Epic Tansy Update Part 1

Oh my, it’s been a while since I’ve done a straight up Tansy update. It’s almost daunting to look at the list of things I’ve written down..and some of them may not even be important anymore. I’ll try and cobble something together. I feel bad for the Tanseroo, I haven’t been as good at documenting her life as I was with the Trixter.

Tansy has had a hard year this year. We had our absolutely brutal winter, which limited our walks a lot, then my gallbladder fell apart, which led to a recovery that was unexpectedly longer than usual. Sure I went back to work, but my weekends haven’t been as full of walking and playing as I would like because frankly, I haven’t been feeling awesome all the time. So the poor beast has probably been bored more than I would like. And, unfortunately, I think because of this, she’s put on a few hound pounds. We’re trying to peel them off, but it’s been more of an uphill climb than I ever found controling Trix’s weight to be. I haven’t had to adjust Tansy’s belly strap, so I don’t think it’s a huge deal, but still…I’d like them to be gone.

But she’s definitely had her airmiles on this year. She’s been to CSUN, last year it was the NFB convention, and now she’s been to Fusion, our client conference. She’s been on big planes and little planes, and has taken it all pretty much in stride. I don’t know if she liked our last little plane as much, but she still survived.

She’s also had to relieve in the box, the dreaded box that Trix hated so much. She wasn’t thrilled, but she did it. She also had to relieve in this mulchy stuff when we were at our client conference in Nashville, because there really wasn’t a ton of grass to be found anywhere. But she did it, and didn’t seem to think it was a huge deal. Yea Tansy!

There are things right now that I’m trying to figure out how to fix. For instance, most days, she seems to be moving way slower than she used to. I don’t know if she did that when I wasn’t feeling well and I just can’t get her back up to normal speed or what, but it’s annoying when I’m asking her to go faster, and she won’t speed up. Her work is fine, she’s just poky as all hell. But when we’re in a new area, she’ll speed up, so I know she can…but I can’t go to new areas all the time! It’s also harder to peel off hound pounds if you’re not puttin’ on the speed!

And her recall is crappy if there’s a lot of stimulation around. If we’re just in the house or the office, sure she’ll come…but if we’re out letting pooches run off steam, and I say come, hell with that. At least she ran back into the place where all the people were…but still, it annoyed me, and made me feel like a failure.

And still the jumping. Most of the time, I don’t have to worry, but goddamn it, if she decides she wants to jump, juuuump! Yesterday she jumped on a friend who we haven’t seen in months. All the person did was tell me that the garbage can was further over. Sproing! Airborn canine! Another time she was super excited, saw Steve’s mom, and leap! Once when she was loose in the house, and Steve’s sister was sleeping on the couch, and the dorr of our bedroom opened wider than I intended, Tans bounded out into the living room and jumped right on Steve’s poor unsuspecting sister. I don’t let her up on the furniture. Jumping is not ok…but every so often, it’s like she can’t hold back.

Like I said, I can set her up all I want, but she knows what a setup is…she also knows it’s wrong, but she does it anyway!

I know it’s gotten better…but it makes me nervous because she can move so fast and sometimes I have no warning. I hope she never decides to jump on my grandma who is 91!

Some other things are getting super awesome though. For example, it’s gotten so I’m pretty sure we will go the right way when we leave the park. This park is crazy confusing. If you come out the wrong side, you can’t get back to the street where I live, so you have to make sure you come out the right way. I use the GPS to check and make sure I know where I am, but I can just tell when we’re going the right way, and Tansy doesn’t steer me wrong anymore!

She’s also awesome at getting around the mall, especially to all our popular spots. Sometimes she spooks me out. I have idly said at the beginning of the day, “hmmm, should I go to the bank tonight?” and when I’m going by the mall that night, she will look over at the bank as if she heard me! I swear I don’t give her any signals with my body.

Some people have asked why there haven’t been any posts authored by Tansy, like I used to do with Trix. Part of the reason is I never have time to write regular posts, let alone the ones I have to write weirdly, as if I’m a dog…and part of it is I can’t figure out what Tansy’s voice would sound like. She goes from calm to crazy, focused to distracted, and on a dime. I don’t know if I can do it justice.

Although Tans doesn’t have nearly the anal gland issues Trix used to have, she still needs them emptied sometimes. Although with her, I never quite know when it’s going to happen. So, every so often I ask them to check.

Also, she still has a bit of a hacking problem. She’s had antibiotics, even a chest x-ray, and they can’t find anything that could cause her to hack. I guess I’ll just keep an eye on it and say something if it gets worse.

