Mischief Monday - Last Dear Man Post

Dear Man,

If things went as planned, you arrived home late last night. Welcome home! We can't wait to hear about your trip in detail. You are not the most detailed tester. 

We must take cover

Overall, Lady says she gives us a B for the week. We were good at walking and did no damage when she left the house. We went to camp and were not embarrassing. For the most part, we slept through the night (except the night there was assassins on the deck and we barked a lot - the curtains should arrive tomorrow). We didn't want to eat normally and we wanted to get up too early. We also have been drinking a lot of water.

The most mischief was Friday evening. Lady says it wasn't a Good Friday. In the afternoon, it became super windy. Some trees blew down at Callie's. Then right at the time Lady had a virtual chat with friends scheduled, there was some thunder.

Hold me I am scared

The power flickered 87 million 4 times. We were sure we were going to die. 

Lady put us on leashes and held us while she was chatting. 

This leash is preventing me from destroying the house

Lady made the mistake of being lulled into a false sense of security and letting Lee offleash. In less than 5 minutes, Lee peed on the bed in Lady's office, and rubbed her nose on it so much, it looked like a crime scene. Lee's nose was also a bloody mess. Lady says a new bed with a waterproof cover should be here tomorrow as well. Lee has peed too many times on this bed and it won't survive a washing so it is in the garbage.

I wonder if the Easter Bunny needs a red nosed dog?

The storm didn't last long and we settled for the evening and had a good night. 

Overall, we had a good week, but we did miss you enough to not want to eat right. That is a lot of missing, especially from Lee.

love your B students, Lee and Phod

 

Trouble On A Tuesday - Weather - by Lee

Last week is was so warm the melting snow from our roof sounded like rain. Then it was windy. I took precautions.

Make sure to come by Friday so you can enter the when will the snow be gone contest. 

Trouble On A Tuesday - In the Dark - by Phod

Dear pals,

Hailey told you the start of the horrible lives we lived last week. It started with the storm in the early hours of Thursday morning (shows you no good comes for a Thursday). While the rain stopped, it was really, really windy.

At 2:17 pm on Thursday, the power went out. While it came on briefly, it was basically off until 10 pm. Then it went back out on Friday morning at 8 am, until about 3 pm.  Lady and Man had the generator running most of this time.

While Hailey doesn't like a storm (she taught me to be afraid), I am VERY scared of not having power. I always have been. It is too quiet and when it comes back on things beep. It is the worst thing that could ever happen.

During much of this time, Lady was working at her desk, as she is officially working about 1/2 of her work (but July it will be closer to 2/3). While we don't have everything on the generator we have the most important stuff (fridge, freezer, water, internet, some outlets), so she can work. I really, really wanted to get on her lap. I never want to do this. She did not think having an 80lbs dog on her lap during zoom consults was ideal. I did my best to hide in the office, under the desk seemed best. I have never done this before. Lady just laughed at me and said I was being ridiculous, we were safe. She also said she prefers my passive fear to Lee's destructive one.

Are you sure I can't get up?

I will just try under the desk

I didn't sleep at all on Friday and was soooooooo tired. It may be days before I recover.  Then something happened on Saturday - come back on Thursday to see why I am still tired! 

Mischief Monday - Fear Shared

As you all know, Hailey has some pretty severe anxiety, that in the past has resulted in her being medicated. Currently, while we are home 99% of the time, she is not being medicated. We had a thunderstorm Friday night (she gets an 7.5/10 with how she did, she did have a moment where she was scratching the door to get me out of bed, even though Man was up) and Saturday afternoon we had another one (also an 8/10). She tends to be pace, she will bark a few times, but she is not causing damage. 

While her anxiety has always been big and noticeable, our boy has slowly learned to be afraid from her. He is just afraid in a much quieter way. He has never liked the vacuum or the power going out. Now he doesn't like thunder storms or the Man leaving. 

On Thursday, the Man took the morning off to go to Costco. He was gone for about 3 hours. Phod tried to hid in the corner of my office. Clearly he was very upset. During the storms, he wanted to be with us or hiding in a corner. Those of us who know him, know he is stressed, but others may not notice.

It had been suggested we try playing the storm sounds to help desensitize Lee to them. Now that we have a fancy new sound system, we gave it a try. Hailey initially looked up, thought about it, realized it was not real and went back to sleep. Phod was the one who was stressed. He looked for comfort and was very alert. Now it could be that he just doesn't like the stereo either!

At any rate, we now have 1 very anxious dog and 1 sort of anxious dog. It is like the fear is shared between the 2 dogs instead of just being trapped in 1!

Mischief Monday - Fraidy Cats

This is my 80lbs, 9 or so year old German Shepherd Mix freaking out. 

He is trying to crawl onto my lap while I was creating my nieces's birthday story. 

He was so stressed he drooled all over me. 

