It Seemed Like a Good Idea

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

click, click, click, click I just couldn’t take it anymore. click, click, click, click The sound of dog nails on the linoleum. click, click, click, click So I had to do something about it. click, click, click, click And I did. click, click, click, click

Being the resourceful guy I am, I rounded up the dogs and took them downstairs. This really would have solved the problem in the short term because there’s carpet downstairs. But I was thinking long term. So I got out my nail trimmers and the stypic powder and got to work. Bang! There goes one dog nail. Snap! And there’s another. 16 nails later (Lucy has two dew claws) and I was halfway through my mission. So I thought. After Lucy got her toes re-arranged, I went to work on Nicki. She’s a little easier since she doesn’t have dew claws, so I saved all the time it takes to clip two nails. Well, that was a job well-done, if I did say so myself.

Only, and there’s always an “only” isn’t there? Only Lucy thought it would have been a good idea to lick the stypic powder off her nails before they were all clotted. (I pinked her on… six nails.) Then she decided it would be fun to run around the basement. The carpeted basement. Every step and she left a little blood blob behind her. A little blood blob here, a little blood blob there. It was a good thing the cops didn’t come over.

“What’s with all the blood, sir?” The cop would ask.
“I trimmed my dogs’ nails” I would answer.
“Is your dog still alive?” he’d have to ask. There was a lot of blood. One dog-step apart. And since Lucy has little bitty legs, the steps were pretty close together.

So I had to get out the carpet cleaner spray and spray all the blood spots. Then I had to get out the carpet cleaner. (The machine with the rotating brushes. All us sibs went in together and bought a carpet cleaner. Luckily it was at our house when I needed it.) It took roughly seven minutes to trim the dog nails. And then it took roughly 45 minutes to clean the carpets.

But on the upside, no more click, click, click, click.
-Rue.

2

Nobody better sneak in and post before me dag nabbit :slight_smile:

I don’t have to trim doggie claws as my mutt is a compulsive nail chewer and keeps her own nails short (yet jagged.) The cats on the other hand require trimming fairly often although we only undertake that particular task when the hubby is in need of some blood letting for himself.

I too have a carpet machine with rotating brushes. We usually don’t have blood in the carpets though. We have strawberry milk, kitty vomit, an entire tube of balmex, mud and other things instead. Then I have a little machine also with rotating brushes to clean the furniture, small spots on the rug, and hard to reach places. I’m thinking the extra child will increase our use of these devices tenfold - and that is a conservative estimate.

I got my carpet machine from my mother. I had one without rotating brushes but a key part broke and after that it would leak all its precious cleaning fluid onto the floor in about 2 minutes. Of course this key part is irreplaceable so my carpet machine became trash. Now my mother had the nice one I really wanted with the rotating brushes. She had it in a box in the hall by her front door for over a year and she had never used it. Blasphemy! I say but since you can’t actually find the carpeting in her house I can see why cleaning the carpeting would be difficult indeed. So I struck a deal with mom and gave her a small snowblower we did not need for a carpet machine we did need. Unfortunately she lost the instruction book for the snowblower and can’t use it.

Maybe the instructions are just hiding… like her carpeting.

3

tanookie I have a burning question to ask. Just how does carpet hide? Does it scooch up under the bed? Does it sneak into the closet? Does it scooch itself outside and hide behind a tree or the bushes? I really need to know this cause I might need to go find my own carpet one day, if it indeed does decide to hide from me. Though right now I’d think my carpet would be kinda happy since I just cleaned it. I have a carpet machine with rotating brushes too. Maybe all us carpet machine with rotating brush owners could start our own clique.

Rue did Lucy ever stop toe nail bleeding, the poor doggie? I don’t have any pets, so the only toe nails I ever clip are my own, which I did just last week. Didn’t cut myself so I didn’t bleed on carpet or anything. I was real real real careful not to cut myself. However, I did cut myself shaving yesterday. A styptic pencil and a bandaid took care of that, so no carpet bleeding there either. Somebody at church did ask me why there was a bandaid on the side of my neck. I told him it was a fashion accessory. I thought it went well with my shirt. HAH! I’m a laugh riot sometimes. It was a little bitty bandaid cause I didn’t cut myself bad enough to need a big bandaid. And it quit bleeding real soon. Matter of fact I took it off after I got back home and I couldn’t even tell where the cut is (was). I went swimming in the pool and didn’t bleed in it.

Speaking of pool… late Saturday afternoon we had a big big thunderstorm. Lightning struck the pool. :eek: That was scary.

-swampbear (not bleeding)

4

Hello from the land of blackouts! Mr. Lissar and his revered spouse managed to miss the entire thing, as we were in Iowa (State of Excitement) for a wedding. And our cat survived, and the subway is up and running today. I think we did a pretty good avoidance job, really.

Whenever we clip Bailey’s claws he acts likewe’re murdering him. He may have heard of Rue’s claw-clipping techniques.

