Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Things about my dog, Iris

I spend lots of my time looking for her.  A while ago I searched and searched; standing in the guest bedroom, I could hear breathing, but couldn't see a dog.   Finally I looked under the bedspread at the foot of the bed:  
Seriously.  Iris has issues.  She likes to be totally out of sight.    
She doesn't shadow me from room to room as much now; I guess she has decided I'm not going to disappear within the house.  She does worry, though, if I go outside without her.  
Her kennel cough is MUCH better; I'd say in another day or two, all symptoms will be gone.  
She prefers to quench her thirst at the toilet, rather than at her bowl.  I'm OK with that.  
One of my big concerns was that I'd have trouble keeping her off the furniture, but she seems to understand what I want from her now; twice I heard the sound of something getting OFF my recliner, ran in to see what was going on and saw my chair rocking and Iris cowering behind the kitchen table.  Obviously she had momentarily forgotten the rules, hopped in the chair, realized what she was doing, jumped down, and ran and hid behind the table, hoping I wouldn't find her and yell at her.  (My yelling consists of a sharp "No!")  
She is well house-trained; there have been no accidents.  
She still shows no interest when Cliff and I are eating.   
At this point, my main concern is how she'll get along with other dogs; I watched another episode of "Dog Whisperer", and once again Iris stalked, barked and lunged at the dogs on TV.  Once she's entirely over the kennel cough, we'll introduce her to Hawkeye, my daughter's dog.    I want to try her out with a big dog before we get her together with my sister-in-law's mini-doxie.   
I had always heard that dogs can't make out television images, but one of these days I'll make a video of Iris attacking the TV dogs, just to prove that she does it.


Here's a Baltimore Oriole at my hummingbird feeder; notice the hummingbird on the right, waiting for the interloper to leave.  I have seen a couple of them eating grape jelly at the oriole feeder, too.  This is the first year I've had orioles hanging around.  They're flighty and easily scared, so it's hard to get a picture of them.

10 comments:

  1. both of your Iris' are beautiful! We don't have any hummers yet. Too cold for them I think. Maybe by next week.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lucky you. I haven't seen an oriole since I lived on the east coast. I hope Iris is ok with other dogs. My cat has a complete meltdown if she even sees another cat besides her sister.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm glad you got the pic of her hiding in the spread-how cute is that. Hope her cough is better soon : ) and that she adjusts to the tv and the real dogs too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous11:28 AM

    Hi Donna....just checking things out...blog won't let me comment this morning...we will see...hope this works...otherwise...back to the drawing board LOL...Iris sounds like a gem and so smart..hope she and Hawkeye work out!!! hugs from Ora in KY

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous11:29 AM

    ps...guess blog doesn't want me to comment on some folks...LOL....

    ReplyDelete
  6. We live close to a couple of military bases. I once had a dog who would jump in the bathtub when the shelling commenced during war games. One of the ones I have now prefers to hide in the shower.

    ReplyDelete
  7. She's clearly a smart, sensitive dog.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I just be someone has been mean to that dog, the reason she is hiding.
    She is so thin, too.
    I wonder if the people who had her before you did not feed and care for her.
    She will be a good guard dog, I bet.
    I love the pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I once owned a dog that was always burrowing into covers, blankets, whatever. I finally gave her a used sleeping bag on the floor under the bed and she would crawl in and almost disappear. I guess it gave her comfort to not be exposed. Iris looks happy there.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lindie9:17 AM

    Still haven't seen any hummers at my feeders and have changed the water twice. I have them near hanging flowers to help attract them too!

    ReplyDelete

I love comments!