The Smartest Betch.

 

"Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five..."

And magically, she starts walking again. 

My dog, George, is a smart dog.

Truly.

She knows things. She gets it. She reads people and knows how/when to push her limits.

She can read the fucking room, people. 

She gets two walks a day.

One morning one, which lasts (ideally) about 45 minutes and goes for two miles. 

The second one is at sunset, and is usually 15 minutes long. And is usually just around a few blocks in the neighborhood. 

It's lately depending on if we run into any javelina while walking.

George will growl - and chase - javelina. And coyotes. And cats. And bunnies. And squirrels. And lizards.

She knows the names of these things. 

She also knows when we are walking and she wants to stop and investigate/smell something longer than I want to stand motionless... That she has to till I hit "one" on my countdown.

Most of the time, I never get to "one." By "five" or "four" she gets walking again. 

There have been a handful of times, though, where I do get to "one" on the countdown. And she still doesn't want to move.

She's not done investigating.

So I'll attempt to pull her along by the leash... And then suddenly... 

She has something stuck in her paw that is making her limp.

And she simply can not not from the spot.

So she will lie down on the ground, quickly lick at her paw... And then start sniffing the ground again. 

She's smart enough to try this. But not smart enough to know that I'm not buying it and I ain't fucking around.

"Let's keep walking," I will prompt her. And she knows that means, "We gotta go."

So she gets her shit together and starts pounding the pavement again.

Someone else was walking her for me recently. As they walked, they tripped on an uneven part of the sidewalk. They fell, and skinned their knee.

George immediately stopped walking and sat down next to them, and waited for them to get up. She didn't run. She didn't chase some random animal she spotted. Or try to pee. Or bark at a car driving by.

She knew to take a moment. For someone else.

But these stories don't compare to my favorite ones about the two times that she has pooped in the house when I wasn't home.

She doesn't really ever have accidents. But twice she has. Both times I was gone for a few hours... And she had some digestive distress. And in both cases, she went into the shower in one of the bathrooms... And did her business there.

Sure, I wasn't pleased when I came home and saw she'd had an accident. But it was truly a dire situation. She wouldn't do this unless it was. 

And I was grateful she'd done in the shower.

The clean up was easy!

(Pick up the poop. Flush it. Disinfect and clean the shower.)

Truly, the smartest betch around.