Bichons are those adorable white dogs with the curly hair (yes, hair, not fur, which gets tangled and matted and so totally out of control that one is often forced to buzz cut the entire dog on a fairly regular basis) who you see in medieval paintings wearing a funny hat and standing on his hind legs getting ready to jump through a hoop held by a guy with bells on his toes. And his hat. And at the ends of his pointed sleeves. You get the picture.
These dogs will do almost any silly thing in order to be close to a human, any human. This is because the bichon is mentally ill. Well, not all of them, but persistent inbreeding will produce a dog that will walk itself around in a circle until it wears a hole in the carpet or its owner comes home, whichever comes first. These dogs actually need to take prescription drugs for obsessive compulsive disorder. However, even those who aren’t so seriously afflicted tend to get into habits very easily. In fact, one might say, they get obsessed.
Did this little eccentricity dissuade us from getting ourselves our very own little ball of burning passion? Mais non! Did we not learn somewhat of this malady through the Big Guy? And what of the Middle Child and her abhorrence of all clothes feminine and food that spent any time whatsoever living in a plastic bag, making the sack lunch a pure misery? Did I not know, on a very close and personal basis, how it feels to be thoroughly taken with something to the peril of all others? To whit, I was obsessed with the bichon frise and had to have one.
We have owned other dogs in the past, one of them a perfect specimen of the canine persuasion. He was a jewel. We did, however, tend to credit his goodness, obedience and extreme tolerance to our incredible dog training skills. Why, when it came to dog training, we didn't just have skills, we had skills. Between this and our skills with the actual OCD children, we felt sure we knew what we were doing.
Nevertheless, it took only a few days of knowing Sugar to convince us that this was one dumb dog. I got on the internet and started doing research, only, no answers were to be had. At least, not for free. Everyone wanted money for their book or pamphlet or just plain old information. Apparently there was some deep and imperative secret to the training of a bichon frise that was so valuable and highly sought after that actual money could be obtained through the divulging of said information. This simply made me mad. What was the world coming to? I needed answers and pronto because we had this dumb-as-a-post dog who acted like we were speaking a foreign language or something.
Alas, as it turns out, we were. And, as it turns out, this was no trophy dog (dumb and blond) but smarter than we. Us. Individually and collectively. In fact, she was spending a lot of her time simply tolerating us and our silly shenanigans while secretly smirking behind her paw. (to be continued)
Cleaning Tip of the Day: The orange ring was really getting to me so before I left to pick up the Little Guy from school, I tossed some granulated dishwasher, um, stuff (I don’t know what it’s called—we call it Cascade regardless of which brand we use. We now use Kirkland brand but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Cascade—no pun intended) into the toilet bowl. I heard actual hissing which was satisfying and a bit unnerving at the same time. When I got home, it took just a few swishes with the brush (that special one reserved only for what seems to be a very special and rare occasion at our house) and voila! The orange ring was gone. So easy, even I could do it!
These dogs will do almost any silly thing in order to be close to a human, any human. This is because the bichon is mentally ill. Well, not all of them, but persistent inbreeding will produce a dog that will walk itself around in a circle until it wears a hole in the carpet or its owner comes home, whichever comes first. These dogs actually need to take prescription drugs for obsessive compulsive disorder. However, even those who aren’t so seriously afflicted tend to get into habits very easily. In fact, one might say, they get obsessed.
Did this little eccentricity dissuade us from getting ourselves our very own little ball of burning passion? Mais non! Did we not learn somewhat of this malady through the Big Guy? And what of the Middle Child and her abhorrence of all clothes feminine and food that spent any time whatsoever living in a plastic bag, making the sack lunch a pure misery? Did I not know, on a very close and personal basis, how it feels to be thoroughly taken with something to the peril of all others? To whit, I was obsessed with the bichon frise and had to have one.
We have owned other dogs in the past, one of them a perfect specimen of the canine persuasion. He was a jewel. We did, however, tend to credit his goodness, obedience and extreme tolerance to our incredible dog training skills. Why, when it came to dog training, we didn't just have skills, we had skills. Between this and our skills with the actual OCD children, we felt sure we knew what we were doing.
Nevertheless, it took only a few days of knowing Sugar to convince us that this was one dumb dog. I got on the internet and started doing research, only, no answers were to be had. At least, not for free. Everyone wanted money for their book or pamphlet or just plain old information. Apparently there was some deep and imperative secret to the training of a bichon frise that was so valuable and highly sought after that actual money could be obtained through the divulging of said information. This simply made me mad. What was the world coming to? I needed answers and pronto because we had this dumb-as-a-post dog who acted like we were speaking a foreign language or something.
Alas, as it turns out, we were. And, as it turns out, this was no trophy dog (dumb and blond) but smarter than we. Us. Individually and collectively. In fact, she was spending a lot of her time simply tolerating us and our silly shenanigans while secretly smirking behind her paw. (to be continued)
Cleaning Tip of the Day: The orange ring was really getting to me so before I left to pick up the Little Guy from school, I tossed some granulated dishwasher, um, stuff (I don’t know what it’s called—we call it Cascade regardless of which brand we use. We now use Kirkland brand but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Cascade—no pun intended) into the toilet bowl. I heard actual hissing which was satisfying and a bit unnerving at the same time. When I got home, it took just a few swishes with the brush (that special one reserved only for what seems to be a very special and rare occasion at our house) and voila! The orange ring was gone. So easy, even I could do it!
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