Max the Dog Broke the 'Cone of Shame'

Because things were apparently too dull around the Picket Fence Post household for Max the dog, he had to go and start biting at his tail area so hard and so often that he cleared off a pink spot, giving himself an angry rash.

I brought him to the vet and, after the vet discovered the root cause of his itching (something that was easily, albeit grossly, remedied), she suggested that I put the “cone of shame” back on him to stop him from hurting himself. We still had the transparent, plastic cone from last year’s chocolate incident (when Max nearly died after he busted into our pantry and ate a whole lot of concentrated cooking chocolate and had to go to the doggy ICU . . . twice).

So I put the cone around his furry little neck on Wednesday as soon as we got home. And damn was he ticked off. The moment he saw the cone, his shoulders literally fell and he started to book out of the room.

Then there were the battles I had with the kiddos who thought it cruel to put that thing around his head.

“But Mom, he won’t bite his tail. I’ll watch him,” The Girl promised yesterday, pleading with me as she was working on her homework. Within minutes, after The Girl got distracted by something else, I heard the sounds of chomping. I poked my head out of my office. “He’s biting his tail!” I shouted. Realizing that being the tail monitor is a terrible job, she promptly put the cone back on him.

Her brothers also had their moments of pleading, followed by the realization that they too didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon watching him and preventing him from irritating his tail more than he already had.

This afternoon, Max took matters into his own paws by busting the cone. (I swear his face looked brighter and happier when I discovered that he’d detached the plastic cone from the part that goes around his neck.) So, for now, he’s coneless (see photo above where he's anxiously looking out the front door waiting for the kids to come home from school). Whether I have to run out to the pet store and buy another cone is entirely up to him.

Dogs Really Do Bury Bones, Just Like on That Commercial

The Spouse gave Max a bone the other day to chomp on when Max was left in his crate when no one was home. When I got home, I didn’t immediately notice that, when Max dashed out of the crate and headed toward the back door that he had the bone in his mouth.

While Max was outside, I saw him digging in a corner of the yard and actually putting the bone into the dirt and covering it with shredded weeds and dirt, like that dog on the Travelers Insurance commercial.

Later that afternoon, Max decided his hiding place wasn’t good enough so he unburied the bone and tried to sneak the dirt-covered mess into the kitchen . . . a move upon which I put the kibosh.

Mother's Day & the 'Road of Pain'

Never let it be said that The Youngest Boy lacks the humor gene, or, to put it more accurately, the sarcasm gene.

During our very active Mother’s Day – we first went to church and participated in a cool thing called a flower communion and then played a cut-throat family game of Scrabble (seriously, there were tears, shouts and accusations of unfair play) – we decided to take advantage of the break in the rain to take a long walk, bringing Max the Mini-Wheat with us.

Both The Spouse and I had warned the kids ahead of time that we’d be going up and down some steep hills on this here walk of ours and that bringing their scooters might not be the best idea. But did they listen? Of course not. Walking's boring, or so I was told. Halfway up the first hill, The Youngest Boy declared that I had lead our pack down “the Road of Pain.” Dramatic much? The Spouse wound up walking The Youngest Boy’s scooter up that first incline.

You’d have thought that we were torturing them as we scaled yet another hill in our residential neighborhood as two of the three Picket Fence Post kids huffed, puffed, rolled their eyes and grimaced. For his part, Max was panting so heavily that his tongue was hanging out of one side of his mouth like a cartoon character.

Miraculously, by the time we made it back home, the children's energy level rebounded and they wanted to play a family game of Wiffle Ball, because what’s Mother’s Day with Wiffle Ball? Max, not so much. His stubby little legs were worn out and he promptly made himself into a first baseline hazard. The bottom line of the backyard contest: My team (me, The Girl and The Eldest Boy) did about as well as the Red Sox are doing.

