Tag Archives: dogs

Happy Birthday Mickey and Malory!

Today is Mickey (“The Mousse”) and Malory (“The Cake”) Mallett’s 12th birthday. We’ve come a long way (literally) since that kismet encounter at the veggie market in ‘Maritzburg. Mally was an instant hit when thrust at me and sealed the deal with a nuzzle into my neck… And first sight of Mick clarified unequivocally that they were a matched set that only the most heartless human would separate.

Their trip to their new home (several hundred kilometres away) was made in a box originally designed to house 5 reams of paper but, when lined with a fabric nappy, made for a premium puppy pad, complete with cotton wool bed, dining section, reinforced water and milk dishes and a sort of u-shaped seating amenity made from a rolled up facecloth.

They were SO tiny, each fitting into the palm of one of my hands. Way too small to be the outside dogs they were authorised to be. Night One they were allowed to sleep in the kitchen ‘to climatise’, but before long they were in the en suite… and then in the bed… where they’ve slept ever since (and, in fact, likely are right now as I type this).

Mick was quick to take Alpha male role, swinging off his big (Great Dane cross Labrador) step-brother Clyde’s jowels for fun and taking his responsibilities very seriously by doing a full perimeter curcuit in the morning to check that all was intact and then guarding the entrance of the Big Dog Igloo to make sure that they were up and manning the gates (Can’t call it ‘dogging the gate’. You know why)

Mal was all about adding to the décor. Looking beautiful and improving the aesthetics of any room she was in, simply by being in it. She never fettered herself with putting any effort into popularity, opting rather to follow a simple hierarchy of her mom… and then anyone with food and/or hands to tickle her with. Knowing that humans are less evolved, she’s quick to help us out with a nudge to the hand to remind us that we’ve stopped tickling.

Despite being as tightly wound as Scrat from Ice Age, Mally’s lived a charmed life, making the most of every lap, basket and bed opportunity (and there is always one of the 3 on the go) and enjoy the wide world of nature… through the sliding door from the comfort of the couch. She has had some troubles of late (too sensitive to be openly spoken about), but her rigid high fibre diet seems to be doing her the world of good.

Poor Mick hasn’t had it so easy. He had an unfortunate interlude with a BMW early on and was deemed a no-hope case by the vet several times over his recovery. But he’s a fighter. And he came back to life as good as he was before… but sans an eye and with some very butch war wounds. As if that wasn’t enough, he developed an allergy to dust (a real problem when your legs are 5cm), which went straight to his good eye. And if that wasn’t enough, the ophthalmologist found a lump on Mickey’s neck on his final visit, so he went straight from his clean bill of optical health to the vet to be checked in for removal of the growth. Although cancerous, it was benign and again, all was well. He’s had one last bout of cancer removal (lumps on his head), but besides that is a very happy and healthy little creature, with an air of sophistication from his premature greying, earning him the new mickname “Silver Fox”.

They’re a comical pair. As intro to birthday week, I took them to the Golden Harvest Park on Monday with the SA Gills. Mickey ran around like he was a Labrador in a perfume commercial, ears flapping all akimbo in the wind, leaping each step in the long grass. Every now and the he’d be in the distance and stop stock-still, look around, realise he had no idea where he was, he’d look left and right, then leftrightleftright, then whip around, looking everywhere for me. Of course I was shouting and arm-waving wildly… and as soon as he saw me he’d be off again.

Mal isn’t a huge one for the great outdoors – although she does like to win and is Rudolph-like in her dogged positioning as the lead dog when out walking in the neighbourhood – and isn’t subtle when she’s had enough. When she’d had enough at the park, she found an open car and hopped in. It wasn’t our car. It belonged to an ominous group of very suspicious looking fellows. Out in the park. During the day. On their phones. No sweat to Mal, she hopped in the car all happy and waggly. And then jumped into the back as I approached, as is customary (she doesn’t drive). I was horrified and mortified (especially seeing as we’d just come from the lake section so her feet were all muddy. But the men said nothing to my barrage of apologies and nervous giggles as we played the usual cat and mouse with her jumping in the front as I opened the back door and vice versa. And we’re still alive to tell the tale so no harm done really.

There are just so many anecdotes like the above. I wish I could jot them all down, but who has that kind of time?! It’s so busy at the moment that I’m postponing the Annual Hotdog Party even (who can forget the first one with wall-to-wall mattresses in the garage floor so everything was on the ground and the big dogs could party with us, the Barney tableware and conical hats, the hotdogs, the presents, the bunting…. Ah!) We’ve been through so much! I hope we have another 12 happy years together!

