Peanut Gets the Last Word!

(excerpt REAL Family Press - 2006 - copyrighted Linda Nelson AKA "The Lady")

This morning when I grabbed my keys, Peanut's harness and said, “Peanut, wanna take a ride?” (the command I use for her alone), her head’s up, her ears are out, and she bounded out of the cubby hole she’d formed in the blankets like a rabbit… Usually she waits on the arm of the recliner for me to put her harness on, and then I reach for her, carrying her on my left side about waist high…

Once her harness was on, she had springs in her back legs… Jumping, jumping… Almost flying into my arms and if I hadn’t been paying attention, she’d have sailed right over my left shoulder… Thank goodness I had the handle of the leash in my left hand… Otherwise I’d not have stopped her ‘flight’ skyward~!!!... Peanut's like - ”OK, Mom… I’m ready… Are you ready, Mom?... Let’s go… Whatcha waiting for, Mom?”... LOL…

Peanut doesn’t care for riding in Paul’s Saturn… Because of the way the seats sit, she can’t see out the windows if she’s on my lap in the Saturn… And MY lap is her primo choice of sitting spots at ALL times regardless…

But in "The Beast" (my truck), she can sit on my lap, front legs over my left forearm and she has an excellent view through the window of everything going on… BTW, she also has her own pet seat that hangs over the back of the truck seat in the center... But she prefers to go back and forth in the front seat…

And Peanut's as nimble as a mountain goat with the ‘sea legs’ of a salty fisherman… She’s learned to ‘lean into’ a turn, brace herself for a stop, etc… Pretty amazing to watch her in fact… Actually, really amazing...

This morning my daughter, Desiree, has not only her purse, but a stack of binders AND another bag of stuff she’s stashing in her locker… So she took up the entire middle of the seat where Peanut usually patrols…

Not cool!!!!!!!!!! LOL...

I opened my side of the truck, Peanut took another flying leap, found her usual spot taken and landed square on top of Desiree’s freshly shaved thighs on her second 'bound'… LOL…

Peanut DID have the last word on Desiree’s ‘squatting’ on her territory of the center seat… … Might teach Desiree to not wear a skirt if she intends on hogging up the whole front seat with her stuff!!!

As Always,
The Lady

Peanut and the Crows... Too Funny!

(REAL Family Press - 2006 - copyrighted Linda Nelson AKA "The Lady")

Morning, Y’all… For as long as I have had the privilege of taking care of the puppers and providing them with a home, I have never ever had a day when I didn’t get at least ONE major “giggle ‘til the middle jiggles” or “laugh until you cry” episodes… Yesterday was no exception either… LOL…

I think y’all all know by now just how much I despise those *&?!^%& crows… Not simply because they prey on the songbirds and their babies around here, or because some of the bigger ones make it a hobby of theirs to peck at and destroy anything shiny that’s at their level…

It’s not even because of that ridiculous “group participation” thingy they do to gather on my roof and collectively “tap-tap-tap” at my skylight… A few of them seem to enjoy it immensely to stand there (once having gotten my attention) to look down through the skylight at me, turning their head from side to side with those dark black beady eyes and mock me, ‘cause they know my power is only as great as the end of my broomstick… They haven’t popped a hole in the screen of the skylight yet… (I did say “yet”)… But it’s just a matter of time – you mark my words…

And I’m POSITIVE they just LOVE to see me fly out of my garage in my pajamas and robe some mornings, fussin’ at them… “Shoo you crows – shoo! Get out of here!”… Despite any speed of my steps, they don’t even bother to fly away~~!!!… They just walk a bit faster and if there’s even a chance I’ll catch one of them varmints, they’ll fly up to the gable of the house and look down at me as if to say “Nanny-nanny boo-boo, you can’t catch me…”… LOL…

But the thing that gets to me the most is the absolute PURE arrogance they express with everything they do… Most every morning the crew starts at one end of the cul-de-sac and then make their way down the street to the other end of the cul-de-sac… There’s about 13-15 of them now…

Some walk on the sidewalks, most on the lawns and even some in the very middle of the street… But as they walk with that “step – head bob – step” swagger, stopping to poke at this plant or that stone, they do it with pure arrogance… Like they are they’re surveying THEIR domain and we’re just interlopers on their property… grrrrrrrrrrrr……….

