24 posts tagged “ripley”
Ripley's been my buddy lately :) Since we live so close to my work I come home at lunch and now she's not as spastic to see me when I'm home. That means *occasionally* she actually calms down enough to close her eyes and I think its SO cute :P it doesn't happen often - I have to document it!
{o,o} -- hoot.
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All in all, I've really been enjoying Ripley and I hope we can only improve. We haven't left her by herself in the back yard yet while we're not there - even though we've made the improvements - so that's next on our list. We ended up buying her a really nice cozy house to put outside - and she's okay with being in it - it's just that she never does go into it. Not quite sure why, but we're working on it. I just wish there was some doggy GPS system we could buy that would allow me to see if she's left the yard :P They have systems like that, but the initial cost is expensive and then you have to pay a monthly service fee.
Anyhow, just wanted to record the fact that Ripley is a cute dog, she's smart, and we're working together to get this all where we need to be :)
I don't want to get out of bed this morning. This is coming from my Sidekick.
Its not that there's anything to dread - quite the opposite. José is bringing his family over this afternoon for a BBQ so all we have to do today is clean a bit (I've been on top of cleaning now :P) and go pick up the food for the BBQ. Plus Paul's making breakfast right now so there's more to look forward to. I'm just comfy :)
Yesterday we tied up a bunch of loose ends. 1st, when we went to retrieve our 3 trash cans from the curb on Thursday night, one was missing - the one for trash to be exact. We called over to Waste Management, worried we'd done something wrong (we've never had trash cans before) but they said not to worry - they'd bring us a new one next Thursday. 2nd, we'd been given a key to our mailbox but weren't told which box was ours so we'd been unable to confirm if our forwarding service was working. Yesterday I got ahold of our property management firm and by the end of the day we were able to check it. 3rd, in the mail we got our final move out paperwork from the apartment complex - and while I don't agree with everything - I'm satisfied. We're getting back everything but the pet deposit (they charged us $280 to replace the carpet) which I'm fine with. Great weight off of our shoulders. 4th, Tuesday night our internet cut out and they weren't able to get anyone out until Friday afternoon. Ends up the line is bad and they have to contract out to run new lines. They got us working for now, but its just temporary.
So, lots of progress for one day.
Tomorrow we're going to work on Ripley proofing the backyard - wish us luck :)
Ripley's not adjusting as well as I'd hoped to the new house.
I was SO excited to get her a backyard - but she only wants to be in the house with us all the time. This wouldn't be so bad - but we have to work and she's a terror when she's loose in the house. She seems to forget where her pee pad is when she's free in the house, and will pee anywhere. She also chews on anything and everything she can get her little snout around. Hell, she's a puppy still and there's nothing we can do about that. It's only when she's cozily confined that she remembers about the pad and we can make sure that her area is clear of anything for her to chew on. We've been placing her in the bathroom at night and she seems to do wonderfully in there - trots in there happily at night and snuggles up in her bed with a little wag of her tail.
During the day, we tried to place her in the backyard while we had to leave the house. But she dug her way out already and Paul & I are both nervous that she'll do it again. So - until we could spend some much needed time in the backyard "Ripley proofing" it, we would just place her in the bathroom again - she did so well there at night. Well, the other day we left her in the bathroom for a few hours (while we were working at the apartment) and when we came home we found that she'd begun to paw and rip the carpet at the doorway!!! NEW CARPET IN A NEW HOUSE! I was so upset - and also really disappointed. I just want her to be happy and I can't seem to do that. No amount of toys or playing with her seems to keep her content when we just can't be there with her.
We had to go to Petco that night and get her a 20 ft cable to keep her in the backyard during the day when we can't be there. We tried it out on Saturday and found that she survived, though she did get tangled up on one of the patio posts and so wasn't as mobile as I'd hoped. We had her in the backyard for a few hours while my nephew was over yesterday, but when I peeked out there I saw her shaking and I don't know if its because of the weather which was cold (50° F) with a strong wind or because she was just feeling lonely. We tried to find her a dog house, but the local Petco didn't have anything other than vented carriers and they were too expensive considering it wasn't what we needed anyhow.
