Poop Pivots and a Paper Plug

Dog fanatics find their dogs’ toilet habits a subject of ongoing interest. You’ll find hundreds of posts about the topic on Airedale-L alone. Said habits are inextricably linked with newspapers.

Neither of my dogs can just poop when out for a walk. Alanis insists on 3 pee stops, then a poop stop, then a couple more pee squats, then a poop and finally squeezing out one last poop stop, the object being to use up to three plastic bags and stop as many times as possible.

Miró doesn’t always poop on walks. When he does need to, he walks slower and slower. We stop. He stands there as if thinking, “I know there was a reason for stopping. Now what was it? Wait, it’ll come to me. Hey, do I smell pee mail?”

Meanwhile I’m saying, “S**t or get off the pot, Miró. Let’s go. We’re out for exercise.”

He gets moving again, slows again. It’s either stop or drag him. He sniffs around. Here? No, not quite right. How about this spot? Close but no cigar. This, right here is good. He gets into his squat and starts pivoting like a compass, hind end swinging around depositing the load while his front feet dance in place. Fortunately, he requires only one plastic bag.

I use newspaper sleeves for doggie pick-up. I subscribe to the Seattle Times and the Sunday New York Times. Every person who walks her dog should subscribe to a newspaper. Newspapers not only provide breakfast table information (thereby benefitting your health by insuring that you eat breakfast), they also line parrot cages, soak up unfortunate messes, and arrive in useful plastic bags. They are instruments of visual, tactile and kinesthetic learning. Maybe I should start carrying around the Wall Street Journal; I’ll look smarter.

Miro' gets stuck

You know how you can be working at something when a faint sound gradually penetrates your consciousness? You’ve been hearing it for some time but only after many repetitions does your brain go, “Hey, that’s not a normal noise.” So it was, both last night and this morning, when a faint, thin, mouse-squeak of a whine floated into my head.


Miró was stuck again. He can whine like a car’s brakes squeaking. He pushes open the door into the guest bathroom, where it’s quiet and dark, and curls up for a nap on the thick Gabbeh rug that’s the size of a dog bed. The door swings shut. Although Miró uses his paws to push and grab more than any of my other dogs, he prefers to wait and whine until his service provider (me) comes to open the door, rather than to experiment with manipulating the door and possibly pulling it open. This is a good thing. Once he figures out how to hook his paw around a door and pull it open, the kitchen cupboards will never be safe again. It’s a nightmare I shudder to contemplate.

The question is, why does he keep going in there when he knows what will happen? Apparently the pleasure of a nap in a private room outweighs the inconvenience of waking up to find himself unable to get out.

Recycling system--the joy of shredding

Just give Miro a box and he'll take it down to a disposable size for the recycling bin.

Cardboard egg cartons used to be Darwin's all time favorite but now I save all cartons for the hens.Left to right, eggs courtesy of Edna, Punkster, Dart-Mouth Brangelina and Muffin.

Miro's Coming Home Day

Although Miro's birthday is at the end of January, his coming home day is March 29. A year ago he flew home with me from Ohio. A day later and he would have been too big to fit in the under-seat carrier.  He spent a good part of the flight sleeping in my lap and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to stuff him back in the carrier. He needed that baby pudge for growing tall and long-legged.

I didn't succeed in getting his ears up but I'm the only one who cares about that anyway. Notice he still has big "knuckles" and his feet turn out a bit like a puppy's. He also sports a soul patch--that very stylish lighter patch of fur at his chin.

The biggest change is that he's growing out of the puppy "Oh, wow" stage and into the "getting a brain" stage. For an Airedale's first year everything is New! Wow! Lemme-at-it! and he doesn't filter any of the sensory messages coming in. Now I see the adult brain starting to work. During the puppy stage, you put the tools of communication in place and the dog learns "sit," "come," and so on; but it takes a different stage for the dog to understand that he's not just learning words in exchange for treats. He understands there's two-way communication going on. It's not strict obedience; it's a way of working together. You can grow into it so gradually that you don't notice it happening.

Or it's all a pose to lull me into thinking he's maturing while he's actually planning more havoc. Or both, since an Airedale never outgrows havoc.

