Taffy the Laffy Samoyed Stories
page 8
22. Taff & the Toasty Tail
My sister came over for a visit from across the state and naturally brought gifts for Taff, One was a imitation chocolate cookie with cream filling, that he promptly ate like a real one, the other was a rope tug toy which he loved. Since we had been busy all day doing crafty stuff the Taff was feeling neglected.
After getting into everything and finally unrolling my sister's knitting we decided we could no longer ignore him so we decided to play a game of fetch with his new toy. Now Taff don't quite grasp the concept of fetch, he has it and he keeps it, or he will drop if just out of your grasp and when you go for it he grabs it and races off, so it makes it hard to play tug of war when you can't get a hold of the toy hahaha.
Well we finally managed to convince him we would play with him if he would co-operate and he was really getting into shaking our arms off. Now our living room is not real large and is connected to a hallway, out in the hallway mounted on the wall is one of those new vent-less gas heaters, it has glass over the flame and a metal screen over the glass so was not a problem....we thought!
In the midst of playing toss and get the toy, my sister noticed something smelled like it was burning, we went into a mild state of panic while she insisted it smelled like burnt hair? I rushed over to the heater and checked it all over only to find nothing but the smell was now filling the room.
Taff was bounding all over with the prized toy and I kept shooing him away, my sister noticed when he approached her it seemed the smell was stronger? She tried to grab him and he raced out of the room taking the smell with him.....OH OH..... we both raced out of the room hot on Taff's tail...little did we know it was actually Taff's tail that was HOT!
I finally managed to corral him back in the living room, flipped him down on his side, checked him all over and sure enough he had managed to get his tail in the small 2" slot above the glass and wire grate and had a singe mark running directly across his tail in a long horizontal streak, curled brown and crispy!
My sister was beside herself and I informed her it was OK as it only burnt the long plumy outer guard hair and did not burn his skin or undercoat.
It looked way worse than it was. I went and got the grooming tools and of course that set Taff off on yet another escape route around and around the house hahaha. By this time my sister was winded and concerned the hair was ruined. I told her look, we will just brush out the burnt stuff and let the rest go, it ain't like the whole entire town will notice his brown streaked tail ( hahaha you know and I know they will have 400 questions of what happened but not till after my sister has left), we will just tell them Taff is making a Sammie fashion statement hahaha, maybe we'll color it with purple magic marker and he can be real hip like the kids toady!!!
Well if you have never tried to brush burnt hair, trust me there must be some hairdresser secret and I don't know it, large frazzled ends broke off and rained down to the floor, underneath it was all sort of welded together...I ended up with small scissors and sort of clipped it off back to where it was soft but still brown. Actually it shows off the biscuit on the back of his ears and sort of color balances him! But this is not something I would recommend.
The bizarrest of all was the Taff did not seem to notice the smell of his own burning hair, he did not seem to notice his tail was being toasted and he did not seem to notice his butt had to have been just a few degrees warmer than the rest of his body! So I guess it goes with out saying that yet another career has slipped by Taff, he has not got a chance as a Junior Firefighter!
Charlie says well there goes that fantasy of being rescued by Taff if he smells smoke in the middle of the night. hahaha. Mark that down next to non-alerting for burglars! On the up side how high a liability risk is it to have a dog that only lives to run, dig, and eat treats AND never met a stranger!
Life with a Sammy is just one revelation after another! lol mfb
23. Taff & the Show dogs
Well I am telling you what, I just spent the last week with three of the most beautiful Sammies you ever saw, since they were the ONLY Samies I ever saw, I was impressed beyond words, well maybe not quite hahaha. The two adults were gorgeous, mellow and loving.
But "Show Dogs" speak a whole different language than redneck Taff, and here is a case in point.
I am walking the two adults, Giana and Khan, (brother and sister, both age 9), down the middle of the road at dusk. I am actually walking them on loose leads and flimsy ones at that. These are attached to some kind of slip collar not even big enough to hold Taff's tags! I am STROLLING along and start showing off to myself-using only two fingers of one hand to walk them....where oh where is the camera when you need it!!!
We round the bend in the road and OH BABY......out of the woods leaps a big buck with a rack that would look good on a bar-room wall!!! I instantly grab both leashes and wrap them around my arm about 17 times and dig in my heels....both dogs sat down.
Did you catch that part, sat down!
