Apartment Antics

Yesterday was my birthday and, perhaps because I'm spoilt or perhaps because I'm content, I couldn't think of what I would like.  "What do you want?" people would ask me over and over, "there must be something..."  I was sure there was.  All year I'd spot things in shops and think "I'll ask for that for my birthday."  But, when the question came, when the moment to mention all of those little luxuries came, my mind would turn absolutely blank.

One evening, my mum called.  "How about a weekend away with us and the dogs?" she asked.
"Ideal!" I answered wholeheartedly.  Parents and dogs.  What could go wrong?

From the moment I adopted Caesar, my dad has always been on board.  He had a soft spot for the ginger mongrel before I did and still refers to him as 'my pal' whenever we visit.  A weekend away, though, would ensure that the pair were anything but 'pals' by the time we arrived home.

After a debate with my parents about bringing two cars or all travelling in one in which I had insisted that one would be better, not least because I don't like driving, it had been decided that Caesar should travel in the back with Damien and I and wearing his car harness.  The reason for this was partly because the boot of the car will only fit a small cage if all 5 seats are up and I could not put 2 dogs in there for 2 and a half hours.  Caesar, however, can usually be trusted to lie sensibly in the boot without attempting any Houdini style escapes but then there would be limited place for the cases and cool bag full of food.  It was a logistical challenge but, after some time, it appeared that the best arrangement was: Caesar in the back in car harness with Damien and I, mum and dad in the front with Sat Nav and Gemma in her small cage in the boot with the suitcases.  It was foolproof....

I set off at 4 from my house having frantically and independently packed the car.  I had Gemma in the cage, Caesar in his harness and I was pulling off the curb when he began to cry.  "Shhhh...." I told him but he wouldn't.  The crying continued all the way to my dads house 10 minutes away.  It was punctuated with howls and whimpers.  "Shhhhhhhhhh......" I tried to stay focused on the road, wincing as the sound bounced around my head.

Caesar and I travelling in the car

"Oh dear," dad said as he took over the drivers seat.  "What's all that noise about?"  Caesar ignored him and continued along his road to total annihilation of my ear drums.  Now sitting next to him, I stroked him, talked to him, shushed him, shouted at him, ignored him, begged him and eventually gave up on him.  He was not going to stop crying, it appeared, for the whole trip.  By the time we'd picked Damien and mum up from their different places of work, it appeared that the car journey would be a trial for all of us.  Dad had stopped the car while I took Caesar to the toilet, I'd tried giving him water and nothing seemed to be working.

When we arrived, after 2 and a half hours of almost unbearable noise making, Caesar turned it up a notch.  Dad pulled the car up at the apartment and Caesar began to screech.  He had seen two dogs running around on the moorland and the excitement was more than he could take.  He knocked into my face and screeched some more.  He jumped up at the windows and carried on.  Dad had his head on the steering wheel and his elbows over his head trying to drown out the noise as we sat in the car park.  It was unbearable.

On the upside, the lodge was beautiful and, relived that Caesar had eventually stopped making use of his vocal range, we were able to settle down to a nice evening meal.  Being on the Yorkshire Moors had it's advantages and we got the dogs out for a walk in the heather before the sun went down and the rain set in.

It was a tad windy on the top of the moor.  Can you tell?

After a nice evening, we turned in.  I'd brought the large crate folded up in the car and opened it up to create a bedroom for Caesar and Gemma.  I was relieved when they climbed in straight away and curled up together on the cushion bed that I'd created.  We made little fuss about going to bed and left the light on a little while until they were settled.  "Phew..." I sighed loudly as I popped my audio book on and fell asleep before I'd even heard a full sentence.

When I woke, the apartment was still in darkness.  Something had startled me though and it took a couple of minutes to realise what it was.  Caesar was now whimpering quietly in the living room.  Every few minutes, he would let out a loud bark and then begin whinnying like a horse again.  "You're joking!" I said to Damien but he was fast asleep.  I tried to turn over myself but I was awake and after a while it became apparent that Caesar had no plans to allow me to sleep again.

I checked my phone. 4:00am.  Damien was stirring now and beginning to complain.  I tiptoed to the end of the bed, slid my feet into my trainers and walked into the front of the apartment.  Daylight was beginning to filter through the darkness to the tuneless song of Caesar's whines.  "Shut up!" I told him impatiently as I slipped open the crate and let him onto the laminated floor.  I searched for his lead and slipped his head collar on.  "Thanks for this..."

