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.

.

.

.

.

.

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.

The dog who cried wolf

Her Majesty likes to lie right behind the front door. Which doesn't mean she's waiting faithfully for me to come home, because she also does it when I'm at home. Anyway. Yesterday she was a little slow in moving away when I opened the door, so the door hit her toes.

Tragedy!

Of course she first let out a blood-curdling scream, and then since I had my arms full of groceries and couldn't attend to her immediately, she followed me to the kitchen, hopping on three legs and crying piteously all the way. So I put the groceries down, pick up the dog and go sit on the couch. There was nothing wrong with her foot, so I kissed it better. Then she squirmed free and carried on with her day with no further evidence of having just survived a near-fatal injury.

Ok, I know I said that physical contact with loved ones releases oxytocin which is a very effective painkiller, but still. Kissing doesn't cure injuries on little kids, much less on hard-hearted little dogs. She just totally faked it to make me grovel.

And I totally fell for it. Sigh...

Maybe I spoil my dog

I always say that I don't spoil my dog in that I give her everything that is good for her but I expect a standard of behaviour from her.

Right.

So now that I'm not working full-time, I've been staying up rather later than usual, and I notice Her Majesty will stare at me. The other day she was particularly pointed, standing in the middle of the living room staring at me for a rather long time. Not lying down and lost in thought, which would be one thing. She was definitely wide awake, full of intention, and staring at me. I asked if she needed food, water, a chewy, a walk, nothing interested her. Hmmmmm...

Well, after a while I got up to go to the bathroom, and immediately she jumped up on the couch and settled herself for the night in my spot. Because you see, that's one of her top three night-time sleeping spots, and she had made up her mind that it was past our bedtime, and she wanted me out of her spot. And the worst of it is, instead of moving her two cushions over, I tiptoed around her, put my reading materials away, and went to bed.

Perhaps I do spoil my dog a little after all.

Actually, LOVE is the best medicine

Last Friday, while we were hanging out in the Community Garden, Tinky-Winky started walking funny. I didn't see what happened. In fact, at first I thought I was imagining it, until somebody else noticed it too. Then I thought maybe the heat was getting to her.

But then, it was getting worse, so she couldn't even walk around the school for her bathroom breaks. And she was holding her head funny. So I thought maybe she had a pinched nerve. Then I thought, what if she had a stroke? But I dismissed this theory on the grounds that I'm paranoid because she's my littly-wittly-kins and I'm always worried that she's going to die.

Monday morning, however, as I carried her into the elevator, a neighbour asked me why I had been carrying her for days. So I says "I think she has a pinched nerve" and he says "what if she had a stroke?"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!

An impartial observer thinks she had a stroke! Oh no! She had a stroke! She's going to die! The horror! The horror!

Well. We'll see about that.

Of course the V-E-T is not here and won't be here until the 27th, but I have a trick up my sleeve. I made Tinky-Winky lie down with me, and held her close for a couple of hours, until I had to work. Then in the evening I did the same, and the next day. Immediately, there was a marked improvement, whereas previously she had been declining. By Thursday, she was able to trot and to jump up to lick my nose when I come home.

Now you might think it's a coincidence, or a superstition, but it's not. I tried it before when she had hemorrhagic gastritis, and since then I have read the real medical reason why it works. I'm Tinky-Winky's major attachment figure, and dogs are much more attached to their people than people are ever attached to anyone. Engaging in any attachment behaviour releases oxytocin, which is a strong pain-killer. And the best attachment behaviour is physical contact. So, by holding her close to me for several hours, I know that I'm giving her a very effective way to deal with the pain of whatever it was. And as the pain lessened, she was able to move more, which helped restore function that was impaired, whether the impairment was due to a stroke or a pinched nerve or a pulled muscle or any of the other theories that were proposed.

