Notes on the Animals: Rocky

Rocky (who is a lady, not a man, despite the name) is some sort of collie. Apparently the daughter of some working dogs, she was apparently going to be drowned before someone found out and sent her to a pet charity, from which she found her way to Eileen. Apparently strays are a horrible problem here in Ireland, because nobody neuters their pets. Thus the common-place practice of drowning puppies and whatnot. I wonder if there is birth control for animals whom the owners don't want to neuter? Something to mix into the feed, whatnot.

In the present day, Rocky is an active, rather happy (usual for dogs?) dog. She love to play at fetch, and this seems to be her predominant occupation: Playing fetch with the humans, or trying to convince the humans to play fetch. She brings the lids of buckets, tennis balls (broken or not), sticks (up to as large as she can carry), and even rocks. I was very amazed when she brought me a rock - I kicked it away, and she fetched it, I threw it, and she fetched it, whatnot. And to think - in the Philipines dogs run away when the see someone reaching down, because people are generally throwing rocks at the dogs. Rocky doesn't care much whether the human throws the object or just kicks the object. She also has a tendency to try and intercept the object, which she often manages. We have to tell her "Wait" before throwing the big sticks or (in my case) the rocks - then we tell her to go and get it, and then she will go run and fetch it.

If the human is not in a fetching mood, so to speak, then she will drop the object at the human's feet, and give her best puppie-dog eyes. She will also paw at the human, and sometimes even bark when ignored, though this often merits a scolding.

She is not allowed to ask humans to play fetch while inside the house, but she does, occasionally (apparently more with new people, like Edelweiss and myself). She is also not allowed to lick people, which is another problematic trait. Other than that she is relatively well behaved.

I do have a problem with dogs that I'm not very firm with them. I am, in fact, not very firm in general, so this should really be no surprise. In conflict I tend to bow out, or use other means to negociate the situation, other than telling people (or animals, apparently) to do something / not do something. This is a problem with dogs and a few other animals, because I do a horrible job asserting my dominance. In fact, I'm not even sure I am dominant relative to even a fairly nice dog like Rocky...