Time's up

I'm going to do the draw now.

(This is quite exciting!)

Be right back with photos of the draw, and the name of the winner.
Patience

Give Away Drawing Last Chance!

I'm going to draw for the give away today (Friday November whatever it is) at noon Central Time USA.

I am excited! As of last night, Google Analytics told me that 1132 different people have visited since September 15th. Thank you thank you thank you for spreading the word!

To enter the drawing, simply post a comment on this story:

Our 1000th visitor celebration

But be quick! Only four more hours.

After the drawing I'll post today's story.

Thank you again, for your amazingly kind words and encouragement and good luck!

Patience and the whippet waggle

COSTUME CONFUSION!

You have seen our very favorite toy. It squeaks all over and is huge.

We love it and it makes us CRAZY.

This is our favorite Baby Ben.

He lives with Lindy Loo's brother Emmett in our neighborhood.

He went out Trick or Treating and came to our house first.

We thought he was a new Ginormous Stinker!!!!

Lindy Loo did the Butt Sniff Investigation, and

said...

That's no Ginormous Stinker! That's our Baby Ben!

~Happy All Saints Day~

Some mornings stink... literally!

The Innocent Victim

When your life revolves around nine dogs, your life is blessed with a symphony of fragrances. The smell of love carried on a furiously wagging body. The smell of delight ferried on the backs of loud "Welcome Home woo-ahroooooos!" as you walk in your door. The smell of excitement leaking from pores when you grab your purse and keys. "Take me! And me!" The smell of contentment rising like heat waves from comatose forms in front of the fireplace. The smell of anticipation after a trick learned and performed. The stinking stench of your own fear when you find that new lump on your Very Old Dog. And the blessed blissful smell, so like the delicate notice of a wild Lilly of the Valley found in a surprising shady spot, when that lump turns out to be Nothing. Nothing at all.

My life abounds with other smells too. I am married, for these twenty-four privileged years to an Italian. Coming home to our little farmhouse after a long day of lure coursing in the cold, wet New Jersey or Pennsylvania November fields, to the ambrosial aroma of Bill's simmering sauce. The anticipation of that smell made the trip home faster. And writing that, I am reminded of the van on the way home from those coursing trials. Wet dog clothing smelling faintly of laundry detergent. Mud, apples, and the morning's empty coffee cups. The comfortable smell of a long day spent with a good soul-friend and laughter. A vehicle full of deeply satisfied canine snores.


I so miss those weekends.

Then there are the more mundane scents. Dog farts. I have found that dogs do not have to fart. It is entirely dependant on their food, and that is entirely up to the provider of same. You may recall our recent revisit to the land of the Green Gasses when I switched to a new food. We have left that land and returned to Life Without Peeling Paint, with a simple switch back. There is the odor that accompanies picking up poop. Well, it's just part of it and we can all be grateful when the bag doesn't break. That's a lot of gratitude from me; my days are full of lots of bags. Our bedroom in the morning can smell fairly doggy. It's a gentle reminder to their Servant that dogs should bathe, too, and their bedding needs laundering as regularly as our own.

There's the embarrassingly hard to explain smell of forgotten Bil-Jac liver treats in your pocket at a Mainstreet Board meeting with the town's fanciest Movers and Shakers. A smell repugnant even to my own dog-loving nose, and I know my fellow board members believe it emanates from my mortified self.

This morning we hosted a smell-o-rama in the Casa Renzulli Kitchen. Bill, a confirmed non-breakfast-eater for his entire adult life, has changed his ways. A Silly Diet from two years ago had the most excellent side effect of transforming him into a regular morning feaster. And his Italian heritage prevents him from ingestion of boring cereal or ho-hum toast. So this morning he was sauteing onions and Canadian bacon to decorate his perfectly sunny side up eggs.

And I am here to tell you that particular onion was the stinkiest specimen of oniondom ever created. I unsuccessfully tried to refrain from critical comment.

"Jeeee-sus Almighty Gawd that think stinks," I lovingly declared. "I think I'm going to be sick. Onions with shredded wheat have always been my idea of a perfect start to a perfect day."

Bill has a confident nature and a strong ego and he couldn't have cared less about my expression of displeasure. His breakfast was delicious.