This morning, for the first time since last Friday, when we got to the Community Garden she went off running. I watched how she ran and there is still something funny about it, but she's running, she's smiling, she seems free of pain, and she's NOT DEAD. Praise be to God, the Compassionate, the Merciful! And also, thanks to Dr. Gabor Mate, who wrote the book in which I read about this oxytocin deal.

Hello, world!

I finally got the local newspaper to take a photo of Her Majesty. This is a crudely edited version since I don't have Photoshop. Maybe I can get someone to make it look really good... for free... One can hope.

Shiba: 3, autism: 0

It's gardening season again, and I now have two 4 x 4 foot flowerbeds on the balcony. My little autistic buddies, who have been visiting for months, are always careful with the plants, and with everything else in the house. One of them is naturally careful, the other is just motivated to be allowed back, because for some reason, coming to my house seems to entertain them immensely. So they follow directions to the letter and make sure to move anything fragile, like the guitar, out of their way before doing something crazy. That's rather amazing for any nine-year-old boy, let alone two, let alone two nine-year-old boys with a learning disability.

So what does this have to do with Her Majesty?

Well, when I first set up the flowerbeds, I let Her Majesty explore them, and waited for her to pick a spot where she'd like to lie. She picked, of course, one of the very best spots. The vast majority of the balcony is in part shade, with only a small portion in full sun. Her Majesty didn't quite pick the sunniest spot, but the one just on the shady side of the full sun / part shade boundary. How gracious of her. Because I really needed that full-sun spot for my roses. So then I seeded grass in the spot she chose, and put my flowers here and there in the space she left me.

Now that everything is growing, however, Her Majesty doesn't want her spot. She seems aggravated that the grass doesn't uproot easily anymore. The last two years she had a 3 x 3 lawn with only 3.5" of soil, so she could rip up great swathes of grass easily. Now the soil is 15" deep, so the grass is solidly rooted and un-diggable. Apparently, this is not at all what Her Majesty wants out of a lawn. So instead of lying on the lawn I planted for her, she's made herself a comfy dug-out spot that allows her to lie simultaneously on a) my carefully selected collection of pansies, b) the three very expensive double oriental lilies, and c) the $40 peony that was supposed to "activate my relationship luck."

After showing her several times where I'd like her to dig and lie down, I seem to have achieved an uneasy truce, wherein she's willing to lie mostly on the pansies, which are at least much cheaper than the lilies and peony, and not dig up the lilies. Subject to change at her convenience, of course.

There you go. Yet another reason you should try doing respite for an autistic child before you try serving a shiba.

So long, old friend

You may remember Carter, Tinky-Winky's best friend. Carter was born 17 February 2003 and only ever had one human. In 2006, his human's then-boyfriend was working with my then-boyfriend, and sometimes the two of them would bring "their" respective dogs to work. That's how Tinky-Winky and Carter met. Back then, she was still psychotically aggressive, but she got used to Carter. I don't think they ever had a real fight, although Tinky-Winky snapped at him a fair number of times.

On the other hand, the guys didn't introduce myself and Carter's human. We only met years later, when we had each broken up with the then-boyfriend. And we recognised each other by our dogs. Then we became friends. Recently, Carter's human had to be out of town a lot, and one time she couldn't get her usual dog-sitter, so she asked me. So Tinky-Winky and I spent a couple of days at Carter's house. Then we ended up dog-sitting him every time his human was out of time, because we all got along so well.

Finally, after we had spent many days as a pack of three, something amazing happened: Tinky-Winky played with Carter. They were running loose in the off-leash area (we have official off-leash areas in town, though you can't really tell the difference with the rest of town), and Carter ran up to Tinky-Winky and balled her over. I thought she'd freak and try to rip his throat out, but she just rolled over, got back up and ran after him.

Whoa.

I never thought I'd see the day when my dog would let another dog approach her casually, let alone participate in any kind of playful behaviour. And after that, she'd actually let him sniff her butt and not snap at him. Another thing she absolutely doesn't allow. Her second-best friend, Otis, who is almost as big as Carter and fascinated by Tinky-Winky, loves to get her to snap at him so he can make a big show of leaping out of reach. Then he does it again. They both seem to find this game hilarious. But anyway, even Otis does not get to sniff Her Majesty's butt. He has to do a kind of drive-by sniffing and get out of reach before she can turn on him.

