Parlant a l'Ether

I wish I loved doing something as much as my dog loves chewing on pieces of rawhide. Chewing on any approved items, actually. She’s the only dog I know that can destroy red Kong toys. We’ve moved onto black Kong, but I bet those days are numbered, too. She eviscerates anything we give her that squeaks or is stuffed. Floss and knitted toys, beware, your days are numbered in single digits.

I wrote a post about adopting her, but Arrow is just over a year old now, and so much has happened that I want to write it down here and remember it and share it.

She’s fully grown now. When she was smaller I could pick her up with one arm. Now I have to pick her up with both arms and carry her like a lamb – which is also a game that she and Perfect Tommy play, he tries to pick her up and she jumps out of the way just before he gets her. She plays so many games now – it used to be that she just “pinged” up and down the hallway doing hairpin turns at either end. She still does that, but now she plays tug, fetch, and this weird game where when Tom takes out the trash or recycling she stalks him like prey and then as he comes back towards our kitchen door, she chases and attacks him until he touches the door.

When she was a puppy she was silly all the time. Now she’s become very protective of our home and of us, and she takes this job very seriously. When other dogs come over to play, she herds them out of the house and away from us, they are allowed to play with her, but not with us. But at the same time, nothing makes her more excited and happy than to play with anyone or any dog.

She is really well behaved. As a puppy I think she had maybe three accidents in the house. She’s crate trained and house trained. She doesn’t run out the front door if it’s left open, she comes when called, sits, speaks, lies down, and even stays. She’s smart enough that she’s figured out a lot of what’s expected on her own, after maybe one or two training sessions.

Part of her job is to monitor what goes on in front of our house. At first, she only did it if we opened the blinds. Since then, she’s figured out how to stick her head through the closed blinds and see what’s going on. Anyone walking, riding, or driving by is given a warning via intense barking. But sometimes she wags her tail when she barks, as if she is calling out to them saying, “Please come and over and play!”

She’s not aggressive with other dogs or children, and when my baby niece came to visit, she kept watch over her, licked her all over, and generally just loved being around her. When Sam came to visit, she really wanted to play with him, but he was skittish, and so she kept her distance (with lots of prompting from the grown-ups), even though she was still very much a puppy.

There’s one story about her being out at the ranch that I love. Tom sometimes takes her over to our friend Martin’s to run and play with his two dogs, a large pit bull mix (Buddy) and standard poodle (Bravo). Buddy is dumb and sweet and terrified of anything that he hasn’t seen before (he was TERRIFIED of two year old Sam). Bravo is devious and kind of mean when he thinks people aren’t looking. Bravo often convinces Buddy to escape the ranch via digging out where the washes run under the fence. One time, they did it while Arrow was visiting, and Arrow didn’t follow them, but came and got Tom and Martin and showed them where the other two had escaped from.

My dog is a Little Goody Two-Shoes. But isn’t that what you want in a dog? When I’m not feeling well, she is right next to me to bring me comfort. When the weather is bad, she stays close in case we need her. After an earthquake, she runs around to make sure everything is okay.

My first dog that is really mine – I adopted her, I trained her, and I will take care of her until the end of her life – this makes me happier than pretty much anything else.