Ragnar the Destroyer*

*primarily of walls, yards, and carpet

For all things there is a season. A time to sow, a time to reap...

A time to attempt to rip small furry rodents into small pieces, pick fights with the neighbor's German Shepherd, and a time to howl.

Welcome to teenage doghood, where it's not the hormones that cause a pet parent to contemplate murder daily, but the instinctual need to define and defend the furry male territory. If you've never experienced teenage doghood stupidity, let me give you some examples.

• Idiot Puppy will sit nicely when the truck he recognizes enters the parking lot, but when the other German Shepherd gets out he will instantly Cujo out: full hackles, teeth bared, growling lunging in all the ways that would get him kicked directly out of daycare if he pulled that bullshit THERE. 
• Conveniently for all involved, GS is older and wiser and terribly sweet. He generally looks at me when Ragnar gets growly with a pained "children, amIright" attitude, and never ever responds negatively. Interestingly, he still comes over cheerfully to say hello every time he's allowed, which is often since his parents also recognize the "BUT I'M A BIG DOG YOU CAN'T BE ON MY GRASS WITHOUT PERMISSION" cockiness. 
• IP also sits at the back door and slobber-growls when he sees the GS's TRUCK parked across the lot. This is a new development since the snow melted, prior to which his view was blocked. It's annoying at 7am. He's been warned, by both me and fAngus. 
• fAngus's warnings generally come with a cat-paw-slap to Ragnar's face or a nip on the ear. Mine do not. 
• Apparently he occasionally channels Chewy, because the leaves are dangerous and must be announced when it's windy. Birds on the back step, however, are beneath his interest. 
• Birds are NOT beneath fAngus's interest. Particularly on the back patio. It's possible this was a consideration when a certain evil me set out birdseed on the grill this spring. 
• Mwahahahahaha
• IP has taken to getting between me and others in a protective manner I find amusing and helpful until he trips me or inappropriately shows teeth/growls at someone when I don't have an adverse response. 
• We're working on that, since big black dogs with giant teeth generally cause problems if they're not behaving in public places. And I dislike getting tripped while we're walking...or any other time. 
• It's worth mentioning again: not only does he behave well in daycare/boarding/dog park (except for going in the goddamnedishymuddypond without permission) and is a total social butterfly to everyone there, he ADORES the next door neighbors' new mop puppies. 
• I don't know what they are, but they weigh all of a couple pounds and are the size of my unused-running shoes, and Ragnar LOVES them. 
• Related: the bloodhound heritage is real, and loud. The other day we were sniffing the backyard (by "we" I mean I surfed Facebook for forever while Ragnar went over every centimeter of our shared yard-space with his nose in the dirt) and the neighbor girls brought the new moppies out. They were in the front yard.  Ragnar desperately wanted to go to the front, and when I said no he sat down, raised his nose to the sky, closed his eyes, and howled the most mournful sad and FUCKING PATHETIC ATTEMPT AT MANIPULATION OF MY EMOTIONS possible. My dog told on me to the entire damn neighborhood and the gods, because I'm a mean bitch who wouldn't let him sniff puppies. 
• Yes, it worked. Goddammit. 
• Sorry moppies, for the teenage puppy slobber. 
• All the neighbors think my dog is hilarious and cute. fAngus and I are the only ones who are less than amused at the squirrel-chasing, bunny sniffing, yard digging, wall eating, adorably snuggly teenager who has zero impulse control and a whole lot of unearned swagger. 
• To date, he's been unable to capture the elusive yard bunnies OR grey squirrels, both of whom are often spotted taunting him but fast enough to escape to the trees (up or under, depending on skill). I'm thankful for that: I give him de-worm pills and stuff, but I don't want to add any sort of small furry prey animals to my "Things Ragnar Ate" list. fAngus would have to kick his ass, since I won't let him hunt either. 

In all fairness to Ragnar's Destroyer of Walls moniker, the 3 holes he originally ate during his pica stage haven't increased in size or number for at least six months. I'm cautiously optimistic that it's time to fix the walls and maybe even get someone to paint. 

He is still occasionally the Destroyer of Carpet, which does not impress me at all and let me just say I've tried every product on the damn market and NOTHING is up to the challenge of a 75lb dog's pee. I hates it, precious, but I'm afraid of replacing the carpet AND I'm afraid if I don't he'll never stop. 

