Dogs Can't Fly

To introduce my new refrigerator magnets, I thought I'd tell a brief story. I hinted to this earlier. I'd always told people if Tuck were a human boy, he'd be the kid who tied a towel to his neck and would jump off the garage roof to see if he could fly. Then he tried it.

He didn't mean to try it. He was merely attempting to rip the head off of his archenemy, the giant black lab (aptly named Zeus) that lives in the apartment level with ours, but in the building next door. They have a wooden walkway (like a deck) that crosses across a garage roof, from the stairs they take to get up to the second level. My deck stairs run parallel to this garage, and at the top, there is one stair that is dead even with the top of the roof. For some reason, the space between the spindles (or whatever you call them) is a little wider here, and Tuck figured out he can fit through and onto the roof.

This one night I was in the yard, and thinking ahead, knew he would try it. The lab and his boy were walking across the walkway into their apartment, and I ran up the stairs to beat Tuck to the wide space. I made it, unfortunately Tuck decided to try a different wide space that was a hair lower than the roof line. It was snowy. He didn't make it across.

He lost his grip and slid down the side of the garage between my steps. It's about a one foot span, but a 15 foot drop. The neighbor boy and I looked at each other (I think the lab laughed) and I ran down the steps. (25 of them) When I got around underneath, Tuck was still clinging to the side of the garage, nails dug in tight, resting on top of a group of antique windows I'd bought and some ductwork leftover from the remodel. His head was turned toward me with a look of abject terror and "please save me" on his face.....

And, after I pulled him free.---all 45-50 pounds of him---and detached his claws from the wood while whispering soothing "poor baby's", I realized that the image of him clinging there was permanently etched in my mind, and since I'm kind of cruel that way, I decided to permanently imortalize the moment in a refrigerator magnet.

The claw marks were still visible the next morning---more reminiscent of a Warner Brother's cartoon than real life.

Various Ramblings

I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to get my photos exported with the changes I made out of a new program (Lightroom 2) so while I'm fighting that nonsense I figured I'd post a bit about dog behavior. Most specifically, I guess, border collie behavior since that's what I know.

Tuck is my third. You would think I would have things down pat by now, but each dog has been completely different in their styles and manners of daily living and I've had to learn as I go along. He seems to be a combination of the first two. Marengo's cunning combined with Rave's eagerness to please makes a pretty good dog, if that was what I was used to, but I'm used to dealing with either cranky and calculated or excited and slipshod---not a combination of them all.

So I brought Tuck home, expecting all training to be fairly easy. I'd done it all. I've had tons of experience with these dogs, not just counting my three---should have been a piece of cake. Tuck is smart. I could tell from the beginning. He learned to sit in under 5 minutes, to lie down just as quickly, and went from a lie down to a sit without any extra prompting. This is a difficult command for dogs to understand. "He's smart. Why can't I get him housebroken?" was going through my head from the first week, all through the first year or so.

Marengo was difficult, but I was a pushover and stopped crating her when she was four months old. She couldn't stand it, and I couldn't stand her screaming. Consequently, she picked a hidden corner of the living room and used it as her toilet. I bgan to associate the smell of "puppy odor neutralizer" with dog urine and it got to the point where I couldn't tell the difference. Never fear. I hired a trainer (who trained me not her) and she was housebroken and completely trustworthy by month 5. In fact, she was a dog who banged on the door when she was sick. And when I say "bang", I mean bang. Hard. She didn't ask to be let out, she demanded---and the more urgent she got, the louder the demand.

Rave was relatively easy as long as I was paying attention. She once walked into the middle of the living room floor, turned and faced me and peed. I was apparently too engrossed in ER and had missed her delicate pawing at the door. She learned that she could paw on anything, an open living room doorway or below a window and I would get the hint. These days, if I miss the hint, she stands and stares at me and cuts her eyes toward the back door, and back to me, and back to the door. I figure this is her last chance attempt before getting angry and defacing the rug like she used to. I get the hint now.

Tuck didn't have a tell. At least I didn't think he did. He was occasionally, however, extraordinarily affectionate. From the time I brought him home, he would jump up on the couch, drop his head and upper body onto my chest and stomach, and look up at me with adoring brown eyes. "Awww...isn't that cute. Hugs to you too." Meanwhile, he's going to the bathroom on the floor and driving me crazy. I gave up and tried newspaper. Big mistake. He went on it, sure, but he still wasn't telling me he had to go. I took away the paper and he went to the bathroom where the paper used to be. Still, he kept on hugging me. Awww...it's a good thing he's so affectionate.

Long story short, I started associating the "hugs" with the messes on the floor. He'd come in to the living room, or the office and hug, and I'd go and find a mess back in the kitchen. I started equating him with a two-year-old human who could only figure out he had to go AFTER the fact. I decided those hugs were the equivalent of "I pooped in my pants." To counter this, I started blocking him into the living room with a baby gate. Hugs, messes, hugs, messes. I finally got the hint. When Tuck dips into my lap like a cast member of Dancing with the Stars, it's time to go outside. I wish I'd figured it out 10 months ago.