Cheap gas and other stuff
A busy week
Gas is free. I know this because Cardiff is very free with her gas. At any given moment, an odiferous delivery can arrive on my nostrils. No waiting, no entry fee, come right in. I hope this is something transitory as her gut still stabilizes. The giardia thing seems to have resolved (not putting much credit in my former vet, they’re not returning my calls after I requested a refund on the puppy package).
A new game that Cardiff is playing with me reminds me of Freeze Tag. For those that don’t remember watching Friends shows as an adult when they came out, this was a special flavor of the Tag game where you could only be “tagged” when you were in motion towards the base. There were infinite home rules or variants: time limit on freezing, talking or no talking while frozen, whether a friend could try to lure the “it” person away, etc. Cardiff’s version is directed towards my feet, and she tries to Tag as close to the bottom of my foot as possible. This entails running to exactly where I’m about to step, then lunging back and forth trying to predict where I might put my foot to avoid squashing her. She thinks it’s great fun. Me, not so much. Especially when she runs around the corner and I’m not actively avoiding her.
In other news, she’s developed an odd habit of walking while defecating. No offense meant, but the end result is remarkably like Arabic or Elvish writing. You’re welcome for that visual.
This was a busy week, as she hit the 10 pound milestone. You can see some feets-ball, learning to not bark at people passing out front, White Trash Beach, and just splootin’.
You’re a prepper, I’m a prepper
Today was very productive, as I continue to prep (there’s the tie-in for the title) for the Texas trip I’m not taking. I finished getting the extra key for my truck, I’ve got the premade list for what to bring, I’ve reached out to my contact at the trailer company for any additional details, and I’ll hand it all off to my dad to do the actual drive and retrieval.
Also, Cardiff and I did yard work today. She really wanted to help, meaning she cried and yowled whenever I wasn’t in eyesight. Be aware I have full-on conversations with an animal that is non-speaking and only 10 weeks old. While I was pulling wire down from the outside of the house she refused to help, mumbling something about OSHA and holding the bottom of the ladder. Again when I was trimming the top of a high bush in the back I asked her to work on clearing the branches that were falling, but she said she had “Important Duties” and proceeded to crap on the lawn. (Doodies?)
And she didn’t even pick it up.
You can see in the images below she pretends to investigate my work, then laughs when I ask for real help.
It’s a cry for help
I’m currently mad at the dog. She seems determined to kill herself, and I just can’t be a party to it. I’ll summarize.
Today Cardiff had some blood in her poop. Not lots, but also not just a spot. Frankly, I was tempted to see if it repeated, but thought I would really feel horrible if it did and THEN I got her checked out only to find earlier intervention would have been better. So off to the vet, and then this text to my parents since they happened to call literally as we were driving to the appointment.
Cardiff has been unchanged in behavior, appetite, energy, everything. She’s getting even bitey-er (that’s a word) if nothing else. But this afternoon I was trying to get her to not sleep the day away and spend some time in the now-dangerous backyard (don’t judge me). One of the bonuses of having a dog spending time back there is the maintenance that’s been happening with me filling the time with her. I’m making progress on the sideyard with maybe nine bricks a day (she aggressively tries to help, which wears my patience), I’ve trimmed the pear tree and the lemon tree, as well as picked up detritus in the areas beneath both.
I’ve also removed some of the coax cable that’s defacing the sides and back of my house from the time it spent as a rental before I purchased. Only the current coax connection closest to the pole is live, so there are literally five other lines snaking under the eaves and down to entry-points where there used to be service. Hence Markie filling in the now vacated holes with premixed stucco repair after removing the wires. Of course, a couple of the openings are down low to maximize the length of wire exposed on the outside of the building (ok, maybe I’m being a bit negative) and Cardiff thought the stucco mix looked mighty tasty.
Now, recall this puppy is possibly going to cause a second mortgage because she may be zombifying or something, and I’ve already made nice with the vet once today. She chooses to try to REPEATEDLY eat this stuff from the container as well as where it’s applied to the wall. I fend her off physically, and get to her follow me around back to put the stuff away to do later without her present. Only she pretends to follow me and double’s back when I stop monitoring her behind me. I set the now sealed container on the table and turn to pick her up and put inside, only to see miles to the horizon with no dog evident. I race back around the corner to find her eating the stuff off the wall and out of the hole like a starving contestant in an ice cream eating contest. It looks like I never even applied the mixture because of her efforts.
I immediately return back to the table to read the container for poison control’s number. I call, and am told it’s not poisonous to humans, but am given another number to call if I wish to verify for dogs. I call the new number and told it will be $95 to ask my question to this specialty service. At this point I’m mad at everyone in the world, including both Cardiff and myself. I hang up and decide to monitor her.