There’s one of them who seems to be the ring leader who’s probably weighs in at about 20 pounds (seriously!)… I have named him “Vito” because it’s not that hard to imagine him sitting somewhere with the rest of his cronies, discussing today’s “take”… He’s pretty darned smart too… I’ve watched him do some amazing stuff in the past two years or so, but that’s another Press one day… LOL….

So anyway, yesterday the puppers had been outside in the back yard, doing their business… Runnin’ round… Loving life… I opened the back patio door and called – all but Peanut came in right away… Peanut looks at me, she knows it’s time for her to come in, but heads in another direction because she’s not yet done her business…

So I stand there at the back door, waiting for her to do “what a pup’s gotta do” and then come in…

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Vito swooping in on a slow decline with the intended destination being the grass in our backyard (which had gotten quite high recently)… Apparently Vito had been waiting for the dogs to vacate the backyard and apparently thought all had… WRONG~~!!!!

About ten feet away from Peanut and about four feet off the ground, Vito spots Peanut and does this highly comical “Oh SH&T” movement with his wings, flapping them like crazy and jerking himself up and down in jerky movements as he’s trying to regain lift and air underneath those massive wings to at least raise him the two or three feet that he needs to land on the back brick fence…

Then - almost at the same instant - Peanut spotted this huge crow coming in for a landing in HER backyard and OMG – the absolute NERVE of this crow~!!!.... She starts doing these mini jumps up into the air from an upright position on her back legs, doing her absolute best to just get her teeth into those black tail feathers which are just inches away from her mouth… Just inches~!!!...

From inside the house, I’m dying~!!... I’m literally dying~~!!... I’m watching this whole chain of events unfolding in front of my eyes between this huge black bird trying to stay out of this tiny Chihuahua’s mouth with all of his power… And as hard as he’s flapping his wings to remain airborne, Peanut’s jumping up and down to get just one teeny tiny bite into that crow’s rear end…

I don’t DARE laugh out loud because I’ll distract one of the two of them, but I’m just about doubled over in silent laughter… I’m also prepared to fly out the back door (literally) in the event Vito doesn’t clear the back fence… He’s big enough and mean enough to peck her eyes out without skipping a beat… So if he had landed and Peanut were still out there, I knew I’d have run out to shoo him away for Peanuts’ own protection~~!!…

Vito JUST makes the back brick wall at the very last minute and then shakes his feathers off, proceeding down the fence with an attitude of “Yeah.. did you see what just happened?... Well, that’s what I planned to do all along.. Really!...” … And then he starts preening his feathers as they must have been bent all out of place when he turned on the nitro, trying to make that rapid ascent as he did…

I guess Peanut figured that she’s not going to kick any “birdie butt” this time… So she heads back to the “I am going to smell this entire backyard until I find the perfect spot to deposit my previous poo” routine, restarting crisscrossing the backyard again… From the top of the brick back fence, Vito begins that ridiculous “step – head bob – step” movement, and begins to walk down the full length of the back fence…

Without warning, Peanut finds the ultimate BEST spot to do her business…

I don’t know if you’ve ever watched a Chihuahua do this particular thing (LOL, probably not), but they have issues because of how their body is configured… I’m trying to stay delicate here, so bear with me, folks… LOL… But this particular dog breed has to REALLY curl themselves over into a ball to make this particular body function happen…

And while she’s in this position, I guess Vito got tired of waiting for her to go away… So Vito starts this large flapping movement with his wings at the same time as he starts running down the back fence in a “glump.. glump.. glump..” movement, trying to jump up and then fly away… Peanut is beyond the committed point (if you know what I mean) and she’s sorta/kind stuck in this “curled over Nautilus” position…

But the object of her desire (Vito) is about to move out of her range and she’s just SO close, ya know?... LOL… So she’s trying to walk, hop, run (well, sorta/kinda run) in this major bow-legged, doubled-over position, barking to beat the band as Vito gets airborne eventually and start sailing away…

You can just see the dejected expression on Peanuts’ face of “Oh well, folks… I tried… I really did… But what can you do, ya know?”…

By this point I have been laughing so hard (silently), that I’m doubled over, just about nauseated and can no longer hold it back any MORE… Peanuts sends me this curious look as if “what’s with you, Mom?”, does a few of those Moonwalk steps with her two back feet and then makes a beeline for me as I’m still standing by the back patio door waiting ... LOL… Like I said, every day is a full joy of unexpected pleasures~~!!... Ya gotta love ‘em~!!

