Fun Stuff
New Obedience Titles
BD: Bed dog:
* Waits to be invited on the bed.
* Able to get on bed by self.
* Snuggles next to you when you are alone in bed.
* Remembers not to scratch in bed.
* Knows not to eliminate in bed.
BDX: Bed dog excellent:
* All the above plus:
* Able to get up on bed between two sleeping adults and finds a
comfortable place without disturbing people..
* Jumps off bed without waking anyone up.
* Does not leap off bed barking if a cat walks through the room.
UBD: Utility bed dog:
* All of the above plus:
* Able to get up on bed with a person and at least one other
dog, and find a good space without awakening person.
* Has learned not to pass gas while in bed.
* Does not leap off bed barking even if other dogs in household
start barking.
UBDX: Utility bed dog excellent:
* All of the above plus:
* Wipes feet before getting on bed.
* Gets on bed with another dog and two cats and a person without
disturbing person.
* Rearranges cats to get closer to person.
* Blames cat if passes gas in bed.
* Does not leave bed until person is ready to get up in the morning
Signs Dogs Have Taken Over Your Life
1.You have a mental list of people you'd like to spay or neuter.
2. You stopped at a house with a "Free Puppies" sign in the yard to have
an Educational "Chat," and your kids had to post your bail.
3. Running out of paper towels is a household crisis.
4.You not only know all the characteristics of a good "stool," you
discuss them at dinner.
5.Your checks have messages on them like "Subtract Two Testicles For
Every Four Feet."
6.You consider "The Culture Clash" your bible and believe the chairman
of Disney Corp. is the antichrist. (added by my friend with Dalmations
in California)
7.You have a bumper sticker that reads "My Dog Is Smarter Than Your
Graduate Student."
8. You can compare and contrast the finer elements of different dog food
brands the way some people talk about wine.
9.You secretly wonder about such things as how animals can manage
without wiping.
10.You pray they will someday manufacture Teflon furniture.
11.You have phone calls forwarded to PetsMart.
12.When your dog projectile vomits, you compare the speed
and trajectory with previous incidents, and if the statistics fall
short, you worry if the dog is okay.
13.You absentmindedly pat people on the head or scratch them behind
their ears.
14.Given the choice of having your teeth cleaned or their teeth cleaned,
they get their teeth cleaned.
15.You not only allow pets on the couch, guests have to sit on the floor
because the dog has "territorial issues."
16.Your spouse missed the final game of the World Series because the dog
wanted to watch his favorite video, "World of Dog Agility"
17. Anytime the dog appears lethargic, you go on-line and investigate
vetmed websites, pose questions to your address book and on e-lists, and
=
by the time you digest all the information and field the correspondence,
=
the dog has torn out the windowscreens, masticated a couch cushion and =
left something disgusting in your favorite pair of shoes.
18.You have a special uniform you wear for "flame wars" on e-lists and =
know that being told to "get a life" means you have pushed all the =
right>buttons.
19. You and your vet are on a first name basis and he/she genuflects =
when you enter the waiting room.
20.His daughter at Harvard refers to you as "Auntie."
21. You needed a prescription to recover from "Old Yeller."
22.You've forwarded more warnings about the dangers of chocolate, onions
and mistletoe than the National Centers for Disease Control has issued
about anthrax and smallpox.
23.You wear white year 'round, not because you are flaunting a fashion
law or belong to a religious sect, but because you have a dog at home.
24.The world would never guess from your "dog speak" posts to e-lists
that in reality you are chairman of the IBM corporation.
25.Vacuum cleaners in your household don't just die, they go out with
more smoke and noise than the Taliban.
26.By the time you investigate different flea control products, their
advantages and potential risks, natural versus chemical methods, and
study the life cycle of the flea, any fleas have died of old age.
27.You tell your children to "heel!" in a grocery store.
