Another addition of Foley Monster the Human Whisperer

1)  Start training your humans early on.  While old people can be taught new tricks, it is best to start training your human as soon as you get home.  Whether you are a puppy or a rescue as soon as you get home pee and poop on the floor.  They will not get mad at you because you are either a cute puppy or have gone through so much as a rescue.  Now it is important to remember to continue to pee and poop every few days.  Don’t do it everyday, it is imperative for your parents to believe you are “almost getting it.”  After awhile they will just decide you are “one of those dogs who has accidents now and then” and, if it’s raining, or cold, or you’re just not in the mood, you can go to the bathroom without going outside  

2) Train your human gently and dogely, using positive, motivational methods.  Make sure your tail is always upright and wagging, your nose is always cold and you have a smile on your face.  Be ready to give your human sweet kisses when they fill your water bowl on time, give you treaats and food.  

3) You must get your human to accept that while we love them and do anything they want us to do they are actually our  “hired help”  Also, when we are bored, or need some exercise, and our humans are just sitting on the couch remember that they are a human gymnasium.   We don’t beg at the table.  We are dogs.  We have self respect.  We don’t beg.  We do gently remind our parents that we are here, we are hungry, and we are not going anywhere.  We need to be jumping on visitors to answer to important questions.  (1) Are they armed? and (2) Are they cookied?  We do not demand attention, we just remind you if your hand is just lying there, or doing something silly like playing on the computer or holding a book, it would be much better for their mental and physical health to scratch or pet us.  We should not ignore our parents commands, but we should take them under advisement.  Some humans think if we don’t listen to them inside we won’t  listen to you outside.  This is foolish.  We listen to you outside because all we want to do is get back inside where we don’t have to listen to you.  .

4) Avoid trying to get your parents to do things just for vicks and giggles.  If you manipulate your parents into doing something it has to be something you want them to do all the time.  If you have them do silly things for you they will catch on and not to anything.  .

5) One bark should equal one response, so give your human only one bark (twice max!)  Repeat barking tunes your human out (as does nagging) and teaches your humans that the first barl is enough.  

6) Avoid giving your humans combined commands which are incompatible. Combined commands such as "feed me-treat me" can confuse your human.   Using this example, say either "feed me or "give me treat". The command "feed me-give me treat" simply doesn't exist.

7) When giving your human a command, avoid using a sharp bark. Even if your human is especially independent/unresponsive, your tone of bark when issuing an obedience command such as "feed me,” “take me" or ""give me lap, should be calm and authoritative, rather than sharp or loud.

NOTE: Many dogs complain that their humans are "stubborn", and that they "refuse to listen" when given a command. Before blaming the human when he or she doesn't respond to a bark, one must determine whether or not: a) the human  knows what the dog wants, b) he/she knows how to comply,  c) he ir she is not simply being unresponsive due to fear, stress or confusion. d) he or she is on Ritalin e) he or she is just stupid.  If it is e relax.  You will prevail in time.

8 ) Whenever possible, give licks positively, rather than using it in conjunction to reprimands, warnings or punishment. Your human should trust that when it is licked  good things happen, like sepsis.

9) Correct or, better yet, prevent the (mis)behavior, don't bite or snarl at your human.  . Teaching and communication is what it's all about, not getting even with your human. If you're taking an "it's-you-against-your human, tail whip 'em into shape" approach, you'll undermine your relationship, while missing out on all the fun that a motivational training approach can offer. Additionally, after-the-bark discipline does NOT work.  But between two consenting dogs under the covers in the middle of the night can be fun.

