New HULA Members: Sasha and Sita

Meeshka -

We don't understand how it has come to pass that something called HULA exists without our being charter members. While we haven't seen an official application form, we feel that we more than meet what we gather to be your criteria (frankly, we invented this stuff).

1) Demonstrating Disruptive Behavior... We have SO many to choose from on this one, it was a really hard call, but we decided to go with the day we were at the dog run, and, once our human was lulled into submission, foolishly playing with others of her own kind, thinking the fences that were good enough for for all those other dogs would be good enough for the likes of US, we found a spot to squiggle through, and so, of course, we did! Then, we ran in circles, around and around the dog run, while more and more of the humans came running out to follow us. Oddly, the only one who didn't seem to be in a panic over our safety was OURS! She stayed disturbingly calm, and just ambled on over to the gate... with our leashes... and delicious TREATS she knew we could not resist, so we came back in, for our delicious TREATS! The rest of the humans were very, very upset though.... It was the funniest joke ever. And apparently very disruptive...

2) Cause Humans to Freak Out for no Real Reason: Again... with so many options to choose from, it was hard to no which one to go with. But, we decided on this one, which, admittedly, could just have easily have been in category 1. The second day we were in our new house, our human went outside to talk to some other human who was doing things to our backyard. We realized, way before she did, that he had LEFT THE GATE OPEN!!!!! She NEVER leaves gates open! NEVER! Not gates, or doors, or even windows. Nothing. So we knew we needed to take advantage of this opportunity to go exploring, because we realized we would not be getting another one anytime soon. So off we went! By the time she noticed the gate was open (oddly, the other human who was back there neglected to mention he'd left the gate open until she realized it was. We keep hoping we'll see him again, but it hasn't happened yet....), we were nowhere to be seen. She called everyone she knew, even her parents! People left work, came racing over in their cars, everyone was looking for us! Eventually they found us... Back in our own backyard. We just wanted to go have a little look around, where did they think we were planning to go, anyway?

3) Destroy Something: OK, let's see ... between the two of us... more shoes than most people own in a lifetime, a pair of glasses, at least three cell phones, more pairs of jeans than anyone could ever count, one laptop, one sofa, one coffee table, a LOT of books (Sasha's puppy specialty), a couple of baby gates, and just a lot of random stuff.

4) Human Behavior Modification: We could go through a massive list of small things, here, but our recent work on this front has been quite impressive, if we do say so ourselves. We got her to buy us our own house. With our own backyard. And a car, too! Soon enough, she'll be getting us a puppy, although she may not quite realize it yet. Oh, and we hit her in the face every morning until she wakes up, to get started on our day's entertainment!

5) Humans Dress You Up: Oh no. Here, Meeshka, we beg to differ. She would not dare. We dress her up. In our hair. It's all over every single thing she owns. She doesn't even notice anymore. Most of the time, it's even all tangled up in her hair!

6) Love of Kleenex: Kleenex is fine, we guess. But we don't see what all the fuss is about, over Kleenex, in a world where there is such a thing as CAT POOP!!! That's the good stuff Meeshka! Seriously. If you haven't had any yet, you need to get that human woman of yours to get you some. It's the best stuff in the world. We can't think of anything we like better. Really, nothing.

Sasha & Sita

P.S. We'd like to learn some of your claw sharpening techniques please? Our human's starting to sleep through her morning beatings! That might be what we need to get her back on track.

(Well... I agree to disagree about the kleenex, regardless, congratulations!)

New Type Of Food

We just got a new type of food that is VERY tasty. I have no idea what its called, but I'll ask the human woman to find out and if she doesn't forget (if she doesn't write down to go pee, she forgets) I'll have her tell you all what it is. The jury is still out on whether it'll upset our stomachs, because we just got it for the first time tonight. I'll give you an update on the gastro-intestinal verdict tomorrow morning.

It comes in a big roll and it has to stay in the fridge so there's no chance of us getting into that metal food safe and getting the whole roll, which is a bummer.

There's only one problem with the new food:

Is There Such A Thing As Too Early?

Its a Trap

What's In The Box!?

OOOH, I got mail today! Ok, it was actually addressed to the human woman, but it was actually for me. A really cool (famous) person sent us prizes for the upcoming blogathon!

