Dog Mom Arms

My mom is freakishly strong. She always has been and to this day I would be a liar if I said I wasn't afraid of her. The worst part is she knows that. At 25, I still fear a quick slap to the back of the head or a flick to the forehead when I get "sassy" to her. I think her strength comes from being a mom. Moms are always carrying their kids, picking them up, pushing strollers, and always on the go, go, go. Now my mom is a nanny to three little girls and still strong as ever.

Me? Not so much. I've been thin my whole life, and that's really an understatement. I've been underweight since the day that I was born. My mom is surprised how tall my brother and I are, she though for sure she'd have a couple of shortys on her hands. I don't work out, well it's more like I refuse to work out. I worked out everyday for four years in high school to prepare for volleyball. At one point, I even manged to get up to 117 pounds! The most I've ever weighed. I could also bench press 95 pounds, also impressive considering my weight, I'm a girl, and my overall lack of athleticism.

Now my strength comes from being a dog mom. Missy PULLS a lot while walking down the road. It's a great resistance training exercise for me. She weighs about 30 pounds, so picking her up and carrying her into a crate is also a weight lifting moment for me. Then there is all the throwing, tug of war playing, and overall walking and chasing that takes place inside and out. What little strength I have comes from being a dog mom. She is my workout. Every day, rain or shine, I'm at the gym of Missy. I might not be the strongest or the most fit person but trust me it's a workout and it beats sitting on the couch being lazy. My mom has kid-mom strength arms, I have dog-mom strength arms. And just like everything else, I'm hoping this is my pre-requisite to kid-mom strength. Gotta start somewhere right?

WHACK... Again

Missy and I were talking our usual walk around the large block yesterday. As we were rounding the corner, she heard a dog barking but she couldn't figure out where it was coming from. We stopped for a second. The dog was inside a van parked on the side of the road ((don't worry, there were a couple of people in there with it so the doggie wasn't frying or anything)). Missy still couldn't figure it out but it was time to move on.

I tried to get her going and then she did it... again, this time in slow motion, and the worst part is this time I saw it coming but couldn't do anything about it. Missy didn't turn her head all the way around, took a half a step and WHACK! ran neck first into a pole. I BLAST LAUGHED and then covered my mouth as tears started to form behind my eyes. For half a second before it happened I went to yell HEY! but then I realized she wouldn't know why so I didn't say anything, I just braced myself for her impact by gasping. And unlike last time, this happened in the middle of the day and had a witness. Some guy was driving by, heard my laugh, and turned and looked. I don't know what was probably more funny to him, my dog smacking her face into the pole or her owner busting a gut at it. I couldn't even breathe, let alone walk. I almost just sat down from laughing so hard. It is probably one of THE funniest things I have ever seen in my life, mostly because this time I saw it coming. Don't worry the Missaroo wasn't hurt, maybe just a little embarrassed. She seemed pretty happy still, but she did jump on me and push me a bit with her paws, as if to say, "mom don't laugh at me, it isn't THAT funny." Oh but you're wrong Missaroo it was SUPER funny. Love you Shmooie!

Sometimes Missy Remembers She's a Dog

A few days ago, I wrote about Missy snuggling on the couch and having the blanket fall around her as if she were a person. That's pretty much the case 90% of the time. But sometimes Missy plays so hard at daycare, her little doggie self comes through. And sometimes she can't even make it to the couch....

And it's not the first time it's appeared as though she just dropped dead from playing too hard.

The Great Escape

On the way home from daycare last night, Missaroo has a GIGANTIC freak out in the car. There was a motorcycle behind us, that then switched lanes and passed us on the road. Missy was in such a barking, panic mode that she somehow managed to un-clip her collar. How do I know she didn't just slip out of it? Because when I buckle her into the back seat, I un-clip her collar and slip her leash through it, essentially cutting the leash in half. Then I re-clip her collar and seat-buckle the leash. This makes sure Missy can't roam freely around the car. She was without a collar and the leash was at full length.