Notes from the Picket Fence Post Homestead: Pet Grooming, School Projects, Shorts Obsession & 'Wimpy Kid' 2

Max Gets Groomed

Our dog Max was in dire need of a haircut. His hair had grown so long that when I was out walking him in our neighborhood recently, a woman remarked that he looked like a really short sheep on a leash. And she was right.

However bringing a dog with extremely thick hair like our Havanese/Wheaten Terrier to the groomer’s can be tricky because no matter how many times you try to make sure that you’ve combed through your dog’s hair (with a comb) with some degree of regularity, there’s inevitably a knot or a mat (or several) somewhere on his fuzzy body. And when the groomer finds it later she'll make you feel like a negligent pet owner for not attending to it.

I knew for a fact when Max was dropped off at the groomer's that he had some tangles near his hindquarters. When I'd attempted to comb them out, he’d growled and physically resisted, so I’d wound up giving up or enlisted someone's help to remove the mats with scissors because it was easier and quicker.

Well Max got his much needed grooming this week and the groomer was kind, though she did mention, as she raised her eyebrows slightly, that he had some mats and that “someone” had obviously been cutting them out, making his hair uneven. At least she didn’t shame me as much as other groomers have in the past.

School Projects from Hell

All three of the Picket Fence Post kids are in the midst of working on school projects. And, frankly, I'm starting to feel a bit stressed out about all of it as I’m dreading the inevitable melodrama that has accompanied these sorts of things in the past.

The Girl just completed a series of trials to determine in which liquid a Tylenol capsule would dissolve the quickest: Orange juice, grapefruit juice or lemonade. She collected all her data and is putting them into a spreadsheet as I write this blog entry. And she’s still got a long way to go in completing her tri-fold display board. The whole project is due Tuesday. What’s the over/under on whether she’ll get it finished without parental harassment and/or drama?

Meanwhile, her twin brother has also been running trials to see whether the temperature of the water inside a water balloon will affect whether and at what height from the ground it breaks. (He was channeling his inner Calvin & Hobbes when he devised this project.) He has already completed his data spreadsheet but has yet to start his tri-fold display board. When I suggested to him this morning (after he slept until 11!!) that he start working on it, he replied, “Later.” I predict major drama in the near future given that his project is also due Tuesday.

As for The Youngest Boy, he is supposed to invent something that uses a "simple machine." His big idea is to create a dog food feeder that he wants to teach our dog Max how to use in time for his school's Invention Convention, for which the item and a tri-fold display board are supposed to be completed. However he’s hit several snags. His original prototype was completely unrealistic (it involved taping a shoebox to a table, before it was filled with dog food). Then, at my urging, he revised it and concocted a more workable design but The Spouse refuses to get the supplies the kid says he needs until the kid comes up with a physical prototype. However The Youngest Boy says he needs supplies to make a prototype. Meanwhile, I’m going to go buy ear plugs so I don’t have to listen to the two of them continue to bicker about which should come first.

What is It With Kids & Shorts?

Every day this week . . . I repeat, every day this week, either The Spouse or I have gotten embroiled in a gigantic argument with The Youngest Boy over the fact that he insists upon wearing shorts to school like everyone else.

Now keep in mind that during the past week, it snowed twice and the temps were largely stuck in the 30s and 40s, yet the kid still harangued us for being power-mad parents who made him wear long pants. (*insert sinister cackle here*) Every day, multiple times a day, it's, "Why can't I wear shorts?"

This morning when it was in the 30s, I allowed The Youngest to don shorts (along with a short sleeve shirt and a jacket) when he went to play outside. (It was a moment of weakness because I was working on a column that was already past my deadline and I didn’t want to hear him whine any longer about the damned shorts.) He came inside some 20 minutes later, freezing cold, telling me his hands were so chilled that he felt like they were “burning.” He wanted me to help him warm up, but just his hands though, he assured me, as he said his legs (which were ice cold to the touch) were just fine, thank you very much.

