I'm sure that we will never...

make the Forbes list of best places in the US to work, but Aggie and Peter and I really like working at home.  They're not much help, but they are lots of company.  They are also good listeners.  While Aggie takes her position as Senior Associate and Director of Security very seriously, I am sure people regard her barking as more of a nuisance than a deterrent.  Peter naps works behind the scenes and generally makes an appearance at the desk around quitting time every day.  I am blessed to be able to work at home and spend time with my pets - especially these past few weeks with no means of transportation!  A conventional employer would not have been as understanding as I am.  Not that I am conventional - but you know what I mean.  I've also been blessed this week with lots of additional - and unexpected - work (as well as payments from deadbeats!) that will make Ray's unforeseen car doctor bills a little easier to handle.  And in the big scheme of things, my associates and I don't really need much more than each other and a stack of good books.

And for that, I am really thankful!

It's a special day!

It's Aggie's thirteenth birthday!  While she didn't make the cover of People, or Dogs for that matter, she's still my favorite birthday girl.  In the cover photo, she is all of one year old - making the cute face.  Like every cairn, she's changed colors a few times over the years, and now she's back to her original puppy brindle grey.  She and Peter are both excited at the prospect of chicken for supper - and maybe birthday cake.  I know, she's a dog, but she deserves a birthday celebration, too!

She wasn't ready to smile for the camera yet this morning - maybe later.  Happy birthday, Agatha Christie!

ME Monday...

Okay, I'll admit it.  One of the reasons I chose Aggie that fateful day in 1998 when my husband took me puppy shopping was that she looked exactly like the ME scotty dog in all of her illustrations.  The other was that I'd always wanted a little dog that looked like the Monopoly dog - like this little guy.  And while I can't get Aggie to wear a straw hat festooned with flowers and ribbon, she is exactly the canine companion I always dreamed of.  While my dream is to meet Mary Engelbreit in person, Aggie's is to meet Mary's dog.  For more ME, check out all the interesting stuff over at Cherry Chick!

Iz me, Aggie...

an I jes wantud ta shayre sum pikchers uv mi cairn frenz wif yous.  Herz sum Calafornya cairns wearun kiltz.

Arnt they sumpthin?

An herz my uther fren the singun cairn.  I think shez singun Jangle Bells.

Happee Nu Yere!

I always thought that pets...

were the easiest people to buy Christmas gifts for.  Apparently the jury is still out on Peter's kitty cube.

Do you think he knows I only paid $3.47 for it at WalMart?

Aggie, on the other hand, seems to be quite enamored of her new toy.

I'm batting .500!

Now here's a trained cat...

named Quidditch.  My friend Carolyn and her husband, Larry, belong to him.  They live near Atlanta.  Isn't he the cutest thing?  She says that he sits on his stool and patiently waits for his portion at every meal.  Apparently, he is a very polite and well-mannered boy.  Aggie could take a lesson - or two.  We had catfish for supper tonight and Miss Thing and her partner in crime were concerned that I would not give them their fair share.

Like just when did that ever happen?

Cat box wars...

Peter has come a long way.  He has gone from a scared kitten I found in the street to a skittish cat who steered clear of the dogs at home.  He refused to move to Pennsylvania with the other cats and spent a couple of days in our empty house until Tim could catch him and transport him to the office.  There he made himself scarce and only came out when he thought the coast was clear.  Petey gallantly suffered the indignity of being neutered and moved home with me & Aggie - and they have become good friends.  Almost too good, I sometimes think.  You see, Peter is an enabler.  What? you ask.  Well, like most dogs, Aggie loves to eat cat poop.  That's just gross, but it's true.  Unfortunately for me, Peter is a nocturnal pooper and my two housemates seem to have a system all worked out to inflict the maximum sleep interruption on me.  Little varmints!  Just when we have all settled down for the night and Aggie is dozing nicely, Pete heads to the litter box where he makes his deposit and then digs.  And digs and digs and digs.  This is that noisy Tidy Cat Breeze pellet litter, mind you, and the racket is absolutely thunderous in a quiet apartment.  If the exaggerated digging fails to get Aggie's attention, Peter marches out of the bathroom meowing at the top of his lungs to alert his sister to the presence of a fresh tootsie roll treat.  Off Aggie trots to the box to attempt to make her nightly withdrawal - where she is most often thwarted by an thoroughly irritated and sleep-deprived person with a poop scoop in hand.  And I wondered why I was having trouble getting to sleep - or sleeping for more than an hour at a time.  It's not insomnia - it's furry creatures with nasty nocturnal habits.

