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Weird things dogs have done

 
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This is inspired by Pearl's post regarding cats.

One day my wife saw our Australian Shepherd heading  into the woods with his full supper dish in his mouth.  We decided to follow at a distance.  We came upon our dog and the neighbors Black Lab protecting and trying to raise a tiny kitten. Of course, we took the kitten home.  By my guess, the momma cat had been moving her kittens and was probably terrified of the two dogs.  I doubt if she understood the motives of the self appointed baby sitters.
Staff note (Pearl Sutton) :

The thread I started about the weird things cats have done:  https://permies.com/t/143010/Weird-cats

 
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That is a great story John!  I was about to relate a story about my black lab, but I just can’t match what you have.

Eric
 
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Eric: you don't have to match it, tell us a story!! :D
 
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Our dog was the best but he ate duck and chicken poop. Definitely weird.
 
John F Dean
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Hi Eric,

Please share ....
 
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My wife and I once operated a dog boarding kennel for a few years. Two regulars were a pair of male Brittany Spaniels, littermates, who shared a kennel. After their daily walk, they would sit facing each other, almost touching with heads straight up and muzzles crossed, doing a weird "woooowoooowooo" quiet almost-howl.
 
John F Dean
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Hi Dc,

Was it a camp fire song at summer camp?
 
Pearl Sutton
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I was on a beach in Oregon, saw a truck pull up that was all cages with sled dogs in it. The guy told me they were training for the Iditarod. The beach sand had more friction than snow, he said it was great exercise for them. And they were excited! The whole truck was rocking as the dogs danced to get out. He hooked up the sled, fastened it to the truck, and laid out the lines. Then hooked the lead dog on first, and started hooking the dogs in place. The dogs on the line were leaping with excitement to run, the whole group was jumping in unison, like a wave. Except the lead dog, who was too cool for that. He sat there still and sang, I have never seen a dog move it's lips like that, Ow Wow Woo Woo Wo Ooooh Wooo! The line was jumping, the lead dog was singing, the sled was released from the truck and they took off like a shot. When I left an hour later they still weren't back.
Was way cool!
 
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Reader beware! If you are squeamish, don't read on.

We had, at one point, three Great Danes. Two were young litter mates and one was an old (9+ years) female. One of the young ones liked the old girl's poo. A lot.

One day all three were in the yard and the old girl was hunching to poo when the young one ran up and grabbed a nugget right out of her butt before it hit the ground. We screeched and ran to stop her from getting the whole batch. Farm to Table is a good concept, but not in this instance. We checked everything in her diet and made sure she had excellent food. She only liked the old dogs poo, so it was probably due to undigested food in it. Yuck.

The absolute worst part of this was when she barfed up a "snack" of poo in the house. The smell of hot vomit with crap thrown in was something beyond any smell in the world. I have a very strong stomach, but cleaning that up almost had me barfing too.

Once our old girl passed on, the young one never ate poo again. And I still love dogs, even if they are poo-snackers sometimes. Just don't get too may kisses from them.

You read it. You can't unread it...
 
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Our dog Dillon will be 11 this year and he is also a poo eater. His favourites are horse and goat poo😋  Some of the more memorable items that he has eaten include a fully laden chili plant - hot chilis at that. Memorable because I had to clean up the explosive after effects for a week; a dozen antihistamine tablets that were left on my bedside table - cue panicked visit to the vet; two fillet steaks that he stole off the kitchen bench, managing to get the clingwrap off somehow and taking a bite out of the polystyrene tray. My husband had unpacked the shopping onto the kitchen bench and must have turned his back as Dillon stole the steaks. Husband checked the car, called the supermarket to ask if it he'd left the steaks at the checkout and he even started to question whether he had even bought them in the first place. Months later, I found the polystyrene tray hidden behind a pile of firewood in our garden. One of our regular walks is around a wetland and there are feral goats, possum, wild duck carcasses and copious goat droppings along the paths. During one walk, he somehow managed to swallow an entire goat hoof which he promptly regurgitated the next day. I still have the photo but will spare your sensibilities 😉 I tried muzzling him when I took him on that walk but he was so miserable, I gave up and have to keep him on lead to try to stop him eating goat poo and/or rolling in well rotted dead animals. He is a Brittany, springer, lab cross - I blame the lab genes for his greediness but he is so affectionate and good natured it is impossible to get cross with him.
20190323_155212.jpg
looking innocent
looking innocent
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not impressed with his muzzle
not impressed with his muzzle
 
