The Liquid Closet

Thursday night we had some couples from church and both of my brother-in-laws come over for the Bama vs. Texas game. As we were getting ready to eat before the game, we began talking about my little puppy, Ollee. One of our guests, Mark, likes to refer to her as a rat just to try and rile me up. He began poking fun at Ollee and me...I'll come back to this conversation at the end.

Most of you who read this have at least heard of Ollee. There's a picture of her in my previous post. She's a little Yorkie who will be a year old in April - and she is the most high maintenance mammal on four legs I can think of. I'm dedicating this blog to Ollee, as I "out" her on all of the embarrassing circumstances she has brought into our life.

Every Monday night we invite high schoolers into our home for Bible study. About a month after week got Ollee, we had to suddenly cancel Bible study .... because Ollee was at the vet having her little Yorkie bottom shaved. That's right. Butt shaved. Ollee hadn't pooped in a day and a half and she was becoming pretty sluggish. We called the vet and the nurse told us to bring her in and let them "have a look" at her. So, since I was at work, Chris packed her into her little travel carrier and took our little baby to the doctor. Verdict? Constipation due to (forgive the crassness of the following) hair clogged opening to the exit tunnel. "What!?" we said. "Oh yes. This is common for young Yorkies. We'll just clean and shave the area - and now I guess you'll know if this happens again! ha ha!" Yeah. Ha ha. $93 and a monkey-bottomed dog later, all the plumbing was working.

Next - Ollee had a cough. I guess it was a cough. She started making a funny noise that reminded us of what it would sound like it we had a cat who coughed up hairballs. It seemed to be more frequent so we took her to the vet. He opened her mouth and then crossed his arms as if he didn't even have to think, "Oh - she's got tonsillitis." Hmmmm - Didn't really know dogs could get that. What do I do? Give her cough drops and chicken noodle soup? "I'll give her an antibiotic shot that will work for about 2 weeks and we'll see her again in 3 weeks to make sure she's doing okay." And again, $93 later, we had a coughing dog with swollen tonsils hoping to get cough drops in her stocking.

Finally - for now. My little Ollee got stuck in a glue trap. Yeah, glue trap was new to me, too. To enlighten you, a glue trap is a humane mouse or other icky critter kind of trap for indoor extermination.

We brought Ollee with us to Chris's parents for Christmas. When we go there, we often stay in their garage apartment which has a little critter problem, just due to age. The day after Christmas, I got out of the shower to find my little Ollee with both of her front legs and part of her face glued to what I though was the back side of a large rectangular sticker. Golly Ollee! I leaned down to pull the sticker off and my thumb stuck to the paper. Great - what is this? Ollee was surprisingly being very quiet, hopping around on back legs and a face-two-front-leg-combo appendage. Realizing I wasn't going to be able to get Ollee out of this and a little concerned because she was trying to eat the glue, I ran panicked over to the house towel-headed and pajama-panted. "Chris! Ollee is stuck in the glue!!"

"What!?"
"The glue - on the paper - and she's trying to eat her way out!" Realizing how silly I was sounding and seeing all of my in-laws and my husband a bit amused at my panic, I calmed down. "Okay - she's gotten into something and I'm gonna need some scissors and someone to hold her down to get her out." We all laughed and Chris helped me cut her out of the glue trap. Then we had to rub baby oil on her fur to get the glue all the way off of the fur on her feet and on her face. Seriously. We rubbed baby oil on my dog.

So - going back to the conversation at the beginning of the post - you can see why we (mostly me) get a lot of grief from those who know us about Ollee not only actually being a rat, but also being my baby. My argument is often this: Oh no she's not. She's doesn't sleep in our bed and we would get in so much trouble if we treated a child like we treat Ollee. When she gets annoying, we just shut her up in the bathroom or the laundry room...That's why we can't have kids! We're so used being able to put things that annoy us in the closet.....

"Oh no," my friend, Mark, said. "You can do that with kids. Benadryl. It's the liquid closet."