Bubble Wrap?? General Chat

He does that too. When Cat-dog came, he became her surrogate puppy. She washes his face for him and he loves against her.


He also likes Tornado-dog most of the time. They have similar personalities.


Tornado-dog thinks that Looney2 likes to play with him, Looney2 is not amused and is actually channeling his inner lion in order to kill the annoying wildebeest.


Looney2 also places himself strategically under furniture or inside the couch to make abush attacks on the wildebeest. I don't know which one to cheer for when Tornado-dog jumps from a deep sleep on the couch to standing on the floor looking for whatever just whacked him.

The girls avoid the dogs as much as possible.

Looney1 also has his "it's all me baby!" pose:

It's strange that although we had four very loved cats, I haven't got a single photo of them. Perhaps because we were 35mm in those days, and were not talented photographers, we have several of the dogs and horses, but none of our cats.

Hmmm. I took photos of all the animals as long as I can remember. My Mom did too. And my Mom's Mom's family had many photos from the early 1900s with their various animals in them.

It’s very convenient to take photos now because so many people have their phones nearby. I have far more photos of my dogs once I had a smart phone. I do have some actual photos of my previous dogs and cats, but only because a few of my long term girlfriends liked to take pictures.

The melting pose is awesome

He does that one a lot.

They both moved before I got the photo, but he and Tornado-dog were sleeping on the bed one night and they were both doing the sea otter pose. They are a weird pair.

Digital definitely made it cheaper to take and share photos. For me, I never liked taking people shots and I tended to like animals better than people, so it made sense to spend my film on them.

When I left home, I rented a room from my aunt. The house was on a large piece of property with a big pasture. On my days off, I would take the four cats and walk the pasture. I had mentioned it to my aunt and she didn't believe me. She told her co-workers and they didn't believe it. So I got out the camera and photographed the four cats walking the pasture with me. They behaved just like a well behaved pack of dogs walking through a field. I got the photos developed and gave them to my aunt to prove that yes, the cats go for walks. Somewhere I think I still have those photos - they were in the attic in a storage box and I don't think the burglars got that deep into the attic.

Two of our cats used to follow the dogs on their walk. Here there is large Cameo Persian cat which lives just round the corner. He will often follow their dogs down to the wood.

My sister used to have one that followed her to the shop and sit outside and wait for her to come back out then trot all the way home with her again.

When I was living with Bat-dog, she liked to crawl up alongside of me while I napped on the couch - basically putting herself on top of my body pushed into the space between me and the couch back. At 60lbs, this was not really comfortable. So I got an L shaped sofa that let you move the _ around. I put it in the center so when Bat-dog squished me out off the couch, my butt would be supported by the chaise/footstool. This worked great but limited my ability to rearrange my very small living room.

So when the couch was stolen with everything else, I ended up buying a very pretty regular small footprint sofa. As Bat-dog passed away around that time, I figured I didn't need to squish support anymore. Shepherds don't sleep on you. This couch has a seat depth of just 20 inches, so there is no "room for two napping".

Needless to say, for the past four years, I have been squished out and off the edge of the couch by Tornado-dog who does the same thing and is also 60lbs...

This has put some odd wear on the couch so I have a couple springs poking me as well as a hard edge. I can't do it anymore.

Because I can't bring Tornado-dog to a local showroom and test the squish factor of couch seat depths, I worry that I will end up with a couch still too narrow. And as I really want faux leather not upholstery (Tornado-dog has a habit of banging into tables and knocking off my drink when he hears something outside - cat, dog, bird, wind, fart, person, ant, you name it), the L shape won't work. They are either too narrow (20 inches depth) or you can't move the _ part, or they are too massive (85 inches long or more). And the ones with matching footstools are too massive for my small room.

I have been searching for months now. All the while, Tornado-dog has been suffering my "ow, get off me, you're hurting me!" complaints.

