My Dog

Today I will talk about one of my favorite subjects: my dog.

I will try to make my explanations as clear as possible, but if you're not a dog person, you may not entirely understand the beginning of this post.  Bear with me.

Her name is Tybee, after Tybee Island, a little barrier Island off the coast of Savannah, Georgia.  She was part of an accidental litter when a friend's Brittany Spaniel and English Shorthair Pointer had puppies.  (They thought the mom, the spaniel, was too young and the dad, the pointer, was too old, so they didn't bother keeping them separated.  Thank god they didn't, because otherwise I wouldn't have my dog!)  

Above: Two Brittany Spaniels.  The one on the right has the color of my dog, but the one on the left has the face shape.  Imagine these two with short hair.

Below: An English Pointer.  If this dog had a few more brown splotches like the one on the shoulder, it would look remarkably like Tybee.

 

She is between the sizes of the two breeds, weighing in at about 45 pounds.  She has the build, coloring, and face of the spaniel, but the hair texture and tail of the pointer.  Her size and personality are a mix of the two dogs.

Below: Two pictures of Tybee.  She is one of my favorite subjects for photography, because she looks adorable and doesn't complain when I take her picture.

Tybee was the oldest of the litter and the only girl.  The litter all had puppy names, temporary names given until the dogs go to a different home.  Tybee's was "Squeaky" because she made little squeaking noises all the time.  Now, however, she rarely makes any noise, preferring to get my family's and my attention through other means - like jumping up onto us, nosing our hands, or sitting next to the thing she wants.

We probably should've taken the hint from when she was the first of her litter to escape the pen they were kept in, or possibly from the question mark-shaped splotch on her back, but she has always been a remarkably curious, adventurous, and intelligent dog.  When she was a very small puppy, we put in gates around the three entrances to the kitchen, where we kept her.  One didn't open.  She learned how to open another, by jumping up to it, pushing her front paws on the top latch, and leaning forward, then nosing it up to get it out of the bottom latch.  At the other, we accidentally taught her a trick.  When we wanted to leave via that gate, Tybee would often go to the gate in hopes of a walk, blocking our way through.  So, we would say, "Excuse me, Tybee."  While saying this, we would continue to walk towards it, Tybee would take the hint, and walk backwards away from the gate.  Eventually, without even realizing it, we had her trained to walk backwards out of the way - out of any way - at "Excuse me."

Unfortunately, this curiosity extends to anything outside, and she will make a run for it any time a door to the outside is left open.  Despite our best efforts to train her, and her obedience to Mom and Dad while indoors, she will not come when she's called back from her escapades.  And, as I will explain below, catching her is nearly impossible.  All we can do is wait for her to return, and make sure she hasn't hurt herself.

She is a very athletic dog.  She can run extremely fast and jump extremely high, even for a dog.  

My grandfather will sometimes judge hunting dog trials.  Usually, when we visit him and Grammy, we bring Tybee.  They live on a farm, and their driveway is a 1/4 mile long gravel straightaway.  One time, while we were there, she escaped through an open door.  Granddad said he never saw anything, living or mechanical, speed down his driveway as fast as Tybee did.

I can think of two examples of Tybee's prodigious jumping skills.  One, the sliding glass door to the deck at my house closes with a horizontal metal bar in the middle, about 4 feet up.  Tybee once jumped so high that her hind paws were on level with that bar.  Two, our front door has a window near the top.  She has jumped high enough to briefly look out that window.

Now, for some funny anecdotes!

Tybee is very concerned with my family's constant preoccupation with flashy beepy whirry things, and with the lack of attention we can pay to her while using them.  If she wants my attention while I'm on the computer, she will hop up onto the couch and nose my hand away from the keyboard, inserting her head under my arm so I can't return it to the computer.  Sometimes she'll paw the keyboard, leading to awkward instant messages.  Once she hit the power button while I was doing homework.

Occasionally, she'll be in a playful mood and will pick up a tennis ball.  Her antics with tennis balls are some of the funniest things I've ever seen.  If she can't get a human to play with her, she will toss it into the air herself to catch again.  She will sometimes smoosh her snout into someone's leg or arm, while gnawing on the tennis ball, to grab their attention.

She hates rain and water.  Swimming is entirely not an option.  Again while escaped at my grandparents' house, she chased a few ducks into the small river behind the house.  One jump into the water and she scrambled back to shore, thoroughly bewildered and evidently in distress from being wet.  After my sisters give her baths in the bathtub upstairs, she will come racing down the stairs and start one of her funniest routines.  She will sprint down the stairs, run into the dining room, run a lap or two around the table, and sprint back upstairs, where she will come to a screeching halt in front of whoever is upstairs.  She will growl or bark playfully, once, and repeat the routine.  

She will sometimes do variations of this for apparently no reason.  A few times this has been while I was on my bed, in which variation she will race down the upstairs hallway to my room, leap vertically onto my bed, growl at me once, and repeat.  By the way, her growls are not in the least menacing.  She just looks ridiculous when she tries to be ferocious.

When someone in my family makes a funny noise, especially prolonged laughter or a previously unheard noise, she will look at that person with her head to one side in a comically quizzical look.  Often this will herald a change in behavior: if she was trying to be ferocious, she will calm and sit down.  If she was just sitting there, she will bark and growl, but since this usually just makes us laugh [more], she will stop.

Tybee is afraid of balloons.  Any time we bring home any type of balloon that will stay in the air by itself, she will stand there, fascinated and afraid, barking once or twice.

She had a very similar reaction once when we passed a mutilated pumpkin in someone's yard.  She approached it, sniffed it, and jumped back.  She narrowed her eyes and did the same thing again.  She did this a few times before barking once and walking away.

Her tail is a lethal weapon, as my mom says.  When she wags her tail, she wags it so fast she hits herself with it.  There's only a thin layer of short fur on it, so if she hits you with it, it's like getting whacked with a bony cord.  It's very painful.

She likes to "dance" with me or Mom.  She will jump up so her front paws are on my stomach, and I'll grab her paws and dance with her for about two seconds until she decides she doesn't like anything or anyone on her paws.  She does this almost every day.

Since she is all muscle and no fat, and with very short fur, she does not do well in the cold.  We have to put her in a sweater to go on walks in the cold winter months, though Mom is (and I am too, for that matter) morally opposed to putting pets in clothing.  She still shivers visibly.  When she gets home, the first thing she does once her leash is off is to run to the nearest carpeting, and run around in a circle with her shoulder on the floor, trying to rub off her sweater.  After a short while of this, she will roll over onto her back, swing into a semicircle a few times, get up, shake off, and start rubbing her shoulder on the floor again.

The first day we had her, we bought her a squeaky toy.  She would pounce on it, then jump back and look at it in suspicion.  It was hilarious.

They say laughter is the best medicine - and my family says that if that's true, Tybee is a walking pharmacy.