I personally can’t get enough of the Ella and Jenna show. Their shtick just never gets old to me - noisy yes, old no. If they broadened their material just a little, I think they’d be well on their way to making it as one of the top comedy duos of all time.

To that end, Ella freestyles recklessly in this clip, catching a case of the zoomies/puppy runs/crazies or whatever expression you use to describe the nutty spazzfest dogs sometimes have that causes them to run around in circles through the house. Talk about a bull in a china closet - she ran into me, almost took out my Macbook Pro by running through the cord (NOT THE MAC!), but worst of all, she jumped up on Grandfurma’s sofa. And none of us - least of which was Grandfurpa who took to yelling at Ella at that point in the hopes she’d come down off her high and the sofa - wanted to deal with the wrath of Grandfurma if something happened to the couch.

She wasn’t home when this happened and has never before seen this footage.

She’ll have a fit.

I must admit I’m rather enjoying it. Now. After the fact. Safe and sound in New York away from the Grandfurparent residence.

Here’s a clip of Ella and Kasey continuing to take over the kitchen. Jenna’s had enough of their antics but isn’t quite up to getting in the middle of them (probably wise), so she hides under the table and barks instead. Apparently Jenna’s bark is at a pitch that only humans can hear because while we wanted to plug our ears, the 2 furkids were oblivious and lost in their play match…

On our recent trip to my parents’ house, Ella was lucky enough to have a special playmate for a few days (and I’m not talking about Jenna who I think we can all agree is not interested in being considered for the “playmate” role). My brother and sister-in-law brought their dog Kasey, a 3 year old chocolate lab who had no idea what she was in for.

Meet Kasey

Ella was sidling up to Kasey and relentlessly instigating play fights from the second poor Kasey set paw in the house. Although Kasey has calmed down a lot over the last year or two, she was just as devilish as Ella as a puppy and pretty quickly rediscovered the imp within.

Thank goodness my mom was so preoccupied with a busy last week of teaching and retirement parties that she wasn’t around for a lot of their mischief. In the end, nothing was broken and there were no carpet stains that couldn’t be treated, but I’m not going to say there weren’t some close calls. One of my mother’s friends who roasted her at a retirement gathering that week characterized my mom in this way: “She is not satisfied with the cleanliness of her house unless there are visible vacuum lines on the carpet”. That is the truest statement ever uttered. So you can imagine what my mom thought when she saw the vacuum lines replaced with paw prints.

Here they are in the dining room - watch out for the crystal!

And here they are in the living room - which shouldn’t be called a living room because ordinarily no one sets foot - let alone lives - in it.

And finally, here’s “Ella and Kasey - Round 1″. My favorite part is the butt sniff at the end of the round…Dogs will be dogs…

There’s a beautiful flower shop a block or so away from me, and Ella and I frequently pass it on our way to and from Central Park. While I like the shop for it’s exotic orchids, Ella likes it because of the cat who stands guard in the doorway.

While walking home today, Ella literally stumbled into kitty who had ventured further out onto the sidewalk than he usually does. Both stunned by the moment, they looked at each other and stared - totally frozen for a good 10 seconds. I admit I was too. Then the blood rushed quickly back to my brain and I thought ” CAMERA CAMERA CAMERA CAMERA!”. See, I recently vowed to never leave my apartment without my camera. The marinara street pie incident was the last straw - I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been out and some bizarre stuff went down and I didn’t have anything with me to capture the moment. And nobody will believe me without documentation. For example, there was the time we saw a woman wearing a shower cap bee-bopping along on her way to the subway as if it were totally normal…and just recently on the bench outside of Le Pain Quotidien there was a bra the size of texas laid out ever so delicately, again as if it were totally ordinary a) that a superhuman sized bra exists, and that b) it should be displayed on a public bench. Given Ella’s fetish for intimate garments, I was waiting for her to pick it up in her mouth and carry it for the remainder of our walk. Thank god she didn’t. Can you imagined if that happened and I was cameraless?? I would never have forgiven myself.

Anyway, back to Ella v Kitty. So, these photos and video aren’t the best because as I was hurriedly digging in my bag for my camera, some guy handing out flyers came over to solicit me (umm, hello - dog v cat going on here - screw your astrological readings). Then, NYC Prep came through with their snobby air and expensive clothes and forced me to cut the taping short as their entitled butts couldn’t be bothered to walk around us. Anyway, suffice it to say this was the first of what I hope will be many rounds between Ella and the flower shop cat.

Coy kitty acts like he’s up for a fight…but then again maybe not.

Kitty plays it cool and opts to walk away - today, at least

Cool Kitty heads inside - totally over it

Late last summer, an 8-month old Ella got to meet my parents’ dog, Jenna - a 12-year old lab mix who lost the patience for hyper puppies many years ago (and who can blame her?). Never one to take threats seriously, Ella assumed that Jenna could be up for a play session with a little coaxing. The result was a deafening barkfest in my apartment (miraculously I didn’t receive any complaints from the neighbors - I suspect they may have been too frightened by the noise to come knocking). Here’s a reminder of the raucous:

Flash forward to now. You might imagine that the two of them would have come to an understanding at this point. You might think that perhaps Ella would have gained some maturity, what with her being a little over a year-and-a-half old now. Well, you might be wrong.

Here’s Ella doing everything she can think of to get the tennis ball back from Jenna…well, really she’s just being a total ham and loving that it’s getting Jenna’s goat.

Not to disappoint you, I now present you with “Barkfest II”. Note the devil in Ella’s eye and the proud wag of the tail as she peeks back at the camera - she just knows her audience is loving the performance….

Ella is one of the sweetest, snuggliest dogs you’ll ever meet. She’s also one of the most devilish. She’ll come up and plop half her body on top of you on the couch, seemingly for some affection…and when you look closer you’ll see she’s got a lead pencil in her mouth and really just came over to show off how slick she is.

But it’s the stuffed animals who really have to be careful of Ella’s charming yet sociopathic ways for in their case it truly is a life or death situation.

Case in point.

I mentioned in my last post how much Ella is living up to her “mommy’s little pup” status, what with the baby food, Dora paraphernalia, and Sassy toy. Well she’s really starting to run with this whole baby identity now. Here she is prancing around unabashedly with a baby bottle in her mouth (another gem she picked up off the streets - I may be an over-indulgent mum but I’m not crazy enough to buy her a bottle, I swear).