About two hours later, The Spouse and The Youngest Boy were arguing about the exact outside temperature after I’d told The Youngest Boy that I wouldn’t let him go outside again in those shorts. It was 42 degrees.

Since The Youngest Boy claims other kids are going to school wearing shorts, and I've seen some of them when I've dropped him off at school, I ask you, are you having the same issue with your kid(s) regarding wearing shorts when it's snowing outside?

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules



The Picket Fence Post kids are all jazzed up about seeing the second installment of the Wimpy Kid series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules.

The first movie was okay, they were sufficiently entertained, but they agreed that it didn’t hold a candle to the actual book which was much, much funnier. After the original movie, we all decided that our favorite character is Rowley, not the self-absorbed and morally ambiguous Greg who seems much crueler in the movie than he did in the book.

Wonder if the second film will be even a fraction as amusing as its original source material which had me laughing out loud when I read it with The Eldest Son?

Notes from a Snow Day: Ice Rink, Movie Surprise, Chicken Stir Fry & Max in the Snow

Hey, What's This? Could It Be . . . an Actual Skating Rink? In Our Yard? YES!!!

I present to you . . . the ice rink as the foot-and-a-half of snow that fell from the sky since early this morning was being shoveled off of it.

The rink is brought to us by many, many hours of hard work and loving maintenance by The Spouse for his three children.

This week, I've added "buy skates" (for me and The Eldest Boy) to my "To Do" list this week.

The Spouse, who broke his wrist last year while skating on a public rink, is still shying away from skating, in spite of this great effort.

Eat, Pray . . . Whoa!!!

While the males in the family were snuggled up in front of the fireplace this weekend watching NFL playoff games, The Girl and I retreated to my room to watch the PG-13 rated film Eat Pray Love on DVD.

I'd read the book, so I figured that there might be one questionable scene near the last third of the film when the main character Liz is in Bali, which might require fast-forwarding or for me to mute the TV while The Girl averts her eyes. While I waited for Liz's relationship with Felipe, the man who would become her spouse, to commence, I totally did not expect a twentysomething male to drag Liz down to the waterfront and suddenly strip naked as he was trying to entice Liz to go skinny dipping.

Both The Girl and I shrieked as his butt was in the center of the screen and I hit, "Stop." The irony is that when Felipe and Liz were about to physically commence their love affair I suggested that The Girl go fetch a snack from the kitchen, only there was nothing she couldn't have seen, no nudity, no sex.

'Delicious' Chicken Stir Fries

More irony . . .

Whenever I pull out my wok, the Picket Fence Post kids roll their eyes. They're not fans of anything I might create inside of that thing. I've tried making them sweet stir fries, garlicky ones and even plain, soy sauce-based ones. But no matter how I prepared a stir fry, the kiddos usually take one bite, wrinkle their noses and wind up having cereal for dinner while The Spouse and I eat what I made.

Unless, of course, The Eldest Boy and The Girl happen to be the ones who made the stir fry. They're both currently taking Home Ec in their middle school -- which has been relabeled with the politically correct moniker, "Family Consumer Science" -- and in the past week they've both come home from school with a container of a chicken, vegetable noodle stir fry that they'd made. They were absolutely delighted with their creations and gobbled them up while I watched, amazed.

My new plan: The next time I pull out the work, I'm also going to pull The Eldest Boy and The Girl into the kitchen with me so the "experts" can show me how it's really done.

Cute Max Snow Pic

Max the dog -- who still spends much of his time rooting around the house looking for non-edible items that he can eat or gnaw on (tissues, dryer sheets, ball point pens, socks, etc.) -- was startled when we let him out onto our deck this morning and the snow was nearly as high as he is tall. He tried pushing his body through the snow, but stopped after traveling only a few feet and tried to get back into the house. (If snow was up to my eyeballs, I'd want to retreat too.)

