Zorro the Mighty Hunter

SUMMARY: No! Dead! Rodents! In! House! Please!

Backfill: From June 26  and 27 on Facebook. Posted here July 2.

June 26, 7:14 PM:

Day 3 of the Vermin Killer: Mongo gopher got taken down today. Zorro nearly killed himself in the process--fortunately I was home and went looking for him. When I finally yelled sternly, Zorro, Come!, I heard a sound near the hot wooden shed in the side yard. Or... IN the shed. He pushed through the crappy doors into the shed apparently to finalize the transaction, but they don't push out. Still clutching the monster in his jaws. Seemed happy to see me.

Dork. Must find a solution for those doors.

P.S. I don't know which are gophers and which are ground squirrels--I don't actually look that closely usually. "big furry dead thing that's not a cat." ;-) My soil is also highly clay and bakes like rock in the summer, however, I do water during the summer usually, and that probably helps them, no matter which they are.

June 27 12:07 PM:

Yesterday the mighty hunter was so desperately hot on a hot day--after spending quite a long time digging a mongo hole** under my waterfall-that-has-never-worked and then chasing the very large squirrel or gopher into the shed--that when I freed him from the shed, he brought the corpus delicti inside and dropped it on my front-hall rug. After I chased him outside with it, he came back in and dropped it on the rug in the downstairs bathroom. I chased him out again and when he brought it back in and dropped it on the kitchen rug, I started tossing cookies into the hallway while I extirpated the unwelcome "visitor". ("In a bag in the trash" = "destroyed completely")

Revisiting the scenes of the crime. Now you know, when you come to visit, which carpets to not rub your face on.

** Begging the question of who is really doing more damage to my backyard…

My beautiful hall carpet. Probably the one that I like the best in my house at this time. Not that it has a lot of competition, but I love the colors. (which, incidentally, are a rich deep red, and a wonderful navy blue, and kind of an ivory yellow.)And he dropped a giant corpse on it!

The bathroom carpet where Zorro's catch briefly resided.
(When the guy came to strip the wallpaper, fix the water damage, and paint the walls and ceiling, I said, don't bother painting the vanity; I want to do it!
In April 2019. The paint is waiting for me...)

The “kitchen” carpet. It’s really just something to wipe feet on, and for the dogs to land on when they come through the dog door with their muddy feet. But, still...

Side note I commented in Facebook:  The gophers are active enough this spring that I have been able to collect the dirt that they shove out their back door and use it to fill all the previous pits of peril created mostly by Chip but sometimes Zorro and rarely by gophers. I also am very good at finding all of those by stepping on what I think is solid grass and twisting my ankle. I have actually run out of places to put those mounds of dirt and am stacking it on my patio for future needs! Sheesh.

Modifications for Tika, who is flagging

SUMMARY: Floors and stairs

Some amusement and some downers.

Over the last couple of weeks, Tika has had a harder and harder time getting to her feet, particularly on slippery floors. And has been giving me a "you can't really mean that" look when she's needed to go up or down the 4 steps on my deck or split level--and I could see why, watching her going up and down and seeing her feet slip as she goes.

So I've spent a few days poking around at Home Depot and Bed, Bath, & Beyond looking for solutions that are useful but not too drastic or expensive to help.

New treads for the steps up the deck leading to the doggie door and kitchen:

After I installed those, Tika put her foot on the first step, took it off again, and glared at me. Still, she managed to accept the change and to continue to go up and down them on her own.

On the stairs between my office/den at ground level and the main floor:

I figured that she needed these carpet mats only on one side of the stairs and I could continue to walk up and down the side with the railing. When she started to go up the carpeted side, she glared at me, veered off to the slippery tiled side, and slipped her way up to the top.  Maybe I should've gone with the light-colored one even though the colors and pattern were uggghly.

Dinette floor (doggie door feeds in here, and this leads into the front entryway where I have additional carpets that I already had, and from there into the carpeted living/dining area):

I decided to go ahead and get a 5'x7' gray carpet and some new runners with light rubberized backing to which I added sturdier no-slip backing. She seemed to be OK with that, as the next morning she was sleeping on the gray carpet when I came downstairs, instead of on a bed or the little mats that had been there before.