Here’s another example of I fail at documenting things as they happen. I changed her food a while back…I think it might have been November or the food before that, because Natural Balance was just too hard to get when I needed it. The store promised that even though it was not always there, they could get it in within a few days. Bzzz, wrong! There were a few months where I had to do some fancy dancin’ to get her food. So, now she’s on this stuff called Nutrosource, and so far, so good. Some day, I might switch her to Wellness and see how she does, but it seems this food is agreeing with her pretty well.

I mentioned last year that Trix really needed a furminator. What I forgot to mention was I found a surplus store in Cambridge that sells real Furminators for cheeeap. I don’t know if it’s a while supplies last type thing, but I was able to get a furminator for $20 or so at the Cambridge Surplus Store. So, once again, Trix has a furminator, has had one for quite some time. I’m sure Brad and the carpet are happy.

Now, I have quite a few quirky things Tans does that I really want to write down. I think the funniest one I’ve seen is how musical she is. If you start doing something in a rhythm, she’ll do it in the same rhythm. Certain noises we’ve made make her go totally ballistic. But the funniest thing ever is her nearly exact same reaction to this song.

Yup, she just did it again today. Popped up, and started dancing. We have asked her raisers if there is any significance to the song, and they perplexedly reply no.

I swear I’ve never seen this with another dog, but maybe I’m just horribly unobservant. When she shakes off, like after some rain, she shakes every inch of herself, right down to her paws and her tail and her ears. There isn’t a part of her that isn’t in motion. I really noticed this in the winter when she was wearing boots. Her paws shakeshakeshaking would make the funniest noise!

Also it doesn’t matter if she’s up against something. She’ll bangbangbang into it as she shakes off. I know Trix used to do that part, because I wrote about it.

What’s weird about how Tans shakes off is she will stop dead in her tracks to do it. It doesn’t matter where we are…coming through a doorway, finishing crossing a street, whatever, she will stop dead, and I have to urge her on…at which point she stops again and shakes off.

If Tansy falls asleep in another room than us, and we haven’t joined her yet, she will get up, come check on us, then go back to bed. It’s like she wonders if we’re gone or something.

She loves belly rubs, but it’s like we have to earn it first. She will flop on her back, but her feet are kicking furiously. So we’ll play with her paws, then she’ll just give up and let us rub her belly. Sometimes she will grab toys and hold them in her paws while lying on her back, making a paw fortress. It’s the funniest thing. Sometimes when she’s flipping around like that, she makes the most hilarious grunting noises.

Also, sometimes when she’s getting a belly rub, she will curl her tail up so it rests on her belly. It’s the funniest thing. Even though I’m sure it’s no longer than an average tail, she makes it look super long.

This happens less often, but every now and then, she will try and grab our hands with her teeth, as if her teeth are a tractor beam, pulling whatever she’s looking for into her gaping jaws. Thankfully, she’s learned that we don’t like being chomped…even though every now and then she gets crazy and forgets.

She is still much more vocal than Trix. Sometimes in the morning when we don’t get up fast enough, she whines. Sometimes when she really has to pee, she whines. And from time to time, she’ll just whine if she really wants to play. Once, Steve was making fun of her because she was whining for more attention, and she looked at him and made one of her squeaky barks. It was like she said “stop making fun of me you jerk!”

And most times, when I put her in the crate because someone’s coming to the door, she doesn’t care. But if the person is special, she will bark in protest. Not for long, but she definitely lets them know they have a special place in her heart.

For some reason, whenever we, or especially Steve, put on some new piece of clothing, she has to investigate it. In fact, she won’t leave Steve alone when he’s putting on shoes! When I was in the hospital and he was taking care of her, he had to tell her to stop because she would not let him put on his shoes! I have no idea why she’s such a goof about shoes and clothes, but is she ever. If you want her clinging to your side, just grab a pair of pants.

Scarily enough, we’re half-way through Tansy’s first season of having Revolution as her nasty parasite preventative. I don’t think she’s going to go as crazy as Trix used to. She doesn’t like it, flicks her head around like what the heck is that, but she doesn’t run wild through the house as if she’s trying to shake off a tenaceous attacker…she just objects by flicking her head. Poor pooch.

Can you believe that in September, it will be time for another physical for the Tanseroo? Where does the time go? But next time I’m in there getting something done, I’m going to have to book her a physical. Hopefully the news will still be good.

I think I’d better split this monstrosity…it got rather huge. But I think it will only take 2 posts to get all my Tansy tidbits in there.