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Robin Katz wrote:grabbed a nugget right out of her butt before it hit the ground.



This reminds me of a big all day family hike we went on years ago. We were taking a break and a bunch of us were standing in a circle talking when one of my cousins, three or four at the time, walked into the middle of the circle and squatted to poop. The circle started to break up with a collective, "Uuugghh!" There was a louder noise of disgust (and laughs, let's be honest) and everyone scattered when one of the dogs ran in for a hot snack.

My husband had a dog when he was young that would chase cars, but only occasionally. They eventually figured out she was only chasing the cars that had driven through manure from the neighbour's cows when she "caught" one of the cars when it pulled up to their house and started licking the manure out of the tire treads.

Veering from the poop theme...

One of my grandma's dogs once ate an entire goat, bones and all. At least, they assume that's what happened. They never found the goat, a carcass, or disturbed soil where something might have been buried. They did have a dog suddenly as big as a barrel.

My basset hound in many ways acts like a cat. One of his things is that he always wants to be on the highest point in the area. We used to shovel all the snow from the driveway onto one mound so he could sit on top of it. We walk in to our current property in the winter, so that doesn't happen anymore. When left alone at home, he would push the chairs into position and use them to hop up on the kitchen table. I never managed to catch him up there, but I heard him jumping down as I came home a few times and found his hair all over the table many times.

Another of his quirks was that he could lift himself up using only his neck. If he could jump up and get his chin over something (a basset's front legs don't have the reach their necks do) he could lift himself onto it.

He's too old now, but he used to sleep on the back of the couch or the armchair. The armchair was a bit tricky cause if he shifted his weight wrong he'd flip it over backwards. The couch was safer. One time, though, my dad was sitting on the couch and, the highest point now being my dad's head, the dog attempted to stand on it. My dad swatted him off and he slipped off the back of the couch. Luckily, the dog kept his chin on the couch and hauled himself back up. My dad felt bad about pushing him off, so they compromised and the dog went to sleep draped over my dad's shoulder.  
 
Jan White
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My cat basset and a degenerate poop eater/lab whose stories need not be told.
P1000618.JPG
Basset and labrador
 
Pearl Sutton
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I was a massage therapist for a lot of years. I had a client who came to me crying, with her dog. The dog's sister had died of liver cancer a year ago, and she didn't cope well with it (a lot of really bad things going on in her life) and now this one was showing the same signs. Would I check him and see what I thought? If it was possibly liver cancer again, she'd rather hear it first from me, rather than the vet.

So I checked him, and asked "Does this dog eat out of the cat box?"  "Well, he WILL, but my son cleans it all the time.... Oh wait, he has a new girlfriend, how much you want to bet he hasn't cleaned it lately!" I told her "I feel nothing at the liver, I feel a lot in the intestines, give him a laxative, see what it does." He shit out a LOT of cat litter, and lived many more years.

Another dog massage story: I specialized in injuries, mostly car wrecks. A family who lived 13 miles out of town had 3 members of the family get hurt badly and the car totaled, so rather than make them figure out how to shuffle people into town for me to work on them, I'd take a massage table up to their house and do them all.

They had an English Mastiff named Zeus, big tough dog, had killed a pit bull that was attacking one of the family kids. He was getting older, and gimpy. I was taking a break between people one day, Zeus was laying by me, so I started massaging him. The first time I hit something that hurt he almost snapped at me, I changed what I was doing, he calmed back down. When I was done, he got up, stretched, looked surprised, and practically bounced into the kitchen! After that, sometimes when I got there he'd demand "ME FIRST!" and since he was bigger than me, he was first on those days! Otherwise he waited his turn, and never again complained that I was hurting him, he'd figured out it was worth it.

