Life Lessons

As I have journeyed through life, I have learned many things. Don't pee uphill. Don't chase a cat when you're on a leash. Eat whenever you get the opportunity. Generally, I think knowledge is a good thing. The more lessons I can learn, the better off I am. However, sometimes I learn lessons that I would rather not have learned because the price of learning is just too high (like when I learned I shouldn't jump off the bed to run outside and chase a possum the night after I had surgery on my reproductive organs). These lessons I would have been happy to live a lifetime without learning, but unfortunately that was not to be. Just yesterday the Alphas had a day full of those kinds of lessons.

Around 5:50 a.m., Alpha Female learned that if you pull apart a band-aid wrapper in the dark, the adhesive lights up as it separates. This lesson was confirmed at 5:51, 5:52, 5:54, and twice at 5:57. She also learned that if you pull the wrapper apart really quickly, the adhesive will glow for a little while. Nobody was hurt, there was no blood, but Thing 1 insisted she needed band-aids up and down her arms and one more across her nose. Alpha Female doesn't like getting up before the sun and would rather have been sleeping and never learned this interesting band-aid packaging fact.

Later that afternoon the Alphas learned that Thing 1 will actually eat chocolate and oranges until somebody forces her to stop. It seems it is physically impossible for her to get full if all she eats is chocolate and oranges. This didn't seem like such a hard lesson to learn when they initially learned it, but it occurred to them on the car ride home, pulled over on the side of the expressway, in the dark while cleaning chocolaty orange throw up off of Thing 1, Thing 1's carseat, and all the new Christmas presents that had been riding at Thing 1's feet that the chocolate-orange phenomena was a lesson they would have preferred to skip.

The Best Present Ever

After getting an extra hour of sleep, a casserole dish, and a golf shirt from Thing 1 yesterday the Alphas thought that they could never get a better present from her. Boy were they wrong. Today she topped it all by going pee pee in the potty! It is a very exciting day around here.

And guess what! I was just about to post this and she did it again! I am so proud.

Merry Christmas

What a magical Christmas. The Things started out right by giving the Alphas the best Christmas present of all, an extra hour of sleep! I got lots of food (even a present from a cat, thanks, Splinky!) and Thing 1 got everything she asked Santa for, candy. He came by on a firetruck on Christmas Eve to deliver it. It would have been a perfect Christmas if I had been able to keep down all the food I ate. Oh well, it tasted just as good the second time. I hope your Christmas was just as special.

Sign of a Rough Week

When the end of the week rolls around and you have enough clothes soiled with throw up and poop to comprise an entire load of laundry, that's a sure sign that it has been a rough week. Not only because that stuff got on the clothes in the first place, but also because those clothes were allowed to accumulated instead of being washed right away. Gross! That was the kind of house I was living in last week.

One day, Alpha Female picked Thing 2 up from school and was sent home with a bag full of poo contaminated clothes due to a phenomena known as "diaper blowout." Alpha Female didn't feel up to dealing with it when she got home, so she threw the bag in the laundry room. When Alpha Female came to pick Thing 2 up the next day, she was greeted with a story about how the teacher thought that Thing 2 had knocked over a bucket of toys, but upon closer inspection no spilled toys were found and the noise was found to have come from another source. Again, Thing 2 came home with her clothes in a plastic bag and Alpha Female now had two bags of contaminated clothes waiting for her in the laundry room. The next day, Alpha Female got a call from Thing 1's school. Thing 1 had thrown up all over the place. Not a lot of detail was given, but sometimes that is the most effective way to make a point. Apparently this incident was precisely the sort of incident for which the term "projectile vomiting" was coined. At the end of the day, Alpha Female added a third plastic bag of clothes to her collection (this bag even included the socks and hair things that Thing 1 had been wearing). Then, on Friday, Thing 1 was in a Christmas play. At the after party, Thing 2 must have had a little too much to drink or something because now it was her turn to throw up all over Thing 1's school. Luckily Alpha Male was holding Thing 2, along with a plate of food, when this happened. The plate of food caught most of the mess and Alpha Male's clothes caught the rest. Fortunately, he was not stripped down and sent home with a plastic bag full of contaminated clothes, he was allowed to wear his contamination home like a badge of parenting honor. These clothes went in the washing machine to await cleaning. So when Thing 1 woke up Saturday morning covered in throw up, it was easy to just throw her clothes and sheets in the washing machine with Alpha Male's pukey clothes, empty the three other bags of clothes that had been waiting all week into the washing machine, and start a toxic waste load of laundry.
Fortunately, I never got the bug. I did try to help clean up Thing 1's mess the only way I know how but the Alphas made me stop licking it off the floor. I was just trying to help. I am happy to report that everybody is feeling better now and there is very little dirty laundry in the house, and no toxic laundry waiting in the laundry room.

Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before

Because I've been absent from blogging for so long, I feel like I have to make a great comeback. So I've been waiting for a great post topic which I can use to make my comeback. Thankfully, the Alphas cooperated and I have big news to share. It took me a while to figure out what was going on around here, though.

I generally think of myself as a very intelligent schnauzer, I may have mentioned that before. However, there is one area of human development which I just don't seem to get. I think it may be because of a certain operation that the Alphas decided would be in my best interest. Anyway, for whatever reason, I seem to be a little dense about certain human activities. I will tell you this story as I saw it develop, but feel free to stop reading as soon as you figure out what is going on.