However. I hope that it's not in vain.

Her appetite has flagged more and more over the last two weeks. I began to worry when she started refusing her Guard The House Goodie (a Milkbone treat) over the last week. She went from eating nearly 2 cups a day of kibble just 2 weeks ago to eating less and less of anything. I thought that maybe it's because I stopped going for walks (with her or anyone) during February--before that, I'd been walking her slowly for about half an hour about every other day for the previous month and a half or so.

So I vowed that I'd start walking her again. This morning, she seemed semi-interested in going for a walk, but hesitated in the doorway. I encouraged her. Hesitated at the top of the porch stairs, and again I encouraged her. Walked very slowly down the driveway, staggering a bit. (She has been doing that off and on for maybe a couple of months, but so much more yesterday and this morning.)

We got past the house next door, no sign of sniffing at anything or looking at anything. Then she just abruptly collapsed. Head down. Didn't want to move or raise her head. I knelt next to her and petted her for a while. Wouldn't have been so bad had we not stepped off the curb and been in the middle of the street just around a blind corner. Nice choice, Teeks.

I finally convinced her to stand (by hauling up on her harness) and we walked very very very very slowly back across the street and home. She collapsed as soon as she hit the back lawn and didn't move for an hour.

Today, she doesn't want to eat anything. Ate two treats that are a tiny bit bigger than Zuke's Minis. And gradually, over an hour, a small jar of Gerber chicken baby food, watered down so that she could lick it up.

Won't eat anything else so far that I've offered her. She NEVER turns down treats. Until now.

She finally did come into the house, but just barely--I left the downstairs door open into the office, and she walked in just far enough to be on the carpet and lay down there. Hasn't moved since that I can see.

I stand (sit/lie) corrected: I just checked, and she did move a couple of feet from where she had originally lain, and was sleeping until I walked through to adjust the door. Her head came up, eyes bright, ears perked. Head down again when it became clear that nothing interesting was happening.

She has been on the down side of this roller coaster ride before over the last couple of years, but I think that this is the lowest dip yet.

Oh, come on, Teek, pull it together--I just did all this footing stuff for you; you need to take advantage of it! Pleeeze.

Vacation Day 4: Carpets! And Stuff!

SUMMARY: A mish-mash around having wet carpeting in most of the house.

Got up bright and early, went to work doing the final moving of things off the carpet in the various rooms that I hadn't wanted to do the night before, and moving some more fragile items out of the way, just in case.

Carpet leaners showed up promptly at 9:00 and went right to work. I love watching how the steamer moistens and sucks, moistens and sucks, and takes away the soil! Took a bit over an hour to do everything, and parts of the carpet definitely look better now, but the really heavily trafficked carpet in my office/den is due for replacement, I'm afraid--the glowing golden tan of the places that have had objects on them for the last 10 years is in stark contrast to the heavily traveled areas. The wear is evident.

Still, when I told the guy that I think it's been 7 years since they were last cleaned, his eyes popped--"With 2 dogs," he said, "your carpets are in amazing condition for that much time." Well, in part, that's because they stay out of the dining/living area most of the time, aren't usually dirty when we go up to bed, and I try to stay on top of soil in the office/den ASAP with vacuuming or my trusty Bissel hand-held spot remover sucker thingie.

I needed things to do while the carpets dried, so I paid some bills, did some cleaning up of various things out in the yard that I'd been putting off, played with the dogs and trimmed their nails, and fit in a medical appointment and a trip to the bank for lots of cash because tomorrow I'm leaving for--

Disneyland! Yayyyyy!

We're driving down leisurely on Wednesday, spending 3 days between Disneyland and California Adventure, then driving leisurely back on Sunday. I haven't been in nearly 3 years and it's time for my Dland fix! Flashing back 3 years--although I'm sure it'll look exactly the same--

If things go well, I'll be able to post a little bit each evening about our day. See y'all online!