Beds

Our dog (Sam), has the same routine for bed each night. She heads into the bedroom, stretches at the edge of my side, jumps up and walks to the foot of my husband's side, does a circle and then lays down. She will lie there until just before 9 p.m. then stand up, do a full body shake, jump down off the bed by my husband's side, and curl up on her own bed located between the bed and the window. She will stay on her bed, except to get up on occasion to get a drink of water, until morning. Unless someone else gets up, then she will pop up her head and assess the situation before going back to sleep or following the person out of the room.

Once morning comes, Sam gets up, stretches, then jumps back onto my husband's side of the bed and curls up on his feet until everyone gets up. My husband usually leaves the window shade partly open, so she has a perfect view of the backyard.

Last night I went to bed early and saw that Sam had already left our bed. My husband had left his bedside light on so after I got into bed, I reached over to turn off his light. I then looked down and was shocked to see that Sam was not only lying on her bed, which had several extra layers that my husband must have added to it, but she also had her head on a pillow. I smiled thinking of my husband telling me years ago that he would never allow Sam on any of the furniture. Now she both shared his side of the bed, and had reached a point where he had now made her a human bed of her own.

Tracking

My dog loves to track things. She seems to think that she is a hunter as she will find a scent, crouch down low, and slowly follow her nose. I on the other hand are not convinced that her tracking skills are so great. She will do this crouch and follow action after picking up the scent of a cat, and not be able to find the cat that is sitting ten feet away from us. She sniffs around- carefully inspecting each blade of grass, flower, piece of dirt; but still cannot find the cat that she would have found just by taking one glance up.

The funniest is when our dog tracks in the snow. She gets as low as she can, and sniffs everywhere relentlessly, and then follows a trail. But the trail is not from a scent she has found, it is from prints that have already been made in the snow. That's our dog- the great hunter.

Bedtime

A few months ago we started to notice that our dog disappeared from the living room about the same time each night. We would call her but she wouldn't come. We would then look around and find her curled up on a small blanket on our bed. We then realized she had given herself a bedtime.

Ever since she was 'discovered' to go to bed early, our dog has often stayed out in the living room with us at night. She will often let out a sigh and put her head down, lying and watching us. One of us will then say 'go to bed' and in a flash she's up and running to the bedroom. We've tested this at other times of the day and sure enough she now responds to 'go to bed' as literally doing just that, whenever the words are spoken. It's a fun trick to show guests, and our dog never seems to mind being told to go lie down on the big bed for a while, no matter what time of day it is.

Snowballs

My dog is very furry. She has long hair, and a lot of it. She also loves the snow. This usually results in her being covered in snowballs that often take a painfully long time to melt, or pick out, after a walk or stroll outside. Even just letting her out to circle the backyard results in a significant amount of time trying to dry her off before she comes in.

Today I decided to lock her in the front room with a cookie and let the snowballs just melt on their own. I would then go in to dry her off once the snowballs were all gone; figuring that this would be significantly less work for me. The drawback is the sad and dejected look my dog has when I look through the glass door at her lying on the other side. She looks worried that she's done something wrong and I have to walk away to feel less guilty.

About 20 minutes after we arrived home and I locked my dog in the front room, I decided to look to see what the snowball status was. I was then surprised to see my dog curled up into a tiny ball on top of a chair. Under her, and on top of the chair, lay the inside of my winter jacket. My dog was so cozy that she did not even make a move when I opened the door and told her to come inside. I could see that the snowballs were gone, and my jacket was now soaking wet.

Teeth Cleaning

A couple of years ago we took our dog to the vet for her annual wellness check. She was given her shots and started on heart worm. The vet also suggested that we start brushing her teeth as there was quite significant plaque build-up in spots. I knew my dog did not have the most pearly whites anymore, but what dog does? My husband wanted to ignore this advice but I opted to give it a try, in the best interest of our dog. So I bought a dog toothbrush and toothpaste the following week.