Back in October, Alpha Female wasn't feeling very well. She didn't want to eat much. Naturally, I figured that she had some worms. There's nothing like worms in your digestive track to make you want to stop eating. However, even though she wasn't eating, she wasn't losing weight and getting washboard abs like mine. In fact, just the opposite. The longer she went without eating, the rounder her belly seemed to get. And then Alpha Male started asking her is she felt OK. He would ask a lot. Then, I started to think that the lack of food was making her hallucinate because she would tell Thing 1 not to kick the baby when Thing 2 wasn't anywhere around and Thing 1 was just kicking Alpha Female's belly. By this time, I was starting to wonder if something very weird was happening again. Then Alpha Female told Alpha Male that Thing 1 needed to get potty trained because Alpha Female "wasn't going to have three of them in diapers at the same time." That really alarmed me. Had Alpha Male started wearing diapers? Or had I experienced urinary incontinence without realizing it? Finally, Alpha Female showed me this picture and I figured it all out.


We're getting a new Thing!!! I am expecting to be able to lick up more spit up milk around June 9. And it's about time, too. Thing 2 is getting very stingy with the Cheerios recently.

Flea Dip

Guess who needs a new flea and tick collar? That's right, it's Alpha Female. You didn't think it was me, did you? Alpha Female had to ask Alpha Male to pull a tick off of her belly with tweezers. Now she knows what it feels like. You'd think it would generate some sympathy for how hard my life is, but that's not really the way it worked out. Alpha Female suffered a tick infestation and I was the one who got stinky, sticky medicine rubbed into my fur. How is that fair?
And Alpha Female isn't the only human in the house who is experiencing dog like symptoms. This weekend, Alpha Female and Thing 1 were hanging out on the sofa watching Sesame Street. Thing 1 climbed of the sofa and said, "Daddy coming home." Alpha Female always thinks she knows what's going on and she said, "No, Daddy's not home." But Thing 1 stuck to her guns and just repeated, with enthusiasm, "Daddy coming home!" As Alpha Female attempted to correct Thing 1 again, she looked out the window and saw Alpha Male's truck pull up to the driveway. How did Thing 1 know he was coming? Alpha Female asked her, but Thing 1 won't give away her secrets. Of course, I know how she knew. She must have super-sensitive doggie hearing and have been able to hear his truck from about a half mile away, or she could have super-sensitive doggie smelling and have been able to smell his truck from about a half mile away. My advanced doggie senses told me he was coming when he was still a whole mile away.

Endless Loop

If you haven't had a rodent themed song running through your head for the past couple of days you either didn't spend enough time on the links in my last post or you have some kind of a super power. And because the links where hard to stay away from, I'm guessing it's a super power and I am jealous. I would love to not get song fragments stuck in my head, repeating day and night.
I think Thing 1 is starting to suffer from song fragment repetition, too. Last weekend Alpha Female and Thing 1 were coming out of the grocery store and Thing 1 starting singing "E-I-E-I-O, quack, quack, here, quack, quack, here, E-I-E-I-O, DOG!, woof, woof,..." She may not have had the words exactly right, but I bet that just makes it more annoying, because then you are trying to get the song out of your head while at the same time trying to remember the words to the song. That could create a downward spiral to drive a person crazy! It's probably even worse for her when she gets the alphabet song stuck in her head. When she sings that song, she gets the whole tune right, but mumbles her way through all but about 10 letters. It goes like this, "A, B, C, blah, la, la, la, G, la, I, blah, la, la, M, na, na, P, la, blah, na, T, U, la, blahblahbla, la, na, Z!, now I know my A,B,C, next time, blah blah na with la"

Hamster on a Piano

I just found out something very interesting about Alpha Female. Well, at least it is interesting to me. Her favorite song is "The Hamster Dance" performed by Hampton the Hamster. I'm sure you've heard it at some point, it is an internet classic, but I didn't know that anybody really liked the song. I thought people just went to the website to watch the rodents dance and fantasize about chasing them around. That's definitely the only reason I spent so much time on the web in 2001. In fact, I thought I had broken my internet addiction to rodent watching, but then I stumbled upon this video. If you care to watch it, make sure you listen to the song, and don't worry, no hamsters were harmed in the production of this video.

Election Day

I am a supporter of equal rights for dogs. I think dogs should be able to swim at the same beaches and play in the same parks as humans. However, I know that I have many opponents in my quest for equality for dogs and America isn't yet ready to take this step. Fortunately, there is another movement for equality that I strongly support and I think America is ready to support as well. Equal rights for homosexual couples is an idea that's time has come. Two people who love each other should be able to inherit from one another, provide health insurance to one another, and live together until death parts them, regardless of their gender. There is an Amendment to the Florida Constitution which is on the ballot and would prevent same sex couples from enjoying the same legal rights as heterosexual couples. This kind of discrimination should not be tolerated. People may pass whatever morality judgments they choose, but the government should provide equal protection to all. I urge you to vote no on amendment 2. If I had the right to vote, I would.

Products Liability Lawsuit

Oh, no! She's not even looking, she doesn't know she's about to be hit by a bubble lawnmower!

Yikes! The driverless mower is totally mowing down her leg. I wonder why she's still smiling?

I'm so glad she is able to crawl away safely. That was a close call.

Bug in the Kitchen!

This is how it went down last night, Alpha Male picked both of the girls up from school and everybody was waiting at home for Alpha Female to come home. When Alpha Female came through the door, instead of the customary, "Mommy!," she was greeted with, "I want more candy!" Over the next few minutes, the words "candy" and "cupcake" were mentioned about 2,459,827,343 times. I don't think it is too hard to figure out what went on at the Halloween party at Thing 1's school.
Then, during dinner, there was a lot of coaching. It went something like this:
Alpha Female: What do you do first?
Thing 1: Knock door
Alpha Female: Then what do you say?
Thing 1: Trick or treat!
Alpha Female: What do you get?
Thing 1: CANDY!
Alpha Female: What do you say?
Thing 1: Thank you!
It sounded like a good plan. She was thoroughly trained and I even saw practice runs to get the whole thing down. The failure was in the actual execution. Before somebody would answer the door Thing 1 would declare "Trick or Treat," but once there was an actual person standing in the doorway, she completely lost the ability to speak. A few trick or treats were coaxed out of her and a few more thank you's followed, but the good news is that everybody gave her candy even if she didn't talk.
What a difference a year makes. Last year Thing 1 had about three miniature chocolate bars and the Things thought she had just eaten SOOOO much candy! Last night, they didn't even keep track of how much candy she ate, they just kept giving her more every time she asked for it and she did work up the courage say to a neighbor, "I want more chocolate." That made the Alphas proud.

