Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Ghost report

Brief report on The Magnificent Ghost:
Ghost spent Sunday night at the emergency hospital. I came home to find him not trying to jump over the gate. Panic! He was lying down in the mud room, got up really hesitantly, limping badly on the left hind. His expressive face just miserable. No vomit, diarrhea or blood in sight. My heart beating out of my chest, speed dial to the vet, called around to find one without a wait. His tummy distended and hard. Bloat?? I got him to limp to the car and broke all speed limits.

Hustled straight in to X-ray. Ages later, the vet comes in with a funny expression on her face. Oh no! He swallowed one of Allie's sharps! He's dying! She shows me the xrays. A huge black sausage almost the size of his whole abdomen! Even weirder-looking from the side: textbook view of large intestine, distended and filled with gas! The galoot can't move because he's full of hot air!!

Almost $400 and a great deal of flatulence later, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed little stinker (!!) sashays out to play up to everyone in the waiting room, who declare that he ought to be in the movies (they have no idea!!), thoroughly licks the face of a delighted child, offers to eat a chocolate Lab, and gets smacked by a cat. Mals!

Still have no idea what he ate, other than Sascha's hi-calorie food. I got rid of the chicken that Allie killed, haven't seen any other corpses. Will need to get job with vet soon. What will they get up to next?

Sunday, January 28, 2007

The Secret of Mal Success; or: The Gig is Up

Reverend General Reign,

The tale I am about to impart, dear General, will confirm once again that on the scale of intelligence, at the very lowest end, we may find:
3: Rhodesian Ridgeback mixes
2: Malamute Males, immature age
1: humans

I blame myself, of course, for not training That Young Sprout, The Magnificent Ghost, as he styles himself, more rigorously in the fine arts of Malamute behavior. In my defense, however, there is not much there to work with, as you shall see.

Our story unfolds before the following background. Our humom has long been faced by two puzzling and apparently unconnected conundra:
a) The M. Ghost eats only about 1.5 cups of Natural Balance Fish and Sweet Potato a day, and yet he stubbornly remains somewhat, aah, shall we say, portly
b) Sascha the Rhodesian Ridgeback x, now in her senior years, and still alive despite my best efforts, eats more than 4.5 cups of food daily, and remains skin and bones.

Yesterday, Sascha, while dashing after a squirrel, crashed into a concrete block and cut herself (much to my glee, of course). At feeding time, humom shut Sascha in her run as usual, but this time, she stayed with her to make sure she was okay. Well, who should come frisking around the corner, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but the Magnificent Ghost, licking his chops after a full meal.

The Idiotic Ghost proceeded to lie down next to Sascha's run, lift up a corner of the chain link that he had previously loosened, extend a long and chubby paw, hook Sascha's almost-full food dish toward him and proceed to scoop out mounds of Sascha's high-calorie food. All this, mind you, in full view of humom, who was not only laughing her head off, but passionately regretting the absence of a camera.

Now if there is one thing I have tried to impart to the Idiotic Ghost, it is that We Work By Stealth. Humans are incredibly stupid, but even they catch on if we pull our stunts right in front of them. T'uh. My exasperation was so great that I almost didn't bother to dispatch the hen that wandered into our yard. Almost, but not quite. A few silent, economical moves, and goodnight, Irene. Will that Ghost ever learn to live up to his name?

Over to you
Your most humble and obedient servant
Guerillera Alexandria