Dogs Spoil Humans!

Woof!  I’m Jeb-a-licious Nibbleheimer Peska.  You can call me Jeb!  I’m a pitsky (pit bull & husky mix) and I’m the guest dogger-blogger here.  When I wag, my tail curls up in the air and I get a hinge in the middle of my spine so that my entire rear end swings to and fro.  Thank you for visiting this blog!  I’m wagging at you right now!  Wanna kiss?

A while back, Mommy posted something about how humans can tell if they are spoiling their dogs.  If you didn’t read it, here’s a link to that post.  http://mpeska.blogspot.com/2012/07/dog-spoiling.html  I love my mommy and I admit it was a cute piece, but she forgot to mention something important.  We dogs like to spoil our humans, too.  We love our humans sooooooo much!  So, for all you pups who are wondering if you spoil your human companions enough, here’s an easy self-test.  Before you start; wanna kiss? 

·        Do you solve household problems involving bread heels, Brussels sprouts or other foodstuffs deemed inedible by family members?

·        Do you supervise all food preparation?

·        Do you clean up spills?

·        Do you help wash the dishes?

·        Do you spend hours each day making sure that valuable furniture (like the couch) doesn’t float away?

·        Do you carefully wash your humans where they have cuts, scrapes and rashes?  I know, sometimes you just have to insist they move their clothes out of the way.

·        Do you trim, or attempt to trim, your humans’ finger or toe nails?  They clip our nails, why do they put up such a fuss when we try to clip theirs? 

·        Do you give your humans a good de-flea nibble each day whether they need it or not?

·        Do you wash that nasty lotion stuff off your humans each time they put it on?

·        Do you suck on your humans’ hair to keep it squeaky clean?

·        Do you routinely exterminate flies, mosquitoes and spiders around the house?  I know, you’re a very brave hunter!

·        Do you make sure your humans get fresh air and exercise every single day?

·        Do you snuggle with your humans and keep them warm in the bed?  Puppy Pile!

·        Do you greet guests and help them feel welcome?

·        Do you investigate all incoming pockets and packages to keep your household safe?

·        Do you alert your humans to the very real threat that the vacuum cleaner poses?  One of these days, someone’s going to pass a law against those things!

·        Do you ride shotgun in the car to make sure your human is driving safely?  Dogs are great navigators.

·        Do you do ridiculous things, with never a thought for your own dignity, just to make your humans laugh?

·        Do you teach your humans about yoga, mindful living and unconditional love?

·        Do you teach your humans how to be curious, playful and filled with joy when faced with new experiences?

Scoring

If you answered ‘yes’ to:

0-3 questions ~  You’re not a dog.  I bet you’re a cat.  Which is cool, too.  I looooves kitties!  Wanna kiss?

4-6 questions ~  Hey, you can do better than this.  You should sign up for some continuing education classes to bone-up on your canine skills and put the ‘oof’ back in your ‘woof’!

7-10 questions ~  Good dog!  Your humans are slightly spoiled.  Keep up the great work but be careful not to become complacent.  Remember, your humans depend on you!

11-15 questions ~  Bacon-flavored treats for YOU!  Your humans are well cared for and nicely spoiled.

16-20 questions ~  I bow-wow down to your human spoiling expertise!  You’re a master of your craft and your humans are much-loved and well-supervised.  You are a SUPER DOOOOGGG!

This is how I hold down the couch!

This Blog Has Gone to the Dog!

Introducing Guest Blogger (actually guest dogger) Jeb Peska!

Woof!  Hi everyone!  I’m wagging to meet you.  I love meeting new people and Mommy says I’m a social butterfly.  I like to chase butterflies, that’s for sure.  Mommy says it’s funny watching me chase butterflies around the yard but she hopes I never catch one because she’s seen what I do when I catch mosquitoes and flies and spiders.  She won’t let me kiss her on the face after I eat bugs. 

Mommy is silly sometimes.  That’s why I’m going to be a guest dogger for a while.  Mommy says she’s too busy editing her fantasy novel (it has lots of dogs in it which is good) to keep up with the blog.  She said other words too.  She said, “stress” and “anxiety” and “multi-tasking” and “argh”.  When Mommy said argh, I paid close attention.  Argh is Mommy’s way of growling.  I don’t like it when Mommy growls.  I ran to Mommy, sat in front of her and watched her face.  Human faces move a lot and are very interesting.  I tilted my head to one side and waited.  Mommy usually smiles when I do this.  I like it when Mommy smiles; it makes me wag.  Mommy said, “You want to help, don’t you Jeb?”  Then, she smiled.  I wagged and jumped up for a kiss.  That’s how I got this job.

