Friday, October 12, 2012

attacked by beer.

The talented Zoey strikes again. She ran head on into a 12-pack of bottled beer that was (annoyingly) sitting on the floor in the kitchen. (My housemate thinks that the floor is an appropriate place to store things.) It wasn't even that Zoey had come around the corner and been surprised by the new obstacle. We were in the same room the whole time and then I said we should go upstairs. Maybe in her excitement she miscalculated and ran head on into the pack of beer. (Which was also not in the direction of the stairs.) The best part was that the pack only had a few beers left in it so upon impact, bottles fell and made clanging noises. Nora jumped, or rather hopped, a couple of feet from where she'd been seconds earlier. See, Nora puts on a strong, scary exterior but in reality she's absolutely terrified by any thing that would not be easily anticipated. Or anything out of the norm. Or anything startling. Or any grates or ground coverings that make the ground appear to be unstable.

So, Zoey plows into pack of beer. Beers fall and clang. Zoey, unphased, walks/runs towards the stairs. Concurrently, Nora is having a freak out about the noises so much so that she drops the toy that she was carrying in her mouth and runs towards the stairs too. As though, somehow, the toy was also involved in the conspiracy.

Ah, the pair of them are endless entertainment.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Introducing Nora and Zoey

So my two dogs are a large part of my life. They make sad days less sad and happy days happier. While they are both (almost) equally entertaining, they are two very different sidekicks. First, there is Nora who is a 7 lb apricot toy poodle. People assume Nora is my favorite because I talk about her first. (She is my favorite.) And then there is Zoey, a 6 lb (soaking wet) rescued maltese poodle mix, who has not a clue about the world. (Or at least she's really good at faking it. Jury's still out.)

Zoey has very difficult things happen to her. This morning she ran out into the backyard (the same backyard we've had for over a year) and did her business. She started wandering around the yard and ran into a bush. Ran into it. Startled, she looked at the bush as though it'd magically appeared in front of her. After establishing, yes, this was in fact a bush in front of her, she slowly walked around it. Here, is where I made my mistake, I called her name. Maybe it was the confusion of the moment but she looked at the bush, then at Nora and finally at me, after I called her name again. I do have a copy of the Bible somewhere in my house. Maybe she found the talking bush section and took it to heart. I firmly believe that Zoey believes that Nora can speak-- in perfect English, a loud. After all, Zoey has to have realized in the 3 years that we've all lived together that she did has inferior knowledge of the world. (Zoey is pictured below.)


Nora believes that she knows most things. At the doggie creation shop, Nora stood in all the lines. She picked up cuteness, smartness, cleverness, exuberance, endless energy, toy obsession, food obsession and neuroticism. Nora ignored the friendliness to children and general friendliness. She must have just picked up a bit of the selectively friendly. Meanwhile, Zoey failed to realize that there was a smartness line. She focused on the colors and the beauty of the world and the loveliness of everyone. Happy to be alive was pretty darn important. All those other things would come in time... or not.



Zoey, while oblivious, has her redeeming qualities. She is a cuddler. She will snuggle you happy. You want to feel shitty? Lay around and not think there's an ounce of happiness in the room? In comes Zoey. She is not going to let you think those horrible things. After all, she is however many ounces that six lbs is of happiness. She is the flower child. The happiest because she does not recognize danger in the world. After all, she lived on the streets of Miami for months before someone found her and rescued her. I still cannot imagine how she survived. Though it was probably helpful that she is the least confrontational animal. She does not fight. She hardly stands up for herself. Nora can take a toy out of her mouth and Zoey just lets her do it.