He never use to be fearful, but thanks to Hailey he has become almost as fearful as she has. He just is less destructive about it.

What caused all this fear?

On Saturday we left the house in a car for about 30 minutes. Literally as we were pulling in (we were able to open the garage door, but not close it), the power went out. It was out for about 10 minutes. Later in the day, the power flickered and was out for maybe one minute. This picture was taken during that time.

The power going out is the scariest thing ever for Phod.

Earlier in the week, when the Man and I were both on calls, our carbon monoxide detector decided to tell the whole world it was at the end of its life. The beeping caused Phod to be scared in his passive way and Lee to start digging things off the shelf, digging me. I excused myself from my meeting and put the device outside so they couldn't hear it until we had time to deal with it. Once they couldn't hear it, they settled.

I am wondering if they will both need anti-anxiety meds when we re-enter the real world!

A Project Hailey Fail

As you may remember, our Lee is on prozac (the generic form picked up at the human pharmacy) from about April-October every year. She is on the prozac to help her with her severe anxiety cause by fireworks and thunder. (If you have forgotten how severe, in August of 2012 she chewed her way through the wall).

She went back on it in early April. We had our first storm. Short story, I ended up asleep on the couch with the TV and lights on and she ended up in bed with the Man after almost 2 hours of stress. 

I spoke to our vet after this and we decided to try increasing her dose. He said we could double it. We increased it to see. 

The increase caused Hailey to be extra tired and she looked uncomfortable in her body (I think she just felt too stoned). After a short time, we returned her to her regular dose.  I spoke to the vet and he said we could look at an in-between dose and I said let's see.

We just got through our first long weekend of the year which means a lot of fireworks for us. While she was a bit pacy the first night, we let her out of the bedroom and she settled without any destruction. Overall she did really well. So for the time being, we will leave her meds as they are. 

SCARED! by Phod

Dear pals,

On Friday night, we were minding our own business, catching up on some TV shows when the power disappeared.  I had been sleeping in my spot in the other room, but quickly came to the couch area so squeeze up next to my people. 

picture taken when the lights were out

A few minutes later (maybe 5 but it felt like 87 million), after we all just sat in the dark for a bit hoping it would come back on, it did. Then I needed to sit on the couch with Lady and make sure we were all ok.

I may look a little happy in the last picture, but I am not really. I am scared.

The power went out for a few minutes on Sunday as well. Lady was her office doing some stuff and I pushed myself right up against her door, willing her to open it and let me in. When it came back on, she had to go to the laundry room to check the machines, and I went with her. I curled up under the clothes drying rack. 

I may be a big strong dog, but Lady says I turn into a suck-a-bear when the power goes out. I don't like the house being silent and in this case very dark.

Does anything scare you?

Trying to be brave, Phod

Storm Season is Upon Us

Last Wednesday, we had our second thunderstorm of the season. This is significantly fewer than we would normally have by now. The storm thankfully rolled in during the evening on my work at home day.

Miss Lee was very upset at first and ran downstairs and tried to dig her way through my office door. When she is scared she wants to either be outside or downstairs. I brought her upstairs and put on her thunder shirt and she 'settled' in the kitchen. For Hailey, she was very calm, just sitting or standing and panting.

Phod, who use to never show any real reaction to storms, has learned to be fearful from Hailey. While he has never been destructive (go back to around August 12, 2012 to see her worst damage ever), he does want to be near you and pant. 

Emma is oblivious to it all, and I only got her in this picture because she was interested in what I may be cooking in the kitchen. 

I spent my evening while the Man was out cooking (which is so rare) and trying to comfort my dogs. I hope we don't have too many storms (or wind, or fireworks) this season. 

Trouble Tuesday - Wind

Friday night a serious windstorm rolled through Ontario and Quebec. During the storm, my Hailey Bug, who as you know is terrified of storms, did ok (we had restarted her prozac last week). She was visibly nervous, but sat on the couch with us until the power went out around 10. It was hardly raining, but the wind was crazy. I was sure Emma was going to turn into a kite at the end of the leash! Phod was also nervous as the power kept flickering and he is scared when it goes out. Emma did not appear to notice, other than the fact she didn't like the weather outside. 

Terrified girl

Everyone slept through the night, which is great as Emma has been getting up a lot. In the morning the power was still out. Hundreds of thousands lost it. The year we moved into our house we lived 72 hours in the winter and 95 hours in the summer without power. As we are on a well, this meant no water. After that, we got a generator and generator panel installed. Our generator is not powerful enough to run the whole house, but we have water, the fridge and freezer, lights in the bathroom and lots of power downstairs (meaning we can have internet and satellite and heat). We can't use the oven, and there is no heat in the bedroom, but we know we could live very comfortably. Saturday was only the second time since we got the generator we had to use it. It doesn't come on automatically, we have to drag it out and plug it in. The dogs weren't happy with the sound it makes (it sounds like a lawn tractor) but were happy to have their water bowl filled. The power was out for about 22 hours. 