Well she not only managed to get out of it, but she did it on the warmest day of the year. So what? So the windows were down. She actually tried to climb out the window to get to the motorcycle. Lucky for me and lucky for her she tried to get out the passenger side window. I caught her by the tail just as she got her head out. I pulled her back in and then went into OH CRAP! panic dog mom mode.

I rolled all of the windows up, pulled into a nearby parking lot after sitting at a red light holding her by the tail, and manged to re-buckle her in. WOW! We need the Dog Whisperer and we need him now.

Attack of the Tongue

I know I've written about it before but Missy just can't keep that tongue of hers in her mouth. Last night she was on a licking terror. I tried to capture it on video while fighting her off. It turned into me laughing, her licking, and some jarring camera movements. Take a look for yourself:

Summer Time!

It's two days after the official start to summer and we're just now seeing temperatures reach the 80's here in Spokane. It was a LOOONG spring. The term "juneary" has even been thrown around, especially for Seattle. Temperatures were about 20 degrees below average and there were way too many rainy days.

BUT that's all over now and we're headed for sunny skies, and warm temps! Hooray! So I'm taking the start of summer as a fresh start for the Missaroo and me. Since I'm big on lists and plans I thought this would be a good time to start a summer list. Things I want to do this summer. High up on the priority list, but probably the least likely to happen, get Missy to swim.

Missy has never really been in the water. She doesn't seem to want to go in water too badly, but I think she might enjoy swimming. When we lived in the TC she did walk in a very shallow part of the Columbia River. The thing is, there were too many other distractions, and by distractions I mean dogs. She's also checked out the little fountain outside our apartment. She seemed to think it was pretty neat, but still no desire to jump in. It is something I would like for her to experience once in her lifetime though. I don't really know how I'm going to do this though. I'm not a swimmer AT ALL. In fact, I have an irrational fear of drowning! But equipped with a couple of life jackets and a pretty descent swimmer next to us I'd like to give it a shot.

Goal number two is to try and come up with another blog adventure. In May we did Best Buds Day. It was great! We both loved it and hopefully you loved reading about it. Now I want to try something else, but I don't have any ideas yet. ((let us know if you have one)).

The third goal is really get "The Missaroo" to take off. She has about 37 twitter followers, 100 likes on her page, and 109 Fans of the Missaroo members. I would love to see all of those numbers go way up in the next three months.

So that's what I would like to see happen this summer. Like always, I'll keep you posted on our progress. Maybe we'll finally get around to sniffing that motorcycle too. Enjoy the warmth! 

Stranger Danger

Missy is a sucker for a treat, we all know that. But is it ok to let her have treats from people we don't know? The question never popped into my head until today.

We were on our walk through the neighborhood behind our apartment just strolling along. We ran into those people who chemically treat the lawns, you know who I'm talking about. One of the workers almost went right up to Missy to say hello. Of course Missy said hello back and licked her in the face. It took me off guard a little bit, mostly because I had my ipod in. I didn't really think too much of it. She told me what a beautiful dog I had and gave Miss a pet. I thanked her and tried to get Miss off of her. Then she asked Miss, "would you like a treat?" AND PULLED ONE FROM HER POCKET! Super random. Missy carried it for a little while but kept dropping it so I picked it up and carried it with me.

While we were walking home I thought, "I wouldn't let Missy have this treat if she were a kid." Now, this is probably another over the top panic dog mom moment but really, doesn't that seem a little odd to you? Should I really let Missy have this treat? It looked fine. Just an ordinary dog treat. But remember that someone was trying to poison dogs on the South Hill just a few months ago? I'm not taking any chances. I'm throwing the treat out.

But there must be different rules when it comes to kids and dogs? But is that ok? That woman would have never approached my kid the way she approached Missy. She didn't ask if  she could give her the treat or even if she could pet her. I think maybe people should be more cautious around dogs the way they would be around kids. ASK me if you can pet her. Then I'm prepared and the answer is more than likely yes. ASK me if it's ok she has the treat. You can still be friendly to my dog without over stepping your bounds. Even dog moms fear stranger danger.