What Ana Does

This week our neighbor who is fostering SEVEN newborn puppies at her house brought one to them bus stop and it was pandaemonium! Puppy love explosion! Leah With One of the Puppies Not unwarranted ... those puppies were soft and sweet and Oh SO fun to hold. But, HELLO! We're dealing with an 8-month-old puppy at home NOW. Sure, he's not little and soft but he's biting his way through half the house and certainly acting like a puppy. ANYWAY, yesterday Alice was so ticked off I wouldn't adopt one of Ms. Lydie's puppies she got on the bus without talking to me. Sigh. I was ready for another argument this morning about why three dogs in our house was completely insane (two dogs in our house is leaning towards crazy, as it is). But Alice decided this morning, in one of her ruler-mandate-sort-of-ways that our family was "perfect the way it was and I don't want anything new added." Alice Pleased With Our Current Canine Companions So fine. ...

It's very slow, but there's a little relationship starting to develop between these two doggie brothers. Benny's pretty reluctant about this hyper interloper but seems to enjoy being outside more. And Lando just wants to be his best friend. (Sound familiar?) We're getting there. Sharing a Hug Alice says now our family is even: Three girls and three boys. 

We've been talking, at first jokingly and sometimes more seriously, about getting a second dog. I know, that sounds nuts because I wasn't altogether onboard for the first, but it's true. And oddly, I'm pushing for it. Here are my attempt at organizing my thoughts around this issue. Benny is a wonderful little dog. But he's scared of everything and doesn't seem very happy. I keep thinking a second dog would give him some companionship and challenge him to involve himself more. Maybe learn some play behaviors or commands. We all committed to having this dog, so getting Benny didn't fulfill all our preconceptions of actually getting a dog. If we're going to do it, let's do it 100%. We'd all love Dave to have a dog he can pal around with. Who won't run from the room when he enters it. He takes it personally that Benny is so frightened of him. This whole thing was his idea, he deserves to get the dog he wanted. The girls too were disappoin...

It's coming. The wind made the bus stop extra frigid this morning. Even Benny had his coat on.

So lately I've been thinking about dog poop. My dog's poop, specifically. Since adopting Benny we've been collecting plastic bags to clean up after him on our neighborhood walks. And using plastic bags, or even having them, has never sat well with me. Plastic bags are kinda evil. For years we've been using less and less plastic bags, always bringing reusable bags to the grocery store and pulling out my little reusable tote (always stuffed into my purse) while shopping. But lately, now with the need for them, we've been more lax about accepting them at stores. And I don't like it. Then there's the landfill issue -- another sensitive subject with me. I'm overly-aware of what we throw out. Can I reuse it? Can I compost it? Can I recycle it? Those plastic bags of poop drop right into my trash bin and get taken to the landfill where they'll decompose very very very slowly. I read recently it takes over a 100 years for a plastic bag of dog poop to ...

From Lisa Leake's 100 Days of Real Food cookbook, I found a recipe for tossing a whole chicken into a crockpot, no liquid necessary, and dinner is served in 6 hours or less. Yes, I had to try this out. Plenty of Cooking Liquid Out of the Onions and Juicy Chicken To say the meat was falling off the bone would be an understatement. I literally spooned out the meat and plopped it on plates with some roasted veggies. Easiest meal ever. Then, Ms. Lisa suggested I make chicken stock from the bones and skin left behind. Just add celery, carrots and some water and leave the crock pot on overnight. OK. Sure. Stock! Two More Jars Completed This Haul And the fruits of that "labor-intensive" project: About 8 cups of chicken stock cooling on the island. All for the $6.00 I spent at Trader Joe's for the bird.  That's a winner of a deal.  Plus, I'll be mixing bbq sauce with the leftover chicken for dinner tonight.  Meanwhile, the dog was my BE...

About one year ago, to the day, we picked up Benny our beagle from the foster home. He'd been out of the research labs for about a month and was just getting used to life as a dog, and not a lab rat. How could we know what we were all in for? The good parts were experiencing a lot of firsts with Benny. The first time touching snow and grass. The first time he ran at full speed. The early thunderstorms that freaked him out. The first hot, summer days when he couldn't figure out that sitting in the shade would be better than laying in the sun. The bad parts, too. House training him (gross!). Finding out just how sensitive his stomach is (vomiting). He's scared of everything! But, overall, he's been a very good dog for us. He tolerates the girls and all their "attention;" Be it, dressing him, chasing him, Alice is particularly fond of rubbing his nose with her finger. He will occasionally snap when he's had enough. But that is very seldom. Otherwise...

