Another beautiful day here, but I spent the day working inside.
One funny thing- several people emailed me reminding me to get poop bags for walking the dog, and that made me laugh, because those really don’t get used. I don’t know if they even sell pooper scoopers in West Virginia. We have grass and trees, ya’ know, which work pretty well. I guess I will check the pet store and see if they have them in case I am ever in a city.
Mom and dad send along this picture of Ginny sulking in the bushes. Apparently she gets really moody when they put the harness on her, and will run off and pout:
Jack Russells are just so damned willful.
*** Update ***
I forgot, but an emailer reminded me- the doe came and picked up her fawn.
SGEW
I loves pouting, sulky doggy. Me want cheer her up!
Halp! Cuteness photos lower brainz power! Insulin! Insulin!
tinat
Willful and adorable.
Once you have a Jack you can never go back because every other dog seems like just a dog, not a smart, sassy, furry toddler who you have to stay mentally on top of for 10 to 12 years, LOL
Halteclere
Pooper scoopers are overrated in my book. Just carry a plastic bag big enough to fit over your hand and grab the stuff.
And don’t let your dog do its business on my yard without cleaning up after it.
Common Sense
Jack Russels manage to be both the most entertaining and frustrating creatures I’ve ever lived with.
Hope your neighbors don’t mind a little present on their lawn. Personally I always clean up after my pooch (and it ain’t easy as she’s not the smallest dog in town), whether there’s a law or not. I just prefer not to risk the wrath of a neighbor and try to be neighborly. All you need is to save plastic bags from the grocery store etc.
John Cole
I’m not sure you are understanding. Most of the places you walk your dog around here they won’t be crapping on someone’s lawn.
Anne Laurie
You don’t need to buy poopsacks, plastic grocery sacks or ziplocks work just fine. But you *do* want to have one on your person when you take Lilly out, because sooner or later she’ll take a dump in the apartment foyer or on the stairs, and it’s neither polite to your neighbors nor fair to other dog-companions who want to rent in your building not to clean up after her. When you live with a dog, plastic bags are like umbrellas… you’ll only need them when you forget to bring one along!
One reason I prefer harnesses over buckle collars is that my dogs wear their harnesses, and ID tags, 24/7 except when they’re being brushed or bathed. And frankly, some rescues get nervous/depressed when their collars are taken off. Our escape artist Zevon definitely seems to associate the “freedom” of no-ID with the trauma of being abandoned at a shelter after spending his first almost-5-years with a family he obviously loved, even though I suspect they gave him up because he ran away one time too often.
demkat620
My JRT has gotten his routine down to the point he will remind me if he thinks it is my bath time or bed time.
He is way too smart. Likes to throw his toys in the bathtub with me so they get wet and at bed time he stands at the top of the stairs barking until I go to bed.
I love that dog.
Zuzu's Petals
I was almost going to say this was OT, but remembered it’s an open thread:
Have I recommended Radio Paradise lately?
geg6
Ginny is adorable when she pouts. My overnight as dog sitter for the Cookie Monster was, as always, enjoyable. She’s getting old, though, and it’s sad to see. I had to pick her up to get her into her chair and onto the bed. And she spent all morning going Galt. If you’d known this dog just a couple of years ago, you’d know that the going Galt thing is more sad than cute. From the time when my sister’s then-boyfriend brought her home from a commercial dive job on Erie where he found her as a puppy wandering on the water’s, abandoned, she has had that puppylike energy and enthusiasm. Not so much with the bad hips now. She is still as cute and cuddly as always though. Much as I love her though, I’d never get a Spitz. She is still shedding the third of her fur layers and puffs of white dog hair on the carpet and furniture proliferate no matter how often you vacuum them or brush that dog. It would drive me nuts what with my OCD about neatness.
Yutsano
Thanks for the fawn update John. Always good when those stories end well.
gbear
I had a roommate once who would never clean up in the backyard after his dog. I finally cleaned up when things became unbearable using the first bag I could find in the garage, an empty Kingsford charcoal bag.
Later that weekend, my roomate has one of his rich buddies from high school over for dinner. They got the Weber going but decided they needed a few more briquettes on the fire so my roomate grabbed the first bag he saw and proceeded to pour his dog’s crap into the flaming Weber.
I was secretly delighted when this happened.
Delia
In my town plastic grocery bags are an endangered species. Some of the markets have stopped using them altogether, and the others all sell those fabric ones for about a dollar. They’ll give you a paper bag, but if you only buy a couple of items they’ll usually ask you if you really need a bag. So buying plastic poop bags at the pet store (they have biodegradable ones now) is the best option around here.
Laura W
I’ll see your Ginny in the bushes and raise you Leah in the blueberries. I check every day coming up the absurdly steep driveway after the walk to see how close the berries are to ripening and today was my day! The bushes are loaded, and I am certain if I live here till end of July I will procure the lioness’ (lionesses’?) share of them. It’s funny how the smallest bushes have the largest berries, and often the most. (I’m sure the botanists in the room are snickering at me, but this is all new to me. I did not know what a blueberry bush looked like till last summer. Nor how asparagus grows up out of the ground like it does.)
On the poop bags…HA. I’ve used them twice in the last decade; Sullivan’s Island, SC, beach. Elitist poop haters down there, one and all. Especially Sanford. Not much use for them in SW Colorado or WNC. Thank goddess. As Joni would say:
I’m learning it’s peaceful with a good dog and some trees, out of touch with the breakdown of the century.
GO Lakers!
Scantily clad athletes……mmmmmmmmm.
SGEW
Hooray! Fawn story ends well. That was all I asked for.
Ed in NJ
Zuzu’s Petals-
Why settle for one station when you can have 12,000?
Radio?Sure!