Neighbourhood blogwatch

So I started yesterday off well. Moving from Monday mourning to Tuesday morning with a skip in my step and bright and sunny disposition to match the promise of a warm day (enough so to warrant skipping the ‘reach for the sky’ jersey exercise with the dogs, which always leaves Mally so sheepish in her garish orange harlequin number and Moose so comical in his red Sponge Bob ensemble) and ready to head off to earn the daily bread (no striking for me – no collective to do the “give US this day OUR daily bread” thing with!).

… And so, with an “I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I…” went.

A good day, making solid progress on a project that am working on with a great friend and intermittent colleague.

Headed for home to rest my weary as(s)hes. Only to have my house alarm set off on my re-entry to Blue House. Starting a whole new mission.

The procedure is supposed to be: activation –> ADT call centre calls –> give password to deactivate; wrong or no password and they send patrol to you. I hadn’t been using the alarm until recently because I wasn’t living at the house and there were repeated false alarms (now believed to be a spider making a nest of one of the passive sensors eeeuuw), and I had never been allocated a password so every false alarm was a palava. So much so that the Home Owners Ass(ociation) of the complex are trying to pass a resolution that all personal house alarms must be with silent sirens.

Fat chance of that! The alarm is there to protect my person over my possessions and I place no importance in having The Baddies arrested for GBH (or worse) over them scarpering and spreading the Open Sesame to the other 40 thieves about not trying The Noisy House. (You’d think the same HOA who is budgeting Half A Million Rand for security in the next financial year would get this!)

So, the alarm goes off… And nothing…

No call. No complex guard. No ADT patroller.

This irks me. I have just had the system upgraded to secure the extensions and alterations, spent a great deal of time describing my needs, comings and goings and entry, exit and at home requirements to the technician setting the keypad. Now I can’t come in via the garage interleading door – likely the 99% of the time primary access – without having the alarm scream at me?! I think not.

Incensed at the call centre not calling me (when I had a shiny new password all ready to show off), I called them.

I hung up after FIVE MINUTES.

What if it was an intruder?

Tried again, same story.

Have now posted a ‘please call me on their website’. And still nothing.

This from a company that vigorously communicates at me, sending me smses at 7 on a Saturday morning urging me to call them and test my alarm… Monday to Thursday 9 – 3 preferably (and they send it crack o’ dawn Saturday?!), sending me helpful notices that there is a suspicious car in the neighbourhood (‘A white golf with a driver of dark complexion’) and the a regular bland ‘ADT claims victory in Northriding’ self-promotion message.

I get the feeling that somewhere, sometime at ADT Head Office there was a meeting where they decided they needed a CRM programme. “Let’s make our customers feel safe!”… with smses and newsletters. I don’t want a blogwatch! I want a good old fashioned blockwatch! With branding emblazoned on the wall advising baddies that I’m secured (haven’t managed to get these despite several requests – clearly ‘branding’ was their strategy until they discovered ‘communications’), a presence of patrol cars so that the ‘suspicious’ resident knows better than to lurk on my road… and yes, call when you’re supposed to and answer when I call.

I’ll show them false alarm! The gloves are off – literally, as am ranting this on BB in the daily grind(ing halt) – and am ready to (g)rumble. Woe betide, they’d better call me today or me and my reference number are going to buck the system and call at 3.05 and see how they like that!

PS: the bright side in all of this is that same interleading door houses a dog flap for The Sausages, which they use with great aplomb, under the radar of the pet sensors and blissfully unaware of the ADT debacle. Perhaps, seeing as I did get the obscenely large one to accommodate all creatures great and small, I should side-step the complications of attempting to sort this out with the humans and rather try the tricks of the old dogs?

Who let the blogs out?

Today is the first day of forever. ‘Forever’ because I am never moving again! Was finally able to leave The Sausages at Blue House because there are no builders, tilers, painters or plumbers coming. First. Day. Ever.

They say that moving is one of the most stressful things you can do. Building even more so. Then there’s what I did: building back-to-back. 4 months to build the house, 6 weeks to get the amenities and another 5 months of extensions. That’s the better part of a year – and close to 7 for the hounds!

Clearly ‘a change is as good as a holiday’ is a human thing. ‘Spose that makes sense, seeing as a (human) holiday generally means kennels or desertion for the 4-leggeds, while the biped is off swanning and sunning in exotic locales.

My lot have always been spoilt with imported Aunty This or Uncle That to look after them in the comfort of their own home, so all of this back-and-forth while we are technically homeless has been particularly stressful for them. And they are seemingly done with the romantic notion of playgroups and slumber parties in lieu of the stability of their own patch of earth. I can understand that, now being very tired of living out of a togbag in the now with fleeting visits to the future.

Just need to be patient as it will all be over soon enough. Letting the dogs in; letting the blogs out. I am not a prospector. I am a prospect. No more blue. Just Blue House.

House projects are like boys: check you know what you’re getting into, share your plans and know that alterations are always hard… But if you get it right then it’s the warmest safest place that you’ll always want to come back to.