Chigger is all over my butt to share this with y'all. She's gettin' on in years, especially dog years, and she normally doesn't get riled about much of anything excepting when The Gerret or Maggie gets too close to her food bowl before she's decided she's had enough. Other than that she likes to laze around and stare out the window with her good eye and bark at stuff that isn't there which gets me and Maggie all wound up and we blast outside through the dog door and bark like crazy and chase around the house a couple of times and stand out front and bark a couple more times for good measure just in case whatever Chigger saw is still within earshot and then we come racing back in and Chigger's curled up on the floor with what I swear is a smirk on her face and one of our dog chews between her paws.
Anyway, apparently she has some history with Barney, the White House dog. Not my problem, but you can see here and here and here that back in the day Chigger and Woody (rip) had a bit of an obsession.
Seems that recently Barney lost control and blew his cover. Yaaaawnnn. Just another boomer dog turning senile if you ask The Gerret. Chigger sees it all a bit more sinister-like. As she likes to say, "You can put lipstick on a Palin, but it's still a Palin."
Fo shizzle my nizzle, that Michael Felps dude don't have a clue what to do when he gets near a swimming pool in the summer time. You don't see The Gerret thrashing through the water, am I right? Ain't a gold medal in the world that tastes as good as some left over hamburger from the ol' barbecue grill. There'll be time enough for swimming after I'm too old to seriously scavenge the paper plates. When folks invites The Gerret over for a pool party, they expects no less. Piece out.
There's been some rumbling behind my butt lately that The Gerret is a bit of an elitist who's not all that in touch with the more, ah, "working class" animals around here. It's been suggested that I think I'm better than everyone else, that I think that everyone else's shit doesn't stink as good as mine.
So? What can I say? There's a reason my middle name is Alpha.
However, as Chigger has pointed out, this has created a bit of a dilemma for me, since not all the other animals recognize the reality of their lives relative to the reality of The Gerret and sometimes fail to exhibit the appropriate approbation. And yet I so desire to be a benevolent despot.
So after studying the lives of contemporary politicians, I've come up with a plan to win the hearts and minds of my constituents. I will pander.
To do this I'm initiating an occasional feature here called "Profiles Encourage" [them to like me]. I will flatter them. They will share their food with me. Pure genius. Today's profile is on Jane.
Jane is a chicken. She's been around here since before The Gerret was bored. Actually she's what they call an Easter Egg chicken because she lays blue and green eggs. (You have to take that with a grain of salt. They may be blue or green on the outside, but they're still white and yellow on the inside.)
Anyway, every day when Stump leaves the house to go to the office, Jane tags along, waits for the door to open. Then she goes inside, jumps up on the desk, finds her box in the corner and sits there, sometimes for hours, until she lays an egg. Pretty weird, but here's proof. Pay attention and you'll here the egg drop and see it roll around.
Argh. The Gerret has to admit that after that display I'm sorta glad I don't have to lay eggs.
Well, it's been a long busy week here at Lake Whoabethegerret.
Whinehouse stuck around for a few more days since the last post then split. She was looking a lot better after a few good meals and sneaking in through the dog door to crash on the sofa at night. But she wasn't going to be tied down, no way no how. I'm not sure running off was the best choice for her, but I wish her well. Maybe she'll find her puppies.
On the other hand, Slippers, the kitten, looks like she's planning on staying. Actually, it turns out that Slippers is a boy so The Gerret is taking some heavy-duty grief from the fellas down at the dog park who saw this picture in the last post. How was I to know? Really?
In her last post Maggie did briefly mention the six new chicks that had just arrived. Well that's been a bit of drama in itself. About the middle of the week one of the chicks disappeared, and soon after another one. There was much speculation and innuendo around the place that yours truly and Maggie had something to do with said population decrease. Accusations were flying and the atmosphere was becoming very, how you say, acrimonious. Stump and Tweet tried to make us 'fess up but The Gerret don't cop to nothin'. But I think they were using the ol' water torture on Maggie. She was pretty much ready to turn state's evidence. She hates water.