Today, because its cold again - we opted to put her in the bathroom with a baby gate between her and the door so that she's not as confined but she's out of the cold, and she can't get near the door where the carpet meets the wood. Tonight we're going to another pet store or maybe even Wal-Mart to get her a house. I went home on my lunch to let her out of the bathroom a bit, I just hope I didn't make her apparent separation anxiety worse by coming and going so quickly again.
Last night I rolled over on the bed and realized there was blood in a few places. Realizing that Junior was all right, I was all right, I looked to Ripley. She seemed all right - but she was licking at her crotch. She was in heat! I'd never had a female dog that wasn't fixed before, so I had no idea. I was reading online and apparently she's a late bloomer considering she's about 14 months old. We're going to Petco tonight to pick her up some stuff - doggy diapers at the most. I might take the other suggested route though - men's underwear - since she hasn't visually bled since early yesterday afternoon.
We're also going to pick her up some more toys and something to clip her nails. She's been wrecking the carpet and I think her long nails are what are helping her pull it away from the wall. I think she just wants to dig :) I can't wait until we can find a house we can rent - Ripley will be SO much happier...
What are the goofy nicknames you have for your pet? Bonus points for sharing a picture of him/her.
Submitted by Papi Chulo.
OH! And my brother-in-law calls her "believe it or not" even though we've told him a millions times we've named her after Ellen Ripley in the Alien series. But my brother-in-law is stubborn!
A bit happened this weekend, it was a bit longer than usual so that was bound to happen :)
Friday was our book signing, and everything went really really well. I drove down with one other girl in our four girl gaggle and we snagged us some spots that were too far from the front. However, we found out that one of our four had a cousin in the audience who is a big fan of the author and was in the FRONT ROW and saved us all seats! Very awesome, even if they were all the way to the right. She came in and answered some questions and then began signing books. Knowing we were number 700something out of 1000 we decided to pop out into the hotel cafe and waste some time. Once we got back we began talking with the cousin and that crowd and found that they were actually pretty close with the author - before she became really really famous. We found out a bunch about her, the Twilight series (I've been sworn to secrecy) and about the fandom. It was all really interesting and eye opening. Because we were talking with them - and we knew they were waiting until the end - we decided to wait to. So eleven o'clock hit and most everyone had cleared out and we were ushered up to get our books signed. The author was really cool - but it was a bit of a let down. Her publisher was a complete bitch - wouldn't allow the author to give us any kind of eye to eye contact it seemed and as soon as her pen left that last book she was pulled to her feet and rushed out. I understand (she'd been signing books non-stop for the last three hours, 900+) - it was just a bit of a let down. Plus her signature wasn't really her name - just a bunch of squiggles. Haha, I'm sure that mine would look even worse after three straight hours! I didn't get home until three and I passed out directly afterwards.
Saturday we slept late and then went and saw Indiana Jones. I didn't hate it, but I felt that the hype was just too much. There were a few scenes where I felt it was unbelievable that Indiana Jones could physically perform that way - but luckily there weren't too many of those. I also saw a lot of elements from other movies - which was a bit annoying. I know that there are no truly original films anymore - but I felt it was just too similar. I've put a few of my thoughts in the spoiler box below...
I don't believe the love story between Indy & Marion at all - sorry. I don't believe that Indy survived an atomic bomb in a refrigerator - sorry. What was with those kung-fu masters in the middle of the graveyard?! Completely out of place and pointless. The scene where the big ants attack, exactly like the flesh eating beetles out of The Mummy. At the end where Indy is trying to get his back-stabbing friend to leave the treasure, exactly like out of the The Mummy. The part where they go into the treasure room and find all the artifacts, exactly like out of National Treasure.
Sunday we didn't do a lot - other than clean up after Ripley. She seemed to digress so much this weekend, which was a disappointment. We've had to step back a lot - I just hope it wont take weeks to get back to where we were because she was doing so good! We did general cleaning too - finally bought a new vacuum as our other one was completely shot. Vacuuming really brought to attention all the stains we have so I'm going to look into having the carpets cleaned soon as its becoming embarrassing.
Monday we spent the day with my sister - going to lunch and then watching a movie at their place. We headed home early and just relaxed - though I didn't get to bed until close to 1am. I'm going to be paying for that later today with a bitter cup of coffee :(