Pat and Traveler's Blog – November 2010 Archive (7)

When Traveler wants to lie down on the bed, he does that doggie getting-ready-for-bed thing, turning round and round, nose down, butting the covers with his head, sometimes pouncing a couple of times on some suspect spot. Then he just sort of drops, and curls. My daughter was watching him do this and said he was ‘stompin’ out the snakes.’ I had to laugh. Not only was that a funny description, it sounded like an even more reasonable explanation for the behavior that just making the bed-place…

and look at the First Snow. I’m not too thrilled about this. It’s cold out there, and with the door open, it gets cold in here. Trav is acting like the snow is some dangerous white beast that appeared overnight and laid down all over his territory. He wants to look at it without having to walk on its back. He did venture out for a quick pee, but hurried back inside, whirling around at the door to make sure it wasn’t following him. It’s going to be a long day.

In just a couple of quick sessions, I managed to turn my usually quiet dog into a manically barking, whirling dervish that bounces off me and the walls and the furniture. And how was I able to accomplish such an interesting feat? It was simple, really. I decided to try to scare the squirrels out of the attic by making lots of noise, like shouting, banging pan lids, using a whistle and thumping a newspaper against the walls. This horrendous din hasn’t bothered the intruders one little bit,…

When I retired a couple of years ago, I decided it was time to fulfill a life-long desire to get a dog. My previous experience with dogs consisted mostly of wonderful child-hood memories of ranch dogs in Montana–loveable, smart, working dogs. If those dogs had any issues with food, fleas, ticks, illnesses or grooming, I’d certainly never heard about them.

It didn’t take too long (okay, several weeks of poring over pictures and descriptions) to settle on either a goldendoodle…

A couple of evenings ago Trav was sound asleep and I was deeply involved in a project. I sort of registered that I was hearing him whining, but thought he was having a dream. Finally realized that the whining was still going on, and found the poor little guy practically dancing by the door, wanting OUT!! Once the door was open, he bolted and barely made it to the grass before having a diarrhetic episode. I felt so bad for making him wait when his need was so urgent! The next morning he was…

Traveler got a new toy, a plush fox, and just for fun I put it under his blanket. He dug it out, dropped it on top of the blanket and looked expectantly at me. So I did it again. And again. He loved digging around in the blanket and finding the fox! So I expanded the game. Had him wait in one room and put the fox in another room. He could see where I put it. Then I told him to 'find the fox,' which he did. Next I put it just a little bit out of his sight-line. Then he was finding the fox…

She left me with my buddy Grendel, a pit bull/mastiff kind of guy, and his humans. I missed her a lot for a while after she left, but hey--I'm a year old now and Gren would think I was a wimp if I just kept whining and moping, even though I'd never been away from her overnight since I chose her to be my human when I was eight weeks old. Anyhow, Mom called Gren's humans every day to see how I was doing, and sounded a little surprised when she heard I was just fine. Sheesh! I think SHE was one…