Epic Tansy Post Part 2

That last Tansy post was huuuge. This one has a bunch of stuff, but won’t be quite as massive.

Back years ago, I wanted to find Babs’s old whistle to use as a recall aid. Well, I found it this year, and was starting to use it with Tansy. All I was doing was associating it with food. I started doing this a ton more when I found out my brother had gotten a puppy, and there was a chance Tansy and the pup could be let loose in my mom’s yard when I was supposed to go home for my stepgrandpa’s funeral. Of course, that didn’t happen because I spent that day in the hospital wondering when I was going to get out, and since, I haven’t been as diligent with it, even though I should start up again.

But I think the association is getting there, because I bumped the whistle, and she was sure she was going to get food. I really need to bring it when I think her recall might suck.

To the folks who ride escalators with your pups: have you ever had your dog approach the escalator going the wrong direction? Tans had a thing for doing this for a while. I would always figure it out of course, but not before people would freak out and I would feel sheepish. I don’t want her to never approach that particular escalator, especially since I have to come down it when I’m coming from above…just don’t approach it when I need to go up!

People always talk about how exhausting hospitals are. Well, I think Tansy agrees. The few times she’s been in there with me, either when the gallbladder stuff was starting, or afterwards, when I went back and visited someone who had been in the ward with me, she has come out exhausted. Steve commented that the night he brought her home and I stayed at the hospital, after she got over the “where is Carin and why did you just take me away?” she flopped over. The 2 times I went to visit a friend, even though she didn’t do a heap of walking or guiding, she came home exhausted. It must be all the smells, and people moving every which way, and booping machines and things to see that just wear her right out.

I’m also blown away with how exhausted she is by a walk in the park. She doesn’t have to run around like mad, just sniff a lot, but when we get home, she falls over like I made her walk a couple of miles.

A couple of other interesting notes Steve told me about while I was in the hospital: There is more proof that she’s a musical dog. Why? She had a favourite radio station. He would put one radio station on and she didn’t seem to settle or seem happy. He chose another one, and her disposition totally changed. I didn’t see it, but I believe it, especially after her reaction to that song!

And she would never be sure things were ok until he turned the TV on at night. That little piece of routine seemed to convince her that the day was over, and it was ok to settle down.

I meant to write about this a while ago. One time, I was trying to find just the right path to go in a building, and kept picking the wrong one. Dutifully, Tans would go up the path, only to have me discover that this wasn’t going to work and turn around. When I finally picked the right one, I think Tansy tried to give *me* praise. She started wagging like crazy and walking faster. I had to laugh.

But she has also tried to trick me by giving me the wrong signal. I have learned that her going faster usually means we’re covering new ground, and she thinks this is exciting. One time, when we were at the park and I had decided play time was over, I was trying to get out of the park. But I wasn’t quite as good as I am now about getting out of there. So, I swear she actually sped up when I was going the right direction, to trick me into thinking this was new ground, so she could stay longer and play. Silly dog, keeping me on my toes.

I’ve also noticed that she will do the Trixie thing of taking me literally when she doesn’t want to go somewhere. Thankfully this doesn’t include the vet’s office, but there have been other times when she hasn’t wanted to go somewhere, and she has taken my instructions literally, even though she knows exactly where I want her to go.

Tansy has learned to respond to lots of words that I didn’t mean to have her associate with her as if they were her name. Sometimes she would come bounding over to me, and I would say “Hey there ya crazed beast!” This got shortened to “Hey there, crazed,” and now I see that she thinks “crazed” is another one of her names. Well, sometimes, it might as well be.

Tans really will eat anything, I swear. Brad bought her these rabbit ears, and yes, these are actually rabbit ears…dry, furry rabbit ears. Blarch! I gave one to Tansy, and she just chomped the sucker down! Trix, on the other hand, would have nothing to do with the things. But Tans would like more, more, more!

I can’t believe I’ve never written about the Kong Wabbler before. I got one for Trix, and she loved it. You put food in it, and then you screw it shut, and the dog has to push it around and make the food fall out. It has a base full of sand, so it wabbles around and drops food out. Trix would pick that thing up, carry it somewhere and then attack it for the contents. She liked it so much that I sent it with her to Brad. But I got another one for Tans.

She’s funny with it. She will carry it everywhere, running around the house pushing this thing around. Sometimes, she pushes it into places that she can’t get it out of, then looks at us like, “um, guys? Help?” Sometimes these places are small openings like parts of a closet, or behind the TV. But the funniest was when she pushed it into the kitchen. She knows the kitchen is out of bounds…even when her favourite toy is in there. So it was super cute and kind of sad to see her looking from us to the kitchen like “Are you going to get that back for me?”

And I think that’s it for now. Tans is never short on giving me ideas…I just suck at getting them written down quickly.