Did I just get had?

In the new house in Winnipeg, we have stairs. And Her Majesty refuses to do the stairs. I know she can, because she's done them once each way, but she doesn't. She does the stairs going in and out of the house, but not the stairs to and from the second floor. Instead I have to carry her.

Oh no my poor little dog she's so disabled!!!!!! Here, let me carry you, Your Majesty.

Fine. But I do insist she has to jump on the bed at bed time. I know she can, because she does it very easily whenever she wants. So I'm NOT going to lift her up on the bed. Even supposing it's a challenge (and there is no appearance of struggling when she does it), I still think she needs to do it to keep up her mobility. She has arthritis in her back end and I suspect neurological distemper, so I can expect her to be increasingly challenged, but the less she tries, the faster it's gonna get worse. Am I right?

Still, tonight, she was just NOT jumping on the bed. Just not. I asked her several times, and she looked at it and seemed to brace herself to jump several times, but then she decided to rest her chin on the edge of the bed and look at me mournfully instead of jumping.

No, dog. I am NOT lifting you on the bed. You have to keep working at it.

Staring contest.

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Then I got out of bed and lifted her up.

Now I'd like to know, is there something unusually wrong with her hind end today, or did I just get totally manipulated yet again?

Or maybe I don't really want to know.

Negotiating: we're doing it right

Our new V-E-T, Dr. Zheng, sold me some expensive glucosamine cookies for Her Majesty's arthritis. "They're liver-flavoured," he said. "Dogs love them."

Ha.

Her Majesty is not "dogs". She is Her Majesty. And she does NOT, as a rule, like dog biscuits. So sure enough, she didn't want the expensive glucosamine cookies. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh! I mean, bad enough that they cost a fortune, but I really want her to not be in pain. Sigh...

After several days of her refusing to eat the glucosamine cookies, I hit upon a potentially brilliant idea. Here in Winnipeg, I've found a brand of cookies that she does like. I call them "wolf cookies" because I can't remember the brand, I'm too lazy to look it up, and they have a picture of a wolf on the packaging. Cause allegedly they're made of what wolves would eat in the wild... or more accurately, they're made of what romantic city folk imagine a wolf would eat in the wild. But the important thing is, they cost a fortune too, and Her Majesty loves them. She's a dog of taste and wealth... at least she assumes the wealth is there. Cause she can't read my bank statement. But oh well.

So anyway, I took a wolf cookie and a glucosamine cookie, held them both in my hand, and offered them to Her Majesty, but with my thumb on the wolf cookie so she couldn't take it from me. Which she tried many, many times, of course. And every time I would move my hand to put the glucosamine under her nose instead of the wolf cookie. So finally she ate the glucosamine, and then I gave her the wolf cookie.

OMG I can't believe it worked!!!!!!

Totally. And I repeated this success every day thereafter. Which shows that a) she understood that I was offering the wolf cookie as a reward if she did something for me, i.e. eat the glucosamine cookie; and b) she was actually willing to compromise. Victory!

But then yesterday, I had been unpacking a box of stuff, and I stopped to give her her glucosamine. But she hates it when I move things around, so she wouldn't come into the room to eat her cookies. Oh well. I have things to do. I put both cookies on the floor and went back to unpacking. And while I wasn't looking, she crept silently (probably not, we have laminate floors and her nails click like mad) up behind me and ate... the wolf cookie.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!!!!! You treacherous animal! You KNEW you're supposed to eat the glucosamine! Woe is me!

Ok, so I took out another wolf cookie, and offered her the glucosamine. And she ate the glucosamine and... didn't eat the wolf cookie.

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!

See what she did there? She did her part of the deal even though she already had her reward. She has a sense of owing me something! After all these years she finally feels like she ought to do something for me once in a while!

I love you, little mutt. I really do. Please don't ever die.

I hate people

I got some stories to tell you when I feel less lazy, but for now, I'm a' bitch about my roommates' dog.

At the house here in Winnipeg, there are three dogs: Her Majesty, a two-year-old Jack Russel named Spencer, and a five-year-old shih-tzu named Fluffy. Of course Her Majesty is practically perfect in all respects. Spencer is a nice little dog, though he does pee when excited. (Well then don't get him worked up. Duh.) Fluffy is a problem.

