Don't be fooled!

He looks so sweet, doesn't he? Just a little angel, yes? If you came to that conclusion I would understand. But if you were his mommy, nursing a cold and with your energy at very low ebb, this beautiful little angel might just cause your sanity to slip yet another notch or two.

Today he swiped all the papers and pens and notes and calendar items off the desk not once, but 3 times. I think I may need to abandon dignity and get a portable commode to bring around wherever Emmett may be when nature calls, because while I was in the bathroom (a really brave or idiotic move on my part) he found the only cupboard we didn't recently put baby stoppers on (the lazy susan one because how would that work?), grabbed the nearly full drum of Quaker oats, brought it into the living room and sprinkled it over the carpet as thoroughlyas one might if trying to meticulously rid the home of fleas. When I finally got a little energy and decided to tackle the messes and restore some order, I dragged the garbage can over to the earthquake epicenter and went to get the vaccum. In those 30 seconds my sweet little dearie decided his next task was to turn the garbage can upside down and scatter it's contents. Those would include the fruit extrusion and rinds from the fresh juice smoothie my sweet hubby made me to help me get some good vitamins this morning, along with the coffee grounds and a whole assortment of other goodies.

As I type this account, he is one by one dropping the potatoes out of the bag and on to the kitchen floor with a delightful thud, roll, roll; thud roll roll. Is it any wonder my cold is hanging on? Calgon, take me away!

Is that smell mandatory?

We have been in our current home for 5 years. One of the reasons we chose to sign on the dotted line was its large back yard. Large at least comparatively, our starter home had a much narrower and shallower space for the natives to be restless in. When he first set foot in what was to become our new back yard, Nat termed it a "dog yard". At that time, the idea of joining the masses and adding a dog to the family really appealed to me. Probably because I'd never had a dog.

A few months after we moved in, I attended an annual woman's cookie exchange with a group of my lady friends. Lo and behold, one of the women present had rescued a real, live pound puppy in her home state of South Dakota, and needed to find a home for her because she already had two dogs and couldn't keep another (pesky community laws!). I brought Dakota home to meet the family, and everyone agreed that she should be ours. If she wasn't already responding to the name her rescuer gave her, I might have called her Cookie, because that was all I expected to bring home from that little party.

Of course, that was before I knew her by her smell. Based on that knowledge, I might call her Fishy Stinkbomb! She's a sweet, patient and good-tempered girl. She has been known to let children stand on her for minutes at a time or grab fistfuls of soft rust-colored hair without complaining. Clara was not yet two when she came to live with us, so she has a devoted love for her and dotes on her with treats and combings and a special game I'm sure Kota looks forward to with relish where she is put on leash and taken throughout the house.

But the smell! We bathe her so often it's ridiculous, but it only takes a day it seems for her to get that horrible smell that makes us shoo her away so she doesn't pollute the air. I really don't know what to do about it, except I have a vague notion there are some glands that are supposed to be squeezed on a regular basis in the hind quarters somewhere?!&%?! A girl once alluded to such a process at the PetSmart groom room, but I promptly tried to erase the memory completely.

Please tell me, all you who have lived with a dog at one time in your life, is that smell mandatory?!