Tag: Yoshi

the lowest rung

It’s been no surprise to us that Yoshi has moved down a rung since Elliot’s arrival. We still love him to bits, but he is, after all, a dog.

There’s been evidence of the shift since day one. Fewer walks, fewer hugs, less cuddling and, since Elliot’s now so mobile and Yoshi likes to be right in his face, more solitary confinement. He hasn’t been neglected, life just isn’t as it was.

Ok…he hasn’t been neglected until tonight. I got home at around 5:15 after grocery shopping, and let Yoshi out in the front yard while I brought in the groceries. He’s very good out there — doesn’t run away, and doesn’t pay much attention to passers-by.

An hour later as we were eating dinner, Greg suddenly asked, “where’s Yoshi?”. He wasn’t on his bed where he usually is around dinner time. Out of curiosity I checked upstairs to see if he was lying in any of the bedrooms. No dog. And he wasn’t in the backyard. Then Greg opened the front door. There he was, wagging his tail expectantly. I suspect he’d been waiting there wagging for the past hour. Poor guy.

Thankfully he’s not a wanderer, because it was dark and he didn’t have any collar on for identification. Could have been disastrous.

perhaps not the best location

I took the boys for a walk yesterday afternoon to our local off-leash dog park. I let Yoshi off leash at the entrance, and Elliot was in the stroller. As we walked into the park, a woman in a blue uniform asked me if Yoshi was my dog. She was holding a German Shepherd on leash, and there was a guy standing down the path from them a bit. I replied yes, and she said they were doing some police dog training. I went to put Yoshi on leash, but she said to just keep going, which I translated to “get out of the way”.

Ten meters down the trail Yoshi did his regular poop in three different places, which meant I had to stop and pick it up, knowing they were still waiting for me to get out of the way. A couple of minutes later they left the park.

I was glad to see them go. To me, an off-leash dog park is a very inappropriate place to do police dog training. Especially when I’ve got my toddler with me. Even if the dog is well-trained, I don’t want my son seeing the dog attack a person. Elliot would have no way of knowing they are just “training”.

rating his neuroses

Yoshi is a sensitive dog, to put it mildly. Mostly it’s a sound sensitivity, but there are other things that obviously make him anxious.

One of the sounds that scares him is the garage door opening. He flees in terror as soon as he sees us even approaching the door. And if the door is open, heaven forbid he get anywhere near the garage — after all, the door might close at any time.

This morning I was outside in the pouring rain with him, getting the stroller ready for a walk. I opened the garage door and he predictably ran up the front steps and stood by the front door. I promptly forgot about him until he suddenly reappeared…and walked into the garage. I was shocked. Then I realized he had overcome his fear of the garage door so he wouldn’t have to stand in the pouring rain.

When I related this story to Greg, we commented that there is obviously a neuroses scale in Yoshi’s life. It includes, but is not limited to, the following (from most anxiety-provoking to least anxiety-provoking):

  1. Fireworks and firecrackers
  2. The beeping of our cell phone as the battery dies
  3. Standing in a downpour (running around in a downpour is okay, though)
  4. Garage doors
  5. Dogs weighing less than 20 lbs
  6. Squeakers in dog toys, especially if another dog is squeaking them
  7. Elliot’s Tigger airplane, which admittedly does make a lot of noise
  8. Being alone in the house for longer than four hours
  9. Open umbrellas
  10. Air brakes
  11. Aphro

hairy furniture

Yoshi is a furniture dog. If given the chance, he’ll be on the furniture as soon as we leave the house. Bed, chair, couch, it doesn’t matter. He rarely does it in our presence, but he always does it when we’re not home. So we’ve taken steps to try to prevent it. We block the upstairs so he can’t get on the bed or futon, and we put the cushions up on the couch and the chair in the living room, so there’s not an inviting soft spot. For some reason he avoids the la-z-boy, maybe because it rocks.

Anyway, putting the cushions up was working for a while, but lately I’ve been coming home and one or two cushions have been pushed down. My suspicion was that he was pushing them down and lying on them, but I wasn’t convinced, because they weren’t getting dirty. And last night I noticed the seat of the chair (where the cushion lies) was very dirty, which was a bit perplexing.

