Penelope, Husky of Evil

Someone posted this on a husky forum I'm a part of. It's hilarious and
makes Mommy thank my lucky stars that I'm not an overly smart husky, meaning
that I'm just bright enough to be very obedient and manage to learn
tricks, but not smart enough to need mental stimulation constantly without which I destroy the house. I disagree with this assessment. I am a very smart husky. I'm just lazy. I live to be spoiled and if I'm bad, the spoiling stops.

Without further ado, the story of Pénélope, the French Husky. Just to
prove to you that husky owners are NUTS. This story is written and by ans property of Sophie, Penny and Princess's owner, so please don't use it or reproduce it elsewhere without permission. Mommy translated it with Sophie's permission to post it here, so if there are a few weird turns of phrase, it's just because the translation is a little off.

Why having just one husky is a bad idea

I totally fell in love with Penelope the first time I saw her. I knew
that huskies were dogs that didn't do well being left alone and I had
already had a husky when I was young, Kim. She hated being left alone,
but had never really done any bad things, mostly because she was never
alone. We had another dog and my mother was always home.

So a beautiful Sunday in June, I adopted Penelope. Even if I had
already had a husky, I had never imagined the problems of having just
one, solitary husky could cause. No, I am not a pensioner and I do
have to work to pay for the dog food. I should have wondered at least
a bit. Penelope had already been abandoned four times in her two years
of life.

Monday, I went to work, slightly apprehensive. I naively told myself
that if I put everything away and picked up after myself well, the
risks of trouble were slim. For those who own huskies, you know that
this was a terrible mistake.

I get home that first day and I've barely opened the door when I step
in the nice, fragrant present she had left me right behind the door,
then I almost slip and kill myself in the puddle she left a little
farther. I enter the house proper and realise that all my curtains are
now... Well, curtains. On the ground. And in pieces.

I tell myself it's not too bad, it's the first day and she'll get used
to it. Hahahaha.

The next day, I go back to work and I barely make it there when I get
a phone call from a lady calling to tell me that she's found my dog.
So I leave work. Penelope managed to open the door's window and
decided to go exploring. The next day, I tell myself that since she
managed to open the door's window, I'll just close the shutters and
that way, she won't be able to get out. Well, she somehow managed to
open the door's window, then gnawed just enough of the shutter's slats
away so that she could go out. So I decide to solve this problem by
reversing the handle of the door's window so that she couldn't just
press it open anymore. So she decided to go out the other windows.
Same operation for the window handles. This worked up until she
figured out how to open them by lifting the handles.

After the escapes, the pranks (on days where there were escapes, there
was no husky amusement in the house)!

The kibble: Penny never finished her plate. To amuse herself, she'd
hide her kibble all over the house, mainly behind the couch cushions,
but also in the VCR. We decided to no longer leave her bowl out, so
she decided to go help herself directly in the bag.

The fridge: Penny finally figured out how to open the fridge. She
would steal food and instead of eating it, she would do as she did
with her kibble and hide it for later. We found:
- One Camembert cheese unwrapped and hidden in our bed, under the comforter.
- One chicken, minus a leg, hidden in a cupboard that she had
carefully emptied before to hide her booty.
- One stick of butter that disappeared in the middle of august and was
found several weeks later in a suitcase.
- Many different food items hidden behind the couch cushions.

I decided to "husky proof" the fridge by wrapping a strong cable
around it to keep her from opening the door. I come home to find the
fridge in the middle of the room (you know, just in case there was a
door behind it) and the joint torn off (just in case she could reach
food through this hole).

Since we had an unused room, we decided to lock Penny in there while
we were gone, hoping to contain the damage. Well, they were contained,
but more concentrated! The sofa's covering was turned into lace and
the foam cushions into swiss cheese. She made a huge hole in the wall
and of course, her water was always upturned.

One day, she tore all the electrical outlets out of the wall. That's
the day I really flipped out, since she could have electrocuted
herself. I put her on anti-anxiety drugs with, of course, no effect.

