Obviously closely Indian film related, right? Oh whatever, it’s Friday. I just want to relax and have fun after this emotional week.
Dog stories! I’ll go first. When my sister and I were 3 and 5, my parents set up an elaborate treasure hunt around the house (well, it felt elaborate, but we were really tiny, it might have just been a straight line through the middle of the house), and at the end of it there was a piece of paper with a picture of a dog and a cat, we got to pick which one we wanted. We picked dog, and my parents breathed a secret sigh of relief because they really didn’t want a cat.
So we went to the pound and looked at all the puppies and Mom and Dad kept talking about “the one with the white” collar, which was confusing to is, because it was the pound, none of them had collars? But we liked the fluffy one that was at the front of the cage. Turns out, they meant the fluffy one! Because she had a fluffy white collar made of fur built in.
Mom and Dad liked her because she was part of a litter of puppies, and she jumped in front of all of them to go “yip yip yip! Back off back off! Fight me if you want to get at my brothers and sisters!” Clearly the best dog. We took her home, and she was a super easy puppy, slept all day, hardly opened her eyes or raised her head, puppies are easy! Mom and Dad took her to a vet who said “yep, she’s dying”. They were left to decide if they wanted to spend several hundred dollars on a puppy they had just gotten, or explain Death to their tiny daughters. Obviously, they spent several hundred dollars instead.
Any sane person would tell you that you should not have a puppy and two pre-school children at the same time. And yes, there was a lot of poop around the house, and basically everything we own has bite marks on it, but it was so worth it! She was just the best dog in the universe. Also, very useful to have a smart dog when you got older. I wasn’t supposed to watch TV during the day, but the dog was this great early warning system. 5 minutes before my parents got home, she would get up and go sit by the front door. I don’t know how she knew (sound of the car? Some long distance smell thing?), but it was very useful.
She was a border collie crossed with a husky, so extremely intelligent, extremely protective, and very very large. It took us a few years to figure out that when she ran up to the landing on the stairs as people came up to the door, it was so she could more easily leap down and grab them by the throat. It also took us a few years to realize she was putting us to bed every night. She’d just come over and stare at you until you started to think “gee, I should go to bed”. And somehow all 4 of us would find ourselves upstairs in bed with a contented dog doing little bed checks and then curling up in the hallway to keep an eye on all of us.
Also, we got in the habit of spelling words in front of her. Which is why, thanks to my insanely smart childhood dog, I still say “I have to F the D” or “W the D”, not common terms I have come to discover. Also not common to say “excuse me” and then expect the dog to politely get up and move aside.
Okay, that’s my dog stories! I mean, I’ve had other dogs, but they were just dogs, you know? She was the real dog. Which is why you don’t get to know her name, because my entire family still uses her as passwords regularly. Sure it’s bad computer security, but she was such a good watchdog! It feels like the safest thing you can do.
Who was your real dog? If you have had one?
dontcallitbollywood 
Story about the same dog: she was allowed to eat our leftover breakfast cereal. She’d lick the bowl clean with nothing behind on Rice Krispies mornings but if it was Raisin Bran she would carefully leave a little pile of perfectly clean raisins in the bottom of the bowl.
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My friend’s dog who I helped bring home (my soulmate), loved a particular type of lotion I would apply on my leg. He wasn’t allowed to jump on people but would to the extent he could stand on two feet, go as high as he could to lick the lotion of my legs. The little wierdo!
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Awwww, puppy! Did he lick anyone else’s legs, or just yours?
On Fri, May 1, 2020 at 3:04 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Mainly mine. But in general he liked licking lotioned legs. Also, he became so good at standing on his two feet, that we can now dance (waltz) with him, while he stands on two feet. I will send you a pic of my husband dancing with him. Also, is there a way to post regular pictures on WordPress?
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Alas, no way to post photos in comments, unless they are already somewhere else online and you link to them (Rachel does it because she has a blog page thing she already posts them to). And that sounds so cute! Poor Albie Dog is too top heavy, he keeps falling over when we try to dance.
On Fri, May 1, 2020 at 3:20 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Awe, poor Albie! He is such a cutie, though! Hopefully he is living his best life and thoroughly enjoying the triple attention from you and your parents. Mine certainly is. Granpda (my dad) is his absolute favorite!
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Dogs are just the best! Although Albie had tummy troubles a couple days ago (I changed his food, so that’s on me) and it was a bit exceedingly gross for a while. When he isn’t being gross, we all quit enjoy him.
On Fri, May 1, 2020 at 3:54 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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My first boy, Bart, wirehaired dachshund/love of my life used to like to lick the water off our legs after the shower. It was such a part of our lives that when we got Georgie I was waiting for her to do it but no.
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Dancing with a big doggie is the best!!!!!
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Our dog is a Yorkshire Terrier who is like the baby of the household (even if she is turning 13 this year) who loves Mom and Mom is the one she looks to be the closest in the household. Whenever she wants attention or sometimes food she will slap Mom with her paw (sometimes quite high) looking at her sharply. Then when she’s sleepy and if she is in someone’s lap she will snuggle her nose under their armpit. Her favourite position is to sleep on her back with her paws hanging there as her feet move as if she is running, clearly in deep sleep. She is also spoiled rotten with food from our table, a nightly massage by Dad who gives her a treat afterwards and now dictating where the walks will be just so we can see where she wants to go, thus far it has been great fun to see where she leads. That is our cute dog!
