The 2014 Uncle Jack Ghoul Pool

Ok humans, it's time to batten down the hatches, and prepare for the worst, it's time for the 2014 Uncle Jack Ghoul Pool!

For those of my loyal fans, you know what this time of year means: death, destruction, and all sorts of mayhem and chaos.

Once again, this year Uncle Jack will not be visiting us, we are sending the Human Man out to visit him and grandma and grandpa Human Man for the safety of the East Coast as we know it.  I pity the West Coast, it was nice knowing you.

Every time the Human Man's relatives get into one central area along with Uncle Jack, something horrible happens in the world.  Typically there is a horrific natural (or unnatural) disaster, and someone famous dies.

Check out the history of Uncle Jack Ghoul Pool at these links:

Here is the back story

And here

Some more

Even more

So you see... it's about to get all freaky in here, so get your guesses in now.

I realize that a lot of that has happened recently (and can probably be blamed on Uncle Jack) such as the passing of Robin Williams, and today's massive earthquake in California (oh the woomanity).

The official start time for Uncle Jack's Ghoul Pool starts on Saturday 30 August 2014, so you have until then to guess:

1.) The horrific natural (or unnatural) disaster anywhere in the world
2.) The unexpected death of a famous person

Put your guesses in the comments and we'll see who wins.  Remember, nobody really wins anything, you just get the satisfaction of knowing you contributed to the horribly events that will occur soon.  So you have that going for ya.

I'll just be hanging out here where it's safe

What The Heck

Eeesh, time flies when you are totally inconvenienced!

The humans have been wrapped up in one drama after another, and two of the dramas included me... because I am the drama Queen!  But my well thought out dramas were thwarted!  THWARTED I TELL YOU! 

Firstly, I needed my teeths cleaned.  They were horrible.  I admit, I'm not about to allow the Human Woman to brush my teeth.  No!  No.Way. Never!

The Humans took me to the v.e.t.  At the v.e.t. they poked my leg and stole my blood, and apparently the blood was good, so then they starved me by not feeding me breakfast, hauled me to the v.e.t. left me there ALL DAY WITHOUT FOOD, the v.e.t. gave me a jab to make me sleep, and the next thing I know, my teeths are cleaned and I'm all woozy.

Ok, I know this routine, I'm fine with it.  The Humans will pick me up, take me home, shower me with love and treats and let me have my way throughout my lands... no.

The Human Woman shows up, I'm still all woozy, throws me in my personal limousine, drives me home, and when I get there... there's all sorts of loud, humming, air blowing machines in my house.  IN.MY.HOUSE!!!

While I was gone getting my teeths cleaned, the refrigerator blew a hose and flooded MY HOUSE!  So, while I was summarily shoved out on the deck, a bunch of people come into MY HOUSE and ripped up a bunch of it and put the loud obnoxious fans and dehumidifier things all over the place.  MY HOUSE sounded like the inside of an airport!!!!  Did I mention that I was HUNGRY???

Did I get fed at my normal time?  NO!  Did they feed me at the ungawdly 8pm time??? Yes finally!!!  Did I mention I was still woozy and nearly oozed down the deck stairs when I had to pee??  YES!  Did I mention that I didn't get any special treatment at all?????

Oh the woomanity!!!

The only saving grace was the ample amount of Livergreat I got with the icky antibiotic pills I had to take twice a day.

So, the loud fans left after a few days, then there was a flurry of work people coming in to look at the damage, write stuff down, leave, then more people coming in and doing this, that, and the other thing, all the while I'm shoved outside with the Mutatoe, or locked in my crate where I can't sufficiently smell these people and deem whether they are worthy of entering my domain...

Then a week after my horrible dental experience, out of the blue, the Human Woman looks at my po-po!  AT.MY.PO-PO!  There was something growing on my po-po.

I don't know what it was, it's not like I can look back there!  Next thing I know... I'm back in my personal limousine on the way to the v.e.t again and horror of all horrors, a whole bunch of people started looking at my po-po and touching my po-po, and sticking their fingers in my po-po! 

But wait, it gets worse... the Humans LEFT ME THERE!!!!!!  I mean seriously!!!  No soft cushy sleep number bed, no cold air vent, just throw me in the back room in a big crate thing and left me!

SERIOUSLY!!!!!

