And now, a few words from our heroine:

Apparently something called "the bar" has been raised around here.  I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but it seems that good behaviour, for which I used to be paid excellent chicken jerky morsels, just isn't good enough anymore.  So it goes when you're workin' for The Man.  Or in this case, The Woman, since Daddy is still a pushover with the treats.

Among the new rules:

• Sit politely when people come into the house (and when they make off with the silverware?)
• Allow myself to be petted by friendly strangers (what can I say?  I'm Garbo-esque)
• No forging ahead on leash walks (2 legs, 4 legs; <heavy sigh>)
• No pushing Izzy around (I've always thought of it as "providing much-needed direction")

And apparently just being fluffy and cute no longer counts.

-- Sadie

Fly, Izzy, fly!

Dogs then and now

When I was a kid dogs were simple.  They stayed in the yard (without a fence), you played with them, they followed you everywhere (without a leash).  Little Rascals, minus the lisps.  We asked no more of dogs than what their instincts and 10,000 years of natural selection had given them: that they protect us, work with us, be our boon companions.

They communicated as they always had, with their mouths.  Everyone knew a dog who snapped or nipped, and we learned to give them the space they were clearly asking for.  My friend Joannie Bindrim's big golden retriever disliked being petted, and reminded you of that every time you tried. We kids were his personal Everest; sometimes he nipped us just because we were there.

Dogs who had training seemed like circus performers.  They wowed us with their "tricks", but they and their owners were clearly a different ilk.  Our next-door neighbour had a gray standard poodle, and when she came to visit one day the dog came along.  Into the house!  It lay politely at her feet, not interested in anything but her mistress.  It didn't sniff or pee or seem to care about doing either.  I was dumbfounded.

* * *

Sadie was a backyard dog, living outside in Tennessee.  It explains her fondness for pickup trucks and lawn mowers.  She'd obviously had plenty of experience with children and none with leashes.  Protecting her domain from interlopers was her mission, her calling, her raison d'etre.

From Tennessee to the shelter to Manhattan.  Our country girl learned to navigate revolving doors and escalators, up and down.  She figured out the elevator, though she sometimes got off a floor too soon.  The doors would close before she could correct her error, and I would have to finish the ride up and then go back down for her.  I always found her staring at the elevator doors, head tilted in puzzlement.

She knows Sit, Down, Stay (in both Sit and Down), Left Paw, Right Paw, Two Paws (that one still needs work), Touch, Look, Leave It (doesn't apply to chicken bones found on the sidewalk), Wait, Steady, Tummy, Jump, Jump Big, In, Out, Off, and Dance.

Just don't try to burgle the joint.  A calling is a calling.