28.For relaxation, you went mall hopping with your girlfriends. Your
eyes glazed over when you saw a sign in front of a pet shop, "20% Off
All Puppies & Kittens," and you slapped three security guards before
they got you safely contained in the manager's office.
29.You spend eleven months of the year preaching an appreciation and
understanding of canine behavior and the nature of the dog, then you
stick fake reindeer antlers on the dog and photograph him for your
Christmas Card.
30.People are still talking about your spay-neuter holiday greeting from
last year, "Deck the Halls with Balls of Collies."
31.Not only do family and friends think you go overboard with doggie
holiday decorations, they've never seen a nativity scene where the holy
family is depicted by dogs.
Dog Show Withdrawal
By Susi Szeremy
1. After your dog does his duty in the backyard, you shriek, "Clean
up!!!"
to no one in particular. The neighbors begin to talk.
2. After checking your mailbox for the day's mail, you mindlessly wrap a
post card around your arm and secure it with a rubber band. You feel
funny
if your arm doesn't feel like it's in a tourniquet. You feel even funnier
after realizing that for several hours, you've been wearing a post card
announcing that your Viagra order is in.
3. While shaking powdered sugar over your french toast, you suddenly and
inexplicably shake enough powder to turn the air white. An odd calm comes
over you now that you feel like you're in the middle of a grooming area.
4. You flawlessly perform a "T" pattern, perhaps the best one of your
handling life. Done at the grocery store while handling a buggy, you
simply
forgot yourself when you saw those floor mats put down to protect against
a
wet floor. The produce man, sorting the cucumbers, will never forget you.
5. You find yourself awkwardly changing clothes while hovering
precariously
over the toilet in your own house even though an additional 1800 square
feet
of living space is just outside the bathroom door.
6. You accost strange men and women who are dressed nicely and wearing
any
sort of official looking badge. Police are called in when you insist that
a
bank teller tell you what it is he didn't like about your dog.
7. You ask a pharmacist when Group Order will be posted. She calls
security.
8. Before leaving to get popcorn, you set orange traffic cones around
your
theater seat to ensure that it's still there for you when you come back.
9. A friend stops to admire your new van and you quickly run to the other
side of the car so as not to be standing between your friend and the view
of
the car.
10. Before you can stop yourself, you ask the Avon saleswoman if the
makeup
she's trying to sell you will help with food stains around the mouth.
11. When introduced to your neighbor's young nieces and nephews, your
hand
unconsciously goes to your hip pocket so you can offer them some bait.
12. When you hear the good news that your sister is pregnant, you ask her
"when is your whelping date"?
Unwritten Rules Of Dog Shows
1. After trying forever to obtain that elusive second major, you have no
problem getting the third
major the next day.
2. The novice people that enter every show and always show up even
if the breed judging is at 8 am
and the show is a six hour drive will not show up when the count is
exactly a major. Or if they do,
the dog that finished yesterday will be moved up and break the
major anyway.
3. If you attempt to build a major, one of the extras will win,
never the dog the major was worked
around.
4. The day you don't take an umbrella or raincoat to the show because the weather is beautiful at
your house, is the day it is raining (or snowing) at the outdoor
show site.
5. Although all dog shows have lots of vendors, the day you forget
the tack box is the day there are
NO vendors on the premises selling show leads.
6. If you go to the trouble of checking out of the hotel before
leaving for the show, you will not win
the breed.
7. If you don't check out, you will win the breed, and there will be no time to do so before groups.
8. Your national will always be scheduled so that you are forced to move your immature puppy up, by just a few days.
9. Your dog will decide to completely blow coat just after entries close for the national, which you
have already committed major bucks to attend.
10. If you are showing dogs in two different breeds that have the same judge, it is inevitable that one
breed will be the first one in at 8:00 am, and the other will be
the last one of the day at 2:30 p.m.
11. The day you say, "If Rover doesn't win today, this will be his
last show and I'm putting him in a
pet home" will be the day he wins a four point major.
(After which, of course, the waiting list of pet homes disappears
and he never gets another point.)