It's not often that you find yourself standing on the moor at 4am.  And, although the morning was beautiful, it's not something I'd like to make a habit of.  I walked Caesar around a bit and then returned to the apartment.  Popping him back in his cage due to the 'no dogs in bedrooms' rule, I hoped that this might settle him.  In truth, if not worse, he was much the same as he had been earlier.

At 6am, after two more hours of failed sleep, I took the duvet and retreated to the front room.  Perhaps if I slept with him he might calm down, I thought.  This, as with my other theories, was not true.  I felt completely helpless.  'At least there's no one in the apartment next door,' I found myself thinking as I shuddered in the cold room under the duvet.  Caesar paced back and forth on the tiles, his claws tapping on the tiles.

Caesar at a 'dog friendly' pub - shame he decided to scare everyone by suddenly turning into a howling monster and having to be removed when he heard a puppy yapping in the bar!

I try to be patient.  I really do.  And, often, against my own judgement, I've been told that I am a patient person.  Perhaps outwardly that may be true but, inwardly, I scream at situations like this.  I lay there and felt my eyes fill.  Why was Caesar determined to spoil my birthday weekend.  It's hard to remember sometimes that, no matter what you have done for them, at the end of the day they're still just a dog.  In a sense, like a spoilt child, they will just make a fuss and carry on when they're not happy.  And, unlike children, they will never reach a point where they realise that they aren't the only being on the planet that has ever been cold/hungry/bored/tired.

I have to admit, I don't do well when I'm tired.  I don't like my eyes being sore.  I don't like feeling drained.  I was supposed to be going out walking on the moors.  Now all I felt like was having a very long nap.  Or, if that failed, crying.  Caesar nuzzled my arm under the covers and tried to climb on the leather sofa "no!" I told him sharply and turned over.  He began to cry again.

I allowed the thought of putting him in the car and leaving him there while I had a nap to wash over me like a tide of relief and then rejected it.  I couldn't do that to him as much as I felt like it...

Caesar's Smelly Face

There's nothing quite like going back to work after a 2 week holiday.  Especially a 2 week holiday where you spent time with friends, had parties, long walks with the dogs, nice days out and so on... If I'm honest, despite the fact that, for the most part, I do love my job, it's an anticlimax.

'So you're just going to leave, is that it?'

This is only magnified by 'the eyes'.  That look when you try to leave the house.  The 'oh...so we're not going to hang out together today?' look.  The 'how could you do this to me?' look.  I lose great chunks of time when I'm at home just sitting and cuddling Caesar.  He's always warm and snuggly and he can cheer me up even when it's raining outside.  So it's really hard on that first Monday morning, at 7:15 to shut that door and walk away.

Of course, I like to think we've been through the worst with Caesar.  And we did have it pretty bad too!  We've coped with the breaking into the kitchen and eating his bodyweight in chocolate and boxes, we've had the emergency vet visit after he ate over 1kg of dog food after breaking the kitchen door, I've come home to find rooms in a state of disrepair, furniture permanently damaged, clothing ripped (my new coat did look better when it had pockets.  But, for the most part, we come home now to find the house relatively unharmed.  At worst, Caesar will pull a coat off the hook, nosey through a handbag or make a pile of my shoes on the bed but these things I can handle because I just need to think back to this...

...and I remember how lucky I am that this is over.

So when I stepped through the door on Tuesday and found the hall more or less how I'd left it, I wasn't surprised.  We don't need to worry now.  Caesar was there, as always, wagging and howling and bustling around clumsily; his way of saying 'how was your day?'

I patted him and then went into the lounge and flung myself on the sofa.  "I'm shattered!" I announced before smelling Caesar's face.  He smelt surprisingly good...as though he was wearing perfume.  "Has he had a bath?"  Damien shook his head and then bustled off to make a cup of tea.  I shrugged my shoulders and sat Caesar on my knee for a cuddle, he settled down immediately.

If I hadn't been exhausted on Tuesday night, I might have been astute enough to notice that our bedroom also smelt rather fragrant that night.  But I was too exhausted to think much and the unusual smell barely crossed my mind.  If I had been wide awake when I stumbled up to bed that night, I might also have noticed the traveling bag that was lying upturned on the floor of the bedroom but I wasn't.  I popped my audio book on, gathered the duvet around me and snuggled down with Caesar for a nice sleep.  I can't remember my head hitting the pillow.

The rest of the week went in much the same way.  Teaching is tiring at the best of times but after a break, it can really take it's toll!  My head was sore and my throat ached most nights and I lost several hours sitting and thinking in the lounge with Caesar cuddled up on my knees.  

