The Trixie Chronicles

 It has been awhile since I devoted any space to Trixie but the last few days have been memorable.

For anybody who doesn’t know, Trixie is a Yorkshire terrier — a giant Yorkshire terrier weighing in at 18.8 pounds.  She is parti colored with cottony, curly-ish hair.  She will be five in March.  

Trixie has a set routine — she is definitely a creature of habit and her habit lately has been getting me up between 5-5:30 a.m.  Now that is about an hour and a half before MY natural routine but she has this annoying little whimper that you can’t ignore no matter how much you pull the covers over your head.  

So, a couple of nights ago, as usual, she sank into her evening coma on the sofa about 8 pm (maybe I should as well) and was completely dead to the world.  I was in the recliner that is perpendicular to the sofa with the foot rest up all the way.  Well, something startled her and she went to jump off the sofa, clearly still asleep, and she missed and jumped over my feet and landed, tummy first, on my ankles — I promise you all of her legs were straight out and all she needed was a cape.  She was so surprised she couldn’t get up, I didn’t get to her quick enough and she just rolled off my feet onto the floor.  She shook herself off, got back on the couch and resumed her coma but it was the funniest thing I have ever seen.  Don’t worry, we checked her over to make sure she sustained no injuries.  I wish I had photographic evidence of it — and she really needed a cape — SuperTrix!

So yesterday was the day my husband chose to change the batteries in the smoke alarms.  Now, let’s remember, my husband has vertigo issues and he just finished about 3–4 months of physical therapy to regain his balance fully.  Also, he is 77 years old BUT he thinks is is 20 and unbreakable.  Stubborn is not a strong enough word.  So, back to Trixie — she is terrified of the smoke alarms when they go off and they do go off often because, well, I can’t cook well.  She just shivers and shakes and tries to hide in the silliest places - she apparently doesn’t realize she is 18 pounds and is NOT going to fit under the recliner that has about 2 inches of space from the floor.

So, every time Hubs would remove a battery the alarm would chirp and Trixie would just come unhinged and I would have to swaddle her in her blankie and hold her close which made it impossible for me to spot  Hubs on the tall ladder.  We have 9 smoke alarms!

Everything went ok until he got to the one in the stairwell.  Now, we didn’t build this house so I don’t know the answer but I have wondered often why the builder put the smoke alarm where they did — on the ceiling, over the steps and not on the landing.  

I finally had to crate Trixie so I could deal with this — 

Crating her kept her off the stairs and out from under foot but she was still shaking like crazy and whining but….I had to focus on what I was going to do if the man came tumbling off his self designed scaffolding.

Every time he does this I have bad thoughts about whoever decided that was a great place for the alarm.

But, he got it done, got down, got everything back to the garage and we were able to uncrate the hot mess that was Trixster.

She wasn’t able to settle down the entire day, she walked the floors, jumped up and down off the couch, in and out to the yard, needed kibble, then, when that didn’t do, she needed food, then she needed treats, she couldn’t find a toy to suit her — she was just a mess.  She finally sat and barked at me, last night, until I took her to bed, put her in her crate, covered her up and turned off the lights.  

Trixie had a terrible, horrible very bad day..