New HULA Members: Loo, Lee, and Kena

Dear Meeshka:

My name is Loo and I would like to sign-up myself and my 3 husky sisters for HULA membership. Myself, Lee, and Kena are all from the same litter and will be 6 years old this year. Chubbers is a foster failure who could be anywhere from 5 to 8 years old even though she still acts like a puppy most of the time never listening to my reprimanding barks, snarls, or neck-slams. I would apply for my 4 feline brothers and sisters, but they’re content with their splendorous life of eating canned-food (which we don’t get), going to the bathroom in the house (which we get yelled at for), and getting to sleep on the parental-units’ bed (which we are denied with claims that they don’t make sled-dog team sized beds). Plus, the cats claim it would interfere with their 18-hour nap. But to note, so far they have flooded the bathroom twice, chewed through numerous power cords, and attempted to assassinate us huskies on more than one occasion using nefarious weapons such as dental floss, markers, and gummy bears.

Below are some descriptions on why we qualify for HULA membership. I’ve only given one or two examples per requirement otherwise I could bring down the Internet with the massive amounts of information it would take to list all of our great accomplishments. I hope this will qualify all of us!

1. Demonstrating disruptive behavior:
I submit as evidence picture 01_01, which I feel nicely captures our ability to give ourselves spa mud treatments while causing havoc with the parental-units. That’s me in the back and Princess (aka Lee) standing by the hole. You’ll notice the nice patterns of mud on the snout and legs with a good coating on the underbelly as well. The look of horror on the female parental-unit was worth days of entertainment. She actually had to call the male parental-unit home from work so that they could bath us. Even with the bath it was worth it – all that glorious mud!

Now we all know its easy during the winter to drive the parental-units crazy by refusing to come inside while running madly around in the snow. They stand at the patio door with looks of frustration, yelling threats of fluffy-butt beatings that you know will never happen. But, as seen in picture 01_02 (from left to right is me, Princess, then Kena – Chubbers refuses to participate in this scam, opting to run inside and lay on the air conditioning vent), we have also developed the summer version of this fantastic husky trick. Instead of running around madly, which we all know just doesn’t happen outside in the summer since its too hot, you lay in the sun, getting a nice husky tan, lazing the day away. When the parental-units call you in, you may briefly lift your head or give a little yawn, but then you must lay down again like that one movement used up all your energy for the day. They’ll keep calling… You must ignore them! Trust me, we’ve learned this one from the felines – unless a parental-unit is standing right next to you, what can they really do except yell? Eventually, they will come outside - hopefully you’re laying in the furthest point possible from the door so as to make the parental-units’ trek long and difficult. Now at this point you can either jump up and run to the door like you just realized they wanted you to come in or you can wait, lay through the toe nudging, and turn your body into boneless goo when they try to pick you up. We like to randomly choose our strategy as it keeps the parental-units guessing.

Butt-twirling. I think that says it all, but let me explain. Occasionally, Chubbers has issues with her anal sacs not draining – the vet claims this occurs frequently in overweight dogs (she’s not called Chubbers for nothing). So, she started butt-scooting to relieve her overflowing anal-sacs, which caused the parental-units to yell at her to stop doing that. So the ever-obedient Chubbers complied. She started butt-twirling – she sits in one spot with her fore legs on the ground and her rear legs propped up around her forelegs with her butt directly on the ground. She then proceeds to twirl herself in a circle. Amazingly enough, not only can she husky-fight like this by bopping myself, Princess, and Kena with her head as she twirls, the parental-units don’t yell at her anymore – they just laugh. Trust me, all you huskies out there with butt issues have to try this one!

2. Cause humans to freak out for no real reason:
My favorite human freak out was when Princess and I were still puppies (no Kena or Chubbers yet) and I used to put Gus’ head in my mouth and gnaw – just a little, I swear. Gus is the evil cat (remember the bathroom flooding mentioned above). You can see in picture 02_01, just how nicely I was able to coat his neck with my superior husky slobber. But the best part of this was, the female parental-unit would get all flustered (she had apparently heard that huskies like to eat cats) and lean down and grab Gus out of my mouth, set him on the table, give him pets and make sure he still had a head. As soon as the female parental unit stopped paying attention to him, Gus would jump down and I would stick his head in my mouth again. Really, this was good for hours of amusement until the parental-units caught onto the fact we would never hurt our feline brothers and sisters as they are fun to groom and can open drawers and cabinets to bring us yummy treats (remember the dental floss, markers, and gummy-bears mentioned above).

