Roaring Corgi

Lawyer Dog Meme

I saw this today on Buzzfeed and had to post the best ones here. 

Corgis make the best memes. 

Where have all the spiders gone? Long time passing?

I kind of hate this time of year. And also love it. I am so damn conflicted. I am excited that it is fall, and, therefore, HALLOWEEN! AND THANKSGIVING! AND THEN HOLY CRAP CHRISTMAS!

But. I hate that September also brings with it this fickle, and terrible, weather. It's very much like an abusive boyfriend. <--I can say this statement because I've had one. It's the same. Almost. Really close. 

I wake up in the morning and it's all cold and freezing and I am like, I will wear boots! And a sweater maybe! Or at least just boots! And then by noon, I am sweating like it's the deep south (that is NOT a euphemism). WTF California? And I should be used to this since I have experienced it almost every year for <cough> 30 <cough> years. There that boyfriend goes: hitting me again. I shouldn't expect anything else. 

You know what else happens this time of year? (Now that we own a house)

Western Exterminator pays a visit. And soaks our yard with so much poison. DEATH TO CRAWLIES! (flips hair) Gawd, they use organic inside. Sheesh. 

I really do not know what it is but our house always has spiders. And not just this house. All the ones we've lived in. There is obviously a common denominator: spiders are assholes. 

But no really it's because we have dogs. And we leave windows open a lot and screen doors ajar for them to go in and out. 

Last week we had the yard and house sufficiently soaked with poison to end the spider camp outs we disrupt when we go to bed... BECAUSE THEY ARE IN OUR BED. 

For some reason we have yet to figure out, our house had an infestation of flies this past month. Like not 5 or 6, but very seriously like 12 at a time flying around. We would no sooner kill them when 6 more would pop up. I started glaring extra hard at the dogs to make sure they weren't pooping and hiding it. 

Roxy would do that if she had the wherewithal. 

So I thought, Ah ha! I know a solution! I will get those bag traps we use at the barn! They catch MILLIONS of flies! Except what I never realized is that those bags? How they catch flies? It's this bait in there that smells like 2,500 rotting carcasses all in one spot. I hung a bag from our stairs and within 45 minutes I was stopping my gag reflex any time I was on our first floor. 

It. Was. Disgusting.

You know who loved it?

The dogs. 

This is them: OMG THERE IS SOMETHING SO YUMMYGROSS OVER HERE!

Crazy Dog was standing on his feet, doing dances underneath the bag, sniffing the air as if the air was filled with truffles (Truffles are amazing. Stop).

Once Roxy got wind of it (literally), she then decided to be pissed any time Crazy Dog even looked in the direction of the stairs, where the bag was hanging. 

If that animal so much as even shifted his body weight, Roxy was throwing him glares and snarly faces. 

OVER ROTTEN FLY BAIT. 

Why are my animals so stupid?

Even if it wasn't about to cause a dog fight and therefore spill blood all over my nice hardwood floors (and let's be honest, half the time I get worried about them fighting it's because I have no idea if blood will come out of our carpet/wood floors), it still smelled like sh!t. 

So I moved it outside to hang under a tree. I figured if I already opened the package I might as well use it. 

The Roaring Corgi happenings this weekend

So I know I haven't written in a while. <slaps own wrist>

But I have my reasons. Bought a horse. Started a new job. 

Those two are the only reasons. But I feel they are sufficiently sufficient. 

(I also still need to write those blog posts about Munich and Berlin. sigh.)

Since having the horse, I have been obviously neglecting the dog animals. And this isn't fair. I mean Roxy is the namesake of this blog and Crazy Dog is.... well, he's certainly 50% of what fills the blog. Among other things. That aren't nice to say. 

But this next story is all about Roxy and how she is a huge brat. SURPRISE.

The other day, my partner let the pups outside and then filled their dog bowls with food. Then he let them back inside. And wait. Let me set this up. Before our dogs are allowed to eat anything in their bowls, they have to sit and then wait for the "okay" command to proceed to meal ravishing. (I can't even say "mean enjoying" becuase they suck it down so fast it hardly has a chance to register as a distinct taste).

So they are coming in the door...and then Roxy flew in and immediately ran to Crazy Dog's bowl in order to scoop a mouthful of food up before running over to her bowl to protect her own food. Meanwhile my partner is yelling after her, "Roxy no! That's not your food!" She of course has already swallowed it and is looking at him with her glassy eyes like, "what?"

And then today I was riding my horse and this lady comes flying up the street in her convertible, going way too fast, and I put my hand out in a "stop" signal and she rolled down her window. I said, "you need to slow down with the horses on this --" and then, I KID YOU NOT, she scream this back at me before I could finish:

"THE HORSES NEED TO SLOW DOWN!!!!"

