Pictures
Wordless(ish) Wednesday: Buddies
Nose
When I first saw Marsha, she looked pretty much like this:
This was because she was on the other side of my fence sticking her little black snoot through the numerous knotholes. This earned her the highly original moniker “Nose,” which I called her for many months.
As she transitioned from neglected guard dog to a member of my herd she was labeled Marsha(mellow) to complete the S’mores theme begun with Hershey and Graham. However, her essential nose-ishness never really went away.
Many of my animals have a signature problem solving style. Hershey’s is chewing, Morph’s is soul piercing yowling, Graham’s is whining. Marsha’s, as has been true since I’ve known her, is using her nose.
Door to somewhere interesting slightly ajar? Shove it open with nose!
Covers too flat to get under? Nose around until she can get her whole body under!
The human of the house playing too much damned Fallout 4? Bop him with nose until he pays attention to her!
Marsha’s nose is the swiss army knife of her universe. Anyone have any unique ways their critters solve problems?
Thregger
Yes, the name of this blog is S’more Dogs and I am generally finding them easier to write about, but I am the senior staffer to four cats as well. Since this is my first Saturday post, and I’ve heard something about this whole “Caturday,” thing I thought I’d give it a shot.
Sharing seniority with his litter mate Perch is the subject of today’s post: Morph, full name Morpheus. He’s not named for the Matrix Character but for Greek god of dreams from which that character takes his name.*
At first glance Morph is a brown mackerel tabby, a no-frills, ‘base model‘ cat, nothing terribly distinguishing about him. But then, he gets up and stops hiding that right side…
He didn’t start life as a three-legger (which I started calling him and quickly shortened to “thregger.”) but lost his leg to a slow growing bone cancer in 2011.
He gets along amazingly well as a Tripawd. He got to the top of my 8ft high cat climber, still full of stitches and looking like one of Dr. Frankenstein’s experiments the first week he was home! My worries that his litter mates would start picking on him proved to be unfounded, and he’s been the same, overly sweet, often obnoxious self as he ever was!
Anyone have any three-legger stories or advice, I’d love to hear them!
*See, this is what I’ve done to myself. All my cats have names with layers of meaning that require explanation. I like to think that the dogs, being fairly obvious creatures, have fairly obvious names. Mostly black Marsha(mellow) might have an issue with this however….
Murderers
As a cat person transitioning to a dog person I was very lucky to have Hershey come into my life first. She is, on the whole, a very mellow soul, not much concerned with the goings on of the outside world, at least when she’s inside. While she will run to the window to check what the neighbor dogs are barking at (this usually involves multiple, hourly trips) she’s generally not one to join in the festivities.
When Graham came into our lives a few years later I no longer had the luxury of having a laid back dog. According to Graham there are murderers out there, and they’re all walking by our house!
Over the last three years we have worked on his reactivity to outside noises, with some limited success. Through the process of ‘not yelling at him when he barks his fool head off,’ I think I’ve managed to tame some of the Little Dog aspects of his nature. Don’t get me wrong, he still barks at things that don’t have the slightest bit to do with him, but I’m able get him to stop after a bark or two. I usually say “enough,” and call him over and praise him for stopping. I’m not sure if he thinks he’s being praised for alerting me to murderers or for not barking so much, but it’s the best I’ve been able to do with him.
I’d love any anti-barking tips anyone has!
smoredogs 
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