You've just been SKUNK'd!!!

Yes, there is a skunk involved in this blog. Yes, it was the most awful experience I have ever had. Yes, skunks are clearly a cause of global warming. No, I'm not going to tell you about the skunk till the end of the blog. This week was a memorable one. And it basically ended in me finding just one more reason not to want to live on a farm...

This week started out on a fairly tame note. Homer and Mervin went about their normal routines: go outside, eat, nap, go outside, go for a walk, eat, nap, repeat. Unbeknownced to Ellen this daily routine starts at 4:45AM. Needless to say she was perplexed and annoyed when Homervin wanted to go out at 5am. This is normally my responsibility; however, Monday through Wednesday I was down in Rolla, Missery recruiting for Emerson. Homer finally got a walk on Thursday. It was much needed. He was ready to come in though after surviving wind and 20deg weather and scary night deer.

I'm guessing that Homer was so upset that I was in Missery that he decided to rip apart his kennel bed. This was a brand new bed we just bought three weeks ago to replace his old chewed up bed. Looks like somebody is going to get towels next time. Mervin does the same thing when he gets a puffy new bed. Dogs must think beds are like twinkies: soft on the outside with a fluffy white center. That white stuff cannot taste good. Then again niether does poop, but somehow that gets recycled as well...

This weekend we decided to head down to Winterset, IA to celebrate El's birthday with her parents. The trials and tribulations started at around 5pm, Friday. Mervin and Homer seemed incredibly excited for a Friday. Its not like they had worked a job all week and were dying for FAW. While they were running around the house, I was packing up the dog accessories. Here is a list of items needed to take 2 dogs on a weekend out of town:

1. the kennels
2. 3 days worth of food for both dogs
3. the leashes
4. treats for each dog
5. towels for the dogs to sleep on
6. towels to clean up after Merv inevitably pukes in the car
7. a water bowl
8. a bag of bones
9. Mervin's interceptor and frontline
10. Mervin's travel kennel
11. Mervin's travel kennel pad
    

This does not seem like a lot on paper, but let me tell you, have you ever picked up a suitcase thinking it was going to be uber heavy and turns out to not be? This is like that, but opposite. In addition to the above items and the dogs we had to fit Ellen's and my bags into the Saturn. Fitting all of that into a Vue was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Seats had to come down, 2 and 3 doors needed to be open at the same time. I actually considered removing the spare tire for some extra room. But yet again, my master packing skills triumphed and we were on the road by 6pmish.

Now as many of you know, the Smith's live on farm just outside of Winterset. And out in the country there are many different kinds of animals. Cows, horses, chickens, other dogs and cats, you know, animals that bring some sort of benefit to the world. There are also animals that do not bring any benefit to the world. Enter the skunk. The skunk is the bane of my wife's existence. She has an oversensitive nose and complains about even the faintest of oders let alone a skunk within a 3 mi radius of our location. As we turned down the gravel road to the Smith farm, we passed a carcass resembling that of a skunk, then followed by the distinct fregrance of concentrated death. I should have known this would be a forshadowing of what would come to be a tragic weekend.

In making the final turn into the driveway of the Smith residence, a new live skunk passed in front of the car and ran behind the shed. I don't what the Smiths are doing these days, but they are attracting some very unsavory folk. Now normally smart dog owners would think, "hmm, dogs are not really smart enough to know that skunks are bad, we might want to put a leash on them." However, we are not smart dog owners. I just let Homer out of the car and he went tearing behind the shed after the skunk. We heard a growl, a wimper and then Homer came trotting back blowing toxic snot buggers and pawing at his face. Yes, Homer got sprayed in the face by a nasty skunk. He pretty much got painted on the front half of his body. All generosity towards dogs ends after that. We put Homer in the shed for the night. Be was perfectly content to chill in his kennel and tear up one of the Smith's old sleeping bags. That night we researched Anti-skunk remedies. Check out About.com for skunk stink removal. We decided on recipe 1 which contained the following ingredients:

• 3% hydrogen peroxide
• baking soda
• liquid soap
  

Saturday morning El and Linda went to town to run some errands and pick up much needed critical ingredients. In addition to the anti-skunk agents, they got a scrub brush, sponges, an abrasive pad and rubber gloves. I spent the morning running around with Homer hoping his mandog stink would overcome the skunk stench. It helped just enough to decrease his putrid aura from 10ft to about 3ft.