Next day, jab, fall asleep and wake up and there are STITCHES IN MY PO-PO!!!  My sacred po-po has been defiled!!!!!

Back home we go, and thankfully there were no annoying work people and fans and chaos... and I was sufficiently pampered, given a nice pain pill and some antibiotics and was scratched in all of the right itchy places.

The next day, the Mutatoe decided he wanted to play, and batted me on the po-po with his mutatoe... he only did that ONCE

A few days later the Human Woman got a phone call and was very happy because apparently the thing on my po-po was not a bad po-po thing.

So, I thought... that's good, all of that unpleasantness is over with.

Um, no, the real horror was to come when in two weeks I got drug AGAIN into the v.e.t. and I was held tightly and the v.e.t. proceeded to cut the sutures out of my po-po and YANK THEM OUT! 

The screaming, the wailing, the yodeling... and that was even after they were removed... hey, nobody told me they were done.

Thankfully that's all over with... until next month when I'm due for my vaccines... sigh.

I'll try to blog more... seriously.

Fleas on a Dog (I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas)

When I last left everyone, I was suffering from what the humans thought was my seasonal itchy skin allergy period... yeah, they are so clueless.

Shortly after finishing off the pred stuff (which made me really thirsty, hungry, and had to pee a lot) about a week later, I was back to itching again.  Harumpf!

More pred and a week after getting done with that, I WAS STILL ITCHY!!!

It just goes to show you how much attention they give us, because it took the Mutatoe and the Bionic Hip/Knee Spineless Sam to start itching before we got the once over... wanna guess what they found?

No, go ahead and guess!  I'm pretty sure you figured it out loooong before my humans did... yep

FLEAS!!!!  WE HAD FLEAS!!!!

Oh the woomanity!  How the heck can we get fleas, we never go anywhere?!?

We guessed it came from these pests

Those nasty little rodents are taking over our yard... OUR YARD!  Brazen little pests, they've been doing flash mobs in MY BACK YARD going after all of those tasty acorns that have fallen off the trees, and I'm guessing they're also bringing their nasty fleas with them and infecting MY YARD with chewy little pests! 

I literally had to shove my face in hers so she could see one of the little feeding frenzy bugs crawling on my snooter!

We immediately got the Frontline stuff put on us, and you would think that would have taken care of them, but NOOOO, these were superfleas that just laughed at the Frontline and continued using me as a buffet!

The Human Woman did some Googling and found that Petsmart carries the super-effective, kills them dead on contact, safe for dogs, made from some kind of flower but smells horrible Adams Flea Spray.

The Human Woman use to use this back when she was a vet tech, so she knew how effective and safe it was, so she immediately (and when I say immediately, I mean the next day) went out and stocked up on a few bottles.

They acted like nothing was going to happen that night.  We lay around all peaceful and happy, but itchy while they walked around speaking in hushed tones and skulked through the house putting down a sheet in the bathroom.

They're up to something....

Then they tricked the Mutatoe into coming into the bathroom by using their "happy, happy, lookie here, come into the bathroom so we can do horrible things to you" voice... he fell for it, he always falls for it.

The next thing you know, there are horrible smells coming from the closed bathroom door, and pathetic squeaking from the Mutatoe.  He came out looking like he had been drenched and smelling like chemical flowers.

Next it was Bionic hip/knee spineless Sam, who was helplessly carried into the bathroom... it sucks not to have a spine, they just tote you where they want you to go.

Once again, more nasty smells but no squeaking noises... because Sam is stoic, and then he comes out looking and smelling like a drowned rat.

It became abundantly clear that my turn was next...I didn't go quietly, that's for sure!

I'm also pretty sure they got more on themselves than me, and I made sure to rub myself on the bed afterwards.

Fine, so it did get rid of the fleas, and I'm slowly growing my tail floof back out... but still.

Meeshka

The Nose Knows

The Human Woman is selfish and greedy.

She knows how much I love bananas, and yet the other day she tried to sneak a banana without sharing it with me.

She must have masked the noise of peeling the banana somehow, probably by running the water from the faucet, otherwise I would have heard it, but I detected the distinct odor of banana on her breath the moment she leaned down to pet me, no doubt out of guilt for eating a banana without sharing it with me.