Remember, sponsorship opens up in less than a week (give or take a few days), so you'll want to get out there and sponsor so you could possibly win some of the REALLY cool stuff that came in that box.

So you're probably saying "What's in the box???" Well, its not Gwyenth Paltro's head, but here's the greatest spoof on that movie.

Anyway, I digress.

I'm not going to tell you right away what is in the box, but I will give you some hints as to who sent it:
It came from Canada
It has famous fur on some of the items
The human that owns the dog that put the famous fur on some of the items also autographed some of the items.
If you happen to be in Pennsylvania on 5 August 2007, you can also meet this famous person.

Once I've registered for blogathon, and sponsorship opens up, I'll start posting pictures of all the cool stuff that can be won if you sponsor me (all proceeds go straight to Harnessed To Hope Northern Breed Rescue).

So, steal your human's credit cards and money, and get ready to win some prizes, help a good rescue, and enjoy my words of wisdom for 24 hours straight (48 posts, one post every half hour). I'm sure you won't regret losing a little bit of sleep.

Meeshka
(doing some serious power napping to prep for the event)

He's Just Plain Weird

Sammy Sun Worshipping
Originally uploaded by Shmoomeema

Ok, we're huskies. Huskies lay and romp in the snow. We do NOT (I repeat) NOT lay in the sun... except Sam does.

While I'm banging on the door for the human woman to let me in from the searing heat, the mutatoe is hiding under the shade of the deck, there's Sam... lounging in the sun. Black fur, soaking up the heat... he's very strange.

He tells us that he needs the sun's rays to power his bionic hip. Yeah, we're buying that excuse. Since he's got so much stainless steel in him (its surprising he doesn't clank when he walks) I'm guessing its more to warm up his gimpy parts.

The human woman thinks its cute how he lays in the sun, but he's ruining the reputation of huskies all over the world! How can we possibly convince the humans that we'll need indoor snow machines to keep us rolling in snow year round once we take over the world if Sam is out lounging in the heat and basking in the sun?

Its just not right

Meeshka
(won't catch me laying in the sun, I'll spontaneously combust)

Honorary HULA Member: Charlie the black lab

I have to send out an honorary HULA membership to Charlie, the black lab from Sagle, Idaho.

It seems Charlie was a bit upset that his owner picked up a pizza and didn’t take him along, so Charlie took matters in his own paws, jumped in the car, put it in gear and whizzed down a hill. Seeing that the car was heading straight for the Pend Oreille River, the ever smart Charlie decided to bail before the car went into the river. Read the full story here, and laugh at his silly owner’s exploits at retrieving his car.

For showing the true HULA spirit, I proudly welcome Charlie into the ranks of the HULA Hoop.

Congratulations Charlie!

Meeshka

A Different Shirt

So the other night the human woman and I were woken up by thunder. Ok, the human woman was asleep (she’ll sleep through ANYTHING) so I made sure she was awake and aware of the thunder. “Hey” claw, claw. Of course my clawing ability was drastically diminished by the recent nail clipping, so I really had to claw at her to wake her up and let her know it was thundering.

Instead of going downstairs and sitting on the couch like I trained her to do during a storm, she stumbles around in the dark looking for my shirt. Little does she know, I hid the shirt. Ok, I didn’t actually hide the shirt, but at 2am the human woman doesn’t think very well, so she couldn’t remember where she last took it off me.

Loki tried to come to my rescue by demanding to go out. He knew the shirt was coming, so he tried to distract her into forgetting about it by yapping really loudly and dancing to be let out. At least that’s what he says his plan was, but he lied. He just had to poo really bad, and since he’s a suck up mutatoe, he’d rather just lay there in misery than wake the human woman and demand to go out like I do.

Even after taking out the mutatoe, she still remembered the whole shirt thing, probably because the moment she came back up the stairs, I compulsively clawed her again. She found a nice white t-shirt in a larger size than the normal shirt (not that I’m saying that my dieting isn’t working, I’m still pretty fluffy despite the combing and nail trimming) and managed to herd me into the bathroom and put it on. Its a much nicer shirt, I have to admit and really brings out the color of my eyes.

Dejected, yet very stylish in my new white shirt, I decided that the storm wasn’t really that bad, but curled up on her pillow and sighed really hard just so the human woman would know that I wasn’t happy about the whole thing.

