DOGS ARE DISGUSTING!!!

This just happened!

Mudd jumped on my lap. I was paying attention to a Dick Blick catalog and didn't really notice his presense until I heard a loud burp and smelled a terrible smell. I looked at him, astonished that such a small thing could make such a large scent, and noticed he was chewing. HE BURPED UP A MOUTHFUL OF PARTIALLY DIGESTED KIBBLE AND WAS CHEWING IT ON MY LAP! But wait, it gets worse. A trio of wet kibbles fell from his mouth and onto my Ottumwa Bulldogs hoody AND THEN HE ATE THEM AGAIN!

It was horrible.

Mudd don't care.

A Beautiful Afternoon on the Des Moines River.

Poor Mudd-Puppy has developed a major case of cabin fever over the past two weeks. Iowa has been bitterly cold and his little dog body simply can't take the cold for longer than ten minutes at a time. I feel for the guy. It's a hard knock life and, thankfully, the weather threw him a bone today. It's over 30 degrees so he got to go on a little dog adventure.

List of things we did today in no particular order: 1. we watched eagles dive bomb the river. 2. Mudd got to ruin his Christmas sweater by rolling in a huge pile of coyote shit. 3. We saw a huge mallard migration. I think it was a rest stop on their migration. There were, literally, thousands of ducks covering the ice and open water of the Des Moines. It was pretty magnificent but hard to photograph with an awesome yet cumbersome iPad. 4. Hit some golf balls at Kyle's camp site. It's very satisfying to watch a golf ball bounce across a frozen river. 5. Made bull whips out of willow tree branches. 6. Searched, unsuccessfully, for fool's gold at the Eveland Access Boat Ramp.

All in all, it was a pretty beautiful day.

A Rat Terrier Family Portrait.

Mudd and his sister, Bear.

I own a bird dog.

No birds were harmed in the making of this photo.

While I was taking pictures of flowers, Mudd managed to slip away from me.  When I found him he was sniffing a fuzzy-something and refused to come to me when I called.  I walked closer to the dog and saw what he was snuffling.  It was a baby robin.  The bird looked hot, it's been 100 + in Iowa with no end in sight.  I picked robin up, took him out of the sun, and placed him under a shady evergreen shrub.  I assume the bird is alive and doing well.

My Foot Hurts.

Best Friends!

Bonsai Marigold and pepper leaf.

I stepped on glass about a month ago.  Its still in my foot and a hearty and painful callus has built up around the area.  Needless to say, it's pretty painful to walk and it's affecting my bloggability.  I can't get too many places and as a result am running a little low on blog fodder.  I'm getting the wound looked at on Monday and hopefully they'll cut the glass out and this whole mess will be over.  Moral of the story:  Wear shoes.

Wood tick, paranoia.

I feel like to only time I'm inspired to write short narratives is when something has gone terribly wrong.  Of course this isn't always the case...but it has been for the past month or so.

If you are a contemporary of mine and were asked to write a short list of things that disgust me it would go something like this

1. The sound that hands make when they rub across carpet (the sound of snow pants swooshing together is equally nauseating)


2. Asian carp (look it up on youtube, I'm horribly afraid and disgusted by these animals and I'm sure there will be a long blog post about how much I hate them in the near future)

3.  TICKS!

I hate ticks.  Hate them.  There are no reasons for their existence.  Wood ticks are horrible parasites that will crawl up your leg unannounced, attach to a warm part of your body, and then begin stealthily leeching the blood from your unaware veins.  They are disgusting, blood filled, disease carriers and everyone should duct tape their pants to their legs to prevent an encounter.

With that being said.  There was an encounter last night.

This spring has been a ticky bastard and I've had several encounters.  For some reason I let my guard down last night and played fetch with Mudd in tall grass.  I threw a stick, he joyfully leaped like a deer into the weeds, and fetched the stick.  This went on for some time. 

Eventually, the dog grew tired of the game and trotted inside for a Jane-cuddle-session.  As I calmly pat the dog and watched tv I noticed a bump on his neck.  A TICK!  Of course I couldn't touch it so I screamed for Kyle to come and yank the tick off Mudd's neck and cut it's head off with an exact-o blade.  I thought the ordeal was over after the beheading.  I pet the dog some more.  Another tick and the same reaction from Jane.

So, we sit down and tick check the dog.  My heart is pounding.  Kyle found a tick on his ear and tried to grab it but the tick literally disappeared into thin air.  Of course, I'm freaking out because the bastard was somewhere loose in the carpet.  I was asked to "chill out" because a loose tick is going to find blood.  Ten minutes late I heard Kyle chuckling as he watched a tick crawl up his hand.  THE TICK FOUND KYLE!!!  I was horrified.

All in all we found 7 horrible ticks on a 15 pound rat terrier.  It was terrible.  Booooo.

Mudd. Doggy age progression.

This is the day we brought Mudd home.  Approximately one year ago, today. 2011

Mudd when his ears were still floppy but were about to stand up.  2011

Mudd as a confidant, young man.  2012.

Isn't it amazing?  Look how big ol' Mudd has gotten in one year. 

dirty toes

It rained yesterday. Cold, wet drops landed everywhere all day long. Slowly but surely, it saturated the ground.

I've become accustomed to walking the dog in the back field. The dog also enjoys this ritual and I knew we were in for a muddy ordeal when we walked to our regular stomping grounds. Even with all the rain, the ground was a solid wet...not a sloppy wet. I didn't think we'd get too dirty.

Mudd and I ventured into the back field and he blasted off into the distance like a dog-rocket. He loved the dirt and had a good time running. By 5:30 we both looked like we had hoofs. There was no definition of "foot" on either of us. Just mud caked clodhoppers.

So, here's a picture of Mudd (post mud walk) I took with my new camera in low light. Mudd is showing off his dirty feet for you. He got a good bath shortly after this photo was taken.