My Silly Dog

I thought I should pull myself away from my mountain of housing re-cert paperwork and share something fun about Thane.

Thane has never been a dog with gusto confidence when it comes to getting his ball out of tight spots. Met was a lot this way and in time he developed major confidence in this so I had/ have no doubts with Thane. Thane's seems to be impacted by taking meds also. It does not seem to impact his work in public and when its necessary he will definitely retrieve things for me that are harder to get at, but there's always been this side to him and probably always will be to some extent.

There is one thing that I find absolutely silly, hilarious, create your own adjective for the scenario if you want after reading about it.

I live in an apartment set up (or at least in many ways set up) for a person in a wheelchair. They definitely thought that all people in wheelchairs have someone else cook and bake for them, but that's a whole other topic. Instead of a bath tub we have a large roll in shower. It sort of slopes to the drain so as to not flood the bathroom. As a result of this slope, Thane's ball always seems to find its way down to the drain.

I wash and hang my laundry in this shower so often times there are those *close confines* that Thane is not so comfortable with. By morning when I am removing the clothes from the line, there can be anywhere from one to five balls down at the drain level of the shower because someone would run get one from *toys* when he lost a ball rather than asking me to *encourage* him past the laundry, fan, and other paraphenalia.

Each morning after I have put the laundry away, Thane comes to retrieve the balls for me. Most dogs would walk down there, retrieve the ball in their mouth and bring it to you- right? Not Thane. From the very first time I had him go down into the shower to get a ball for us, I had to hold back my laughter. Thane is a very long dog, twenty-seven inches collar to base of tail. He walks down into the shower part way, stretches as far as possible, then nudges the ball to roll towards him. He does this all the way to the edge where the shower meets up with the bathroom linoleum flooring. At this point, he whips around and proudly produces the ball in my hand. It is so hilarious. Try as I might to train him to actually retrieve the ball at the drain position and walk back to me with his ball in his mouth- it just aint ever happening! This is the only toy he treats this way, the only place its treated this way and its just downright fun to experience.

You might ask why I find this fun, silly, hilarious- oh its because it is different than Met. It is different than any other dog I have ever read about. It is just a part of who he is and well- that makes it special in my book.

When is Getting a Toy a Helpful Task Rather Than Play?

The rain has returned to the Pacific Northwest and with it our mobility is as well. I'm taking this time to catch up on sleep, chores, playing, and training with Thane. 

I wash my laundry in a small electric wonder washer because with my MCS I can not tolerate public washing facilities. I used to have a spin dryer but the quality of it was less than anticipated. It died recently so I now must wring my clothes by hand and hang dry them with a fan and de-humidifier in the bathroom.

During the course of the day, a number of Thane's toys will wind up in the shower where I hang my laundry. I have shower rods across the shower for hanging the laundry so we can't easily collect them when they roll their way downhill to the drain. The next morning, as I pull the dry clothes off the rods, Thane's task is to go get each of the toys and bring them back to me.

He is so funny with this. He walks down and then stretches himself forward instead of walking all the way to where the item is. Then he rolls it back bit by bit until he is on the more level surface before grasping it, turning around and standing beside me so I can take it from him. Then the task, or game as he considers it, continues until all of the toys are out of the shower.

Usually this is maybe one or two toys, but this morning he had six balls down there- Don't ask me how so many wound up in the shower- perhaps he got bored and wanted to have a lot to do this morning! LOL

So you see, sometimes getting a ball is not really about play, but about helping ones handler when they can't do the task for themselves.