However once The Spouse shoveled out several pathways for him, he romped around his little paths as though he were in a hedge maze. 'Twas very cute. The wet dog smell he has now that he's drying off, not so cute.

No Longer Campaigning for Two Canines

A while back, readers might recall, I was somewhat obsessed with the notion that Max, our 1 1/2-year-old Havanese/Wheaten Terrier -- we call him a "Mini-Wheat" -- needed a friend. Not a friend of the human variety. He already has those in the three Picket Fence Post children, The Spouse and me, whom he follows around the house while I work from home, though watching me work at my laptop all day is dreadfully boring.

You know how a person can sometimes be described as a "people person?" Well Max is a dogs dog. He absolutely perks up when he's around other dogs and stays that way. (He perks up when he encounters new people or when the kids return home from school, but the effect doesn't seem to last.) Maybe he'd have more fun with another dog to pal around with, I thought.

In spare moments, I would browse through the pet adoption site PetFinder -- which is how we found Max -- looking for an appropriate canine companion or him. Over a period of weeks during the summer and fall, I must've e-mailed The Spouse a dozen links to buddies whom I thought might get along well with our pooch. The Spouse, who was solidly against having two dogs, would either find a reason why the dog wouldn't work well with our family or just beg off from my e-mail saying he had too much work to do to look at the link.

The Picket Fence Post family was, in fact, divided over this second dog issue. The Girl was in her father's camp, asserting that Max likes being the one and only dog in the house, the king dog if you will . . . but I can't help but wonder if that's not somehow related to her feelings about being the only girl in our house and the only granddaughter on one side of the family. Both The Eldest and The Youngest Boys, however, were on my side and would sidle up to me at my computer to look for potential new dog buddies.

Then the chocolate incident occurred last month where Max got into some concentrated cooking chocolate and wound up spending a collective total of two days being cared for by professionals, first in an animal hospital, then at our vet's office. It took him weeks to return to his normal, friendly, goofy self after nearly being poisoned to death and having to sport a cone around his head to stop him from scratching at the shaved areas where he'd had his IVs and the EKG pads. (That plastic cone came off only last week and there's a nice ring of matted hair around his head with which I'm currently contending.)

After all that craziness, I hopped off of the "We should have two dogs" campaign, at least for now. When I tried to imagine what it would've been like had TWO dogs gotten into all that chocolate . . . well, let's just say that that scenario put the kibosh on my dog shopping. And quick.

UPDATE: Max Much Peppier, Still Ticked About the Cone

For those of you who've been concerned about the fate of the tan Q-Tip known as Max the dog, I'm here to report that he has substantially improved since Monday, when he was listlessly lying on his side looking as though he'd shed his mortal coil.

Now he's eating, drinking (wouldn't drink out of his Red Sox water dish, but will out of a generic plastic one), running, doing doggie tricks and enthusiastically greeting the kids at the front door when they come home from school. I feel like I can finally breathe because I've been fretting about when the good old Max would make his re-appearance and start bouncing around the house again wagging his tail.

However . . . Max still has to wear that silly cone around his head because he simply will not stop gnawing at the two shaved areas on his front paws -- he looks like he's wearing a pair of furry boots -- in the locations where he had IVs. Plus there are two big shaved areas on his belly which he'd been biting and making bloody. Until the fuzzball stops nipping at those areas, he's going to have to wear the cone.

He's starting to navigate his environs a bit better while wearing the humiliating cone, which he loathes, although his head occasionally jerks back when the edge gets caught on woodwork or furniture. That's not such a pretty thing to watch.

When Max Met Chocolate . . . NOT a Love Story

We’ve been on an odyssey of sorts in the Picket Fence Post household since approximately 8:30 p.m. on Friday when we returned home (after being gone for roughly an hour) to discover that our 1½ year-old Havanese/wheaten terrier Max had managed to bust into the pantry (the door had been shut) and not only ransacked it, but unwrapped and ate a 3.5 ounce disk of concentrated cooking chocolate used to make hot cocoa.

