So I was just home for a bit to visit my parents/help them move a bunch of stuff into storage while they finally Install AC into thier house, which means I got to see Arwen, and Arwen got to see my dog, Charleston Chew.
Arwen is a Husky/Kelpie mix that was trained in prison as an Autism Service Dog and when she’s not wroking she gets up to All Kinds Of Bullshit. She’s eight years old now and still a little asshole, but beginning to slow down, and as such has decided to take Charlie on as an Apprentice Asshole.
[Image Description: Two dogs on leashes standing on a boardwalk with thier butts toward the photographer, who is holding the leashes with one hand and taking the picture with the other, like a moron. Arwen, the dog on the left, Is fat and very fluffy, and looking for rabbits to eat. Charlie, the dog on the right is skinny with noth much hair, and also looking for a bunny dinner. They are both a simmilar black-and-tan pattern that makes people ask if they’re rottweilers or dobermans, despite being neither.
This picture is taken about 2.68 seconds before the dogs locate a bunny and pull the photographer of thier feet as they launch themselves after it like short, hairy rockets. The Photographer suffers minor injuries, and the rabbit is unharmed.]
Some of the nonsense Arwen taught Charlie this time around:
Arwen recognizes herself in mirrors, and likes to check her own ass out in the full-length mirror in my parent’s bathroom. Charlie has, after a year and a half of glaring suspiciously at the glass door of my oven, figured out that there is not another dog in there, but hadn’t quite grokked that it’s HIS reflection. I came upstairs a few times to find them sitting in front of the mirror, where Arwen would carefully paw at the glass a few times until Charlie did the same, then, when he was watching the reflections, bop him on the nose. The last day we were there, Charlie was sitting in front of the mirror, bopping it, then, with the most intense look of concentration I’ve ever seen, carefully pawed his own face.
Back in March, my parents took Arwen down to the lake and to the end of the boat dock to watch the sunset because it was warm enough to do that, but Dogs can’t see enough colors to really appreciate sunsets, so Arwen was looking into the water instead and there happened to be some carp hanging out around the dock and to quote my mother: “I knew the exact second she spotted them because it’s the same face she makes when she realizes you have a treat for her. Thank goodness i let go of the leash in time.” Arwen is sometimes affectionately called “Short Bear” for her wierd style of climbing trees, but given the way she forcibly launched herself into the water and stayed under for a good minute before tirumphantly re-surfacing with a carp in her mouth and a gleeful expression of “HOLY SHIT THE LAKE IS FULL OF SNACKS!!” we’re probably going to have to add ‘seal’ to the list of probable creature’s she’s related to.
What this translated to in the most recent visit is that she’s now team-fishing with Charlie. Charlie is from Arizona and is extremely distrustful of any body of water deeper thhan his ankles but he’s a good sprinter and was taught how to hunt by cats so he pounces on things. So we go down to the off-leash section of the lake with is a sort of small inlet with a short-but-steep cliff around the beach and a set of gated stairs. Arwen jumps from the stairs to the top of the cliff, then walks out until she’s at the mouth of the inlet, while charlie stands at the shore, complaining about this bullshit plan. When she gets to the mouth of the inlet, she belly-flops in, taking a sandy section of cliff in with her, then dives and swims as fast as she can towards the shore. This flushed all the fish that had been sunning themselves in the inlet towards the shallow water at the shore, whereupon Charlie takes an spectacular leap and pounces on another carp, trying to grapple it with his paws until Arwen got there to actually bite the thing. This also resulted in me, a dumbass human shrieking “NO DAMMIT, DON’T EAT FUCKING CARP IT’S GARBAGE FISH” and running out into the lake to seperate them from the fish, which meant pulling it out of Arwen’s mouth and throwing it back into the lake- -Almost hitting my poor neighbor Dottie as her grandchildren paddle her by in the canoe. This woman hates me, and rightly so.
