Fess Up

Keeping with the holiday tradition of people asking VERY personal things in a group setting, I thought we’d do a little experiment in true confessions. Entertain me (and others) with your answers to these dog care, dog training, and dog teasing questions. To get things started, I included my own answers:

How often do you bathe your dogs, brush your dogs, do their toenails, and/or brush their teeth?

• Bathe (not as often as I should … maybe once a month in the warmer months, less often in winter)
• Brush (sometimes once a week, sometimes practically never … the benefit of relatively short-haired dogs)
• Toes (Lilly – once a week; Ginko – once a month or so because he’s such a big baby about it)
• Teeth
  (Lilly – once a week, but I’m trying to get better and do it most days.
  Ginko – nearly never because he clamps down on the brush and won’t let
  go)

What behaviors do you let your dogs get away with but know you shouldn’t?

• Lilly – barking when she’s excited, worried or frustrated
• Ginko – licking the dirty dishes as I load the dishwasher (gross, I know)

What do you do to “fool” your dog merely because you think it’s hilarious?

• Lilly – Tom hides from her every morning because she likes to play hide-and-seek. On the RARE occasion she cannot find him, he sneaks from his hiding spot and sits on the sofa. The next time she flies through the living room and sees him, she gets really “mad” and barks because she knows he wasn’t there a minute ago.
• Ginko – He is much more easily fooled if you pretend to throw a toy, then don’t. We hide things all the time and tell him to “use his nose” to find them. We love watching him snuffle around. He’s so good, in fact, that we often send him out in the pastures to find toys Lilly has “lost.”
  

Even if you don’t answer here, perhaps one of these questions will get you out of an awkward conversation or situation over the holidays.