Those cats dogs were fast as lightning …
Today I want to talk a little bit about things we are afraid of.
Like dead people?!?!
For example, I am afraid Dexter is going to shatter into a zillion pieces.
*After* he breaks Spring;s neck in half.
But mostly I wanted to talk about Wootie’s fear …. which is that someone will Find And Steal His Rawhide Bone.
If you try to take it, I will kill you. Dead.
Wootie and I play a game that Wootie *really* likes – I give him a stick or something and then I pretend to try to catch him and his stick while theatrically “sneaking” up on him, wiggling my fingers in front of me and sing-songing “I’m gonna get the Wootie Stick! I’m gonna get it!” (This is yet another reason why I moved to the stix. If nobody sees you engage in this kind of behaviour, nobody can call you crazy).
Mr. Woo thinks this game is *fantastic*. And I can do it whilst playing ball with the other dogs, so Woo gets some exercise too. I follow him around the field threatening to get his stick and he play-bows at me, and dives, ducks and weaves around (until he finds something better to do). I believe this is called “turning a ‘bad’ behaviour into a reward.”
We most often play it with a “Wootie Stick” but if I am feeling particularly wicked, I will bust out the “Wootie Bone” which is a rawhide from under the sink. Wootie is not all that enamored with rawhides, preferring his raw meaty pork bones, but he does recognize them as something of value. Therefore, he does not want to eat the the Wootie Bone, but he doesn’t want anyone else to have it either. So he paces around with it in his jaws making little whimpering whiny sounds and waving his Flamboyance™ in the air to let the other dogs know that he will kick the ass of anyone who tries to take it from him.
It’s mine and I don’t know what the eff to do about it!
Eventually, Woo decides the best thing to do is go and bury or hide it somewhere, so he can stop thinking about.
Nobody will ever find it here; I don’t even know what a telephoto lens is anyway.
Usually I keep on eye on where he’s hidden it, so I can make the game last longer by running toward his treasure cache and screaming that I am, indeed, going to get the Wootie Bone. But yesterday I discovered that I don’t even need to watch him hide it on order to find it. Such is our dogs’ great faith in our omniscience, Wootie believes I know where the Wootie Bone has been hidden even when I have no idea where he stashed it. All I have to do is threaten to get the Wootie Bone and he takes off at a dead run for his hiding place so he can get there before I do. He leads me to it every time. And then is ASTOUNDED that I can figure out all his favourite secret places.
This makes me feel powerful, so sometimes to further convince him of my greatness, I will tell another dog to “go find it.” They have no idea what they are supposed to be finding, but Wootie believes – *every time* – that I have sent my minions out to claim what is rightfully his, and then he leads them to it, barking and whining all the while.
OMG OMG OMG! He’s going to find the Wootie Bone and bring it to the Food Lady!
I believe this is called “f*cking with his head.” It’s no wonder, really, that the WooTWoo are so bad – if they were my kids, they’d probably be in therapy.
Another new thing for Wootie to be afraid of is my stellar aim. Today I flung the Flying Donut and managed to ring it around his neck in one go. Basically I turned him into a living Ring Toss game. It was a totally lucky once-in-a-lifetime shot, but Woo doesn’t want to play Flying Donut with me anymore.
HOW? How do you do these things?!?!
Here. Try that shizzat with me, beeyotch.
Poor Piper. The only thing she fears is nail clipping, and rightly so! The other day I was doing the rounds of the paws and I quicked her so bad that her toenail bled – I mean it PULSED blood – for over an hour and left pools of blood all around the house. She eventually had to go to bed with a giant padding of gauze and vet wrap twined around her foot. I felt really bad. But Piper’s feet are doing something I don’t understand – her outside toes are turning OUTWARD on all four feet, so her nails on those toes are laying almost horizontal to the floor, which is how I quicked her because I guessed the angle wrong. I want to say she is becoming, like, flat footed? It’s weird – anyone have any ideas?
TWooie’s biggest fear is that I will give him a bath with the hose. After all, he watched me do exactly that to the other 5 dogs this afternoon (well except for Tweed, who only got his undercarriage washed, because DAMMIT HE IS 12 YEARS OLD AND WILL NOT STAND FOR THESE INDIGNITIES!) from the safety of waaaaaay up the driveway. After each dog was bathed and toweled tried, they were ushered into the house until there was nobody left outside but me and TWoo.
I stood at one end of the driveway and he at the other and we stared one another down like a couple of gunslingers. A tumbleweed may or may not have rolled on by.
Nothing could convince him to come to me when called, not even when I asked him if he wanted to “get the bunny.” I got perky ears but not a single paw moved.
In the end, I moved partway down the drive and sat down in the gravel and asked him sweetly to please come to me for a cookie if I promised not to give him a bath. And he did.
Okay, I will come because I love you.
So TWooie and I spent about 20 minutes in the sun, sitting on the ground with him curled up in my lap on his back with his head resting on my chest, and we just loved each other quietly for a while. He wasn’t really all that muddy anyway :)
Stop being all sensitive and sh*t and come help me find a place to hide this that you’ll never find!
SweetPea says
OMG… I needed a laugh today. Thanks!!
Shasta says
Aw…my heart just squished at the thought of you and Wild Twooie cuddling in the drive.
You are totally effing with Wootie’s head, and I LOVE it!!
Can you post a picture of Piper’s feeties? I’d like to see what you’re talking about with the flat-feeted-ness.
Great post today, FL!
