About three weeks ago, I was out and about doing Christmas shopping and grocery shopping.  I had the worst day ever; every place I went was just a disaster. Some man in a small truck was speeding in a parking lot and did not see me until the last minute, came very close to hitting me broadside, and then had the nerve to laugh about it, that I thought, was the last straw and I was going to go home and get off the roads.

Well, I came home and was putting my things away, and of course Abby was right there watching me. I had gotten some grape tomatoes in a container at Costco and put them in the sink to get them rinsed.  I left the kitchen, and went outside to get the mail, and when I came in the first thing I saw was grape tomatoes all over the living room floor, so I ran to the sink and sure enough the container was gone, I looked down on the kitchen floor and saw tomatoes all over the floor leading into the living room, down the hall, into our bedroom and out the doggie door. I think she only ate a few of the tomatoes, and some of them were smashed on the floor. She has never bothered with the tomatoes before; I think she was mad at me for being gone all day. Speaking of that, she is really going to have her nose out of joint here, in the near future. Looks like I will be going back to work full time starting in February. My husband and I are buying an auto repair shop, and he needs me in the office, so miss Abby will be here with Maggie for most of the day. They both have gotten very used to me being home all day for the past year.  So if I have the time, the story’s will be good, because I am sure Abby will be so mad at me, she will cause me great stress and do, god only knows what. Stay tuned

It’s been awhile since I have sat down to write something on this blog.  Abby has been very good for a very long time, until this past week, and last night. She started by taking small things like normal, then last week I walked outside, and when I came back in, she had taken one of my containers with lettuce in it, off the counter, and it had hit the floor.  Well as you can imagine lettuce was all over the floor and the lid was gone.  Of course, it was a lid with silicone in it, so I took off running and yelling her name at the same time; sure enough she beat cheeks out the door with the lid in her mouth.  I guess she knew I was mad at her, and when I told her to drop it, she did, much to my amazement.  I got the lid just in the nick of time, no damage, and the silicone was all there.

 

Last night I had to make an emergency run to the bathroom, and did not have time to grab my phone, well while I was in the bathroom she got my new iphone with an otter box cover on it, took it outside in the snow, and ate the silicone cover off the phone. Thank goodness for the otter box cover, as it saved my phone. It was really, really cold as it was snowing, but no damage to the phone it self.  You know the least she could have done was bring it back in the house when she was done with it, but no I had to go outside and retrieve it.

Since I have written this last story, Abby chewed a hole in one of my brand new socks, and while I was loading the dishwasher last night my silicone baster fell out of the top rack, hit the floor, and of course Abby was right there.  She grabbed the baster, and took off running.  I called her name, but she kept on going, my husband was in the office, and heard me yelling at her to stop, so he came running out to see what was going on.  He said that she went outside, so I went out one door, and he went out the other.  We could barely see her, it was very dark, wet and cold outside last night, and Abby being black it was a real challenge to see her.  So I told my husband to go and get a flashlight, he did we could then see Abby, and what she was doing. She did not have anything in her mouth, and it took us a little while to find the top of the baster, all in one piece, but we could not find the handle to it.  My husband walked back towards the house, and there was the handle all in one piece, much to our amazement, lying on the deck.  We are not sure how she got the baster apart so fast, and off the deck, and into the yard before we got to her.

I have been so busy getting the yard, and our deck ready for winter that I have not been able to write anything on this blog in a while.  While I was working on our deck, getting rid of my hanging plants and my tomato plant, I had been noticing that I did not have any tomatoes on the lower part of the plant. I turned away from the tomato plant and was working on something else, when I heard Abby doing something, as I turned around, Abby was trying to eat some of the tomatoes off the plant, and because she is so tall, she was able to reach ones higher up on the plant, as well as the ones on the bottom.

Between our summer or lack of, and Abby eating my tomatoes its no wonder I did not have very many to eat.  Not sure what I will do next year with the tomato plant, now that I know she eats them.  