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Your dog sounds delightful!!!!
I love the idea of her sleeping on her back with the little feet going, that is unique in my doggie experience.
On Fri, May 1, 2020 at 4:04 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh, and she has these checks of everyone’s bags with her nose whenever someone comes to our house for treats because she expects them. And she is an independent single old lady! No puppies (got her cut in that part), no men (except those she can make subservient to her or be just friends but nothing more) and starts barking at every dog who wants to come close to us, so she is very protective as well. She is small but feisty.
Now that we are at our summer cottage our neighbours, who also have a Yorkie, are glad that their boy Yorkie can see ours and they are friends in the closest way. Kisses on the noses when they met!!! That’s the most any dog has gotten from her, other than her barking at them or ignoring them completely while being quite aware of her small stature or just running to safety in Mom’s arms.
The young sheepdog at the farm that is a walk away even treats our Yorkie as a kind of sheep he has to protect and is adorable as they both try to deal with the young puppy one being a big dog and our old respected lady being a small one. The power in that relationship is fascinating to watch every summer, except maybe this one for current reasons.
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Dog friends! Those are Best Friends. So glad at least the doggie gets to socialize.
On Fri, May 1, 2020 at 4:20 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Maybe only out first dogs can be The Real Dogs? I had one too. I think I was more or less 6 when we get him. He looked like this and was the best and easiest dog ever:
We lived in one of these residential blocks post-communist countries are full of. So no garden, but we didn’t have to walk with him because he walked himself alone. We only had to open the door and press the button to open the downstairs door. When he heard the noise, he knew the door is unlocked and he can start pushing. Then he did what he had to, chill some time outside, watched what people do, and when he felt like going home he sit beside the door, and sooner or later we or one of the neighbors would let him in. Everybody knew and liked him, he was a part of the landscape. When he felt sick one day so many people were worried and visited us. Fortunately, he recovered and lived with us for many years. He died when I was 19.
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When I was little I was scared of dogs so my mom offered to help our older neighbor walk her dog to help me get over my fear. He was a big shaggy black dog named Sorto, because he was a sorta this and sorta that mutt. Very gentlemanly fellow. The plan worked so well that I started researching dog breeds obsessively and lobbying my parents incessantly for a dog. This went on for years. After Sorto died, the neighbor, now in her mid 70s, decided to get a wolf mix. She named him Lobo. He was allegedly three quarters wolf, one quarter husky, and one quarter German Shepherd. Way too active for my neighbor so we walked him too. He was friendly with people but very confused by other dogs, especially the little ones. I also had two Australian Shepherds down the block that I used to dog sit for, Pepsi and Cassidy. Loved those dogs, they were my favorites. The first time I watched them, Pepsi growled at me every time I came in the house, wouldn’t let me put a leash on them, barely let me feed them. I told the owners when they got home and they still called me to watch them the next time, but it never happened again. It was like she was testing me and once I passed we could be fast friends.
I never did get a dog of my own. Always figured I would one day, but now my older son is allergic so not any time soon. Shame because the younger one adores dogs. I do feel the same way about my first cat as you do about your dog, though. He was two years older than me, also black and white with a lot of personality, also the smartest and best cat. He lived to be just shy of 17. The summer he was 16 we found him 15 feet up in the fork of this giant honey locust we had in the backyard, sitting there very dignified, but not entirely sure how to get down. We never found out what made him climb the tree. I like to think it was just to see if he still could.
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You made friends with so many dogs! Such a large social circle. I only know a few dogs, our dogs, my grandparents dog who I didn’t much like, and my friends dog who they got as a puppy and must now be somewhere around age 10.
I like this whole picture of your childhood with all those dogs and neighbors. And so many dogs!
On Fri, May 1, 2020 at 10:55 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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My childhood dog was also a border collie mix (with what we never knew), and so smart that she not only knew the word “walk” she eventually learned to spell it. (Or, more likely, she picked up on the significant tone we used). We always said “perambulate the canine” if we didn’t want her to know what was coming.
I love all dogs and cats, but I think I prefer a smart one. My friends have greyhounds, which are beautiful but dumb. In some ways it’s easier because you don’t have to think of an occupation for them, etc., but it’s nice to look into intelligent eyes and think a dog is really getting you.
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Yaaaaay, border collie sisters! Especially growing up with one, it really changes how you look at dogs, doesn’t it? There were several years there when the dog was legitimately smarter and more aware of the world than I was. We didn’t even have to punish her, she would do something bad, and go stand by the backdoor looking ashamed and waiting for us to put her outside. I still have that instinct to follow a dog instead of the other way around, which tends to make most dogs like me. Doesn’t help with training them at all, but they like me, the person who says “oh, you think we should have a cuddle now? Well, you know best!”
I know what you mean about dumb dogs. My grandparents had a toy poodle that was really really dumb (after having a toy poodle who was really really smart, breeds are unpredictable). That dog drove us crazy. Albie Dog is both dumb and smart. Dumb enough to play fetch, which we’ve never had before in a dog (our border collies reaction to fetch was “I bring you the ball and you throw it away? Well, if you are going to be that ungrateful, why should I bother bringing you balls any more?”). But smart enough that he can entertain himself with his own toys and come up with little projects for himself like moving all the toys one by one from one room to the other.
On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 3:59 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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