More foxes that look nothing like shibas

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.

Save water, shower with a dog

I've had either cats or dogs for close to twenty years and I've come to the conclusion that the best way to wash them is to get naked and get in the tub with them. Otherwise you get water everywhere and in the case of cats, usually a shredded shirt.

The other thing I've discovered is that bathing them releases a huge quantity of allergens all at once, and of course I'm allergic to cats and dogs. (Also apples, pears and poplar.) So I have to shower as soon as possible after bathing them, or I break out in a huge red rash all over my body. Then on top of that I generally need every allergy drug in the house: Benadryl, Visine, calamine, and usually some ibuprofen as well. And now that I'm back on asthma meds, my fast-acting inhaler. But it's all worth it to end up with a nice, soft, fluffy, clean-smelling little dog.

Also, it helps release all the dead hair during shedding season.

I'm really not sure how people live without dogs.

Things I love about my shiba

When she misbehaves.

Tinky-Winky never, ever misbehaves. Her recall isn't 100%, but that's about the only bad thing she ever does. In the house, she's perfect. She doesn't bark. She doesn't chew. She doesn't dig at the carpet. (I planted her a lawn on the balcony and she dug it up, but that was her lawn to do with as she wanted.) She doesn't pee. She doesn't get in the garbage. She even knows to puke on the linoleum.

But sometimes, she does something that's like the beginning of a misbehaviour. Then I say "what are you doing?" and we both laugh.

We're a good match in that way. Neither of us is the least bit playful or has any sense of humour. We're uptight each with our own kind. We're both spinsters at heart. But we "get" each other.

So today, Tinky-Winky decided it was her walking time. Yes, yes, Cesar, blah blah blah. The reality is, things between us are balanced enough that I don't need to be strict with her anymore. Once upon a time she was really bossy with me. Now she's not. So when she asks for something nicely, usually she gets it. But back to my story: she decided it was walking time, so she came into the living room and did a play bow. And this brought her face to face with a library book that was lying on the floor. She looked at it and got the idea to play with it. First she tried to open it with her nose. Then she tried to chew on the inside. Then she tried to chew on the cover. Then I said to her "we don't eat library books." And she looked at me and we laughed. She didn't even get any drool on the book.

I love my dog.

Looks just like a little fox!

Actually, he looks like a pretty badass mofo of a fox. And he's on our trail.


Looking right at us.


And he's not going anywhere.


After ten minutes he moved over to the side of the trail and we walked through.

You know what he totally doesn't look like though? A shiba. Racoon, maybe. Hyena, totally. Shiba? Not a chance.

Things that go on in my dog's head

Once upon a time, I taught Tinky-Winky to roll over. It took two years and a good 70 lbs of cheese, but we did it. Or... more or less. She knows what I mean by "roll over". That was the easy part. She got it the first day. The part about motivating her to do it took two years, and she still always tries to get out of it by doing some other trick instead, or she'll go on her side and then get back up and pretend she did it. So, I don't really ask her anymore. Obviously she doesn't like it, and there is no purpose in making her do it.

The funny thing is, when we're playing on the floor together in the evenings, sometimes she rolls over of her own free will. I don't even have cheese handy or anything, and we're just playing, and she rolls over and doesn't ask for anything in return.

Now why would somebody do something they don't like to do but they know matters to someone in their life?

Hmmmmmmm...

I think that's her way of saying "you know what, human, you're alright."

The ten-dog race

Before anyone starts thinking I'm posting these because I care about LUSH wanting to ban dog racing: I don't give a tupenny Ford about what LUSH wants to ban. I only even know about it because someone else blogged about how they are boycotting LUSH because of the dogsled issue, and I made time to read the blog, and I was disappointed by the lack of anything worth discussing. I wouldn't want anyone to think I am gonna blog something boring about LUSH and the sled dogs.

I shot these photos on Sunday for the simple reason that we have dog races the first weekend in March and the ten-dog race goes right past my house, and the weather was beautiful, and therefore I went down to take some photos. It has nothing to do with advocacy of any kind.

However if you want to know what I think of LUSH, I think it's bizarre to boycott them because they want to shut down dog sledding, but not because they want to shut down the oilsands. Seriously: we need the money from the oilsands, and if you ever ride around in a vehicle with an internal combustion engine, or you own anything that was ever carried in a truck, train, ship, or airplane, or you live in any kind of man-made dwelling, then your lifestyle depends on oil, just like everybody else's; while on the other hand, nobody's lifestyle or livelihood is seriously dependent on sled dogs. So it strikes me as rather hypocritical to get huffy about the dogs and not about the oil. Also, LUSH is not an effective advocacy group, nor do they care. They do this because it's their corporate image, that's all. And again, it's hypocritical to boycott LUSH because of their corporate philosophy, but keep buying petroleum products. Or coffee. Or any foods not grown locally. Or anything made in China. Or Microsoft.

Then again, it takes zero effort to live without LUSH, and considerable effort to live without petroleum products, coffee, food, Microsoft, and things made in China, so I see your point.

Personally, I buy from LUSH, and I don't care what they advocate against, or whether they even advocate against anything. I also like dog sled races, not because I have any opinion on the ethics of the people involved, but because if I had enough money to keep ten dogs, I'd totally be racing myself. Because it would be awesome fun.

And now I totally conned you into reading a boring, pointless blog post about LUSH v. sled dogs. Bahaha!