Dog-bothering

[mrissa]

Last night I baffled the dog by making Swedish meatballs: there was this perfectly good blend of raw meats, and I just played with it in my paws and didn't give Ista any! And didn't even eat any of it myself! How confusing!

This morning I baffled the dog by eating grapefruit: what was that stuff? Was it even food? Why was it going -- ew, ew, ew -- in my mouth? (This very clear attitude from a creature to whom I have had to say, "We don't need to smell that poo," more times than I can count.) She is still returning to me to sniff my breath worriedly every few minutes, in hopes that the effects will have worn off before I decide to drive or something.

I begin to suspect that my main purpose is to confuse the dog and, having done that successfully, I could just go back to bed for the day.

Unfortunately, Ista would regard that as quite sensible behavior, thus undoing the morning's good dog-baffling work. So I will keep writing instead, and run some errands and spend some time with a friend. None of which will baffle the dog quite as much, but we can't spend every moment playing to our strengths, mostly. I mean, even the dog must abandon her strenghts of chewing, snuggling, barking, and running after things in order to eat and drink and be confused by monkey behavior. She's getting better at that last one, at least.

Comments

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

I am confusing my puppy by moving from room to room. Just when he has gotten comfortable and fallen deeply asleep in as close a proximity as possible without physically merging with me, for no apparent reason I get up and wander into another room, like the bathroom. Then, when he has once again settled himself at my feet, I stand up and make an unpleasantly loud whooshing noise with my chair, and go back to where I was before. Once, I even went downstairs, and allowed myself to be attacked by the vacuum cleaner for an extensive period of time. He had to run upstairs and cry until I was ready to get back in my chair. Oh, we monkeys are so confusing.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

I often baffle my cats by not petting them when they're laying on their sides with bellies exposed.

"How can you not pet me? I'm freakin' CUTE!" they think.

[mallory-blog.livejournal.com]

My dog thinks I'm the best hunter EVAR!

I periodically disappear outside the gate and return with bags and cans of excellent dead cows or dead chickens (he isn't too particular) and sometimes I even return with soup bones with delicious marrow and gristle attached to them or raw turkey necks (quite safe for dogs) all of which makes me the MOST BESTUS HUNTER EVAR!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You are lucky. Ista finds the whooshy chair fascinating -- not to drink from but to sniff at when the opportunity arises. Also she lectures the vacuum.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

My cats are not interested in the toilet (apart from as a place to stand on) but one of them is fascinated by the bath. This strange human behaviour of periodically creating a large puddle and then dunking oneself in it is strange and Must Be Investigated. This includes experiments to see Whether The Water Is Wet At This End Too, Where The Water Goes, and (perhaps most importantly) How Much Fun Can Be Had With A Plug On A Chain.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Poodles are water dogs, so Ista is fascinated with the shower in the other way: ooh, cool! Sometimes we have taken her in to be bathed in there. Other times she gets let in at the end of the shower, when the water is turned off, to splash around in the dwindling puddle in the bottom of the shower. Sadly, there is no plug on a chain available to her in her recreations.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

She should be fairly easy to wash, then! Some friends used to have a golden retriever who loved having newly-washed fur (you get lots of attention if you have really silky ears) but hated having baths. They had to lay a trail of dog biscuits up to the bathroom then hustle her in quickly before she realised. They said that after a couple of times she worked out that dog biscuits on the stairs meant BATH - she'd stare at each biscuit for a while as if trying to decide whether it was worth the bother of getting wet. She usually decided that it was, or at least that a definite dog biscuit now was worth a possible bath in a minute. After all, food is food, and the humans might have forgotten the water this time, right?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

She is extremely easy to wash. Poodles are water dogs. Sometimes she's a bit difficult to refrain from washing, as she would really like to join you in the shower!