I think he'd happily destroy more of the yard if I let him. Because...dogs. 

More Things Ragnar Ate and Drunk Walrus Impersonations. These Are Unrelated.

Once in a while, I re-up a subscription to one of those monthly boxes of random fun stuff, just because who doesn't like getting a box of something NOT bills in the mail? 

This month, it was a witchybox full of various pagan bits and pieces (um, let's be clear I mean bits and pieces of things that are often associated with witches and pagans, not bits and pieces OF a pagan...that'd be gross, and way messier than this box turned out to be). 

Ragnar apparently thought the box smelled fascinating. Therefore, Ragnar ripped the box apart in the middle of my office floor when I was in another room. 

Interestingly, there was some incense, some bath salts (the sort for bathing in, not the sort that turn a person into a face-eating zombie), a candle or two, a set of Tarot Cards...and the ONLY thing he destroyed was the box the cards came in. My wall-eating, shoe-devouring, garbage destroying dog OPENED the jar of bath salt and very carefully didn't eat any, and left everything else alone. 

I'm fairly certain that box came with some sort of anti-dog-destruction spell, and it seems to be persistent. 

Last night I used some of the salts. I usually leave the bathroom door open a little so they don't scratch at it when I'm in a bath, and Ragar slammed his way enthusiastically into the room per usual. Then he stopped, all four legs went completely stiff, his hackles went up just a little, and he stared in horrified disbelief. Seriously, his message "WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" was crystal clear, and hilarious. He wouldn't come near the bathtub, and jumped back if I moved the water. He made a ridiculous whine/growl noise and ran out of the room. 

You guys, I'm not kidding: he went to get Angus. My dog tattled on me for being in the bathtub, and brought the actual ruler of the household in to check. Ragnar stayed over a foot away from the tub while Angus jumped on the side, licked my knee, batted the water a little, and settled there to watch floating lavender bits. It's possible he stuck his face in the water and sneezed. I was laughing too hard to be certain. 

Ragnar continued his protest by lying on the bathroom floor and keeping both eyes on us, clearly worried the horrible water monster would kill us both. He grumbled like an old man for the entire time. 

He also ate both of my last two pairs of sunglasses recently: he gets zero sympathy. 

In other news, I'm taking my open-water scuba diving certification dives this weekend. In order to do said dives, I'm required to go to the scuba shop and try on wetsuits (because it's September in MN and lakes are starting to cool off, especially at 20 feet down). 

Have you ever tried on a wetsuit? I mean the 7mm version, not the cute skinny 3mm half suits used for warm weather/warm water stuff. Have you ever tried to pull on a pair of tights that REFUSE to allow you to pull them all the way up so the crotch is, well, in the crotch? It's infinitely harder to do when the fucking tights are weird rubbery material that squishes under your fingers and doesn't move much. 

WHO INVENTED THIS FRESH HELL? Seriously, I'd like to put the wetsuit creator in the same room as the dipshit who invented thong underwear or control-top pantyhose and beat them all with something humiliating. Like a giant dildo. 

I'm 6' tall, and I'm not one of those willowy thin tall chicks. Wrangling my buns into that thing involved flailing, heavy breathing, sweating, swearing, and eventually falling over like a damn drunk walrus. And having dropped off my yoga practice and not having any natural contortionist ability, I had to leave the dressing room and get help to zip it up. Since I wasn't actually GOING diving, I wasn't in a swimsuit - awesome. 

I have to do this tomorrow and Sunday in front of people...if I don't cause the rest of the divers to fall overboard and drown from laughing too hard, I deserve a goddamned medal. 

Things Ragnar Ate Episode 4: The Reeking

I hate cicada season. HATES it, Precious.

Ragnar doesn't give a hoot (or a bark, or a howl, or some weird middle-of-the-night snuffle-grunt that scares the shit out of his owner) about cicadas. 

Ragnar cares deeply about the innards of stuffed animals. And shoes. And walls. 