Today I discovered what is actually happening. As I left the house with Elliot in the stroller, I looked up at the front window and Yoshi was standing on the back of the couch. Full on standing, all fours on the couch back. If I wasn’t so mad I would have laughed, as you could see his whole body in the window. I thought about going back into the house to kick him off, but realized he’d just go back on. Then he had the nerve to lie down…again on the back of the couch. That’s when I laughed. The back of the couch is not that wide! So that’s how the cushions are getting knocked down.

When I got home, he wasn’t on the couch (I snuck up to the house and peeked in the window). When I opened the door, he came trotting around the corner, and it sounded like he’d just been on his dog bed. Good boy. Oh yes, did I mention that? We do provide him with at least one soft, poofy dog bed, but that apparently is not good enough. I went upstairs to put Elliot to bed, and came back down less than five minutes later to see Yoshi curled up on the chair…with the cushion still up behind him. So that explains why the chair is so dirty.

There are reasons he does this…he likes to be able to see outside and see who’s coming and going, he loves to be lying in the sun and he wants to be doing both these things on a soft surface. Unfortunately he can’t see outside from his dog bed, and unfortunately his dog bed doesn’t follow the sun.

Right now he’s curled up on his bed, in the sun. Because his pushover mum moved his bed to the biggest patch of sunshine she could find.

time change

So this time change thing just seems like a waste of time. Sprout missed his morning nap, and Yoshi is wondering where the heck his dinner is. The cat, however, seems to be managing just fine. I guess when you sleep for most of your day, time just doesn’t matter.

How do you explain the time change to a pooch and an eight-month-old?

sleep, what sleep?

Last night wasn’t the greatest night for Greg and I, and I can’t blame it all on Sprout, in fact most of the fault likes with Yoshi.

It started right after we went to bed, at about 10:30. Sprout woke up. Not a big deal, Greg went in, put his soother back in, and he went to sleep. But when he wakes up around that time I also get on edge, thinking the night is going to be a disaster.

Fast forward 15 minutes…Yoshi starts whining. Unusual for him, then he starts whining louder. Greg gets up and lets him out, Yoshi has a poop and comes back in. All is good.

Then at around 11:30 I hear him whining again. Loud enough that I think he’s going to wake up Sprout. I get up and let him out. He trots around the yard for a bit, pees, and comes back in. He seems fine.

Half an hour later, more whining. I try to ignore him. And I try not to think of the possibility that he has the runs and will have in accident in the house. Then I hear the very unpleasing sound of him puking. Great, although somewhat relieving as I’d rather clean up dog puke than runny poop.

So I get up again, hoping I don’t step on anything before I turn on the light, clean up the small amount of puke and let him out again, as he’s still whining. Nothing. So back in again.

Then at about 1:00, he starts whining again. Greg gets up this time (because I was just going to ignore him). He lets him out again, and he has another poop. Back in, and he seems fine after that.

Then Aphro starts licking the sliding glass door in our bedroom. I have no idea why she does this, but it drives me nuts. I scare her so she’ll stop, and she does.

I look at the clock, and it’s 1:30. Sprout has been waking up at 1:30 the past couple of nights, so I fall into a fitful sleep, thinking he’ll wake up at any time. Wake up at 2:30 to one cry from Sprout, but it doesn’t amount to anything. Fall back asleep.

At 4:00, Sprout wakes up. Normally I’d be celebrating this fact, as he doesn’t very often make it this far, but I’m so exhausted, it’s a huge effort to get out of bed. I get up, feed him, and get back into bed.

Half an hour later, I hear him crying again. I lie there for a few minutes, hoping he’ll stop, stress level going up as I wonder what we should do about these night wakings. I finally go in, try putting his soother back in, but he pushes me away. So I put him in his straightja…I mean I swaddle him, and he goes back to sleep. Wakes up at 6:20. Greg gets up with him and I sleep for another hour.

I think it’ll be early to bed for us tonight.