TheBanyanTree: [External] Re: a real life adventure involving dogs

[LaLinda]

I like cats...but I had a secret conversation with Christine the other day
in which I told her if she ever wanted to bring home one of those small
Siberians...

She's a cat person, too. I mentioned this also to Stephen a could of months
ago and he looked at Mia and said,

"I already have a dog."

She is very dog- like, right up to the pain in the tuckus part. At least
she goes in the box.

The reason I don't get a dog for mrself is I am so tippy and easily knocked
off balance and over, or I'd have one of those little Siberians. I loved
the one I had and they melt my heart.

On Tue, Aug 13, 2019, 4:28 PM Teague, Julie Anna <jateague at indiana.edu>
wrote:

> Hahahahaaa.  I get your subtext.  I, too, was a cat-only person for 57
> years of my life.  I love cats.  I understand cats, as much as anyone CAN
> understand cats.  But life is funny that way.  Sometimes I make decisions
> that make no sense to my head, but total sense to my heart.   After my
> beloved Skittles passed away, and even though I've had a lifetime of sweet
> cats, I felt like no other cat could ever replace her.  She was the cat of
> all cats.  I cried for weeks after she passed.  And even though I missed
> having a fur baby, I couldn't look at other cats, not even many months
> later.  It hurt my heart. Then my mom started looking for a small dog, and
> I started helping her look.  Not for me, you understand, because I'm a cat
> person. I knew a dog would complicate my life.  I knew I didn't have any
> experience with house breaking or training a dog.  I knew they barked and
> slobbered and needed a hundred times more attention than the average cat.
> And then I met Tansy and my heart sproinge
>  d and I brought her home.  She is all of the above--an ill-trained (my
> fault), attention-seeking (again, probably my fault), pain in the tuckus
> (I'm not taking all the blame here), but the universe knew I needed this
> dog in my life.  I love her beyond reason.  I work from home more, just so
> I can be home with my dog.  I have given up any possibility of having a
> lunch hour, except when the husband pitches in ever so occasionally.  I've
> passed on dinner invitations because I'd been away from my dog all day and
> knew she missed me. I have less time and  less money, but I have so much
> more love.  I  still don't know if I'm gung-ho a dog person, although I
> have much more understanding of dogs and why people love them.  I'd say I
> like all other dogs more, now, than I ever did.  But I flat out love my
> dog.  Love her. Can't imagine my life without her.
>
> And poor Perkins, he is a pretty good little dog most of the time.  He had
> a really bad day on Sunday, for sure.  He's had other really bad days.  He
> was six months old when my mom got him from his foster home where he'd been
> kenneled for way too much of the time, because she had too many foster
> animals and Perkins had special needs.  We don't know what happened to him
> when he was younger, but it couldn't have been good.  He is so fearful of
> so many things, especially men (how could I not understand THAT), small
> children, joggers, cyclists, and coming through doors.  But he's ever so
> slowly coming around.  He loves my mom, he loves me as a second mom, and he
> loves Tansy most of all.  As obnoxious as he can be, I feel for him and try
> to be kind and calm with him to help him through his fears a bit more each
> time he's here.  I even talked to my mom about yelling at him.  She tends
> to get shrill sometimes, and I reminded her that I'd read that dogs aren't
> not obeying because they don't
>  HEAR you.  They hear you loud and clear.  And it turns out that Perkins
> comes better now that I've convinced her to keep a calm, quiet voice with
> him.
>
> Anyway, that's how this cat person ended up with a dog.  Don't know yet if
> I'd ever have another one, but I am one hundred percent nuts about THIS
> dog.
>
> Julie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: TheBanyanTree <thebanyantree-bounces at lists.remsset.com> On Behalf
> Of tobie at shpilchas.net
> Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2019 12:46 PM
> To: A comfortable place to meet other people and exchange your own
> *original* writings. <thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com>
> Cc: thebanyantree at remsset.com
> Subject: [External] Re: TheBanyanTree: a real life adventure involving dogs
>
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> -------
>
> I like cats
>
> > On Aug 13, 2019, at 6:49 AM, Teague, Julie Anna <jateague at indiana.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> > A good friend of mine who blogs daily issued a blog challenge for August
> to write on "Action and Adventure".  Rather bad timing for me in that the
> first half of my year, and especially July, was chock-a-block full of
> travel and adventures, and in August I really wanted to stay home, piddle
> around the house, work in the garden, go to the farmer's market.  I craved
> a little domesticity.  So spending time with the dogs is pretty much all
> I've done so far in August, outside of the daily job, which is cranking up
> in preparation for the 48K university students about to descend upon us.
> Fortunately, there is never a dull moment with mygoofy canines.  I have one
> single, tiny, four and a half pound Yorkie named Tansy, but I often keep
> Perkins, my mom's rescued, half-priced, slightly emotionally damaged Parti
