Susie Q

If today had a theme, it most certainly would have been 'rodents.'

Right from the get-go, my day focused around the furry little bastards.  A few days ago, Kris had shrieked out in terror as she witnessed a small mouse scurry across our basement floor.  After buying a handful of mousetraps, I set them up overnight at strategic locations where I assumed mice would traverse, and awoke to find that two of the five traps had indeed caught mice: one in the back storage room, one underneath the stairs leading up from the basement.

While I was definitely happy to nab two of these frickin' crimes-against-nature, I was horrified to see that one of the two was still alive: the trap had closed on his leg, and he was clinging for dear life onto a strap that was hanging out of one of my guitar cases.  Now, I was planning on heading in to my school in the morning in order to continue setting up my classroom for the upcoming school year (more on that later), so I was already pressed for time as it was.  Kris was already at work, and the girls had been dropped off at my Mom's, so I had to come up with a humane way of ending this mouse's miserable existence.

In the end, I filled up a bucket with water, used one of those extendo-grippy things, and dropped the mouse in.  He started swimming around, but I expected he'd tire soon and drown, so I left for my classroom.

Here you go, Internet.

Fast forward about, oh, five or six hours later.

Before picking up the girls, I swung back by the house to dump out the bucket, only to find that the mouse was STILL alive.

In desperation, I grabbed the extendo-grippy thingy, grabbed onto the mouse, and straight-up DROWNED it.

Having fulfilled my daily quota for rodent homicide, I picked up the girls and drove them over to the Midland Humane Society (ironically, a place where they save animals) for a special surprise:  Kris and I had decided to rescue a two-year-old, female guinea pig named 'Paddy,' who came with a cage, bags of bedding, hay, and food, along with several cage accessories, toys, etc. - all for $20.

Hard to pass that one up.

The girls were more confused than excited when we pulled into the shelter's parking lot and I broke them news to them, but, once it set in, they were obviously pretty stoked about the new addition to our family.

Here's how the rest of the day went. . .

Following payment and the filling out of various paperwork, we loaded Paddy up for the ride back.  On our way out the door, we crossed paths with our next-door neighbor, Sally, and her daughter, Katie, who's good friends with the girls.  They had found a stray cat with a collar roaming around our neighborhood, and decided to bring him in to the shelter.  Alas, as they were coming in and we were coming out, the cat got loose and darted off under a nearby house's porch. . .

While Sally and several shelter employees sprang to the rescue in order to retrieve the cat, I watched over the girls, who were all enthralled with the recent developments. . .

Trying to be subtle, here: you can just make out the people trying to reach the cat under the porch, there.

Within 24 hours of bringing the guinea pig home, the girls all decided that 'Susie' was a much more fitting name.  And so that's what we're going with.

It's not the best set-up location, but for right now that's about the best we've got for it. . . right atop Kris' massive command center or a desk.  We wanted the critter away from the main room, but also upstairs where it wasn't cold, with access to sunlight and away from the dog.

To say Watson was intrigued by this recent development would be indeed one hell of an understatement.

Chubbs here likes herself some lettuce. . .

We didn't end up handling Susie for a couple days, as the shelter folks - and various online articles - recommended:  we let her get used to her new surroundings and with new faces before taking her out of the cage and handling her.  The lettuce didn't hurt with this, either.

And, because we're Houghs, we had to go out and buy several new cage features and accessories for her.  I'm sure a new, bigger cage and another frickin' guinea pig are in the distant future. 

Welcome to Hell, Susie. . .

- Brian

The Houghs Get a Dog (Briefly)

If you ask me to say anything nice about cats, I will punch you in the face. Don't even bother.

Even if I wasn't deathly allergic to the horrid things (which I am), I'd still loathe them. Why? Because they act like they think they're better than me, and that's just plain ridiculous. I'm way better than any cat. They annoy the holy bejesus out of me - walking around indifferent to what I'm doing, with that stupid, smug look on their faces. I will not tolerate any such arrogant animal in my presence.

I hate cats.

Dogs? They're cool in my book. Really cool.

Seriously - who doesn't like dogs? There's a large group of weirdos out there that do like cats - the world's a sick place, I get that - but there are also a shit-ton of people out there who, like me, can't stand the stupid, flea bags.

But with dogs? Not really. Maybe there's a handful of hold-outs out there, scattered around the world, making it a crappier place in which to live.

There's a reason dogs are considered man's best friend, folks: they're awesome.

They're awesome, and my wife will not let me get one.

I could get into this in great detail, and put forward a compelling argument for why I think I'm entitled to owning a dog. And I could equally delve into the wife's ridiculous 'we don't have the time to train it'/'the landlord doesn't allow dogs' counter-argument. But I won't. I'll spare you the whole ordeal.

Instead, I'd like to showcase how the Houghs passed this last weekend, wherein we took in a 400 lb. American Bulldog named Ari.

See, our buddy Clint had to go to a wedding in Minnesota (Oh yeah! Minnesota!!), and needed someone to watch his bohemeth of a dog for four days.

Consider it a trial run. It didn't really showcase how unprepared we truly are for dog ownership, but it didn't really excite us into going out to the local humane society and picking one out.

No, if anything, this whole dog-sitting venture of ours reaffirmed for us that which we already know quite well: dogs are awesome, and we're not getting one any time soon.


Having said that, enjoy the weird videos, folks.

- Brian

Both girls were scared to death of Ari at first. Abby warmed up after a couple hours, while it took the Cannonball about two days... because she's a coward.

This dog is not athletic, and does not enjoy walks in the Florida heat...