:D
 
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As far as I know, I have the world's only Asian Carp Retriever.
 
John F Dean
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I may have posted this several months ago, but I can't find it if I did.  One evening when the Coyotes were pretty active in the tree line around our property, our Border Collie was getting pretty worked up.  I was afraid he would charge them and get tore up, so I grabbed the carbine, stepped out on the porch, and told him I was there.  He looked over at me, and took off running down our driveway.  Maybe 10 to 15 minutes later he returned ..... with the Great Pyrenees from a couple of farms down.  I am pretty sure he told me, " We've got this."  So I went inside.
 
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One morning I let the dogs out in our backyard. I then let the chickens out of their coop and went back inside to do something (insert chore of your choice here). When I went back to let the dogs I I saw my Shih Tszu riding on the back of one of the chooks! She held on for a good 20 yards! Alas, she went down before the 8 second bell! Chook and dog both unharmed in the making of this scene.

Cheers!
 
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This was a story that happened many years ago. At that time I lived with my parents in the countryside and we had 4 dogs. When we moved there we had 1 dog with us, she was a house dog and we adopted her at a fair, where people were giving puppies away, trying to find someone to take care of them. Few months after we were living in the new house, I came back from school and found my mom with a tiny puppy, who was looking at me with his big eyes and this is how we got our 2nd dog. The other 2 dogs were rescued by my father, who found a tiny carton box in the middle of a street (where he was driving) with two little puppies.
They were not very special, except the first dog who loved to eat her own poop (we always needed to chase her after she did her things, that was no fun) and the second dog who at the beginning lived outside in a big cage, but always was able to escape. The cage was self made, and it had a tree inside of it, he was very intelligent and always managed to crawl (his back on the tree and going up with his paws). We called him "spider dog" after we saw his technique.
So yeah, that's all, not a super exciting story, but I wanted to share the story of my dogs. I like to remember them from time to time, because they all live in my heart.
 
John F Dean
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I can't tell you he was our dog  ....clearly no one owned him.  But when we lived in MN we had some kind of wolf-husky mix, half grown  pup, come out of the woods and befriend us.  He would visit maybe 2 or 3 times a week.  He never sought food ...he provided his own.  As he grew up, he clearly saw us as friends.  Anyway, as I have posted elsewhere we had neighbor problems of all kinds.  One time when I was away, a very drunk and irate neighbor came over to speak to my wife.  It was never entirely clear what the problem was ... something about being arrested and spending several nights in jail, but he was yelling and waving his arms in the air.  The dog comes our of the woods and quietly sits down between my wife and the neighbor.  At some point, the neighbor realizes what is in front of him.  He becomes very quiet and slowly backs down our driveway. That was the last time either one of us saw that neighbor.
 
Pearl Sutton
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I used to own  a commercial janitorial service, we had a place we cleaned late at night in the industrial part of town. There were fenced lots at all these places, some with guard dogs. I loved the dog a few doors down, big German shepherd, who was a good barking guard dog... If anyone was around. It was often desolate out there. When there was nothing going on, he'd jump his 6 foot fence, and go to the cotton field across the street and chase rabbits. If you walked anywhere near his fence, he'd come running past you, leap over his fence, then bark at you, "Get away from my fence!" when you left, he'd go back to the rabbits. He was very good at his job, simply didn't feel it required 100% of his time to do it right.
 
John F Dean
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When I was much younger, I stayed for a year at my oldest sister's  and brother in law's house.  My baby sitter was their retired, prison trained, guard dog.  Once a neighbor borrowed their pick up truck.   When he returned the truck, he tossed the keys to me.  The dog clearly understood that the keys were thrown at me, but he also knew it was not a real threat. He settled for a compromise. He trotted over to the neighbor and gave him a gentle nip on the backside.
 
