I am posting this mostly for the amusement of our friend Chris B back in Arizona, who, when we told her we’d gotten Tori (who is the same age as Mojo) kept exclaiming “two puppies in the house?!” as if we had finally lost the last shreds of sanity we possessed.

Yes, it has been a lot more work, but worth it for the most part… at least normally that is my outlook. Today I am a bit cranky from sleep deprivation, however, and feeling a wee bit less charitable towards the two brown demons that masquerade as innocent dogs in our house.

I came home to another diarrhea bomb yesterday, not a bad one (considering Tori is in a wire crate it could have been much worse) — of course it wasn’t her fault, but her bladder and bowels seem to be hardwired together somehow so when she is having an upset tummy, housebreaking goes out the window. Thus while I was trying to clean the crate (after taking them out to potty for a good long time) the pups were trying to ‘help,’ and Tori was also squatting anywhere and everywhere to pee. Finally, with towels over all the spots I’d Oxi-cleaned, I got things under control. I was exhausted. I decided to give out the toys I had bought.

OK, normally latex squeaky toys are a big no-no. It is a ‘zipper surgery’ (i.e. expensive intestinal obstruction removal) waiting to happen. But we had one left over from another dog that had come to visit a while back and I made the mistake of showing it to Mojo the night before. It was love at first sight, so much that I had to take it away as he was frantically trying to keep it to himself, which of course made Tori want it all the more. So I came home with two more of the awful things and gave out all three.

Mojo had a joyous reunion with the icky red nubbly latex spider-creature. This is what I heard for the next hour and a half straight:

squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak! squeak-squeak!

It sounded like I was in a chick hatchery with hundreds of young chickens. At first it was both dogs but Tori quickly found other things to do. Mojo squeaked it on the couch, the dog bed, in his crate, in the hall, in the kitchen… I could even hear him laying right on the other side of the bathroom door when I was in there: squeak-squeak!squeak-squeak!squeak-squeak! Definitely obsessive… but better than spinning in a circle, by far. Eventually he forgot about it after I fed them. I had a splitting headache and could still hear the squeaking echoing in my head I think.

After their dinner I left the room for a minute, and came back to the two pups having a standoff over a pile of steaming vomit. Did I mention we feed raw? Mojo had apparently just won the standoff and claimed the ‘prize’. I now wondered, who threw up, and why? Was it Mojo, and did Tori get any of his medication? Or if it was Tori is she sick or just still having tummy troubles? I managed to get it cleaned up, just in time to see Tori throw up in another spot, then stand over it growling as she hurriedly re-ate it. While I was trying to clean that spot, she peed on the rug.

After all that chaos, they played nicely until bedtime and I breathed a sigh of relief that my ‘shift’ was over for the night… or so I thought. Around 2:30 AM or so the whining began. It was coming from Tori’s crate. Normally we’d ignore it but since she’d had diarrhea, maybe she had to go? So Joy took her out. This caused Mojo to have a tantrum, “she forgot me! I need to go out too!” so out they both went. Instead of the diarrhea attack we figured all that whining had warned of, they decided it was a great time for a wresting match. The monsters were sent back to bed. A while later they tried a round of “Hey! I heard something! Someone is breaking into the house!” We didn’t fall for it. It took hours to get back to sleep.

The evil creatures woke up in splendidly good moods this morning, they didn’t seem to have suffered from their lack of sleep in the least. The humans didn’t fare so well.

I remain convinced that puppies are born cute so that you don’t kill them.

I created a group for Bull Terrier owners who have spinners or dogs with other neurological disorders. Please consider joining and participating if you are a Bully owner with an affected dog.

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