I almost fell over backwards cause I was leaning my weight against the leashes to keep my arm from being dislocated, like it would have if Taff the rocket man had seen that buck. The dogs stare at the deer and the deer stares back. Then I hear this low whispering.....psssss.pspss. I lean closer to the dogs and this is what I heard:
"Oh Khan is that a gay tail or what? Oh Gigi- look at those "cow" hocks, what breed do you suppose he is? Oh Khan I have no idea but did you see the ears on him, worse than Taff's...snicker snicker snicker.. You know Gigi we could take best of show easy against that mangy boy there. You have that right Khan did you get a look at that rear....talk about no V...., no tummy tuck either and his legs are way to long!!!!! Well speaking of long did you get a look at the hair......it looked like a steel wool pad.. talk about blown coat and NO conditioning. Oh Gigi you are a riot....snicker snicker snicker!!!!! I'll bet he's a foreign breed. Well Khan I think he is ugly, worst gait I ever saw, that boy has NO structure, don't get to close he might have fleas..or worse TICKS.... YIKES....!!!.uhuhuhuhuh.
The buck bounds off and we resume our leisurely stroll back to the house, but I could see both dogs sneaking peaks into the woods along the way, and flashing that big Sammie grin, they sure were happy for a walk!
What beautiful, even tempered, loving and well trained animals they are, it had to have taken a lot of work and real good genes to get two dogs this good not to mention beautiful. You could not resist petting them and running your fingers through all that soft white fur. They got names longer than my car !!! hahaha.
All I got to do now is find somebody who knows what their conversation was about, Taff would have only had two words for that buck, CHARGE.......GRILL....!!!!!!!. hahahaha lol mfb
24. Taff & the Show pup
Little Jada arrived here on Tuesday, having been flown in from sunny California, she is 4 months old and what a happy, silly "Valley Girl", Taff was knocking himself out trying to impress her and she only wanted to play, HER way with HIS toys hahaha. Every time he did something she did not like, she let out an ear splitting YIP, one note about 1000db hahahha. All the guys here told Taff, "Forget it Bubba you could not even afford her lawyer" hahaha.
What a fur ball she is, offer her a treat and she does a perfect show ring "stand", 4 months old, Taff is maybe 2 yrs. and does not hardly know his name yet hahaha. She is a live wire, and melted all hearts, I did not think Sonya could get out of town with her to get home hahaha!!!! She is smart as a whip, I myself alone, in only 4 days, taught her I am a push over for treats! This girl has brains and looks.
Now it has been years since I had a pup, Taff was actually over the real pup stage when he came here, but I do remember that pups are mischievous. Sonya was paranoid she would get into stuff which she did not BUT did get in trouble for no reason and here is what happened.
I had two long throw rugs that Taff chewed and unraveled over in the caboose, I figured if I washed them and cut the snags I could lay them upstairs in the guest bedroom and maybe no one would notice they were not 100%. Well for two days Sonya was sleeping in that room, then she went and got the pup, the next morning she gets up and nearly has a heart attack when she looks down and sees the edge of the rug chewed and two small snags, she rushes the pup downstairs to the crate, then when we were out going to the store she told me to stop so she could buy me two new rugs? I asked for what and she informed me both rugs upstairs had small chewed corners and small snags...oh you noticed I told her...(she is holding her breath obviously worried I would be upset), and that is when I informed her that TAFF had done them in months ago and I was hoping no one would notice the damage....what a laugh we had, poor, poor Jada. I informed her she was to bring Jada back upstairs and out of her crate as soon as we got home. You should have seen the little Valley Girl prance around here then, with Sonya begging forgiveness and all of us cooing and fussing over her hahahaha. Fifteen minutes later she grabbed the skirt on the chair, before Sonya could say a word I whipped the cover off to show her the chewed wooden arm that was a former Taff treat and pointed out the skirt had a small tear that was safety pinned back up!!!!! After that I told Sonya I would print her out a list of hidden TAFF damage here before she had a heart attack hahaha.
This little girl kept us all in stitches, I took hundreds of digital photos trying to get the few good perfect shots, got a lot of fuzzy butt shots and/or no heads or no tails in the pictures, cause she bounds around like a rubber ball hahaha. She gets up very early and goes to bed very late, she likes to pretend she needs to go outside. She loves to run and I took her and Taff for a jog, let me tell you she was burning up the pavement with her paws, bound and determined to catch my boy, who slowed down so she could keep up, sweet guy that he is.
She was petted and cuddled so many times it is a wonder she has any fur left at all, we even carried her across the yards so the neighbors could see her, (Valley Girls do not walk through wet grass hahaha)
What a precious sweet girl, I know she will go far. She too has a name longer than my car hahaha.
Boy, I never thought the day would come when I was happy Taff was so settled hahahah lol mfb
My couch potato watching his favorite show.