We have a new dog in the house. We couldn’t teach the old dog any new tricks so we ordered a new one.
Ok, that’s not true. Annabelle, our previous dog was old and in pretty bad shape so we had to make a tough decision and put her down. She was a good dog until the last few years when her arthritis, acquired after being thrown from a car, got the best of her. So we rescued another one.
His name is Jack. Jack is a handful. As with any rescue dog we don’t know a lot about his past but from what we are told he was kept on a run outside all day and he kept breaking the run and running, and running, and running. His owners didn’t want to deal with it anymore so they gave him up.
Jack is the third dog we have had, all rescues. I know I have written about our first, Buttons the wonder dog. I don’t know if I ever wrote about Annabelle the Walmart dog. And now we have Jack.
You would think by now I would have this whole dog thing figured out. Nope. For example, I am trying to understand his peeing routine. When we had Buttons we never noticed his bathroom habits because we could just let him run outside. We only had one rule he needed to go on the neighbor’s lawn, not ours.
We had to take Annabelle out and she had the same routine each time. Pee in one spot, poop in another. Same two places every day for three weeks then change them up. We could be a half mile away from one of her preferred spots and no matter how bad she had to go, she wouldn’t until she ran back to her spot.
Now Jack on the other hand has no routine. When he has to go, he goes. He picks a spot and that’s it. However, there is one thing: he can’t decide which way he is going to pee. Sometimes he raises his left leg, sometimes his right, and sometimes he just squats. There are times he starts to squat then changes his mind and raises one of his legs.
When he lifts his leg it is the one closest to the object he is near, a bush, a car, or a fire hydrant, but sometimes he’ll change his mind and turn completely around so the opposite leg is near the selected target. And there are times even after all that he’ll just squat.
Although he isn’t quite as fussy as Annabelle was, there are times when he will lift a leg, turn around and then change his mind and go to another spot entirely. All the time pulling me along at breakneck speed.
I’m sure before too long he’ll have me trained and I’ll be following him along without question.
Just like with our elected officials.
