Haw! These are perfect. I dig. No pun intended.

So, does Nibbles there have a Job?

wait...wait...I feel a seizure coming on....

UNSOLICITED DOG RANT:

Happy dogs have a Job. Shepherds herd things (sheep, neighbors, Vespa scooters, kitchen gadgets) and are praised and rewarded when they do. Retreivers fetch things (dead ducks, hubcaps, wayward children) and are praised and rewarded when they do. Other breeds find and kill and deliver to you various bloody subspecies mammals, and are praised and rewarded when they do, and they are Good Dogs.

Because it's their job.

Happy Dogs fit neatly into the pyramid and know where they are in the pecking order - ok this one is the boss, this one is the subordinate - and this gives dogs a great measure of peace. They sleep at night untroubled, dreaming of steak trees and blood-soaked frisbees sailing though the air in easy reach. Happy Dogs hear, "Good Dog!!" all day, because they are doing their job, and everybody knows what their job is.

Because they are DOGS.

Neurotic messy biting dogs are neurotic because they get terribly different messages from one day to the next - come here, stay away; you belong in my lap, you are not allowed to sit in my lap. You are the boss, you belong chained in the backyard. Eat this delicious thing. NO. DO NOT EAT THAT DELICIOUS THING. You're so cute when you sleep on the couch. Get the hell off the furniture, animal. Speak. Don't speak. And people wonder why they come home and sweetie-pie crapped in their bedroom. Unhappy Dogs hear "Bad Dog!!" all day.

Nisby is a large, powerful dog possessed of good Shepherd-mix intelligence. You show her where she fits in, give her a good job to do, and praise and reward her for doing it, and she will love you for that, and you will both sleep untroubled, and you will have something for life, something more than you can get from most humans you've ever met.

END UNSOLICITED DOG RANT

Sorry if I've bored you with stuff you already know. More doggie pix please!!

*mopping brow*

*huff*

If Nisby had any dignity, she'd be offended. But she's a dog, so she doesn't and isn't. heh. So I'll have to be the breed snob on her behalf. She's a purebred Belgian Shepherd. ;-)

Her job is, more or less, to do what I tell her and keep me company. She is always allowed on the couch, but never on the other furniture or my lap. She is allowed to eat whatever I put in her bowl, or hand her... and of course, she takes it upon herself to find disgusting dead things to eat off the ground outside, which I don't interfere with (because I don't want to touch whateverthatis).

And she's learning basic obedience commands at a fast enough pace I'm not really sure how I'm going to keep her entertained in a couple months. Maybe time for agility training next, or something. Or get a second dog for her to train with me... haha.

No animals to herd here, I'm afraid (except the ferrets, who don't appreciate it). But we do play tag. I have welts on the back of one leg as testament to the fact that herding dogs naturally do that clever "mouthing" thing to guide whatever it is they think they're herding. Heh. She does the same with other dogs too. But pseudo-herding aside, I figure I'm holding my Apha position just fine so long as she still drops to the ground when I say "down," and lets me move her food without growling.

She's getting noticeably less neurotic every day. Which is great, considering she was at a shelter for months, up until three weeks ago... so she's still probably getting over part of the new home anxiety stage.

Well *huff* yourself, I didn't know she was French. :)

The nerve! Her breed was developed in Flanders (the vehemently not-French region of Belgium)...

*snif*