Funny you should ask.
*ringing phone*
Me: Hello?
Female Animal Rescue Volunteer: Bill? [name redacted]. Listen, we've got a dog and she needs some help.
Me: As in...?
FARV: Well, she's not socialized, and she's never had any training, and you're good with big dogs, and ['nother name redacted] won't go near her because -- well, the people we got her from say...*conversation trails off*
Me: *What* did they say, specifically?
FARV: They said she hates men.
Me: Ahem. I'm a man.
FARV: Yeah, but you're *really* good with big dogs, and she's really a sweetheart, except for... that... you know...
Me: Did she bite ['nother name redacted]?
FARV: No, he was afraid to get that close.
Me: *sigh* How big is she?
FARV: Big.
Me: *'nother sigh* Does this feminist with a fur coat have a name?
FARV: They called her "Meadow" because of her color.
Me: The dog is *green*?!?
FARV: No, tan and white.
Me: Fine. When do I get to meet her?
FARV (hopefully): Ten minutes?
Soooo, that's what I'm going to be up to.
Interim report to follow, if I still have my fingers...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
UPDATE: About an hour ago, FARV arrived with the entourage and I realized several things:
1. Ten minutes in my dimension does not equate with ten minutes in FARV's.
2. FARV's definition of "big dog" and mine vary considerably. By an order of magnitude, actually.
3. Meadow didn't "not like" men -- she's *afraid* of men.
Long story short, meet Meadow.
She's *maybe* about forty pounds, and I think she's probably a pit bull mix, which means she'll be a quick learner.
After an hour of watching me doing nothing except sitting on the basement steps and holding a one-way conversation with her, she came out from the corner she was sitting in to pose.
And then walked up to me, flopped onto the floor, and promptly went to sleep.
Heh -- I have that effect on women, too...
*ringing phone*
Me: Hello?
Female Animal Rescue Volunteer: Bill? [name redacted]. Listen, we've got a dog and she needs some help.
Me: As in...?
FARV: Well, she's not socialized, and she's never had any training, and you're good with big dogs, and ['nother name redacted] won't go near her because -- well, the people we got her from say...*conversation trails off*
Me: *What* did they say, specifically?
FARV: They said she hates men.
Me: Ahem. I'm a man.
FARV: Yeah, but you're *really* good with big dogs, and she's really a sweetheart, except for... that... you know...
Me: Did she bite ['nother name redacted]?
FARV: No, he was afraid to get that close.
Me: *sigh* How big is she?
FARV: Big.
Me: *'nother sigh* Does this feminist with a fur coat have a name?
FARV: They called her "Meadow" because of her color.
Me: The dog is *green*?!?
FARV: No, tan and white.
Me: Fine. When do I get to meet her?
FARV (hopefully): Ten minutes?
Soooo, that's what I'm going to be up to.
Interim report to follow, if I still have my fingers...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
UPDATE: About an hour ago, FARV arrived with the entourage and I realized several things:
1. Ten minutes in my dimension does not equate with ten minutes in FARV's.
2. FARV's definition of "big dog" and mine vary considerably. By an order of magnitude, actually.
3. Meadow didn't "not like" men -- she's *afraid* of men.
Long story short, meet Meadow.
She's *maybe* about forty pounds, and I think she's probably a pit bull mix, which means she'll be a quick learner.
After an hour of watching me doing nothing except sitting on the basement steps and holding a one-way conversation with her, she came out from the corner she was sitting in to pose.
And then walked up to me, flopped onto the floor, and promptly went to sleep.
Heh -- I have that effect on women, too...
If *anyone* can schmooze some dogwomyn, it's our Bill.
Good luck, Bill. We definitely want pics. Of the dog - NOT bite marks ;-)
I don't think she's afraid of *all* men anymore...
Like Kiki was.
Anyway, this afternoon, she's learned "sit," "don't climb on my lap," and "cookie"...
...and we're working hard on "it's nap time"...
I need to get a bigger couch.
And no, forty pounds is not "big." Akitas are big. Newfies are big. Kuvaszok, Komondorok, Wolfhounds, Great Danes are very big. But this? Nah, not big. Just a plain old ordinary medium-sized Heinz-57.