Today we had a very quick yet windy rain storm. Just for grins, I clawed the human woman and even clawed the human man when he walked up. They know who the boss is, and I’ll claw when I want to.

Meeshka
(I’m hoping for a nice green shirt next that will go with my fluff)

Thunder

The claw

We like to help

See, even the human woman says that we're very helpful

Meeshka

Food Dryer

I’m glad Indy brought up the whole “food dryer” thing.

With the food recalls (stupid humans), my humans decided that we weren’t going to get any more stupid dog treats because they didn’t trust the treats made in stores any more. We also get some high end food that’s pretty dang tasty now. Instead of regular dog treats, we now get bread and goldfish crackers. Bread is very tasty, it would be better with some butter on it, but our humans are selfish and won’t butter our bread. The goldfish crackers are equally tasty, but we only get them at bed time or in our kongs as a snack. I think we should get them in our new tasty food as well.

So, since we like jerky, and the humans like jerky, they went out and bought this food dryer thing. They cut up the meat and put it in this thing and it sucks all the moisture out of it and it makes jerky. Pretty cool eh?

Well, here’s the problem with that. So far we haven’t seen one little piece of jerky out of that thing.

The first batch, the humans explained to us that they needed to “test it out” to make sure it was ok for us. They cut up the meat and marinated it in some tasty smelling liquids and then put it in the dryer and the whole house smelled like tasty meats for like an entire day. The human man was quality control, and throughout the day he would go and check a piece, eating it to make sure that it was up to husky high standard. The only problem was, that by the time the batch was done, there was only three pieces left!

Ok, fine, they had to do extensive testing apparently, and we do appreciate their attention to detail when it comes to only feeding us the finest jerky in the land, but come on!

Next batch, same thing happened! We haven’t gotten to eat ANY of the tasty jerky!

So everyhusky, dog and girl-girl, if your humans drag home a food dryer and tell you that its for you, don’t believe them, they’re such liars.

Meeshka
(hey, how about dropping one of those on the floor or something?)

Fluffiness

GET IT OFF ME

Meeshka in her storm shirt
Originally uploaded by Shmoomeema

I hate you, I hate you, get it off me, it hasn't thundered in an hour, get the shirt off me, I refuse to look at you, I feel like an idiot, I'm a husky, I'm wearing a shirt, get it off me, don't make me claw you again, sure I made you bleed but you put a shirt on me and you deserved it, you really did, you should be ashamed of yourself human woman, I will sit on your head when you sleep and we'll see how funny it is then.

Meeshka
(get this shirt off me NOW)

Battle of the Wills

Belated Thank You to Steve and Kat

A while back we received a package in the mail that was addressed to ME, but the human woman took it from me and opened it up. Inside were some very tasty and pretty cookies from Steve and Kat! We were all very excited, because not only were there cookies for me, with my hame on them, but also for Mutatoe and Spineless Sammy (it was very nice of Steve and Kat to think of them, they hardly get any fan mail and those cookies kept them from whining and bawling like little babies).

So, did we get the cookies? Of course not. The human woman was in the middle of one of her health catastrophes, and either her hand hurt, or she had a cold, or her hair didn’t curl just right or something, but she actually put them on the shelf that we couldn’t reach. She said that when she felt better (like that would ever happen) she wanted to take pictures of us enjoying our special Kat and Steve cookies. So, wanna take a guess when that happened... yep, you guessed, that would be never.

Meanwhile, other lucky pups who got their special Steve and Kat cookies were posting pictures of them enjoying the tasty cookie goodness, and thanking Steve and Kat for being so nice and sending them something... meanwhile our cookies sat on the shelf, waiting on the human woman to get off her butt and give them to us. I kept telling her what a crappy human woman she was not to at least acknowledge receiving the cookies and making up some lame excuse as to why she hadn’t fed them to us, but she just complained about some other mystery illness and lack of time and the fact that her hair was fuzzy that day and there the cookies sat.

