Behavior Modification XLI

My laptop is on the fritz, and I keep messing up the entries using my iPad.  Simon and Schuster are still in fine form though, what with the ear-chewing, sock-, shoe- and napkin-stealing, and under-the-cover sleeping.  

Yesterday we all went for a walk, the first in a month.  With Simon I like to call them "piss and sniffs," since that is an accurate description of what happens on them, at least for Simon.  Schuster, however, has not yet grasped the purpose of a walk for a male dog.  He just pulls tiresomely, trying to catch up with Frollie and Dexter.  He may lift his leg once, if we are lucky.  Eventually, Mary gets mad and yells at him, loudly, forgetting for a moment "how damn cute" he is.  Simon and I usually bring up the rear, so to speak, for with Simon there are many many pauses to "piss and sniff."  

Well, I seem to have posted one from my iPad.  Truly, real behavior modification.

Behavior Modification: Chapter XL

To watch Schuster run swiftly and leap and bounce in his enthusiasms as he runs across the deck, brings me an instant rush of joy.  In such a state I could watch him forever, though in the garden he quickly disappears.  For a moment I see in Schuey a foretaste of paradise.  

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXXIX

We are about to embark on a mystical way where little dogs and big dogs alike roll on their backs in the middle of the night to receive momentarily satisfying belly rubs.  But then especially for dogs, perhaps, momentary satisfactions are one of life's special gifts, though sometimes they occur so swiftly that one doesn't notice the gift.

The only time you can purchase virtue is when you buy a good dog or pay for its release from the pound.

People who need their space discover sooner or later that they are in Hell and no one is near.  Even then a good dog might help if it were truly loved for its sake.

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXXVIII

When the older, less playful dogs have had enough from the youngster and they retaliate with force, Schuster always invokes the Schuster defense:  roll over on your back, wiggle back and forth like a fish out of water, and wave your feet in the air.  It works for him every time.  I'm just saying, it works for him.

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXXVII

Happy Valentine's Day!

I see that I haven't been here for a while.  It isn't that there are no adventures with the little ones; it is that once I try to take notes to remember the adventures the way I used to, my hands don't work.  Don't you just hate it when your hands don't work?  It's almost worse than being body-slammed by a low-land gorilla.

I do have one good memory from the snowfall.  I was standing at the bedroom window, looking out, of course, when I saw the dogs playing in the new snow, as if they truly knew what snow was for.

Schuster was inside a fenced-off area just to the left of the window; he is the only dog small enough to get inside the fence.  He would run through the snow from one end of the fence to the other, though the snow made it difficult for him and slowed him down.  Frollie was on the other side of the fence keeping pace with him and barking at him.  They were having a great time, running through the snow and barking.  

Every once in a while, Schuster would come out from behind the fence and try to run through the garden with Frollie hot on his tail, to speak accurately.  Every time she caught him she would roll him in the snow.  He'd get up, shake it off, and start running again, especially running under bushes where Frollie was too big to go.  When he got tired of being bitten and rolled, he would go through the fence and that game would start again until they were both worn out.

Simon stayed in the house under a blanket on the sofa; Dexter stood watching Schuster and Frollie and barking at them, but he didn't join the chase.  

The snow game looked so delightful that I wished I could join them.  It reminded me of childhood games in the deep winter snows of northern Ohio.  Our version of the chase game was "Fox and Geese,"  with trails stamped out in our side yard; the Fox of course chased the Geese until he tagged one.  The only rule was that you had to stay in the marked out trails.  Whoever got tagged became the new fox.  I was always a clever goose, so to speak, and hardly ever got tagged.  At least that is how I remember it.

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXXVI

Dachshunds!

The first really cold night this week we were hunkered down in the living room, watching something or other on TV, when Simon suddenly hopped down from the sofa, walked over to the piano and lifted his leg, letting flow a mighty stream.  Yes, he peed on the piano leg in the living room.  Mary shouted an obscenity at him (she was closest), grabbed him and hauled him to the kitchen door, and pushed him out into the bone-chilling overnight.  

Schuster seems to have learned where to do "it" in under a year, with the help of "pet pads."  Simon, in almost 5 years, may have learned where to do "it," but the willful little dog obviously chose not to act on that knowledge, either that, or he has acquired an early onset of doggie Alzheimer's.  In any case he is not telling, and since then, we are watching him closely and making him go out regularly.  I go along to make certain he actually gets off the deck and does something "meaningful" while he is out there.

The minute the yelling began that night, Frollie and Dexter started slinking toward the door with their tails tucked between their legs.   Not Simon.  "What?  Who me?  I did something wrong?"

Dachshunds!

