My Beloved Arthur -- An Epic
This dog.
You all know I adore him to pieces. And I've recently turned into an exercising fiend, so he and I have been spending a lot more time together. We walk around the block, and I tell his admiring public that no, he is not a puppy. He is a stately six year old. And secretly I am proud that they think he looks so youthful.
Anyway, my dad recently managed to detach his bicep tendon from the bone, and had to have surgery. He is in the middle of his week in which he is not allowed to remove his sling. He is going absolutely stir crazy. So when a deer sat in our yard for two and a half hours, he told me to sic Arthur on the deer.
Now, I am more than happy to allow my dog to act on his primeval instinct to HUNT. In Theory. In fact, the last time he acted on this instinct he was not even a year old. Here's what happened:
[Under a cut due to gruesomeness.]A whole herd of deer is grazing happily in our backyard. (These animals have no fear of humans.) Arthur is losing it because he sees them through the window. I have a BRILLIANT idea! What is this dog for, if not to rid our property of these oversized rodents? I open the door. Arthur shoots out. The deer run. Arthur runs.
Suddenly there is a little yelp and then silence. I call. Arthur comes out of the woods and stops at the edge of the yard. I call again. He just sits and looks at me sadly. And then I see it -- there is a gash maybe a foot long under his right hind leg. It's torn through the skin so that you can see the musculature around his genitals. Surprisingly there's not a drop of blood, but it looks horrifying.
He needed 80-90 stitches in three layers. And the vet said that another centimeter and his femoral artery would have been hit and he'd have died right in front of us.
My dad and I went searching the next day and found a stick a few feet tall that was the dead leftover of a very thin tree. Arthur had impaled himself.
I'll just never forget how SAD he looked the first time I took him to the bathroom after his surgery when he just stopped and put his tail between his legs and his head down and wouldn't move. I still tear up thinking about it.
So, long story short: My dad made a decree that Arthurs were no longer allowed to chase deer, no matter how much they wanted to.
But I mentioned that my dad was going stir crazy?
DAD: Look! That deer's still there. Send Arthur after it.
ME: I'll chase the deer off.
DAD: No, send Arthur.
ME: You said never to send Arthur.
DAD: Send him to chase the deer!
ME: Dad, I'm leaving for church in five minutes. I don't want to risk anything especially right now I'm about to leave. Besides, you said never to send him because of what happened last time. I just . . . I don't want to risk anything bad happening.
DAD: It will be fine! Just send him out to chase the deer.
ME: Fine.
I went and got Arthur. Arthur was SOOO excited. He ran. The deer ran. And then they both disappeared from our yard. Seriously, it happened so fast I'm not sure where they went.
Dad and I called. And called. And offered treats. But I didn't hear a jingle of his collar. Dad was VERY chagrined, as you might imagine.
I went and started driving around the neighborhood and calling for him. At one point I see a flock of turkey vultures and PANIC for a second before it occurs to me that if Arthur had been hit by a car and died, the vultures could never have found him that quickly. Finally my phone rang, and it was Dad to tell me Arthur had come back home.
(I learned later that my brother looked out the window and saw Arthur trotting up the walk to sit in front of the door to be let in.)
DAD: He came home. He looks very pleased with himself.
ME: Sure.
My dad was NOT joking.
You know when Dug says "I am a great tracker!" in UP? Arthur looked like that. He was sitting there and had this smug self-satisfied grin. It was hilarious.
He got an enormous piece of (forgotten now humanly inedible) steak as befitted such a hero.
Then he had to go to bed, and he was mortally offended. Such is the life of a dog.
And speaking of being pleased with himself:
Today I was going to take him on a walk. Tess saw me getting ready to go and started having a heart attack from excitement, so I said I'd take her, too.
This was my first mistake. I said "I'll take you on a walk, too."
Then I had to get my exercising equipment. And plan something with my mom. And go to the bathroom.
The dogs started getting uncontrollably excited.