My dog was lying down in her favourite spot on the corner of the couch when I first approached her. I held the toothbrush in my right hand and attempted to slowly and gently open up her mouth with my left hand. She let me at first until the toothbrush came within inches and she quickly slammed her mouth shut. I then tried wrapping my left arm around her in a headlock and quickly getting the brush in when she momentarily opened her mouth again. This resulted in her grabbing the toothbrush and spitting in on the floor in one quick motion. I continued to try for a good 10-15 minutes without any success so went back to the pet store and got a small brush that was placed over my finger. My dog allowed me to get my hand in her mouth for a few seconds with this one but I quickly realized how useless the brush was. It was doing absolutely nothing as I tried to brush back and forth over her teeth.

The following year we went back to the vet and he recommended that we start brushing our dog's teeth. This time we both ignored the advice.

Forming Triangles

When my husband and I are sitting in different spots in a room, my dog has the amazing ability to form perfect triangles between us. It is as though she measures the distance prior to turning in a circle and curling up on the floor with a perfect view of each of us. We've turned it into a bit of a game, quietly moving from one area of the room to the other. After a few minutes she will shift in order to re-from the triangle. However, if we do it too many times she just lets out a big 'sigh' and stays in the same place as if to give up. Even if she seems to be fast asleep on the couch when we come in, she will get up within minutes, look at where we both are, and move to the spot that forms the corner of the triangle. It is just about the only time she is willing to lie on the floor.

When My Dog Loses Her Mind

There are moments when I think my dog has lost her mind. Or she's just really excited and has way too much energy...

We don't have a big backyard but it is a decent size for being near the city's downtown. Usually we let our dog out in the back throughout the day so she can sniff around, pee here and there, and just monitor the situation in general. She will finish her loop in about 15 minutes and be ready to come back inside.

On occasion, we'll let our dog out and she will slowly start her usual walk but as soon as we close the door, she takes off at a sprint and starts running circles, as fast as she can, around the yard. She will zip around the shed, jump over the deck in 2 or 3 strides, race around our big tree, go back over the deck, run to the corner of the garden, grab one of her balls along the way, drop it, pick it up again, race back over the deck, and repeat. She'll do this over and over for up to 10 minutes or so, when she finally collapses on the lawn and pants beside her ball. Once recovered, she'll come back inside, acting as though she had just done her normal sniff-around.

Fetch

The dogs we had growing up loved to play fetch. We would go in the backyard and throw the ball, or a nearby stick, for hours and they would run to get it and bring it back to us. One of the dogs was so good she could get 2-3 balls at a time and bring them all back in her mouth at once.

Thinking back to those days, I was looking forward to playing fetch with my dog. I found an old tennis ball in the back of the closet and took her the few blocks to the off-leash dog park. As we approached I saw another dog chasing down a ball their owner had thrown and racing it back to them. We went through the gate and I let my dog off her leash.

As my dog stood staring at me, I lifted my arm back and threw the ball as hard and as far as I could and said "go get it!" I looked down and there my dog sat- just staring at me. I repeated "go get it!" again while pointing towards the ball but she just shifted her neck and continued to sit and stare at me. Wow, was this disappointing. So I walked over to pick up the ball as she happily strolled beside me. I then showed the ball to her mouth and she quickly grabbed it out of my hand and took off. I yelled at her to come back so she turned and came charging towards me; then around me; then back towards the gate; then towards the other dog; then back towards me. I reached out to take the ball and she took off again. I asked her to drop it and she held it for a second towards me, still in her mouth, and when I went to take it she bit down harder and would not let it go. She raced away again and then got bored and dropped it in the far corner of the park. I walked over and picked it up and tried the whole thing again but she just ignored me- wandering slowly around and sniffing the surrounding fence.

I've tried everything to get my dog to play fetch, but she could care less. She's a remarkably fast dog so once in a while she will get pleasure at outrunning another dog as they go for a ball, but that's about as close as we've come. Even then she just steals the ball and won't give it up until she's bored. So I hold onto the fond memories I have of the hours of fetch I played with my childhood dogs; and try to enjoy the other wonderful traits that my dog has.

Bones

My dog, like probably most dogs, loves a good bone. The problem is that we can't actually give her anything in the shape of a bone. If we don't break it in half, or into pieces, or misshape it somehow so it no longer looks like a bone, she won't eat it. She will carry it around to different areas of the house and place it carefully into the corners. If allowed outside with it, it will immediately be buried.