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXXV

Working out with two dumbbells, one black, about 20 pounds; one red, about 10 pounds.  Schuster loves to play and is as mischievous as they come.  Simon is a bit of a load, yet an awfully precious one, and he and Schuster get along well.  Schuster insists on chewing on Simon's ears, and Simon, for some undoubtedly kinky reason, lets him.  Last night, Sunday, Mary was holding Schuster, taking him off to be "crated" for the overnight, as the meteorologists continue to say.  She brought him to me, so I thought I'd teach him a bit of a lesson, since he'd been chewing on Simon all night.  I started chewing on one of his ears.  Unfortunately, he learned nothing, but I ended up with a mouthful of red hair.  Bleah.

In other news, Schuey hid one of Mary's slippers for most of the afternoon.  I love it.  All afternoon she walked around wearing mismatched slippers until I found the lost one in our bedroom.  

I keep all my shoes and slippers in my bathroom off the master bedroom, well, 3 pairs of shoes and 1 pair of slippers.  Saturday night, as we were getting ready for Mass, I brought the shoes I was going to wear into the bedroom.  As I went back into the bathroom to brush my teeth, Schuster, the little monster, grabbed one of my shoes with sock and raced into the living room with them.   He is such a sneaky little guy.  Then he just stands there looking at me with those wonderful hairy ears perked up.  I would forgive him almost anything.

He also doesn't take criticism well, but then who does?  His response is to growl softly at you under his breath, and then bark outright if you persist in complaining about his mischief.

The other day I came into the living room and found him and Dexter on the floor side by side, touching, but Schuster had put his head over Dexter's neck.  Cute awfully cute.  Then the other afternoon, Dexter the beagle heard the ambulance sirens from over by the hospital.  He always gives them the beagle bellow when he hears them outside.   This time Schuey, also outside, heard them, ran to Dexter's side and tried to bellow like a beagle too.  He tries to imitate his Tio Dexter.  

Last night Simon actually came to bed with me (3:30 a.m.) and stayed there, under the covers the rest of the night.  This morning, about 9:30 a.m., Schuey started whining from his crate next to our bed.  Mary got up and took him out of the crate and put him on the bed.  Schuey went wild.  He tried to dig Simon out; he ran to me and started licking my face (pay back for the ear chewing?); Simon crawled up to my side and I tucked him under my arm to protect him from Schuey's sharp claws; Schuey ran to the end of the bed and jumped down before we could stop him.   Everyone being awake by that time, everyone got up.

When I went downstairs to get the paper and let Pinkie out of the laundry room (where she spends the overnight), I discovered that when Mary had cleaned Pinkie's litter box yesterday, she put it back in the laundry room with the litter-box door against the wall.  OMG!  Pinkie had pooped on the mat in front of the box before I got there and hurried into the box the minute I turned it around, undoubtedly to get rid of a day's worth of pee.  Poor cat.  Mary came down to clean up the mess (I can't bend over for the first hour in the morning; that is my story and I am sticking to it); her comment: "I was in a hurry yesterday morning."  OMG!    There is hurry and there is hurry!  I for once refrained from pointing out the obvious here.  Okay.  How on earth do you manage to set the damn box down without checking to see that the door is front and center?  Later that day I read Hagar the Horrible and was glad I had held my tongue, so to speak.  I was also led to think about the game of chess and its symbolic values.  The game is over when you checkmate the King; but the Queen has all the power and can move any way she wishes.  Any way she wishes.

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXXIV

A few days after Christmas we were playing dominoes here at the dining-room table with our friends Craig and Joyce.  As usual I was in the lead with the highest score, for those of you who don't know the game, that is.  Joyce had gotten hot and had taken her shoes off.  Still not cool enough, she took her socks off too.  (No, it is not that kind of game!)  The next thing she knew someone was licking her foot.  She giggled and looked down.  There was Schuster being very attentive to her feet.  So far so good.  The next thing she knew her sock was gone and so was Schuster.  She found the sock in the living-room, retrieved it and resumed losing--the game.  Of course he stole it again before the night was over.

He is the sneakiest little dog I have ever known.  He takes things and no one ever sees him do it.  First you have a slipper; then you don't, and it appears somewhere else in the house.  He's the puppy version of T. S. Eliot's McCavity the mystery cat.  Things disappear; Schuster wasn't there.  

And he's so bloody cute.  If you scold him, he growls at you, and barks.  He takes real offense that anyone should find fault with his behavior.  So how can we do anything but love the little rascal?  Schuster, put that slipper back!

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXXIII

Back to Christmas Eve.  Schuster wasn't the only villain, we discovered, though my neighbor suggests that given his name it should be no surprise that he goes for books.  Hmm.  In fact, we came home from Mass Saturday night, having run late and not had time to crate him, only to discover that he had gotten on my big dad chair where I had put my Spanish dictionary, my notebooks, and TV Guides.  Schuster had not held back.  He got up on my chair, gnawed the binding of the dictionary, chewed (he is called Chewie, too) the "estar" page of my Spanish verb book, and tore a number of pages out of a brand new blank TV notebook.  Interesting that he did the most damage to the empty notebook.  How do their minds work?

