[Dailydrool] My Baby's growing up.......

[L.K. Metzler]

Addie-Lou Roo the Baby Kangaroo-Basset is growing up!  My "little" girl is coming into her Bassetness!
 
Today she made her first official counter cruise by swiping a peanut butter cookie from the counter when Grandma wasn't looking!  Addie had been standing on Grandma's knee while she was at the wheelchair-level sink counter in the kitchen putting cookies into a storage container and when Grandma wasn't looking, a peanut butter cookie "magically" disappeared--along with one very pleased pup!  Addie was good enough to share her prize with big brother Pelly, who enjoyed his share of the counter-cruise prize with gusto.
 
Addie's had several adventures of late.  She has managed to clear the yard of any "lost" items by bringing them in through the dog door and depositing them in the kitchen.  The last of these was a 4' long heavy wire plant stake used for a tree-type rose bush.  She did manage to bend it in half before bringing it in, though.  We've also gotten parts of a rug that no one recognizes, half of a plastic flower pot (sans dirt, thank DoG!), part of an old leather tool belt, and some "prehistoric" doggy bones.  I believe the neighbors' Cocker Spaniels are in on the rug pieces and tool belt, though....they roam the neighborhood constantly, and are true busybodies.  They must be sneaking contraband over the fence.
 
Being part Kangaroo, Addie is absolutely fascinated with my Mom, and is constantly jumping up on her knees to see what she is doing.  Most of the time Addie just looks and then goes back to her toys, but sometimes she has to "inspect" things, and that is when she gets into a little trouble.  Mom has been working on some plastic canvas needlepoint, and Addie is fascinated with the canvas.  She stole a couple of pre-cut pieces and led Mom on a bit of a chase to retrieve them.  Addie is trying to learn to read because she has to look at every book, magazine, and catalog that Mom has on the table next to her chair.  She really liked the National Geographic magazine--it now has rather rounded and somewhat ragged corners, and all of the subscription cards have been thoroughly shredded.  (I guess we won't be buying her a gift subscription for Christmas this year...)  So far, it's one of the few "unauthorized" things she's chewed up--we  have
 LOTS of doggy chewy things to keep her puppy teeth busy!!   I think if Addie could talk, her vocabulary would consist of "Addie, OFF", "NO, Addie", and "NO BITE".  I think we must use "OFF" 900 times a day.  She's pretty good and is learning, although sometimes her response time to these commands is a little, uh, slow...  Sometimes she "considers'' the command for a few seconds before doing what she's asked, but she always gets a "Good girl" or "Thank you" when she does.  We're working on this stuff, believe me!!  
 
Recently, we had an exterminator come out to help us seal up the house to keep out the "critters" that want to spend the winter in our nice warm attic.  Since we have been in a drought here in central Texas since last spring, mice are finding their way into the living areas of the house looking for water.  My Mom had the exterminator put out non-toxic sticky traps to catch them.  Great idea---except that Addie managed to find several of them that the man had not folded into the box-shape--he'd just put them on the floor flat with the sticky goo fully exposed.  The first time Addie encountered one of these traps was about two hours after the exterminator left.  She was playing with her toys in the family room but was just a little "too quiet"...the next thing we knew, Addie was bouncing across the room with a sticky trap stuck to the top and side of her head and one ear.  She managed to shake her head hard enough to move the trap so that it ended
 up across the bridge of her nose with the ear still stuck to it.  She barked at it, then put her head down and her paw up to try to get it off and got the paw stuck in the goo.  Mom and I were trying to catch her so that we could pull the trap off, but were laughing so hard that by the time we did catch her, she'd gotten the thing stuck to her chin.  It took us a couple of minutes to peel the trap off of her, and she didn't seem too worse for wear.  Later that evening, she got her revenge on a trap by chewing one to bits and then gluing the pieces to the floor.  For Halloween, she decorated herself in chewed-up mouse trap pieces....it took me almost an hour to peel them off of a moving target.  The other night, Addie got one stuck to an ear and her big rubber bone and dragged it in to the kitchen looking for us to help her once again.  We thought we'd found all of the flat traps and either folded them up or moved them out of Addie-access, but
 she keeps finding them.  If we were to keep score, we'd have to say that the exterminator has bagged 6 mice and one Basset puppy.  Addie's chewed at least three of the traps.  So much for catching mice!!
 
I don't think (pray for us, please!!) that Addie will be an OEBE, but she's definitely a clown!  
 
 
Lisa Metzler
 
Penelope, Jasmine, Pelly, and Addie-Lou Roo the Baby Kangaroo Basset



L.K. Metzler
San Marcos, TX 
toppogigio at yahoo.com
 
"A dog wags its tail with its heart." - Martin Buxbaum 

"If dogs could talk it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one." -- Andy Rooney 
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