The moral of this part of the story is that you should never tell your dogs what you're about to do. Especially if it is a walk. Which, as everyone knows is EVEN MORE EXCITING THAN FOOD.
Eventually we did make it out the door, and the dogs were satisfied.
Tess is, as I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, dumb as rocks. My mom says that Tess knows how to heel, but my mom is blinded by love. Tess cannot heel.
Arthur is, as I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, smart as a whip. He knows perfectly well how to heel. He heels when he feels it is worth his while. I am blinded by love, so I don't mind that much. But I've been trying to be better, taking to heart Cesar Milan and stuff, and I've been working at getting him used to heeling while we walk. It takes about two miles for him to really truly heel without being urged, but it's an improvement.
You should also know that Tess is a little ball of energetic love. She loves indiscriminately. Her reaction to a human, another dog, a bird, a deer, a squirrel, her food, etc. is exactly the same. Arthur loves a select few. Mostly me and my dad. Somewhat my mom. And on occasion my brother. Arthur seems to think that he's a human. At least he thinks he way better than Tess.
So we started around the block. Tess was not heeling. Arthur was being perfect. PERFECT. He heeled like a pro. He was exactly where he should have been in relationship to me. He didn't get distracted by people or animals.
He was a little goody-two-shoes.
When I returned Tess (who was thoroughly exhausted from one mile) and got back on the road with Arthur, he immediately went back to his back non-heeling behavior.
He is such a bad dog.
Of course I should have expected this. When you give him a command and he is on his own he usually obeys. But he does so slowly, frequently with dramatic sound effects, just so you know that he doesn't want to be obeying. If he is with Tess, and someone is saying "Sit, Tess! Sit, Tess!" over and over again in hopes that she may put her little bottom on the ground for even two seconds, Arthur sits. And every time the person tells Tess to sit, he sits up a little straighter, and tries to squirm into the line of sight of the person who is (futilely) attempting to get Tess to register the command.
What does it say about me that I completely and utterly adore this dog with every fibre of my being?
You all know I adore him to pieces. And I've recently turned into an exercising fiend, so he and I have been spending a lot more time together. We walk around the block, and I tell his admiring public that no, he is not a puppy. He is a stately six year old. And secretly I am proud that they think he looks so youthful.
Anyway, my dad recently managed to detach his bicep tendon from the bone, and had to have surgery. He is in the middle of his week in which he is not allowed to remove his sling. He is going absolutely stir crazy. So when a deer sat in our yard for two and a half hours, he told me to sic Arthur on the deer.
Now, I am more than happy to allow my dog to act on his primeval instinct to HUNT. In Theory. In fact, the last time he acted on this instinct he was not even a year old. Here's what happened:
[Under a cut due to gruesomeness.]A whole herd of deer is grazing happily in our backyard. (These animals have no fear of humans.) Arthur is losing it because he sees them through the window. I have a BRILLIANT idea! What is this dog for, if not to rid our property of these oversized rodents? I open the door. Arthur shoots out. The deer run. Arthur runs.
Suddenly there is a little yelp and then silence. I call. Arthur comes out of the woods and stops at the edge of the yard. I call again. He just sits and looks at me sadly. And then I see it -- there is a gash maybe a foot long under his right hind leg. It's torn through the skin so that you can see the musculature around his genitals. Surprisingly there's not a drop of blood, but it looks horrifying.
He needed 80-90 stitches in three layers. And the vet said that another centimeter and his femoral artery would have been hit and he'd have died right in front of us.
My dad and I went searching the next day and found a stick a few feet tall that was the dead leftover of a very thin tree. Arthur had impaled himself.
I'll just never forget how SAD he looked the first time I took him to the bathroom after his surgery when he just stopped and put his tail between his legs and his head down and wouldn't move. I still tear up thinking about it.
So, long story short: My dad made a decree that Arthurs were no longer allowed to chase deer, no matter how much they wanted to.
But I mentioned that my dad was going stir crazy?
