Cooking in the Dark

Lisa, our beloved puppy trainer and awesome Pet Stop invisible fence salesperson, warned us against starting rituals with a tiny dog that might prove difficult as they grow.  I took that piece of advice and hid it under the invisible fence so I could enjoy "ups and kisses" over and over and over.  Every time Fairfax comes out of his little kennel, or wakes up from a nap, or just the first time I see him in the morning, I say "ups and kisses" and he jumps into my arms and licks my face.  At 5 pounds, this was fun; at 10 it was a good workout; now, at close to 20, it's dangerous.  Maybe I'll sit down first.  Of course, then I have trouble getting up, but that's a story for another day . . .

Fairfax is now a proud member of Lisa's puppy training part-two class. Once again, there are only 2 other pups; lots of individual attention.  Petco hosts these classes; I can't say enough about our local Petco staff.  They are not only knowledgable, kind and helpful, they seem to genuinely love Fairfax.  He struts about the store bestowing kisses on anyone willing to bend down.

There's sad pet news in our house this week.  We had to put Louis, one of our 12-year-old Aussies, to sleep.  I've never had to do that before and sobbed openly in the vet's office while D1 and I held Louis until she took her last breath.  Such a wonderful dog.  My Breck girl; red all over and the thickest coat.  She would lay her head in my lap in my lowest moments and trot around the block with me in the good times.  Joe, her sister, seems a bit sad and confused.  Fairfax is doing his best to help Joe through this transition.

Which brings me back to our first second-round class; we met the most incredible dog. The Cleveland Animal Protective League (APL) was setting up an area for people to view their dogs up for adoption.  One was named Cloey.  She looked like Fairfax in the face and the ears but she was tall, tall, tall.  Turns out Cloey is a Foxhound mix.  Unlike Fairfax, she is red and white.  She's absolutely gorgeous.  The APL is chronically short on funds, so D1 and I are sponsoring her:

Cloey

Tomorrow, I'd like some lox and veggie cream cheese, please.



Concerned about Cuba, Fairfax nervously chews The Economist.

D1 took Fairfax on vacation with her to see his original family in Virginia.  He reunited with D1's good friend who is now getting married; D1 and Fairfax are co-wedding planners.  Amazingly (thank you, Lisa, trainer extraordinaire), D1  has taught Fairfax to sleep in the passenger's seat of the car.  He doesn't crawl under her feet or sit in her lap or jump into the back.  When I was kid, there was often at least one pet on top of the driver's head, claws firmly planted.

I missed Fairfax terribly.  Missed D1, too.  They arrived home last night and Fairfax didn't know who to lick first - me, my husband or the Aussies.  The cats hung out on the stairs looking dejected; they thought he was gone for good.

At the moment, he is snoring. 

This is going to get worse before it gets better.




I sure wish there were an actual ice cream in this wrapper.



Chewing on a towel; I'm not tired, honest.

Today is puppy kindergarten graduation.  Couldn't be prouder.  We've gone from a puzzled look to sitting regardless of the command to correct responses for sit, stay, wait, down, leave it, off, watch and come.  And he still loves us.











I can make this jump, I can make this jump, I can . . .

We made it - 16 weeks.  Our puppy kindergarten instructor tells us this is a puppy milestone.  Pet Place offers this description:


Fits of the maddies?  What better way to describe Fairfax running in circles around the coffee table, the Aussies trying to outflank him as he races into the middle of the living room and flings himself under a chair or the lamp or anywhere too small for Joe and Louis to fit.  He grabs his leash with his teeth and pulls himself around the house like a madman.  Dives into the big dog's food bowl, slurps water with abandon and then looks at us as it to say, "What is this stuff?  It's delicious" before he starts again - twirling in circles to bite his tail, chewing anything that isn't a dog toy and finally collapsing with a sigh, in a heap, curled up against one of the big dogs. 

Contemplating mischief

Ice pack for sore teeth

Will she ever stop working and play with me?

Aftermath

There's something about a beagle's ears that makes even the most tactile-shy person want to touch them.  So floppy, so big, so soft.  When Fairfax eats dinner, they fall into his bowl; when he drinks, they come up dripping.  People stop me on the street and say, "look at those ears."  I assume they don't mean mine.

Not sure what prompted me to type "beagle ear tugs" into Google other than the fact that I fried my brain playing 47 hours of online Boggle (thanks to Cafe Two Door and her evil plot to put me in a Web coma so she can steal Fairfax).

Turns out LBJ loved Beagles.  Or so he said.  Lots of people beg to differ.  His first two beagles as President were Him and Her.  Him was eventually killed in an accident on the White House property, after which he acquired Edgar the beagle from J. Edgar Hoover.  After that came Beagle and then, of course, Little Beagle Johnson, named so everyone in the White House shared the same initials:

Parents

Lyndon Baines Johnson
Lady Bird Johnson

Daughters

Lynda Bird Johnson
Luci Baines Johnson

Beagle

Little Beagle Johnson

Comments were made intimating LBJ was trying to scrimp on monogram expenses.  I doubt that's true since Lady Bird inherited $64,000 from her dad not long after she married LBJ.  According to David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace, writing in the People's Almanac, she decided to invest it in a ramshackle Austin radio station. Using her own remarkable business skills plus Lyndon's government connections, Lady Bird went on to build a multimillion-dollar communications empire. As Sam Rayburn aptly observed, "Marrying her was the smartest thing Lyndon ever did." Her dad, after meeting LBJ for the first time, was reported to have said:


So the young LBJ married Lady Bird and became the LBJ we remember and there he was one lovely day in May of 1964 in the Rose Garden, flanked as always by Him and Her.  The President gave the [Him and Her] some candy-coated vitamin pills, then lifted the dogs up onto their haunches by pulling their ears and noted their yapping with apparent pleasure. "It's good for them," he said. "It does them good to let them bark." Assembled in the garden was a 13-man task force organized to promote increased foreign investment in the U.S. Neither they nor the President thought much about the incident.



This photograph, printed in Life Magazine, caused a storm of protest.  In his defense, Johnson claimed that the dog enjoyed it, and added: "My mother used to pull my ears, and it never got that much attention."

According to a May 8, 1964 Time magazine article:

. . . dog lovers howled in disagreement, flooded the White House with angry telegrams, letters and phone calls. In New York, an official of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said knowledgeably, "If somebody picked you up by the ears, you'd yelp too."  In London, the chairman of the League Against Cruel Sports snapped, "This is a most extraordinary way to treat a dog."

. . . beagle experts came to Johnson's rescue, said that it was indeed common practice in hunt country to tug the dogs' ears to be sure they are in good voice.

Victor Borge, the Copenhagen-born pianist . . said he went to the White House once; Johnson picked him up by the ears and said: “ You, sir, are truly a great Dane.”

The late, great newspaperman Jeremiah O'Leary once observed: " President Lyndon B. Johnson had a pair of beagles called Him and Her (or He and She). These animals grew to look more and more like LBJ the more he pulled on their ears."

Lyndon B. Johnson had to apologize to animal rights organizations . . . [he] was astonished at the sensation that this caused, telling reporters that he had been pulling Him's ears since he was a pup and "he seemed to like it."

My favorite reference to this photograph comes from the National Review in July of 1991, when Ralph De Toledano, writing about Samuel Johnson and how language evolves, stated:

Of the words which have not survived, to sowl (to pull up by the ears) would have been of value to Lyndon Johnson and his beagles.

The final word:

Johnson is buried in Stonewall in the family cemetery, a few yards from where he was born and the ranch where he died. The ashes of Him and Her are scattered there as well.

          Him and Her