John F Dean
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This post is inspired by Pearls post about getting a dog to dig.   Anyway, about 3 years ago my wife was thrilled that she had taught our dog to pick up sticks from the yard.  To demonstrate, she told our border collie to bring her a stick. He bounds off and comes back with a seedling I had just planted.
 
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Last week I took my border collie mix for a walk in the woods to look for some deer sheds (antlers). On the way up the road to where I was going to hunt, she discovered something and starting rolling around. I figured it was a carcass or some goose poop or something. And lo, she came up with her front half covered in smelly brown goo and could not have been more pleased with herself. The smell was suspicious....then I spied the toilet paper next to the now obliterated pile. Human poop, fresh and loose. Maybe not weird, but definitely the grossest doggy event to date. Civilized animals should bury their sh*t!
 
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My dogs are a bit odd. One is a neurotic mess - scared of everything. Hats? Now you're a stranger. Trash cans? Monstrous. He's coming around.

But the real weirdo is the husky that will eat raw green tomatoes if I let her. Sometimes she snuffles a plant and thinks about taking one. Here's a picture of her and a tomato with a mark from her teeth where she tried to chomp it!
She also has a passionate rage towards groundhogs. She SCREAMS when she sees one and demands to be allowed to go hunt it down and do battle. She's caught LOTS of garden marauders in her lifetime.
Tomato.png
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Well, first there was the time a stray EMU showed up at the acreage, and apparently the wild foraged diet did NOT appeal to it's intestinal tract, causing it to, unknown to me, leave 2x2 foot (and larger) lakes of brown, nasty, viscous puddles about.

The 100 lb lab took to rolling in this one night, at 3am only to return to my bedroom (he could open and close the basement door) and proceeded to have a monsterous SHAKE! UGH, so straight into the tub, a hot bath, times three, scrub down the walls, ceiling, furniture and changed the bedding and just as I climbed back into bed...

5am, he repeated his "beauty treatment! This time he got a cold bath; and again at 10am (this time I finally found the source, and located half a dozen puddles, and no means to remove it) - that time he got the hose, outside, be damned if he was uncomfortable! Fortunately, that time he learned his lesson, and stopped with the EMU "mud" baths!

Took almost two weeks to round up and rehome the wandering EMU, but not before he jumped on the roof and hood of my car, scratching and denting it. To this day I suspect there are some VERY unflattering notes in my car insurance file (I think they thought I had lost the plot!).
 
Lorinne Anderson
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Secondly, my death defying 5 lb Min Pin who took to escaping from the outdoor dog enclosure, daily, for weeks.

Hopefully the video will load, as it truly is worth a 1,000 words. (dang says I can't load file with .3gp extension, whatever that means).

Suffice to say, my search for her escape route was fruitless. There were simply ZERO openings she could squeeze thru or under, and she was the only one (out of 11) who was escaping.

Until the day I heard rustling, and watched in amazement as she wriggled her way between the mill wrap (heavy plastic/tarp material lumber is wrapped in) and began to climb the 6 ft chainlink fence beneath! At the top she again had to wriggle thru an opening she had made (how long it took her, hanging on, to create that opening I can only imagine!).

She pranced atop the 2x4 and then leapt down into a higgley piggley jumble of junk and stored lumber.

At barely 5lbs, I could not believe she had not killed herself, but beyond that was the immense pride with which she held herself. NEVER have I seen a dog SO pleased with themselves!

Later I watched her prance about on the chain link roof of another enclosure, adjacent to her escape route, somehow managing to trot around, with confidence, on the chain link strands that topped the enclosure. She is still with me today, but has given up fence scaling, thank goodness!
 
pollinator
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I once had a dog that ate and/or chewed just about anything. He was very anxious I think. When we were gone he had: chewed my calculator (yes I am "old") chewed a beer can, chewed through the wood partition my Dad had put up to keep him out of the living room. He chewed tons of socks and underwear! He would find the sack of potatoes my Mom kept in storage under the sink and would naw on one lol. He was really naughty but I sure loved that dog.
 
