Ernie & The Lady at Dog Prom

Today is Ernie’s 1 year anniversary with us!

As I type he and The Lady are out on the town, no doubt marking all the way up and down Avenue A. I know there’s a new spiral in his future and perhaps some cheese too!

I remember the first time he stepped foot in the apartment, he did what he does the first time he goes anywhere… he made a mad dash around the perimeter of the apartment.

Item number 2 on the agenda was to jump on The Lady’s bed and do what we call “the charm routine” (rolling & snorting with some light growling). He had us at that first charm routine.

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“Did you eat my tomato?” asked The Lady. “No”, I said with a little attitude “Why?”. “It’s missing.” she replied. “Are you sure YOU didn’t eat it?” I asked back. “No, I bought two.”

This fascinating discussion went on for a few more sentences. I suggested that she look in Ernie’s “office” (pile of towels) given his history as Fruit Marauder (and that a tomato is technically a fruit, as The know-it-all Lady handily pointed out like a 12 year old teacher’s pet).

No sign of the missing tomato in the “office” (pile of towels). Later that day I received an email from The Lady reporting that she found the remaining seeds in the “office” (pile of towels). Case solved.

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It’s finally happened, Ernie lost one of his fangs. All of the cats are missing a fang, and lord knows The Lady and I have had our share of missing fangs through the years. As a matter of fact, I just got a gold crown a few weeks ago!

Last night I noticed that one side of Ernie’s face was swollen below his eye. I thought it might have been a bug bite or sting so I stopped by the vet’s office after our walk. Turned out to be two rotten teeth and an infection. We knew one of his fangs was bad, and the vet advised us just to keep an eye on it as might fall out on it’s own. No such luck for Ernie!

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Frequent readers (all one of you, and I use the word frequent very loosely) may have noted that I often refer to Ernie’s bed as “Ernie’s “bed” (pile of towels)” or “Ernie’s “office” (pile of towels)”. I’m a fan of nice things. I have several if not many nice things. A dog bed is not one of them. I really don’t think Ernie minds, plus he really prefers the clean laundry bag that I leave on the (Knoll) couch. While Ernie’s bed (pile of towels) is just that, it’s worth noting that they are Marimekko towels.

Today I was reading BARC’s blog and noticed a link to Bklyn Bunny. Not only a good looking site, but a hotline to extreme cuteness via a bunny webcam. And guess what, their bunny’s hutch (pile of towels) is also Marimekko.

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Ernie’s first Xmas!

It’s been almost 6 months since Ernie joined the Home Zoo and this was his first xmas with us! He celebrated by putting on his best vintage bow-tie and accompanying us to our friends house for cheer, dinner, light growling, running around on the furniture, begging at the table, butt sniffing and an impressive show of his “yule log” that will not soon be forgotten!

He spent most of the time right where he is in the pic, beside The Lady on the couch, but he did mingle with the other dogs. He seemed very content and relaxed, when he wasn’t growling at Marcel, I mean protecting The Lady.

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I was shocked when I got home… I noticed some bits of paper or something in Ernie’s “office” (pile of towels). Upon closer inspection it seems the Shower Time Fruit Maurader not only snagged some mini Reeses cups from the counter, he took them back to his “office” (pile of towels) and actually unwrapped them with the startling precision usually achieved by opposable thumbs!

I’m still in awe, and of course a little bummed because I was really looking forward to having them. There were only two and I hardly ever eat that kind of thing any more. I can’t believe I now have to hide candy from my dog!

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Ernie gets a lot of adoration on the street, particularly from black men, but he’s an equal opportunity attention-getter. Just yesterday The Lady reported that someone yelled from a car “That dog is cute!”. A few blocks later a man on a bench in front of an over-priced hipster store said “Hey Poindexter!”.

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Three out of four pets spit-up yesterday! Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket. It started off with Ernie, I heard him clicking around at night. This is rare, he usually sleeps all night and will stay in bed with The Lady until she gets up. After a few minutes of clicking I heard the gagging, poor thing.

Within less than a half an hour The Captain flopped right next to my head and he had extremely loud gurgly stomach. Soon enough he was heaving and I had to hold him over the side of my bed like a drunken sailor out a cab window.

Fast forward to the morning. As I’m getting ready to shower Gallagher starts heaving while she’s sitting on the counter waiting for breakfast (very charming). The morning wouldn’t be complete without one more pre-breakfast round from The Captain. Everything seems to be back under control.

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Ernie?

About a week ago I bought myself a nice looking pear. I wanted to let it sit a couple of days to ripen up. I came home from work and noticed something weird on the counter, it was my pear… or what was left of it. I pointed it out to The Lady and she said she heard a scuffle when she was in the shower.

During todays shower, the Fruit Marauder sampled half of a MacIntosh apple and a bite of a yam. Being a good “cheap lady” as she puts it, The Lady cut off the bite marks and finished both.

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Uncharacteristically non-barking moment…

This weekend at Camp Home Zoo we hosted one large barky Larry Fleisher. He’s an extremely sweet boy. He really just wants to be one of the gang. In his own words, “Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof wooooofffffffff.”

Larry barks when anyone puts on shoes or a coat (we’re going out!), whenever any of the cats make an appearance (what’s that?), any time something audible happens outside the door (can we go out??) and from the moment we woke up until he was walking out the door (we’re going OUT!).

Other highlights include: he’s big enough to stand by my bed and lick my face, he did this randomly throughout the night and in the morning when it was time to go out (!!), he likes to eat pizza crust on the street, he seemed to have eaten a tampon and threw it up in the middle of the night (he didn’t get it from inside the apartment) and the only thing he did at the dog run was bark at The Lady!

He really is a very sweet boy, and he responds very well to commands (something our little Ernie could use some work on). Aunt Beerly will miss him tomorrow when he goes back home… and Aunt Beerly now has a new found appreciation for Ernie, who is a quarter of his size and an eighth as loud.

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