So just when it looks like Maggie and I are going to have to change our names to Connie and Blyde and go on the lam, Stump goes out to the chicken coop and discovers that now there's only THREE chicks plus one REALLY FAT SNAKE.
All along it was SLIM! That connivin' varmint! You might remember Slim from his starring role in "Snake on a Plain." Now he's just another celebrity gone bad, driven to self-destruction by a habit he couldn't control. Stump captured him and drove him way into the woods and released him. The Gerret went along to yell at him and tell him to not come back. Is he dead? No. But his career is finished in this town.
Three chicks hanging out, doing nothing.
This was also graduation week over at K9 Prep & Neuter. Maggie finished up puppy kindergarten and Tweet said she did real good. But her final grade was a 4.0, which if that's in dog grades, is really really low.
The Gerret was doing post-dogtoral work in the three "R"s, which is a class called "Really Reliable Recall." The whole point of RRR is to train your human to carry lots of very high quality treats at all times or else you won't come when they call. I was skeptical, but by the end of the seven-week class Stump seemed to have the fancy treat thing down cold. Now I just have to keep working with him here at home so he doesn't start backsliding. Sometimes he'll call The Gerret and think he can get by with a "good dog" or a pat on the head when I show up. Sheesh. You can't let bad habits like that get started.
But it's not all fun-and-games around here. The Gerret still gotta go to work. (Funny. I never see the cats having to go to work around here. What's that about?)
So anyway, this week I finished editing my evaluation video for the second installment of "For Dogs on a Budget." This was shot a while ago but because of all the film festivals and legal stuff I'm only now free to release it here. You can learn more about the series in this earlier post. And yes, that's Maggie acting as my assistant.
So granted it's not colorful as most store-bought dog toys, but there's just as much plastic, so I'm given the water bottle four gerrets!
Water bottle as toy:
And that's it from Lake Whoabethegerret, where all the people are lazy, the cats are annoying, and The Gerret is waaaaaay above average.
Hi! Maggie here again!! Things are just soooo busy around here!!!! I can't even keep up! Gosh it's been more than ten dog weeks since I wrote anything! Duh!!! You probably figured that out on your own!
But hey, we got new animals hanging around!!! It's soooo cool! That first picture, that's Slippers, she's a kitten, or maybe she's a he, what-evah!!! Slippers is awesome!!! Sooooo teeny-tiny! Slippers showed up on the road by our farm! She was with four brothers and sisters, but they wouldn't come and now we can't find them!!! Major bummer!! But Slippers loves it here!
But wait!!! That's not all! We also have Whinehouse visiting thanks to Gerret! Stump saw Whinehouse on the road twice but couldn't get anywhere near her, even though she didn't have any place else to go! But Gerret was along for the ride, so that after they got home the second time, Gerret ran off on his own, and a couple of hours later he returned with Whinehouse!!!! Totally awesome! My hero!!! (He's sooooo dreamy!)
Whinehouse is an older dog but a really really really tiny one! She's older than me but I could still play house with her as the baby! Har!!! And speaking of babies, Stump says that Whinehouse looks like she recently had some babies! But where are they? We looked and looked and looked but it seems that whoever brought Whinehouse out to the road didn't bring the baby puppies along!! Maybe that's why Whinehouse keeps going away and coming back! She's probly looking for her puppies!!! That's what I'd do! Awesome!!! But sad!
I call her Whinehouse because she stands outside and whines and then she sneaks through the dog door at night and sleeps in the house!!! She doesn't trust Stump and Tweet, so she hides during the day, but she comes back at night to eat and sleep!! Stump says she's probly a "puppy-mill dog" that's "outlived her usefulness" and "never been socialized with humans" whatever that means!! But we feed her and she's hanging around so maybe she'll be something else next!
I just don't know what it is with these humans around here!!! They take their cats and dogs out for a drive, let them out to run around, and then they forget to take them with them when they leave!!! Geez, it even happened to me!! I just hate it when that happens!! Bummer!
