Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Stealth Doggie

Ok, I’ve done my damndest to refrain from posting about Buddy (The new puppy). This has been for one simple reason.

Hearing stories about other people’s pets is about as interesting as watching paint dry…after it’s already dried.

Oh, your puppy plays and can sit on command? Well, whoopy-shit, so can pretty much every other dog that’s ever been on the planet.

However, I’m going to break my own rule today, because I’ve discovered a few things about Buddy that just MAY be unique (Or at least rare).

The first of these is that we own the world’s first Stealth-Puppy. I mean, this dog is the Sam Fisher, nay, the all round Ninja of puppies.

Back during the Second World War, the Germans discovered that it wasn’t a good idea to paint night-bombers black. It actually made them easier to spot, ground gunners could just look for the parts of the sky that where darker than the others. Basically, black is only good for camouflage if you’re in a windowless basement at midnight.

Since then, there has been constant argument of what color is best for camouflage at night. Dark grey? Distorted patterns of dark green?

Well, I can settle that argument right now. It’s blonde-brown with black speckles, just like Buddy’s coat. Seriously, you let the little fucker get more than 3 paces away from you when you let him out and night, and it’s over with. Let’s just say you’d better have good ears.

Let’s just say that while I’ll admit my night vision isn’t the best to begin with, I’ve actually trod on him while looking for him.

It’s not just the camouflage and his ultra stealthy footsteps (He makes less noise than a cat when he walks), he also manages disappearing/reappearing that would have David Copperfield slack Jawed.

For example, not 15 minutes ago, I went to the bathroom, and he started whining outside the door, wanting to be let in (What he finds so fascinating about watching people pee, I’ll never know).

I leave the bathroom, and as I leave, he sits down just outside the bathroom door. I call him. He ignores me. I head into the living room. Then, less than 15 seconds later, as soon as I step through the doorway, I see him sitting in the middle of the living room waiting for me.

There is only one way from the bathroom to the living room, and that’s a 3 foot wide corridor. Somehow he got past me without me noticing.

Unfortunately, he appears to be an idiot-savant. (An Idiot-Savant is one of those people who can barely tie their own shoelaces, can’t do the simplest of tasks unassisted, but has one major talent…like the ability to multiply 200 digit numbers in their head with no thinking time).

I may have the world’s most stealthy dog, a dog that should be studied by black-ops teams around the world…unfortunately, he’s a complete fucking idiot.

For example, he has seen the cat leap from great heights and land on all fours with no problems. He doesn’t understand that he’s a fat, short-legged puppy, with little or no co-ordination. I picked him up outside yesterday, and he decided he’d much rather be on the floor. He leapt from my arms…and landed gracefully on his head.

It should be on his resume: Hobbies : Face-planting as often as possible.

Yep, my Doggy likes to jump from every high surface he can find, and lands with all the grace of paraplegic overweight cow.

I’m pretty sure he’s half Lemming.

Well, he’s just a puppy, and he’s still learning, but there are two things you just can’t explain away:

  1. He can’t quite grasp the concept of the game ‘Fetch’.

  2. He likes to eat wood.

Ok, lets start with the fetch thing.

Jake, my dog still living in England with my parents, grasped ‘fetch’ in 15 seconds when he was still just a month or two old. In fact, he loved that game so much, he’s actually never stopped playing that first game. Sure, he takes occasional sleep and food breaks, but he’s never seen without a ball in his mouth.

Jake, in fact got extra crafty. He would deliberately roll his ball underneath the couch, or another location where he couldn’t reach it. He would then whine and scratch at the floor until someone got it for him. Then, while it was in your hand, you had to at least drop it to give it back to him. At first, we though he was doing it accidentally, until we saw him drop a ball within inches of the couch, then push it under with his paw.

Let’s just say Jake is very intelligent. We even had to replace all our door handles with door knobs to stop him from letting himself out of the house.  

Buddy, on the other hand, has all the intelligence of a pickled herring.

I got his ‘Ball-on-a-string’ ™, and held it up in front of him:

“You want the ball? Want the ball, Buddy?”

He did his little dance and his patented pirouette that translated into: “Yes indeed, I would certainly like that ball.”

So I swing it in front of him, then fling it across the field, and shout:

“GOANGEDDIT!”

He watches as the ball arcs to the ground about 30 feet away, then he looks at me with a look that says:

“Huh? You asked if I wanted it, I said yes…so what did you throw it all the way over there for? I’m right here.”

I get the ball, I swing it in front of him, I throw it:

“Look, human, if you want to give me the ball, why do you keep throwing it away? You look kinda stupid throwing the ball, then walking after it and getting it. I wish I had a camera!”

Repeat, ad nauseum.

As for the wood eating thing, that’s pretty self explanatory. When he’s let outside, he does the stuff doggies do outside, then walks back to the door. The door that’s surrounded by woodchips. He then proceeds to eat the woodchips.

After an hour of him making a noise that sounded like an old man trying to get a fragment of a tortilla chip out of the back of his throat, I thought he learned his lesson. Only to let him out this morning, turn my back for a second, then turn back around, only to find him munching on a tree limb.

My dog eats wood.

No better place to end than there.

2 comments:

jim said...

could be worse paulius, buddy could get wood!!!!!

MC Etcher said...

I think Buddy is just too smart for Fetch!