The sanitization of Homer was a two person task of epic proportions. Linda and I went to the shed armed with a batch of "Recipe 1", tools, 3 large containers of warm water and an assortment of old towels. We washed out an old kiddy pool left from the Smith kids toddlers. It was a color changer pool trading dirt brown for bright green. Next task was to get Homer into the pool. If you thought he was reluctant, you were wrong... He was incredibly stubburn about it. But once we got him in, he stood still and did just fine. Linda and I spent the next half hour scrubbing Homer from head to toe with the anti-skunk concoction. About.com warned us not to get the solution in his eyes. I have a distinct feeling that the remedy for getting Anti-skunk in your eyes is... to rub skunk juice in them. Maybe not. Anyway, Linda did a great job avoiding the eyes and scrubbig him hard while I had to deal with the posterior. After dousing with 3 large buckets of warm water, we felt confident enough to subject him to the final and ultimate test, Ellen's nose. If Ellen were a super hero, she would be Scent Woman. Yes, Ellen can smell out fear... from miles away. So after letting Ellen scrutinize nearly every bit of Homer's fur, we passed with a resounding, "better than before". Homer was more than ready to come in for the rest of the day.

The stink was not complete dissipated, but he was good enough to come in. Homer spent the next 24 hrs in the basement. By morning he was ready to grace us with his presence up stairs in the kitchen. I think Mervin was the most excited, showering homer with man kisses. Homer was ready to go back downstairs... So in the end, we learned that, the man that invents Anti-skunk in airsol form will be a very rich person.

And one last tidbit of information, I witnessed Mervin pee on himself this morning. I did not think this was possible till I thought about it and I would probably pee on myself as well if I pee'd like a dog. For future reference, do not pee like a dog.

YOU'VE BEEN SKUNK'd!!!!!!!!! B-dubs out.

Dogs are boring...

Some of you might think dogs are boring. Some of you might think dogs are lazy, dirty and overall gross. Many dogs are like this. The dogs that live with us, are all of these except for boring. In fact, many times I would like them to take on the trait of boring. But rarely does "boring" happen when I need it to. Like when Ellen and I are about to leave for somewhere or when we are trying to eat dinner or when we're trying to fall asleep. These are the times when dogs should be boring. But they are not.

I blame this late lack of boringness on the fact that homer has not been walked in days. This is due in part to me being out of state and the other part being Iowa's crappy crappy weather. On Thursday, Homies and I went on a great walk around the lake. The weather was a beautiful 40ish. The walking path was finally clear and Homer is finally getting used to other people. Then the blizzard came and brought 7 inchs of snow with it. That has kept us inside the past couple days, that is one of the reasons why these dogs are not boring. And Mervin has ADD. That's probably some of it too.

This week we experienced the depth and breadth of Homer's fear of the entire world. This year for Valentines day Ellen and I stayed in. We decided to make heart shaped pizzas, sip champagne, exchange gifts and watch some movies. On a side note, pick up Kill the Messenger, for a good laugh (not for kids). I have decided that in the end, Homer is scared of heart shaped pizzas. Due to the fact that my pizza, as you can imagine, had an excessive amount of toppings, this caused the fire alarm to go off during the cooking phase. That alarm is so loud, even I wanted to pee myself. But for Homer this was a new terror beyond anything conceivable. I managed to compose myself enough to get the broom to turn off the smoke alarm. But Homies huddled next to Ellen, quivering and shaking. I had never seen anything like it. This is a particularly difficult situation when Ellen is trying to pull large heart shaped pizzas out of the oven. It took about a half hour for homer to settle down. He pretty much spent dinner under the table. In the end he relaxed and had a pleasant evening. Valentine's day concluded with some gift giving. Homer and Mervin wolfed down some hand made treats. They must have been gourmet because the two dogs did not hold back from their refined tastes.

