Beware The Angry Oak – Conversations with Stella

Posted on by H.J. Hill

I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges. Tall Man has made the oak tree angry. It is shaking its arms at us. Scary!

Me:        I don’t see any anger. It seems rather calm to me.

Stella:    How would you feel if someone went buzz buzz and cut off your branches?

Me:        Those branches were scraping the roof. If left alone, they would have damaged the roof, maybe even caused a leak.

Stella:    But when I go out, the oak tree shakes its leaves at me. It knows, Lady Human! IT KNOWS!

Me:        That is the breeze. If you think about it, the oak tree shakes its leaves at you every day except in the dead of summer.

Stella:    No, the oak tree is truly angry. Tall Man should have asked for permission before he used his buzz saw.

Me:        I promise you that the oak is healthy and now those limbs will never break, and the roof is safe.

Stella:    Who cares about a roof?

Me:        Have you ever lived under a leaky one?

Stella:    Yes.

Me:        Okay, well, since you came here, have you ever been under a leaky roof?

Stella:    No. Oh. I see. Leaky roofs aren’t so great. But what are we going to do about the angry oak? What if it starts moving closer to the door?

Me:        That is not the way of trees, Stella. Trees pretty much stay put.

Stella:    If you say so, I guess I have to take your word for it. Still, I am going to keep an eye on that tree. Just hand me that saw. Everybody has a right to self-defense.

Me:        Let’s see. Dog with a chainsaw. Nope.

 

 

 

 

Copyright 2018 H.J. Hill All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Don’t Mad-Dog Me! Keep Your Eyes to Yourself

Posted on by H.J. Hill

Dogs are visual creatures and so bulldogs are visual creatures times 10. (That ten-fold estimate is just my best guess. It could run higher.)

Bulldogs are lots of things including funny, roly-poly, barrel-shaped, broad-shouldered, and good natured. Oh, and one more thing.

They are intense.

I have seen Stella go from a relaxed state with her tongue lolling out of her mouth to an alert, perked-eared, quivering-lipped, wound-up spring of a dog in one second because the cat walked across the path of her eyes.

I have witnessed a resting Snoopey, completely stretched out, jump to her feet because she caught Tiger looking in her direction and they locked eyes. A threatening stare between humans is called “mad-dogging”. If you ever see it in person between dogs, you’ll agree it’s aptly named.

Wiggles, on the other hand, avoids lots of bulldog intensity by averting her eyes. She’ll glance into my face, make eye contact, and then look away. She does it with the other dogs, too. Her message: Hey, I just want to enjoy myself. I don’t want to make you mad. I don’t want to start a fight. I won’t trespass into your eyeball territory.

Make no mistake. Wiggles is no pushover when the push does occasionally come to the shove. But she senses that she shouldn’t be mad-dogging anybody. She focuses her eyes on something more interesting, more peaceable.  Sadly for me (who has to clean it up), once in a while, that neutral object is trash.

So the good ole bulldogs have presented me with another example of what not to do.

Don’t keep staring at the wrong things. Stop focusing on what stirs you up, makes you angry, or gets you in a tizzy. (Boy, that just cut way back on my news viewing.) And stop minding everybody else’s business. Mind your own.

“Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.” Proverbs 4:25 KJV

 

Copyright 2016 H.J. Hill All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

 

Stella’s Blog – Things that Make Me Mad

Posted on by H.J. Hill

Hello. I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges, and I have a few complaints.

(Transcriptionist: As usual.)

Hey, this is my blog. Stick your opinions in your own. This brings me to the first thing that makes me mad – the opinions of others unless they agree with mine. The humans talk about voting all the time. I’m not sure what voting is, but it sounds like someone else’s opinion and, therefore, another thing that would make me mad.

From what the humans say, I perceive that voting means you can choose a thing or a person and someone else can choose differently, and if enough people choose differently from you, YOU LOSE!

I don’t like that. So yes, voting is on my list of things that make me mad. I am the queen; I get to choose.

No voting allowed!

But if we did allow voting in the house, we bulldogs would outnumber the cat. Hmmm. And we could vote her out. That is unless Wiggles voted with the cat just to be “nice”. And then there is Tiger. I have suspected for a long time that Tiger has a secret peace treaty with the cat. Oh, she barks at the cat and stirs the rest of us up, but never have I seen Tiger actually chase the cat. Hmmm.

Then the other day, I watched Snoopey as she walked right up to the cat while the cat hissed at her and made an ugly face (no, that was her regular face, sorry). And what did Snoopey do? She TURNED AROUND AND WALKED AWAY!

I may not be able to count on the bulldog vote after all. So it is certain. Voting is one thing that makes me mad.

(Transcriptionist: Besides, the humans hold the power to veto.)

Veto? That sounds suspicious, like something else that would make me mad.

And I haven’t even gotten to other maddening things that I put on my list – things like:

  • Moon the Cat
  • The rule against cat chasing
  • Limitation of treats to only a few times a day
  • Wiggles getting more reward treats than the rest of us

(Transcriptionist: Because she earns more than the rest of you.)

Enough for this time. I will go back to work on my mad list. I can’t do anymore now. I am just so…so…so mad!

Signed, Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges

 [Transcriptionist’s note: Stella has gone to cool down and chew on her Nylabone. Meanwhile, we will close with this:

  “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”  (Ephesians 4:26 KJV)]