Just a Little Bit Redneck

Thing 1 put herself to bed around 7:00, so I got off of food patrol early and finally got around to editing this video. The bad news is that I'm not in it very much, but I do make a cameo in the beginning. The good news is that I think Thing 1 may have a real future as a stunt person.


Thing 1's Laundry Basket Jump from gauss dogg on Vimeo.

Alien Planet

Have you ever been somewhere and known that you were different than everybody else there? I don't mean like being the only Schnauzer in a room full of Great Danes. I mean more like being the only Schnauzer that likes to poo on nicely manicured lawns in a room full of Schnauzers with less discriminating toileting habits. The kind of different that you can't tell by looking, but goes so deep that you may as well not both be Schnauzers. Alpha Female had this experience last Friday. The way she tells it, she was the only normal mom in a room full of deluded moms, but I think if you ask any of the other moms that were there, they would say she was the only slacker mom in a room full of perfect moms.

It all started out very well intentioned, Alpha Female decided to take both Things to a Gymboree class. She thought that because it was a "family" class there would be other siblings there. That was the first thing she was wrong about. Every other mom there had only one child. Each of those children were perfectly dressed, their hair was brushed, and their faces were clean. In contrast, Thing 1 was sweaty and sandy from playing in the sandbox at school. Her hair was, well, let's just say "crazy." Thing 2 had boogers encrusted all over her face and Alpha Female was using Thing 2's shirt to wipe her nose. On the upside, they were both very well behaved. Thing 1 listened well to directions. She jumped like a frog, sang the songs, and played the instruments. She had clearly done all of this before at school and was enjoying herself and making Alpha Female proud.

After the class, Thing 1 wanted to play on the Gymboree playground. The problem was that sometime during the class Thing 1 had poo'ed her pants. Because Alpha Female is gross and that stuff doesn't bother her, she let Thing 1 play on the playground for a little while before deciding it was time to go change Thing 1's diaper. Thing 1 clearly didn't want to leave so, of course, Alpha Female started bribing her. She started with, "Let's go play with Daddy!" To which Thing 1 replied, "NO DADDY!!!!" It was at this point that Alpha Female decided she was going to have to act quickly to avoid humiliation in the form of a full scale temper tantrum in front of all the other moms. So Alpha Female did what any normal mom would do, she picked up Thing 2 in one arm and a very squirmy Thing 1 in the other arm and tried to get the heck out of there.

Alpha Female wasn't scared, she knew she could handle this. All she had to do was get the Things' shoes back on them and get out to the car. However, Thing 1 had other plans. When Alpha Female set her down on the floor to put her shoes on, Thing 1 shouted, "NOOO!," laid on her back, and pushed herself all the way across the room with her feet, like an inch worm, until she was huddled in the far corner, on her back, screaming random words. Alpha Female still thought she could deal with this. She just turned her attention to Thing 2, put her shoes on and figured she'd get back to Thing 1 after she calmed down a little bit. However, Thing 1's plans did not include calming down.

Alpha Female was trying to minimize the scene as much as possible because she could hear all the mother's of the perfectly coiffed children staring at her, judging her, and whispering, "My child would NEVER do THAT." After attempting to reason with Thing 1 for a few minutes, Alpha Female finally realized that was a dead end. She switched to Plan C and figured she could just carry Thing 1 out to the car without shoes on. Surely some empathetic mother would help open the door for her, I mean, every mom has been out in public at some point when her child has decided to have a completely irrational meltdown, right? So Alpha Female gathered her resolve. She gathered Thing 1's shoes and Thing 2 in one arm and reached down for Thing 1 with the other. She was wiggly and sweaty and loud, but no match for Alpha Female. Alpha Female got a good grip on her and was ready to wisk the commotion out the door, if just somebody would give a sympathetic look and offer to open the door for her.

At about this point, Alpha Female finally started to get it, she was not like the other moms at Gymboree. They all played classical music to their embryos, served only organic food, and thought that their children's language skills benefitted from counting to three in Portugese once a week at Gymboree class. Alpha Female doesn't own a CD player, bribes her child with chocolate, and has never bothered to learn Portugese. Now she was paying the price for these transgressions. Nobody was going to get the door for her. She'd have to manage on her own.

Somehow she did it. She held a smiling, oblivious nine month old and a shrieking, convulsing two-year old while turning a doorknob at the same time. Unfortunately, in doing so, her grip on Thing 1 started to slip, but at least they were outside, they were getting closer to the car.

Once outside, Thing 1's wails quickly alerted the whole neighborhood to the fact that there was a wild toddler in the vicinity. Just a few more feet to go and everybody could be safely strapped in the car. Alpha Female was clutching Thing 1 at about mid thigh height now. She had to set her down and readjust her grip to make it to the car. But how would she open the car door? Wouldn't Thing 1 dart away like a crazy person if Alpha Female took her hand off of her to open the car? Should she set Thing 2 down on the asphalt and keep a hand on Thing 1?

It was while Alpha Female was wondering these things that an angel appearred. An angel in the form of an employee of a running store next door. This wonderful, sympathetic, normal mom lent a hand by opening the car door and Alpha Female was able to throw Thing 1 in the back seat and close the door before she escaped. She was then able to strap Thing 2 in the car and come back to get Thing 1 strapped in to her carseat, normally a 10 second process, this time it took 10 minutes and several advanced wrestling moves. After a twenty minute car ride, with blood curdling screams coming from the backseat for half of it, they arrived at home.