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years back i used to have a Newfoundland, Morgan. so its late November and we just had a stinker of a snow storm. not as bad as a lot of places get but for here it was pretty good.
so its pitch black out side and Morgan wants to go pee. so i put her on her leash and head out, we pass the barn and the security lights come on, we walk past and head towards the trail at the side of the property.
as we near the compost heap the whole top of it rose up and all we see are these blazing eyes staring at us, I drag Morgan back to the house, grab a firearm and head back out to see what is going ok.
That is how i ended up with Casper, a huge beautiful pure white husky. once he was introduced to the rest of the family, ( wife , dogs and the cats) everything settled down.
it wasnt long before we decided he needed to be out side. he would mark everything.
The house is an old 1 1/2 story farm house T shape, with the long leg towards the East and the short legs north and south. on the north side i fenced in the area and built him a little house.
it was great. i would walk him up the field, get to the back and let him off. and he would run straight back to his gate and sit there waiting for me to let him in.
one night there was a big thunder storm. I get up to go to work early, usually i get to work around 5am. as i get out the house and walk towards my car i see some of the ducks sat in the center of the drive way.
all evenly spaced and facing the same way, all stone dead. and not a mark on them.
stranger still there were 6 ducks missing and i couldn't find them anywhere.
along comes the weekend, time to catch up with some yard work. i grab the gas strimmer out of the garage and start whacking along the fence. as i get to the fence post i see a pair of duck feet sticking up out of the earth.
it was the same for each of the other fence posts and apart from being a little dirty there were no marks on any of them
occasionally if something got into Casper's little area we would find a pair of feet sticking out next to a fence post.

i miss him very much
 
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Not to be outdone by the cats, the dogs have musical skills as well (and also do some strange things).

Here's 'The Kiffness' doing his magic with some talented canines:










 
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Robin Katz wrote:Reader beware! If you are squeamish, don't read on.



Absolutely hilarious! Had me giggling on my chair instead of doing my job....
 
Niels van Wensen
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Also one not for the squeamish (though I won't get too detailed).

When we just got Pippin as a pup she seemed quite happy relaxing in the field next to our house (she has since become an escape artist who, if we didn't know better, seems to despise us). The grass was cut by our landlord/farmer once tall enough to harvest.
One day when the grass was really high we were working in the house and had lost sight of pippin. Suddenly realising she wasn't around we frantically searched for her but couldn't find her. My partner at the time was searching around the house and walked down one side of the road, I jumped in the car and drove the other way. Nowhere to be found, until I had a sudden realisation...

3 weeks prior a colleague, who had a tendency to pick up dead cats to bring to the vet or give a 'proper burial', came to pick me up at 7am. His first question was if he could bury the cat (hit by a car not long before we presume) in the field. Thinking nothing of it I gave him my spade and let him do his thing. He buried it close enough to the house but in the long grass.

I drove back, hopped out the car and to the spot I thought the cat had been buried. Lo and behold, there she was, basking in the sunshine on on her side, happily chewing on the half rotten carcass of a cat...

These days she holds her nose up at anything that isn't high quality meats or human food...
 
steward and tree herder
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Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year
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Our dog can tell the time. OK he can only tell one time - dinner time, but you can set your watch by him - at a certain time of the evening Dyson will come up to one of us and just sit there to let you know, and yes - 5 minutes to 7 (dinner at 7pm). How does he do that?

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Dyson with Della when she was little
Dyson with Della when she was little
 
John F Dean
master steward
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Location: southern Illinois, USA
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I have two dogs ….an older Australian Shepherd and a younger Border Collie.   At one time the Border Collie would attempt to compete with and establish dominance over the older dog, but the relationship has shifted.    

For example, 4 years ago if I set of food from Thanksgiving, the younger dog would attempt to push the older dog aside to get all the food for himself.  Now, the younger dog will only eat his 1/2.   Then, he will quietly wait for the older dog to eat.

