Tag Archives: German Shorthair Pointer

Things Found In My House

Posted on December 18, 2012 by funnygurl2

My house is old.

My husband found a record that suggested it was built in the 1890’s. We bought our house in 2004. About a year before all the home prices got really cheap. We were told that Phil Donahue used to live in the beige house across the street. (There are two beige houses.) I LOVE PHIL DONAHUE. We were also told there is a jar of pennies in the wall between the dining room and the nursery. We haven’t knocked down the wall to get them yet.

When we moved in, my husband was hoping to find secret passageways and treasure. He stayed up late nights poking around the house trying to find something to discover.

I think maybe secretly he still does.

Objects found around our house.

Objects found around our house.


For someone expecting to find treasure, it is a big disappointment to only find a roof leak that a previous owner tried to disguise and some Scrabble tiles in the heat registers. I have a whole box of trinkets I keep of the things we have found in this house. They do tell its history, even if they are worthless to the average antique dealer.
Toys found in our yard and down our heat registers.

Toys found in our yard and down our heat registers.


Most of our discoveries came from vacuuming out the heat registers. Some kid(s) lived here that shoved everything that would fit down there. When we redid the dining room ceiling, we found ugly old wallpaper and nuts. Apparently at some point in the last hundred years our house served as a squirrel motel. (I HATE SQUIRRELS!)

Someone told me our house is Victorian. I have no idea. I do know that between the time that the house had its original wood exterior siding and the aluminum/vinyl siding it currently sports, someone had shingles all over it. Not like nice, New England wood shingles. Like the ugly asphalt kind you put on your roof. I cannot imagine. I guess I should be thankful they are still there, buried under other siding. I think it makes up for our lack of adequate insulation. (If I win the lottery, I am having the siding striped down to its original wood exterior again.) And someone who used to live here loved the color “brick red”. The kitchen cupboards, many rooms, (I also believe) the now white aluminum/vinyl siding all used to be that dark red.

Hobbit Door to our Attic. If only I had a Hobbit to put in front of it for perspective.

Hobbit Door to our Attic. If only I had a Hobbit to put in front of it for perspective.


Our attic has a hobbit door. That is what we call it. Somehow we crammed an air hockey table through it. (Air hockey and bowling and badminton are the only sports I can play at all. My play is definitely below average.

When we moved into our house, my Lab-Chow mix dug up a rawhide in the backyard that some other dog must have left behind. My Pointer recently would not stop digging holes in the backyard. And every time he digs, more of the dirt dissipates into the grass and cannot be recovered to refill the hole again. This makes for a dangerous backyard (not to mention the dog poop out there). Not to mention there used to be a swimming pool in our backyard and the ground is forever compacted and lower where it used to be. (As told to us by the neighbors who live behind us. The husband’s brother used to own our house.)

The perfume bottle, after I cleaned it up as best I could.

The perfume bottle, after I cleaned it up as best I could.


The Pointer ended up unearthing a glass perfume bottle. It doesn’t look very old, as I think the glass is molded rather than blown. That was a nice discovery. Usually, as it rains and we walk around in the backyard, all that gets unearthed are pieces of broken glass and marbles. (It makes you wonder what sort of people use their backyard as a trash dump. My husband insists that everyone used to.)

Because the Pointer kept digging, that got my husband curious and he took his metal detector (that he got at a garage sale and it didn’t come with instructions and he doesn’t know what the controls do) outside. What did he find? A piece of twisted red scrap metal and an old clothesline post base.

The poor treasure hunter can’t catch a break.

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Sleeps With Stuffed Animals

Posted on September 20, 2012 by funnygurl2

I sleep with a stuffed animal.

Every night.

There. I said it. And I am not ashamed. Although you probably think less of me now.

Old Barfey in the foreground


Growing up, I always slept with stuffed animals. As I grew up, I consistently slept with Old Barfey every night. (For more on Barfey, click here.) Old Barfey was the right size to wrap my arms around and his ground nutshells provided the perfect amount of weight to prevent him from bouncing out of bed in the night. I loved his aged nappy fur. Touching it gave me a sense of security.

As I got older, I feared I would lose Barfey’s nose one night in a freak boating accident. (I kill me.) So, I admit, I took other stuffed animals into my bed. (Is that considered sleeping around? Does that make me a plush slut?) It was hard to find one that was the right size and softness. A stuffy whose quality was good enough that fur wouldn’t fall out instantly. I found that generic animals usually won out over licensed characters. And cuteness in the daytime did not always equal comfort in the night.

I moved out and got my own apartment. Did I still need a stuffed animal to sleep with? Hells ya! It was lonely and creepy in my apartment all alone at night.