The first time we gave her a hard rawhide bone we were surprised to watch her take it and walk to the far corner of the room and place it gently behind the couch. When we went to pick it up to give it to her again we noticed she was obviously stressed by us having 'found' it and quickly went to hide it in another area of the house. She would then sit away from it, so as not to draw attention to it, but would lay in a spot that she could still see the area where she had put it. Over the next few days we would hear the click-click-click of her nails as she walked slowly around the house in the middle of the night and the clank of the rawhide as it hit the ground in another spot.

Finally I took the rawhide and noticed that there was not a single tooth mark on it. It was as though we had just given it to her. I broke off a piece and handed it to her and she stared at me for a moment before chowing down on it as quickly as she could. So there we were- my breaking off piece by piece until it no longer looked like a bone and then my dog happily devouring the rest.

Chasing Deer

One weekend we went out to visit a friend who lives in the country. His place is surrounded by quite thick woods that he has cut a number of trails through. Our dog hates to be on the leash so we decided to let her off on one of our walks as she never wanders far from us. We had been hiking for about a half hour or so when our dog, who was happily bounding along ahead of us, stopped and peered into the woods. She was very still and just stared straight into the thick brush. We called her to come back to us but she didn't make a move so we started to get worried. Suddenly she was off, quickly disappearing into the wooded area to our right. We ran up to the spot we last saw her and called her name but she was already long gone. We couldn't hear anything, not even a crackle of her stepping on fallen leaves or broken branches.

For the next 2 hours we searched and searched, calling her name in desperation. It was starting to get dark and I feared our dog was lost. We were quite sure she had been chasing a deer so had no idea how far she would have gone before realizing she was on her own. I sat for a while and just tried to listen for any sound of her, or any motion coming from the forest, but couldn't hear anything. My heart sank.

We eventually made our way back to our friend's place, no one making a sound. There was still the odd whistle or holler of her name, but we didn't dare talk to each other about our worst fears. Just after we all got seated on the deck we heard a rustle coming from the wooded area on the other side of us. We looked over just as our dog came flying out of the woods at a thousand miles and hour. She turned towards us and slid across the deck, landing at our feet. She was gasping for breath and her tongue was hanging out. We were both angry and elated and couldn't stop petting and hugging her.

The next day we realized that our dog had a large scratch that nearly caught her left eye. She also had a significant amount of fur missing from a patch off her left hind leg. Only she will know the adventures she went on that one afternoon in the woods...

Giraffe

My dog has a number of indoor, and outdoor, toys that she can play with. Sometimes she gets confused, or feels a little rebellious, and brings a hard outdoor ball in or we find one of her softer plush toys soaking wet on the back lawn. It was always clear to her what she was allowed to play with until the baby came.

Our baby has a popular squeaky toy in the shape of a giraffe. You squeeze it, it squeaks, which delights our dog more than anyone. The only real difference between this toy and a few of her own is that this one is kept off the floor. We also tell her 'no' whenever she has gone near it and remember to keep it out of her reach. She's a good dog though, and understands when she is told 'no' so we weren't overly concerned.

One day I was in a rush to get to an appointment with the baby and accidentally left the giraffe on the coffee table on the way out. I briefly thought of this as we were driving away but I knew our dog had been told enough times not to touch it that she would leave it alone.

When we returned I was shocked to see the giraffe had moved. It was lying on the floor, a few feet away from the coffee table. It didn't have a single bite mark, or any dog slobber on it. It was as though it had been carefully picked up and placed on the floor. I looked over at my dog who had not greeted us as she normally does. She was lying down staring at the wall and refusing to look at me so I knew she was guilty.

Here is a dog who has not touched food, that she loves, when it has been accidentally left within reach. She will stay away from the most tempting of things when told to but yet a child's toy, a squeaky little giraffe, was too irresistible for her to leave alone. I couldn't help but giggle to myself imagining my dog carefully picking up the giraffe and it dropping to the floor. She probably tried to put it back where it was, realizing that there was now evidence that she had touched it, and being scared that she couldn't get it back onto the table. So she lay on the floor and stared at the wall- pretending like nothing happened.

