A Little Garfunkel, A Few Heroic Pets

I feel a little reluctant to post yet another story/article about dogs because, as my sister so helpfully pointed out last weekend, dog posts have overtaken hot men posts on the blog. The horror!!!! I don't know what's happened to me... Or why my hot men haven't been more in the news of late. So just know that a hot men post is in the works.* Or very soon will be. I can't give you guys the wrong idea of what's important now can I?

While I wait for hot inspiration to strike, however, I will share a somewhat ramble-y story with you. The dog park where we usually take Garfunkel has been closed the past few weeks due to inclement weather so Robert has taken to walking the Funk around the neighborhood. A while back he met up with two other Meadowbrookers that had black Labs that play (off leash) together in a little grassy area in the complex. So Robert's become friends with the two dog owners and they often text Robert to let him know they're meeting up or they wave from the sidewalk below our patio and Garfunkel's resulting pig squeals alert us that it's his playtime. The last couple outings, however, Garfunkel has taken to chasing after a cat and not coming back when called. His two little friends seem to do just fine with outside distractions but Garfunkel cannot seem to let a cat... or a passerby... saunter pass without tearing off to molest it. Kimmie's dad and Trooper's mom both agree that Garfunkel has way more energy than their respective pets - even though they're all roughly the same age - and Robert's very disheartened at Garfunkel's behavior. He works with the Funk on recall a lot but when push comes to shove and the dog's distracted, he's just not going to do it. Garfunkel is so good at other commands and, honestly, he really isn't a hyperactive dog (he loooooves snoozing on our bed at all hours of the day). We just can't seem to curb him of his chasing instinct.

Robert and I were talking about it (again) last night after a particularly disastrous play date and I told him about Ricochet, a dog I'd read about on one of my puppy blogs. Ricki was raised from birth to be a service dog - seriously, there is video on her site of her owner starting to train her before she could open her eyes - but as she matured she became more and more interested in hunting birds and other prey. That, of course, put the kibosh on her service dog career; Ricki is now a SURFice dog, surfing for particular charities and/or specific disabled athletes. What's my point here? Well, that some dogs really do have Achilles heels that may prevent them from doing certain tasks. If a woman who started training her dog at 13-days-old can't break her dog of its hunting habit, we certainly aren't going to have any success with Garfunkel!!! Now, I'm not saying that with more (aggressive) training Garfunkel won't learn to come back 9 instead of 7 times out of 10. I'm merely saying that it's possible that his hunting/chasing drive is stronger than other dogs' and he may never, ever learn to come back EVERY single time he's called. Or maybe I'm delusional and full of crap. Who knows?

The other point to my story is to link to this story in USA Today about heroic pets, of which Ricki is one. See? It's all come full circle, people. Or almost, anyway.


* Sam Worthington is my new boyfriend so most likely he'll be the subject of any upcoming posts. Now, I normally don't like jumping on the current hot man bandwagon - I loved Ewan and Christian WAY before anyone else, dang it! - but his hotness cannot be denied. I toyed with making him my boyfriend after Terminator: Salvation but waited to see if his hotness would endure. Seeing as it was the best thing about Avatar for me (though I did like other things about the movie and the movie as a whole... calm down, Biji and Robert), I'd say it has. Whew!