Red Dog as I fired the first round and oh my goodness he wasn't ready for that. He gave a full body jerk and started to slowly walk away like "holy crap what was that?". You could tell he didn't care for it much but he tolerated it none the less. I called him back and he obediently came and sat down beside me but the excitement he had only minutes ago was immediately gone. No more perky ears. No more tail wagging. I was hopeful that after shooting for thirty minutes prior to letting him out of the truck might have better prepared him but that just wasn't the case. As Red Dog sat there beside me I fired a second shot down range. He didn't flinch near as much as he did the first time but he was done. He started walking off and would not come back at my command. As I continued to call his name he would stop for only a few seconds to give me a look like "go jump in the lake, that's enough of that business" and walked away with as much dignity as he could possible muster. With his tail down between his legs he slowly headed back to the truck. As I watched him walk away it reminded me of when I was thirteen years old and forgot to take out the trash one evening. It was eleven o'clock at night when my dad noticed I hadn't done what he asked me to do earlier so he told me take it out now. It was pitch dark and we had no back yard light to brighten my path as I walked to the alley. When I reached the trash can I began to throw the sack inside when suddenly the neighbor's cat jumped out of the barrel. I jumped ten feet in the air while my heart leaped three feet out of my chest and simultaneously wet my britches. In those few seconds I felt more terror than any human should ever have to experience. So I gathered up what wits I had left and slowly made the walk back to the house just like I saw Red Dog doing. But in my heart I was running like an Olympic sprinter expecting an ax murders or the boogie man to grab me at any moment. I completely understand what Red Dog was going through with him trying to calmly walk away from a situation with your dignity intact and your is brain screaming "RUN SUCKER RUN". So I gathered up my gear and headed back to the truck. When I got there Red Dog was sitting in the bed in his happy place looking at me like "what the heck were you thinking, I'm a lion killer not a bird dog. My ancestor's owners used spears and bows to hunt with not nuclear bombs". I don't think I could have baited him out of the back of that truck with 10 racks of ribs at this point so I shut the tailgate and we headed to the house.
Don't worry about Red Dog, he completely recovered and was back to his old self by the time we arrived home. When I opened the tailgate and he jumped out with the same swagger that he left with. He Immediately headed over to his water bowl and take a big long gulping drink like he really needed that after this little adventure. Although Red Dog is a big strong loud lion killer of a dog I think he might be getting a little soft or "Yuppiefied" as Phil Robertson would put it by living indoors in the lap of luxury. I don't think I will take him back to the firing range anytime soon because I still want Red Dog to use his "Sonic Bark" to scare the pudd'in out of those uninvited guest who might come snooping around our place. As far as home security goes, I think Red Dog will just continue to use his God given "Sonic Bark" to guard the place and won't be pack'in heat anytime soon. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Born To Ride

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:46:00 +0000

As many of you have read in the past we have quite the collection of critters at our place and I often refer to this menagerie as the DMZ (i.e. Debbie's Mini Zoo). We have chickens, goats, parakeets, finches, cockatiels, doves, cats (oh do we have cats), Red Dog, and ducks. Well just one duck now. For some reason our ducks die like flies after a winter freeze around here so I guess because he is the lone survivor of many ducks that have passed through the DMZ and when I say passed I mean that literally. I call him Super Duck (SD). I have never seen SD leap a small buildings in a single bound but he has survived drought, death, and disease so he must have some hidden super powers or ninja skills. But all of Debbie's critters have little quirks that either tickle or annoy me.
Take for instance Super Duck. Not only has he survived many near death experiences around here but during the summer when we broke out the kiddie pool for him and the hens he was always the first one in the water and the last one out. Each time we fill it up he acts like it's his first time to ever see a body of water he could float in and he would jump in the pool for Tasmanian Devil like swim. Now on the other hand the hens stand around the edge sipping on the water like it's a refreshing cup of tea. It's sip and cluck, sip and cluck cluck, then sip and cluck cluck cluck just like any other group of women at a tea party. They are probably sitting there complaining about their husbands so I'm not surprised when I hear cluck cluck, cluck cluck cluck, cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck and understand what they are clucking about. LOL. As far as the roosters go they are just like any other guys. They guzzle down as much as they can hold and hurry off before the hens get a chance to hen peck them. Isn't it weird how nature imitates life. When it come to the parakeets, doves, and finches they are all thrilled just to get their bird bath filled up. They all jump into that thing like a bunch of stinky ole cowboys who have been riding the trail for months and have finally come up to a tank of fresh water. They whoop and holler (in bird talk of course) and splash around like a bunch of little kids.
Although our feathery critters make me laugh the the goats and cat fall into the annoying category. Our goats (Bert and Ernie) aren't here any longer because they figured out how to escape from their 8 foot tall fence and would go visit the Angus cows down on the Brazos River. After chasing them down two different times in two weeks (and when I say chase that means I send my son and his 19 year old legs to do the job because I am in no shape to exercise) so they were given to my little 6 year old friend Weston for goat roping practice and I think the goats have met their match with him. As far as the cats go, it's like having a school of land sharks constantly circling your feet. You open the back door twenty five fussy chia-pets dart into the house at super sonic speed. It's like twenty five miniature hit and run accidents in 3 seconds hitting my leg. I just stand there motionless praying I am still standing after the frenzy is over with. The most annoying thing about the cats comes down to one very large 35 pound black and white long haired cat called Mr. Buttons. He is the size of a small Bobcat and fears no evil. He roams the neighborhood just daring something to come after him. He is an indoor/outdoor cat and comes in and out of the house as he pleases. All in all a pretty cool guy as cats go but he has one quirk that drives me absolutely crazy. When he's ready to got outside he will start slapping one of the window blinds with his front paws. He looks like George Foreman working a punching bag. I have no clue why that's his signal to go outside but it is. The thing that drives me nuts is that he seems to think he always wants to go outside at three o'clock in the morning. Why? Once again I have no clue but all I know is that this goober will beat on the blind until one of us gets up and if you chase him off he returns within minutes for rounds two three and four. If in the event that doesn't wake us up then he pulls out the big one. He jumps up to one of the posts of our bed which is about 5 foot tall and takes a leap right into the middle of one of us. I don't know if you have ever had a 35 pound cat jump on you at night but I can say it is not pleasant and will wake up even the heaviest sleeper from their dreams. Whatever it takes he is committed to his mission. I'm too old to be missing any sleep so I usually cave in and let him out so I can get some shut eye. I guess that's the price I pay for having a wife who is a critter junkie. All in all I can live with it.
I bet by this time you are wondering what this has to do with Red Dog? Well, Red Dog is the one critter around this place that doesn't get under my skin and he causes me to laugh most all the time. Today was no exception. It was my afternoon off from the clinic and I came home to one of the prettiest October days I have seen in a while. The sun was out, there were few clouds in the sky, temperature a perfect seventy degrees, and no wind. I decided to go for a drive through the country side just to enjoy the day. Ever since Red Dog learned how to load up in the pickup bed, he loves to go riding as well. So after I finished lunch I ask Red Dog if he wanted to go for a ride and man does he know what that means. He started pacing around the room wagging that tree branch of a tail like the checkered flag at a NASCAR event. His tongue was hanging out of his mouth slobbering all over the floor and I knew he was ready to go. He was so excited and darted off toward the garage. As we got to the back door he tried to bolt right through and head out to the truck but because I wanted him to control his excitement I made him sit and stay at the back door a few times. That way he could collect himself (doing the calm submissive thing like Cesar says) and learning not to blast through the door so no ones gets tripped in the future. It was like telling a 6 year old kid to sit in front of the Christmas tree and not touch the presents. It was almost beyond Red Dogs self control but he settled down and sat their until I told him he could go. He is such a good Red Dog. As he walked into the garage his excitement immediately turned into great confusion. There was no truck. His tail stopped wagging and he slowly started walking around the area where the truck was supposed to be. Red Dog looked up to me as if to say "what the heck, am I being punked". I must say I was a little surprised myself because I forgot that I parked the truck in the driveway at lunch. Man that empty garage made us both feel like the only two guys standing in the middle of the Grand Canyon, echos and all. At this point I saw the excitement drain out of Red Dog. His ears drooped downward and tail fell between his legs. He was one disappointed hound dog at this point. So I opened the garage door and we walked out into the drive. Within seconds he caught a glimpse of the truck it was game on again. He ran to the truck as fast as he could. You would have thought that he just guzzled down a 12 pack of Mountain Dew. His excitement was out of control...again. Red Dog stood at the tailgate in launch mode with his legs shaking just dying to leap into the truck bed. He got so excited he had a couple of failures to launch until the tail gate was completely down. When he jumped up into the back I could have sworn I saw him strike a pose like one of those extreme BMXer's stretched out over his bike as he flew over the top of the tail gate. The second Red Dog was in the truck he sat down and looked at me like "come on, quit goofing around, let's go". So off we went. Red Dog sat back there with his nose in the air, tongue and ears flapping in the wind. As the Geico commercial suggests, He was happier than Gallagher standing in the middle of a watermelon stand. At that moment all was right in Red Dog Land as we headed off to go pick up my best pal Mark.
What a wonderful way to spend a beautiful fall afternoon. Taking a drive through the countryside enjoying God's creation, discussing life events in the company of a good friend, and Red Dog slobbering down the side of my newly washed truck. If only there would have been some ribeyes cooking on the grill when we returned Red Dog and I could have really hit the big time. But never the less it was a very good relaxing afternoon for all of us. In the immortal words of Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty, it made us "Happy Happy Happy" to go for a ride in the country on such a beautiful fall day. Until the next Red Dog adventure, God bless you all.

