We have two dogs, the older and larger is SpaceDawg . She’s a purebred Malemute that I acquired as a rescue when she was almost two. She’s seven now and after a bad spell with an arthritic back leg she’s back in the game of being my hiking partner. Hiking was how we bonded–she had never been walked in her life before I got her, had no leash manners whatsoever and pulled like a freight train! Over much time and many, many miles she’s learned her basic obedience commands and to walk on a leash without yanking and can be more or less trusted off leash, as long as there’s nothing more interesting to pay attention to than me calling her. She, like most of her breed, is a very doglike dog, intelligent but in no way sycophantic. She likes to play the way dogs do, wrestling, pull toy, chase me, but doesn’t fetch or do tricks–except for catching treats thrown to her. She’s sweet and friendly and kids can climb all over her but we don’t allow any small people near her when they have food because she’s a pig and will take it from them. I recently posted about her great love of small bunnies, but I do have to cop to some culpability regarding her current extreme focus on food, as we’ve had to put her on a diet in order to get her weight down–she was too chunky and it was making her leg worse. Now she’s quite svelte and active again, and a lot of the credit goes to:
Widget. Widget is a border collie mix–mixed with what is uncertain although the rescue lady thinks Dad was part Jack Russell. He just turned a year old May first and is probably the smartest dog I’ve ever owned, which is saying something! He’s definitely the most devoted dog I’ve ever had, and loves me to distraction. He loves the SO, too, but from what I hear Widget spends most of the day marking time until he hears my car coming down the street. He’s cute and funny and has those bat ears that go up like antennae whenever we talk to him, cocking his head so far to the side it’s a wonder he doesn’t dislocate his neck. He loves his tennis ball and about an hour after I get home he starts giving me these intent looks, telepathically willing me to go outside to throw the ball for him to chase. He’s learned to catch it in the air as well, and to jump over my outstretched leg for it, and as of yesterday he’s learned to “speak” as well. He likes to run and thinks five miles full out next to a bicycle is great fun, especially when I’m hiking and the SO is riding the bike–he runs back and forth between us until he gets tired out. He recently discovered the joy of swimming, chasing Space into the pond at the top of Powell Butte. She doesn’t swim although she loves the water–she has this water line at about chest level and I’ve never been able to persuade her to actually get all the way in to swim. Widget tries to herd her while swimming, which is a tactical mistake–if he gets too nippy she grabs his head and dunks him under! Widget is incredibly fast and agile, and on land he literally runs circles around Space, nipping and annoying her until she’s ready to put the hurt on him–but she can seldom lay a paw on him. They’re fast friends and co-conspirators in a nefarious plot to dig their way to China via the backyard…
I wuvs my doggies so much!
