Taffy the Laffy Samoyed Stories

This last two days the Taff had such a workout for his nose he may have to use nose drops for a few days hahaha.

It started when we were rabbit hunting yesterday morning, we were down by the little mini-pasture past the water tower, about one acre square with three huge oak trees. Taff and I were walking along on the road beside and I saw a flicker out of the corner of my eye. I glanced over and about 20 feet off the side of the road was a big doe deer just staring straight at me. Taff did not see her in the tall grass so I carefully reeled in his cable and then held him up by his front paws between my legs and pointed his face at the deer, he is looking everywhere but straight ahead until the deer flicked her tail. THEN he went rigid as a road kill, I could feel his heart pounding like a trip hammer, we just hung there in a stare down contest for about 2 minutes, Taff was not making a sound, almost holding his breath but coiled like a spring!

Then from the woods came a loud- HUH-HUH ( the other deer) the doe turned and bounded off. I dropped the Taff, grabbed a hold of the leash on the end of his cable with both hands and the second his paws hit the pavement he shot after the deer, I was right on his heels. Through the pasture we raced with Taff bounding over the tall grass, not making a sound, we rounded the little stand of locust running flat out and then Taff lost the scent, he stopped dead in his tracks give a big "YIP", zig-zagged back and forth, picked up the scent again and started for the big stand of poison ivy, that is when I froze in place and called him back, after another "YIP" and now at the end of his long cable, he turned and raced back. All the way back up here he was prancing and bounding, tongue lolling, in what I swear was a "sammie" version of a belly laugh! hahaha.

THEN this morning we had a visit from the Mayor with the vacationing neighbors big male Lab, down on the road in front of the house. What a regal animal he is. Taff went up to him with his usual "head-up-tail-up-HI I'M TAFF" in your face greeting and started sniffing the lab, which I think is not correct in the "Emily Post/ Lab" greeting rule book either. The Lab was tolerant for a time then growled, the Taff started whimpering, so I pulled him one way while the Mayor walked off the other with the Lab.

About one half a mile down the road I turned the Taff around and "his single minded purpose in life" became getting back where the Lab had been, (who was long gone). As we arrived in front of the house the Taff picked up his scent and glued his nose to the ground like a bloodhound, he zigged and zagged down the road, practically dragging his tongue on the pavement and ignored everything around him (that was a first) he tracked that Lab all the way to the intersection, half way back to the house here, and back again to the intersection. We crossed the road to the big community "pee pine" and then went on out to the big rail bridge over the river. On the way back from the bridge I stopped and tied him to a tree and dashed into the post office for the mail, once I came out we started back up here with Taff's nose again glued to the pavement and not one single time did he even raise his head to even look or yip at the other neighbor's dogs, tied or penned along the route, or cars or birds or anything .Another first, as usually both houses with a dog, gets a tug and a yip, and anything that moves gets checked out.

By the time we got back here Taff was beat, BUT I now know that the Taff is actually capable of PAYING ATTENTION to something for longer than 5 milliseconds! He just blew his pretend attention deficient disorder right out the window. There has to be a way to exploit this, maybe I need to peel some bark off the "pee pine" glue on some deer hair, hook it on the back of my belt and just march down the street and see if the Taffster will HEEL !!!!! This might be better than a high pitched dog whistle! Do you know how much bark is on the "pee pine" or how much hair is on one deer? We can make a fortune! OK that is it I'm gonna go get the chain saw! Stay tuned! hahahah lol mfb.

Well Taff and I just got back from another short "Miss Casey's Remedial Walking School" class. I asked if I could take Casey( the neighbors border collie) for a walk with Taff. She was on a long braided leash, I put Taff on his 6 foot leash and he already had on his harness. I decided to only try for out to the bridge and back till I saw how Taff behaved. It has been months since they walked together.

Well we started out to the bridge and rather than hold his leash, I had Taff by the halter strap and kept him right by my side, Casey was out in front about 4 feet and nose to the ground. When we got to the grassy area out beside the tracks I let Taff go and he INSTANTLY started inching up on Casey, she tuned and gave him a curled lip and white eyeball, Taff INSTANTLY dropped back to a perfect obedience school "heel" right by my side, his leash dragging on the ground hahaha.

I am telling you it is the most amazing thing you ever saw to watch those two! He had his eyes glued to her every move, she just trotted ahead on an outstretched leash (but not crush my own trachea tension, like Taff does on a collar even a choke one) she was into some serious scent trailing and moved along at a good pace, Taff was trying to move faster but not close the distance and it was hard for him to check himself, he was actually waddling like a duck with his feet on a hot griddle hahaha.

Occasionally Casey would glance around to check on Taff and he would drop back to dead even with my knee cap, as if to say "hey I'm staying back OK"?