Mommy wants you to know that she’s not giving me the blog.  It’s still hers.  The blog is like the bed, the couch, the chair and the car.  They belong to Mommy but she likes to share with gooddogs who follow all the rules.

This is what it looks like when I don’t follow the rules.  Mommy says it’s too bad that I’m so cute when I’m in trouble.  She says, “Jeb, you are too cute for your own good”.  She pretends she’s not smiling but I can tell she is.  Then, even though I’m cute and even though she’s smiling, she still makes me get off the furniture.

Mommy says that there are very important rules for blogging like, “don’t bite the computer” and “don’t nibble the mouse…not even a little”.  I really like tasting things.  If Mommy and Daddyman let me, I’d put everything in my mouth.  I like to borrow things from my humans.  I borrowed an umbrella once, a flashlight, lip balm, a pair of fuzzy earmuffs, Grandma’s purse, Grandma’s keys when she took her purse back, some geodes, Daddyman’s camera bag and Mommy’s cell phone.  The only thing I broke was the fuzzy earmuffs.  I never get enough time to finish investigating what I borrow because Mommy watches me all the time.  Mommy says she believes in supervision.  That’s why I sometimes borrow her glasses right off her face.

Putting things in my mouth is how I got my name.  When Mommy and Daddyman adopted me from the Humane Society, they named me Jebediah but they only call me that when I’m in trouble.  My real name is Jeb-a-licious Nibbleheimer Peska.  I have lots of nicknames, too.  Jeblett, Frog Butt, Frog Dog, Dork Dog, Fruit Loop, Fruit Cup, Fruit Bat, Noodle Boy, Stretch McGoo, Yoga Dog, Super Jeb, Junior Ruggies, Junior and Puppy Brains.  I’m only a year old and Mommy says I’ll collect a lot more nicknames but that this is a good start for a young dog.

Now that you’ve met me, I hope you’ll come visit again.  I love visitors!  I’ll be posting new doggy-bloggy morsels at least twice a week.  Keep wagging! 

I Hope This Post Puts You To Sleep!

Insomnia isn’t something I’ve experienced often in my life.  I lean more towards hypersomnia.  Sleep, like being a dog-lover, comes easily to me.  I can pretty much fall asleep whenever and wherever I want.  As you can imagine, I’m a talented napper.  I’m also the sort of person who needs a solid nine hours of sleep every night.  It’s not just that I feel tired if I get less sleep than usual, but also that my personality changes.  An hour or two short of sleep and I become a cantankerous monster complete with tentacles, green complexion and oozing slime. 
Sleep also happens to be one of my most reliable problem-solving methods.  Tough decision?  Sleep on it overnight.  Writer’s block?  Take a nap.  Upsetting experience?  Go to bed early.  And it always helps.  No matter the problem, sleep always helps.  Sometimes I dream of a solution and other times I simply awake feeling more creative, more emotionally regulated and better able to cope. 

The few times that I’ve had insomnia have been A VERY BIG DEAL.  I know I’m experiencing a personal crisis when I can’t sleep and I can’t read.  Lucky for me, these events were acute and situational.  Each time, they passed within a few weeks.  Some folks, though, have recurring bouts of insomnia and others have chronic insomnia.  I’m talking about mind-numbing, life altering, debilitating loss of sleep.

Inadequate sleep, unfortunately, seems to be a growing problem and it’s not a minor one.  Peruse the research and you’ll find scads of reports indicating that humans in the digital age are sleeping a lot less than ever before.  You’ll also find mounting evidence that this trend is linked to a wide array of physical and mental health problems.  A single night of inadequate sleep can decrease judgment, perception and reaction so that experts compare it to alcohol-impaired driving.  As few as 72 hours of sleep deprivation can cause hallucinations.

Considering how poorly I function with less than optimum sleep, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that this decreased sleep trend may be impacting humans on a grand level.  If everyone got more sleep, would we be closer to solving wide-spread social problems?  Would there be fewer wars?  More creative inventions and solutions?  I don’t know.  It wouldn’t be a cure-all, but maybe it would help.  Perhaps more sleep for everyone would be one tiny, but integral, piece in the giant jigsaw puzzle.    

So, I’m urging you to get enough sleep.  Make sleep a priority.  If you, or someone you know, has significant or ongoing insomnia, get help from a medical provider.  Don’t minimize.  Don’t delay.  Don’t visit that river in Egypt.  The right amount of sleep will improve your health and it just might put us one nap closer to world peace. 

Sweet dreams!  Zzzzzzzzzzzz