November 25, 2008
Doggy greetings
Sadie keeping my shoes nearby for comfort
Recently I was out of town for a couple of weeks. My husband stayed home and so the pets did not have to be boarded and were able to follow their usual daily routine while I was gone.
My 2 dogs, Minnie the collie and Tucker the keeshond, are predictable in the way they welcome me back after a trip. Larry and I walk up to the house. Larry opens the door, the dogs come rushing out thinking nothing is unusual. Then they see me. They stop, their noses go into action as they process my smells, then their bodies start to quiver with excitement and they run over to me joyfully for hugs and pets. They spin and twist and wrap themselves around my legs, both trying to get my attention. Aren’t doggy greetings wonderful!
I don’t get this much greeting excitement from them unless I’ve been gone for a couple of days or more. They understand routines, and are happy to see me when I come home from work, or from a trip to the store, but the quivering excitement level is reserved for greeting me only when I’ve been gone for days at a time.
Other dogs I’ve had in the past had different ways of showing their excitement. One dog, Raider (another keeshond), had to grab a toy whenever anyone came in the door. As I entered the house I’d see her run to her toy box, grab whatever soft furry toy she preferred that day, and then she’d come running to meet me with the toy hanging from her mouth and her entire body bouncing with excitement.
Another keeshond I had, Sadie (shown in picture above), had a fetish for my shoes. After I’d leave, she’d find a shoe or two and keep it near her while I was gone. I suppose the smell of my stinky feet was comforting to her. She did this even if my husband was home with her; it was me she was most attached to. Sometimes she’d grab my clunky winter snow boots and keep those nearby until I came home. That was quite a sight! Sadie really knew how to make me feel loved and missed.
What do your pets do to show you how much they miss you when you’re gone? I’d love to hear your stories!
November 11, 2008
My dog can’t tell time!
On November 2, 2008 most Americans enjoyed an extra hour of sleep — the benefit gained from setting our clocks back one hour when we reverted to Standard Time.
But not in our house. Tucker, our 6-year-old keeshond, has his own internal clock. It’s set by his belly. He expects breakfast every day between 5 and 5:30 a.m. and when Tucker expects something, he has ways of making sure he gets it.
So what happened on November 2? Did I get to pamper myself with that one extra hour of sleep? Of course not! We dutifully set the clocks back an hour Saturday night before going to bed. So early Sunday morning, at what was now 4:00 a.m. by the clock, Tucker was wide awake. He needed to go out. He wanted to eat. A simple “No, go lie down” did not suffice. To Tucker and his tummy, it was 5:00 and all was not well. No breakfast was forthcoming and he was not happy about it.
Tucker is relentless anyway when he wants to get up. We never have to set an alarm. We can count on Tucker waking up around 5 a.m. — HE is our alarm clock.
When he wakes up, he demands that we get up also. He jumps onto the bed. He walks around our prone bodies. He comes up and lies on my pillow, curling himself around my head. This is a 35-lb. dog, by the way. If I fail to respond to him, he is patient for about 2 minutes tops. Then he jumps down off the bed. He leaves the bedroom. He returns. He jumps back up on the bed. He walks around again. He lies on the pillow …. well, you get the picture. This is repeated as many times as needed until we eventually get up. We can ignore him, we can say “no”, we can roll over and pretend he’s not there. But he doesn’t give up.
And the bad thing is that he always wins, so his behavior is reinforced. Eventually we HAVE to get up. To Tucker’s little doggy brain, that means — yay! The humans are responding to my doggy communication, so I’ll do the same thing tomorrow, no matter how many times it takes.
Back to November 2. It’s 4:00 in the morning. Tucker thinks it’s 5:00. The “wake-up” routine starts. Finally at 4:30 I give up trying to go back to sleep, get up, let the dogs out and feed them their breakfast. No extra sleep for me. It’s not like I can really go back to sleep with a dog jumping on and off the bed every couple of minutes anyway.
On November 3, the same story. Tucker was wide-awake at 4 a.m. Each morning for the next week my goal has been to hold him off just a little bit longer. By the end of the month I’ll have his internal clock adjusted to the “new” 5:00.
Meantime, I’m losing sleep. I may have to start a campaign to stay on Standard Time year-round. Do the politicians who come up with these ideas take animals’ feeding schedules into consideration? I think not!
Minnie the collie (also known as “the good dog”) always sleeps until WE get up. She has a doggy bed on the floor in the bedroom where she waits patiently for signs of our stirring. But despite her good role model behavior, Tucker hasn’t learned from her example.
Sure, sure — I could shut the dogs out of the bedroom. I could put Tucker in a crate overnight. That would be the proper and sensible thing to do. But I can’t resist him. And his antics are all part of what I love about him — he is very entertaining to live with. So who needs extra sleep anyway!