Not much happening on the Abby front, she has not been in any serious trouble in a while. We went on our annual October ride last weekend to get apples; it’s about a 5-hour ride round trip, and of course we took the dogs with us.  It was a beautiful weekend, and the dogs loved the ride.  Abby loves to stick her head out the window, her long black ears flap in the wind, smelling all the apple trees, pear trees, just enjoying life. Maggie on the other hand, just lays down in the back seat, and pretty much just sleeps until we come to a stop, then she sticks her head out the window. 

Its amazing to me how many people will come up to us and ask if Abby is a standard poodle, I guess you just don’t see them around that much.

Last weekend we went to the beach for the day, and of course, we took our dogs with us.  Abby loves the beach, when we get close she can smell the ocean air and sticks her head out the window.  For us it’s a two and one half hour ride to get to the beach so it’s an all day trip.  We can drive our car out on the beach, and when we do Abby just goes nuts.  We parked the car on the sand, and let Abby and Maggie out, off she went running as fast as she could towards the water.  Maggie on the other hand was not so sure of things.  Maggie still gets very nervous when she is out of her element, meaning home.  Maggie likes being home where she is in control.  Abby on the other hand ran, and ran as fast as she could, and tried to get Maggie to play with her, but Maggie just wanted to stay with us, she did however get a little bit brave, and did go towards the ocean with Abby, but quickly came back to be with us.

Abby is so happy at the beach you can just see it on her face, and she is such a joy to watch as she runs, and runs in and out of the water, chasing birds, and pouncing on Maggie trying to get her to play.  The pictures on this blog of Abby are at the beach, and you can see just how happy she is. 

Update on Abby, she is fine, no problems at all, thank god. It has been a long three days watching her. As a matter of fact she is up to her old tricks.  My husband is not going to be happy when he comes home for lunch today.

I got up and saw him off for work this morning, then got on the treadmill for my forty-minute walk.  After I was done, I went into our bedroom so I could take a shower, and there on the floor was the toilet brush and a piece of (I call it mop board) or I guess its wallboard, anyway both had been chewed.  I was so shocked at the wallboard lying there I could not speak.  When we re-did our bathroom, there was a small section where my husband starting to put the wallboard up and then left it to finish later, well its been a long time, and it still has not been done, so miss Abby took care of it.  She pulled it off the wall and chewed it up, so now my husband has to do it all over again.  He forgot to shut the bathroom door this morning after he was done, and while I was walking Abby had a hay day in the bathroom.

We have to keep all doors closed in the house to keep her out of the rooms so things like this do not happen.  Its like we have to baby-proof the house, I thought I was all done with that as all my kids are grown and married, they have to baby-proof there homes I should not have to, yea right, Abby is worse than any of my children were by far.

I will never, ever say again that Abby has been good. I have been up all night watching her; you see she got into a bowl of green grapes.  If you do not know, grapes are toxic to dogs, and can kill them.  Abby has never wanted anything to do with grapes before.  If one fell on the floor she would ignore it and go on her way, why all of a sudden she decided to eat some grapes is beyond me.

My husband and I had finished lunch, and both of us were cleaning off the table so we cannot remember who picked up the bowl of grapes, and put the bowl on the kitchen counter.  We made sure the remote was out of reach, and our cell phones were in our pockets, but forgot about the bowl of grapes, with a few strawberries in the bowl.  I walked outside with my husband to say good-by and of course while I was out there miss Abby got the grapes out of the bowl and had eaten them all by the time I got in the house.  There were maybe 20 grapes left on the vine, so not to many, but enough to do her harm.  I quickly did some research on grapes and dogs, and it was not good.  I was watching her like a hawk; after she threw up I called our vet to see what I needed to do next.  They told me she should have activated charcoal, which of course I did not have, so instead of that, I burnt some toast to the point of no return, and gave that to her. I did some more research, and with the vet I had to watch her very close for signs of a very tender tummy, and to make sure she was going to the bathroom, because of kidney failure, and any signs of being listless.

Well, it’s been 26 hrs now, and she seems to be fine, however we are not out of the woods just yet.  It could take up to 3 days before we know for sure that the grapes have not damaged her kidneys.  Word to the wise, keep grapes out of the reach of your pets, as I think this all applies to Cats also.