And speaking of bummers, that Slippers better watch herself or she's going to be sooooo sorry!! She's flirting with Gerret and that's just totally not awesome!!! He better get that dreamy look off his face or I'm going to have to kick his butt!! And I can! You believe it sistahs!!! But I gotta go!! Yours truly!!!
P.S. - I didn't even mention the awesome new chicks we have!!! Too late now!!! Later!!!
My apologies for the recent posts. Maggie's young and, well, young.
As for The Gerret? I've been thinking about all of you out there who've been asking, "Hey, Gerret, when are you going to make another major motion picture?"
Of course you're all remembering "Ducks on Ice" which garnered me the prestigious Golden Cat Turd award for best first movie by a dog of indeterminate breed at this spring's [Dog Food] Cans Film Festival.
Now, The Gerret is proud to announce, "Snake on a Plain." Part mocu-drama, part homage to low-budget horror movies, and part vanity production, SOAP stars The Gerret, along with Maggie, Chigger and Slim, who plays the snake. Some guy named Sam Jackson called and asked to be in the movie, but I took one look at "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" and told him "not for all the burnt hot dogs in all the 7-11's in all the universe." I mean he's got a pretty face and all, but could you imagine him playing a dog? The guy can't act!
SOAP is epic in length, with a running time of nearly three minutes. It has been my intention to "keep it real," and so, in taking a page from the Mel Gibson school of filmmaking, I've done the entire film in the original dog and snake dialects. I hope you're able to translate, because some of Maggie's lines are just hilarious. And Chigger's "Snake, what snake? I don't see no snake," scene will probably garner her a nomination. Granted, Slim maybe overacted a bit, but it suited his character.
I'm afraid this is pretty much an adult film. I eschewed the obvious happy ending for gritty realism and conclusion without resolution. You'll note how the movie leaves the audience in an existential quandary as we see a close-up of Maggie's horrified face when she notices a rope on the ground and wonders, "is that a rope, or is it actually another snake?" It's a question that strikes deep to the psyche of every dog and I cannot promise you'll sleep well having seen "Snake on a Plain."
Yes!! Yes!! Yes!! I threw The Gerret an awesome surprise birthday par-tay today!!! Now he's sooooo old!!! Har!!
So I made like this totally awesome birthday cake!!! It was an organic sausage layer cake frosted with JIF peanut butter! It was sooooo cool!!
Here's Chigger being a butt and scarfing up some of Gerret's cake! She's like such a bee-atch! Oooh! Don't you dare tell her I said that! Nah, she's cool, she just thinks she knows more cuz she's older!
So here's the Gerret after partying all day!! Har!!! LMAO!!!
But I guess we must have made too much noise, cuz now the neighbors are all setting off big explosions!! It's sooo lame!! And like scary! Chigger says it happens every ford of jewel eye around here and it happens like every day in a rock!! Exposions in a rock? I'm so sure!! But I gotta go!!!! Yours truly!!
Hi! Maggie here again! Big big news!!! Tomorrow is Gerret's birthday! He's going to be 15!!! (That's one in two-legged years.) Totally awesome!! Is he excited?!! No, or so he says, but I'm like all "yeah I'm soooo sure!"
He's soooo cool!! He casually points out that his birthday is the ford of jewel eye, which has been declared a natural holly day!!! (Chigger just shakes her head when he says that. I guess she doesn't care much for trees.)
Whatevah!!!
It's surprise party time!!!! Awesome! But I gotta go!!!! Yours truly!!
Hi! I'm Maggie!! You might have like heard of me from Gerret's earlier posts. I'm going to be guest-blogging on Gerret Swirled! Why? Only because I have The Gerret totally wrapped around my little dewclaw! He sooo wants me to be his girlfriend!!!
First things first! My BFs ask, "What's Gerret really like? He's so super cute!"
What a question! Well, he is a bit of a swash bungler...