12. And of course we all know about the puppy we sold as a pet with
a spay/neuter contract. And
his littermate that we kept as a show prospect.
13. If your dog does better behind other dogs, you will draw the
first place number and the judge
will insist on catalog order.
14. If your dog does better at the front of the line, the judge
will allow you to line up in any order
and someone will beat you to the first spot.
15. If the judge is requiring the dogs to be shown in catalog
order, your male special will be
sandwiched in between two bitches in full standing season. If you
are showing a bitch special in
season, she will be the only girl in a ring full of attractive
males.
(And if you decide to leave your special home because he or she has
gone boy/girl crazy, none of
the other specials entered will show up.)
16. The judge you didn't enter under because he/she hates your dog
will draw an overload and your
breed will be given to a judge who loves your dog.
17. Whenever a premium list includes a group judge that loves your
special, the breed judge will be
the one who told you to neuter it and put it in a pet home.
(But if you don't enter, remember that rule 16 applies).
18. A particular judge will ALWAYS put the Winners Dog up for Best
of Winners, unless YOUR
dog goes WD and there is only a major in bitches.
19. If you enter a small show where there are normally no specials
or only one, three of the top ten
dogs will be flown in from all over the country.
20. If you do win an easy breed at a small show in Podunk Nowhere,
you will then learn that a
dozen top dogs and professional handlers have flown in from the
farthest corners of the country,
and every one of them will show up in YOUR group.
21. If you win the group, you will discover that the BIS judge's
favorite dog, who is the all time top
winning dog in its breed, has just won it's group, and the BIS
judge has recently given it a BISS.
Author Unknown
Test Driving Terriers
By Shenerrah Shelties
My opportunity to test drive another breed -- Smooth Fox Terriers in
this case -- presented itself in the form of a friend desperate for
services. Pet sitting services and, er, um, well, services. She was going
away on a well-needed vacation but the Murphy's Law of Dog Breeding had
created a problem. Her bitch had just come in season; it
was *the* season and she was due to be bred to her special. There was no
way that my friend was staying home, and no way she wanted to miss this
breeding. So, several days ago, two fox terriers arrived at my doorstep
replete with luxury crate accommodations and enough frozen kongs for an
entire army of frozen dogs. My friend lingered for a
long while, explaining everything in great detail to me and telling the
dogs she loved them. Finally, the door closed and they were, however
temporarily, *mine.* The test drive began. To begin a test drive, you
have to turn the key, or, in this case, the crate latch. No sooner did I
do so than the crates exploded and Smooth Fox Terrier blasted out. And
kept blasting! They were pinging. Pinging I tell you. Straight off the
ground. Up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down.
Then I knew: the first thing to having a fox terrier was being able to
catch it. Apparently, if you can catch it, it's yours. I snagged one mid
air and leashed it, then the other, netting myself 100 points and two
dogs. The pinging stopped, they looked at me with angelic faces and then
their tails started seizing. They were whirring in circles at a mile a
minute. And then I knew the next important thing about Smooth Fox
Terriers... if they are prevented from moving in their normal fashion,
they will propel themselves off the ground by their tails -- very clever!
But I convinced them that we would proceed in plain old dog fashion,
with four legs on the ground. And then they convinced me that I had a
lot more to learn about Smooth Fox Terriers as the proceeded to move at
a very rapid clip with no more than two feet on the ground at any one
time, and they kept me guessing as to which two feet they would use at
any of these given times.
A pattern was emerging though: First they ping. If your bring their
springs to a halt, the tails kick in. If they are stopped, the legs
unwind. So what happens if you stop them, too? I had to find out. I put
them in their crates and went to prepare their dinner. And then I got
the answer... If you stop them from pinging, whirring, or reenacting
Riverdance, they will find the next available moveable part to take
over... vocal cords. Until you have been serenaded by ecstatically
happy, voraciously hungry terriers your ears have not lived... or bled.
