Frica and the Aliens

Once again I’m behind as spring clean-up and creating a new garden out of an area that consists mainly of sand and rocks takes up what little free time I have. Still, there have been some changes and BeeBee has been involved in most of them. Previously I wrote about putting a Gentle Leader on BeeBee in hopes of reducing the troubling edginess she displayed around the puppies. It worked well and I rarely saw her acting as if it bothered her in any way. Because of this, one evening when I was brushing her (dog grooming is a

Since my last post several weeks ago, a lot has happened  to remind me how much the quality of our realities depends on how we process the sensory stimuli we receive from the world around us. It began when winter ended. I don’t mean “ended” as in “It gradually started to get warmer and the snow gradually melted.” I mean ended as in kaput, pffffttt! One day and it was winter and the next, the Big Thaw was on. Plow lines along the road, driveway, and front walk shrank so rapidly, I felt disoriented and even somewhat vulnerable. Until

Spring officially came last week and with it a lot of changes. Let me pause here to note that “spring” is a relative term. Last week that meant only one snow storm and one night with record-breaking low temperatures. However, in spite of the fact that the snow was very heavy and very wet, there was only about 3″ of it and I decided to let it melt rather than shovel it or have it plowed. Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to take the puppies out every day to get them used to the outdoors, to get some sun, and

Last night just as I was dozing off, something set BeeBee off and she started moving restlessly around the bed and acting like she wanted to jump off. I automatically tried to determine if anything had changed but that was useless. It was dark so we were both probably equally visually so I doubt anything I couldn’t see set her off. And because she’s deaf, that ruled out any unusual sounds triggering her display. Although it’s always possible that she could have smelled something I couldn’t given her enhanced sense of small, there’s no way I’d know that. Under

Sunday: Once again I got behind because of the weather, so I’m going to take this opportunity while I’m waiting for the plow guy to come, and all the snow to fall off the roof in front of the house so I can a) go out the front door without getting clobbered and b) and clean it up. The alien has pretty much been demoted to the status of toy, albeit a special one. There was one incident this week in which Fric went on a playing jag downstairs and then started to race upstairs with it. Unfortunately, she

Since the last time I wrote, a lot has happened which is why I haven’t had time to write, including that biggest time-consumer of all, more snow. I fear I destroyed the scientific validity of this study when I picked up the yellow alien and moved him. In my defense, I did this in self-defense. Fric went through a spell when the alien went out and came in almost every time she did. But when it started snowing in earnest on Friday, she left it on one of the little landings up to the front steps. Seeing it there

Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the alien moved from the center of the yard to near the walk and there it sat until this morning. It was close enough that BeeBee could sniff it by putting her front feet up on the snow bank next to it. Fric observed this, but did nothing beyond peeing a discreet distance from the alien, presumably to mark it as hers. Then this morning we had a first in a long time. I took the dogs with me when I went down to put a letter in the mailbox, with Fric

I’m back to dating these again because I got way behind in posting the updates. Frica did the “Oh, my God, there’s the yellow alien!!!” routine yesterday morning, running toward the alien on the kitchen floor as if she’d been searching for it for years. She picked it up and started to take it upstairs, but the cat was on the back of the couch and took a swipe at her. When she opened her mouth to bark at the cat, she dropped the alien–isn’t there an Aesop’s fable about something like this?— and it bounced off the back

Since I last wrote, the yellow alien has confined its movements to the downstairs. The first move took it from by the front door to the part of the open concept area I use for a living room. Perhaps it was thinking about doing some entertaining. There it remained until I went to see clients yesterday morning. When I returned mid-afternoon, it was in the kitchen area, seeking a snack or a cup of tea perhaps. BeeBee was in her crate when I was gone so she was not responsible for this. Frica certainly could have been because she