The Best Eggs Are Fresh Eggs

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 03:07:00 +0000

You know that old saying about a man's dog resembles and mimics his master and his habits. Well it appears Red Dog is no different. Debbie is always yakking at me about the things I eat, especially things that have been sitting in the refrigerator for arguably way to many days/weeks. I am always digging around in there looking for an evening snack and when I find something that looks good or looked good a few days/weeks earlier, I grab it and start chowing down. When she sees me walking into the room eating yesterday's/last week's left overs she nearly comes unhinged. I usually remind her that I saw little to no unusual growth on the particular food product I was consuming just to reassure her it was safe to eat. But I don't think she believes in my ability to safely analyze refrigerated foods. After her gagging subsides she sternly reminds me she will not be the one cleaning up any messes that might be created if I eat it. So we have an unspoken agreement that if I mess it up, I clean it up which is only fair. It appears Red Dog has picked up this ability to eat anything that doesn't eat him as well. So the same clean up rule applies to Red Dog. If he messes it up, I clean it up. I am very happy to report that Red Dog has done extremely well in the house breaking department and has had very few accidents since he moved in. I am even happier to report that my record in this department is even better than Red Dogs which is of great relief to my wife (no pun intended). As you have read in the past, many things cause Red Dogs mouth to start watering which ranges from cat poo to spare ribs. I'm on the same page as Red Dog when it comes to the spare ribs but he is on his own when it comes to the cat poo sprinkled with kitty litter. Some of you may recall a FaceBook post many months ago where I had a very unpleasant experience while washing fresh chicken eggs and then chewing my finger nails. For those who have never read that posting just let me say that I got to taste a part of the chicken that was never meant for human consumption and it is still my opinion that it didn't taste a thing like chicken.
Speaking of chicken eggs, we found another food group that Red Dog likes almost as much as spare ribs today. As you may or may not know my part of Texas is experiencing one of the worst droughts in state history with high temperature and very little rain over the past two years. We are currently on water rationing and we are not allowed to water our grass, trees, plants, and flowers with city supplied water so things are pretty dry around here. Debbie has about 30 chickens that have survived this two year drought thus far and egg production has been pretty poor. Well the old girls have been doing their best to earn their keep lately and egg production slightly improved over the past few months. During these hot summer days, Debbie has be going out right before sun down to gather eggs and she takes Red Dog along for protection in case she comes across unwanted critters. It doesn't take her very long to gather eggs but she has this small zoo known as the DMZ (Debbie's Mini Zoo) and it takes around fourty minutes to feed, water and bed everyone down for the night. After her chores were done I heard Debbie slam the back door yelling "that's it, you are staying outside for the rest of the night". At first I thought she was yelling at me and so I automatically began pleading my case by pointing out I have been inside under the air conditioner watching T.V. all evening. I quickly realize in the middle of her rant that she may not be yelling at me. I immediately shut my mouth (a technique I have perfected over thirty years of marriage) because it makes no sense to confess to something you may or may not have done. Fortunately for me, during the course of her rant I heard the words Red Dog and knew I was off the hook.
Apparently while Debbie was taking care of the DMZ Red Dog got hungry while on guard duty and began eating the eggs she had just gathered. By the time Debbie noticed what Red Dog was doing he had gobbled up all of the eggs in her bucket. I was biting my upper lip trying to keep a straight face in order to avoid the same fate as Red Dog. As she told me what he had done the image of Steve McQueen eating fifty boiled eggs and lying on the bed with a full belly in the movie "Cool Hand Luke" kept running through my brain and I finally lost it and just started laughing. I don't think I won any favor with my sweet wife when that happened. I then had the uncontrollable urge to go find Red Dog to see how big his belly was but when I got to the door I couldn't see him anywhere. As Debbie stormed off to the bedroom I thought I might need to take a page out of Red Dogs play book and make myself scarce until she cooled down. Later in the evening I saw Red Dog peering through the back door and he must have really liked those eggs because there wasn't even a drop of egg yolk on his chin. He looked pretty sad staring through the window while serving out his back yard sentence this particular evening.
So today I found out that Red Dog and I not only like a good spare rib but we both like our fair share of scrambled eggs. After laughing at my wife I also found out how well my wireless internet router works from the back yard. By the way Red Dog says "tjcwtd cxdvm xdkelszxl asdl.lo xzp;xz" which needs to be translated because Red Dog doesn't have fingers and has to type with his paws: Until the next adventure God bless you all.

A Red Dog Rib Alert.

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 20:51:00 +0000

Laser locked on a rack of ribs in kitchen

Well it's been a while since my last story but there hasn't been much going on in Red Dogs world the past few weeks. It has been so hot and dry here in North Texas that Red Dog is doing what everyone else is trying to do...Stay COOL...Although we don't have a pool or at least I haven't caved in to Debbie's pressure to have one built. Red Dog has been using Debbie's fish pond as his private swimming hole to beat the heat this summer. He goes to the back door and sits there until we let him outside. Sometimes he whines about it and other times he doesn't. Once outside he goes through a ritual of raiding as much cat food as he can hold then heads for a little dip in the fish pond without hesitation. Once in a while he gives me the ojo during his little soaks like I'm his personal cabana boy and he is waiting on me to bring him a cool drink or dry towel. I like ole Red Dog quite a bit but not well enough to be his cabana boy. As the Geico Lizard would say "Forget about it!!!" But one thing is for sure, there is no mistaking when he wants back inside under the air conditioner. First he will start off with a little whimper in an attempt to get our attention and if that isn't successful he starts growling and making louder noises. When all else fails he will break out the "Sonic Woof" until we open the door or the neighbors call about the noise. I really don't blame him because it's so darn miserable outside but it sure can disrupt a good Sunday afternoon nap. Once inside he's just like the rest of us and goes to his most comfortable place in the house for the rest of the day.
We had some good friends come over for supper the other evening and they brought "Smoked Ribs" and that put Red Dog on high alert. If you remember back to one of our first adventures I found out quickly that Red Dog was a rib junkie as he inhaled three ribs off of my plate in a matter of seconds after placing it on the arm of my easy chair while I answered the phone. And if you will also recall Debbie caught him lying on top of the dinning room table thinking it was a proper place to take a nap soon after he moved here. For these two reasons Red Dog is banished from the kitchen and from being around the dinner table. Well the other night as the aroma of smoked ribs filled the house you could easily find Red Dog. He staged himself just inches outside the kitchen area in hopes that someone would fumble a rib to the floor. It was funny to watch him. It must have taken every ounce of his willpower not to enter the kitchen and beg for a snack. Red Dog sat there at attention like a guard at Buckingham palace but with his eyes locked on our every move just hoping for some rib manna from heaven to fall his way. I never heard a peep out of him the whole time we were eating but he never moved an inch away from the kitchen door either. He behaved himself so well we couldn't let the evening end without a reward. Debbie headed toward the back door with a plate of rib bones and Red Dog's tree branch of a tail started moving like an airplane propeller. As soon as the door open he darted outside like a lighting bolt and eagerly waited for the rib feast to begin. He had been preparing for this moment all evening long and I could have sworn I saw a rib bib on him as he dove into the middle of his smokey treat. I'm not sure how many rib bones Debbie gave him but it was plenty. Red Dog made them disappear faster than David Cooperfield could make a woman disappear from a box and with far less drama. So Red Dog just laid around the house the next day with his belly full of rib bones and and smile on his face. All has been right in his world ever since.
There is some good news from what I called his "Make Me Sick Adventure". A few weeks after Maddie headed back to Lubbock with our kids Red Dog kicked his cat poop eating habit cold turkey and I am hopeful it will "NEVER" return. I guess if I keep feeding him rib bones that will lessen the temptation.
So it was a double header win in Red Dog country this past week. Nothing really exciting or hilarious to write about but I did get a little chuckle out of Red Dog eyeballing those ribs the other night. Until the next adventure. God bless you all.

Bad Habits Make Me Sick

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 04:02:00 +0000

Ms. I Will Teach You To Eat Cat Poop Maddie and Mr. I Will Gladly Learn To Eat Cat Poop Red Dog

Well Red Dog has picked up a few bad habits from a couple of his pals over the past few weeks and is in deep dodo with my wife over them. Since Reed, our youngest, has moved home Red Dog has been hanging out in his room all hours of the day because he has been letting Red Dog sleep on the bed with with him. That's against the house rules around here but Red Dog is still getting away with it at times. You have to realize this is a seventy five pound hairy pony lying around on the furniture and Red Dog is shedding like crazy this summer which creates a lot of extra work for Debbie around the house. I will admit that Red Dog is pretty sneaky about not getting caught. He reminds me of my friends little boys when they were little sneaking cookies from the kitchen to their bed rooms.

I was over visiting my friend in his living room one afternoon when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. At first I was not sure what was going on so Matt and I kept on talking. After a couple more minutes of conversing I noticed some small blurred images flashing in and out of my peripheral vision. I finally had to stop our conversation to watch what was going on. Matt's two young sons were sneaking from their bedroom where they were supposed to be taking a nap into the kitchen to swipe cookies off of the counter top. They would peak around the corner waiting for us to look away then dart across the floor to the cookie jar then repeat the maneuver when returning to the safety of their bed room. I must admit it was a well thought out plan as we found out after some semi serious parental interrogating. Those two little boys had taken the lid off the cookie jar prior to going to bed in order to eliminate any jar noise during their cookie heist. I considered their plan a successful failure because they went to the well one time to many and got caught. We found a large cache of cookies hidden in their bunk beds and I snicker when I think about how many times they had to sneak around us to get such a stock pile.

Red Dog is being very cautious when it comes to catching him sleeping on the furniture. He must be sleeping with one eye open and one ear to the air listening for me headed toward the bed room because every time I head that way he is already trotting down the hallway as though nothing is wrong. There is some evidence that he has been sleeping on the bed but it's difficult to tell as there isn't much difference in the cleaning habits of a seventy five pound dog and a twenty year old boy. I have only caught Red Dog once and I made it very clear that its not allowed but I'm pretty certain he has continued to lounge on the furniture when I am not looking. Wow, it just hit me that Red Dog is acting like my twenty year old just without the smartalec remarks. Maybe those two should move in together. Oh, wait they did and at my house. Maybe some day I'll catch a break.

As annoying as it is to have Red Dog sneaking around sleeping on the beds the next little habit he picked up from his pal Maddie is just plain gross. The other day Debbie could hear some weird crunching noises coming from the guest bathroom so she went to investigate. As she walked into the room she could see Red Dog with his head under the cabinet where the cats litter box is kept. As she got closer she notice Red Dog was eating the cat poop out of the litter box and it appeared he was enjoying it. OH MY LORD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS CRAZY DOG!!! We have had Red Dog over a year now and he has never done anything like this "EVER". Debbie went into this grossed out rigor and chased Red Dog out of the room. Where and when did he pick up this filthy habit. Now I know that dogs do this when they are outside and that is gross enough on it's own but when you add the crunching noise of the cat litter it brings it to a whole new level of gross. The thing that grossed me out the most, and I have seen a lot of gross things in my medical career, is that it was the exact loud sound you hear in your head when you eat a bowl of Grape Nuts breakfast cereal and it looked just like Tootsie Rolls covered in gray sprinkles. It makes me nauseated and gives me the willies just thinking about it. (Quick note to self: Tell Debbie to scratch Grape Nuts off the shopping list). If there are any pluses about this nasty little habit it's that Red Dog doesn't have stinky breath so we must be buying a good brand of cat litter. After telling this story to the kids our Lubbock daughter confessed that Maddie does the same thing and they have to block her from the litter box. After more discussion we calculated that Red Dog didn't start this nasty little habit until Maddie came for a weekend visit a few weeks ago. Thanks Maddie.

Now we have a dog with a "SONIC" bark who likes to eat cat poop with kitty litter and has the freshest smelling breath in the neighborhood. This dog ownership thing just keeps getting better and better. What will happen next around here? Will the cats start laying eggs, the chickens start chasing cars, the grey squirrels crow like a rooster at sun rise, or my twenty year old son clean that pig sty he calls a bedroom. Who knows what strange events will take place out here at the DMZ (Debbie Mini Zoo for those who aren't familiar with this Texas Red Dog Adventure acronym). But one thing is for sure Red Dog has to change his choice of snacks before I throw my guts up because I can't continue to type and vomit at the same time. Until the next less gross adventure, God bless you all.

Saturday Morning Chaos

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 02:08:00 +0000

It's been an interesting Saturday morning around the Howard house so let me fill you in on the players in this little adventure before I begin. Player number one is Red Dog. His actions today are more like the little brother who wants to do what big brother does instead of behaving like he was taught. Player number two is Maddie. She belongs to my Lubbock kids. Player number three is the new indoor kitten (whoopee) which I call "Stupid" because I can't remember what Debbie named her. Now let me take a minute to give some background on Maddie and Stupid before I begin.