> Yorkie. My mom can't resist a half price sale. (A Parti Yorkie is basically
> a white Yorkie with strange fluffy, knotty hair.) I brought Perkins home
> with me last weekend. My f!
>  olk
> > s would
> > come on Sunday, spend the night, and take Perkins home with them Monday
> morning.  Most of the week was fine (no, really, it was FINE) except for
> Tansy's nearly-choking-to-death incident with the leashes. (I'm realizing
> I'm several story sharings behind in this venue.) So, the choking incident
> and then Perkins was almost attacked by a mother deer because he kept
> approaching and barking and she was protecting her baby.  Mother deer was
> moving aggressively towards him, ready to kick some ass as I yanked him in
> the other direction.  Even though I live in town in Bloomington, a few
> blocks from the city center, we have many, many deer in the neighborhood,
> most of them having produced fawns this Spring. We'd all lived through
> those adventures, but then there was Sunday.
> >
> > Sunday morning at 6:15 to be exact.  There I was lying in bed with the
> two dogs, trying desperately for a few more minutes of sleep.  Husband was
> in Florida where he loves to go but I do not.  I'm sure he was experiencing
> some really good sleep, though, which made me a little jealous. Perkins
> looked out the bedroom window at that wee hour and saw a large rabbit in
> the back yard.  He leapt off the bed and ran to the door.  I let him out,
> because he probably had to pee anyway, and he was never going to catch the
> rabbit.  I'd recently blocked a rabbit hole under the fence with a rock to
> keep rabbits out (not effective), so the rabbit ran to that spot to escape,
> hit the rock instead, bounced off, and ran across the yard the other way,
> with Perkins in hot pursuit.
> >
> > Well, something snapped in Perkins' acorn-sized Yorkie brain.  He'd seen
> rabbits before when we were out on the leash, but he'd never gotten very
> close.  It's as if he finally got the scent, and he went insane.  He hunted
> and barked and howled and ran under all the plants in my gardens for 45
> minutes, getting mud-covered in the process.  I finally got hold of him to
> try to calm him down, and I gave him a sink bath to clean him up.  But he
> was still insane, scratching at the doors and windows, whining and barking
> to be let back out. An hour of that passed and I was about to pull my hair
> out, so I let him out again.  The rabbit was long gone, but  he repeated
> the insanity for maybe another half an hour, until I once again chased him
> down and repeated the sink bath.  I felt sorry for the neighbors with all
> the barking, and Perkins has a particularly shrill bark. It goes directly
> to the center of the inner ear like a sharp knife.   This time I took both
> dogs out for a walk aft!
>  er
> > his bath
> > , thinking he'd get his mind off of the rabbit.  There usually aren't
> rabbits in the park, so we walked there.  It is normal for Perkins to pee
> 45 times on every walk.  Not this time.  Not once.  He just ran around the
> park like a dog possessed, sniffing for rabbits.  I was agog at his powers
> of concentration, since I'd never seen an inkling of concentrated effort in
> him before.
> >
> > I took him home, listened to more shrill barking, piteous whining, and
> incessant scratching at the doors and windows.  I tried distracting him
> with treats.  I gave him a time out in the front bedroom where it's quiet
> and darkish.  I tried holding him.  He was not to be soothed.  He couldn't
> let it go.  After the third hunt around the yard-yes, I let him out again
> because I knew he had to pee and poop at some point-and the third sink
> bath, and the third round of barking and howling at the door, I finally
> locked him in the front bedroom again for a bit.  He hadn't even stopped
> for food or water this whole time.  I'm telling you, the dog was off the
> deep end.  Finally, finally, SIX HOURS after this all began, I got him calm
> enough to lie on the bed with Tansy and me. Tansy hadn't been able to get
> her morning nap because of all of this, and she was so tired she could
> hardly keep her eyes open.  She'd been growling at Perkins from her perch
> on the sofa while Perkins ran around !
>  los
> > ing his
> > shit for six hours.  But, we got on the bed, Tansy collapsed and closed
> her little eyes, and Perkins propped his chin on my leg so that he could
> still see out the window (even though I'd closed the blinds). As his eyes
> drooped he let out one last shrill bark, and Tansy's eyes popped back open
> and locked with mine.  We were completely sympatico.  We were both over
> this barking maniac.   At last Perkins could fight it no longer and fell
> asleep for five or ten minutes. This seemed to reboot his pea brain and he
> was very normal after that.  When I say reboot, it was literally as if I'd
> unplugged him and plugged him back in. Sheesh.  By the time Perkins' people
> came for him, I was pretty much a basket case.
> >
> > And this, in a nutshell, was Sunday.
> >
> >
> > Julie Anna Teague
> >
> >
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> "Out of sight; out of mind."   old proverb
>
> "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."  Old proverb
>
> "Nothing to see here, folks! Keep moving!"   Anonymous to Anonymouses
>
>
> Tobie Shapiro
> mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>
>
>
>
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