For one thing, we are convinced that Zoe will not be satisfied until the entire world, and I mean, the whole wide world, is covered in a thin layer of her saliva. Our not-so-little pup will lick everything within reach, absolutely everything. She will lick kitchen cabinets, the oven, the bottom part of our hutch, kitchen chairs, windowsills, windows, the stormdoor, the screendoor, your shoes and pants, and anything else she takes a fancy to. Sometimes when we allow her on our bed, she will lick our pillows or blanket until they are soaked through. Just the other day I was so concerned that maybe Zoe had had an accident on the bed that when husband-dear came into our bedroom he found me on the bed on my knees, bend sniffing out duvet cover, while Zoe was licking my head. Fortunately, it was just saliva, although we had no choice but to do another load of laundry. Zoe also absolutely loves licking the inside of our dishwasher too, cleaning off the plates until they look sparkling clean. We’re working on breaking her of that nasty habit, but pulling a
Zoe’s second favorite pastime is digging. Oh yes, and destroying plants. It doesn’t matter that her daddy has threatened to bury her in the holes she digs, or that we put her in her crate when we catch her, and tell her “no” excessively. For Zoe, this is her drug of choice, and nothing will get in her way. Personally, I’m not too concerned about the digging part. We have such a large lawn that a few holes more or less don’t bother me. However, since yard-care is not part of my house-maintenance-package, it is possible that I simply am unable to grasp the level of frustration husband-dear is experiencing. I do know that when we discovered that Zoe had destroyed one of our newly-planted and freshly-trimmed crepe myrtles just last week, I gave up on the “only punish when you catch them in the act” principle. And little miss priss knew what she had done wrong too – she even had the audacity to pick up on of the broken twigs and run around the yard with it in her mouth. It would have been really adorable if I hadn’t been so mad.
Now I don’t mean to make it sound as though Zoe is an unmanageable pest, because on the whole she isn’t. We have managed to get her to sit and stay while we’re eating, she’s stopped icking the couch (wiping crusty dried saliva off your new loveseat just gets old), she will sit, stay and lay down when asked, and even her walking has improved. We can´t seem to get her to stop “talking back” when we ask her to do something she doesn´t want to do, but then again, between her and our oldest running off his mouth, Zoe is actually cute.
Last week, though, we hit another little bump in the road to perfect doggiehood. I took her to the first class of the intermediate class at PetSmart, and was positively embarrassed by her behavior. Zoe behaved like an absolute banshee. She refused to listen, and only wanted to play with the other dogs. She pulled on her leash until her eyes looked like they were about to pop out, she whined, squealed, and anytime I got her to sit down, she would crawl as far as the leash would let her. No amount of correction or positive reinforcement would get her to calm down. It was a nightmare, and I was joking we could very well be the family who broke the “no one has ever failed an intermediate class here” record.
So this week we worked extra hard, and yesterday, Zoe actually outperformed all of the other dogs in the class. She won a little award, and mommy was so proud of her. She comprehended “heel” and “wait”, and was just as adorable as she could be. Maybe there is still some hope for her. Then again, as I am writing this though, puppy dear is sitting in front of the storm door, licking and pawing the glass until the bottom half of the door is covered in dirt and goo. You gotta love your pets. And be willing to stock up on lots and lots of windex.
4 comments:
Maybe it is the taste of windex she likes licking off the windows and doors? Try cleaning them with onion, most dogs truly hate the smell and taste of onions. As a side effect, I heard that an onion in a bucket of water makes the perfect stripe-less cleaning solution for windows :-)
(unfortunately, the taste of onion will not be as strong when you thin it with a bucket of water)
At first I was, like, "Yay! A Zoe post!"
Then I was, like, "What a terrible puppy."
But it sounds like there is hope for Ms. Zoe yet. :-) Like my spouse says about our dog, "She's just a baby!"
C'mon Zoe, make mama proud! Maybe she is starting her teenager time.
You would start wondering if she has some kind of mineral deficiency with all that licking.
I could have written the same about Cosmo at that age. Cosmo is a "dog" dog, like Zoe apparently. He was always getting out of character in class, playing with the other dogs, when it was time to be serious and pay attention. For a few weeks, he dug too, we still have some holes to prove it, but he thankfully stopped. Like Annemiek said, teenage years. Our trainer always said, every dog has a weakness, as do we. Cosmo's is other dogs, Zoe's may be digging or other dogs or, heaven forbid, both ;). You'll still love her ;).
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