For a retiree, nap time is most important.
I remember as a kid thinking it funny my dad would come home from work and sit down and fall asleep for a nap before supper - I now realize he was a role model. I find myself nodding off during the news, just like he did. Like the old saying - at 18 I thought my dad an idiot, at 21 I was amazed at how smart he got in the intervening years.
You did train her out of that?
Cheers
That's the nice things about mutts -- the undesirable traits of the purebred genetic nightmares usually get left out of the mix, and the good traits predominate.
_____________________________
*GOK = God Only Knows...
Somehow I knew that you would be great with dogs :o)
Give her a hug and a cookie for me :o)
Baroness
She's a good pup -- no food aggression, no "other animal" aggression, she learns pretty quickly, and she's scored well on the two "smart" tests I gave her, both of which involve acting counter-instinctively to accomplish a task. Just gotta train her to perform normal doggie tasks and work her out of being afraid of men in general.
Tell me about it. The former ACO did six months for animal cruelty and snagging pets from people's yards -- *fenced* yards.
I have no problem with big dogs, I let them know from the start that I am the alpha dog and make them lay down when they are puppies. Now that they are big, I am the alpha dog. But with Suellen, she's so little (about 25 pounds) it just has not worked.
I don't like terriers. At least not this one!
Takes a VERY good trainer to train terriers. Most folks, the best you can do with a terrier is reach a truce.
With most breeds, you have to be a firm but loving partiarch, but with the smaller (under 40 pounds) terriers, you have to be 51% benevolent despot and 49% bipolar tyrant, and never let them establish the tipping point on their own -- keep 'em guessing. Make them play *your* games by your *rules*, otherwise they'll invent their own games, and you won't like most of them...
And I never let a dog win one of my games, but they get rewarded for enthusiastic participation.
It's cuz YER SO FLUUFFFFAY!
The big dogs, as puppies, did kill one or two chickens, but the extreme event that became was ingrained in their brains, and they don't mess with my birds anymore, except to steal eggs, because they are so yummy and make their coats all shiny!
Suellen has such a huge killer instinct that she is not allowed outside at all unless she is leashed or on the deck, which has become a fortress to keep her on the deck. There is no changing that aspect of her.
On the other hand, she is very well-behaved with our grandson. She's not all bad.
Oh, on the breeders? The cat breeders are the worst! At least some of the dog breeders still breed for behavior.
The cat breeders, like entirely too many of us human self-breeders, seem to breed strictly for appearance.
I can tell you horror stories about the husbands and offspring of an old lady I used to know who picked her husbands for handsomeness, with no other considerations, because "I knew I wanted to have children, and wanted them to be good-looking."
That's how we got good-looking criminals like Bill Clinton and Barry Soetoro.
I hear that the cat breeders have even managed to mess up the Maine Coon, the best kitteh evar!
One of my late-night drunken fancies was imaging holding the little bitch in my arms (having first ascertained that her rabies shots were up to date) and then feeding her my left hand while motorboating her on the tummy with my lips, thereby giving the worthless frenetic frantic useless waste of dog food a heart attack, or stroke, right there.
I prefer mellow dogs and mellow cats. (and humans!)
In naturally self-breeding, or rationally-bred varieties, the appearances are markers for the underlying behavior.
It's the part between the ears which is the important part, both of genotype and phenotype.
Oh, yeah, it's also nice if the guy or gal is good-looking, but, hell, Romeo and Juliet got what they deserved and I hope it hurt, and they should have listened to their parents, and it's a damned shame they got all of those innocent folks killed.
Yorkshire Terriers aren't dogs. They're mutated rats.
Amen to that, John.
...and then feeding her my left hand while motorboating her on the tummy with my lips,
That prolly would have worked well with the old lady, too...
She's a warehouse dog, and she's definitely out of place on a farm. On the plus side, she'd be a good protector for a family with no other pets.
Which is *exactly* how we placed her sister. If Prodigal Son moves from his current abode to a place that allows pets, he and Ashes want her.
But I'm not willing to load on a mortgage just to unload the dog.
It's a Sumerian joke with a Middle Kingdom punchline. Why? It's not all that funny, unless you've got a background in steam-driven nanites....