“It’s all about Me!!”

Blog by Dez the Dog (with writing assistance by Julie Brewer)

My name is Dez (actually it’s Destiny but that’s embarrassing so I don’t tell anyone), I’m a border collie, perhaps not the best example of my breed, there is some rumours about the relatedness of my parents, and my furmom was only 10 months old when I was born, so we don’t really talk about that. I was born to be busy, being still is not my forte. I prefer to have someone else entertain me, but I will play alone if necessary. 

I am the youngest of 3 in my dog/human family. Twiggy, my Podenco sister is great, she liked me straight away even when I was very little and very bitey.  She almost never turns me down when I want to play and will let me zoom from one end of the living room to the other bouncing on her head on the way, she is brilliant at neck wrestling, but she gets tired easily and asks my humom to calm me down. 

My brother Dodo is a Podenco Spaniel mix and with that breeding you would have thought he’d make a great play mate, but for some reason he doesn’t really like me and prefers to sit with my person while I have fun, I’ve asked him loads of times but he just gets grumpy, if I am really careful he will let me share a toy, but not for long, and lay next to him, but only if I’m really still.  I’ll keep trying, one day he will like me. 

Go, go, go, that’s my motto.  I like jumping stuff and climbing stuff and running so my humom takes me to a thing called agility, which I love so much I’d happily do it all by myself, my favourite is the uppy downy thing, mum calls it a teeter. I run up it and jump off the end, over and over, the trainer thinks I should only go on there when I’m told to and stay on until the end is near the ground, humans, they have such weird rules.

I play a game called hoopers, this is where I go fast in big circles and get to play tug with my person if I go in the right direction, I don’t really get that bit, I think all directions are fun when you’re running.  I also love parkour and swimming. But my absolute favourite thing to do is the finding people game, my humum calls it search and rescue, but to me it’s just a nice walk with a tug game at the end.  Sometimes I pretend this it’s difficult to find the missing/hiding person because that way I have a longer walk, but I always find them in the end because they play with me and they have my favourite toy!!

I don’t like the idea of sharing my food, I had a hard time eating when I was little and I eat slow because my mouth isn’t the right shape.  I will get grumpy growling with my brother and sister when they offer to help me eat my dinner, but humom backs me up and tells them to leave me alone to eat in peace. Recently I’ve been a bit sensitive to noises, there have been loud bangs and rumbles outside the house, I keep telling everyone about the scary noises, but the other dogs mostly ignore me and my mum doesn’t seem interested either.  When I get really worried, humom offers me a cuddle or a game, so mostly I manage to ignore the noise.  My big sister says that they used to really worry her, but I don’t think she hears them as much as I do. I wish my humom would leave the back door open so that I could keep watch, but she says it’s too cold.

Someone asked me what it’s like to be a sheep dog, but I’m not sure what they mean?  I play a game called shep balls, is that similar? When I play that game I get really still and focused, it really calms me down, but it tires me out too.  Now I can’t decide which is my favourite game.

My humom is a pretty good person I suppose, I mean she’s not a dog, but she does what she can.  She’s good at playing sofa fetch, I fetch it, she throws it, but she also has this weird point of view that I should learn to be still and relax.  Relax!! Who needs that!  When my humom is being really boring I enjoy digging all of the toys out of the toy box and turning them into tiny pieces. This gives my person something to do later, picking up all the pieces, I think is called enrichment.

My humom has two jobs, she cares for animals, and she teaches people how to live with dogs.  I don’t like going to the caring job because I have to spend all day in a kennel with my brother and sister and that’s really boring, sometimes my person brings me out for a really quick game with my nurse aunties which is fun, but mostly it’s really boring.  Sometime my sister shouts at people or dogs going past the kennel which is fun, but mum always comes and tells her to be quiet.

When I go to the teaching job, I sometimes get to be the demo dog, which I love because I get treats and play and love to be the centre of attention, but most of the time my brother gets to be the one who helps humom because he moans like crazy if he doesn’t, she calls him the ginger whinger, which I think is hilarious. My favourite humauntie sometimes comes and plays training games with me, which makes me very happy, but sometimes I get too excited.

Humom bought a new car, it’s a lot bigger than our old car but I’m still squashed in the back with my brother and sister. Mum said something about me getting a big space all to myself soon, but I’m not sure what that means, perhaps I’m going to be an only dog?

I guess I have a pretty good life mostly.  I’m allowed to do dog stuff when I’m out walking, but to be honest I’d rather play ball, my mum even hides the ball from me in her pocket and I have to wait for her to call me so that she will get it out to start the game again.

What would I change about my life?  More, of everything, more play, more training, more running, more enrichment, but my mum seems to think I have a pretty good balance to my life and that rest is important too??  I beg to differ!