When we got her, the adoption agency warned us that Arwen was “Chatty” which is a polite way of saying “This dog likes to yell a lot, especially if the humans are also being loud”. It took a while, but Mom eventually trained Arwen to stop yelling by bending over so Arwen makes eye contact, holding a finger up to her mouth and going “SHHhhhh…” which is her signal to take it downa few notches. Sometimes dogs need you to be quiet to realize they should be quiet. So Arwen’s at Youth Correctioanl Serivces, doing therapy work with one of the Kids there, and he’s having a bad day and yelling angrily about absolutely everything. Being upset is ok, and expressing emotions is OK but rasing your voice and swearing isn’t an effective means of communication so the therapist is trying to get him to slow down. The Kid doesn’t want to listen to him, and keeps yelling, so Arwen jumps up to stand in his lap and put her face in his and exhales very loudly, which makes a sort of “ HHHHHHhhhh..!” sound. Kid stops, confused, and Arwen gives him a kiss for it. They repeat this a few more times in the session, where Kid starts raising his voice and Arwen goes “HHHHHHhhhh!” at him until he slows down and lowers his voice again. “What is she doin’?” he eventually asks, becuase this is new behavior. “OH.” Mom goes, suddenly realizing. She explain’s Arwen’s SHH! command “-since her mouth won’t make a shush sound, she’s trying her best.” “You Shushin’ me dog? You shushin’ Me!?” He asks her. Arwen: WAAAAAARRR-! Kid: SHH! Arwen: HHHH! Kid: “… Alright.”
When I leash up the dogs for a walk, they have to be sitting and quiet or I won’t leash them to go outside. Arwen has got this down, but Charlie’s still working on it, and managed to Sit, but was yelling in excitement. Charlie: AAAA! AAAYAAAA! AAAA!! Arwen, kicking him in the face so he’ll look at her: HHHHHH! Charlie: “..?” She proceded to do this Every. Single. Time. charlie made noise in her vicinity because even though he’s her favorite dog, she’s also still a shithead that likes to boss him around and play games like “I’m gonna sit right next to the toy basket but not actually look at it and mock-charge charlie every time he tries to get a toy, ebcuase making him sneak up on me is HILARIOUS.” so he eventually gets the idea that “HHH!” means “SHUT UP!” …We get home to Durango and My Fiance is playing games online with headphones and getting excited and yelling, so Charlie jumps on the couch, paws him in the face and goes “HHHH! HHHH!” and I fall out of my chair laughing.
We’re walking on one of the trails and there’s a super-family of geese, where six adults have shoved thier broods into one large horde of fluff that’s easier to herd and protect as a group. Charlie is already backing up at the preliminary warning honks, becuase he knows from cats and that things that puff up and hiss at you also tend to be Sharp And Mean, but Arwen looks at this as decides that this is really Six Entrees and roughly 20 desserts, and I have half a second to lock her leash before she completely launches herself mouth-first at Goose Dinner.
The geese, Unfortunately, falter in thier defense and minutely shuffle away from her.
I have the dogs on harnesses for long hikes, and manage to haul her back, as the dogs share the following telepathic conversation: Charlie: They…Scatter? Not sharp? Maybe.. Eatable? Arwen: TOTALLY EATABLE. Charlie: HOLY SHIT! EATABLE! Arwen: HELL YEAH!!! Geese: Aw piss, they smell fear, we gotta fuck them up now.
So I ended up slogging up the trail, holding a 55-lb dog in each ahnd by the harness, trying to keep them from gobbling up goslings while no less than six geese tried to beat the shit out of me because I am Tallest, even though I’m the only one not trying to eat thier children. It looked very dramatic from my perspective- time slows down during adrenaline rushes and it’s all rain and mud and feathers and dog teeth and the horrible grooved tonges geese have and eventually one of them bites the shit outta my eyebrow and we go full art-film as the blood gets in my eyes and I’m left literally seeing red. Alfred Hitchcock is doing dramatic lighting from beyond the grave. O Fortuna is playing.
A quarter mile later we’re finally far enough away that the geese feel like they can retreat, and there are no casualties except me. I get home and my dad thinks I’ve been jumped until he sees the goose shit in my hair.
The dogs are extremely gleeful about the whole thing and Charlie keeps checking the river out here for geese.
She also tried to teach him to flush the toilet for fresh running water but I caught them before that lesson could be imparted.
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