After we finished laughing, Jeff and I agreed that it had really just been a matter of time until she figured it out for herself. We were wrong.
Sadie made a few more leap-over attempts, but obviously never caught on that she’d need momentum. She scared herself silly with the first crash and caught her foot in the mesh on her second. She must have decided that particular risk it wasn’t worth it, because her tactics changed.
One day she sat staring into through the hallway door, whining pitifully. We’d both taken a turn checking out what the problem was. The first time, Jeff searched for her red ball, and came back empty handed. The second time, I figured something must really be wrong for Sadie to be so insistent.
Her ball definitely wasn’t on the inside side of the gate, but, ahhh …. Miss Fred was. I scooped Sadie up and told her she was being a silly dog. Freddie immediately jumped the fence, flattened her ears in displeasure, shook a front paw at both of us, and took off the other end of the house.
It wasn’t the last time Sadie’d ask to be let into litter box heaven. She’d prance back and forth from the hallway door to the den and try to catch our eye, hoping we’d follow.
After a few times, we were on to her, but bless her goofy puppy heart she’d would whine jealously about Fred being inside and her being outside.
She’d lie on her belly, back legs tucked, front legs stretched out ib front of her and eventually let out a loud sigh of frustration. She even had the almost teary, super sad eyes of an abused animal commercial pitch, many of which I’d seen over the years. Sadie was certainly dramatic.
Jeff and I became accidentally more educated on Sadie’s particular type of different. Nothing that interesting was on TV, so Jeff shuffled through channels until he landed on Animal Planet. In some sort of agility course event, appropriately sized Jack Russells were weaving and jumping and plowing through tubes. Just when it seemed like the contest was over, the announcer said something about the need to reset the course from the Smalls to the Talls.
I looked over at Jeff who was looking over at me. “Sadie!” I exclaimed. She catapulted to the couch from a complete sleep.
I kissed her adorable heart-shaped nose, and happily informed her, “You’re not a freak, girlie girl! You’re – a – TALL!”
She had no idea what I was saying, but she happily kissed my chin, energetically struggled out of my grasp, bounced off the couch, ran in a circle and took off a full run. In a flash, she was back – gripping her prized red ball.
“Where do-ya think she got that from?” Jeff asked, suspiciously.
Quote for the Week:
Enjoy This Week’s Discovery Links:
Dogs and Their: Toys
Dogs and Their: Fetch Fettish
Dogs and Their: Lick of Affection
.
knabble 