Tonight I am going to try and wait them out - wish me luck!

Happy birthday, Aggie!

Yep - it's official - Aggie is twelve years old!  I can't believe it - but my sweet cairn is twelve years young today.  She actually came to live with us on December 5, 1998 - but she was just a baby.  See that crazed puppy look?

It was almost Christmas, so she got decorated, too.

Aggie ventures out into the big world - but always on her leash - since cairns are notorious chasers of squirrels and other wildlife.

She posed for a first birthday photograph.

But soon had enough...

Aggie loved to go swimming in my mom's pool.

Tim got Aggie her own raft and boogie board.

She loves her designer collar collection - especially the purple paw print number.  Soon it will be time to put on the Halloween collar!

Aggie met a new friend yesterday - an adorable pug named Chewie.

She got a new toy for her birthday today, but the jury is still out.  I gave it to her and she promptly took it to the living room to hide it from her brother, Peter.  Like a cat would want a chew toy.  She came back and sat next to me - must be waiting for her birthday chicken treat.  Happy birthday, girly!

ME Monday...

and I need to learn to be a better photographer.  Well, if you click the picture you can see everything better.  I love the ME Get Over It and Get On With It statue - my husband gave it to me for my birthday once during a particularly trying time in my life.  I have had the little grey scottie dog figure forever - and it reminds me of Aggie.  The white ceramic dog in the photo was mine when I was a little girl and I ran across it again when I was putting stuff away in the closet.  That one reminds me of Monty.

My ME Here's My Heart girl is standing guard next to the sewing area in my bedroom.  She's been dragged around the house a few times by an overly zealous cairn terrier.  None the worse for wear.

Remember to check out ME Monday over at Cherry Chick!

Arf hisstery...

Sum uv yousz mite think that the ownly famuss cairn wuz Toto frum the Wizzerd uv Oz.  Think again, peepul.  Heerz a breef lessin in arf hisstery.  At the bugginning uv tiem, the wiled cairns roamded and roold the Scottish Hi Lands.  Affder they invayded and konkered Your Rope, there wuz cairns all over.

Leahnardoe Duh Vinchy had a cairn an he paynted her with that famuss Moana Leesa lady.  She gotz that smerky look on her fayce cuz she's the ownly lady in Iddally with a cairn.

 

Vinscent Van Go had three cairns who liekt to go out at nite with him wile he paynted.  This cairn reely liekt the eyerisses.  They wuz glad Vinscent leff there eerz aloan. 

Sum uther guy paynted Saynt Francis with cairns and sum uther anumulls.  See how the cairns iz the moast impourtant.  Saynt Francis sed so.

Clod Moanay liekt his cairn so mutch he paynted her with the watter lillees.

Affder cairns came to Amareika, some guy naymded Grant Wud paynted these ole peepul with there cairn.  See, there iz lotz uv famuss cairns.  Now yousz guys know all aboud it.

I iz a membir of the CIA...

an for thoz uv yous who dont know, thatz the Cairn Intellajunts Ageinsee.  My mom got aggervated with the puter last night.  She wanted to wach the latess epasoad of Memfis Beet and it wouldnt work.  So she gave up after she cald the puter a bad name and smact the mous thing down.  I think shez jest sick uv bein stuck in the house this week.  So wile she wuz readin a book cald Scents an Scentsabilidy - which I dont get cuz she dont uze her noz noway nohow - not like a dog duz - I got on the puter and fixt it up for her.  It was cuz she dizabulled all the poppups and the TNT shows is poppups.  Thatz all - no big deel.  Wile I wuz at it, I chainjd the glob lay out to three collums and then I put sum mor bee stuf on the glob here.  I thinks itz preddy cyute.  Thats ware the Cairn Intellajunts comes in.  She dont know what all I know.  I has a blak belt in ankul biting and that meens I have a rank uv whippersnapper in the CIA.  See, all this cyuteniss iz a grate disguys.  I am speshally traned in Hoamland Sekuritee.  Nobuddy getz by this cairn, beleev yous me.

I gotta go - we iz havin spugetty for dinner.

 

Animal magnetism...

Rags was my first dog - a border terrier.