As Always,
The Lady

Peanut Peculiarities

(REAL Family Press - 2006 - copyrighted Linda Nelson AKA "The Lady")

Here I sit ‘still pregnant’… LOL… Peanut’s taken up her old habits again… Her personal preference is to be on my lap underneath my robe or whatever else I have on… (not always convenient if you know what I mean)… It’s like being 6 months pregnant with a 4 lb hot water bag on your lap… …

What a funny little pupper she is… Des is going to the adult school to get the jump on her studies with a class, so we’ve begun the morning trek this week… Peanut used to go everywhere with me before I got so sick in June, so for awhile those “Wanna take a ride?” queries of her had stopped… Once I had said that, Peanut would be up on the arm of the chair closest to the door, waiting for her harness… As well as any other time she saw me grab my truck keys… LOL… And if she didn’t go?... She give you one of those REAL sorry looks of hers… LOL…

She has a center high seat in my truck so she can ‘survey her domain’… While Rogaine will simply bark at other cars (no one ever handed him an award for his smarts), Peanut is particular at who or what she lords over… Other puppers?... Without a doubt regardless of their size… People on the street usually get a waggle of the tail until she determines they are not Desiree – then she just watches, watches, watches them…

She lets NO ONE close to ‘The Beast’ as we call my truck… Think she puts her ‘zone’ around the truck and if I’ve got the seat pushed back, eyes closed, waiting for Des, she hits her zone button and is on the prowl…

“HALT… Who goes there?... You’re not Mom, Daddy or Desiree~!... Proceed any further and I’ll jump right out of my high chair and give you a ‘what for’ bigger than I am… (Hey, Mom… Wake up... low growl)… Some big ole goober is getting close to our big white moveable dog house here”…

“YOU THERE – I MEAN WHAT I SAY – PAY ATTENTION TO ME BECAUSE I’M THE PEANUT AND I OWN ALL I SURVEY”…. Lord have mercy, Peanut can REALLY get to going with her jumping up and down, that SHRILL bark of hers inside the cab of a truck – it makes your ears and head hurt – seriously!!…

I’ve had more people in a parking lot move away from the truck once she’s rolling just because she’s SO insistent about this… She’s just as bad about my lap… I can’t tolerate the others stepping on my stomach any more – and they step without mercy if you’re not careful… She’s so tiny, the weight is not an issue… So she knows she’s the only one that I allow to sit on my lap and the others have to be my side… If they attempt anything else, she licks their eyes over and over… Don’t know what that means in dog-talk but I guess ‘cause I don’t let her growl at them, she still thinks she’s establishing her dominance by licking them to death… LOL…

Peanut’s figured out how to get from the back yard into the pool yard… I’ve put garden fencing along the wrought iron gating just about everywhere and I STILL can’t find how she’s doing it… She knows how to swim (and the ONLY one of the four that know to swim immediately to the steps to get out… Geesh… Smallest, shortest time with us and smartest – wouldn’t that figure?)… But I still don’t want her over by the pool when I’m not out there… Just me…

So for weeks, I’ve tried to catch her ‘going over the top’ and haven’t been… There’s an 18” brick wall the wrought iron fence stands on… It’s only a lengthwise brick wide too… Not much of a landing pad if she jumps up and onto it… But Peanut is like a mountain goat as far as jumping and walking precariously on things… Not a major risk taker, she’s still very nimble on her feet… She’d rather get as close to you as she can, and then give you those “Awwww… Ain’t I just tooooo cute???” (eyelash batting looks) to soften you up!... LOL…

Before I got sick, Paul surprised me with a pink pupper pram I’d been looking at and drooling over… I haven’t yet gotten to take it out for a stroll with the Peanut but once I get the energy levels back up, I’m going to use that for an exercise for her and I… Don’t care one bit what anyone else thinks either… Peanut’s my one luxury and comfort critter that tolerates just about everything I come up with… LOL… Even has her own raincoat ‘cause she doesn’t like to get wet…

She just did a major readjustment on my lap - which usually mean's she’s annoyed at what I’m doing with my hands – must be making too much noise on the keyboard with my nails and she can’t sleep well… LOL… Guess it's time for me to close this now!... Until later, gators!

