“The lawnmower is the Enemy!”

You know most dogs don’t care about a lot of things, give them some food, give them a bed, bathe them every now and then and they are okay. But for some reason, my dogs hate anything that cuts, edges or manicure the lawn in any shape or form. I am talking about the blower, the edger, the lawn mower and whatever electric or gas operated contraption that works on the lawn – they hate it!

The mere sound of anything being used on either side of the fence just gets them barking like mad dogs, literally. And since our neighbors don’t use the same lawn service, we hear it on different days at different times, yikes.  But my dogs don’t just bark, they chase the machine up and down the fence as if they can beat it or bite it, crazy.

The sound of the lawn mower or blower gets about the same reaction as the word “squirrel,” they go nuts. When my husband is running the lawn mower in the yard, the little one attempts to bite it as if she can win, it’s hilarious. The Big One just runs around the yard, football in mouth, running up to the lawnmower and shake her head fiercely at it, don’t know what she is trying to do.

They even start barking when they are in the house and see the lawn crew for the neighbors drive up. And of course, that means a run to the back door, barking and demanding to go out so that they can chase the edger up and down the fence.

Dogs are so funny! After the barking and the sound of running lawn equipment, back to normal, laying under the patio or at the door begging to get in. Life as normal since the evil lawn machines are gone! Go figure!

“Boney-Bones”

3/15/11

Early on, we started training the Big Dog basic commands, ‘sit’ ‘stay’ simple commands. We actually went to training school at PetSmart and got about 3 weeks of training. She seemed to benefit from it, at least we did because we were taught how to train her and what to use. We started using the regular dog bone treats. They worked great.

Then came Little Bit. She was harder to train, I think she has doggie ADHD, she can’t sit still without whining and moving as she sits. But none the less, we used the dog bones as treats. Little Bit will eat anything! My husband has actually fed them both Chips & Salsa, I guess he figures that since they are 1/2 Hispanic, they can deal with it. Since then, we know Little Bit can bite into possums and still be okay, however the Big One suffers every now and then from stomach problems.

Since we trained with bones, EVERY NIGHT, the dogs harass us, standing in our space, sitting still watching us, sort of like stalking us until we give them their “Boney Bones.”  This is so serious that when anyone keeps them for us, we have to tell them the ritual. “Every night they get one bone each”  But they don’t just get their bones, they have a ritual.

Dogs have Rituals too!

This is how it goes:

Bones in their mouth. March off to the ‘bone eating room’ my office space (if the door is closed, they get confused, but quickly move into the living room.) Crunch, crunch, crunch. Then to the couch, after all eating dog treats is very tiring. Sometimes, the Big One teases Little Bit. She puts the bone in her paws, holds it to her mouth, but only licks it. She waits until Little Bit chomps hers down, then she proceeds to take little bites, and licks and little bites. All the while Little Bit stares at every last morsel that is being eaten or dropped from the Big One’s mouth. After the Big One is done teasing and eating her bone, she leaves the room and Little Bit licks the rug where any tiny morsel can be found. Watching the Big One tease Little Bit is like watching a kid tease their friends while eating an ice cream cone, everyone’s watching with envy!

DOGS RULE

“Squirrel”

That is one of the most heard words around the back door. My dogs can hear my husband or I say that word from anywhere in this house when we are standing at the back door. Once it is said, we hear their toe nails on the hardwood or tiled floor. It’s as though the word is a magnetic draw for them to immediately go to the back door and wait for us to open it.

But they don’t wait patiently! Instead, the little one whines lots, while the big one hops on her hind legs up and down until that door handle is turned. As a tease, my husband turns the handle, but doesn’t open it, they are so ready to bolt out that door and get that squirrel.

Why are you barking? Oh yeah, we taught you to do that.

A while back, for some stupid reason, we had the little dog bark before we let her out. Why did we do that? Now she wants to go chase something, she starts barking, sometimes at 2:00 AM. So if she isn’t whining she barking.

Open that door, I have a squirrel to chase!

Once that door is open, it is a bolt out to the yard. They are so intense in running out the back door that I notice that our recently replaced deck now has their toe nail marks right where they take off at the back door. Out the back door, our big dog immediately looks for her football. For some reason she can’t chase anything in the back yard unless she has her football. Because of this, we have to replace her football no less than every 3 months. After 3 months, the ball is so disgustingly ugly from her mouth and the yard and it doesn’t squeak because she had bit into it so many times. Of course upon replacement the she runs around the yard squeaking it repeatedly. One time we bought a new one and started squeaking it from the front yard, then through it over the roof to the back yard, immediately she was running up and down with that ball, squeaking away!

But, back to the squirrel. Once the ball is in mouth, then the tree is the next stop. She smells it for squirrels on all sides, then runs to the other side, where there used to be a tree, before Hurricane Ike killed it, so I guess she chases the ghost of squirrels past.

Where are they?

If the squirrels are not in the trees, then they must be on the fence that runs along the back of the yard. So they run up and down the fence sniffing for squirrel scent. Our back yard is against two other yards where squirrels run off to freely out of our dogs mighty teeth.

But oh how they wait!

They sit in the yard and watch those squirrels jump from tree to tree and yard to yard, all the while the big one has her football in her mouth and the little one is all ‘furred’ up, the hair on the back of her body is raised as if this will help her get that squirrel!

Let us in!

Back to the Bat Cave!

After a while, they give up and come back to the door. The back door is a tall glass door that allows our dogs to view the back yard, at least the back fence and there is where they sit when they want to ‘squirrel hunt.’ There used to be a small dog door in the back door, and my Big Dog would put her long nose and head through it and look out during the hunt.