I'm normally sad that dogs aren't welcome at all the places people can go, but I'm glad I wasn't invited to Gymboree with them. How embarrasing to be associated with a crazy family like that!

Quality, not Quantity

Here is some video that is so boring, I'm guessing only grandparents can watch the whole thing. As a bonus, if you listen very closely in the beginning of the video, you can hear me shake my ears; now that alone may make this worth watching, but Alpha Male suggested that I post it so you can enjoy the high quality of the video. He's into that kind of thing.









Thing1 and Thing 2 from gauss dogg on Vimeo.

Guest Blogger

I'm going to do something that I've never done before. I am going to allow a guest writer to post to my blog. This is unprecedented! By reading this blog, you are a witness to history. And here she is, Alpha Female, Esq.

Thank you, Gauss. I appreciate your magnanimity in allowing me to post to your blog. I promise to reward you by giving you a dog cookie tonight. I would like to take advantage of this forum Gauss has provided by thanking everybody for their support and encouragement over the last four years. Gauss was right, I did pass the bar exam and I was sworn in as a member of the bar on Wednesday. It's been a long road to get here and I couldn't have done it without the help and love of Alpha Male and so many family and friends. The time I spent in law school hasn't always been easy for us and I thank you all for the babysitting, encouragement, or kind thoughts you have provided to me. Heck, just reading this blog is a big favor to me because it keeps Gauss in a good mood. And with that, I'm going to hand it back over to Gauss.

Geez, Alpha Female...I'm sorry about Alpha Female's post. That is exactly why I don't allow guest bloggers, she promised me she wouldn't get all sappy. I've got to go spend a few hours barking for no apparent reason now so that she understands how upset I am with her over the inappropriate blog. I wonder if that means I won't get the dog cookie she just promised me?

The Results Are In

I'm home all by myself right now so I can't be sure, but I think that Alpha Female just found out that she passed the bar exam! Alpha Female works about 10 minutes away from here, so I usually can't hear her while she is at work. However, as you may be aware, dogs have an exceptionally well developed ability to hear high pitched sounds and while I was taking my second nap of the morning, I was awoken by the sound of distant squealing. I'm pretty sure that I recognize the squealing as Alpha Female's excited squeal. And I do know that the bar results were scheduled to be released on the bar website today. So there you have it, I'm going to report that Alpha Female has passed the bar and then made a fool of herself at work by squealing like a little girl. I'm pretty sure that she's going to make us all call her "Esquire" now.

QUIET!

Don't get me wrong, I like peace and quiet as much as the next guy. When the Alphas watch football, I have to go in the other room because it's just too loud. But there are some sounds that even a curmudgeon like me can't complain about. These are things like birds chirping in the morning, waves crashing on the beach, and babies babbling to their mommies. Well, actually, birds chirping in the morning drive me nuts. I hate it when those stupid birds wake me up. And waves crashing on the beach can be annoying too. I don't really like playing in ocean water. I'm afraid I'm going to get carried away to the Bahamas, and I hear that schnauzer is a Bahamian delicacy. I guess that just leaves baby babbling as the only sound that nobody can complain about hearing. At least I thought that nobody could complain about the sound of precious little Thing 2 sitting in the back of the car quietly saying things like, "ba ba ba ba" and "gu da geeee." It turns out that I'm wrong. There is at least one person who can complain about these sounds. It's Thing 1. When she hears this adorable baby babbling, she responds by placing her finger over her lips and saying, "Quiet!" I guess there was a really good song on the radio that she wanted to hear.

Why?

Tonight, Thing 1 disappeared into the Alphas' bathroom for a little bit. Then she walked into the kitchen, looked at Alpha Female, made a little bit of a gagging sound and started spitting out ponytail holders. I counted them. She had six adult sized ponytail holders in her mouth. For some reason, she felt compelled to take them out of a drawer in the bathroom, cram them into her mouth, carry them across the house in her mouth, and then regurgitate them in front of Alpha Female. Why does she decide to do that, but not decide to tell an Alpha when she has poop in her diaper? Humans are weird.

Errors and Omissions

Thing 2 would like for me to make it clear that she did not actually pee on the carpet. She leaves stuff like that to her sister. Thing 1 would like for me to make it clear that she did pee on the tile last night. She takes her job seriously.

Also, I think I might have been wrong about the infestation. It is possible that the skittering sound was the sound of Thing 2 army crawling across the living room. I didn't know this when I first reported on the incident, but it turns out that Thing 2 can crawl now. Who knew?

Third World Country

Last night, the power went off around 6:00 p.m. Luckily, I had already eaten, but the humans all had dinner by candlelight. Thing 1 read a bedtime story with a flashlight. Then the Alphas got bored, so Alpha Female sent Alpha Male out to gather some ice cream while she stayed home and tried to decide whether burning strawberry, rose, cucumber, and cantaloupe scented candles all at the same time was a good idea. Alpha Male discovered that the ice cream store didn't have power, so they had sent everybody home and were closed. I think this is when the reality of life without electricity set in for the Alphas and they started to panic. After playing a game for a while and deciding that the candles made the house smell like a fruit stand, they decided to go to bed. There was some complaining about how hot it was in the house without A/C. I'm not sure why they were complaining, I'm the one wearing the permanent fur coat. Much to our relief, the power came back on at 3:00 a.m. However, when Thing 2 got up this morning, I think she was inspired by the evening without electricity and decided to return to a simpler life, a life in which babies don't wear diapers. So she took her diaper off. Now the house smells like fruit stand that a homeless person has converted into a bathroom.

