Category: Bulldog

There’s been a lot of stress in the Wren Casa lately, which is unfortunate considering Mojo is the poster pup for Canine Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Any stress can give him a case of “the loosies.” It can be good stress (a doggy play date) or bad stress (a trip to the vet) but heaven forbid it’s a really big stress, because we’re going to need a whole case of baby wipes to clean up afterwards.

In fact, I’ve been wondering if Mojo’s trigger-happy intestinal tract might actually be an integral part of the Bulldog Defense System:

HOME INVADER: Bwa ha! I’ve broken in and will now pillage this house!

MOJO: Momma!

HOME INVADER: Eeww… what’s that smell? What did I just step in? GROSS! Aw… forget it! I’ll go pillage the neighbor’s house, instead!

Yup, once those pipes start evacuating, not much will stop the flow.

And lately even the old standby of boiled rice seemed to have lost its effectiveness on Mojo, which is why canned pumpkin has become one of our most valuable kitchen staples.

Somehow, this stuff has the same effect on an erupting bulldog digestive system that a brick wall has on a speeding marshmallow: it stops it cold, no fuss, no muss.

You heard me: instant intestinal stoppage—and in a bulldog household, that kind of guarantee is worth its weight in gold, or at the very least, in liver treats, considering how Mojo loves the stuff.

WHAT: One dustpan. We couldn’t find what was left of the handle—or any of the other missing pieces, either.

BONNIE’S REACTION: Mojo! Come here!

HUBBY: My poor Mojo! Don’t be too hard on him, honey—how do you know it was him, anyway? Why, I bet Clara did it! And framed him!

BONNIE: I know who did it, all right. Mojo!

(Mojo slinks forward, head low, tail would be hanging low, too, if he had one)

BONNIE: You are such a GOOD boy! Good, good Mojo! Now, let me show you the broom. Yeah, I know, it’s a little scary, but I bet it tastes really, really good. Whadaya think, boy? Why don’t you lick it? Just once! Try it!

HUBBY: Turn your tender eyes away, boys, I don’t want you to see this. Your momma—well, she’s going wacky on me.

BONNIE: What a good dog you are, Mojo! Now, have you ever taken a look at the vacuum cleaner? No? Allow me to introduce you…

WHAT: Señor Tortuga, a turtle puppet I’ve had since I was 12.

(And if anyone intends to start in on how juvenile and immature I am in keeping my old toys, they’ll be treated to a serious lecture on childhood keepsakes—and their importance in chronicling a young girl’s journey into adulthood—just before I whack them over the head with my Penny Brite doll.)

HOW: Unknown. Either Mojo learned how to open doors—or somebody is covering up a conspiracy to commit turtle-cide.

SQUIRT: (solemnly) Mom, I have some bad news about Señor Tortuga. (exhibits the remains)

HUBBY: Aww, honey, little El Torito got all chewed up!

BONNIE: That dang dog!

HUBBY: Little Señor Tortilla! He survived our boys, but he couldn’t survive the Mojo.

BONNIE: But he was in the closet! How did he get from the closet to the Bulldog Jaws of Doom?

SQUIRT: That’s the weird thing, Mom! I have NO IDEA.

(Mojo starts sniffing at the remains of Señor Tortuga)

BONNIE: Get away from there, you… you… TURTLE KILLER!

HUBBY: Aw, you can’t blame him for wanting a little Mexican food every now and then! And it’s not so bad. A little needle and thread, and your little Totoro will be as good as new.

… will return next week.

You might think this is the look of love. It’s not.

It is the look of a bulldog who seconds ago was fast asleep upstairs—his nose buried deep in a pile of stinky teenager laundry—when a human hand lightly brushed against a plastic pail kept in a kitchen cupboard, causing said bulldog to launch himself free of gym socks and boxer shorts, hurl himself downstairs, skid across the living room floor and slide into the kitchen/family room.

Behold, O Dog Owner, the only thing greater than yourself—in your dog’s opinion, anyway:

I’m telling you, if Timmy’s mom had a bucket of these babies in the house when it caught on fire, Lassie would’ve dragged it out first and that would’ve been the end of the television series.

Hubby uses the treats to try to help Mojo learn some self control around food. I say good luck with that. When it comes to liver treats and our bulldog, there is no self control; there are only massive puddles of drool all over our laminate flooring.

MOJO: He’s headed for the cupboard! He’s—YES! LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS…

HUBBY (puts treat on floor) Mojo, sit!

MOJO: Hooray! (lunges at treat)

HUBBY: NO! SIT!