So, that was Carter.

Was.

Carter saw the vet for his annual check-up on Monday, June 4. They said he was well enough though obviously declining, which seemed normal for his age. Of late he had been unable to jump into the car, but what can you do. Dogs age. His labs were a little off, but nothing serious.

Tuesday, Carter was his usual self.

Wednesday morning, Carter couldn't get up. He had to be carried out to relieve himself, then helped back up the steps, and then he lay down and didn't move all day. His human called the vet, who by then had left town. (The vet lives three hours away and comes here a few days a month with his portable clinic.) The vet was alarmed. Plans began to be made to transport Carter to Edmonton the next day.

In the evening, Carter started shaking, and then he started to have seizures. I wasn't there, but I hear it was very traumatic. The decision was made to put him down. Unfortunately, when the vet isn't here, we have no mainstream way of euthanising dogs, so we have the choice of shooting them or trying to overdose them on whatever prescription drugs are at hand. Yes, yes, it's barbaric. What can you do. That's the price we pay for the freedom our dogs get. I've often said the best part of this town is the dog-walking. But anyway, the problem is, it's very difficult to obtain any prescription drug in a quantity that can kill a 100-lb dog. Most drugs aren't even strong enough to kill a rat. So Carter was given something, which didn't kill him, but mercifully stopped the seizures.

After a while, his human, who had been holding his hand the whole time, left the room for some reason. Immediately his breathing shallowed. The other people who were there called the human back, but before she could get back to him he was gone. I guess he was holding on to her all that time. It was Thursday morning, June 7. The vet thinks it may have been a toxin, or a tumour in the spine (boxers are prone to them), or perhaps one small thing that precipitated a cascade of failure due to his age and declining condition.

We buried Carter that evening in one of his favourite spots. He got a four-car motorcade and five pall bearers. There were eight people at his funeral, plus Tinky-Winky. At first Her Majesty wanted to participate in the grave-digging, but she got aggravated with the five-year-old girl who kept chasing her everywhere. As you know, little girls love Her Majesty, and the feeling is extremely not mutual. So after a while she absconded, then the kid lost interest, then Her Majesty came back and lay on the beach watching us work with her smug shiba grin. She was clearly having a grand old time. I wasn't watching her when we took Carter out of the car and put him in the grave, so I don't know if she ever clued in. Certainly she was completely indifferent to the fact that half the humans, myself included, were crying. She's never been the kind of dog that "knows exactly what you're feeling".

After the family had left and I had captured Her Majesty, I carried her to the grave to say goodbye. She still had no reaction. I still don't know if she's aware that her best friend for the least six years has died.

Carter leaves behind his very sad human, her two daughters, and her two step-daughters. And a hard-hearted little shiba. And me. He wasn't always what you'd call a "good dog." He was insanely strong in his prime and would take off after squirrels on a regular basis. He'd escape and roam the town all night. He ate the family garbage, and the baby-proofing locks that were installed to keep him out of the garbage. He also made an annual tradition of eating the littlest girl's gingerbread house. He got into an awful lot of dog fights. He was famous for his drooling. But he was extremely devoted to his family and a staunch protector, and a genuinely good person. He liked people and wanted to be liked. He was affectionate and funny and had infinite patience with the children. He was even good to cats. He wasn't even my dog and I miss him terribly.

Goodbye, old friend. You did good.

We want to play

Tinky-Winky brought me a rawhide.

OMG!!!!!!!

Really. My dog brought me a rawhide.

Most dog's people wouldn't notice such a thing. Except Her Majesty does not fetch things, nor does she play. In recent months, we have developed this little game where she starts kicking a rawhide around the floor, then she does a playbow, and then I kick the rawhide around the floor for her and she chases after it. That lasts a few seconds, then she sits down and has a good chew.