"That has to be the Worst Smell in the World," I gently suggested. "You are grossing me out," I said with love.

Bill licked his lips and read the paper.

I busied myself scrubbing the cutting board for the third time, exclaiming to myself, "Pee-yooo. Nasty stank. Yuck."

Then, when Bill had finished eating his much maligned meal, he was loading the evidence into the dishwasher. We have a deal with the dogs. They are the pre-rinse cycle, licking the plates and platters on the floor. They are not to indulge in further pre-rinsing of dishes already loaded in the dishwasher. This is a safety feature of The Contract, due to the presence of sharp knives, wine glasses, and the like. Swede William prefers to opt out of this contractual agreement. As do Lindy Loo, Mama Pajama, Fat Charlie, and anyone else when we aren't looking and often when we are. But Swede William is the most determined.

Bill was just saying, "Get out of there, dogs," when all hell broke loose, along with the entire bottom tray of the dishwasher. It was attached somehow to Swede William who was trying to beat a whippet-speed retreat. Dishes crashed and broke. Poor Swede William cried out the injustice of it all, obviously feeling that the Man Servant had unfairly attacked him with the dishwasher. I finally got him untangled - his tag had gotten wedged between the silverware trough and the main tray - and he flew out of the room.

And then, as Bill and I were sweeping up the broken glass and porcelain, there was that smell. As my brain processed what the old olfactory cells were sending up, I said, "That was either the world's rankest onion, or am I smelling anal glands?"

Bill choked, "That is no onion."

Swede William had clearly been of the opinion that the Attacking Dishwasher Tray was going to kill him and he did what nature provided as his Last Hope of Survival. He let loose with his anal glands. All over the kitchen.

And once again I was humbled by the dog gods.

There was, most certainly, without any possible argument, a smell much, much, ever so much worse than Bill's breakfast onion.

As I humbly went about cleaning it up, I made a mental note. Good, kind, wonderful husband. Occasionally smelly breakfast. Not worth bitching about. Got it.








Hug your smelly hounds!

And don't forget to enter the drawing! See the next post and good luck.

Celebrate! Our "1000th visitor" give away!

According to Google Analytics, we're about to get our 1000th unique visitor to our blog! You know, the blog we were NEVER going to have? Woo-HOOOO! As of yesterday we've had 2811 visits, with 3873 pageviews and 944 unique visitors. All since September 15th when we figured out how to use Google Analytics.

We got the idea to have a celebration give away from our blog friends and actual neighbors Kari & Kijsa (who have a really cool home decorating blog - make no mistake, I need all the inspiration and help I can get) . Soooooo, if you would like to get a free, autographed and pawtographed copy of Mama Pajama Tells A Story, 2nd edition just post a comment to this thread, and I'll enter you in a drawing. If you already have a copy of the book, I will make you a custom collar like this instead.

It's our way of saying thanks for visiting and thank thanks thanks for spreading the word!

Someone's Garbage

My next door neighbor called me. I didn't even realize they had our phone number, because we talk several times a day over our communal fence. I love my neighbors. A young couple with two of the most beautiful, delightful children you could ever meet. When they first moved in, Michael was still serving in Iraq and Ashley was raising then three year old Gavin. Michael came home and the family was blessed with baby Grace. Now Gavin is six and Grace is two and Michael has passed his Boards and is a Critical Care RN.

It was Ashley on the phone. "Oh Patience there's a little dog running loose on Jefferson Street. It's going to get hit. I've tried to catch it, but I'm late for work."

"OK, I'll go look." I loaded my pockets with goodies and set out with absolutely no luck at all. Not a glimpse.

About an hour after I got home, Michael called me. He said, "Hey that little dog is in our back yard, but it won't let me go anywhere near it." I grabbed some ham from the fridge and ran next door.

There was an emaciated little Pekingese up on a stack of bricks. The poor thing had made itself as big as possible by climbing on the bricks, putting itself at about waist height. Michael and Ashley's yard is fenced on three sides. I was doing everything I had learned about dogs so that this little one wouldn't bolt. I didn't make eye contact with it. I continued to talk to Michael in a cheerful voice, with my head turned away from the dog, all the while rubbing my ham in an outstretched hand to release the delectable scent.