So, lately in the list of Things Ragnar Ate: 

• Another pair of flip flops - sadly, Crocs are in some sort of trouble and he keeps eating my sandals...and I'm insane enough to attempt to thwart him by buying another pair and hoping I don't forget to put them out of reach. Oh come now, do we REALLY think I'm capable of keeping them safe from the one-shoe-eater? 
• A full bag of strawberry Twizzlers - I expect to clean up something resembling the results of Strawberry Shortcake kegger later.
• Something that could be a melon-ball sized ball of butter, a hard boiled egg yolk, or possibly some sort of alien eyeball, covered with ants - I mean, he's a damn master at finding weird shit in the yard as well as leaving weird shit in the yard. However, the eye-rolling and frantic snorting when he gets an ant up his nose is utterly priceless. 
• Just another hole in the wall - Pink Floyd would be proud, I'm sure. For those counting, this makes three. Is there a psychiatrist out there who treats pica in dogs? I don't get his fascination with sheetrock. 
• Weiner Dog and Olaf guts - not real ones. But his weiner dog stuffed animal is now gutless and I spent a good 20 minutes picking up fluff even as he looked me in the eye and slooooooowly pulled out more stuffing, like a creepy serial killer. Who makes a stuffed dog toy of another dog, anyway? Disturbing. 
• Every throw pillow in this house - because he's a fucker who obviously hates my naps. 
• A goose egg. Where the fuck did he find a GOOSE EGG, and WHY WAS IT ROTTEN? - I mean crawling with maggots, green and black inside, death-stench rotten. What the fuck have people been doing in this townhome complex, really? 

If I catch the person leaving rotten goose eggs or weird yellow balls of something icky in the yard, I suspect they'll find an unidentifiable stench in their yard...far away from my stinky-breathed-dog.

Living Up to Viking Stereotypes

This is obviously my fault. I'm the idiot who chose a Viking legend as the appropriate name for my puppy. Yes, I know there has been WAY more important world events lately, but I'm not a news source, and I'm tired of death, so this post is focused on destruction instead.

Things Ragnar Ate: 

• The heel of the only pair of tall boots I own that actually fit my calves. Because he's an asshole who has no respect for my wardrobe. 
• Two packages of incense. Luckily for him, it wasn't the expensive incense: it was the single-use sticks. I expect his poop to smell like recycled lavender for a while. Does that mean cleaning up after him will make me sleepy? 
• A ruler. Yeah. A wooden ruler with a fucking metal edge, which I managed to get away from him before he cut anything but after he lost another tooth. 
• The carpet. There are so many carpet munching comments to be had here...at least if he's going to do the viking stereotype he's choosing the right activity? 
• The wall. The WALL. HE ATE THE MOTHERFUCKING WALL. He picked at the edge of a patch until he could get his little needley white puppy teeth on it, and pulled it off the goddamned wall. I actually have nothing funny to say about this, because it's just infuriating. Related: does anyone know a good sheetrock person? 
• Angus. In neither an inappropriate cat / carpet euphemistic way (gross) OR a deathly way. Let me explain. 

So here's how the daily fights in my house break down. Ragnar gets all worked up with UBER PUPPY ENERGY and starts chasing Angus. 

Angus, being stubbornly convinced he's the biggest badass in the house, swats at puppy snout instead of running. Inevitably, this results in Ragnar grabbing the big black puffball cat's lemur-ish tail and attempting to drag him down the hallway. Have you ever heard a cat so pissed off he suddenly morphs into the Alien facehugger? Because that's what he doe: he wraps that lemur tail around the back of the puppy's head and latches onto his face with all four sets of claws. Instead of the creepy throat-egg thing, he just grabs Ragnar's ear in his formidable no-longer-kitten jaws and bites HARD. 

Scream-whining ensues, and Angus rides a bucking puppy through the entire household, doubling down in his grip with both claws and teeth until Ragnar cries uncle. They separate for a few minutes, then Ragnar sniffs kitten belly, Angus licks Ragnar's forehead, and they snuggle until the WILD PUPPY ENERGY starts the whole rigmarole over. 

Ragnar Lodbrok would undoubtedly be proud of my puppy's penchant for destruction. 

And Then I Dropped a Chemical Weapon On Myself

Things Ragnar Ate:

• The corner of a foam Yoga brick
• Well, that's an unsubtle reminder. 
• A stolen treat still in the wrapper 
• Dog treats are gross. This one was rabbit sausage (presumably that would be a sausage-shaped treat comprised of rabbit bits, not rabbit penis, since it didn't say "pizzle" on the packaging. 
• The rubber coating from a 2 lb fitness weight
• He's right. I'm not using it anyway. 
• One ballet flat
• But WHY does he insist on keeping one of my feet bare? Just one? ASSHOLE.
• 7 toilet paper rolls
• at least he waits for them to be empty, unlike Angus who insists on unrolling all the toilet paper and murdering any new roll he finds
• A small chunk of wood from the bottom of a nightstand

And this is where chemical weapons entered my bedroom. 

