Merry Christmas from Olive and George

Despite Olive’s commentary in the last posting, she has been just wonderful with my tree. It doesn’t seem to bother her that it is in my living room, nor does the smaller artificial tree in my dining room window seem to bother her. If she has even noticed the existence of the ornaments, she makes no attempt to get at them. I had been apprehensive about how she would react to having trees and other decorations in the house, but needn’t have worried.

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As I have posted before, Olive and I are taking “Family Dog II” obedience class. Last the instructor had us do something new. We humans have been working on having our dogs come to us when we call. Last night the instructor put a number of obstacles and distractions between the dogs and their humans. A mechanical rabbit that jumped around, for example. Another was a mechanical toy of three cats singing “Jolly Old St. Nicholas”. Various other toys were scattered around. When it was Olive’s turn she began running straight to me when I called her, at first ignoring all of the distractions. Well, as she got near me she suddenly noticed a toy, stopped to pick it up. She started running toward me again, then stopped and ran back a short way as if to say “look what I found—let’s play!” I must be getting used to Olive doing such things in class, as I was amused and started laughing. She finally did come to me, with the toy of course. I think that the instructor and the rest of the class were amused as well. I took the toy from her and replaced it in the “obstacle course” before the next dog had his turn.

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As this is our last posting before Christmas, Olive and I thought we would pass to you as a sort of a Christmas gift one of my favorite Christmas cartoons (from the 1930s) via You Tube. An eccentric inventor (who some might recognize as Betty Boop’s grandfather) saves Christmas for a group of neglected children at a badly run orphanage. I like the way that the cartoon morphs at the end into a pitch for Christmas Seals, which I am guessing would have been for sale in the theater lobby. Enjoy!

Christmas Comes but Once a Year

 

Have a great Holiday!

Olive's view of the Holiday Season

This is Olive writing. I’ve taken over the keyboard for this posting.

My human has gone nuttier than the squirrels. Last Saturday he came in with a tree—a tree no less—and planted it in the living room! Now that would be crazy enough, but he lectured me about staying away from it, then put all these little light bulbs on it. Now just what good is that supposed to do? He then throws all these shiny things on it. It takes up a full corner of the room! At least he didn’t put it over my napping spot.

The Saturday before last he left me and spent the day at some place he calls “the mall”. He came back with a pile of boxes, none smelling like anything good to eat. You would think he would at least open them to see if there is anything useful? No, he spends most of Sunday wrapping them with colored paper. All those things are now underneath that weird tree!

Some of the family came by, and I though “thank heavens, they’re going to do an intervention”. No, they all oooh and ahhhh over the tree in the corner and sing songs about “decking the halls” (whatever that is) and “God rest ye merry gentlemen let nothing you dismay” (what the heck does that mean?).

I hope that this is only a phase that humans go through now and then, and things will be back to normal soon. At least I am still being fed, my bed upstairs is unaffected, and I am still getting my walks to sniff at trees outside where they belong, study squirrels, and chase geese back into the pond. The human also plays saucer with me in the back when I remind him to. I’m grateful that the human didn’t try to bring a pond or squirrels into the living room!

Signing off now. Yes, this is a short post but you try using a keyboard with paws and no thumbs. Thank heavens for auto correct.

--Olive

Olive Graduates/Happy Thanksgiving Olive

Sunday, November 22, was the last class for “Family Dog 1”, the introductory class at “Tails U Win” training center. Yes, there was a graduation ceremony of sorts.

The last class was a bit different from the previous six. We began with a contest of sorts where we humans were to call our dogs from the far end of the room. The first dog to make it to his/her human and sit down won. When I called Olive she made a beeline for me at top speed. I had a large dog biscuit in my hand and figured we had this race wrapped up. Guess again. She got to me, grabbed the biscuit, and refused to stay or sit. Just about every other dog was sitting while Olive was still dancing around with her biscuit. Oh, well, I couldn’t be mad at her but how embarrassing!

After a bit of time practicing some of the commands and behaviors we had been working on, the staff brought out something new. It was a long wide flexible tube that the dogs were to run through to their humans. The tube could be lengthened and shortened like an accordion. About this time my sister and brother-in-law came by to see Olive “graduate”. That distracted Olive, of course, not that I wasn’t happy to have them around. The first pass through the tube (or tunnel) was with the tube at its shortest to get the dogs used to going through. Olive was a bit hesitant, but when she realized that I was at the other end calling to her she went through. The tube was lengthened to about half its full length and the exercise repeated. Finally the tube was stretched to its full length. All of the dogs did well except for a shy greyhound that just didn’t want to go through. I was glad that Olive came through and seemed to think it was fun!

The last part of the class called upon the humans to demonstrate a trick we had been practicing. I had been trying to concentrate on the useful basic commands like “sit”, “stay”, and “come” rather than cute tricks like “roll over” or “shake hands”, so I was a bit unsure as to what we could do, but I decided to demonstrate “with me” (what some would call “heel”), something I have been emphasizing with Olive and she seemed to be catching on to. Well, there was a lot of noise and distraction in that room; not a bad thing in itself but at this point Olive was not fully concentrating on me. It took a few tries, but she finally did a passable “with me”. How embarrassing!

As in the photo below, Olive did get her diploma. We begin “Family Dog 2” on December 6.

(That was a plastic bag emptied of treats that I have in my right hand.)

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Thanksgiving this year was a small affair compared to previous years. Olive joined us and met my uncle and aunt from Virginia. After dinner I drove down to Norwalk, CT where an aunt lives but left Olive with my sister. I was told that Olive behaved herself reasonably well. A friend of my sister’s came by with her 2½ year old daughter who gave Olive a good run. Olive was exhausted by the time my sister took her back home to my house.

In Norwalk my cousin Nancy is fostering a large male rescued Rottweiler named “Trey”. I was told that Trey is not friendly to other dogs, so I decided to leave Olive with my sister. Well, Trey took to me right away, putting his head on my lap and seemed reluctant to leave me. Perhaps he smelled Olive and decided that I was a dog person? Nancy told me that Trey will not be with her very long as someone in Texas wants to adopt him. If Olive smelled Trey on me, she didn’t indicate that she thought anything amiss when I got home.