10) When training one's human, whether praising or correcting, good timing is essential. Take the following example:  Your Mom has prepared a platter of hors d'oeuvres for a small dinner party, which they’ve left on the kitchen counter. Your walk into the room and smell the hors d'oeuvres. You air-sniff, then eyes the food, and are poised to jump up. This is the time to fart.  What is even better is work on releasing delayed farts.  Farts are just bubbles of gas.  If you can release one in the bedroom, then run into the kitchen just before your fart bubble pops in the bedroom, your human will go into the bedroom to smell the situation (or The Situation who smells like farts, so I hear) and you eat the hors d’oeuvres then run into the living room, sit on the couch, and when she notices the hors d’oeuvres are missing, nod at Daddy and say Ja Accuse/

11) Often, dogs inadvertently reinforce their humans’' misbehavior, by giving their humans lots of attention (albeit negative attention) when they aren’t feeding you or aren’t playing with you.  Needless to say, if your human receives lots of attention when they won’t let you jump on them, that behavior is being reinforced, and is therefor likely to be repeated.

12) Keep a lid on your anger. Never train your human when you're feeling grouchy or tired.  Earning your human's respect is never accomplished by biting,snapping or peeing on your human’s shoes.  . Moreover, studies have shown that fear and stress inhibit the learning process.

Good luck

Foley Monster's Interview with Mitt Romney's Dog Seamus

As a dog who lives in a country where the peeps are deeply divided over every issue they all, Democrat or Republican, East Coast, West Coast, or Heartland, seem to agree on one thing:  No one wants Mitt Romney to be the Republican nominee for President.

There are many reasons for this, but for animal lovers it is his mistreatment of his dog Seamus.  On a trip to Canada in 1982 Romney put Seamus in his crate, put the crate on the roof of his car, and drove  hundreds of miles to Canada.  During the trip Seamus got a well earned case of diarrhea spewing brown liquid over the back window of the car.  Mitt’s son pointed this out to his clueless Dad.  Mitt pulled into a service station, hosed down the crate, and Seamus, then continued on his way.

Now, for the first time, Seamus breaks his decade long silence to speak with me.

Foley:  Seamus, thank you for being here.  Can I get you anything?

Seamus:  Anything warm, please.  A cup of coffee.  Hot Cocoa.  Bourbon.  Anything would be fine.

Foley:  Are you still cold?

Seamus:  I was strapped to the roof of a car driven at 65MPH to Canada.  Yes, I’m a little cold.

Foley:  *Hands Seamus a steaming mug*  So tell me, exactly how did this whole incident happen?

Seamus:  The day started out like any other.  I woke up sleeping with Mitt and Mom on a big pile of money.  We got up.  It was a little cool.  We picked up some of the smaller bills, twenties and fifties, and thew them in the fire place to warm up.  We then went out in the garden and I sat by Mitt as he randomly fired some Mexican day workers.  Pretty much it was a normal day in the Romney household.

Foley:  I notice you call your Daddy by his first name.  Is this something you normally do?

Seamus:  I didn’t at first.  But someone straps you to the roof of a car and drives hundreds of miles they lose the right to be called Daddy.

Foley:  Fair enough.  Continue with your story.

Seamus: Then Mitt announces that we are going on vacation.  One of the boys asks if I can go and he says yes.  Great!  Love the Mitt.  So they get me to go in my crate.  I’m not quite sure why they are doing this because I figured I would be in the back seat laying on top of the boys and the crate would make them uncomfortable.  But sometimes Mitt did odd things.  Then he and the boys lift me, inside the crate, on to the roof of the car.  I’m looking at them like, “what, are you kidding me?”  I thought they just put up their temporarily while they loaded the car.  But no, they all climb in the car, leaving me on the roof, start the car, and begin to drive off.  Hate the Mitt!

Let me tell you, when it comes to bad trips, Louis Zamperini ain’t got nothing on me.  First, when you are on a roof, travelling 65 miles and hour, because Mitt never breaks a law, you get bombarded with bugs that usually crash into the windshield.  Then you get the full effect of the wind blowing on your face.  So you need to turn around and face the opposite direction.  But when I did that I was getting the exhaust from the other cars up my ass and, after watching Mitt blow smoke up people asses for years, I was none too keen to have him do it to me.   So I turned back around with the wind blowing in my face.  I don’t know how long I was there getting hit with soot, dirt, gravel, little bugs.  Then suddenly a hummingbird flies up in front of me and goes right into my mouth.  You ever swallow a Hummingbird Foley?