Another weekend spent mostly in the house -- and running errands. It's just darn cold to do anything else.  Here are a few candid shots from around the house.  Girls Stole My iPhone and Took Pictures of Their Toys We Snuggled During the Snoozer-Super Bowl Game Guess Who Got a Shower! Love spending time around the house with my favorite people! 

We've now had Bennett "the beagle" in our home for the last month, or so. And, boy, has it been a long learning curve. It's day-by-day and we're getting to a better schedule (helps with the housetraining A LOT), which is working. But it's been a struggle. Also, dogs are not very smart. I don't know about these people who write about dogs being intuitive and intelligent. No. They're idiots. At least, mine is. In a cute, lovable, village-idiot kind of way. Here's the breakdown: Good : He loves me and follows me around like a love-sick puppy. This is amusing when I spend an hour on Saturday putting things away, roaming the house -- up and down, back and forth. Not so amusing when he nearly trips me going down the stairs. It's a Tough Life Bad : He is petrified of Dave. It's day by day, but, generally, he runs the other direction. This is especially annoying because he won't come back into the house if Dave's at the door. So, ...

Spends Much of His Day Napping Housetraining a dog is not all that it's cracked up to be. It's a little like toilet training without diapers. The first week Benny was with us we also had Doc and Dixie (my sister's big dogs) visiting and it was a breeze. Benny saw and smelled the other dogs go outside so he followed right along. Sure, he had a few accidents in the house but we thought we had it under control. Wrong. Since then, it's been all falling apart. According to the books, we're supposed to be vigilant, watching him for "signs," but he wanders off to other parts of the house -- and we have other things to do than follow him around. Also, sometimes the signs are no different than his usual activity. Sniff and circle, it's his favorite way to pass the time. And then, HELLO, we find the accident. Argh! I'm sure it's not easy to train outside when it's snowing or below freezing -- which it has been this last week. It's -...

Benny Boy!  The day before ALL my family arrived at my house, we picked up our new, adopted Beagle, who we named Benny. And in the last month, he's been through a lot of change -- with the transition from the lab to the foster house to our house. (PTSD, maybe?) Not to mention the house swelled to 14 people (5 of whom were under the age of 7) and then dropped back to four. So, he continues to be skittish and anxious about, well, everything! The good thing is he doesn't bark much, doesn't chew or bite. He'd only had a few accidents in the house and he's pretty content to be around people and have a LARGE place to roam around. He liked all the little girls, but he continues to like ME the best. Ha! Because of all this anxiety he paces quite a bit. At first, we were sure he was looking for the foster mom. Then, he paced for a place to hang out. Now that everyone is gone, he seems to be looking for all the people. Once we get in our weekly routine, we're ho...

First, you should know that when we got married I made a deal with Dave; "Buy me a house, and we'll get a dog." This was back in my 20s when homeownership seemed a million miles away and nearly impossible. Our path was leading into New York City, so this deal, on my end, seemed pretty empty. Our path lead west instead, and we're in our second house bought together. And he looks at me and says, "now can I have a dog?" Truthfully, I am not what you would call an animal person. We had one dog in my family and that was when I was in kindergarten. He was a huge German Shepard and I was terrified. Terrified! Ever since, I've really disliked dogs, especially when they do stuff like sniff your crotch, lick or bark -- oh, and drool. Gross. But, okay, some of them are kinda cute. In Rhode Island, I babysat a dog for a week and I loved it. Her name was Zoomie and she had a horrible, abused past, so she was especially kind and sensitive if play got too rough...

"He doesn't have a name yet, just a number." This is how he got me. I'm a softie, and, apparently that includes to animals, as well. There's backstory coming in a separate post but the NEWS FLASH is this: We might be adopting a dog. A DOG. He's 4-years-old and coming from a research lab. Rest assured, he's TOTALLY healthy -- but, he's had a very, very sheltered life. I won't go so far as say "abused" but not an ideal puppyhood. More on that later. I just feel ready to burst. We're adding another member to the family and I feel like I'm having a baby all over again. We have to buy supplies, get his "room" ready ... I need to read up on dogs books and manuals, because I know nothing. We should see a photo from when he's moved from the lab to a foster home to acclimate to a "home environment." (Awwww.) And we'll treat the first month as a trail period. We know other families who have adopted thro...