Out we trotted to the bridge and at some magic mark that no human could see, Casey does a complete 360 on a DIME and almost bowls over me and Taff, Taff was leaping up on hind feet to turn and still keep that 4 foot distance away from her AND behind her, for 5 seconds they were eyeball to eyeball, Taff's eyes were the size of Pizza pies and I looked like one of those rodeo trick ropers whipping the leashes over my head to keep them from tangling!

That girl can twirl like a ballet dancer hahaha. Taff on the other hand, swings wide like an 18 wheeler in an alley, which is why several times when they have played "chase me" in her yard, he has gone face first into the pine trees , she always looks back at him with a jaunty look of pity on her face.

Well now we are headed back to Casey's house and she can see the kids in her yard, so she breaks into a lope, Taff slides up closer in a trot but 4 foot to one side, (good thing I got long arms ahaha), I break into a trot myself and then they both pick up the pace. Taff is literally running with his head turned to the side facing her and yes we are headed for the BIG pine at the end of the grassy area. It came to me that if each of them decided to take a separate side I was going to be in serious trouble, so I swung them both to the left and down the slope to the road.

I took Miss Casey home and then was informed by her young (and also a princess) owner that probably I should come in the fence and take a break as I looked tired (I think she was to polite to use the word "old" hahaha.) So I gave Taff about 10 minutes to prance around loose with Casey in the yard and then we went on home.

I have no idea how she makes him walk so subdued like that with only a white eyeball and a curled lip (very rarely a low growl) but I am sure going to practice in the mirror. Maybe I need to photograph her and make a Paper Mache mask to wear when I walk him, now that WOULD entertain the neighbors! hahaha. lol mfb

I have been reading up on training commands and stumbled across a whole web page about "homophones" apparently that is a new word for words in English that sound the same but are spelled different and have different meanings, like two, to and too. It dawned on me that is maybe my problem with Taff, the poor boy is homophone impaired! For instance sit stay and down are pretty much straight forward but when you add more than one word you can confuse and dumfound your pet.

I have a particular problem with "heel", obviously Taff is not sure if there is something wrong with the back of my foot, or I am demanding he correct a health problem, or I am go to explain he will do whatever. Upon reading this I can start to understand better, why is this not in dog training books, what a light bulb moment!

So I go to this website and there is no less than over 400 of these sticky-ickie words, many we use every day to give our poor pets commands, then we wonder why they have behavior problems and have to have a professional fix their mental stress or put them on medication, shame on us.

How many times have you used the word "you"- "you-go lay down", "you-come", "you-be quiet", OK let's rewrite this as the dog hears it: "EWE"- go lay down, you are talking to a phantom female sheep, obviously has nothing to do with your male Samoyed, if you got problems with your livestock it doesn't concern him right? "YEW"- be quiet, obviously the pine outside is rustling it's limbs to loudly, funny even the dog can't hear it, but who is he to question your hearing? "U" come, now not wanting the sheep and pine tree to get his supper he responds, come he knows can mean food sometimes. There is not a word about this in any AKC training manual I swear.

Even if he only overhears a conversation he can get confused, i.e. "Charlie give me some dough?" I of course mean money, to the dog it could be deer meat, bread or a musical note! So when Charlie hands over cash Taff interprets that to mean paper is food and musical for humans!!! Poor baby! Slang makes it worse.

Here is a case where the homophones came home with a vengeance: Taff is out in the yard with a TOAD in his mouth.

I am screaming TOAD TOAD , Taff droops it and bats it with his paw he TOE-D it, I continue to scream TOAD, Taff now begins to drag it all over the yard he TOWED it, and I am sure he is thinking what does this woman want me to do with this thing??? At this point I am shaking his collar and he continues to drag it all over the yard, "HEY I'M TOWING OK"...You can never make a woman happy can you? hahaha.

How about the command "Come right back here" now is your dog supposed to write you a note back where you stand, make a right turn back where you are, or do some special rite, like a rain dance, back where you waiting? So of course in confusion he just stands there and then is branded un-trainable!

How about the question "Does your dog bite"? There stands poor Fido waiting to hear himself if he sinks his fangs into people, is a computer wiz (byte), or can make a loop in a rope (bight) and he has no clue himself.

How about a favorite word of Taff's, "Charlie, Meet me after the mete and I bring some meat for a BBQ" Taff only hears "meat, meat, meat", and rushes to his bowl only to find it empty, (somebody save me from these tormenting humans) then barks his head off -OH OH- barking dog-problem dog!!!!!

Do you want to know the REAL reason trainers use food, cause dogs can read body language and love to eat, all them fancy commands is a sham. Have you ever seen a trainer work from behind a tree, didn't think so.

Well you can just way, weigh, whey this we, wee, whee, bit of info for yourself and then get back to me, by, buy, bye for now hahaha mfb