Maddie was a One hundred and forty pound obese indoor Ridge Back until a few months ago when the vet put her on a diet and she is now down to 75 pounds. I'm thinking I need to go see this vet for my weight loss with those kind of results. She is a tad bit spoiled and rules the roost at her house. She lies around on the couch and sleeps in the bed with my daughter since her husband works the night shift for the police department. We have a totally different set of house rules for poor ole Red Dog which include no sleeping in the beds or lying on the furniture when we are around. One night Maddie started this constant low grumbling growl at the sliding glass door of my daughter's apartment which alerts her that someone might be messing around the back porch. So my daughter grabs her home protection 12 gauge shot gun and cautiously moves toward the sliding glass door. Maddie's growl gets louder and more aggressive as my daughter throws back the curtain to the door and brings her shot gun to full draw. By now Maddie is barking her head off ready to eat the face off of anyone or anythings that is outside the door. Things were pretty intense at this point. When the curtain flies open there stands some drunk college kid from the apartment complex in his birthday suit trying to be cute when he gets to see a 12 gauge shot gun pointed at his face and big red dog ready to eat him alive. I think the drunken humor quickly left this stupid college student and he instantly ran into the darkness screaming like a little girl. Unfortunately he had no britches to wet but I think the sight of his shiny hiney disappearing into the darkness was pay back enough for my daughter. Needless to say I am a big fan of Ms. Maddie for protecting my daughter so I am more than happy to put up with some of her habits.

The next player in this little Saturday morning adventure is "Stupid" which is a kitten that was brought to our house by our Wichita Falls daughter. She apparently found Stupid in a tree outside her house with the sniffles about a month ago. For whatever reason she thought the kitten might die up there after an evening thunder storm. Well to make a long story short she brought the cat to our house for Debbie to nurse it back to health. I asked her how many cat carcasses she has seen stuck in the trees around her neighborhood and she just rolled her eyes then said none. I was reassured that this kitten once sniffle free would be sent to a new home. Well it's one month later and the sniffles are gone and Stupid is freely roaming the house climbing on E V E R Y T H I N G like kittens do. I know it's supposed to be cute and all but cute went out the door for me about a thousand cats ago (I am obviously estimating the number of my wife's cats on the low side). Stupid climbs on the furniture purring her little head off waiting for the chance to curl up with Debbie and snuggle. They both think it is Wonderfulllll and I'm left wondering when it's my turn to snuggle with her (her being Debbie and not the cat). Maybe my snuggling chances would improve if I wore some fuzzy PJ's and started purring instead of wandering around the house in my boxers tooting (note to self buy fuzzy PJ's and stop tooting). Since both of our girls got married Debbie has been "OBSESSING" about grand kids but my math skills tell me that kittens are less expensive and I can laugh when Red Dog chases them. So to stay out of trouble with the wife, I guess Stupid can stay. Besides everyone in town knows it's much easier to adopt a child from Russia than a kitten from the Debbie Howard Cat Adoption Agency. Now the cat population has risen to a gazillion and one around here. Whoopee!!! I mean that sarcastically.

The final player of this story is Red Dog who needs no introduction and is surprisingly not the ring leader of today's adventure. He just came along for the annoying ride.

This story starts around six o'clock on Saturday morning with my Lubbock kids sticking their heads in the bedroom to tell me good by as they head off to Dallas for a weekend of Texas Rangers baseball and shopping. They drove in the day before to shorten their drive and drop off Maddie for me to dog sit for the weekend. They figured a seventy five pound dog stuck in a second story apartment doesn't do well by herself especially when it's potty time. I'm still in bed and Debbie is gone for the weekend to her thirty year high school reunion in Darrouzett, Texas in the north panhandle. (By the way you can read a good little story about this little Texas town on her blog over at Texas Tumbleweed Travels). I fall back asleep trying to catch up on my rest after a long week at work. Around seven o'clock I am suddenly awakened by Ms. Maddie because she thinks the best spot to place her cold wet nose is in the palm of my left hand as it hangs off the side of the bed. "YUCK"! Now I am wide awake. Some people wake up in the mornings to a soft rock radio station playing by the bedside while others wake up to their 3 year old staring at them nose to nose whispering "Daddy, Daddy, wake up" in their ear. But that's not the case here at Debbie's Mini Zoo (DMZ). You get the blessing of hearing cats and dogs whining at the door wanting outside for their morning constitutional or Oscar the Cockatiel squawking his head off because dawn is breaking and he doesn't want you to miss it. But now I get to add a freezing cold wet nose to the hand to alert me to the dawning of a new day. (Oh boy, what a blessing!) I guess I should be thankful it wasn't the cold nose right up the kiester like many dogs like to do. So I pet Maddie on the head and try to slip back off to sleep. The key word in this statement was "Try". Apparently Red Dog saw how much fun it was so here comes cold nose number two. Great, what a thrill! I am awake again. Since I didn't yell at Maddie I petted Red Dog on the head as well. Thinking that everyone has got some morning loving I could go back to sleep but I was wrong. Petting those two goobers just created a shark like petting frenzy. Red Dog and Maddie were both pushing each other jockeying for the best petting position. There was more pushing going on than an NBA basketball game and neither dog could get enough of it. They were acting like a couple of junkie's, each working hard to get their next petting fix. Finally I had to yell at both of them to "Knock It Off". By this time I was fully awake with no hope of getting back to sleep so I got up and headed to the bathroom to get ready for the day. As many of you older folks know you never pass up the chance to sit on the porcelain recliner first thing in the morning. While I was there here came Maddie to see if she could help. I shooed her away but as soon as she left here came Red Dog thinking he might be missing out on something important so I shooed him away as well. Out of no where Stupid shows up thinking she could be far more helpful than the other two yahoo's. I can't get her shooed away because she is a cat and cats are stupid. Hence naming her the same. Since Stupid is still in the room it was obvious to Red Dog and Maddie that I needed more company so they come trotting back. After hissing and shooing at them for a while the dogs finally left the room but Stupid kept hanging out just in case she was needed. I guess the Ridge Backs couldn't stand the thought that someone else might be vying for my attention so here they come back for round three. "OH MY GOODNESS". It was like a Forth of July parade in my bathroom at this point. All that was missing was a sheriff's posse, marching band, and grand marshal waving from a shiny convertible. "THIS IS INSANE". I am thankful that none of these animals could operate a telephone or they might have called the whole neighborhood to invite them for a block party in my bathroom. At this point I start yelling and yelling and hissing and yelling some more. They all just stood there staring at me wagging their tails and purring. I guess that seeing a fifty two year old gray headed fat guy sitting on the toilet in his birthday suit doesn't look very intimidating to these guys. I finally gave up on the yelling and finished my morning chores. Once I got back on my feet I popped the dogs on the rear end and stomped my feet at the cat to chase them out of the room. Now that was more like it. I stood there with my hands on my hips and my chest sticking out thinking I have restored my authority over the animal kingdom. The words truth, justice, and the American way were echoing in my brain and all I needed now was red cape and a "S" on my chest to make the moment complete. But then I realize I was standing there in my birthday suit and the air rushed out of my ego immediately. I was too scared to look at the mirror and see how ridiculous I must look.

Now for a quick disclaimer: For those who now have an image of me striking a Superman pose in my birthday suite stuck in their brain please feel free to shove a number two pencil in your ear to rid yourself of this horrible image. I will gladly reimburse anyone for the cost of the pencil if you send me a receipt. Now back to the story.

Now that the first order of my morning business is over it's time to hit the shower. while showering I looked down to see Stupid was back curiously pawing at the water dripping off the bottom of the shower curtain. What was wrong with this cat that she couldn't leave me alone while I get ready for the day. I quickly threw open the shower and aimed the shower head directly at her hoping it would chase her out of the room. Well this plan failed because she was too fast and out of reach of the spraying water to get my point across. But I did manage to make the bathroom look like a car that went through a car wash with its windows down. After finishing my shower and mopping the floor I found Stupid standing on the toilet staring into the bowl in a hypnotic trance. I thought with a little help she could have a whirlpool experience of a lifetime and scare her out of the bathroom forever. So I flushed the toilet and prepared to watch the outcome of her very first swirly. She sat there watching the water swirl around and around with her head moving with the motion of the water. As the water level dropped lower and lower she leaned closer and closer to the center of the bowl trying to touch the water with her paw. Just as I was about to give her a little nudge toward the swirling vortex in runs Dumb and Dumber and Stupid jumps off the seat and missed out on her first water park experience. Apparently Red Dog and Maddie thought they were missing out on something special so they crowded their way toward the toilet to see the magical swirling water for themselves. Great! Now I have created a mini water park for animals and these guys are going to stay in the bathroom the rest of the day waiting for the next performance of the magical water. I finally gave up on the rest of the morning by getting dressed and left for the emergency department in hopes of finding something less stressful to deal with other than a house full of cold nosing water watching peeping Toms. What a morning!

I guess the take home message for today is if I have a house full of critters and I want some Saturday morning peace and quiet, lock and barricade the doors then post security guards outside. I think I am old enough to take care of my morning chores without any help from these guys. I could easily see this plan working with future grand kids so maybe today's adventure preparing for a house full curtain climber and not so much about a bunch of four legged tail wagging bathroom assistants. Either way I've decided I don't want to be a victim of any future bathroom parades so I will be arming myself with a water spray bottle the next time I have a house full of animals or children. May be I won't look so pathetic sitting there next time. Until the next adventure. God bless you all.

