Wednesday, June 30, 2004

SHE ATE!


Last night (6/29/04) Suki ate half her dinner, which is the best she has been able to do for many, many days. I am amazed how she manages to live on practically nothing. On top of that, she doesn't even beg like most other dogs. Suki definitely isn't in the "most-other-dogs" category.

As usual, we led her down to the basement and tied her there. Then we put her bowl of wet and dry dog food mixture between her paws. As usual, she refused to look at her food and pretended there wasn't anything in between her feet. We we checked about an hour later, she had eaten half the food. She looked very proud of herself. When she doesn't eat her meal, she looks very sheepish. Not that she isn't like a sheep with her fur and all, you know...

Anyway, Linda and I almost celebrated the fact that Suki ate last night. For eating her dinner she got a Bonz treat (she's out of Dogwiches, her other favourite treat). Has anybody EVER heard of a dog that got a treat for eating it's dinner!?!

Today she's going with us to Madison for the first Concerts On the Square performance. Something tells me that Suki couldn't care less about the music.

More later...

Monday, June 28, 2004


"I deny all charges.....I was misquoted...." Posted by Hello

Suki's Statement

Monday, June 28th
From My Staff Correspondent, Linda, and Agency Reports (Ned and Fatty)


It has been reported that Suki made a strong statement today. Linda served Suki breakfast after her morning walk. When Linda came back to take Suki for her afternoon walk, the bowl of food was turned upside down; Suki clearly did not even want to see kibble in front of her.

Agency reports say that she spend the rest of the day not eating anything. Eyewitnesses say they saw Suki eat two and a half hot dogs in the evening, courtesy Linda. She rejected the buns initially, but was forced to accept the terms of the eating agreement: eat everything or nothing. By the time this report was filed, Suki had had one human meal today, June 28th, 2004.

Meanwhile, agency reporters are finding it hard to digest the fact that they get plain old kibble for every meal, while The Big White One gets hot dogs and other special items for lunch and dinner.

Sunday, June 27, 2004


Here's Ned in one of his snuggly moods. Posted by Hello

Strawberries, Handsome Black One, Etc.

There isn’t much to report today. Suki hasn’t eaten anything at all. She’s taken two sips of water. She got her usual walk in the morning, courtesy Linda. Her afternoon walk was a bit late in coming because I was busy with other things around the house. Their forgiveness is one of the best things about dogs. No matter what you do they’ll never hold it against you. Suki was very happy to see me at 1 pm. She was verrry happy to take a walk with me, too. She wanted to run and I obliged. Being an old lady dog, she can’t run much, so she stops and starts sniffing after a few metres. However, she needs the exercise.

Ned was in fine form today. I think he was feeling quite lonely and neglected. He came up to me and meowed several times, which is a very unusual event. People that know Ned know very well what a silent cat he is [he believes more in action than in words]. Anyway, he wanted to come and snuggle with me and couldn't wait until I sat down. I was standing beside the bed when he had the uncontrollable urge to snuggle with me, so he leaped up from the bed straight on to my shoulders, just like Hanuman. I was caught off guard, to say the least. He then put on his purr-purr, nibble-nibble show, which is sometimes sincere. One never knows when exactly it is sincere. Such an outpouring of affection is usually followed by urgent requests [they're usually orders, not requests] for food. Today, however, he had already had his breakfast, so I thought he was being sincere. He was very happy to sit on my chest and rub the contents of his wet nose all across my face. It's difficult to say no to such outpourings of love and affection even when it's fake.

Linda and I took Suki to the Country Bumpkin in the afternoon. Strawberries are in season, I like strawberries and Linda likes picking them, so we thought it would be a nice afternoon to go pick some. It's hard to beat the price when you pick them yourself. Unfortunately, the sky started darkening when we left Reedsburg. By the time we reached there, a few drops had just started falling on the windscreen of the car. Since we'd already invested some much time into it, we went ahead and started picking strawberries, in spite of the weather.

Suki was delighted to meet a black Labrador in the parking lot of the berry farmer. She was in the car and the other dog came up to her. He was very well behaved and wasn't even on a leash. Suki and the Handsome Black One seemed to fall in love at first sniff. Suki was sitting in the car, sticking her head out the rear window, while the dog was standing outside looking up at her. She licked the Handsome Black One's snout and he wagged at her. They both wagged at each other and exchanged meaningful glances. It was all very cute! However, with the sky threatening to pour down on us any moment, we decided to start picking berries, even though Suki was BERRY much in love with the Handsome Black One.

We took Suki along with us to pick berries. She couldn't care less about the berries but she seemed to live the wild wheat growing around the strawberry plants. She snacked on a few of those while Linda and I picked as many berries as we could before the rain intensified. When it started raining hard, we stopped picking and paid for what we had. Suki was slightly wet and quite a bit smelly when she got in the car. The Handsome Black One, meanwhile, had abandoned his master and come running to the shelter of the farm "office" [good thinking]. We left the place just as it started storming. Suki had a good day, although, I think, she would have loved to spend more time with the Handsome Black One.