Then my boyfriend (now-husband) moved in. It wasn’t so lonely then. But he didn’t find the both of us sleeping in my twin bed comfortable, so for several years we would take turns, one sleeping on the couch and one sleeping in the twin bed. No boyfriend to cuddle = I still needed a stuffed animal.

We bought a Queen size bed. (My boyfriend said we should have gotten a King. There is no way that would have fit in my apartment. We could barely walk around the Queen size.) Guess what? It turns out my boyfriend was not a cuddler. And I usually went to bed before him anyway. So, I still had a stuffed animal.

I tried on and off for a period of time to go to sleep without a stuffed animal. I could. But it took a lot longer to fall asleep and I didn’t sleep as well. I tend to have panic attacks as I am trying to fall asleep. A lack of stuffed animal seemed to make them markedly worse.

Dave sleeping with a borrowed friend


We moved into our house in 2004 and got a dog. Finally, I thought, I can snuggle with my canine. Dave is furry and orange and beautiful. But my husband instituted a “no dog on the bed” rule. Which stayed in place about 15 months, until my husband got a dog of his own. Two dogs, guess which one sleeps on the bed most nights–my husband’s dog, Parker. He is all legs and he snores. Although I must say, he comes in handy come wintertime. Parker is a short-hair Pointer, so he shares his heat better than Dave, who is a fluffy Lab-Chow mix. She keeps her heat to herself.

Parker Pointer


But even with a snoring Pointer next to me, I find that I still sleep better with a stuffed animal in my arms. My current favorites are larger than I would have chosen as a kid. There are two Build-A-Bears, a Stitch, A Ty Panda Bear (Beckett, created exclusively for Borders), and Max, from the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. My asbestos friend bought me Max while I was in the hospital having my son. I had told her I needed a stuffy to sleep with while I was there. He didn’t help that much. I really didn’t get much sleep while in the hospital anyway.

Current Selection: Adult-Sized


So, there. I have admitted that I am a grown woman who sleeps with stuffed animals. What is there to be ashamed of? So I find comfort in a pile of fur and plastic pellets? A bundle of plush and polyester fiberfill? Isn’t that better than resorting to sleeping pills or alcohol? Isn’t it better than being the crazy cat lady and having a house that smells like ammonia?

Everyone, find a stuffed animal that meets your particular needs and snuggle up with it tonight and see if you don’t sleep better. Plus, you could have fun going to Build-A-Bear! But make sure you take a small child with you, for cover:)

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Squirrels Cannot Be Trusted

Posted on May 22, 2012 by funnygurl2

Doesn’t this totally look like a pot-smoking squirrel, using his nut as a bong?


I hate squirrels. I see them as worthless vermin. Some people feed them and think they are cute. Not me. Some people buy greeting cards with pictures of squirrels on them. I use those cards as a dart board.

My distrust stems from an encounter I had with a squirrel when I was young, a preschooler. Apparently someone in the small town I lived in had raised a squirrel from when it was a baby. Hence, eradicating it’s natural fear of humans. But it grew up and they released it into the wild. Now, I refer to this as half-tamed. Apparently the squirrel had attacked a girl down the street. But no one tried to catch it.

Then one day my mom and I were sitting on our front porch, minding our own business. She was reading a letter from her friend in California. Luckily for me, they wrote each other thick letters. The half-tame squirrel ran up and attacked me. I don’t really remember it, I remember my mom telling me about it. (I probably blocked it out of my memory for continued sanity.) He scratched and bit me. My mom beat him off with the letter.

Our next door neighbor was an RN, so she fixed up my wounds. My mom rented a live trap from the DNR and finally caught the thing and they hauled it off. I have hated squirrels ever since. Which, is like, over 30 years. I am good at holding a grudge.

One time I was taking a walk at work with my green-haired co-worker while we were on break. We saw a squirrel and she threw a stick at it. The stick hit close to it, bounced, and the squirrel ran—in the direction that the stick bounced. Hence, the stick totally hit him right in the head. The funniest damn thing I have ever seen! I wish we had taped it for YouTube.

In my current house, we have a big old maple tree in the backyard that the squirrels love to live in. If we were in the country, I would shoot them with a gun. The squirrels drive my German Shorthair Pointer nuts. They sit in the tree and “bark” at my dog. Sometimes they sit up there and scratch themselves. I just know they are flicking their fleas and lice down at me. Yuck. Filthy, gross beasts. The worst is probably when the dogs are on the 20 foot lead. The squirrels know that. They will stay just beyond where my Pointer can reach them and taunt him.