JL
Ginny looks so sweet and innocent.
The Saff
My brother-in-law, John, used to work as a veterinarian at the horse clinic adjacent to Belmont Park in NY. His boss, the head vet, had a Jack Russell named Skippy. Skippy loved to go to the race track with John to go see the horses.
One day, John left Skippy back at the clinic. Skippy was not happy at being left behind so he decided to use one of John’s boots as a loo. I think that was the last time John didn’t take Skippy with him to the track.
And the pouting Jack Russell is adorable, John.
Yutsano
Full name disclosure please. Jack Russell TERRORIST. Thank you.
dand
What else does one use grocery bags for?
Zuzu's Petals
@Ed in NJ:
Wowza!
Anne Laurie
Service dogs usually learn a ‘magic word’ that means “Do your business here/now, or cross your legs until whenever”. Part of the training for someone who needs a service dog is getting to know their own partner’s capacity and learning to schedule so that the poor animal isn’t embarrassed by having to ‘let go’ in the office or the store.
We have a backyard now, thank goddess, but since the dogs come with us to motels, parks, etc. they all learn what “make a spot” means. (Dopey, yeah, but *I* can’t be trusted not to say “Hurry up, you little turd” in the wrong context.) Which isn’t to say they ‘produce on demand’, but they know it’s now or never… very useful when our fastidious first dog had to use a gym corner full of sawdust at dog shows because Galley hated soiling indoors. They also know, “Okay, let’s get rid of this”, and will help me look for a trashcan or dumpster, although I have never taught this part deliberately.
Laura W
@Anne Laurie: “Go Pottie!” has served me (and Leah) beautifully for 10+ years. The louder I say it, the more quickly she complies. Magic.
Edit: I first used it when she was 6 wks. old and came to live with me. Someone told me puppies had tiny bladders. That I did not figure out by myself. I had to wake up every night in the CO winter to take her out back to do her thing. Several times. I was all about making it a quick ordeal. In fact, one night in my daze I slipped on the icy back steps and nearly crushed her to death. So over snow.
SGEW
O/T (but open thread, right?)
Why, look at this!
Interesting, no?
The Other Steve
I understand where you are coming from John, and it’s too bad. Dogs pick up disease from other dogs poop. Particularly worms and such.
I’ll let you guys in on a little secret that I learned now that I have a baby. It’s amazing how much wisdom babies bring to you. :-)
We’d been buying dog waste bags at Target because you can get a box of 100 for about $6, compared to $9 for the ones at the pet store.
Then I found out that some parents like to put diapers in sacks before dropping them in other peoples trash cans. I thought that was rather kind of them, although it’s obviously nobody I know.
Anyway BabiesRUs sells these bags for 250 of them for $9. And they’re just like the dog poop ones except different color and scented!
Yutsano
Since it’s open thread and I’m that bored at work, I’m gonna get this out of my system.
Kobe Bryant just got “fouled” and the fall he took to get it was pure dramatics. I looked at that and all I could think was, “Does he do that all the time? DUDE that guy needs an Oscar after that!”
(And yes my work is cool enough to have plasma TVs where everyone can see them.)
Laura W
@Yutsano: I guess I can wait nine more seconds before I go to bed.
Yeow.
Louise
The magic command for our family dogs has always been “Get Busy,” and it’s worked wonderfully.
Several years ago, when I was driving north for a move to my next job, I pulled over at an exit so I could let the dog out. As I held the leash in one hand, I held my cell phone in the other — I was talking to the phone rep for my future city home about getting my phone service set up.
“Get busy!” I said to the dog.
“I’m working as fast I can!” replied the phone rep.
I’m about to move into a new house and while it has a back yard in which I can let the doggie poop freely, I think I’ll probably be out there with the biodegradable baggies anyway, because it’s just less gross, on the whole, than waiting and picking up 25 old poops. Yuck.
phillygirl
Um, where’s Shayla?
Yutsano
Just for the record, I did not mean to imply that I am anti-JRT. Or anti-dog. In fact I’m shiba inu hunting as we speak. I just believe in truth in labeling.
OriGuy
From alt.fan.cecil-adams, one of the few USENET groups I still read:
Ceiling cat sends her only begotten kittehs
matoko_chan
My mom is an avid jack enthusiast and breeder, and my brothers and I showed our dogs in the Terrior Trials growing up.
You know those AKC dog shows with carpets, high heels and skirts?
Pfft.
At terrior trials people wear muck boots and bib overalls.
There are flat races and steeplechases (with jumps), but the most fun is go-to-ground, where the jacks do a timed tunnel run.
Jackpot events, everyone pays an entry, and the winner gets the purse. It is a very country thing.
My mother hates the AKC and says they are ruining the working breeds. Our jacks were all registered with the Jack Russell Society.
The three most common causes of jack death are 1..cars, 2..picking fight with a much bigger dog…they are fearless, and 3.. go-to-ground without a handler.
In the field trials the jacks wear a locator collar so they can be dug up if they go to ground on a varmint. They can’t be called off.
matoko_chan
And in W.V. you might even get to see a terriorman ride out with one of the hunts. In the old days he would button his jack inside his jacket, but now they use soft carriers.
If the fox went to ground the jack would bolt him so the hunt could go on. Most hunts are drag now, scent-hunts, though.
tinat
He is way too smart. Likes to throw his toys in the bathtub with me so they get wet
My Jack knows when I come in from working in the yard I’ll need a shower…and he’ll pick up his ball and follow me around til shower time, his favorite time to play catch, LOL, so he throws it in the shower, I throw it out and on it goes until I finally throw it out of the room and close the door. He lives for shower time!
joe from Lowell
That dog is definitely pouting.
“How could you? How could you?”
Lawlz.