In Which I Sleep on the Floor with the Dog

I am a bad Dog Mom.

I didn't mean to be.  I was trying to be a Good Dog Mom.  But it backfired on me.

Sunday we took two out of three dogs to the river for a romp.  The two big dogs (Flower and Roxy) get to go because they A) love water, B) need the exercise, and C) don't disappear over the horizon the second they are off the leash, or else run barking at small children and large dogs or else plow right into the middle of a riverside baptism, like SOME dogs do.

The little dog stays home.

The two dogs have very different ideas of what constitutes a good time at the river.  Flower thinks a good time is running through the tall grass in the nearby field, exploring the woods, and rolling on dead things. Roxy thinks a good time is leaping into the water and swimming after whatever stick, frisbee, or ball you (or anybody, for that matter) have thrown... over and over and over.  Roxy will chase the stick, frisbee, or ball until she drops dead or your arm falls off, whichever comes first.  I know this.  I know that I have to monitor how much time we spend playing, because she won't stop... ever.

Sunday, we sort of lost track of time.

Now, when Flower gets tired, she plops down somewhere and rests.  When her feet get sore and tired of walking on river rocks, she stands in the grass and refuses to come down to the bank. This is because Flower is not a crazy.

When Roxy gets tired, she barks at you to throw it again, throw it again, throw it again.  She simply refuses to acknowledge or admit fatigue and spends pretty much the entire time in motion:  swimming, running, or jumping. She also doesn't show that she's tired and sore (I honestly don't think she even knows she is) until you get her home.  This is because Roxy is crazy.

Last night she was so sore and tired that, once she had limped into the house and lay down on the floor, she wouldn't get up, even to eat.  I had to set her bowl down between her paws.  She growled at John when he tried to lift her onto the sofa. By 8:00 she was whining continually, so I gave her a tramadol, and was then obliged to give her another every 4 hours all night long.  When the pills wore off, she would cry and wake me up.  Then she'd cry until the pills took hold again.  She was so pitiful that I finally got out of bed and lay down on the floor next to her and rubbed her belly while we waited for the medicine to kick in.  It was the only thing that kept her quiet.

I felt terrible. Now I'm worried that she may have damaged her ACL like she did once before.  This means another $200 in dog drugs, if not surgery.  So, like I said, I've been a really baaaad Dog Mom. For my penance, I suppose I will wake up every four hours and lay on the floor with the dog.

Speaking of Frogs...

It's funny that frogs keep turning up in my life right now.


Think about frogs.  Frogs are transformational animals.  They begin life as one thing and wind up as something else entirely.  It may not be as dramatic as the change that butterflies go through, but it's not insignificant.  Growing legs, learning to breathe air, and hopping out of the nice safe water into the big wide world is no small feat.

Lately I've been trying to initiate my own transformation.  Seems like I'm always doing that, actually, but in the past few weeks in particular, I've been making a conscious effort to come out of my cocoon.

I had a sort of wake-up call when my 12-year-old son looked at me one day and said "Mom, you need some friends."

Um.  Okay.

It's true, though.  I've become pretty isolated.  I didn't mean to, and I didn't even realize it was happening until recently. John has a new buddy:  a fellow restaurant-business-guy whom he plays music and frisbee golf with. He brought said guy over to meet the dogs, hoping to recruit him to dog-sit for us while we're on vacation in August.  We had an enjoyable evening of hanging out, and after everyone was gone, that's when the bomb dropped.  I need some friends.

I've never been very good at making friends. Not that I'm unlikable or weird or creepy or anything. I don't think I'm too bossy or annoying or anything like that. I just get awkward making that step from "hey howya doin'" to "Hey you want to have coffee."  Thank god I was born a woman.  I'm sure if I was a guy I'd never have the courage to ask a woman out.

I tend to keep things light and surfacey.  I make jokes, I'm "entertaining," but it's all just on the surface:  like a water-skater bug, skimming along, never getting wet. The problem with that is, that all the good stuff is below the surface, and while sometimes I can see it from up here in water-skater land, I'm not part of it. And the longer I'm up here by myself, the more the folks down below in the party forget I was ever there.  I recede.


So I'm trying to become more of a frog.  Frogs, being creatures of both land and water, are comfortable in both elements. They can swim below the surface and be part of what's happening; they can dip in and out whenever they please; or they can climb out on a nice warm lilly pad and mind their own business.  Surface tension keeps them neither out nor in.

So, I'm trying to be consciously less "entertaining" and more "present" in my daily dealings with the creatures both above and below the surface. When I greet someone on the surface, I leave my hat and cane behind and I'm trying to be still and listen, then respond honestly and genuinely.  Likewise when I dip into the actual social realm, I must try not to be the dancing frog... just the frog swimming among other frogs:  listening, and responding. Not just talking and waiting for my chance to talk again.

This is challenging for me, and will require cracking open my shell a bit more than I have been lately, as well as resisting the urge to hide behind my jokes and small talk.  I have to Be the Frog. Dip in, climb out.  Dip in, climb out.

Ribbit.  Also, some frogs can be completely frozen and come back to life.  So that's encouraging.
Watch this video to see for yourself:  http://videos.howstuffworks.com/tlc/28588-understanding-frozen-wood-frogs-video.htm

More Toads

I went home at lunch today to take my boy a sandwich (I have found that when I don't go home to feed him, Grayson eats nothing but Cheezits and orange Fanta all day). When I opened the back door to let the dogs out, this fat toad was sitting on the lintel, as if it was waiting to be let in.  

I of course picked him up, because that's what I do when I see a toad.  And Grayson and I passed him back and forth for a minute or two before he hopped out of our hands and began bouncing around the kitchen floor. We hustled him out into the garden and I refilled the little toad swimming pool I've set up out there for the tiny toadlets. Looks like I'll need a larger pool!

The Herps of Arkansas website tells me that, since this guy's glands on the back of his head are kidney shaped and separated from his eye ridges, he (or she, I have no idea how one sexes a toad) is an American Dwarf Toad. 

I like to know my toads.