My house if over 100 years old. Several years ago, we redid the dining room ceiling, removing the plaster. As we hit the ceiling to break up the plaster, we could hear nuts up above the lathe. In the past, those nasty animals were living IN my house. Last year one squirrel moved into our garage. It isn’t a finished and nice garage, but I still don’t want vermin in it. I would open the garage door and startle the squirrel that would scurry away, in turn startling me. Sometimes he would dive across the small distance between our house roof and the garage roof, just as I was letting dogs out, driving them crazy.

A couple months ago, I let my dogs out into the backyard and was standing around, minding my own business while the dogs tended to theirs. Just then there was a commotion and all of a sudden I had a squirrel running at me at full speed, with my Pointer just inches behind him. Parker must have smoked him out of his hiding spot by the house somewhere. I screamed and jumped, which is the natural reaction when you think a squirrel is going to jump up your leg. The squirrel, realizing I was between him and his favorite tree, made a hairpin turn and headed for the garage instead. He leaped up onto the fence gate, that is attached to the garage. He stumbled, and Parker almost got him. But no such luck. The squirrel clawed his way up the garage siding, leaving me and my dog with our hearts beating out of our chests.

When I envisioned this post six months ago, I didn’t have a good ending for it. Now I totally have great closure. The stupid squirrels would use a barrel that sat next to the garage to help them climb to the roof. I had not noticed the squirrels jumping up that way for a few months. Then our neighbor realized there was a dead animal in the barrel. Everyone thought it was a raccoon. When my husband removed the carcass, it turned out it was two dead squirrels. Wow. Mother’s Day had come early. I couldn’t have been happier. Couldn’t have happened to a nastier animal. Except maybe bats. One time we had one of those drown in a storage container in the attic. But, that’s a different topic.

I’m not stalking you. is NOW ON FACEBOOK! “Like” that I’m not stalking you and get an update when there is a new post to read. (It is sort of like YOU are stalking ME.)

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Parker

Posted on June 30, 2011 by funnygurl2

Pathetic Parker at the Lenawee Humane Society


To continue from last week’s blog, here is how Dave got her name. I always wanted a “dog named Dave.” I think it may have come from Laverne & Shirley, because Shirley would talk about wanting to marry a doctor, have a boy & girl, a house with a white picket fence, and a dog named Dave. I also always knew I wanted a girl dog, because that is what I was used to. In high school, I decided someday I would have a dog named Dave D. Canine, because it sounds like a real name & then I could scam credit card companies into giving a dog a credit card. I never knew what the D stood for until we got her. She looked like a dingo (australian wild dog), so that is what the D came to stand for. We started calling her Daveweena. So her real full name is Daveweena Dingo Canine.

After we had Dave for a little over a year and gotten her reasonably trained, my husband was itching to get a dog of his own. Unlike myself, he made weekly trips to the Lenawee Humane Society before finding the dog that was right for him. He found a noisy, jumpy German Shorthair Pointer named Archer. Archer had been a stray, so the Humane Society had held him for a week. My husband spotted him the first day he was available for adoption. I infamously said,”You like THAT dog?” I stand by that statement to this day. We took Archer in the room to play with him. He was overly friendly, trying to sit in my lap the whole time. My husband was sure that was the dog for him, so we took him home. He was renamed Parker.

Parker on duty

Once home, Dave walked around plastered next to Parker’s side for a week, trying to dominate him & get him to play with her. He is not a very playful dog. We have hardwood floors, and Parker did not lay down on them for over a year. We took him camping. He refused to lay down. However, he was very fond of the couch. It is interesting how the couch was a doggy no-no zone until Parker came along. As we couldn’t keep him off of it, Dave was then allowed to lay on it as well. (The rule of the house is that animals have to move if humans want to sit on it, though. Dave is the guard dog of the house. I always say that Parker’s job is to hold down the couch, because gravity is very weak right there:) Parker only got a month of dog obedience training, whereas Dave got 16 months. It shows.

We learned that Parker is actually very cat-like. He can go lay on the bed & sleep for hours & you won’t even know he is there. But if it is dinner time, watch out. He will start begging & whining like 2 hours before feeding time. He also goes out to the bathroom more than any dog I have ever met. Part of that is due to the fact that he can drink an entire bowl of water at one time. But I really wish he wouldn’t. He is so whiny, that our best friends who used to dog sit for us, have said they will only continue to watch him if they can freely complain about him. Needless to say, he is going to be boarded on our next out-of-town adventure.