This is important, because she's never played any other game. She doesn't fetch. She doesn't play with balls. She doesn't care for squeaky toys. She's never tried tug-of-war. She's the least playful dog I've ever met. Apparently, she wasn't even playful as a puppy. Weird little Asperger dog.

So, the fact that she does playbows and plays with rawhides, even if it's only for a few seconds, strikes me as a very important developmental achievement. So what if she's twelve years old? Old dogs, apparently, do learn new tricks.

Bringing me a rawhide, though, that's a whole 'nother achievement. Normally, if she wants something from me, she calls me over to where she is and points. Granted she can't very well drag the fridge over to the couch to signify she wants cheese, but still, it's always been how she works. She gives one bark, and I attend, and she points at what she wants and I do it. Bringing something to me is a whole new development. I don't know if it's a cognitive thing or an attachment thing or she's channelling Carter's spirit, but it's definitely a brand new thing.

I loves you, mutt-mutt.

Andiamo, Mama!

Waiting for Godot

When it's nice, Her Majesty sits on the balcony. Then she can't hear me open the door, so she just keeps waiting for me.

So you're my best friend, eh?

From time to time, I start to worry that Tinky-Winky is going deaf. So to test it, I call her.

Yesterday, I tried calling her several times. Outside the house. Inside the house. When she was busy. When she was not busy. When she was alert and when she was bored.

Nothing.

She never once turned her head to look at me.

Oh no! My dog is deaf! Whatever shall I do?

Oh well. Being dinner time, I took some cheese out of the fridge.

Immediately, the dog came galloping from the other end of the house. Deaf, eh? She's not the least bit deaf. She can hear cheese for miles. Turns out she was just ignoring me the whole day.

Sigh...


At bedtime, it had gotten quite cold, so I put my heating pad under the sheets to warm up my spot before bed. Then I went to brush my teeth and so on.

When I came back, the dog was lying on the bed... right on top of my heating pad.

Sigh...


Frankly, if this is my best friend, I'm glad I don't have very many friends. Or to draw a less cynical conclusion, she's lucky she's a dog, because as a human she'd be a real bitch. Then again, "cynical" comes from the Greek "kunos" meaning "dog", so many cynicism is the best way to look at it.

Oh well. I still love you, bitchy-witchy. (Yes, that is actually one of the nicknames I call her.)

Predacon: terrorize

Recently, Tinky-Winky has taken to sleeping on my bed of her own free will. In the past she would usually sleep under the bed, or only sleep on the bed when I put her there. The last few weeks, she waits for me to make the hide-a-bed, then she jumps up and sprawls out right in the middle. And of course, laterally across the bed rather than length-wise so we could both lie down comfortably.

Two nights ago, apparently, she was in a hurry, so she jumped up when I still had two blankets to add. Hmmmm... Oh well. I put the next blanket over her and waited for her to crawl out.

And waited.

Her Majesty sat up, still under the blanket, and turned her head this way and that, but didn't move her butt.

I waited a while longer.

She still didn't move her butt.

Fine.

I pulled the blanket off her head. Immediately she lay down again and went to sleep. Laterally across the bed, of course. She looked adorable.

Later, as I tried to fit my fat arse onto the tiny sliver of bed she left me, she put her little paws over her little nose and squeezed.

It looked even more adorable.

That's funny. She could crush all the bones in my hand with her teeth. She could rip out my trachea before I could even blink. And she looks completely adorable while preventing me from getting into my own bed.

We think we're so smart, but really dogs are playing us all for the fools we are.

Things I love about my shiba

Shiba Shedding Time.

As far as I know, I'm the only shiba owner who loves Shiba Shedding Time. If you're not a shiba's personal assistant, you may not be aware that shibas blow their coat twice a year, spring and fall; and as they have a double coat, this entails a considerable amount of hair. Shiba Shedding Time typically lasts for several weeks, during which you will be vacuuming at least twice a day. And when you think you're done vacuuming, you turn around and you can't even tell where you've vacuumed and where you haven't.