One day, she managed to make the TV fall. She has the habit of
climbing on top of the TV to look out the window. She must have fallen
behind it (the TV is in a corner) and the only way to get out was to
push it over.

So I resigned myself to at least an hour of cleaning up a night after work.

Then, being a crazy husky person, I decided that what she needed was a
friend. So we got her Princess and since then, oh miracle of miracles,
(almost) no more pranks!

Wooo! Isn't Penny great?
Louka

Fur wheel drive is fixed!

Haroo!
I am very happy. I haven't had to wear the booties in a week. Well, I lie. I had to wear one bootie until yesterday, but my pretty papattes are all better now! Mommy decided to try making absolutely sure that I don't even get a scrap of food I'm allergic to, because people sometimes give me a little chicken or egg if they don't want to waste it even if it'll do bad things to my skin, adding more oil to my diet which I am not AT ALL complaining about because I like the greasy stuff and giving me a spaw treatment before we go outside. She got this stuff I don't really like called "Paw protector" cream that is supposed to, well, protect paws from road salt and cold. My rough, dry pads are a thing of a past in just a week! She's very happy and me too, because I don't have to wear the ridiculous booties anymore, except if I have a particularly sensitive paw to fix.

To prove how effective this was, we went out for a whole hour, walking to the little mini-mushing trail and then doing two back and forths and then walking back home without me hurting a paw! I am very tired now, though. Mommy feels guilty because she says I'm out of shape. Harumph.

We had to walk to the mountain because my ride, what mommy calls her car, died again. Alternator trouble, again, she thinks. That car has had problems for a while, now. I'm hoping she gets it running well soon so that we can go fun places. Jay always takes me fun places in his big van! But that's not all my ride, I have to share it with my buddies. But that's ok, because they're my buddies!
I hope you're all well,
Louka

Now this is much better

Mommy has not stopped laughing since she came back from the evil place that took her away for 8 hours. She came back smelling of all kinds of interesting things and people, including my cousin Thulku the pit bull and of baby. I am very upset she didn't take me wherever she went, but she says that I wouldn't have liked it anyway and at least she left me three nice juicy bones to play with.

This little excursion also came with some rewards for me! You see, usually, at Christmas, I get abandoned for hours with a bone and then mommy comes home and that's my present, getting her all to myself for days until lots of people come over to adore me on granddaddy's birthday. But this year in the family gift exchange, my cousin Thulku's mommy picked MY mommy, which means that I'M the one who got all the presents! Mommy came home with a nice, big, soft cushion for me to sleep on. I love being comfy when I sleep! And unlike some huskies, I like keeping my right to soft things to sleep on, so I don't tear up cushions and stuff. So I got a nice, comfy cushion that's big enough for me and so soft that mommy said that if I didn't want it SHE was stealing it. It's a little warm for my hot husky self, but it's good for lying on a few hours, at least. I also got this weird thing to wipe off my paws that's blue and shaggy and that I just want to eat and some hand-booties for mommy so that she doesn't lose a finger mushing, this winter because that would not be good. All nice me-oriented gifts, as it should be. Mommy is laughing at me and telling me I'm spoiled. I'm just ignoring her from my nice new throne. Mommy says I actually look all tiny, curled up on it, not huuuuuuuge like she knows I am when I sleep in her bed (that is totally mine when she's not around. Just saying).

I also have some very sad news. My cousin Thulku who, like me, is a former shelter dog and who unlike me is elderly and is like bionic spinless Sammy has no hip, has just been diagnosed with cancer. Even worse, it is leukemia and since it is in his front left leg, on the same side as his hiplessness, it cannot be amputated to keep the cancer from spreading. His chances for recovery do not look good and his mommy is very sad. Thulku is an old dog. He is not a very pretty dog and he can be a bit of a grumpy dog, but he is a good dog and he has spent a very, very long time of his life as an abused dog. Unlike me, who has a rather good story, as shelter dogs go, he was one of seven dogs bought from an abusive owner who decided to liquidate her "stock" of dogs. When the shelter came to take the six they had been called for, the mean person said "oh, yeah there's this other dog you can take too and him you can have for free" and showed them to a back room where an old, depressed, uncastrated male pit bull was lying, in bad shape. He moved painfully and he had most probably been used for breeding pit bull puppies irresponsibly. He had quite possibly never known love, was despondant and showed signs of physical abuse. That was my cousin Thulku. My mommy's aunt was looking for a dog and fell in love. She made sure he got the surgery he needed, even went to Ontario to get the best care possible for him. She gave him physiotherapy and, most importantly of all, she gave him all the love and affection a dog needs. He went from a depressed, moth-eaten old mutt to a happy, smiling, stub-wagging (you just can't call that a tail...) family dog. He has had a wonderful two years and I would like all of you that can to spare some good thoughts and hope that he does not suffer and manages to stay with us a long while yet.

