Updates

Howdy blogaroos. Squirmy here – after a lazy week. Things have been pretty quiet here at the asylum, although the Warden is now constantly battling the Boss, who has decided that the DFZ is THE place he wants to be. Whether she is in there or not. He rattles the gate to go in. Then after a short time, he rattles the gate to go out. He has the Warden hopping.! Because IF you don’t do what he likes, he either stands and barks, or comes over and paws at your leg. At last count, he was winning the game 125 -6. I thought I was determined. I’m not even CLOSE to his level of persistence.

And the Coyote has been closely following the moves of the Boss. But he’s training the Warden about food. Again. After 7 years, you would THINK she would be accustomed to his inconsistent relationship with food. Remember a while back when she was SO happy because he was eating every single meal? Yeah- well he decided that wasn’t so interesting. So he’s back on the intermittent fasting diet. The Warden KNOWS when he isn’t going to eat. She’ll put his food down and if he looks at her, it’s not a good sign. She leaves him, but can’t look at him. So she has to kinda hide out of his sight so he can’t see her. Because if he sees her watching him, it’s all over. They have these weirdo rituals. She goes out of his sight, and feeds us. But she can nonchalantly watch him through the French door – where he is sequestered. But IF she sees him do the head bop, it’s game over. What’s the head bop? Well he basically bops his head around the outside of the bowl like he’s giving it some kind of strange blessing. The blessing means “you shall go forth and be swept up by the human, to be returned later in the day. Be safe. And protected from PONs.”

Oh plus she’s gone to the pet store for the 539th time trying to find enticing food. Last visit, a very nice young woman recommended these meal topper things to be rotated with some other thing in his food. IMAGINE how thrilled the Warden was when he gobbled all his food with the meal topper. The next meal, she didn’t rotate with the other stuff – but he still ate the topper. Hallelujah. He likes it. Next meal, all gone again. Life was all sunshine and endangered butterflies. Next meal – head bop. So she cursed herself for not doing the rotation thing. She quickly chopped up this other stuff, went into the Picard feeding room, and put it in his bowl. She went out and pretended not to watch. He looked in the bowl, and continued the head bop. Picard 94. Warden 4.

She KNOWS he will eat. But of course she still worries. He’s not exactly a tubby dog.

What else…trained with the Borzoi babes, and also with the shaggies this past week. I’m learning stuff like retrieving a dumbbell over a jump. And I can do that just fine. It’s the Warden who needs training on how to throw a dumbbell. This is a woman who was always picked last in gym class – and I totally see why. One would THINK that tossing a dumbbell would not be a difficult thing. Not for her. It goes up in the air. It bounces every which way. Frankly I think I should probably be wearing a helmet- even though I’m sitting right next to her when she throws the thing. Then of course, it lands way to the right. Or the left. And although the objective is for the dog to go out over the jump and return with the dumbbell over the jump, if I see a quicker route around the jump, I take it. I’m smart. Why waste energy jumping? Think about it. There’s a fence with an open gate. What human in their right mind is going to climb over the fence rather than go through the open gates. And then carry your groceries over the fence on the way back. Come ON. We dogs are too smart for that nonsense. Clearly no dogs gave input when this exercise was designed.

Then we have this exercise where the human carries a glove. You heel alongside the human and the human nonchalantly drops the glove while you continue to heel. And we dogs are supposed to pretend we don’t notice. Of course we do, but we PRETEND we don’t notice. Then the human heels us away from the glove and gets us to sit. We have to go and “find” the glove. Now this is a perfect opportunity to do a little exploration. Especially if we do know where the glove is, and we’re in the mood for a little runabout. Eventually we must “find” the glove, pick it up, bring it back and sit in front of the human. In the process, shaking the life out of the glove is not really an objective of the exercise. But some of us like to add that component. The Warden has a friend who has an AMAZING obedience dog. And that dog does every single exercise with speed and exact precision. Except for one tiny little, itsy bitsy issue. She won’t let go of the glove. She races out, gets it, returns and sits squarely in front of her human, and when her human says “give”, everyone watching holds their breath to see if she’ll unclench her hold on the precious piece of leather. Yes. We dogs do like to put our own spin on this obedience stuff. We train you so well.

I think I’m going to write my own obedience manual with opinions on every exercise from the dog’s point of view. It no doubt would be a best-seller among the “obedience” people. They are in an unusual cult – or maybe clan is a better name. They stick together- because misery loves company. Just joking – they love to share ideas and commiserate about challenges. But at the end of the day, it’s all about having fun with your dog. And they all get so excited about a new puppy who will be starting his own obedience journey- like Freddy.

He’s a baby Schnauzer who belongs to a woman in the Warden’s clan. We’re excited to see Freddy as he grows – and learns MY obedience rules.

OK. Time to motor. And to finish taking my toys out of the box after the Warden puts them in. She’s cleaning. Extra. Which means one thing. Company! She hasn’t kept it a secret- probably because she knows we heard her talking about it. AUNT SUE is coming!!!! For TWO weeks. Extra walks. Extra treats. Extra ricocheting. Yeeeeee haw!!!!

Have a good one. Peace and paws up. Stay safe. JBJ.