Tansy, the double digit doggy!

Last Updated on: 4th July 2021, 01:11 pm

Poor Shmans is overdue for an update, so here goes.

Believe it or not, Tansy is 10 years old. She turned 10 last month. Also, I just learned this year that she shares her birthday with Clint Eastwood! I find that kind of amusing, because I had a coworker who used to call the Shmans the mule, and I swear there’s a scene in one of the Clint Eastwood movies where he tells people to apologize to his mule. I don’t think I ever told my coworker when her birthday was, so I don’t think he was making a Clint Eastwood reference on purpose. Either way, it’s funny. Most people still think she looks pretty young, but more people comment on the bits of white and some grey that’s showing up. But she’s still healthy over all.


And it’s another year, another dab of barf bingo. This one was in January. We had just had one in November so I thought we were good for a while. Nope. I brought her in from going out to pee at noon, and without making a sound, she blarfed up a pile of eeewww on the carpet. I would love to know why she does this, but at least it’s only once a year.


She’s getting lazier in her play, but it’s a strategic kind of lazy. If we chuck a toy, she’ll figure out if it will roll back to her or not. If it will, she’ll just wait for it to get closer, and then pounce. Or, she’ll not move if we chuck the toy, but pounce on it if we go get it and chuck it back at her. What a goof!


Sometimes she’ll only run and play if Steve throws the toy, and sometimes she wants me to do it. And if she wants us to throw it again, and we can’t find it, she’ll give us a little while to try and find it, wagging faster if we’re getting warmer. But eventually she loses patience with us and pounces on it herself. It’s like she’s saying “Do I have to do everything for you people?”


When she does decide to play, sometimes it’s out of the blue. One second, she’s stretching and waking up, the next, she’s bopping around like a goofball. Every now and then, she channels her inner puppy and will whine at us if we aren’t playing with her when she’s decided it’s play time. She’s also developed this weird habit of walking up to me after I’ve eaten and sniffing at my face. Shmans, you’re weird.


Shmans has noticed that we don’t go out much besides the usual pee breaks, and sometimes if Steve and I are picking up the groceries, we go down without her. So now, when I go to the door, she’s not sure if we’re going anywhere, so she’ll wait to see if I grab the harness. Only then does she get excited. She’s always recognizing patterns.


And about those pee breaks. She has insisted on an extra one, or what feels like an extra one, in the evening. When I think about it, I guess it’s not really extra since in the office times, she would get a pee break when we were leaving the office and then poop when we got to the grass near home. But since there isn’t all that traveling involved thanks to the pandemic, it feels like extra. I’ll take her out for her usual potty trip after she eats, then we would eat, and then somewhere between 7 and 8, she will start poking at me, and then drinking water, and then poking me again until I take her out, at which point she would pee. On a side note, Shmans, if you need to pee, why drink more water? The weird part is she’s not the only one who does it. I can’t find it written down, but Trixie used to drink water, and then circle around the door puffing, then drink some more water. The extra pee break worried me at first, making me consider all kinds of evil things like diabetes, but the vet ran some tests and nothing came up, so I’m not worried. She still has never had an accident, so I’m going to just think of it as a weird Shmans oddity.


She seems to be attached to Steve even more than before. When I get up in the morning, if she can’t see him, she waits until she can and then does her shukh and flop routine. She also loves to bug him before dinner. I think she’s hoping that he’ll come and get me and convince me that she needs to be fed. It’s hilarious to watch. She’ll just get up from wherever she’s sleeping and go flying out to bug him.


Another old oddity that has returned is her wish to get up and bug Steve if he sleeps on the couch. He can’t win! If he sleeps in the bedroom, he gets to listen to me blabber on about who knows what, but if he sleeps on the couch, Shmans comes out and rudely has a party next to him! So I’ve had to shut the bedroom door to keep the little rascal inside.


I’ve noticed at least two probable pandemic-induced behaviours. One is uncertainty around elevators. It’s manageable, but it’s there. I think it comes from giving people space to exit, which then causes us to take longer to reach the elevator, which makes it more likely that the elevator will try to close on us. Now, she fights me unless she sees the elevator doors newly open, so she knows she has a few seconds to get in there.


The other one that makes me laugh is if we’re outside and she doesn’t want to go back in yet, she will actually speed up as we approach the path to go back inside. It’s like she doesn’t want me to notice it in time to ask her to go in. It makes me laugh.

All of the songs I’ve mentioned so far have been songs she seems to respond to in what looks like a positive way. But there’s one song that she seems to actively dislike, and it’s this one.

Aww, what’s wrong with “Layin’ Pipe”? But whenever it comes on, she actually leaves the room, and it’s obvious.

I think I got everything. That was huge! Tansy is an endless supply of stuff.

Join the Conversation

4 Comments

  1. What’s wrong with laying pipe? I think you’ll find the answer is everything. The double entendre is crass, clunky, and seriously stupid. Also he sounds like he’s been smacked in the head a few times when he sings it. I love David Wilcox, but this song can feel free to rot in its own private hell. this woman ain’t satisfied.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.