But to make one thing clear: Fluffy is a problem because his people are a problem. His nominal owner is a 16-year-old girl who acts like a toddler. And she's babysat by her 19-year-old boyfriend, who seems like a fairly decent, responsible young man, but he has never had a dog and I don't think he particularly wants a dog. But since he was fool enough to shack up with this chick, he gets to clean up the dog's shit over and over in the living room while she does nothing. Ever. Once in a while she turns the dog out the back door, contrary to City by-laws of course, and lets him shit wherever and does not pick it up OF COURSE and also contrary to City by-laws. So now the back of the property is disgusting. And that doesn't really help the dog because he has no idea when he might next be let out. One time I told her the dog wanted out and she said "he ALWAYS asks to go out" and stayed in bed. So I took him out. But most of the time he doesn't even bother anymore. If he has to go, he craps in the living room. Poor thing.

After being spoken to repeatedly (I think it was after the sixth time he crapped in the house in eight days), the girl came up with the idea of turning him out in the little fenced area out front, which I was hoping to use for flowers in the summer. So much for that. And once he's in the pen, she figures she doesn't have to think about it anymore, so she leaves him for half an hour, an hour, as long as it takes her to remember. Then brings him back in without cleaning up, OF COURSE. But he, the dog, doesn't like that, so he's found a way to get out of there, and he simply runs around to the back door and asks to be let in. Earlier today he either was attacked by one of the neighbours' cats or fell on the icy stairs, because he was squealing and crying like a lost soul. Did anyone even notice but me? No. And the little bitch won't speak to me so much as to say hello, so unless I want to be constantly chasing her down to list the things I had to do because she won't look after her dog, I don't get a chance to talk to her. Let me tell you, I do NOT like her.

The other day, I think it was Tuesday, the boy and I had a long conversation, wherein I explained repeatedly that if they would take the dog out on leash at least every four hours, and walk him on leash until he craps at least once a day, the problem would not exist. So he, the boy, suggested we share the dog-walking. Ummmmmmmm... So how would that work? I take your dog out when I walk mine, and you take my dog out when you walk yours? Great, except you NEVER walk your dog so what this really means is "can you just walk our dog in addition to yours so we don't have to be responsible?"

No.

Ok. So the boy has made some attempts to walk Fluffy, about once every two or three days. But he "walks" for about 45 seconds and comes home, which is hardly helpful either. Then, Friday, he sees I'm about to take Her Majesty for a walk, so he's like "can you take Fluffy?" Yeah, I guess... Of course I don't particularly like Fluffy and Her Majesty REALLY doesn't like Fluffy because he's not fixed and his goal in life right now is to lick her ass every time he sees her, so we're not too happy, but it wouldn't be charitable to say no. So I said "sure, where is his leash?"

Er...

He doesn't have a leash.

Dafuq????? How can you own a dog and no leash? Then again, the dog isn't fixed, vaccinated, licensed, trained or liked, and they never take him out, so why am I surprised? So, the boy and the dog tagged along. Dog crapped on the sidewalk. No attempt whatsoever to pick it up. Then it occurred to me: this guy doesn't even know that you just don't leave dog shit on the ground. Sigh...

So anyway. We COULD lock up the dog in their room when they're away so he would crap where it doesn't become my problem to clean it up, but then he freaks out and makes an insane amount of noise. He can carry on for hours. And it upsets Her Majesty. Sigh...

Today, they all got up late and with a sore head after a late night (that's another problem, but not dog-related). The girl went out in her skivvies to put the dog out, but he suspected they were going out so he ran right around and came back in, without relieving himself. And then as everyone was getting ready to go out, he remembered that he had to go and started begging to be let out. Little bitch kicked him away, and everyone left. Hmmmmmmm... Now I can either take him out myself, or wait till he shits in the living room, clean it up, and report it to the landlady. The first solution is kind, the other is better for me. So, I took him out. No surprise, he pulls on the leash.

And did that solve the problem? HELL NO! Now he knows he can get me to let him out, so he keeps annoying me for more. Fuuuuuuuuuh...

My consolation in all this is that he has shit sticking to his fur (that's not good) and... he lies on their bed when they're not home. Baaaaaaaaahahahaha! But then again they don't seem to mind dog shit, so maybe they're ok with that.

Also, I should mention the little bitch kicks Fluffy, yells at him, and when she's home, mostly demands that he stay in his kennel, which is not a pen but a small travel carrier not big enough for him. She had a ferret for about a month and didn't clean the cage once. And she has three hamsters and is always yelling at them to shut up. And that's nothing to how she treats the boy. If it weren't illegal, I'd lay the mother of all beatings on her.