This week I cleaned the bathtub with which we used to clean Homer and Mervin. That bathtub has never entertained so much abuse. There was so much hare and grime and leftover dog, that it took longer to clean the bathtub than it did to clean the dogs. I am pretty sure we are going to have clogged drains in a month or two. Imagine water from a river flood going down our drain, then add a beaver's worth of hair. That is what it was like.

On Sunday Homers got a new bed for the bedroom. His old one saw its demise after a highly escalated wrestling debacle. We felt that bed stuffing might not be a good element in the dogs diet. Now Homer gets his beauty rest on an extra large doggie matress. That should keep him comfy for the rest of the year. In addition to a new bed, Ellen and I got new phones. The dogs are now our official back-drops.

More to come next week. Peace out, Girl Scouts. B-dubs out...

Snnnnffff... Is that a landfill? No, that's the dogs...

So it is official. I think we are now considered the dirty family on the block... Well at least I think we are. Did you know that if you maintain two dogs in your house, it makes EVERYTHING smell. And if I can smell it, it is bad. In fact, if my odor challenged nostrils can smell it, its been smelling bad for a while and now... I just saw hot wings on the tv ... mmmmm wiiinnngs.

uuuuggghh. Woah. What happen? Oh yeah talking about the dog stink being imparted onto our house. Our pour house. We're going to have to have to move after this... So the dogs are taking advantage of us. Homer has a unique sense of when someone is not looking. When Ellen's back is turned to do her hair and makeup in the morning, Homer will creep ever so slowly downstairs, down the hallway, around the kitchen into the kitchen eating area, into the livingroom and hops up on to the couch. A biiiigggg no no. In the end both dogs get scolded for one thing our another. Usually its for too much rough housing, barking, and dropping a dueces. No wonder our house smells.



Since the weather has been good, the dogs have been outside a little more in the backyard. There is a lot of sprinting, a lot of sniffing. I have noticed when homer wants to come back in, he does not scrape at the window like Merv does. He lets out a couple moans, and then he does a jumping dance that literally shakes the entire deck. He just hops up and down on his front paws. I will have to get a video of it some day.

Speaking of good weather, Saturday was nice enough to take both dogs out. Not at the same time though. No insanidalking this week. I took Homer out first. He was incredibly not excited to meet so many new people. Every time someone would walk by, he would try to run for the lake. Mervin is the exact opposite. Mervin wants to jump on everyone, and every thing. I think Mervin secretly wants to be a human. What do they call that? Trans-spieces? Mervin is specie-confused... That wore both of them out pretty good. I think when the weather gets really nice, I'll walk Mervin in the morning and Homer at night.

Most of you missed the pilot of the Homer and Merv show on Skype last week. The two dogs flaunted their maturing wrastling skills over the interweb while Ellen, Kari and Linda Skyped. Believe me, Homer and Merv are definitely not shy of the video camera, unlike some people on the set of Terminator 4. Though Merv looked like he was ready to cuss me out separating him and Homer and "ruining his lighting". (Christian Bail reference)

(poopwarning) On a side note, we had our drapes in the Master bedroom open for the first time in months this weekend. I happened to glance down at our backyard and I almost cried. Our backyard looks like an Al Quida wet dream. There is a doggie land mine in nearly every sq ft of that back yard. Not Cool. It is going to take me hours to clean all that up. BOOOOO!(/poopwarning)