5

Claw trimming, once you’ve done it, may well have you picking out your next dogs partially based on the color of their claws. I had a springer-cocker spaniel mix when I was growing up who had some black claws and some white, and you’d try to match a white claw next to the black ones for an idea of how short you could cut it - but sometimes you’d goof anyway. :frowning:

Fortunately my ferrets have white claws, and they’re easily (erm, mostly) induced to lie still for the process by smearing some oily vitamin supplement on their bellies while they lie on their back. They lick at their fur, trying to get the yummy treat, and I just grab a paw and start trimming.

6

Well the carpeting in my mother’s house hides under a blanket of dog hair and then takes papers, books, clothes and whatever other detrius it can find and heaps these things upon itself and cowers underneath.

I don’t think your carpet is likely to exhibit this mystifying behavior, Swampbear, as I believe you understand the mystifying concepts of vaccuuming, laundry and trash removal.

The house I grew up in is one or two years away from being one of those places you see on the news where they condemn it and everyone in the neighborhood says ‘wow we didn’t even know anyone lived in that wreck!’

My carpeting attempts to hide under a vast collection of little tykes toys but we refuse to let it do much more than play peek-a-boo with us. :slight_smile:

7

I trim my cats’ claws. The fat cat cowers between my legs, but he’ll usually let me do it. The skinny cat is another matter entirely. He will flee the room like the devil is after him if you give him a millimeter of space.

We have hardwood floors throughout our house. We have some nasty utility rugs, that were put down in high traffic areas, but that’s about it. Of course, the hardwood is hidden under a thick layer of cathair, clothing, shoes, and random crap that only a house full of wacky 20 year olds would have.

I just heard on the radio that “Freddy Vs. Jason” made 36 million dollars this weekend. I am totally shocked. Then again, Bally’s in Las Vegas was putting odds on who would emerge the winner at the end of the movie. Interesting…

8

Weird. That particular sound is one I can meditate to. It’s the sound of my childhood, an’ me dear ol’ labrador/Shepherd cross.

When I went to Vietnam the first time, I was sitting inside somebody’s house, and it was 1am. Just arrived from the airport and downtown Saigon. Total culture shock, jetlag, and all the rest, until my hosts’ dog happened by…

click click click click

I relaxed then. :slight_smile:

9

We’re in the process of replacing all our downstairs carpeting (the fact that the carpet cleaner appears to have finally died for good may have something to do with it) for wood floors. And so now all of a sudden that click click click click click click is multiplied by two, us having two dogs.

Unfortunately, one of them thinks that even if we’re not going to “pink” his nails, we’re going to murder him or something if we come near him with the clippers. We’ve only actually ever succeeded in getting his nails trimmed one time, when it took four people and a muzzle at the grooming shop at Petsmart to get the job done. He’s an 80-pound yellow lab/golden retriever mix, so he’s not mean but he is VERY strong and apparently got VERY angry. (I sensibly let the menfolk take him over for this job; it may be their job again today, if I can con them into it.)

Of course, with the two dogs, we have click click click click click scrabble scrabble scrabble sliiiiiiiide crash a lot, too.

10

That’s a game in our house, Mama Tiger.

‘Lets make the animals run around like lunatics and slide into the walls.’ Yeah it sounds mean but they seem to really enjoy the game. We have a laser pointer that every critter in the house wants to chase.

My dog will run herself into a stupor trying to get the red dot! Great way to exercise the dog after dark without dealing with a drooly tennis ball BTW!

My daughter thinks the animals making fools of themselves is the best thing she has ever seen. So since the laser pointer is a mom or dad only toy she steals our flashlights and garners a similar effect.

We would like to replace some of our carpeting with hardwood (or its laminate equivalent) but that’s lower on our remodel list at this point :slight_smile: I do have a very spiffy Monopoly themed bathroom that makes is a great learning opportunity for the munchkin. My shower curtain has a huge monopoly board on it so when she comes in to ‘help’ me pee she also practices her colors and tries to guess all the letters!

11

Our dogs don’t need any human assistance to crash into walls, they do it just fine of their own initiative. Rocket scientists they ain’t, obviously. But hey, they are an endless source of entertainment. And, of course, the best day in the world for them is when they get to bark at not only the evil mailman, but the evil FedEx man AND the evil UPS man! :smiley:

We’re installing the laminate flooring. They claim it’s easy to install. Yeah, right, once you’ve spent a week prepping the room and measuring and cutting and leveling and sorting out trim to interconnect at the doorways and on and on and on. Putting the boards themselves down is a few hours of work. It’s the rest of it they don’t mention to you till you’re committed. But hey, we’re too cheap to pay someone else to do it, so we’ve done two rooms and only one to go. Pray for us. :eek:

That Monopoly-themed shower curtain sounds terrific. The munchkin will also be hogging all the hotels on Boardwalk before you know what’s happened. And speaking of Monopoly, my sister and I always played with a Free Parking variation – whenever you had to pay a fine, you’d pay it to the center of the board, and then whoever landed on Free Parking would scoop the pot. Made for some sudden rises in income!