This month, I narrowed it down to three choices. It means to be fairly streamlined so as not to overwhelm the space. It can't be more than 35 inches total depth, but has to have a seat depth of at least 23 inches. Faux leather. No longer than 82 inches (70-78 preferred) with a seat length of at least 60 inches (so I can stretch out my 64 inch body). And it can't be ugly or cheap and has to handle at least 600lbs total weight (in case I get the irish wolfhound ).

This month, I narrowed it to three couches:

78.5 long with 23 inch seat depth and 750lb weight limit
82.5 inches longs with 24.5 inch seat depth with 900lb weight limit
78.5 inches long with 24 inch seat depth with 600lb weight limit.

With a clever plan, I am ordering my new couch tomorrow. I am ordering the 78.5 with 23 inch seat depth. However, I am also ordering a narrow faux leather "end of bed bench" that has a height exactly the same as the seat height of the couch. So, I can use it as a coffee table AND for squish spillage when we nap.

The lengths we go through...

P.S. I didn't think it would, but I measured and my current couch has a leg height of 5 inches and so does the new one - so Tornado-dog should still be able to sulk under the couch. I REALLY don't know how he gets himself under there - he's a chubby boy.

Right now as I am writing this I am laying on the couch. Tornado-dog has crawled himself into position and my sciatic nerve is resting right on the hard edge of the couch. Just one more week to go!

Honestly, how can he flatten himself to get under the couch but take up so much room on top of the couch!

Though Tally would prefer to cuddle on the leather sofa, I usually sit on one of the armchairs, which has a 19" x 19" cushion. I squish to one side to leave a gap big enough for her rear end, and she elevates her front to expose the maximum area for belly rubs.
15 minutes is usually enough, (thank goodness), and she jumps down and goes back to her fluffy bed.
She had quite a few Christmas presents - some of which were edible, so I decided that she would be better having her gifts after lunch. Big mistake as Tally got so excited about her presents! She had some lovely things, but chose to try and rip open a packet of pet wipes! Then she galloped around with HER best present - a 65p. stuffed fabric bone - and then with a strip of brown paper. Suddenly she froze - and threw up her lunch. Everything paused for a clean up - then, Oh, not too bad, she's done it herself!
Most interesting present was a pet bell, (from me of course). The idea is to provide her with a way of saying Yes, to my 'Would you like' questions. I have started with obvious things like, Would you like a treat? Do you want to go for a walk? Are you ready for your lunch? I still have to say Bell, and point at it, but I was surprised how quickly she realised what to do - really giving it a good slap of the paw. You can have such fun being a Dog Mum!

Isn't it nice when they clean up after themselves???

I wish it were only 15 minutes. Tornado-dog will stay there all day if I didn't get up. I've been on a reading binge this week since it's too wet and cold to be outside, so I've been on the couch a lot and he's been right there the entire time.

The bell sounds interesting. I'd try it with him, but he has a way of turning things into "you WILL do this right at this very moment". I really don't want him ringing for the butler every 30 seconds.

Because I buy things as I find them, I don't do Christmas gifts anymore. But the cats did get catnip on Christmas Eve (celebrated as King John's birthday here at home) and the dogs got marshmallows. One of these days I'll clean out Tornado-dog's toy box - I can't fit all his toys in it now so I won't buy anymore toys at this point. But he's getting a new couch so he can deal!

Cat-dog just wants people food. The junkier the better. The other day, she STOLE a fortune cookie off the counter - she unwrapped it herself. When Tornado-dog stole his, he brought it to me to unwrap.

When a spring broke on my Lazyboy recliner I thought I was going to have to buy a new one. However, when I went to look at new ones, the sales lady was really nice and told my that Lazyboy’s have a lifetime guarantee on the springs (and the ratcheting handle that reclines it). Even though I only had one broken spring she ordered me two. It was kind of a struggle to replace the broken spring, so I decided to leave well enough alone, and didn’t replace the spring next to the broken one. If I had another set of hands it would have been easy. She could have just sold me a new recliner but I’m glad she was honest.