When will she learn that our keen senses will betray her guilt to us each and every time.  Sometimes I think that humans are just beyond training, they just can't seem to learn anything.

The next thing you know she'll be hiding somewhere in the house to satisfy her selfishness... but we will find her

Yes... we will always find her.

- Meeshka

Its Grub Season!

Thanks to the Irene rain, rain before Irene rain, and the torrential downpours we've had today, I'm officially announcing that its grub season in Merryland!

Its all nice and muddy out in the yard, perfect for grubbing!  Here is some of the earlier handiwork before the torrential downpours this afternoon:

Its blurry only because the Human Woman has been doing nothing but cleaning since she's been home this week, and her arms shake uncontrollably from the exertion.  If she's not flitting here with cleaning, she's flitting there with cleaning.  Cleaning all the time, and yet... amazingly enough, the place still looks like it hasn't been cleaned.

Of course, this may be because we've been spending a lot of time outside, digging for grubs in the rain, then coming in to take a break and shake our mud all over.  She loves when we do that!

At one point she yelled at me for being selfish.  She told me that the pups in Texas didn't have grubs and they didn't have rain, and it was so dry there that the whole state is on fire and pups and kits and other animals have to flee for their lives from the icky fire.

Well, I didn't like that at all, and I stomped my delicate (yet muddy) feety feet at that.  As the Queen I cannot allow one state to get so much rain when another state needs the rain, therefore I am hereby announcing that all rain needs to go to Texas right this very moment.  If the rain doesn't move to Texas, then I am calling on all pups, kits, and other HULA members to do what I am doing:

I am standing out in the middle of the rain to collect all of the moisture in my incredibly fluffy fluff, and then I will walk to Texas and shake, thus putting out some fires.  I have a lot of fluff, so that's a LOT of water I can douse on the flames.  I want all HULA members to immediately go outside and gather as much rain water as you can and meet me in Texas.

Of course, I guess I should have told the Human Woman what my plan was, as she's not very happy at my water collecting mission at the moment, so I may be a bit late to Texas.

By the way, Human Woman friend Laura... its MEESHKA... I looked you up, you better be glad Misery isn't on the way to Texas... harumpf.

Laborless Day

Yawn everybody!  Its apparently "Labor Day" for the humans, which means for the past few days, the Human Woman has been laboring.  She's been like a total freak cleaning the house with garbage bags.  We feel it has something to do with the disappearance of the Human Man, who the Human Woman claims she took to the airport... but we're beginning to wonder if he isn't really stuffed in one of those contractor bags.  We're waiting for the tell-tale odor of good stinky roll in it smell.

We've been very helpful though

As some of you have remembered... its usually the time that Uncle Jack comes to visit, which means:

• Horrible catastrophe (natural and man-caused)
• The unexpected death of a celebrity

This year, the Human Man went to visit Uncle Jack... leaving us here alone with the psychotic Human Woman and her contractor bags of doom.  This doesn't mean that there won't be a horrible catastrophe, or an unexpected death of a celebrity, because the rule is: if more than one of the Human Man's family is located in the same area at one time, chaos and wackiness ensues.  It'll be a triple whammy on Thursday, so you have until then to get in your ghoul pool guesses:

• Horrible catastrophe
• Celebrity death

Just comment on the blog with your guesses and we'll see who wins.

Just as a hint:

I'm just sayin...

- Meeshka

The Thundershirt

As some of you may know, the Human Woman finally went and purchased 2 thundershirts lately.  She only "needed" one for me, but since the Mutatoe has to do everything like me, she had to buy him one so he wouldn't feel left out and cry like a girly dog when he didn't have a pretty dress to wear... he's so embarrassing.

So... in review:

• I don't like storms or fireworks.  
• I pee in the house when it thunders or loud fireworks goes off (my little way of saying "screw you loud noises", 
• and then I pant and pace and claw the Human Woman bloody.

Its fun.  She doesn't think so.  She has no sense of humor and really REALLY thin skin that bleeds a LOT.

Anyhoo, she heard all of these wonderful things about the Thundershirt™ and watched the videos all slack jawed and amazed, and immediately ordered 2 and had them shipped jiffy quick because we had a lot of storms and she was low of plasma.

Meanwhile we had some doozy storms and chaos, mayhem and lots of clawing.  When she wasn't being clawed, she was hitting the refresh button on the tracking number for the package.

