Doggy ambivalence ...

TomB · Post by **TomB** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:14 am

Phil Hardy wrote:Tom,just look in the MOVIES section under PICK OF THE WEEK and click on "Dogday Afternnon"
IT'S THERE.The link works for me .
P

Got it, thanks.

Looks like a lovely spot.

Tom

Montana · Post by **Montana** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:14 am

Darwin wrote:After eight years, I still miss her.

I know what you mean.

Some personalities really stand out regardless of their packaging...

Phil Hardy · Post by **Phil Hardy** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:21 am

Dogit is an Irish Bull Terrier and she is 4 years old.We are now looking to breed her next season.I would like to keep one of her offspring for the rest of my days as she is the perfect companion and to have her daughter and her daughters daughter would be great.
The walk is just one of many in this area for off road cycling,it's the GRAND UNION CANAL built in the mid 1900s and has been restored lovingly for all our pleasure.All the boats/barges are occupied year round and it's very tempting to join them.A nice barge would cost around £35,000 and the river rent is about £250 per year,this is very cheap living and the people who live there are great people.In the summer one can spend hours blethering with them.I my opinion it's one of the best ways to spend a holiday in the UK.Rentals are cheap and your have all the UK waterways to play on from London to Bristol and london to Manchester and beyond.The countyside is beautiful and there are old English pubs every few miles.
Enough.enough........time for a beer.
Cheers.

brianc · Post by **brianc** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 12:13 pm

Here's a picture of a dog that you'd wish wouldn't come when called...

amar · Post by **amar** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 12:13 pm

We had a dog, an australian sheepdog, I grew up with him, we had to put him to sleep when he was 17.5years old, I was four years older than he. What a good friend he was. He loved chocolate, there was no way to open a bar of chocolate without him hearing the sound of the aluminum foil tearing...

I still miss Rex sometimes.

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:19 pm

amar wrote:We had a dog, an australian sheepdog, I grew up with him, we had to put him to sleep when he was 17.5years old, I was four years older than he. What a good friend he was. He loved chocolate, there was no way to open a bar of chocolate without him hearing the sound of the aluminum foil tearing...
I still miss Rex sometimes.

No offense here, but I am surprised to read that your dog made it to 17.5 years. Chocolate can be deadly to dogs, a good cause of renal failure.

amar · Post by **amar** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:29 pm

Joseph E. Smith wrote:
amar wrote:We had a dog, an australian sheepdog, I grew up with him, we had to put him to sleep when he was 17.5years old, I was four years older than he. What a good friend he was. He loved chocolate, there was no way to open a bar of chocolate without him hearing the sound of the aluminum foil tearing...
I still miss Rex sometimes.
No offense here, but I am surprised to read that your dog made it to 17.5 years. Chocolate can be deadly to dogs, a good cause of renal failure.

I guess that makes him very special.

Mitch · Post by **Mitch** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:44 pm

Phil Hardy wrote:Tom,just look in the MOVIES section under PICK OF THE WEEK and click on "Dogday Afternnon"
IT'S THERE.The link works for me .
P

Hey phil, thanks for the clip - my 4 year old thinks Dogit is way cool

Charlene · Post by **Charlene** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 12:31 am

This is my dog Petey and my daughter Jenny on vacation in the Grand Tetons a couple of years ago. Petey is part German Shepherd, and according to the people we got him from also part Chow and part Husky.

The neighbor calls him Bear.

Petey knows which ball is his birthday ball (and he was very pleased with himself when he realized he can make it squeak all by himself!) and which ball is "old ball". Ask him to bring one and he will bring the right one.

His favorite way of getting someone's attention is to pick up a slipper or sock and stand a ways off, looking at someone, until we notice that he has something in his mouth and a guilty look on his face. Then the game is we chase Petey around the house, until he gives up and deliberately goes into a room where he can be cornered, then we can take the object away from him.

Our house used to have an oil heater in the crawl space and a grate in the floor for the heat to come through. The heater is gone but the grate is still there. Petey doesn't like stepping on that grate. We keep a rug over it. At Christmas we moved that rug into the living room and put a different rug over the grate. Petey would not step on the old rug and got very worried when one of us would step on it. If his ball went on the rug he would paw at it but not pick it up. We think he thought the rug was covering a hole and he would fall in if he stepped on it. It was really funny. The cat figured out very quickly that she was safe if she was on that rug!

Mitch · Post by **Mitch** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 2:56 am

Charlene wrote:Petey would not step on the old rug and got very worried when one of us would step on it. If his ball went on the rug he would paw at it but not pick it up. We think he thought the rug was covering a hole and he would fall in if he stepped on it. It was really funny. The cat figured out very quickly that she was safe if she was on that rug!