Most shiba people whose blogs I've read (I don't read any currently because they displeased me) have some kind of super-aggressive grooming tool to try to rip off most of the old coat in three brushings. That sounds like exactly not what a shiba would like. I, on the other hand, have just a simple brush. I brush Tinky-Winky very slowly, for a few minutes a day. Usually I only get to do one side per session, because she lies down on her side for brushing, and when she's had enough she stands up and walks away. I find the best way is to brush gently against the coat at first. This will lift up clumps of the undercoat that are ready to come out. Then I focus on those areas, brushing against the hair to lift it and then with the hair to remove it.

You see, Tinky-Winky is not a cuddly dog. She only likes to be petted in her own time, which is generally while she's waking up in the morning. It suits Her Majesty that I should get up quickly and then attend her for twenty minutes while she eases out of sleep. That being said, she didn't start this tradition until we had been together more than three years; in fact we were together 2 1/2 years before she ever willingly showed me her belly. But when she's shedding, she's actually quite willing to be brushed. It's the only time when I can go to her and start handling her and she won't walk away in seconds.

So, I love Shiba Shedding Time because I get to spend much more time petting my shiba than any other time of year. (And also, I keep the dead hair, then some day I can have it spun and knit myself a... toque, probably. If I wanted a sweater, I should have got a bigger dog.)

Oh no! My dog is autistic!

A couple months ago I scored Tinky-Winky's dream job, which is anything with short hours and home every night. From my point of view, I'm making f-all for money, but she doesn't know that. Other than that though, the job is awesome, particularly the part with the eight-year-old autistic boys. They're very awesome.

But then, I noticed something about autism.

• Lack of connection with others


• Violent outbursts


• Obsessive behaviours


• Lack of typical play behaviour


• Unusual thinking and communication patterns


• Normal intelligence

Ok, not all autistic people have all these traits, but you know who does? Tinky-Winky. Even as a puppy, Tinky-Winky didn't play normal dog games. She still doesn't. She doesn't interact with other dogs and she's rarely affectionate with me, and only on her own terms. She freaks out and beats up little dogs. She spends hours shaping her doggy bed, unless you redirect her. She looks for me in the woods by sight and not by smell. She's not at all stupid, she's just really odd.

Oh no! My dog is autistic!

Hahaha, I crack me up. Is there such a thing as autism in dogs? Is she just one strange little dog?

Well, who knows. I like her. I like my autistic kids. My ex-husband has Asperger's, and my stalker probably does too. I guess that's just the kind of people I attract.

Mission accomplished

I always say that my goal with Tinky-Winky is to have the world's spoiledest shiba, not in terms of behaviour or bling or things like that, but in all the things that actually make dogs happy, such as good food, a comfy bed, and lots of walking.

Right now, because it's hot, we've had to cut our mid-day walk short. She just gets tired quickly in the heat. So instead, this afternoon, I took her to sit on the lawn outside the library. I'm on a lawn chair, with the dog on a long tether so she can sit anywhere she likes, choose sun or shade, explore, whatever. She has a bowl of water. She has me. And I'm connected to the library's wifi, which is nice since I don't have internet at home. So I'm thinking, what more can a little dog want?

Then... she started whining.

Ok: you really are the world's spoiledest shiba, if you can be sitting on the grass on a beautiful summer day and still find something to whine about.

Guard dog: fail

I came home and the dog didn't come running to greet me.

Hmmm...

Ok, she must be on the balcony.

I went to have a look and indeed, she was asleep on her lawn, with her back to me. I went back and got the camera. Now the camera beeps when it acquires the autofocus, and again when it takes a picture. So you can see she has an ear toward me. She must have thought she heard something, but she was too lazy to turn her heard. On the second photo she did turn and look.

Do you suppose when she saw me, she came running to me?

No.

