Wimsey's Blog: Diary of a Manhattan Bloodhound #299

Entry #299

March 22, 2013

Hello Everyone, it’s me Wimsey coming to you from the frigid Arctic North-- or what passes for it on Manhattan’s Upper West Side where that groundhog has a lot to answer for.  But I guess that asking a rodent to predict the weather is like asking a Hound to help fix dinner—if you trust him then you have to be prepared for the consequences.  And around here the consequences are the continuation of my human Maria and her friend Elizabeth’s elegant Michelin Man winter attire and endless, tedious discussions about how many layers to put on.

 

We are clearly going to have a chilly Easter but that suits me fine since it reduces the probability of the occurrence of an Undesirable Bath Event.   What it does not reduce is my desire to spend time outside, freezing humans or no, so today’s post will be short owing to the fact that I was, shall we say, a tad reluctant to leave the park this afternoon.  There were ducks and geese on the lake that were simply too mesmerizing for such an avid student of poultry like myself.

Anyway, it’s been another week of outstanding veterinary splendor around here.  I began paying an unhealthy amount of attention to my front left foot last Friday causing my humans to hustle me off to the vet on Saturday (the vet was kind enough to squeeze me in, a misnomer if ever there was one, as I, a creature of majestic proportions, am generally the one who squeezes people in—or off, if they are on the bed or the couch.  But I digress). 

I have some type of ugly irritation between my pads that once again caused the vet to propose some hilarious remedies such as spraying my foot with antibiotic solution and soaking it in Nolvasan (this is in addition to some wonderfully expensive antibiotics that I will only ingest if they are presented with fistfuls of turkey or other tasty comestibles).  My humans at first decided that maybe compressing the area with a pad soaked in Nolvasan would represent a more palatable  (or doable) approach than the actual soaking of my entire foot.  The compress was tried immediately.  It did not go well.

So pretty much this week my humans have been sneaking up on me with the spray bottle and quickly spraying my paw before I have a chance to head for the hills--or in my case the couch.  And Elizabeth, who is in charge of all soaking/compressing operations, (Maria being more of a jamming pills down my throat specialist) tried numerous schemes for getting my paw soaked.  All of them resulted in substantial flooding to her apartment.  So now she ties my leash to the front door when we finish our afternoon walk and presents me with turkey while she coos softly and scratches me while stealthily putting my foot into a stiff, empty plastic bag.  Then she pours the soaking solution into the bag and holds it in place with one hand while she feeds me turkey with the other.  But today she was hoist with her own petard when I decided that I did not wish to remove my foot from the bag since that would result in a cessation of the flow of turkey. When dealing with a Hound, be careful what you wish for.

Well no one can ever accuse a Hound of failing to adequately exploit a situation so I also generously offer to abstain from licking off the medicine that my humans work so hard to get on my paw if they rub my belly whilst I nap.  Should I not be in the mood for a nap a contribution of a large bully stick is mandatory.  

And Sunday was St. Patrick’s Day which proved unexpectedly quiet, owing to the fact that the parade was on Saturday this year and the weather was more Christmas than St. Pat’s.  However, Tuesday was my birthday which meant a week of eating poached salmon from the fancy fish store, Maria sleeping on the couch when I required the use of the bed and Elizabeth getting dragged to pet stores with an exciting regularity.  

On one such expedition a new, giant hedgehog (aka Hedgie) was procured for me causing me to carry on for the duration of my walk in an attempt to access him.  I only paused long enough to inhale a giant biscuit that an admiring clerk at the Kiehl’s store came out to feed me (although they are advertising a shocking product—it removes wrinkles!) and to drop by one of the Wafels and Dinges trucks at Lincoln Center (these are a chain of Belgian waffle trucks that dot the Manhattan landscape-- the waffles are made fresh and then topped with an assortment of “dinges”). 

Here I am ordering a waffle topped with a “dinge” of whipped cream.  I pretty much kept up the baying during the entire waffle making exercise causing the nice waffle man to feel guilty about it taking so long to cook.  Then Elizabeth hand fed me the delectable waffle in the bite-sized morsels that I prefer, all of them dipped in the whipped cream.  As I have noted in many previous posts, I am a Hound who is fanatically devoted to being fanatically served by my humans. And I am indeed fortunate that my humans like to live vicariously through my gastronomic excesses owing to a curious human preoccupation with the size of their posteriors and the fit of their jeans.  Happily I am in no way thus constrained.

Anyway, Easter is almost upon us so I think it is a suitable time for another episode of:

Dick and Jane and the Easter Hound

See Dick.

See Jane. 

See Dick and Jane hunt for Easter eggs. 

See the Easter Hound.

See the Easter Hound also hunt for Easter eggs.

The Easter eggs are hard to find.

The Easter eggs are hidden.

Dick cannot see the Easter Eggs

Jane cannot see the Easter eggs

The Easter Hound cannot see the Easter eggs.

He can smell them.

See Dick put an Easter egg in his basket.

See Jane put an Easter egg in her basket.

See The Easter Hound put an Easter egg in his mouth.

See the Easter Hound put Dick’s Easter egg in his mouth.

See the Easter Hound put Jane’s Easter egg in his mouth.

See the Easter Hound put all the Easter eggs in his mouth.

“Oh no!” says Dick.

“Oh no!” says Jane.

“But we still have jellybeans and peeps in our baskets” says Dick.

“Jellybeans and peeps taste much better than Easter eggs,” says Jane.

The Easter Hound also thinks that jellybeans and peeps taste much better than Easter eggs.

See Dick.

See Jane.

Dick and Jane do not have Easter baskets.

See the Easter Hound.

The Easter Hound has eaten the Easter baskets.

See Dick cry.

See Jane cry.

The Easter Hound has thrown up all over Dick and Jane.

The Easter Hound has given Dick and Jane back their Easter baskets.

Everyone is happy.

Except Dick and Jane.

The End

And as is the case every year I hope for a visit from the Easter Bunny.  Preferably in a pot.  And in other news my brewery, Baying Hound Aleworks is competing in a Washington Post March Madness Beer Competition.  The brewery has entered Long Snout Stout and you can vote for it by going to http://www.washingtonpost.com/beer-madness?hpid=z6 clicking on Long Snout Stout and then clicking on the vote tab.  Although personally I don’t believe that I have a long snout at all.  My snout is perfect. Like the rest of me.

Well I think I will leave it there for this week.  I will try not to leave all the birthday indulgence go to my head. Or not.

Until next time,

Wimsey, a Super Soaker