bella

Standing up

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 15:26 on 5 December 2009

Bella has started doing this every time I sit down at the dining table to work. She sits next to my chair, and stares. If I don't respond, she'll put one paw on my leg and wait. If that doesn't work, she'll start climbing up onto my leg, standing next to me, leaning on me. While I find it remarkably endearing, after the tenth time in a day, the tenth day in a row, its starting to be annoying.

Between Annie's continual whining, Bella grabbing food off the table, Annie's growling and dog issues, and Bella's deafness, I think it may be time to start working full time at the HackerDojo when I'm not at a client's office. It is possible to get too much of a good thing. Well, too much of a Bella, anyway.

Happy golden birthday, Bella!

Blog kitt decided around 21:03 on 15 August 2009 to publish this:

Six years ago, we brought Bella home from Sausalito. She agreed to at least eight years on her Krikitt Downs contract, and has been doing pretty well so far with her end of the bargain.

Yesterday was Bella's birthday. Better yet, it was her golden birthday: she turned 14 on the 14th. We really should have celebrated yesterday as an incredible birthday for her, but, well, we pretty much forgot about yesterday.

Fortunately, we didn't forget today. Instead, we celebrated in style. We were originally planning a lamb and rice dish for her, with a dessert of strawberry slices, but realized we ran out of rice. Instead, she celebrated with lamb and her regular food, ending with doggie crack.

She seemed to really love it. Not that she'd really mind eating animal flesh, right? She's not really a vegan or anything

Happy birthday, Bella Girl! Remember, you have two more years to go on your contract!

Bella and Annie cuteness

Blog Instead of being asleep at 23:41 on 24 July 2009, kitt created this:

You know, when they're quiet, they really CAN be cute.

The knee made it!

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 14:48 on 9 May 2009

Bella, Kris, Annie and I went up to Fremont Older today.

Kris was going to spend the whole day, starting at 11:00 AM, playing World of Warcraft. I negotiated a hike and time spent with me in return for not complaining about his playing. In reality, I'm completely annoyed that he plays that game all the f--king time. I despise the inherent lack of a productive life that game, and all the other games he's been addicted to in the last 10 years, creates.

Right.

The hike.

I had originally intended on wearing my knee brace for the hike. When I put it on this morning, however, the brace caused my knee to hurt. Okay, not what I was hoping for. I thought about taping my knee, but decided against that, too, mostly out of laziness, partially out of a lack of belief the taping was actually helping.

So, off we went: Bella in her cone and beat up face, I without a knee brace, Annie and Kris with no issues we knew about.

The hike went smoothly. I ran some of the hills, just to get my legs moving and a faster rate than my usual walking. I had a hard time on several of the hills, with a heavy heart and gasping lungs. It's pretty clear that I haven't been exercising aerobicly for a short while now, a fact I intend to change. I figure, I can run around the block (a half mile loop) four times for a easy 2 mile run. I'll never be more than 200 yards from home, should my knee lock up or I need to go to the bathroom.

As well as my knee did on the hike, Bella didn't do so well. We kept her in the cone, since she immediately started scratching her face when we removed the cone. I don't know if the cone was an additional burden or not, but she ended up not moving at one point, so Kris carried her the rest of the way back to the car.

I think she might be getting old. We already know she's deaf.

On the hike, I noticed from one part of the trail near the beginning, you could see the other part of the trail from the end, so from both angles, nominally the same spot:

Hurts

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 23:40 on 8 May 2009

Me: "Yeah, that's been hurting as of late."

Him: "Professor, my sca hurt." in an English accent.

Me: "Do you think Voldemort's around?"

Him: "No, but Bellamort is!"

Dun dun DUN!

Follow them on twitter

Blog Instead of being asleep at 21:37 on 8 May 2009, kitt created this:

Bella and Annie now have their own Twitter streams! Find out what they're doing at Bella and annie the beagle.

I can't believe how hard it was to find open twitter names for the two of them.

Sure, I mean, yeah, I expected the names "bella" and "annie" to be taken. Variations for Bella I tried included

bellagirl (hasn't been used since August 2008)
bellaboo (hasn't used it for over a year, since March 2008)
bellabeagle (a legitimate use, I might add)
belladog (never used, no followers, no following, no updates)

Bella Cross is the name of the whiskey Kris and I plan to produce. If figure the end of the dog's lifespace and the start of the whiskey enterprise will most likely coincide, in about 2 or so years, so we'll switch away from a dog twitter stream to a whiskey twitter stream some time around then.

