Brandy's Bad Points - Part 2

Brandy has been a little dear this last ten days. It's as if she knows I'm posting about her not-so-desirable points and making it tough for me to do so by being extra good, *grin* but I shall try not to let it get to me.

In continutation,

6. Taking revenge - Brandy hates being left alone in the house. We don't do it very often and never for long. She follows us around the house when we are getting ready, and when I unlock the front door, she starts to howl. When we get back, there is usually a gift waiting for us in the form of a poop or a puddle on the floor. And the poop/puddle isn't in the main areas of the house but in her little 'backyard' corner, on the floor right next to her poop tray. Me thinks its revenge from the little hairy monster for us having the nerve to leave her all by her lonesome self. (But I have got to be honest here and say that in the last ten days, she has not gifted me with an unmentionable in the wrong place)

7. Now this next one is not Brandy's fault at all, and most house dog owners will have experience with it. It's.....dog hair, the hair thats been shed and lying all around the house. It's fine, short, flies around a lot and gathers into big hairballs in corners if left alone long enough. Constant vigilant cleaning is required. Just that cleaning is not my strong point. But I wouldn't exchange Brandy for any non-shedding poodle.

Hmm...I have been sitting here for a good five minutes, trying to come up with some more bad points. I did think of saying something about her greed (but she's actually less greedy than my previous dogs and her greed is sometimes cute), or about her poking her nose into everything that's going on in the house (but that's also kind of irritatingly cute). Sigh, I guess I will have to end her bad points at no.7 . I think her being extra good lately has affected my memory after all. Now I wonder if I can come up with 7 good points for her. That will be in my next post.

Brandy looking a little unkempt (my fault, I'm her groomer) but still managing to lie down as if to say this is my patch of white clean floor, go and get your own patch.

Brandy's Bad Points

(Here is Brandy shamelessly asking a family member for food, not that we encourage food giving from the table, but she's ever hopeful)

I thought I would do a 'bad points/good points' post about Brandy. However, since there are so many bad points, I will have to leave the good points to another day *grin*. I also think that I will have to split the bad points into at least two posts (if not more). *Heh heh*

1. Barking - I think this will fall under both the bad points and good points lists. I've mentioned before about her barking madness. It's still bad altho' if I show her a rolled up newspaper, she does get quiet real fast. I don't have to smack her, just show it to her or get her attention by hitting the wall with the rolled up paper. At least something works. I'm sure Mr. Dog Trainer Guru (the one from Oprah whom I can never remember the name) will say that I'm failing terribly at being the pack leader in the house.

2. Fawning at visitors - Brandy is shameless. Once the visitor (repairman, friend, relative, complete stranger) has entered the house, the barking stops and the fawning begins. Everyone is her friend. She jumps to get attention and gets into everyone's way. If you, the visitor, ignore her, she will still stay around but sort of in the background, but if you pet her, she will stick to you like glue, begging for every ounce of attention you can spare her. A little more circumspect behaviour would be nice.

3. Dust licker - This is one of the strangest habits that Brandy has. I've kept dogs for many years and never had one that had this same habit. Put her in a room with a dusty floor and she will go round licking the floor. It's weird. She's definitely not hungry, dust can't possibly taste good, everyone in the house scolds her when she does that, but she continues licking dust every chance she gets.

4. Pedal bin 'nose-poking' - We've got a pedal bin for the kitchen that's just the right height for Brandy to go up on her hind legs and poke her nose into to smell what is in there. We used to throw kitchen scraps in there so that made it extremely enticing for her. Scoldings and smackings did not seem to deter her except that she would try and sneak a peek into the bin whenever no one was looking. We had to put the bin up on a small stool. The bin is back on the floor but we now use it mainly for dry stuff, so no more interesting smells. Once in a while, she does investigate the bin to check just in case someone's forgotten and thrown something interesting inside. You can then hear the cries of "Brandy is 'nose-poking' again".

5. Whining at the vets - It gets embarrassing for me, 'cos I'm always the one to bring her to the vet. We are sitting in a waiting room. There are bits of chatter from the owners and some barks from the dogs (cats are very quiet creatures) but on the whole its fairly quiet. Then there is this whiny sound coming from my vicinity. It goes "hnn, hnn, hnn" (I'm sure I've got the spelling wrong but I hope the sound of it comes across) and it's high pitched and it's loud. The humans in the room usually ignore me and the whiner but the pets will look my way. There are puppies and kittens in that waiting room that do not whine like that. The family says Brandy does that 'cos of bad connotations with the vet's office, you know, the injections.

And when the whiner and I get into the vet's office itself, forget about the shameless 'everybody-is-my-friend' behaviour. Brandy just refuses to look at the vet and doesn't want to be put on the examining table. She just wants to stay in my arms. Maybe my vet should get rid of the white coat and just wear everyday clothes and instead of my coming to his office, he should stop by my house (at no extra charge of course *big grin*). This might solve problem no. 2 in no time 'cos every visitor will be a potential vet then.

...to be cont'd

Brandy is tough to blog about

When I started this blog, it was actually a test run as I've never blogged before. I wanted to find a neutral topic, be able to post pictures of my blog topic without loss of privacy and tell embarrasing tidbits of my blog topic without fear of being beaten up. *grin* I also told myself that I would update my blog once a week regardless.

Well, Brandy's been a great blog topic. I can write anything I want about her and she doesn't mind. Her pictures are on the web but she's never lost any privacy ('cos she's never had any, haha).

The only real problem I have is finding interesting Brandy-related things to blog about. I don't want to bore anyone to sleep reading my posts. Brandy's days and nights are spent lazing around mostly. She's really a house-dog, actually a 'flat-dog'. The flat is quite big and she's quite small so she gets a lot of exercise running around the flat. When she does get to go out, I have not managed to get the hang of dealing with a slightly mad (mad as in overly excited and not the foaming kind) dog and a camera, there are no photos of her on these outing. I truly admire little Emma (a blog I read about a lovely dog, see links) who does not need to be leashed when she goes out in public.

Even while I'm typing this, Brandy's having a mid-afternoon nap. I can hear her little snores behind me. Ah, a dog's life isn't too bad is it.

But this brings me to the point (yes I know I did woffle on a bit) that it's tough to blog interestingly (I'm almost sure there's something not quite right about the syntax of this sentence) about Brandy when her days are spent lazing around.

I shall have to overcome this 'blockage' in my mind and get back to posting regularly about Brandy. And also learn how to handle a camera with just one hand or teach Brandy to behave outside the house. Hmmm....strike out the number two option there...I will just have to learn to take pictures with one hand.