She’s still biting everything and everyone. I put her in her crate and gave her a Kong with peanut butter and some of her kibble in it, which lasted almost 12 minutes. She’s now singing the song of her people right now, in protest of the incarceration.
Why Cardiff?
This question comes up a lot. As I covered before, this originates in the name of a city in southern Wales:
I’ve never been there, but it’s come up in stories I’ve read and I’ve always liked the sound of it
I used to have a D&D character named after the same place
I’ll likely visit at some point, but it’s unlikely that my doggo will
There’s a castle there, which totally fits with her name: Cardiff Castle
Also, I’d like to say on behalf of Cardiff that she’s not a terror all the time. She’s actually super sweet and loves cuddles, doesn’t bark much, is actually smart, and loves meeting people. She occasionally terrorizes Japanese cities, but not all the time.
Kaiju Rampage Continues
Don’t let my sarcasm paint her in a negative light, she’s doing great and seems to be having fun in the process. She’s super sweet and very smart. It’s definitely challenging keeping up and challenging her to be interested and not just chew something out of boredom. I’ve relied heavily on family to help me manage her and allow me time to do simple stuff like go to the store since Cardiff can’t be in a crate for very long at this point.
In other news, my trip to Texas to pick up my travel trailer is being reshuffled. With Cardiff unable to even interact with many other dogs or be on the ground safely due to the risk of Parvo before she’s fully vaccinated, I’ve had to re-think the trip. I was very much looking forward to driving out, and even more so driving back with Princess A, dragging the trailer behind. The reality is the trip would be difficult at best given Cardiff would need to be carried everywhere and none of us would be having the best trip we could.
My dad to the rescue, he’s going to drive my truck out and retrieve the trailer for me. I had alternate schemes for possibly getting other people to do the trip or dog-sit while I did it. His solution is the best all around, and will even give him some time to visit family while out in Texas. But it’s still a huge relief for me to have it solved.
Thanks again, Dad, you’re the best!
Alligator on the loose
There are apparently some scientific and accurate methods for distinguishing between an alligator and a crocodile, something about the shape of the snout and whether there are teeth visible, blah blah blah
I find it much easier to distinguish by time:
Alligators you’ll see later
Crocodiles you’ll see after a while
All this is to say that Cardiff has transformed into an alligator (I’m arbitrarily choosing that one of the two). She’s comfortable enough now that she’s confident in rooms she was timid to be in before. She is chasing my feet with no understanding or regard for the consequences; frequently getting punted or almost squashed by her ill-timed pounces. She is sampling everything with her mouth now, be it animate or inanimate. And zoomies. Oh, the zoomies.
A couple times a day, she runs about madly, stopping briefly to chew on anything in her path. That might be furniture, a toy, my foot, a rock, whatever. And she doesn’t calm down quickly. Any efforts to pull her off something result in faster attacks at my hand. I know she’s doing the best she can, but it’s tough to remember in the moment when several needle-teeth are sunk in my baby toe.
Day 3: Out Come the Teeth
Prison Yard violence, conjugal visits with a hedgehog, and chewing chewing chewing.
First things first. Puppy now has a name, and it’s Cardiff. I know of it as a town in Southern England that I’ve never been to (and yes, there is a Cardiff Castle), but apparently there’s also Cardiff by the Sea in Encinitas. We’ll have to visit the one down south, but I don’t know if she’ll ever make it to the one in the UK.
As for the time she’s putting in, we have an Exercise Pen (or Ex-Pen) in the living room with her crate and mats to provide an area she can be relatively safe without having to actually physically stop her from killing herself falling down stairs or chewing an electrical cord. She loves the pen! As long as it’s open and she can go in and out. Once the door closes, it’s a killing field where she shanks the other inmates (her stuffed animals). She’s particularly abusive to Rocky the Raccoon, maybe because of his shifty eyes. Helen the Hedgehog frequently gets dragged behind the crate in what I can only hope is consensual humping.
Cardiff is much more confident in her domain now, and has begun mouthing or outright chewing everything she’s ignored the past two days. Luring me into a false sense of security with her prior docile playacting, she’s now chewing on the kitchen dining room set she was content to lay beneath just a day before. I think she’s just testing her teeth out, but she was really trying to get the foil off a bottle of wine on the lowest portion of the wine rack too. It’s not like it’s a spectacular vintage or anything, just a $10 bottle of dinner wine.
Pictures abound, but they’re all while she’s asleep and otherwise looking innocent. She’s darling, but they don’t convey the violence she’s capable of.