Parker is a giant flight risk. I can’t count the number of times he has runaway. He finds an open gate or he skinnies out between the fence & the house. I find it truly unbelievable that I have a nicely fenced backyard & I still have to tie my dogs up on leads, because otherwise they will escape. Once Dave broke her lead & jumped over the fence, all in the time it took me to take a wizz in the bathroom. Parker usually runs away in the middle of winter during an ice storm. But he once ran away on the first hot day of summer & was found after swimming in a lake. (Ew, stinky dog). Once, that we know of, he has crossed the busiest road near our house. Just the thought of that scares me. I think one time his running away could be partially blamed on my friend who threw a Pure Romance sex toy party at my house. She was making everyone sample lotions & perfumes with pheromones in them. Parker was shut in the other room, but making a God-awful wailing. Shortly after I think he escaped & went looking for love. His dog identification tag is the best investment we ever made. We now have him microchipped as well.

Oh, and as soon as we got Parker & he leaped into the back seat of the SUV with no problem, that is when Dave said,”Well, hell. If he can do that, so can I.” We never had to lift her up into the backseat of the car again.

Parker’s full name is Parker Jo Buhdoo. “Buhdoo” is a great word that I believe my friend invented. You want the definition of buhdoo? Look at Parker’s picture from the Humane Society.

Parker today

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Dave, My Little Girl

Posted on June 23, 2011 by funnygurl2

Dave's picture from the Lenawee Humane Society


I can’t believe I have been writing this blog for several months now, and have yet to tell you about my dogs. Dave, a Lab-Chow (and possibly Shepherd) mix and Parker, a German Shorthair Pointer.

I wanted a dog for 20 years. Since I was eight & my mom got rid of Ginger, the dog we had as I was growing up. My mom wouldn’t let me have a dog in the trailer. She said there wasn’t enough room. (It would have been crowded, but we could have done it!) I had a goldfish for a short time. Like, I think it lasted all of 3 months. Then I was in an apartment that did not allow dogs. Although my now-husband & I had a hamster & a hedgehog while we lived there.

Then, in 2004, we bought our own house! Ya! (It was happy-time then. We didn’t know that our house would be worth $20,000 less in just 7 years.) That meant we could have a dog! The plan was always that I would get a dog first, then my husband would get one. I think we agreed on that because he had had a dog more recently than I. So, I waited as long as I could to get a dog. I wanted to have the house cleaned & unpacked & organized.

So, 3 weeks after we moved into the house, we went to the Humane Society. Now, I had spotted a dog on the Internet I was in love with at the Monroe County Humane Society. It was an orange/tan shepherd-lab mix named Chloe. Or Zoey. I don’t remember. Anyway, my husband was too lazy to drive that far, so we went to the Lenawee Humane Society that was only five minutes from our house first. There I saw a very pathetic dog named “Sunny.” She was orange & a mutt. That fit all my criteria. All my pets had always been orange. And I really wanted a mutt. She just laid there on the concrete floor, looking so sad. She was the only dog that didn’t bark at me. She did come get a treat from me when I offered her one. She had been fixed just 2 days before. So, my husband & I took her into a room to play with her. She looked out the window a lot & peed on the floor. That was our first glimpse at her playful personality. Also, what should have been our first clue that she wasn’t really housebroken, even though she was a year and a half old.

We ended up taking “Sunny” home. Because she had just been fixed, she was still sore, and my husband had to lift her hind end up to get into the SUV. (We would have to continue to lift her into the back of the Aztek for the next year.) I turned around to look at her in the backseat of the car, before we even left the parking lot, and said,”Oh no. You are not a Sunny. You are a Dave.” About a week later, we discovered that Dave did indeed have a bark. Or rather, a howl. My husband & I were being goofy, and she howled at us. I looked at my husband & said,”Is that good or bad?” He said,” I think she is happy.” My husband was very happy because he had always wanted a dog that could howl.

We had a rough start with Dave. My sister-in-law told me that she had seen Dave with LHS in April. We didn’t adopt her til Friday, August 13th. I think with the combination of being at the Humane Society so long & having surgery, she probably felt like no one loved her & was very depressed. She is a dominant dog. Once she realized she had a home, she proceeded to try to run the house. We took her to Dog Obedience classes, and now she is a dream dog (After years of work, of course). We went to Kate Cook, who I highly recommend, but I don’t think she trains dogs anymore:( I still have to hold her leash ultra-tight if we pass another dog on a walk. Dave is dominant & wants to go hump them. And she can’t be in the backyard unsupervised, because she has been known to climb over our 4ft chain link fence to get at another dog.

Later I found the picture of the Zoey dog in Monroe I wanted to adopt. She looks VERY similar to Dave. My Dave is my dream puppy. I wouldn’t want to give her up for anything.

To find out why a girl dog got named Dave, you will just have to come back for my post next week:)

Dave today

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