And then sped off. 

I am still unsure of what just happened. 

Because they have little teeth this is cute

My partner wanted to try some new fruit, so he bought some D'anjou pears. But they were solid green. He is eating one and is saying it's not good. It sounds like he's biting into an apple. I tell him that pears are supposed to be soft so if it's tough and hard to bite, then it's not ripe. He tells me he doesn't believe me. So I show him some other pears that ARE ripe.

Big difference.

So then I tell him that even animals wouldn't eat it because it isn't ripe and they know that. He tells me he thinks the dogs would.

<scoff>

Crazy Dog doesn't like to eat in general so I had no faith there.

I figured Roxy would only do it because she has this need to eat anything she even THINKS is food. Because the alternative is NOT EATING THE FOOD.

<sigh>

So then they BOTH prove me wrong. I hate them.

I've been hitting you with some videos lately but come on... watch this one. they use their little front teeth to bite off parts of the pear! Cute!

 

The holidays around here.

I like to decorate. Partner? I think he enjoys seeing it done, but would rather not partake, if only because then he can see all the crap we have in order to do the decorating. It's better he doesn't participate actually. Or half of it would end up in the trash. He is not a "stuff" lover. That's a completely different post.

So I thought I would share some pics with you.

this one is from a few year's ago, but it's retarded cute, so totally worth posting:

Smoker's Roar

Roxy roars. A lot. After all, this blog is its namesake.

Sometimes, and for no particular discernible reason, she gets a smoker's roar.

Normally the sound is light and tinkling, like sunshine on a crisp fall morning, with dew drops and fuzzy fawns feeding on the leftover tips of summer grass.

Then it becomes a hacking, wheezing smoker's phlegm-filled cough coming from a dirty corner booth in a dive bar in New Jersey.

Evidence from last night when I returned from my trip. She must have known I was in Tennessee with my pal Jen:

Roxy's Smoker's Roar from breanne boyle on Vimeo.

She also doesn't listen. This video is also evidence of THAT.

The beeping will split their brains in two.

I needed to get back to talking about the terrible fluffy fur balls that live with me. Enough with this house stuff, amiright? I mean this whole blog is about the dogs.

One thing I wish they didn't do -- haha, OMG did you just see what I wrote over there? Like there is only ONE THING that I hate about them -- was screech at the smoke detector.

There doesn't seem to be anything I can do about that. If there is a smoke detector that is losing battery life and does a chirp it's like... like... I don't know. ARMAGEDDON.

The dogs, especially Roxy, proceed to charge around the house, looking wildly at the ceiling and making noises like someone is breaking all four of their legs simultaneously. (Well, in Roxy's case, three of her legs. She handled one of them on her own.)

Last night I was watching Modern Family and the episode included a plot element where the smoke detector beeped every few minutes.

Holy Hell.

I tried correcting her and telling her no. Roxy was beside herself with her screeching and skidding around the house trying to find where it was coming from.

But I didn't want to not watch the show. It's THAT good. So I just held her by her collar next to the couch and every time it went off on TV and she shrieked, I just yanked her collar and growled at her.

She eventually succumbed to high-pitched whining that never stopped. 

Did I mention that I hate her?

It's a good thing she's cute:

Black Widows are bad for your dog.

We’ve trained the dogs to eat bugs. I’ve mentioned it before. It’s typically a really good thing. “OMG BUG!  Get it! Get it! Get it!” = Two dogs come running from wherever they are, screeching in anticipation, and then proceed to fight over who gets the honor of killing and eating it.

I am certain Crazy Dog does it for the thrill of the chase, and he is actually much more adept at catching things in mid air. Roxy, however, does it for two reasons:

1.    Crazy Dog shouldn’t get it. IT IS HERS.
2.    It might be food.

She is terrible at catching things that aren’t on the ground and moving slowly. Fly sipping through? CD will see it, hunt it, stalk it, then leap up and often? Catch it in the air. Roxy sees a fly and I am convinced her brain does this:

THERE IS A FLY OMG I MUST ET IT AGH! growl FLY IN AIR I NEED TO CATCH IT OMG WHERE DID IT GO.

This kind of brain wave is not conducive to agility in anything. It’s like I have put a huge steak on a string and hung it in her face, then asked her to tell me Pi before she could eat it. Her brain boils into goo before she can even realize what’s happening. I have looked up to see Roxy flying over furniture, only to slam into a door or wall. She missed a fly. She’s up again and ramming her body into a chair, leaping in the air, and landing with a crash onto the edge of the coffee table.
Meanwhile, CD is stalking the fly methodically (like Hannibal Lecter might).