Foley:  No.

Seamus:  Neither had I.  Let me tell you, those things go through you fast.  Could have been the fact I was traveling 65 miles an hour, but it went right through me, and about 60 seconds I had explosive pooh flying out of me.  I heard the kids yelling about it and finally Mitt pulls over.  They get out of the car.  Now, I just didn’t poo on our car, but on the car behind me.  It had hit their wind shield blinding them,.  Little Tagg saw them and said “Daddy, what about those people who crashed?”  

Mitt looked at the 1968 Volvo they were driving and said “We don’t need to worry about those people.  They are driving a 1968 Volvo.  They are poor people.  They have a safety net.”

“I don’t think that is a safety net,” Tagg said.  “I think that’s a fence,” he said as body parts dripped off the fence.  

“Well if we need to fix the safety net we will do it on the way back,” Mitt said.   They got back in the car and drove to a gas station.  I figured this is where I would be cleaned up and put in the car.  But Mitt just grabbed a hose and hosed down my already freezing cold body washing the poo and bugs off of me.  Well, I thought, at least I will be put back in the car.  But no, this son of a George left me, soaking wet, still strapped to the roof, and he continued to head North.

Well Foley, on that trip North, while I was cold, and wet I just froze solid.  And I’ve been that way for the last 30 years.  I have been living in a state of hypothermia.  

Foley:  I was going to ask you how you managed to live so long?

Seamus:  Oh I haven’t been living.  Haven’t been breathing,  I’ve just been waiting to get unfrozen so I can go to the bridge.  But before I do I swear, for one second between unfreezing and going to the Bridge I am going to bite Romney right in his mitt.

Foley:  Well I am glad you got to tell your story.  Is there anything I can get you?

Seamus:  A blanket would be nice.  

Elyse is our February 12, 2012 Pup of the Week

For the first time in history of Pup fo the Week we are going to name a pup who is not only not a member of the Tanner Brigade, but a dog I have never met, online or off, nor have I ever barked at.  In fact it wasn’t even until this pup had made the trip to the Bridge that I learned of her.


Elyse was an eight week of puppy from Tucumcari New Mexico.  She had been surrendered to a shelter and was in search of parents she could adopt and take care of for years to come.  Thanks to the work of the good humans who try so tirelessly to help us dogs find their people a family was found for Elyse.


But us dogs do need help getting across the many miles from where the spot we were surrendered to the place where our adoptive humans await.  To make the trip we have to depend on the kindness of strangers, who aren’t getting a pup for their efforts, or any money, but are just doing it for the love of us pups.  We have so many human friends who do this and while we appreciated it, it wasn’t until this weekend, when we saw a story posted by Pokey’s and Maggie’s Mom, Aunt Laura, who, when she is healthy, makes trips several times a month on the dangerous roads of the Northeast, that we realized that people were putting their lives on the line to help us get to their forever homes.  


Elyse was going to be transported to her forever home by a well traveled pet transporter named Catherine Bugg.  She took the first leg of Elyse’s transport from Tucumcari to Amarillo Texas.   She was to meet with another transporter to make the second leg, but Catherine and Elsie did not arrive.  The transporter for the second leg called Kerin Hanson who volunteers with the organization Rescue Road Warriors.  Kerin called the state police to find out if there was any reason why Catherine and Elsye would be running late and received devastating news. 


While driving on Route I-40 rain turned to ice turning the freeway into a skating rink.  The car that Catherine Bugg and Elyse was in spun out of control and slammed into the center median.  The car exploded and Elyse never made it to her forever parents and Catherine never it back to her pups and family waiting at home for her.