By the way, that's in the breed standard: "ecstatically happy and
voraciously hungry." If it's not, it should be. The test drive is not
complete. We still have the breeding part to get to. I have a feeling I
know how that will go. ; )
RATING:
Maneuverability: * (this model requires masterfully quick reflexes
--great for improving hand eye coordination -- improved tennis and Play
Station 2 scores guaranteed)
Style: ***** (jaunty constantly moving tails are a plus)
Engine: Off the charts (fuel injected, jet propelled, runs clean, hang
on)
Stages of Canine Pregnancy
Author Unknown
Canine pregnancy lasts nine weeks and then you have approximately 8 weeks
of rearing to do. I have identified and defined the several stages we go
through in this process:
Week one: Was he the right one?
Typified by agonizing over whether you chose the right stud
Week two: Was she fertile?
Indicated by mildly threatening thoughts directed at your bitch and
concern about wasted $$$
Week three: Oh lord, we missed her...stupid sterile stud dog
Week four: Vet appointments fix everything
You schedule a vet visit for a sonogram and wake up the morning of the
planned test to discover she looks like she ate a watermelon!
Week five: Not enough food in the world to feed this bitch...
Week six: Oh lord she's lost some babies...when really she has just moved
them around a bit and now she is hanging down more than spread out like a
watermelon
Week seven: Dreams of glory featuring puppies with the best parts of both
parents
Week eight: Nightmares of disaster featuring puppies that look like the
neighbor's dog
Week nine: Maximum guilt...how could you do this to this sweet little
girl, she can't eat or sleep and neither can you.
Stage One labor:
Now, is it now? No she is just rehearsing AND she has picked out one fake
place for puppies, one real place and just rolls her eyes at the lovely new
whelping facility you built for her.
Stage Two:
Well the fake place (the closet) has been passed up for the bushes in the
front yard and you cannot convince her that her humongous butt is clearly
visible to all passers-by...her head is hidden, she thinks she is in a den
and
to h*** with you, you have no idea what you are doing. Your job is to get
her
into the whelping box without stressing this delicate little dog mom to be
or
calling in the crane or forklift.
Actual delivery of babies:
At this point Time is not on your side...it races, then crawls, races
then crawls. Do you call the vet, do you wait. You have lighter moments ...
the bitch trying to crawl into the laundry basket with the babies.
Puppies Day one:
Hubby comes in to view the litter, points at one and says "Wow is he
cute". He is half the size of the other babies.
Puppies Week One:
Looking for heads in all the wrong places...now you KNOW better than to look
for heads when they have smushed up muzzles from nursing
Puppies Weeks Two and Three:
You do their stress activities, monitor weights and every day hubby comes in
to
check on his boy...yes he is cute... fast, too. Easy to be fast when you
are long as a freight train with long legs to match. You've picked out the
best rears and tails from watching them nurse.
During week three you discuss devotion to motherhood with your bitch when
she
announces the darn things have sharp teeth.
Week Four and Five:
They really are cute and you are caught thinking they are cute, because they
are now on solid food and you are fast running out of clean paper.
Hubby plays with his boy child and begs you to stack him up and tell him
what
you think ... you develop really good diversionary strategies.
Week six:
You are starting serious evaluation and start taking pictures ... you notice
while doing the photographs that hubby's pick is now the same size as his
littermates. The litter looks really good...aren't you glad you got that
generic sperm and they all look like your bitch, who is perfect in every
way
Week seven:
While analyzing the photos you keep coming back to one striking male who
is very balanced and very proportioned...this cannot be happening, Could
this be the "little " male your hubby liked.. THAT can't be...
Week eight:
The puppy party where all your friends and some of your enemies come over
to pick your little darlings apart in great detail and make rude remarks
about the faults that nasty stud produced. Their decision is unanimous ...
pick
of the litter is a strong handsome boy who trots wonderfully, comes when
called
and thinks your hubby hung the moon.
home