As Always,
The Lady

The Natural Order of the Pack????

(REAL Family Press - copyrighted 2004 - Linda Nelson AKA "The Lady")

File this in the folder marked “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” but I gave up trying to keep the name of “Diva” for the Chihuahua I adopted… Paul took to calling her “Peanut” and eventually it just stuck to her like peanut butter would… LOL…

And she is a little peanut, that’s for sure… She’s healthy now, but still a bit less than six pounds… I have to watch her blood sugar – it’s a Chihuahua trait anyway, but she’s so little, if she starts smelling something good and hasn’t eaten in awhile, she gets the shakes… The best thing for her is to have a few little meals throughout the day and then it keeps her blood sugar at the right levels…


The four of them have all developed their roles and places in the “pack” now… YogiBear is still the alpha in the pack… BooBooDog is still Paul’s baby doll, getting everyone else in trouble and then standing back, watching it all… Rogaine is a compulsive eater and you can’t leave food down all day – he consistently does his prowling of the territory, looking for something else to eat… Whether he is hungry or not… If it’s there, he’ll eat it…

And Peanut knows she’s special, here and there she tries to boss everyone else around – Yogi doesn’t take any of it, BooBooDog goes back and forth over how much she’ll take and Rogaine gives in immediately…

Peanut’s also gotten the nickname of “Mouth” ‘cause she’s the one that alerts immediately despite what’s going on… And for being a little itty bitty thing, she has one really, REALLY sharp bark that goes right through it – especially if she’s close by you… LOL… Like they say, little things in little packages!

Funny thing though – both Rogaine and Peanut have to be aside of me (or in Peanut’s case, on top of my stomach), Yogi, BooBoo and Peanut will sleep with each other, Rogaine will sleep with the twins… But Rogaine and Peanut will NOT sleep with their skin touching each other~!!... Seriously~~!!...

So if they are successful in their quest to sleep touching me like they want to, then they have to solve the problem of not having their skin touching each other PLUS they BOTH like to sleep TOTALLY underneath their blankees!... But if I can out-think them ahead of time and determine where each one is going, I can make everyone happy and make sure there is a single layer of material between the two of them… And that settles it, if you can imagine that~!!... That’s all it takes for them… LOL… They just refuse to touch either one when they’re sleeping aside of me… For the life of me, I don’t understand it although Des says I’m an “animal whisperer”…. There must be something in the pack hierarchy that doesn’t allow the two of them to sleep together touching each other I guess… LOL…

There are those that must think I’m a simple minded fool to be so close to my puppers… They are a tremendous source of comfort to me though… That I cannot deny and in fact, I guess I’m a bit proud of being able to count on their loyalty to me…

Just this morning on the way to school in the truck I told Desiree I’d love to have some kind of electrode that I could “plug into” with Peanuts that would enlighten me about her past – what she’s had to go through, what her life was like before I rescued her, what truly troubles her so that I will never do it myself even accidentally, what pleases her the very most, etc…

I have to do a lot of observing and 'sensing' to be with her where I am today… She came to us very damaged in so many ways… She jumped like a jack-in-the-box all the time at first… Loud noises scared her… Fast moves… Dog food was passed up for junk food (of just about any kind- she’s a major fast food junkie with the likes of greasy French fries, tacos, you name it)…
For weeks after she arrived here, I could not get a harness and lead easily on her... I got several bites just trying, until finally I got one on and left it on (with the lead attached) just so that I could catch her when I needed to!... More than once I thought to myself I'd taken on more than I could handle with this little pupper!... I 'felt' inside she wanted to react differently and I can't actually explain what I'm trying to say here, but it was like a '6th sense' about things... She just didn't know how to react differently to the circumstances and situations that were going on around her...
Peanut was also so tentative as far as new things she’d not experienced yet – they frightened her and you could never be assured she’d not jump out of your arms and head for the hills without a warning… If you were lucky (and there was no guarantee that always happened), she'd eventually come out from underneath a bed - only on her time and not yours - but her eyes always said she was scared out of her wits!
As they say, "we've come a long way, baby! since THEN and NOW... Anything is possible, if only you believe!