Hi Charlene, cross-breeds are the best dogs - they have that hybrid vigor, they are often very intelligent (unless they have afghan in them). Cats on the other hand are waaayy cunning.

I had this cat once

We never got-round to giving that cat a name, so she was just Puss or Cat or hey-you. She was a tri-colour kitten factory - always had an air of judgement, but backed-up the snootiness by being astonishingly cunning. One day she jumped-up on the table after dinner (a thing she would not normally dare to do), we watched, kind of imobilised by surprise as she deliberately and delicately chose a bread-crust from one plate, grabbed it in her mouth and strutted off out the door with it. We just assumed that she felt a need for bread in her diet. This behaviour went on for a few days, until curiosity got me and I quietly followed her to see what she was up-to. This is what I discovered:

She took the crust into a little-used room in the house and carefully slid it under an old oil-heater with her paw then stepped back a few paces, and settled down waiting and watching. After about 10 minutes she pounced and scooped a mouse out from under the heater. I thought "clever puss - keeping the vermin down for us". I was wrong. She didn't kill or eat the mouse but just played with it - batting it around the floor, pouncing on it, tossing it, letting it think it could escape - then bam! After about half an hour of this, the poor mouse was completely exhausted and could hardly waddle, let alone scurry. At this point, she delicately picked it up in her mouth, set it down by the heater and carefully nudged it back under - a day to recover for tomorrow's bout. So much for keeping the vermin down!

After that we never let her have bread again.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 8:59 am

An aunt used to breed pulis, a Hungarian sheepdog. They would never fetch, but as described above, loved to chase and be chased. The stud, Gaspar, would get me to chase him with his ball around and round a large stand of lilas in the yard, and then slink off and hide to watch me continue to run round the lilacs. I soon came to realize I was dealing with a superior intellegence.

djm

spittin_in_the_wind · Post by **spittin_in_the_wind** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 5:01 pm

Mitch, that's an amazing story! That's an incredibly smart cat (and an incredibly stupid mouse)!

Doggy ambivalence. My wonderful old dog used to eagerly anticipate going outside for her walk except on snowy, rainy or windy days when we would open the door for her...only to see three feet of blowing snow or a torrential downpour. Then we had to push her out the door! She would sit by the door until she realized she wouldn't be let in until she did her business, at which point she would run out, finish up, and run back. She'd come back in with this wind-swept look like, "That was awful!" I guess she would get the last laugh if we still used outhouses!

She was an awesome dog. Not particularly obedient, but really smart about people.

Robin

Mitch · Post by **Mitch** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 9:38 pm

spittin_in_the_wind wrote:She was an awesome dog. Not particularly obedient, but really smart about people.

Robin

Wow Robin, Massechusetts sounds c c c c cold - I don't blame your dog for hesitating!

Talking of cold - I once tried to train my dog (Spot mark #2 the wonder dog) to close doors - he could open them OK but it let the cold in, and I'd be getting up and down continually closing doors - trying to keep the house warm. So I got on all fours to demonstrat to him what I wanted - nudging the door closed with my head. He just barked at me and never learned the trick. I thought it odd that a smart dog like that couldn't learn such a simple thing, but in hind sight, I now know what the barking meant: (roughly trananslated from bark-speak) "stupid human! Stupid human! Why the hell would I want to close a door? Woof! I'd only have to open the damn thing again on my way out! Stupid human!!"

The best thing about a smart dog is it can become a closer companion. My best friends have all been smart animals - even some of the human ones

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 9:46 pm

My beloved Cedar (who left us this past July, at the noble age of 18 ) LOVED to play fetch. He would pass the ball to you on the fly...running past you, he'd leap up into the air and drop the ball into your outstreched hand...then keep running like mad to intercept it as you threw it in the opposite direction. He was a miniature poodle, and poodles are born retrievers, but they have a real sense of humor, and always have to do things their own way.

God, I miss him.

Redwolf

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 7:41 am

One thing I've noticed dogs like is trick throwing while playing fetch. Trick throwing is a technique I taught myself for paractising catching at cricket. Close catching requires quick reflexes and an ability to pick up a ball coming quickly towards one without any reliable visual cues from the trajectory of the bat. To practice this sort of reflex catching, we stand around in a circle and while aiming a throw in one direction, flick the ball to someone else with the fingers. Done skillfully you have no idea when the ball is coming to you. Of course, sometimes you actually have to throw where you are looking just so everybody stays alert.

Dogs seem to love this game even though they seem to be utterly mystified by how the ball ends up where they weren't expecting it. A lot of them seem to sense the correct trajectory very quickly after the ball leaves the hand even though they always move first in the direction indicated by the arm movement.

Chiff and Fipple Forums

Doggy ambivalence ...

Re: Dogday Afternoon 06

Irish Bull terrier.

Re: Dogday Afternoon 06