Who Has The ASD

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 03:30:00 +0000

I really don't know how to safely tell this story without the end result being me living in the dog house. But here I go. Many people I know have a family tradition or heirlooms they pass down through the years as a way of remembering a family matriarch or to carry forward an important piece of family history. Some families do it through handing down a wedding ring, hand made quilt, old shot gun, pocket watch, china hutch, eyeglasses or even the family Bible. I know of one family who has a complete set of sterling silverware hand made by Paul Revere, yes the historic "The British Are Coming" Paul Revere, that is still being passed from generation to generation as a way of keeping alive the memory of their family members who helped defeat the British for the independence of our country. Even my wife and I have a tradition of eating fast food tacos on our wedding anniversary for the past 30 years just because we were too broke the first 3 anniversaries to afford a nice meal. We look at it as something fun we now love to tell people about and are happy we kept the tradition alive all of these years. So as you can see traditions or legacies can be things of great monetary value such as sterling silver or as whimsical as cheap tacos. For my wife's family, they have a special gift they have passed down for at least 2 generations that is for a lack of a better word "Amazing". During our first Christmas as husband and wife Debbie and I were trying to figure out how to blend all of our family's Christmas celebrations into 3 short days. So we did the only reasonable thing a young married couple could do, we drove roughly 500 round trip miles and made four different Christmas celebrations of both families finally ending up at my wife's grandmother's house. While there I got the blessing of sleeping in the same small bedroom with my father in law and it was there that I was introduced to this wonderful family legacy. I want everyone to understand that I love my father in law greatly but "OH MY GOODNESS" this man can snore the shingles off of your house. I have never heard something that loud come out of a sleeping human being in all of my life. He must get Christmas cards each year from the U.S Geological Survey with a snore that loud because it causes the ground to shake. I am pretty sure that the largest earth quake ever recorded in the North Texas Panhandle had an epicenter right under his house. You may want to Google that just to be sure. I bet by now you are wondering how this is a family tradition? Well after a few years of marriage I found out that my father in law has passed this amazing talent to my dear sweet wife. Thus a legacy is born. You now understand my concern about being in deep trouble if I tell this story. Now that you know this much lets see how deep of a hole I can dig myself into. Not that I am happy or bragging on my father in law but he did an outstanding job of passing down that snoring gene to his daughter. I consider him the "Yoda" of the snoring world and you can call my wife "Luke" because the FORCE is without a doubt with her. Now I bet you are wondering how Red Dog fits into this story. Well, I'm not sure how Red Dog acquired the snoring gene but he has it loud and clear. I work many late hours in our local hospital so it's not unusual for me to come home late at night to the dynamic duo of Red Dog and Debbie sawing some very loud logs and I'm sure it sets off earthquake sensors all over North Texas. Wow those two make quite a team but about ten months ago Debbie found the antidote to her "LITTLE" night time problem and now Red Dog is snoring solo. The solution came in the form of a forty dollar blue rubber molded anti snoring mouth piece. Lets just call it a ASD (anti snoring device) so I don't have to use the s-word and Debbie's name in the same sentence so I don't dig that hole too fast. The ASD came from of all places QVC and it actually worked to my joyful surprise because QVC is nothing more than a non-stop Sham Wow like infomercial. But after 30 years of midnight earth quakes, I for whatever would work in order to get some sleep. Now all I have to do to get a peaceful nights sleep is run Red Dog out of the bedroom.
A few weeks ago Debbie called my clinic to ask me if I had seen her ASD that morning before leaving for work. My heart sunk as I began to maticulously retraced my morning steps trying to remember if I had seen it but came up with a total blank. She told me she had turned the house upside down looking for it without any success. After a few minutes on the phone it hit me that Red Dog was lying in the floor on her side of the bed that morning and realized that I didn't hear Red Dog snore at all that night. I told her to immediately pry his mouth open and see if he had a blue rubber smile. Well no blue smile for Red Dog. Debbie has continued to look everywhere for weeks and still no luck. The weird thing is that Red Dog hasn't snored once since Debbie lost the ASD. I don't think the inventor ever meant for it to be used by dogs but we may be on to something new here. If the ASD can't fit around dog teeth maybe Red Dog chewed it up and it's now fitting somewhere near his south end. Hmmm? And maybe what I thought was snoring from Red Dog all of this time was a south wind blowing out from under his tail. The ASD could be working more like a muffler as "SOMETHING" escapes from the tail pipe? This could be the beginning of a whole new line of pet products and I could name it the "Butt Muffler". If nothing else it would make for an interesting pet commercial. lol. But I'm guessing that Red Dog probably chewed up Debbie's ASD in the night and it's now resting somewhere in his colon. I suggested she accompany Red Dog outside each day so she could recover the ASD but she passed on that idea and didn't see the humor in my statement. With me being such a cheapskate, I may just have to escort ole Red Dog outside myself. But if I do and you hear that I got Debbie a new ASD don't any of you tell her where I got it. I am banking on you the reader to keep my secret.
Before I leave you today I would like to introduce to you my new web address where I will be writing all future Texas Red Dog Adventures now that you know about the O'Neal family legacy. Please go to www.larrysinthedoghouseforever.com (not really lol). Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Acting Alike

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 02:43:00 +0000

A little exercise.

Rest!!!

And more rest!!!

I'm sure you have heard the stories about a mans dog looking or acting like his master. Well, I think that's the case with Red Dog except I don't drink out of the toilet. As I have said in the past, Red Dog has become quite fond of indoor life which I can totally relate to. We both enjoy lying around under the air conditioner and we eat all the food Debbie puts on our plates. We both seem to take plenty of naps and talk/growl in our sleep. Just last night Debbie hollered from the bedroom that something was wrong with Red Dog. I went in to check on him and he was lying peacefully at the foot of the bed fast asleep making these gurgling/grunting sounds. I don't know what he was dreaming about but he didn't appear to be in any distress. When I called out his name he just layed there looking up at me like what did you do that for. He was perfectly fine and didn't appear to be very happy about being woke up. A few months ago Debbie was gone to Africa so Red Dog and I got to "bach" it for a while. We ate, drank, napped, snored, scratched, and tooted when ever we wanted and no one was around to tell us to stop. We sat around the house doing guy things every day. It was like testosterone heaven. We even created a live man/dogmade water feature in Debbie's pond one evening (the guys will know what I'm talking about) but don't tell her I told you that. It was all short lived as Debbie returned home a few weeks later (don't get me wrong, her coming home was a good thing) and we had to start behaving again. I got tickled at Red Dog the other day when Debbie, Red Dog and I went for a ride in the truck. On nice evenings we all load up and go cruising through town until it gets dark. Red Dog loves riding in the back and it only took him a few times to figure out he could jump into the pick up bed on his own. That was one thing I was really happy about because the first few times I had to lift him up in there and it was an ugly sight lifting 85 pounds of scared kicking dog into the pickup bed. But now he's got the loading thing down pat. We would hit the road with his face to the wind and those big ears flapping like Dumbo the Circus elephant. We returned home the other evening from one our rides and Debbie and I went straight into the house after parking the pickup in the garage. About thirty minutes later it suddenly hit me I didn't let the tailgate down so Red Dog could get out. I hurried back to the pickup to find him sitting there patiently waiting on someone to let him out. He looked like he could have stayed there all night without any problem. I was a little irritated at myself for forgetting about him but he was just happy to see me. He's a good Red Dog. But the one thing that has caught my attention lately about Red Dog is that he and I are on the same page when it comes to exercise. If I want to go check on something around our place I drive the golfcart and when Red Dog comes with me he doesn't want to run along side like most dogs, he jumps in the seat beside me and off we go. I think he figures he never knows when he might come across a lion and needs to save his strength to defend me. So we cruise down to the tank like a couple of lazy bums that know what we are doing. Lately Red Dog likes for me to go outside and play with him in the back yard. This little thing got started when Reed (our twenty year old son) would come home to visit and they would go chase each other in the back yard. Red Dog would run around the yard at top speed darting back and forth as quickly as he could with Reed right behind him. Funny thing is it doesn't last but a minute or so and Red Dog has had enough. He will suddenly stop and go lay down as to say "that's all in need for one day". Luckily I don't have to put out that much effort when it's my turn to play with Red Dog. When I ask him if he wants to go outside that tree branch like tail of his starts spinning like an airplane propeller so off we go. The minute Red Dog's feet hit the grass he takes off like a lightening bolt and the game begins. I jump down into a defensive basketball stance and Red Dog does the same. He then suddenly takes off at full speed running around the yard. He will stop and pause for a few seconds and as soon as I jump back into that stances, he takes off again. We repeat this over and over (which usually equals about three times) and we are done. The good news is that it doesn't take Red Dog and I long to miss the A/C so we quickly head inside. I fall into my chair and Red Dog lies down close to the A/C air vent and our recovery time begins and lasts the rest of the day. I was sitting there after one of our rigorous workouts thinking that Red Dog was getting as soft and out of shape as I am. Here is a dog that's bred to hunt down lions on the African plains and now all he wants to do is hang out with me under the air conditioner. Not a bad idea considering the drought we have been in for the past two summers but it got me wondering if I have picked up any of Red Dogs habits?
Like I said earlier, I've never drank from the toilet and I've never pooped on the carpet. I'm pretty sure I've never cold nosed the Schwann man when he comes to the house, although I do get a little excited seeing him carrying boxes of food to me. I don't think I have ever licked the neighbors on the hand when they have come over to visit. I don't chase Debbie's cats but it sure puts a smile on my face to watch Red Dog do that (please, no one tell Debbie). I don't lick myself but I have licked BBQ rib juice off of my fingers and we all know how much Red Dog like ribs. I've never scooted my bobo across the floor when it itched but Debbie keeps yelling at me to quit scratching myself when walking across the room. We both like to go tinkle out in the back yard but mine is usually under the cloak of darkness. I've never been sprayed by a skunk and have never chased a car unless I left it in drive when I got out of it. I don't eat dog food from a silver bowl but I do like peanut butter Captain Crunch in a breakfast bowl and it looks a little like Red Dogs food. We both let toots and snore but I did that long before Red Dog moved in. We both whine to Debbie when we want something to eat. I've never been smacked with a news paper for having an accident....Oops, no need to go there because I am over fifty. Needless to say we do act alike at times and I guess that theory about the dog acting like his master could have some truth to it. So if you come knocking at our door one of these days and Red Dog answers and offers to shake your hand with me standing behind him barking my head off with multiple "Sonic Woof" don't get worried. It just means Red Dog and I have been spending a lot of time together. LOL. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Look Who's Getting Trained

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 02:03:00 +0000

Red Dog is patiently waiting to see if he has trained me to open the back door correctly.

I have noticed that Red Dog is getting more and more accustomed to his indoor lifestyle. I can't really blame him for liking central air and heat, I am rather fond of it myself. But I never imagined that Red Dog, the lion hunter, would adapt so quickly. This is a dog who was bred to chase down the king of the jungle and who spent the first year of his life guarding livestock from packs of wild coyotes, but now he sleeps on carpeted floors and drinks cool filtered water out of a silver bowl (well sometimes he drinks out of the white porcelain water bowl in the bathroom). The contrast of lifestyles are so different I find myself singing the theme song to the "Beverly Hillbillies" as I am writing. I see Red Dog as the Jed Clampett of the dog world when it come to adapting to new surroundings. Still a hillbilly at heart but wise enough to know that indoor plumbing is a much better deal. So let me tell you how spoiled this guy has gotten lately.
When Red Dog first got here he wanted to stay outside and run the neighborhood. He was even chewing the wood pickets off of the backyard gate just so he could roam freely and check out his new town. I'm sure that after growing up on the ranch our little 3 acre placed seemed quite confining. The dog was so strong that once he chewed a hole big enough to fit his nose through he plowed the rest of his 85 pound body through the opening with the ease of an army tank destroying the gate one body width at a time. So I would jump in the pick up and go find where Red Dog was hanging out after each escape. After a few days he finally figured out that he now lived at the all you can eat dog food house and never escaped from the backyard ever again. I like a guy who makes decisions based on the available food supply.
So after Red Dog decided that the groceries were plentiful and a temperature controlled environment suited him nicely, it was time for him to turn his attention to his other bodily needs. Red Dog is a pretty sharp hombre, it didn't take him long to figure out that when he whines at the door he gets to go outside. Given the fact that he lives year around with a temperature of 70 degrees in his home; he only goes outside when nature calls nowadays. Red Dog is out then right back in. This guy has turned into an Olympic speed pooper at this point. Debbie is just hoping Red Dog never learns about indoor plumbing so he won't leave the bathroom in a mess. I figure that's my job around here anyway so he better not get any ideas. For the first few months each time he whined, we would rush to the door in hopes of preventing a major accident in the house (Debbie came across his first and only 3 car pile up in the dining room a few Sundays ago which caused her to miss church. She had to transform herself into a one woman HazMat team for the clean up. Glad I missed out on that one). For months we have had this system where Red Dog whines, I open the door, and he goes out. I thought it was working pretty well. I don't have to clean up a doggie disaster and nether one of us gets barked at by Debbie. After a while I realized that not all of Red Dogs whining was a warning call of impending disaster.
Lately Red Dog has started whining at three o'clock in the morning and waking me up. It's like he's on some kind of a schedule. He whines so I jump out of bed, dash for the back door praying I'm not too late and that I don't step into a early morning surprise. After doing this jumping out of bed thing for several weeks this routine started feeling very familiar to me and during one of my earlier morning sprints it hit me why this was so.
When we were first married Debbie was a bit of a night owl so I usually went to bed before she did. The house rule was that the last one to bed turned out all of the lights which usually was her. I would be half asleep when she finally got to bed. There I would be snuggled down in those toasty covers just drifting off into dreamland when I would feel her climb into bed. She would almost always forget to turn off a light or to turn on the ceiling fan after she got covered up. So after a few moments of silence I would hear this sweet voice lovingly say "Honey, would you turn off the light" or "Honey, would you turn on the fan" and I would drag myself across the room to do what she asked. I couldn't say no to the woman of my dreams (and for the record I always did it with a joyful heart and a smile on my face). Well after several years of doing this I finally asked her one night while stumbling toward the light switch, why she couldn't do this once in a while and here was her answer. "Why should I when I have you trained to do it" then she giggled. I said," WHA WHA WHA WHAT!!!" That's all I could get out was a bunch of WHA WHA's. I stood there in disbelief as she continued to giggle. She took advantage of my loyal devotion and suckered (i.e. trained) me into being the permanent light switch operator. I felt like the Andy Griffith character Will Stockdale in the old movie "No Time For Sergeants" when he was tricked into being the PLO (Permanent Latrine Officer) because no one else wanted to clean the bathrooms. So I guess that made me the DPTM (Debbie's Permanently Trained Monkey) around our place. Apparently Debbie is pretty good at training me because after thirty years I'm still doing it. And the other night I realized that Red Dog, my most favorite dog ever, is using a similar tactic on me as well. I found myself standing in the dark, in disbelief, and saying "WHA WHA WHAT" all over again. Now I can be known as Red Dog's Trained Monkey around here also. I think it's safe to say that Red Dog has made the transition to indoor living quite easily. He has also proven that his owner isn't the sharpest pencil in the box as well. I'm not sure what all Debbie and Red Dog are doing together while I am at work but I have a feeling she's been telling him light switch stories because this early morning door dash business feels exactly like the bed time shuffle my wife tricked me into doing years ago. My new claim to fame will be that I'm the guy who can be easily trained by both woman and beast. So if your dog needs some training tips I'm sure Red Dog or my wife will be willing to share so come on by but I won't come to your house to show off my skills. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Table Napping Not Allowed