I was always that kid whose mother was screaming, "Leave that dog alone - he'll bite you."  And I always ignored her, having to pet the dog, hug the dog, kiss the dog - you get the picture.  I've never been bitten.  It must be some sort of animal magnetism because dogs (and cats, for that matter) like me.  All the pets we ever had eventually became my pets - they just sort of gravitated toward me.

Our poodle, Buttons, when he was young.  So were we!

When Rags met his fate in an untimely run-in with a steam roller (and no, he didn't pop back up like in the cartoons), one of my dad's co-workers gave us Buttons the miniature poodle.  He was a great dog - not prissy at all - and he lived to be seventeen.  When my parents left me at college my freshman year, Buttons was so mad he laid in the back seat of the car and ate my mom's sweater.

They gave me the remains of the sweater for Christmas that year.

After Buttons went to his reward, I was dogless for over ten years - and then Tim gave me Aggie for Christmas in 1998.  Aggie is probably the best gift I ever received!

Is she a ham, or what?

When Aggie was about two, Tim decided that she needed a playmate - like all those cats weren't enough - and rescued Monty from a pet store.  My boy was ten when I had to let him go - I still miss him every day.

Monty took great joy in his very existence.

And, I'll admit it, I can't say no to a cute face.  Tim made the mistake of taking me to the mall the day after Thanksgiving in 2005 and I fell in love with Willie.  He's a wheaten cairn - and so much like Aggie!  When I moved from our house to a condo, I could only have two pets - so I had to find a new home for Willie.  He went to live with a retired couple who had recently lost their Gordon setter - and they adore him.  Willie lives in the lap of luxury and even summers at a lake house in Vermont.  Talk about a dog's life!

William Wallace - the Braveheart cairn.

So there you have it - a brief tribute to all of the wonderful dogs in my life.  I've been truly blessed with their love and companionship over the years.

Product endorsement!

Okay - I don't normally do this.  Or do I?  I guess I do occasionally - but only when there is actually truth in advertising.  And, dear readers, Tidy Cats Breeze, from Purina lives up to the hype. This is probably the most wonderful invention since sliced bread, or sandwiches at the very least.  I am not kidding.  Seriously.  I am a cat litter box hater.  I don't like cleaning it and I like changing it even less.  But since I have never believed that you can actually train a cat to use a toilet, a litter box is a necessary evil.  And - I am going to rat Aggie out here - I was very apprehensive about the whole litter box thing when Peter came home because, well, and I'll just say it - Aggie likes to eat cat poop.  Apparently all dogs do - and our vet says if we could find a way to make them stop, we'd be gazillionaires.  So in addition to the dog having cat poop breath, I wasn't sure where I was going to put the dang box because I also hate having cat litter tracked everywhere.  Then I discovered the Tidy Cats Breeze.  This box, as you can see, has a little drawer underneath which holds an antimicrobial pad to catch the liquids that fall through the pellets in the top section of the box which is designed like a sieve.  That was a clumsy sentence, but I'm sure you get my drift.  The pellets are harmless little chunks of zeolite (or some kind of other inert substance) which last for a month!  Yes - thirty whole days and they weigh about two pounds!  No more carrying those heavy tubs of  awful clumping cat litter - you change the pad once a week for one cat - obviously more often for multiple cats - but this thing is amazing.  You just have to scoop out the solids - before the dog goes on a tootsie roll hunt - and flush them away.  The transition from litter was simple - I showed Pete the box and he used it.  Smart cat.  And yes, Aggie has ingested some of the pellets and when I called the 800 number, I was assured that they are indeed harmless.  So it would appear - I won't elaborate, other than to say they don't even lose their shape.  

So anyway, do yourself and your cat(s) a favor and get the Tidy Cats Breeze - it's, in a word, tidy.

She who thinks she must be obeyed...

wont gimme no more of dat blooberry bredd she made.  She sed I had enuf.  Mom sez I should eat sum of my Paul Noomen crunches from my bowl.  I got nooz for her - itz not that gud.  She maid bredd wif nanas too for dat clyent wif all the paperz.  Hes okay but he wont pat my head.  His littel gurl named Gabby likes me and throwz my toy for me.  See that dang gate?  Mom putz it up so I cant jump on people when they come in to see her.  She dont know they reely come to see me. 

Duzent everybuddy come to see the dogz? 

Uh oh gotta go - heer she comes!