This is the little monster, Poppy it's short for Poop & Pee, she's
a great little dog, about the size of a Jack Russel with the energy
of a Greyhound on acid. She takes me on some great walks, someday I'm
hoping to train her to walk on all four legs on the lead. I'm still
working on the SIT! command, sadly she still thinks it means
BARK! One thing, no two, of the many things, I didn't realize
about dogs was how much they poo'd and pee'd. Poppy seems to prefer
to poo in front of an audience, I can walk her 1.5 miles down a quiet
road in to town, where she'll then have three craps within a few hundred
yards, all in the most strategically embarrassing places. And the most
annoying thing is, you've only brought two poo bags. She also seems
to save up her urine for town, there's not the same amount of scent
marking every so many yards, just the walking on two legs thing and
the choking noises. Then once in town and the most embarrassing spot
located , where maximum spread, incline, [trickle factor for block paving
or slip factor for marble floors] calculated, the flood gates are released.
And the most annoying thing is I've used my last tissues picking up
that runny third turd.
Poppy does have an annoying habit of barking during the middle of the
night at any noise from outside, normally the badgers. It usually starts
with low growling first, followed by the loud woofing, then the clatter
of claws down the staircases, the crash of the cat flap and then the
more hysterically barking outside. I lay there hoping to hear her come
back through the catflap and clatter back upstairs to bed but no, the
bark changes to the let me in woof! This is when I've got to
get out of bed, go down two flights of stairs and stand by the open
side door and try to coax the dog back in, it's no good trying to shout
in your lowest shoutyist voice at 2:30am "Poppy IN!"
she seems to think this means " Stand still, now back off slowly,
now run" She only comes within grabbing distance if you call "Good
girl" which sounds like I'm rewarding her for barking and dragging
me out of bed.
Before we got Poppy we had fed the local badgers for ten years on
kitchen scraps just a few feet from the window, generations of badgers
had grown up on gourmet dining. And then came Poppy and then their world
of easy dining stopped, up went the extra gates to keep Poppy from accessing
the garden and when that didn't work, the final insult, the pony stopping
electric fence went up. A great success in keeping Poppy in and everything
else out. There was only one problem the kitchen scraps now went in
the dustbins located in the un-electrified front garden. The dustbin
lids were held tight with bungy straps but that only annoyed the badgers
who slowly over a few months destroyed two dustbins. I now have a sturdy
wooden construction to secure our rubbish from attack, which has now
turned the badgers attention to attacking the adjacent compost bins.
Poppy update June 2011. Purchased an electric shock collar which
gives a loud high pitched warning tone ,when the dog barks. On the third
bark a mild electric shock, going up in voltage if the barking continues.
It's brilliant and only 9 quid, I only have to show it to her and she
stops, half the time it's got no batteries and still psychologically
works. I've also discovered that by simply turning the garden hose on
causes Poppy to run indoors, which is great, it's just a pity it's normally
2:00am. Poppy has now learnt how to bark very, very quietly without
setting off the collar, it sounds funny just a pity I'm trying to sleep.