She ran inside, past me, and toward the door. Then the little cogs in her head clicked into place, she hesitated, turned around, and came to me, and then she started doing her "I'm happy you're home" thing.

What a strange little dog...

You're lucky I love you

Ok, picking up after the dog is one thing. One quick move, tie up the baggy, and you're done. Though that's certainly one good reason to get a small dog, so you're not walking around with a two-pound bag of excrement.

You know what I don't like though? Digging out the marrow that she can't get out of the marrow bone herself. It's all soft and gelatinous and it spreads like peanut butter, and yet it sustained the life of the cow. Somehow, even though I eat meat, I just do NOT like to scoop the marrow out of the bones.

Sometimes, I think that dog is lucky to have me.

I'm glad we're together

On our afternoon walk today, we saw a woman with a Welsh springer spaniel. The spaniel pulled toward Tinky-Winky. Tinky-Winky pulled toward the spaniel. The woman yanked on the leash and said to her dog "move" and kept him motoring forward. When they were past, I let Tinky-Winky make a wide curve to go sniff the other dog's trail, as is our custom. And as we were doing that, I heard this ugly hollow "thunk". The woman had kicked the spaniel in the ribs.

WTF?????

I was completely speechless. I didn't know if I should even say something, because the dog never made a sound or looked upset. Was the dog ok with getting kicked in the ribs? Dogs have incredible pain tolerance; maybe it didn't hurt him. Then I remembered, I've seen her do that before, too. And I couldn't believe it the first time either. And I still can't think of what to do about it. It seems like anything I say would just make her angrier and then she'd take it out on the dog again.

It's so bizarre. I can understand hitting your kids, first of all because it was perfectly acceptable from the dawn of human evolution until about 15 years ago, and second because kids are often deliberately rude and difficult and you're stuck with them anyway. But dogs? Dogs are not being deliberately difficult. If your dog is difficult, it's either a health problem or your own fault. Either way, if you don't like it, you can just get rid of the dog. Especially a beautiful little dog like that. Lots of people would be happy to take that dog off that woman's hands. And yet she keeps it around so she can kick it. What a witch.

Also, a dog can kill you. Even a spaniel. He could rip out her throat and eat her face and there's nothing she could do about it. He could bite her hand and break every bone. If that little dog chose to defend himself, that woman wouldn't stand a chance. And yet she kicks him and he doesn't even make a sound.

What an evil witch.

So Tinky-Winky and I got home and she lay down on her comfy bed and looked at me with a big smile. So I was glad that she's with me. No matter how vile people are, at least this is one little dog that no one will ever kick, because she's with me. Anyone tries to kick her, I will make them rue the day they were born. So no matter what, I can keep this one little dog safe and happy and completely oblivious to the fact that people are evil. And she knows that she can count on me to make everything right for her.

I'm glad we have each other.

Things I love about my shiba

She's the worst bedmate.

Usually she likes to sleep on her own bed, but sometimes I put her on mine. She'll make right for the middle, then dig and claw at the blankets and spin in circles until she's built herself a comfy little nest. Then she sprawls out and pins all the blankets, and becomes an immovable object for the next 12 hours. She hates getting up in the morning. And she always sleeps with her butt towards my head. From a pack point of view, it makes sense, this way we're guarding both ends; from a human point of view, not so much.

Yesterday I wanted to sleep on the floor because my back hurt, so I set up some blankets, and then I sat on the couch to read one more chapter before bed. Meanwhile, the dog colonized my blankets. She picked the middle with mathematical precision, rounded everything up, and fell asleep. And I like to let her sleep, so I had about a foot of blanket for the rest of the night.

You might think this isn't exactly a good thing, but I like it because it helps balance out the evils of being single. If I had a man, he'd make trouble about the dog's bed manners. And he'd probably be right, even. But since I'm single, I can enjoy the cuteness of it in peace. And unlike a man, she at least lets me sleep, even if I have to contort myself to fit in the space she gives me.