Limping

My dog has hurt herself on occasion, as all dogs do. Never anything serious, just some minor scratches when she's run through the brush, or a bit of a limp when she's gone full speed into the water on slippery rocks. I like to think she's a pretty tough dog as not a whole lot seems to bother her physically. But then there are the moments where I can't believe my dog.

Sometimes when I'm out walking her everything seems to be fine. She's trotting along happy as can be. Suddenly she'll start limping. Not a little limp that happens after she sometimes hurts herself as mentioned above, but a full on 'I think my leg is broken' limp. I'll wonder what happened and be immediately concerned, even though she has done this to me many times. I'll look back to see if she hit something or landed in a whole that twisted her leg, or what the possible problem could be. And then I'll check her. My dog, my fairly tough dog, will have an exaggerated limp because she has something like a leaf hanging off of her. I will pull it off and low and behold, my dog is fixed and back trotting happily along. She gets me every time.

Obsessions

My dog can become incredibly obsessed by certain things. Primarily small animals, such as cats and chipmunks, or crows, and always with flashes of light. When she has seen something that interests her she can stare at that same point for hours. I'm not exaggerating- she will literally sit there and stare at the same point for hours on end. You can try getting in her way and she will quickly crank her neck to see around you. You can try to persuade her with cookies or other treats but she remains focused.

The worst is when she has seen something in the backyard prior to going to bed at night. She will be up the entire night, staring out the tiny crack in the window. It's pitch black and you know she can't see a thing but still she stares. Throughout the night I'll wake up and look over and just be able to make out her ears and the back of her head, not having moved an inch from the many hours before that I had briefly woken up. Following one of these nights, she is absolutely exhausted by morning and usually spends the day asleep on the couch- recuperating from her night job.

Pictures

My dog loves the camera. No matter how hard I try to avoid having her in a picture, she almost always manages to get in it. The problem is the click the camera makes when I first turn it on as she can hear it from anywhere in the house, even if she seems to be in a deep sleep. Between the time of the first click and taking the picture, no matter how fast I am, she almost always makes it in time. She will leap from the end of the couch to the door and bound down the hallway, race around the corner and slide on the hardwood floor into the pic. Often it is just a small piece of her- part of a tail or an ear, or one eye, but almost every picture I've taken at home has a piece of my dog in it.

I've tried just about everything. I love my dog, but I don't need her in every single picture. I've smothered the camera when I turn it on, I've gone to the furthest area away from her in the house, I've tried to turn it on and take the picture simultaneously, but all of these attempts ultimately fail. She is never so fast as when she first hears that initial click of the camera.

Eating Dog Food

I think that most of the time my dog believes that she is a human. She lies on the couch, sleeps on our bed, and sits in a regular seat in the car. She also does not eat alone. It took her a long time to even accept dog food, as we would sit for long periods of time with kibble in our hand for her to take. It was as though she would rather starve than steep to such levels of eating dog food, especially out of a dog dish on the floor. But over time she started eating more dog food, probably out of starvation, but only if we sat next to her. When we're at work during the day she does not touch her food, no matter how long we've been gone. Once we're home, and near her dish, she will devour her food as though she has been starving for days. But if we leave the room, she looks up and will walk away no matter how hungry she seems to be. Often I don't even notice, I just happen to be in the room where her dish is when I start hearing the crunch of her kibble and realize that she is there as well. The other thing she does is wait for encouragement to eat. She will stand over her dish and stare at her food until someone tells her, in an enthusiastic tone, that she's a good girl. She'll then wag her tail and start eating.

This is one of the reasons why it is so hard to leave our dog for any length of time. She'll barely eat while we're gone, even if it's for a week or more. She'll eat some if another dog is nearby and is eating as well, or if whoever is taking care of her sits with the kibble in their hand as we once did, but it's never very much. So after she finishes doing her laps of excitement once we get home, we walk to her dish and she devours it in about five seconds, halting her hunger strike for the time being.