Flash back to a day when a repair person had to come to the house. Yep, there we are in our crates because we aren’t allowed to play with the repair people, and repair people tend not to be very good about making sure the door is closed, which means a game of “catch me if you can”, so we were locked in our crates to keep from helping or playing our fun games. We weren’t very happy about being in our crates that day, so in a rush to keep us quiet, the human woman grabbed the first thing she could get her hands on to appease us... yes, the Steve and Kat cookies. Give her credit for actually giving us the ones with our names on it, but she unceremoniously tossed our cookies into our crates to “shut us up”. Well, isn’t that nice way to present a special treat that Steve and Kat spent so much time and effort to make for us. That’s just lovely.

We all protested, knowing that we needed to save these tasty treats for when we could have our pictures taken to show our appreciation for the wonderful treats... but they smelled so incredibly tasty that we just had to eat them. So we ate them.

Now, here we are without any sort of happy pictures of us enjoying the special treats that Steve and Kat so lovingly made for us. So, I’ve attempted to recreate what should have happened if we had a caring and thoughtful human woman (which we don’t, she’s a selfish whiner).

Here is a picture of my cookie:









Here is a picture of me about to enjoy my very tasty cookie:






Thank you Steve and Kat for the cookies, they were tasty.

Meeshka
(human woman for sale)

Keeping Things Interesting

The other day we all decided to sleep in. We didn’t tell this to the human woman, so when the alarm went off in the morning, she was a bit disoriented. Normally I wake her up before the alarm, so she had a hard time trying to figure out where that strange beeping noise was coming from.

When she did finally figure it out, she got up and looked at us for a long time, then back at the clock, then at us, then at the clock. She finally figured out that it actually was time to get up, and we needed to go out and then eat. Except we didn’t want to go out. This caused her some concern.

Usually the only times we don’t want to go out and then eat is if we’re sick, so immediately she was asking us if we were sick. Unfortunately the human woman, even after all of these years, hasn’t figure out how to speak husky (we picked up english very quickly, so I guess we know who the smarter animal is, eh?), so she just couldn’t understand it when we said “nah, we want to sleep in today”.

Since the human woman doesn’t speak husky, she tried to push us outside. Sam and Loki, being the suck up mutatoe and spineless bionic hip dogs, did what they were told. I just got up, pretended to follow her out of the bedroom, turned around, jumped on the bed and took her pillow spot.

About five minutes later she comes creeping back into the bedroom and looks at me. “don’t you want to go out?” she asks. Um, hello, I’m comfortably laying on your pillow, does it look like I want to go out? Humans are silly.

I held out long enough for the human woman to let the gimpies back in and put our bowls on the counter, then I was in that kitchen in a flash. Frankly I really did need to go to the bathroom, but the food was getting made. I didn’t think the human woman would bother to stop that process and take me out, so I just held it until I was done eating. This further freaked her out, because I NEVER go back outside after eating. No, I usually go and lay on the air vent and suck up all the cold air. She really didn’t know what to do with herself because we totally messed up her morning routine.

HA! See how you like it!

Meeshka
(tomorrow maybe we’ll switch food bowls, since I suspect that Spineless Sam is getting more food that Loki and I)

Thunder and The CLAW

I'm sure that by now you know that I don't like thunder. If you don't... stop reading this, go back to the beginning of the blog and start reading. No, we aren't waiting until you catch up, stop sniveling and go to the beginning!

Anyway, the human woman started this whole thing with me. She seems to blame it on my being afraid of thunder, but what she really did was condition me to claw her whenever it thundered. Its her own fault!

When I was just a young puppy, we had some very nasty storms, very loud thunder and lightening. The human woman happened to get stuck in some tornadoes when she was a young pup, and she's a bit of a freak when it storms, so naturally when it would storm, she would herd all of us downstairs and we'd sit down there until it stopped storming.

Ok, fine, it thunders, we have to go downstairs. We get that. We understand. Until she changes the rule, of course.

Now, I'm a husky and I like routine. Futz with my routine and I don't like that. Tell me that when it storms we have to go downstairs, and then out of the blue say "nah, we don't have to do that"... I don't think so. You WILL go downstairs when it thunders and until you do... I will claw you. Yep, no matter what time of the day or night, it thunders, I claw the human woman. Sometimes I'll go claw the human man too, just because, but mainly I claw the human woman, because she made up that stupid rule and she'll abide by it or lose a limb. One time she was already downstairs and it started thundering, so I walked up to her and clawed her for no reason.