That's great service, from both the company and the store. I was expecting you to say that the Akitas had taken it over.
It sounds as if the three of us have had a quiet holiday. Apart from an occasional polite, 'Hello', to a neighbour, we did not see a soul on our longer than usual walks. The bird life seemed to be more active with less human activity.

I looked at lazy boy, but they are just too big for my small living room. I have a nice recliner, but moved it to my bedroom because it took too much room up in the living room. My bedroom is the biggest room in the house.

When I had Bear-dog the akita, I had a futon instead of a couch. It worked great as I put a waterproof mattress cover on under the main cover and had two covers that I could switch out. I remember one time, Dog was sleeping on the couch and Bear-dog wanted it. So he stood next to her and grunted - over and over. She held out for a good 10 minutes, but finally made a grumble noise and got off. He got right on and went to sleep.

Yes, it was a very quiet holiday for me too. Quite a peaceful holiday.

Today I drove 74 miles to my daughters house to take her presents as her other half is on dialysis 3 days a week, so thought we could go up there, now usually I don’t take the dogs as mine gets car sick, but thought ok I’ll give him one more try and see if he can take it, this time I put down the back seats covered it in a blanket and put his donut bed in there, well he nevered murmured or was sick either which surprised me. She has two shih tzu’s and they both tried jumping Beau and buddy when we got there, followed them around the house licked their ears and was a general full on Velcro to the both of them, but neither said anything, walked them around the woods on a good long walk and then when we came home they was both as good as gold, have flaked out on the sofa since and not moved, my daughter texted me and said one of her dogs has sat for the last hour when we’d gone moaning at the door cos they had come home. I’m well chuffed that the donut bed seems to have done the trick in helping Beau travel.
It was really foggy though driving there and when we came back.

How can you be sad when you hear that someone 100 years old has died? Well I was when I heard that former US President Jimmy Carter had died.
I always respected him. He may have made a couple of unpopular decisions, but I never heard anyone question his moral standards. He came across as a genuinely religious man who tried to help others, and had little or no sense of his own status. Married for 77 years, and a great dog lover too.
I wish we had a few more leaders, on both sides of the Atlantic, that might share these qualities, but I'm really afraid that his kind of people don't make it to the top rung of society any more.

I don't know as they ever really did. I agree, he was a good kind man who genuinely wanted to help others. And no matter what age, people like him leave us, it's too soon.

I do think people like him are hindered in top positions - they have too difficult a time trying to do just miminum of what they are capable of doing due to politics, profit, etc. Where they really shine is when they step beyond those positions and have the freedom to accomplish without roadblocks.

And while he was deeply religious, I never saw him as being sanctimonious, hypocritical, or judgemental. And to me, that is what religion should strive for and rarely achieves.

So I am getting the living room ready for the new couch which means I am clearing out Tornado-dog's treasure hoards (I've been lax, there are several). This consists of sweeping a pile into the center of the room and then going through it to find anything that should be kept and trashing the rest.

Tornado-dog thinks he should help so keeps sticking his nose in looking for something to snatch back. Which has me repeatedly saying "I don't need or want your help". In addition, Looney1 is snooping around and Tornado-dog is trying to keep him away. Which has me repeatedly saying " leave the cat alone".

Well, after a while Tornado-dog started to feel neglected and decided to sulk. But he can't reach the couch to crawl under it.

So, he came up next to me and sat with his back to me, staring off into the distance. Tornado-dog was giving me the slient treatment!

Alas, it was much more difficult for Tornado-dog to ignore me than it was for me to ignore him. It only lasted 10 seconds before he was nagging at me and butting his nose into the pile...

I have the same problem, Tally has lots of toys that she never plays with but as soon as I start to sort through her overflowing toy box she decides, 'No, I need that one - and that one', etc. She has driven me mad by doing nothing but squeak at me since Christmas Day. I have some gifts on the table which she believes must be for her, and I need to be reminded that she hasn't had them yet. She rings her bell from time to time - I feel guilty if I don't give her a treat for doing that, but the treats have now shrunk to being kitten sized. Eddie and Merry were the same, Beagles get over stimulated by being given too many presents at one time - especially edible ones.