January 6, 2013

• Roofers Behaving Badly

  Oh dear, oh dear, dear. The Little Black Dog is in the dining room, where she is chuffing. In the meantime a horde of Very Bad, No Good, Invasive roofers are tearing the roof off the backyard neighbor's house. It was bad enough when they were just camping out there. The LBD is forced to pace the house, chuffing. She would bark, but we yell at her and tell her to stop: clearly, we have no awareness of the danger we are in. Left to her own devises she would tear out the dog door, jump the fence and eat those roofers for breakfast, but some fool has closed the dog door.

  Grrrr.

  (Chuff.) (Chuff.)

  We went to our dog class yesterday. Annie, who is a beginning obedience drop-out, shines in this class because her trainer owns three pit bulls, tolerates no canine BS and the class is smaller, allowing all BS to shine. Annie's owners are not doing quite as well: Cheryl got out of the car in the middle of the park lot, pulled up the leash and discovered she had forgotten to attach the dog to it. Fortunately she had fear and the hated Gentle Leader on her side, so when she called, Annie came immediately to her ("PLEASE take this damned thing off me, Cheryl") and no LBDs became parking lot pancakes. Cheryl's life expectancy has shortened another 10 years, but stupidity and mindless distraction will do that to you.

  Annie is calmer these days (even with marauding roofers next door.) Her trainer says this is because we are now in charge and this makes her feel safer. This week we will be practicing 'take it' and 'leave it'. We are also signed up for the intermediate class, which begins right after this one. Theoretically (and I would appear to be more of the problem here than Annie) if we really, really master 'leave it' and 'Cheryl is in charge', Annie will eventually learn enough social skills to return to the dog park. I am okay if this never happens: I do want a dog who will follow commands, greet guests politely, avoid the impulse to dash out of the front door and on down the street (she does fairly well at this, actually) and generally behave calmly.

  I think I have isolated the problem, although how helpful this is remains to be seen.

  The dog is smarter than I am. Or, perhaps not 'smarter': she is more in the immediate moment. I have always been a bit drifty. Riley is just a kind of bubba dog ('yup, yup, yup'.) Annie is There. With It. Observing. Looking all the time. Did she see that? Should I alert her? Maybe I should just take care of that myself...

  I forgot to attach the leash to the dog. No kidding. I put on her Gentle Leader. I pushed Riley into the back seat three times. I remembered to put the car keys in my pocket, stash my wallet, poke Riley into the back seat again, grab the treat bag and the leash...but somehow I forgot to attach the leash to the dog. I got out of the car, pulled up the leash, there was nothing on it, and there was no LBD anywhere.

  "I'm sorry, we can't finish this class, we just lost the dog."

  Not even 'we'. I.

  Shake it off. Get on with it.

  The roofers are taking a break. Once again, peace is tolerable.

  • 9:52 am
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