Princess and I got a little carried away with this next freak out, but it had the added benefit of us huskies not having to wear collars anymore. You’ll notice in picture 02_02, that I love the neck bite. Well, Princess and I were doing a little neck gnawing on each other and she got my collar wrapped around her lower jaw. It formed a nice figure-eight, which had the unforeseen side effect of choking me. The parental-units came running after hearing Princess’ high pitched whining (I couldn’t make any noise what with the whole being choked thing going on) and immediately started trying to separate us. What we didn’t know was that the collar clip was hidden under Princess’ tongue, so the Parental-units were really freaking out, trying to cut off the collar and crying until they found the clip. At this point I was a little put out as it took them so long I almost passed out. To make them pay for their slow action, I then caused my pupil to stop dilating. This, of course, caused more freakage and warranted a trip to the vet (I don’t care for the vet so much, but you do get a car ride there and back so its worth it). After being poked and prodded, and the vet saying my clever ruse was caused by a pinched nerve and the pupil would return to normal, NO MORE COLLARS. All the huskies here still owe me for that one.

3. Cause humans guilt for no reason other than to get attention or treats:
The classic Delicate Paw. Anytime a human steps on, grazes, or looks funny at your paw, go into a high-pitch whining/howling session for 3-5 minutes while dramatically limping. Princess pulled off a nice one when we were puppies and the female parental-unit stepped on her paw while out walking us one morning. Princess managed to wake up the male parental-unit and made the female parental-unit think that a bone would be sticking out. When she put down Princess inside, the female parental-unit was so relieved when Princess stopped whining/howling and started walking normally, that we both got yummy treats. Unfortunately, you can only use this one so many times before the parental-units realize that a husky that can slam their head into the corner of a coffee table without missing a beat can probably deal with a little step on the paw. But while it still works, it’s the best and takes very little effort.

This next one was a bit more tricky, but the results are well worth it. Princess very generously developed a low thyroid problem. But instead of a normal low thyroid count, her problem actually produces a high count of T4 – there’s some mumbo-jumbo about the body attacking the T4, so you don’t get enough T3, but the test reads an off the chart T4 count. Any-woo, the first vet we went to did not know what it was, and since high thyroid problems are only found in canines when there is cancer or a tumor present that’s what they told the parental-units who immediately freaked out, moaning and wailing, scrambling for a way to find a bunch of money to pay for tests, thinking that Princess was going to end up in doggy heaven way before her time. Little did they know this was just part of a very clever plot to get more peanut butter. They eventually got a second opinion, and were so relieved when the smart vet told them it was a low thyroid problem and Princess would be fine as long as she took a pill twice a day, that they don’t mind paying for tests twice a year or the pills. But the best part, we ALL get peanut butter and/or shrimp 2 times day! The very smart parental-units realized that trying to give just Princess a treat twice a day was not going to cut it with the rest of us huskies, so we have all benefited from Princess’ noble sacrifice.

4. Destroy Something
Now you can simply chew up a cell phone, but where is the challenge in that? Instead, get your parental-units to buy a husky running course (they call it a pool, I say its an obstacle course that I can run around faster than my sisters). Wait till spring when its cool out and the pool is open but the water is still chilly. Make sure the solar cover is on and one of your parental-units is nearby with a non-waterproof cell phone either in a pocket or attached to a belt clip. Take a running start and leap as far as you can towards the center of the pool. Now don’t panic, but you’re going to start sinking. Scramble around a bit, then turn and give your parental-unit an ‘Okay, come save me now’ look. You might want to practice this look first as it is essential to get the parental unit to dive in after you. At this point, the hilarity and destruction begins. My male parental-unit jumped in to save me, fully clothed with his cell phone and some balls in his pocket – he was yelling something about freezing off the latter. Seriously, I have never seen anything as funny as a sopping wet parental-unit shivering and cursing while I was barely wet and basking in my great achievement of annihilating the cell phone. This also resulted in the parental-units spending a lot of money and time making the pool husky-secure with fencing all around and deck stairs that flip up. I’m still pretty sure I could jump that fencing, but what’s the point, I already accomplished my goal of destroying a cell phone without chewing it up.

Coming in a close second to my cleverly fiendish Destroy a Cell Phone plan, is Chubbers with her Lull Them into a False Sense of Security plan. Chubbers will not snatch something for a long time. Then, just when the parental-units believe everything is secure in the house, she will grab a seashell/coconut/can of cat food/cat food bowl/dish cloths (see pic 04_01)/etc. and chew on it enough to partially destroy it. Then, and this is the really fiendish part, Chubbers will bring said forbidden item right in front of a parental-unit and continue to gnaw on it. For some reason, the fact that Chubbers destroys the forbidden item right if front of them just causes the parental-units no end of hilarity. Now, its true that Chubbers loses her forbidden item prior to complete destruction, but she gets to partially destroy it and she doesn’t get yelled at or punished. In fact, if it’s a really forbidden item, like dental floss, she might even get a treat! Come to think of it, this may need to go under Human Behavior Modification – I mean whom else but a clever, brilliant husky could get humans to give them treats for destroying things?