Here's to you, Thulku.

Humiliation

Can you believe mommy is going to be sending these out as christmas cards to all kinds of people? It's not fair. To top this off, I, the proud, noble husky, have to wear booties outside. Booties! I mean yeah, sure, I have sensitive feety feets and even scabs and rashes on them from allergies and stuff, but I shouldn't have to wear booties!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long, but life has been fairly boring, recently. Mommy let me keep Jay once a week when she's really really busy so that I can go play with my buddies and right now they're plotting to have my buddies and I mush together! Other than that, I've had a very normal husky life.
Humiliated woos to you all
Louka

Blog hiatus

Well, I don't post very often, but I thought that it was just fair for me to tell you pups that I will not be able to update the blog at all until the end of August. The reason for this is very, very sad for me. Mommy is running away with the circus. Without me. How is this not abuse?

Mommy says that she feels very bad about this, that it's temporary, that she's leaving me in good hands, but... It's my mommy! And she's leaving! For two whole months! And for two whole weeks, I won't even have Auntique to console me! Mommy leaves on Friday and I'm already moping and wailing. The nice landlady and granddaddy have said they'll take me out (granny can't because hip replacements + pulling husky = bad idea) and Jay the dogwalker is going to come and take me on walks with his pack, which is fun, especially since there's another cute husky named Shelby and I like her, but... But...! Auntique gets back in two weeks and then at least I'll have a member of my harem to cuddle and pet and spoil me as I deserve, but I'll still have to wait until August 18th to have my mommy back from the evil circus.

So good luck all you lucky dogs, I'll be moping in my corner.
Sad woos,
Louka

Pleased

This week, even if granny and granddaddy and auntique are all gone and it's just me and mommy, I'm very happy. Firstly I'm happy because I have mommy all to myself, but secondly we aren't exactly all alone. There are lots of strange men coming in the house and breaking the walls, bringing in wires and doing all this stuff mommy calls "renovations". The landlord comes up at least once a day too. All these men ADORE me. To the point that they woke Mommy up knocking on her bedroom door because I was in the bedroom and they wanted to pet me and love me. I'm now their assisstant! So I can now add "renovations" to my list of jobs! Guarding is out of the question, I like these guys too much!

Do you guys ever have renovations in your lairs?

Happy woos,
Louka

Huskies are not watch dogs

I'm sorry for the long hiatus. Nothing very interesting has been going on. Mommy was very mean and started "working" which meant she was gone ALL DAY and I had to go mope on my rug or heave very deep, mournful sighs near granny so that she would pet me and scratch my ears. So then when mommy was home, I had to cuddle and sleep on her feet and be particularly clingy.

Of course this meant that I had to neglect all other duties, including my "guard dog" duties. I had started barking a bit every now and then when someone came in. At least I would go and check out who was there in case they had tasty food or, more likely, to see if they would pet me. But with mommy home... Well, let's just say it doesn't matter if someone else will pet me when mommy's around. That's why I didn't bother to get up when the plumber and landlord decided to come upstairs to pay a visit. I don't know why mommy was so upset. I was still faithfully sleeping on her feet. Of course she was sleeping too. And the landlord and plumber were in the doorway to her room when she woke up. Still. no reason to get upset.

We've started biking together, now that the schnee is all gone. I don't like it as much, but it's ok. I'll keep you posted.

Woos,
Louka