Catherine also leaves behind the people who saved and worked so hard in finding Elyse a new home:  the workers at the City of Tucumcari Animal Rescue.  


And those who knew Elyse in her short life saw her grow from a scared puppy dumped at the shelter to a smart little girl who loved to snuggle.


So this is for Catherine and Elyse, who both died way too young, and for all the Moms in our groups who have done so many transports and are risking so much for us little dogs and for all my friends who were ever transported.  It is a sad day.  

Anyone interested in making a donation in Catherine's memory can do so:
Tucumacari Animal Hospital, 101 N 10th Street, Tucumcari, NM  88401, (575) 461-3900

Pocket the Protestor to Support Her Pit Bull Friends Calls for #OccupyMcDonalds

My sister, Foley Monster, is a well known dog attorney.  When she learned that McDonald’s was running an ad saying that eating their chicken McNuggets was safer than petting a pit bull she flew into action bombarding the McDonald’s corporate offices with all her briefs and giving the Ham Burglar a nip in the ankle that could possibly lead to a nasty staff infection.

Even though Foley is quite satisfied with herself, because McDonalds pulled the offending ad, which she attributes to her own legal brilliance, I think that, while my sister played a role in justice being done, there were many organizations in the country that may have had more influence on McDonalds than a six inch Yorkie who has been known to spend more time at settlement conferences licking herself than listening to opposing council.  But now that the legal matter has been settled Foley has decided that McDonalds has gotten off too easily after insulting our pit,bull friends, and she still carries a grudge about the box of McNuggets she ate that gave her the runs for two weeks, (no pit bull ever made her run for two weeks) so she said it was time to bring out the little gun:  Pocket the Protester.  

Pocket the Protester?  Who the heck is that?


Well apparently, I am Pocket the Protester.  Oh boy I don’t like to protest.  Unless it’s one of the protests where you can lie down in front of something and snuggle.  But Foley told me for this occasion lying and snuggling just won’t do.


What Foley wants me to do is to organize pit bull owners everywhere.  I don’t know how a little Yorkie is supposed organize a group of pit bulls but I am going to try.


To protest McDonalds attack on the reputation of our pit bull friends I am calling on all pit  bull owners, on Saturday, February 25, 2012, at 3:00 PM EST, noon time PST, and whatever time correlates in the middle of the country, to take their pit bulls to McDonalds.  All they have to do is walk into McDonalds and stand by the door.  

They can order food if they want, if they have an iron tummy.  If not they can just stand there and show everyone how wonderful pit bull pups are.  Then after about ten minutes, or however long it takes the local Johnny Laws to get to the fast food establishment, load the pup back in the car and head home.


Now some of you might ask, since McDonalds has pulled the ad, why should we take action.  Well, if I am going to be a protester I am going to go in a hundred percent. protester.

 I am going to wear my beret.  I am going to bark slogans.  I am going to get one of the Anonymous makes and wear it around town.  I am going to form a drum circle.  I’m a Yorkie on the Edge!


So I say protest because McDonalds insulted not just pit bulls but dogs of all kinds.  Protest because if someone slaps your Mama and says they are sorry do you just say “thank you for the apology,” and move on.  No.  You take a stand.


So, for all the times that pit bulls have been mistreated in the media, mistreated by advertisers, mistreated by the justice system, mistreated by other dog owners, Pocket,the protester says it’s time to stand up.  And who better to stand up to then one of the biggest companies in the world?  So I say Occupy McDonalds, or, as the birds tweet #OccupyMcdonalds.


A wise dog once said all it takes for evil to prevail is for good dogs to do nothing.


Or as one of Daddy’s CD’s named Peter Gabriel said “you can put out a candle, but you can’t put out a fire, once the flames begin to catch, the winds will take it higher.”


So said Pocket the Protester.  (And a little dog shall lead them.)

