Paranormal experience

They say dogs have a 6th sense, that they can feel an earthquake coming or even sense ghosts. Could it be true? You decide for yourselves.

One day, Aschiuta was going about the house after me, when the front door caught her attention.

She sniffed, intrigued, and started cowering away towards the door. Something obviously troubled her, making her uneasy, almost scared.

I went to the door and listened. Nothing.

I looked through the viewer and couldn't see anything or anyone outside.

What was making her so nervous?

I kept my cool and decided to just go ahead and take her for a walk. She usually can't wait to go, but this time she was reluctant.

We were finally ready to go and I opened the door and saw what had made Poochie put her tail between her legs.

It was no scary ghost or boogieman. It was a tabby cat rolled up napping on our front door rug!

She was not scared at all, but let Aschiuta sniff her and even started purring.

Now they are good friends and seek each other for a sniff and some friendly sparring. No teeth or claws.

The moral of the story? Not all ghosts are all that scary.

An encounter of the "kitty" degree

Puppies

No, not Aschiuta's puppies, but another yellow dog in our neighbourhood has had a litter about a month ago.

I think she is barely a year old and looks even smaller and younger than Aschiuta. I think I know who the father is, since the puppies are black and brown, rather than yellow. There is an older black dog that lives in the building next door, but I never saw him next to the puppies.

Unfortunately, I have no photos, since I didn't have the chance to take any. And now it seems it is too late.

They had a small dog house built for them just outside the side door of the other building. I always saw food and water left for them, so I assume they were well cared for.

Whenever anyone came by though, the mother barked at them and sometimes chased them until they went away from her babies. I'm sure a lot of mothers do that if they think their little ones are in danger, but a lot of people took it the wrong way. A woman started throwing twigs at the dog barking at her viciously, so Aschiuta and I had to rush and distract her until the woman went away. We also have a lot of school children walk by, since there is a school very close to us. One day I saw a little boy running and shrieking in fear followed by the dog. Someone went and stopped her and sent her back to her little house, but I doubt she would have hurt the boy.

I'm not sure if this was the reason, but by the second day the little dog house was gone and there was no sign of the puppies anywhere. I have seen the mother a couple of times since then, but she went away quickly and I didn't have time to follow her.

I really hope they have been moved to a warmer spot where they wouldn't have a lot of people passing by, maybe inside the building. I am worried though and I will keep looking for them.

On a much too tight leash

Perhaps you will remember that Aschiuta received a brand new extensible leash around last New Year.

The handle was green and it said Benny on it (which was rather curious) and it seemed really nice at first: very silent and could be retracted all the way in. The old one's cord had (finally) broken, after faithfully serving us for over three years.

I'm sad to say the new green leash has met its early end today. After breaking down little by little (Aschiuta tugs and pulls like no other), today the blocker button failed at the worst possible time.

I was out with Aschiuta when a Chow Chow (or an equally jolly orange teddy bear) sneaked up on us from behind. Aschiuta bolted after him and, knowing she has been a bit vicious with other dogs lately, I tried to restrain her and bring her back closer. How is this done? Usually, it is block-pull-unblock-wind-block and repeat until Aschiuta is close enough to be appeased.
 

Unfortunately, when I tried to pull, I hadn't realised that the block hadn't worked, so I carelessly grabbed the leash with my free hand. Bad idea, very bad. The leash slipped on my hand with the speed of a mad Aschiuta sprinting (and trust me, the only dog faster than her has been a greyhound) and I couldn't let go of it fast enough. First degree burns, ouchies!
 

I finally got to my senses and wrapped the leash around my arm (it wasn't retracting anymore either) and apologised to the owner of the dog and we went back home with the tails between our legs. The new leash was kaput! Scorpio tried to fix it, but the mechanism had broken inside, so there was no saving it.
 

We will have a brief moment of silence... and now to celebrate a new acquisition: the old leash! ^^ (Wait, what?!)