Postman

My dog rarely ever barks. She's an indoor dog, and we're not even sure she realizes she's actually a dog, not a human. There are occasions when she will bark, such as when certain dogs walk by when she is in our backyard, but it is very rare and always startles us when she does. However, when the postman comes each day it's a completely different story. We think it's because when we first moved here she lay under the front door and prior to having a mailbox, the mail would be dropped through a slot in the door, and onto her head. This would probably set anyone off when you think about... sleeping peacefully and then having things dropped on you from above. Anyway, it's been over a year now that we've had a mailbox but our dog has not forgotten the past. She is a medium size, sensitive and relatively quiet dog that suddenly sounds like she weighs at least 100 pounds and is all terror when the postman appears at the end of our walkway. She will attack the blinds, the door, the wall and anything she can to try to reach that postman. Neighbours who know her cannot believe it is her inside when they hear her barking at the postman.

The funny part of all of this is that it's only the post office that she holds the grudge against. She'll jump and bark at their vans as we walk by, and at anyone dressed in that specific uniform. UPS, FedEX, or any other delivery service does not even warrant enough attention for her to get off the couch and take a look at who's coming.

Nail Biting

My dog loves to groom herself. If she's not sleeping or interacting with us, she is usually grooming. She carefully licks each hair on her body and studies each section after she's done. But what everyone gets excited about when they meet her is how she bites her nails. She'll pick up one paw at a time, look it over, and then carefully bite the very tip of each nail. It looks and sounds like she is eating a corn on the cob. It's quite cute, and it amazes many people who stop by, but it becomes much less appealing listening to the careful nail biting for hours on end in the middle of the night. And then there was the one time she got too much of a grip on one of the nails and actually pulled it off. This led to much pain and bleeding but barely deterred her. By the next night, with her one paw bandaged, she continued to carefully bite each of her other nails.

Waiting for 'Dad'

At 4:45 every day my dog gets up from wherever she is lying, and usually sleeping, and wanders into the front room. She stretches and lifts her front paws onto a box that looks out the front window. She stares out for a few minutes and then lifts her back legs and sits on the top of the box. She watches closely at each person that walks past the house on the front sidewalk. Any tall, lanky figure results in a slight tail wag until they've passed the house.

At about 5:05 each day my husband makes his way home from work. As soon as my dog realizes it is definitely him, and not an imposter with a similar build, she jumps off the box, sprints to find me and starts jumping on me until my husband comes through the door. She then bolts and attacks him.

Every day, nearly to the minute, she does the exact same thing.

Drive Thru Cookies

A number of fast food restaurants will offer a cookie to my dog if she is sitting in the backseat when we go through the drive thru. My dog loves cookies, as most do, and in pretty much any other circumstance she will grab the cookie as fast as she can and munch down on it. But not the drive thru cookies. The man or woman (or pimply teenage kid) will hand me a cookie enthusiastically and wait for me to give it to my dog. The problem is, she will never take the drive thru cookie. She'll sometimes sniff it briefly, but she will always turn her head away and snub the cookie. I'll look pleadingly at her and try to force her to take the cookie but she never will. I'll look back and shrug to the disappointed looking worker and feel a little embarrassed. Now I say 'thanks' to the worker and lay the cookie beside me to avoid the whole process- but if the worker is just standing there watching I'll usually attempt once again- but it's always the same result.

The worst part of all is as soon as I pull back onto the street, my dog searches for the cookie that has usually been dropped beside her and eats it as quickly as she can.

Begging

My dog begs the opposite way that you would think she would. It's hard to get mad at her because you know she's doing it, but yet she does it so discreetly. She will slowly inch her way to the person with the food that most interests her until she is lying next to them. She gets very close without actually touching the person and then stares 'away' from them. She will do sideways glances at the person but as soon as they look towards her she quickly looks away. She looks absolutely adorable when she does it and it's hard not to give her a piece of whatever you're eating. So I guess her non-begging begging is pretty successful.

Cucumber Rolls

My dog loves sushi. Let me rephrase: my dog loves seaweed and rice. Her favourite is the cucumber roll, so we always get an extra order for her. She takes one piece at a time, goes to her mat, and carefully unravels the roll with her paws and teeth. She then carefully takes the cucumber and lays it on the side, without managing to leave a single tooth mark on any of the small pieces. She then eats the unraveled roll slowly, making sure to stop and pick up any pieces or rice that may fall during the process. Once she is done the one piece she will then return to get the next one and repeat until her order is done. Cleaning up is surprisingly easy as there is just a small mound of intact cucumber pieces on the corner of her mat that need to be picked up and discarded.