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Mon, 14 May 2012 06:11:00 +0000

Red Dogs Favorite hiding and sleeping place. Don't ask me why it's behind the bed room curtains???

I have told you this before but there was much debate on whether Red Dog was going to live outside or inside when he moved in. The definition of "much debate" in the Howard House is my wife explaining to me how we are going to do something over and over again. And as you have also read before, Red Dog won a landslide vote to live indoors but as we found out you can't always change outdoor habits.
The other day Debbie was busy cleaning in my man room and then she was working on her flower garden in the back yard when she came in to cool off and get a drink of water. As she walked through the dining room,she sees Red Dog stretched out lying on his stomach staring out the back door. The only problem Debbie had with what he was doing was the location in which Red Dog chose to lie down. To Red Dogs surprise, indoor living has rules that he was unaware of. You just don't go and lie down where ever it suits you and the place that suited Red Dog was on top of Debbie's dining room table. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. An 85 pound lion hunter camping out on top of her 10 place table as though he was actually supposed to be there. Well Red Dog got a taste of his own medicine. In stead of the SONIC WOOF we get to hear from Red Dog all the time, Red Dog got to hear the SONIC YELL "GET DOWN, GET DOWN, GET DOWN" from the my lovely five foot four inch wife. Red Dog doesn't have a thing on Debbie when she decides to make herself heard. Red Dog did what any male would do when the woman of the house starts yelling at them (Note to readers: For the record my loving, sweet, kind hearted, merciful, forgiving, beautiful wife has never yelled at me like that so I am just assuming I know how Red Dog was feeling during this moment). He ran for his life. When Debbie told me what he did it got me wondering what posessed him to do that. My imagination starting running wild and here is the answer I came up with.
Red Dog, although kind and lovable, is bred to hunt lions on the African Savannah. So being a good hunter, he took the high ground in order to search for possible large game. I can see him patiently sitting high atop a hill or small rock formation scanning the landscape for the rogue lion that has created chaos in the local village. I think that is really cool. But unfortunately for Red Dog there aren't many lions in Seymour Texas. I'm sure while living on the ranch that he came from, he spent many days lying in high places scanning the rolling plains of North Texas in search of something to hunt. My wife went to Namibia Africa last year and she said that the Namibian landscape looked a lot like Texas so I think that it would be an easy thing for Red Dog to imagine. But when it comes to indoor living those types of habits are considered bad manners, especially when you are turned into a city slicker. So I don't blame Red Dog for wanting to relive a few moments of his outdoor life. There are days I catch myself walking across the yard whirling my right arm in the air as I imagine myself roping cattle in the pasture. I guess guys just need to escape into the deep recesses of our minds once in a while to relive our younger days of adventure.
Well after the "SONIC YELLING" was over things returned back into a peaceful day. Debbie headed back to her flower garden and Red Dog got his hearing back. I'm sure Debbie thought she had made her point "VERY CLEARLY" that dreaming on her dining room table will NOT be tolerated. But like many of us guys, Red Dog had a short memory. About an hour later Debbie walked in the same door into the same dining room for the same cool drink to find the same Red Dog lying on top of the same dining room table probably daydreaming of the same adventure...Again...Now I'm not sure if there are words that can indicate something louder than SONIC BOOM but it was obvious that the words ATOMIC BLAST could describe Debbie's reaction when she found Red Dog back on the table. Red Dog once again started running for his life but this time it would be of no use. There was no way Debbie was letting him off the hook for a second offense. She used every ounce of her Cherokee/Creek heritage to track down Red Dog to his favorite hiding place. Now I'm pretty sure that most Indians did not yell "GET DOWN GET DOWN GET DOWN" as the tracked buffalo across the Plains but it was the tactic Debbie used as she tracked down poor ole Red Dog. Growing up in the 1970's, when I hear the words "GET DOWN GET DOWN GET DOWN" all I hear is K.C. and the Sun Shine Band rock'in out in my head but that wasn't any help to Red Dog. Debbie broke out her "ANGRY MAMMA" voice and the tail chewing was on. At one point Red Dog looked at me with those big sad yellow/brown eyes and all I could do was shrug my shoulders. There was no way I was getting in the way of that angry Indian with all of those fireworks going off. I have learned a thing or two after 30 years of marriage. Well Red Dog took his tail chewing like a man (as most of you husbands can understand) and life around the Howard house quieted down once again.

Red Dogs new dreaming location. The foot of our bed.

Sometimes it's hard to break old habits but sometimes it's nice to relive the old days in your mind as well. There is no doubt that ole Red Dog is still dreaming of days on the African Savannah or his life protecting the North Texas ranch house because he barks and growls in his sleeps but now he does it at the foot of our bed and not on top of the dining room table. Red Dog is still the best dog ever, even though he is still adjusting to indoor living. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

DMZ (Debra Mini Zoo)

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:32:00 +0000

Oscar

Mr. Buttons

Welcome to the Debra Mini Zoo or the DMZ as I like to call it. We invite you and your family to come visit us for a day full of fun and laughter. Come feed the chickens, doves, parakeets, finches, goats, dog, cats, and Me as part of the activities . We also have plenty of wildlife here at DMZ which includes skunks, possums, raccoons, mice, armadillos, hogs, deer, bobcats, coyotes, snakes, and an assortment of birds that will capture your imagination as they wander around. You can pet any critter that you can catch as long as your health insurance is up to date. We do not offer tetanus and rabies vaccinations for visitors but pet away at your own risk. Free admission. So come join us at the DMZ.

No, we don't have a public zoo at our house but it's starting to look like it. This was my feeble attempt at sarcasm since my wife has taken in another new pet. If she keeps taking in critters I will have to start charging admission just to feed them all. So I guess now is a good time to introduce the newest member of the DMZ family, "Oscar" the cockatiel. Oscar was a long time pet of our dear friend Karla. She kept him down at her flower shop for many years entertaining customers by flying throughout the shop. Many times he would sit on Karla's shoulder while she put together floral arrangements. He is quite the character. He is living with us for reasons I'm still not clear about but after thirty years of marriage I have learned to just say yes when my wife tells me she wants to do something. So Oscar was added to our little zoo. He has been living in a large cage that covers half of our dining room table for the past few weeks until Debbie puts him in the aviary with the rest of the birds which could be never. The one good thing about living in the dining room is that it can be closed off from the rest of the house so Oscar can stretch his wings and fly around for a while.

The other day that's what Oscar was doing when Debbie noticed him circling the room without landing. She looked around and saw Red Dog standing there watching Oscar intently. Wherever ole Oscar flew there was Red Dog staring in amazement. She could easily see a disaster in the making but it wasn't going to be Red Dog's fault as you will soon see. Oscar finally landed on the floor near Red Dog. Debbie stood there and watched as Red Dog walked over to sniff on him. Oscar just stood there without flying away. So Red Dog kept on sniffing ole Oscar up and down. All of a sudden Red Dog's tongue lunged out of his mouth and Debbie thought it was certain death for Oscar but no, all Red Dog wanted to do was lick on Oscar a few times and that was it. Oscar must have thought he had flown into a giant Red Dog bathing station or something because he just stood there for a quick cleaning. Who would have thought that was going to happen. Certainly not Debbie. She stood there stunned over what she had just witnessed unaware that Mr. Buttons had quietly slipped into the room. Suddenly Debbie heard this low subtle baritone like growl coming from under the chairs and that's when she spotted Mr. Buttons slowly stalking his way toward Oscar. Mr. Button's eyes were fixed on the target like a laser tracking system. Debbie yells at Mr. Buttons and for a few milliseconds everything went into slow motion as M.B. started his attack run. Oscar must have seen Mr. Buttons about the same time Debbie did because that slow motion thing quickly erupted into complete utter chaos. Oscar takes flight in a panic, squawking at the top of his lungs warning others that there is danger here. Debbie grabs a butterfly net she brought in as a back up in case she couldn't catch Oscar by hand and was waving it frantically in the air trying to capture him before M.B. had himself a mid day snack. Red Dog just stood there as to say "I wasn't done giving him a bath, where is he going". The yelling, squawking, and sheer madness continued for several minutes. Finally Debbie caught Oscar in the net and everyone's world returned to normal. I would have given anything to have caught this on camera because words can not describe the vision that is stuck in my head of a 48 year old out of shape house wife frantically jumping up and down swinging a netted stick with a fussy overweight house cat running around the room smacking his lips like a crazed killer and a squawking white cockatiel frantically flapping his wings above it all as his life flashed before his eyes. It's "Priceless" as the T.V. commercial says. I'm still snickering when I think about it. I'm considering placing cameras throughout the house to capture the next round of chaos so it can be replayed over and over again on the big screen for my own personal entertainment. I have wondered what the neighbors would think if they saw all of this going on through the window. One thing is for sure, it's not as boring in our neighborhood as people might think. I think even Red Dog was entertained by all of this.