Does beating up the female parental-unit count as destructive? Kena is a husky but she’s also referred to as the ‘Good Puppy’. Of course, that’s relative! But she is a little too subservient sometimes, always coming inside when called, rolling over for belly pets at a glance from any human, and never escaping from our rec room when we’re locked in. However, she has managed to give the female parental-unit a black eye and a bloody lip during paw wiping treatments (don’t the humans know we work hard to get all that spa mud on our paws), so I feel she deserves some credit despite her semi-obedient ways.

And of course, there is also the food destruction, which includes but is not limited to, a box of turtles, a cheeseburger (with both parental-units standing right next to it), a stick of butter, a box of donuts, a pork chop (again with the parental-units standing right next to it – you’d think they’d learn not to blink), and any bread item in a bag (this is the best because even if it is out of husky reach, Korben the cat likes to play with bread in bag and sooner or later it will end up within husky reach).

5. Human behavior modification
All of us huskies have spent hours upon hours training our humans to do our bidding. Its tough work and you’d think they would have some kind of training classes we could send our humans to, but here’s a quick list of our accomplishments so far:

• Female parental-unit, a diehard anti-morning human, now gets up at 5:00am everyday to let us out.
• Both parental-units have finally learned to give us treats every time we go in our kennels.
• To prepare the rec room as our personal domain where we have our own kennels, dog bed, and couch (don’t want to rub your snout in it Meeshka, but yes we have our own couch – see picture 05_01 for proof) and provide us with a cozy loveseat in the living room where we can slobber on the windows from comfortable lounging positions.
• That I am not to be brushed - the other huskies put up with this atrocity, but I’ve trained the humans, through well-executed jumps and kicks to jaws and ribs, that my glorious coat, even when clumped up, is not to suffer from brush or rake or pluck.
• To let us out whenever we want. If the parental-units don’t, well then we’re not responsible for what comes out of our rears and lands on the carpet (never the easy to clean Pergo – always the carpet).
• If we walk, we will poop. It doesn’t matter if we were just in backyard for an hour, if you take us on a walk, bring a bag.
• If a human has food, they will give us a treat. We will cuddle up next to you. We will gaze adoringly into your eyes. We will look cute and innocent. Of course, if you don’t give us a bit of that food, we’re liable to knock you down, head-butt you, throw in some slobber and a paw to a sensitive organ, and take the food anyways. Our parental-units have finally learned this lesson. It took long enough.
• Don’t put cones on us. If you put a cone on one of us, that husky will hog the food and water bowls causing all other huskies to whine incessantly, scrape the cone along the kennels to make as much noise as possible as shown in picture 05_02, bark at the cats using the cone to create a loud echoing effect, and scoop up mud and snow with the cone to bring into the house and dump all over the carpet (never the easy to clean Pergo – always the carpet).
• Don’t landscape the backyard. We will jump or dig under any obstructions you put up, we will dig in the mud, we will eat small, furry animals, and we will lick grease from the grill.
• If there is snow outside, we have to go out to play every 5 minutes. Just give in and glory in the majestic husky as seen in picture 05_03.
• And lastly, we have taught our parental-units to love husky hair, whether as added protein to a meal, tumble-weeds in the kitchen, or a nice furry layer to cover up they’re unattractive sleepy-pants. And, if you know anyone who has had an operation on their lower abdomen, husky hair makes a wonderful pube toupee.

6. Being dressed up as something for the humor of the humans
Okay, we have to humor the parental-units sometimes, and it shames me to admit we submitted to the following with only token resistance, but frankly they took us by surprise and we did get lots of treats during the whole ordeal. I just can’t talk about it anymore… I’ll let picture 06_01 speak for itself. Super-Loo… Really humans are so easily amused sometimes.

7. Love of Kleenex
We fall a little short on this one as the felines have dibs on all the Kleenex and Toilet Paper in the house. However, all of us huskies here have honed our paper chewing skills on paper towels (or as the parental-units call them, liquid assets) and paper plates. Frankly, we prefer these anyways as they usually have delicious food residue on them. So, anytime a paper plate or paper towel is left unsupervised for 1-2 nanoseconds, it is promptly snatch and gnawed on, making sure to spread all non-food covered paper parts around the room(s) in an area as large as possible, grinding in said parts to any carpeted area whenever possible. Its really a two for one, a scrumptious treat and a way to annoy the parental-units.

Congratulations Loo, Lee, and Kena, you are all very well deserved members of the HULA Hoop, keep up the good work.

Meeshka