Annie is leaning up against Nancy (her front feet are on Nancy) and her tail is wagging 100 miles an hour. Annie is a morning dog. Nancy, Riley and I wake up, fumble our way to the kitchen and wallow through our first cup of coffee, often while lounging, semi-comatose, in the Conservatory.
When Annie's feet hit the bedroom floor she is AWAKE.
High trot.
Where's my food?
Is the dog door open yet?
Who are those people walking on our lawn?
She has found her snake, a lovely, lovely gift given to her by a friend, the only toy she has ever owned that has more than one squeaker that has survived her investigations for more than an hour. She has had her snake almost since the day she came home, and it STILL squeaks.
I was a lot happier with squeaky toys before Caesar noted that the sound they make is like a small animal dying in the wild. On the other hand, now that she is the smallest animal in the house, it doesn't bother me as much as it did.
Which brings me to the subject of children.
("How?" you might well ask. Just go with it.)
Our lives would be infinitely improved if we able to rent a ten year-old by the hour. Riley would love a ten year-old. I am assuming the squeakers installed in ten year-olds are at least as hardly as those in Annie's snake. Otherwise I suppose it could end badly...
Rent-A-Kid sounds like a wonderful idea to me. Reverse-babysitting. The last thing I want in my life full-time is a ten year-old, but I could use one running loose to entertain my dogs for about an hour a day. Riley can go to the dog park and ignore other dogs for a while, but Annie is still determined to remove other dog's squeakers, and their owners take uncommon offense at her efforts, so that's not an option.
I did run into Kazoo to chat briefly with Annie's trainer. We let ourselves get busy and distracted, running off to Alabama and getting sick and all, and we accidentally dropped out of Annie's intermediate obedience class. I took Annie with me and we were talking to the trainer when Annie spied something big and hairy that will someday weigh in excess of a hundred pounds so she decided to kill it, right there in the store in broad daylight. (Well. Surrounded by me, her trainer in the middle of a pet store on a leash, she decided to 'kill it'.) Omigod, Omigod--I panicked, stepped between the victim and the attacker (correct, actually) and proceeded to act out the entire handbook of Things You Should Not Do When Your Dog Misbehaves.
I am not blind to the fact that the most difficult challenge to Annie's training is me. Annie comes when called. She sits and lies down when ordered (most of the time.) She's actually fairly good at 'leave it'. Even when she doesn't want to. She is learning manners at the door. She rarely if ever goes quite as ballistic as she used to and she calms down with less effort on our parts. She is still unpredictable around other dogs, and it is because I come unglued every time she does it. I over-react, I mis-react, I emphasize the negative, ignore the positive, miss the cues..
I have watched probably 100 episodes of The Dog Whisperer where Caesar points out bad behavior on the owners' part, the owners say, "Oh, okay," and it's all fixed. I do not seem to possess that kind of self-discipline when my dog spazzes out.
The other day Nancy and I happened to trip over a Petfinder's ad (we were not--NOT--searching Petfinders: we were undermined) for a dog that looked just like Annie, described as, "Sweet, affectionate, loves other dogs, is potty-trained, comes when called..."
I said, "Jot down the dog's address and we'll go at night, toss Annie over the fence and sneak that dog into the car with us..."
But it wouldn't work because, once we got her home...she'd be living with me.
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