...but he's also partially awesome in a totally awesome kind of way!!! Think Milo in The Mask when he had the mask on!!!
What about me? My birthday's around Valentine's Day, my favorite color is paisley, my favorite food is the stuff in Chigger's bowl, and when I grow up I want to be a miniature poodle!! I like to take pictures! I started puppy kindergarten school last week!! Barf!! (No, I don't mean school is bad barf, I mean I totally barf every time I go there in the car!) I think I'll major in literary criticism!! Just the parts that talk about dogs!!
This week I'm studying Canterbury Tails by Chaucer:
Ran Colle, oure dogge, and Talbot, and Gerland,
And Malkyn with a dystaf in hir hand,
Ran cow and calf, and eek the verray hogges,
So were they fered for berkying of the dogges
"berkying of the dogges!!?!" Awesome, except what's with the spell-checker, Dude?
But since The Gerret can only like seem to write about himself, you know, what I'm going to do is grab a bit of blogtopia for the rest of us around this place!!! For instance, here's a very very very young guy we met yesterday when we were out walking!
He was only maybe like 10-15 hours old and that's in dog hours!! Sooo cool!!!
I named him Scooby Sinatra! It just seemed to fit!! Anyway, Scooby's mom was hanging around so after a short chat we left them to go do their deer thing! Maybe I'll IM him later!! But I gotta go!!!! Yours truly!!
You know sometimes, when I'm not out bucklin' my swash, maybe because it's raining or something, The Gerret engages in more literary pursuits such as playing charades with Stump and Tweet:
"Two words.
"First word, first syllable: [I move my paw in circles to indicate 'stir']
"First word, second syllable: [I gesture toward toward the area between my ribs and my hips to indicate 'loin']
"Second word: [I run outside, grab a stick and bring it back in the house. I pretend to pound it into the floor to indicate 'stake'].
"Okay, now put it all together... 'stir'... 'loin'... 'stake'...
"Come on come on come on. This is important. You can get it. I know you can...
"Noooo. The answer is not 'Old Roy's soy-based dry dog food.'
"Criminy."
So when charades goes bad, I just settle in with a book. Yesterday I got a good one in the mail called Dog Park Diary: The Social Round of Goody Beagle as told to Kim Pearson. Now before you start thinking this is another one of The Gerret's light summer reading books, let me point out that this book has pictures AND words. And it's 58 pages long! That's more than 400 in dog pages, so you'll know when I tell you that this is some serious dog literature.
The book is an autobiographical telling of Goody Beagle's daily adventures at the dog park. Accompanied by her own photographer, Goody records the sometimes poignant, sometimes harrowing events she witnesses. The prose runs from warm-hearted praise to trenchant critique of the park's denizons as they run, fight, sniff and poop. Here's an excerpt:
"Crockett Mutt came to the Dog Park for the first time ever. Crockett had been abandoned by his old humans and had to live on the streets. Other dogs were mean to him and he didn't have enough to eat. This had a bad effect on his personality. He thinks everyone is out to get him."
Did I enjoy the book? Well yes. However, the more I read the more skeptical I became. I go to the dog park. Maybe not every day, but sometimes. And I've never seen Goody Beagle there, or any of the other dogs she mentions. I was starting to think that this was another one of those fake autobiographies where the author just makes everything up. How disappointing.
Then it hit me like a ton a bricks. What if there's ANOTHER dog park in the universe? Maybe Goody's dog park is in a parallel universe that's real but I just can't see it? Whoa. And what if there's more than two dog parks? What if there's thousands of parallel universes and every one of them has a dog park? And... and... and... I gotta quit now. My mind is exploding.
So obviously I have to give Dog Park Diary five Gerrets. In fact I might have to go out and start a cult based on this book. More than one dog park. I get chills just thinking about it.
Lipstick on a Palin
. Now before you start thinking this is another one of The Gerret's light summer reading books, let me point out that this book has pictures AND words. And it's 58 pages long! That's more than 400 in dog pages, so you'll know when I tell you that this is some serious dog literature.
