Doomed to Fail

 Last night we took Coach to the Fall Play at school.  Fred warned me that it wasn't a good idea, but we were up against a wall: today is our 21st wedding anniversary, tomorrow we have dinner plans, and if we didn't take Coach with us, it was too long to leave him in the crate.

No choice, but to take him.

Evidently Mr. Coach had been feeling his nearly 7 month old oats all day long.  I suspect that his body had been surging with testosterone and while he is always calm and mostly dour, with this new hormone racing through him, he is feeling out of sorts and strange.

I found him racing through the house and careening off the walls.  Where had my calm boy gone?  Surely dinner would do the trick?

He ate it.  Sure.  But he had pooped at 4, so the poo schedule was off.  Never a good thing.  Willow was begging to be left alone.  We gathered up all his gear and piled him in the car.

Off we went to Panera where he decided that he would not go quietly under that table.  Instead he yanked out all the napkins that had been placed under a leg to keep the table level.  Lovely. Then he proceeded to lung after imaginary specks of bread.  In PANERA.  The place has specks of bread floating in the air.  Coach was in constant motion under the table.  Here's a speck, no, wait, it's over here.

Sigh. Dinner was a brief affair.

We hightailed it to the school.  Then we walked around and were almost late trying to get the boy to poo.  I knew he had to go.  But no.  He was stubborn and would not poo.

So we reluctantly went into the Lykes Center, but we chose a seat in the back row on the aisle.  Near the exit.  We knew.  It was only a matter of time.

Coach is lying on the floor of the Lykes Center before he has his whining fit.

Coach began the evening by courteously removing all trash from his vicinity with his teeth and trying to eat it.  I removed every piece under the cover of darkness: a piece of wire, a piece of cellophane, gum.

Then the crying started.  Whine, whine.  

"Shh.  No noise." Gentle tug on leash.  I tried to reposition him.  He was antsy.  The musical was in full force.  You couldn't hear anything the kids were singing so loud.  They were amazing.  It was wonderful.  And yet, all I could think was, "Does this whine carry forward three rows?" Because in rows that is where some parents are.  

More movement from Coach.  I finally decided it was time for him to poo.  We went outside and sure enough, he had to go.  I put it in a bag and tossed it in one of the many trash cans around campus and hurried back in.  My false hope was that he would now be calm.

No.  He was not.

He was a whiny baby.  And for the next few minutes as we tried to listen to great comedy and singing, Coach made sure we knew he was unhappy and wanted to go home.  He did not like musical theater.

So, we left.

But I woke up at in the middle of the night and remembered that I had deposited his poo in a prohibited trash can.  You see, three years ago, when I had Bingo, he had pooped by the Lykes Center and I had innocently bagged it and thrown it in the trash cans near the middle division deck.  

In my haste to get back to the play, I did again.  I had been told that the poo bag had sat in the trash and baked and all the kids who sat and ate lunch there complained of an awful stench.  I could not be blamed again for ruining everyone's lunch because of dog poo.  We had to do a poo stealth removal.

Coach and I are walking to the offending bag of poo.

We waited until the entire middle division was in convocation so no one would witness me rooting around in the trash.

We've found the trash can where the poo is.

Here is the deck and the trash can where the poo is.  It needs to be removed.  

I'm peering into the trash can as Coach sits by my feet.

I opened the trashcan hoping that lots of trash hadn't been piled on top of the poo. And I was in luck. You could see the poo right away!  I could grab the bag and be on my way.

I reach into the trash to grab the poo.

Here we are walking off to find a safe trash can.

Now all we have to do is find a trash can that isn't near an eating area.

Dropping off our deposit into a safe trash can!

Success!  Poo has been relocated!  Now, I need to wash my hands!  What a Friday.  

The Artist

Last weekend we went to a movie.  Our first movie in a long time.  We saw The Artist.  It was a silent movie, which might have seen like a bad choice given that we brought Jam with us, but Jam is a pretty quiet dog. Also, we use the quiet spot on all his tags.  If you haven't used them to quiet noisy tags in a place you want your dog to be super quiet, I highly recommend them!

Anyway, turns out that The Artist is actually a fairly loud movie, sound-wise that is.  When we got to the theater I was stopped by a former teacher who wanted to talk about the state of teaching in Florida.  This all started with a comment about Jam and then quickly turned into a biographical work history of her life, which while interesting left me on the sidewalk with Fred and her husband both looking on wondering when she was going to catch a breath so we could all maneuver her gracefully inside the theater and off to her movie.

Finally, she took a breath.  We moved on.  Popcorn was not on the menu as it would have sent Jammers into a frenzy, so we went to find our theater.  There were a few people waiting for the theater to be cleaned so we waited outside.

When it was cleaned we went to our usual dog spot at the top right-hand corner of the theater.

Overhead view of Jam's head and the stairs leading down the aisle.

This way, we aren't really behind anyone or in front of anyone.  We try not to be too bothersome.

Jam sometimes watches the screen.  

 This time we found the floor was very clean, so Jam wasn't able to lick anything up off of the ground.  He was able to settle in pretty quick.

Jam peering out from under the seat.

 I found the movie to be a bit too long.  Fred found it fascinating and wonderful.  Jam and I got restless.

Jam looking restless, I think.

When it was over, we went home and argued over whether it was Oscar worthy.

Jam and I think the dog certainly deserves an Oscar nod.

The Mall and a Movie: Round 3

Destination: Westshore Mall. Timing: lunchtime. We were hoping for an afternoon nap lull to get him through the movie this time as we have been unsuccessful in our previous two attempts to see a movie with Bingo.

This time we had it all planned out. Lunch at Mitchell's. Followed by vigorous mall walking to tire him out. Then a brief bout of staring at the escalator (guide dogs aren't allowed to go on escalators, but they should be brought near them to see them, Bingo was unimpressed). Then on to the movie: Nine (BTW, a more thoroughly joyless and depressing movie, I can't imagine. Please don't go see it. Completely pointless. And heaven forbid, don't take children to see it!). We even had our seats picked out, last row, right corner. We had taped his tags to stop any jingling. We also made sure to have his butt sticking back under the seat and his head poking out by our feet. That way he wasn't sneaking back under the seats licking up stray bits of food, which is very bad for him and just plain gross.


I'm happy to report that Bingo made it through the whole movie! Not one peep from him. That was a real feat for him. The other two movies were plagued with either snores or whines, but he was very quiet the whole way through this one.

We even had a bit of a rock star moment when we were leaving the theater. As we came out, there were a couple of middle school girls and I heard them say, "Oh, that looks like Bingo!" He's a star no matter where he goes. 8-)

He did very well on his mall walking too. This week we have a pep rally on Friday with the Highlander Band playing. I'll take some video of that. Should be fun!