I placed a piece of ham on the brick pile about three feet from the dog and stepped back. I heard a frightened growl as I approached. I kept laughing and talking with Michael and not looking at the dog. It inched over and snarfed down the ham. Yes! Another piece was offered, I stepped back less, the growl still came but the ham got gobbled with less hesitation. Step by step. Finally the poor soul was eating out of my hand, and then it allowed me to pat it, with a wary wag of it's sad little tail. Then we made eye contact, and I told the little dog that I was going to help and I had food and water and kindness to give. The relief on that dog's face was practically palpable, audible, touchable, it was so real. She allowed me to cradle her in my arms, with a tiny growl which melted into a groaning sigh.

Now what? She had no collar, no tattoo, and looked as though she had weaned puppies not too long ago. No spay scar. And she was so skinny. Here I was with my whippets, accustomed to feeling ribs as a normal state of affairs, with what should have been a roly-poly Pekingese in my arms. Horrified at feeling ribs, vertebrae, and pelvic bones protruding. Her coat was filthy and matted and dull, and one eye had an old scar on the cornea. My puppies were due in only two weeks and it would have been irresponsible of me all the way around to bring this poor soul into the household. Momma Whippet would have been exposed to Lord knew what diseases, plus she would have no doubt seen this intact female intruder as a threat to her unborn pups. And the rest of my pack would have thought of her as a squeak toy.

I called Bill from my cell phone and asked him to put his studio buddy Delia in the house. Didn't tell him why. I brought the poor Peke into the studio, through the gallery entrance, avoiding the house and the breezeway. Now, my husband is a Good Man. He immediately got eyes full of tears as he felt the bony little feather-light body in his arms. "Are we keeping her?" he asked without hesitation. I explained the dangers of trying to do that, and though I doubted it, I thought someone might be looking for her. I called the shelter, and all of the local vets, and our wonderful Animal Control Officer. I looked in the paper for a lost ad. Nothing.

Then I called Erica. She had been talking about getting a dog. Something bigger than my whippets. A German Shepherd or maybe a Rottweiler. But she was an animal lover through and through, with two cats, and I was in a bind. "Erica, can you come over? I need a little help. I found a dog."

Erica sat on the floor of Bill's studio with tears streaming down her face. "Oh she's so sweet. She's starved! Who would do this to a helpless little dog?" I explained why I couldn't take her in, and why I hated to take her to our city's high kill shelter. "Oh you couldn't take her there!" cried Erica as she hand fed her another bite of the kibble I had brought out to the studio.

"Would you be able to keep her until we can find her owners or find her a home?" I am a devious soul. Shameless, sneaky, underhanded. But the very picture of innocence.

Erica did take her home. She named her Bella. Beautiful Bella. She cleaned her up, took her to the vet. Posted a found ad in the paper. Called all around for someone looking for the dog. Loved her, walked her, fed her, groomed her, and loved her some more. Got her spayed after six months when the vet said she was healthy enough and had a little tumor removed. Got her teeth cleaned. Took her everywhere, let her play with dog friends in the neighborhood, walked her every day rain or shine all around town. Loved her. Adored her.

I don't know what Bella's life had been. I can guess though. I think she was some body's extra income. I think she was bred over and over again for someone to sell "AKC Pekingese puppies" or maybe "Peke-a-poos". Who knows. And I think when she got too old to breed, she got dumped. I think she was running around Jefferson Street looking for the car that had just driven away. I think she had never been adored, except by her puppies which were probably sold before they were ready to be weaned. I bet she had never known real tenderness and love. I bet she had never been valued as a soul full of sunshine and grace.

And now, years later, I see Bella and Erica walking through the neighborhood, with Bella's beautiful tail wagging gloriously and her Pekingese smile ready for everyone. With her eyes never leaving Erica's face for too awfully long; those eyes so dedicated, so loving, so grateful, so sparkling with health and fun. When I see this, every single time I see this, my heart swells with gratitude. I thank God that this little dog who has nothing but benevolence to offer the world, knows human love.

*hug your dogs*

Wow.