So my sarcasm about having Mini Zoo may have more truth to it than what I originally thought. So come on out to our house and visit the DMZ while admission is still free. You can load up your lawn chair, grab a jug of ice tea and come hang out with me to see what will happen next. And since I made mention of my wife being out of shape, you just might get to see her jump all over me while your are here. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Three Against One

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:16:00 +0000

I found out a while back that Red Dog still likes being outdoors as long as the temperature suits him. It was one of those beautiful early spring days where the temperature is around 70 degrees, sun is shining bright, a slight breeze blowing and not a cloud in the sky. A morning where you could stay out side all day without fear of sunburn, dehydration, or heat stroke. "It was just right" to quote that Goldie Locks chick. So my plan was to let Red Dog hang out in the back yard for most of the day. He could lay around catching "rays" or chase my wife's cats to his hearts content. You all know which one I wanted to see. So the last thing I saw Red Dog doing was....well I better not say since my wife reads this blog but he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Now the plans I had for myself was slightly different. I grabbed a large glass of ice tea and headed to my chair for some deep sea fishing with Bill Dance on the big screen (no need to risk getting heat stroke on a blistering 70 degree morning). So a pitcher of ice later Bill and I caught some of the biggest tarpon the Gulf had to offer but now I was tired. Tarpon fishing is hard work. So for medical reasons I decided to grab a little nap in order to rest my heart from the fishing excitement because one can never be too cautious with their health. Trust me I know, I've studied medicine. After my tarpon outing in the Gulf of Mexico, I woke up from my much needed nap to hunting bear in Alaska. It was turning out to be quite the Saturday morning adventure and my internal meal alarm is telling me it's time to eat. Remember only the best outdoorsmen can transition from fishing in Florida to hunting in Alaska in a two hour time period, so keeping up the calorie count is very important. It's doubly important to keep up my strength now that I'm in Alaska bear country and you can't outrun a bear on an empty stomach. Trust me I know, I've studied nutrition too. So to the kitchen I went for a high octane meal. As I passed by the back door doing the happy dance toward the fridge I look out into the yard to see white winter fluff all over the grass. For a moment I thought I was witnessing a 70 degree Texas snow miracle so I rubbed my eyes to focus better. I then realized it wasn't a snowstorm that hit the back yard while I slept. It was Red Dog. I walked outside to a white fluffy blanket covering the whole yard. "What in the world went on out here", I thought "and what is this stuff (or stuffing to be more exact) lying on the ground?" Well there was Red Dog lying on the ground stretched out on the grass tanning himself like a sun bather on the South Padre beach. Not only was he working on his tan but he was fast asleep from exhaustion. (And it wasn't from chasing the darn cats). Apparently Red Dog was bored since there were no cats to chase, balls to catch, or bones to chew while I was tending to my health. But "CHEW" is the clue to the white disaster that hit our back yard. Remember me telling you how I saw him chewing up his doggie bed in the last adventure. Apparently outdoor furniture cushions taste very similar to doggie beds so Red Dog decided he would chew to death two of Debbie's furniture cushions. There was fabric and fluffy stuff every where. According to my calculations the manufacturer puts about approximately a football fields worth of stuffing in each individual seat cushion and Red Dog tore apart two of them easily. Poor cushions. They were heavy duty and designed to hold up under my big old "ButTox" as Forest would say. It must have given Red Dog quite the workout chewing them apart because he never moved a muscle while I surveyed the yard. I wonder if someone taught him my possum playing trick? Hmm. What a mess and with Debbie being gone guess who gets to clean it up..."ME"!!! So here I go crawling across the yard on my hands and knees picking up from the Red Dog Blizzard of 2012. The only thing worse than seeing the mess in the back yard was the site of my big old "ButTox" shining in the air as I crawled on the ground. Just the site of it caused children to run home crying to their mommies and adults calling my hospital phone asking for medicine to stop the nausea. One neighbor even asked if he could cover me with a white sheet and come back after dark to show movies off of it. I kept on working in spite of scaring the neighborhood. The whole time on the ground I'm thinking how happy I was to own the only "Red Dog Home Security System" on the block. By now I had finished picking up and Red Dog woke up from his sun bathing slumber. My loud groaning while crawling around must have interrupted his nap. I was pretty tired especially given the fact I had given up physical labor many years ago and was ready to go back inside to make the lunch I abandoned earlier. But Red Dog didn't see it that way. He was refreshed and ready to play. Since I was conveniently on my hands and knees looking like a giant goober he mistakenly assumed I was wanting to do the same. Oh great. Red Dog was jumping, slobbering, growling, and running in circles around me as to say "come on lets play, lets play". That tree branch of a tail was waving in the air like a checkered flag at the Daytona 500 but I wasn't in the mood for any fun and games at this point. But Red Dog just kept on going like the Energizer Bunny. So I got up off the ground (which was an ugly sight within itself) and went inside to rest leaving Red Dog outside to do what ever Red Dog does because I was "PLUM TARRED".

I made lunch (obviously Red Dog needed none since he consumed two furniture cushions) and carried it back to my spot in front of the big screen. I missed out on the Alaska bear hunt but quickly found myself in a ground blind ready to shoot mule deer in Montana. Life was starting to get good again. I had a bag of my favorite chips, meat sandwich, and a fresh glass of ice tea. Bring on the big buck. I ate lunch while finishing my deer hunt and my world was back in balance once again when suddenly I heard Mr. Sandman knocking at my door. I drifted off for a well deserved Saturday after lunch nap and when I woke up this time someone was trying to sell me a wall mounted talking fish on the T.V. For a few seconds I thought Mothers Day is right around the corner and I do need to get something for my lovely wife but that thought left as quickly as it came. I figured she's already purchased such a fine piece of decor and wouldn't have the wall space to display another..he he he. So after shaking the cobwebs out of my head...Again...I was carrying what was left over from lunch back to the kitchen (which included an empty plate, empty glass, and empty chip bag) and I looked out the back door...Again...I could not believe my eyes. Remember earlier he chewed up "TWO" cushions, well I forgot to mention there was a set of "THREE" cushions and Red Dog had decided not to leave any survivors. In my haste to get back to a day of fishing and hunting, I forgot about the third cushion and left it sitting in the chair apparently with "eat me Red Dog" written on it. At this point I felt bad for Red Dog, I could have at least offered him a glass of ice tea to wash down this tasty treat. That material has to be a little dry tasting (I'm shooting for sarcasm here). The only good thing was that the ground wasn't quit as white as before because Red Dog had not completely dismembered the third victim. So here I go again on my hands and knees in the middle of the back yard looking like one of the action pieces from the board game "Angry Hippo" picking up stuffing over and over...AGAIN...And there sits Red Dog wagging his tail thinking I'm ready to play...AGAIN... At this point I'm just thanking God there were no camera's to capture me on all fours crawling through grass. It didn't take long for me to cool off and all Red Dog wanted to do was hang at my side. He would look up at me as if to say "I Dun Good" with that tree branch of a tail still wagging away. I couldn't help but wonder what was going on in Red Dogs mind when he was chewing up those three cushions. Did he think he was protecting an African family from angry lions lurking in the shadows ready to do them harm or was he on the hunt tracking down a pride of lions that had been killing and eating livestock the tribe depended on for food and money? Either way it must have been quite the adventure but it sure put a lousy dent in what had started out to be a pretty nice Saturday for me. Now, each time I go sit on the lawn furniture and my "ButTox" has no cushion to land on I think about how hard Red Dog must have worked to kill those three unwelcome intruders in such a short period of time and laugh. I think in his mind, he faced off with three blood thirsty killers and came out victorious. Red Dog had a three for three Saturday and those are good stats in anyone's books. So I guess when your pedigree goes back to a long line of lion hunters and you live in Texas where lions hunting is non existent, a dog just has to use his imagination and make do with what he's got; stuffed or otherwise. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

He Eats Anything.

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 04:45:00 +0000

When Red Dog came to live with us last year he was a seventy five pound, nine month old eating machine and my first thought was "how much does a small indoor pony eat", especially since I have never kept livestock indoors. Being an indoor dog was not in my initial plans but I had forgotten to consult my wife as to what "my plans" should be. I voted he stay outside and she voted for inside. Apparently the election system in the Howard house works much like it does in Russia only I was given a second chance to cast my vote correctly. Indoor Red Dog won by a landslide. It was thrilling to watch our household political machine in action. He now lives a life of air conditioning, heating, and large white porcelain drinking fountains that fit him perfectly. Now that the indoor/outdoor issue was settled my thoughts shifted back to the food question and here is what I found out rather quickly. Red Dog will eat anything.

It was a beautiful spring evening around 5:00 pm which is supper time at our house and my hungry tummy was reminding me that we had left over pork ribs from my favorite BBQ restaurant "Smokey Bros". Large meaty, juicy, smoked pork ribs with homemade BBQ sauce. I could hear the "I want my baby back baby back" ribs song playing in my head and couldn't wait to heat them up. As the ribs started to warm up the aroma in the kitchen became intoxicating. I think my feet left the ground a few times when I took a deep breath. Oh it smelt so good and the timer on the microwave seemed to be moving at a snails pace. I could hardly wait. (My wife says I'm way too passionate about BBQ and I told her that if they could bottle the smell of smoked ribs and brisket into a perfume we would make the Duggars look like beginners. She doesn't see the humor in that statement). Suddenly I heard the "Bing" of the microwave and I danced my way to the kitchen. When I walked in, there sat Red Dog looking upward as though manna was preparing to fall from heaven and he was right. His tail was wagging so fast you could see grout drifting across the tiles on the kitchen floor. He was definitely ready for some ribs but so was I. Red Dog was forgetting that he eats out of the shiny chrome bowl and I eat off the nice china with the floral print. (Oh my Lord, I just said china with a floral print. What's next, a discussion about shabby chic. I better get back to the ribs). When I plated the ribs they smelled and looked W.O.N.D.E.R.F.U.L.!!!! I grabbed a large glass of ice tea at the end of the cabinet and started toward my favorite chair as though I was carrying the crown jewels. The Texas Rangers were playing on the big screen and I could hear Tim Allen doing the man grunt..AR AR AR AR AR AR..in my head. Suddenly my hospital phone rang. While still in my rib intoxicated state, I put the plate on the arm of my chair and ran to answer my phone. I returned in a matter of two minutes and found my plate exactly where I had left it but there were no pork ribs in sight. I stared at the empty plate with amazement. It looked as clean as a new car on the show room floor. There wasn't even a drop of rib juice left. Oh no, where in the world did the ribs go? Then it hit me, "WE" now have a "indoor dog". I scanned the room looking for Red Dog. There he was sitting about ten feet from my chair, tail still wagging with a smile on his face and a small drop of BBQ sauce on his lower lip. His chest was sticking out as though he was just named valedictorian of his graduating class at obedience school. I don't think I have ever seen a happier dog. He was plenty proud of himself and didn't have any problem showing it. I looked for something. A bone, a piece of bone, even a bone with some rib meat left on it. There was nothing and I mean nothing. This mutt had inhaled those ribs like Bluto inhaled green jello in the movie "Animal House". Not only was I shocked, I was heartbroken. The aroma was still lingering in the air as I sat down in disbelief.