I've trained her well. It thunders, she jumps up and puts my shirt on and tries to out run my claw. I've even chased her around the table sometimes, but eventually I get her. She's devious though, and has figured out a way to deter me when it storms and she's in the middle of cooking and can't leave the stove:
One thing I have to say about her... she does have good balance.

Meeshka
(Storm Tracker 2000 and Neal Estano has nothing on my weather predicting)

What Not To Wear

Turn Your Nose at the Last Minute

Did I Ever Mention How Much I Hate Tables?

When I was a young pup, and chose the humans to be my slaves, they took me to a vet and put me on a table.

Once I was on that table, I realized that it was slippery, it was high up, I was at their mercy and they could do whatever they wanted to me, and I vowed right then and there that I would NEVER get on another table ever again. Try to strip me of my power will you... I'll show you.

The next time I was taken to the vet, I was placed on the evil table, and I emitted such an ear piercing shriek of death, that not only did they immediately put me back on the floor (where I belong), but ran out to explain to the entire vet clinic that I was not being tortured or killed... they just put me on a table.

One time I had to go in to the vet for some silly procedure. The evil vet tech people took me into the back room for this procedure while the vet stayed and talked to the humans, and they put me on a table. I wish I had been in the room to see their faces. The vet ran in, saw what had happened, ran back into the exam room to explain, and then, as usual, ran out into the waiting room to convince everyone there that I was perfectly fine... they just put me on a table.

This weekend, a new vet saw me:

No Idea How That Happened

My Trip to the Vet

This morning when the humans got out my lovely and stylish harness and leash, I thought for sure that they were going to take me someplace fun and exciting. Turns out I was due for my vaccines, so off to the vet we went. I was not pleased at all about that. No dancing, no dinner, no sprinkler, no miniature golf, no nothing.

As usual, I made my grand entrance into the vet clinic to the ooh and aahs of the people already in there. They gazed upon my fluffiness and were envious of me. I inspected the shelves for my treats. They had nicely left a basket of rawhide bones out for me, but the human woman pulled me away rudely and told me they weren’t for me. Um, excuse me, but if they leave them at dog level, then they sure are for me! I also thought it was dangerous of them to leave a tippy shelf like that, as I nearly knocked down an entire display when I tried to investigate the bags of treats and everyone had a good laugh when I knocked a bunch of stuff to the floor. The human woman didn’t laugh though, she can be such a prude.

After that, I decided that I wasn’t going to cooperate at all and when I was led to the scale, I decided to throw a tantrum and lay down, refused to get on the scale. You want me on the scale, you’ll have to lift me on it. They did, even though I tried to make myself as heavy and limp as possible. I am a very fluffy 75 pounds. Yep, I’m very fluffy. So fluffy that the human woman gasped in amazement at my fluffiness and told me in all seriousness that I was going on a diet! I’m not so sure I like those plans.

We went into the usual exam room and I was very cute and fluffy there... until the evil vet tech woman came in and tried to stuff a thermometer up my butt, then I wasn’t so cute and fluffy. I buried myself behind the human man and tried to be very small. Those dang slippery floors wouldn’t give my claws any purchase, and I got slid backwards, tail presented like a sacrifice and in went the thermometer. I screamed really loud, which made the tech feel bad, but the humans knew I was just being a pain.

The vet came in and boy was it fun skittering around, hiding behind people trying to avoid her. Stupid human woman and her evil tech experience though. She got me in a head lock and there’s just no escaping that when she gets her mind to it. I shrieked again, just to freak out the people in the waiting room. The cruel vet poked me twice with needles and stole my blood with a third one. Then I was rudely put into a headlock by the human woman and the vet shoved something in my nose and squirted it in. I made sure to twist violently at the last second and even though most went into my nose, the rest went right into the human woman’s face. She can now be boarded at a kennel.

Once that inconvenience was over with, I snubbed the tech and the vet’s attempt at apologizing and pranced back into the waiting room, where throngs of my admirers were concerned about my health and well being and I got all sorts of attention.

The mutatoe and gimpy Sam were very jealous when I returned home and gave me a thorough sniffing. After a while we got lunch and I swear there was more water and less food in there than normal. I’m going to have to complain to the chef about that if it happens again for dinner.

Meeshka
(I’ll show you where to put that thermometer)

Burning Meats