And oh, the fun we’ve had since then.

The Spouse raced Max to the animal hospital, since our vet’s office wasn’t open at that time of night. (Of course this had to happen over a weekend. Of course it did.) Long and the short of it, Max was admitted to the doggie ICU overnight, hooked up to IVs and an EKG. His heart rate was really, really high.

The entire family went to the hospital to pick him up on Saturday afternoon and he seemed chipper, or maybe he was just psyched to get out of there because when he got home, it was a different story. Slowly, over the course of Saturday night, during Sunday through Monday morning, the usually effervescent, chipper pup continued to act strangely, shying away from everyone in the family, not responding to us, declining most food and all drink. He looked like a public service advertisement for canine depression screening.

By Monday morning, Max was re-admitted for medical care, this time to our vet’s office for the day after he was diagnosed with dehydration (what’s that about leading a dog to water . . . ) and he hadn’t been able to flush any remaining chocolate from his system. When we brought him home Monday night, it was with a plastic, transparent cone about his neck and cans of special food and a special powder to soothe the irritated, inflamed, bloody spots on his skin (belly and legs) where he’d had catheters and EKG pads and had bitten them.

He’s still not acting like himself, but at least he ate his breakfast. I’m also having to carry him outside, where he will eventually do his business. But this sulky, forlorn version of Max is breaking my heart.

The Peaches & the Puking Puppy

Over the past few days, Max, our one-year-old Mini-Wheat, has been puking. (He’s got a few favorite spots in the house in which to do this, I'm learning.)

He's not doing it constantly and they don't involve full-body heaves or anything. It's been happening sporadically, so sporadically that I can’t seem to figure out if it’s his food that’s making him ill (we started giving him new food two+ weeks ago, but the getting sick part has only been happening in the past few days) or perhaps he’s gotten into something else, but then again when DOESN’T he do that?

My working theory is that it’s the peaches.

We’ve been living in our house for nearly six years and it was only last year -- when we'd only allow him out in the yard while leashed -- when a small tree our back yard started sprouting peaches. (Up until then, we had no idea it was a fruit-bearing tree. Last summer, we noticed that its limbs were starting to bend over, heavy with fruit, when it finally dawned on us that those were peaches. No green thumbs in our house. Nor rocket scientists, apparently.)

Peaches have now started falling from the tree and onto the grass. We’ve been finding pits in the yard. We suspect Max has been eating them. The pup has tried to smuggle some smaller pieces of fruit into the house without us noticing by putting his head down, so we can't see the peach in his mouth, hoping we won’t notice. (It’s worked a couple of times.)

Hopefully, this is just attributable to the peaches, however, more detective work will be required.

Four for Friday: A Friend for Max, More on NY Mag's 'Parents Hate Parenting' Story, Tween Texting & Talkin' 'Bout Birds, Bees

Item #1: A Friend for Max?

Our Havanese-Wheaten Terrier dog Max (we affectionately call him a Mini-Wheat) recently turned one. And although he’s still a rambunctious chewing machine – he’ll gnaw on anything he can grab (like shoes, books, clothing, decapitate action figures, etc.) – I’ve started a campaign in the Picket Fence Post household which is driving The Spouse nuts: I’ve been telling him that, in my humble opinion, I think Max needs a friend.

If Max were a person, he'd very likely be considered a “people person.” Whenever another dog is around, Max is thrilled beyond belief, playful and happy. It’s not that he’s unhappy when he’s home with us or when he’s sleeping on my office floor while I work at my desk, it's just that I’ve been wondering if he’d be happier with another, similarly sized friend to pal around with.

Friends to whom I've mentioned this think I’d be crazy to add to the chaos of our house, even though the kids think it’s a great idea.

That being said, I’d love to hear from anyone of you who have two dogs. Please, give me your unvarnished, true stories about what having two hairy beasts in the house is really like.