As Always,
The Lady

The Beginnings....

The Beginnings....
(REAL Family Press - copyrighted 2003 by Linda Nelson AKA "The Lady")

Since January (I think I mentioned this in the first Press), I’ve sorta/kinda had this deep desire to rescue a small and tiny pupper - sorta/kinda one of those “purse puppers” as they've come to call them… I truly couldn't explain why and someone suggested to me that I was going through the beginnings of the 'empty nest syndrome' with Desiree growing up to fast and off to college soon... I guess I just had the internal need to love up on something teeny tiny again... (smile)...

When I first got the idea, I did look on the Internet, but seldom does one of these teeny tiny puppers get into rescue… And I’m really opposed to purchasing puppies because there are just too many dogs and cats dying every day in shelters… But I kept looking at the website of our local shelter anyway…

About every 4-5 days I’d stroll over and look at the puppers up for adoption… Since January, I’d also make trips out to the shelter four times… I kept this information to myself around here because there was no need to buy myself trouble, ya know?... LOL… I can have enough problems around here just in the day-to-day things!…  I also didn't want to 'jinx myself' by expressing myself aloud either!

Early last week, a teeny tiny white and honey colored Chihuahua appeared on our local shelter’s website… In the past, I’ve gone to the shelter to look at a specific dog to get there and find out it’s much bigger than it appears in the photo…
Or it’s a major yapper that non-stop drives you to distraction… It had to be a female so that Rogaine wouldn’t get as jealous… And I didn’t want a pup and be forced to go through potty-training again…

All four times, for one reason or another, the pup I’d gone to the shelter to look at just didn’t have all the criteria… My back couldn't handle another large dog, it had to be a female and spayed... I wasn't necessarily looking for a Chihuahua, but Chinese Cresteds seldom come into rescue or shelters... I didn't know if any of the other small breeds would work or not, but I had more experience with Chihuahuas than say Yorkies... And whatever came along, it HAD to get along with the other puppers around here...

I had prepared myself for this latest little Chi to have some kind of problem – if not being snappy, being a whiner… Or something… And when she turned out to be smaller than I expected as well as a quiet type of personality at the shelter... And fairly young I was told (although once she went to our vets, we discovered she was at least five years older than she was listed as), I admit to getting a few heart tugs… And then the shelter lady told us about the lotteries they hold – when more than one person shows up for a particular pup, the shelter holds a lottery… You’re required to be there ON THE DOT at 3PM when they open, be in line and ready to enter the lottery… She sorta/kinda gave us the “heads up” about all of this – how it works – when she observed just how much we were interested in this little pupper…


Desiree decided that she was “stepping up to the plate” regarding this pup… She intended to talk to Paul about the pup when I reached the conclusion I was not willing to struggle over her… I told Des that Daddy would NOT want another dog – regardless of the hows, whys, etc. – and that it was a complete waste of her time… Paul ended the rather short conversation with “Do what you want, but when you realize you’ve made a bad decision, I’ll be sitting on my throne, ready to tell you I told you so”…. (sigh)… One more item on the side of the sheet under “Reasons why I should not attempt to adopt this pupper”….

Then I spent Thursday night not being able to sleep, worrying about the lottery and if in any way I’d won the lottery, the changes that would need to occur around here, my reasons for wanting to adopt this pupper, etc… I did not have a good night and the next morning continued on the same wretched vein… I was about 2 hours away from the time I needed to leave the house to be at the shelter on time when I just figured it was a complete waste of my time… And that I must be a defective dysfunctional human being to have this strong want and desire to rescue this pupper…

Well, Desiree and I did indeed go the shelter… One mishap after another began to occur… There was a traffic jam on the way there and instead of being on-time, we were running about 20 minutes behind… We’re standing in line outside the shelter, and overhearing others discuss this dog and that dog and the number 12 (our pup’s kennel number) coming up in discussion after discussion… Once inside precisely on the dot at 3PM, there was three of us in the lottery and after writing my name down on the piece of paper, the rest of it was sorta/kinda blurry…