We are grateful no damage was done to our place. Aunty K lost her fence. Others had serious damage. At least 3 people were killed.  Hopefully, it is a long while before we have to use the generator again!

The generator

Terrifying Thursday

Last week, we had hopefully the last winter storm of the season. It was freezing rain. It was windy. Ice pelted off the windows. The power flickered but was never out more than 10 seconds.

As most of you know, Hailey is afraid of wind and storms. She actually did pretty well. She did demand love and she did stand and shake at times, but because we were both working at home, it never became more. 

What you may not know, is Phod is scared of power flickering. If it goes out, he gets very nervous. I am not sure if this is something he has always struggled with, or if living with Hailey made it worse. He is much calmer about his fears. He just wants to be near us.

For example, because I wasn't going for a walk in the freezing rain, while I was on the treadmill, he huddled beside it. (Normally, if he is in the room with me, he is on the couch). 

Later, when I was in my office, he huddled in the corner by my desk. 

I hope that his fears don't increase and that we have a quiet spring with few thunder and wind storms. 

Mischief Monday - A Winter Storm

A few weeks ago we had a a freezing rain storm. Hailey did not like the sound of the ice hitting the roof and the windows. She was visibly upset.  While I was working out, she hid between the treadmill and the weight bench. She rarely even comes to this part of the house if/when I am working out.  But other than hiding and wanting love, there was no distraction and she stayed fairly calm. She does think the weather is a mischief maker. 

As I prepare this post for tomorrow, we are getting different winter precipitation. It is snowing - a lot. They expect about 15-20 cm/6-7 inches of the white stuff.  Fortunately this is happening on a Sunday when we can just stay inside!

Looking For Comfort In A Storm

Last Wednesday on my work at home day, thunderstorms 42 and 43 of the year (which had us break the record for most thunderstorms in a year) rolled through. Generally, my girl will just go and hide when this happens. She will occasionally look to the Man for comfort. Rarely does she actively seek me out for comfort. For whatever reason during storm 42, she joined me in my office.

I happened to be using the standing feature on my desk when she came in, so she stood up against me. 

After awhile I had been standing long enough and wanted to sit down. To do this, I need to move the mat I was standing on. My girl would not move so I could move it, so I ended up rolling it up over her. 

She probably stayed under that mat for about 30 minutes before she ventured out. She actually relaxed enough to fall asleep.  It was very cute and not disruptive to my work.

When storm 43 rolled in later that evening, she was not as peaceful. She stood in the kitchen and barked. 

I will say that given the record number of storms we have had, I am actually impressed with how well our girl did this year. There were 3 nights we had to be up with her. She only did mild damage to one door frame trying to get in the room when we were out.

Let's hope the storms are behind us for the year and next year isn't as record breaking! 

Scary

While the Lady was gone for 87 million years and we were home with the Man and a terrible scary thing happened. We got a terrible storm. The power flickered. We were so scared we didn't want to eat our dinner (that is scared).  The Man sent this picture to the Lady to show how we are hiding in the kitchen (we normally don't eat in this part, but this is where we wanted to be). 

She will be home tomorrow . . . thank goodness! 

Trying To Like The Treat Flyer

Phenny was kind enough to send some special treats for Phod's birthday. The one being a treat launcher.  Now this launcher (that I will eventually figure out how to get the video up) makes a clicking sound, which scares Phod.

We are working on teaching him to not fear it. We tried pairing it. This is how it went:

Phod standing near the bathroom smelling it. 

The Man gently dropping treats for Phod.

Phod eating the treats and the girls being very jealous.

Phod deciding that this was to scary and going to the bathroom.

The girls had a great time with it, so at least someone is enjoying it!

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Snow update:

As of last evening this is the snow in the back yard.

There is one spot in the front with a lot too. Now it is raining the next couple of days, but the temperatures are low over night. Will the snow be all gone by Phenny's day tomorrow?  Will Kinley have picked the right day with the 23rd? Will it last longer?  Time will tell! (Lady is working very late tonight so won't have a chance to add a snow update to Friday's post, but will do her best to let you all know how it is melting on Saturday).

What did they do to you?

Trying to get a picture of me and Phod but he wouldn't stop kissing me!

One night I had a cup of water sitting on the table. I have lived with animals long enough to know that if I am going to leave water sitting around, it better be in plastic. Zaphod was walking by the coffee table and accidentally knocked it over with his tail. He then ran and hid like we were going to do something horrible to him. Broke my heart a little that my gentle giant would be scared of me.

I just cleaned it up and then called him over for love.

It makes me wonder what happened to him before he was rescued. Our poor sweet boy. Hopefully he will learn that these sort of things are ok in our house!