Dog v. humans. Dog wins.

[jacey]

A memory from the 1980s sparked off by several recent facebook dog posts...

When Bridie, our lovely German Shepherd, became a mum for the first time her previously exemplary habits changed and she started to scavenge any food she could get, including whatever she could steal from the kitchen counters if we carelssly left food on there. To put her off, a friend suggested making an extra hot mustard sandwich and leaving it in an accessible place on the edge of the counter when we went to bed. It had worked for his dog, he said. So this we did. In the morning the sandwich had - predictably - gone and Bridie's water bowl was empty.  So we followed the same routine on the second night and, again, the sandwich vanished and the water bowl was drained. Third night the same. Ok, we said, this just isn't working, so we decided not to keep repeating the pointelss exercise. On the fourth night as we went to bed, Bridie sat by the countertop with a look on her face that clearly said: Where's my sandwich?



1985 Bridie on the right. On the left is Esca, the pup we kept from Bridie's first litter. (Not to be confused with the current Eska.)

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. I am totally in favour of giving the dog her sammich.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Ah, you are obviously a cat person. :-)

Dogs and sammiches are not a good mix. If you give a dog a sammich it will end up taking the whole loaf because its little doggie brain says all sammiches = MINE!

Best not to start the sammich thing altogether. We follow the rule of 'all treats must be earned' - preferably for good behaviour. Yes even cauliflower stumps which are the biggest treat EVAH!

Bridie is now long gone, but Eska-pup is a huge cauliflower stump fan - which we first discovered when I dropped one on the floor accidentally. As soon as the chopping board comes out she'll sit hopefully at my feet, not pushing, but telepathing her needs quite plainly. If she goes through a little training routine of coming and sitting and downing and sitting and heeling and then goes, on command, to her mat and waits, she can have her treat. She goes through the routine immaculately. Cauliflower-power.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Typical. I'm afraid mine would be the same.

Beautiful GSDs, too.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

They were beautiful. (This pic is from the 1980s.) Sadly mother and daughter did not get on and Bridie made Esca's life miserable, so we found another home for Esca - with a widow who had recently lost a GSD from a similar bloodline. Only a few months after that Bridie came down with a form of leukaemia and died age 5. We started singing soon after, so had a gap in our dog ownership while we were 'on the road'. BB always said as soon as we finished with the singing he'd get another GSD and, of course, now we have another Eska (with a slightly different spelling). I think BB always regretted parting from the first Esca. It's easy to view it with hindsight, but at the time we let her go Bridie had shown no symptoms of illness and by the time we realised Bridie was terminal Esca was well settled in her new home.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That's a lovely story. And she and her daughter were beautiful dogs.