Before, when faced with a new problem, the younger dog would charge in without hesitation.   Now, he clearly confers with the older dog for advice.

I suppose, we see a similar relationship shift in humans.
 
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I felt the need to share the story of my older baby. A couple years back I rescued a white pitbull who was living in pretty crappy circumstances. No matter how bad his life was in the past he's nothing but love. One day I was bringing home the groceries and in it was a couple of acorn squash and a head of cabbage. I guess he felt the need to have his own baby to snuggle so he stole an acorn squash to snuggle with on his blankie. After I took that to put it away he stole the head of cabbage to snuggle with. Eventually that got substituted with the stuffed hedgehog. I would have posted the picture but can't find it right now of him snuggling with his acorn squash.
 
pollinator
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Location: SE Indiana
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My dog found a dead frozen cat by the river one time. He knew if I got ahold of it, I'd take it away so when we were ready to go home, he took into the weeds and hid it. Next day on our walk he'd go get it. He didn't chew on it, he just carried it around with him. Finally, I got it and threw it in the river. Next day they must have opened the flood gates downstream because the water had gone down, exposing where I threw it and he found it again. I gave up and this went on for a couple of weeks.
 
pollinator
Posts: 322
Location: Youngstown, Ohio
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A few decades back, we lived in Amish country,  in a little trailer backed by woods.  We had a fun little rust colored beagle mix named Rusty (I know, so original).  He was simply allowed to run.  He did have a great deal of fun chasing Amish buggies.  Sometime during his life we moved to the city.  He had to be placed on a run lead when he was outside.  But he would watch and wait for the unsuspecting visitor or less than careful person to hold the door a second too long.  Off like a shot and he would not be caught...several times we just had to wait the 24 hours until he came home, tail between legs.  His favorite was running the two blocks to Market Street and going to the middle of the road,  barking at both lines of traffic.  How he made it to old age, I am not certain.  But he left us when he was old and happy, sunning himself on the driveway.
 
pollinator
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Location: Near Asheville North Carolina
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This is Buddy, our Mountain Feist-Blue Heelermix…our North Carolina mountain dog. The most handsome dog in the world!  The first dog I’ve ever had. Smart as a whip. Affectionate. Regal. Gentle. Mischievous! Vocal!
Like your dogs, he loves the manure I lay down in the field. He steals towels, rugs, socks & slippers which he either bites & nibbles big holes into or he will just sweetly sleep with.
But he’s got so much personality & character. More than any dog my husband has ever had.
The funniest thing he does is whine & loudly complain when I’m typing on my cell phone. He lays flat, stretches out his arms with his head between, eyes focused on me & moans & groans & whines until I’m finished. You’d just have to see it…hilarious
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gardener
Posts: 438
Location: Suffolk County, Long Island NY, Zone: 7b (new 2023 map)
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I'm going to run with this topic. Here is a picture of my 8-month-old shepherd.  Her weird name is Axel Rose.  She's not named after the Guns n' Roses singer.
I wanted to name her Rosie after a dear departed dog friend, my Husband wanted Ax because it was tough-sounding.  We compromised.
Isn't she so sweet just hanging with my mini canine Zeus (10 years old)?
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Susan Mené
gardener
Posts: 438
Location: Suffolk County, Long Island NY, Zone: 7b (new 2023 map)
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Here she is on the right with her brother Heinz , who belongs to my daughter.
Such noble beasts!  (HA!)
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Susan Mené
gardener
Posts: 438
Location: Suffolk County, Long Island NY, Zone: 7b (new 2023 map)
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Now, the carnage:
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Susan Mené
gardener
Posts: 438
Location: Suffolk County, Long Island NY, Zone: 7b (new 2023 map)
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They are SO weird. one minute they are like mushy infants, the next they are tearing up  6 garden beds in the blink of an eye.  Oh well, I was going to expand and renew anyway.
We are training them and they are learning commands and discipline, but I will never crush their spirit.
 
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