Frisky is getting to be a big boy

As the title of this post suggests, Frisky is getting to be a big boy.Come Nov. 29, he will be completing two months with us,and will be 8 months old. He has become taller , naughtier, chirpier, and friskier day by day(not to mention heavier!!!). He knows how to get me to take him for a walk,and that's usually, by looking at me in a very sad way, immediately after i finish my morning prayers. Of late, he has begun to put on his "take-me-out-on -a -walk" look, inside the pooja room itself, so that I feel even more guilty, if i keep him in.

Anyway, I am digressing from the main reason for which I have visited my blog page again. This is to celebrate the fact that this morning, Frisky, while running around the house following Madhu, actually hopped, skipped,and jumped to land comfortably on the bed. !!!!!!

This means he can do great leaps now,and is able to reach heights....This has made Madhu and me very happy, as his earlier attempts to reach the bed were limited to putting up his front paws to the edge,and looking at us, in order to be picked up.

At this great achievement today, we cuddled Frisky, and celebrated his new leap.....Frisky IS getting to be a big boy!!!!!!!

Iron chef Madhu

Madhu bought a portable grill this weekend,and yesterday we broke it in.

It had been his fond desire to buy a grill and cook chicken on it. All these days, he was using the oven. Our apartment rules prohibited him from investing in a huge one, so he went in for a portable.

So evening came, Madhu marinated the chicken, and then set about getting the grill fired up. After that, it was a 45 minute process of constant monitoring, and flipping them over and over to prevent burning. Frisky and I kindly consented to give Madhu company in this first venture, so it turned out to be a family affair. :) :)

The result:

All my friends that know Madhu cooks excellent non -veg. The aroma was lovely,and the exulted smile on Madhu's face, as he ate the grilled chicken, was evidence that the chicken was delicious. Frisky's wolfing down his piece of chicken( given by Madhu) was proof enough. !!!!!!

This morning, I took Frisky for a walk on a lane near our apartments...a row of independent homes, with two and three car garages. There was a home, which had Halloween decorations on its lawn. A scarecrow kind of thing, with an ugly face,a couple of skulls under an arm,a pumpkin and a black cat near its feet. The cat was positioned such that it looked ready to pounce.

I was admiring it, when Frisky noticed the cat and thought it to be a real one,and began to growl and bark..He was really upset on seeing the cat, and didn't realise it wasn't moving...But he still continued to bark at it. Just for fun, on our way back home, I took Frisky past the same house . . Again, he saw the cat,and made deep growling sounds, and perked up his ears. It was soooo cute!!!!!


I was a bit upset with Frisky later on , as he had run away to the bushes that are lined in the far end of our compound wall, just as Madhu was leaving for office. He usually stays near the garage to say his good bye,and despite Madhu and I calling out to him many times, he never came. So Madhu left, leaving me to take care of Frisky.

I went and picked up Frisky where he was still nosing around, and gave him a little spank, for not listening to us. On the way back, I was speaking severely to him, and did not allow him to lick me. So we entered our home, and I sat down to have my cup of tea. Frisky went to his bed, picked up one of his favourite toys, and came and dropped it at my feet. Then he went and sat a little distance away,as if it was a "I am sorry" kind of gift for me.

U can guess what happened next. I looked into his sad eyes, and my heart melted!!!!! :) :)

WAT- (A)-ER WEDNESDAY!!!!

This morning, I was busy preparing lunch for Madhu, and suddenly i heard Frisky bark. I thought it must be because of the tadka I had just put. I knew he felt frightened when he heard the tadka spluttering, so didn't pay any attention. He continued to bark for about 2 minutes. Then Madhu came to the kitchen, having had his bath,and tells me the following story.

Background note:
Frisky usually follows Madhu around in the mornings, because he knows he is about to leave for work.

Story:
In the same way, when Madhu went in to have his bath, Frisky followed him in. Just seeing the water fill the bathtub apparently scared him. He began to bark...short, angry barks. Thinking that Frisky was remembering his ordeal of Sunday, Madhu lifted him and put him outside and closed the door. At this, he felt angrier, and this led to the incessant barking that I had heard.

Madhu was so amused. First, Frisky gets scared of the running water, and then feels indignant at being unceremoniously picked up and dropped outside the bathroom...and voices his protest by angry barking.

We are thinking...what next??????? :) :)

An addendum

For Saraswati puja, I had made sundal, with garbanzo peas( vella kadalai), that received appreciation, Sugaya( sooyam in Tamil), and bajjis of potato,and plaintain, for the evening.