12

We like that particular house rule too :slight_smile: Makes for a fun and slightly longer game. When I can con someone into playing I want the game to last a while :slight_smile:

(Oh and it isn’t just the shower curtain but the hooks that hold the curtain, the rug, all the towels, and the soap dish/toothbrush holder/cup… all Monopoly) It’s not just a hobby anymore!

13

Our house is mostly carpeted and my dog is pretty much barely a step above a throw rug on the evolutionary scale, so I don’t hear much click-click-click. However, her “Pet meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” signal involves contact between her paw and my bare arm or leg, so I get to know when her nails need attention. It’s usually about the time she gets to looking kinda scruffy, so off to Pet World we go. For $39, I get a clean, trimmed, brushed, sweet-smelling dog and a free afternoon. So it’s all good.

Hubby has never taken the boat cat for a nail trim, but he (the cat) has a scratching thingie, plus he’s scratched the dickens out of the non-skid treads on the companionway ladder. Maybe we should replace the treads with sandpaper…

14

Heh. Strawberry milk. That’s funny tanook’. Little strawberry herds gathered in the barn and you have these little tiny pails and stools and you just milk, milk, milk those 'berries. Get a long little 'berry, we got the rest of the herd to milk this morning.

Lucy says “Thanks for asking Swampy. She’s just fine!” (Yes she is a talking dog. Why?) She didn’t even get woozy from loss of blood. She was able to attack the carpet cleaner with her usual vim (and vigor!). Thta’s one of her big games: Atteck the Crapet Cleaner. But usually it’s Attack the Sweeper. But even more than that, it’s Attack th Remote Control Car! That’s probably her favorite game. She just snubs flashlight beams. She’s just That Way.

Oh! Sate of Excitement. I had to read that twice Lissla, since it is Iowa and all and they’re just know for their pig farms. You know what pigs are known for, don’t you? Bacon! (Sorry Ellen, it just slipped out. Think of milking strawberries if that helps.)
-Rue. ('berry milker)

15

Our Isaac of the hating-to-get-his-claws trimmed has found an exciting new game: Hide Under the Table Saw While Daddy Is Trimming Boards for the New Floor. For some reason, that’s not real popular with Papa Tiger. (I’ve already got him paranoid enough about cutting his thumbs off with the stupid thing. :D) So Isaac gets locked in the house when the saw goes off. He also likes to “help” me vacuum by staying as close to the vacuum cleaner as is doggily possible, which is pretty darned close. The kind of help I really don’t need.

And being a rescued stray, he at first at least was smart enough to stay away from the Broom aka the Dog-Whacker. Now he thinks it’s a fun game, to go lie down right on top of the pile of sweepings.

At least both dogs know that the only game when I’m on crutches (as I will be again in a couple weeks after knee surgery) is called Knock 'Em Upside the Head to Get Outta My Way. There is no fun alternative.

16

My mother’s dog (Molly) tries to dig holes in her sofa. Just thought I’d share that. It has a floral print. (The sofa, not Molly. Molly is fluffy, not floral.)

I have a Monopoly game of my home town, Eureka. It has Eureka streets on it and pictures of some of our landmarks. But I’ve never found anyone willing to play a game with me. Nope, not since I was a little tyke (okay, a teenager, maybe once in college–way to let truth get in the way of a little sympathy). It wouldn’t even have to be the Eureka version, I’m jake with the original, or maybe the Star Trek version–that would be cool. I don’t know whether nobody wants to play with me because the game is too long, or if they simply don’t want to be with me for that amount of time, but my ego is in pretty good shape this morning, so I’ll go for the first reason (is that the former or the latter?, I get mixed up).

Kallessa (wannabe games’ player)

17

I don’t have the star trek version but I do have both star wars versions (well the two released in the US but the British have a pretty jake version that I’ve seen on Ebay!) I also have Pokemon and the Simpsons and the Wizard of Oz and Scooby Doo and Coca Cola and Power Puff Girls and too many more to list.

You can come play at my house…

18

It’s a date, tanookie–the next time I’m in the neighborhood, it’s Monopoly or bust (but not the Pokemon version, okay? They just give me the creeps).

19

Well, I like you just fine, Kallessa, but I hate Monopoly almost more than a sharp stick in the eye. I’ll play Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit all day, but the mere thought of Monopoly in any form makes me want to curl into the fetal position and whimper.

So you go play and I’ll meet you afterwards for a cup of tea and some scintillating conversation. :smiley:

20

Basically, I’ll play any board game, and any card game, so you would think that I’d be in high demand as a party guest.

I love Trivia Pursuit, so when we meet for tea, FairyChatMom, we should have a game or two. We can talk while we play–in fact, that’s one of the things I like most about games; with the exception of poker for money, having a scintillating convrsation is part of the game.