Behavior Modification 009

In the before I forget category: I was sitting at the large dining room table where I usually sit with my back to the front room.  Simon barked loudly once.  I ignored him.  Simon barked once again.  I tried to turn my head to see what was going on behind me.  I could manage to turn it just enough to see some of the front room.  Fused vertabraes in my neck make that action extremely painful any more, but I could not see Simon anywhere, so I turned back to my puzzle.  A minute later, Simon barked again.  I got up, slowly and painfully (well, I am three quarters of a century old now!  It is no wonder the body has broken down some; so say I, so say we all, eh?).  There was Simon at the south end of the sofa; there was Dexter, the big lummox, stretched out on the sofa from pillow to pillow, south to north. Simon could not get up.  Simon looked up at me as if to say, "Get me up there, now!"  I was going to move the pillows on one end so that there would be room for Simon too, but Dexter apparently decided that he had taken Simon's usual place long enough; Dexter stretched, stood up and politely jumped down, situation resolved, though Simon's blanket was still on the floor.

At that point I picked up Simon's blanket and spread it out on the sofa, north to south. Simon was already up there, waiting to begin his burial process whereby he disappears from sight for the rest of the afternoon.  Simon had barked so that I would come and fix things for him.  Who is in charge here?  Obviously I am just staff. 

While I think about it, our sleeping arrangements are rather odd.  When Mary goes to bed, say one a.m., Schuster usually goes with her to grab the prime place on the huge pillows by Mary's side of the bed, the south side.  There is room for three of them, if not four.  They seem to prefer sleeping on the pillows to sleeping on the bed with us.   Dachshunds should be on the bed!  Pookie was always on the bed with us.  Ah well, Simon is not Pookie, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

So, by the time I get back to the bedroom, four to five a.m., usually only Simon is left in the front room on the sofa, under the blanket or not.  Last night he was exposed.  Even when he is exposed and sound asleep, I can walk up to him quietly, reach down and pet him without him being startled or even flinching in the least. He never even bats an eye.  If someone did that to me I would probably wet the bed, or something.  

In any case, when I go to bed Simon stays on the sofa.  He stays on the sofa!  Once in a while he follows me and pretends to be a real dachshund by having me lift him onto the bed, whereupon I have to push him around so that there is room for me.  His other form of bedroom behavior is to come back there when he hears Mary use the bathroom early in the morning.  Then she has to put him up there whereupon he rushes over to lick my sleeping face, especially my ear, before he stretches out beside me in true dachshund fashion for at least three minutes.  When I wake up later he is usually a lump at the bottom of the bed under the sheet and blanket.   

Since the bed is very high off the floor, we have to make certain he doesn't jump down on his own.  He can jump down safely on the dog pillow side but not from the other side which is pure artificial hardwood floor and solid.  It has been about a week now since he last slept with us, independent little beast.  Stubborn.   

The best Simon bedroom behavior though is The Nap.  If I take an afternoon nap, Simon will immediately, well, within ten minutes, appear at the side of the bed and make it clear to my foggy brain that he belongs up there too.  He of course barks once loudly!  I get up, put him close to the center on my side, stretch out on my back with my arm around him.  And he stays that way.  He is a real dachshund deep down.  That kind of nap is the best nap there is.  Whoop whoop!

Did I mention that his photo won second place in the Berea Art Council pet photo contest?  Well it did.  

Behavior Modification 007

I can't remember exactly where I am, in the weblog, in life.  The problem occurred a week ago Tuesday, 13 days ago, more or less.  Mary was going out to eat lunch with a friend at Cracker Barrel who had stopped by to pick her up.  When the friend pulled up to pick her up, I was in the garage, about to go down the driveway to get the empty recycling bins and our garbage can.  I raised the garage door to go out to talk with our friend.  Apparently she was brushing something off the seat of her Cadillac and didn't see me at her window.

I was just starting down the driveway when Mary materialized on the other side of the car.  I mentioned that our friend apparently hadn't seen me and thus continued down the driveway, wishing her a good lunch.  I was about halfway down the driveway when I felt the metal bumper touch my side.  The next thing I knew I was face down on the cement staring at the pool of blood I was lying in.  Either the ladies saw me and were trying to do me in, or they didn't see me and the rear motion detector wasn't working either.  Since they stopped the car and didn't continue running over me, I assume the later.  In any case it was and still is a painful experience.

With the help of a man who was going by, they got me up and took me to the emergency room where I spent the rest of the afternoon, being X-rayed and MRIed and attended to by a group of kind Valkyries, who at least were not carrying me off anywhere, yet.  The doctor was kind, said there were no broken bones, though there may be a fracture or two, nose and arm.  Later tests revealed that there is a fracture of some sort in the left arm.  I am always pleased when they discover such things as it tends to justify the pain somewhat.   

I keep wondering where they thought I might have gone, until they hit me, and found out, but I try not to think about that too much. 

Actually, as I think back about that momentary contact with the moving vehicle, I decided that is what being touched by an angel must really feel like.  The power was immense; apparently I flew for a bit and then landed on the concrete.  And with that said, I shall close this notice down, try to find the right picture, and then go to bed. 

The image was sideways, but it is now turned and I think, centered, and thus provides some sense of the way I looked a week or so ago.  Ouch!  Now I also have some idea of why the Turkey Vulures have been congregating around and over our house.

May you never be hit by a car or touched by an angel on a mission.