Item #2: More on New York Mag’s ‘Parents Hate Parenting’ Cover Story

That New York Magazine story about why parents love their kids but hate contemporary child-rearing certainly hit a nerve. It’s being debated all over them there internets. (I blogged about it here.) The story’s author, Jennifer Senior, appeared this morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe (a show to which I’m addicted, by the way) and an interesting exchange ensued. You can see the interview here.

Item #3: Tweens & Texting/Social Media

If you have children in middle school – or about to enter middle school – I believe that it’s imperative that you read this article, “Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray” from the New York Times which featured middle school principals who are struggling with the in-school aftermath of vicious, sexually explicit, harassing behavior on social networks and via texting that goes on between students.

The level of vitriol and physical threats became so bad during this past school year that one principal from New Jersey sent an e-mail to parents saying, “There is absolutely NO reason for any middle school student to be part of a social networking site.”

Why? Because the kids can’t, from a developmental point of view, handle it or sufficiently foresee the consequences of their actions. “It’s easier to fight online,” one middle schooler told the Times, “because you feel more brave and in control. On Facebook you can be as mean as you want.” Because when you're called fat, slutty, cheap or stupid by a whole group of your peers, in front of all your classmates on Facebook, it hurts your feelings less, right?

If you pair this article with one I saw recently in the Boston Globe -- which cited studies which have shown that the frontal lobe, which controls judgment, isn’t fully developed until roughly age 25 -- one could make a compelling case to bolster what the Jersey principal was saying about keeping middle schoolers off of social networking and texting.

A Harvard Medical School neurologist told the Globe: “We all know what the frontal lobe does. It’s insight, judgment, inhibition, self-awareness, cause and effect, acknowledgment of cause and effect. And big surprise: It’s not done in your teen years. Hence [teens’] impulsiveness, their unpredictable behavior, their lack of ability to acknowledge and see cause and effect. . .”

So it’s no wonder that kids think that being mean on Facebook or writing a horrifically abusive text messages has no correlation to someone’s real life feelings. Call me a Luddite if you will, but I’m with the New Jersey principal on this one.

Item #4: Talkin’ Birds and Bees

Having THOSE difficult conversations with one’s children -- you know, the sex ones -- can be awkward. And you don't tend to get them over with all at once, in a single conversation. You may think that, once you’ve covered the technical, biological explanations, you’re done, but in reality, that's only just the beginning.

In my house, having THOSE conversations only spawned more questions, MANY more questions. Hence my July GateHouse News Service column about having those talks with my fifth grader twins while The Spouse fled the room in terror.

Welcome to the Picket Fence Post: Retooled Blog, New Location

Hello Picket Fence Post readers!

Hopefully you've made your way over from my former blog on the Parents & Kids/Wicked Local Parents site. I'm going to continue blogging in this location, writing not just about parenting in the suburbs of Boston, but about life behind the cliched picket fences.

I'll write about my three kids: The Girl (11, almost 12), her twin brother The Eldest Boy and The Youngest Boy (8 almost 9), as well as The Spouse and our 1-year-old Havanese/mini-Wheaten Terrier ball of fluff named Max.

I'll continue The Paper Project which I started last September when the Picket Fence Post kids started the third and fifth grades and I wanted to know exactly how many pieces of paper they'd bring home from school over the course of a year.

I'll do "Three for Thursdays" where I recap three newsy/buzzy news stories about parenting. Plus I'll delve into other lifestyle stuff I didn't touch on when I was writing for Wicked Local Parents that don't necessarily have anything to do with parenting, like coping with the dog's annoying chewing habits and my hatred of most things domestic (like cleaning, gardening, etc.).

If you're a pop culture buff, please check out my pop culture blog, Notes from the Asylum. I also write for other publications including: Mommy Tracked where I write a pop culture/politics column and I contribute to CliqueClack TV where I write about, cooking . . . no, where I write about TV of course.