I Think it Might be an Infestation

Yesterday, Alpha Female was in the kitchen taking care of Thing 1. Thing 1 was saying things like, "mine," "I don't want it," "cheese," and "oh no!" So, naturally, Alpha Female was running around and catering to Thing 1's every whim and desire while I stood by and patiently asked for only one thing, to be fed on time. As dinner time came and went, we heard a skittering sound coming from the living room where Thing 2 was hanging out. It almost sound like something, or someone, crawled (maybe an army crawl) across the floor. Alpha Female went to check on the situation while I stayed in the kitchen on crumb patrol, so I don't know exactly what Alpha Female saw. However, I did hear Alpha Female say, "How did you get all the way over here?" Of course Thing 2 didn't answer her. (I don't know when Alpha Female will finally figure out that Thing 2 can't answer her questions.) Meanwhile, Thing 1 was busy using her fingers to scoop spreadable cheese out of a tub and I was busy watching the ground for globs of cheese. When Alpha Female came back in the kitchen, she asked Thing 1 what happened to the apple. Thing 1 only said, "eat." And when Alpha Male got home, the apple was still sitting on the counter and he asked the same question. To which Alpha Female responded, "I don't know, but you might want to ask Thing 1." What I can't figure out is why she didn't say, "You might want to ask Gauss." I know the answer! The only thing that can explain all of the weird events in my house yesterday is a giant bug invasion! First, the bugs snuck in and carried Thing 2 across the living room as a distraction. Then some other bugs snuck into the kitchen and mutilated the apple while we were all distracted. I just want the bugs to know that I'm on to them.

Dog Days of Summer

Aren't dogs entitled to summer vacations? Don't let this get out, but I have a cat friend, and yesterday she mentioned that I hadn't been blogging very much. Then today my human grandmom said the same thing. Alpha Female then laid in to me about being lazy and to top it all off Alpha Male just asked me out of the blue if I had stopped blogging. I guess I'm glad that people have noticed that I've been on vacation, but, jeez, can't a dog get a little break? Every now and then I have to recharge my creative juices. And, just maybe, nothing worth mentioning has been happening in my house. Well, that's not likely, but it could happen.

To make up for my absence, let me catch you up on what's been going on here. Thing 1 has taken the keys off of Alpha Female's laptop...again. Alpha Female has replaced the keys on her laptop and she still doesn't always remember to close her laptop when she's done with it. One day last week, Alpha Female walked into her bedroom to find Thing 1 sitting on the chair in front of the laptop with a pen in her right hand and various pieces of paper scattered about the desk. Alpha Female watched her scribble on one piece of paper and then move to the next and scribble on that piece of paper, then Thing 1 typed a few words and went back to her random scribbling. That night, Alpha Female said to Alpha Male, "Don't you think it's funny that she thinks that is what I do all day, just make random scribbles?" Well, I for one, don't think it's funny, I think it is actually what Alpha Female does all day. Have you ever read a patent application or any other legal document? Anyways, I saved the note that Thing 1 typed and have included it in its entirety:

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ/ ?


cx

xc vbvgbbb,,.,,,, b

I couldn't agree with her more. By the way, Alpha Female thinks that Thing 1 managed to open up and write that message in an application that Alpha Female didn't even know was installed on her computer, seriously. What she doesn't know is that I'm secretly helping Thing 1 learn how to blog.

Locomotion

Thing 2 may have been slow hitting some of her milestones, but now that she's started it seems there is no stopping her. I still don't understand why humans think they are so much smarter than dogs when puppies can walk shortly after birth and it takes human babies several months just to learn how to crawl, but that is the way of the world and I am learning to accept it. Thing 2 is now pushing up onto her hands and knees, I can't imagine it will be too much longer before she is crawling all over the house and trying to eat out of my dog bowl. I mean, wouldn't that be the first place you would crawl to? I can't imagine any place in the house that she would want to get to more than my dog bowl, besides maybe the Alphas' potty bowl.

Go Gators!

Did I Mention the Teeth?

After waiting for what feels like an eternity, Thing 2 has finally sprouted teeth! She's got two bottom teeth now and I expect more will soon follow. I say bring on the Cheerios!

Undisclosed Location

You may have noticed that I don't like to share very much identifying information about myself, like where I live or what my family's real names are. This is because I'm afraid of covert operatives. You see, when you are as famous and intelligent as me, and your family won't hire a body guard to protect you, you must always be on the lookout for people who may kidnap you and force you to solve complex mathematical equations. I don't want to make this any easier for the hoodlums by telling them exactly where they can find me. However, I don't think I'll be giving away too much by saying that it has been raining here a lot lately.

People seem to have strong opinions about rain. Generally, I hear people say, "But it's good; we need the rain." However, I don't like rain, not one little bit. When it rains, my bathroom gets all wet and who likes to go potty when the toilet is soggy? It's just gross. The problem, as I found out yesterday, is that my bladder will only hold so much.

Here's the situation. When I woke up yesterday morning, I discovered that it had been raining most of the night. So I decided not to use the facilities, I could wait, or so I thought. A few hours later, Alpha Male came into Thing 1's bedroom and discovered a trail of warm fluid on the ground. Immediately he suspected Thing 1. "Great," I thought, he'll never figure out that it was me. However, when Alpha Male couldn't figure out why Thing 1 would take her diaper off, pee on the floor, and then put her diaper back on, he decided to ask her about the situation. And to my surprise, Thing 1 ratted me out faster than I could blink my furry little eyes. She pointed to the wet spot and said, "Gauss pee pee eeewwwwww." If you ask me, it's still not as gross as going pee pee on a wet toilet.

A-B-C Easy as 1-2-3

You know what drives me crazy? It's parents who think that their kids are so great. These parents can just go on and on about how brilliant their completely average kids are, or how well behaved their monster children are, or how beautiful their perfectly ordinary babies are.