Des tells me that if looks could kill – the lady behind me also interested in the same pupper practically killed me with her looks and stares… The shelter employee led us down to an exercise pen, told us to wait and then went inside to get our pupper… Apparently this other lady (with her two “rug rats” as the shelter employee called them), followed us and stared wickedly at us the whole time…

I, on other the other hand, had gotten very misty-eyed once I’d heard my name called out from the lottery… I sorta/kinda just followed where I was led and the first time I held this little pupper, it was serious love-struck… Serious… Her poor little ribs are sticking out all the way down her sides and if she weighs 3 pounds, she’s lucky…

I had brought some cookies with me (just in case) and when we opened up the ziplock baggie, you’d have thought she’d never been fed before in her life… She’s shedding like crazy because of the stress of being in this shelter environment AND her kennel being between two HUGE dogs (like 75 & 125 lbs… OMG~!!!!)... She could hear their deep, deep barks, but can’t see them… She doesn’t know that they can’t come into her kennel and I’m sure in her little pea-brain, the whole experience is immensely traumatic to her…

Walking around, it’s as if she’s operating in a fog… She went and widdled (potty-trained – thank you!)… Then sorta/kinda wandered around like she didn’t know where to go or why… I don’t think she’s “slow” or anything like that, but we suspect she’s 1-2 years old (we later found out she's more like 6 years old)…
And at her size?... EVERYTHING is huge and scarey… Plus all the things she’s probably never faced before in her life… Just the concrete-only environment of the kennel is probably a new experience for her… Her entire paw is no larger than a quarter, if that… And there’s not an extra ounce of fat on her anywhere… (sigh)…

I’d make a blankee for her the previous night and took it with me… If I’d not won the lottery, I still planned on giving it to the winner… Every little dog needs and deserves a blankee, ya know?... She appears to be a quiet cuddler when she’s in normal situations, but she’s definitely not in any kind of “normal” now…

So, we went and did the paperwork… She’s got to stay and be spayed today… They are closed tomorrow and so I can pick her up anytime after 10AM on Monday… (ask me how close to 10AM I plan on being there!!!)…

I looked for a sweater for her, but even the 'EX-Small' sizes at the pet store were twice the size of her… The best I can do for now is to have a few blankees ready for her, and once she’s home here with us, I can make a sweater for her… Then it will fit for sure… Anything else will just hang on her like a 'big sister’s hand-me-down that is two sizes too big'…

Last night, it all started to sink in… That I had finally found the cuddle-bunny I’d been looking for… And that things were working out that she’d actually be coming home with us… I’m still sorta/kinda overwhelmed that I was the winner of the lottery… I do know all the odds were stacked against me, including my own bad luck at things that I really want…

Now, here’s the part that I referred to at the beginning of this “war & peace” Press… Last night after calling Paul and telling him that we’d won the lottery, he revealed that he’d spent the afternoon so far doing nothing more but searching the Internet for a teacup Chihuahua… After hearing that, I was floored and overwhelmed… As much as he didn’t want to add another dog to our motley crew, he’d gone to those efforts to attempt to find one… When I asked why, he told me that he didn’t like what he saw when he’d left for work… The “so-down-in-the-dumps” attitude that I’d been in and just how much passion I had to save a little dog instead of seeing another one die…

Her name is now Diva… And for hours, Desiree and I have been bouncing around saying “We’re getting a Diva”… LOL… We have the “Diva purse” already, food of course, and I’ve gotten a black collar (with diamonds of course), leash, etc… I’m working on soft blankees for her and am counting the hours until Monday… I’m some kind of happy camper…

This morning, I checked the shelter’s website and Diva’s picture and information has already been removed… That tickled me too… And I can’t wait to share photos of her on Monday… I’m keeping my fingers crossed so that Rogaine, YogiBear and BooBooDog accept her nicely… And I’ve embarrassed Paul by telling him JUST how GREAT and NICE he was… LOL…

A new adventure for us has begun… And I can’t wait to start experiencing our life with Diva being a part of it…

As Always,
The Lady