Saturday, June 26, 2004


Linda by Lake Mendota Posted by Hello

Trip to Madison

Today we went to Madison to renew my library card. We decided to leave Suki in her house in Baraboo since we weren't sure what we would do with her when we went to eat in Madison. Also, the weather was a little uncertain, since they had announced thunderstorms in the afternoon. We were also not sure how safe it would be to leave the car unlocked in a parking lot in Madison. For all of these reasons we decided that it was best for Suki to stay in Baraboo.

When we reached her house, Darwin and Fermi were on the counter by the front door to greet the three of us. Suki was glad to see her house, Fermi was glad to see Suki, while Darwin showed as much activity as a house plant. Suki was very eager to lie on "her" couch. She did that for while we patted Fermi and the White House Plant. Fermi actually PURRED again!! How's that for shocking news!?!

Linda and I prowled around Madison for most of the afternoon. We had masala dosa at Curry N' Hurry. It was huge and very tasty, even though it was a little too hot for Linda. She had an ice cream cone after that to soothe her tongue. It was such a wonderful day that we decided to take a walk by Lake Mendota. It was not as crowded as usual because the school wasn't in session.

After we came back from Madison, we gave Suki a walk along Old Lake Road, which she liked very much (There aren't a lot of things she DOESN'T like). We drove back on highway 136, through Hoot Owl Road, which was very beautiful. Suki liked the ride quite a lot. She had her entire
head out of the window throughout the ride.

Suki hasn't eaten much tonight. We gave her some dog food, which she nibbled on. We then gave her some baguette, which was gracefully accepted. Suki isn't doing all that badly with respect to food right now. She more tonight than any other day during the past week.

We hope she eats more tomorrow. I know she'll start eating normally by Friday when her "parents" are coming back. Stay tuned for more tomorrow...

We're ready to leave for Baraboo/Madison. I took this photo myself with a timer! Posted by Hello

Suki ready for bed Posted by Hello

Suki navigating from the back seat Posted by Hello

Spring Green continued...

Yesterday Suki had a great time hanging her head out of the car window. She went with us to Spring Green and Baraboo. She was a very cooperative traveller, not complaining even when we stopped every five minutes and left her in the car.

We stopped at a nice little cafe in Spring Green. This place was recommended to us by the lady at the Bargain Nook when we asked if any place sold vegetarian food. We were surprised at the menu they had there. They had a lot of veggie food, in addition to the usual non-veggie fare. I had a hummus-veggie-baguette sandwich, which was pretty good. I think the hummus made a big difference. The baguette was quite Americanised - soft and white. Linda had some kind of cashewnut-chicken salad, while Suki had a bowl of water. Suki also had a small walk around the cafe.

From Spring Green we went to the Arts and Crafts World on Clyde Road, quite far from Spring Green and in the middle of nowhere. The woman that owned the place had been to Indian 27 times in the last 27 years! She knew a lot of places in India was spoke in glowingly positive terms about India. She seemed to really like India. She also said that - I don't know how far it is true - she went to the Indian consulate last year and asked for political asylum from the US! I'm pretty sure she wasn't serious even if she did ask for it. She'd even read "The Arrow of the Blue Skinned God" by Jonah Blank, which is one of the best books on India. Anyway, we looked at her collection of Indian, Indonesian and Thai artifacts. She had quite a big collection, although she didn't do a good job of marketing it. Suki waited in the car when we were there. She had another bowl of water before we left the "crafty" place.

We came back to Reedsburg via Baraboo. We said hi to Darwin and Fermi. Both of them seemed very glad to see us there, although it's very, very hard to tell with Darwin. Fermi purred very loudly either for me or for Suki, I couldn't tell since we were both sitting together. That was the first time I'd heard Fermi purr. Suki was so happy to go sit in her couch that she drooled.

Linda and I decided to go to a fancy Italian place in the Wisconsin Dells for dinner, so we left Suki at home. On coming back from dinner we had a surprise waiting for us. Both the cats were standing in the sun room looking quite panic-stricken. They seemed to say, "Hey, Chief! Come here and take a look at what the dog did today!!" They beckoned us to the dining room where on the carpet we found Suki had left us with generous amounts of black, smelly deposits in many places. All the donations were left on the carpet (of course) and they were quite smelly.

Thus ended Suki's day yesterday. She did not have any solid food yesterday. I think she wants to set a world record of some kind. We'll try again today.

Friday, June 25, 2004

Spring Green

It's quite late now. We had quite an eventful day today. We took Suki along with us to Spring Green. I suppose I'll write more about it tomorrow when I have more time. Suki got a lot of time hanging her head out of the car today. More to follow tomorrow AM.......

Suki and Avinash Posted by Hello

Suki Eating Updates

It has been almost a week since Suki came to stay with us, yet she's eaten only once. She finally ate HALF her dinner last night (6/24), after much persuasion from Linda. I suppose she'll slowly get used to the idea of staying here and eating her lunch and dinner. I have a feeling she'll not do better than one meal a day.

The day before yesterday she had some bread and little tidbits from Linda. She seems to like human foods quite a lot, not a surprising trait in a dog. She is especially fond of breakfast food, again not very surprising. She, however, gives a strong paws down to dog food. Whoever invented dog food must be given a small nip [Suki thought].