Not long after that, as a welcome to the family gift for Red Dog, my wife bought him a big fluffy doggie mattress to sleep on. She thought this would make his new life with us more comfortable after sleeping outside when he lived on the ranch. One night we heard him growling and snarling at the foot of the bed. This wasn't much of a surprise since we had heard him doing this before and figured he was battling lions in his dreams. But this time it was a little different. There was some additional noise echoing in the darkness, so I got and turned on the light to see what was going on. There was Red Dog standing over his new sleeping mat jumping up and down on it with his from paws tearing the stuffing out it. Turning on the light did not slow him down one bit (or bite you might say), he kept on ripping away.  He was either sleep walking/sleep killing or very fond of the taste of that particular fabric? To this day I'm still not sure which it was but he looked pretty funny making a mess on the bed room floor. So Red Dog no longer has a comfortable bed to sleep on because of his taste for cheap fabric. I might also add he did the same thing to all the cushions on the lawn furniture as well. That darn dog.

If pork ribs and cheap fabric are Red Dogs favorite things to eat then a carry out foam box could be his next favorite. A few weeks later I was cleaning leftovers out of the fridge and threw it all into one of those white foam carry out boxes used at most cafes. Red Dog was playing in the back yard so I took him the leftovers as a little afternoon snack. Well I couldn't find his plastic food dish anywhere.  He had probably carried it off to one of his quiet places in the yard to chew it apart. So without thinking, I put the foam box down on the patio for him to eat when he finished goofing off. About an hour later I happened to look out the back door to see white debris all over the yard. Red Dog ate the leftovers then apparently started in on the carryout box for dessert. All I could see was a big mess I needed to clean up before my wife got home from shopping and I couldn't see Red Dog anywhere. I stepped outside and whistled for him just to make sure he wasn't somewhere on place choking to death from a foam box. As I was waited on him to come running I caught a glimpse something out of the corner of my eye. It was big, it was red, and it was all wet. It seems Red Dog needed an after lunch swim in my wife's twenty foot fish pond she built in the back yard. (I was hoping he had waited one hour before jumping in because neither one of us wanted to be in trouble with the boss). I wasn't sure how much of that foam box he had ate but it appears he was not having any trouble keeping his head above water. I swear he had on a pair of sunglasses, floating on his back, sipping ice tea through a straw with a little umbrella in it, and letting his worries just drift away while relaxing in his own private spa. At least that's how I was picturing it in my mind. Red Dog appeared to be enjoying himself quit sufficiently living the good life.

I guess the biggest things I learned about Red Dog since he has came to live with us are... 1) Pork ribs make him very happy. 2) Doggie mattresses taste good. 3) A foam box helps him swim better. 4) He will eat anything that I don't eat first. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

The Tricks On Me.

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 16:47:00 +0000

Before I go on to the next adventure, I need to clear up a small matter from my previous post about using the words "Momma Bear" to describe my sweet lovely wife. Those two words can have a variety of different meanings from nurturing caring momma bear all the way to face eating angry momma bear. Debbie was somewhere between those two versions after the Lucy adventure but I meant "Momma Bear" in the most affectionate endearing way possible. Now that I have gotten back on her good side, on to the next Red Dog adventure.
Over the past few months I have noticed Red Dog starts whining at the back door around 5:00-6:00 in the morning. I was worried he was whining because he needed to go out for a potty break. Home security is a twenty four hour a day job so I figured the dog needs a little library time every so often but not this early in the morning. I would lie there using my possum playing tactics hoping that my wife would get up to let him out but she would just lie there snoring away. While waiting for her to wake up I started thinking about the horrible accident that might be found if I don't respond to his cry. So I would stumble out of bed half asleep to let him out. (I really think Debbie is better at this possum playing game than I am). Then quickly rush back to bed hoping to find it still cozy and warm. Well the past several morning I have started paying better attention to what Red Dog does once he goes out. As he walks through the door he goes into this slow precise intentional walk. One slow step at a time. He stops to stare into the night with his nose in the breeze searching for a scent floating through the air. Then suddenly his hind muscles contract and he launches himself into the darkness chasing whatever evil lurks beyond. I was thinking what a good boy, keeping our home safe from those free loading varmints that are cleaning me out of twenty five pounds of cat food each week. Well the more I watch, the more I learned. He wasn't after varmints. He was chasing Debbie's big grey tom cat "Smoky".
Now Smoky is this tough, strong, fearless tom cat who takes no lip from anything on four legs. He wanders the neighborhood like "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" just daring the wild varmints to try something. I'm amazed he is still alive. He is a battle worn veteran who has proved to me he's one tough hombre. He is a gang of one and I think that's why I kind of like this guy. He has only allowed me to pet him a few times. When he is tried of being touched he will strut away as if to say "that's all the time I have for you" and goes about his business. So I am baffled why he runs when Red Dog starts after him? Well I found out the other morning it's all about the groceries. In a past adventure I wrote how cool it was to watch Red Dog bolt out after Debbie's cats because he looked like Secretariat breaking out of the starting gate at the Kentucky Derby and how she didn't like him to do that. It was because her cats were coming to the food bowl to eat and Red Dog was chasing them away. After the chase Red Dog would return to the cat food and eat everything that was left. (He's like Mikey, He'll eat anything). Smoky figured out that eating early in the morning eliminated the need to "eat and run". I'm guessing that was driving Red Dog crazy watching Smoky enjoying his meal in peace so he would start whining and I was letting him out thinking it was potty time. Well on one of those mornings Smoky decided to hold his ground and those two started trading blows right and left. The battle that ensued was more entertaining than a UFC title fight with neither wanting to give any ground. It was a real live "Mexican Standoff" in my own back yard. When it was all said and done, I think they both saw the futility of the situation so Smoky ran off in one direction and Red Dog walked back to the house with a few small bloody spots on the end of his nose. There are still two small nicks there as a reminder of that epic battle. I don't think they like each other very much these days and have started this early morning taunting through the sliding glass door. So at first when the early morning whining started, I'm the dumb sucker who's climbing out of bed tripping my way through the darkness to let him out. I've been tricked into the middle of a early morning dog and cat feud. "Yippee". I bet my wife snickers when she reads that. (The reason I say she will snicker is when we were younger and she would get upset at me, she would sometimes stay up at night to rearrange the living room furniture because she was too mad to sleep. Many times my job as a paramedic kept me out until the early morning running emergency calls and I would not turn on the lights when I came home to keep from waking her up. Almost every time I would trip over some piece of furniture she had moved. She told me she would lie there and laugh to herself when she heard the thump of me tripping over something followed by groaning in the darkness. That's why she's snickering). So this morning I decided I was going to hold my ground when I heard Red Dog making that fake "I've got to go potty" noise. I looked at the clock and it was 5:30 in the morning. I told myself "heck no, I'm not getting out of this warm comfy bed" and went back to sleep. It was 6:00 am and Red Dog is still whimpering at the back door. So I laid there wondering if he really was faking this or will I be calling in a hazmat team to come clean up a toxic mess on my wife's living room floor. I rolled the dice and fell back to sleep. Around 6:15 I was awoken by Red Dog's "Sonic Bark" WOOOOOFFFFF WOOOFFF WOOOOOOOOFFFFF WOOF WOOFFFF. "HOLY HEART ATTACK". I jumped to my feet as though reveille had blown and I had over slept at boot camp. I ran to the back door with my heart pounding out of my chest, flung it open and watched Red Dog charge into the breaking dawn. I still have no clue whether he had to potty really bad or had Smoky on the run.....Again. Now wide awake, I headed back to my warm bed for a few more minutes of sleep. I apparently dozed right off on my return because the next time I looked at the clock it was 6:30 am. I laid there foggy headed thinking something wasn't right. Oh no, our water bed had sprung a leak. Great, I can't catch a break this morning. Then it suddenly hit me as the last of the sleep cleared out of my head, "Oh man, we don't own a water bed". Darn you Red Dog and your loud "Sonic Bark". Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Wet Marks The Spot

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 04:41:00 +0000

Lucy

Mr. Buttons

Not every adventure at the Howard house is created by Red Dog. My wife operates a small zoo around the place which includes a large number of cats who's population has grown by ten kittens in the past few weeks and still counting. It's the feline version of the Duggar family. There were about fifty chickens penned up in the back of the property until this summer's heat wave and drought killed some of them. Their number now stands at thirty five. It brought a whole new meaning to the words "fried chicken". She got twenty new baby ducks late last spring as the drought began and those little guys lasted about two weeks due to the heat. One evening they just started falling over like they were at a Pentecostal revival and it didn't stop until they were all gone but two. At one point she had about forty pair of parakeets in the aviary until the heater in the bird house stuck on high and created an over sized easy bake parakeet oven. As you can tell high temperatures were not friendly to her bird population. There was one lone surviving parakeet so Debbie brought him three friends for "company" in hopes that baby birds would suddenly appear. The kids got her two pink doves to keep the parakeets company and increased the population of the aviary. Apparently the doves have decided to be just "friends" because there are no signs of any serious relationship between those two if you know what I mean. Wink Wink. There are two Pygmy goats, Burt and Ernie, who act like a couple of guys according to my wife. They hang out all day making a mess in the pen just eating, drinking and pooping. Not bad duty if you can find it, is my thought. Occasionally they would put on a head butting demonstration that would rival anything seen on Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom". I would go get a large glass of ice tea and watch them until one of us would get tired. I know, it's a guy thing. There are also a large number of possums, raccoons, and skunks that show up nightly to partake in the twenty five pound per week feeding frenzy of cat food in the back yard. The deer regularly stop by to nibble on the acorns falling off the oak trees in the front yard. It just dawned on me why the Grey Diablos work so frantically picking up the acorns. Their only competition for these tasty treats are the white tail deer better known as the Cola Blanco Gang. I guess due to the Cola Blancos overwhelming size the Grey Dioblos have to hustle to bring home the bacon (i.e. acorns).
As you can see I don't throw the word zoo around lightly. But I'm not quite done with the Dr. Doolittle role call. Most of you have come to know and love Red Dog but let me introduce you to a couple of new characters. Mr. Buttons and Lucy, who are the indoor cats, and where this particular story begins.
Mr. Buttons was the first to come live with us. He is a very large, fat, furry, lazy black and white tom cat destined to a life of indoor luxuries. He was given to us by some dear friends who have a large country vineyard but apparently country living wasn't Mr. Buttons cup of tea. He was always trying to sneak in their house to avoid the rigors of country living so it was time to head for the bright lights of the big city with swimming pools and movie stars. We found out once he came to live with us he had some very specific dietary needs that didn't include mice or dry cat food. Canned tuna was his meal of choice, preferably plated so as to not irritate his delicate palate. He was without a doubt an "Aristocat".
About one week later Reed, our son, found a small yellow and white fuzzy female locked in a pet carrier sitting in the the middle of a lone dusty country road and brought her home. Of course being a little fuzzy fur ball, there was no way Debbie was going to send her back into a cold cruel world where coyotes and bobcats roam. I would like to tell you that after a vigorous debate, I finally agreed to let the cat stay but that decision was made the minute the cat hit the door and not by me. Whoopie! (and I mean that sarcastically.) Debbie named her Lucy because the red fur looked the same color as Lucille Ball's hair. So within two weeks she added two cats to the "Greatest Show On Three Acres". I'm not a fan of indoor cats but Debbie told me I was going to change my mind about that. For those readers who are "Star Trek" fans, the infamous Borg phrase "Resistance is futile" echoed in my head as she "EXPLAINED" to me why I was changing my mind. Now that she cleared that up for me I now think indoor cats are great and I mean Tony the Tiger "GREAT". Remember she reads my blogs too. As the weeks went by both cats just got fatter and lazier as they adjusted to their new Beverly Hills like life style. Lucy, being a juvenile, was always wanting to play and old Mr. Buttons saw no need in exerting that kind of energy. Besides, his food bowl was in the kitchen and he would need those precious calories to make the strenuous journey at meal time. Lucy was without a doubt becoming a thorn in Mr. Buttons side and one night it all came to a head. Mr. Buttons always slept at Debbie's feet on the corner of our king size bed. I think he always thought that "king" was the appropriate way to describe his place of rest but Lucy thought differently and wanted that space for herself.
The time was about 3:00 am on a Saturday morning and my slumber was disrupted by Debbie screaming at the top of her lungs, "GET OFF ME. GET OUT OF MY BED. GET OUT OF MY BED" while kicking and thrashing off the covers. I quietly laid there confused, shaking off the fog of sleep trying to figure out what I had done to cause her to yell at me like that. That king size bed is so big it almost feels like I need to text her good night just to make sure she hears me so I was pretty certain I had been behaving myself this particular morning. Although half asleep, I wisely chose to lie there playing possum. This was a skill I perfected many years ago when the babies would start crying in the middle of the night. I would throw in some fake snores to complete the illusion of sleep until I figured out what woke up Momma Bear. Luckily it wasn't me this time, it was her precious Lucy who had jumped on the bed chasing off a sleeping Mr. Buttons and began claiming her new place of rest as her own. I laid there motionless, just in case I misread the situation, wondering why she had been yelling like that. Apparently after Lucy took over her new sleeping quarters she proudly walked over and sat on Debbie's chest and began to make pee pee on her pj's in order to make claim to the new territory. Debbie had been woken up by loud thunder and children crying but I do believe this was her first time to be woke up by cat urine. Lucy and I were both relieved but for two totally different reasons. I could hear her griping at Lucy from the bathroom as she changed her pj's. After she was finished, she immediately went on a room to room search with Marine like procession to find the guilty party. I should have gotten up to help but I was too busy snickering like a little fifth grade girl while trying to play possium. She finally found Lucy and promptly put her outside to face the forces of darkness for the rest of the night. Oh she was so mad but that was so funny. Don't ever doubt that my wife deeply loves her animals but she just wasn't feeling the love this particular morning. After this stunt I knew Lucy's days were numbered. You don't make pee pee on Momma Bear and continue to get to live the high life, at least at her house. A few days later she got to move to her new home far far away and I don't mean heaven just Abilene. To this day I don't even mention this incident in fear I will get a new home far far away which could include heaven! So after telling this story, if I show up on your door step with suit case in hand please have mercy on me and let me in. I think she will let me come home in a month or two. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Double Trouble