Annie's name was horribly hard to find one for, too.

anniegirl
annieboo
anniebeagle
anniedog

I eventually gave up and used doggen as the suffix for her name. Kris and I use doggen as the plural of dog when referring to our dogs, so the name doesn't quite work, but sorta does.

So, Bella is "bellacross" on twitter, and Annie is "anniedoggen."

Go on, go follow them now. Yes, that might mean you need to create a twitter account. Heaven forbid I should actually know what's going on in your life. While you're at it, follow me before I degenerate into a black 1982 Pontiac Trans-am, or a 2008 Ford Shelby Mustang. Really.

Bella's wounds up close

Blog Posted by kitt at 23:15 on 6 May 2009

Okay, so, these wounds on Bella really fascinate me. Martha, you really don't want to click through.

Fun with a cone!

Blog kitt decided around 22:22 on 6 May 2009 to publish this:

You should see the other one

Blog Posted by kitt at 15:55 on 6 May 2009

Okay, as near as I can tell, Bella was hit by either a truck or an ugly stick after today's surgery. The dog, good lord.

There were 15 spots that had to be removed (and still the doctor missed one). She'll be in the cone for about 10 days, so that she can't get to the stitches all over her body, on her head, near her eyes, on her nose, legs, torso, chest, stomach, everywhere. Part of me is thinking, well, we've gotten our $732 worth on this one.

This better help this dog's OCD or I'm going to be pissed.

That, and she better live another 3 years to make this worthwhile.

My dog is deaf

Blog Instead of being asleep at 17:51 on 4 May 2009, kitt created this:

And I can think of a whole lot of opportunities I'd rather spend $732 on than dealing with the deaf dog's OCD.

Bella and Annie walked over to the vet today. Walking to the vet at 3:00 PM really isn't such a smart idea if you realize that schools let out between 2:30 and 3:00, AND there are two schools between you and the vet, with a third just past the vet. Two dogs sniffing around, thinking every single child you walk by smells of deelish? Yeah, frustrating walk.

At some point, however, Bella realized that we were ON A MISSION. She shifted into her on-a-mission pace, and Annie was the only dog I had to really deal with tugging and shoving and yelling and pushing. Annie girl. Damn dog.

So, we walked over to the vets. Everything was perfectly fabulous, the girls in their trot-trot-trot we're-so-happy-to-be-sniffing-new-smells until we arrived at the vets. When I opened the door into the office, both dogs stopped, dug their too-long claws into the cement, shifted their weight backwards, and pulled.

Combined, the two of them weigh 65 pounds. I'm not quite twice their weight, but I know about leverage, as well as friction and traction. Since we were here to have their nails trimmed and butts expressed, I'd win this battle, as I win every battle like this one. Once we were in, both dogs started panting. They were in hell even before we went into the examination room. Great, this was going to be fun.

The office visit wasn't so bad for Bella. She ate treats while the vet looked at her ears, yep, she's deaf, and her eyes, yep, they're cloudy, but no cataracts, and her coat, wow, she looks good for almost 14. He looked at the part of her leg where she'd been gnawing OCD on a spot, and stopped. Oh, yeah, this is bad, he said. Yes, well, I knew that, having had a number of these growths taken off when her teeth were cleaned a few years back. However, she's at them again, they're growing big, she's licking them non-stop, and I'm really tired of cleaning up the blood stains on my carpet. Can we have them removed?

Sure, we can remove them, he answered, then started counting them. Without much effort, he counted nine spots that Bella could reach, and OCD lick a hole into her body. The vet then told me a story about another OCD dog he treated that could not stop licking a wound that started off as a small scratch. Cones, bitter apple spray, bandages, ointments, local anesthetic, splint, cast, nothing helped, the dog licked, gnawed or chewed its way through them all, until it chewed off its foot. It eventually had its leg amputated. As if I needed a reason to have the spots removed. Please. I know how OCD this little dog can me.

Right about this time, the howling started. It started as a small murmur in the back room, and built up to a painful crescendo. Yes, it was Annie, in the other room, having her nails trimmed and hating it. Sigh.