Our new blog layout

We are posting this to give big smoochy kisses to two of our very best friends, Kolchak’s and Felix’s Mom Aunt Jodi, and Zoe Boe’s Mom Aunt Connie, who did all the work in setting up our new blog:  Small Tales - The Adventures of Two Tiny Terriorists.  We named it Small Tales because our tales are small, as are our tails, and some of them may not quite be true.  And all of those who know us would agree we are Tiny Terriorists. 


The idea of doing the blog was Aunt Jodi’s.  She is a big fan of our blog.  Not as big a fan as George Clooney, but who are we to name drop?   She said that she had some ideas to make our blog more attractive for humans to read.  We asked her if it would raise the price of kibble, she said no, and we told her than what did we care?


First she contacted Zoe Boe’s Mom Aunt Connie.  She has done so many wonderful pictures of us there is a wall in our house devoted just to her art work.  Here is an example of Pocket and I with Zoe and Tanner Bub.

She did the pictures that are on our banner and they capture my eternal happiness and Pocket’s eternal confusion perfectly.


Then she asked us a bunch of questions about how we wanted the blog set up.  We told Aunt Jodi what we liked but really we were more like “I don’t know, whatever you think,” because she has such great taste.  One of our earlier versions had paw prints on the boarders but whenever Mommy looked at it she tried to clean the screen so we had to eliminate that.


We also told her that we wanted to be recognized as much as a comedy blog as a dog blog.  She asked us for examples of funny blogs.  The best we could think of were Smoochy and Tommy Tunes.  Frankly, humans aren’t that funny.  We decided it was best just to keep it with the emphasis on funny dogs and not morose humans.


For Aunt Jodi to do all the wonderful work we needed done on the blog we had to give her our password.  Pocket and I are very protective of our passwords.  We have been trained never to tell anyone that Bosco is our password.  No matter what we can never say Bosco.  And here Aunt Jodi wanted us to tell her that Bosco was our password to our g-mail account.


But those Gooogle guys, they are on the ball.  Even with the password (Bosco) they didn’t allow her access to our account.  Because she is a Canadian.  Thank the Heavenly Dogs Google is making sure the Canadians cannot access our account.  We all know of the damage done by the Canadian terrorist group EyKinda


We had to send her some answers to our secret questions and she was able to get on our site and get to work.  I don’t know why a human would be so kind as to do so much work on our site but we sure are thankful.  She somehow made our bland site look fresh and new and we will always owe her a debt of gratitude.


So thank you Aunt Jodi, and Aunt Connie, and everyone who reads our blogs and for making us look more talented than we are.  You’re the best.    

Sage is our February 5, 2012 Pup of the Week

It has been more than a year since I last wrote about Sage.  That was also in February, when his mother, the role model for pup Moms everywhere, Jackie Pool, passed away on a cold Sunday.  51 weeks later, Sage was reunited with his mother at Rainbow Bridge.  

I know many of you hold fond memories of Miss Jackie.  For those of you who didn’t know her I am sorry, because she was one grand lady, and she fought when her babies became sick, she fought with every ounce of will she had.

Sage lived, through medicine, prayers, good thoughts, and his mother’s will Sage went from barely being able to draw breathe to eating, and acting like his lively self.   His white blood cell count was down.  Soon he picked up an infection and the medicine kicked his butt.  There was a rocky mountain tick fever scare.  His red blood count plummeted again and his liver and kidney functions were growing worse.  And yet through that mother and child connection Sage survived..

Sage never beat his health issues, his red count bounced up and down, his arthritis bothered him, he had to spend time crated that he did not like.  As he said it’s not fun getting old.  The last post Sage made through his Mom was this:  “Every single reading was in normal range!!  WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!  Looks like I'm finally in the clear!!"”

Then the unthinkable happened.  Sage told us his mother had spots on her lungs.  Two months later she was gone, leaving her friends in the dog world devastated.  The hospital had arranged for Sage and Saffron to visit with her in the hospital the day before she passed, so Sage never got to say goodbye to his Mom.