FINALLY the Thundershirts arrived and... no storms.  Nothing.  Weeks went by, and no storms. 

Frankly, I was fine with that and was satisfied that the Thundershirt did its work by warding off all of the evil storms in the world.  Job well done... bravo.

Then last night...

The humans had just settled into bed early (because they're getting old and senile) and we pups had done our usual bed rearranging and space shifting and I was laying on my cold air vent when...

boooom

I knew it was thunder because the humans were whispering and turned the tv up.  They try to fool me into believing its a jet, or loud car, or that vroomy motorcycle thing, but

BOOOOOM

Yep, no doubt about it, it was thunder, so I jumped on the bed and began clawing and panting, as usual.

That's when the Human Woman pulled out the Thundershirt, and I made a dash for my life.  No way was I wearing that thing again.  She put it on me when it first arrived and I humored her, let her take a picture of me, post it on Facebook (where she CLAIMS she has friends) and bragged about how easy it was to put on.

She chased me with that thing into the kitchen, I ran around the kitchen table, she followed.  We ran around the kitchen table about 10 times with me in the lead, just out of her reach.  She tried the soothing screechy voice thing, but I wasn't fooled.  She grabbed a handful of those very tasty calming caramel things that she got from the pet store to bribe me with.  They are very tasty, but she can only give me 3 of them (per the label) and frankly I think I should get about... the whole bag... very tasty.  After the 15th circle around the table, she gave up all pretenses and just started cursing and using the "when I get ahold of you" voice, and I finally dashed into the living room and was going to hop into my crate (which is home free and they can't touch us), but the bitch had closed and locked the doors!  She's evil.

I dashed into the corner hoping to throw her off, but she followed and trapped me, and then there was no escaping it until she dropped the caramels by mistake and then it was GAME ON!

She's right... it does calm and soothe me during storms.  I had to lay down from exhaustion after all of that running and then clawing her while she was trapped.

-Meeshka

HURRY UP!

I'm pretty sure I've already told you (a zillion times) how slow my Human Woman is.  She dawdles to the door when I have to pee, she dawdles opening the door up for me when I want to come inside, and most importantly, she DAWDLES when she feeds us!

First she'll yell out the annoying "Who wants food-food?" in that high pitched meant to be cute and adorable but its very painful to our sensitive ears double speak crap.  She gets us all worked up and hungry, and then she sloooooowly walks upstairs.  Sometimes she gets lost or distracted by something pretty and starts doing something else.  Meanwhile we're drooling in our EMPTY food bowls.

Then she'll manage to find her way upstairs and into the kitchen, where she may open the fridge and find the canned food, then sloooowly walks to the counter to place the dog food can.  Then she'll sloooowly gather the food bowls, perhaps remembering to do something in the middle of getting the food bowls and wandering off.  Meanwhile we're screaming at her to hurry up, and Mutatoe is gnawing on the water bowl.

Finally she'll get the bowls on the counter and open up the sacred food bin.  She has a scoop she uses to measure out our meager portion and she does it ONE FREAKIN SCOOP AT A TIME!!!  By now the spineless bionic hip/knee pup is springing in and out of the kitchen.

I finally had enough of this and took matters into my own hands.

Yeah, don't mind me, I'll just get it myself, thanks though.

- Meeshka

How To Drive The Human Woman Insane #9587

First, you find a spot to dig right next to the gate:

Then, when the Human Woman is laying paving stones down in your new dig spot, wash your delicate feety feet off in the water bowl and saunter throughout the house.

Its a win-win.

- Meeshka

The Coffee Answer

Dear Pups,

I wanted to thank all of you that suggested adding caffeine to the Human Woman's daily medicinal routine to get her a bit more mobile... unfortunately I neglected to add this picture of what the Human Woman looks like most of her waking day:

I'm thinking nothing short of electro-shock therapy will get her to move any faster, and although clawing is effective... I can only claw so much and apparently she slows down even more from the blood loss.

Thanks for the tip though.

- Meeshka

The Wonders of Modern Medicine

The other day, Zim contacted me because his human woman was negligent in her walking duties.

It seems that unlike my human woman, Zim and Dave get twice daily walks and get to go see things all the time.  They actually have an ocean, and a giant's castle, and they get close up sniffs of kitties and things.