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 01:37:00 +0000

Maddie

One of the biggest reasons we got a Rhodesian Ridge Back was because of this little lady in this photo on the right. This is

Red Dog

Maddie. She belongs to my Lubbock kids. She is the first RRB that I had ever been around. She is very loyal, well behaved, strong and protective. That's what captured my attention about the breed. A big ole stout dog that
obeys commands, that's my kind of dog.
So when I got the chance to get a Rhodesian Ridge Back I jumped on the RRB band wagon.
A few weeks back Maddie came to visit Red Dog for the weekend while the kids headed off to the Metroplex to shop. They always have a good time together and Red Dog is always excited to have company. Sometimes too excited. He gets that tree branch of a tail he has moving so fast it can knock you over. Now having two RRB's in the house is like letting a pair of Belgian plow horses hang out in your living room. Constantly walking around or climbing over these guys all day long just wore me out and I am in no shape to be exercising. Both of them keep vying for my attention. I pet one then here comes the other one trying to muscle in on the action. This goes on back and forth Allllll Daaaaay Longgggg!!! It's like watching a couple kids fight over the same game at Chuckie Cheese just without a giant goofy annoying mouse lip syncing to some loud obnoxious song in the corner of the room (can ya tell I'm a big CC fan). By the end of the first day, they have ate every ounce of dog/cat food in the house, drank every water bowl dry and resorted to drinking out of the toilets. I have never once drank toilet water in my life but it apparently tastes pretty good judging by the way they were gulping it down. YUCK. You can decide for yourself what makes it so flavorful. My wife is a real big fan of dogs drinking out of the toilet. She loves mopping up the gallons of water that they slobber on the floor and is an even bigger fan of finding the slobbers/toilet water on the lid in the middle of the night. You can figure out how she knows this on your own..lol..
Finally the sun rose on day two of the weekend and we got the brilliant idea to go shopping in Wichita Falls. Since there are no listings in the yellow pages for horse sitters in Seymour, we baited these two yahoo's into the back yard with a fifty pound bag of dog food and potty chair then ran to the car. We were gone for several hours and when we got home I saw Maddie whining at the back door and Red Dog was no where to be found. I figured he was out on the back side of the property creating another adventure for himself. I was hoping Maddie would go back there to join him but after thirty minutes of this spoiled city dog whining at the back door I let her in. All of a sudden Red Dog comes walking into the living room wagging his tail. What the heck, they were both outside when we left. I was so confused and come to find out I wasn't the only one. There was a voice message on the phone and so I played it. It was our wonderful next door neighbor K.K. She called to let us know that she found Red Dog out running the neighborhood and brought him home. She told me that when no one answered the door she opened it and Red Dog trotted off toward the bedroom. Okay, so that solved the mystery of one dog in the back yard so I called back to thank her and got the rest of the story.
After K.K. let Red Dog back in house and left the phone message she noticed something wrong in our back yard. As next door neighbors we share a six foot wood picket fence that separates our back yards. She could see from her side what appeared to Red Dog walking around in our back yard and she just put him in the house. "Oh No" she thought as she strained to get a better look between the pickets. If that's Red Dog in the back yard then who's dog did she just let into the house. I think scenes from the movie "Turner and Hooch" were flashing through her head as she thought about some strange dog chewing up Debbie's robin egg blue leather furniture. "What to do,oh what to do" she said. Her five foot four inch frame couldn't see over the six foot fence so she pressed her nose against the wood and carefully studied the dog in the back yard through the cracks. She finally came to the conclusion that it was Red Dog in the back and one of the doors must have been accidentally left open and so he went outside. She then worried about critters getting in the house if there was a door left open. She really wanted to go double check the doors but I think she was worried she might walk in to find me in there napping or even worse napping in my birthday suit. Now that would scar anyone for life. I explained to her that we were dog sitting for our kids and Maddie was the RRB in the back yard. A sense of relief and confusion came over her as she processed this information. She was so relieved. It's so nice to have such wonderful caring neighbors like K.K. and Raye (her husband). They sure do take good care of us and Red Dog. I need to make sure that a couple of rib eye steaks get delivered to their house in the near future and maybe I can teach ole Red Dog to use that tree branch of a tail to knock on the door. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.

Sonic Woof

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Wayne Howard) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 21:47:00 +0000

I opened the front door of a friend's house the other day and heard this sweet female voice say out of this little white box "Front door open". Our friend had bought herself a home alarm system and I thought that was pretty cool. But then I thought what she really needs is a Red Dog.
If you have read some of the Texas Red Dog Adventures, I have mentioned that Red Dog has a rather loud bark but let me see if I can better describe just how loud it is. We knew from the first day that Red Dog moved in he was going to be a barker, which was good for Debbie since I'm gone a lot. He barked at everything. First it was anyone at the door, next every animal in the yard, then cars on the street, and also as the porch light came on (motion sensor activated). I think at one point he was even barking at the rising sun. HOLY COW, it was SO LOUD and we have found out it does have a lasting impact on those who hear it.
We had two friends come to the door to give us a bid on some construction work. They knocked and off went the alarm "WOOOFFFF WOOF WOOOOOFFFFFF WOOOOFFFFFFFFF WOOF". The ground shook, the walls vibrated, and my heart stopped for a few seconds. I then composed myself and answered the door. I opened the door to see one man standing stiff as a board gritting his teeth hoping not to be eaten. The second man had already made an about face and was half way back to their truck never looking back. I guess he figured he only had to out run the other guy at the door in order to live. There was also another friend, who was walking down the street, who made an immediate U-turn still half a block away and was heading home. So I think you could say "yes that's one loud bark".
On another occasion, we had a guy working on the front of the house one morning when my wife left to go shopping. Red Dog normally stays outside when no one is home to keep from making big stinky messes in the house. I came home for lunch and noticed that Red Dog was inside whining at the back door so I let him out into the back yard. I knew that Debbie planned to be gone most of the day and thought he needed to stay outside until I came home from work. As I backed out of the drive I noticed there were tools lying on the ground and remembered that the handy man was there to do some work on the front of the house. I didn't give it another thought and headed back to work. Around three o'clock it dawned on me that there was work to be done in the back yard as well and I left Red Dog out there. I jumped into the truck and hurried home to put him inside. As I came up the drive I saw the handy man picking up his tools like he was getting ready to leave. He said everything was done in the front but when he headed to the back yard he was greeted by a sonic WOOOFFFF WOOFFFFFF WOOOOOOFFF WOOOOFFFFFF WOOF. He was startled because Debbie told him earlier that morning she put Red Dog in the house so he could work back there. Oops, my bad. The handy man stopped and texted his boss to tell him that there was a giant dog in the back yard. His boss texted back "yes I know, the dog is friendly". Apparently the boss and the handy man had too different definitions of friendly because he wasn't wasting any time picking up his stuff. This immediately reminded me of the "Pink Panther" movie scene where Inspector Clouseau asked a man, with his heavy french accent, "Does your dog bite" and the man says "No" so Clouseau tries to pet the dog that was sitting near the man and that dog attempted to chew his arm off. Clouseau then looked at the man and said (once again in his french accent) "I thought you said your dog didn't bite" and the man answers back (again with the accent) "That's not my dog" Well this was my dog and I tried to reassure him Red Dog doesn't bite (or at least not yet) but I don't think there was any way to convince him after he heard that "sonic bark". So I went and put Red Dog in the house so he could start the work in the back yard. I intentionally opened both garage doors to allow the handy man easy access to the back but when I returned to apologize for letting Red Dog out at lunch, I found both doors closed. The handy man was still not convinced that Red Dog wasn't going to eat his face off, so he had followed behind me shutting both doors as I walked Red Dog into the house. I felt bad he was that scared but I just had to chuckle that he had closed the doors behind me. I guess he figured better to be a live chicken than a faceless handy man. Now, I don't want you to think that Red Dog would hurt anyone (unless you are planning to rob my house and in that case he has ate the faces off many buglers and small children) but usually once the barking is over it turns into a licking and petting frenzy for Red Dog.
So if you get the chance to visit our house don't be scared. Just stand your ground, knock on the door or ring the door bell, stick both index fingers in your ears and prepare for the "SONIC WOOF". If you decide to run, head for one of the oak trees in the front yard and climb on up. Red Dog has many talents but as far as we know he can't climb trees. lol. Until the next adventure, God bless you all.