If we do something for Rita once, and she likes it, it seems to become a habit with her. She’s the tiniest little dog we’ve ever had; very few (like 3) teeth, no eyes, but demanding as can be. When she decides something is going to happen . . it is going to happen.
You may remember we started out with her sleeping in the baby bassinet by our bed. That worked so well that we bought two. That was Vince’s idea. I’m not sure why we did it because the second one has never been put together. At some point before Vince arrived here to stay, Rita stopped wanting to sleep in the bassinet. We already had a big, comfy dog pillow so I set that up in the breakfast room and bought a little “fence” to keep her in it at night, bought her the heated doggy pad because it was winter, and she has loved that setup.
After a while, she chewed through the heated pad so I ordered two more. It didn’t take long before she chewed through the second one . . yes, with three teeth! By this time, Vince was living here and I said . . that’s enough. She was either going to electrocute herself or burn the house down so we never used the third one.
We did take an oversized towel and at night, we cover her up and kinda tuck her in and she stays under that towel all night. This evening I took her towel and washed it. She’s kinda torn it up scratching around on it so I wasn’t going to give her another towel. It was only about 5:00 when I put her towel on to wash so I knew it would be dry before bed time. No! She barked and growled and made crazy sounds for an hour. Vince took her out, gave her more food (which he thinks is the answer to every sound she makes). He was getting frustrated so I got up, grabbed an older towel and covered her. She was suddenly quiet. I think she thinks we took her towel and she’s not going to get it back and she was terribly concerned.
She also knows the word EAT and you wouldn’t believe how many times a day we use that word. I’ll say “What time do you want to eat?” Instant barking and making noise til we feed her. I was talking to Chad on the phone and he said they were going to eat. I said “Where are you going to eat?” Magic word! Had to feed Rita. Earlier we were talking about some friends and I said “They eat out all the time!” There it was again. Just a minute ago, Vince said “Why don’t you make a gumbo and we’ll invite the Greg over to eat.” Oh, no . . we need a new word but we wouldn’t remember to use it.
Any time someone comes in she barks like crazy til they go over and pet her. Not everyone wants to pet someone else’s dog! Since she can’t see, when I’m on the phone, not even on speaker, she can hear the other person and she thinks someone is here and not petting her and she barks the entire time I’m on the phone. I have to go in the bedroom, close the door and stand by a window if I want to talk on the phone without a dog barking in the background.
Rita is a sweet little dog but is the epitome of a pain in the butt dog! It’s a good thing we love her.
karen says
I had to laugh – we have Livie who is now blind and pretty much deaf. She has one tooth. Her nose apparently is hypersensitive – especially to bacon! She sits next to me on the couch in the morning while I have my coffee and spend some time on my laptop. The minute she senses Bob is up her little nose goes up in the air and she starts sniffing – sounds like a piglet snorting. She’s waiting for him to start cooking. When the cooking starts she starts pacing around the kitchen – waiting for a handout. I told Bob he’s created a monster:)
judy.blog@gmail.com says
I can’t tell you how many times one of us will say “You’ve created a monster!” Speck was about as alert as Rita when it comes to food but Speck knew the meaning of the word “NO”. Rita has gone from having no idea about house training to being almost 100% dependable about letting us know when she wants to go out. She’s happy to sleep in her little fenced in area of the breakfast room. But, she has no concept of the word “NO” or else she’s decided it’s in her best interest to pretend she has no idea what it means.