MOJO: Sit?! But a liver treat IS ON THE FLOOR!

HUBBY: Stay!

MOJO: It moved! (lunges)

HUBBY: NOPE!

MOJO: It moved again! (lunges)

HUBBY: NOPE!

MOJO: It’s running away! (lunges)

HUBBY: NOPE!

MOJO: It’s escaping! (lunges)

HUBBY: NOPE!

I broke the lens off my camera, remember? So no pics today. Sorry!

Instead, I offer my first attempt at a YouTube upload: Mojo Vs. Chuck.

Chuck belongs to Heather B. Armstrong, also known as Dooce. Dooce is such a good writer, I hate her—and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

(Direct link for the feed readers.)

WHAT: Laminate flooring underlay

HOW: Hubby wanted a bulldog.

Okay, that’s the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version.

MORE DETAILED VERSION OF HOW: Hubby wanted a bulldog and I said okay, but only if we got rid of the wall-to-wall carpeting and put in a solid floor. He agreed.

I should’ve had an attorney look at our contract. How was I to know my own husband would wiggle through a loophole?

About half way through the job, Hubby decided that “putting in a floor” doesn’t include “finishing the baseboards.” So half our floors have a bit of Combi floor underlay sticking out, the part you normally trim off when you install the baseboards.

If I want finished baseboards, I’ve got to agree to a second bulldog.

Can you say “blackmail”?

Allow me to introduce our Neighborhood Watch Program:

Mojo earned this title last week when he alerted the neighborhood to a dangerous intruder who’d sneaked into our home while I was busy cleaning out a closet. Did I mention that Hubby and the boys were out of town all week and Mojo and I were ALL ALONE?

There I was, deciding whether to keep or toss a pair of shoes that happen to be older than my marriage—completely unaware of the danger I was in! And the next thing I know, Mojo goes off like a canine fire alarm.

I thought he might have cornered a possum that sneaked in, but the way he was trembling as he barked I could tell it was something big. Really BIG.

I’ve got a mug shot of the home invader right here:

Yup.

Mojo barked at it a good ten minutes but the thing wouldn’t budge. Finally he decided to sit down and wait it out, growling now and then just to keep it on its toes.

Time goes by very slowly in a bulldog standoff, especially when the bulldog is sitting on your foot.

After a while your foot goes to sleep, and you begin to wonder if maybe Mojo knows something you don’t. You begin to wonder if maybe that dusty old suitcase really is capable of creeping up on you while you’re sorting socks just so it can pound you flat.

Or you wonder if maybe Mojo knows that there’s really something INSIDE the suitcase, something waiting to jump out in the middle of the night so it can crawl up the stairs and EAT YOU BOTH.

This is Clara.

Didi found Clara in the same animal shelter where our other neighbors found Loki. The two dogs look alike, but where Loki is shy, Clara is more like your local Walmart greeter—if your local Walmart greeter was born on Krypton, that is, and just polished off a pound of Skittles and a pot of coffee… and stuck his finger into a light socket.

In other words, Clara is not only friendly and outgoing, but she’s also the canine poster pup for ADHD. Where other people’s dogs walk or run, Clara can only run, and she does it at one of two speeds: “Breakneck Fast” and “If I Let Go of Her Leash Now I May Survive But It’s Gonna Hurt.”

This need for speed would be dangerous if there was a mean bone in her body, but all it really does is allow her to pop up from a “down” position, french kiss you and then pop back down again before you can say, “Bob’s your unc—BLECH!”

Clara’s humans also discovered she has a special talent you don’t often associate with Man’s Best Friend: home demolition.

In fact, whenever I’d get upset about Mojo chewing up cell phones or toilet paper or snorkels, I’d go over to Didi’s house to see what new remodeling project Clara had undertaken, and believe me, it was always a doozy.

Of course, she’s always had a taste for drywall, but once, she ripped up most of the living room carpeting. And then there was the time she pulled out all the cable wiring off the side of the house.

But her pièce de résistance has to be the laundry room, where (as you can see in this picture) she pulled up the vinyl sheeting in less than an afternoon. Say what you will about the girl, she’s efficient.

So Didi tries to make sure Clara gets a ton of exercise to drain all that destructive energy. When Didi goes to work, Clara runs circles around the other dogs in Doggy Day Care. And two or three times a week Clara races over to our house in the evening where she can play with her best friend, Mojo.

You’d think they wouldn’t have much in common, seeing as how she can streak around the perimeter of the yard in the same amount of time it takes him to pull his tongue in all the way, but they manage. Mojo may not be a speed demon, but he makes one heck of a speed bump.