If you've had a puppy, you are already aware that they chew on FUCK ALL EVERYTHING. Those tiny shark teeth are always hungry, and much like a shark, puppy teeth are nearly always in motion until they hit a few months old and start losing those shark teeth. At that point, the sharks are ALWAYS chewing...even in their sleep.

My teeth hurt. CHEW THE THINGS.
Photo courtesy of National Geographic

 As such, most pet supply stores offer various takes on icky things to spray/rub on items they don't want shredded.

So, when I moved back to MN I bought myself real bedroom furniture so I can pretend I'm an adult. This statement is not a non-sequitur.

At about 2:30am the other night, I woke to a giant furry termite making gross gnawing sounds that were unmistakably on wood. I'm not a fan of middle of the night sleep interruptions. By "not a fan" I do, indeed, mean I'm homicidally cranky.

So, pissed off and growling, I got up. I took that fucking bottle of bitter-chemical-chew-stop and sprayed it on ALL the dresser/nightstands/bookshelves in my room. And the lone sad remaining already once-repaired iPhone cord.

In my defense, at 2:30am when I'm naked and cold and ready to commit various bloody forms of murder on anything alive in my house who bothered waking me up...I MAY have overlooked the fact that spraying that shit all over means there is aerosoled chemical weapon floating around in the very air I breathe.

And that's how I ended up with bitter-no-chew-spray in my sinuses, eyes, and lungs for the next six hours.

FYI: Starbucks is NOT TASTY when mixed with bitter-no-chew-spray.

Welcome to Things Ragnar Ate

I'm starting a new label today for the 3.5 month old Shepherd/Bloodhound puppy currently wreaking havoc in my household.

ThingsRagnarAte.

This will go along with the upcoming tales of Angus the Cat's interactions with me (the Evil Overlord keeping him cat-ptive), labeled EvilOverlordIsn'tDeadYet.

So, in the last few weeks, Ragnar ate:

• Seven socks, previously worn
• More underwear than I care to think about, all of which is now in the laundry
• Angus's tail hair (the odds were not in Ragnar's favor that day)
• One PS4 controller
• One PS4 controller charging cable
• Two iphone/ipad charging cables
• Two platform/spike heeled shoes. FROM DIFFERENT PAIRS. 
• Last night he found the mate to one of them, so technically he's now eaten the heels of two leather spike heeled boots and the buckle strap of one leather platform Mary Jane. 
• ALL the rabbit poop he can find
• outside, in case people are actually wondering why the fuck I have rabbit poop in my house. I don't. I'm not a perfect housekeeper, but that's just silly. 
• The Joy of Cooking (book jacket only - the book itself has fang marks without any permanent damage).
• bull penises, which are cleverly called "bull pizzle*" as the ingredient on a "bully stick" from PetSmart. 
• PIZZLE? REALLY? If you're going to offer cow tracheae, pig ears, and bull penii** as dog treats, have the balls to say what they really are. (Balls, as in testicles from any animal, not found in the treat isle at PetSmart). 
• Packing tape.
• Scotch tape dispenser. 
• Toilet paper holder
• Toilet paper
• Cat toys
• Dried minnows 
• cat treats...just as gross as dog treats
• The end of the wooden dowel used to keep the sliding patio door locked. 
• Resulting in a FANTASTIC episode of FIGHT THE PUPPY TO GET THE SLIVER OUT OF HIS GUMS WITHOUT GOING TO THE VET. 
• One older puppy's throat fur
• throat and both puppies unharmed during the play resulting in blond fur in Ragnar's mouth
• Mashed potatoes
• Ben, I'm looking at YOU
• Cheese-its
• all my fault...I was out of appropriate training treats
• Three magazines
• Wrapping and packaging paper from multiple presents
• One poor Nutcracker Christmas ornament, who now stares offendedly from the tree with a dogspit hairdo and new dents in his fancy wooden outfit. 

*Spellchecker refuses to accept "pizzle" as a word. Me too, spellcheck, me too. 

**I don't care what the dictionary says: the plural of "penis" sounds infinitely better as "penii" than "penises". Penii is far more commanding and and serious. Penises sounds like some sort of fucked up floppy toy...which brings us back to bull penis dog chews.