Dogs have a different relationship with the kids that they live with. We are much more objective than their parents. And do you know why nonobjective parents drive me crazy? It's because I know that their children could never be as smart, well behaved, or beautiful as my two Things. And because the dog is always a neutral observer, when I say that the Things are perfect, genius models, you know that it's not just my opinion, but actual fact.

We'll start with talking about how smart Thing 1 is. She knows all of her letters and she's only two years old! I'm talking Einstein material here. She's practically reading already. In fact, she can read if the word is "I" or "A." Have you ever heard of such a prodigy?

And don't even get me started on good manners, Thing 1 has great manners! Thing 1 says please without being asked and she even says thank you sometimes without being asked. She always turns on the best manners to get a free cookie and a free balloon at the grocery store. And just look at those table manners. Need I say more?

Finally, Thing 2 has got the good looks department covered. Just look at that face! And she's already learning Latin. She might give me a run for my money in our mental pursuits.

I am so lucky to get to live with two perfect little girls!

Memorable Days

There are a few days in a dog's life that the dog will remember forever. For most of us, these are the day we come to live with our forever family, the day our forever family tells us we're going someplace to get "fixed" and we come home broken, and the day we discover that if we just do what our forever family asks us to do they will give us food. Of course, I remember all of these days (the day I got fixed I tried to run outside to chase an armadillo, it hurt), but I also can add another day to my list. That day would be yesterday. Yesterday was the first day that Thing 1 got out of bed all by herself and walked into the Alphas' room early in the morning and woke them up.

It seems that the Alphas thought it would be a good idea to move Thing 1 out of her crib. Of course, the down side to that is that Thing 1 now has free range of the house at any hour, just like me. She decided that 6:45 was a good time to wake up. I don't think the Alphas agreed with her, but they really didn't have a choice, so we were all up bright and early on Saturday. You sure can get a lot done if you start before the sun comes up. The Alphas came a long way in getting the house back in order after neglecting it (and me) all summer. I really appreciate that they took the time to give me a rawhide bone. Yum.

It's Over!

the doggie hotel is awesome, they have wi-fi and alpha male is fantastic, he let me bring my laptop! alpha female finished the bar exam and she's wondering what she's going to do with herself now. I had better go now, they're ringing the dinner bell.

Good Omens

Alpha Female had a good omen on her way to take the bar exam yesterday. She was at a gas station just minding her own business and paying over $4 a gallon for gas when a local guy started chatting her up. When he asked her if she was married, she knew that he really was hitting on her. This hasn't happened to her in a long time and she seemed pretty excited about it. I think she's afraid that she's getting too old and she has had too many kids to be hit on. This guy, we'll call him Bubba, asked her why she was going to Tampa and when she told him it was to take the bar exam, Bubba looked very impressed and said, "So, you're going to be a bartender, eh?" He wasn't as interested when he found out she just wanted to be a lawyer, but he still asked her out to lunch. I'm just wondering, why did he ask her if she was married if he was still going to ask her to go to lunch?

After that auspicious beginning to her bar exam adventure, things got less exciting. She's now halfway through the exam and hoping that she won't be back to take the exam again in February. She's also hoping that tonight she'll have fewer dreams about not showing up for the exam on time.

I'm going to the doggy spa tomorrow and I'm going to spend the weekend there hanging out with the other dogs. I'm not sure if they have Wi-Fi there and I'm not sure if Alpha Male will let me bring a laptop with me, so I might be out of touch for a few days.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

It's my birthday, it's my birthday, it's my birthday! I got the best birthday present ever! A whole bag of rawhide bones. That should keep me busy for awhile.

Alpha Female and the Things were packing up yesterday and it looks like they are leaving the house for awhile. Alpha Female's bar exam starts tomorrow. I can't wait for her to be done with it so that things can get back to normal around here. She has completely stopped cleaning the house and hasn't been spending nearly enough time with us. It'll be nice to have her back, I just hope she passes so we don't have to go through this all over again in February. I heard Alpha Male tell her that if she doesn't pass, she'll have to go live in the garage. If that happens though, he did promise to get her a window A/C unit. I thought that was considerate.

Life After the Bar Exam

If you listen to Alpha Female talk, you might believe that the only important thing going on in the whole world now is her studying for the bar exam. However, if she wasn't so self involved, she might notice that life has been going on all around just the same as usual while she's been studying. Sometimes, I hear her say things like, "What am I going to do with myself when this is all over?" I have a couple of suggestions for her. She could resume some of the activities she did before she started studying. She should start with clearing out some of the science experiments that have been growing in the refrigerator. How long do you think it takes for a piece of corn to be covered in blue, furry mold? Even I wouldn't eat that! I guess I shouldn't be so quick to criticize. Maybe she has a plan...maybe she's going into the pharmaceutical business and is growing her first batch of penicillin.

And in totally unrelated news, here is a picture that I like a lot because, if you look very carefully, you can see me! I'm not sure if the picture was taken during potty time or story time.

Things My Family Learned Today

First, let me give you some background. Alpha Female had the option of taking the essay portion of the bar exam on a laptop. Of course, she went with that option and was required to qualify her laptop for use during the exam. The time to qualify a laptop is over. That means that now she must either use her current laptop for the exam or else write out the essay answers in blue books. Alpha Female is a terrible hand writer. She is convinced that hand writing will probably cost her several points on the exam. It would be impossible to overstate how glad she is that she is able to use a laptop for the bar exam. Also, Thing 1 likes to sit in Alpha Female's chair and play with the laptop.