Oh, sorry, not the old leash, but an identical brand-new one. I must say I am very happy and Aschiuta too gave it an approving sniff (or was she just happy to go out after drinking too much water?). If the first leash of this kind lasted over three years, I hope this one outlives it.
 

The old, the fancy and the new

  

Plus, it's red and pink, poochie's colours. Well, you know. Her first harness was pink, her first leash, the short one, was red (monogrammed, thanks to Scorpio's stitching skills), then she got the first red and pink extensible leash, then a red studded leather collar. Let's not forget her first vest was made from one of my old red sweatshirts, her winter coat is red... even her first undies were red (very sexy, hehe).

So, here we are! Out with the old, in with the new. Now we will go christen the leash by watering the flowers.

Red pawprints, tears and a broken door

We got home one night after having been away for about 8 hours to find wide blood stains on the inside of the kitchen door glass, where we had left poochie, as usual. We panicked and quickly opened the door to find lots of red pawprints covering the floor.

Don't worry, this scary story has a happy ending. This photo was taken today.

But let me tell you how this all began...

A couple of days ago, poochie was left alone in the kitchen, like we have done for about a year now.

That was the room we could close properly and also without things she could distroy very handy. Since we both work, she has to be alone several hours a day. So far, no incidents, beyond making confetti out of plastic bags...

That evening though, she must have had an indigestion or something else upsetting her, that she scratched at the door until she opened it. We found her sitting happily in the living room. She had scratched a bit of the paint off the door, but nothing that couldn't have been repainted.

The second day, she must have become a bit bold, since we found more scratches in the wood and the door open again.

We thought we should try to keep her from opening the door. If we bolted it with a chair, she wouldn't be able to open it and should get discouraged after a few attempts. Unfortunately, that is not what happened.

She probably really needed to go outside, although I take her for walks right before leaving her alone, because she scratched and scratched until she reached the glass edge in the door and hurt her paw.

When we got home that night, a very meek poochie greeted us from the kitchen, with a bloody paw and muzzle from trying to lick the paw. We all had a group hug on the hallway floor and I inspected the paw closely.

I must say we were lucky.

Poochie only had two split nails, to the quick (hence the blood), but otherwise she was fine. Phew!

I took her for a walk, we got back in, she had some water and I washed her paws and disinfected the nails with some camomile tea.

I'm glad to say she is back to her old happy self now and we will not be closing the kitchen door anymore.

Happy belated holidays!

We want to wish you a happy belated new year and a lot of accomplishments!

We have been busy these past few days, coming to visit with my mother-in-law (wow, such a long name) and our godparents at the mountains. We were lucky to have had some snow for Christmas and it's still snowing now. Aschiuta couldn't be happier.

We got here by train, of course, with a doggie ticket for pooch and regular priced ones for us. It was nice and spacey for once and we had time to take some interesting photos.

"Woohoo, first class! I'm taking the window seat and the aisle seat!"

Poochie already bored on the train and lying down on the floor.

Christmas was fun, we shared some champagne (yes, from Champagne in France) with the family and stuffed ourselves with traditional dishes. Of course Aschiuta had her share, as always.

I had to go back and forth for the New Year week, since I was working every day. I left on the 31st in the evening to join everyone at the mountains, then went back home the next day. I have to say, work was tedious, but luckily, I have another week off and so I'm back here with everyone for some more relaxation.

Poochie has been quite nice, without making a lot of confetti, but she did swallow some pieces of gum. Good thing she got rid of it.

She has been extremely excited about being here and for the snow as well. When we go out with her, she sometimes makes very quick dashes from one side of the other, as far as the leash allows her. All I can do is hold on for dear life, there's no way I could possibly match her speed. She even broke her extensible leash doing this and my husband had to go buy another one. It seems better quality, but too bad it's not red, as that is poochie's wardrobe colour.

Aschiuta taking a break from running.

And speaking of wardrobe, I made some adjustments to her winter coat. I replaced the leg elastic, so it wouldn't wobble left and right on her back and added a little embellishment, made by me. I think it looks fetching on her, don't you?

A much better fit and a snowflake. See my other needle works here, if interested.