DAD: Look! That deer's still there. Send Arthur after it.
ME: I'll chase the deer off.
DAD: No, send Arthur.
ME: You said never to send Arthur.
DAD: Send him to chase the deer!
ME: Dad, I'm leaving for church in five minutes. I don't want to risk anything especially right now I'm about to leave. Besides, you said never to send him because of what happened last time. I just . . . I don't want to risk anything bad happening.
DAD: It will be fine! Just send him out to chase the deer.
ME: Fine.
I went and got Arthur. Arthur was SOOO excited. He ran. The deer ran. And then they both disappeared from our yard. Seriously, it happened so fast I'm not sure where they went.
Dad and I called. And called. And offered treats. But I didn't hear a jingle of his collar. Dad was VERY chagrined, as you might imagine.
I went and started driving around the neighborhood and calling for him. At one point I see a flock of turkey vultures and PANIC for a second before it occurs to me that if Arthur had been hit by a car and died, the vultures could never have found him that quickly. Finally my phone rang, and it was Dad to tell me Arthur had come back home.
(I learned later that my brother looked out the window and saw Arthur trotting up the walk to sit in front of the door to be let in.)
DAD: He came home. He looks very pleased with himself.
ME: Sure.
My dad was NOT joking.
You know when Dug says "I am a great tracker!" in UP? Arthur looked like that. He was sitting there and had this smug self-satisfied grin. It was hilarious.
He got an enormous piece of (forgotten now humanly inedible) steak as befitted such a hero.
Then he had to go to bed, and he was mortally offended. Such is the life of a dog.
And speaking of being pleased with himself:
Today I was going to take him on a walk. Tess saw me getting ready to go and started having a heart attack from excitement, so I said I'd take her, too.
This was my first mistake. I said "I'll take you on a walk, too."
Then I had to get my exercising equipment. And plan something with my mom. And go to the bathroom.
The dogs started getting uncontrollably excited.
The moral of this part of the story is that you should never tell your dogs what you're about to do. Especially if it is a walk. Which, as everyone knows is EVEN MORE EXCITING THAN FOOD.
Eventually we did make it out the door, and the dogs were satisfied.
Tess is, as I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, dumb as rocks. My mom says that Tess knows how to heel, but my mom is blinded by love. Tess cannot heel.
Arthur is, as I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, smart as a whip. He knows perfectly well how to heel. He heels when he feels it is worth his while. I am blinded by love, so I don't mind that much. But I've been trying to be better, taking to heart Cesar Milan and stuff, and I've been working at getting him used to heeling while we walk. It takes about two miles for him to really truly heel without being urged, but it's an improvement.
You should also know that Tess is a little ball of energetic love. She loves indiscriminately. Her reaction to a human, another dog, a bird, a deer, a squirrel, her food, etc. is exactly the same. Arthur loves a select few. Mostly me and my dad. Somewhat my mom. And on occasion my brother. Arthur seems to think that he's a human. At least he thinks he way better than Tess.
So we started around the block. Tess was not heeling. Arthur was being perfect. PERFECT. He heeled like a pro. He was exactly where he should have been in relationship to me. He didn't get distracted by people or animals.
He was a little goody-two-shoes.
When I returned Tess (who was thoroughly exhausted from one mile) and got back on the road with Arthur, he immediately went back to his back non-heeling behavior.
He is such a bad dog.
Of course I should have expected this. When you give him a command and he is on his own he usually obeys. But he does so slowly, frequently with dramatic sound effects, just so you know that he doesn't want to be obeying. If he is with Tess, and someone is saying "Sit, Tess! Sit, Tess!" over and over again in hopes that she may put her little bottom on the ground for even two seconds, Arthur sits. And every time the person tells Tess to sit, he sits up a little straighter, and tries to squirm into the line of sight of the person who is (futilely) attempting to get Tess to register the command.
What does it say about me that I completely and utterly adore this dog with every fibre of my being?