The migration of toys

Alanis' Amazing Ability

GLAP GLAP GULP. When Miró drinks water, he not only sloshes over the sides of the bowl and gets his beard drippy wet, he also walks away with water dribbling out of his mouth and across the floor. His stomach tells his brain when it has enough water and the brain says to the feet, ”Step away from the bowl,” but there’s no neural pathway to remind the mouth and throat to swallow the remaining water. This is typical Airedale behavior.

The other day my son remarked on Alanis’ ability to keep her beard out of the water when she drinks. The sound she makes is even dainty, a glip glip glip.

I said, “That’s not all. When the dogs play outside, I have to wash the mud off Miró’s feet. Alanis has been running in the same areas but her feet are clean.” A few weeks earlier when I bathed her at the do-it-yourself doggie wash salon, I expected torrents of dirt to wash down the drain because she hadn’t had a bath in months. She likes to scuff through the leaves and let the cedar branches scratch her back—plenty of dirt there. But no dirt on Alanis. The soapy water ran clean.

Teflon ® dog?

No bath, please.

Coincidence or sneakiness?

Triumph #1: I hooked Miró and Alanis into headcollars and coupler and we made it all around one block. Previously we’d only gone up and down the driveway with Alanis dragging and Miró pulling ahead.


I used to walk Darwin and Keeper on a coupler all the time but wasn’t sure if I’d ever get two such different dogs as Miró and Alanis together. In addition to Miró’s being eight years younger, he’s the typical extrovert Airedale, while Alanis is often diffident and likes things to be peaceful, except when she feels like barking. She can also be passively stubborn, as in sitting down like a mule and trying to slip her head out of the collar when she doesn’t want to walk on the coupler. But not today, with much encouragement and many treats, of course.

#2: Later I took Miró to a park full of children, strollers, walkers, dogs, bicycles, and joggers where he could practice walking like a good citizen. He did! He pulled occasionally but sat on command and didn’t play bucking bronco when we walked past other dogs.

Then he showed up a Golden Retriever. In obedience competitions, Goldens are usually the top scorers, the ones to beat. In an open, grassy area, I put Miró on a long line and we practiced sit, stay and come with all the distractions around us. One distraction was the Golden playing Frisbee with his family.

I heard, “Sit. Si-it, Charlie, si-i-i-t. Charlie, sit! Good boy, sit,” this last one when the dog was still not sitting, which would be a good way to get him thoroughly confused. Obviously it wasn’t the dog’s fault that he didn’t sit. Why should he when his owner was willing to give the command twenty times without enforcing it? Charlie stood holding the Frisbee, feathery tail wagging gently. Miró watched. I pretended not to notice.

It is tempting to believe that Miró behaved perfectly, sitting and coming promptly at one command, because the other dog did not, like the one smug child at a party being praised for sitting nicely when all the other kids are throwing cupcakes. Really, though, he’s not that devious. I think.

Miró and Alanis take up landscape design

They have embarked on two projects: (1) They are trying to dig a tunnel into the neighbor’s yard to get at the little white yapping dog and (2) They have decided this tree must be uprooted and moved because it is taking up too much room.

It is extremely difficult and not particularly fun to dig holes in the Pacific Northwest because you hit hard clay as soon as you get past the topsoil. Alanis and Miró have gone for wide and shallow.

 Have you ever tried to photograph a wide, shallow hole in the ground? It doesn’t make particularly interesting subject matter.

There are acceptable and unacceptable digging places. Digging plants is unacceptable, so I applied a trick I learned to halt the digging in those places. It’s not pretty or fragrant but it has worked so far. Note: don’t try this in your vegetable garden.

Suburban Sprawl

Gait

Alanis has such a smooth gait that you could balance a teacup and saucer on her back as she moves down the street and it wouldn't even rattle--though it might slide off her fur. The smooth stride is due to her conformation but I like to think it's part of her ladylike character. Unfortunately, if I try to film her and walk and hold the leash, we get a very jiggly video with big "whoosh" sounds from the moving camera.

Miro has a funny walk, as if he's moving his hind legs stiffly. He moves better when he's trotting or running, which goes with his being a high-octane type. I was told when he was a pup that he's short in the loin; that's right in front of the top of the back leg. So, being long of leg and short of loin, he doesn't have the room to move his legs like a ballet dancer. Which is OK. Judging by the big pawslaps he likes to give, he'd rather box than dance.