We have been having black widow problems. I KNOW. I put this huge picture here to emphasize how not cool it is. (shudder)

I am not however as worried about it as my partner is. He sees one, and practically runs inside the house. He tells me he’s never seen so many black widows in such a short time period, but really? I’m a Californian. Man, these babies are everywhere. You learn young what to do to take care of one.

To be fair, by the time I saw the third one in about two month’s time, I was thinking it was a bit excessive. But I diligently soaked every one of them with wasp killer and then threw their bodies away.

Then.

Then Roxy happened.

I let them both out to pee one night late. I turned on the porch light and looked over to the side – where there are often large orb spiders with HUGE webs, but nothing poisonous – and I realized the spider looked different. This is how it happened:

Hmmm, that doesn’t look like an orb spider. (Sees the red spot.) OMG it’s a black –

ROXY FLIES THROUGH AIR AND CATCHES BLACK WIDOW.

Me, screaming at her: “ROXY NO! LEAVE it leave it leaveitleaveitleaveitleaveit!!!”

She spits it out whole. It starts to skitter away. Crazy Dog then sees it and thinks, oh. A bug. That dumb dog they insist on keeping didn’t kill it. I must.

I am now holding both dogs away from the spider to let it crawl under a bush.

Then we are on Wikipedia trying to find out how long it takes for a widow bite to show up. Educate yourselves: 1-2 hours. Also. If your dog eats one, like mine tried to do, it needs to see a vet ASAP.

It’s like someone swallowing the whole barrel of poison, rather than getting a shot of it.

Conclusion: she never showed evidence of a bite. And we called exterminators that weekend.

My dogs as bug eaters and how that is a great thing.

The dogs have a natural inclination to chase down and eat anything that skitters, crawls, and slithers in our house or on the walls. Somehow we always seem to have spiders lurking around. I can't stand smashing them. I don't like the audible crunch.

But the dogs eating them? Sure. It's protein. And the circle of life.

I can point to a spider on the wall and say "get it!" and they will run from any room in the house to try to compete over who gets the honor.

There was one recently on the ceiling in the office and the pups were going nuts because it was out of reach. I tried to capture the angst of Roxy on camera:

Roxy Discovers a Spider from breanne boyle on Vimeo.

And then the follow up where I tried to show it to her again and she was more interested in kisses. Typical:

Roxy Not Interested in Spider from breanne boyle on Vimeo.

Barkbusters (Dog) Training. We are those people.

So I am casually minding my own business, working like a good employee, and my partner IMs me this:

Him: roaring corgi has 0 posts about bark busters. 0 POSTS!!!! what kind of a blog is this!?
Me: one that is written by someone who works a lot
Him: and doesn't care about corgis, apparently!
Him: RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

It was that many Rs. I copied and pasted that. I mean, you would think in this family, that there is only room for one overly dramatic and loud entity.

And I’m not even including the corgi.

<sigh> So let me fill you all in. But let’s be honest, NO ONE other than the person I LIVE WITH has complained about my lack of posts. Probably because he is the only one that reads them.
Recently we paid some people (Barkbusters) to train our dogs. We have had 2 of the 3 sessions and so far I can say this: I am a fan of the concept and it has definitely worked, but the two retards that are doing the training need to be yanked from this profession.  You know me and how I never over-exaggerate.

The concept is simple:
1.    Dog misbehaves
2.    Human gives a growl sound (more commonly referred to in Barkbusters’ world as the “Bah!”)
3.    If misbehaving dog does not start behaving or submitting, human follows growl with a clap or loud banging of pots or cans (this is the “snap” of the alpha dog’s jaws as a warning to stop the behavior).
4.    Humans will not pet the dog when the dog initiates it and humans will not approach the dog; the dog must always come to the human.

So. Pretty easy. I remember listening to the trainer thinking “yeah right buddy. Let’s see Roxy not bark at the doorbell because you growled at her.” <followed by a smug flip of my hair I am sure>
But listen up websters. IT EFFING WORKS. (and not because the brainiacs we paid did a hole lot to help us out. the system just makes sense.)

And here is the part where I fall down dead to die because of shock. It worked on Roxy. Roxy, the death-defying, leaping, running, barking, shrieking, roaring corgi. We did the “Bah!” and the clap and she was all, “wow master I never knew how alpha you were and I am now at your service.”

<keels over dead><rises from the dead, reads this blog post and dies again>

I’ll say it for you: W.T.F.

Crazy Dog… not so much. And HE is the smart one. More on him later.