In October our good friends Clementine and the Girls, who had stayed in contact with Safron and Sage. told us that Sage had another blood test and this did show Rocky Mountain Fever and Erlichiosis.  He began to lose control of his bladder, which he had never done before.  The effects of aging were beginning to show on our friend, and while his human sister and Dad took good care of him, we all knew Miss Jackie was calling him home.  

On February 2, 2012 he went home.  Because I can not do a better job of it, and because it is exactly how it happened, I am going to use the words of Fella, Hattie Mae’s brother, to set the scene:

“Last evening, as the sun was beginning to set, Sage went out with his Dad for his evening stroll. Because his health has been declining, he walked slowly taking in the smells, feeling the wet grass beneath his paws in the field he loved so much. Suddenly he lifted his head. He saw something, he paused, and then as though a spark of his youthful, healthy days had struck him, he began to run. He saw his Mom. Her arms were stretched out calling his name. His tail wagging, ears flapping and eyes sparkling with joy, he fell into her arms. Jackie scooped Sage up into her arms and carried him to the Bridge.”

It was a mother and child reunion, now both whole, neither sick or in pain, in a better place, a place we shall all be together one day.  When hope sags, when you don’t think you will see a loved again, think of Sage, think of why this tired, sick, old dog rain.  What one thing would make Sage run?

And believe.

Sounds that causes dogs pain

Studies how that dogs are sensitive to certain sounds.  Take Pocket for example  She does not like the high pitched sounds that emit from smoke and carbon dioxide alarms that have failing batteries enclosed.  Other dogs hate the sound of thunder or fireworks.  To help identify with the common every day dog I have made a list of sounds that I cannot tolerate.

The word “no.”  I do not understand it and hearing it is very harmful to my ears.  Mommy says this word a lot.  When I sit on her chest while she is having a snack and stare into her eyes she says it.  When I want to have some chicken she is enjoying for supper she says it.  When I decide I have taken as much of Pocket as I can and want to kill her she says it.  It is a very bad word and it hurts my brain.  I wish she would stop.

The word “down.”  

This is interchangeable with the word “off.”  The words are so offending all we can do is lie down and put our paws over our ears if we are on furniture, or jump up on a person enticing them to pick us up and  cover our ears.  Either way it seems quite counterproductive. 

The sound of the last precious kibbles spilling from the bag.  Oh what a lonely sound that is.  Will there be more kibble?  Did humans stop making them?  What will we live on?  The sound of the last kibble is most frightening of sounds, but the first rip of a new bag of kibble and that first whiff of fresh kibble, there is nothing better.

The sound of humans chewing.  

 This noise is just awful.  It can only be abated by the humans sharing the food with us.  Most humans thing that we stare into their eyes, beg, or bark, because we want food, but we just either want to stop the horrible sound of human chewing or quell the sound with our on chewing.  Honest.

The sound of the vacuum:  Not only does it suck, but I am part of nature and we all abhor it.

The sound of absolutely nothing in the middle of the night:  This causes us to sit up, hear nothing, and then begin to bark loudly to wake everyone up.  We just want you to make that sound of silence stop.  It’s so annoying.

The sound of car keys:  Oh this is a terrible sound, this sound makes us go run and hide.  Most of the time we hear this sounds we know we are going to be left alone and not have a warm lap for awhile.  And who knows when our parents are coming back?   This sound can be cured by the sound of us being told that we are allowed to come with our parents on a trip.  If your parents want to make sure you never suffer from this sound have them take you where ever they go in the world.

The sound of velcro.  This one is rather personal.  Whenever I wear a jacket that is attached under my belly by velcro straps, and they are pulled apart, I give a loud yip because it sounds like my guts are being ripped out.

So please humans, stop these harmful sounds so us pups can live in peace.