Now I can get to the point and tell you what I saw today. Thing 1 had been playing in the Alpha's bedroom quietly for several minutes. That alone should have let the Alphas know that trouble was brewing. Alpha Female checked on Thing 1 and saw her sitting at the laptop, so Alpha Female closed all of her applications and opened a text editor so Thing 1 could type her innermost thoughts. Alpha Female then came back into the living room and sat down with Alpha Male to watch the Tour de France. Next, Thing 1 came into the living room and handed Alpha Male the 'enter' key. Alpha Male set it on the side of the sofa and kept watching TV. (That's when I knew this wasn't going to end well.) Thing 1 went back into the bedroom. A couple of minutes later Alpha Male got up to check on Thing 1. Alpha Female could tell something was very wrong and came running. The laptop's keyboard was lying in pieces all over the desk! For the next several minutes all I heard was Alpha Male saying, "It's toast" and "You shouldn't let her play with your laptop" and "It's ruined." Meanwhile, Alpha Female visibly struggled to not have a nervous breakdown.

The good news is that we took this as a learning experience and learned:
1. You should not let a two year old play with a laptop.
2. If you are very patient, it is possible to stick most of the keys back on a keyboard.
3. There are a lot of keys on a keyboard that you never use and don't even really need.
Who knew?

Happy Anniversary to Me

Today is the first anniversary of my blog! Over the last year I have enjoyed sharing with you all of the happy, exciting, strange, and gross things that have been happening in my house. Over the next year, I am looking forward to sharing with you Alpha Male's first hole-in-one, Alpha Female's passage of the bar exam, Thing 1's success in going pee pee in the potty, Thing 2's first steps, and my acquisition of a lifetime supply of doggie cookies. I'm sure lots more will happen, too. I'll be sure to share. Thanks for reading!

Weigh In

Thing 2 had her six month well baby check up today. She is really packing on the pounds! At 15 lbs. 14 oz., she has just about four more pounds to gain until she catches up with me. Maybe when she weighs as much as me Alpha Female won't think it's funny to put her on my back and watch me give baby rides. And she wonders why Thing 1 still tries to ride on me....

Parade = Candy

I know that the Fourth of July was more than a week ago, and some people may think that was so long ago that it is untimely for me to be blogging about it now. However, around here, a week isn't such a long time anymore. It is unbelievable how busy Alpha Female has kept me while she is studying for the bar. She has banished me from helping with the substantive studying because I just couldn't understand why she wasn't getting more questions right. Law is just intuitive to me, but sometimes I forget that I am an exceptionally smart schnauzer. So, since I can't help her study anymore, I am trying to help around the house more. I specialize in cleaning the floors. Tonight I helped by licking spaghetti sauce off of the tile and earlier this weekend I tried to help clean up a box of spaetzle. I'm German, so I love spaetzle. When I noticed that somebody had dropped a box on the floor, I thought that I would be helpful and clean it up. I had just finished shredding one corner of the box into little pieces and was about to eliminate the need for the Alphas to pick up any actual spaetzle when Alpha Female came by and picked up the box herself. I mean, does she want my help or not? If she had just waited a few minutes longer, I would have devoured the spaetzle and all that would have remained of the box would have been tiny little pieces of cardboard, so little that they just would have blended in to the rest of the junk that's laying around this house. I'm just trying to be helpful.

Anyway, back to the Fourth of July. The Things went to their first Fourth of July parade this year. I wasn't invited to come along, the Alphas told me it would be too hot in my fur coat, but it sounds like it was fun. Once Thing 1 realized that people were giving her candy and jewelry, she started waving her flag and batting her eyelashes at everybody. At one point, she was eating three lollipops at once! I'm not sure what her political leanings were before the parade, but I'm pretty sure that after the parade, she'd vote for anybody who gave her a lollipop or a beaded necklace.

Happy Un-Birthday, Thing 2

Thing 2 is six months old today. It's hard to believe that she's been around that long and she's still not feeding me cheerios. She's also not sitting up by herself and she doesn't have any teeth. I don't know what she's been doing the last six months. I think I'm going to put her on a training schedule and make sure that she's more productive in the next six months that she has been for the last six months. Starting tomorrow, she's no longer going to just get by on her good looks.

While Thing 2 has been totally slacking and goofing off, at least Thing 1 has been making some big strides. Today Alpha Female showed up to bring Thing 1 home from school. Thing 1 put her toy away, and as if that wasn't exciting enough news, she walked over to Alpha Female and said, "I'm ready!" This may not be a big deal for most two year olds, but I don't think Thing 1 has ever put two words together before. I can't wait until she says, "Eat this, Gauss."

Later this evening, the Alphas were giving the Things baths and started talking about Thing 2's un-birthday. Thing 1 then started to sing "Happy Birthday." I'm not kidding, I heard her with my own ears (even though I was staying far away from the tub so that I wouldn't be accidentally splashed). She kind of muttered something unintelligibly, but I could tell she was singing. Then I heard her say, "to you" after more unintelligible babbling, I heard her say, "to you" again. It was easy to hear her singing because the Alphas were both shocked into silence. Even Thing 2 stopped her random jabbering in order to listen to her sister sing to her. I can't wait to hear her sing to me on my birthday in just a few weeks.

Thing 1, You May Not Ride Gauss

You might think that with Alpha Female busy with work and studying for the bar exam and with the Things both in school everyday, I would have lots of free time and would be devoting all of that time to elaborate blog posts. Let me explain why that is not happening. It turns out that I have built up a huge sleep deficit over the last couple of years. Now that the Things are out of the house and it is quiet here, instead of blogging, I just fall asleep. And when I'm awake and ready to blog, Alpha Female is constantly using her computer to study. I sure hope the studying pays off and she passes the bar exam; otherwise, she is just interrupting my artistic outlet for no reason. That said, I do have some family news to pass along. The only problem is, I'm not sure if some of it is real or just something I've dreamt about during one of my frequent naps, so I'll start with the things I'm most sure that I really heard.

"Thing 1, you may not ride on Gauss!" I heard this repeated over and over again as Thing 1 chased me all over the house and tried to climb on my back. She was actually successful in getting on my back a couple of times, but I managed to buck her by sitting down. She slid right off of my back, it's kind of funny but I really don't appreciate being ridden.