When we last left the yellow alien, it was doing God-knows-what where while I was watching my driveway turn into a sheet of ice. Several hours later, it appeared in kitchen near the table, about 5′ from its previous location. At this point you might be tempted to think, “Um, OK. Bad weather, can’t go anywhere. Old bat living alone. Probably got into the cooking sherry.” Although I might have if I’d had some,all I have in the house are two half bottles of wine vinegar (one white, one red) and several bottles of Bach flower remedies that I

The snow has changed to rain and the ice is piling up on the trees so I’m going to try to get this off before I lose power. (How’s that for an optimistic view of my power company!?) Apparently Mars is not retrograde enough that it enhances alien communication because there have been some strange things going on around here the past 24 hours. The yellow alien remained downstairs and did not move overnight, but yesterday Fric carried a catnip mouse downstairs the same way she carried the alien. This, too, she treated as something other than a toy.

I have no idea what a retrograding Mars looks like apparently that’s what Mars is doing now, which might explain why the yellow alien is on the move again. When I went to bed last night, it was still on the floor downstairs. When I woke up this morning it was on the rug at the foot of my bed. Fric had to go out twice last night and she could have grabbed it after she came in and I never would have noticed because I don’t turn on any lights. Given that I was half asleep both times

Sometimes I think the animals in my life wait for me to make assumptions or come to conclusions just so they can refute them. No doubt part of their strategy to keep me humble. Saturday I was in the bedroom for some reason, Fric followed me in, jumped on the bed, grabbed the yellow alien and moved it back into the office again. This occurred after we had company, including one of the pups from her first litter. She dropped the alien near the top of the stairs where it remained until late afternoon. Shortly after she brought it

Someone once defined a specialist as a person who knows more and more about less and less. I think I can legitimately call myself an alien specialist because the only alien who is moving is the yellow one and it’s not moving very much. I think Frica moved it a few inches on the bed so it was next to her when she slept, but after hauling wood and shoveling ice and snow for a good chunk of the day, I can honestly say I don’t remember much after my head hit the pillow. This morning I moved the

Perhaps after the cat scored such a decisive victory in the on-going Who’s the Smartest: Bi- or Quadrupeds? games, things have been very quiet on the animal front. Or rather everyone seems to be acting pretty normal for once. The yellow alien is still on my bed and the two purple ones are still in their respective places on the floor. Just as I wrote this, I realized that the furry ring is gone, but I’ve been so alien-focused I can’t say when it disappeared or where it went. With each passing day, Fric is becoming more playful, both

Yesterday I heard some noise in the back of the downstairs closet and immediately thought Frica was in there. Because she was usually done doing whatever it was she was doing before I got there, this time I decided to sneak up quietly so I would not disturb her. (Why I thought this would work I have no idea, but it seemed like something Jane Goodall would do.) I crept slowly up to the door with my eyes focused on the far corner of the floor where the nest of under-the-rug thingys is. Call me anthropomorphic, but you will

Today Frica has shown minimal interest in the yellow alien with the most being to rush into the bedroom when I stepped it and it let out a loud squeak. It was outside Watson’s bed on the floor and I didn’t see it when I was making my bed. Scared me half to death! Once she saw what it was, she turned around and left and has shown no desire to get in the room since. So, something has changed, but what? Were I a better scientist, I would have attempted to control the environment to narrow the possibilities,

The yellow alien was once again/still in Watson’s bed when I got up this morning. Later, when Fric came into the bedroom, she went over to his bed and dug at the bed around its perimeter thereby again creating a nest with the alien in the middle of it. Then she left the room and has shown no interest in it since. It makes me think yet again of phantom fetuses: Do some animals (or even people for that matter) have a mind or spirit awareness of their unborn young that may persist even if the physical fetus is

Later yesterday I had to go into the bedroom for something and when Fric followed me in, I decided to show her the alien in the dogged to see what she’d do. As soon as I picked it up, she became very alert and jumped up on the bed, I assume to get closer to it. When I put it back in the dogbed, she immediate jumped into the dogbed with it and dug the bed up in a circle around it, then jumped out of the bed and went back to the office. To me, this means that

