Pyper Chronicles - Part 4

The Next Month: 1998 October-November

True to his earlier display, Pyper has remained one of the most urinary dogs around. In the month he has been with us, his rate of watering the neighbourhood wildlife has stayed constant. He has in fact become a running joke with the gang of morning-dog-walkers. Recently, the dog peed on a gift bottle of wine passed from one gang member to another, the latter of whom temporarily left the bottle on the ground. The bottle will have extra, um, flavour.

Pyper enjoys a great little game of "tag". In our home, there exists a closed path from lobby to living room to dining room to kitchen to hallway to lobby. Either the dog or the human starts walking rapidly in one direction around the loop. The other follows. The game begins when the follower attempts to cut the leader off by changing direction. Then the leader can also change directions, and the roles reverse. Pyper has mastered this little game. He turns around, stops, listens to the other player's movements, and moves. He can hear people changing directions well enough that it is hard to stay ahead of him more than two or three times around the loop. At the end, if he guessed right and has picked up speed, he makes his "tag" with a joyous collie face. Head bouncing, butt swinging, everything, to illustrate that he won. Laughing at the whole thing is unavoidable.

Pyper received his second full-body wash at his new home. This time, we bathed him in our tub, a smallish jacuzzi style unit. He must have figured out our intention early, since we had to physically drag him into the bath room. He would not be fooled into getting into the tub by strategically placed snacks, no: Juimiin and I had to lift the big dog in there. From there, he put up with the nice warm water well enough. Twenty minutes later, he emerged wet, shaking, drying, and beautiful again. Five handfuls of fur were later brushed out, suggesting that the 95% fur estimate from above may not be high enough.

We took Pyper to the Rouge River park in Pickering. After a 45-minute car ride, we arrived in this slightly foresty area. Pyper was in pee heaven as he confused the afternoon trip with the evening walk, and marked the eastern boundaries of his newly expanded kingdom. He was friendly but honourable with two lovely golden retriever females running around. After two more hours in the car on an unrelated trip, he was still in a good mood. It lasted long enough to play "soccer" with Juimiin for another half hour, once we arrived back home. The "soccer" game is actually one of Pyper playing defenceman, and the humans trying to propel a ball past him. Pyper has become very good at blocking kicks, ignoring feigns, and running after balls that still get away.

Pyper has spent his first day at my work place at Cygnus. After a half-hour drive to work, I took Pyper to the office. He freaked out in the elevator all four times he traveled on it that day. Once in the office, he was curious yet timid, but did not pee on anything. After showing him around the whole office, he found the leather couches in our kitchen, and climbed right on up. He also visited every single person in the office, several times, and earned a lot of "koo chee koo" petting. He was fairly restless, and took only a few short naps. For these, he invited himself to lie down in all sorts of places, in the way and out. At last, after one more traumatic elevator ride, we rode home in the rainy evening.

Rawhide based chewing toys, as mass-produced for dogs, are evil. Only one of four different types of such bones we have tried has failed to decompose dangerously within minutes. The three failed models allowed largish chunks (multiple square inches or sometimes even cubic inches of material) to come off. While I read these could be choking hazards, I thought Pyper was somehow immune. Well, you can guess what happened. On one, rather small piece, Pyper decided to choke a little. He did cough it up without my help after 10-15 seconds, but it could have turned out otherwise. If I weren't right in front of the dog when it happened, if the piece was slightly larger, we would not have a dog this morning. These chewing toys are leaving our house.

Pyper has paid a second visit to my Cygnus office. His meekness was much reduced this time. He flipped onto his back to get several tummy scratches; he nosed his way into other people's meetings in closed rooms, he even slept under my desk - a most convenient spot. However, I suspect that he is claustrophobic, as he continued to panic at the sight of the elevator (lowered body, visible shaking, resistance to movement), and he also similarly feared the tight staircase we climbed downward at the end of the day. Strange.

Juimiin, Pyper, and I were invited to visit my parents in Windsor. This town is about 400 km away from Toronto, which means about a 3-5 hour drive. Pyper slept through about half of the trip each time. While in Windsor, Pyper warmed up to my parents expertly. He slept at the right times, looked curiously at a sick little pet bird the right way, sniffed at our dinner the right level of desire, and played "soccer" with me and my father at the right degree of exuberance. He behaved very well in his new overnight quarters, except that his night-watching habits made some ruckus. He stared out some low level windows during the night, and decided to alert us to the slightest movement of clouds, leaves, or trees by helpful barking. He stopped after being invited in to sleep in our guest bedroom. He has an open invitation to return to Windsor, perhaps with night-time blinder.

A fresh gripe, hot off the press - please excuse the tone of this item but I am a little upset. A rather large Dobermann dog named "Rambo" has a history of attacking other dogs on the main park. This dog is never walked with the others any more because of this. However, the stupid owners of this dog have decided that night time (officially not a leash-free time slot) the dog should have free reign of the park. Well, Pyper's nightly walk managed to overlap "Rambo"'s little run. As soon as that f***ing Dobermann saw Pyper, "Rambo" attacked, gnarled, and started biting the back and neck of my dog. The stupid owner just yelled at the dog ineffectively. Even a few of my own kicks to its side were of no use. Since I had Pyper on a leash, he could not defend himself - actually he put up with the assault well enough. The Dobermann would run off, then come back, charging. After the initial attack, I blocked "Rambo"'s subsequent chomps at my dog, and even wielded a heavy stick, the former of which luckily worked. I was worried, since a dog that vicious could easily turn on people too. The stupid owner kept just yelling for his stupid dog as I and Pyper marched off the field. The next time I see that dog off his leash, I will call the police.