Turn that Thing OFF

Someone was standing at my bedroom door, whining. It was 5:45 a.m. I got out of bed, blundered into my robe and sweatpants (it was COLD) and stumbled down the stairs with a rubbery nose pressed into the back of my thigh. I slid opened the door to let Ray out, pausing to make sure that he didn't start yelling (sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't). I was sliding the door closed when the blind hound fooled me once again and yelled, then took off across the yard into the treed area of the back, yelling like crazy. I ran to get my shoes and bolted out the door to try to shut him up before he woke the whole neighborhood.

Ray was excited, bumping into trees, and pacing the fence that separated our yard from the neighbor's. I called to him. He started to come to me and was almost within arms reach when he turned and took off again to the far side of the yard, yelling the whole way, followed by me, yelling at him (in what I like to think of as a whisper). I grabbed his collar and led him into the house.

I went back to bed putting the hook on the bedroom door to keep Ray at bay. He whined briefly then curled up on the futon with a deep sigh. A minute later, my alarm went off. I slapped it off. Two minutes later the arrrrrooooo alarm went off. I spoke soothingly to Ray and told him that everything was fine. He growled and grumbled a bit but settled back down. Five minutes later the arrrrooooo alarm went off again. I wondered where the off button was.

Rrrray the Blind Dog

Yesterday, Rachel and Josh bought a bone for Ray when they picked the dogs up at daycare. They left it with me when they dropped him off home. It was late in the day and Javier and Carlos were just finishing up. The dogs were wrestling around the front hall.

After everyone left, I fed Ray and the cats but decided to give Ray the bone later. He was ready for bed anyway, and if it turned out that it didn't agree with him, I didn't want to get up in the middle of the night to let him out.

So today when I got home from work after picking up the dogs, even though the crew was still here working, I gave Ray his bone. I left him in the house because there was still construction material on the patio and went to join Javier and Carlos outside. The kitchen cabinets had arrived and the guys were moving them into the garage for the night. One big box remained but there was no room for it with the others so I started to shift things around on the front porch. All of sudden, there was a yell from Carlos. "Rrrray!" he said, (roll your 'R' when you read that in you head) and pointed to my clever dog who had managed to escape from the house by maneuvering through the minefield that was the garage, and was prancing gaily through the front yard, bone held high. He was headed for the backyard, smiling broadly around his prize.

I chased him down, grabbed his collar, led him through the gate past the equipment on the patio, and turned him lose. Rrrray took off to look for the perfect place to bury his treasure and the guys finished clearing things up. We were all one day closer to finishing up the (large undisclosed amount of money) dog door project.

Ray, Protector

Ever since the construction started, Ray hasn't been sleeping in the kitchen. We were really wondering what we were going to do with him at night, but the issue kind of resolved itself.

When it's not in the kitchen, Ray's bed takes up an amazing amount of floorspace in front of the fireplace. P.C. (pre-construction), Gregg would let Ray out for a mid-night pee, drag the bed into the kitchen, put up a dog gate to close one door opening and slide the pocket door shut for the other, just before he, himself, headed upstairs to bed. When the construction started, we closed off the kitchen to all dogs and cats. So now Gregg just leads Ray back to his bed in front of the fireplace and Ray goes to sleep. He could come upstairs if he wanted, but he doesn't. He just sinks into his bed with his usual groan, curls himself into a little ball, and falls immediately and deeply asleep.

But a new wrinkle has emerged since Ray started sleeping in his new spot. In the middle of the night he wakes up and howl/barks. This is Ray's noise when someone is approaching the front door, or when he hears something that we don't (like a dog coming down the street), or if something startles him. It is accompanied by raised hair on his back and his deep menacing growl. At one, two, three, or four in the morning, it is a noise that really gets our attention.

At first, Gregg or I headed downstairs to see if everything was OK and to make sure that there were no marauding pirates or zombies trying to gain access to the house. But now we just head downstairs to reassure our blind guardian who is sitting up in bed, staring into the darkness, hackles raised, that everything is fine. We give him a pat or two and tell him that he can go back to sleep. We've got his back.

Gregg is convinced that Ray has nightmares but I think that maybe Ray hears noises that waft down the chimney and into his subconscious. I'm hoping that when he moves back into the kitchen (and onto the heated floor) that things will go back to normal. Until then, we'll just have to get used to the midnight howl of our loyal protector.

Mmmmm mmmmm good.

Well, Ray was much more blase about Halloween this year than last. He didn't get up for every door knock and he was more excited to 'see' Murphy and his old friend, Ike, than he was to see the kids (not that he wasn't excited, he just managed to control himself a bit better). By 8:00 the excitement was mostly over. I went to pick up dinner at a local restaurant (I can't WAIT for the kitchen to be finished) and we sat down to eat around 8:30.