"I love my job!" I have also heard this repeated over and over again. It's getting a little nauseating. We get it, Alpha Female is really enjoying working. Does she have to keep talking about it?

"Nuudaaaguubuu." I heard this random muttering from Thing 2. I have no idea what it means, but the Alphas seem to think it's of note that she is now making consonant sounds.

"I think I'm going to take up golf." Alpha Male has been saying this for a couple of weeks now. It turns out that he thinks he's the next Tiger Woods. Or maybe he just thinks that he can train one of the Things to be his retirement plan. Either way, I think the Alphas may be buying golf clubs after Alpha Female takes the bar exam. I thought they were too young to play golf. I guess they're not as young as they used to be.

"Mine, horse, mine." I heard this early one morning. Thing 1 had just woken up and her first word that morning was, "mine." That doesn't bode well for a good day. Alpha Female asked Thing 1 what was hers and she said, "horse." That doesn't bode well for the Alphas. And why would Thing 1 want a horse when she can just ride me? If they would just give me more to eat I really would be big enough to carry them around on my back.

Happy Father's Day

I hope all the Daddy's out there had a fun father's day. Alpha Male celebrated by getting Thing 1 poop all over his shirt. There's nothing like being a dad! I wish I was a dad, but the Alphas decided that I shouldn't have children and now I am physically incapable of reproducing. Sometimes I regret that they made that decision for me, but then I see Alpha Male with baby poop smeared all over his shirt and I think that the Alphas made the right decision for me.

GROSS!!!

I am faced with a moral dilemma. On the one hand, I feel that maintaining this blog gives me a duty to accurately and impartially report what occurs within the house. On the other hand, as the family dog I feel that I should remain loyal to the family, you know, the whole "man's best friend" thing. So I don't know whether I should make public a particularly disturbing event that I witnessed today. What compounds this problem is that I think I may be the only living being capable of effective communication that witnessed this event. Does that increase my responsibility to tell? If I told nobody, maybe it would be like it never happened.... What the heck, I'm going to live dangerously and share this disgusting secret in the hopes that one day I'll be able to laugh about it with Thing 1. (Even though I'm biologically incapable of laughing.) Of course, if I've made the wrong decision, Thing 1 may never feed me again.

Here's what happened. Thing 1 took a booger out of her nose, Alpha Female left the room to get a kleenex for the booger, Thing 1 (brace yourself) PUT THE BOOGER IN HER MOUTH AND SWALLOWED, then Alpha Female came back into the room and pretended to wipe the booger from Thing 1's finger onto the kleenex. Alpha Female may have gone through this mere pantomime of wiping the booger finger because she couldn't bring herself to face the fact that her daughter is a booger eater, but I know she was just pretending to wipe it off because I actually witnessed Thing 1 eating the booger. This is just disgusting. It might be enough to cause even me to lose my appetite.

Laugh Factory

Thing 2 just keeps growing up everyday. Today she started laughing. I don't know what Thing 1 was saying to her, (I think Thing 1 was speaking in Finnish) but whatever it was, apparently it was pretty hysterical. Thing 1 was so funny that Thing 2 had to stop eating so that she could laugh at Thing 1. I'm just glad that milk didn't come out of her nose because she was laughing so hard.

School's in for Summer

While everybody else in the county enjoyed their last day of school this week, the Things were experiencing their first day at school. Thing 1 loves it! When Alpha Female came to pick her up after her first day, Thing 1 cried and said, "No!" Let's face it, playing with play-doh is a lot more fun than going home to hang out with Alpha Female. When Alpha Male got home that night, Thing 1 showed off a new trick she learned at school that day. She leaned over in the middle of the living room and did a somersault. That impressed even me. I was about four years old before I even learned to roll over and she's only two and can already do somersaults! She'll probably grow up to join Cirque du Soleil. I wonder if she could get me a job as a circus dog. That would be awesome!

Thing 2 seems to enjoy "school" too. It's hard to tell what she's thinking though. (She could just be smiling because she's thinking about what a cute dog I am.) I'm not sure what Thing 2 is learning at school. Maybe she's studying to develop a cure for ptyalism. I do know this though, it is very quiet here at home without the things. I am finally able to catch up on my sleep and Alpha Female is able to get a lot more studying done without them here to help her. All she does for at least six hours a day is sit in front of her computer. I don't know why she doesn't just ask me, I could tell her everything she needs to know to pass the bar. I am one smart dog.

Guess Who Has a Job!

Alpha Female is finally going to be pulling her own weight around here. She's going to be working part time as a patent agent until she passes the bar, then she'll have a job as a real, live attorney. It's pretty exciting. I call for celebratory cookies!

The Baby Has Left the Blanket

Not only is Thing 2 an anti-aptyalism machine, she is also a rolling machine. Alpha Female lays Thing 2 down on her back on a blanket and when Alpha Female comes back, Thing 2 has squirmed off the blanket, rolled onto her belly, and has a long string of drool hanging from her mouth and starting to puddle on the carpet. The only problem with Thing 2's newly found talent, besides the increased anti-aptyalism, is that she is not equally as skilled at rolling back onto her back and, unfortunately, she seems to prefer the face up position. The result is that she is hard to leave unattended for any significant period of time because she will just roll onto her belly and then demand help to get back on her back so that she can then roll to her belly again. This is particularly unfortunate when she rolls over in the middle of the night and then wakes up the whole house just because she needs help to get back on her back. You think she'd be able to figure out that rolling to her belly is going to make her uncomfortable, I mean, she is 5 months old now. Five months old, wow! How much longer until she starts feeding me cheerios? If I eat too many cheerios, I suffer from aptyalism, but it is totally worth it.