While cleaning on Friday, I realised that Frisky was terribly scared of the vacuum cleaner. He scampered off the minute I rolled the big drum into the house from our tool room, and rushed from the hall to each room, in order to escape it. !!!!! :)

On Sunday, Vijaya dasami day, Frisky was given his first bath by us. Since we got him, he had cold and cough,and the vet told us to refrain from bathing him till he got better. As he had overcome the ailments, received his second round of vaccinations on Friday, and had begun to stink terribly , we decided to celebrate Vijayadasami by giving him a bath. !!!!

And was he terrified.!!!! Poor puppy, first drenched in warm water, then shampooed vigorously by two crazy humans,holding him down, and prevented from jumping out of the bath tub by them....Aaaaaah...torture!!!!He was trembling, too scared to even voice his protest by whimpering.!!!

It was so funny, the minute we took him out of the tub,and put him on the mat to rub him dry, he put up with us for all of two minutes. The second the door of the bathroom was opened, he shot off. Madhu and I followed, and saw him shake himself dry in the hall. The minute he saw us, he ran off again, this time into the office room,and hid under the table in his favourite spot. It took a lot of coaxing and cajoling from us to get him out from the table, and we towelled him dry.

But a few minutes later, he was playful again. ..his usual cheery spirit back. :) :)

Saraswati puja get together

Navaratri has come and gone. Though I didn't keep kolu, I had a good time. I was invited to my friends homes for taambulam, and I invited them over for the same on Saturday evening. My friends from our previous apartments also came. So in all, it was a big group of 10 adults , excluding Madhu and me, and four kids, who practically pounced on Frisky to pet him. !!!!
Poor thing, he was scared,and just lay down with his tail in b/w his legs.

Some how, it became 9:00 p.m., and we asked them to stay for dinner. Thankfully, I had dosa maavu ready on hand, and we poured one batch of idlis, and the rest dosas. (My friends had already left for garba, so it was 8 adults and two kids now. )

We had a nice time, all talking, laughing, pulling each others legs,with only one small incident, when one kid got her hand in b/w the wall and grill gate, and the other kid closed the door on her hand...ouch!!!!A quick ice pack, and a lot of hugs from her mother made her smile again. By the time everyone left, it was 10:30-11:00 p.m. Then Madhu and I took Frisky out for his nightly walk, and it was 11:30 p.m. when we came back.

In all, it was that evening when it actually felt like Navaratri to me, and I truly appreciated why Madhu had bought so many plates,and cutlery sets. Planning another get together for diwali...this time, pot luck. !!!!!

Bits and bites

Life is always sweet and sour- a mix of both. Yesterday, having known that one of the clothing outlets here was having its Fall sale, I wanted to go. My friend Srividhya had given me a gift card for the same store for my birthday, that I had been holding on to for 2 months now.

So this seemed to be a very good opportunity. Since Frisky had come I hadn't had a chance to go out anywhere. Madhu obliged me by watching over Frisky, and by dropping me off at the mall. I had a lovely time shopping, and bought a lot of stuff.

So this is the sweet part. The sour part is that, since Madhu had to drop me off, we put Frisky into his doggie crate, which we had bought at Walmart the previous weekend. Once he got back home, Madhu discovered that Frisky had been so anxious to get out of the crate, that he had scratched the sides , and bitten a hole through the nylon-polyester fibre cover of the crate.Frisky had made a hole big enough for his head to go through. When Madhu opened the door and came to look in on Frisky's unusual silence, he found him struggling to put his whole body through the little hole.!!!!!!!!!

This six month old puppy doesn't like to be left in the crate,and this couldn't be prevailed upon us more clearly than this incident. So Madhu called me up, and apprised me of the situation. Thanks to Walmart return policy of 30 days, we were able to get the cloth one exchanged for a powder coated steel cage, with two doors,and plenty of open space to look out from. Hope to get him accustomed to this one soon.

For those of you thinking why leave him alone at all, and not carry him along, there are few places that allow pets here. Supermarkets/grocery stores have rules that forbade them from allowing any animal inside if they stock/display any food items. Even the local video store doesn't allow pets inside. That poses a problem when we have to do our weekly grocery shopping.

But we found an amicable solution too. Madhu goes into Walmart/COSTCO etc,and buys whatever he wants/ pleases him ,without me nagging or questioning. I take Frisky for a walk around the mall in this period. And I am able to do my grocery shopping in peace, without Madhu hurrying me up-while he takes Frisky for another walk. !!!!
Its a win-win situation, and Frisky enjoys it too. :) :)