I became human again on Saturday morning after a migraine induced early night on Friday.  Caesar, of course, turned in when I did and by 7 o'clock the next morning, we were both wide awake.  Fumbling about in the half-light I looked for something to wear and then some make up.  "Ah!  My travel bag - perhaps there's make up left in there from my visit to Sheffield," I thought and picked the bag up from the floor and looked inside.  There was only one thing in the bag....

No wonder his face smelt so good!

I'm just pleased he wasn't very very sick....

Christmas present defense...

People talk often about love-hate relationships.  Where half of the time you love someone and the other half you hate them.  I sort of feel like this about Caesar, except for all of the time I hate him and all of the time I love him.

'Hate' is a strong word, I hear you think.  Well, I suppose your right.  But, then again, five-hundred pounds is a lot to pay for a wardrobe only to find it destroyed.  Why?  Because you hid the Christmas presents in it.

Caesar is like a spoilt child at Christmas.  He makes it his soul mission to locate the Christmas presents.  Locate and destroy - that is his winter mission.  Last year, luckily, he managed to break and enter into the room containing the Christmas presents a week too late, thus destroying the presents that I had received from other people and guzzling my boxes of Christmas choccies and despite upsetting me hugely, also saving me hundreds of pounds.  Oddly enough, Caesar is not the first pet I have had that has attempted this.  When I was 10, I had a gerbil that, after attempting to hibernate, came back to life whilst in the front room by the fire, escaped from it's cage and promptly gnawed it's way through the presents under the tree.  Maybe it's just me and my bad luck with animals.  Perhaps I induce some kind of Christmas mania on pets!

Did somebody mention Christmas?

Anyhow, I cannot describe the feeling when I walked through the front door to find my dining room security system had been breached and a very sick looking Caesar was sitting amongst piles of packaging.  This is bad enough, but then you have to endure the people who tell you how you shouldn't have left it somewhere where he could get it.  I kindly remind them that I didn't think he would be able to get it there...hence the reason I left it there.  I will now proceed to move it to somewhere else I don't think he can get it and see if that works.  Chances are that, eventually, it won't.  Then, I'll be reminded of how this has happened before and I shouldn't have put it somewhere where he could get it.  And so continues the circle of destruction.  Caesar is like the housework; just when you think you've got on top of it, someone comes in with muddy boots on and everything is a mess again.  Except for at least people don't say "I told you you shouldn't have cleaned that floor..."  (I'm assuming this as it's not a problem I'm likely to come up against).

He might look like a perfect gentleman but wait until he gets near those presents!

For now, the Christmas presents remain safe.  Behind a partly destroyed but as yet unopened wardrobe door.

Here is the 5 point Christmas present security plan:

1.  Presents in a chest of drawers.  Drawers are weighted so difficult to open and shut automatically if opened a short way.
2.  Chest of drawers is inside a wardrobe which has two paneled doors.
3.  Doors are tied shut by scarf/belt.
4.  Wardrobes are in bedroom behind closed door.
5.  Bedroom is upstairs.  Stairs are guarded by a child gate.

As you can see, for Caesar to have caused damage to said wardrobe doors, which he has, he would have had to have already overcome points 4 and 5 of the security plan.  This is true.  However, as yet, points 1, 2 and 3 still remain strong enough to withstand his constant attempts to breech them....

Will it last until Christmas?  Only time will tell...

There's still time to enter your rescue dog's details into Caesar's Rescue Advent Calendar.  Follow the link to submit your dog, then look out for them appearing on the calendar in the lead up to Christmas! 

 Christmas Calendar Entry Form

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Naughty Spots...

Caesar has hundreds of naughty spots.  They are much more prominent in the summer and turn grey as the winter sets in. Each one is associated with a crime that he has committed.  If you look closely, you can see which one is which...

Here is what they are for:

- The cluster on his left shoulder are for breaking into the kitchen and stealing food (solved that one...eventually)!

-  The cluster on his right shoulder are for opening doors and making nests of my clothes which he lies in like some sort of mental magpie! 

-  The individual spot on the left of his chest is from the time he ran in and licked my fish (and chips) as I leaned forward to sit down - no tea for me then!

-  The one below that is for the time he pulled Damien off a bench, knocked his dinner out of his lap and then ran around eating it all!

-  The cluster in the centre of his chest are for chasing other dogs around and screaming at them.

- The group of spots on the left his belly are for attempting to eat a packet of pencils which I bought my class as prizes!

- The group of spots on the right of his belly are for charging into people's legs at high speed!

And the one on the end of his nose is his 'kissing spot'; that's for stealing people's hearts and refusing to give them back!