My Spring Vacation

Airedale Skulker Par Excellence!

And my only vacation, I might add, since That Person never takes a vacation. No, I went with The Daughter and the beautiful Matt who totally loves me and lets me do anything! Anyway, we went away into the woods and I ran, played--there were other dogs-- and skulked around (see me skulking in the photo) all day We stayed in a cabin. Oh golly it was great. Got some good scraps too. The Daughter, who's called Fionna, is way more fun than That Person who you cannot believe is Her Mother! I was so completely exhaused that Fionna says she stepped on my ear--accidentally--in the night and I never woke up. Then they went and brought me home so I could be cooped up all day with YOU KNOW WHO!

Me & Tosh I think his name is

I do have loads of fun with my dog park friends. below are a couple of pics. There are more dog park friends coming up in future blogs. And oh, That Person finally got around to making me business cards for this blog.

Getting a good thock from Tosh

My Friend Sally

Here she is: my friend Sally from the dog park. If ever there was a dog that was not me, here's that dog. Sally is pictured actually taking a nap at the dog park. (Love the amazing mosaic of pawprints surrounding Sally) If you were to see a picture of me taking a nap at the dog park you could assume I was dead, or at least unconscious. But Sally, my friend Sally, is such a laid back character that it's hard for That Person to believe. Now this does not mean that Sally has no 'person'altiy. Not at all. She's a real queen and a dog you can set your stars by. I know I will never achieve Sally's equinimity, and perhaps that's not what I was bred for. But Sally, oh how she glides like an enormous and gallant ship. Me? I can hop like a bunny rabbit all over the park and over the other dogs. Recently I befriended a couple of dogs that needed a befriendment or two. The owners of these dogs thanked That Person, and were grateful that their dogs had a good experience at the park. This was after these dogs were maybe a bit roughed up by some alpha dogs earlier. I'm always looking to get roughed up a bit, and to doing a bit of roughing up myself. But my code of Extreme Playfulness does not include making another dog less happy than when they walked in. Okay, sometimes I make a mistake.

That Person was grateful to hear any words of praise for me. Perhaps She was starting to think I was a bad hat. That's when all that other stuff (described earlier in the blog) began to get to her. Dogs, praise be, aren't gotten to. People, yes.

I don't like to give That Person too much credit for fear it might go to Her head. But the training about the sitting and staying and how we enter the park has been somewhat helpful to me. Dogs know structure. The right kind can set us on the correct course of action. But let me tell you, it's tough. In my next post I will explain more about that.
Sail on, Sally, sail on

Artwork by Frankie T Wallace

Betcha didn't know I was an artist. It's kinds of like cave art, or, well, something so modern that it hasn't been named by people yet. I just call it art. My tools? My fine teeth and my aesthetic sense. 

 Now this first picture is an example of my work in the fiber arts. Notice the scalloping around the edges of the rug near the back door sliders. The beauty is in the inexact edges. I am so proud of this. I created this piece while barricaded in the kitchen while That Person had to go back to bed this morning because of her neurological issues acting up last night and Her not getting enough sleep by half and how She had to make Herself stay in bed last night, but decided to read up on some idea in Photoshop about optimizing graphics for the web. What a crock!

This other piece is how I decided to view my brand new tiger toy, how to exceptionalize it into a statement all about our modern world combined with traditional Buddhist concepts about the impermanence of all things. That Person just stood there look down at it since She had just given it to me today. I might add that She gave it to me to shut me up for a while, which it did. Artists work alone and in silence. Gotta run, I think it's MoMA calling on the cell.

It's Been a While and Have I Been Busy!

Let me just start off with this complaint: That Person claimed she would make me up some business cards for this blog. So where are they. They are nowhere, which isn't even a place. So I chewed up one of Her bookmarks, and the book it was stuck in. This book, by the way, was written by a dog. She didn't think She was going to like it at first and then She did. It's called Dog on It. Supposed to be written by Chet--just plain Chet, he says. But does a dog ever get credit? The book claims that someone called Spencer Quinn wrote it. Like this blog, in case you didn't notice, says that these posts are from That Person. Just you wait until I get my own Google I.D.
Well, back to one of my favorite topics: chewing. I have had to work so hard on my leash-walking skills and my going-into-the-dog-park skills that something had to give. Chewing is a great tension reliever. People know this. They are always chewing something or other. But just you let a dog do a little therapeutic chewing and, oh boy! I try to ignore all the hullabaloo. Here is a fine list of things chewed this week:

• 1 lipstick and gloss combo case
• 1 padded coat hanger
• 1 tube of watercolor paint
• 1 plastic bottle of Vicodin
• the aforementioned bookmark
• the book, mainly the spine which is the most succulent part

I didn't make much headway on the lipstick case. Not interesting enough.
The coat hanger was a success. That Person thought, from a distance, that I'd destroyed some small ground animal. The watercolor paint--wow--quinacridone burnt orange. And did that ever look good all over the rug and floor. I got my paws all in it and was able to track it up and down the hall and on the kitchen floor. The Vicodin: That Person heard me tossing and catching it all up and down the hardwood hallway. She thought it sounded like I was having too much fun for it to be a piece of old chew thing. This gives you an idea of how much fun That Person is. NOT!  She's telling everyone that if I'd busted through the container and ate the 4 pills--30 mg of vicodin--Her problems would have been over. Not even funny.

She has to take this stuff all the time for some bizarre neurological condition. What with the Vicodin and the cane She thinks She's like that guy House on the television. She is so not that guy.

I almost felt sorry for That Person at the Dog Park Today

So much to write about, where to begin? Well, I almost pulled That Person onto the ground the other day when my leash got wound around Her legs and then along comes this dog...etc, etc. I have to start thinking about my high excitement level; but not today.