Me... well, this is what I see every day:

Yeah... how... exciting.

Today we got to do this:

This is us... snoopervising the workmen at the crappy foreclosed house next door.  We can't play with them, or even sufficiently make sure they are doing a good job (and from the looks of it on our deck vantage point... they aren't)... but I digress.

Zim was upset because his human woman was unable to walk them because of the pollen and some stupid fires that were intentionally set to keep stupid cedar trees from taking over the prairie (whatever the prairie is), and as Turbo says... just stupid.

So I mentioned the myriad of pharmaceuticals my human woman dumps into her body on an average day, and suggested that their human woman go buy some of them.  For instance, this is what my human woman looks like without Zyrtec:

She's like a living zombie shuffling around.  We can barely get her to feed us when she's in a pollen stupor, and I won't even go into the gacking she makes from the post nasal drip stuff... she's disgusting actually, except for the tasty kleenex she leaves around.

But after popping some allergy pills, she's the picture of vibrancy and pep:

um... ok, she's a living zombie drinking coffee... and this is why we never get out of the yard, but apparently it worked for Zim and Dave, and now they are back to getting their walks again.

Us... not so much.

Meeshka

What Do You Mean I Can't Have That?

So, the Human Man was broken for a week or so.  It was nice that he stayed home with us, but he couldn't move fast enough to get us our cookies when we wanted... and he didn't seem pleased when we jumped on him to persuade him to move faster... go figure.

Just when we were getting back to a normal routine, the Spineless Bionic Hip/Knee pup Sam had an "issue" and had to go to the vet.  He's all embarrassed and doesn't want me to say what was wrong with him (he had pee pee issues), so I'll respect his privacy.

Here is Sam trying to escape after the VET got WAAAAY too familiar with him... he's very shy and embarrasses easily.

Turns out (for a change) that there's nothing expensive wrong with him, he's just got to take some antibiotics for a while and hopefully that'll sort things out.  This is the best possible news for us because whenever Sam needs pills, that means one thing:

Oh yeah, its LIVERGREAT!!!!!

The human woman stocked up on livergreat and now we all get some whenever Sam gets his pills (morning and night).  I tried to change his pill label to read "every hour" but the pen smudged and I was thwarted.

Anyhoo, the other morning we had lined all up for our livergreat treat: one for me, one for Mutatoe, and one for Sam... but Sam's has the icky pill in it.  Imagine my surprise when Sam's glob of livergreat literally fell right out of his mouth and right near my feet!  What's a husky to do?  I mean, seriously, who would pass that up?

Apparently the human woman wasn't too keen about me getting a Sam pill and totally freaked out:

Yep, she totally shoved half her arm in my mouth and before I could swallow, snatched that glob of livergreat and pill right out of my throat!  It all happened so quickly there wasn't a thing I could do (and note to Human Woman... seriously... trim those nails a bit).

To make up for such an intrusion, and to her credit, the Human Woman gave me another blob of livergreat, probably to thank me for not taking off half of her arm.  The only thing that saved her from a later clawing was the fluffy snow we got.

Meeshka

New Product from MeeshCO

As we pups get older, there are life's little emergencies that we may not be able to handle like we did when we were younger.  Older and wiser, we know that help may not be close by when these situations occur, so we need to make sure that we have the support we need, when we need it, and at a moment's notice.

MeeshCO cares about its customers, and wants to provide them with the confidence they need to live a worry free life and remain independent as long as possible, which is why we've developed the Treat Alert©.

How many times have you found yourself in a comfy position, only to realize that you could use a cookie or other snack?  Seniors shouldn't have to get up and claw their humans for a cookie, therefore we've made it easier for seniors to get what they need, when they want it with Treat Alert©

Simply press the button on the handy bracelet and your Treat Alert© will not only send out an audible alarm, but will also send an electric shock to the matching Treat Alert© Human Pairing Bracelet, notifying your human of your want of a cookie.

No more getting up and hunting down your human, or that exhausting clawing, Treat Alert© gives its wearer a safe and easy way to get the assistance they need... quickly.

Treat Alert©
Available online exclusively from MeeshCO... where dogs rule.

Thankful

Today is the day we sit down and eat a lot of good stuff and be thankful that we have good stuff to eat....

... and that my human woman is an idiot.

Meeshka

Need I say more?