Update on the Bush Dove Family
Mama Dove is still there and it's TWO babies she has in her little bush nest. They all look fine. Today I prevented the exterminator from spraying around the bush and tree near Mama Dove and Family. He was a nice guy, but when I told him about my fears for the Dove Family, getting eaten by a grackle or a cat. He said, "Yeah, or a opossum, or a rat could eat them too." I didn't need that information!! Now I have even more to worry about. Really, I think it will only be one or two more days before the babies are trying to get out of the "nest". That will be such a relief when they learn to fly and can get away from that bush.
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My Dogs
We own two large mixed breed dogs. The oldest is Mylo who is seriously disturbed and the youngest (by 10 months) is Monk (who is autistic and has an eating disorder akin to Prader-Willie). They have the same mother (she was a bit of a huzzy going out and getting pregnant right after she weaned Mylo's liter) and have different fathers. Both of them are about 1/4 sharpei, but only Monk has any wrinkles to speak of. Both of them are spoiled rotten in sooo many ways. They were bad enough when we lived alone, but since we have moved in with "Grandma", my 86 year old mother, they have become even more spoiled and rotten than they were before! They enjoy sitting on top of us whenever we are watching TV in bed. They also like to sleep in the bed with us which makes for a very crowded bed. Luckily we have a king sized bed, but sometimes that isn't even big enough for all 4 of us.

My story today centers on Mylo, the oldest, so I will leave Monk out of this, as he was, for once, an innocent by stander in last night's activities. Let me give you some background information on this seriously deranged dog. Mylo, has always slept curled up at the top of the bed between us since he was a puppy. Even now at 90 pounds he is able to somehow curl up small enough to fit between our pillows, sort of. He usually sleeps with his head right above mine on my pillows. This would be alright, if he weren't such a grumpy dog and a bed hog. Heaven forbid I try to roll over during the night and accidentally wake him! He grumps and growls and stomps off the bed like I am the most inconsiderate person in the world. Of course it isn't long before he is back again, curled up above my head, breathing in my ear.

Mylo is truly borderline psychotic. He is afraid of vacuum cleaners which is understandable, but he is also afraid of: toasters, trash bags, fire crackers (also understandable), wet grass, children, smoke detector alarms, listening to the telephone, and a million other odd things that there are no explanations for.

Mylo also has a fear of nail clippers and will NOT allow anyone to clip his nails. We have tried everything to clip them, to no avail. We even tried taking him to several groomers around town to have his nails trimmed by professionals, but he is now banned from almost all the dog groomers in town because of his unruly behavior. I must take partial blame for Mylo's fear of pedicures. When he was a puppy we were trimming his nails, rather I was trimming his nails and accidentally cut too close to the quick. He was pretty upset!! Since then he has not allowed the nail clippers near him and his nails are beginning to be so long he looks like he has a French manicure.

Mylo is the only dog I have ever seen that can tippy toe through wet grass without getting his paws wet! When it's raining, he WILL NOT go outside! I guess his fear of bathes (did I mention he was afraid of bathes too?) keeps him from wanting to go out in the rain. After it stops raining, you can usually lure him outside to the patio, but it takes a lot of coaxing to get him into the yard to "do his business". Once he hits that wet grass, he immediately goes "on point" (like a ballerina, not a Pointer) and tippy toes through the grass. I won't describe what he looks like trying to "do his business", needless to say it's pretty darned funny sometimes watching him try and balance himself without touching any wet grass.

For these and many other reasons I won't go into here, we truly think Mylo needs some serious psychiatric care. We just can't afford it right now. We have emergency doggy valium to give him if he really gets out of hand, but it takes a while to take effect. Sometimes when he gets really scared, he will climb up (all 90 pounds of him) into my 86 year old mother's lap! This is not a good thing. He is gonna squish her one of these days! I am thinking we need an elephant tranquilizer dart gun for him!

This is also the dog that we think is a pedophile. He has had "crushes" on several male puppies through out his adulthood. Pining at the fence for them and making this obnoxious high pitched whining sound.

Anyway, back to last night. Mylo was EXTREMELY agitated last night. He kept waking me up all night long, nosing me with his cold nose several times, crawling up on the bed and trying to sit ON my head, and then clawing me with his paw in my back. The final straw was when he pushed all the stuff on my nightstand off on to the floor. Apparently something scared him last night and he was determined that I should share in his misery. ARGH!! He was not satisfied until I got up out of bed and walked through the entire house (at 3AM mind you) to check it out. He slunk along behind me, the big "guard dog" that he is, waiting for me to take on any "boogey men" who might be lurking in the house. Once we had checked the entire house, he was satisfied and happily crawled off to bed. My bed! While I was now wide awake and spent the next 45 minutes trying to get back to sleep. After nights like last night, I sometimes wonder why I have dogs. Tonight I am seriously considering locking him out of the bedroom. The only problem with that is he will scratch on the door incessantly until we let him in the bedroom OR he will go into my mother's room squish her!