So, this past Sunday was a landmark in Ben/Homer relationship history. Homer was a clean dog for all of 173 seconds, before romping around with Mervin. Since we had spent most of the day cleaning the house, we thought it wise to clean the dogs as well. This is a multi-step process. Step 1, Cut nails. Merv was very easy. He sits and wimpers just a little and then he is fine. Though I did cut one nail a little too short and made him bleed. Luckily, I have done that before and knew that a little flour on the short nail stops the bleeding. Last time he almost bled out... yeah, nice. Homer was up next... WOW. There is no exaggeration when Joel says Homer does not like to have his nails cut. I gave up after realizing I might not have a hand after this experience. Keep my hand or get one of homer's nails cut? It didn't take long to make that decision. Step 1:50% complete. Step 2, Baths. Merv as per usual took a bath very nicely. He just stands there and looks like a poor poor puppy. That was the easy part, or so I thought.

Yes, I prejudged Homer. I thought Homer was going to be horrible to wash. So I got my swimsuit on and I cleared out all the floor mats from the guest bathroom and thought I was going to have to do serious battle. Not the case. It took a little coaxing to get Homies in the tub and then he just stood there. It was a very pleasant experience. Though, I did pretty much run out of doggy shampoo. It didn't cross my mind that Homer has 4x the sq footage of hair that Mervin does... Toweling Homer off, required 2 towels. He did really good with that too. I turned him loose and shortly after that, the two dogs were slobbering over each other again... Oh well. Step 2: COMPLETE!!

That ends this week's doggieblog. From Dunn Bros Coffee in far off South Dakota... B-dubs out!!

The Superfart Bowl

Some of you may be wondering what the Superfart Bowl is. You will continue to wonder for a little bit longer while we take care of some other things. First off, today's dictionary lesson:

Insanidalking. verb, Def: To make an attempt at walking two or more dogs at the same time where both dogs are seemingly cracked out.

Yes, I too thought this was not in the dictionary. But then I thought, how could it not be. I mean it completely describes someone walking two or more dogs like a beagle and a homer at the same time and one wants to go forward and the other backward, one wants to criss cross the leashes, the other wants to poop (multiple times), one wants to jump on to the on coming walker, the other wants to run away, and both want to pull their master faster than his little legs can move. The likelihood of successfully doing insanidalking is next to zero, even for the professional insanidalkers. You know you have seen them in movies, but really that is just good CG. I made an attempt at insanidalking just this past week. Word to the wise, do not attempt this... ever.

This week we had some problems keeping the dogs out of the bags of food in the closet. So I had to come up with a clever solution. I went to Target and picked up two water resistant discard receptacles capable of retaining more than 20 gallons. Now we don't have naughty puppies getting into the puppy food.

On Wednesday it was uber warm out. So warm we actually could see sprigs of grass pop out from the depths of the snow. The dogs decided to have sprinting matches back and forth across the lawn. Now our backyard is a quagmire of snow, canine fecal matter and mud. It looks awesome. I'm thinking about putting in one of those moving rabbits that runs around the greyhound track. Speaking of being in the backyard, the "girlfriends" were back from Arizona, and let me tell you, they became snotty b&#$^s while they were down in the redbird state. Homer and Mervin started an uproarious barkfest while the ladies in back were outside, prancing around, not returning any of Homer and Merv's beckonings. Typical...

Homer's seemingly infinite amount of intelligence ceases to amaze us. Yesterday he communicated with us that both water dishes were completely and utter empty by thoroughly licking both bowls. Yeah, we're awesome....

(poopwarning) And at last, The Superfart Bowl. This tournament of raunchy flatulence occurred on Tuesday. It all began with Mervin and Homer wolfing down two bones each. For the sake of our noses, that will never happen again. After about an hour Merv kicked off the competition with a monster fart that nearly made me pass out from the lack of oxygen in the air. In an attempt to get away I moved closer to Homer. Mistake!! It was like Homer literally punched me in the face with a stink bomb. It was so bad, I almost considered throwing up into a paper bag and hyperventilating into that before I would have to smell that again. I mean it smelled like indian food covered in burnt hair. It smelled like Bigfoot's rear-end (don't ask). Needless to say Homer won. Ellen came in last...

And on that note, B-dubs out...