We went to the dog park today and there was that nice Lady With the Treats. You know, the treats from the last blog post that gave me diarrhea for two days--the treats, not the blog post you understand. Well there she--The Lady-- was, back with the treats. Naturally, as soon as I saw her I was right there, jumping high into the air right in front of her and on her too. Out of the corner of my eye I saw That Person coming over to try and stop me. The Lady with the Treats tried to stop That Person from correcting me. She told That Person:"Your dog is afraid of you." and, "All Frankie needs is a little more training." That Person watched me jump up high into the air, over and over, at The Lady with the Treats. Finally That Person told her: "She's all yours." and went back to the bench--the nice seat under the umbrella. So I jumped in the air, was told to sit, sat, got the treat, jumped in the air, told to sit, sat, got treat....over and over and over. You see, if I just sat there I wasn't going to get a treat for just sitting around there all day. So I had to first misbehave, then behave, get the treat and so on. The Lady with the Treats got tired of it after a while and walked off. I followed her, jumping and sitting and getting treats all over the park until The Lady with the Treats left.

A big difference this time was that That Person wasn't upset like last time. She decided that either it was funny, or else she could ask The Lady with the Treats not to feed me because it gives me diarrhea. Dogs don't 'feel sorry' for people, other dogs or ourselves. But I swear I almost felt sorry for That Person the other day when that bunch ganged up on her. Maybe they were trying to be nice then, but now they had a point to prove about the whole situation. That Person has no intention of getting into it with the Lady with the Treats. So we came home and I had diarrhea all over the porch just as That Person was getting ready to sit out there with her iced caffeine beverage. I wasn't so happy about it. Maybe I have to re-think the treats. Fat Chance!

A rather nice thing happened at the park today. A woman came in with a small pug. Small pug, ha. That's like saying 'large giant'. Anyway the woman was fearful because her dog, Thuco..something like that..had been bitten once. The pug was not overly fearful, but interested. It seemed a shame he didn't get a chance to check out all of us swell characters. But then That Person told the woman that her pug looked interested. Tucker's person had a great idea. The woman and the pug would go into the puppy area and we'd send in a couple laid back dogs to try it out. It was great. I can't believe I wasn't chosen to go.

By the way, That Person left her Tricycle Community blog page open so I took the opportunity of speaking to a wider group of people.  In that blog I explain about my energy-activated software and why I call That Person That Person. (Its the Third Person Sarcastic)
http://community.tricycle.com/profile/JeanneLafferty

That Person Has Her Gums All Swollen and It's Driving Me to Distraction

I was such a cute pup

What a day. I'm asking you. No, I'm telling you. That Person is so miserable (what else is new?) that she's sitting on the porch drinking that whiskey that she --she says--can't drink anymore. All day long it's with the warm salt water and the gum massager and the percocet which she shouldn't--she says--take with the whiskey. And then with the swollen gums and all, some pedestrian went all batshit crazy on her for something that her friends say could have happened to anyone. So then she gets all weird at the dog park and runs around trying to stop me from jumping up on people and all because a couple of times I got kicked at the park, which upset her more than it did me. And sometimes people yell at her because I try to play with their tiny little puppies that they bring into the big park instead of the puppy area.. They do this because they don't want to think their dog inferior. There is a lot of this thing that people do--mostly with their kids--of thinking that their dog, or their kid is all about them. I will say that That Person doesn't do that. It's about the only thing she gets right. So anyway she's all over me about my behavior and then this woman shows up with that small dog and right away this woman is pulling me off her dog, metaphorically, before I even get close to her dog. And that person, in a hideous moment of betrayal--starts acting like I'm the problem. So you get an idea of how bad things were out there today.

Next she's chasing me all about in the park to stop jumping, something I don't really do a lot, and some well-meaning people get upset with her because she's pointing that cane at me and yelling at me to "Get Off!" You can only imagine my glee. They ask her why she has that cane, as if she's planning to hit me with it. Maybe they are thinking of reporting her to PETER, the animal rights people.

But no. They are actually trying to help That Person. The nice people are explaining that yelling is not the way to get me to behave--something that person already knows but she's lost it by now. They are going to show her how to use treats to get me to behave. That person has no heart in her anymore and is at a loss to explain that I am not just a high-energy dog, that I am a dog that becomes fixated. So there they are, the nice people, out in the middle of the park, doling out treats and saying that their dog's diet is made up about half with all these treats. Right then I was ready to go home with them. They were showing That Person how nicely I can sit for a treat. The old positive re-inforcement, incentive thing. One thing I know is That Person knows exactly how long I can sit for, never mind a treat, my own boring dinner.

I sat and got a treat. Then I didn't sit. Then I sat and got a treat. Then I didn't sit. This went on for a wonderful long time and man, it was great. Then the nice lady who was holding the bag of treats behind her back tried to tell me there were no more treats. I've said it before and I'll say it again: you cannot lie to a dog.You can do things right, you can do things wrong, but you cannot lie to a dog.

Today at the Dog Park Was So Great

Man I just had to tell about this! Some nice woman came into my dog park with a little 4 month old Jack Russell named Pedar, like Peter in Irish. And it was so cool because I jumped all over the wee fellow. But even better, the woman had a plastic shopping bag with treats in her jacket pocket and I just swooped over and nicked the whole lot. That person was yelling and waving her cane while I ate the whole thing. The nice woman said it was okay and she was only worried I would eat the bag. That person was hoping I would eat the bag or accidently pull it over my head and....so long Airedale Criminal. I prevailed, as I always do.