The stragglers were still stragglin' in while Gregg and I enjoyed some fine Italian take-out. Ray was asleep at the foot of the couch. When a knock came, I covered my food with the plastic take-out lid and we got up to answer the door. We returned to our meal. Another knock. Ray was still asleep at the foot of the couch. I forgot to cover my food with the plastic lid and by the time we finished handing out candy and had returned to our meal, Ray had his face in my plate and was licking the sauce off of my agnolotti, (rapini and sausage ravioli with aurora sauce, mushrooms and onions). I threw out the two ravioli that had been licked clean and continued to eat. Mmmmm mmmmm good.

Ray and the Dumpster of Doom

Ray decided to go minimalist with his Halloween costume this year. With his wonderful physique and his terrific yell, he figured he'd be a natural as Stanley Kowalski (click on the name to see the startling resemblance). So here is Ray posing with this year's decorations (and with Gregg). Who knew that a dumpster and a derelict refrigerator would be just the thing for Halloween?

I'm not Wearing THAT!

"Charlotte left it for Ray," I said to Rachel. Charlotte is my neighbor down the street. "It" was a halloween hat, in the form of an aviator's cap, for a dog. It looked like a pumpkin with googley eyes on the front. I was actually embarrassed for Ray but I couldn't help myself. I put it on him when no one was around to see. Laughed myself silly then took it off and gave it to him to tear into. He tried to pick the eyes off with his teeth but lost interest when they didn't come off easily (short attention span dog) and left it on the floor in the front hall where it sat for a week (or more. I'm not into cleaning so much when the house is being swiss-cheesed). It didn't really fit him well. His ears were too big to fit though the ear holes, so I thought of Murphy's perky little flappy ears

Rachel and Murphy were in the backyard. They had been walking by when I yelled out the door, "Bring Murphy over to play with Ray! He's driving me crazy!" I'd been thinking all day of the lyrics to the Elvis song, Hound Dog. "You ain't nothin but a hound dog. Cryin all the time. You ain't nothin but a hound dog. Cryin all the time. Well you ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine." I know I've mentioned before that Ray is a whiny-baby and now I know that Elvis (or his songwriters) had had, at some point, first hand experience with hound dogs and their whiny-baby trait. Ray had been following me around all day, whining. There is NOTHING more annoying than a whiny-baby dog. Even if he is blind.

We'd gone for a walk around the lake and Gregg had taken him for a walk around the block. We had played keepaway. I'd pulled him up on my lap for some quality time, and except for the moment when he tried to kill himself by stepping on the power window control in the backseat of the car and practically choking himself to death (note to self - remember to engage the window lock before letting the dog in the car again), Ray had had a pretty good day. But still he was whining.

So Rachel and Murphy were in the backyard, Ray and Murphy were tearing around having a marvelous time, and I was handing the silly, pumpkin, aviator's cap to Rachel. "You gotta put it on her and take a picture," I said, "but don't leave it on her. It's too embarrassing." Rachel was laughing but I could see the wheels spinning in her head. She was going to do it.

Just as we finished our conversation, Murphy came running up and made a flying grab at the hat in Rachel's hands. Murphy snatched it and took off like a shot with Ray in hot pursuit. She flashed the hat under Ray's nose as she went by. Ray managed to snag a bit of the orange fabric and an intense game of tug-of-war ensued. Rachel and I watched as the hat was destroyed. We were both disappointed that we'd never get to see the hat on Murphy, but dang, that game looked like fun. Still, the googley eyes remained well attached. The dogs were obviously happy that such an atrocity would never be visited on any dog ever again.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

Today when I got home from work, the kitchen wall, the one with the sliding glass door in it, was gone. The crew (Javier and Carlos) plus one (Filipe, the brick cutter) were still working. I had picked up Ray and Murphy on the way home so Gregg took them for a walk around the block while I changed out of my work clothes. Then, I dropped off Murphy at St. Marva's house, and Ray and I walked home. As soon as the crew left, (and after he broke a cat dish and ate a can of shave cream), I let Ray out the house. Ray was a bit freaked out by the boot scraper, which wasn't in it's usual spot by the kitchen door (which at this moment doesn't exist), and was even more freaked out when he discovered that his hole was gone. One day it was next to the kitchen door, right where he had left it. The next day it was gone. Snatched right out from under his nose.

So Ray set out to immediately rectify the situation. First, he sniffed around the spot where his hole should have been, scraped around a bit, then picked up something in his teeth, (kind of like when we try to feed him a vegetable) and carried it into the backyard. "Don't eat it!" I ordered Ray as he dropped "it" briefly into the grass then picked it up again in his teeth, his lips pulled back in a grimace. Gregg walked over to Ray and gingerly pulled the thing from between Ray's canines (ha). Ray didn't resist. "It's a cigarette butt," said Gregg. I knew that a blind dog in a construction site could face dangers, but I didn't think that one of them would be lung cancer.

Ray returned to his construction site. I watched as he started to dig, then decided that maybe I wasn't too smart letting him scratch a hole where the guys had been working. The thought that maybe there would be nails, screws and other sharp objects laying around motivated me to take his collar and gently lead him into the house and away from his industriousness. The new hole would have to wait for another day.