Big news! Well, OK, big news if you don’t have a life: the puppies eyes are starting to open. I turned around to look in the box while the laptop was booting up and saw one little puppy eye squinting at me for a split second before it shut again. In the realm of on-going sagas, all the focus is now on the yellow alien with everyone else apparently forgotten, no longer needed, or placed where they need to be to do whatever they’re supposed to be doing so there’s no reason to move them. Yesterday afternoon at around

There was no activity in Alien Land yesterday until I opened my bedroom door in the late afternoon. After that, I noticed that Frica had moved the yellow alien to the rug in front of the pen. However, it was back in bed with me when I woke up around 11 because the little female pup was crying. I finally gave up trying to figure out what was bothering her and got up, at which point she went to sleep and remained quiet until I left for a veterinary meeting at about 7:15. When I came upstairs to do

Just for the heck of it, yesterday afternoon I decided to look in the downstairs closet for the yellow alien, even though its being there would have meant that Fric brought it down and put it there shortly after she took it up stairs because that was the only time I was gone. Sure enough, when I moved the dog food container and peered into the corner, I discovered she had tipped over the bag I put that sticky under-the-rug stuff in, and made a little nest from which peered a pair of alien eyes. The alien remained there

I want to preface this discussion with a few comments about non-alien-related (at least I think so) events. The core of my house was built in the early to mid 1700s and includes an unusual stone structure in the basement that almost certainly predates the house. There has been a ghost dog living here since I moved in in ’88, but I’ve not been aware of his or her presence in the last 10 years. Last Sunday when Fric was just starting to experience contractions, I heard the distinct bark of a dog from the corner of the office.

Fric has made no attempt to reunite the pointy-headed alien on my bed with the other two. However, either by accidentally moving them when she’s nursing or deliberately repositioning them, the other two are now back in the corners in the box. The puppies are getting more vocal. Hope the aliens aren’t teaching them bad habits… Unless there’s food around, BeeBee has no desire to get too close and face the Wrath of Frica.

Staggered out of bed while it was still dark and took the dogs out. Thought I heard a soft squeaking noise from Fric but was too tired to care. Came back upstairs and went to make my bed while the computer booted up. Yellow alien and a piece of fleece from an old slipper that I gave the dogs years ago was on my bed. No aliens in with puppies who were sleep and looking chubby. Twice Fric came downstairs while I was doing morning chores and tried to get into the cupboard. Son Dan emailed me that I

This morning I removed the two aliens from her box to see what Fric would do. After she had nursed her pups and they were sleeping, she got out of the box and retrieved the first of these, giving a strange cry when she did this that I’d never heard her use before. At some point when I was working, she retrieved the second without a sound. Because I haven’t gotten much sleep since the pups were born and I had a consultation scheduled for this evening, I decided to take a nap on the couch. The other two

OK, so I lied. This morning, it was still fairly dark when I looked into the maternity suite and saw the two aliens. At that time I assumed it was the grungy yellow one Fric took up yesterday and the purple one I saw her heaving up the stairs this morning When it got lighter and I checked the box again looked again, I saw that there were actually two purple aliens, both tucked in a corner as if watching over the pups. So, sometime during the night she removed the yellow alien–whom I have yet to find–and replaced

Last night somehow Frica dragged BeeBee’s stuffed porcupine toy up the stairs, but rightly decided it was way too big to fit in the box with her pups. This morning she dragged a grungy purple alien up and it’s now in the box with the grungy yellow one. May need to get a bigger box…

The following posts are from a series of emails I’ve been sharing with friends regarding the fascinating behavior displayed by my shitzu-terrier mix, Frica, following the birth of her pups. I’m also including this in the BeeBee Chronicles because, aside from Frica being 2 years older, Bee’s presence is the only thing that has changed since she had her first litter. At that time, I did have another dog, but she was an adult female, not a pup like BeeBee. The original emails included pictures, but the quality of them when uploaded to the blog was so poor that