Samantha says
Awesome post today! I was laughing so hard my dogs had to come and make sure I wasn’t actually crying. Bravo to Twooie for getting out of a bath, he’s got your number. ; )
Laura says
I’m sure you already know this trick and I don’t know if Piper would stand for it, but I use a little flashlight behind the nail to see where the quick is exactly when I’m trimming. It’s harder on dark nails (my dog has some light, some dark, some half and half, it’s nuts) but if the light is bright enough you can j-u-u-u-u-st make it out.
Alice says
Great shots of some very satisfied hounds, FL. And Wootie and the bone burying? My boyfriend came to check on me because I snickered and snorted and he wondered what the doG was going on up here.
As for the nails, I did notice that in my old b.c.-cross when he got older. I don’t know if it was just the way he started holding his paws to make it easier on his joints or what, but the situation was much the same. It also made it difficult to cut his nails.
I know there’s a coagulant powder a vet friend uses when she trims nails under anaesthetic–just dab it on and it stops the bleed–but she’s Australian, so I don’t know that such things are used here in Canada. If they are, I’m sure you’ve got a vet connection who could hook a sister up. I’ll often trim just an edge off on Jake’s darker nails to see if I can get a better idea of where the quick is, but I’m sure with so many hounds and sets of nails to trim, you’d rather just get done as quickly as possible. With Piper’s, I’d suggest trying to clip the nail so that you’re perpendicular to it (ie, follow the bend) so that it’s a more natural position, even though it’s an unnatural growth orientation. If that makes sense, I applaud your reading skills. Good luck!
teri says
When my dog, probably a beagle mix, got old the outside nails on his front feet got weird. They kinda went out sideways. Hard to describe, and I don’t have photos, but the vet wasn’t concerned.
Alison says
Monty and I have a similar stick game, the “I’m gonna getcha” game. It’s an eternal favourite. He won’t try to stash sticks with that game, but if we’re out for a walk he’ll find a “perfect stick” (the parameters of the perfect stick are changeable) and carry it carefully for ages. This perfect stick is the one he will try to stash at various points of the walk, always checking carefully to see if I’ve noticed. If he catches me watching he’ll pick it up and try again later. We can go past these stash spots a couple of weeks later, and he’ll go bounding into the bushes and come proudly out with the stick!
Jolene says
feet on older dogs actually do start to become flat, the tendons age & the pasterns weaken which makes the feet do weird things, the toes on my 10 yr old collies right foot are pointing sideways now :)
Jenn says
Love your dogs.
Candace Battles says
My JRT’s one nail on her front leg does the same thing…I thought it might be the downside to agility…they are no longer using their paws like they used to so the muscles and tendons grow lax?
I also notice my 10 yr old BC’s feet starting to flatten out as well…and why I came to this conclusion…
I use a dremmel on the dogs as I am the world’s worst nail trimmer…they don’t like it any more than the nail clipper but it does solve the quicking dilemma. Just got a watch those bushy tails when doing the back nails… :-)
Jess says
My fav way to do nails (at least the front) is you use a “scratchy board”. It’s just a board with some thick gritty paper attached. You shape the dog to paw at it (which takes seconds with a clicker trained dog). My dog loves to do it and will if I’m not careful he will quick himself and not care at all.
5 dog nights...and days! says
I am SO in love with the Tweed man……so much like my old boy Jester. And the WooTwoo…….I would take them in less than a heartbeat (if you would ever let them go). You have the most awesome pups! Thank you FL for sharing your family!
Janet, Jester, Shy, Spur, Cutter and Copper!
Donna S. says
Thanks Sheena. I really needed a smile right now and as always, you didn’t let me down. I just had to put my old Max (aka Bert) to sleep and I needed something to help cheer me up a little. Between Wootube (well, and the rye & ginger I am currently consuming), it actually helps with the heartache a little.
Thanks.
Janice in GA says
I laughed so hard I cried, especially at Wooties “OMGFACE”.
And I play the same game with my Jasper. Big scary claw hands and chasing him around threatening to get him. There is nothing weird about that. Right? RIGHT??
maria shanley says
jefferspet.com sells Kwik-stop powder or gel for getting nails to stop bleeding; I keep it handy when trimming nails.
Susan says
My German Shepard/Collie mix used to “hide” his rawhide treat in the house. He’d take it to a corner and use his nose to “cover” the treat with make-believe leaves or dirt; moving around and around the treat for several minutes. Once it was “buried”, he’d walk across the room, lay down, and try not to look at it. Every now and then he’d glance over to make sure it was still there. Then he would quickly look away. My husband and I would also pretend it wasn’t there. Weird or what?
Robin says
It feels so good to snicker and snort over your photos and stories.
Monique says
With regard to the flat feet – usually this is age-related ligament breakdown. We see it a lot in labradors and other heavier bodied breeds.
jen says
Stiptik powder :) Drug stores carry it
Mel says
I play the ‘Gonna Git You!’ game with my German Shepherd boy, Thor. Originally it involved his favorite soccer ball but now it’s his Orbee whistle ball. He does have a semi-reliable retrieve but he definitely prefers to just keep it for himself most of the time. We discovered this weekend that we can play an easier-on-the-humans version by just moving to opposite sides of the back deck and fake-lunging at him. He play bows and then takes off running to the other side. Rinse and repeat. He gets a ton of sprinting in, the humans barely have to jog. Good thing the fences are tall and opaque though because we look crazy doing it.
Jamie says
Watched a great video by Pam Denison last night on shaping. One of the tricks she taught was “wipe your paws” on a towel, then changed the trick slightly to “scratch” on a 12X12 piece of wood with sand paper glued to it. That’s one way to teach a dog to do their own nails !!!
Alaska says
We love our Dremel.