Yo dog, you're in my spot.

A three-walk day

Tinky-Winky and I have been on two walks a day for about a month now, which is not good for me as I'm gaining weight. For her, however, it seems to be working. She still occasionally drags her feet in the evening, but mostly she has enough energy for her two walks.

Today, however, she was feeling peppy. She woke me up at 3:55 am, not for any particular reason, but because she was awake and I wasn't and she desired my company. So, we went for our walk. When we got home, I went back to bed, and she actually jumped on the bed on her own, which she hasn't done in a very long time. So we went back to sleep and got up around 10:00. By lunch, she was fidgetty again. She kept wanting attention, and then walking around the apartment, and then back to me for attention.

After lunch, I spent more time with her, playing with rawhides, going through her tricks, cuddling with her... Usually after a while she'll go to sleep, but she continued wide awake. So, I took her for an afternoon walk. We drove around to the beach, which is no longer suitable for walking, having been ruined by squatters over the last three years, then we walked along the dirt road looking for interesting things to look at. We didn't walk very far or very fast, but even so, when we got home, she looked tired. She slept like a log the rest of the day.

For our evening walk, therefore, I thought she wouldn't want to go very far, so I took the route that allows her to turn back any time she wants. But she actually led me all the way around with good energy and no foot-dragging. Then she had to have seconds of dinner, because she had worked up quite an appetite.

Maybe she's feeling better because the weather has been cooler, or maybe the rest has done her good. Or maybe this was just a good day for her. Sometimes when I look at her now, she's starting to look her age.

Mmmm... Comfy...

Garden dog

I think Tinky-Winky dog is jealous of the garden. As soon as I spend any amount of time gardening, she tries to get in the middle of things. She is also fascinated by the smell of bone meal, so here she's trying to get into the bag. Once it was open, though, she wanted none of it. I think the smell of the whole mass is too strong for her. Bone meal is a natural product made from, obviously, crushed bones of animals such as chickens. This one in particular has no cow bones in it - I suppose they tell me that so I won't be worried about Mad Cow? So anyway, I doubt it would do the dog any harm. It smells and looks like fish food, mostly.

Doggy storm shelter: success!

Finally, the dog understands the purpose of the crate. She hadn't stepped inside yet, even though I put all her shredding blankets in there. Then Monday afternoon there was a thunderstorm, and she started freaking out as usual, so I put her in the cage. She shredded for a while and then came back out. But Tuesday, when the thunder started, she went into the cage of her own free will and lay down at the back.

Booya!

Well, that doesn't look very comfortable. I've been meaning to get her some bedding in there, but I really don't feel like spending money on a dog bed and a comforter just now. So, instead I'm lending her some of my crochet blankets, thusly:


The one inside the cage is a queen-size and makes a nice thick mattress. I hope she won't tear it. Crochet blankets are much more resistant than fabric, but you never know. The one draped over the cage is mostly to shut out more light and sound and make it more cave-like, but it also makes it more esthetically pleasing to me. Better feng-shui, hopefully. Also, both these blankets are hand-made by me and have been in the house for years, and were on my bed all winter, so they should be thoroughly permeated with my smell, and hopefully that's a comfort to her when I'm not home.

This morning, the dog went to look at the cage again, and at first did not approve of my modifications. So I grabbed her and put her inside forcibly, and she lay down at the back and made herself at home. I'm not sure she likes having a blanket over the cage, actually. It shuts out some light and noise, but on the other hand, she can't see me anymore, and that always annoys her. She likes to keep an eye on me.

Tinky-Winky's favourite food

Tinky-Winky's favourite food, bar none, is cheese. Cheese is like cocaine to her. She will do just about anything for it, such as obeying commands. This is convenient for two reasons. First, there is no naturally-occurring equivalent to cheese in the natural world, so she can only get it from me. Thus cheese is a huge motivator in getting her to recall. She's actually desisted and come back to me as she was approaching another dog to lay a beating on it, just because I had cheese. Calling "Tinky-Winky, come!" is successful fairly often. Calling "Tinky-Winky, cheese!" is 100% success.

The other reason is that the dog catcher does not carry cheese. He tries to bait dogs with store-bought extruded dog treats, which works on under-privileged dogs, but not on Her Majesty. She has way better food at home, and no way is she selling her freedom for extruded treats when she knows she can get cheese for it.

But other than cheese, Tinky-Winky's favourite food is whatever I'm eating. And that's funny, because she eats way better than I do. She has fresh meat and vegetables on her plate, and I'm eating mac and cheese, or wieners, or toast, and she wants my food. Some of the stuff she begs for rather boggles my mind. Lemon tarts, for example. What kind of dog eats lemon? She does. She loves lemon tarts.

Also, zucchini. When we were in Calgary in the fall, I made a zucchini casserole. I also bought supermarket sushi fairly often, because I can't get it at home. So one time I had this cheap sushi and the zucchini casserole. I offered the dog sushi, she turned her nose up at it and tried to get into the casserole. So I gave her the casserole instead. Not only she ate it, but she chased the roommate's cat away from it. There was no animal protein in it at all, just zucchini, olive oil and bread crumbs. She loved it.

Of course because she has expensive tastes, the more expensive my food is, the more she wants it. Cheesecake, for example, costs its weight in... scrap iron, at least, and she MUST have it. Are you serious? Do you know how often I can afford cheesecake? You're a dog. Go eat garbage. I'm not giving you my cheesecake.

Tinky-Winky even wants my food if she doesn't even want to eat it. For example, fruit. She doesn't like fruit, and generally speaking, neither do I, but sometimes I do buy some. Expensive stuff, usually, like raspberries. Naturally, Tinky-Winky wants some. The first time she asked, I gave her some. I was sitting on the couch eating grapes, and she wanted some. I gave her a grape. She lowered her head to where I couldn't see her, and then came up and asked for more. I gave her another one. I must have given her about ten grapes, and I was thinking "wow, I never heard of a dog eating grapes before." Then I got up to go to the kitchen and saw that all the grapes were on the floor. She was lowering her head to spit them out, and then she kept asking for more, secure in the knowledge that next time, surely, I was gonna give her something tasty to eat.

Likewise with strawberries. She doesn't eat them, but she'll lick every one of them if you let her.

The one thing I eat (reluctantly, I'll admit) and she won't is... peanut butter. Seriously. Most dogs love peanut butter; she won't even look at it.

What a strange little dog she is.

My poor little dog

When I'm not home, the dog sleeps on her lawn. She's dug herself a comfortable little depression, which I've given up on filling, and since the lawn is watered frequently, it's nice and cool in the dirt. She likes it there, which is good since that's the whole point of the lawn.

When I'm home, the dog would like to sleep on her lawn, but she can't, because from the lawn she can't see if I'm getting ready to leave. So she sleeps in the hallway, where it's somewhat cooler than in the living room, and I have to walk past her to leave. I try to tell her that I'm not going anywhere for a while, or that I'll let her know if I'm leaving, but she doesn't understand, so she can't sleep on her lawn.

If I thought she'd understand, I'd get her a baby monitor so she could sleep on the lawn and keep an ear on me, but she wouldn't understand.

Poor little dog. What a dilemma.