Mellie and the Water Bowl (Part Two)

Here is part two, back by popular request!!!

Quick recap of part one -- I learned to be more suspicious when Mellie is quiet when she created a huge mess by giving Sock Monkey a thorough bath in the water bowl for the free-ranging animals (generally referred to as the dogs' water bowl as the dogs out number the cat AND the cat does not generally drink out of it if she has a choice).

This took place the week before last, when Ronnie was home alone with Mellie.  Due to our finances, we could not afford to take Mellie to day care that week, and Ronnie had to turn down several subbing jobs in order to watch her at home.  Good news, though, is that this created several good stories for us to share with our friends and family (and eventually Mellie's first boyfriend.  And her second one.  And her future husband, along with future children, and generally anyone else who would enjoy hearing embarrassing stories about her.)

Clearly, Ronnie had not learned the lesson of being suspicious when Mellie is quiet.  Or maybe he was distracted while browsing for potential jobs online....  Despite our continued efforts to keep Mellie away from the dogs' water bowl (including time outs - both in her activity center and her pack and play, yelling, and more yelling, along with keeping it nearly empty - poor dogs), it continues to have a nearly supernatural draw for her.  Yeah, that must be it.  It's supernatural, not bad parenting on our parts.  :)

So, Ronnie discovers Mellie has gotten into the dogs' water bowl.  Nothing terribly interesting here.  What he discovered however, was NOT a wet puddle around the bowl, or a wet Mellie, or anything as mundane as that.  What he discovered was an EMPTY water bowl.  Here is the picture of the water bowl again.

I don't know if you can tell, but the water bowl is pretty large.  It may not be heavy, but it is large.  Mellie has never tried to lift it or flip it or knock it over, and when Ronnie discovered the empty water bowl, the water bowl was not in any unusual place or knocked over. 

SHE HAD PLAYED WITH THE WATER SO FRANTICALLY THAT SHE EMPTIED THE WATER OUT OF THE D@MN THING!!!!!  

So, Ronnie used the towels that we use to clean up to sop it all up.  Unfortunately, he missed a smidgen.  Which I found later that evening with, you guessed it, the heel of my bare foot.  Causing my foot/leg to go straight up in the air, and I nearly fell.  Fortunately, my forearm hit the doorway to the kitchen (causing a bruise that I still have today, nearly two weeks later) and I managed to grab the wood paneling there and prevent a disastrous, not to mention painful, fall on my part.  Whew. 

Honestly, I wish I could come up with a solution to this problem.  I cannot pick the water bowl up, because the animals need to have access to water, especially with the current heatwave/drought (the cat was desperate enough to drink out of the water bowl last night) we are currently experiencing (not that the dogs ever place a PAW outside if they can help it).  If I put the water bowl out of Mellie's domain, it is also out of THEIR domain (note that Mellie is a similar size compared to the dogs) and they do not have access to it.  If YOU have a bright idea, feel free to share it. 

I'm sure this is not the end, and I will not be terribly surprised if I have to write a part 3 in the near future.  Hopefully, it will not entail me (or Ronnie or god forbid MELLIE) making a trip to the emergency room.

The Battle of the Blanket

I would like to thank all of my readers, especially my followers and members.  Which includes myself.  Yea me!  Ronnie told me yesterday's post was not as witty as the day before's, so I will try to witty up....

Before our lives were blessed with Sweet Mellie, our lives had already been blessed with our two pugs, Pippin and Maggie (Ok, Dee Dee has insisted that I include that our lives had also already been blessed by our beautiful Snowshoe Siamese -- Dee Dee, and two prairie dogs - Petie and Precious (who would gladly kill you) and our two flying squirrels - Gordie and Meeloh (no, I did not name ANY of these animals.)).  Meet Pippin and Maggie.  See how happy they are?  No, really, they are happy.  They're pugs!  That's the way they ALWAYS look.  But trust me, they're happy.  ;)  Obviously this picture was taken pre-Mellie.

That's Pippin on the right and Maggie on the left.  Let me give you a little bit of history on our puggies.  We bought Pippin as a nine week old puppy.  We were looking at puppies because we were getting married and my mom would not let me take MY labrador/husky mix Mercutio (best dog I have every had) and not having a dog was simply not something to be considered.  I made the mistake of picking Pippin up, and I was not going to put him down, so I told Ronnie to pay for him.  Anyhow, that was back in 2005, so now he is 6.  We got Maggie to be Pippin's companion.  We found her on Craig's List.  Her family was moving and couldn't take her.  Plus, they had two small children and she simply wasn't getting the attention she deserved so they made the difficult decision to find a home for her.  We absolutely love her from the day she joined our family.  She is two years older than Pippin, so she is 8.  (She also barely tolerates him, even though she is SUPPOSED to be his companion.  In fact, his previous "companion," a snow white husky/malamute named Juneau tolerated him even less.  Hmmm.  I think there is something to be learned here....)  Anyhow, I am sure that many more of Mellie's adventures will coincide with the pugs, so I figured some history was in order.

Anyhow, back to my point.  Bringing Mellie home has been difficult on Maggie.  From the moment Mellie came into our home, Maggie has tested boundaries.  Whenever Mellie was little, if I was very busy with her, Maggie would bring me a toy and test to see if I would play with her.  I tried to always take a moment and toss the toy for her to chase so she wouldn't feel like she was being replaced.  Despite our efforts, she is NOT a big fan of Mellie.  She has this incredible skill of staying at least three feet away from Mellie at all times.  We try to encourage Mellie to play with Pippin and not Maggie to not aggravate Maggie's feelings about the baby.  Pippin is much better with her.  When we first introduced Mellie to Pippin, he attempted to give her a big sloppy kiss!  When she could hold her little head up, we would hold her on top of Pippin and take pictures of her "riding" him, and he would just sit there and allow it (for a time).  Now, he lets her climb over him and pat him entirely too hard.  Of course, he does have limits, and when they are reached he simply leaves. 

Recently, Mellie has discovered that she can pull blankets off the couch.  She and Maggie have had, ummm... "disagreements" about who this blanket "belongs" to once it is off the couch.  (Obviously, it belongs to Pippin when it is ON the couch as he is the only one of the three of them who gets ON the couch.  Duh.)  When Mellie is not around, you will find Maggie happily sitting on the blanket, maybe even catching a few zzzzzs..... 

Unfortuately for Maggie, she has a very strict following of the aforementioned "three feet" rule, so when Hurricane Mellie comes, Maggie heads for the hills...... 

(Sorry about Mellie's face being blurry.  She moves so darn fast and I only had time to snap one picture before she realized I was taking pictures and came over to me to ham it up).

So, Mellie, like Maggie, has discovered that this is a very nice blanket to crawl on, to roll around on, and to generally drag around.  Unfortunately for Maggie, due to her three foot rule, she doesn't have a chance at winning the Battle of the Blanket.

But it's ok, because Maggie wins the war in the end.  As she always does.  Why, you say?  Because Mellie gives Maggie her snacks.  And you know, in the end, all that matters is a full belly.