Wild Dingo

You have to hand it to them. They sure are “thinkers!” Exercising while working at your desk. Ya. They may even suggest texting while in yoga. Ever wonder why a “healthy” person suddenly drops dead? Probably because they’re multi-tasking. Or perhaps, multi-stressing. Why bother doing anything if you can’t be 100% present while doing it? Where’s the value? One reason why you should go to the gym or go outside and do your exercise away from work is to be away from one thing and doing another that gives you pleasure or relief from another stressor. If you don’t like exercise, there are plenty of options for staying healthy and fit other than piling it on to your multi-task routine.

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That’s the book I’ll someday write. But for now, I’m starting a support group: Women Addicted to Bad Dogs.

Me: “Hello. My name is Julie. I’m a Bad Dogaholic.”

Group: “Hello Julie.”

How can something as sweet as this:

Do something as evil as this?

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Last Sunday, I broke down and got him his own dog. No not Scott. Loki. Just so I’d have a few free moments to myself instead of playing tug with him 24/7. Husky owner, Jim (owner of Loki’s favorite chew toy Vushkey) planted a little seed in my ear “Come by the adoption fair,” he said. And there I saw her: one year of age, amber eyes, a fluffy 50 lbs of soft feathers and confectionery sugar, playful as a kitten and so pretty.

Meet Juno.

Isn’t she gorgeous? Those amber eyes, that raccoon face. And you haven’t even seen her tail. All I need to do is spray some pledge on it and walk around the house saying nice things to her while she happily (“waggingly”) follows me. Unlike a certain dominating German Shepherd Formosan Mountain dog, she happily greets everyone wagging and kissing. Just sweet as cotton candy. I think her middle name will be Belle because she’s so pretty and sweet.

Anyway, here’s what sweet cotton candy can do to a door when you take the Formosan Mountain dog for his walk without her (because she had a little limp in her front paw that day) and lock her in the house.

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So many behaviors. So little time. Which ones do I work on first? Leash pulling, overzealous barking, biting, 24/7 tug machine, squashing my guests. And no desire to please anyone. Can’t say I blame him there, given how people failed him the first year of his life.

Instead of actually encouraging dog owners to spend time training dogs properly, the pet industry has become a co-dependent partner in helping owners live “humanely” with their dogs by pushing ridiculous contraptions, such as “gentle leaders” and “harnesses” so they don’t actually have to do anything that may cause the dog any discomfort anytime the dog actually causes his owner discomfort. I admit I used the harness early on when walking this monster so not to give myself a rotator cuff injury. But I made sure that didn’t last long.

Loki had me fooled early on. He convinced me he was deathly afraid of the pinch collar as if he had some neck sensitivity or aversion to chains. Ha! I’m on to his ruse. His only “aversion” is being told what to do or corrected when he doesn’t comply. Still, I say if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So these are my training tools of choice.

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Before I go into my story, the answer is yes, Virgina, there ARE marathon bike races. But at the time of the question, the logic of “marathon” (which in my youth was learnt as a race on foot) and “bike race” (which in my adult life learned as on two wheels) didn’t exactly compute.

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Earlier this month, Mr. Wild Dingo had a week off. Since we needed to seriously cut back on our rock star life style, we decided to take it easy that week and build a fence for Loki’s yard.

This is what Scott did:

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I’ve always believed that it took a high IQ to be humorous. However here’s a random conversation at Wild Dingo to prove otherwise.

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Loki misbehaved twice over the weekend and each time was because he doesn’t see me as his leader. He didn’t come on recall in an open space. No amounts of treats would work. I had to run away from him to get him to come to me. And before that move, at the dog park, he engaged in fence fighting with an unneutered dog, which he already KNEW and played with before, but because he was so worked up behind the fence (it didn’t help that the maroons with the unneutered dog just stood there, baiting all the other dogs) he was uncontrollable. I felt like the mother of a child throwing a tantrum in a theater. Thankfully he pulled the stunt in front of people who already knew him otherwise he would have been deemed a “bad” dog. No doubt about it, this German Shepherd-Formosan Mountain Dog is definitely a mix of sweet and evil sauce.

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Loki and I went to our usual dog park this Sunday morning, after having been to the vet to treat a small eye infection. The dog park we go to is really great. Most people with and without dogs love the dogs on the trail.

We park close to the off-leash dog park and walk under an overpass that has a sloped walkway for pedestrians, cyclists and dog walkers. The walkway has a zig-zag gate on both ends so cyclists are encouraged to get off their bikes. Loki and I were already on the flat part of the underpass when an old dude came up behind us on his bike and startled us. I quickly pulled Loki in and moved aside, however, since Loki was startled, he barked. This is where Loki can seem, well, like a bad dog. Mostly he just barks a lot on the leash when he’s startled.

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People keep asking me what breed Loki is. Some guess the German Shepherd, but then they can’t figure out the rest. When you Google Taiwanese Mountain Dog you’ll find Formosan Mountain Dog, Taiwan’s version of the dingo. He has some of the same traits, namely those antenna- like ears, body structure and shape of his face. So I guess he does fit nicely into Wild Dingo!

They warned us Loki wouldn’t be easy. It’s true that this dog’s got some major ‘tude when he doesn’t get his way. And he can hold a grudge.  And it takes me 20 minutes to put on his harness and leash because of his fear of collars and leashes. He’s outsmarted all my treats and tricks and manages to play a good round of Houdini before our walks or car rides. His energy never ends. But his challenges are NOTHING compared to the Hell on Wheels Maggie was. Our saving grace is the dog park, where he is the belle of the ball. Everyone, people and dogs, loves Loki.

When Scott goes to Taiwan, sometimes he’ll come back with “Formosan” items, like the Formosan ugly hat or Formosan beads. Funny. He never brought home a Formosan Mountain Dog! (Now I know why.) We’ll have Loki model some of his native fashions in the near future. For now, I’ll bore you to death with all my baby doggie park pictures. Be warned. The photos look straight out of Michael Vick’s back yard. Swear to Dogs: No betting or money was exchanged during the making of these photos. No…these dogs are having the time of their lives.

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