(While I remember, there are pictures of Schuster and his Tio Dexter on my Facebook page; well, Simon is there on the sofa with them but he is as usual under the blanket.)

I write like Tristram Shandy.  It took him 300 pages to get to the description of his birth in his autobiography.  

Okay.  Our daughter-in-law made delicious cookies for Christmas Eve.  I put them on the dining-room table before we left because I knew Schuster would climb on the back of the sofa to get to them on the table behind the sofa.  That's where he grabs the napkins.  In any case, overwhelmed by the chaos of presents unwrapped, we didn't notice the great cookie disaster.  There were two on the plate.  I asked Katie if they had all been eaten before we left for Mass.  She said no.  I looked again and saw toenail scratches on the edge of the table.  Dexter, I yelled!  The neurotic beagle had evidently almost cleaned off the cookie plate while we were gone.   Dexter didn't even have the courtesy to look guilty.  He just meekly walked over to me to get his ears scratched.  So I did.  It was Christmas Eve.

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXX

Side bar: one terminally cute, destructive, little red dachshund--Schuster.  Mary is home; now we can trap him between us again, though he may actually have figured out that it isn't curtains for him if we pick him up.  Besides, he loves to eat and that helps us secure him too.   

What delights me no end though is the way he lies down.  Standing in front of me when I am sitting in my chair, eating, he keeps his very short little legs straight and simply collapses backwards onto the floor.  He  was up; now he is down, and he does not lose eye contact should the person before him decide to charge.  

When I collapse onto the floor someone calls for an ambulance.  

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXIX

It is difficult to write anything when you have, as they say, an embarrassment of riches from which to choose.  Schuster, for example, should have been called Havoc, given that that is the way he leaves the house and what he makes me want to do: "Cry Havoc!".  Mary is/was in Texas; I am/was on my own with 4 dogs (well, 6 counting Schuster), Pinkie the cat, Dusty the outside cat, and Possibly the possum (Possibly the outside possum).  

My body does not work well at all anymore.  I cannot catch the little beast.  I cannot crate him at night.  He mocks me daily.  He pees on the floor beside the pad instead of on the pad--well, half the time; thus the mockery.  He figured out how to get into the blocked-off upstairs carpeted rooms by crawling under the sofa by the door.  At first I thought he jumped over the barrier.  Who knew he could get that close to the ground though and wiggle through.  Inside the room, he tore up a series of decorative lamp shades, some odd colorful costume material (not mine), a collector's outfitted teddy bear (also not mine), and he pooped on the floor.  He POOPED on the floor!

The last I saw he was outside on the deck wrestling with Simon.  Simon on the inside attacks only pillows and he does that right in front of us.  Well, that is not quite true.  I was remembering Frollie's and Dexter's food bowls which he also attacks, as I have explained before.  

In any case I am exhausted.

However, now it is time to feed everyone, all "6" dogs, Pinkie the cat, Dusty the outside cat, and possibly, Possibly the outside possum.   

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXVIII

Schuster, as of last Wednesday (I think), underwent the operation.  Schuster now has low T.  It has not, however, slowed him down any.  Not even from the start.  He still calls Dexter "Uncle Dexter," and Uncle Dexter usually tolerates that as just one more of those things in life that he has no control over.  Schuster, ignoring the rejection, climbs up on the love seat (a nice irony there), gets as close to Dexter as he can, and goes to sleep.  Precious.

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXVII

Simon: he sits with me for only the first half of the evening; he sleeps alone overnight on the sofa under pillows and blankets; he mostly determines how long walks last and where we will go.  However, when Mary is vacuuming the house and the sweeper roars, he comes to my chair at the table and begs to be picked up and held tightly, and I am happy to oblige.

Behavior Modification: Chapter XXVI

Schuster is adapting to the household, though he still prefers the company of other dogs, especially Dexter, to people.  All things considered, that is probably sound.

We have to crate Schuster "overnight," as the meteorologists say, since he is very quick and quite destructive.  Everything on the floor is at risk: magazines, books, electrical cords, etc.  He hits a room like a cyclone, with equal destructive power, if we do not watch him.  We have the "crate" in the bedroom now next to Dexter's bed, which seems to keep Schuster quiet, at least.  When we had the crate in the kitchen he howled and carried on something fierce.  He sounded like a caged demon, not that I really know how caged demons sound.  But it was fierce.  So, he won; mostly.  Five of us are in the bedroom (three dogs and two people), the cat is in the laundry room (our choice), and the Little Master, Simon, chooses to sleep on the sofa, under covers and pillows, in the living room by himself.